Unretiring My BLM Soon

After I finish AGing my Burtgang for PLD, I will be unretiring my 99 BLM.

I have quite a few gear pieces saved up from random drops on various NMs as well as MAB/MAcc gear I use on Blue Mage. Examples include Amalric body, hands, legs, feet, Friomisi Earring, Sanctity Necklace, etc.

I just want to know what is the most important things to focus on first. For example, is my best staff choice Lathi? Do I need to reforge any AF, Relic, or Empryean armor?

Also, if I don't have a whole lot of time to devote to CP parties, what is my best bet to solo CP?

A list I assembled of pieces I saw in the guide and don't currently have is as follows:

- Refoccilation Stone
- Hachirin-no-Obi
- Archon Ring
- Barkarole Earring
- Mephitas's Ring
- Psilomene (got a metal chip in storage)
- Static Earring (thanks Ethereal but this one is better)
- Merlinic stuff (except feet)
- Lathi
- Vanya Robe

I last played black mage in 2013.

Any insight into bringing it back is very welcome!

AF 119 body is a must, basically give you unlimited MP. Awesome for CP parties or soloing.

Lathi is one of the top staffs in almost all scenarios

Exactly what Toralin says, Upgrade your AF body to 119. It is an absolute must.

Merlinic head, legs, and feet are good, except for the hands, as those are geared more for SMN than BLM. I would suggest Almaric set for the hand slot. However, if you can afford some of the other Almaric pieces and can get the abjuration for them, then more power to you.

As for main weapon, the JSE staff fully augmented is a decent temporary nuking staff until you're able to get Lathi. There is another staff that drops off Bashmu (T2 Hydra NM in Reisenjima) and it can be better than Lathi with a good enough augment.

For magic bursting, you'll also want to get the neck from tenzen(Mizukage-no-Kubikazari), a mujin band, and the ambuscade cape, preferably augmented for death.

Honestly, I'm going to go against the grain and say that AF 119 body isn't what it once was. I have never once used it in any situation and never encounter MP issues. As long as you have Myrkr and even just trust MP assistance, you'll be just fine. It's not like the body is expensive to make or anything, so there's no harm in making one, I just don't feel it's a top priority these days.

Barkarole is an excellent earring and pretty easy to get. Strobilus is basically Psilomene without the enmity- but is much less expensive, at least on Sylph.

You'll eventually want multiple pairs of each Merlinic piece, as they're basically BiS for tons of purposes (drain/aspir, some macc, DT, FC). Focus on macc/MAB augments early, though, as the amount of macc on Merlinic is going to be a large bump from other options.

Barkaro. Earring is pretty easy. It's 5 or 6 soloable quests in Adoulin. The storyline for it is pretty interesting and gives some insight into Ingrid and her organization.

Until I can get a Lathi myself, I've been using a Serenity from SR (I think you helped me get it). The augs don't benefit spell damage at all, but its got MDMG +217 and +25 macc/matk. I've been pretty happy with it. So much so that when I get lathi, I might do a full matk aug instead of macc/matk and I'll just use serenity when I need macc.

Edit: Potential stopgap/alternative to Refocalization Stone is the Eschan Stone (T3 Behemoth Zitah). More macc, less matk, but also atk/acc for melee blm! :D

So after 2 weeks of gear gathering, I finally switched to my black mage this morning. The only pieces I haven't gotten yet that I want are Archon Ring and Merlinic Shalwar (Merlinic Jubbah is a small pipe dream at the moment, but I do have Amalric Doublet).

I don't tend to play for long enough stretches to do CP parties (perhaps when the summer comes I will), so I end up soloing most of my JP. I got a few on BLM in Reisenjima with trusts doing Mosquitos. I noticed my tier V nukes were hitting for about 7k, and my tier I nukes were around 2k.

So I guess my solo strategy is spam tier 1 nukes because they have a great dmg/mp?

What are the usual BLM JP solo methods you guys may have used?