The Black Sacrament -- A Guide To Black Mage

RAMZUS FOR PRESIDENT. This is all

Yeah. Guides here are terrible. FFXI is a very complex game and outside of gearsets we have fire we have to move out of. Obstacles we have to jump over. And things we have to swim under. Reading the FTP transfers and when to WS is quiet difficult and knowing strategics on where to stand trick attacking and the sorts I find very complicated. Gearsets only provide 1% of your dmg in this game while knowing to stand attacking a mob while facing SE on firesday smoking a cigar is what our guides really need.

I'm grateful for this guide personally. I think the constant communication and discussion in the other THREAD (not forum lawls) while talking about ***sandwich and ***salads in this thread to be the better of the two. Keep up the good work! Look forward to more soon!

I have two points to make on this. First, saying that if you have a SCH for SC's then you likely have a "GEO or three" is misleading. If what you mean is one GEO per party in an 18 man group, then I see your point, and in that regard you are correct. If, however, you mean you need Focus and INT in the same party then you are giving up Acumen to do it, because clearly if you have one per party then you are definitely not capable of getting INT, Focus AND Acumen, unless you happen to be in the one party that is not using Languor/Malaise. So there's an argument to be made there as well.

Additionally, I can think of a half dozen situations just off the top of my head where you might be bursting with only one GEO, who likely doesn't even have Idris. (Yakshi, Neak, Maju, Virava, Duke Vepar, Pakecet. etc.) And as this guide is not specifically how to play BLM for an Aeonic Linkshell (and for that purpose I concede someone should be informed by also reading the other guide's comment section) I feel the need to point this out. If a GEO is forced to use Focus/Languor instead of Focus/Malaise, your damage suffers. What's worse, if your other BLMs didn't have the same m.acc problem, you are also hurting their damage as well. It's probably not the best idea to tackle this guide from the perspective of using one specific setup for one specific situation.

That being said, I will go back and include in the guide the situations in which the Amalric +1 wins in DPS.

The second point to address, and quite frankly the elephant in the room here, is the cost. Is it worth spending the cost of roughly 2 Mythic weapons on two or three pieces of gear for Black Mage that makes you marginally better? (We're talking maybe 10% and not even in all situations)

Or would you be better off sinking that gil into another job with different areas of expertise, say, BST, and having a more well rounded character? Perhaps a Black mage guide isn't specifically designed to ask a question like that, but I feel it's a point worth being made.

Dravidian, you have to understand that players like you make up only about 5% of the player base, This clearly wasn't intended for you, so I'm not sure why you are even wasting your time.

People like you take the mechanics of the game as a given as you've been surrounded by endgamers for years. Someone like you shouldn't even be looking up a guide.

That being said, If you read this guide, Which I'm willing to bet you did not, as you've always had a rather dogged aversion to actually responding to what someone actually says, I would like you to try to engage in here in a way that might actually help someone, rather than touting around your usual rabble-rousing.

I agree that it may have been misleading, but I did say "likely" and not "definitely." That being said, 1 GEO per party is not actually the best setup because of how powerful GEO buffs are for nuking over any other nuke job. In an ideal situation, you'd have a BLM BLM BLM BLM GEO GEO (2x if 18 man) party where the GEOs can do Acumen/Focus/Haste/INT, and a GEO in the tank pt doing Malaise/Languor if the NM is safe enough to permit it. But as I said, that is the ideal situation, but 2 GEOs in the BLM party is still better than 1 being in the tank party, and one in the mage party. I also said you can adjust accordingly, as in, am I resisting? yes-> use languor, am I still resisting? yes->use focus, are you STILL resisting? yes->BoG/EA Languor and then as a last resort, add INT over Acumen. Acumen is stronger than INT, yes, but the difference isn't as massive as you think it is. It's also dependent on your dINT which can actually make it preferable over Acumen especially in situations where you actually do need the M. Acc (the situation hasn't presented itself for me yet, but the possibility exists...)


Idris isn't necessary for anything in the game. It is definitely amazing and makes everything heaps easier, but everything can still be done with Dunna/900 skill GEOs. I would also counter by saying that you should adjust your setup to have 2 GEOs for the Reisenjima examples given. At the very least, I know that Maju is fairly resistant without both Focus and Languor, so you're going to be out of luck there if you're only bursting with 1 GEO. In the situation where you are using 1 GEO only, sure, Merlinic Shalwar would be better than using Amalric Slops +1 but you're still only at most gaining 53% (Dunna) to 30% (Idris BoG+Ea) of the M. Acc provided by Focus or Languor. I did say that my sets are merely a suggestion, people are welcome to use Merlinic Shalwar if they want to, but you specifically singled out a single set of 20+ nuke sets provided (granted, the lower tier ones have to be updated to account for Jhakri +1) in which it targeted people with the best of the best gear. There's only so much a single BLM can adjust, but the best adjustment is always to use the appropriate setup if possible.


Irrelevant question. A guide for BLMs should be a guide for BLMs and not other jobs. If a person wants to be the very best and inefficiently spend money on HQ abjurations, they're welcome to do so. The guide should be done within context to the job and not other jobs, it's up to the player themselves if they want to sink the money into it.

Also 10% is just a number you pulled out of no where. For elemental magic it's definitely significantly harder to gauge how much better it is because it depends heavily on your Merlinic augments, what you're fighting, and your buffs. The HQ hands alone are already a massive bonus over the NQ (15-25 MAB, 3 INT, 6 MAcc, 1 MB, 20 MP for death) and the slops are also quite the improvement over the NQ. An argument can be made against the Body and Feet for elemental magic, but even for Death they are far ahead of Merlinic unless you have really really really good augments.

In the context of Death, going from NQ to HQ is a 6% improvement assuming Path A->A, Path D->D. However if you are actively switching paths on the hands depending on what you do (whereas you might have not been before since the difference is smaller on NQ amalric), Path D NQ to Path A HQ is over a 10% damage increase. Slops NQ to HQ are also a 7% improvement. Depending on your Jubbah/Crackows augments, the HQ feet/body can also be anywhere from a 2% (40MAB, 10MB merlinic) improvement to >10% (no MB, with midrange MAB augments).

Keep things civil, guys. >.>

I don't see how this isn't civil >.>

*throws glass bottle*

...>.> Keep it civil.

I'll see your irrelevant question and raise you an irrelevant point. The question still stands. I will now be adding a section in the guide to talk specifically about price to performance and relevancy of BLM versus other jobs in content.


It's true I pulled that number out of nowhere, But it's not like this math is difficult. The thing that shoots the MAB argument in the foot is the communicative property of multiplication.
For instance with 500 MAB versus 525 (And this is again, not with max augments on all pieces, just the Shalwar.) In this case the hands give no set bonus with the legs, so minus 5 from the shalwar max of 55 to Amalric +1's 60 +2 set bonuses of 10 MAB = 25, just as you stated earlier (this is more for the reader, not you)

500/100=5
525/100=5.25

5.25/5=1.05%

500/80=6.25
525/80=6.5625

6.5625/6.25=1.05%

500/20=25
525/20=26.25

26.25/25=1.05%

500/400=1.25
525/400=1.3125

1.3125/1.25=1.05%

(I did a spread here so you wouldn't claim its' different if MDB changes, as you can see due to the communicative property of multiplication, it doesn't. If you have any buffs to MAB, it becomes even less still)

A 5% Increase. As you will note, my estimate was actually generous.

What's more is, this number only gets lower the more MAB you already had. So COR Buffs, Acumen etc only exacerbate this.

As for Death, all testing that I have seen shows damage to be capped at 99,999, if you are hitting that, going further is irrelevant. If you have proof that this is not the case that would intrigue me greatly and I welcome you to share it.

Also your point about changing Death idle sets to include DT gear is noted and will be adjusted.

ALL THAT ASIDE

You seem to be taking all this personally. As someone with as many accolades as you have, you probably think of gil as being no obstacle. Bear in mind that this is not the case for a very large number of players, just relax, and breathe, I'm not saying your information is wrong, I'm just saying it was incomplete. I'm only trying to fill in gaps.

To be clear there were things in your set that were better than I understood them to be, especially in the enfeebling department (Which by the way while you're updating your downgrade sets you should include Stikini rings to your enfeeb sets) I'm not saying your sets are bad. I was merely repsonding to someone that posted that I needed to rip sets when I had said right out of the gate that I wasn't finished with this and that the gearsets were a WIP.

This thread has been stickied along with the previous guide thread. I'm going to leave both stickied for the time being.

What is the cape augments on the death set?

Also, what's a good target for mp/magic burst? What about the ammo slot? I see the the other guide suggests the mp piece from limbus but yours suggests pemph tathlum which is what I have already.

The ghastly tathlum seems easy enough to get and loses 10mp over the limbus piece but also has magic damage on it.

80 MP/20 MAcc/10 Mab

Around 1800 MP before vorseals is good, you'll want 40 MB (assuming you are not using 4/5 Amalric +1) via:
Merlinic Jubbah
Merlinic Crackows
Grioavolr
Mizukage-no-Kubikazari
Static Earring (if you still need it)
Taranus's Cape

Psilomene, Strobilus are both good for Ammo, Ghastly Tathlum +1 is ok, the magic damage doesn't do anything for Death because it caps at +32 which you already get from your weapon.

Thanks. I have a really good augmented Jubbah but it doesnt have mbb on it (occult accumen +10 was what the rng gods gave me - has int 8 and 35/35 macc/mab).

Just started trying to really gear for death. I need merlinic legs to hit 40mbb unfortunately currently. Never got Amal legs and feet for some reason.

I've been using Lathi over Grio as my grio has no MP on it (but it does have 6% mbb and 23/25 macc/mab (magic dmg +7 too but that's not helpful).

I guess I need to toss a thousand stones at grio and get a mp augment (and hope for macc/mab/mbb)? Really the only thing Lathi has going for me over my current one is MP and Int.

I'm not sure about being close to 40% cap, but for me, Grio without MP was still giving better numbers than Lathi via spreadsheet (30mab, 8mb) but that was also with Amalric +1 so my MB was low to begin with. What is your leg augment? MB damage is just another stat to weigh against others, you don't actually need to reach 40% if you gain enough MAB/MP from switching to Amalric.

I'll need to double check but it's got 9mbb on it for sure. The rest is something mediocre like 5int and 15/15 macc/mab.

it won't be better than slops then

AFAIK its the client that is capped at displaying 99,999 damage in the chat log. Either way I'd like to see links to testing that's been done.

It caps at 99,999 damage, however, for resistance wall purposes it calculates the real damage before applying the damage reduction. Test it on Sarasok with a bunch of damage buffs (bog malaise, acumen, soldiers drink etc) and when 2 people do Death at the same time they can both hit 99,999 regardless of the reduction.

Makes sense. Second question, in cases where BLMs are already hitting 99,999 damage, is there anything that Rayke/Gambit is adding?

I don't think you'll ever get more than 2 BLMs hitting 99,999 even on NMs like Sarasok if they're going at the same time. If you don't have access to a RUN you can stagger Death between your blms in 2.5-3sec intervals but even then the most you'll get out of 1 SC is 2 fully unresisted BLM and 1 partially resisted, with no chance of adding aspir.

If you are somehow magically hitting 99,999 on all of your BLM casting at the same time without gambit rayke, then there is no reason to use RUN. I don't think that situation exists, though.

If I'm to take this at face value I could reply like this. If you were doing Warder of Courage, and pre-bracelets you were hitting for 99,999 without the use of Rayke/Gambit; you should be saving Rayke/Gambit for when bracelets are out, In a situation where you are already capping damage adding Rayke/Gambit will not confer an additional bonus.

However, as Razmus has already pointed out that you're probably not going to get more than 2 full deaths in a volley aside from if one of you was able to hit cap damage despite the nerf from hitting second. I have seen situations where you can get 4 people in 2 hitting nearly simultaneously, then the other two waiting for the penalty to wear off and nuking together some few seconds later, but aiming to do that can be unreliable, as if one of you fails to burst you waste a cooldown or stratagem. And even then I've only seen this done on enemies weak to darkness damage, it's unlikely (though probably not impossible) that you'd get more than 2 capped damage hits in on anything that's not explicitly weak to darkness damage.

Yeah I certainly agree with Razmus on this as well, you should only even be considering using Merlinic for death if your Augments are really good, even if you have good burst on them, unless you have good MAB on them too you'll probably end up losing some damage. All this due to the fact that Amalric gives plenty of MAB, and plenty of MP, and in addition to this Death has less of a penalty to magic accuracy in the first place.

Sure, in situations where resist is happening it's worth considering having a set like this to mode into with a keybind in your lua, but there's more to it than has been explained thus far.

It's one of the areas that I really need to spend some time on while I work though making the sets. It's taking me a while as I'm trying to include descriptions and explanations to all the sets Razmus left here, seeing as even though his sets are correct in the large majority of cases, I feel like many would like there to be a breakdown on why certain things are being used and such, following in the spirit of why I even made this guide.

And I'm also considering updating some of the downgrade sets so he won't have to. Though to be 100% honest I've been rather distracted by modding Skyrim SE, and the HP-Bayld campaign so my time has been all but robbed from me.

Personally I am new to the job and I am using both guides in combination. Just wanted to say thanks. I will come back with input later when I settle into the job.

My group used to get 99k x2, i was the second blm waiting a few seconds before bursting. Also 99k x2 without cooling the shield is possible if second blm is very well geared and does more than 99k ( i used to get 99k on AV2 even with bracelets)

Right, but we were talking about situations where the monster isn't weak to darkness, and Warder of Courage is weak to darkness.

I have a question on something that seems to not be tested very much according to what I have found while searching using the usual methods (google, bg-wiki).

Is there a cap on the 'Cumulative Magic' efects of the -ajas and comet?

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Category:Cumulative_Magic

(Disclaimer:)
By using 1 SCH, 3 BLM, a mini-revitalizer(sch), Alacrity(blms), and capped magic haste you can burst 9 identical -ajas within 25 seconds and still be ready to keep firing - though I'd go with 30 seconds to be safe. That would theoretically yield +45% magic damage taken from whatever element the ajas consisted of, plus the large amounts of damage that you did with all of the -ajas & 2nd nukes each round.

This bonus could be spiked upwards of +90% within around 1.3 minutes and it would have a remaining duration of around 50 seconds on the -aja debuff, assuming the first -aja was done with 119empy pants on, by the means of niche strategies. Therefore I see the likelihood of a cap being in place to prevent excessive use of this.

So, what's the cap? lol, I guess I should get testing? xD

What about for the dye what would you use for that?

He used it for MP.

60 (normal) 20 (dye) = 80

Does Store TP have any additional benefits to Occult Acumen? If so, would a Death cape of 80MP/20macc/20mdmg/10StoreTP be viable to increase TP earned during Death, thus better Myrkrs?

Again, I am likely off base and Store TP does jack for Occult Acumen-but I just don't see that 10MAB doing much in the grand scheme of things and am trying to improve.