Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > Final Fantasy: The Quickening > Final Fantasy XI Online > BLM swords

[Omecle]

Not sure how far you plan on taking BLM, but trust me you will love nuking so much more than melee'ing. Such huge numbers you can pull! From level 50 to 60 I solo'd by using ancient magic on beastmen pets (doing around 1000-1200 damage on them and one shotting them). Very fast exp.

[Levian]

I plan for it to be my main. If I never reach 75, I suspect my BLM will be closest! Nuking is indeed very fun, I was in my first nuking party yesterday with 4 BLM's and a WHM, where we all nuked gob pets with a firaga each. So nice to just use 1 or 2 spells and get 250-300 exp for it. I could get used to that.

[Mirage]

Yeah, some weapons and shields can be equipped by classes that don't have any skill in it. Combat skill only matters when you actually try to use a weapon to attack a target/block a target's attack on you, but the stats on those items are always active, regardless of if you try to melee with them or not.

Genbu's shield for example, is equippable by WHM, BLM, RDM, BRD, SMN, BLU, but only WHM and RDM gets native shield skill. However, the 10% physical damage reduction, the +10 evasion, and the elemental weakness/strength on it will always be active for all of the jobs, even if they're not even engaged to the mob.

I also wish I could use this shield on my other non-mage jobs :(. 10 evasion would be really great for a thief!

[Ouch!]

Originally Posted by Levian ^

Ah, thanks! I'll probably get some spell interruption reduction gear and stick to nuking then.

I wouldn't worry about stacking spell interruption gear, to be honest. As a BLM, you have enough tools at your disposal that you shouldn't have much trouble getting a nuke off. If enemies are getting too close for comfort, sleep them and move away before nuking again. If they're still persistent, you've got bind, too. I forget when BLM gets it, but you'll also get sleep II, and if there's nothing else in the area to worry about, sleepga is also an option. At level 42, if you go BLM/RDM, you also have access to gravity, which will slow their movement speed allowing you to kite enemies for a while. That said, if you can kill an enemy in three nukes (nuke > sleep > nuke > bind > nuke), you're probably fighting something too strong to handle on your own anyway.

[Del Murder]

What if your sleep spell gets interrupted?

[Levian]

What's up with Sleep really? I just use it if I get aggro from something I can't kill. They just wake up if I nuke them anyway. I usually just stick to Bind when I want to nuke something.

[Mirage]

I'm not sure but bind might have a cooldown that's not over by the time you cast your second nuke, therefore you sleep them instead.

[Levian]

Ah, I suppose it might come more in handy later on. Right now Sleep takes almost as long to cast as my other high level spells.