The BLM Journal: Mentality

I decided to start a new series of posts that I will call "The BLM Journal." It simply acts as my output and "thinking" pad for my trials as a new BLM75 (which I recently got :3 Thank you Lissy for helping me with the final set of XP).

For the most part, I'll be posting probably a lot of things people will either say "duh" or "Isn't that common knowledge?" While that's true, there are some things that I really don't have much of a direct answer to (/RDM vs /WHM) and some things that I think I need to touch on a bit more so I can be more efficient on the job. Like I said before, I'm really passionate about my SAM job and I would like to do the same for my BLM job as well. So, lets start with the basics.

Mentality - Doing whatever you can in your ability to not become a liability

One of the main reasons why I avoided BLM for so long is that I think the job can be pretty demanding at times. You basically have an ability to a large amount of damage and it relies on you to maintain that balance of damage and hate control. Not only that but you have access to probably one of the most powerful spells in the game: Stun. There are a lot of responsibilities of a BLM that frankly, after fighting a few Tiamats and a few other things, it's a lot of pressure being placed on just one single BLM. Of course you would use BLMs bunched up and in a huge group but even then your survivability will be heavily reliant on your ability to do so.

BLM is also probably one of the jobs where while you can be lazy as all hell, it can end up screwing you over in the end. For one moment where you're not really paying attention, that could be the end of you and your XP buffer. At least as a melee job, you can take a few hits. As a BLM, you're most likely not gonna have Stoneskin or Blink or whateve rup when such a situation hits when your mind wanders off and BOOM, you're down to half HP because you threw out a Thunder 4 without paying attention. That is another thing I feel about BLM though: Sometimes you might end up doing a lot of nothing because you're waiting for that hate to stabilize before you throw out your nuke. I feel that my understanding (dispite playing PLD prior to this) of hate is a bit minimal at best. I can't really "feel" my tanks hate all that much and I feel this is because I didn't party for the majority of my BLM career, most of it was solo XP. I suppose I will improve on this as time goes on when I play BLM more often.

Sometimes I feel that people level BLM and not really care for it too much. I'm guessing it is mostly due to the fact that they leveled BLM first then leveled a melee job and found that to be more fascinating. It isn't relally the other way around for me though, I still love SAM to all hell and I am enjoying every single moment as a BLM. I'm actually doing Campaign right now as my SAM but I really want to get on my BLM to nuke stuff... I just need SAM buffer though. Even as a SAM or a BLM or whatever, I find it odd that people would level a job, play that job often but do the bare minimum. Now, I have BRD leveled and I really don't care too much for the job, so often I just don't play it. If some LS want me in as a BRD, I'll refuse. If one doesn't care much for something, they will do a bad job for it. Unfortunately, BRD doesn't require much from the player to do what people expect them to do, at least in the end game environment. For all they care, you can be naked and it won't matter to them because you can still do Double Ballad. BLM, ont he other hand, requires a lot off of the player to maintain good damage and survivability, which irks me because people don't really try too much in this department, at least from past linkshells that I've been in.

With all of this in consideration, I have to think about the following few points when playing BLM:

- Maximizing my survivability
- Maximizing my damage/hate threshold
- Maximizing my ability to throw out spells fast
- Get the most out of my resting set
- Being able to make all of my spells as efficient as possible
- Making sure my skill stays fresh and improves over time

A little too hardcore? Well, maybe... There are also things to consider that will probably hurt me a bit since I have melee jobs leveled:

- No Tamas (Not a huge deal, just lose -enmity)
- No INT merits (Gonna hurt for maximizing BLM)
- No shared equipment (SAM and BLM basically have no equipment they can share other than certain haste items)
- No MP merits (HP will probably help me more here though)

Well, I still have a long way to go on my BLM and hopefully I'll have a "satisfiable" BLM soon. Gearing it up will be nice but I'm more concerned about my ability to play the job, as that will ultimately determine how successful I am at the job.