BLM Gearing Questions

I just wanted to see if I could get some quick basic pointers on gearing my BLM. I've tried to look at a few threads here already to get some ideas, but a lot of the stuff featured seems difficult to get on my own. The BLM in question is my second account, my main I have a decently geared NIN and I solo quite often. However most of the gear I've seen for a good BLM is going to require a full team to take down the NM.

What stat should I gear for, MAB, INT, Elemental Magic Skill? What order should I look for of the three and any other stats that may be important.

If you're resisting your nukes, Elemental Skill / MAcc. Otherwise, it'll be a mix between MAB/INT (generally, MAB will do more for nukes based "average" amounts of INT).

You'll need varying amount of MAcc/Skill for each mob you fight (as you would with Accuracy on NIN), so it's worth looking at both options (MAcc and Damage) while you decide on NM's requirements.

BLM trial of the magian staffs..free in cost (except in your time), blow HQ staves out of the water, and can be soloed are YOUR BEST single most upgrade you can start now =)

I'm currently still leveling up to 90, and using NQ staffs since that's what I already had and I don't really have the gil to blow on the HQs at the moment. Since I really only want this for Dualboxing I don't know that I want to invest too much time into Magian staffs. I did the evasion katana's for NIN and they took me so long waiting around for wind weather all the time.

All I've really leveled on so far are the dolls in Altepa, and on them I can consistently hit around 1000-1200 damage with Thunder IV. Occasionally it deals low damage though dealing about 400-600, but more often it's in the 1000-1200 range. My other nukes are generally less. I've been rotating between Stone V, Water V, and Aero V when Thunder IV is down. Occasionally they will do 1400+ but most of the time they are doing 100-400. Is this what you mean by Resisting? My Elemental skill is around the 270's-280's Range currently. So I know it's well under cap since I just went from 75-85, but it skills up pretty reasonably. Once I can get some Atma's and can maintain my MP pool a little better, I'm sure I'll be able to skill up faster.

You do know the staves are different in that once u get to the elemental killshot you do not have to wait for weather or day?

I banged out a Wind staff in like 2 days :X

I don't know about the staffs, I haven't looked into them yet. I suppose that will probably be a road I have to go down eventually. Do they only give credit to the person who get's the kill shot? or can you do them in a party with a group?

You can be in a group as long as that element has kill shot ( a blu was getting me credit using wind based spells for killshot)


and ice is the easiest to finish day and a half maybe .. they truly are a HUGE difference in numbers

Sound good, My Fiance needs to work on them for her summoner, and I can work on them on the NIN for RDM, and get my BLM's done. Although it looks like the path choices for RDM, BLM, and SMN are all Different... X_X

u are a main nin so the NMs that drop BLM seals for your AF3+1 would not be that difficult ( except for maybe body~ depending on atmas)

Ovni drops a nice body piece that you can probably get just by watching other groups fight- as everyone has one these days

BLMs can solo /duo the ironclads for your blm accessory umm


GL getting a hecate's earring :3 thats the new amazing earring ( i got lucky with mine)

Pretty sure Z mitts will do u just fine for a while till u can get eradico mitts and/or af3+1

And genbu lol..u can solo him @@

In general, it's best to gear (for nuking) with a mix of MAB, INT, and Elemental Magic Skill.
When in Abyssea, you may have access to a host of Atma (and Cruor buffs) that significantly boost Magic Accuracy and/or INT. In that case, you can more-safely gear solely towards MAB.

When not doing Abyssea, despite what you'll hear from other people in these forums, make sure you equip adequate Elemental Magic Skill gear when nuking. Excessive MAB+ gear becomes pointless if your nuke gets even a 1/2-damage resist. Some BLMs (especially in forums) tend to brag about how they "never get resists", which is horsesh*t. A lot of BLMs don't even recognize that there are different tiers of resists that can occur when a nuke lands (1/2, 3/4, 7/8), and that it's mathematically impossible to "never" get resists. Remember than any resist (even a 1/2) is a waste of MP.

Your best choices for BLM equipment come from the Goetia +1/+2 (Empyrean) set (all of it), Morrigan's (Salvage) set (body/legs/hands), Genie set (body/hands), Goliard (Nyzul Isle) set (feet/hands), Yigit (Assault Points) set (feet/head/hands), and Teal (Cruor) set (body/legs).

This is what I'm using currently:


When I'm nuking a higher-level or annoyingly-resistant target, I'll switch to this set-up:

which adds additional Elemental Magic Skill in the hands, back, and feet slots.

I have to get a Epona's ring for my NIN still so I'm sure I'll be looking to brew Rani soon. Hecates shouldn't be too bad as I think it's 100% drop off Rani. Still... it's sooooo much to do.

Well, u can be one of those lolteal blm's but ...

Please don't be on leviathan~

We have too many of those already :<

I won't argue that Trial elemental staffs aren't a good investment of time. They can definitely raise a BLM's nuking damage ceiling *significantly*.

However, it's *very* important to note (especially for a "casual" BLM) that the heavy-damage Trial staffs do not grant the same degree of Magic Accuracy boost as the HQ level-51 elemental staffs.

For example, Varuna's Staff+2 grants (a ridiculous) 30% Magic damage increase. However, it has no Elemental Magic Skill+ or INT+, and has only +20 Magic Accuracy.
Alternatively, Aquilo's Staff grants 15% Magic damage increase, Elemental Magic Skill+10, INT+5, and Magic Accuracy +30.

If one is nuking with Elemental Seal, or nuking against a weak target, clearly the Varuna's Staff +2 will put-out (far) superior damage. But, for many other situations, having your trusty Aquilo's Staff on-hand is preferable.

I agree, however "Most" BLMs (INSIDE LOLABYSSEA) will have the appropriate Atmas, or will try to acquire them, making the MACC /shrug* mostly overkill* in MOST situations. I myself have a high resist set, including my HQ staves (which were all made for and signed by one of my BFF's in game <3 u daddyx!) And will NEVER remove them from that set. MOST mobs though, "with capped skill", with "proper atmas" do NOT require the HQ staves.

Outside of Abyssea, and with the new higher tier level mobs coming, I would agree though, maintain the High resist set, and wait and see.

Also Aquilo's Staff is exceedingly different then MOST HQ staves due to the additional Elemental skill on it. :3

Edit: ALso the single most important thing you can do * And it SHOULD go without saying* is cap your skill. Gear won't matter if you a 75 skilled BLM.

If you need macc in abyssea atm you're doing it wrong.

MAB > INT > Elemental Magic Skill Gearing for a potential resist that will happen anyway will just gimp your overall damage....

Running with +2 is always a given for the best gear besides some random good gear here or there but if your just beginning or not always on blm +1 will be fine and if your even a lolteal blm then I at least suggest to do the augmented gear from the last abyssea expansion you can get int, spell interuption rate, and even MAB on top of the standard MAB that is on the gear when you buy it.

So in suggestions start out

lolTeal -> Augmented Dominon Notes Gear -> AF3 +1 -> AF3+2

HQ staff are super low than we I purchased them so if you so they should be a no brainer!! If your one of those people that are unaware how to get easy gil use your curor or dominion notes after you get the the augmented gear you want and buy augmented weapons they sell to npc from anywhere to 6k to almost 8k a piece. I empty my inventory the best I can buy one that I know sells for 7k+ and load up on it till I'm full warp out sell and repeat buy what I want and blow up anything I want.

Have fun. . .

Screw BLM, lvl SCH.

Properly geared you'll have a bigger E-peen anyways.

And uselessness in abyssea.

What i would try and get if i had to restart my blm over in this day and age would be Dom notes head til +1. Dom notes body can get some nice augments. Eradico mitts should be easy to get since people are spamming the worm that drops them 100 percent and I'm sure for a price or asking nicely will net you a pair.

Legs teal legs are not that bad til +1. Feet theres a tier2 vnm in abysseaKon that drops some nice mab feet that can hold you off til augurs/af+1 etc.

Wouldn't worry too much about magians unless you planning on having a epeen contest with blms and want to hang with them lol.Although you can team up with other blms on the trial.Going slow on the trials you can get them down fairly easy nowadays since you don't need weather like the posts before say.

Goetia mantle is decent for nuke back til capped skill then id use searing cape easy enough. At the very least if you are not getting the magian staves i would just work on hq at least they are worth it and you'll notice the difference in resists/damage. My 2 cents. Enjoy blm it gets pretty addicting.

This is what i use at 90

All I did was state the truth and I didn't call anyone any names nor single out any people..so much for being an ***. And before my post people already said how to gear for max damage, what's the point in repeating it?

Btw, your useless post offered valuable insight too.

Inside abyssea drop the sorc ring unless you don't get cruor buffs.

I dont get the hp buff inside abyssea if im going for epeen. Also its easy enough to activate if you do get the hp buff just equip latent gear and drop hp buff and PROFIT.

In order for Sorc to be active inside abyssea your HP needs to be the same as 75% hp outside, so it's not really 'easy' to do with cruor buffs.

If you cancel the HP buff though, you'll get your "Outside" HP back. So, as Nightson said, putting your latent gear on, then dropping it, will put you in Sorc Ring latent.

it is :( you equip the same latent gear you would have on outside for it to activate and cancel your hp buff and it goes down to outside hp >.> should go try it and you'll see lol

Biggest increase in damage inside Abyssea is always Atmas, so i would suggest getting Beyond, Minikin Monstrosity and Ultimate or maybe Baying Moon if you dont have them already

Teal body, legs and head arent bad at all if you are a new blm, you could maybe ask ppl killing the big worm in Atthowa Chasm for some Eradico Mitts.. they get tossed a lot.
If you have some Battle Trophys the Literae Set has some really nice augments.. at least on body and head, not sure for the rest.

If you consider doing the Trial Staffs i'd go for the Varuna's +2.. normally you will be using ice magic like 90% of the time if you are not just there for trigger.

Easy to get and not very expensive nuking set could look like this

Obvious next upgrades would be all AF3+1 and accessories.
At least leg, feet and head +1 seals drop from mobs you can easily solo on NIN and bring your BLM for triggers :3

Back in the day a Resist set was a must for stuff like Ouryu, Kirin, ZNM etc but ever since the 80 rise its usefulness has been dwindling. Id rather just have a Nuking set, enfeeble set, Idle set, Mhp set, and a dark magic set. That alone should almost fill your inventory. As for gearing everyone seems to know what there doing here. GL gearing your blm.