returning player (more than one question)

Hey all, I played back towards launch for a pretty short period, I managed to get my character to level 30 blm. since then I haven't played, but kept my account active. I am coming back, and at a complete loss. Can't remember how to play lol! Is it worth it keeping my character and feeling my way around? Is there an up to date blm guide out there? Or should I just reroll and start fresh? My gf played on my character as well while I was off to work, she levelled some of my crafting pretty decently. I guess my other question would be my server. My blm is on Exodus, is this still a populated server, or am I wasting my time on there? Anything you could think that would help us get back on track would be great! Thanks!

Welcome back! :D

Really, it's up to you how you play - if you feel you're better off rerolling your character then that is completely fine (you would lose all your exp and progress you've done so far so that's a downside to that). Tutorials are saved as 'active help windows' which can be viewed again at will if you need refreshing in how to play the game - they can be found in the System menu under Help.

Gamerescape's page on THM and BLM is a good place to start to understanding the basics of the class/Job, but some pointers I can give you is to the fundamentals of using Astral Fire and Umbral Ice to your advantage - when you cast fire spells this shifts you into 'Astral Fire' which is a buff that greatly increases the damage output of your spells, while at the same time chewing through your MP quickly.

So when you run low, use Transpose to immediately shift yourself in 'Umbral Ice'. This greatly cuts down on damage you cause but, it regenerates your MP to the point you could potentially keep casting Ice spells without using any MP at all - another, BLM only ability that is useful for MP regeneration is Convert.

Other spells are more situational (like Thunder being a debuff over time spell, and Sleep used in case you find yourself under attack), but Fire/Ice and Transpose are the important basics that you build on. Hopefully that hasn't come across as too confusing for you. :)