Black Mage Guide!

Introduction to the Guide I think of all the jobs in Final Fantasy XI, Black Mage is probably the most sought-after in the endgame community. I guess this is definately true for teamKANICAN in particular since we're pretty much known for doing everything under the sun with Black Mage. I've heard a lot of knocks on strategies that use BLM DD recently and I guess, to be fair, there is some merit to those criticisms - the job itself is so strong in endgame activities, it really doesn't take a great deal of skill to produce good results.

However I think even with all the obvious advantages BLMs have in endgame material, soloing, etc. a great deal is still lost on the vast majority of 75 BLMs. Most would agree that certain players are "better" than others at their job (for any job), but whereas for some jobs the gap isn't all that large, for BLM, the difference between the worst and the "best" is just striking. My hope is to try to show just how incredibly strong a single BLM can be when played to it's fullest. So why the hell should the career Black Mages bother listening to anything I have to say? I always believe that no matter how good someone is at something, there is someone else out there that is better. That being said, I think that some of the solos I've done should be at least enough to warrant reading this. Very little of anything stressed is actually related to nuking or damage. The vast majority of BLMs always focus on damage - this is an incredibly narrow-minded approach to the job. I want to stress the more subtle points of playing BLM endgame - the things that some people probably never bothered to consider or are too lazy to implement. I may go a good 3-4 posts without even talking about nuking or damage. Feedback, suggestions, etc. are welcome and appreciated! __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Setting a "Standing" Equip Macro This is a huge key to anything that I do - whenever an action is not actively being performed, I always reset my equipment to a specific "standing" equip macro. This means I will never show my nuking equipment, enfeebling equipment, etc. out in the open for checking - 99% of the time I'm wearing this 1 setup. The significance and reasoning behind this is a BLM's equip doesn't matter as far as damage or enfeebling unless you're actively casting a spell. There are only a certain few stat bonuses that even matter when not actively casting (which is 99% of the time you're on BLM at some event). - Damage Taken - %

- Auto-Refresh - Movement Speed +12% - Magic Defense Bonus - Resistances When considering gear in the "standing" setup, these are the only 5 things I consider. Notice none of them are offensive and the vast majority are purely defensive statistics. This setup is the most important equipment set for a Black Mage - more important than nuke equipment macros even. You're going to be in this setup about 99% of the time on any event and it does matter. Main Ranged Head Body Hands Legs Feet Back Waist Neck Ear 1 Ear 2 Ring 1 Ring 2 Terra's Staff Phantom Tathlum Sorcerer's Petasos Dalmatica Sorcerer's Gloves Sorcerer's Tonban Herald's Gaiters Umbra Cape Hierarch Belt Uggalepepih Pendant Loquacious Earring Sorcerer's Earring Tamas Ring Snow Ring Damage Taken -20%

Auto-Refresh ; Magic Defense Bonus +5

Movement Speed +12% Damage Taken -6%

Latent Effect: Damage Taken -30%

A lot of pieces have stats that I didn't bother listing. The pieces with stat comments are the most important as they emphasize the main keys to this setup. Some key things to note are that I use a Dalmatica despite having AF2 Body - both have refresh but Dalma has additional magic defense. Some will mention that Dalmatica also has -50HP on it which is "suicidal" on a taru, but I'll go over why it's preferable later on.

The setup provides a ton of damage down in only 3 pieces - Terra's Staff, Umbra Cape, and Sorcerer's Earring. This pic was taken from one of the times I solo popped Jailer of Temperance. In this setup, I always have at least -26% damage down, -32% if at night, and -50% (cap) if I ever hit low HP due to the earring. This enhances survivability greatly and at only the expense of really 2 item slots (you should have a Terra or Earth staff with you regardless anyway).

Having a purely defense setup on at all times when kiting or standing isn't just useful when you have hate. Some BLMs tend to have a seperate macro for damage down when they take aggro, but why not just keep it on anytime you're not actively casting? Sometimes, shit hits the fan and AoEs do hit - Dynamis Windurst Vanguard Sweeps anyone? Having this setup on at all times prevents a ton of damage over time and with Stoneskin, may prevent any real damage. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ General Macro Considerations - Watching HP and MP Changes Every action should always have a macro switch associated with it - there is always a "best" setup for any spell or situation. Whether you're doing a cure, nuking, resting, or something small like casting a bar- spell, there is always a best setup. If you can't think of a single stat bonus that helps, then the best set is just your "standing" setup. Because there is so much switching going on, your MP and HP are constantly changing with every action - this is incredibly annoying at times and even dangerous if certain setups put you in Yellow HP while others don't (around HP aggro mobs, you may end up killing yourself with your own macros due to HP changes). There are generally a few rules to follow when testing out any macro in the future like Enfeebling, Nuking etc... 1) Your Max HP in any setup should never exceed your Max HP in your standing setup (to prevent HP aggro situations). 2) Macro as much MP gear in the "standing" setup as possible - it should have more than the other setups. 3) If you have Herald's Gaiters - Keep them on as much as possible and avoid switching them constantly. 4) Keep Max HP and MPs reasonably close to your MAIN setup. Having a higher MP count when in "standing" or MAIN setup is essentially having free MP. This gives a slight edge in certain situations - for instance, when soloing, if you have higher MP counts in this setup, you can get a free Blink spell off before fighting and switching to setups with lower MP. The keeping HP at or below MAIN setup is extremely important and really needs to be followed. Granted there are few situations where this actually matters but when it does, you'll be glad you considered it. There is nothing more embarrassing than killing yourself with your own macro. If you have Gaiters, keep them on as much as possible! Equip macros lag; meaning there is a delay between when you hit the macro and when you "blink" on the gear switch. While Stat bonuses usually work the instant you hit the macro, the running speed stat does not. This means you will still run slower until you actually "blink" the equip change. (Yes there is a way to do equip switches without the "blink" animation if you really want to - but later on I'll show why the animation is a good thing) __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Equipment Macros - Order Matters Always macro pieces with +HP first and pieces with -HP last. The game recalcuates your HP after every switch and if you lower your max HP with gear first then raise it again later, you will end up losing some current HP. This means that when you make a macro, run through step by step after each change to verify that your HP is not going down then up again. If you don't, you will lose HP everytime you switch equipment when at max HP.

It is perfectly fine to raise HP first then lower it during the macro. If raising HP puts you from above 75% to below 75% (basically going from white to yellow HP), you're actually safe from blood aggro. Unlike your current versus max HP, the actual aggro is not calcuated that fast so you can get away with momentarily being in blood aggro range. The same thing also applies to MP pieces - macro your switches that increase your MP pool before the ones that decrease your MP pool. This typically doesn't affect your MP as you're really rarely at max, but it does help still. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Inventory Management Unfortunately, there are only 60 slots availible for storing equip on you, so you cant possibly hold every item you want to use on every situation. This means you really have to prioritize what to take - weigh the benefits of each with the others etc. This part is really the one thing that requires the most trial and error - I've switched pieces out left and right constantly for the past 2+ years just because I had trouble weighing the benefits of each piece. I keep myself at 56/60 at all times right now - 5 of these items are non-macro related... This leaves 51equip slots. - Stack of Remedies - Stack of Food - Stack of Imperial Silver Pieces (Warp Taru) - Reraise Hairpin - Linkshell Pearl

Currently this is the setup I carry with me. No doubt it'll probably change by next month again. Of the major Black Mage E-Penis items, I think the only thing I'm missing that is notable is the Novio Earring. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Macro Recasts on Everything! For any spell or ability macro, I end the macro with a recast of the spell. There are 2 main reasons for doing this. 1) If the spell is not up, you now know how long until it's u again - particularly useful for things like Aspir. 2) Sometimes you misfire macros - the /recast can tell you very quickly if you're trying to cast the wrong spell. For any spell, the macro should have this basic format... /ma "SPELL" <TARGETTYPE> - equipment switches /recast "SPELL"

There should NEVER be a reason to look at the spell menu to find out the recast time on something. If you do this often on certain events then A) you're wasting time doing it, B) the fact that you're checking means it's probably a pressure situation and you should be doing something else. For certain spells, knowing the recast is particularly important due to constant use but long recast timers. In particular, the sleep spells, the 2 drain spells, stun, and gravity/bind come to mind. I set 1 macro in particular with only spits out 6 recast timers for the sleep spells, gravity, and aspir. This macro becomes particularly important when doing things like Dynamis - where the sleep timers become essential to survival.

Now we come to Stun - of all the Black Mage spells, this is by far the most important to always know the recast timer on. Because it's used to often and is so vital, I not only macro the /reast into the spell macro itsefl, but also directly into MAIN setup macro.

Now in addition to reseting gear to the MAIN setup, this macro always spits out the recast timer for Stun. Generally in most fights, my chat log is literally spammed with the Stun recast because I press this macro so often. The 5 button on my keyboard is practially worn out since I press it so often now, too.

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( 53 comments Leave a comment ) (Anonymous) wrote: Feb. 11th, 2007 11:15 am (UTC) Drains and Aspirs As a BLM I find that in most every situation, Drain is singlehandedly the most efficent spell to cast. That being the point I've shaped my Drain and Aspir macros with as much dark skill as possible.(save earring ; ; i got dual wield one :P). With a 314 dark magic skill gear setup you have to decide on head and waist piece(no dark magic skill help) For me it was simple. Haste, you have the turban and nodoubt you macro it in for drains, aspirs, stuns. Could you explain in a little more detail why Swift belt isn't on your "on-hand" list? 52 second drains and Aspirs are a godsend for soloing(i'll get limbus-KB one day :( 22%). And you do a lot of soloing. It would definantly be in one of my top pieces to bring with me.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing your reply! :) Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Feb. 11th, 2007 07:50 pm (UTC) Re: Drains and Aspirs Well it's really a matter of what would I replace it with. I have a really hard time deciding what to take sometimes. I think it just comes down to what's best overall - I do a lot of soloing but a lot of HNMs too, where aspir/drain may not be as useful. I don't switch equip inventory depending on the event. On the list of things I wanted to add to the setup, Nashira Body and Swift Belt are definately on there. I guess the choice is easier since I don't have a Swift Belt and am too lazy to get one. I do agree it's very nice to have when doing complicated solos like Kaiser; however, I consider the biggest strength about the way I play is I never change any inventory especially for any situation - what I use for Apo NW solo is the same thing I use for Tiamat. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Feb. 11th, 2007 07:55 pm (UTC) you have something like 59+50~ mnd (and i'd guess base 200 enhancing skill) for your stoneskin set-up right? that puts you about 335hp on stoneskin? did you play with magnetic earring (i'd guess you don't have static since novio is obtainable for you and you do less bursts when there's no melees for renkei) and decide the conserve mp/interrupt rate isn't worth changing something else out for? do you use situational gear like diabolos's pole/other obis or leave it on a mannequin? if you were a new 75blm and didn't have the af2 pieces for example, what would be your next priority to place in the inventory slots? - this question might seem silly i know. conversely, what will you put in storage if/when you obtain a novio earring? is the amount of enfeebling skill gear you carry because you do a lot of soloing and need to stick gravity et al for that? i think the veiled insult you get when completing gobbiebag VI is SE's way of saying there'll be no more inventory spaces - though that doesn't stop them implementing a system for warping equipment in and out of storage, if it wasn't a sort of game-break. -mikazuki Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote:

Feb. 11th, 2007 08:12 pm (UTC) There is enough equip there to hit 350 Stoneskin (114 MND) pretty sure. Stoneskin equipment was actually pretty hard to figure out for me because it's not just about getting 114MND, it's getting to 114MND in the fewest new equip pieces possible - remember saving 1 piece from 1 macro gives you 1 piece extra to fill in for drain, aspir, etc. I chose Magnetic Earring - it's now in storage, I made the wrong choice. I say this because there is not a single stat on there that is specifically needed for any spell or situation. It's an amazing Earring if you don't equip switch - if you do it's horrible because it's good overall, not best for anything. I use Fire, Wind, Ice, Thunder Obis; hence I keep them with me at all times even knowing it doesn't get all that much use. While I don't stress the importance of damage in this, damage is definately still important. Also Diabolos' Pole still loses to Pluto's even in Dark weather - would never use it. AF2 plays a huge role in the other equipment choices - My setup would look completely different in just about everything without AF2. Sorry that I can't really answer your question here but I put a ton of thought anytime even 1 piece is varied - no way I could for 3 missing pieces. If I had Novio I would ditch Relaxing Earring I think. Maxing Enfeebling is incredibly important to me. It's not just about 'soloing'. Many times at events, we don't have that many people online yet have to deal with a ton of adds - which usually means I have to 'solo' hold or kill 3-4 mobs at a time. Enfeebling isn't just useful at solo but at events for add handling. Everytime SE adds a Gobbie Bag, Black Mage gets a whole lot stronger - my performance is pretty much dictated by how many equipment pieces I can carry now. There are so many great pieces of gear for certain situations you cannot possible carry it all. A lot of this stuff I hope to eventually cover in more depth. This post unintenionally turned out pretty long - and honestly I did not even talk about casting a spell yet. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand (no subject) - (Anonymous) - Feb. 15th, 2007 12:41 pm (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: Feb. 11th, 2007 10:23 pm (UTC) As taru blm, HMP gear would help your setup alot. Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Feb. 12th, 2007 02:25 am (UTC) I'm pretty sure I have near max - missing +1 on earring, +1 on cape, +1 on feet. I don't think it's worth 3 equip slots for +3 HMP in this situation. Also there are many situations where you actually end up not resting for the vast majority of your MP regen. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Feb. 13th, 2007 08:22 pm (UTC) No Genie Huaraches? No Magnetic or Static earrings? gimp.

God, seeing people like you who feel the need to get all +1 items really saddens me. Do your skills not get you enough "cred" that you have to try to flex your tiny taru epeen by getting +1 on everything you can? Self esteem... do you have it? Nice guide though. Link | Reply | Thread | Expand

tk_demetrius wrote: Feb. 13th, 2007 10:45 pm (UTC) lol...are you really trying to rag on someone for gearing up their job the best they can. what the fuck lol Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (no subject) - (Anonymous) - Feb. 13th, 2007 11:41 pm (UTC) Expand (no subject) kanican - Feb. 14th, 2007 01:08 am (UTC) Expand (no subject) - (Anonymous) - Feb. 14th, 2007 01:29 am (UTC) Expand

stringztoo wrote: Feb. 13th, 2007 11:41 pm (UTC) macro editor program? Kaeko I have a stupid question. I just got the PC version after playing on PS2 for 3 years. I got windower as well. Now, the macro .txt files you have... is that a plugin that comes with windower or is it an additional plugin from elsewhere. I downloaded this macro plugin called "MacroMaster" but it's being kind of a pain in the ass and doesn't look like what you are using. Thanks in advance. Link | Reply | Thread

akroma_ffangel wrote: Feb. 13th, 2007 11:48 pm (UTC) Re: macro editor program? Look at Rukenshin's LJ.. In the Ninja Guide there is a full explantion on how to use .txt macros. It is a standard function of windower and you don't need to download any extra plugin's ect. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand Re: macro editor program? - kanican - Feb. 14th, 2007 01:02 am (UTC) Expand Re: macro editor program? - stringztoo - Feb. 14th, 2007 04:31 am (UTC) Expand Re: macro editor program? - kanican - Feb. 14th, 2007 04:52 am (UTC) Expand Re: macro editor program? - (Anonymous) - Feb. 14th, 2007 05:31 pm (UTC) Expand Re: macro editor program? - kanican - Feb. 14th, 2007 09:02 pm (UTC) Expand Re: macro editor program? - stringztoo - Feb. 16th, 2007 03:26 pm (UTC) Expand

Re: macro editor program? - kainsin - Feb. 14th, 2007 01:19 pm (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: Feb. 27th, 2007 04:28 pm (UTC) nuking gear What equipment do you prefer when nuking. (I know this is always situational depending on mob type/level) Let's say HNMs like Tiamat, Khimaira, Aspi, Nidhogg w/e. Do you prefer INT over Mgk. Atk. over elemental skill. Visa versa. Or neither way? I'm just trying to get a feel for what an accomplished and knowledgeable BLM, such as yourself, would do in these situations. Forget elemental weather, day, etc. Just a basic setup for harder than normal mobs. Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Feb. 27th, 2007 11:15 pm (UTC) Re: nuking gear KB and Aspi will not resist very often in a full attack setup assuming you nuke the correct element (Blizz on Aspi, not thunder on KB; you can still nuke thunder on KB but may resist every so often). Anything Fafnir and harder (Tia, Khim, etc.) I will use full elemental skill and INT setup mix. I use about 335 Elemental Skill - didn't bother going past that because it didn't seem to help. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Feb. 28th, 2007 09:04 pm (UTC) against 3rd party programs Wow Kaeko.. there was a time when i really looked up to you. I mean you are one of the best BLM in Odin, not to mention a great solo-er, and a brialliant strategist, its not hard to see why someone would be impressed by your skills. Only recently have I seen this and have never been aware that you've used 3rd party programs to enhance your gameplay. Although not as extreme as something such as speed hack or a claiming program, even something as little as just plug-ins from Windower, i still believe it is wrong. Its not how SE had intended the game to be played. No disrespect at all to you and your beliefs. But now all I can do is just frown =/ sigh. Its almost as if windower is becoming a bandwagon that everyone wants a piece of, a program that simply just started out as an alt-tab use, has evolved into changing one's gameplay. Of course you know the whole drama of people in different linkshells using 3rd party programs to "bot" HNMs, which is a much hate based issue. FF society has rejected these 3rd party programs as an "okay" method of enhancing gameplay, yet... they then contradict themselves by saying such programs like Windower and its plugins are "okay". Can you argue that these plugins infact don't enhance your gameplay in any way? You've lost a great amount of respect in my eyes =/ And I have seen it start a trend in other members of TK also (NA members typing in Japanese). Where will it stop? Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Mar. 1st, 2007 01:22 am (UTC) Re: against 3rd party programs

Please do not throw the "NA that uses JP in game" comment at me. I used to play in JP version until Windower implemented IME (to practice typing in it). I do not type in JP outside of LS unless a racist JP LS decides to steal something and I have to fake being JP to get it back. If you look closely all of my macros invoke 2 .txt files because the original macros I used were entirely in JP - now 1 set invokes the switch in NA and other in JP. I do not want to sound harsh but you don't know what goes on inside TK socially - I think it's great that the NA and JP sides talk to each other in both english and japanese. What is wrong with NA members attempting to talk to japanese members in their language? Japanese players in TK do it all the time as well as get access to it automatically. JP members get IME mode in chat automatically, but SE didn't give the same to NAs. So SE gimped the NA version and you think it's horribly wrong that NAs now get IME? I'm not trying to be JP and neither are the NAs in TK. We work together NA/JP not a bunch of NAs trying to act like they are JP to please their foreign masters. I enjoy learning the language and culture in game and outside in RL. Also appreciate the person who originally decided to let NAs into a JP LS, which was and still is highly frowned upon by many JP players on Odin. As far as the 3rd party stuff I'll respond post below. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand Re: against 3rd party programs kanican - Mar. 1st, 2007 01:41 am (UTC) Expand Re: against 3rd party programs - (Anonymous) - Mar. 1st, 2007 12:16 pm (UTC) Expand Re: against 3rd party programs oliveman40 - May. 13th, 2008 11:30 pm (UTC) Expand Re: against 3rd party programs - (Anonymous) - Sep. 15th, 2009 09:18 pm (UTC) Expand Re: against 3rd party programs kanican - Sep. 15th, 2009 09:46 pm (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: Mar. 1st, 2007 01:44 am (UTC) Frankly, if Kaeko wanted to, he could do what I used to do on BLM because he doesn't have 5 75 jobs like I do and others leveling up; he could use 3-4 macros for equip changes alone and use 4+ palettes for BLM. And I'm sure he'd still do just fine; I always managed, got all changes I needed, and didn't really lose that much time. The only hindrance is that when you need something in a panic mode, you can start hitting wrong buttons (happens to me a lot, still -.-). So why not use something that simplifies gameplay so he can be on top of things, be it crowd control or whatnot? It doesn't give him any unfair advantages in any way, except fewer keypresses. Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Mar. 1st, 2007 01:45 am (UTC) Oh, that was Ash above, btw. :P Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand (no subject) kanican - Mar. 1st, 2007 01:52 am (UTC) Expand (no subject) nospacesallowed - Jun. 21st, 2007 05:59 am (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: Mar. 6th, 2007 05:45 pm (UTC) Ethereal Earring in BLM Defense Build Hello, Kimiko from Siren here. Since I haven't done apocalypse nigh as of yet, and considering future leveling in some other jobs (such as BLU and PLD), would an ethereal earring (converts 3% of damage taken to MP) be a sutable component of a BLM defense build? Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Mar. 6th, 2007 06:34 pm (UTC) Re: Ethereal Earring in BLM Defense Build Yea it would help but be sure to consider that you only get a limited # of slots in inventory - by adding this earring for your D build you lose out on another piece in another build. You have to weigh the benefits you lose vs. the benefits you gain. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

khoisan wrote: Mar. 8th, 2007 03:35 pm (UTC) CoP Earring I know you must have answered this question countless times but here goes. BLM is my first mage job, so most of the rare/ex gear is for melee. I still haven't gotten my earring because I'm on the fence. The melee earring is alright, but not amazing and I figured I'd get one for BLM, which leaves me between Magnetic and Static. I've been getting exp solo/duo up to 73 so the idea of conserve MP seems nice to save me some MP and help push for higher chains. The extra MB damage also seems good, but how often does a 75 BLM actually get to MB? The only real mob we SC + MB is faffy, and maybe the odd BCNM type. Seems like the majority of times the BLM just nuke solo. If that's the case wouldn't the conserve MP be more useful than the MB bonus? Thanks. Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Mar. 8th, 2007 11:21 pm (UTC) Re: CoP Earring Think about this in terms of trade-offs. Equipping a CoP earring requires you to get rid of one of the earrings you would have worn instead. The fact that you rarely SC means you probably shouldn't get Static. Also if by some chance you ever get Novio Earring, you pretty much have to ditch Static altogether. This brings things to Magnetic. I picked Magnetic and it sits in storage now. First off, conserve MP is not very useful as a statistic based on some previous testing. It is a marginal increase. So what equip set would you actually use Magnetic? Would the benefits from this switch in earrings be worthy of an inventory slot? For me, I used to use Magnetic + other earring depending on situation, but eventually went with Loquacious + other. Loquacious has 10 more MP, but that's pretty small. So it basically came down to Conserve MP vs. Fast Cast. I generally always opt for speed stats if possible so I went with the fast cast (helps recast timers as well).

Magnetic is a very good all around earring - however, a BLM gets to switch as often as needed so it's not about being good all around, but being good for specific situations. It pretty much makes this earring good overall, not great at anything in particular, which is why I no longer use it. I would consider ethereal as being a good all around earring is actually useful for a tank because tanks are generally asked not to switch equip all the time. My advice is don't get either. If you don't like ethereal then just don't finish the quest. Neither mage earring is going to help you due to the other earring options on BLM in my opinion. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand Re: CoP Earring khoisan - Mar. 9th, 2007 12:24 am (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: Mar. 17th, 2007 07:45 pm (UTC) Question, I notice you use 2 different equip set changes in your macros. I'm curious what you use for determining the timing on when to make the equip switchs. Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Mar. 17th, 2007 08:22 pm (UTC) They are both the same thing but 1 contains switches for JP version other for NA version. Every other line in the macros outside the .txt file use the auto-translate version of the item so it's compatible both ways already, but the .txt files cannot do that so I had to make 2. As far as timing there are really only 2 things - before cast and after cast. The only big thing I can think of where this comes into play is fastcast/haste gear and how it affects /recast and casting speed. Also equipping before the spell causes a lag on your spell cast so that is why I will 99% of the time equip after the cast. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Mar. 27th, 2007 04:07 pm (UTC) Kimiko from Siren again, another quick question for you. In terms of switching over to your standing config, do you use a seperate macro for that switch, or have you tried to intergrate that into your regular casting macros (ie: have the macro automatically switch you to default config after the casting is complete?) Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Mar. 28th, 2007 12:09 am (UTC) Seperate Macro. Contains not only the equip switches to get back into standing, but also a /recast "stun". Mine happens to be ALT+5. The 5 key is like noticably more worn out than the others just because I press it so much. All the casting macros have their own gear sets. I cannot automatically have them switched back because many of them only partially complete the correct final setup on the cast. For instance, certain spells need adjusted gear depending on the situation (eg. if you want to use Sorc Ring, day/weather, etc.), so what I'll do is have a gear set for "normal" nukes macro'd to Thunder4, then a day/weather set to Thunder3. If you want to nuke say T4 in day/weather, you simply press T4 macro > T3 macro in succession. The T3 cast gets bypassed because you're already casting T4. If I had auto-switch back to standing, this would not be possible.

Another reason it's not that good an idea to auto-switch is if you want to "blink" during the nuke to bypass casting animation. This requires specific timing dependent on the casting time. Auto-switching will prevent you from doing this, especially on long cast spells. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand Another question - (Anonymous) - Apr. 11th, 2007 09:23 pm (UTC) Expand Re: Another question kanican - Apr. 11th, 2007 11:18 pm (UTC) Expand Re: Another question - (Anonymous) - Apr. 12th, 2007 12:51 am (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: May. 24th, 2007 10:12 pm (UTC) Windower (honest question... not a flame) I realize this reply is really late, but I just came across this post, linked from the more recent parts of your BLM guide. And just to note, I'm not against Windower, just a bit jealous that I can't use it on consoles ; ; A few comments up, you mentioned that you played without distance plugin for years, and then once you started using it, you had solo'd Kings Limbus w/in a month. Can you describe how much this plugin really helps? Did you mean that in the 1st month of having this plugin, you're play improved dramatically, to the point that you could now do a solo that you simply couldn't do before? I'm not even to the point where I would attempt a solo like this yet, but in the future, it'd be fun to try. The thing is, I'll never have distance plugin (PS2 for years, now 360). I've seen videos of BLM soloing Kings, and was amazed that the targeted mob almost never appeared on-screen because they always knew exactly where they were due to the distance reading. It is certainly an added distraction having to constantly manipulate the camera to watch WHERE you're running, and how far you are from the mob. Would you say these kinds of solos are significantly harder w/o distance plugin? Or is it just a minor enhancement? Earlier, you made it sound ground-breaking, which would sadden me, since I'll never have it. Link | Reply | Thread | Expand

kanican wrote: May. 25th, 2007 07:11 pm (UTC) Re: Windower (honest question... not a flame) Windower Distance Plugin is broken. I cannot overstate the significance of this plugin in my particular case. It is true in that I played BLM for a long time on windower without using the plugin, and I was still able to run some semi-impressive solos (Ix'MNK, Brothers, ODS long before distance to site some examples). However, none of these solos can even compare to the difficulty seen in Apollyon NW with the incredible damage her hit, mob movement speed, and time factor. I have no doubt I could not solo NW w/o distance plug in at this time - I would probably only be able to kill all 3 NQ Behemoth like I did before distance. The reason this I say this is such a powerful thing is that, as you stated, you don't have to constantly pan your camera to tell what the mob is doing as it chases you. By simply looking at this little number, I can tell exactly if the mob is maintaining its pursuit, got caught on an obstacle, stopped, etc. Knowing what the mob is doing EXACTLY, all the time, is the key to hard solos, as you can react to more things with more information. Gaining this valuable information on the fly is just so much faster with distance access.

Some common examples of this can be found just on the 5th floor of Apollyon NW. On NQ behemoths, they move extremely fast and you MUST maintain the highest distance possible while still being able to cast. This is really really hard to tell w/o distance because the mob is so large and you cannot judge with the eye. The plugin allows you to easier maintain max distance - a key to hard solos. On the KB fight, I don't even need to pan my camera ever. I just look at the little number, focus on timing how long it's been since last meteor attempt, and go from there. Not having to pan the camera lets me focus purely on the strategy of the fight and maximizes the potential advantage terrain can give me. The reason I say this plugin helps so much is partially this; however, also consider that the time and focus you saved not having to pan the camera can now be used to do something else. Many players will just use distance to be lazy and it makes adjusting easier; however, I use the time and focus I save with distance to focus on other things that require pin-point attention, such as the "blink casting" strategy. Such a strategy is already hard enough just focusing on that alone - it would require incredible skill to use this strategy while constantly checking on the movement of your enemy as well. I would say that HARD solos are significantly harder w/o distance because I cannot both pan my camera and use high-level soloing strategies at the same time without messing up (requires too much focus on too many things). Easier things (I would consider anything Ix'MNK solo or easier to be "easy") I could honestly play nearly as well without it as I do not need to use high end strategy to win those solos. Someone like an Avesta is what I would consider a true soloing 'master' in this game as he can do it entirely without extended macros or distance. By beating Apollyon NW on my BLM, the only 3 things I have proved/emphasized really are 1) Herald's Gaiters are really good, 2) distance plugin's ability to let the user maximize terrain advantage is overpowered 3) I'm a reasonably good soloer. This is my honest take on things. If SE ever went to its own windower I would switch over and adjust from there; but as of now I'm keeping distance like everyone else does. I know that's really not what you wanted to hear, but that's my honest take on it. PS: PS2 can do cheesy things PC can't so you can theorically take advantage of those if you knew them. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand Re: Windower (honest question... not a flame) - (Anonymous) - Sep. 12th, 2007 10:24 pm (UTC) Expand Re: Windower (honest question... not a flame) kanican - May. 25th, 2007 07:23 pm (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: Jan. 22nd, 2009 08:10 pm (UTC) Safety of /console exec Sorry to necro-comment this post, but this is something I had wondered about and apparently came to an incorrect understanding of in the past. Also I saw you mention somewhere that you get email spammed any time anybody comments, so I figure you'll see this. I always thought that use of windower macro execution via "/console exec *.txt" was trackable by SE since you're technically inputting a command into the chatbox that isn't an actual command in the normal ffxi client. I play the game on PC using a wireless controller (because I like the feel of it better than playing with a keyboard) and would really like to take advantage of extended macros for all of my spells - I just always thought I was risking the banhammer if i did this. Am I safe to? Currently I use a handful of keyboard binds for things that I definitely want a lot of equipment macro'd in for (resting, standing, etc) but I'm still doing the 2-macro shuffle on enfeebs and nukes and hating it. Thanks in advance for your reply! ^^b Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote:

Jan. 26th, 2009 05:30 am (UTC) Questions on Ix'mnk Herro there, Vysey of Seraph here. Thanks for your guides. I've done a lot after seeing your guides, including soloing KB and Ix'mnk. :D Just a funny question about ix'mnk. One involves hate and the other involves the fight itself. 1) A friend and I went to go duo ix'mnk. Basically, I popped a hermes quencher. I ran to the room right before the ebon panel room. I die. Stuff depops and aerns turn around and head down the hall. Friend stuns ix'mnk. Adds behind ix'mnk turn around and attack her. We weren't in party for this either. Have any idea what causes this? I managed to put RR on and get the adds off of her, but still annoying.

2) As for soloing ix'mnk himself, I kited him around the whole room with gaiters and casted bio whenever it needed to be casted. I found that when I casted drain, he would catch up to me 9 times out of time. Is there a special place to cast it? I casted in the corner of the room, but I'm just not sure. It ended up taking me an hour and 15 mins to kill him, which seemed a bit long. Thanks! Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 17th, 2009 05:26 pm (UTC) Re: Questions on Ix'mnk It paths horribly if you cross the bumps at the top and bottom of the little ramps. Best place to cast Drain is on the ramp then kite over the middle section. I personally solo this rdm/nin and manage to get off tier 3 nukes, have no Cuisses either.

Lack of Updates? Really sorry I haven't updated in a while. Real life has been increasingly hectic for me and some recent BG worthy drama has really plagued the NA side of TK over the last few weeks. Without going into too much detail, I will say the best time to judge the strength any group or linkshell is when shit hits the fan. When you are winning, it tends to mask all your problems - it's when progress isn't being made, or perhaps the success halts, that you really start to see how your group is. This being said, I think the problems we have faced recently were largely unpreventable. It wasn't a matter of item distribution drama, points, or anything trivial like that - but about 'love'. While I personally believe an 'online relationship' is weird and fantasy, I also believe that everyone has the right to pursue his or her own happiness in whatever way he or she finds fitting. While the timing and circumstances of what occurred weren't the best, in the end, there is nothing one can really do about this, I think. When the dusts finally settles, 2 or 3 members will be gone - a particularly crippling result considering the size of the group. Salvage has all but halted and even something as simple as Limbus we struggle to maintain. I guess you could say things are pretty 'tough', although I know many would still find our position to be pretty good. It is probably best to note that despite all the troubles, it only concerns the small NA portion of TK - in this regard I am almost glad a language barrier exists between most of the members on both sides, as it limits the damage that can be caused. If there is anything to learn from what has happened for me, it is that this is just a game, but there are real people behind the characters. Jealousy, love, vindictiveness - these are things that sound really weird to talk about in regards to a fake online world, but there are people behind the characters. I honestly do wish everyone affected the best in whatever or, in some cases, whomever they choose to pursue, whether they remain or have left TK. This being said, I'll try to do some filler posts regarding BLM while nothing new is being done. The number of events has fallen quite a bit - partially due to the drama above, but also because the LS as a whole has stopped doing certain NMs such as Fafnir - we actually ran out of people wanting Ridill (main job and hobby jobs...Never thought it was possible but seriously no one wants one) so we've stopped (19 Ridills in about 2 years). Similar things for other kinds of NMs as well. This is really a great thing but we have to figure out how to adjust to new needs. Hopefully some new content will help fill the void soon. I admit this post isn't as good as most of the others. I'll try to do better next time. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Overview There are a lot of ways to play a Black Mage. I think a lot of 'career' Black Mages really fail to realize this fact and get too caught up in their own personal style. You really start to get this feeling after viewing some of the popular BLM forums, or just the fact that almost any endgame post can potentially be derailed with 2 of these 'career' BLMs butt heads over some small detail. Before I get any "you're a retarded BLM this is how you do it" PMs or replies, I just want to stress this is how I happen to play BLM. This style has it's strong points and admittedly it's weaknesses as well. I personally think this style works really well in just about any situations, but I will admit it's not perfect and there are always trade offs (usually regarding the choice of /RDM over /WHM).

(Apollyon NW - Kaiser Behemoth Solo) The main premise behind the style is that it focuses purely on solo aspect of a BLM - the ability to do anything by yourself. When put in a small group, or even a large alliance, the playstyle extends from this idea of being able to do anything solo, or with as little help as possible. In this post, I will try to go over some common BLM playstyles I see or hear about and attempt to argue the flaws behind each argument. I guess the pics will be scattered and random pics of me on BLM? Really don't have anything specific to screenshot.

Black Mage Guide (Part I) Black Mage Guide (Part III) Black Mage Guide (Part IV) Black Mage Guide (Part V) Black Mage Guide (Part VI) Black Mage Guide! __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Enmity - Black Mage as a "Glass Cannon" This would be the catagory I used to be in back in the day. The concept behind this is that BLM (especially Taru) gets destroyed by anything in endgame in 1-3 hits; therefore it is essential that a BLM learns to control his hate to remain below the level maintained by his tanks. The ability to stack enmity gear ultimately increases your damage output due to the fact that you can get more nukes off before reaching this hate level and having to stop. This idea is most noticable at something like Fafnir. This 'style' of BLM would in theory do more damage than a BLM that does not stack enmity because when fighting Fafnir, the limiting factor to a Black Mage's damage output is usually hate, not MP or resists. In this style, enmity plays a large role in equipment decisions - for most not to the point where they would say give up 50 damage for 2-3 enmity, but it is a big consideration in gear choice. Perhaps the greatest difference is not the gear, but the actual method in which a BLM doing this is played. The #1 goal is to dish the most damage WITHOUT taking hate in this style. All the gear choices and fight-time decisions are played

towards this 1 goal. Taking hate is generally considered playing "badly" or messing up.

(Running Dynamis Glacier Eye Route - First pick with no damage down set, Second with partial) __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Great Concept, but Slightly Flawed Logic Th original reasoning behind the idea that a Black Mage should not get hit is that it is assumed that a BLM cannot survive any extended period of time with hate on an HNM. WIth the introduction of a few key items, however, this is actually no longer true. A well equipped and prepared BLM can survive due to a very good damage reduction set (which is cheap and readily available nowadays) and Herald's Gaiters for potential kiting when safe to do so. It is the introduction of these few key items - Terra's Staff, Umbra Cape, Sorcerer's Earring, Herald Gaiters (especially) - that really led to the ability to change playstyles from the old "Glass Cannon" methodology to this more "reckless" style. Black Mage (excluding support duties for a minute) is ultimately about the ability to do as well as possible on offense without dying or causing too much issue for the rest of the support. These items, when equipped properly, give more leeway as to how much a Black Mage can do - essentially by greatly increasing the 'defensive' capabilities of the Black Mage, it is allowed to perform even better on offense.

(Me AFKing in a bad spot in Valley and dying - shows how strong a damage down set can be - DC mob)

So If This Style Isn't the Best, What Is? In my opinion, the biggest key is every action or situation has 1 best stat to max. If you are standing around not doing anything, the best stat to max is physical damage down or run speed; if you are nuking, the best stat to max is damage. There is no "mixing" or "balance" to this at all. If you are nuking, you don't need to be wearing an Umbra Cape. If you are standing around, you don't need to be wearing a Novio Earring. By only stacking the most important stat in every possible action or situation, your Black Mage is the absolute strongest it can possbily be in any situation, IF you are fluid enough to switch well.

The idea behind ditching the "glass cannon" method of playing Black Mage is only one small change a part of a greater strategy - involving the the idea of a highly defensive "standing setup" to increase your survivability. In essence, you are stacking 1 stat (well 2 if you have Gaiters) that is most needed in a particular situation. It happens to be a situation you will be in 99% of the time in game, making it incredibly important, but it is only 1 situation out of many.

(Couple more Low damage Screenshots) Regardless of what situation you are in or action you wish to perform, always ask yourself What is the #1 goal of this action and how can it best be improved by equipment? Don't look for "good all around items", but look for items that max out what you want for a particular action. Balanced items suck - items that are the best for a particular situation are best. You can only perform 1 action at a time, so you need to always have on what is best for that particular situation. All around good items are only useful if you are lazy and do not switch gear. Good Examples of "Lazy" or "Balanced" Gear: Magnetic Earring Serene Ring Igqira/Genie Hands Good Examples of Common "Lazy" Actions: Nuking in any form of refresh gear other than Morrigan Body Standing in any body piece that does not have refresh Not standing around in Earth/Terra's Staff __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Solo Play and Not Relying on Others The general mindset for this style is not to expect any help. The ability to do everything without the aid of others just makes it easier when you actually do get support. Because of this fact, the ability to solo plays a huge role on your ability to perform in a team envirnment. I would say that in order to perform very well in a team situation as a Black Mage, you basically have to learn how to solo. Basic skills like Kiting, fluidly pulling off macro switches, etc. you really don't learn that well in team play and there is much less pressure on you to do it correctly as others are there to help.

(Run of the mill chain 5 pudding shot - really common for any BLM with decent equip and taru) Given the vast number of support tools BLM was given - 4 sleeps, stun, pretty good enfeebling skill, good enhancing skill and spells, and cure - in order to be a "good" BLM I really don't see how it's possible for you not to know how to solo. Not being able to do so just shows a lack of understanding of how to use all the possible tools available.

Examples of How Overpowered this Style Can be Really the key thing to focus on is the fact that this style allows a Black Mage to do certain things other styles cannot. The most recent example I can give refers to our Bhaflau Remnants Long-Bowed Chariot Strategy involving BLM kites. The use of Herald Gaiters, good kiting technique, and generally good BLM soloers allows this strategy to work for us when a lot of others groups who have asked me for me tips on this can't seem to pull through. Granted, there are other methods which can do this boss with almost as few members (http://lordwafik.livejournal.com/23680.html for a low-man strategy that does not involve Herald Gaiters abuse), it is just one example of how this can be effective. There is really very little team work involved in this strategy - it's really just 3 BLMs solo kiting a mob in turns.

(Couple of old LBC screenshots - really struggled first couple times) Sea also offers a lot of good situations to highlight the strength of the defensive style. Just about everything in sea can be done either solo or by a small group of BLMs (with some notable exceptions like Fortitiude). The style really is at its best when you are allowed to kite, which is the case for just about everything in the region. All three Ix'Aerns can be soloed or duo'd, you can basically pop and hold Temperance solo, and Hope/Prudence can basically be ganked using BLM Kite (this is how we happen to do it). In these team situations where the tank is completely taken out of the equation, the added survivability for each BLM add a certain degree of error that you can get away with.

(First Ix'MNK Solo - 23 minutes)

Conclusions

I realize that this post had a lot of scattered thoughts and really doesn't go into a great deal of detail as far as how everything is pulled off. I've been trying to write my ideas in posts then going back and putting them into the guide I have outlined in "tags". My point of writing this was really to sell the idea to others and to try it out. I would really appreciate feedback and love tossing ideas back and forth when it comes to BLM play. I'll try to go into more detail next time. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Pic of the Day

Senrez dreaming about Natalie Portman while tanking Tiamat.

Drama Thread of the Day http://fatkatlb.livejournal.com/ One of my oldest in game friends, and fellow drama whore, has decided to start a LJ. Fatkat is an original member of LimitBreak, the oldest NA HNM LS on Odin and the guys that farmed AV. I think it'll be an interesting read for anyone interested in old school Odin drama and HNM. Also, I don't know if he plans to post any RNG info, but he's also the best RNG on Odin hands down.

__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Tags:

solo!

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aesthetik_dekay wrote: May. 9th, 2007 11:14 am (UTC) 760 exp... Link | Reply | Thread

sassiasura.myopenid.com wrote: May. 9th, 2007 12:52 pm (UTC) Interesting post. Keep up the good work. Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 9th, 2007 03:49 pm (UTC) Drama aside, now that you've had a good chance to use the Morrigan's Robe, how would you compare it with the likes of Genie Weskit? Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: May. 10th, 2007 12:12 am (UTC) Morrigan wins easily - not even close. I keep Genie for Elemental Magic set currently but still debating whether it's worth keeping ust for Elemental Skill set. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

khoisan wrote: May. 9th, 2007 04:24 pm (UTC)

I used your standing equipment list and its saved me so many times. I actually added jelly ring to the mix to get -25% damage reduction at 100% HP and -50% when JSE earring kicks in. Jelly does have added magic damage but with whm sub we get some MDB, plus I might use the merman's ring from my NIN to get rid of it. I lose some max MP but I've seen other BLMs go down pretty quickly when an unexpected aoe hits, or they take too much hate. Go go Part III Link | Reply | Thread

calipso_odin wrote: May. 9th, 2007 04:43 pm (UTC) wow.. honestly have to say it's a little appalling that you'd post something so blatantly private (and 90% untrue) on your lj for thousands of people to read... but considering the last couple weeks i can't say a lot really surprises me anymore. i have no clue what 'love' this is you're talking about or if that's even aimed at me, or how you could even possibly know what's in my heart, but the only person that i have loved or will love for a very long time is lag (who was my rl boyfriend for all you dramawhores out there). also think it's kinda cute that you make it sound like i left tk by choice :p i loved it there and wouldn't have given it up for the world.. you got a lot to learn about life, kiddo, especially before you decide to judge someone on things that you haven't even experienced before, heh. (lesson 1: assumption is the mother of all fuckups..) Link | Reply | Thread | Expand

johyo wrote: May. 9th, 2007 11:06 pm (UTC) Re: wow.. LOL @ you acting like its not about you..... I'm not in TK and I know its about you......... Kaeko chose to spare you from the thousands that read his LJ and only a select few on Odin would know its about you. But instead of just letting it go you do the following... "UHHH this is about me isn't it?" You just wanted everyone to know its about you and draw attention.

Well gratz you did a good job Link | Reply | Parent | Thread Re: wow.. kanican - May. 10th, 2007 12:08 am (UTC) Expand Re: wow.. tk_demetrius - May. 10th, 2007 02:31 am (UTC) Expand Re: wow.. kanican - May. 10th, 2007 02:54 am (UTC) Expand Re: wow.. - (Anonymous) - May. 10th, 2007 03:32 am (UTC) Expand Re: wow.. - (Anonymous) - May. 10th, 2007 03:47 am (UTC) Expand

sylphet wrote: May. 9th, 2007 08:35 pm (UTC) Nice update! I've seen a lot of BLMs in my shell switch from preferring /NIN to /RDM + defense gear for survivability. I was particularly inpressed when I saw how effective it was on LBC. Although I have 75 BLM it rarely sees the light of day due to my other jobs. :( Once again though, being able to pull this off is very dependent upon Windower use. I don't even want to think about how gimped I'd feel if that got taken away. Feel bad for the PS2 people. Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: May. 10th, 2007 12:22 am (UTC) I think that's one of the biggest knocks I've gotten on this style - the fact that it's incredibly dependent on Windower Macros and essentially impossible for PS2 players. Makes you really wonder how Avesta can do what he does all on a PS2. /RDM for LBC orginally was just because I didn't have a 37 NIN to sub so I just went in as a 'gimped' /RDM. Using tacos helps a ton in addition to that defense set for whatever reason dealing with the damage formulae (I believe someone in your group came up with that idea actually - it works wonders). Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

rukenshin wrote: May. 9th, 2007 10:00 pm (UTC) This actually is very similar to what I've been advocating for a while with regards to all my sets of gear on NIN. People will always critisize/argue differently though, just the way the world turns! Like, I see no point in tanking in damage reduction gear when you could wear other gear (more enmity or what have you) and macro the defense gear before taking damage in most situations, as it's usually something you can easily anticipate. As great as stuff like defending/shadow ring and mantle are, what good does it serve you

when you're not taking damage? It doesn't help you tank and it doesn't help you generate more enmity, so why not wear something that does? Very similar to what you said about 'maxing out items for a particular action rather than trying to balance/etc.' Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: May. 10th, 2007 03:12 am (UTC) I think it's a concept you could definately apply to any number of jobs (especially flexible ones like BLM, NIN, RDM, etc.). I do wonder how you get the space to hold so many sets on NIN, especially if you are also required to take something like fire resist gear. A huge issue I run into later on when I use this idea is inventory space - it's really hard to manage as there are never enough spaces as you would like. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand (no subject) rukenshin - May. 10th, 2007 04:31 am (UTC) Expand

kenshiin wrote: May. 10th, 2007 02:11 am (UTC) What activates the latent on the earring? Link | Reply | Thread | Expand

kanican wrote: May. 10th, 2007 03:01 am (UTC) It's either orange or red HP - honestly not too sure. Maybe someone else could say? It's usually most useful when being ganged by a bunch of weaker mobs. A lot of really strong mobs do too much to make it useful, but when you're trying to hold multiple mobs with sleeps it really helps a lot I think. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand (no subject) fatkatlb - May. 10th, 2007 04:13 am (UTC) Expand (no subject) iresire - May. 10th, 2007 07:47 am (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: May. 10th, 2007 04:22 pm (UTC) that's certainly a disorganised post because it's not complete, i guess once it's edited into a larger frame-work it will look better^^ anyway, "There are a lot of ways to play a Black Mage.", i'd have to say i disagree with this (and parts of the paragraph following it), when you are nuking some unfortuneate mob, no blm is going to disagree about casting from a select few spells, when you are soloing it's either gravity, bind or sleep to prevent the mob attacking, and dot or straight nuking for your dmg, depends on the mob - but never on the blm, you either do it a limited

number of ways (to drain or not to drain!), or die horribly. someone who can't solo on their blm because it's a 'glass cannon' probably aren't familiar with the contempt that def and vit are held in, (though not shield skill, utsusemi and hp), maybe they don't cast phalanx stoneskin blink and have the full range of sleeps, gravity, stun and bind on their main macro set? so i think - there are two ways to play blm, and most other jobs, correctly by adapting to every situation, or gimp. the one weakness you could be accused of having is never changing your inventory, that would be a strong criticism if you lost a significant amount of utility, balanced against the ps2 limited rate at which items can be extracted from locker/safe i would say your choice is reasonable for someone who has 1 job, if you had 2 then there'd be less reason not to take out event specific equipment on job change. there was some reason to use /whm? erase(medicine) teleport (d1escapeoutpostetc), i don't see it. oh wait curaga! because you never know when it might help, obviously not when soloing or in a group large enough to have an actual healer -_/nin though is something you might be more tempted to try if you didn't have gaiters, get a ls brd to pl you to 37 if it's the dunes which are putting you off. -mikazuki Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: May. 11th, 2007 04:27 am (UTC) Definately would not use /NIN. This style is all about fluidity (is that a word?) and speed - run speed, casting speed, recovery speed, recast speed, etc. /RDM sub offers fast cast which is quite noticable, in addition to gravity, an invaluable solo/holding tool. /WHM always has its uses. I generally go /RDM but if I know /WHM will be better I will not hesistate to switch. Sometimes you really need -na help or there are just situations that play to this style's weaknesses and it's best to revert back to the more typical support style (which /WHM is clearly better at). As far as not switching equip, you may lose little things like HMP2 or something like that but you basically don't lose all that much. I just personally find inventory switching to be annoying (especially in whitegate) so I avoid it. Obviously you can inventory switch and it would enhance your play a bit - I personally don't like it and it raises the chance you get caught with your pants down at some event and you don't have the right gear. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand (no subject) - (Anonymous) - May. 11th, 2007 09:34 am (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: May. 10th, 2007 08:45 pm (UTC) blm guide comments - cdgreg First off im too lazy to create an openid and dont have a livejournal user account but on odin im Cdgreg. Anyways, i came to check out your LJ since i heard tk was no longer gunning for faf and orionsdoor has recently dipped their hand into the kings realm and i ran into your blm guide II. Admittingly, I have not read chapter or version I but I must say its some good advice for those who care enough to put an effort into a serious endgame blm. I've written some solo guides and showed some of our blms how to effectively solo and macro gear sets to be smooth and effective.

You are dead right with the statement "By only stacking the most important stat in every possible action or situation, your Black Mage is the absolute strongest it can possibly be in any situation, IF you are fluid enough to switch well." I'm a "career blm" with full merits including lolstaff and I must say one of the biggest differences I have seen going along with your quote is the small effort of stacking -emnity gear in your curing and dark magic macros (especially stun) in slots where +skill gear is not available. Im not logged in game right now (since Im taking a little break after 22 more nq mitt synths totaling 0/119 last night on cursed mitts and seeing your lsmate dio go 1/1 with another set of mitts -1 lol) but off the top of my head my curing macro with merits has something like -28 emnity in it and makes a HUGE difference in long fights where blms are helping to cure, dot/enfeeb, etc (as they should be anyways). Most players do not realize that those cure IIIs, stuns, aspirs, and drains really add up and its not only the big MBs that compile the emnity. It's not uncommon for me to MB/nuke for a great deal more than another lsmember and they end up pulling hate. Sooo, yes please stack gear anytime possible, use all of the slots! I'd love to carry a haste set for stuns in certain situations but man 60 slots just isnt enough for a decent endgame blm! In the case of pulling hate which at times happens it's shocking how many blms do not have an "oh crap" macro with a reduction dmg set (even just a earth staff + sorcerer's earring can suffice). I can not count the number of times Ive moved my macro set up once and hit alt 9 and survived only because of the dmg reduction set. (might as well throw yigit set or black cloak in this macro also for refresh while kiting, done after every nuke on ix'mnk or drk) Any blm who doesnt do this is simply too lazy to create a macro with a few lines of gear. On your topic of soloing creating a more effective all around blm you can not be anymore right. Its not uncommon in dynamis, limbus, or other situations to be dealing with links/more than one mob. A blm who is proficient at quickly getting to his/her macros and have the appropriate gear equipped can mean the difference between a bound hecteye/fomor or a dead blm and carnage ensuing. I honestly dont understand why a serious endgame blm would not solo. Even beginning soloers can carve out 5-6k an hour with experienced blms with top end gear knocking out 8-10k an hour at an empty pudding camp. Blms proficient in soloing tend to take more care of their gear sets, do not get caught off guard, and therefore can react much faster in a group situation saving their own lives and that of their lsmates. btw i have a limit 5 760 exp in my normal message boards sig lol, its my record also. if youre ever bored in game (god knows I am, tele-taxiing for cursed mitt synth gil) drop me a tell I'd love to chat about blm strategies especially unique accomplishments such as solo ix'mnk (I'm curious about the pull, if you carefully avoided links or died rr'd and reclaimed after links disappeared). gl with your blm and leave tiamat alone for awhile so we can get some gaiters! Link | Reply | Thread | Expand (Anonymous) wrote: May. 10th, 2007 09:11 pm (UTC) Re: blm guide comments - cdgreg Meh, -Enmity is poop. BLMs will get hate. Ours tend to take less than most because we have some exceptional tanks. But it will happen. So you play it smart and learn how to deal with it, instead of continuing to nuke, and playing the nuke/die/rest game I've seen some BLMs do on things like Faf. So inefficient. I'd rather put in Fast Cast and Haste on Stun for shorter recast times. Ashi P.S. We haven't really camped Tiamat much for about 2 months, keep up. ;P Link | Reply | Parent | Thread Re: blm guide comments - cdgreg kanican - May. 11th, 2007 04:19 am (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: May. 10th, 2007 09:47 pm (UTC) Who the fuck is Cdgreg?

Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 10th, 2007 10:36 pm (UTC) cdgreg one of the top blms on odin incase you havent noticed =p Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand Re: cdgreg - (Anonymous) - May. 11th, 2007 01:47 am (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: May. 10th, 2007 10:50 pm (UTC) well you are certainly dropping novels on this topic like you were a top blm, actions speak louder than words, anyone can say they have this and that. sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken. Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 11th, 2007 01:33 am (UTC) cdgreg you are pretty shit at blm cdgreg Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 11th, 2007 01:56 am (UTC) Re: cdgreg 100% agree with the above poster Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 11th, 2007 07:23 am (UTC) well ok well ok apparently this topic changed from a decent topic on endgame blm to a BG drama thread. I consider myself one of the top blms on odin; gear wise yes, skill wise yes, knowledge wise yes. I do not spend 12 hours a day in dragons aery, valley of sorrows or behemoths domain so if that drops me a level then so be it youre entitled to your own opinion. Yes sir you are right omg I claimed darters a week or so ago, Im new to claiming kings (I thoroughly enjoy the challenge) and I made a mistake trying to physically click on faf, omg. None the less, if youd like to compare gear sets, solo next to each other, or compare abilities in party/alliance situations Id love to. Im always willing to learn and pass on blm knowledge. please drop me a tell, cdgreg Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 11th, 2007 07:24 am (UTC) btw please stop posting anon, if you post a challenge or make comments you might as well post your ingame name what do you have to hide? Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 11th, 2007 07:27 am (UTC) my apologies, the above post was mine (cdgreg) I'm sorry, in my above post when I said please stop posting anon I forgot to mention I (cdgreg) was replying. Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 11th, 2007 08:36 am (UTC) good times great music -Payu Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand (no subject) - (Anonymous) - May. 11th, 2007 01:19 pm (UTC) Expand

(no subject) - (Anonymous) - May. 11th, 2007 02:08 pm (UTC) Expand (no subject) - (Anonymous) - May. 11th, 2007 02:09 pm (UTC) Expand (no subject) - (Anonymous) - May. 11th, 2007 02:43 pm (UTC) Expand (no subject) kanican - May. 11th, 2007 04:20 pm (UTC) Expand (no subject) - (Anonymous) - May. 11th, 2007 02:11 pm (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: May. 11th, 2007 04:22 pm (UTC) Second impression hopefully better than the first Ahh if I came off condescending I humbly apologize that was not my intention at all. To be honest the reason I asked about the JOL thing was because I was the first in our LS to earn a novio drop and I was trying to get an estimate of the current number on Odin. You know, the less on the server = more e-peen lol. So I assumed if you all had concentrated on sea in the past you may have a few in the LS. I do not know the history of TK so I do not know if it started as a sky/sea and evolved or what. I do not remember grilling him about his gear, I know he has top end gear and the only time I remember /telling him about his gear was after he had the first Morrigans robe on Odin and I wanted to congratulate him and was curious about his impressions of Morrigans vs. Genie damage wise. Im not the kind of person to grill a person on their gear; however I am the kind of person to discuss different gear sets to maximize performance. So once again if my tone came across condescending then that was not my intention and I am sorry. I would love to push my blm to the limits that kaeko has and work my tail off to accomplish this. I have painfully duod ixmnk and the solo picture intrigues me which is why I mentioned I was curious about the pull. The concern about faf is because were starting/trying to get into kings and although your ls does not camp with a large number like you mentioned you do get plenty of claims. The week before the emergency maintenance when we were there testing the waters I saw you all get something like 2 or 3 out of the NQs in one cycle which is quite impressive. So mainly the reason my ls cares is because it means more possible claims for us and this possibility will hopefully motivate our shell members. Kings is a new realm which Ashira you are absolutely right im a noob in. Although the windows suck it is a new rush which the game seriously lacks after the repetitious farmings and popping of mobs. Hope the second impression is better than the first which came off wrong! -cdgreg Link | Reply | Thread | Expand

kanican wrote: May. 11th, 2007 04:45 pm (UTC) Re: Second impression hopefully better than the first No LS on Odin bots hard - probably some random people in some groups do but I'm pretty sure no group outright bots outside of RMT. Generally statistics say its pretty even based on #s, so new groups won't get owned too hard at the start because of some unfair kind of advantage. I will say new LSs generally suck at pulling because a lot of the members either don't know how to claim (lowering settings, where it pops, to use menu or not?, etc.), or more often then not, a good portion at the camp does not even attempt to pull. I get a lot of checks during the spawn windows - usually by newer LSs obviously your #s won't help if half of them aren't trying.

Also HNM claiming is all about probability and statistics. I've seen LB claim 5-6 kings in a row followed by BBQ doing the same (admittedly half the Aspis were free). In the end it really did all even out after taking roughly 15 months of data - it's tempting to think 1 group is super good at pulling or BOTs after seeing them go on a streak, but it really does even out, at least on this server. I originally kept the data in order to prove certain LSs BOT, but the data said otherwise after I got enough to make a real statistical determination (if they do BOT it doesn't have statistical significance on group claim rate so it's a bad BOT). Regarding Ix'MNK solo - you need to be some Avesta-like soloing god or abuse Run Speed equipment to pull off a solo in reasonable time (30ish minutes or less)and safely. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand Re: Second impression hopefully better than the first - (Anonymous) - May. 11th, 2007 06:11 pm (UTC) Expand Re: Second impression hopefully better than the first - fatkatlb - May. 12th, 2007 03:26 am (UTC) Expand Re: Second impression hopefully better than the first - (Anonymous) - May. 11th, 2007 05:26 pm (UTC) Expand Re: Second impression hopefully better than the first - (Anonymous) - May. 11th, 2007 05:27 pm (UTC) Expand lordwafik wrote: May. 12th, 2007 12:59 pm (UTC) /crai, sometimes I wish I didn't have 4 jobs to hold gear for, then I could be a "Career " and have all those gear sets, that's another thing that can stop people from being able to accomplish things. I try to get "multi job gear" when I can, like BLM and RDM, a large portion of those jobs can trade gears fine, THF and BST aswell. Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: May. 12th, 2007 06:50 pm (UTC) I definately write this assuming you have more than enough storage space. I think right now I have about 20-25 slots full of just HQ Sea Organs so I'm definately not hurting on space. I guess 'balancing' stats on gear can play a huge roll if you have to juggle multiple jobs - honestly I didn't even consider this point. I think as far as accomplishments, a group really needs more than 1 type of player. You can't be all that successful with a bunch of "career" XXX jobs usually as you have almost 0 flexibility that way - it usually takes some players with multiple jobs that adjust to everyone else. I think those kinds of players are a lot more vital to success than someone like me with only 1 job and no flexibility. Soloing is really all just repetition and being fluid (and I guess good gear) - generally there is very little strategy involved in any solo attempt. It's nothing compared to coordinating between 6-12-18-18+ people. The best accomplishments in game are group oriented, at least for me. Soloing stuff is nice but the overall scope of what you can accomplish is really small compared to the kinds of things you can do in a team environment. I like to think of soloing as just sort of a requirement to being a better team player, not anything I would pay a all that much attention to. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread skurlover wrote: May. 13th, 2007 06:06 am (UTC) Keep up the goodwork!

Thanks for finally updating your LJ! *sheesh* Read the first part and was curious as the rumors are starting to fly, but meh, not my or anyone else's business, so I just skipped along to the the better stuff. As I am taking my BLM higher currently (don't know if I can stand to solo 30 more lvls), I enjoy reading your posts and you are able to simplify a lot of things in this game that, before you, seemed very taunting. Thanks. Cdgreg v. Ashira w/ special guest Ref Kaeko Is this coming to pay-per-view anytime soon? Actually, I had someone mention Cdgreg as the "Best BLM on Odin" earlier this evening. You pick a nice afk spot, everyone (including myself for your ZM+1)checks you often, so I think its easy for people to misunderstand "greatness". Cd is a very good BLM and I have some experience with him even dating back when he was a newb BLM on the up and coming. Oh how you have grown!! :P Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 13th, 2007 05:13 pm (UTC) Re: Keep up the goodwork! "You pick a nice afk spot, everyone (including myself for your ZM+1)checks you often" Finally some feedback on my afk spot! I've tried afking in a ton of different places since cursed mitts sell so horribly slow and I think after extensive afking the nook on the way to the AH wins for most checks. If anyone has the urge to purchase 21 sets of nq mitts let me know =p. 0/119

Overview When it comes to determinations of "Skill" for something like FFXI, it's really hard to tell sometimes - I mean when you really get down to it it's more about gear, preparation, and experience more than anything. To compare certain people or certain LSs with "Skill" in mind is probably more arbitrary than fact usually I would have to say. Keeping this in mind, however, I will say that some things in this game do require at least some amount of "Skill" to do. In this post, I will try to focus on the art of "Kiting" and differentiate between kiting and just plain running away. With the situations of particular HNM fights and soloing in mind, I will go over a fairly difficult, macrobased technique which can greatly enhance the kiting ability of any job which I call as "Blink Casting". I will also go over why Herald's Gaiters are, in my opinion, the single most over-powered and game-breaking item wearable by Black Mage. Before I go into any sort of detail, I did not discover or invent this kiting technique - surprisingly I found it on KI forums back in like 2005 but the information was buried by 2 BLMs getting into a shouting match over gear or something stupid like that. I in no way take credit for discovering this (unfortunately I have no clue who originally posted about it so I can't cite). Black Mage Guide (Part I) Black Mage Guide (Part II) Black Mage Guide (Part IV) Black Mage Guide (Part V) Black Mage Guide (Part VI) Black Mage Guide!

__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Kiting Concept The term "Kiting" is generally used in any sort of strategy where the person with hate runs from the mob instead of attempting to stand his ground and "tank" it. Unfortunately, this word is used pretty liberally and nowadays a lot of players run around like a chicken with its head cut off and really have no idea what the hell they are doing and call it kiting. The typical "strategy" behind kiting starts with trying to add run speed or slow the mob in question down via Gravity and Run Speed equipment; however, this concept can be further advanced with the implementation of actual technique through the use of terrain and game mechanics/flaws. It is this concept of technique that I want to focus on in this post.

It is pretty well known that terrain plays a huge role in kiting - those pillars in the Kirin room, that log in Behemoth's Dominion, etc. - the AI generally has difficulty selecting the best route around obstacles such as those. Being able to simply outrun the mob using overwhelming speed and a couple terrain abuses will typically be enough to get past 95% of the game where kiting is involved; however, to truly maximize kiting potential, there are actually many other things available.

Performing Actions While Kiting A huge problem with most kiters is that in order to actually maintain any form of hate in the long run, they have to stop to perform actions. Simplest example is a tank kiting then stopping to use Provoke - when they stop to Provoke, sometimes the mob can catch up and take a shot or TP move at the tank while he is stuck in the Provoke animation. It is this animation that causes many kites to fail - either the tank dies while stuck in the animation because he's locked and can't run, or the tank is scared to perform actions constantly and fails to hold hate as well as he needs to. What about soloing? Black Mages have trouble with things that cannot be slept, bound, or gravitied. This is because they have to actually stop to cast, and sometimes the mob is just too fast to enable you to get any sort of cast off. Again, the fact that when you cast, there is a casting animation that locks you and disables movement really hurts. On some shorter casting spells, the casting time is actually really short, but it's this annoying animation that locks you up and gets you killed.

(The typical "Casting Animations" for White Mage spells and Black Mage spells - both disable movement) What if these players were able to get rid of these animations? You could essentially run from a mob and

Provoke without ever stopping, or only stop momentarily to cast fast animation spells, or lower your "standstill" time while casting a long duration time by 1-2 seconds - the equivalent of nearly 10 steps. Well I guess it's obvious by how I'm writing this that there is indeed a way to do this - this is what "Blink Casting" is. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ How to "Blink Cast" I'm sure a lot of players have done this accidently actually. When you switch equipment, there is a short period of time where your character disappears from the screen (on both your's and other's screen). Typically this is a bad thing to most people - great example here is the WHM getting pissed off at his tank for changing equipment, which forces the WHM to retarget. Well, when you "blink" after an equipment change, you are still allowed to perform actions like normal; however, any animations that are supposed to occur will be 100% bypassed. This simple game mechanics flaw is the idea behind the entire technique.

(Examples of what the "Blink" Effect looks like - the character disappears momentarily from the screen) If you time your actions to occur while your character has momentarily become "invisible" due to an equipment change, you will always bypass any animation that is supposed to occur on your screen, preventing that annoying movement "lock-up" from ever happening. This really does let you kite and perform actions like Provoke essentially without ever having to stop. For anyone who has a lot of kiting experience, this technique is really an invaluable tool for safety and player efficiency.

This is Harder than it Sounds This idea sounds great, but if it were so easy, I'm sure a lot of people would be using it already. The problem with this techinque is it is based on a game mechanics flaw - the momentary blink after equipment changes. That momentary blink occurs at a variable time and a variable duration - you cannot exactly know with 100% certainty how long you will remain invisible or when exactly you will turn invisible. These variations are due solely to LAG. The more lag you have, the longer you will stay invisible after an equipment change and the longer wait there will be the equipment change and when the blink occurs. When the blink occurs after equipment changing isn't actually a big deal, as long as it's consistent and

predictable - it just requires timing practice; however, how long you stay invisible does affect how much error you are allowed to have in your timing and still pull the technique off correctly (longer you stay invisible, the longer time you have to perform an action). Because of this, you want the "blink" effect to occur predictably and for a long duration - this actually means you WANT lag. That's right, you want a decent amount of lag to pull this off. As long as the lag is consistent and doesn't spike, it is actually an advantage, not a liability.

Macro Considerations and Fluidity You must time the equipment switch just prior to the end of the cast for this to work. If you are using this idea with a JA, which is instant, then obviously you have to have a slight delay between the equipment switch and the usage of the JA. This can be surprisingly difficult due to variable lag - generally I try to get a decent lag so that the duration of the blinking is fairly long, which helps to account for variable lag. At this point, I cannot really help all that much as every computer runs at a different speed. It's really about trial and error at this point really. I will say just doing some quick tests on Corsair, JAs are MUCH EASIER to pull off this technique with. You can usually set a Macro to automatically do it for you... /equip main "Terra's Staff" /ja "Provoke" <t> The equipment change will occur just prior to the action to use Provoke. However, the delay between the equipment change and the actual "blink" effect may take awhile and the Provoke may occur between this delay (meaning the "Blink Cast" failed). If you need to time the Provoke to occur for a longer delay, there are 2 options. The first is manually adjust the crap running on your computer to make it faster, or the easier thing to do is simply force a longer delay in the macro between the equipment change and the Provoke action... /equip main "Terra's Staff" /equip ear1"Eris's Earring +1" /equip ear2"Eris's Earring +1" /echo --- Wasting some time to perform echo command --/ja "Provoke" <t> Adding more actions (easiest ones are equipment actions) between the first equipment change and the Provoke action allows you to manually determine the time between the equipment change and the Provoke. By using windower macros, you can add mulitple equipment changes and have a pretty good range of adjustment in which to play around with. After properly adjusting this, you can pull off this technique when using JAs near probably 80%+ accuracy without really doing any timing on your part.

(Examples of "Blink Casting" Technique used on Black Mage JAs - number of actions required variable due to lag) If you wish to pull this off using an actual spell with a casting time, this can be a little more difficult as you cannot "auto time" it with a macro. This is really the situation most Black Mages are in (with the rare exceptions of things like Elemental Seal). For spell casts, you really have to do the timing on your own and just manually switch into the final equipment you want to use just before you know the cast animation will occur. Generally the order of action for say a long cast like Thunder 4 would be... Begin casting Thunder 4 Wait until about 50% casting completed Start running (you are allowed a few steps and the cast will not interrupt) Change equipment to final set while running Animation is bypassed by the "Blink" effect while you continue to run I must admit this is really pretty difficult (at least for me). Generally I do not bother using this technique unless it is absolutely necessary for success or safety. I usually have to be extremely focused to pull this off at 100% accuracy and if you miss, you can often get your spell interrupted or end up with the wrong set of gear on when the spell goes off. Being able to do this on spells consistently is really what I would consider one of the few things in this game that requires some form of "skill". __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Usage of "Blink Casting" The usage of this technique is really incrediby useful for just about any job. Again, a huge part of this entire guide is the concept of fluidity and speed. Bypassing useless animations GREATLY increases the "flow" of your character and the speed at which it performs actions. As far as Black Mage technique, this is probably one of the most powerful and difficult tools to use. I generally learned to use this technique when first attempting to solo Apollyon North West - the mobs in that zone all run at above average speed and can double or even triple attack you for 250-400 damage without safety gear on. Being able to constantly maintain a large distance between the mob and you, even during casting, greatly increases the safety during the run and saves time. Because winning the zone requires great time management (unless you are incredibly lucky wiht portals), I will typically not cast any buff other than basic stoneskin now until floor 5. Currently my record for beating this zone solo has been with 4 > 3 > 3 > 1 mobs killed prior to portal opening (floors 1 through 4), and a 22 minute KB kill. It is this technique that has really made it possible for me to win this with consistency.

The best way to use this idea is probably with JAs in the method I described earlier because the macro takes care of all the timing issues - it's really just too difficult to pull off on spells manually at high accuracy all the time. However, even on something as simple as Provoke, this is still incredibly useful. Fast casting spells such as Stun can also be pulled off in this fashion (require a pretty long delay though), making it probably a more useful technique for Tanks than Black Mages. Pulling this idea off is not just limited to soloing or kiting HNMs - say you are a Corsair and need to buff tanks during a straight tanking fight against a heavily AoE based mob. That long animation of rolling can cost you at least a good 4 seconds in which you are a sitting duck in AoE range. By simply "Blink Casting" the roll abilities, you can get in and out 5-10 seconds quicker. These are just a couple of example of how this technique can be used to enhance play. Because it is not limited to any job in particular, it's really up to the player's imagination to take advantage of it.

Herald's Gaiters - Why a Black Mage Should Want These

(Picture jacked from Allakhazam - Stats in case you didn't know them) Gaiters are hands down, the most overpowered Black Mage item in the game. This includes items such as Novio Earring, Morrigan's Robe, HQ stave set, etc. While all those those items are really nice and enhance your damage or play, none of them can single handedly change the way you play Black Mage. Black Mage soloing (and especially this style of play, which focuses on a solo style Black mage) is almost completely reliant on kiting. Add in this technique which essentially lets you run while casting - and it's easy to see why you would want to these shoes. Imagine fighting a mob which runs at normal speed, immune to sleep/bind/gravity, and never stops to cast anything. There are quite a few mobs like this - Ix'MNK is a popular one just off the top of my head. Being able to just outrun it is already a huge advantage, but imagine barely or not even having to stop to get off actions on it - speed kills. This style is all about speed and fluidity - and there is nothing more important than running speed when 99% of endgame mobs can kill you within seconds if they ever caught you. It's not even just about defense and safety. Speed and safety can, in turn, propel your offense as well as you no longer have

to worry as much about dying. I realize that these shoes are pretty rare and, sadly, not within the grasp of a lot of players due to Tiamat's spawn times; however, they are what they are. If another form of faster movement speed became available for Black Mage in the future, I would definately recommend them, as they would greatly enhance both solo and team options. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Conclusions The concept of kiting is really thrown around a lot in endgame talks without ever really getting into the strategy behind the technique itself. Kiting has really become just a fancy word for running around instead of standing still. The number of techniques which you can employ are really numerous, yet incredibly rare to see nowadays. The "Blink Casting" technique described above is really only just 1 out of many unused ideas behind the concept of kiting. Others exist, which also take advantage of adnormal AI or game flaws. In the future, I'll probably go over another particularly useful one which I describe as "Pinning" (I just make these names up by the way, they really have no real name to them -_-;). Looking back at statistics on this site, the most popular hits on the LJ seem to be the low man Limbus Posts, Black Mage Guide, and that solo tank Tiamat post, in that order. Seeing as the Limbus stuff is all but done, I'll try to focus more on the Black Mage Guide (to whore more hits and because HNM has been slightly redundant lately). These posts take A LOT of work so I hope you enjoy them.

__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________

Pic of the Day

Very old screenshot from 2005! Tark is trying to learn English while Fry is trying to learn Japanese.

The 2 bought this ridiculous English<>Japanese translation book with basic pick up lines. Tark would say the English phrases while Fry would say all the Japanese phrases. In this pic, Fry is trying to hit on Tark at a bar.

Drama Thread of the Day http://killingifrit.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=81936 Cait Sith Drama from 2005. Involves a guy getting kicked from LS then getting mad when he doesn't get to "Cash Out" his LS points. Thrown in are screenshots with some very racist comments against Muslims by the guy that got kicked.

__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Tags:

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( 13 comments Leave a comment ) (Anonymous) wrote: May. 16th, 2007 09:45 pm (UTC) great update this time, very fluid post^^ since i've always had camera set to chase mode, i never bothered finding out why because i couldn't see the mob easily, but there are two glitches that i would use a lot when pulling/etc. that maybe you can explain... 1. zigzagging, some mobs will not follow you in a straight line, they go in zigzag behind you, quickly losing ground until you deaggro. i'm not sure if this is a characteristic of scent tracking? or due to the game formulating movement based on grid squares, running diagonally across them causing the mob to follow the grid lines and fall behind. moving in a gradual curve also can make this happen, instead of going directly to you, the mob gets a bit lost... keep in mind my ping to server is 750ms~ so it might be related to lag.

2. if you run far enough, mobs will hit a line in zone and deaggro, this one really annoyed me on long pulls, the mob would be close, but after a certain distance, simply stop and return to spawn point (or in our modern lame no mpk era, depop). mostly this happened pre-distancer so perhaps i am wrong and it was just effect 3... 3. normal mobs don't run at pc speed or do they? largely from pulling experience (on whm, blm, pld, and all those other great low lv jobs^^; ) even mobs that run in a straight line gradually lose ground on a pc, either they have only 95% pc running speed, or it's a lag effect. raptor mazurka and kiting raptors around should give the same effect. none of that stuff is consistent, but when my friend and i used to play regularly, we would train normal speed mobs just because it was easy to out-run them (without terrain also), he had the same high ping as me. i often considered setting alt-1 on every macro set to blinking gear, weapon draw/sheath animation is an annoying one for melees, never did though because of needing provoke or stun etc. in that slot. -mikazuki Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 16th, 2007 09:48 pm (UTC) oops should say three glitches, and when i say 'line in zone' i literally mean a graphical artifact line, where sections have been joined together, generally a white line of triangles that i've observed mobs to stop at. -mikazuki Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

kanican wrote: May. 17th, 2007 03:28 pm (UTC) Clock Speed and Movement Speed I don't know too much about computer hardware, but I did read that some players could essentially run at near flee speed without a 3rd party tool simply by adjusting the internal clock speed of their computer. It's a bit difficult to tell exactly what is server-side and what is client-side on this. I do know that guy was banned though so it's not considered 'legal'. Most of what I've posted I really don't know why it works that way, it's more of just a trial and error thing, as are many things in this game. I also think that the de-aggro thing is really slightly more random - I don't think mobs will deaggro past certain 'lines' or areas always, but it has more to do with distance from the puller (the further the mob is from the puller, the faster hate sheds?). Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 18th, 2007 08:54 am (UTC) Re: Clock Speed and Movement Speed i read about that hack, never tried it though. i would have tested at what point mobs lose hate despite being in range, but distancer didn't exist when i played the game enough hours to notice it^^, i'll see if i can get some hours on game and find out... far as i know distance has no effect on this form of aggro loss, two places where you can see it (if you wait long enough) are pulling pugils from the cliff opposite the tower in qufim, and approaching the wooden walls in

kazham with a goblin/mandra from the hole that leads to yhoator~ far as i remember there are tile edges in both those places. aggro and enmity don't relate, aggro is an on/off flag which you can switch in various ways, enmity is only considered when the aggro flag is on. distance doesn't cause any decrease in enmity that i'm aware of - but if you are far from a mob the constant rate of enmity decrease (1/tick with provoke as +10enm is the model i go by) would make it look that way if you were too far to perform any action on the mob. i'd be interested to see it shown otherwise. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 18th, 2007 08:57 am (UTC) Re: Clock Speed and Movement Speed that's me above of course -mikazuki Link | Reply | Parent | Thread ravynz wrote: May. 17th, 2007 05:35 pm (UTC) distance and hate loss From my experience tanking, and kiting as a rng hate does seem to shed faster the farther you are from a mob. Something i noticed for a long time. So if you are a tank, best not to just run run run (its not just less hate moves from being farther) but stay just outside of range while no farther than that. [Learned the hard way by kiting ouryu for the mission bc, at point blank he kills you, if you get to far he kills you, but if you get it just right he hits for about 50 a pop] Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 19th, 2007 03:25 am (UTC) No drama, no comments. ~Nermal Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 26th, 2007 08:46 pm (UTC) @Kaeko: if you are blinking when the spell is cast can you be sure that the equipment you have macrod in to cause the blink is actually going to be equipped when you cast? also, since you need to have a different set of equipment from that which you will be casting the spell in when you start casting, how do you set your macros to do that efficiently. you could have 2 macros, one that casts the spell and one that changes into equipment needed to cast that spell. or i suppose if your lag was quite constant you could have a macro with a /wait in it that equipped the appropriate equipment at the required moment to cause a blink when the casting animation occurs. i noticed that in one of your screenshot demonstrating the technique you were casting tornado II. what group 2 merits do you have on blm exactly? 3 in burst II, 2 in Freeze II and one in tornado II. and im assuming you dont have any merits in wind potency. just wondering whether it was actually worth meriting anything related to wind for kirin and ouryu. but i think in your case it might be a result of you having done sky a significant amount in the past when that had greater primacy amongst end game activities. -Saintjust Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: May. 27th, 2007 03:14 pm (UTC) You will still get the desired equipment change effect of you change equipment then cast while invisible. As far as I can tell, all forms of equipment effects occur instantly after equipping with the exception of the 12% faster movement speed modifier (which only works after you reappear on the screen). This may be due to the fact that movement speed is based on your client-side clock (which is how people overclock their computer to flee - an old cheat). All my macros either contain equipment change only, or spell cast + equipment change (not necessarily the desired equipment changes for that particular spell, but all spells have a set of equipment changes). I am usually required to press 2-4 macros during the casting animation of a long nuke spell due to this complexity. I would never recommend /wait functions, but if you can get that to work then I'd go for it. As far as group II merits, I chose to get 1 point in all 6 AM2 spells (so level 1 burst and freeze). My LS never uses skillchain magic burst so that bonus is pretty useless in my situation. The small magic accuracy bonus did not seem worth it to me after that, so I went with 1 point in all 6 spells for a slight utility edge (casting on that day/weather usually). My merits are pretty standard other than the group 2 merits - they are actually unfinished as I still have 0/5 INT merits and an unfinished "other" catagory. As far as what to nuke on what mob, I don't really ever think about it that much. Generally if you go with nuking blizzard and thunder, it works on a good 95%+ of things in this game. Choosing what to nuke on what, increasing your damage, managing resist rates - these are really things I just assume the vast majority of BLMs already have some idea on how to do. There are a billion guides out there for that sort of thing. While many of them tend to contradict each other, they are all pretty effective to be honest. Just pick something you like. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 28th, 2007 06:26 pm (UTC) thanks for the response. i got to say i do not envy having to use the method you are using; pressing 2-4 macros for a particular spell. i think the problem with using /wait would obviously be the variations in lag that come with different numbers of pcs/mobs/actions in any particular situation in the game. so there seems not to be any options for a more comfortable to use system. in regards to meriting. i levelled brd to 75 so i could efficiently merit everything on blm to the last stage. as such i was intending to merit 3/3 on burst ii and 3/3 on freeze ii. however, it seems logical that meriting the third stage of freeze ii/burst ii isn't particularly worth it given the cost in merit points and the benefit being two magic accuracy. tornado ii seems to be of significant utility value. i have also heard that flood ii is useful. -Saintjust Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jan. 19th, 2008 11:12 pm (UTC) Blinking. I've actually played Beastmaster a lot, and I found while fighting magic pots in Sky, during Equipment changes that even if you're under Gravity--while you're blinked you can still move at normal speeds. So, constant blinking from equipment changing can help out. o_O; I know, pretty neat! Oshikorosu, Odin.

Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

pingpongwww wrote: Jun. 3rd, 2007 09:27 am (UTC) great writeup kaeko, it was very thorough too. This technique is great for tanking too if you got the WHMs who don't have target dependency issues http://pingpongwww.livejournal.com/12398.html Also rdm chainspell can be more effective using this "blink" technique. Whereas usually fights bring 2 rdm/drks to effectively lock down a mob, the task can be accomplished by 1 blinking rdm/drk in many cases. I think Kiting should be looked into and explored more. As you mentioned, there are many different types of kiting (including that stutter kiting Ravynz mentioned on Wyrms) - that's awesome that any job can have top hate for wyrm as long as it is in the air. I'm 100% agreement with you on your assessment of heralds gaiters, b/c I feel the same way about crimson legs. As for hate loss when Kiting, it is my experience that distance has no effect on hate loss. I'll do a writeup and cover all of what I know on this, but sleepy orz. Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jun. 4th, 2007 09:12 pm (UTC) Love the guide, you've done a great job with it. You've made Auronku from a good blm to a decent one :P As I said, great job, one thing I see you stress is the use of windower macros. Now I know some people are not knowledgeable with windower macros, including myself, so I wondered if you ever thought about creating a windower macro guide as part of your blm guide? I know there are other guides out there, but not sure if they would be on par with the quality you have from your other guides. -Kinyo

Overview Sea is a particularly Black Mage-friendly zone - Just about everything is manaburnable, NMs included, and you can easily do a good 75% of these NMs with nothing more than a team of Black Mages; this is a good reason why the RMT probably have so much success in Sea. As far as bettering oneself as a Black Mage up here, there are a number of really interesting solos and techniques you can use - soloing Ix'MNK, spending about 20 hours farming 5 Euvhi organs for Relaxing Earring, getting Ghrah Chips, etc. In this post, I want to focus on something a Black Mage can do for their LS that is perhaps less obvious. The one NM in sea that generally everyone feels a BLM is horrible at is Jailer of Temperance. Obviously magic does 0 damage on it, so it makes sense to think something that focuses on magic damage is useless; but this is really not so. With enough practice and knowledge of routes, it is possible for a single BLM to run through all 5 JoT spawns, solo the placeholders, and HOLD Temperance for an indefinate period of time entirely SOLO using a technique called "Pinning".

So what is the point of this exactly? Jailer of Temperance is one of those annoying NMs that requires you to traverse the entire map - there are tons of aggro mobs, annoying escort NPCs, and fairly difficult routes. In short, it's a HUGE timesink for your linkshell if you're in sea farming triggers. While you can just wait at 1 spawn and kill a placeholder every 16 minutes, this is even more inefficient. However, if you are able to secure Temperance with the use of only 1 member, you can drastically increase the productivity of your sea run. Everyone can just go on to something else like say trying to pop Ix'DRK, while a BLM attempts to pop Temperance. If it happens to pop, everyone can just rush over. In this post, I'll pretty much go over exactly how this is done - from the routes to take to the holding process. In addition, I'll go over some subtle techniques you can use as a Black Mage to pull this off - it gets somewhat difficult once Temperance is actually spawned. Really the point of using this example in the Black Mage guide is to show how many really tiny things regarding gear choices and play can affect the efficiency of not only your own play, but your LS's as well. It also, again, highlights the strength of the Black Mage style I have outlined previously. To reiterate so no one misses this... The goal is to only pop and HOLD Temperance, not kill it! Previous Sections: Black Mage Guide (Part I)

Black Mage Guide (Part II) Black Mage Guide (Part III) Black Mage Guide (Part V) Black Mage Guide (Part VI) Black Mage Guide! __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ General Knowledge about Temperance - It runs retardedly fast - flee speed at all times (think Faust) - All forms of magic damage do 0 damage to Temperance - Temperance has 3 forms and is only susceptible to one of these at any time - blunt, piercing, slashing damage - All types of DoTs still work if landed, including magic ones - Uses the SAM 2-hour Meikyo Shisui multiple times It has NO repop timer or downtime (you can pop it right after it dies) Chance spawn about 5 seconds after killing an Eo'zdei is killed Pops aggroed if you are near the alcove at the time True sight aggro

Some key things to focus on about Temperance... It will outrun you without gravity... Easily. Unless you have a bunch of powdered boots or a Hermes Quencher, there is no way to outrun this without the use of Gravity. It also hits like a ton of bricks, has a very fast attack speed, and can double attack. Generally, this is considered the most difficult tier 1 sea NM by far. Note that there is no repop downtime on this. You can spawn it again pretty much right after it dies. Typically it takes a little bit to find it again though. There are 5 spawn positions on the top floor of the Grand Palace (one in each alcove in the 5 towers) - note that the top floor where JoT spawns is the one you enter on. The one that requires warping is the basement. I won't go too much into detail about this as it's very well documented elsewhere (try the Wiki).

The Wiki also contains maps with the escort routes and teleports. If you are interested in trying this, you MUST know these routes inside-out. I'm always fairly surprised as to how many people in Sea LSs can do these NMs for over 6 months and still not know the basic routes in Sea. Make sure you know these - you will be solo and no one is going to help you if you get lost. Even more, if you get caught in a bad situation and need to bail, you need to know where everything is to possibly find a teleporter.

__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Quickly Tranversing the 5 Towers - What Route to Take? Speed is incredibly important on this. You're farming and if you take 30 minutes to get to a tower, you're hurting your LS and you should probably just bring the whole army to pop this if it takes that long. The single biggest time-waster on this map is the escort. Waiting for that NPC, which basically has to crawl half way around the map, can easily cost you 10+ minutes as it can aggro mobs, which are slow to kill solo.

Luckily, you can hit all 5 towers only spawning 1 NPC escort! Because of this, you can really easily tranverse all 5 towers in 20-25 minutes flat (includes killing time) - it really is that fast, even solo. The key trick to this is the fact that the sealed doors open going backwards. Everything I write from here on regarding routes is written with the assumption that you actually know the basic routes in the Grand Palace. For quick reference to the Grand Palace map, just use this link that shows the entire thing with escort. The order in which you do this is roughly... Enter from the left side door Tarutaru Tower Placeholder (South West F-13) Get Escort (F-10) Finish Escort (H-7) Hume Tower Placeholder (North H-4) Backtrack to Mithra Tower Mithra Tower Placeholder (North West C-8) Portal Down to Basement (D-9) Run to and use ??? One-Way Door (G-10) Run to portal at Galka Tower and Portal up (K-12) Galka Tower Placeholder (South East J-13) Backtrack to Basement Go to and use Elvaan Tower Porter (L-6) Elvaan Tower Placeholder (M-8) If still no Pop, use Escape This really seems like a lot of things to do; however, there are many tricks which can drastically speed things up, especially when moving from Tower to Tower. There are many temporary zone switches which allow you to shed aggro. This lets you essentially train your way through nearly all the mobs. That's pretty much the basic outline of the route, I'll go over how this actually pertains to Black Mage strategy next.

__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Training Mobs - Enfeebling, Standing Setup, and Gaiters

The number one factor that is going to determine how quickly you can do this is your ability to move from tower to tower quickly without dying. Many times, as previously mentioned, you are heading for a particular zone (like a portal). In these instances, you will lose any aggro upon zoning so it's perfectly fine to train. Some instances, you will be able to literally train your way across the entire zone. In these situations, the 3 biggest things to consider are your enfeebling magic setup and usage, your standing setup, and the use of movement speed enhancement.

Everything in this zone is sleepable with a decent enfeebling gear setup. Below is the enfeebling setup I currently use for sleeps (admittedly it is actually rather weak). Main Ranged Head Body Hands Legs Feet Back Waist Neck Ear 1 Ear 2 Ring 1 Ring 2 Pluto's Staff Phantom Tathlum Genie Tiara Wizard's Coat +1 Zenith Mitts +1 Genie Lappa Herald's Gaiters Umbra Cape Qiqirn Sash +1 Enfeebling Torque Loquacious Earring Sorcerer's Earring Tamas Ring Snow Ring Dark Magic "Potency" +15% Enfeebling Magic Skill +11 Enfeebling Magic Skill +12 Enfeebling Magic Skill +11 Movement Speed +12% Damage Taken -6% Enfeebling Magic Skill +7 Fast Cast +1% Latent Effect: Damage Taken -30%

The focus on equipment for this setup was Enfeebling Magic Skill, Speed, Damage Down, and finally HP and MP balance (in that order). This gives me only 271 Enfeebling Skill (pre-new merit) and still manages to do the job just fine - you could really add another 31 Enfeebling Skill with 8 Merits, Altruistic Cape, Enfeebling Earring, and Master Caster Bracers (always active in sea with Signet). Again you actually don't need that much on the order of Enfeebling Skill to reliably sleep the mobs in this zone. A big key here is using your enfeebles - 4 Sleep spells, Gravity, Bind, and even Stun, correctly. There will likely be mobs flying all over the place, so this is a great exercise in multi-targeting, and quick/fluid macro

usage. I personally use <stnpc> macros on sleep spells (one of the few exceptions, I usually use simply <t>). Basically you rush towards the portal keeping this in mind: 1) 2) 3) 4) Sleep or bind anything that will aggro if you run by it Dark Element Ghrahs simply run by and stun if sleepga is attempted. Bind/Gravity if needed afterwards Aspir anything you can when timer is up to maintain or gain MP USE ALL 4 SLEEP SPELLS

Make sure you can quickly access all 4 sleep spells via macro. You will sleep a lot of mobs in a short period of time and need quick access to all 4 due to heavy recast timers. It's also a good idea to use a macro of /recasts (mentioned in a previous post) so you can keep track of your timers while running without menu.

(Pulling the Placeholder usually requires you to do so between 2 Ghrah mobs - definately wait for a good time to pull so you don't aggro these. If you mess up, they are easily sleepable; it just slows you down.) The other 2 important things - standing setup and movement speed enhancement, have been gone over before previously. Obviously the Gaiters thing is out of your control usually - you either have them or you don't. Due to the amount of running you'll be doing (most of the time with 5-6 mobs behind you), they are really great to have for speeding this process up. Beyond these basic keys, the only real advice I have for this part is to just be very wary of your surroundings at all times - know where the nearest portal or zone is. This is really more of a test of instinct and reflexes than anything. I really wish I could video this portion just to show everyone how amazingly fast and safe this process is when done correctly. So lets assume Temperance has popped (I'm also assuming you could solo that Eo'zdei placeholder). Now for the fun part! __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Temperance Pops! Don't Panic! A lot of very quick thinking is going to be required when this thing pops. It will most likely pop aggroed and immediately starting B-lining towards you. Prior to getting the final kill shot on a placeholder Eo'zdei, make sure you have the following: - Reraise (should always be on anyways)

Stoneskin and Blink Elemental Seal At least 200 MP (rest prior to kill if needed) Gravity was not just used (ie. it's not in /recast mode) No normal mobs are currently aggroed to you

The goal here to start is to simply land Elemental Seal'd Gravity without dying in the circle room. Temperance really comes at you with a vengence right from the beginning though, so you must be calm when you do this - pre-planning your actions ahead of time can help.

(I've posted these same pics about 4 times by now - this was the first attempt at me doing this - shows a couple things - always use Elemental Seal, even on the first cast. Also shows damage taken when using a good Standing Setup. This is more of a good example what NOT to do as I completely panic in this.) With Blink and Stoneskin, you will be able to absorb at least 3 hits, possibly 4. Of course there is always the possibility that is opens with a double attack and both happen to bypass Blink (if your Stoneskin breaks at this point, you will most likely be interrupted). The key is to just remain calm and focused. With /RDM sub and correct timing, you should be able cast gravity between hits. Also note that running away will do absolutely nothing once it catches you as it's going to outrun you from that point on anyway. Make sure your Standing Setup has a good amount of physical damage down - Staff and Cape are really enough probably, but Sorcerer's Earring can be a life saver here as you can very easily be put into red in a matter of seconds by Temperance. Once Elemental Sealed Gravity is landed, RUN. You will be able to outrun it at this point; however, gravity won't stay on for too long and resistance builds quickly. Just run around in the circle area. You probably have about 30-45 seconds before the gravity wears and you're essentially screwed if you have not confused it. Take the time to scream that Temperance is up at whatever tower to your LS so they can start running for you. After this, it's your job to hold it. The next step is crucial to survival and takes a good deal of tact. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Holding Temperance - The Use of "Pinning" Gravity is on and your linkshell is on its way. Depending on what tower it spawned in, you may have to hold

for at least a good 10 minutes (Galka and Hume Towers being the worst). I keep saying how Temperance runs at flee speed and pretty much destroys you in a couple seconds, so how the hell is a Black Mage supposed to hold this for 10 minutes? The answer is poor AI. Again, I'm pretty sure a lot of players have done this accidently or even use it knowingly. Read the next 2 paragraphs closely! "Pinning" is a type of kiting that can be used when you have a fairly large circular kiting zone (in this case, the square room in the towers. When you are directly across from a mob seperated by a circular obstacle (for example you are at 12 o'clock and the mob is at 6 o'clock), the mob is forced to choose between going clockwise or going counter-clockwise. The AI is extremely poor at choosing the right direction. When you have reached this point where Temperance is directly across from you, find the nearest pillar (there is 1 at each of the 4 corners of the kiting area). When you hit the pillar, switch directions, run a few steps and watch - Temperance will switch it's directions as well and start running that way. Now switch again when it switches - it will switch with you! Keep repeating this, keeping in mind to ONLY move 1-2 steps in each direction before switching again. Try to get your timing down. Once gravity wears, if you do this correctly, it will get stuck and can't pick a direction as long as you keep this up hence the term "pinning".

(I am showing a couple of pics showing this strategy; however, they will not be of Temperance - taking a screenshot would risk actually losing the hold so I cannot do that. This is really best seen in real time so it's something you should try for yourself to see. These 2 pics taken one after another - shows the use of the "pillar" and the 12 o'clock 6 o'clock positions.) What is really funny about this on something that runs extremely fast like Temperance is how it changes directions even when it is clear that changing will make it run further to get to you. When you try this on Temperance, you will take just 1 tiny baby step each direction while Temperance will take about 5 giant steps and be halfway to the next pillar already - yet still it will go back and switch directions! Once you have pinned it, just keep at it until people arrive. This technique isn't difficult, but it does take a bit of practice. It's a good idea to test this out for yourself on something that runs slower (say one of those Eo'zdei placeholders). From this point, you can hold Temperance for as long as you want, assuming you don't mess up. After like 5 minutes of this, it really starts to hurt my fingers a bit, but hopefully it doesn't take more than about 10 minutes for your group to get to you. As far as communication, there is no way you can type anything once you start this - so either tell everyone before gravity wears or use vent.

Once help arrives, you're pretty much done! You've just saved your linkshell a lot of annoyance!

(Couple pics showing how you can easily train a good deal of mobs rather quickly - focus on being quick and fluid with enfeebling macros, knowing routes, and of course, making a good defensive standing equipment setup. Note that if you use Gaiters, you probably won't even have to sleep anything half the time.) __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Conclusions I think that while task I went over isn't something that one would normally brag about (afterall, you're not actually killing anything other than 5 placeholders probably), it's really one of those things that is more difficult than it looks to do quickly and safely. It all comes down to reflexes and quick thinking - something I think many players have a hard time with. I notice a lot of people generally do extremely well when everything has been pre-planned for them, yet start to panic when something unexpected happens. In addition, this little trick really helps your LS out a good deal and keeps the monotony of sea farming somewhat interesting. I'm sure a lot of groups have their own methods of popping Temperance, so maybe this isn't something needed for a lot of groups; however, the real point was to showcase more strategies regarding a solo Black Mage. In my opinion, this is fairly difficult to pull off efficiently and requires a lot of different difficult techniques, ranging from macro fluidity to high end kiting technique. If anything, I think showcasing things like this continue to show how the notion of a "Glass-Cannon" Black Mage is really limiting and just incorrect. Black Mage is given so many tools other than it's nukes, as well as a very good variety of equipment. Given all these things, a well played Black Mage can pull off a great deal of things in a multitude of situations - some so well, a single Black Mage can easily do things a group of 3-4 other jobs could not, quicker and safer.

Black Mage Use and "Zerging" Long story short - Black Mage is strong enough as it is when poorly played. Just follow the RMT on your server for a reminder how easy this job is to use and get the job done. However, Black Mage is extremely broken and overpowered when well played. This really brings up an interesting debate which I have found has become more prominent since this blog has started.

TK (the LS I'm in), is well known for low-manning everything (something I like to highlight on this blog), usually through to usage of NIN tanks and BLM backline Damage Dealing. A knock on us I get a lot is the fact that we "BLM zerg" everything - which in some part is true, but here's the defining factor and the biggest flaw in the argument: The average LS on Odin server takes a good mix of everything - a good deal of melees, and probably 3-4 Black Mages for your common Skillchain Magic Burst strategy. TK only takes 3-4 Black Mages PERIOD. We just don't have the melee and end up with less players overall. So there are 2 ways to look at this - if you go by absolute number of Black Mages used in a fight, well we still have less BLM because we use less players overall (rarely do we take over 4 Black Mages to anything because we don't have that many players to get that many DDs and support). On the other hand, if you look at this from a % of DDs that are BLM, well ok we're near 100%. So which is considered more of a "BLM zerg"? Having 5 Melee and 4 Black Mages, or just having 3 Black Mages (we will average about 3-4)? It's a really funny argument when you look at it from this point of view and it stresses something very key in the success of any low man LS - that while this is a video game, there is still a concept of "skill" and it does play a role. That is the entire point of these Black Mage posts! When 1 Black Mage can pop and hold Temperance for you while an average group of 6 Black Mages probably couldn't even hold it without zombie tactics, this is a great example of how Skill affects LS strength and efficiency. When talking about Black Mages, it's easy to just hoard them - they work pretty damn well just hoarding them. But because Black Mage is just in general, overpowered, it's true strenghth as a job comes out when you low man things using them. I think TK is a great example of this. With that thought, I hope you enjoyed this overly long post. Sorry for not updating as much. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________

Pic of the Day OK, so at a couple people's request I'm going to post these drama shots at Fafnir (waaaay back, very old). I editted them so you cannot the names of any LS or person involved in the drama unless it's TK. DO NOT post replies filling in the names/LSs or I will remove them (don't do it Chili!). TK had nothing to do with this pull - never touched or attempted to touch it, but the drama was pretty good. Basically LS A claims it and one of their SMNs immediately uses Spinning Dive from the back and flails it. It happens so fast, everyone is unable to random in time (I think 2 LSs refused anyway, but wouldn't have happened regardless). LS B claims it when it turns yellow (not everyone is dead). Drama ensues. Chilicheese, in one of his most memorable flashes of brilliance, ends the screenshots with one of the best combacks of all time. Chilicheese>> Don't wipe so early and we would have had time to random and that wouldn't have happened... sorry? (Angry Guy)>> STFU asshat Chilicheese>> For someone that applied to TK a few weeks ago you sure are whistling a different tune now (angry guy)! This guy had basically sucked up to him a ton in an attempt to get in TK recently, so it was pretty funny to see

him call Chilicheese an asshat. Even funnier, that person was ALREADY in this LS at the time and was trying to bail, which made the comments just even funnier.

If anyone cared to read what I arguing with Ashira about in party chat, that is actually how the JP LSs on Odin deal with gray area situations - if no random occurred, many of them will take it if it's yellow and you even look like you're about to wipe. This is why a lot of drama happens on these gray area pulls. This is why you should always random on Odin! It's moments like these that make Dragon's Aery the best place on Odin. Note the guy at the end mt'ing in say "this is gonna be good". Everyone is just waiting for the ticking time bomb that is HNM drama to go off. Although, as someone I talked to recently said, "drama is a whole lot funnier when you're not involved".

Drama Thread of the Day http://killingifrit.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=155491&d=150 BG is currently down and only Ashira got the secret forum invite ;_; Luckily there was a new drama thread on KI from our very own Odin server.

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( 26 comments Leave a comment ) (Anonymous) wrote: Jun. 9th, 2007 04:42 am (UTC) BG is up now~ ;) And no matter, the 'secret' boards didn't really have much going on. Certainly no drama, outside of Rocl accusing Fafnir of MPKing him while he fought him with BG. :) Link | Reply | Thread

tacrozar wrote: Jun. 9th, 2007 08:06 am (UTC) Thats pretty cool. No one on Valefor to my knowledge has tried half of the stuff you've talked about in your posts. Link | Reply | Thread

mysticspyrall wrote: Jun. 9th, 2007 11:50 pm (UTC) Wowzers... followed you here from Tyramut's LJ, and I must say this is some of the most detailed BLM stuff I've seen. Very very nice, keep it coming =D Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jun. 10th, 2007 07:04 am (UTC) Very very nice. I consider myself to be very proficient in sea, and to be honest, I never paid attention to the Mithra -> Galka tower path underground. Usually it's either just me as RDM/BLM or RDM/NIN going to try and solo pop Temperance, or 1-2 BLMs come with me, and from there I do it very similar. Obviously as a RDM, with AF2 hat and full enfeebling merits, I don't require ES to land Gravity on Temperance (until it gets into resist mode, at which point almost nothing helps). I started doing this as /NIN, and still do sometimes, but I see how /BLM could work just as easily. The main difference is that we never end up popping it at Galka tower, and since Temperance is an NM, he will not depoop, and will follow you literally to whatever zone line you chose. Once popped, if solo, i'll Gravity > Run and just sleep any mobs I aggro. If i'm

with a BLM or two, i'll toss a Poison/Blind/Dispel/etc after initial Gravity, just to make sure it's still on me. Also, W.legs are alot easier to come by than Gaiters ^^; The only real down side to doing this as a solo RDM is I have no Elemental Skill merits, no cape or even Duelist's Tights, so this obviously slows down the PH killing a little bit, but usually not too much, especially with maxed Convert merits. I think your "pinning" technique is as you said, something people do alot by mistake, but that you can do it well enough to hold Temperance for up to 10 minutes, that's pretty amazing ^^ I think alot of people who are good at it come from days of duo/solo'ing Ulli around the teleporter :p I have done duo Ix'DRK before, I bet this works there as well, where I usually just kite him around the teleporter, with a BLM who zones down after every few nukes. I have a question, if you have the time to answer: How far can a BLM go, considering they can not get Elemental Skill merits? I am 8/8 Enfeebling and soon 8/8 Blue Magic. Aside from obtaining Nashira Crackows/Merciful Cape/Sorceror's Petasos, how much can I rely on my BLM? The more I read your blog, the more it feels like a skill game with BLM, than I ever really thought it was. Thank you ^^ Shukudai Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Jun. 10th, 2007 10:32 pm (UTC) I think RDM and BLM/RDM are very similar in play-style for the most part. RDM obviously has a ton of added safety, especially when you consider subbing /NIN, but BLM usually has much more killing power. Generally I would say anything that involves something you can actually get nukes off on, a BLM/RDM is going to be superior due to speed; however, on higher difficulty mobs, a RDM is going to just win by outlasting things. I do find your method of popping and holding Temperance pretty interesting. I never considered actually taking it outside that little tower circle area. I assume the mobs you sleep would lose aggro by the time they woke anyway. I'm positive you could solo Ix'DRK as well if you could reliably seperate the Ix from it's Qn'Aern helpers. As far as your BLM, I don't think it's a huge deal if you don't get those 8 merits in elemental magic. If anything, just use AF1 hands instead of the zenith most people use if you find yourself getting resisted. Most of these solo things are on mobs that don't resist too much - you will have trouble on some things that require a full elemental set though (but then you probably wouldn't be soloing it anyway). I use 0 elemental skill + equipment on my normal nuking setup (only the +16 from merits) and do just fine. If you add in AF1 hands, thats essentially the same thing as my setup. I think when you really start to push the limits on certain jobs, it really does become a skill game. Jobs with HIGH VERSATILITY like BLM, RDM, NIN, and BLU - who are given a large set of safety moves - can typically be pushed much further than those jobs without these things. Of these jobs, BLM is the only one that has a huge killing power potential, which is why I feel it is unique and overpowered. The one thing that always held BLM back was the fact it was not safe to use in such a manner, but as the game and equipment has progressed, this is becoming less and less true, making BLM more overpowered every patch. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote:

Jun. 11th, 2007 01:57 am (UTC) Yes, I agree that anything you actually have time to delay in between nukes, BLM will just speed things up so much faster, but as I do not have Gaiters, I tend to rely heavily on my RDM. As for how I do Ix'DRK as RDM: The main difference here is I know with like 99.9% certainity that my first, and many subsequent Gravity casts will simply not be resisted. Even if I have no shadows, and Gravity wears, and Stoneskin is down, and i'm /BLM, I can still fire off a Gravity that will not get resisted, between being hit, as long as I put on max Fast Cast (AF1 Hat / AF2 Body / Loq Earring). Usually the only mobs that I ever aggro are Ghrahs, and even then, there is often a large window to wait for them to change form, because Temperance is very slow at catching up. This way, the LS can start their own Quasilumin guide, but normally I'll have Temperance back near the entrance in under 2 minutes tops. Ix'DRK, like you said, if you can seperate him somehow from his Qn'Aern, then you could most definetly solo him. Early on when duo'ing Ix'DRK as RDM/NIN + BLM/WHM, we would make mistakes seperating them, and ended up with both people weakened, and the BLM actually kited Ix'DRK solo, weakened, with Stoneskin + Blink and Gaiters, which shows how poor it's AI is. Ix'DRK very often stops to cast Bio II/Tier II nuke/Absorb-*** giving you alot of time to run away. I think perhaps a BLM/RDM could solo it, but it would probably require you to get Ix'DRK and the Qn'Aern very far apart. Once they are sufficiently far apart, you would Reraise, Blink/Stoneskin/Cure, and try to tag Ix'DRK while he is still far enough away from his Qn'Aern. If you can achieve this, you can get him alone to the teleporter room on the main floor, and kite around. Once unweakend, just stop to DoT him, and continue kiting. If you see him stop to cast a Tier II nuke, you can probably manage to sneak in a Tier 2 of your own, as well as stopping to Aspir and Drain it. Of course, this fight would take a fairly long time solo, but I believe it is doable, if you have enough patience ^^ Next, i'd like to solo Ix'MNK, however I am having a hell of a time getting the organs to pop it -_-;; Shukudai Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jun. 11th, 2007 01:59 am (UTC) *edit As for how I do Ix'DRK as RDM --> As for how I do Temperance ^^ Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

keider wrote: Jun. 10th, 2007 12:07 pm (UTC) <-- random lurker guy, been reading for a while, was really glad to see someone else understand this method of holding Think you could try pinning King Vinegarroon on BLM sometime? I've done it solo on NIN and THF with an evasion setup, a few antidotes, and Desert Boots, but I'm curious to see if you could come up with a plan for a BLM to pull it off as well, I'd be very impressed. Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Jun. 10th, 2007 03:49 pm (UTC) From my experiences, I think you have to kite KV with a DRK. It has TP regen. When it hits over 100TP, it will attempt a WS eventually and draw you in in the process. KV is really easy to solo kite if it were not for the WS as it does not run very fast and is extremely bulky (gets tripped up by terrain very easily). I've tried this on BLM and it kills me when it eventually decides to use a WS - will always use one of those AoE moves followed by one of the really strong single target moves. If the stun or petra move happens I'm dead. I've only tried about 2-3 times though - lasted about 5 minutes each time. My best advice to solo hold KV is take a DRK/NIN and run it around like normal. Use absorb TP when you can to hold its TP below 100%. With W. Legs I can't see it being a problem. The only things I would ever both pinning are things you cannot outrun otherwise - Faust, Faith, Temperance, etc. I'm a bit interested as to how long you were able to hold it on NIN or THF. The thing that always got me on this guy was the TP regen > Drawn In > x2 TP moves. Maybe there is something I didn't think of. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

keider wrote: Jun. 10th, 2007 06:16 pm (UTC) Record is 5 hours before I really had to pee and had someone take over for me.

I don't want to get too detailed, or at least not in a public post like this, the competition for KV on Midgard can get retardedly high and I've gotten a 3-day suspension for holding. GM said it was a "terrain exploit" although it's really no different than what you do with Temperance. But there most certainly is a trick to his AI that makes him a joke to hold, I'll PM or whatever LiveJournal uses to privately contact people you if you want. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

kanican wrote: Jun. 10th, 2007 09:56 pm (UTC) I'd be interested to hear it. There isn't any competition for KV on our server, but it does take some time to gather for us usually. I think the best way to PM me is via BG account (Kaeko). I'm not really sure how LJ does it. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

sofo88 wrote: Jun. 11th, 2007 09:51 am (UTC) Awesome post, I'm quite eager to try to solo pop Temp. Usually we do NIN RDM +w/e to be sure on each tower while rest of LS remains (which is not much, really, we're a small LS too) in the hall. Just a tiny correction, +Enfeebling cape is Altruistic (Astute is +Singing/Ninjutsu/Summoning). The pinning idea is really impressive, I can't wait to try that >_> Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Jun. 11th, 2007 10:29 pm (UTC) Fixed the error, thanks. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

wyred_odin wrote: Jun. 14th, 2007 02:36 am (UTC) tarutaru times online Hey, I made a blog directory site and I'm gathering more bloggers for it. http://vanadiel.wyred.nu/ Hope you are interested. Leave me a message in-game or ask Ashira to make you a registration key. Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Jun. 14th, 2007 05:35 am (UTC) Re: tarutaru times online Tell me in game! I'll probably be AFK though so might be hard to find me unless you can be on about 10-13JST. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jun. 15th, 2007 06:19 pm (UTC)

Hey I'm all over the Livejournal! I think that Fafnir pic was the time we thougth we stole? And we ended up giving it back to BBQ because we didn't wanna be trash? Good times. Oh and glad to make a drama thread worthy of the live journal. Keep up the good BLM fact-o-roonies Smell ya later~Llk Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jun. 16th, 2007 09:40 am (UTC) you should make a pld guide llk id read it Link | Reply | Parent | Thread xarutaru wrote: Jun. 16th, 2007 11:29 pm (UTC) Wow, this is a really good way to do this--well written guide too. Am going to have a go at this at some point this week and see how I fare (no Gaiters ; ;) Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jun. 19th, 2007 08:21 am (UTC) I love your guides, I've been following your LJ ever since your first Salvage post, when I was looking for info. A lot of your tips helped us greatly for a pre-update LBC win and our Ouryu fights go great, although Bahamut v2 needs work. I'm still rather new to playing end-game BLM, I had just hit 75 a month or two ago and is still working on gear. I tried solo popping Temperance, well almost solo, I 2boxed a Nin to help with the kill speed. On the 3rd PH, Temperance popped and went straight for the Nin, this allowed me a lot of time since I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I had forgotten to recast buffs, but Temperance was on the Nin, giving me time to ES gravity and run. I ran in a circle and got lucky on the 2nd corner that it was pinned there and proceeded to hold Temperance. I made a mistake of chatting too much on the LS and slipped up. Temperance had moved too far, too fast in one direction, for me to compensate. Gravity didn't seem to last very long, but I know that my enfeebling skill isn't capped :X Nor do I have the HQ staff. I was only able to hold it for 1.5 minutes before things went sour, but I just need more practice and to skillup before this can be practical for my LS to use. Thanks for all your hardwork in writing these posts and sharing. ~Xin Link | Reply | Thread

stringztoo wrote: Jun. 20th, 2007 02:05 pm (UTC) that wasnt me bothering chili was it? Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jun. 20th, 2007 10:28 pm (UTC) no

Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jul. 18th, 2007 11:20 am (UTC) random @ Fafnir Hi, I'm noob @ HNMs like Fafnir *blush*, so please explain me what "This is why you should always random on Odin!" means. Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Jul. 18th, 2007 10:14 pm (UTC) Re: random @ Fafnir When a mob is pulled by a group and people feel they have a chance at losing, things typically get ugly. Say the group does have trouble and it goes yellow for a split second - a couple people have died but not everyone. Do you take said mob or wait for everyone to wipe? The general consensus among NA HNM LSs is you are supposed to wait for everyone in the group to die before pulling, even if it goes yellow; however, many LSs fail to show such restraint when a 'free' king is right in front of them and will just jack it when it turns yellow. Many times, groups would wait for everyone to die, but fear other LSs will not and jump the gun. The result is when you fail to random, every other LS is fearful that everyone else is going to jack it and if that HNM ever goes yellow, a good number of LSs will steal it and MPK the group. This is what happened at this Fafnir in those screenshots. JP LSs on Odin usually follow the rule of if it's yellow and a couple of people died, you take it, which further complicates the problem. The best way to avoid this is to just random - this way there is a clear notion of who gets this mob if the group dies. This way there is no stealing and MPK of the group originally fighting it, and everyone has a fair shot at getting the mob. Randoming usually happens when most LSs can be trusted enough to follow these procedures. Nowadays randoming is extremely rare - too many new HNM LSs pop up in NA times, JP LSs rarely lose in JP time so people just leave and get ToD and don't bother staying. It's nearly polar opposites from NA and JP kings but they both result in lack of randoming. Randoming is probably outdated - it's good if you're the one fighting the mob. Generally speaking, failure to random causes some pretty epic dramas - this one posted here is really tame. I probably shouldn't post what a 'bad' one looks like because I try to be PC on the blog. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Sep. 2nd, 2007 08:43 pm (UTC) Awesome blog. Kaeko, your blog is quite awesome. I know a couple strategies out of it have made their way to LSes on Unicorn, thanks to you. Your blog is a great resource for BLMs everywhere, almost regardless of level. Thank you very much. ---Ironside of Windurst, Unicorn server (BLM52) Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Oct. 25th, 2007 02:30 am (UTC) Hi there, pretty nice guide. I heard a bit about this pinning technique but didn't want to bother at that time. Now my ls may go back to sea a bit, and we are pretty more experienced now that we were before.

I'm pretty sure what you are doing as blm can be done as a rdm (I'm pretty sure you will agree on that too ^^) and crimsom cuisses are far more available than gaiters, so I will try that next time I'm in sea. It will jsut take more time to kill the PH ^^ Thanks again for the great post ! Kaika form Gilgamesh Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Nov. 25th, 2007 01:56 pm (UTC) Smallmanning Sea A few notes on smallmanning Sea: Ix'DRG - Easy to pop solo as any job that can solo aern (BLM RDM BLU at least comes to mind), and at least able to hold solo with porters. Whether it's possible to solo with dots I don't know, would have to be tested, but duo is easy. Ix'DRK - Again, easy to get animosity solo, but think getting rid of Qn is close to impossible solo. Actually killing Ix'Aern is easy though, get it to circular room and anything can kite it. I've done it on both BLM and BRD with no movement speed bonus while waiting for others to kill Qn (on BLM I actually killed it too, which took around 15-20min). I'd say with 3-4 people you could pop, kill Qn and Ix pretty easily, if only 2 people gotta go with killing Ix 20 times :P. Ix'MNK - Easy to solo, though I've never tried 3 organ pop solo, anyone tried this and how it is to get rid of Qn? Jailer of Fortitude - Usually not that much of a point to smallman, since it's popped and therefore is fast to do with an ally, but it's possible to duo/solo, although soloing is a lot harder. Basically you need to get rid of Kf'ghrahs and get the Jailer to circular room alone. What seems to work best here is to have one person pop and tag a Kf so Jailer is unclaimed (or in an other way unclaim Jailer) then have someone pull Jailer off and take it to circular room (not the one you popped it at, Kf can come back and link again then) while the one with Kfs run far away with the Kfs before he zones. Doing this solo you need to kite them until they deaggro (or use a zone) and hope the Kfs have lagged far enough behind for you to pull Jailer without link from Kf. Have dones this personally, but needs luck, so wouldn't count on it. When it comes to killing it's pretty straight forward. Fortitude runs at normal speed so it is easy to kite. It will cast spells back at you though, so /nin is strongly recommended. Took about an hour to solo as RDM/NIN with only a THF with me for pull and TH. (0/5 on torque ;_;) Jailer of Temperance - Can be duoed by RDM/NIN from start to finish. (Other combos might be viable but need at least one RDM for grav and have to have utsusemi). Popping it is easy, so gonna skip that. The way you fight it is to have the two people stand on opposite sides of the circular kite room, close enough to cast spells on each other. If you then keep balanced hate between the two it will move back and forth a lot and barely even hit you. If hate balance is perfect it will take 1-2 shadows then go back to other person. The only thing to look out for is when it is in blunt mode, Optic Induration is very bad, and therefore you gravity and kite it whenever it is in blunt mode. Only damage here will be DoTs (poison/bioII) so will of course be a very long fight(can throw in a BLM for burn/shock/choke to speed it up). We popped it with duo RDM/NIN and took it down to 80% duo without any problems. A couple more came to join (NIN RDM/NIN) but didn't really speed it up any, just made it safer. Took about 2 hours to kill with poisonII/bioII and gravity only got resisted ONE time during the entire fight. As long as you only gravity it in blunt mode you should be fine. Meikyo Shisui can be bad, especially when used in blunt. If it does, keep so far away from it it can't use TP moves at all and wait for it to change form before you take the WSs.(We got MS Optic Induration once in the fight but survived) Of course this way of holding can also be used as an alternative for the more challenging "pinning" while waiting for rest of LS to come help kill.

Jailer of Faith - Haven't really tried smallmanning this because it's popped and so easy to kill with an alliance and not interested in torque (I have it). All I can say is it runs pretty fast, not sure if it's as fast as temp, and it will start resisting gravity after like 15 min or so. Casts breakga etc. which can be hard to run away from, but I think it would be possible to duo if you have movement speed or maybe by bouncing back and forth like temp and running away from spells. Sorry for the wall of text, but I find smallmanning sea very entertaining and helps LS a lot that you can mainly use events to do Tier II. Hope any of this info can be of use. Dragonade of Ramuh

Overview In previous posts regarding BLM styles and techniques, I've gone over a wide variety of ideas, from using a basic "standing" setup to some pretty high end kiting methods. In this post, I intend to really try to put it together in the form of what, I feel, is by far the most difficult Black Mage solo currently in the game - soloing and winning Apollyon NW (this means getting the chip, not just getting coins). I had previously gone over the basics of this in a previous post way back in November when I first did it; however, this time I hope to be much more in depth.

First Win Post (November '06) Since the first time, I've been able to win this solo successfully 4 straight attempts. In addition, I've duo'd it twice - most recently wiping both floors clean with 30 minutes remaining upon exit. The amount of employable strategy specific to the zone itself as well as BLM in general is pretty vast for this zone in particular, making it an ideal 'training ground' for anyone interested in pushing Black Mage to its current limits. My hope is to also show that with enough skill (and gear I guess), it is less about "getting lucky" to win, but rather more like winning unless you get "unlucky" - if that makes any sense. Winning this zone seems daunting, and even today, I think a lot of people find it "impossible" or "he just got really lucky". I hope to change some people's views on this by showing just how high the you can get the win percentage on this if you are serious about employing some of the strategies I've talked about in previous posts. This post will try to focus more on the soloing aspects of this zone - I realize that this zone is mostly duo'd or trio'd in a low man situation when a win is required; however, the overall point of the post is to stress the solo aspects of Black Mage. I will put some duo information in there, though. Some pics will be redundant from previous posts, I generally forget to take pictures when I do this. Sorry. EDIT: Uncut version of my vid soloing this zone from 3rd person point of view (73 minutes) (Not compressed - you need a very good computer and connection to view this right now) http://stage6.divx.com/user/nakamuu/video/1730022/NwApollyonSolo02 Black Mage Guide (Part I) Black Mage Guide (Part II) Black Mage Guide (Part III) Black Mage Guide (Part IV)

Black Mage Guide (Part VI) Black Mage Guide!

__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Portals and the "Luck Factor" In my opinion, the most interesting part about this zone is the fact that even after you manage to beat it solo, there is still so much to improve on due to this huge luck factor involved with portals. For those not familiar with the zone, each floor has a bunch of normal mobs and a boss, along with an HP/MP chest and 3 timer chests (5 minutes each). The items chest appears when the boss of the floor is killed, but is optional. The portal opens randomly after a normal mob is killed. This means that you could open up the portal to the next floor in 1 kill, or maybe 5 or 6 kills. Because of this, and the fact that you have to scale 4 floors in this manner, there is a large luck factor involved in winning this for most people - if you manage to get the portal to open first kill 4 straight times, you'll end up with about 70-80 minutes on the final floor; this is a huge difference from, say, getting portals to open the 5th mob each floor. It should be noted that the vast majority of the time, the portal will open within the first 3 kills - after doing this zone at least 30 times, I can say that this is true in almost every case.

The major difference between this post and the first win post is that I'm attempting to increase the winning percentage of this zone solo by decreasing the effect of luck on winning the zone. In the initial win, I managed to get the portals open on the 2nd kill on all 4 floors (2>2>2>2) and had about 50 minutes on the final floor, winning with just under 3 minutes to go. At this point in time, I can win the zone comfortably getting the portal on the 3rd kill all 4 floors (3>3>3>3). Because the portal opens by the 3rd kill the vast majority of the time in my experience, this essentially ups the winning percentage of this zone for me solo to well over 50%. At this point, it almost stops becoming "I got lucky with portals" when I win, and more like "I got unlucky with portals" when I lose - if that makes any sense. By increasing a large number of things ranging from gear setups, to killing speed, to kiting tricks, kills can go faster, smoother, and safer - allowing more room for "bad luck" and still winning. This is really the point of this post - HOW to go about doing this. I may refer to how much "luck" I had with portals by saying something like "4>3>3>2". This just means the number of mobs I killed each floor before moving up to the next on the first 4 floors (the final floor with

Behemoths would be the 5th). 4>3>3>2 is currently the most kills I've recorded on a run while still managing the win (my most recent win). With the zone basics in mind, I'll start getting into the important stuff. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Safety and Maintaining Distance For this zone in particular, you really have to kind of treat youreslf as the old "glass-cannon" type of Black Mage. Every single mob in this entire zone gets double attack - in the case of Behemoths, triple attack. In addition, they do a pretty high amount of damage and easily break a 350 damage skin in 2 shots with damage down equip. Blink and Stoneskin are extremely helpful, however, you cannot rely on them quite as much because the mob can break defenses and interrupt you in as little as 2 hits - even 1 hit if you come with a substandard stoneskin or standing setup. The first issue with this zone is safety - you're not going to complete the zone in time if you're dying and wasting 6-8 minutes per death. This is not to say you cannot win if you die - the first time I did this I wasted 8ish minutes after dying on the 5th floor and was still able to recover; however, it's best just be extra careful not to die. Here are a few quick tips regarding safety and keeping distance.

Use Bind Frequently! On any mob where both bind and sleep are landable, there is 1 huge advantage to using bind - when the spell wears, the mob will momentarily stand still before continuing to move. In sleep spells, this is not true and the mob immediately starts to run after you after waking. It's this little delay that can help you pull a significant amount of extra distance between casts. Whenever possible, I would use this to get those extra steps. There are some times where you definately want to avoid bind and stick to sleeping though - If the mob is strong to Ice. For this zone, this only applies to Ghosts - you can try it but I wouldn't rely on it. - If the mob can cast. Again, only applies to ghosts in this zone - leaving them able to cast is dangerous. - If you're handling links. Bind has an unpredictable wear off timer and it's annoying to bind adds. I think bind is rather underused by most BLMs, perhaps due to the fact that it is more unreliable than sleep. I would point to those old Avesta solo videos to show anyone how reliable it can be. I realize that he's got about 340 enfeebling skill; however, with all the new gear and those new merit caps, you can easily hit 290s or even

300 enfeebling magic skill. Honestly you don't even need that much to have a reliable bind - my BLM is horribly under-merited (no INT, no Enfeebling, no "other" catagory merits) because I can't find the time or patience to do those. Another advantage of bind is when it doesn't wear after damage is dealt. Typically, bind wears the instant a mob takes direct damage (DoTs won't wear it though), but sometimes it remains on. In these situations, you can speed the kills up quite a bit by just chain nuking a bit until it wears. It really doesn't happen too often, but if you use bind a lot (which I'm advocating here), you'll probably still see it a good bit (happens to me a lot on Behemoths and Bugards actually). It's just another little strategy to increase your overall killing speed. I think it takes a little getting used to with Bind because of how unreliable it can be; however, when you're going for killing speed (which is definately a huge part of doing this), it can be an invaluable tool. I would consider it something to focus on when going for killing speed (and sacrificing a bit of safety) - if you're in a dire situation or dealing with adds, definately go with safety over speed and just use your sleep spells. If you're just crusing along with kills, however, I would consider using it to speed things up.

Blink Casting to Gain Distance Everything in this entire zone runs at above average speed. The slowest mobs in the zone are probably the first floor ghosts. After that, everything you'll see is going to run at at least 25% enhanced speed, meaning you cannot outrun anything without gravity, even with gaiters. This makes maintaining your distance between nukes, even with gravity on, somewhat difficult; therefore it is extremely important that you take advantage of every little detail that gets you more distance. One of the best ways to gain extra ground has to do with the "Blink Casting" method I described in the 3rd part of the Black Mage Guide - where you use blinking toon effect to bypass useless animations. If done correctly, the amount of distance you can gain will roughly double, just to give you an idea of how strong this technique is. I would personally recommend that you try practicing this idea on something easier first just to get the hang of it; however, this will probably be the only event you'll do solo that really shows the benefits of doing this. This is not only a protective measure, but also a big key in increasing the speed of your kills (you have to focus much less on other defensive manuvers when using this). If you're not used to using this or just don't feel comfortable with it due to the extremely bad position it puts you in if you screw up (an interrupt), at least try to use the technique where you run a few steps moments before the cast. Generally, that is good enough to 'get by' in this zone.

__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Weaknesses of Using /RDM Sub - Status Heals I would never advocate soloing with any sub other than /RDM; however, there are some notable weaknesses when subbing this over /WHM that all solo Black Mages should be well aware of. Some of the strong points of subbing White Mage are definately not too noticable when soloing, for instance curaga spells, but others are. In particular, 2 of the biggest pluses of subbing /WHM for a solo situation are - Reraise spell - Status healing spells Fortunately, nowadays these are both pretty easy to counter actually. Obviously just about everyone is taking Reraise hairpins where ever they go now, so the fact that /WHM gets reraise isn't that huge a deal. For the status healing spells, it's pretty easy to just buy and keep a stack of Remedies in your inventory. Since assault came out, the price of Remedies have fallen off greatly. In addition, they are very common to find on the Auction House now as well. Most decent Black Mages will carry a stack of echo drops at all times; however, I find it easier just to carry a stack of Remedies instead.

(Duo with Payu on Mystrall's Character. The other 2 players are being Dual Boxed by Slaut who's AFK at the start of the zone to lot the chip set. I hope you play a job that uses Homam if you ever come back Myst because you'll probably be getting parts soon by default XD.) For this zone in particular, nothing really causes that much status. The only notable exception to this is the first floor boss Pluto, who likes to use a ranged TP move that causes virus status (unable to /heal for HP or MP). If you get hit with this move on /RDM and don't have remedies, you're pretty much screwed as it takes about 20 minutes to wear off, effectively ending your run. Generally speaking, it's rare to use Remedies, but when they are needed they are life savers, making it worth the cost. Note that you can also carry Remedy Ointments - a cheaper version of Remedy. These 2 are identical in every way as far as what status they can heal. The difference between a real Remedy and the Ointment is that the Ointment cures only 1 status at a time if you have multiple affected status while Remedy clears them all. This is most noticable when fighting Malboros and getting hit with Bad Breath. I usually just go ahead and shell out the extra cash for the real Remedies. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________

Manafont Usage Practice A very unique thing about Apollyon Northwest is the fact that you get to use your 2hr up to 5 times when soloing this (4 refilling chests and you probably enter with 2hr up). Typically, it is rare to use Manafont in a soloing situation this many times in under 2 hours, so it adds a great deal of strategy as well as practice chances. Yes, using Manafont well actually does take a bit of practice. Generally speaking, on soloing you will never use those lower damage to MP ratio spells unless you're on Manafont - things like Thundaga 3 for example. When you do get to use Manafont; however, you get a free minute to really bust out with all these high damage (but horribly inefficient) spells. It's just in general, good practice to know where in your menu/macros these high damage, infrequently used spells are. For my case, I don't macro any MP inefficient spells - no -ga3 spells or ancient magic 2 spells. All these are done through menu for me.

There's really not much to say here except I think that for many Black Mages, you will find yourself fumbling through macros and menus for these high end spells during Manafont simply because you aren't used to using them. Soloing Apollyon NW is an incredibly rare chance to actually learn through experience how to quickly shift through all these during Manafont. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Managing and Calculating MP Efficiency It is extremely important to realize that you're going for most kills over a long span of time, not just speeding through 1 kill. Because of this, it's important to ALWAYS be efficient with your MP (obviously disregarding during your 2hr). I would personally always avoid both ga3 spells and ancient magic 2 spells. I think a lot of Black Mages would disagree about not using Ancient Magic; however, it's just noticably less efficient than using simple 4 spells. Calculating how efficient your spells are is pretty simple. You just simply look at the damage you do to a certain mob and divide it by the MP cost of the spell. If you do this a couple times on any mob (it has to be the same type and level of mob obviously), you'll notice that the MP efficiency by tier usually comes down to this Tier IV > Tier III > Tier I > Ancient Magic II > Tier 2 > -Ga III > Ancient Magic I

There are exceptions to this due to variations in how the damage is calculated (most notably the effect of INT on direct damage adding); however, this is generally true. Because of this, you're going to want to stick to Tier IV spells whenever possible. Also, if you're merit'd like most endgame Black Mages, your Blizzard and Thunder spells are going to do more damage due to the job specific I merit catagory, so obviously try to use those as much as you can if resists are ok.

(Duoing KB with 2 BLM/RDMs. Payu, on Mystrall, does not even have a Black Mage leveled on his actual character... the only NA in TK without 75 BLM. He has extremely limited experience but still does great. It's really that easy with some practice!)

Maximum Damage Possibly Dealt Calculation Yet another calculation that you can do is take your damage per 1 MP on a tier IV spell and multiply it by the total maximum MP you have. This will give you a rough estimation of the most damage you can do without the use of items, Manafont, resting, or Aspir. It's going to be an over-estimate due to the fact that it doesn't account for MP usage on things like stoneskin and sleep, but it is a good indication of your killing power. This value is really going to come into play for a couple of things and is a good indication of how bold you should be on various mobs and situations. - If this value is less than the total HP of the mob you're trying to kill, make sure you can /heal, 2hr, or something - If this value is well over double HP of the mobs you're fighting, you can chain 2 of them before resting For Apollyon NW, this application applies to a couple of things. If you do this calculation on the Ghosts and Buffalo on the first and second floors, I think you'll most likely find that it is impossible to kill either of these without resting, 2hrs, items, etc. It may be possible to kill them without these things but my personal Maximum Damage is still well below that needed to do this (8,000HP estimate I think...). Knowing this, I know well before I fight these what I'm going to do to make up for this lack of killing power. Another extremely important application for this mainly applies to non-Tarutarus. If you are not Tarutaru, you need to apply this calculation on the 5th floor NQ Behemoths. These have an HP count of 5000 HP. This calculation is extremely valuable because you cannot aspir, sleep, or in any way stop this fight midway. If your maximum damage comes out lower or extremely close to 5000, you need to be ready with some type of back up plan, because if you get caught without one and no more MP, you're dead. A couple of good counters for non-Tarus (besides just having retardedly good gear) are to go on

Blizzard/Thunder day, which can enhance the average damage of your spells through day bonus. Other options include bring Vile Elixers or blowing Manafont (although this only lets you kill 1 of the 3). Another very good option is to equip full MP gear on the first opening nuke (usually as much Zenith as you can). Although the damage dealt will be weaker than nuking in damage gear, this MP you're using is going to be above the typical maximum you go with, and essentially be "free" and add towards your maximum damage possible number. This trick is something another Black Mage in TK, Demetrius (Hume), has used to more easily solo these Behemoths. As for the second thing to check for, if your damage is over double that of the mob's HP, you can chain 2 mobs in a row and save some time. This happens to be true of my setup and the 3rd floor Bugards, so I generally kill these 2 at a time. This is really helpful as I can kill literally 6 bugards in a row without resting on a single pool of MP with this strategy... First Kill > Second Kill > 2hr Third Kill > Use HP/MP Box > Fourth Kill > Fifth Kill > 2hr Sixth Kill Obviously this requires me to have Manafont up at the start of the floor, which may or may not happen. This really highlights the fact that your MP efficiency plays a huge roll in your killing speed, especially due to the HP/MP Boxes on each of the first 4 floors. Just make sure that you try to perform a few of these calculations after trying this zone out a couple of times. It helps tremedously in planning your course of action in future runs. Just a simple comparison of numbers lets you know if you're going on a suicide mission, cannot afford a single resist, or have a ton of leeway. It's just a good way to let you know if you need to have a back up plan for something.

(Winning with Duo BLM/RDMs at the 30 minutes remaining mark. We managed to duo the entire zone with portals up at 3>1>3>5 in just over 1 hour. With so much leeway, it's not all that hard to see how this can be solo'd.) __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Kaiser Behemoth Solo Strategy I went over a bit about this in the first solo win post; however, I hope to go much more in depth this time with regards to how to actually play Black Mage in general (using this fight as a show case). This fight is a great measuring tool for the following areas of Black Mage soloing -

Kiting knowledge and skill Mob timing (dealing with when Meteor goes off) Blink Casting Your Dark Magic Skill setup Just generally being able to keep focus for a 20+ minute solo fight

As previously mentioned, ALWAYS kite this thing going counter-clockwise. This is to take advantage of a pathing/terrain trick that lets you nuke Kaiser Behemoth while it's going after you. I think many people who duo this often will disagree with this point, but also if you're duoing this, have everyone kite this direction and do not try to bounce aggro going both directions. My reasoning for this is mobs do NOT always cast a spell on the person you think has the most hate. Hate can switch quickly and switch back by the time you do an /assist on it and it's just risky to try this. Having everyone go the same direction is safer and as you will see later, still lets you nuke freely very often. I'll try to go into each area of detail about this solo from here, starting with the pathing exploit.

Using the Pathing Exploit to Get Nukes Off If you intend to solo this on a BLM, you're going to need to take advantage of this exploit to win in time, barring incredible luck on the portals coming up. This exploit is the only reason that Black Mage is a better soloer for this zone (when clearing) than Red Mage, which is overall, a much stronger long duration soloer. Using this allows you to essentially get off a strong nuke with 100% safety as much as once every minute, turning this long duration fight into about a 20-30 minute one solo, or a 10-15 minute joke with 2 BLM/RDMs duoing.

(Map of 5th Floor Apollyon NW provided and skinned by dona.dip.jp. Refer to this map for the layout you'll be kiting on. This is the map before I start screwing it up with poorly made marks in Paint.)

(Used imageshack to host this larger image because LJ seems to resize it down. I'll try to fix it if it messes up.) The exploit has to do with the pathing of Kaiser Behemoth. What you need to do to pull this off is stand at the Blue Dot and wait for Kaiser to come to you. Get your nuke ready and spam its use until Kaiser comes in range. When Kaiser reaches where the Purple Dot is, the spell will be cast (in range), but Kaiser will not attempt to cast Meteor and continue running around the long turn. He takes a ridiculously long time to clear this turn and runs back in range of your long casting nuke right before it goes off. At this point, he'll most likely try Meteor, but you'll be just inside casting range and will have plenty of time to move. Doing this basically allows you to get off a Tier 4 spell (I usually use Blizzard 4 in Elemental Skill gear) every full loop around the kiting path. I usually get the nuke off at that point and attempt a quick casting spell where the Red Dot is labeled (Bio II, Poison II, Drain, or Aspir). This is, in my opinion, the ONLY efficient way a Black Mage can solo this in a reasonable amount of time. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Dark Magic Skill Setups

Dark Magic is an extremely important and typically under appreciated skill set for Black Mages. The effectiveness of using Dark Magic really comes into play in the Kaiser Behemoth solo fight in particular, though, because you will essentially be using 3 of the 4 main Black mage Dark Magic Spells - Bio II, Drain, and Aspir predominantly throughout the fight. Try to focus on getting higher skill then Fast Cast / Haste. If you have Herald's Gaiters, keep them ON when you switch you can blink cast while using Dark Magic Spells. There are 3 main, often overlooked advantages to using Dark Magic spells - They are extremely MP efficient - They all cast extremely fast - They generally do not follow the same resistance / damage formulas as other spells Because they cast extremely fast, you again, want to keep your Gaiters on if you have them. This is to take advantage of the Blink Casting manuver - becuase these dark spells cast so quickly, you can much more easily pull off Blink Casting, almost to the point where it looks like you never even stopped to cast the Dark Magic Spell. This speed abuse really lets you keep incredibly safe distances from Kaiser throughout the fight. My current Dark Magic Set is shown below (Stun has a different Staff, though). Main Ranged Head Body Hands Legs Feet Back Waist Neck Ear 1 Ear 2 Ring 1 Ring 2 Pluto's Staff Phantom Tathlum Walahra Turban Dalmatica Sorcerer's Gloves Wizard's Tonban +1 Herald's Gaiters Merciful Cape Anrin Obi * Dark Torque Loquacious Earring Abyssal Earring Tamas Ring Snow Ring Potency +15% Haste +5% Auto-Refresh ; Magic Defense Bonus +5 Dark Magic Skill +10 Dark Magic Skill +15 Movement Speed +12% Dark Magic Skill +5 Day/Weather Bonus Effects Dark Magic Skill +7 Fast Cast +1% ; Recast -0.5% Dark Magic Skill +5

* Note that I have Anrin Obi but usually don't use it because I'm too lazy to bring it - it is no longer in my normal gear setup so I usually don't bring it to things. However, because of the constant double darkness weather in Apollyon you should use this if you have it for a huge boost in Aspir and Drain. In summary, this setup gives me the following important statistics for Dark Magic Dark Magic Skill 311 (+42) Fast Cast +1% Haste +5% Day/Weather Bonuses (+20% at least in this zone) Maintains Faster Run Speed

This setup is still admittedly a bit weak. Adding Swift Belt and Nashira Body would add 5 more Dark Skill and +7% more haste to the setup, which is a significant improvement. In addition, I'm also missing HQ AF2 hands as well as Dark Earring (which I just don't feel is worth an inventory slot). The most important number to make sure yout hit is 291, so that your Bio II will hit the 8 damage per tick tier.

Even with skill above 300, you'll still get a lot of resists on Aspir; however, you will start to get some pretty nice Aspirs every once in awhile like this one...

A couple of these gets you another free Blizzard IV and speeds up the fight considerably after a few of them. This is just one of the many benefits of maintaining a very strong Dark Magic Skill set. If you notice on the equipment layout, I spend a large number of equipment slots on items that have no use other than for the Dark Magic Setup, sometimes, only marginal increases at that (Torque and Earring in particular). This is because I personally feel that the Dark Magic Setup should never be overlooked. When you get into any situation where you're very low on MP, or just in a long duration fight like this one, you're almost always going to heavily rely on the Dark Magic Spell Set because they are just so cheap, efficient, fast/safe to get off in kiting situations, and almost never follow normal resistance rules. Whlie RDM is undoubtably the king of long duration fight solos, BLM is, I feel, an underrated endurance soloer due to the fact that it gets all these Dark Magic Spells. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________

The Use of Drain as the Primary DD Spell Once again, I cannot stress to anyone reading this enough, the importance and game-breaking ability of using Blink Casting on Black Mage. As I had mentioned previously, using Blink Casting on a short casting spell, such as all the dark magics, essentially let you cast these spells practically without ever stopping. When you're fighting a mob that is constantly B-lining towards you, this becomes extremely powerful as you still have a non-DoT damage tool you can use while engaged in a full kite!

This Kaiser Behemoth fight is a decent example of this; however, it isn't even the best one as it still stops to cast. If you're not comfortable using Blink Casting, you really don't have to on this because Kaiser stops to cast Meteor at really predictable times so it's not as important to maintain max distance. To truly see how strong this technique is, you would have to try it on something that just never stops coming after you, such as Ix'MNK. If you try it on that, or just watch someone use it, you'll realize how absolutely ridiculous it looks - it looks like the BLM is casting drain entirely while running and the poor mob just never can catch up even when you're casting. Besides the huge advantage of it's a fast casting spell, Drain is also, by far, the most MP efficient spell in the game for Black Mage. With an MP cost of 21 and damages that easily get into the 300s, you're looking at MP efficienies in the 12 damage/MP range, far greater than anything you could ever get on a Tier IV nuke. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell show this because the damage doesn't show up in the log if you're at full HP. Funny enough, I haven't even mentioned to this point that Drain gives back 100% of the damage dealt to you which, oddly enough, is just a bonus considering everything else it can do.

Unfortunately, I can't really tell you how the actual damage or resist formulae work for drain or any of the other Dark Magic Spells. I haven't realy heard of any conclusive testing done to get these formulas; however, I do know that they are easily the most efficient and unique spells for Black Mage. So honestly, I really couldn't care less exactly how they are calculated because I would use them regardless. With a properly constructed Dark Magic Set and Herald's Gaiters, your Black Mage essentially has 2 forms of extremely strong and unique (compared to any other job) damage dealing. On one hand, you have your extremely strong nukes, which are already incredibly MP and TP efficient, but take a bit longer to cast. On the other hand, you have drain, an ability which doesn't follow the damage or resistance rules of any other spell or ability in the game and has ridiculous MP efficiency, and best of all, an incredibly fast casting speed. This makes Black Mage not only potent in fights where it can stand to nuke 4 spells, but also in kited fights something usually overlooked with Black Mages. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ History and Conclusions I have to give credit where credit is due and say that I was NOT the first person to solo Kaiser Behemoth. That feat belongs to a Tarutaru RDM/NIN named Darkshines (Ragnorak Server?). Unfortunately, in his initial Kaiser win, he timed out of the zone between killing Kaiser and popping the final chest and failed to actually "win" the zone. After reading and looking at pics of his attempt, I started going for the win myself, thinking that a BLM could do similar things. I successfully solo'd the zone 2 weeks later on my 3rd attempt and was actually able to finish popping the chest with about 2-3 minutes to spare. He later repeated and got the full "win" himself literally a day after I did. This was around November '06. At this point in time, I still do not know of any other person who was able to successfully solo the zone on either BLM or RDM, which I honestly find surprising considering the surge of game information, merit changes, and better equipment in the game now. There are probably others that can do it that I just don't know about, but it seems that they are few and far between. A lot of people still think it's impossible to do solo, so definately not many have done it. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, at this point, it's not even about just winning the zone, but trying to increase the winning percentage. At this point I can comfortably say my win percentage would be well above 50% and I'm currently on a 4 run "win streak" in the zone solo.

There is definately a huge "e-penis" or "bragging factor" associated with this zone for me; however, I honestly want to play this off as a showcase of a Black Mage STYLE, and not a showcase of a single Black Mage PLAYER. I truly believe that this game is not rocket science, and especially with cheesy tools like Distance

Plug-In, it doesn't take a genius or a "haijin" Avesta-like gaming god to pull off any of the things I've gone over in any of my posts - whether they be team efforts or solos. All it really takes is some decent gear, experience, and for the person to be willing to try enough. I am a strong believer in the efficiency and dominant play of this particular style of Black Mage I've gone over in these posts - the often "reckless" style, inventory and gear setups, use of macros, and it's often complicated methods to achieve perfect setups in every situation. My attempt to sell this style was through to showcase of particularly difficult solos such as this one or that Temperance holding method gone over previously.

(Winning shots for Apollyon NW from the first and fourth wins respectively) This style is so strong, in my opinion, that it starts to show noticable benefits to not just soloing, but also group play. For instance, nowadays, I don't just solo/duo this zone for fun anymore. The small group of NAs in TK actually do Limbus runs now and doing these chips solo helps a great deal in finishing sets off quickly. In the end, this is what it really should be about in FFXI - being able to help others, not soloing for "e-penis" points. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________ Pic of the Day

When Jahga and Fatkat used to get bored, they would go on their mules, go /anon, then play this little game...

Basically they got in an alliance of 1 mule each and would count down. When it was time to go, they would quickly do "/sea all inv" and try to race to see who could get their party filled the fastest on blind invites. So they get me to play along one day (I don't know why I went along with it...), and this is what happened. They both freaking filled out the parties in like about 5 seconds I swear... Some of those reactions are just priceless.

Drama Thread of the Day There has been a real explosion of BG Drama threads recently, especially due to server migrations. I personally hate the whole idea of server migrations, but I must admit it causes some incredibly good drama. Siren Drama BG Server Switch Shit-List Apathy (Remora) Epic Drama

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wunjo_on_ramuh wrote: Jul. 6th, 2007 11:40 am (UTC)

Reading these posts has made me want to try some of this out for myself. I finally stopped procrastinating and started leveling my BLM again. Your post about the standing equipment set also made me think of things that I could do with my WHM equipment - the damage down standing set actually saved me several times in yesterday's Einharjar. Thanks for writing this guide. I look forward to your next post. Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jul. 6th, 2007 12:49 pm (UTC) You lost because you did /sea all inv. According to Fatkat, the secret is /sea inv region rank 1, spam invites, /sea inv region rank 2, etc. ~Nermal Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Jul. 6th, 2007 06:39 pm (UTC) Fatkat is such a skank! Link | Reply | Parent | Thread fatkatlb wrote: Jul. 7th, 2007 06:52 am (UTC) i feel so special whenever kaeko mentions me in his thing just cuz so many randies read it Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jul. 6th, 2007 01:23 pm (UTC) drain costs 22mp? you must have an error in your game :P aspir is my favorite, if every mp you get from a 142 aspir is used to cast drain, and you drain for 300~ that is 6x300 = 1800, 1800/10 = 180dmg/mp. i think it's worth going over the maths for bioII (and bio) damage also, (inidmg+8*ticks)/36, with the number of ticks it will last of course. -mikazuki Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Jul. 6th, 2007 06:28 pm (UTC) Wow that's a bit embarrassing, changed it to 21 lol... Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

aesthetik_dekay wrote: Jul. 6th, 2007 02:44 pm (UTC) server migrations make me skerr'd Link | Reply | Thread

gokulo wrote: Jul. 7th, 2007 07:28 am (UTC) One thing I would like to add about the bind. I can't remember where, but I read somewhere on the net that depending on your enfeebling skill Bind has sort of a cap it can take before it wears off. Meaning themore enfeebling you have themore damage can be dealt before it wears off. I suppose it can be easily tested but I'm too lazy to do that... >.<; Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Jul. 7th, 2007 07:46 am (UTC) I don't think that's true. I remember watching some old Avesta videos where he would break Bind with Bio II. I don't see how skill affects the HP to break bind when a RDM with 340+ skill breaks it constantly with a 30 damage Bio II. I think the consensus for most people is that any type of non-DoT damage causes a good chance of break. I think there's a possibility that it affects the % chance it remains on after taking damage? Either way it's a great defensive and offensive spell. It's one of the many reasons I ended up deciding to merit enfeebling instead of dark magic (which was tempting at first). Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jul. 7th, 2007 10:54 am (UTC) i was doing some coffer farming or so~ on saintjust a few months ago and used bind instead of sleep about 20x, obviously this is on ep mobs but i'm pretty sure i cast thunderIV without bind wearing, sometimes blizzardIV after that - it varied as to the 1st/2nd/3rd damage spell breaking it, but generally it was not on the first. i don't think that would work at all on IT~ mobs but try it in sea for example with tierI spells (and so on). Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jul. 7th, 2007 01:16 pm (UTC) Gaiters Not to bash on anything writen here, which is great. I really appreciate the time you make to write such great guides. What troubles me is its almost presented as a "anyone can do this with blm" type guide. I don't see the disclaimer that says "can only be done with gaiters". You wrote: "My hope is to also show that with enough skill (and gear I guess), it is less about "getting lucky" to win, but rather more like winning unless you get "unlucky" - if that makes any sense."

So the question becomes is skill really the deciding factor or is it the gaiters? No question the skill is important, but after you learn the basic techniques like kiting, pathing, where to nuke, "blink casting", etc is it even enough to win without gaiters? In other words, I'm challenging you to do this without gaiters. I know you might say "Thats not really important" or "I have them so why should I?" I think it is important if these are presented as blm guides instead of "What I can do with rare gaiters guides?" Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Jul. 7th, 2007 05:53 pm (UTC) Re: Gaiters That's actually a really interesting and really valid point. In the initial win, I did make a claim that I felt this zone was impossible without the use of gaiters, particularly for Kaiser. It's definately a valid concern - I generally don't think about it all that often because I never take them off, so it is honestly hard for me to tell how difficult things are without them usually. I may try to just run this zone w/o them once or twice and see how it goes. I haven't done anything w/o them for 2 years so it's a bit awkward, but I do see your point about it. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jul. 7th, 2007 07:26 pm (UTC) Re: Gaiters I can say for sure you can out run Kaiser Behemoth all day without Gaiters on BLM, but ONLY because he starts to cast Meteor. If he casts, you can get out of range and just run around and continue to run around the edges of the hole in the middle, he won't catch you... The problem is really casting something like a Tier IV without Gaiters to get back out of range fast after it lands. I think Bio II/Drain/Aspir can be done safely tho without Gaiters. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

kanican wrote: Jul. 7th, 2007 08:14 pm (UTC) Re: Gaiters It's more of a speed issue rather than a safety issue. I'm very sure I wouldn't die w/o using Gaiters, but I may not be able to take a lot of those risks I usually take and the killing speed would be slower. Getting a 'win' doesn't seem that difficult if the portals get opened really quickly. You can easily hit the 5th floor with over an hour left if you were to say get a 1>1>1>1 on portals. The winning % would probably drop a quite a bit though since Gaiters let you get away with so many more things. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

pogle wrote: Jul. 7th, 2007 11:49 pm (UTC) Re: Gaiters First off, the usual compliments and kudos to you for all of this. I've loved reading your details on this zone in the past, and we regularly trio it (BLM BLM RDM) for my small limbus group while the rest of the group does another area. We've made good use of a lot of your Limbus strategies, adapting them of course to fit our group (we only have myself and one other BLM). In terms of gaiters and damage done, our trio has a bad tendency of forgetting to use 2hrs in many cases, or using them to kill the bosses in attempts to get AF+1 items for people, so we still use a good portion of the total alloted time. But, given the right luck and some practice I'm almost positive I could solo this zone, and without gaiters. I only got my gaiters a couple weeks ago, and several runs prior to that I've noticed that I could really tear Kaiser a new on without much risk thanks to your kiting path technique. I am able to get a Bliz4 off and still avoid meteor, sans gaiters. I've been sick lately so I haven't even gotten to try this run with my gaiters yet. I'm also one of those rare BLMs that abuses the heck out of bind instead of sleeps in many instances; partially as a result of trying various RDM solos I guess. The hardest part I see of soloing without gaiters is the final floor Behemoths, given the fact that you can't sleep them and bind has such a long recast, maintaining distance from them solo will be difficult. Looking forward to reading future entries. I'd love to see a list of stuff you abuse gaiter-speed with...I got mine rather unexpectedly, and despite having lusted after them for months I was suddenly at a loss as to what to use them for! I've done Ix'MNK (duo, since I seldom do BLM stuff without my cat-friend, but I can easily see doing it solo since I practiced getting DoTs off while kiting), but its driving me nuts trying to remember all those other fun fights that come with that 'requires gaiters' tag. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand

kanican wrote: Jul. 8th, 2007 09:11 am (UTC) Re: Gaiters Good to hear that maybe gaiters aren't as important as I make them out to be. I personally have not taken them off in 2 years, so I can only compare myself with them to others without them. I'm very positive that any number of above-average endgame BLMs willing to practice a couple runs could definately solo this, especially with the nuking trick on KB. Keep in mind that although I do have the gaiters are very good gear, I do not have a Novio, and my BLM is horribly under-meritted. Ix'MNK can be done without gaiters, it just takes longer. Gaiters helps you use Drain, which ends up being the biggest source of damage when I do it (not DoT). With constant Drains along with DoT, I can do an Ix'MNK solo in about 15-18 minutes now. With just plain DoT it takes a whole lot longer. Perhaps I've placed too large an emphasis on Gaiters in these posts. I personally believed that they have helped

me a great deal; however, it is not like I compared myself with and without them - I only do things with them so nothing to compare with. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Aug. 22nd, 2007 09:39 pm (UTC) Re: Gaiters I also do this zone alot with a small group of mage friends (I don't have Gaiters). I agree that with the kiting trick above, there is almost no danger in getting a Tier IV off each lap (if that is the only cast you do) -sometimes we get so far ahead of him (I assume because he uses a TP move shortly after Meteor), he'll actually switch directions. If I were to attempt this solo, my biggest concern would be the 2nd cast at the northern (red) dot on the map, which I'd think is pretty much required to solo this in a realistic amount of time. What makes it so safe to do the Tier 4 is the huge gap you open when he tries to cast Meteor. If I let him close this gap at the red dot to cast Aspir/Drain/DoT, I'm not sure I can open up a large enough gap w/o Gaiters to get back to the blue nuke dot fast enough. I'd guess that if you limited yourself to 1 cast per lap (simply choosing Bliz4/Aspir/Drain/DoT at the blue dot), you'd run out of time. ----Any tips for NQ Behemoths solo? With Kaiser switching directions frequenly, kiting space can be somewhat limited I'd think. Is there enough space to just kite in a straight line, or do you need to bind & switch directions usually? Also, what would you recommend if gravity wears, and neither gravity nor bind timer is up? Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand Re: Gaiters kanican - Aug. 22nd, 2007 10:31 pm (UTC) Expand Re: Gaiters narihn_diabolos - Sep. 8th, 2007 02:28 pm (UTC) Expand Re: Gaiters kanican - Sep. 8th, 2007 05:38 pm (UTC) Expand (Anonymous) wrote: Jul. 10th, 2007 05:35 pm (UTC) Very interesting information Hi Very interesting information! Thanks!

G'night

Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Jul. 13th, 2007 02:20 pm (UTC) you do iz besz

Hi all! Looks good! Very useful, good stuff. Good resources here. Thanks much! G'night

Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Aug. 2nd, 2007 12:40 am (UTC) Re: you do iz besz god this blog blows. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

kanican wrote: Aug. 2nd, 2007 09:09 pm (UTC) Re: you do iz besz Sup Payu Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Aug. 2nd, 2007 03:35 pm (UTC) Replying late because it was really a few updates back, but why don't you use the recast plugin? http://www.windower.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8516 It displays any/every recast timer anywhere you like it, I put it in the upper right corner just below and to the left the S/R numbers. Using this you can remove the need for...well any /recast in your macros. I know that trying to see those within the chatlog was always a pain in the ass, so I was thankful for this. It shows JAs too, so helped me a lot on Warrior [>_>]b --Xanthu of Asura p.s. Rock the fuck on, this blog is Rkenshin-quality Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Aug. 2nd, 2007 09:14 pm (UTC) I usually only use the plugins that seem to start without me doing anything when I log on. I guess it's just habit as to why I do it the way I do. Also, I think there is a way to remove the "equipment changed" lines from the log when I change gear, but I still keep them anyway even though it spams the chat log for me.

Another good thing about /recasts on spells is that I can tell what macro I've just attempted to press based on what recast timer appears in the log. Helps tell me if I'm mis-pressing anything. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Aug. 9th, 2007 05:43 am (UTC) whatever this blog sucks Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Aug. 5th, 2007 04:38 am (UTC) Merits I know it has probably been a while since your first merit, but what do you think is a good way to use your first ones? I started off doing a quick burst 2 and freeze 2 then went to ice and thunder potency. Then I was told elemental magic should be leveled first so I started doing that. Coming from a great blackmage, I was wondering what your input would be for merits. And btw, I'm a mithra. :) Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Aug. 5th, 2007 07:12 am (UTC) Re: Merits Hmm if you plan on immediately doing HNM events, you definitely need to cap elemental magic first. Potency and big damage spells like AM2 mean nothing if you cannot land a full shot consistently. If you plan on taking BLM to anything you would use an elemental set on (sky gods, fafhogg, grand wyrms, etc.), do this order... 1) 1 point in burst and freeze 2 2) Max elemental magic 3) Max thunder and blizzard potencies 4) Max MP 5) Finish tier2 merits (whatever you decide to do) 6) INT If you do not plan to do big time HNMs anytime soon, you do not have to worry so much about elemental magic at first. Instead you want to focus on damage so try this (especially if you plan on soloing for merits)... 1) 1 point in freeze and burst 2 2) Max thunder and blizzard potencies 3) Max Elemental magic 4) Max MP 5) Finish tier2s 6) INT You can also mix it a little. Try getting some MP (maybe lvls 1-3) since the first upgrades are so cheap. MP is extremely underrated by a lot of career BLMs. Merits make a huge difference in play, so I'd definitely try to get at least 1 burst/freeze2, max elemental, max potency asap. The rest isn't as big a deal. Personally, I have 0 enfeeble merits, 0 INT merits, 0 other catagory merits. Those are very nice, especially the enfeebles, but it's not crucial to playing at a high level. You definitely will feel not having the rest though.

GL! Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Aug. 8th, 2007 05:53 pm (UTC) Re: Merits Thank you very much for the response. I had already done LV4 on MP for my whitemage, so I guess I'm good with that until I finish my others. Thank you again, I've been doing pretty good soloing and I think I did a moderate amount of dmg on JoL :) Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Aug. 15th, 2007 06:26 pm (UTC) God damn update already. ~Nermal Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Oct. 4th, 2007 09:51 am (UTC) Best Blm guide (*w * )d Nothing to say but this is by far most the best guide I have ever seen for da past 3yrs. Thx for sharing and putting so much effort to post them here!

-Fenrir Link | Reply | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Oct. 9th, 2007 02:02 am (UTC) Videos Excellent info and post! On another note, this is what looks like another blm pulling off the solos and techniques you talk about. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cGYqFj_15ds http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=64IGKMUeqZg Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Oct. 9th, 2007 06:06 am (UTC) Re: Videos Nice find! I'll probably link this when I get the Apollyon NW Video correctly cut from my own run. The 2 are extremely similar, I think it's great to show how the strategy works - his is from 1st person point of view, mine is 3rd person point of view. Too bad he times out right before the box though :( He actually could have gotten a blizzard 4 kill shot at the end w/o the terrain trick. You can get a blizzard 4 off

on /RDM before he gets meteor off. Would have gotten him a killshot at the half way point and made the clear possible. Very cool video though. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

kanican wrote: Oct. 12th, 2007 05:30 am (UTC) Re: Videos Uncut version of my vid from 3rd person point of view (73 minutes) http://stage6.divx.com/user/nakamuu/video/1730022/NwApollyonSolo02 Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Oct. 11th, 2007 05:18 pm (UTC) Just a quick question, What would you say to Nashira Turban vs Walahra Turban for dark magic spells? Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Oct. 11th, 2007 10:48 pm (UTC) You can make a very good argument for either. I happen to not have a Nashira Turban so it makes my choice a lot easier. Basically it depends on how much you think 10 macc affects your aspirs and drains. There are really no confirmed #s behind how macc works, so it's a real toss up. Some say it's like 1 skill, or 0.9 skill, or useless, etc. - depends who you believe but no1 has any real proof on it. If you think it's not that big a deal, go with the extra haste on Walahra. If you think it is a big deal, then maybe it is worth losing some haste for recast so you can get that 10 macc. My personal preference if I had both would be Walahra Turban, but either is a pretty good choice. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Oct. 30th, 2007 02:36 pm (UTC) Fellow Blm -Naobi- (Bahamut server) Hi Kanican, Awesome guide dude, it will definately help blms get up to speed and become more efficient and better blms. I have doin apollyon for quite a while as well, and just figured I'd share a lil bit of my experiences. 1st experience on trying to solo NW wuz, needless to say, catastrophe. I killed 2 ghosts, got the vortex and had a horrible time with pluto. He killed me once, I reraised, tried to finish him off before he regenned, and he killed me again cuz i wuz greedy and didn't put rr back up.

2nd experience I got to the buffalo level and timed out due to having to kill 5 ghosts on first floor (no pluto fought cuz needed time), and wuz on my 4th buffalo on 2nd floor. 3rd run (finally some success) At this point i decided to not go with melon pies +1 and to go with marron glace and yags. This seemed to turn out much better for me having the extra mp. I think i was around 1400 in mp gear, and 1150ish in full nuke gear. At this point I took pluto, ram, and didn't fight any other bosses. I got to the behemoth floor and boy wuz that a learning experience. I was able to kill one behemoth after spending nearly 150-20 mins on the first one. and having to figure out that only bind and grav wuz useful here. finally going for the gold: Eventually I triod this just to get a feel for how all the bosses acted. The goal was to clear, not farm coins. So we passed pluto and ram boss cuz we knew they could be soloed. Tried turtle, and it wuz horrible so we just out ran him and went up. Tried dragon and it went well and with minor deaths. For behemoth, we didn't know about the nuke spot yet so just did the bouncing hate and kiting. Towards the end, one of my friends realized the nuke point so we set that for our final goal. We returned 3 days later, skipping all bosses and going straight to kaiser level as fast as possible, did the counter clockwise kiting while nuking at nuke point and had our first glorious success. At that point i knew i had to do it myself. Finally reached my goal: Returning there the following monday, i got to the top floor as quickly as possible, skipping all other bosses. I got started on behemoth and boy wuz it fun. It definately kept me on my toes. The yag drinks helped a lot. The only time i died wuz when she caught me by surprise with thunderbolt instead of the usual meteor. I wuz bound and she killed me. As she walked away, i jumped up, bio'd her and continued to kite (she was at about 14% at this point) I was able to finish her off with just around 4 mins or so left. That wuz one of my most proud moments back then as a blm. At that time I had the following equipment if my memory serves me right: -hq staves -hedgehog bomb and phantom tathlum -af hat+1, z crown (proc) -philomath neck and uggy -moldavite, loquacious, phantom +1 -sorc ring, serket ring, snow ring, ether ring -weskit, black cloak, af +1 coat -z mitts -blue cape +1, prism cape -hierarch belt, obi's, pen rope -af2 legs, af legs, lappas, mahatmas -rostrums (yes can be done without herald's gaiters but god damn would i love to have them!!!)

Since then I dropped all my gear, rare/ex, tradable, all of it to quit. I recently came back to the game and am in the process of regetting gear back. Once I feel comfortable enough in gear, ill do it again and let ya know the outcome. PS: quick question for you regarding the blink kiting:

If im in mid cast with say blizzard IV, and i swap to my black cloak at around 50%, im able to pull of the blink kiting as you state. My question is, which gear do you think takes effect in the nuke? the weskit, or the cloak? Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

kanican wrote: Oct. 30th, 2007 05:36 pm (UTC) Re: Fellow Blm What matters as far as stats when you nuke is what is on WHEN THE NUKE GOES OFF. So in that situation you outlined it's the gear you had on last right before you nuked. If you did a Weskit > Cloak it would be the cloak's effects. The only types of stats that do not show up upon the cast are running speed and fast cast - these are more difficult to explain but most stats you just need to have on at the time of the nuke. It's definitely a very doable zone without gaiters I've realized. The game has really progressed since I first won this zone (it'll be a year since I won it about a week from today) and players in general have gotten a lot better both gear and skill-wise. In the video I have on this, I actually did the entire thing in 1:11:05 while killing the 2F boss, so there is a lot of room for leeway I think. I've seen a video of someone doing this (but timing out on the way to the chest, and pics of another person winning - all without gaiters. Awesome job on it. I'm glad people find this helpful and are willing to challenge themselves on it. I'm always looking for the next new thing to solo, so I hope the next big solo that comes out will be received just as well as this one. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: Apr. 26th, 2008 03:32 pm (UTC) Mini Behemoths and Sleep Just did Apollyon NW last night and rdm/whm who'd never done zone b4 used Sleep2 on a Behemoth and landed it. I have a screenshot of it cos I was shocked after reading this and basing my runs off it. Link | Reply | Thread

kanican wrote: Apr. 26th, 2008 06:22 pm (UTC) Re: Mini Behemoths and Sleep I think it's one of those 5% land rates... Would be interesting to see if it's enfeebling skill based though. These are generally the hardest part of a NW solo run so anything that can help slow them down helps tremendously. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread (Anonymous) wrote: May. 8th, 2008 08:37 pm (UTC) Re: Mini Behemoths and Sleep I would say its perhaps worth testing out a little more. The rdm who landed it has it as a secondary job and is not the most amazingly geared I'd have to check with her on what merits she has but i'd have to say skill at the time was at the absolute Max 314 possibly lower. Link | Reply | Parent | Thread

toksyuryel wrote: May. 26th, 2008 11:49 am (UTC) Excellent article, I will definitely be trying this myself once I get the proper gear for it (I severely lack dark skill right now D:). Just wanted to point out, stage6 appears to be completely and totally dead- would you happen to have another way to share the complete video?