Black Mage, The Best Job Ever?

I know a lot of people have an oppinion of what they think the best job in the game is. For me it is the Black Mage with a White Mage sub. A taru blm/whm kicks much but and is very flexible in his duties. As a lvl 59 blm i have all the most inportant whm spells, like cure 1-3, riase, sneak and invis. Additionaly, by the time i reach 75 blm, i will have the tele-dem, holla and mea, Erase, shellra II, not to mention the nukes.

Did I say nukes?

Black mage does the most damage in the game with the exception of the ranger. At lvl 59 I can Magic burst spells for over 1400 damage. Even on a regular spell like Aero III, the highest of my regualer nukes at 59, I do 450-500 with out MB. BLM's have realy powerfull AOE spells that make farming for keys and other items from linking mobs a snap. I can run through Giddius and link every Yugado in the joint and then -ga them. There is nothing better then killing 30-40 mobs in one shot.

The only down side to blm is soloing "easy preys" or higher, at my level might mean an ass kicking. Alot of mobs arround my lvl have a high magic resistance, so when ever possible you need to boost your intelegence. Additionaly, when soloeing higher lvl mobs, you will want to sub whm so you can use aquaviel, blink, stone skin and protect. The biggest danger to a blm is silence and having his/her spells interupted. I have been killed before by mobs i should have turned in a crater, just because i could not get my spells out

BLM is cheep to level.

All of the blm's most vital spells can be quested or purchased from a npc, until about the mid 60's I do have ione foot note about that. Your race and city location make a considerable difference in the cost of lvlnig blm. My recomendation is to lvl a taru blm in San D'Oria. There is a quest there that alowws you to lvl your fame in 4 cities at once and it is very cheep, like maybe 2k a level. Alot of the spells I bought and then later quested, mainly the quest was to difficult or in a distant city. i was from sandi, so i quested the Drain spell, but bought Aspir, warp and warp 2. All these spells i then later quested when i was a bit higher and sold them. Spellls I recomend not to buy are, Ice Spikes, Stonaga II, Quake, Tornadoe. A good blm should not get hit, and the spell only does damage when he/she is getting hitso i think the "Spikes" spells are worthless. Stonaga II is nearly 1 mil on my server. don't bother buying it, you only use ga spells for farming masses of low lvl mobs so this one can be skiped. Lastly, Quake and tornadoe, both are part of the ancient magic spell set. On my server both of them cost 500k each. To much money for a spell that you may never use. The ancient spells realy should only be used to get a jump on a mob or in a Magic Burst (MB). Most of the skill chains in parties are distortion, or can use fire, ice, water spells, (quake-earth, Tornadoe-wind). I will talk about farming and equipment for blm.

My Equipment While in a Party:
Main: Dark Staff/Ice Staff 380k/250k (lvl 51-?)
Head: Seer's Crown +1 50k (lvl 29-AF)
Body: Pyro Robe 7k (lvl 45-AF)
Neck: Black Silk Neckerchief 20k (lvl 20-?) *
Hands: Seer's Mitts >10k (lvl 29-AF)*
Legs: Seer's Slacks >10k (lvl 29-AF)*
Feet: Wizard's Sabots (Af2)
Ring1: Zircon Ring 150k (lvl 54-?)
Ring2: Zircon Ring 150k (lvl 54-?
Earring1: Cunning Earring 100k (lvl 29-?)
Earring2: Cunning Earring 100k (lvl 29-?)
Back: Red Cape >50k (lvl 43-?)*

I need to do my AF quests but as you can see most of my gear is from lvl 29. The staffs are expensive but you need them. Up to lvl 51 use wands, they are cheep and give a great int bonus. There is no reason to buy the +1 version of items. Most are 10-50 times more gil then the normal version and your party will not now the difference. The seers crown does give an additional int for the +1 version and was not that much more then the normal version, so i splerged on that one. But considering most of the gear you keep for 30 lvls the cost over time it not bad at all considering mellee jobs bye new equipment all the time. *i put that mark on the ones i could not quite remember the price but it was cheep.

Later i will be posting good farming spots for blm and techniques on raising fame.