Node 297

This guide is obviously not finished, it's still a WIP. The vegetables are proverbially still in the steamer, but here's the meat and potatoes.

We are now editing to make guide fit better on 1080p screen, editing on 4k screen makes things look 10 kinds of wrong.
-edit: should look alright on 1080p screen now.

I would rip the gearsets from the other BLM thread they are pretty much spot on. These sets need alot of work.

I will be pushing gear sets into tables to make it more palatable. However Real life plans will force me to wait to do this.

So, I don't like shitting in cheerios, and don't intend this to carry a conversation forward, but why are you making a new guide?

BLMs guide is one of the few that's actually still up to date.

never hurts to have a new take, if you dont like it, use the other guide and ignore this. So far they are doing good !

here have some sets

¡ʇunoɔ oʇ ɯǝɥʇ uı ɹןoʌɐoıɹ⅁ ɥƃnouǝ ǝʌɐɥ ʇ,uop ʎןsnoıʌqo sʇǝs ǝsoɥ⊥

I can make grioavolr sets but there's literally a billion combinations you can do with it, and if someone has a good Grioavolr they probably take BLM seriously enough to know their options. But if it's in demand I can make it

Gear sets are only half of a guide and probably the least important half for people looking to learn about a new job. The BLM guide needs a revision for sure. There's some good points in this guide although I find that it doesn't cover some of the important topics well enough, and there are also things not mentioned at all that I think are worth bringing up. If I can find some time next week I'll write about the topics I like and think need more attention.

Honestly not sure why this guide was made, usually 2nd guides are only made once the original is out of date by 6+ months.

That being said, I do appreciate some of the information and humor in the guide and if we're going to have 2 I would recommend steering this one in the direction of educating BLMs who are completely new to the game/job.

In the next few days I will address these assertions. We'll see how they stand up to scrutiny, Kushy. The purpose of this guide was to make a one stop shop for players that don't want to scour 37 pages of replies on the old guide, and I stated upfront that it is not finished.

As for the guide being updated on the other thread, it would be more accurate to say that the thread was updated. The cover page and the gear sets on it are outdated, and it offers very little on the actual mechanics of the game that Black Mage needs to capitalize on. The problem with that is that the majority of players that pick up a guide like that will stop reading after the first few replies to the guide, most wont read through years of posts to see if there were any important updates. That is why this guide is formatted as a node.

It seems as though nobody even got past the disclaimer when reading this Guide. It was stated right at the start that if you wanted information to be included you should leave sources, just as I did throughout the guide.

Do this, and I'd be happy to change the information in the guide. It's not like it's intention is to be wrong about game mechanics. However if you simply say, "This guide is wrong" but provide no context, and no examples, you should expect to be ignored.

I dont see the benefit of saying "If you are a lucky ***" really provides any value to people in a guide.

This makes sense. As a veteran endgamer I already know how a job plays and only need to look at sets to get an idea of what I need to focus on. The blm sets from the original guide were up to date and that was good enough for myself as a starting blm. I like the idea of having one guide to teach people and one guide for veterans like myself.

When I remade the Sam guide I was only thinking of the veteran endgame community and didn't really empathize with the new/returning player. Now that time has passed, I understand now the need in teaching/helping the entire community as a whole, which in the long run helps to keep players in the game instead of shunning them out.

Noted, Toralin, I've edited it. Thank you.

Finally! Another proper guide on this site! Thank you.

Guides should not just be gear set lists.

Roflmao.

I would suggest streamlining the subjob trait section by removing all the Clear Mind and MAB Bonus traits.

Also for Subjobs, you skipped over the main reason for /sch. Weather spells. These add a lot of damage to your nukes, and allow full time use of elemental obis.

Thanks for putting in the work.

Don't worry about naysayers or detractors do your thing you are not hurting the community one bit by providing your take on BLM. I certainly think that some of the points of view in the guide are valid.

That is true, but only really worth pointing out for solo play. In endgame, you would have a SCH for weather 2 effects for your party.

I will add this in though.

I hate to come across as rude, but is that not precisely what a guide is supposed to do?

The other thread operates more like a forum, I never claimed that this guide would have all the information, in fact I said exactly the opposite from the get-go.

We have to be more useful in our use of words like guide and thread and forum if we want these concepts to be easily metabolized by the returning/new player base who need the information the most.

I know you are already adding it, but it's also pretty relevant for CP parties when you don't have a SCH in party.

Yeah most class guides on this site are just gear lists(and generally outdated) and not actually guides.

This is a guide, and a really good one at that! I appreciate this design a lot more. Please ignore the people saying negative things as they are not in the right. There is a huge misconception as to what a "guide" should be(hint: a new player is generally the person who wants to read a guide).
Exactly!

I really appreciate guides in this format and I look forward to even more in this format! I hope the rude people are not going to shy others away from trying to make guides in this format.

There's nothing wrong with either guide formats, but I think this format is better for what a "guide" should really be, and other guides are more "gear sets/discussions".

I personally think moderators should be looking at this thread and not allowing people to come in and be so rude/insulting to people who put in so much time and effort into trying to make something useful and helpful.

Didn't even notice this post. The MB set uses Amalric Slops +1 for numerous reasons

1) The goal is to operate with max MB damage in gear, Merlinic Shalwar will significantly overcap you past the point.

2) Magic Bursts receive a significant MAcc bonus relative to free nukes, hence why I believe that the additional 25 MAB gained from slops are worth the POTENTIAL 40 MAcc you can gain from the shalwar. My gearsets assume Path A for all Amalric +1 except for hands, so they are not entirely devoid of M. Acc. Additionally, if you have the ability to MB then you most likely have a GEO or three with you to adjust your M. Acc accordingly via INT/Focus/Languor.

3) Because free nukes don't have the added M. Acc from MBs, they become significantly more useful as a Max MAcc set item IF you need it. It's more likely that you wouldn't be operating under the same buffs as MB because I can't remember the last time I free nuked something that I MB'd...

I use Lathi as the standard weapon because that is the standard weapon BLMs use, more informed BLMs who care about the job more will go through the effort of augmenting it thousands of times to get an improvement over Lathi. Grioavolr is a worse free nuke weapon if you don't need M. Acc, an exception can be made for a 15 INT 30 MAB Grioavolr, but it still does less damage.

I especially don't use Grioavolr in MB sets because the possibilities are endless, on one character alone I've weighed 7 sets side by side to see the advantages and disadvantages of each, Grioavolr requires you to take into consideration your augments on every single Merlinic piece, along with Locus/Mujin/Static Earring to see which gives you the best benefit. For that reason, I didn't go for Grio sets because I believe every BLM will have to weigh their choices on a case-by-case basis that is augment dependent.

Again, my sets are not an a strict guideline to follow, they are a general guideline to follow where you can make swaps according to your situation.

I should mention that certain sets (i.e. anything pertaining to death) have been calculated via spreadsheet and theorized with another career BLM for countless hours to the point that yes, it actually is the best possible sets to use. It's one thing to have a High MP idle but it doesn't mean much if your idle set has 400 more MP than your Death midcast and precast because it's all lost. It also offers very little DT and low max HP which is an issue for a lot of fights that use Death because the NMs will have far range AoEs and auras that'll kill you.