The Black Sacrament -- A Guide To Black Mage

SE has been giving boss's 400+ INT for awhile now, and seeing how massive of an impact dINT can be on high INT targets, it doesn't surprise me with people's results. Also why landing a maxed out Burn or Impact helps as much as it does.

It would be annoying, but not really hard, to figure out Ongo's INT using Impact & Absorbing Shield, but the fact that it takes 3000 segments per entry discourages fighting him just to test.

So, interestingly, in that video of JPs hitting all 99999s, their gearset is...


I'll have to sit and watch it more in depth to see if there's a difference in their buffs/debuffs compared to what NA usually pulls.

Does anyone know if the effects of negative dINT are mirrored from positive dINT, or if they have their own values?

Regardless, when dINT is low, large amounts of INT can vastly increase how much damage you do, especially when using Stone spells, which have low base spell power but high dINT modifiers.

Take this example. Stone VI's dINT values aren't known, so I'll use Stone V. Let's assume the BLM and Ongo both have 500 INT, and the BLM is using a Marin Staff +1 with no other MDMG, so they have MDMG +260 (counting job points and gifts).

Under these conditions, Stone V's spell power would be 910.

Let's say you add 100 INT via buffs. This would bring Stone V's spell power from 910 to 1460, a 62.3% increase from base.

If, on top of that, you landed Impact on Ongo for -100 INT, that would bring Stone V's spell power to 1860, which is a 104.4% increase in damage over the original conditions.


When you have negative dINT, increasing your INT would have even larger effects than in this example.

I recently came across the vid separately and bashed out a quick and dirty translation for my LS, here you go:

---------------------------------------------
Jobs:
RUN, BLM, SCH, COR, BRD, GEO

Songs:
Etude, Etude, March, Ballad, Ballad
Honor March on RUN and COR

Rolls:
Wizard, Samurai

Geomancy:
Indi-Acumen, Geo-Malaise, Entrust Indi-INT
---------------------------------------------

Ongo has 30 earth resistance and will always half-resist Stone.
Only during RUN's Rayke and BLM's Subtle Sorcery can you get full damage.

Stacking DPS support on top of Rayke/Subtle makes it easier to wear the boss down.

As a means to increase DPS, we added to the common MB comp by making sure to take advantage of multi-step skillchains, Quickdraw, and Stoneja's cumulative effect.

At the start of the fight, the BRD uses Earth Threnody and Nocturne while NiTro is still up.

BLM starts off by applying the cumulative effect from Stoneja* and casting Elemental Seal Impact.
[* The BLM has a specific macro for this so they're probably using Empy+1 legs for this specific case of casting Stoneja to create a 100 sec cumulative effect window.]

The cumulative effect lasts for 100 seconds and increases damage of the same element by 5% each time you cast.
[Caps at 25%]

RUN uses Gambit only at the start and gets it back with an immediate Random Deal, then uses Rayke.

For skillchains, the SCH makes three types: Scission > Detonation > Gravitation, which is extended into Darkness using Steel Cyclone and Wildfire.

Prioritize Stoneja as much as possible when magic bursting to increase the cumulative effect.

The SCH aims to burst Helix between Steel Cyclone and Wilfire...but totally forgot to! Oops.

During the period Ongo has Elemental Sforzo up, use the Gambit you got back from Random Deal and reset it with Wild Card.

After Wildcard, use Bolster, Tabula Rasa, Subtle Sorcery, and just go ham on it.

Between skillchains, try to land Impact and Burn. Only apply Burn during Subtle Sorcery.

When Subtle is about to wear off, apply Rayke.

Pretty much same thing we did when we came up with this setup outside of the sc from sch. I never used subtle but I gotta try that never even thought about using that can't lie. The gambit then random is something I didn't think about either overall sounds like an amazing strat thought 6 mins was fast clearly not lol. Side note I'd rather have entrusted malaise and take the int bubble instead of other the way they did it. Thought from people on that may differ but I guess it won't matter because you killing it in bolster window.

Geo Debuffs are nerfed 75% so an entrusted Malaise would be almost worthless since they are relying on Idris + Bolster to make it better then a powered up +Int.

I don't have the gear to do this strat and haven't taken BLM into high-level Ongo myself, but I did think it was a great speedrun that makes smart use of JA windows.
I had a look at another of the poster's videos and saw one that explains how he times three MBs (VI->ja->V) with the SCH's skillchain, and I think it'd be nice for the English-speaking community to have more content for the beginner-intermediate range like that too - newer players have so much ground to cover in terms of things to learn that it's not even funny. :V

Anyone have any suggestions for the elemental DoTs?
This is what I am using now.
Raetic Staff +1
Khonsu
Pemphredo Tathlum
Cohort Cloak +1
Spae. Gloves +3
Archmage's tonban +3
Archmage's Sabots +3
Src. Stole +2
Acuity belt +1
Malignance Earring
Regal Earring
Metamor. Ring +1
Stikini Ring +1
Aurist's cape +1

Was thinking of going Bunzi' Rod + Ammurapi for more INT, but less Macc

Also Archmage head and body gives 4 more INT and 11 more elemental skill at the cost of ~30 Macc

Updated
ItemSet 382706

Elemental debuffs cap at 150 INT for base potency, yeah they haven't been updated in a very long time. After the debuff specific JSE we pile on as much magic accuracy as possible since it's duration is only 3 miniutes.

Good point, I was thinking it was dINT not just INT. Guess that make the swaps I was thinking about not relevant.

Stikini over Metamorph as well

Oh yea the triple cast stuff I been doing for years just takes some practice tbh. It what I was doing for my ongo v15 clears. Honestly it would be nice to do something like that it just takes time tbh. Alot of the blm stuff kinda dropped because blm felt so useless with content. Doesn't help that everything can just be killed with nageling and braindead ws spam.

Yea thats what I was kinda thinking with it being nerfed and it's a speed kill maybe useless to do the geoint over entrusted at the end of day. On first ongo v15 clear we didn't even use geo debuff because of the info on nerf was wrong.

Triple bursting T6 -> ja --> T5 on the same skillchain requires really precise timing and coordination. It's easy to double burst anything, but the higher cast times on the biggest spells mean you have to really be on the ball if you want to fit all 3 of them into the same window. Sometimes I get it, but even serer lag can be a factor when timing is this tight. Whenever I find myself missing the window on the third spell I swap to throwing out the JA beforehand and bursting T6 --> T5 --> T3 or 4 instead, or alternately splitting up burst rotations and alternating between JA --> T6 --> T3 as the first and then doing T5 --> AM 2 --> T4 as the second.

That's a trick to keep in mind if your group's timing is slightly off. The important thing is to make sure all the spells get bursted. The damage difference is relatively small and it's always better to finish with a burst on a smaller nuke at the end of the window than to miss the window on a bigger nuke.

Here's the video in question if you're curious.
I think it'll be old news to most people in this thread and they'll know what's going on even without a translation, but I'll include notes for less experienced players who don't in case it helps someone casually browsing through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0sbrO18OM4

Basic points:
- Both BLM and SCH are capped on fast cast.
- SCH macros close skillchain with a helix to get a better window
- Start casting the tier VI spell when you see the second SCH JA activate for closing the skillchain (i.e. when the grimoire pops up in front of them)
- Start casting subsequent spells when you see your character's hands relax (go down) after casting animation completes (video shows a taru so you will have to check your own race's animations to find the sweet spot)
- Also mentions that you can look at the Casting Time bar to gauge when you're free to start casting the next spell; from 35% for tier VI, from 40% for ja or tier V, roughly.

(This is for VI>ja>V; if you're starting with ja you have to delay a little.)

Not mentioned in the video but the spell animations are totally deceptive; you'll see the animation for the skillchain well after the VI spell goes off but it'll still be a burst.

Just did some testing on Ongo. I used Stone V (because Stone VI dINT values aren't known) under Elemental Seal and Subtle Sorcery to guarantee non-resists. I had no one else affecting the mob to mess up results.

My stats:

MAB +261
MDMG +256
There were no other factors affecting damage like merits, day bonus, affinity, or magic critical hits.

97 + 436 = 533 INT
4866 damage

97 + 352 = 449 INT
3612 damage

97 + 329 = 426 INT
3185 damage


Reverse calculating from the damage, the most likely results for Ongo's stats are INT = 406 and MDB = 116 (or lower MDB if Ongo has some minor amount of MDT). I can't get any combinations of MDB and INT to result in the numbers exactly, even when playing around with different ways of flooring, so I might have made an error somewhere, but this should be close enough to guide gearing/buffing decisions.

If anyone wanted to follow up, it'd be much appreciated if someone could directly test his MDB using a GEO. 900 Skill + Dunna + Bolster should be exactly -15 MDB after the 75% reduction, which would be an easy value to calculate it from.

Are the bursting gearsets listed on Page 1 still BiS? Updating my ML20 BLM for fighting Ongo ... again... and wanting to know if there is much change gear-wise.

For nuking Ongo I think this is the set that was determined to be BiS. The high INT is definitely noticeable in the fight.

ItemSet 380385

I’ve swapped out Almaric feet and hands for R20 Agwu. Don’t mind losing 2 MAB II for the magic acc. I know people who have gone 5/5 Agwu R20 and still hit big numbers (not capped damage but in the 80K’s). Agwu has a lot of magic damage + which ea+1 is lacking. Ea+1 still better though.

R20/25 Bunzi + Ammurapi should out damage Marin +1 (especially if you have etudes and/or are debuffing INT). 19 INT shouldn't beat 25/30 MAB, even on Ongo.

You'd be giving up Myrkr, though.

Ok I have all buy the staff / ammo, I can farm those easily enough.

Something that might be helpful is that the JPs figured out how much MACC you need to get 95% hit rate on Ongo with earth nukes, so you can calculate to see whether you have enough.

When Rayke is not up (IE, the harder situation to land nukes) and you're MBing, you need 1222 total magic accuracy (which is Elemental skill + Magic Accuracy Skill + Magic Accuracy + dINT factor + MACC buffs + the bonus MACC of your spell) without MEVA Debuffs (so lower than that when you have threnody or frazzle up).

Most of these are self-explanatory, but the dINT factor ranges from -30 to +30 MACC, capping when you have at least 70 more INT than the enemy (which is very achievable with bard support and Burn/Impact).

T5 and T6 nukes have around 30 bonus magic accuracy.

Do we know how much MACC base elemental skill gives?

1 skill = 1 macc

Cool, didn't we figure out how much MDB Ongo has?

He's got 100 MDB, 15 MDT (20 on V20), and 405 INT (425 on V20).

Are the V20 stats confirmed, since the V20's don't seem to get anymore HP? I know from V0~15 it grew at those rates.

Amalric Hand+Feet - INT57 Eskill 14 macc40 mab125 mdmg20 MBII 6
Agwu(20) Hand+Feet - INT63 Eskill 0 macc90 mab110 mdmg40 MBII 4

Seeing as the typical BiS set is 39/40 MBI you actually only lose out on 1 MB bonus as Agwu gives some MBI... A pretty good swap for ~40 macc. Might even full-time it from now seeing as Rank25 Agwu should outdamage Amalric let alone Rank30.

Hmm thoughts on:
Bunzi Rod(20)+Ammurapi shield
Int+28
Macc+83
Mab+93
Macc Skill +255


Marin Staff+1/Enki Strap
Int+42~47
Macc+65
mab 68
Macc skill +228

Is the 14 more int worth losing 28macc and 25mab? not sure what diff of 27 macc skill is as well

Been using bunzi/ammurapi generally top out around 85-88k, dont think ive seen 99 on ongo, this is with all the aforementioned stuff gambit/rayke, es impact on int etudes etc

I think Myrkr + staff debuffs are too important to swap out.