The Black Sacrament -- A Guide To Black Mage

That was the issue then. My mistake. Thank you for correcting me. I went off trying to figure out why the discrepancy existed and totally forgot about the whole Fire vs Wind Mode.
I see that now. Clearly I was mistaken via a simple mechanic having me 2nd guess absolutely everything and doubting everything. No offense taken lol. I know I actually linked the Proof my own self but overlooked the Test itself assuming such was ofc irrelevant. My mistake.

Wicce Petasos +3
DEF:125 HP+61 MP+86 STR+22 DEX+25 VIT+27 AGI+16 INT+39 MND+32 CHR+32 Accuracy+61 Magic Accuracy+61 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+51 Magic Damage+31 Evasion+83 Magic Evasion+136 "Magic Def. Bonus"+10 Elemental magic skill +35 Haste+6% Enmity-10 Elemental magic casting time -18% Damage taken -11% Set: Augments "Conserve MP"

Wicce Coat +3
DEF:154 HP+80 MP+132 STR+29 DEX+34 VIT+34 AGI+34 INT+50 MND+43 CHR+43 Accuracy+64 Magic Accuracy+64 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+59 Magic Damage+34 Evasion+88 Magic Evasion+141 "Magic Def. Bonus"+11 Haste+3% Elemental magic recast delay -16% Magic burst damage II +5 "Refresh"+4 Set: Augments "Conserve MP"

Wicce Gloves +3
DEF:110 HP+48 MP+50 STR+16 DEX+40 VIT+38 AGI+20 INT+38 MND+47 CHR+32 Accuracy+62 Magic Accuracy+62 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+57 Magic Damage+32 Evasion+69 Magic Evasion+98 "Magic Def. Bonus"+7 Haste+3% Magic critical hit rate +13% Magic critical hit damage +13% Damage taken -13% Set: Augments "Conserve MP"

Wicce Chausses +3
DEF:134 HP+68 MP+119 STR+31 VIT+23 AGI+31 INT+53 MND+38 CHR+32 Accuracy+63 Magic Accuracy+63 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+58 Magic Damage+33 Evasion+74 Magic Evasion+168 "Magic Def. Bonus"+10 Haste+5% Magic burst damage +15 Increases magic effect duration +50 Set: Augments "Conserve MP"

Wicce Sabots +3
DEF:95 HP+39 MP+50 STR+18 DEX+21 VIT+23 AGI+44 INT+36 MND+32 CHR+47 Accuracy+60 Magic Accuracy+60 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+50 Magic Damage+30 Evasion+110 Magic Evasion+168 "Magic Def. Bonus"+10 Dark magic skill +35 Haste+3% Enmity-16 "Mana Wall"+25% Damage taken -11% Set: Augments "Conserve MP"

So, the full set is:
INT 216, MAcc 310, MAB 275, MDmg 160, 15 Burst, 5 Burst II, DT-35%. It's effectively the accuracy of AF with the MAB of Amalric, with extra MDmg on top?

So now BLM is invincible. Does that change anything?

Hello darkness my old friend. Sad days guys we just a tank now with magic. Here's hoping r30 agwu gives us what we need I had high hopes.

Empy head/hands/feet/Taranus/d-ring puts us at 50% DT with 95% Mana Wall and not terrible nuking stars.

I actually think with the upgraded stats we have a new BiS Magic bursting set. The legs and body are incredible. Take a gander at this

ItemSet 380385

The reason you want to swap out ea's body and legs is simple. The Empyrean body and legs just have ridiculous piles of stats. Comparing the two swaps

Ea Houppelande +1 and Ea Slops +1 - 96 Int, 93 M Acc, 85 MaB, 17 MBD II

Wicce Coat and Chausses +3 - 103 INT, 127 M Acc, 117 MaB, 67 Magic Damage, 5 MbD II,

The difference is 7 Int, 34 M Acc, 32 MaB, and 67 Magic damage versus 12 MbD II. The raw stat pile on the wicce +3 is more than enough to offset the loss of 12 MbD II. You're adding to both the front end of the equation as well as the back end. 67 magic damage and 7 INT make the front end bigger, and 32 MaB is a pretty significant boost to the back end multiplier. I have no doubt this is an upgrade. Also, with the addition of magic burst damage 1 + 15 on the legs you still hit the 40 MbD cap without needing the JSE neck, so when you're bursting earth nukes on Ongo you can swap in quanpur necklace without losing a thing.

How does R25 Path C Kaumodaki factor into this?

I was gonna run setups when I got off work the body stood out right away the legs I feel will be good but can go with either option tbh. The legs I think will be replaced by r30 agwu I feel body should be around for good. Set you have should be bis for sure not sure about obi though.

Obviously you use the obi when you have weather effects active and something like acuity belt +1 when you don't. If you have a scholar giving you the corresponding weather effects there is never a situation where the obi is not BiS for nuking. This should be common sense by now.

You can also argue that the raw pile of stats on R 25 Agwu's Cap is enough to contest the stats on Ea hat +1, but due to the nature of how the magic formula works I've kept one piece of Ea +1 for now to balance out the MbD II. I'm pretty sure when vengence 25 comes out and rank 30 agwu's becomes available there will be enough stats on agwu's cap for it to replace ea +1 entirely. But that's just speculation right now. Until we see what direction they go with the third augment slot we can't say. I will say this though. If the third aug slot is MbD II then it won't take much. Just 2 or 3 points of MbD II on agwu's cap is enough to put it ahead ea +1.

I hadn't factored it in at all and didn't know about it. I guess it would be interesting to see how it interacts (whether you can become literally immune to damage). Has anyone checked for a cap?

I wasn't going at you btw for the obi like *** no you wrong I was more so asking I know you change it out for weather. I agree with the other stuff for sure I feel like the numbers should push it out now or its very very close.

Judging by https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/49789/the-black-sacrament-a-guide-to-black-mage/12/#3390002 - looks like the cap is 95%, including Job Points? So unfortunately, it just gives us space to free up our back piece?

You wouldn't take off the ambuscade cape anyway. One way or another, you'll always be wearing one form of the thing. What else could you possibly put in that slot that compares with it?

Seems to corroborate JP wiki

http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/19993.html

Ok, so we no longer need the SU5 weapon to hit that max.

It's for sure unnecessary now, but it does come with 70(+100) MP, and the unique "converts damage taken to MP" stat. Perhaps you can build a set around Mallquis Clogs +2 & Ethereal Earring for 19% dmg<--->MP swap. Definitely not worth the price tag now, since you don't even benefit from all of the Mana Wall now. I'd even say Su4 is more of a better purchase for Tanking/DT set, though, we do still have Malignance Pole.

Also, I asked about this a while ago but I felt like it didn't make much sense from a gear/stat perspective and SE completely botched this staff:

Did the Empy set upgrades make for a new free nuke set with set bonus and Conserve MP procs from unity aug'd pieces like Mephitas's ring?

More relevant question, does BLM free nuke anymore?
I'm trying to gear someone else's BLM for Ody Ongo and possibly Sortie. I have no BLM experience since abyssea.

I'm fairly sure the answer is that it's not worth gearing explicitly for Conserve MP, but you got me thinking.
ItemSet 387798

Trait of 31 CMP
Gear gives 39 CMP (Assuming not using O. Sash, waist is 15 of that 39)
Ideally you'd ask for a Scholar's Roll? Assuming +1 per +1 roll, let's call it an average of +15 CMP.
85 CMP in that set, Wicce gives pretty good stats overall.

Conserve MP would proc 85% of the time in this scenario. 20% (assuming 5% per Empy piece) it would bump by double the percentage saving, giving us
0.85 * 0.2 * 1.5625 = roughly a 15% damage bump over zero CMP gear/rolls. (My maths could be super wrong, happy for someone to correct me)

Is that worth losing some slots and potential MAcc? Maybe? Someone else might be able to work out if's worth the effort. If you're already using Wicce gear, maybe chucking in Mephitas' Ring alone might be worth it?

ItemSet 387803

Something like this VS Ongo would be worth throwing between SC windows? Or just a good way to feed TP and grab hate?

Hoping with -JA, weather proc, set proc, and sroda proc you could could roll ok damage most of the time and occasionally fish for a nuke that would contribute in a meaningful way to the overall fight.

I mean even with SV etudes, malaise, all the buffs in the world I don't think its worth throwing non mb nukes at Ongo, you need to be doing some sort of skillchain at all times(even with SCH books down, should be doing run+cor sc) and basically just bombing stoneja/6/5/4/3 on repeat.

Only time I really throw non-MB nukes at Ongo is when I've got Manafont/Subtle Sorcery (both) burning, so I know the free nukes- no matter how close to the burst window- won't reduce my bursting damage, and there's no "wasting" of MP. And I'm certainly not doing it expecting more than just some token damage to fill the time, never as "oh this extra damage is going to make the difference between win and lose".

I find that throwing a free nuke at ongo v15+ is only achieved using the relic+3 set for elemental magic skill+. No resists is the only way to do any sort of damage and using that for a free nuke (if the situation calls for it) this would be your best bet.

Ty for the answers. I'm not so sure how much they will play BLM outside of Odyssey, so this is very helpful.

Could you please explain to me the reasoning behind Marin Staff +1 + Enki Strap vs R25 Bunzi's Rod + Ammurapi Shield for non-wind spells?

The rod/shield combo will compare like this to the staff/strap combo: +27 Macc Skill, +23 Macc, +31 Magic damage, +30 MAB, +10 MBD, -14~19 INT.

Do you think the loss of that INT offsets all the other significant gains? I'm genuinely curious.

They are both comparable, but the biggest detriment to the club & shield imo is the loss of Myrkr. When looking through the lens of Ongo v20, giving up Myrkr for the club makes the fight just that much more difficult, MP-wise.

Personally, I prefer Laevatein with AM2 up (which is surprisingly not hard to maintain with OA). But I don't have Mythic on my expectation list for BLMs; Marin +1 on the other hand is extremely easy to obtain.

You could argue club & shield if you don't care about MP, though. I just find it's better to avoid that situation.

I haven't done v20 Ongo but I've been doing the E and F Sortie bosses and my MP is pretty much always full despite doing T6+T4 or T5+T4 every burst window. I'm guessing in most scenarios MP shouldn't be an issue with a good idle set and somebody giving you refresh.

Myrkr. It's particularly important against ongo. Bunzi's and ammurapu are perfectly viable too, but the difference between that and marin +1 with enki's isn't that large. Having access to Myrkr in MP intensive fights is always a consideration.

100% agree with this. When we first tried Ongo, I tried a Bunzi's Rod + Ammurapi Shield combo, but was finding myself OOM pretty quickly. Locking in staff and taking the small amounts of downtime to Myrky really does help. With that being said though Ongo is kind of a one off at the moment, it is a 15 minute fight with no sub job. Once you are past that, allowing to change weapons and using club and shield for nukes is my preference.