Pimp my BLMFollow

I've come to accept the fact that I'm just going to be wanted on my BLM for basically everything so I need to dust my collection of gear off and update it for 2009. Most of my gear is from when I quit in 2005.

I would appreciate any suggestions on the best path to upgrade as I can't afford to do everything at once, and I want to get the most useful upgrades first.

I have all HQ staffs except for Water and Light. Have been unable to find a group for Rostrum Pumps but hoping to be able to soon. Same with Ugg pendant, though I guess I could just buy that.

Currently I have about 1m available and can raise gil at about 100k/h or with ENM/BCNM, etc...

Idle set: http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=66948
Planned upgrade: Jelly Ring

Elemental set: http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=83710

Dark set: http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=83711

Mind set: http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=67494

Black Enfeeble set: http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=66953

White Enfeeble set: http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=83708

Really appreciate any suggestions you may have for how to go about upgrading.

You've got the basics more or less down, so I'd go about getting the last few pieces you need to round off your sets (for example, I noticed you're missing Yigit crackows and Goliard clogs, and did not provide us with an MAB nuking set to look at.)

One thing you could focus on is completing your speciality gear (I don't know if you have Pendant, obis, etc.). Sea is a very good place for BLMs in terms of both gear, as well as being a starting ground for working on your solo skills.

Another thing you might want to do is to start fine tuning your setups.

What I mean by that is that you look like you are carrying around a lot of rather redundant gear which takes up space that could've been used for other things. It may not matter now, but it's something to consider down the road.

Take for example, your MND set- stacking MND is great if you want to Elemental Seal a Slow onto a mob, but realistically speaking, what is the point of having 61+70 MND? We use MND primarily for Stoneskin, which caps out at 114MND (assuming your Enhancing magic is capped), so what real purpose does the extra 17MND you're carrying around serve?

Lastly, some shameless advertising on my part, but I've written about BLM gear before. You may want to check out my blog post regarding gear over here.

Hope that helps! ^^

HMP set: http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=83850

I fixed the pants on drk set, that was just an error. I use drk pants on idle set just cause it doesn't have negative stats. I could change it if the -3 emnity is worth it.

Sea does seem to be where all the good sh*t is but I have not completed Sea yet. My top priority right now is setting up my CoP static to get all the Sea stuff.

Far as shoes, I will go get those assault pieces, they seem pretty good. If I can get a Rostrum run is it worth it just for the fastcast if I end up being able to get the Assault feet before it?

Also, the MAB nuking set is something I don't have. Would this be replacing something like my glove with int or MAB instead of elemental skill?

As far as the MND set, I will get rid of redundant stuff. I didn't know about the MND cap on stoneskin. Any other redundant items I can cut out? Would it be worth carrying an Enhancing Torque for Stoneskin? I'm leveling RDM so probably will get it anyway. Also, thanks for the gear link, I will take a look at it.

One last thing, are Zenith Mitts worth getting?

Anyway, thanks for all the help, looking forward to having an updated and proper set of gear soon. ^^

Edited, May 23rd 2009 2:05am by omeed

Edited, May 23rd 2009 2:09am by omeed

mind if i ask a question? what is whitebox gear? i've seen this referred to b4 but not sure what it means.

thank you

My goal isn't really HNM though. Currently I am beginning to solo a lot on BLM, I'm doing solo ENM, I do Dynamis twice a week and hoping to do Limbus when I get Sea access. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

Genbu triggers are harder than Genbu, tbh

they're only 5 more hp- than mahatma feet (10 less than errant), which you'll probably carry for stoneskin anyway. it really isn't that hard to activate latent, even as elf/galka. askelipios/astral aspis, zmitts, zcrown, serket ring, black cotehardie, and mahatma feet is all i use, and serket ring can be switched for ether+electrum, and mahatma could be switched for errant+penitents/blue cape/etc. that basically costs what? 100k, some sky abjurations, and a few hours for asklepios/astral aspis?

unfortunately, i am elvaan.

and yes, it definitely does activate latent. base hp is 1059, latent gear brings me to 804 (-255 hp from gear, 1059-255=804). my nuking gear has no +/- except prism, though the back slot doesn't count towards latent (and if it did, it'd only make it easier to activate anyway). 804/1059=75.9206% which is <76%.

and why would you assume i'm a gimp using penitents?

I was going to ask the same thing.

Wait, what? I get my HP yellow by 1 point, and if I were to take off prism cape it would not be. Does that mean that I'm not actually activating sorc ring?

you're fine. however you don't actually need to have yellow hp, as it's still active at exactly 75% (which is actually 75%~75.999999999999), while your hp is white. if you're hp is 76% when you take off prism, then no, it's not active.

sorry, you're wrong. you need <76%, not <75%.

i suppose i could go nuke at 804 hp (75.9%), and then at 784 (74.03%), if you really want some proof.

happy? or do you also want a video, to prove i didn't just nuke with some hp+ gear on, and then take it off for the ss?

though, while i was wasting my time, you actually made me go "wtf? o.o?" until i nuked again, and realized it was just a magic crit lol.

Edited, May 28th 2009 8:47pm by ThePsychoticOne

you can if your hp is above liek 900 or so.

Edited, May 28th 2009 9:04pm by ThePsychoticOne

...what? you need more -hp to activate latent if you nuke in penitents. and it's not like i couldn't still use peni for latent if i wanted/needed to...

Just curious

Is the P.rope part of the gear used to reduce hp 255 points?

wtf...to get to 784 i need -275, not 255. It really doesn't matter that -20 of it would come from gear i also nuke it. Or else you may as well not count zmitts either?

Not only do i know that, but i also knew that the back/ring slots don't count either, which many don't.

i also know that to get to 784 hp i need -275 hp, which is MORE than 255. You're trying to claim that i need less -hp to activate latent if i were to nuke in penitent's, which is completely absurd. The less hp i have when i nuke, the more i need to lower my hp first. Just because i nuke in something doesn't mean i have to use it to activate latent. In fact, i could even nuke in witch sash and still use penitent's to activate latent if i wanted to!

I wouldn't need to bring anything else with me to activate latent, but i sure as hell would need more -hp. 804/1039 = 77.38%. To reach 804 hp i need a total of -255 hp. to reach 784 i need a total of 784. Even if i could get that extra 20 hp from penitent's itself, that doesn't change the fact that i'd need more -hp to activate latent (which also means that i'd have a lower hp, and when you spend 99% of the time at 76% hp, every bit can help). Although i don't, i also could always have used penitent's to get to 804 to begin with (in fact, before i bought serket i did use ether+penitents instead, and i sttill use it on /whm so i don't have to hit latent macro as often due to autoregen), which would mean i'd need an additional -15 hp to activate latent.



WOOOOOOOOW!

My base hp is 1059. not 1069. it's not 1069, it never was 1069, and it never will be 1069. First of all, i don't idle in a useless cape like prism. When i'm not casting, i have umbra cape on, which has no hp. Second, even if i was some nub that didn't realize how useful -dmg% gear is, and idled in prism, i could simply use /equip back to unequip it for latent. If the +10 hp on prism counted i'd only need to get to 812 hp, which would only require -247 hp. Last i checked 255 < 247.


How exactly does it take more steps to equip something else? It's just as easy to equip 1 item as it is to equip 16... And how does it take more gear? Hell even if you didn't know you can unequip something with /equip by not specifying an item, you must have known that i could just as easily equip umbra/altruistic cape, both of which i always have with me, and neither of which have hp on them.

Well, it's linked to in my sig. i guess it makes more sense to make random assumptions instead of checking it.

And prism has been 100% useless for idling ever since it didn't have -dmg%, refresh, mdb, or even something that's only 99% useless like vit. Cheviot cape is only 100~200k, use it.

Prism is an excellent cape for nuking, stoneskin, and not bad for enfeebling either. However while idling, it does absolutely nothing, while there are other easily obtainable capes that do do something when not casting.

...That doesn't even make sense. BASE hp doesn't change, except with sub/merits. base hp is NOT the same as the hp you have in nuke gear. Both are important. hp while nuking determines how much hp you need to activate it, while base hp determines how much -hp you need to activate the latent (which is based on how much hp you have while nuking). If my base hp was 1069, and nuking hp was 1069 then i'd need 812 hp, which would take -257 hp to reach, however if my base hp is 1059, and 1069 for nuking, then i'd still need 812, but to reach that i'd only need -247 hp. Unless that prism cape is permanently glued to my back, then simply taking it off is already -10 hp. If for some (idiotic) reason i wanted to, i could activate my sorc ring latent with abosolutely no -hp, by nuking in 1394 hp. Doing so wouldn't require me to lower my hp at all, i'd just need to add on 335 hp while nuking, unless you think taking off hp gear is the same as using -hp gear? lol.


Lucky? I'm lucky because i nuked once, and realized it did less damage then before, when i just used an int ring? I'm lucky because i then took 10 seconds to look at wiki where it clearly said the back slot didn't count towards the latent? Luck has nothing to do with it. Originally when i first put a -hp set together to activate it (at 73), it was not active, i was actually short by 1-2 hp, however i'm not retarded and noticed that it wasn't active (did less damage with sorc ring than with int ring..) and so i found out that the +hp on back didn't count.


Well, it's a good thing i'm too lazy to add anything, and instead use calc.exe...unless you think there's a problem with that? Or do you think i'm incapable of typing/copypastaing 5 numbers?

Equiping my nuke gear, and taking off zmitts, and cape leaves me at 1059 hp (no +/- hp on any of my gear).

1059*.76=804.84 Any HP lower than 804.84 would be active.
804/1059=0.75920679886685552407932011331445 Confirming that 804<804.84
1059-804=255 How much -hp i'd need to use to reach 804.
0-50-50-50-25-25-30-25=-255 Amount of -hp i used.

So, if there's a problem with my math, feel free to explain what i did wrong. I copy+pasted the numbers above into calculator, so zero chance of mistyping it into it without realizing, unless i typed it wrong above, and not only didn't notice when i read over once, but also after typing a paragraph explaining how i couldn't possibly have made any mistakes, which i wouldn't do unless i was 100% positive i didn't.

Either you're an idiot who thinks it's impossible to take off any +hp that i wear while nuking, for activating latent, or I need to stop feeding you

How much hp you have while nuking only determines the exact hp you need to have less than, and has absolutely nothing to do with how much -hp you need to use to reach that hp. See my example above about activating it at 1059 hp.