Current BLM guide(s)?Follow

I'll help out as much as I can. The quick and dirty is abyssea, abyssea, abyssea. BLM are absolutely vital for this, so you will never be hurting for a group. There are two primary reasons for this. First is for exp groups (which you will be starting out doing), because of the way lights work blm are ideal for building azure light, which is needed for time extensions (TE). I'll let you go to this page and read up for yourself on how those work. Essentially, you kill stuff with magic to get more blue chests, which have a chance of being TE, which is good.

The second thing you will be needed for as a BLM is for empyrean gear farming. BLM is needed for the yellow proc which increases the drop rate of seals and other items that improve the stats on empyrean gear (think of it like the abyssea version of artifact gear). This page will give you a rundown of the proc system. (Pay particular attention to yellow, but it won't hurt to know the others either.) Also, if you don't have your brd leveled to 50, get it there. BLM are expected to sub brd to cover an extra proc, specifically the threnodies (you will need to use elemental seal for them to be effective). So if you don't have brd yet, that should be high on your list of priorities.

As for gear, whatever you have currently is fine for now. At 78 you'll get access to the Teal set, which will render most of your other gear obsolete. The other plus to this is that it is very easy and cheap to obtain (just buy with cruor if nothing else). Once you get into the 80s, it's time to start looking into the empyrean gear for blm, the Goetia set. Now, that base gear doesn't look too appealing, I know. But this is because you have to take extra steps to improve the gear, which turns it into something really incredible. Follow the appropriate links to the +1 and +2 versions of the set, and you'll see what I mean. That is what I was talking about earlier with the yellow procs. You have to obtain Goetia seals from certain NMs in abyssea in order to get to the +1 version of each piece, then get more items to unlock the +2. I'll let you read up on the details yourself, but that should get you started.

Now, atma. That's a really long discussion that I don't want to get into, so I encourage you to use the wiki (This page is long and detailed, but should have all the info you need) to look up the details. What I will tell you is which atma to focus on getting: Ultimate, Beyond, Minikin Monstrosity, Baying Moon, Merciless Matriarch. Those are going to be your top tier atma, if you see shouts for any of these, get in them. You can look those up on wiki as well to see how to get them. Do you have any other questions?

Thank you both for your thorough replies! You've been extremely helpful. ^.^

If you don't mind me asking, Thydonon, how have you been leveling? I know the PT system has changed a bit, but I assume people still group up for EXP parties, right? Just in different locations? That's one thing that's stumped me over thee past couple days. FoV pages, or is it strictly Abyssea at higher levels?

It's all about Abyssea. Put your flag up, and listen for shouts in Port Jeuno. BLMs can get invites at level 70 for La Thiene worm parties. If they're feeling nice, they might even let you come at 65, but you won't be able to do much to contribute at that level. If you haven't been in there before, go in with sneak/invis and run to the bottom right corner of the map to pick up conflux 6 (you need cruor to do this, so if this is your first worm party do it after you drop party but before you warp out).

Your job is to do killshots on worms with magic, this causes azure light. If you /heal for a moment you'll see how much light you personally have, your goal is to cap it at 255. Of course, if party members change, it's back to capping the lights for them, even if you already have 255. To be very clear here: when you cause a particular light, everyone in the alliance gets that light also.

Once azure is capped, let the melees get pearlescent capped. They do this by getting the killshot with an autoattack hit. Once azure and pearlescent are capped: kill everything.

If you grab anything other than the exact mobs you are exping, immediately attack the mob (like a melee attack, not talking about casting here) so you can immediately call for help, then disengage. Killing any mob other than the one you've been building on when not in Call For Help resets the exp. As an example, I start killing worms at about 6 exp per kill. After 40 minutes, I'm over 400 exp per kill, and by an hour I'm usually over 500 exp per kill. You can rocket through the levels in a good Abyssea party. On the other hand, exp reset is not favorably receieve by your alliance. Don't get me wrong, sooner or laterer some idiot will do it. Eventually, that idiot will be you. Be gracious when others do it and apologetic when you do it. Life goes on.

Grab scrolls for upcoming levels if you can, especially Aspir II. Having a second aspir is just fantastic. Due to Atma of the Beyond being one of your main atma, blizzard IV, blizzard V and blizzaga III are your friends. If you've got a few gil laying around, pick up a HQ Ice Staff, the Aquilo's Staff.

Your main exp sj is /rdm. Your main item hunting sj is /brd (need it high enough to have all threnodies). Some people use /sch until their skills get capped.

It's a matter of taste, but personally I can't stand blm/sch. And this is from a smn/sch holdout. blm/sch has it's place, but blm is a glass cannon and no gravity can get you killed. Also, you can convert your mp into hp if you're getting close to death and Mana Wall isn't up. Your milage may vary.

I take it back. Dom ops party last night took me from 84 to 90 and I'm so hopelessly gimped right now that I'm not going to land gravity on anything I would need it to land on. Also, I'm getting resists almost everytime I cast Sleep when not using Elemental Seal. Even more importantly, my elemental skill is too weak to be useful in terms of landing solid nukes. I'm on blm/sch with Dark Arts, my AF gloves, and an Elementa Grip. That brings me to within two points of the BLM Elemental Magic Skill A+ cap at level 90. On ice elemental magic I have an Ice Staff, so that puts me eight points over the A+ cap. Goetia Mantle gives another seven skill beyond that. Addendum: Black grants access to Dispel, Addendum: White gives reraise, stoneskin+sublimation give a refresh charge that can be saved, and I'll have Manifestation+Aspir. My Sleeps should also be useful again. Bind might even be worth bringing back out of the box. I'm not even sure how well Bind will work in Abyssea since I pretty much always use Sleep and Break for crowd control.

Best of luck.

Edited, Aug 25th 2011 3:31pm by Thydonon