[Taga]

Gee, the

enter key is your friend.

Erasmus :
Use the elemental debuffs that

benefit the melee like frost and choke ( lower AGI and VIT).Shock and Burn are crap.Who

cares about lowering you chance to be resisted by .1% ( jsut a random #) regardless of

wether its by lowering MND or INT. Never once in my 53 lvls of playing blm have I noticed

gettign resisted less with them . At MOST you will get in 1 more spell in 10 fights at full

dmg. This is simply because if you are doing your job right and casting the right spells at

the right time you will only cast 4 spells maybe 5 a fight and still do 1000+ dmg.Count the

number of times all the melee in your PT hit in 1 fight. Your PT will do much more dmg with

frost/choke than with burn/shock.

Bad strat there. Shock and Burn at least

stack. Frost and choke do not.

Burn also increases damage which is why I said only

put it on before magic burst because it can give you around 50 damage. After the burst the

monster should be dead or you can pop frost back on.

The only reason you would use

shock is if your RDM has a hard time sticking debuffs *shrug* I've never had to use it.. if

I'm Burning the monster the entire fight (read: a few levels lower than the melee) I will

also choke because those 2 stack. Again, Frost/Choke do not stack.

All those

people who are spamming the I spells because they are too lazy to farm for the II spells are

stupid, yes if you have long long long fights, the I spells are more MP efficient but if you

have the proper gear then MP isnt an issue. Never have i slowed a PT down because they have

had to wait on me. I prefer to burst for 400 dmg rather than 150. And spend the time i would

be spending spamming I spells to rest and gain MP. You job is NOT to do melee dmg by

spamming I spells. If people wanted this they would jsut get another damn melee. Your job is

to greatly increase the speed of the battle by doing BIG damage fast. Dont get yourself into

trouble by over casting but BLOW SHIT UP. Never let your MP get more than 1-2 spells below

the WHM and you wont have a problem.

First off, I don't think anyone in the

past year has skipped the II spells as a BLM. Second off, I did not suggest it, I just

showed you how it would work and that it is a viable solution (read: not the ideal). How do

you think the JPs that just started the game got -II spells? There was NO economy so you

can't just farm silks or something like that. My friend is a 75 BLM started on JP release

did not get a single -II spell (and still hasn't because they are useless now) because

there probably wasn't even 100k gil in the economy at that point. All I did was tell you

how he made it work. I didn't say skipping II spells would be better.

at

lvl 53 Im doing 10% more dmg with 5 more int than a 54 using the same spell on the same

monster. If he does 300 I do 330. If he bursts an ancient magic for 1000 I do 1100. Thats a

nice bit of difference. Yes BLM is a very expensive job because from lvl 10-48 not many

spells are dropped. Almost all are only available at the shops. Add on top of this the

demand of all the blms + all the whms who are getting the spells for thier subjob. PLUS the

majority of the population is in those levels.

Elemental skill is always

better than INT. I'll leave it at that

don't burst ancients.

Sorry

for the rant but the amount of info in this thread that will lead to you being a half-assed,

useless BLM is incredible.

the irony

[Tetsuo]

...



I'm sorry, but your theory of using I spells is a bad idea...you dont wanna use

less MP and unload all your MP on a mob. Like you said, it's not more MP efficient. Causes

downtime.

As for not bursting AMs...I do this just because it's a challenge ^^. I

was with a PT the other day and I was bursting freeze almost every fight. We had a RDM so

there was no downtime either. 307MP (Sometimes...gg Conserve MP) may almost kill my MP, but

by the time the mob is back I'll have enough for debuffs and then I'm not wasting all my

mana spamming lvl I spells. More DMG? Maybe, but you also have to factor in MP

conservation. I may hit harder with 3 lvl I spells, but at the same time I can use 1 lvl II

spell and rest a bit for slightly less DMG.

[Jehryn]

Whoever

says that you don't need the -II series spells is a fool.

You should ALWAYS have

every single Elemental Magic spell available to your level (-gas are not essential, and can

be dangerous). You would be a fool to use a series I spell over a series II spell, because

if you sit there spamming -I spells the whole time you cannot sit and rest. Seriously, if

there is ONE key thing to learn about playing a mage class, it's that you need to /heal as

much as possible for as long as possible, and use /heal chains as long as you can, you gain

a bonus for sitting longer.

If there were a level 46 BLM in my party nuking Aero I,

he would be kicked the first time I saw it.

The only times you should ever use a I

series spell when you have a II or III or IV series is if: you're fighting an elemental and

you're waiting for the stronger one to cool-down or you're fighting something that is so

weak that you only need a lower tier spell.

Absolutely foolish to suggest that II

series spells are not necessary. It's like telling a Ranger that he doesn't need to use

Horn/Scorpion Arrows.

[Tetsuo]

I tested

today. Fire I = 95 dmg max...Fire II 199 dmg max.

Plus, every penny and moreso I've

spent on II spells and Ga spells I've made back farming elementals...which you can TRY to

beat with lvl 1 spells, but I'm sure you'll have a harder time than casting Aero II and

Aeroga II. Have fun.