BLM swords

[Levian]

Hello there. I got a sword equippable by BLM's from a quest I just did, Small Sword. However, the Sword skill is not displayed in my combat skills. Is it not possible to gain sword skill while fighting as a BLM?

[Del Murder]

Don't think so. There are a few weapons like that.

[Levian]

I don't have to raise that stat under another job for it to have an effect when I'm BLM though? I take it the sword is just forever set to a certain strength?

[Rostum]

There's no point having a sword on a black mage - they have no skill in it.

[Levian]

I figured it would've been nice for soloing, and it probably would've been if I had used it on lower levels too. I'm level 33 now and I hit about the same with the LVL 19 sword as I do with my club, and my club skills are 66.

[Loony BoB]

They have no skill with sword? Not even F or something? Haha, that's pretty crazy.

[Ouch!]

It's the same with RDM. We have no native staff skill, yet we're are able to equip a number of different staves. Any skill we have will come from our support job (which means we'll be unable to skill-up on our main, and like everything else from our sub, it will be gimped to half our main's level). BLM/RDM is probably the easiest way to get sword skill, but it's not really worth it.

If your job has no skill in the weapon, it's not worth using for melee purposes by any means. Without a native skill level, it means you're only going to get something like 8 natural attack in the weapon. All other bonuses to accuracy and attack will come exclusively from DEX and STR modifiers and whatever you can get in gear and food. This means you'll be horribly inaccurate with the weapon, and even when the blow does connect, it's not going to be worth much.

BLM gets some skill with a scythe, I believe, so that's worth pursuing if you really desire to melee at all on your BLM. More often than not, though, BLM is just too damn squishy and lacks any significant native defensive spells to be an effective melee job even solo. BLM can solo a lot, but it's usually by making things go boom.

[Levian]

Ah, thanks! I'll probably get some spell interruption reduction gear and stick to nuking then.

[Rostum]

Not sure how far you plan on taking BLM, but trust me you will love nuking so much more than melee'ing. :D Such huge numbers you can pull! From level 50 to 60 I solo'd by using ancient magic on beastmen pets (doing around 1000-1200 damage on them and one shotting them). Very fast exp.

[Levian]

I plan for it to be my main. If I never reach 75, I suspect my BLM will be closest! Nuking is indeed very fun, I was in my first nuking party yesterday with 4 BLM's and a WHM, where we all nuked gob pets with a firaga each. So nice to just use 1 or 2 spells and get 250-300 exp for it. :D I could get used to that.

[Mirage]

Yeah, some weapons and shields can be equipped by classes that don't have any skill in it. Combat skill only matters when you actually try to use a weapon to attack a target/block a target's attack on you, but the stats on those items are always active, regardless of if you try to melee with them or not.

Genbu's shield for example, is equippable by WHM, BLM, RDM, BRD, SMN, BLU, but only WHM and RDM gets native shield skill. However, the 10% physical damage reduction, the +10 evasion, and the elemental weakness/strength on it will always be active for all of the jobs, even if they're not even engaged to the mob.

I also wish I could use this shield on my other non-mage jobs :(. 10 evasion would be really great for a thief!

[Ouch!]

Ah, thanks! I'll probably get some spell interruption reduction gear and stick to nuking then.
I wouldn't worry about stacking spell interruption gear, to be honest. As a BLM, you have enough tools at your disposal that you shouldn't have much trouble getting a nuke off. If enemies are getting too close for comfort, sleep them and move away before nuking again. If they're still persistent, you've got bind, too. I forget when BLM gets it, but you'll also get sleep II, and if there's nothing else in the area to worry about, sleepga is also an option. At level 42, if you go BLM/RDM, you also have access to gravity, which will slow their movement speed allowing you to kite enemies for a while. That said, if you can kill an enemy in three nukes (nuke > sleep > nuke > bind > nuke), you're probably fighting something too strong to handle on your own anyway.

[Del Murder]

What if your sleep spell gets interrupted?

[Levian]

What's up with Sleep really? I just use it if I get aggro from something I can't kill. They just wake up if I nuke them anyway. I usually just stick to Bind when I want to nuke something.

[Mirage]

I'm not sure but bind might have a cooldown that's not over by the time you cast your second nuke, therefore you sleep them instead.

[Levian]

Ah, I suppose it might come more in handy later on. Right now Sleep takes almost as long to cast as my other high level spells.

[Mirage]

Oh yeah, and sometimes your bind could get resisted :p

[Ouch!]

What if your sleep spell gets interrupted?
If you're letting the enemy get that close to you, then you're probably not going to survive the encounter as a BLM no matter what you do. That aside, even at high levels, it's difficult to build a spell interrupt set without sacrificing large amounts of other important stats. I'd imagine that a spell interruption rate down set, even completely optimized, would not prove as reliable as other options. If you're truly worried about the enemy getting a hit or two in, utsusemi or stoneskin are far superior options.

As spell interrupt rate gear will not lower interruption rates for knock back, paralysis, etc. and only affects the damage threshold, utsusemi and stoneskin are infinitely superior and neither require you to sacrifice valuable stat bonuses which will help you land the spells. Gearing yourself to avoid resists is far more important than gearing you to avoid interrupts.

Edit: Although this debate does make me wonder if it's worth it for NINs to invest in gear for lowering spell interruption rates for utsusemi recast. With ichi and ni at their disposal, this usually isn't an issue, but it's the only time I can imagine such a set might truly be worth sacrificing other stats, assuming of course it's macroed out after casting.

[WildRaubtier]

I'd imagine Evasion is more useful for a NIN or THF trying to cast utsusemi than spell interruption down is, due to their natural awesome evasion. Other jobs could benefit, but if you're /NIN as a melee you probably won't need it anyway. NIN wouldn't need to macro out EVA+ gear, either, since it's unlikely they'd be anything but tanking.

[Del Murder]

I used that one katana when I levelled nin to 37, it really helped.

What level are you Levian?

[Levian]

36, probably going to hit 37 while farming the next hour.

[Ouch!]

I'd imagine Evasion is more useful for a NIN or THF trying to cast utsusemi than spell interruption down is, due to their natural awesome evasion. Other jobs could benefit, but if you're /NIN as a melee you probably won't need it anyway. NIN wouldn't need to macro out EVA+ gear, either, since it's unlikely they'd be anything but tanking.
A NIN's evasion stat, even capped and geared in a pretty solid evasion set, isn't as reliable as you seem to think. Perhaps with the evasion bonus from yonin, but I wouldn't have confidence in that kind of set-up. Not that a NIN's shadows should go down in any instance except that of an area of effect attack, and if you're taking a mob that uses those frequently, you shouldn't be using a NIN unless you have a death wish anyway.

[WildRaubtier]

I meant "awesome" in a relative sense! What I was trying to say was that you'd almost need to fulltime a Spell Reduction set to benefit, and you'd be better off fulltiming evasion instead. On further reflection, you could probably just macro your gear in while casting, but as I understand it, a NIN's inventory is almost always bursting at the seems, which makes carrying even more gear somewhat unattractive.

But I can't really talk! My NIN is 33 at the moment and I don't plan on taking it past 40.