The Black Sacrament -- A Guide To Black Mage

There’s multiple ways to restore MP if you want to. For instance, you can have separate T6/5 macros using AF+3 body if you were really dead set in using club/shield. The damage difference might be small between both options, and you refill your mp in basically 2 bursts or so, and can go back to your normal set after. Might only need to do it every ~10 bursts or so, depending on ballads/idle

Job Points

It's just 20% more

You can go try, take a 1000 needles, see if you take 50 damage (95%) or 120 (85% reduced by a further 20% after the first calculation)

Ya that's what +mana wall does. Without gear/JP you lose mp equal to 50% of the normal hp you would lose, with full 95 you lose mp equal to 5% of normal hp you would lose and of course dt stacks so can cut that in half again.

The Job Points are just +20 Mana wall which makes it very easy to cap, we've been able to show 95 is cap for years thanks to su4/su5 (which can still be useful for letting you get some flee shoes going while capping Mana wall)

Question concerning BLM Gifts; I see Elemental Cast Time -8% BUT, I am assuming that is only precast not recast. Therefore when building 80% FC set, you still build to 80% OR 72% for elemental Magic?

Fast Cast only effects your recast time when you midcast in it, for precast purposes it is interchangeable with elemental casting time as long as you are using elemental magic.

In Midcast yes Elemental casting time doesn't do anything for your recast times unlike Fast Cast.

IIRC you only need to build to 42% because you also get 30% from the Elemental Celerity trait. I guess you could go even lower to account for /RDM fast cast or /SCH grimoire but 42% is such a low bar to hit that it seems a hassle.

Random Discussion the other day; someone stated, "They are sure the extra Magic Accuracy Skill and 2 MBD2 on R25 Mpaca will compete with with R15 Marin on Ongo specifically with new gear. They cleared using that staff and current BiS Ongo set. I have not yet cleared V20. Has anyone used both and seen the results?

Marin: 27 less Magic Accuracy Skill & 2 MBDII less.
Mpaca: ~20 INT, 8 MAB, and 15 Macc less.

With the increased Mlvls we've gotten and the extra magic accuracy on newer gear I'd be more concerned with the damage stats. Does 2 MbD II beat 20 INT and 8 MaB? I really don't think it does. But there will be an extra aug along with the current stuff, so when mpaca staff's final form comes out it will have more going for it. It's likely the final staff will be better than Marin +1 with the 4th slot unlocked. But you'll probably need to max out the augs to get to that point.

I'm sure with 4th line augs we're going to see some shifts in BiS for weapons. There are quite a few weapons that have decent potential already to overtake non-rema alternatives especially for mages/DW jobs. Should be exciting to see and hopefully we're only a couple months away right now (hoping for January v25 launch)

Your math is wrong it's 7 INT, 24 M Acc, 32MaB, 67 Magic Damage. vs 2mbd and 12mbdII.

Wicce is good if you need extra M Acc,

From what I understand Magic damage is more relevant for low tier nukes and helix.

So from what I see lets just say that 7int gives an additional 2 mab.

Is 32+2 Mab vs 2 mbd and 12mbd II? I'm not really sure myself but MBD II has no cap and you always want to cap MBD.

It's a close call but I think Ea +1 still better if you have no resistance issues.

here's BG's Formula
Damage Dealt = D × MTDR × Staff × Affinity × Resist × Resistance Rank Reduction × MB × MBB × Day & Weather × MAB/MDB × TMDA × Potency Multipliers

MAB gets reduced if the target's Magic defense is high. so it is better to focus on MBD and MBDII once u get the MAB/MDB ratio pretty good.

Where does r25 path C Nyame rank in this?

Well now that my Ea+1 legs have sold I guess I can chime in.

1st his proposed set is easily over the MBD 1 cap so its just the pile of stats vs 12 MBD II

INT does not generally equal any particular amount of MAB it's part of the D term and how much it increases the D term can vary greatly depending on your target's INT and the spell you are using. The D term then eventually multiplies with the MAB so the more you increase one the more valuable the other is so really can't just equate INT to a specific amount of MAB.

Also can't just ignore 67 Magic Damage sure it usually does more for lower tier nukes but 67 is still a lot even for higher tier nukes and does a lot for this set.

The Empy set bonus can also help although I think for magic bursts it probably gets lost to damage cap most of the time.

Anyways the Empy body/legs beats EA+1 pretty easily in most scenarios I am only keeping my EA+1 body for my RDM at this point. The only change I would make to the set listed is also using empy +3 feet unless looking to use quanpur.

I would also note Agwu Head can often beat EA+1 head depending on weapon choice and tier of nuke as well.

This is the heart of my argument. The magic damage formula is complicated and because of that you can't just equate a set amount of X stat to an equivalent amount of Y stat. There are many multipliers involved. Int factors into the front end of the formula, making the initial spell base damage bigger. Spell damage also goes here. Int affects higher tier nukes by larger amounts than smaller ones, whereas spell damage is the opposite.... works best on lower tier nukes. Both are then multiplied by MaB, weather effects, affinity effects, set bonus, and such. Each multiplier is a separate step, and balancing out each component results in the biggest gains.

It's a poor analogy, but if you consider the following math

10 x 10 x 10 == 1,000

versus

13 x 13 x 13 == 2,197

versus

10 x 12 x 17 == 2,040

versus

19 x 10 x 10 == 1,900

In the first example each of the three components adds up to 30, and in the following examples each of the components adds up to 39. But because of the multiplicative effect, distributing those extra "points" more evenly around the formula results in the second iteration giving a larger increase over the third and fourth.

If you think of the steps in a similar manner you see what I mean.

(base damage) x (MaB/MdB) x (affinity) x (day/weather bonus) x (MbD 1 + MbD II)

Even that is simplifying it slightly. And MaB versus MdB is another complicated matter because it's a multiplier step that is itself based on division. So yeah, the whole thing is a complicated mess. But if you understand it thoroughly enough it makes plenty of sense. The build I arrived at is based off that math, and it's been performing exceptionally well for me. I trust it thoroughly.



I agree with agwu head over ea +1 situationally. I'm pretty sure when the final form of agwu's is released with the 4th augment it'll be flat out ahead of ea +1.

Int 103-96=7
Macc 127-103=24
Mab 117-85=32
Mdmg 67-0=67
MBD1 is overcap with Wicce, the only difference will be with MBD2.
MBD2 5-17=-12

So you're both wrong.

Melliny was wrong about the Macc and you were wrong about the MBD.

End totals are 7 Int, 24 M Acc, 32 MaB, and 67 Magic damage versus 12 MbD II.

For Stone VI, my optimizer printed out this set when bursting, but I did not add any consideration for magic accuracy. I also did not add the wicce earring, I don't know what augments are being considered for everyone's calculations:

ItemSet 388020


I used an INT value of 425 for Ongo and 145 INT base, which is ML40 Taru with no subjob.

Pretty much what I came up with. Austar, your optimizer isn't accounting quanpur necklace in earth nukes is it? That piece gives earth affinity +5 on top of MaB +7 in the neck slot. Since we don't need sorcerer's stole +2 to cap MbB I we can swap that in for ongo nukes and it wins every time. But for non earth spells JSE neck is still the way to go. Also, I had regal and malignance in the set before I threw the +2 wicce earring in. Minimum augs on wicce +2 are 7 int and 15 or 16 magic accuracy. It need's that third aug slot to be worth using though, so unless it's a wicce +2 it doesn't count, but with the extra int it has the highest damage of any earring. Maximum aug is 15 INT so if you get anything higher than minimum it's even more of a blowout.

The only piece Austar's optimizer came up with that was different from my set was the feet. Wicce +3 has 8 MaB less than R25 agwu's, but it has 6 more INT and 10 more spell damage. INT does a lot on high tier nukes so I can see that working out. The two pieces are pretty comparable tbh. But this is the direction we wanna go with our nuking sets. Ea +1 is finally getting outdated. And let's be honest. It's been like what? Six years? It's about time we finally get some upgrades to our magic bursting set. I'm looking forward to seeing what the final agwu's augs have on them. I suspect we'll be using agwu's hat and feet with the 4th slot unlocked. Just like I said I anticipate mpaca's final form overtaking marin +1 a few posts up. The stats are trending that direction. It's something to keep in mind when vengence 25 fights come out...likely in a few months.

Also should mention that I forced staff options. If you are able to blast through meds for MP, then bunzi+shield would be better.

As in you are operating under the assumption that Odyssey gear will have a 4th augment we haven't seen yet when gear goes from R25 to R30?

I thought I saw the .dats that the stat increase from R25 to R30 on everything is very small.

I thought the developers stated in an interview that instead of raising odyssey gear's stats on the final tier they were instead unlocking an extra augment slot.



Yup, bunzi's and ammurapu shield has higher damage output. I just use staff in my ffxiah item templates by default because of Myrkr. I swap between the two as the situation allows.

While Starlight isn't as good as myrkr it's worth looking at to see if it's good enough to make that swap.

Someday maybe they'll make starlight give more than 100 mp lol

Oh by the way, when I mentioned slotting in quanpur necklace for earth nukes earlier


I was assuming R25 Agwu's Pigaches over Wicce Sabots +3. You can't use quanpur necklace in the above build with empyrean +3 feet and still hit the MBD I cap. Empyrean legs +3, JSE Cape, Agwu's hands, and Ea hat +1 is only a combined 35 MBD I, so you still need 5 more. The JSE neck +2 adds 10 more MBD, but if you want to use quanpur necklace when you're bursting earth spells you do need to use R25 agwu's pigaches instead of our empyrean feet. R25 Agwu's Pigaches has 6 more MBD I, which raises the total to 41 MBD without the neck slot, so it still caps. The original set I posted is the one you'd use if you needed to swap quanpur necklace in for earth affinity.

Minor edit: The above is of course assuming you're still going the staff rout. If you use bunzi's rod that has 10 MbD on it as well. So empyrean feet +3 fits in if you're using bunzi's rod, but not if you're using staff.

It doesn't win, I have it included to check and it doesn't beat sole +2

Stole +2 outperforms quanpur necklace on earth nukes? Really? I guess it just goes to show how impactful that INT stat really is.

Whoever said such is Wrong w/o a Doubt

Via what Spreadsheet & Via what Math?

Quanpur WINS always vs JSE+2 Neck casting Stone