BLM Gear

Decided to level BLM to 50. I currently do not see static coil runs in my future so I need some advice on what gear to acquire. My main is BRD so this is just for fun.

At the moment I have the augmented IW Rod (no way I'm doing another relic fest), Demon Hat, Augmented IW chest, Demon gloves, Evenstar belt/legs, Demon boots.

Accessories are Augmented IW choker, Evenstar wrists, Bogatyr earrings, Augmented IW ring, Evenstar ring.

Stats are:

ACC: 497
Crit: 568
Det: 289
Attack Pot: 615
SS 408

Basically I read a lot of debate on gear secondary stats. For my current usage, should I be focusing on crit/SS?

There isn't much debate over secondaries for BLM. SS+DET in general; DET+CRT specifically for heavy AoE if you maintain a second set for that purpose. You don't even need as much ACC as you have since you aren't doing FCOB, tbh.

Det and SS? That's interesting....

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Originally Posted by Caoihmin

Det and SS? That's interesting....

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Determination is a must for all DPS classes iirc which setup you ever use never fall below 300. General det > crit except bard where its recommended to proiorize crit. I personally also use crit builds on SMN and DRG but I only play my DPS just for fun (content up to T10).

Spellspeed... had till lately a pure Det/Crit build and wondered why my DPS sucked.... swapped a few pieces (High Allagan Belt instead of Evenstar same for choker and Evenstar hat for HA headpiece) just a slight +44 spellspeed and my DPS went up. Its simply because as blm the casttimes are long so you can dodge easier without castinterupts (I think).

Hope real DPS are answering better :)

Basically, BLM has zero reliance on resource regen (passive regen, that is). So unlike other classes where skill speed/spell speed butts up against their passive regen and causes them to run out faster, BLM has no such issue.

Tightening your rotation basically just means more dps. BLM also has no crit procs or the like so crit simply remains an expensive stat.

Spell Speed is your single highest weighed stat. The fact that you have 408 spell speed actually distressed me lol. Even on my AoE rotation gear-sets (Dungeons, certain coil instances), I never clip below 540 spell speed.

If you're not running FCOB, then as someone already said, your acc is much higher than it needs to be. T10 acc cap is 470 I believe (from memory I think T9 is 471?), all other content comes somewhere much lower than this.

SS> Det> Crit

Hey thx guys for the input! I'll do some rearranging and see what I can muster!

Huh? Why are people saying Det over Crit on gear? Aren't the stat weights:

SS: 0.281
Det: 0.246
Crit: 0.234

So, on your Relic where you get as many Det points as Crit, sure, Det is better than Crit. However, on all other gear, you get 42% more Crit than Det. So an item that gives 20 Crit would give 14 Det at the same ilvl. Compare: Augmented Ironworks Hood of Casting with Dreadwyrm Petasos of Casting. The Ironworks has Det as the minor secondary at 14, and the Dreadwyrm has Crit as the minor secondary at 20. Also, Demon Robe vs Ironworks Robe - Ironworks has Crit as the major secondary at 44, Demon has Det as the major secondary at 31.

So, to see the true weight of Det as a stat on a piece of gear, you have to divide it by 1.42, giving you 0.173. That makes Det the worst stat on a piece of gear by a huge margin.


That said, there is never a point in the i120-i130 range where you actually choose between det and crit. Heck, there is only a single piece of BLM gear in the 120-130 range that has Det as a major secondary - the [Augmented] Ironworks Choker of Casting. Det happens to be naturally minimized on endgame gear for BLM, which is good.


Ignoring Coil drops, pentamelded crafted gear, and the Final Coil accuracy caps (but keeping in mind Shiva Extreme's accuracy cap of 470), the best build you can make according to Ariyala's BiS solver is this one: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/QJA6

Pure Ironworks gives way too much accuracy, so note the non-Ironworks items included: True Ice Bracelet of Casting, Judgment Ring of Casting, Demon Skirt of Casting, and Evenstar Gloves.

Evenstar Gloves are interesting compared to the Augmented Ironworks gloves, when ignoring accuracy: 34.908 eINT [24+(25*0.234)+(18*0.281)] on Evenstar vs 34.444 eINT [31+(14*0.246)] on Augmented Ironworks

If you have different accuracy targets, your results may vary. Very little content actually requires accuracy at all. From what I've read, it's just Coil, Levi Ex, Moogle Ex, and Shiva Ex as far as I'm aware - base accuracy is enough for the rest of content in FFXIV. However, despite that being true..... the BiS solver still gives the same build as above as BiS! Weird.

As an aside, here are the best Coil drops for increasing your DPS as a BLM, and how much they increase it by (from the BiS non-coil build above), assuming you do not care at all about your accuracy:

• Augmented Ironworks Rod to Dreadwyrm Staff [T13], boost of 21.343 eINT: 610.74 ((81*6.726)+54+(51*0.234)) to 632.083 ((82*6.726)+57+(37*0.234)+(53*0.281))
• Demon Skirt of Casting to Dreadwyrm Tonban of Casting [T13], boost of 12.907 eINT: 57.364 (45+(44*0.281)) vs 70.271 (50+(47*0.234)+(33*0.281))
• Evenstar Gloves to Dreadwyrm Gloves of Casting [T12], boost of 8.921 eINT: 34.908 (24+(25*0.234)+(18*0.281)) vs 43.829 (31+(20*0.234)+(29*0.281))
• Judgment Ring of Casting to Dreadwyrm Ring of Casting [T10], boost of 7.703 eINT: 24.66 (18+(19*0.234)+(9*0.246)) vs 32.363 (23+(22*0.234)+(15*0.281))
• Augmented Ironworks Belt of Casting to Dreadwyrm Belt of Casting [T11], boost of 5.853 eINT: 26.51 (23+(15*0.234)) vs 32.363 (23+(22*0.234)+(15*0.281))
• Augmented Ironworks Earrings of Casting to Dreadwyrm Earrings of Casting [T12], boost of 1.018 eINT: 29.182 (23+(22*0.281)) vs 30.2 (23+(15*0.234)+(15*0.246))

(NOTE: Maxed Zeta (SS/Det) is 632.773 eINT ((82*6.726)+57+(38*0.246)+(53*0.281)), and an SS/Crit Zeta has the exact same stats as the Dreadwyrm Staff. This means that putting max Det on a BLM relic vs putting 31 Crit on it instead only increases your eINT by the negligible 0.69, and costs about 5m gil extra, so seriously, put Crit on your relic instead of Det as the minor secondary, don't waste your money like I did!)

Those are the only drops that boost your DPS, ignoring accuracy entirely. Of course, this puts your accuracy at the absurdly low level of 383, but people have reported never missing at that level in any content besides Coil, Mog, Levi, and Shiva.

Here is the BiS non-coil/mog/levi/shiva build if Coil drops are included (remember that a Zeta relic with max SS and the rest in Crit or Det is just as good (or slightly better than) the Dreadwyrm Staff): http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/QJAQ

EDIT: I tried to run a BiS solver instance that included pentamelded crafted items, but including them makes the calculations take a VERY LONG TIME. After four hours, the solver is only 2% done, and I am not a patient woman, so it's unlikely I'll let it keep going :P

Dunno i am going full det/ss on my Relic. Currently have all ss melded and around 21 short on det to finish off my Novus. I have seen Lilith Rods with piety, crit and various different combinations. Btw Piety in my opinion is a huge waste of stat on a Relic weapon, not sure why one would add it when if you really do need the little bit of extra mp just get melded gear or something.
Crit and i have not done testing but fairly certain is more beneficial to other dps classes, like example Ninja, drg or even Bard. Again not sure so don't call me out on this, lol
Like others have said unless your doing coil your acc is not too bad, i currently have had no issues for say T10 with 487 acc
As for pants, i myself and others still do use the Demon Robe of Casting and it works for my current and future build.
Alternatively one can also use Kimiru belt of casting and the Platinum ring, is it worth it? That i have not tested but may be an option. Again if you plan on running coil it may just be worthwhile to hold off, just get some augmented pieces until you can get dreadwyrm gear.

Accuracy caps for everything that has an accuracy cap: http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ything_coil_19. Everything else has an accuracy cap of 0. Meaning, you can hit everything else in the game 100% of the time with your base accuracy as a level 50 BLM. Every dungeon monster and boss, every CT/ST/WoD boss, all the other Extreme Primals, everything. Accuracy is a dead stat outside of Coil.

Also, people put Piety on their relic because, if you look at the monster BLM DPS spreadsheet with its crazy math (sorry, I don't have a link, but you can find it if you search), there are rotations on there that you can do with more piety that do noticeably more DPS even with lower stats (it's the F6 series of rotations where you have 6 Fire 1s after each Fire 3). The only way to get PIE on a BLM is to either meld it into the relic (very cheap) or use penta-melded accessories (very expensive). That is why people who are really hardcore about their BLM DPS will use PIE on their relic, and yes, it's totally worth it. If you notice, these people are (or should be) all dunesfolk lalafels, the best race for using these rotations due to their higher PIE score.

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

Huh? Why are people saying Det over Crit on gear? Aren't the stat weights:

SS: 0.281
Det: 0.246
Crit: 0.234

So, on your Relic where you get as many Det points as Crit, sure, Det is better than Crit. However, on all other gear, you get 42% more Crit than Det. So an item that gives 20 Crit would give 14 Det at the same ilvl.

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It should go without saying that you don't favor tiny amounts of DET over huge amounts of CRT; that much is common sense. You're also not given many straight-up choices of DET vs. CRT at the same ilvl (where INT difference isn't a factor).

Sure, if you basically ignore ACC you can get a crazy set together, but I think most players min/max specifically for end-game, not because they want to see how much DPS they can pull in 4-man dungeons and such. The math is good to know, though, so thank you :)

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

Meaning, you can hit everything else in the game 100% of the time with your base accuracy as a level 50 BLM. Every dungeon monster and boss, every CT/ST/WoD boss, all the other Extreme Primals, everything.

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This is not quite true. Lv 50 dummies and the original EX trial have front caps >341, 2.4 dungeons have front caps >387, 2.5 dungeons have front caps >436. It's hard to not hit these caps, so you don't see many people reporting misses there. BLM, not having to worry about front caps, will need less accuracy, of course.

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

Huh? Why are people saying Det over Crit on gear? Aren't the stat weights:

SS: 0.281
Det: 0.246
Crit: 0.234

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0.246>0.234
Sorry if I did not explicitly say in my previous post, I had assumed some level of common sense
No-one was saying +20 crit is not better than +3 det or whatever
comparing 1 for 1, det slightly edges over crit, as shown from the stat weights you yourself have quoted

Yea what Nyalia is saying though is its never 1 to 1, det is always lower on gear, thus you basically never get the chance to take it, as the opportunity cost vs other stats is too high. If you can meld etc, then it is worth it.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Yea what Nyalia is saying though is its never 1 to 1, det is always lower on gear, thus you basically never get the chance to take it, as the opportunity cost vs other stats is too high. If you can meld etc, then it is worth it.

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Exactly. Thank you.


To the people above, please show me same ilvl gear choice (besides relic) where, when choosing between a major det stat and a major crit stat, or a minor det stat and a minor crit stat, the det is equal to the crit. You can't because that never happens. The crit is always ~1.42 times the det. 20 vs 14, 44 vs 31, 47 vs 33, 12 vs 9, and so on. Looking at it point for point when you're comparing stats on gear is misleading. People said above to prioritize det over crit on gear, meaning, gear with det on it is better than gear with crit on it. This is never true. (Again, except on relic, and I showed in my post how much amazingly better a 31 point det relic is vs a 31 point crit relic, and it was a negligible 0.69 eINT difference.)

Yes, 20 Det is slightly better than 20 Crit, but you never choose between 20 Det and 20 Crit. You choose between 14 Det and 20 Crit. 20 Crit is better. Therefore, Crit on gear is better than Det on gear. I don't get how what I said was wrong, or how the people who said to focus on det over cirt were right. To use a stupid simile, it's like saying if, given a choice of 20 nickles or 7 dimes, you should always choose the dimes because dimes are worth more, and then, when someone points out that 20 nickles are worth more than 7 dimes, saying that well, duh, you should never choose the dimes, that's obvious.


Of course, as I said above, this is all a moot point since you never choose between det and crit on current endgame BLM gear. This will change in 3.x, but so will the average stat weights.


Also, if you read the OP, the OP clearly stated that he wasn't planning to take his BLM into coil. Therefore, accuracy is useless to the OP unless he's running Mog Ex, Levi Ex, and Shiva Ex. Those require 470 accuracy, which I showed builds for above. Besides, a naked level 50 BLM has 387 accuracy, more than enough for 2.5 dungeons and original ex primals. And BLM never cares about front accuracy caps since magic requires the same accuracy as rear attacks regardless of positioning, from what I understand (this could be wrong, but that's how I understand it). The last bit where I threw in coil drops for the max DPS calculation outside of Coil was just for fun. And, it does matter - maximizing DPS like that is how you can do silly things like two minute spiny-ignoring Garuda Ex runs.

You basically take the higher number when choosing between det and crit, which more often than not is crit. Technically 20 det is better than 21 crit, but the difference is so small you will never notice it.

The thing is, there's not much point to discussing secondaries at all outside of the context of content like Coil.

Putting aside for the moment the question of whether or not it really matters when the content has next-to-nothing in the way of DPS checks, avoiding Coil means not being able to use Dreadwyrm gear, which narrows the choices down slightly.

It's pretty hard to build a bad non-end game BLM considering that there are no real trash secondaries aside from having way too much ACC for the content you're doing.

If you spend most of your time AoEing trash, prioritize DET/CRT since it's the server's mana regen tick that limits your pace more than casting speed; otherwise take as much SS as you can and pile on the secondaries that mathematically make sense.

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

Besides, a naked level 50 BLM has 387 accuracy, more than enough for 2.5 dungeons and original ex primals.

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Base accuracy is 341. I forgot to mention that hunt mobs also have an accuracy cap. I never bothered to figure out what, but B-ranks seem to be equal to or less than T9. OP said no static coil runs, but T4 doesn't need a static.

Some Piety can be adjusted through bonus stat allocations (The Keeper's Hymn) and food. Except for maybe the 6 Fire build (which I'd know nothing about), it's better to get it as a secondary stat from gear instead of cutting into your bonus Intelligence or forsaking better food, but these options are there if you need to test them.

Yes nowhere did I say there is loot that has the same amount of det as crit

seems you just purposely chose to misinterpret my post for whatever reason
all I said was "SS>Det>Crit", which weight-wise is correct, though by all means continue to write your essay posts

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

The thing is, there's not much point to discussing secondaries at all outside of the context of content like Coil.

Putting aside for the moment the question of whether or not it really matters when the content has next-to-nothing in the way of DPS checks, avoiding Coil means not being able to use Dreadwyrm gear, which narrows the choices down slightly.

It's pretty hard to build a bad non-end game BLM considering that there are no real trash secondaries aside from having way too much ACC for the content you're doing.

If you spend most of your time AoEing trash, prioritize DET/CRT since it's the server's mana regen tick that limits your pace more than casting speed; otherwise take as much SS as you can and pile on the secondaries that mathematically make sense.

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That's a really good point. Despite how good SS is for BLM single target DPS (the metric that's used for calculating stat weights like the ones above), that doesn't take into consideration the pause inherent in the only sensible BLM AoE rotation where you are waiting for a mana tick. In fact, with a very large amount of SS, you have to wait slightly longer than the first mana tick to start your Fire 3 cast. If you don't, your Fire 3 will finish casting before the second tick hits, cutting both Fire 2s out and forcing you to wait after Flare before you can Transpose, all of which costs you quite a bit of DPS.

So, in short, if you're doing Coil/MogEx/LeviEx/ShivaEx, make sure you have enough Accuracy to reach the Accuracy cap (http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ything_coil_19), and any accuracy past that point is wasted. Apart from that, what gear you have is pretty meaningless in the end. It's all good enough, with only slight differences between the stats.

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Originally Posted by randysquirrel

Yes nowhere did I say there is loot that has the same amount of det as crit

seems you just purposely chose to misinterpret my post for whatever reason
all I said was "SS>Det>Crit", which weight-wise is correct, though by all means continue to write your essay posts

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OP: "I need some advice on what gear to acquire for BLM"
You: "SS>Det>Crit"

What's to misinterpret? You're saying that he should go for gear with det on it over gear with crit (all else being equal), which is untrue. If you meant point for point, sure, whatever, but that's not what you said, and that's not meaningful (nor is this stupid semantics debate).

My post gave the best non-coil gear loadout for BLM for content up to and including T9 according to the Ariyala BiS solver. The OP's question has been answered. If you are upset that I mischaracterized your gear choice statements in the process of giving that answer, I do apologize for hurting your feelings. In the future, I'll try not to refer to other posts when giving advice and just answer the questions asked.

And yes, I'm a verbose woman. Deal with it. If you don't like reading long posts, there is an ignore list feature provided by this forum. View my profile and then click "add to ignore list." I've added you - feel free to add me back. :)

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

You're saying that he should go for gear with det on it over gear with crit

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Yes just make up stuff, say that I said it, then disagree with it, and tell OP to ignore something I never said anyway bahahah
yet for all your know-all advice, you haven't even set foot in fcob yet lmao

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Originally Posted by randysquirrel

Yes just make up stuff, say that I said it, then disagree with it, and tell OP to ignore something I never said anyway bahahah
yet for all your know-all advice, you haven't even set foot in fcob yet lmao

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I don't understand why you're coming here all angry and stand offish. A question was asked, Nyalia answered it. At no point was the information misleading or anything. At least what she had given was more in-depth. You simply gave a stock response ("SS>Det>Crit") that in the end really isn't all that helpful based on the OP's question asked.

To be fair, it doesn't take a genius to note that 14 Det doesn't equal 22 Crit. He gave the OP the idea behind the stats and trusted him to make logical decisions. The informative post certainly helps, but again, it doesn't take a genius.

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Originally Posted by Skeith-Adeline

To be fair, it doesn't take a genius to note that 14 Det doesn't equal 22 Crit.

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If you don't know the stat weights, it does. If Det was weighted 2x what Crit is weighted, 14 Det would outweigh 22 Crit. But, once you know the stat weights, you can just do some basic math and figure out how much main stat you're getting out of whatever piece of gear. The main problem is a blanket statement like "SS > Det > Crit" just makes you think that one outweighs the other but you have no idea by how much.

Side note: randy meant overall stat weights (point for point), Nyalia meant stat weights on gear. You typically get enough Crit on gear to outweigh the alternative piece with Det. This isn't really a disagreement, you both just meant different things. :P

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

you both just meant different things

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pretty much lol.