The Black Sacrament -- A Guide To Black Mage

The guide is still current. Black mage hasn't changed much recently. Nothing has really with the covid related update delays. The most recent changes were sheol A. Maybe when Sheol B comes out next month things will change, but for now you can run with what's in the guide at present.




Edit: Never mind, I misinterpreted what was being suggested.

He said to keep the MB window open, not the continuing SC window.

I wouldnt say its the same. First off, BLM has free (or almost free) nukes with AF body. Then it has access to all base elements. JA spells also gives 5% boost for next magic damage for 60 sec that caps at 25%. Lastly BLM has Mana Wall, which pretty much makes it almost unkillable when fully buffed. I think BLM has also much better macc with their nukes if we are talking about things like Wave 3.

Overall I think BLM would be WAY better AoE nuker if -ja would do the same AoE damage as BLU's Spectral Flow for example. Better to the point where it could be way better for group content than any melee groups. I might be totally wrong tho :P

Laevateinn Vs Lathi Vs Marin Staff +1
any idea which is going to be the best for endgame?

Path A Lathi has 10 more INT, 80MP, and -10ENM but 55 less Macc so it will be stronger for non-wind nukes when you don’t need Macc. I assume the wind MAB should beat 10 INT even on high level mobs but I would have to actually plug that in and check later. I don’t think there is any reason to carry a Path C Lathi around anymore if you do Augment a Marin Staff though.

Here's a comparison of the relevant stats:

Marin +1 beats both Lathi A and C in most situations. The mDMG will only have an noticeable impact on low tier nukes and you end up losing a lot of magic accuracy.

Laevateinn is a different beast and the lack of +INT makes it really hard to compare without knowing your overall gear/buffs/target mob. I personally don't have one and wouldn't bother with Marin+1 in the picture.

Laevateinn shines as a true endgame weapon, as it allows you to gear differently than a Lathi user, with less concern-not complete lack of concern- for macc in gear vs power. Not only the natural magic accuracy on the weapon, but the "magic accuracy skill +269" vs. Lathi's +228. Marin+1 now seems like a great balance between the two extremes, but will still need more gear support.

Finding high levels of INT to make up for its lack on the Laev isn't always easy, though. Sometimes you will end up opting in free nuke sets for something with 4-5 more INT compared to 2-3 more MAB, or fighting Oseem for days to get that perfect Merlinic Headpiece with taupe stones for extra INT over a Lathi user...and it sucks. But if you can take advantage of the AM2's extra MAB, it can be a really reliable monster.

I'm looking forward to hear what people say with finished Marin+1's compared to their current setups, and what it changes.

Nice, but you ignored kinda important statistic, which is magic accuracy skill. It was tested to be equal to magic accuracy. While it has no impact on Marin vs Lathi (both have 228 macc skill), it has kinda huge impact to macc in comparision with Laevateinn, which has 269 macc skill. So overall R15 Laevateinnn has like 45macc more than Marin, but then i have no idea how INT affect macc on nukes (assuming it has an effect at all).

Edit: There is also in theory option to get probably 50 more macc on Laevateinn with AM1

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Unity INT.

Also magic accuracy skill and magic accuracy are not one to one.

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/51250/magic-accuracy-vs-magic-accuracy-skill/

Don't make any big investments until October when we get to see the augmented version of Tumult Curators staff!

It saddens me so much that BLM is hardly used for its actual, what I believe to be its, purpose. All we use it for anymore is manawall tanking crap like albumen adds so we don’t have to bother with sleeping them. And in the rare occasion we’re feeling frisky and want to set up a BLM focused dmg set up all too often in that scenario I see BLMs that either forgot or don’t know that Burn is a thing and is quite potent with the relic legs and feet.

I will give BLM a try tonight during odyssey.

Gonna need to review my sets though

***gonna be expensive as f...

You can show me this and I can show you test done by JP guy who is very good player and test was very detailed and it showed it is about 1 to 1. I wont give you link because it's in the same thread you posted...

I never looked into Lute's post since it was in all Japanese. I just know those were the numbers given to us directly from FFXI's Dev team.

It should be 1:1. That would make the most sense as the accuracy and attack from Sword skill behave the same way normal sword skill would. OFC only applying to the main hand.

They would have had to go out of their way to program it to be different than the other associated stats on the ilvl vomit.

Marin +1 pretty much killed everything, assuming you fight high lv where int is precious, otherwise i'll stick with a raetic +1.

It's actually 1 to .9 for skill levels, pretty sure. That's also what Lute's testing said for Magic Accuracy Skill so it would make sense.

Looking to get back into BLM. I haven't played it since a few months after Magic Damage came out. I'm in the process of reconstructing it now.

I remember how to gauge pieces stat-wise when comparing INT and MAB. But where does Magic Damage come into the formula?

Also, the gear that adds damage reduction to Mana Wall, does that stack PAST the -50% DT cap?

Magic Damage impact is different for each tier of spells. Just look it up on bgwiki.

The "weapon" fake skill also does not translate into a 1:1. It is also roughly 1:0.9.
This is easily seen as you get +~220 accuracy in /checkparam; but you don't get +242 for your average 119 weapon.
The thing about skill:derived stats is that there are arbitrary ranges for when skill:acc/atk is 1:1, 1:0.8, 1:0.5, or 1:0.9.
For the 400+ (probably @450, but it's 100% arbitrary) we have at capped skills, it's 1:0.9. (But also if the skill is lower than the break, then the fake skill is translating at a different conversion rate. This is why you'll get some ±1~2 from /checkparam using just 0.9. There's a conversion break somewhere in there and ain't nobody got the time to find that.)

We have 1 test that shows that back in the 75era skill:Macc was 1:1... this was also the ranges of available skill that skill:acc was also 1:1... and we confirm that physical accuracy isn't always 1:1... nothing in this game ever has been... so it has always been erroneous to have assumed skill:Macc is always 1:1.

As for progamming... nah. the fake weapon type skill is the same as if you had +n of that skill type. Macc Skill is likewise the same as if you had +n of the relevant magic for whatever is being cast.
e.g. your Macc Skill +250 is the same as if you had +250 elemental magic skill whenever you cast an elemental magic spell.

I mean no offense to you, but you need to forget that cancerous stupid that has plagued the ENG side of this game for centuries ASAP.
INT has no conversion or comparison to MAB, and it never has had.
INT converts into magic damage; the new stat you're unfamiliar with which is just +n to the base damage of a spell.
Again, not you specifically, but the 2INT=1MAB nonsense has always been garbage and a pet peeve of mine.

It's all obnoxiously complex, as INT:Mdmg depends on the target's INT and has 2~3 breaks thankfully at dINT 50/100/200... and it all is spell specific. (and even the original helix's have separate breaks at ugly dINT levels... because of course they do.)
So we can't really have a specific n:y for INT:Mdmg... Though if you have a scenario of having a LOT of Mdmg v a small of INT with identical MAB and Macc/Skill... The Mdmg piece would possibly win... Though that's not really a current situation for any of our current gear.
And I'm talking about having 50~100 more Mdmg v 5 INT; as 5 INT can be anywhere from 15~30 Mdmg on a T5... but just 8 INT turns that same spell scenario into 24~48 Mdmg. So as you can see, INT can be very potent very quickly.

MAB is a whole separate issue, being a soft multiplier. So while if you add 10 MAB to your set, you will always be dealing +10% more damage to the same targets than you did before; you're not necessarily getting that full +10%. Especially against NMs who tend to have a lot of MDB. Or if you already have a lot of MAB in your set.
example: if you have 200 MAB, your target has 5 MDB, and your nuke hits for 500 damage; if you added 10 MAB, your nuke would then deal 516 damage to that same target. (+200% v +210%)
A different target with different MDB would give you appropriately adjusted damage; all of this is why MAB is a soft multiplier.

it would actually do be 525, not 516. when you're looking at the percentage change, the monster's mdb doesn't matter. 210 / 200 * 500 = 525

Pretty sure you are right with the concept, but you made simple math mistake. Its 3.1 / 3, so +3.33% not 2.1 / 2, which would be 5%.

So it's actually 516.6 like Queen wrote and it can be calculated both by 500 * 1.033 or by:

x * (3.0 / 1.05) = 500
would mean that x is 175
175 * (3.1 / 1.05) = 516.6

oops, i thought it said 100 mab

Only skill > accuracy varies; skill > attack is always 1:1.

Also, the accuracy break points have been known for many years. It's 1:1 from 0-200, 1:0.9 for 201-400, 1:0.8 for 401-600, and 1:0.9 for 601+.

Thank you for the information. I will take this into account when I start putting some sets together. I’m starting slow. I’m gonna get all my RME armour to 119 first and than look for more gear from there.

RME upgrades are usually a decent place to start a job. I know about some other sets like Amalric and Ea too.

Having an issue using the lua posted at the bottom of the guide on page 1. Not sure if it's because this guide is out of date, or just the lua, although it was said to be up to date as of June 2020. I haven't changed a thing i the lua aside from the name in my gs folder. As soon as I load I get error:

Lua runtime error: gearswap/flow.lua:350:
Gearswap has detected an error in the user function get_sets:
...Jackflashh_BLM.lua:114: attempt to index field 'JA' (a nil value)

Not sure how to fix. I'm not a coding wiz, but everything looks similar to my other luas as far as formatting, so I have no idea. I though maybe my libs was out of date, but it's auto updated with windower. :(

Not familiar with this particular lua and its setup, but the first thing I notice is that there is no "sets.JA" prior to the "sets.JA.(specific JA)"...

Think of it as a series of Nesting Dolls. If you don't first identify just "sets.JA", even as a nil set (ie- sets.JA={}), then it can't create subsets of "sets.JA".