Found this funny picture of BLM.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Well, if you want to go off what BLMs should have, my first encounter with them was in FF Tactics, where they had access to bolt, fire, ice, and flare. wait a sec...

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Well, if you want to go off what BLMs should have, my first encounter with them was in FF Tactics, where they had access to bolt, fire, ice, and flare. wait a sec...

FF9 and FFX also did the same thing with their black mages, though X gave access to Water.

[Alipoprocks]

My favorite BLM spell in XI was warp II. Someone in your party being annoying and not following directions? Send them home.

[Renik]

In ffxi, duoing with a friend, we managed to deal the damage of 5 average players, as war/sam and blm, just by coordination and skill, ffxi BLM was complex, most people were just lazy and ignorant, who relied more in numbers than strategy and skill. Here we can't excel at all, we have to follow our rotations, that's all.

This BLM is a shame, but a long as people find it fun, i don't care.

[Conradus]

Hey something like elemental weaknesses and magic burst would be cool. Hope they add those in the future

They can't add elemental weaknesses with the way the spells are set up now. A BLM has to throw Fire to nuke, Blizzard to recharge, and he doesn't have access to Stone, Aero or Water (or "Fluid Aura") at all, as those were given to Conjurer/White Mage, so you can't play the weaknesses the way you should. And if Magic Burst is to be anything like it was in FFXI, they'll have to add skillchains first, as Magic Bursts were an integral part of the skillchain system.

[Conradus]

It also wasn't nearly that complicated in XI as the chart implies.

Also, Magic Bursts were pretty rare to see happen, and 99% of the time it was by accident. Maybe that's changed now, but then, just about everything in XI has changed.

Hah, it was easy with a) an understanding of how it worked b) good communication in the group and c) good macros. I remember a notable time, grinding in eithr the Yuhtunga or Yhoator Jungle. I fell into a group led by a non English speaking Japanese who communicated entirely through auto-translate, no less. Samurai, as I recall. She had an impressive set of skillchain macros and noticed my RDM was wearing a sword and invited me. She ran skillchains against my sword and the other players as well. I'd open, she'd close and then I'd magic burst the chain. We pulled this off consistently. Maybe it wasn't the most efficient way to play, but damn it was fun. Remains one the high points of my FFXI career.

Addendum--it must have been Yuhtunga, 'cause I remember my sword was a bright new Centurion's Sword I'd just traded in my Conquest Points for.

[Omegakiyohime]

My favorite part about maining BLM in XI was also the part that I hated the most and that was having to obtain spell scrolls. As for the myriad of spells and complexity, yeah that's been a bit overblown by nostalgia.

[Andevom]

Hah, it was easy with a) an understanding of how it worked b) good communication in the group and c) good macros. I remember a notable time, grinding in eithr the Yuhtunga or Yhoator Jungle. I fell into a group led by a non English speaking Japanese who communicated entirely through auto-translate, no less. Samurai, as I recall. She had an impressive set of skillchain macros and noticed my RDM was wearing a sword and invited me. She ran skillchains against my sword and the other players as well. I'd open, she'd close and then I'd magic burst the chain. We pulled this off consistently. Maybe it wasn't the most efficient way to play, but damn it was fun. Remains one the high points of my FFXI career.

There seemed to be a lot of things the devs intended for players to do regularly that they just didn't, and this was one of them.

I did enjoy playing in non-English speaking parties though. It was interesting to see that different cultures sometimes had different ways of doing EXP parties.

[Bloody]

Hah, it was easy with a) an understanding of how it worked b) good communication in the group and c) good macros. I remember a notable time, grinding in eithr the Yuhtunga or Yhoator Jungle. I fell into a group led by a non English speaking Japanese who communicated entirely through auto-translate, no less. Samurai, as I recall. She had an impressive set of skillchain macros and noticed my RDM was wearing a sword and invited me. She ran skillchains against my sword and the other players as well. I'd open, she'd close and then I'd magic burst the chain. We pulled this off consistently. Maybe it wasn't the most efficient way to play, but damn it was fun. Remains one the high points of my FFXI career.

Actually, from my experience the Skillchain->Magic Burst was the most effective way to play because you could burn down mobs ridiculously fast this way without needing a specialized party setup. For example while leveling up my Drg/Sam out on Colibris, I was in a party with a samurai and a black mage, and I think a thief orninja. Either the thf/nin would open followed by the samurai, or the samurai would just open, and I would follow with a Penta-Thrust for a massive 5 hit damage spike and huge SC level 2 (Gravitation) damage boost (since skillchains dealt proportional damage to the closing skill) and then the black mage would follow up with a nice nuke for an extra boost off the Magic Burst. Just the SC and MB alone would knock out 50-60% of the HP, let alone the damage dealt by the skills and spells that created it.

[Averax]

If FFXIV BLM is 7 buttons then why do i have 2 hot bars full of craaaaap.