Growing Nervous As I Approach 70...

Hello all! New FF14er but long time MMO player. I've decided to main BLM and I've been grinding out the levels hoping to reach 70 and start raiding before too terribly long. However, I've been reading quite a few posts in which people tend to be pretty negative about the viability of a BLM for raid progression. What are your thoughts on this? Do you bring along BLMs in your groups?

I know I could always end up leveling another class if I find it difficult to play the BLM--just wanted to get some opinions.

Thanks!

I run with groups that have black mages. There's quite a few people that don't care. Occasionally there's a bit of salt along the lines of, "Oh I can't get a good parse because we have a white mage and a black mage."

Focus on excelling at your job and you'll find people to raid with.

Also, welcome to the forums.

Everyone has their own opinions about things, but at the end of the day you need to play what will make you happy. Lots of groups I have been in run with a BLM.

You have to be good. Not just good, but better. There's a sharp drop from "Great" to "Good" to "Average", and if you're at average, you're basically a wasted slot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antoninus

Hello all! New FF14er but long time MMO player. I've decided to main BLM and I've been grinding out the levels hoping to reach 70 and start raiding before too terribly long. However, I've been reading quite a few posts in which people tend to be pretty negative about the viability of a BLM for raid progression. What are your thoughts on this? Do you bring along BLMs in your groups?

I know I could always end up leveling another class if I find it difficult to play the BLM--just wanted to get some opinions.

Thanks!

---

Practice. There are an exceptional number of truly catastrophic blms.

They're the samurai of casters. Dead weight unless they're practiced and studied.

Tbh you shouldn't have any issue.
I find the whole "BLM brings no buff" a bit silly in casual content where even if you have buff nothing aligns properly beyond the pull. Also, player skill within one group vary so much that you'll usually end up with 1 bad player that will nullify any kind of buff you'd bring with any other job.


So I would advise you to not worry too much, just read guide practice and be mindful of your positional. As long as you manage your position, procs and cd properly you should have a very high uptime and pull good numbers.

The situation is not as dire as it was during 4.0.

I've completed all end game stuff with a BLM in the party, they do well. I'm not an elitist by any means and all jobs can do all content. it's just those who want to be the top and best that complain about this. If you enjoy the role you'll be fine and there are plenty of people who don't throw fits about your role. my friend mains BLM and enjoys it, he does great dps, the main thing is knowing the mechanics and having fun.

1. Dont worry about class choices. Performance and skills in FFXIV heavily rely on wether you like the class or not
2. BLM is more than viable. There is only 2 reasons why ppl are salty about them:
- BLM is self-centered. Aside from some mana now and then, they only contribute 1 thing ... damage (though they are ofcourse the best at it :D)
- There are 2 types of BLM. Bad ones and amazing ones. Unlike other classes there are very few people in the "medium/decent" grey area in between

So... if you like BLM, just keep going and ignore others :P

I think the whole "BLMs are either excellent or terrible" thing is a bit disingenuous.
I would say I'm probably a middling BLM, but the nature of the rotation means you either succeed or fail, some fights I'll execute it perfectly, never drop enochian, not die once, and get commendations, then another battle I'll inexplicably miss a gcd, screw up my rotation, throw my entire game off, die, struggle to get things together again but never quite make it back.
And I'm talking exactly the same fights, I'm not comparing Alte Roit to Omega Savage.
Sometimes it's just luck of the draw that you don't find yourself victim to some badly placed aoes in quick succession, but there's also that extra layer of knowing a fight inside and out which isn't really part of the BLM skill set as much as it is just geneal experience.

So to one person you might be an awesome BLM who knows his shit, but to another you're a terribad BLM who probably bought a jump potion.

Do not be afraid. My static has BOTH a BLM and a SAM.

I am also a shameless, selfish BLMain.

Don't be nervous. Explode it.
Don't worry about people being dumb. Explode them.
Don't sweat the small stuff. Explode those too.

Only three things are important above all:
Keybind an Aetherial Manipulation macro.
Keybind a Mana Shift macro.
Explode everything without exploding yourself.

Performance can only go up unless you die, and when you first start a fight, you will be miserable. After you learn the fight and timing of everything, you will feel like a God among puny little insects.

Oh, and pretty much cast Diversion at the start and any time you can after that, while having Lucid Dreaming ready for when you inevitably outpace any tank in DPS stance's enmity.

How to make and use an aetherial manipulation macro? a macro to do what exactly with it? and how is it better than manually targeting the person you need to teleport to?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sylvina

How to make and use an aetherial manipulation macro? a macro to do what exactly with it? and how is it better than manually targeting the person you need to teleport to?

---

Because by the time you've selected a target, especially when using a controller, it'll be too late.

/ac "aetherial manipulation" <t>
/ac "aetherial manipulation" <1>
/ac "aetherial manipulation" <2>

Is usually good enough, as the tank/s/healer will tend to be on the ball, or you can select a target yourself.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seraphor

Because by the time you've selected a target, especially when using a controller, it'll be too late.

/ac "aetherial manipulation" <t>
/ac "aetherial manipulation" <1>
/ac "aetherial manipulation" <2>

Is usually good enough, as the tank/s/healer will tend to be on the ball, or you can select a target yourself.

---

actually, i find controller AM targeting is pretty nice if you just use soft targeting. You're always 4 quick taps away from a party member you want, and typically it'll be to a tank, or to a range dps so up 2 or down 2, AM. and you can get your target ready before you finish your current spell cast to go off immediately after its finished. With a little practice its much faster to select than your gcd timing.

macros can be good, but remember that macros do not queue up properly like normal actions, which can result in either not going off, or a minor delay in triggering after you are able to perform the action.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antoninus

Hello all! New FF14er but long time MMO player. I've decided to main BLM and I've been grinding out the levels hoping to reach 70 and start raiding before too terribly long. However, I've been reading quite a few posts in which people tend to be pretty negative about the viability of a BLM for raid progression. What are your thoughts on this? Do you bring along BLMs in your groups?

I know I could always end up leveling another class if I find it difficult to play the BLM--just wanted to get some opinions.

Thanks!

---

You will be completely fine, don't worry. In fact, as cliché as it sounds, when you become great enough at the job you will want to Always Bet on Black. Like Vileives, I'm also another very shameless, selfish and explosive BLM "Nukist" (its been one of my mains since 1.0).

Here's the deal... a while back, a small handful of full time raiders made a few comments about how they would prefer certain DPS jobs over BLM in just a few of the savage raids. The premise was that they were trying to utilize the party buffs that those DPS jobs would bring to the raid... and in so doing changed their line ups to reflect this.

As always with the plebs and masses; when this information finally trickled down, the story evolved into how BLMs could never be used in raids. To compound matters, there was an influx of newer players who did no know how to play the job... which of course just ended up fueling the impression that BLM was no good. Hence the current stigma.

In reality, they couldn't be further than the truth... and I cannot count the numerous times that I've been told in Duty Finder "OMG!!! Your damage is insane!!!". In fact, just yesterday in my Duty Finder, a new player (the tank) made a comment that the Summoner was doing some incredible critical damage with his Fire IVs and Flares. I smiled at my screen and didn't even venture the slightest quibble... I'm a huge subscriber to the notion that silence is the best response for a fool. He made the comment yet again, obviously impressed and even added that he hoped the BLM (myself) could keep up because he had heard it was a job with poor DPS.

At this point, both the healer and Summoner corrected him. I still said nothing... there was no point; besides, I'm arrogant like that.

Fact is, as said above, be proud of the job but also get really great at it so that your pride is sustained. Practice on the dummies and find your inner demi-god. A few things to remember:

• Learn how to maintain your Enochian --this is the foundation of the BLM job.
• Learn how to slide cast... I repeat, learn how to slide cast properly. Its all in the timing.
• Be confident, rage those bursts but don't be too excited to unleash your Fire IVs and Flares so that you can adapt with mechanics and recover as needed
• Know the rotation for single and AoE targets (don't forget to cast your Thunder for good DoT)
• Invest in Spell Speed gear as you advance in your BLM career
• Keybind Aetherial Manipulation and Mana Shift macros

And as said above, don't sweat the stupid small stuff. Explode everything, Padawan... everything.

Regarding controller, I play without macro and I have no issue targeting anyone for EM. If I have to EM to a very specific person, sometime I suppose a macro would be useful, but more often than not anyone works fine (like when we have to stack for instance, I pretty much EM to a random person in the stacked pool of players

Ahhh... one more thing. Also eat great HQ food when going into end-game battles... they are a great investment as you become a signature Nukist. And as you get better with timing your bursts on mega bosses, you'll also want to stock up on INT potions.

actually what the others say - if you like the core of blackmage playstyle just stay with it. the time u reach endgame, u might have found friends and various LSs, maybe even a fc – all before getting in touch with an endgame-static. at that point its more about friendships and grp progress with people you already know. My first static had 2 drks and 2 smns back in the days at Midas and we had still a lot of fun out of the bs "meta".

dw just do ya thing :P