The Black Sacrament -- A Guide To Black Mage

With nyame anything is possible!

nyame r20 + songs + bubbles usually*** make those numbers.

Following that and the need to build up to 2500 TP, would prepping them with stoneja be worthwhiel for the additional -10% or so SDT?

I can tell you don't listen to WTF in Vana'diel, FFXI's #1 downloaded podcast? They've been discussing using Cataclysm parties to farm Dynamis randomly over the course of the last few months.

Since both scale really well with TP, maybe Aeonic Staff? The biggest issue is TP gain speed due to not being near the delay floor. SE really should give BLM and SCH all the staff WS's without needing a subjob.

"TP gain speed" isn't really an issue with aeonic staff, samurai roll, and an occult set. Thundaja -> another spell if you really want -> weapon skill -> repeat.

Scholar can pull off very similar numbers and playstyle while offering nice utility too.

That's what I was thinking of doing. I don't think I'll have decent melee tp set for a while, but occult seems easier in the mean time. Is the Occult Acumen page on wiki updated as far as additional gear options? Thanks for all the help!

wiki's not quite up to date I think, missing merlinic aug's & mallquis hats.
I stopped saving TP past 1k, nuke>WS vs nuke>nuke>WS... not worth the extra time or MP cost.
here's my sets, believe I use khonsu for the grip. I prefer the lower recast to marginally better dmg. no af+3 body because the nukes resist so hard I don't actually see all that great a MP return anyway. Jhakri hands+2 should beat a low augment nyame piece.
(same set -cape is also used for sch)
ItemSet 380902ItemSet 363536

edit: if -ja's are doing that much at CN(S) per mob, probably no reason to avoid using af+3 body since that should make the spells effectively free.

Fun fact: I didn't take those screenshots on my blm. I capped mastery on blm weeks before those were taken. Those numbers were on my geo, and I don't even have idris yet. We also didn't have a scholar in that party. When I cleaved on blm we did have both scholar and Igeo support, so average numbers were about 20-30% higher.

That said, I think the occult build discussion is relevant here. I haven't invested in a full occult set for my blm yet, but with the upcoming Mlvl 40 I think I may want to. I subbed samurai when I went cleaving on geo since they get access to the good staff weaponskills natively, but blm doesn't. And I did notice the difference in attack speed. Warrior sub gets double attack sure, but it's not the same as capping JA haste. Chimera's occult set looks really good. I may have to borrow that.



I'll respond to both these comments together since they're kind of related, and they follow up with the occult discussion above. I didn't bother with a stoneja pre cast when I cleaved on blm, but that's probably a good idea to just do that with your occult set. You don't need to worry about doing it in your artifact body though because there are a whole bunch of beetles in each pull, and you can just aspir 3 them for around 1k MP a pop with a good aspir set. MP shouldn't really be a problem with good aspir targets like that.

I wonder if gearsets on page 1 are still up to date, and if not, can someone show me what current sets for freenukes and MB are, please ? Thx

I want to apologize in advance for using your post as the vehicle for what comes next- it truly is just a coincidence of timing, not simply directed personally.

Why is it people ask such questions? We know what makes nukes stronger no matter the situation (INT and MAB), we know that "magic burst bonus" stat gear only works when spells burst after a skillchain, we know the cap on that stat, we know that if nukes aren't landing for full value to add Magic Accuracy.

So you know what your nukes hit for. Are you seeing resists? Yes, add Macc. No, add INT/MAB.

Burst sets are even more amazing to me when people ask "what's best"- just use your freaking normal gear, add in MBB1/MBB2 to the set til you reach the cap for MBB1 and/or you start seeing reduced returns.

Again, I'm sorry to use your post as the vehicle for this- over the past year I swear its just one of a thousand across many forums here asking the same basic thing: give me a shopping list of what to buy to be good- I don't need the reasons, just what's best. Well, hate to break it to everyone....but "best" is subjective and highly dependent on way too many factors to always be the same answer.

So what does the person who just wants a shopping list do when the parameters change and their oh-so-sought-after "BiS set" isn't cutting it? They run back for another answer. UNLIKE the person who knows the why, and then can self-adjust for different situations.

tl;dr- what's best? It depends. Learn the math behind what you want to do so you can make your own evaluations rather than just buying ***.

Extremely well said. I guess such comes from lack of time spent playing Jobs where ppl see the potential from afar and are merely seeking to tap into such potential w/o actually putting in the time spent being played on said Jobs. That would make sense tbh.

I’m not seeing any equipment missing on Page 1

I normally just do /WHM so I'm not as much of a glass cannon and a little more useful in parties. /RDM also has access to Aeolian Edge which is a good alternative.

Super fun to cleave with these.

At least someone answered the question. Only reason i'm here is because Ody is forcing me to use blm, I hate mage jobs with a passion and I don't really care to make a huge effort to understand the job. It's not bad to ask for a baseline for where to start, but everyone gets mad at something I guess

If you want Aeolian Edge then go /NIN and DW MAB daggers, can be quite fun.

I totally understand your point, and yes, absolutely on board with your main thesis that there are a lot of decisions where a reasonably competent player should be able to understand basic concepts to compare gear on their own. But I do think there are perfectly valid reasons for people to ask for "what's the best set for X"?

1) One big one is just not knowing if you're overlooking any gear. Maybe someone hasn't played a job for a while or they're just gearing it up, and they aren't as familiar with all of the options and might be worried they're overlooking something. It's especially tricky when there are good items that might even be missed by someone taking the effort to search for possible gear by using tools like the "power search" function on this site: for instance, Metamorph Ring +1 doesn't look so impressive unless you realize the augments are great.

Another example: last year I was gearing up PLD for the first time and had some questions to the PLD forum about my enmity sets, and just totally overlooked the Abyssea era JSE belt (Creed Baudrier) that is STILL good and is obviously better than what I was using (Trance Belt). Of course once someone pointed that out to me, I immediately knew the Creed belt was the better choice - I just missed it even existing.

2) Some stuff is way less obvious as to how it compares. Like a higher MAB piece versus one with more INT is not very intuitive to compare. Or for melees, a lot of the stats get way more complicated: for instance, it's very difficult to just eyeball stats to compare Ternion Dagger +1 (lower delay, WSD+5, lower skill) versus a Gleti's Knife (more atk, DEX/AGI+15, more TA).

And for those kinds of decisions, a lot of jobs also lack decent publicly available spreadsheets... so even if people are willing to put in some effort and do some comparisons, "self-service" resources can be lacking. So IMO it really is a fair question when they come to the obsessive hardcore fans of the job to figure out which is better.


Like... that ^^. Somebody who's gearing a job up because they're taking one for the team to get some Odyssey clears? I don't expect that person to be super in touch with the current BLM options, or the finer details of stuff like Ongo INT-heavy sets versus a more MAB/Magic Burst focused set that a lot of people were probably using as their default before Ongo.

It's really not that crazy for that kind of person to want a sanity check on some current sets, and this is kinda the place to ask that question.

Can an omniscient magus share the main AF/Relic/Emp pieces to bother with if gearing blm today? Thanks!

Whole Empy set for sure, because +1 is cheap and 99% likely, that +2 and +3 will be bis for something.

Aim for:

All relic +3 from Dynamis D first
AF body +3 from Omen (the rest don't matter too much)

MP+ set for Myrkr

MBB +40 first. MBB2 for when there is MBB overspill.
The relic hands give +20 so your good on those.

Occult Accumen set for 1k tp aja cast

Agwu's set from ongo for fast cast, but not full time at r0. Relic +3 set is better than r0 agwu. Agwu's only gets better around r10+

Whatever weapon you can get. Mpaca's staff is OK. Lathi is good.

That makes perfect sense & is probably why such questions exist to begin w/. I understand Odyssey, in particular, does indeed force setups to utilize MB yet what seemed to frustrate the original response was the sheer lack of understanding which will indeed separate one BLM vs the next BLM. The Odyssey group doing Odyssey w/ a BLM whom understands all the Basics of the Job will have an immensely easier time defeating such content all while the group that had someone going BLM just to fill the slot of ‘BLM needed’ will face much more adversity.

I agree. It’s not bad. That’s why I mentioned nothing gear wise was missing on page 1. There’s nothing to question here tbh other than maybe Merits but w/e. To each their own. Do as you will.

Hey fellow Black Mage's I recently cleared Ongo V20 and wanted to give some info on my clear to help anyone that is still having some trouble. I have done a lot of research on the forums and through personal experience with the fight and I can say that there is many different ways to clear the fight but this is the way I did it.

Most people will say you need crazy high INT and that you need Bunzi's Rod r25 for this fight but I can gladly say you don't, though you may see higher numbers it is not necessary to use a high INT weapon as the set I have below uses Laevateinn and I honestly used this staff just to see if it can be done. Anyway onto some fight info.

ItemSet 385035

My group was SCH BLM BRD COR GEO RUN (pretty standard for this fight)
Below is the skillchain that we decided to use during Tabula Rasa only as a 6 step skillchain will give the highest burst potential. Few things to note is that we would only get 3-4 of these skillchains off during Tabula as it will be popped prepull for embrava.
Wind Element > Earth Element (Scission) > Wind Element (Detonation) > Dark Element (Gravitation) > Steel Cyclone (Darkness) > Wildfire (Darkness [lvl.4])

During the first skillchain use Manawell and Elemental Seal with Impact just before the skillchain starts. I used ES on here instead of Burn because without ES Impact doesn't last through one full skillchain (atleast in my case) this way Impact will last 2-3 SC's long. On every Scission use Stoneja for the added stone damage, on Gravitation use Stone3/4, on Darkness use stone5 and on the Darkness lv4 use Stone6. On the first SC's Darkness I would hold the stone5 for after Geohelix2, you do not want to get the SCH to hit the burst wall during a helix. Rinse and repeat till 75% when Sforzo is out. Should be at 75% before Tabula runs out and during Sforzo get the COR to Random Deal the group.

After Sforzo is done we went into a SC rotation with the RUN and COR. During this time (if you get it back in RD) Manawall and ES another Impact. Use Stoneja every other SC or during every Gravitation and cycle through your stone spells as needed, save Stone6 for the Darkness Lv4. During this time if and when the SCH gets their stacks back switch back to original 6 step Skillchain and reapply Geohelix2 as needed.
Upheaval > Wildfire (Gravitation) > Steel Cyclone (Darkness) > Wildfire (Darkness [lvl.4])

At 50% should use Wild Card and pray to RNjesus that you get full reset. If reset repeat Tabula and 6 step, if not continue with 4 step reapplying Impact when you can.

If at anytime you get hate from the add you can pop Manawall IF you feel comfortable on your MP, you could also Enmity Douse at 76% and after any resets to help but that would open up your team to tanking the add. Do what works for your team. Also as a side note I always thought I would have MP issues in this fight but turns out I didn't have to use the AF+3 body once during the fight, with SV Ballad + Embrava + Myrkr I was in Ea+1 body the whole fight.

Just remember no matter how good your gear is and how good you think you are this fight is and always will be a team fight. You have to work together every step of the way. This fight is by far the best fight for a BLM and the most fun I have had on a BLM in a long time. If anyone is still having trouble on the fight feel free to DM me anytime. Hope this helps!

As a disclaimer we killed Ongo with 1:55 on the clock and had Wild Card full reset at 50% and again at 15% though we got extremely lucky with the second full reset I do not believe we needed it to win as when we had around 3 mins left at 15% HP.

exact set i'm running after try tons just like I'm sure you did, as well- and glad to see a testimonial with that setup working post v15. Mind any comments on the strengths of your buffers?

-regal neck COR or rostam C cor?
-hq mousai head on the brd? (assuming etudes were used)
-idris geo?

Your comment of "this fight is and always will be a team fight" is so on point, and something I'm constantly harping on for people around struggling with it, so curious as to the caliber of others in your group contributing to your damage.

I had been debating on doing a full write up on the fight with thoughts and strategies from all members of the group and their point of view but that may take some time. As far as the buffers go, we used;

-BRD
Victory March, Learned Etude, Sage Etude, Mage's Ballad III, Knight's Minne V, Earth Threnody II (best used with SV and NITRO to maximize effect)
Full song buffs with +8/9 songs. I do believe the RUN had different songs but I could be wrong.

-COR
Crooked Cards Wizard's Roll and Gallant's Roll, with Samurai's Roll going on the COR and RUN after fight starts. Our COR only had Regal Neck, which was news to me as I saw him using a Rostam but he told me afterward that it was Path A.

-RUN
Rayke and Gambit used on cooldown. We had these applied right as Gravitation was going out to maximize the strongest spells during the window.

-GEO
Our geo did have Idris and we used two sets of spells depending on Bolster. With Bolster we did Indi-Acumen, Geo-Malaise and Entrust Indi-INT. Without Bolster we did Indi-Acumen and Geo-INT.

Was the Geo bursting at all at the end of window past Blm?

Standard fight but there is one thing that often gets forgotten, the bards earth threnody will need to be reapplied as it won't last the whole fight and debuffed isn't always accurate. The reason damage seems to "slow down" near the end is that Threnody wore off.

Somewhere around the 30~50% mark the Bard should nitro, reapply songs and reapply the Earth Threnody, with Marcato if SV didn't get reset. For rolls I found Warlocks roll over Gallants role to be more important since we don't have /RDM and it lowers the recast enough to let me use Stone VI more often when strats are out and it's just the RUN and COR making rapid SC's. Our bard, who is a freak super saiyan, put together this +enmity set on requium and would spam it on the add to pull it and kite it down below, only showing back up for wildcard and to reapply songs.

The GEO only bursting during Subtle Sorcery or Rayke, I dont remember how much damage the GEO or SCH did but I do remember that my damage(BLM) was 80% of the fight.


To each their own, we did Gallants just to that the bard didnt have to kite and can focus on keeping songs up and it is easier to heal if they are not kiting around on the lower floor. Do what works for your team. Also Warlocks doesnt lower recast, you are thinking of Caster's Roll which is Fact Cast.

don't forget the earth shots before every stoneja & stone6. That +25% dmg for the next nuke is massive.
-ja > t5 > t6 > t4 that way it's only one earth shot between each cor WS.