BLM Gear Switching

Kinkkerbelle

Kinkkerbelle

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My blm is 71

Most of the Leets on ala are all switching gear based on the spell or resting. The only thing I switch out are my elemental staves and dark staff for resting. Am I gimped? (god I hope not because what I have has cost me a fortune!) What should I be switching out? Do I really need dark and enfeebling torques and that sort of thing?

I have a limited about of gil and have been saving for months for a weskit. I could probably afford one HQ staff, if I bought one which one should I get?

I have a uggly pendant I recently got on a run but I always forget to change it out when my mp gets below 50% lol

my gear:

Full set of NQ elemental staves
Black cloak
Phantom tathlum
Elemental Torque
Moldvite Earring
Phantom Earring
Genius rings x2 <soon to finish CoP and get the big bad holy grail of rings>
Red Cape +1
Penitent's Rope
Druid's Slops
Custom F Boots

any comments or advice would be appreciated
 
I'm not an expert on Black Mage, but if you can swap out any gear that would benefit any spell or ability, you should try your hardest to. Like I know macroing in a Legionnaire's Ciclet is very nice for several levels (and yes, I'm being vague on purpose as I don't want to give any innaccurate information). As a Warrior, I macro in strength rings whenever I use a weaponskill, for example. Hopefully I helped some. :\
 
I may be completely wrong, since I'm just a wee red mage at level 30, but what I've heard about switching gear is that unless your spells are getting resisted, it's not extremely necessary to do it if you can't switch it, but it probably still helps to switch gear out if you have extra space in your macros.

Even at my level, I've run out of slots on my macros, since I usually switch between MND and INT gear for my spells, so I usually just switch out what helps the most (like removing Zealot's Mitts to get rid of that -2INT when casting black magic spells). It could be different at higher levels, and heavy gear switching then might be expected more, but I dunno. I'm sure it doesn't really matter too much unless it interferes with your job, like if your spells are being constantly resisted, it definately couldn't hurt to do more equipment switching, especially if it'd be as easy as adding a line to a macro.
 
Your gear is very good. Blms really don't have to do a whole lot of gear swaps for normal exp. For dynamsis, swaps for enfeebling gear to help your sleepga 2 can be nice, but not critical. About the only time blms get heavy into gear swaps is when they are trying to trigger the latent on the lvl 50 blm jse ring for the +mab. Then its a bunch of hp->mp swaps.
 
What gloves? I don't see them mentioned.... I know of the AF/Relic/Hume RSE2 hands....

HQ staves? Most people preach thunder soo..... that's a good guess but like 6m for a few extra damage? I think you look like a damn fine BlM as is. ^^

I'm lower level.. (64 rdm) I macro staves, and only change gear if I -have- to. I rarely do. With your gear I doubt you should get too many resists outside Gods.. even then, not much you can do about that. ^^;
 
Only thing I might recommend is making a +mp gear macro & a nuking macro. If you have enough +mp gear, it can provide you a little breathing room when casting prot/stoneskin/blink/aqua/ect, or let you get some debuffs off before you start nuking - and let you switch to your nuking gear with 100% mp.

Switching in zenith crown/jungle rope/blue cape/astral ring/rep. gold medal/hedgehog bomb i get +175mp over my nuking gear at a cost of 12 int. (I also have a 3rd macro for an intermediary step - with just zenith crown & jungle rope swapped in for a 70mp/2int difference) Plenty of breathing room or enough for to get me a free Thunder IV.
 
Your geat is great, if anything, I'd say grab the enfeebling torque for those sleeps, and you can always upgrade to HQs on the gear you have NQ on. Pretty much everything you would want to change is obvious at this stage, and I'd feel insulting to say particulars.

As far as staves go, I have always liked my Aquillo's, but thinking about the Sleepga 2s a Pluto's might be better. Since you are so close to 75 you might want to just hold off and get a Jupiter's Staff though, since you will find that invaluable in your endgame experiences.
 
Kinkkerbelle said:
My blm is 71

Most of the Leets on ala are all switching gear based on the spell or resting. The only thing I switch out are my elemental staves and dark staff for resting. Am I gimped? (god I hope not because what I have has cost me a fortune!) What should I be switching out? Do I really need dark and enfeebling torques and that sort of thing?

I have a limited about of gil and have been saving for months for a weskit. I could probably afford one HQ staff, if I bought one which one should I get?

I have a uggly pendant I recently got on a run but I always forget to change it out when my mp gets below 50% lol

my gear:

Full set of NQ elemental staves
Black cloak
Phantom tathlum
Elemental Torque
Moldvite Earring
Phantom Earring
Genius rings x2 <soon to finish CoP and get the big bad holy grail of rings>
Red Cape +1
Penitent's Rope
Druid's Slops
Custom F Boots

any comments or advice would be appreciated
Click to expand...

Somebody already mention swaps for mp so you can enfeeb/buff at the start of fights. This is a good idea at your level.

Also.
Check the element of each spell that you cast and match accordingly.
I should be able to remember what they are but i don't because I have the memory of a goat.
 
Enfeebling Torque: for Sleepga 2
AF legs > Dark Torque: you can get the torque if you really want that extra 10mp from Aspir
Baron's Slops: that extra 1 HMP is good for healing
Errant Slops: when you level unless you are fighting a God then keep the Druid's.
AF GLOVES TILL ZENITH!!!
Wizard's Sabots: only for escaping or sleepga'ing mobs.
Errant Houppelande: when you level, the -enmity is good and HMP is great because after 30seconds(I THINK) HMP regens more mp than auto-refresh while healing. The INT is better but the cloak is a keeper for when you are on the run.

umm ... well thats only acouple of stuff i remembered. im sure some blms are willing to put some advice(eventually).
 
hq staves will give you the biggest damage increase over anything.

aquilo's / jupiters are the two most important.
 
I would say dont get the enfeebing Torque. The spider torque is pretty much the same thing for like way less of the cost. 2 enfeebeling skill isnt going to be a huge difference. Besides, later on you will be able to afford the igquera(sp) tiara which gives you +10 to enfeebing skill so that will make up for it with swap-ins. But like Rones said, you have good gear. The only thing i would think of is swaping in/out pieces of your AF as needed for things like enfeebles. Like your AF body that has +10 on it. And your AF pants for things like Drain/Aspir/Stun because of the +10 to Dark skill.
 
How much enfeebling+ is necessary for dynamis? I've never macroed in enfeeb before and my wiz body just collects dust on my mannequin.
Other than that kink unless youre trying to max out damage you dont need to drop billions on HQ endgame gear. And of course you can always wait til after the job "adjustments" in the next couple days, and see if prices on expensive blm gear drop before shelling out for any high ticket items.
 
Bigboy said:
Your geat is great, if anything, I'd say grab the enfeebling torque for those sleeps, and you can always upgrade to HQs on the gear you have NQ on. Pretty much everything you would want to change is obvious at this stage, and I'd feel insulting to say particulars.

As far as staves go, I have always liked my Aquillo's, but thinking about the Sleepga 2s a Pluto's might be better. Since you are so close to 75 you might want to just hold off and get a Jupiter's Staff though, since you will find that invaluable in your endgame experiences.
Click to expand...

For sure as BB has stated HQ staves are important. Much more so then enfeebling gear. Getting a Pluto's staff is much more beneficial then 7 Enfeebling Magic. Also, I'd get Igqira Tiara over Enfeebling Torque because it gives more and is very cheap if you are short on cash. Nothing is more important then getting HQ staves however other then getting a Weskit at 73. Jupiter, Pluto and Aquilos are must haves.
 
Like others have said, don't shell out too much on HQ gear unless you want to have all HQ gear and can really afford it as most if not all of it is not necessary. BLMs have decent enfeebling (C+, slightly higher than the WHM's C) and extremely good gear for it. Use AF Body, invest in Igqira legs and head (all 3 have +10 enfeebling) for any enfeebling spell and you should rarely experience a resist especially on sleep. From my experience, the only ones that ever resist are IT mobs and even those are a chance with resists as a RDM.

At level 75, BLMs get a lot of gear and can use a lot of gear switchs depending on the situation. For the most part, stick with AF hands to reduce resists although once you get Igqira set you might be able to change to the Igqira Manillas which have slightly less +elemental but also include +MAB or Zenith Hands once you get those. For exp, I'd use AF hat, weskit, igqira hands, errant legs and your hume RSE boots. You can also upgrade your Red Cape +1 to a Rainbow cape (HQ, Prism cape gets +1 to all stats, but costs 4-6 mil) for a slight MP and HP boost and sell your Red Cape for a little cash or save it for a level cap. I stick mainly with the Elemental torque but that's partly because I don't have Ugg. Pendant and because I never got around to doing the NM fight. On gods, for the most part you want to get a decent amount of +elemental skill gear to avoid resists, but resists aren't so bad unless you are fighting Kirin. Kirin resists heavily so your gear should consist of entirely +Elemental skill items if there is the option to do so. Although I am a littly hazy on whether to use Ice staff versus Wind staff (Kirin is weak to Wind so stick with mainly this spell) on Kirin. I never noticed much of an improvement with 10 elemental skill of ice staff versus the +10% damage of wind staff, but maybe another BLM has experimented/parsed something on it, I really don't know.

Lastly for resting, you can get a good amount of +hMP items now but most are hard to get so it's unlikely you will have many of them for quite awhile. Errant Body has +5 hMP and is a must for any BLM or mage for that matter. Beyond, that nothing more is expected of you to have, but some items like the AF+1 are slightly better than the AF counterpart and would be a great addition to your gear if you don't mind spending the time in Limbus to obtain them. Note: All AF+1 items include some form of +hMP which would be great for any BLM but at the cost of coins and time, some might not find it worth the effort to obtain.
 
Ok, I'll do my best to describe my macro setup.

The way I did my macros was for every spell had reaction swaps in. For example I don't swap the staves in as one macro and cast the spell with another macro. So we'll start off first with what is swapped in. For example what a Thunder spell likes like.

/ma Thunder 4
/recast Thunder 4
/equip Jupiter Staff
/equip Penitence Rope /equip Rairin Obi
/equip Mahatma Pants /equip Sorceror Tonban
/equip Genie Weskit

Based on weather or day of the week conditions I may have to manually switch the belt or pants. Sometimes I don't bother.

For resting macro, it'll be like

/heal
/equip Pluto staff
/equip hierarch belt
/equip errant body

Another useful macro

/target <bt>

To automatically lock your cursor on the red mob.

Uggalepih Pendant and Elemental Torque have to be changed manually. Therefore, DO NOT BOTHER GETTING dark torque, enfeebling torque or any other situational neck pieces. You can't macro them in, because then they'll be in during your casts, or you'll have to pick uggalepih pend or elemental torque to use always. Do NOT sacrifice nuking damage for better sticking rates on enfeebles, that's lunacy.

I have 2 rows for BLM, on the control side of both rows 1-6 are elemental nukes. level 3s for row 1, level 4s row 2. Both rows have stun, very important. They should be in the same place. Both rows have a targeting macro and both have rest. Each have an Aga, the first Blizzaga 3 and the 2nd row has Thundaga 3. On the Alt side I have random stuff like stoneskin, blink, phalanx, cure 3, drain, aspir. The only spell here that benefits from gear swap is Apollo staff for Cure and Pluto staff for drain and aspir.

Now there's several times you'll be in conflict with Elemental versus Attack.

For example, Zenith mitts(or +1) versus AF(or +1). There's Demon Helm(+1) versus Elite Beret(+1, AF2 head). There's Prism Cape versus Merciful cape. Rostrum Pumps versus Nashira Feet. Abyssal earring versus Elemental Earring.

In these cases, go based on the mob you're fighting, and do not macro either in. Just put them in manually and keep them the entire fight. I've heard of people swapping in attack gear for elemental seal on resistant mobs, this is not recommended. Elemental seal can STILL be resist. On high resist mobs, your elemental magic can in fact increase the max damage instead of the matt, since the max damage is far below your ordinary max.

So swappable gear?

Legs, belt, weapon, body. Body only because you want errant body to rest in.

Hope this is helpful.
 
um... well for nuking HQ staves are pretty sweet, I do like having them now but most peices of magic attack bonus give you more bang for the buck, I've outdamaged blms who had HQ staves but no ugga pendant, well I used NQ staves and ugga, this was the only difference in the gear and I hardly have blm merited (2/5 thunder).

Granted ugga might not be as usefull for non-tarus who can't be using it and still have a ton of mp (need to be at 1/2 mp when spell lands for it to activate). For enfeebling no question HQ staves own and they do make it a lot easier to break 2k on MBs. If I had to pick one HQ staff to get it'd be jupiter's. oh and btw weskit pwns it will be a must have. Zenith hands are really really nice if you can get a pair. Errant body is a must for mp recovery I also use hierarch belt well resting. Make sure to macro in AF hands and stuff for HNMs and stuff depending on the mob and how much it resists this helps a lot.

The most gear switching I do is for kirin where I load up on +elemental magic gear most of the time, I like to use wind staff, well trying out HQ next time^^. Then when we SC I load up all my magic attack bonus gear and use elemental seal, not to hard to break 1200 MB even using NQ wind staff, next week I can tell you how much the HQ helps out. also like all fights you have to balance some -enmety gear in there so you can maybe do 2-3 unresisted nukes before worrying too much about hate, this means mahatma slops penitent's rope, AF or mahatma hat.
 
she never asked about anything for Dynamis or any shit like that.

just asked if she is gimped for some reason....

Your gear is fine, if your enfeebling magic is capped you dont need enfeebling magic + gear just keep your INT gear up and you will be fine.

Swap every spell with its corresponding staff, and you wont be resisting much or at all.

I have a macro to switch in Nuking Gear. (Magic atk bonus)
and a macro to switch in more INT elemantel magic +
and a macro for resting gear.

every spell already has its staff so I dont need a staff macro.

You might have it different though since you are not taru and have less INT and have a bigger intendentsy of being resisted. so play with your gear a bit around, and see what works ...
 
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