Rakoh

Go full Mind for Scholar. Anything else doesn't seem worth it IMHO. If you are soloing then the Damage loss from having less Int isn't a huge hit if you switch to Summoner for soloing. That or you could just go Arcanist if soloing and switch on Cleric Stance.

Character Name: Reiko Takahashi Server: Balmung Time Zone: GMT (Mostly play during the evening and weekends. Not available on Wednesday and Sunday Evenings. Please PM if you need me on one of those days) Crafting profession + level: Goldsmith 50 Gathering: Fishing + 20 Mining + 25 Botany + 15

I have been told on quite a few occassions that selfless or genuinely nice people without ulterior motives is not realistic, which I've never understood. Of course, I've been told this often in real life, too, because I'm generally a selfless person, and that's made even less sense Funny you should mention that. I once played an unambiguously good and purely selfless character in an FF Forum Roleplay and she ended up being one of the most popular characters. She had her quirks, negatives and fault sure but that character was never actually called boring.

Good characters aren't boring to RP. There are no boring character alignments, only bad writers and roleplayers. Reiko is definitely in the Chaotic Good camp, and while she most definitely has some very violent tendencies, she does try to do the right thing and act heroic at the end of the day. She is also pretty neurotic and nervous about how people will think of her and tries to stay on her best behaviour. That said, she is rather quick to anger over the smallest of slights, and has a vengeful streak three-miles-wide towards those who personally wrong her (or trolls her too much like with her cousin Daiyumi); that said, she WILL forgive (and even befriend) you after she has exacted vengeance by pounding you into the ground with her Lightning Spells. In SWTOR my Sith was Lightsided and while she did plenty of morally gray things, wasn't outright evil due to at least trying to be good (which is hard with the Dark Council watching). Her master was also pretty neutral as well. That said Grimdark RP does bore me and put me off a lot. I don't get the obsession with it, and the drama it always causes also puts me off a lot.

Quit the LS due to several weeks of griefing and harassment, with officers being unresponsive to tells or just plain absent. Several members and officers are on my Blacklist for outright condoning or even joining in. No names will be posted because I'm not interested in causing drama or "Naming and Shaming", but you know who you are. Sorry to my friends in this LS, but something like this needs much better moderation than it has now. Until the LS gets better moderation I encourage others to avoid it.

While Reiko would take a lot of convincing to turn up in a swimsuit, I'll be coming along.

Aurum Vale because most PUG tanks are too stupid to use stun on the bosses interuptable abilities. The bit cone AoE on Coincounter is the most notable one.

Could I get my BLM guide added here please? http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=4197

Okay I have been testing out Amdapor Keep and basically the sky's not fallen. You don't have to fight every trash pack, just the ones in your path. basically how the game was intended. You can still put in some pretty fast runs but it is more 40 mins then 20 mins. I'm still fairly sure that a fully geared group having WP and AK on farm status can cut that down to 35 mins easily. Pics to help out:

The problem is is that they drop nothing so there is zero incentive to kill them at Lv50. It's actually worse in FFXIV since attacking wears out your gear too so every single trash mob you fight does nothing but cost you gil. If they dropped things that made them worth killing: gil, Allagan Pieces, Dark Matter, Crafting mats then the elitist jerks would never have had a reason to abuse the system and ruin it for everyone in the first place.

Actually this change is bad for everyone: Exactly 60 runs of AK are needed for full Darklight. At a 20 minute run each this clocks in at 1,200 minutes or 20 hours of playtime. Basically you can get your Darklight comfortably with casual play without a problem. But not any more you are now looking at potentially spending up to120 hours just to get your Darklight set, so you can grind Primals so you can grind Bahamut's Coil. People already in Darklight no longer have a reason to run AK and WP to help lower level people. All this change has done is alienate new players from the well equipped players by actively discouraging the well equipped players from interacting in content with new players. Why spend up to 2 hours in a dungeon with a new player when a party of full Dark Light people can do it in less than 40. To this end I am expecting a rapid increase in shouts in town demanding parties full Dark Light only and I really can't blame them. There is still no incentive to clear out the trash mobs. Nothing is dropped and the Allagan Pieces always go to someone random so it's entirely possible that you will get nothing from it. It just pushed the Speedrunners into Castrum and Praetorium making it even worse for people trying to get the story done. I played a bit of AK this morning and it is completely broken for non-tanks. SE made every mob Sleep immune and gave them a huge movespeed boost in the new patch. As a BLM I can tell you first hand, if you pull aggro you die. No ifs or buts. You can't hit Lethargy + Sprint and kite them away because the mobs just ignore it. If you run to the tank then you may will risk triggering a link, or in the case of WP, get stabbed in the face by a Tonberry Patrol. Basically all that will happen is "LFM AK/WP Speedrun Spam SCH, DRG, MNK Full Darklight ONRY". The game's economy is still broken as there is no way to make money. What is happening in the game is that the moneysinks are taking more money out than is made by players. What does this mean? There's no incentive to do a damn thing at 50. Repair bills are still going to be a moneysink and AH Taxes ensure that money is being steadily burned. Sure you can earn money by selling things to other players but people are slowly starting to realise that there is less and less money going around which is causing AH prices on everything to crash, devaluing the DoH and DoL classes even more. Until they bring back the "Limit Break" quests from FFXI where at 50 and each 5 levels to 75, you were forced to group up to do a quest. This will very quickly weed out the bads and power levellers in FFXIV. make it so everyone can't get past lv10 without doing the Guildleves, 15 without doing Satasha, 40 without doing the Raid Leve etc. Everyone currently at 50 will also be permanently synced to Lv10 with the only way to raise that will be to do the Duty finder stuff. Boom, you will only see truly bad players and power levellers at low levels because they can't function in a team. You will still run into mean people and elitists but thankfully they are a tiny minority on this wonderful server. That problem will solve itself when they finally fuck off back to WoW :3

Hey you still need to help me through AK you know!

The game is very fair in its difficulty. It punishes mistakes and parties that can't work as a team. As I noted in my previous post, the thing that makes speedruns work is that everyone is on the ball, communicating and importantly, not blaming each other for wipes. It's not even a thing about good and bad players really. While, if given the choices between a good player, or a bad player with the right attitude, I would invite a good player to a party, likely suceed and never talk to them again. However, I would take the bad player with the right attitude into a linkshell as a more long term thing. You can help someone that is bad but has the right mentality to learn how to play thier class and the game over time. I have one more, very important rule with dungeons, raid especially too: If someone is yelling, particularly on voice chat, don't assume that they are automatically mad. Raids are frantic and can be stressful. People yell out orders and instructions without really thinking and it can be easy to mistake it for actual anger or hostility. Sometimes you need communication to be very clear, sometimes it might be something yelled out because it happened so suddenly. Sometimes it might be that you just need to help that person calm down a little. Sometimes people use all caps in chat mid-battle because it's more noticable. It can be easy to mistake stuff like this for people yelling at you personally.

It's not too bad at Lv50. BLM, DRG, MNK and BRD are all in high demand so you rarely have any issue with getting into a group as one if you ask around. The main issue is that the average player is bad at teamwork. People tend to take on a "well it's his/her problem" mentality when it comes to taking responsibility in a group. Let's use a patrol linking to a fight with a 4 man group of a WAR, WHM, BLM and MNK as an example. The patrol charges at the party, aggros the WHM due to healing aggro and kills him/her, resulting in a messy wipe. Whose fault is this? The WAR, for picking a bad place to fight and not picking up the adds? The WHM, for not Reposing the patrol as they got close and not running to the tank with the adds they aggro'd? The BLM, for not using Sleep or Freeze to stop the patrol and controlling the adds in the first place? The MNK, for fighting too close and not off tanking the patrol? If you answered 5: All of the above, then you would be correct. Everyone needs to take responsibility. Rinh is completely right. People need to earn how to work together as a team and take responsibility and not only that, take initiative. I've prevented many messy wipes by being proactive with my Sleep on nearby patrols on BLM for example. Giving each other tips and advice is another great thing. Like I didn't know that Bane from SMN or the Knockback from WHM don't break my sleep. So with that and some coordination from the WHM, we can sleep a mob that we aggro'd and punt it back to the tank to Flash/Provoke. Most tanks don't realise that Flash doesn't break sleep so there is no need to AoE with a BLM or WHM in the party. But they won't know that unless you tell them. It is also very much work making friends ingame. Dungeon queues are short for everyone if you ask around and put together a group of 4 before queueing. It's even better if it is part of a regular group of people because a team that works together. I always keep the following in mind in dungeons: Yelling gets you nowhere. There is a person behind every character Never assume malice when stupidity is why someone did something dumb. Never assume stupidity when inexperience is why someone did something dumb. Never assume inexperience when an honest mistake, lag or good old fashioned software/hardware failure is why someone did something dumb. Always assume that there is someone completely new to every group. Especially if they told you they have done the dungeon before. Speed Runs are only to be done in a premade group with people you are confident in and play well with. Wipes happen. Deal with it. Seriously, wipes happen even to the best groups. maybe someone made a mistake or lag happened. Sometimes in a boss fight bad luck happens when it comes to mechanics or the circumstances making it impossible to avoid damage. There have been plenty of times when a wipe happened, it was nobody's fault but someone still ragequits anyway. Take a break from the game regularly. no really, stepping away from the keyboard for about 15 mins is great for calming down after a stressful dungeon run. Practise makes permanent. Practise with guidance makes perfect. Don't be afraid to ask other players as to how they do things, or anything at all. it's always best to look silly for a moment then to live in ignorance.

Now with Wiki Page!

Pictures!

Reiko got to meet more Miqo'te so is happy! Even if one of them was Izzy who managed to freak her out for the second time by summoning a fire vortex.

I haven't roleplayed Reiko according to game mechanics of her class at all. The is a Thaumaturge but she specialises in Thunder spells and Lightning magic, something that is s simple DoT in this game. She is very good at aetherical manpiulation sure but she personally leans towards Lightning spells to solve everything. That said, as Sarcire found out, she isn't bad with Ice or Fire spells either, she just prefers Thunder spells. There is nothing wrong with Roleplaying your job a little differently, or differently from gameplay. No two paladins will have the same fighting style. No two mages with prefer using the same spells. Roleplayers have a very active imagination so nobody will be bothered if you don't roleplay using the shield. Plus you don't HAVE to be a Paladin if you use a sword and shield. There are plenty of NPC soldiers and knights that use all of the DoW weapons. Paladin is a poor translation of the class anyway as the Kanji for it reads "Knight". Basically think more the FFI/FFV Knight for this class and the lore around it. basically you can very easily just be a pirate, merc, soldier, guard etc that fights with a sword and shield

Yeah both classes are quite fun. Black Mage is the "All Round" class with good single target and AoE DPS while also being able to put out good burst and sustained damage. It isn't the best as any category but it is solid in all of them. Summoner is the single target sustained damage class. While it DOES have AoE, the radius is pathetically short and really need a buff, especially Bane. Honestly the Damage classes are very well balanced. Running a parser in most of my fights reveals that all the classes have a very similar DPS output with Dragoon and Monk being slightly ahead, but we are talking about all the DD classes being within about 5% of each other here. Basically there is no "best" DPS class due to the game being very well balanced, so play what you have fun playing and practise .

When levelling or soloing it shouldn't be too bad. If you want to do Endgame though min-maxing will be more helpful for the group. However you can reset your points, there is an item you can buy from your Grand Company Quartermaster. It costs 10,000 Seals so you will need to farm a few FATEs to get one but there are always lots of parties that go around grinding them anyway so it isn't difficult to find a group to do that.

The world needs more Miqo'te Black Mages *sagenod*

I'd be interested in bugging you guys for an invite as soon as I vanquish the 1017 NM :bouncy:

So it's not the Zilart behind everything?

NOTE: The most up to date version of this guide will be found here. Official Class Description In the hands of a skilled practitioner, thaumaturgy can be a force of terrifying destruction. At the heart of this school of magic lies the ability to call forth and command the latent aether within oneself through deep introspection. To then mold that aether into sorcery, the thaumaturge makes use of a scepter or staff, within which is housed a medium—a natural stone imbued with magical properties. Thus armed, the thaumaturge is capable of wreaking considerable havoc via ruinous spells and curses. Source 1 - Thaumaturge Basics - Answers to Some Common Questions Why should I play a Thaumaturge, or why should I invite one to my party? Simply put, the Thaumaturge is the premier Crowd Control class of the game. The THM is capable of applying Heavy and Bind to a large number of mobs at once and is also the only class in the game that carries AoE Sleep. Add in the sustained AoE damage with these effects and the THM is the perfect class for keeping all manner of adds in check from the minions that die with a couple of Fire II's to the ability to sleep the a dangerous reinforcement. The THM's kiting ability is also top notch, with Heavy from Blizzard and Lethargy, Bind from Blizzard II and the ability to always do damage on the most with Scathe and the DoT from Thunder, a THM can even handle enemies that can't be slept. Once you become a Black Mage, the THM gets even more Control in Freeze, a ground targeted AoE that Binds and damages anything that enters, as well as Flare, the quintessential "Blow the shit out of everything in sight at once" spell. The THM isn't the "best" in any damage category, the Physical Classes beat it in burst damage and the ACN beats it in sustained damage. However the THM is great all round so it hardly needs to be the best, especially when all of the tools at your disposal makes you a vital party member in your own right. Nobody else can remove mobs from the fight entirely, Heavy or bind a mob trying to murder the back row and never have to stop to recover MP. The THM is a Force Multiplier, Controller and straight up Nuker in one package. What is this Astral Fire and Umbral Ice thing? It is basically the THM's main mechanic and part of what makes it so fun. Basically when you cast a Fire or Ice spell, you gain a buff related to the spell, Astral Fire and Umbral Ice respectively. Why is this important? Well the abilities have profound effects on what the THM can do at that time. Astral Fire increases the damage output and cost of Fire spells, with it increasing with each stack and stops all MP recovery. This is actually pretty good because that damage boost is significant, the burst damage you put out in Astral fire phases is really something. Umbral Ice increases the damage and cost of Ice spells, and also increses your MP recovery rate with each stack. Blizzard spells are noticably weaker but that MP recovery is huge. At Umbral Ice III, you refill your MP bar within a few ticks. Umbral Ice is why the THM's AoE damage is so ridiculous, it just never stops nuking and it is why Emnity is the only real Restraining Bolt on the THM/BLM. Transpose is a nice ability learned at Lv4 that linked into this well. It swaps Astral Fire with a single Umbral Ice, or Umbral Ice with a single Astral Fire. So basically you don't have to cast two Fire spells to switch to Astral Fire and vice versa. Just click Transpose when low/full on MP and let rip with your new spell. The only restriction on Transpose is that it doesn't carry over stacks, so you still have to build back up to Astral Fire III or Umbral Ice III, but you lose no momentum in the switch. Fire III and Blizzard III also mean you don't even need to Transpose any more, meaning that you can save that little trick as an emergency tool. So what Status Effects does the Thaumaturge have? Basically I'll go over each Status Effects the THM can inflict and how: Heavy - Gravity for FFXI players and Snare for players of other MMOs. This can be applied via Blizzard or Lethargy. The spell actually has to land to apply Heavy but it doesn't have to do damage. Blizzard is preferable as the effect is 40% compared to Lethargy's 20%, however as Lethargy has no casting time, and it can be used in Astral Fire. Something to keep in mind when you need to put Heavy on a mob. Bind - Root to anyone not familiar with FFXI. Blizzard II and Freeze applies this, and the spell must land for the bind to take effect. This has a very rapid Diminishing Return so only use Blizzard II for the Bind effect in "Oh Shit" moments. You can get one, maybe two binds in before mobs start resisting it outright. Slow - Applied via Lethargy. Increases the enemy's global cooldown, cooldowns and casting times by 20%. Not much else to say really. Sleep - The big one. Applied by the spell Sleep and becomes AoE at Lv36. It'salso important to know how this works, resistance will slowly build up with each application. At first Sleep lasts for 30 seconds. If a mob is woken up at any point, Sleeping it again will mean that it now only lasts for 15 seconds. A Third time will only last for 7 seconds, then the spell gets resisted outright. Basically if the THM sleeps something, do not touch that mob. Seriously, just don't fucking do it. Chances are they WILL leave the mob to eat your face. Virus (Cross Class) - Gained from Arcanist at Lv8 via the Virus spell, and is also available to BLM. Reduces target's STR and DEX by 15% for 10 secs. Useful for phases of boss fights where the tank might take a lot of incoming damage and for burn phases where everyone needs to do more damage as STR and DEX affect defensive stats. Eye for an Eye (Cross Class) - Because I literally have no better name for it. Gained from Arcanist at Lv34 from the Eye for an Eye ability. It puts up a Barrier on anyone (Hint: Tank) and for 30 seconds, any time that ally is hit, there's a 20% chance that the hit will do 10% less damage. What stats should I focus on? Pump your points into Intelligence. It is our Primary stat and directly affects Attack Magic Power. As for gear: Piety is actually useful too since while THM and BLM have no MP issues and while THM and BLM have a high natural growth, a bigger MP pool means that you can stay in Astral Fire for longer and Convert restores more MP. Mind is nice but you get enough from gear and natural stat growth., especially now that Magick and Mend also boosts healing magic which should do you fine for self heals on those "OHSHI-" moments. As for Secondary Stats: Accuracy and Crit Rate are useful, as is Determination. Accuracy and Magic Accuracy are all rolled into one stat so you will need some Accuracy though how much isn't really known. Spell Speed is nice on paper though more testing needs to be done on what sort of curve the stat has to see if it is worthwhile. What other Classes go well with the Thaumaturge? In terms of Battle classes. it is worth levelling up both Arcanist and Archer. The BLM can use cross class abilities from both classes and Raging Strikes, Quelling Strikes, Physick and Virus all have a lot of use. As for Crafting/Gathering. Weaving and Goldsmithing makes THM/BLM Armour and Weapons respectively. Culinarian and Alchemist are always useful because crafting your own consumables is really nice. Fishing goes well with Culinarin, Botanist with Weaving and Alchemist, and Miner with Goldsmithing. 2 - The Thaumaturge's Spellbook - Class Abilities Name: Blizzard Level: 1 Description: Deals ice damage with a potency of 150. Additional Effect: Heavy +40% Duration: 20s Additional Effect: Grants Umbral Ice or removes Astral Fire Duration: 10s Info: Your Basic Ice spell and way to apply Heavy when needed. You basically want to be spamming this if you don't have the MP to cast Blizzard III when in Umbral Ice phases and you don't need the Heavy effect. Name: Fire Level: 2 Description: Deals fire damage with a potency of 150. Additional Effect: Grants Astral Fire or removes Umbral Ice Duration: 10s Info: Your bread and butter nuke, you should be spamming this during Astral Fire phases for damage and to Proc Firestarter with gives you a free, instant Fire III for even more damage. Name: Transpose Level: 4 Description: Swaps Astral Fire with a single Umbral Ice, or Umbral Ice with a single Astral Fire. Info: Basically switches you from one stance to another, without having to cast an opposite spell to first cancel it, and then gain the stance. This is really useful as you lose no momentum. Please not that it does not transfer stacks so you will still need to build back up to Astral Fire/Umbral Ice III. It is always preferable to Fire/Blizzard III then it is to transpose. Name: Thunder, Thunder III, Thunder III Level: 6, 22, 46 Description: Deals lightning damage with a potency of 30/50/60. Additional Effect: Lightning damage over time. Potency: 40 Duration: 18s/21s/25s Additional Effect: 5% chance after each tick that next Thunder, Thunder II, or Thunder III will add its full damage over time amount to its initial damage, have no cast time and cost no MP. (Needs Thundercloud) Duration: 12s Info: Lumped them together because they are all basically the same spell. This was actually buffed from Phase 3, it now lasts for 18 seconds instead of 12. You will want to keep this, and any other Cross Class DoTs up. I like to pair it with Aero. Also never clip DoTs when recasting. The sweet spot for refreshing Thunder is with 2 seconds left on the duration so you get the final tick. Regardless, it is always a DPS loss to refresh a DoT with time left on it so it is always better to let it drop off then it is to recast it with a few seconds left on. The only exception to this is if you get a Thundercloud proc, since it turns Thunder into an outright nuke and refreshes and DoT so you end up with a net gain of damage over time. As of Pre-Release Thunder DoTs from the same source no longer stack. Name: Surecast Level: 8 Description: Next spell is cast without interruption. Duration: 10s Info: Perfect for getting off a Sleep or Blizzard II on that mob that is trying to murder you, or a Physick on someone who is about to die but you're in danger of taking a hit too. it sounds obvious but yes this does not prevent Status Effects like Stun or Paralyze from interrupt you. This only prevents damage and crits from interrupting you. It has a 12 second Cooldown so honestly? Just spam the crap out of this. Name: Sleep Level: 10 Description: Puts target and enemies near it to sleep (Requires Deep Sleep for AoE effect). Duration: 30s Cancels auto-attack upon execution. Info: Your second control spell and one of the most useful ones. It guarantees that you take a mob out of action for 30 seconds. Multiple mobs can be slept. Mobs can be reslept but they rapidly gain resistance going from 30/15/7/Immune. There are also some mobs, like the Gias in Copperbell Mines that are outright immune to it so make sure that you tell your tank this. Name: Blizzard II Level: 12 Description: Deals ice damage with a potency of 100 to all nearby enemies. Additional Effect: Bind Duration: 4s Additional Effect: Grants Umbral Ice or removes Astral Fire Duration: 10s Info: We get it at Lv12 now . Your third Control spell, it Binds everything in a Point-Blank AoE around you so to use this you want to stack up with the tank and nuke as he/she does AoE threat stuff. The damage is low but since you will be in Umbral Ice stance, you can spam it endlessly as long as you hit a target to keep up your Umbra Ice stacks. Enemies resist bind after 2-4 attempts depending on Ice and Bind resistance but if you are using it purely for the nuke portion then it shouldn't be too bad. Name: Scathe Level: 15 - THM Quest : The Threat of Superiority required Description: Deals elementally neutral damage with a potency of 100. Additional Effect: 20% chance that Scathe will deal double damage (Requires Enhanced Scathe). Info: It is instant cast so you can use it on the move. When kiting you want to spam this, preferably while in Umbral Ice stance. This also deals Non-Elemental damage so this will be your go to nuke against anything with heavy Fire/Ice resist (FYI, it deals roughly the same damage over time as Blizzard with Enhanced Scathe). It should also be nice for PvP since instant cast. You can also use it as a sort of Execute ability to get that extra bit of damage on a mob that is about to die. This spell is seriously underrated. Name: Fire II Level: 18 Description: Deals fire damage with a potency of 100 to target and enemies near it. Additional Effect: Grants Astral Fire or removes Umbral Ice Duration: 10s Info: Your bread and butter AoE nuke. This works as any other AoE spell should. However, you still want to stack up with the tank anyway so any mobs you do aggro can just be grabbed straight back. Standing way back and casting this will just ensure that you gain several mobs to the face and a tank annoyed at having to run back and forth to you. Name: Swiftcast Level: 26 Description: Next spell is cast immediately. Duration: 10s Info: Stacks with Surecast. Pretty much does what it says on the tin. An instant cast Sleep can take an entire pack of mobs out of the fight for 30 seconds and an instant cast Freeze is a great way of binding a whole bunch of adds that are sleep immune. Do NOT underestimate the utility of an instant cast Blizzard, Blizzard II or Freeze in terms of control. Plus you can use it to spam even more nukes when in Astral Fire. Name: Manaward Level: 30 Description: Creates a barrier that nullifies magic damage totalling up to 30% of maximum HP. Duration: 20s Info: Your first real "OHSHI-" button. Remember that you don't have that much HP so this is only good for a couple of hits but it should be long enough for the tank to grab back threat and the healer to drop a Cure on you. Name: Fire III Level: 34 Description: Deals fire damage with a potency of 200. Additional Effect: Grants Astral Fire III or removes Umbral Ice Duration: 10s Info: While this IS more powerful than Fire, you want to stick to Fire for nuking over Fire III. Fire III is much more expensive to start but Fire can also proc Firestarter. This also grants a full stack of Astral Fire so there is no need to Transpose into Astral fire now. Name: Blizzard III Level: 38 Description: Deals ice damage with a potency of 200. Additional Effect: Grants Umbral Ice III or removes Astral Fire Duration: 10s Info: This is a more powerful Blizzard III without the Heavy.This should replace Blizzard on your action bar for when you don't need to apply Heavy. A Since Blizzard III will pretty much restore all your MP i na few seconds which lets you Fire III and resume nuking with Fire. Name: Aetherial Manipulation Level: 50 Description: Rush to a target party member's side. Unable to cast if bound. Info: Nice little escape spell. While it seems to be more for PvP, it has some nice utility in instances because, well it's a freaking teleport! Thaumaturge Traits Name: Enhanced Intelligence I, II, III Level: 8, 14, 32 Description: Increases intelligence by 2/4/6 (Total of 10) Info: It's a boost to your main stat, what's not to love? Name: Enhanced Surecast Level: 16 Description: Grants a 15% chance that upon use, Surecast will have no recast time. Info: Surecast already has a trivial cooldown so this just makes it even more attractive to spam. Name: Magick and Mend I, II, III Level: 20/??/40 Description: Increases base action damage and healing by 10%/20%/30% and allows for the stacking of a second/third Astral Fire or Umbral Ice. Info: It is basically MAB from FFXI. It is a flat damage boost and is noticeable from the moment you gain it, especially since you can also stack Astral Fire and Umbral Ice with it. Name: Enhanced Scathe Level: 24 Description: Grants a 20% chance that Scathe will deal double damage. Info: Buffs Scathe by a nice amount. Pretty nice. Name: Thundercloud Level: 28 Description: Grants a 5% chance that after each damage over time tick inflicted by any Thunder spell, the next Thunder, Thunder II, or Thunder III will add its full damage over time amount to its initial damage, have no cast time, and cost no MP. Duration: 12s Info: Basically each tick can turn your next Thunder spell into an outright nuke. Because it deals full damage, there is no reason not to cast this even with a Thunder DoT still up. Name: Deep Sleep Level: 36 Description: Extends the area of effect for Sleep from a single target to a five-yalm radius. Info: Turns Sleep into Sleepga for even MORE Control than you already have. Name: Firestarter Level: 44 Description: Grants a 40% chance that upon casting Fire, your next Fire III will require no MP and have no casting time. Duration: 12s Info: Twisted Firestarter! Buffed from Phase 3, it now has a 40% chance to proc. This is exactly why Fire is your go to Nuke while in Astral Fire. Name: Enhanced Manaward Level: 48 Description: Increases damage nullified by Manaward to 30% of your maximum HP. Info: Buffs your Manaward so now it blocks a decent amount of damage. 3 - Arcane Mastery - The Black Mage So how to I become a Black Mage? To unlock the BLM job, you need THM at 30 and ARC at 15, then you unlock a quest called "Taking The Black" at the Thaumaturge's Guild in Ul'Dah. For each quest you complete, you will be rewarded with a new ability, while the later quests will also reward you with Artifact Gear that is shown in the screenshot above. The stats that you should focus on will be the same so Intelligence all the way. The Black Mage Spellbook Name: Convert Level: 30 Description: Sacrifices 20% of maximum HP to restore 30% of MP. Cannot be executed when current HP is lower than 20%. Info: This has perfect Synergy with Raging Strikes and you should always use them together. Fire it off as soon as you launch a couple of Fire spells. Convert means that you can nuke for the entire 20 seconds while staying in Astral Fire III. Name: Freeze Level: 35 Description: Covers a designated area in ice, dealing ice damage with a potency of 20 and binding enemies that enter. Duration: 15s Additional Effect: Grants Umbral Ice or removes Astral Fire Duration: 10s Info: GTAoE effect that binds anything within the target area while dealing damage. Very solid control spell and the only real Area Denial spell in the game. It costs a lot of MP though and takes a while to go off but being able to root an entire crowd of enemies from afar is nice in PvE and PvP. This has perfect synergy with sleep since you can bind a load of mobs to keep them clumped together for the sleep. Name: Apocatastasis Level: 40 Description: Increases a Disciple of War or Magic party member's resistance to fire, ice, and lightning by 30%. Duration: 12s Cannot be reused on an individual for 60 seconds from when the effect wears off. Cannot be cast on self. Info: This is really nice to use on the tank in phases of huge magical damage. Great synergy with Eye for an Eye from Arcanist and you can really make the WHM's job a LOT easier. Name: Manawall Level: 45 Description: Creates a barrier that nullifies two physical attacks. Duration: 60s Info: A great "OHSHI-" button. Manaward is better for incoming Magic Damage but this is what you go for when a physical melee/ranged mob is attacking you. Name: Flare Level: 50 Description: Deals fire damage with a potency of 260 to a target and enemies near it. Additional Effect: Grants Astral Fire III or removes Umbral Ice Duration: 10s Info: This is basically your "Nuke everything in sight" spell. It consumes all of your MP and takes a long time to cast. But it has a potency of 260 so under Raging Strikes and Astral Fire III this will hit like a truck. Cross Class Abilities for your Black Mage The BLM can use abilities from the Arcanist and Archer list and below are the abilities that you can use: Name: Ruin Level: 1 ANC Description: Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 80. Info: Useless, especially since you have Scathe which is better in every way. If there is some kind of boss mechanic where you need non-elemental damage and can't move then you can still Scathe so... Name: Raging Strikes Level: 4 ARC Description: Increases attack power by 20% Duration: 20s Info: Great ability for when you need to burn down a boss now. Should never leave your action barm especially after 30 since Convert lets you nuke for the entire duration of this buff. Name: Physick Level: 4 ACN Description: Restores target's HP. Cure Potency: 400 Info: Your only healing ability. Same cost and potency as Cure except you can actually equip it as a BLM! Name: Virus Level: 12 ACN Description: Reduces target's STR and DEX by 15%. Duration: 10s Info: This is really nice to throw out as it is 10 seconds of increased raidwide damage and decreased raidwide damage taken. Name: Hawk's Eye Level: 26 ARC Description: Increases DEX and physical accuracy by 20%. Duration: 20s Info: If you find yourself needing Physical Accuracy as a Black Mage, something has gone badly wrong. The DEX is okay I suppose but you are better of kiting then facetanking if you pull aggro. Name: Eye for an Eye Level: 34 ACN Description: Erects a magicked barrier around a single party member or pet. Duration: 30s Barrier Effect: 20% chance that when barrier is struck, the striker will deal 10% less damage. Duration: 20s Info: This, along with Physick, Virus and Apocatastasis gives you a lot of utility options. Combined with your control spells and you can see why having a BLM around is really nice, this is just icing on the cake. Name: Quelling Strikes Level: 34 ARC Description: Reduces enmity generated by each attack. Duration: 15s Info: This ability alone makes it worth getting ARC up to 34. It is that awesome. 4 - Black Mage Gameplay Rotation is a dirty word. It comes from lazy players that want to top Recount with TEH BEST DEEPEEESS while ignoring all other things such as mechanics, resources, and the flow of encounters. Sure if you're fighting a loot pinata boss you can stand there and do a rotation but it is only NMs that allow you to do that. Obviously you want to adapt and improvise and not slip into robot mode. But there is a time where you will be wondering what button to press so: Single Target Damage Priority List Note: Aero isn't included in this list because I assume you're using BLM in groups, but if you have it equipped then you want to refresh that whenever it drops off as well. Thunder III w/ Thundercloud Proc. Thunder III if the DoT has expired. (Thunder II is okay if you can't spare the MP or need to get a DoT up quickly) Fire III w/ Firestarter Proc. Fire III if in Umbral Ice III and MP is full Fire spam. Blizzard III when you can no longer use Fire Scathe Spam as filler when waiting for Umbral Ice III to tick to full To explain this, basically you want your Thunder DoT up all the time and you should consume Thundercloud and Firestarter Procs. Fire III gives you a full stack of Astral Fire to pump up your Fire spells. Spamming Fire also gives you more chances to proc Firestarter. There is no need to Transpose if you hit Blizzard III when you are down to just enough MP to cast it. This puts you at Umbral Ice III and gives you a ton of MP regen. This is also the best phase to refresh Thunder but you should refresh it as soon as it drops off if possible. There is no difference between Blizzard and Scathe while waiting for your MP to refill. They have roughly the same DPS, with Scathe pulling ahead if you get lucky with Crits and Double Damage Procs. You will be using Fire III to get back into Astral Fire so you don't have to worry that much about Umbral Fire still being up or Transposing. Basically use Blizzard if you need Heavy, if not use Scathe. This priority list will maximise your damage while also leaving Transpose free for if you need to stance dance in an emergency. AoE Target Priority List Stack up with the tank Fire III Spam Fire II Blizzard III Blizzard II or Freeze Blizzard II do far more damage than Freeze but sometimes it's just not worth getting into melee range of some mobs. You won't be in Umbral Ice III for long anyway so Blizzard II/Freeze/Blizzard/Scathe can amm be used as filler as you see fit. Crowd Control As I noted earlier, this is THE reason why you invite a THM. The damage output is nice for sure but you can get the same burst damage from DRG and MNK. Yes THM shines in a long, drawn out fight but so does the ACN, and SMN does that better because it will have given enough time for the DoT damage to really ramp up, and there is all the utility that the pets bring. The THM is definitely a Damage Class, and the most well rounded in the game, but the support that it also brings is crazy. The THM is a force multiplier purely because it can take mobs out of the fight entirely. As a Thaumaturge you will always be called upon and expected to keep mobs under control, be is by nuking swarms of adds with AoE or applying Sleep, Heavy or Bind to mobs. This means that you will need to communicate with the enitre party. You can drag symbols onto your hotbar, use that to clearly mark what you plan to sleep. Also make sure the tank knows that Sleep has a casting time and his pull will either need to be timed with yours or the tanked mob(s) will need to be positioned so that any AoE abilities don't wake mobs. I know people like a good rant but if your mobs are being woken, then it may well be as much your fault for not using communication as it is the fault of the party. Blizzard II is also a wonderful spell in that it applied Bind. This is fantastic for quickly grabbing any adds that are bindable, which in turn makes them extremely easy to hit with a sleep since it leaves them immobile, and clumped up together for the Sleep's AoE effect. Do NOT underestimate this spell, it is sometimes worth hitting Transpose just to keep adds under control in some of the more hectic encounters. Swiftcast + Blizzard II + Sleep can take an entire group of adds you can't simply burn down with AoE out of the fight entirely. Blizzard II is also a really nice spell for FATES since you keep all of the mobs on one place for everyone else to pick off. Also Heavy, it's VERY underrated, especially when the WHM pulls aggro. Your healers WILL thank you for Heavying and Binding a mob that wants a WHM for a snack. And yes there is the option to use Fire II and Blizzard II, as well as Freeze and Flare. Sometimes sleeping a mob that will die in a couple of hits is pointless so this is where your AoE Nukes and Limit Break come in. A well timed Limit Break or AoE nuke can make adds trivial in boss fights, plus just nuking something is far more fun and badass than putting it to sleep! 5 - Materia and Gear This is basically really easy as in 2.0, Materia can be used in any slot. Basically you want to be looking at the below: Intelligence - Magic damage Piety - MP Quicktongue - Spell Speed Savage Might - Determination Savage Aim - Critical Hit Rating As for gear, BiS is currently the Darklight Gear and a Relic weapon. Basically it looks something like this. Note: there might be some materia melds that push ahead, I'm going strictly by stats before Materia melds are factored in: Main Hand: Stardust Rod Off Hand: Warlock's Buckler (Mostly just here for BiS Info) Head: Ul'dahn Officer's Cap (Mostly just here for BiS Info) Body: Darklight Cowl Hands: Darklight Gloves Legs: Darklight Breeches Feet: Darklight Boots Waist: Vanya Sash (1 Materia Slot) Neck: Mage's Choker Ear: Militia Earrings Rings: Storm Sergeant's Ring x2 (Mage's Rings if you need the Accuracy) Wrist: Black Pearl Bracelets (1 Materia Slot)

I. Basic Info Characters: R'ahal "Rahal" Tia, Reiko "Rei" Takahashi, Lilisette "Lily" Fastpaws, plus a bunch of others I have planned for if Balmung ever opens up for new chars. Primary character: Reiko Takahashi Linkshells: Europa Primary RP linkshell: Europa II. RP Style Amount of RP (light, medium, heavy): Medium Views on RP combat and injuries: Fine with combat and injuries as long as things are consensual and things are worked out beforehand. Views on IC romance: I really like the idea of any of my characters finding that special someone so I'm all open for it as long as the other player is mature about it. Views on non-romantic RP (family ties, etc): Completely open, all of my characters have family ties or background folk so I'm open to anyone that wants to link up. Views on lore: I try to stick to the lore as much as I can as long as it doesn't get in the way of the narrative or fun. I don't mind people breaking lore a little if the idea is great and it makes things fun and interesting. Views on chat functions (/say, /linkshell, etc): ANYTHING I say in /say and /emote is IC. /sh and /linkshell is always OOC. /p and /tell depends on the circumstance. III. Other Info Country: United Kingdom Timezone: GMT Contact info: Skype: paul.pennell1988, Steam: Rahal