How to play BLM effectively

[ChaChaJaJa]

Although BLM is fundamentally simple to play, many of the decisions are highly contextual on an encounter-by-encounter basis.

Often, you will want to tie your cooldowns -- Parsimony, Excruciate, Dark Seal -- to Thundaga, but only if Thundaga can do significantly more damage than Thundara, which may not always be the case. The timing on Excruciate also depends on whether you're using AF body or not, and even then, there is going to be some variance due to the way Excruciate works. Personally, without AF, I use Excruciate directly before the Thunder leading up to the Thundaga that I'm going to fully buff.

Beyond the minutiae, and beyond gear considerations, what generally sets apart one BLM from another is casts per minute. Being able to go through your rotation as quickly as possible while slipping in extra casts (without overtaking the tank in enmity) is a key component to BLM gameplay. To that end, I highly recommend either binding /facetarget to a very convenient key (I use E) or including /facetarget at the beginning of every single spell macro. The /facetarget command allows you to force the game to recognize that you are stationary and able to cast.

Rather than say "cast X Y Z on this encounter," I would suggest taking an analytical look at your gameplay whenever you're on BLM. Look at your damage/MP and damage/second ratios, think about the timeframe for how long you're going to be casting for a given fight, and adjust accordingly.

Those were very helpful considerations; Thank you!

Often, you will want to tie your cooldowns -- Parsimony, Excruciate, Dark Seal -- to Thundaga, but only if Thundaga can do significantly more damage than Thundara, which may not always be the case.

I assume based on what I've gleaned from other threads that the relevant factor here is AMP vs INT? TBH this is one of the things I am still quite confused about.

Personally, without AF, I use Excruciate directly before the Thunder leading up to the Thundaga that I'm going to fully buff.

Wouldn't this make it more likely that Excruciate procs on the Thunder or the Thundara rather than the Thundaga? Would you mind elaborating on why you do this? I'm not trying to be combative- I'm trying to learn.

Beyond the minutiae, and beyond gear considerations, what generally sets apart one BLM from another is casts per minute... Rather than say "cast X Y Z on this encounter," I would suggest taking an analytical look at your gameplay whenever you're on BLM. Look at your damage/MP and damage/second ratios, think about the timeframe for how long you're going to be casting for a given fight, and adjust accordingly.

At this point, I only have a single decent gearset that I wear regardless of what I cast (referred to in initial post). As I understand it, stack Macc to cap, then it's INT for Thunder progression, or AMP for Fire progression. But I haven't gotten far enough along to have access to separate gearsets. The main thing I was kind of mulling was damage/mp and I was wondering if that was the reason sometimes I read that BLM's don't bother with Thundaga.

It's not that I don't want to learn the job for myself, it's more that I am interested in the whole discussion but feel like I am late for the conversation. People make statements that sound like they are common knowledge, but they really aren't if a person was absent from the game when the knowledge was being accrued. Thanks again for the suggestions!