BLM unneeded skills

So as I get a better understanding of this job I find that there are some skills that you hardly ever use. Before I put them on my aux bar for those skills that may be needed seldom if ever I want to check with more experienced BLMs. Of course I am referring to higher level play.
To me these are of no real use: Blizzard, Thunder, Sleep, Aetherial Manipulation.

So, is it safe to assume that if I just set these aside there will be no major loss of any kind? Are there others?

Also, how do I use Blizzard II effectively? or does it belong to the above list?

Thunder 1 is a core of the job. You should always use it.
Never actually cast thunder 2 or thunder 3 save them for thunder cloud procs.

Aetherial manipulation is also a great skill. its an instant warp to party member. which essentially allows you to finish casting your current spell and then warp out of whatever telegraph you're standing in. much better than interrupting your spell to run..
often proves invaluable for keeping enochain up. when you really need to move but really must get blizzard 4 cast off. finish the cast and warp out of danger..

blizzard I don't use that much unless I totally bork things up and need it to trigger umbral ice and get some mp back.

Blizard 2 is pretty useless in pve for blm. Same for sleep and lethargy.
Take bliz 1 over scathe if you are dropping one or the other. Scathe is extremely nitch. only use it if you have no procs, no swift, forced to move for more then 3 seconds with out procs, no aether manip. etc....
I personally dont set thunder 2, 1 and 3 are musts. 1 for hard casts 3 for procs.
Virus is fairly useless since someone else will have it most likely and it basically goes on single target cooldown for the durration of the cooldown.
Surecast is pretty useless in pve, most of the times dmg would interrupt a cast, the mobs will be immune to damage, you can pop the appropriate sheild and prevent damage and get your cast off, you are getting hit with so much you are gonna die before the cast finishes regardless, etc..

Of course all of these do have their nitch uses so they should be set somewhere.

Aetherial Manipulation is boss when you know a fight and can use it effectively to save time on movement.

Thank you all I am trying to get this job down and your input helps.

When you have Thunder III, you can leave Thunder II off. You will need to keep Thunder (1) for slowcasting.


Umbral Ice on AoE pulls:
Lv12 - Lv34: Blizzard II (50 potency/target) is more damage than Blizzard (180 potency) if there are at least four targets (200 potency total).
Lv35 - Lv49: Freeze (100 potency/target) is more damage than Blizzard if there are at least two targets.
Lv50 - Lv60: After Flare, Transpose and immediately begin casting Fire III, followed by Fire II, Fire II, Flare, Transpose, repeat. There is no ice. Unless a SCH or AST sneakily hastes you during your Flare cast, in which case you might have to insert a Freeze before Fire III so that you're slow enough to get MP for your fire spells.


At 60, on single targets, Blizzard isn't entirely useless, but its use is basically to recover from screw ups. You might be fighting a new mob and lose a Blizzard III because it jumped or went INVULNERABLE during your cast, or you might not be prepared for required movement. In either case you'll have very little MP and no Fire to transpose out of, and Blizzard will save you the further embarassment of sitting there doing nothing for several ticks while you wait for enough MP to Blizzard III.


The hard limit on Virus users is two because of Antibody. By the time the second Antibody wears off, the first user's Virus has cooled down.


Lethargy is useful on adds in some boss fights, and will make dealing with keepaway mechanics easier (e.g., slimes | Amon, Dread Knights | caged player, hearts | A7 boss).


Aetherial Manipulation is one of your "Additional Effects: Ignores mechanics." buttons.

/ac (Aetherial Manipulation) <mo>
/ac (Aetherial Manipulation) <t>
/ac (Aetherial Manipulation) <tt>
/ac (Aetherial Manipulation) <2>
/ac (Aetherial Manipulation) <3>
/ac (Aetherial Manipulation) <4>
/ac (Aetherial Manipulation) <5>
/ac (Aetherial Manipulation) <6>
/ac (Aetherial Manipulation) <7>
/ac (Aetherial Manipulation) <8>
/micon (Aetherial Manipulation)

Keep that macro on your bar somewhere near your Sprint button. You'll use it more as you become more comfortable with the timings of bosses' action scripts.

Thunder 2 I dont have set on my hotbar. I think no one will argue that this one is absolutely useless once you get T3 for procs.

Aetherial Manipulation, definitely use it more. It's a great skill.
Lethargy, good for the heavy. It's utility that actually sees (rarely) a use in raids. I think A8S with slowing down balls is the latest example.
Sleep is useless for you if you don't pvp. Blizzard II can be mainly replaced with Freeze if you don't pvp. Virus is also rather useless if you don't pvp but it can find a use every here and then but in 0.05% of the cases it's gonna be an actual deal breaker I guess. So, useless.

Definitely keep Blizzard. It saves you from screw ups. It can also find a use as filler when you try to recover MP during UI and you happened to T3 proc before going UI3 AND have a slow MP tick. Or if you simply want to draw out your UI3 because of the fight or something. Niche but definitely has it's uses.

Thunder is def a must and T3 on your bar for when you get thundercloud procs.
Lethargy.. well you have another attack/spell that applies heavy anyhow ;) it is very situational
Aetherial Manipulation is an absolute must and i use a a macro for it.
Freeze i honestly do not find any real use of it, i guess when introduced it had it's use, not as much now
Sleep is PVP only, no real need to use it in low level dungeons, but good to get a laugh a bit i guess?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Renius

So as I get a better understanding of this job I find that there are some skills that you hardly ever use. Before I put them on my aux bar for those skills that may be needed seldom if ever I want to check with more experienced BLMs. Of course I am referring to higher level play.
To me these are of no real use: Blizzard, Thunder, Sleep, Aetherial Manipulation.

So, is it safe to assume that if I just set these aside there will be no major loss of any kind? Are there others?

Also, how do I use Blizzard II effectively? or does it belong to the above list?

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A lot of what has been said in the thread is incorrect. Some of it is, but a lot of what I read just is not.

1) As most have said, Aetherial Manipulation is a must. No arguments on that one. Learn to use it.

2) Thunder II should not be on your hotbar. There is absolutely no reason to ever use this. Use Thunder for your DoT and Thunder III for procs. Everyone got this right as well.

3) Blizzard should be on your hotbar. As someone said, this is not just for screw ups. This should be used as a filler when you use a Thundercloud proc toward the end of your Astral Fire. You don't want to Thundercloud > Fire IV > Blizzard III > Thunder > Blizzard IV. You just completely negated almost all of the Thundercloud potency by doing that.

4) Lethargy is not the same as Blizzard. Even though they both apply a heavy, Lethargy is off the global cooldown. Therefore Lethargy > Blizzard if you need it for the heavy; which there are plenty of instances where this comes in handy.

5) There is no need to use Blizzard II once you have Freeze. Freeze is far better. Although it is very situational when you use it, choose Freeze over Blizz II.

6) Virus can still be very useful in certain situations. You will have healers who have virus, but if you're running an Astro than you only have 1 other person with Virus. When fighting multiple targets, you can each Virus a mob so the Antivirus argument doesn't apply.

All in all, the skills you shouldn't have on your hotbar are Blizzard II, Thunder II and Sleep. (For PvE) A skilled BLM can make good use of every other skill in our arsenal.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Garotte14

4) Lethargy is not the same as Blizzard. Even though they both apply a heavy, Lethargy is off the global cooldown. Therefore Lethargy > Blizzard if you need it for the heavy; which there are plenty of instances where this comes in handy.

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Don't forget tho, the Heavy applied by Blizzard is twice as strong as Lethergy. I can literally only remember one time where I was asked to handle heavying something (a8s, heals were busy doing other things) and lethargy slow wasn't even strong enough to make a difference (slowing the two balls that cant hit middle at same time)

Sleep is pretty useful for soloing FATEs and such.

None of the skills go completely unneeded in all situations. Based on your rotation, downtime (esp. during UI), attack speed, and max mana, any version of Thunder may see use. Sleep still has uses in PvP, though generally none in endgame PvE. Aetherial Manipulation is amazing. Surecast and a couple other oGCDs take up a proportionately higher amount of uptime as spell speed increases, but have situational use primarily has accelerated hit-scans, usually for triggering Firestarter.

Could all of those abilities' functions be put, still distinctly, into a single bar of spells? Sure. But the intentional limiters put on macros would make that difficult until the system is revised. And I wouldn't hold my breath.

Just wanna point out that Blizzard *can* indeed be useful on single targets after level 60.

Sometimes you'll get a Tcloud proc and will only be able to use it during AF (which means it'll tick for the entire UI rotation and a bit more). In this scenario, if you get a slow mana tick, you'll have to use a filler after B4 or you won't be at full MP after F3. Since you just used a Tcloud, thunder is still ticking so your only options is Blizzard (or /mdance).

As for thunder 2, you can remove it from your bar but what I would recommend is using a macro for it with Thunder 3.

/micon "Thunder III"
/ac "Thunder III"
/ac "Thunder II"

Least that way if you get sync'd down you can still use Thunder 2 in the case of a proc but you still save up a slot. Will attempt to cast Thunder 3, if it can't (because of MP or level) will cast 2.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Aetherial Manipulation is boss when you know a fight and can use it effectively to save time on movement.

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I once used it during Thordan extreme for the stack mechanics and it was amazing to dodge that mechanic just so I can cast F4

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

As for thunder 2, you can remove it from your bar but what I would recommend is using a macro for it with Thunder 3.

/micon "Thunder III"
/ac "Thunder III"
/ac "Thunder II"

Least that way if you get sync'd down you can still use Thunder 2 in the case of a proc but you still save up a slot. Will attempt to cast Thunder 3, if it can't (because of MP or level) will cast 2.

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this is pretty good advice! will do this. thanks!

how to use this macro if you're using a controller? I have been using kb and mouse but I'd like to be proficient in gamepads as well and plan to switch to it entirely. Since the kb and mouse has the mouse over macro, how to use this in a controller scenario?

Not sure what you mean, I'd assume you would just make the Macro then drag it to the spot on your controller you'd want it to be. However I am PC, never touch controller play.

Do
/ac "Spellname" <t>
You HAVE to do the <t> (attack target) or it won't work. Well, at least it would never for me. Then it will just cast the action on the enemy you are currently targetting.