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The 30-Minute Black Mage Guide
by Engrish of Midgardsormr

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Introduction
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At the time of writing this guide, I'm a Level 58 BLM/WHM on the Midgardsormr
server. I played during beta, although not that much. I don't claim to be an
expert of the class, but I'm writing this guide for two reasons. One,
honestly, I see a lot of bad players who don't know how to play their class,
and this is my contribution to curbing that. Two, there's many things I've
learned playing through the game I wish I'd known on my way through leveling up
to where I am now. This guide's short and sweet, and is designed to teach
someone in thirty minutes how to play a reasonably effective Black Mage.

The Ever-Short Table of Contents:
I. The Basics
a. Why Should I Play a Black Mage?
b. What Difficulties Should I Be Aware Of?
II. Designing Your Black Mage
a. Race
b. Hometown
c. Selecting a Subjob
III. Types of Magic
IV. How To Fight
a. Resistances
b. Magic Bursts
c. Timing Ancient Magic Bursts
d. Aggro Management
V. Leveling
a. Early Leveling (1-20)
b. Intermediate Leveling (21-30)
c. Advanced Leveling (31-50)
VI. Spell and Skill Listing
a. Magic Spells by Level
b. Job Skills by Level
c. Which Spells Should I Get?
VII. Contact Info


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I - The Basics
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The Basics - Why Should I Play a Black Mage?
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If you like blowing things up, pretty sparkles, and watching large chunks of HP
slip away from monsters, Black Mage might be the class for you. Black Mages
are an almost purely damage dealing class. They make things blow up, and do it
well. Only Rangers can reasonably, sustainably match a Black Mage in damage,
and Rangers do so at a high price (litterally) as well as a lack of many
support functions within the Black Mage and his or her subclass. Black Mage is
an exciting, explosive way to go.


The Basics - What Difficulties Should I Be Aware Of?
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Black Mages have low HP and armor, this makes them extremely vulnerable if
caught unprepared by even a much weaker monster. Soloing is also a much more
time consuming process for a Black Mage, however, they can accomplish more than
most classes can by themselves (which really isn't much, by later levels).
Money will also be a major problem until you reach the 50s. Store bought
spells are extremely expensive, and you need a lot of them. Fortunately, once
you hit 50, your spells are dropped, and this creates a surplus due to a
minimal demand. But, Black Mages are very welcome in any group, and this is a
strength.



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II - Designing your Black Mage
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Designing your Black Mage - Race
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From worst to best -
Elvann: Too little MP to work with, worst evasion, lowest int.
Galka: Worst MP, way to little to be an effective BLM. Some will claim RSE
(Race Specific Armor) counter-balances this, which it *can* to an extent, but
you still have to get to the early 30s to use that armor. And then, you're
screwed when you want to wear better armor...
Hume: Best non-taru MP, best non-taru INT, decent evasion. ~25% more HP than a
taru.
Mithra: Same as Hume, but better evasion. Slightly lower magic resistance, but
probably worth the evasion.
Tarutaru: Absolutely the best race for BLMs. Highest evasion besides Mithra,
40% or so more MP than Hume/Mithras, and easily the highest INT (resists and
spell damage).

Version 1.3 correction: By resists I meant how much YOU will be resisted, not
how much you will resist other spells. Some people had confusion and mailed me
about this.

In summary, playing a Galka or an Elvann BLM is worthless unless you just feel
like being original (hell, they're only even on here for completeness' sake,
either are a joke as a BLM). Humes and Mithra are so similar it doesn't matter
much which you pick. They're definitely not Taru, but the extra HP (and thus
survivability) is kinda nice. Tarutaru are hands down the best BLM race, to
the point that I've had people tell me they were blowing off other BLMs so they
could take me instead, based of my race.


Designing your Black Mage - Hometown
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You really can do what you want here. Kingdoms determine two things; rings and
conquest. Rings is a simple thing, if you start in the hometown of your race,
you'll get a pretty nifty +stats ring that's Lv1 usable. Conquest is where you
get points (CP) for killing monsters that you can trade for items later. The
items you get are based on your kingdom.

I suggest Windurst because Windurst has a lot of caster CP gear later on
(although none early-on, annoyingly). You also get a good caster ring, if
you're a Mithra or Taru. But it really doesn't matter, you can always play
Bastok, sell your CP gear for cash, and buy Windurst gear with that.


Designing your Black Mage - Selecting a Subjob
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There's very few subjobs that compliment a Black Mage. Anything melee oriented
is bad, period, among other reasons because nearly all melee classes have no
MP. Don't bother asking, no. I'll list the viable combinations I know of here:

BLM/DRK - Some MP, pretty good INT. Not the best choice, but not awful.
BLM/THF - I know I said no melees, but subbing thief has some decent rewards.
Thieves actually get moderately high INT (higher than any class except BLM,
RDM, SMN, DRK). Taru have enough MP that you can get away with the MP loss in
some situations. A group trying to get quest or cash items might really
appreciate your Treasure Hunter class abilities.
BLM/BRD - Bards are pretty damn cool, but bard is pretty nerfed as a sub. Plus
you'll have to get to 50 as a BLM to be able to play mana regen song. Also,
the int is iffy, and you don't get much MP at all.
BLM/RDM - Great INT, extra magic atk boost. MP is a little less than other
caster classes. Spells are an issue though: You'll get some spells later than
you would if you subbed WHM, and miss some important ones entirely. It limits
your solo survivability too. (Did I forget to mention you get Blink also?
Huge plus.)
BLM/SMN - Awesome INT, great MP boost, and auto-refresh later on. However,
summons really kinda.. suck, especially since, as american players, we don't
really have access to the better summons. And not having spells like Cure,
Raise, and Blink is a pain in the ass. Still, it may be worth it for the MP,
especially if you choose a non-taru race.
BLM/WHM - Really the best and most common choice. INT isn't too great, but you
get a pretty good MP boost, as well as magic defense. Most of all, you get a
wonderful selection of spells to back up your black magery. Depending on your
level, a BLM/WHM can go so far as to act as the main healer of your group.
This is one of the best choices, and the most respected. And yes, you get
Blink, and you get it earliest this way.


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III - Types of Magic
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Types of Magic - Damage
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These are your nukes. These will fall under Elemental Magic. Not much else to
say, make stuff go boom.

Types of Magic - Area Effect Damage
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These are the same as normal nukes but hit all monsters in a certain radius.
In addition, they do higher damage than their equivalent, standard nukes, but
at a much higher MP cost. Damage also seems to be reduced among higher numbers
of targets. A spell doing 250 to a single target might only do 160 each to 7
targets.

Types of Magic - Buff
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We don't really get buffs, at least from our base class. These are simply
enhancing spells. The only ones we get are Blaze/Ice/Thunder Spikes, which are
pretty useless. I wouldn't bother buying them.

Types of Magic - Debuff
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These weaken enemies. Black Mages get Bio and Blind, which reduce enemies'
damage and accuracy.

Black Mages also get a wide variety of "damage over time" debuff spells. I
used to have these in their own section, but the damage done is so minimal that
they really belong in the debuff section. I've updated it because my data was
a bit erroneous before. Bio is generally the most useful and widely used of
these spells. The stat debuffs (Shock, Rasp, Choke, Frost, Burn, and Drown)
are useful depending on your character and stage of the game. Most of these
aren't that useful (Frost, Drown, Burn, Choke) Most people prefer Rasp, with
the school of thought that Dex affects melee damage the most (I probably agree).

Shock is useful because it lowers MND, which your spells resist off of. This
doesn't matter much at lower levels (particularily if you're a Taru), but if
you're getting resisted (as happens a lot more at higher levels), it's a good
idea to use Shock. It's a small MP cost to reduce your resists.

Types of Magic - Crowd Control
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Black mages can often avert dangerous situations of multiple monsters attacking
through their crowd control spells. Bind holds enemies in place, while Sleep
spells (such as Sleep, Sleep II, Sleepga, etc) can immobilize them entirely.

Types of Magic - Teleportation
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Black Mages can return themselves to their home point (Warp), others to their
respective home points (Warp II), or evacuate parties to the entrance of a
Dungeon (Escape). Warp and Warp II are really convenience things, but as
difficult as running away can be in FFXI, Escape is an invaluable tool.

Types of Magic - Draining
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Not really sure what else to call these. Drain and Aspir... one steals HP, one
steals MP. Aspir is a nice way to supplement your MP when fighting mobs who
have it, drain is a nice way to still do damage and heal yourself at the same
time. Both, however, have long recast timers.

Types of Magic - Ancient
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"Ancient" magic (as most call it) is a set of spells from level 50 to 60.
These spells have extreme mana costs, long (19 second) cast times, and very
high damage. They also debuff the monster to the opposite element. For
example, casting Freeze will lower a monster's resistance to Fire. I should
probably note though, that the debuff has always been very minimal by my
experience. The Ancient spells are Freeze, Tornado, Quake, Burst, Flood, and
Flare


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IV - How to Fight
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How to Fight - Resistances
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Whereas early on you can just use your best nukes, once you hit 20 or so it
begins to become increasingly important to use spells which your foes are weak
against. For example, water enemies (crabs, pugils) tend to be weak against
Thunder. Here is a minor listing of monster resistances (no, I didn't make it
myself). However, this list is very incomplete, and doesn't include expansion
areas:

Ahrimans - None
Bats - Wind, Light
Bees - Ice
Beetles - Ice, Light
Birds - Ice
Bombs - Fire
Cardians - Variable
Cockatrice - Ice, Wind
Coeurl - Earth
Crabs - Ice, Lightning
Crawlers - Ice, Lightning, Dark
Demons - Light
Dhalmels - Wind, Lightning
Dolls - Lightning