BLM Melee Set

Do you think the Drepanum is worth making considering our Scythe skill rating is E. Even with Combatant's and other skill+ gear, its still 100 points less than staff.

Could accuracy gear and the weaponskill damage itself make up for lost DPS using the staff? I have AG Claustrum 119 III and my DPS isnt too bad, but the ws damage isnt exactly spiral hell + 100% modifier damage.

Even its base stats from casting arent too bad either. The INT +20 and macc/mattk are pretty good for standing back.

Yes, I honestly DO Believe Drepanum is worth making despite our staff skill being an E rating. The Nyame gear set is so broken that it even enables black mage to melee effectively! And Path B is the way to go--- all the way! The double attack on it makes it extremely usable for TP and the WSD abuses the many one hit weaponskills we have access to (strong ones no less). I went into Dynamis last night with my usual group equipped with just a Kaja Scythe and a Kaja grip and I ended up putting up a surprising amount of damage (and I don't own gazu bracelets +1 yet). I'll farm the bracelet and pulse weapons to upgrade the scythe and grip over the weekend. But my takeaway is that black mage can absolutely abuse nyame's power to form an effective hybrid playstyle. These are the highlights

Black Mage/Warrior -- Access to cataclysm, berserk, aggressor, warcry, attack bonus I, Smite I, Double attack II, defense bonus II, Max HP bonus II, and Fencer!

Drepanum -- Spiral hell is a one hit weaponskill with 50% strength and 50% INT mods and heavy TP scaling. You wanna sit on TP till you have around 2500 or so to get the most out of it. I was maxxing out at around 45k spiral hells with party attack buffs.

Marin Staff +1 or Mpaca's Staff -- Cataclysm, Earth Crusher (it's almost the same damage as cataclysm and doesn't resist on fomors/undead), Vidohunir and Spirit Taker

Maxentius or Daybreak and Ammu shield -- Black Halo with Maxentius and Judgment or Flash Nova with Daybreak

Every one of these has the same thing in common. They all abuse Nyame's WSD with one or two hit weaponskills that have large stat mods and heavy TP scaling. The scythe and club are the physical DPS rout, and the staff comes with all the magical AoE goodness and mana replenishing capabilities we need to keep us going. Throw in some Occult - Acumen accessories in our free nukes for extra TP gain, add in stun, petrify, and sleep for crowd control when necessary, and suddenly you have yourself a functional playstyle.

Flash Nova or Seraph I think you meant?

Both actually. The point is that this is a hybrid playstyle that enables blm to take advantage of all the standard melee buffs without losing too much from its casting prowess and magic damage potential. Judgment is in the same league as spiral hell, just with blunt damage instead of slashing. There's a reason warrior's spam judgment with loxotic mace +1 on Ngai... it's actually a really potent weaponskill. And daybreak enables us to cast dispelga too, which is just as situationally useful as stun, sleep, and petrify. Flash nova is the magic counterpart, and yeah.... same thing. Heavy tp scaling with big stat mods. I didn't even get a chance to play around with club much last night during our dyna run because I didn't macro for it beforehand, but after the run I played around with it and yeah.... it's surprisingly powerful. Nyame is just busted lol. There's no reason BLM can't and shouldn't get in on the fun.

I never messed with scythe but i find if i dont sub sam with 2 handed weapons i hit too slow, with a staff it's easy to solo skillchains to mb off of, not sure what skillchains are like with scythe.

You can't use cataclysm with samurai sub, so you'd take a hit to your Aoe cleaving options, but like I said...earth crusher is almost just as powerful as cataclysm so maybe it wouldn't matter that much. Hasso doubles spell casting and recast time though, and that's kind of nasty, but maybe it also isn't as big of a hit as I'm anticipating. You wouldn't be free nuking too much, and store TP affects occult-acumen so yeah. It certainly sounds enticing. I only got a chance to do some basic testing with it last night. But I see potential here far beyond anything else blm has available to it by just nuking most stuff in the meta. Blm melee hybrid may actually be more than just viable; it actually looks reasonably strong.

Fully optimized I think this is the direction s-e is pushing us to go with our playstyle (outside magic burst setup stuff of course). They've certainly given us the gear to make it happen. We can play the pure caster role whenever needed, but we have a lot more options to hybrid with than I realized.

I messed around with accumen too, if you sub rdm you can stand there without engaging or meleeing at all and get tp fast enough just from casting to solo skillchains as well then swap to your mb set of a big nuke. Nuke for TP > WS >Nuke for TP > weaponskill > Makes a skillchain > Magic burst. (Single targets in mind like apex or something.)

Now if only we could get other players to embrace it in parties.

It only takes a spark to get a fire going.....

Case in point; up till now it's never really been done. There are still a bunch of people who lack odyssey gear, and there's a mandatory requirement to have some specific things to make this work. But more people are gaining access as time goes on (on asura I'm seeing shout PUG groups forming for bumba veng 15 clears more and more). It's worth noting that at this point in time we're so power crept that apart from odyssey the rest of the content is pretty trivial, and we've seen a massive power spike in gear over the past year. Atonement 3 was released just last February, and Bumba wasn't out until either March or April (I forget which). It takes time for people to begin experimenting with new equipment in non standard ways, and it wouldn't be the first time something broke the mold and enabled a job to do something in a way it previously wasn't known for. Give it a shot and experiment. It's a lot of fun.

Also.... BLM with a scythe is freakin COOL as heck! This is arc angel tarutaru levels of cool. Shantotto may be the ultimate spellcaster, but AA TT is just a badass. And it's fun as hell to play blm this way.

/DRK is another option that gives 15% haste for 3 minutes out of 5 (while also giving much needed attack from Smite and Last Resort).

Seen a lot of talk about the Ambuscade Scythe for BLM, but let's not forget about this beauty that exists:



RP'ing adds +36 base damage, +40acc/macc, and +50MAB. This to me screams BLM scythe a lot more, as it should let us remain almost as functional as we're used to in the casting aspect.

Regarding Ambuscade things, don't sleep on the Khonsu (grip)- that's a lot of accuracy, and the Haste on it is just enough to "fix" some sets and get us to Gear Haste cap easier. Our Waist slots for +Haste are extremely limited, and unless you're using Gazu Wristbands+1 (RP'ed up), sometimes getting that 25% can be a challenge on BLM.

BLM ws selection sucks though. Part of the draw of ambuscade scythe is spiral hell

No doubt about that. Even going /DRK really only is going to add Infernal Scythe and Dark Harvest....then again, those are the Elemental WSs and perhaps that's a better direction to lean into on BLM than building physical WS sets and expecting much more than high accuracy for Skillchain steps.

You can also make use of the weapon-restricted WS Cross Reaper via the superior scythe. They should have allowed BLM to learn Entropy, though. Mp restoral, INT modifier. Kind of tailor made for BLM. What the hell? They put BST on that before BLM?????

In fact after looking at it some more, I'm confident that was an oversight. Occult acumen from nukes gives tp, which would have allowed you to burn all your mp for tp, then run in and entropy and get your mp back. BLM is the only job that makes the most logical sense with. I think we should petition SE to include BLM on Entropy merits because that doesn't make ANY sense

That's the one that bothers me most, too. I'm not sitting here thinking we shoulda gotten Cross Reaper or Quietus naturally- but c'mon.

BLM in general has really gotten the shaft in what many would consider "natural" Weaponskills. BLM, SMN, and SCH are the "Staff Mages" opposed to GEO and WHM as the "Club Mages"- yet GEO and WHM get Cataclysm naturally and none of the mages with Staff RMEAs do. The dearth of scythe WSs BLM has never really bothered me....until I had to stare at AATT schooling my *** back in Divine Might 75 cap days- with a scythe.

You know I didn't realize it last night but yeah, blm/war can't hit the 80% delay reduction cap. I mainly play dual wield jobs so it completely slipped my mind that apart from the gear and magic haste caps... you still need 13% or so more to reach the 80% delay reduction, and that's really important. I'm gonna agree that /drk or /sam are probably the better sub jobs, though I'm not sure which woorks out better. Last resort and smite II (smite 3 when we get next M rank increase) are really tempting though.

/DRK will be better for raw physical damage and doesn't nerf your cast times, but /SAM will be more consistent in making self SCs since Hasso is full time and it gives 15/20 STP.

Blm actually has some pretty good TP accessories.

-White Tathlum gives 2 sTP in the ammo slot for a low acc build and amar cluster gives 10 acc for a high acc build

--Cessance Earring and Mache Earring +1 are both blm equippable. Cessance works in a low accuracy build, and mache +1 in a high acc build. Telos probably goes in both low and high accuracy. Crepuscular earring works in a pinch too for either build.

--Goading belt and Cetl belt are both good for low accuracy builds (Is cetl's 4% DA better than goading's 5 sTP I wonder?), and grunfeld rope for a high acc build

--It was already mentioned that Gazu Bracelets +1 offers 100 more accuracy than nyame gauntlets and guarantees haste cap. The Khonso grip is also extremely good. Rings and neck are pretty set in stone. I can't find anything that beats chirich +1 or combatants.

BLM accessories are exactly the same as GEO. Only difference is the option for a different weapon other than staff/club. Lissome Necklace is an option in the neck, as is Olseni belt. Basically the "all jobs" items. And can use Jhakri legs +2 over Nyame for STP if you want.

Lissome Necklace (Acc+8 STP+4 DA+1%) is a very solid all jobs option too, especially for those who never made the now very niche Combatant's Torque. Potentially even best choice in a low acc build due to the DA, though I'd agree that Combatant's is the safer all purpose choice if you have it.

Edit: walked away to answer the door and Buukki already beat me to this ;P (but yeah, seconding that comment)

So, I'm trying to give melee BLM a go for Master Leveling and I am having difficulty making scythe work. On Outer Rakaz bats, the damage from WS's and SC combined is pretty... eh, compared to using a club. The overall damage using a club can be pretty competitive with minimal buffs (SAM roll, Malaise, capped magic haste). Even in constant dark weather, the damage is pretty good, if you ask me.

Would you suggest making the maxientus over the scythe first? What club were you using to pull out these numbers?

I still can't decide on either making maxientus or doing full-time bunzi/daybreak.

There's actually a lot of versatility in the way we use the weapons and weaponskills we have available to us. The optimal setup is going to depend on what you're doing and who you're doing it with, as well as what buffs you're getting (the scythe needs attack buffs to shine). In the example posted above, Ringoko used Daybreak with flash nova to self skillchain frag for an aero burst. He's soloing for exemplar points, so that's a pretty optimal loadout for that purpose.

But what if you're running dynamis D and you're in an alliance with 18 people like I was a couple days ago? In this case the trash mobs die too fast and skillchaining goes out the window with 7 or 8 melees beating everything to a pulp. At this point the scythe carries more weight because it's just a good melee option and spiral hell is competitive with the melee burn playstyle. If you're in one of the DD parties you should be getting marches, minuets, sam and chaos roll, and that really enables the scythe to shine. Your playstyle would be more similar to a dark knights where you weave in casts between meleeing..... sleepga, stun, breakga etc when situationally needed, nuking stones if they get out of control, etc... and then just hitting the trash mobs with spiral hell. This month's ambuscade is another place you would get good use out of the scythe btw.

Alternately, if your in a situation where cleaving is viable, like the big trash pulls in omen farming, or if your dynamis group is like mine and pulls both sets of mobs on wave 3 and brings like 10-12 mobs to you all at once, or if you're cleaving apex gears with a dedicated cleave setup suddenly the staff becomes a more appropriate option because earth crusher (or cataclysm if sub /war) both put up a good 20-25k damage per mob, so a single weaponskill can easily do 100-250k damage if you hit enough targets.

That's why I think this playstyle is so effective and why more blms shout try it out. You have a versatility similar to what a warrior aims to bring in their toolkit... a swiss army knife that fits any situation if you will. That versatility is key to this hybrid playstyle, because blm can actually do a LOT of different things with nyame and can actually do them all pretty well. Nyame levels the playing field so that mages can hybrid melee right alongside the other jobs without feeling out of place, while still retaining the bulk of their casting prowess. That's the key takeaway. It's a playstyle that mixes several elements of dark knight, warrior, and pure caster into one.

There is only one club you want for flash nova, and that's daybreak. Flash nova is light elemental weaponskill, and daybreak has light elemental damage + 50. Additionally, the weatherspoon ring +1 gives 11% light affinity. it's just as good in flash nova as it is in trueflight. This should be pretty close to an optimal flash nova weaponskill set. Freke ring alongside epaminondas is probably the next step down from weatherspoon +1 if you picked a different adoulin reward.

ItemSet 383503

So flash nova is based on magic attack bonus modifiers with MND? Daybreak is cheaper than maxientus.... Just need the thing to drop for me...

Also the light affinity on the weather spoon ring adding a different type of magic attack bonus? Similar to the bonus you would get with elemental staves?

Correct. It has a 50% mind and a 50% strength modifier, and since it's a magical weaponskill stuff like MaB and affinity (orpheus's sash, weatherspoon, daybreak etc) are all fantastic. Nyame's weaponskill damage also factors in as a multiplier



Yes, affinity is a flat percentage increase. If you ignored every other piece of gear and weaponskilled naked once, then weaponskilled with just the weatherspoon ring, your second weaponskill would be 11% stronger. Nothing even comes close to that ring for flash nova. Orpheus's sash is also affinity + 15 when you're standing right next to the enemy (which you have to be for flash nova). Just keep in mind that this is only one part of the equation, and it gets more complex when you factor in everything. The most basic formula is this

Base damage (weapon base damage + stat mods) x elemental affinity x Magic Attack/ Magic defense x weaponskill damage x day/weather bonuses

There's a lot to it. Flash nova can do 10% more damage on light day and 10% LESS damage on dark day because of the day bonus/penalty. Elemental weaponskills are basically just nukes powered by TP instead of mana, with extra modifiers from gear WSD impacting them as well. Flash nova has a lot of mods, so it can hit very hard. If Ringoko had an Idris geo giving him acumen and malaise bubbles, and a rostam cor giving wizards roll (IE REAL buffs rather than trust strength) those 38K flash novas could very well have been 60k flash novas instead.

So far I have made the Kaja Scythe and have been messing around with it.

So far the numbers havent been as high as I was hoping, but maybe its because I am using it on slightly higher evasive mobs.

Average numbers are 11k, but my Claustrum r15 can push similar numbers, just not as consistent.

I wonder if getting a pulse to upgrade to drepanum is worth it since im getting the 100% mod already.

Scythe on BLM is only for high buff scenario and even then it's not gonna be great. Spiral hell is only good with 2500tp+ and BLM lacks attack unless you go /DRK and LR, but then it's only up for 60% of the time. Hasso and /Sam will give you haste, but your attack will be trash. Generally whole scythe idea is bad and I can see it only works with 3min zerg with /DRK and Warcry from WAR. Not sure why would you bring BLM for that tho. If you want to WS, then use magic WS and go /NIN with clubs or I guess /Sam with mythic and am3 (get 3000tp with impact or something. If you choose clubs you can use kraken offhand, if you have enough accuracy or bunzi if you don't.

For fun!

I would rather change strategy to nuke or something else, than force BLM into subpar melee DD. Unless you somehow mostly nuke in FFXI and melee DD is something new for you, then I guess I can understand that.