Xean said:If you happen to have an RDM in the party to heal that person, you wouldn't be wasting mp.
And I mentioned the extra damage gained. It heightens exponentially on a Magic Burst, and if you're a smart BLM, you'll save your Elemental Seals for those. Not that it can be used every 3 minutes. -_-
And if it did enough to take hate, I hope you're talking about MBs. If not, the tank just ain't so good at holding hate. And since its about MBs, it reverts back to what I said in this post.
If you think a stupid BLM can't take hate off the best tank in the world whenever he wants you are mistaken. Ninja tanking this morning I had a BLM who refused to let me keep control. (No thf unfortunately.) I'd start off with Blind, provoke, slow, 2 elemental:ni and it would be on him before my provoke timer was down. He was a taru, and he just kept dying for his own stupidity. (He was chain-Blizzard 2ing at 51 on beetles) He didnt enfeeble, just nuked away like a retard. Oh and random freezes, when the mob was at half hp, resulting in him dying because he didnt kill it all the way.
As to the Q, eh, blm doesnt need to be up the entirety of the battle, at least in the early levels. I recommend carrying both pie and cookies. Use pie for the int/mp boost but if you are having trouble keeping MP up swap to cookie. Baron pants/seer tunic and the RA/EX wand from saruta will help you lots, till you get dark staff. If you only want to keep one set of rings, keep the INT ones. They are probably going to be more helpful in the long run.