BLM Guide (Part III)
Overview
When it comes to determinations of "Skill" for something like FFXI, it's really hard to tell sometimes - I mean when you really get down to it it's more about gear, preparation, and experience more than anything. To compare certain people or certain LSs with "Skill" in mind is probably more arbitrary than fact usually I would have to say. Keeping this in mind, however, I will say that some things in this game do require at least some amount of "Skill" to do.
In this post, I will try to focus on the art of "Kiting" and differentiate between kiting and just plain running away. With the situations of particular HNM fights and soloing in mind, I will go over a fairly difficult, macro-based technique which can greatly enhance the kiting ability of any job which I call as "Blink Casting". I will also go over why Herald's Gaiters are, in my opinion, the single most over-powered and game-breaking item wearable by Black Mage.
Before I go into any sort of detail, I did not discover or invent this kiting technique - surprisingly I found it on KI forums back in like 2005 but the information was buried by 2 BLMs getting into a shouting match over gear or something stupid like that. I in no way take credit for discovering this (unfortunately I have no clue who originally posted about it so I can't cite).
Black Mage Guide (Part I)
Black Mage Guide (Part II)
Black Mage Guide (Part IV)
Black Mage Guide (Part V)
Black Mage Guide (Part VI)
Black Mage Guide!
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Kiting Concept
The term "Kiting" is generally used in any sort of strategy where the person with hate runs from the mob instead of attempting to stand his ground and "tank" it. Unfortunately, this word is used pretty liberally and nowadays a lot of players run around like a chicken with its head cut off and really have no idea what the hell they are doing and call it kiting. The typical "strategy" behind kiting starts with trying to add run speed or slow the mob in question down via Gravity and Run Speed equipment; however, this concept can be further advanced with the implementation of actual technique through the use of terrain and game mechanics/flaws. It is this concept of technique that I want to focus on in this post.
It is pretty well known that terrain plays a huge role in kiting - those pillars in the Kirin room, that log in Behemoth's Dominion, etc. - the AI generally has difficulty selecting the best route around obstacles such as those. Being able to simply outrun the mob using overwhelming speed and a couple terrain abuses will typically be enough to get past 95% of the game where kiting is involved; however, to truly maximize kiting potential, there are actually many other things available.
Performing Actions While Kiting
A huge problem with most kiters is that in order to actually maintain any form of hate in the long run, they have to stop to perform actions. Simplest example is a tank kiting then stopping to use Provoke - when they stop to Provoke, sometimes the mob can catch up and take a shot or TP move at the tank while he is stuck in the Provoke animation. It is this animation that causes many kites to fail - either the tank dies while stuck in the animation because he's locked and can't run, or the tank is scared to perform actions constantly and fails to hold hate as well as he needs to.
What about soloing? Black Mages have trouble with things that cannot be slept, bound, or gravitied. This is because they have to actually stop to cast, and sometimes the mob is just too fast to enable you to get any sort of cast off. Again, the fact that when you cast, there is a casting animation that locks you and disables movement really hurts. On some shorter casting spells, the casting time is actually really short, but it's this annoying animation that locks you up and gets you killed.
(The typical "Casting Animations" for White Mage spells and Black Mage spells - both disable movement)
What if these players were able to get rid of these animations? You could essentially run from a mob and Provoke without ever stopping, or only stop momentarily to cast fast animation spells, or lower your "stand-still" time while casting a long duration time by 1-2 seconds - the equivalent of nearly 10 steps. Well I guess it's obvious by how I'm writing this that there is indeed a way to do this - this is what "Blink Casting" is.
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How to "Blink Cast"
I'm sure a lot of players have done this accidently actually. When you switch equipment, there is a short period of time where your character disappears from the screen (on both your's and other's screen). Typically this is a bad thing to most people - great example here is the WHM getting pissed off at his tank for changing equipment, which forces the WHM to retarget.
Well, when you "blink" after an equipment change, you are still allowed to perform actions like normal; however, any animations that are supposed to occur will be 100% bypassed.
This simple game mechanics flaw is the idea behind the entire technique.
(Examples of what the "Blink" Effect looks like - the character disappears momentarily from the screen)
If you time your actions to occur while your character has momentarily become "invisible" due to an equipment change, you will always bypass any animation that is supposed to occur on your screen, preventing that annoying movement "lock-up" from ever happening. This really does let you kite and perform actions like Provoke essentially without ever having to stop. For anyone who has a lot of kiting experience, this technique is really an invaluable tool for safety and player efficiency.
This is Harder than it Sounds
This idea sounds great, but if it were so easy, I'm sure a lot of people would be using it already. The problem with this techinque is it is based on a game mechanics flaw - the momentary blink after equipment changes. That momentary blink occurs at a variable time and a variable duration - you cannot exactly know with 100% certainty how long you will remain invisible or when exactly you will turn invisible. These variations are due solely to LAG. The more lag you have, the longer you will stay invisible after an equipment change and the longer wait there will be the equipment change and when the blink occurs.
When the blink occurs after equipment changing isn't actually a big deal, as long as it's consistent and predictable - it just requires timing practice; however, how long you stay invisible does affect how much error you are allowed to have in your timing and still pull the technique off correctly (longer you stay invisible, the longer time you have to perform an action). Because of this, you want the "blink" effect to occur predictably and for a long duration - this actually means you WANT lag. That's right, you want a decent amount of lag to pull this off. As long as the lag is consistent and doesn't spike, it is actually an advantage, not a liability.
Macro Considerations and Fluidity
You must time the equipment switch just prior to the end of the cast for this to work. If you are using this idea with a JA, which is instant, then obviously you have to have a slight delay between the equipment switch and the usage of the JA. This can be surprisingly difficult due to variable lag - generally I try to get a decent lag so that the duration of the blinking is fairly long, which helps to account for variable lag. At this point, I cannot really help all that much as every computer runs at a different speed. It's really about trial and error at this point really.
I will say just doing some quick tests on Corsair, JAs are MUCH EASIER to pull off this technique with. You can usually set a Macro to automatically do it for you...
/equip main "Terra's Staff"
/ja "Provoke"
The equipment change will occur just prior to the action to use Provoke. However, the delay between the equipment change and the actual "blink" effect may take awhile and the Provoke may occur between this delay (meaning the "Blink Cast" failed). If you need to time the Provoke to occur for a longer delay, there are 2 options. The first is manually adjust the crap running on your computer to make it faster, or the easier thing to do is simply force a longer delay in the macro between the equipment change and the Provoke action...
/equip main "Terra's Staff"
/equip ear1"Eris's Earring +1"
/equip ear2"Eris's Earring +1"
/echo --- Wasting some time to perform echo command ---
/ja "Provoke"
Adding more actions (easiest ones are equipment actions) between the first equipment change and the Provoke action allows you to manually determine the time between the equipment change and the Provoke. By using windower macros, you can add mulitple equipment changes and have a pretty good range of adjustment in which to play around with. After properly adjusting this, you can pull off this technique when using JAs near probably 80%+ accuracy without really doing any timing on your part.
(Examples of "Blink Casting" Technique used on Black Mage JAs - number of actions required variable due to lag)
If you wish to pull this off using an actual spell with a casting time, this can be a little more difficult as you cannot "auto time" it with a macro. This is really the situation most Black Mages are in (with the rare exceptions of things like Elemental Seal). For spell casts, you really have to do the timing on your own and just manually switch into the final equipment you want to use just before you know the cast animation will occur. Generally the order of action for say a long cast like Thunder 4 would be...
Begin casting Thunder 4
Wait until about 50% casting completed
Start running (you are allowed a few steps and the cast will not interrupt)
Change equipment to final set while running
Animation is bypassed by the "Blink" effect while you continue to run
I must admit this is really pretty difficult (at least for me). Generally I do not bother using this technique unless it is absolutely necessary for success or safety. I usually have to be extremely focused to pull this off at 100% accuracy and if you miss, you can often get your spell interrupted or end up with the wrong set of gear on when the spell goes off. Being able to do this on spells consistently is really what I would consider one of the few things in this game that requires some form of "skill".
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Usage of "Blink Casting"
The usage of this technique is really incrediby useful for just about any job. Again, a huge part of this entire guide is the concept of fluidity and speed. Bypassing useless animations GREATLY increases the "flow" of your character and the speed at which it performs actions. As far as Black Mage technique, this is probably one of the most powerful and difficult tools to use. I generally learned to use this technique when first attempting to solo Apollyon North West - the mobs in that zone all run at above average speed and can double or even triple attack you for 250-400 damage without safety gear on. Being able to constantly maintain a large distance between the mob and you, even during casting, greatly increases the safety during the run and saves time. Because winning the zone requires great time management (unless you are incredibly lucky wiht portals), I will typically not cast any buff other than basic stoneskin now until floor 5. Currently my record for beating this zone solo has been with 4 > 3 > 3 > 1 mobs killed prior to portal opening (floors 1 through 4), and a 22 minute KB kill. It is this technique that has really made it possible for me to win this with consistency.
The best way to use this idea is probably with JAs in the method I described earlier because the macro takes care of all the timing issues - it's really just too difficult to pull off on spells manually at high accuracy all the time. However, even on something as simple as Provoke, this is still incredibly useful. Fast casting spells such as Stun can also be pulled off in this fashion (require a pretty long delay though), making it probably a more useful technique for Tanks than Black Mages.
Pulling this idea off is not just limited to soloing or kiting HNMs - say you are a Corsair and need to buff tanks during a straight tanking fight against a heavily AoE based mob. That long animation of rolling can cost you at least a good 4 seconds in which you are a sitting duck in AoE range. By simply "Blink Casting" the roll abilities, you can get in and out 5-10 seconds quicker. These are just a couple of example of how this technique can be used to enhance play. Because it is not limited to any job in particular, it's really up to the player's imagination to take advantage of it.
Herald's Gaiters - Why a Black Mage Should Want These
(Picture jacked from Allakhazam - Stats in case you didn't know them)
Gaiters are hands down, the most overpowered Black Mage item in the game. This includes items such as Novio Earring, Morrigan's Robe, HQ stave set, etc. While all those those items are really nice and enhance your damage or play, none of them can single handedly change the way you play Black Mage. Black Mage soloing (and especially this style of play, which focuses on a solo style Black mage) is almost completely reliant on kiting. Add in this technique which essentially lets you run while casting - and it's easy to see why you would want to these shoes.
Imagine fighting a mob which runs at normal speed, immune to sleep/bind/gravity, and never stops to cast anything. There are quite a few mobs like this - Ix'MNK is a popular one just off the top of my head. Being able to just outrun it is already a huge advantage, but imagine barely or not even having to stop to get off actions on it - speed kills. This style is all about speed and fluidity - and there is nothing more important than running speed when 99% of endgame mobs can kill you within seconds if they ever caught you. It's not even just about defense and safety. Speed and safety can, in turn, propel your offense as well as you no longer have to worry as much about dying.
I realize that these shoes are pretty rare and, sadly, not within the grasp of a lot of players due to Tiamat's spawn times; however, they are what they are. If another form of faster movement speed became available for Black Mage in the future, I would definately recommend them, as they would greatly enhance both solo and team options.
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Conclusions
The concept of kiting is really thrown around a lot in endgame talks without ever really getting into the strategy behind the technique itself. Kiting has really become just a fancy word for running around instead of standing still. The number of techniques which you can employ are really numerous, yet incredibly rare to see nowadays. The "Blink Casting" technique described above is really only just 1 out of many unused ideas behind the concept of kiting. Others exist, which also take advantage of adnormal AI or game flaws. In the future, I'll probably go over another particularly useful one which I describe as "Pinning" (I just make these names up by the way, they really have no real name to them -_-;).
Looking back at statistics on this site, the most popular hits on the LJ seem to be the low man Limbus Posts, Black Mage Guide, and that solo tank Tiamat post, in that order. Seeing as the Limbus stuff is all but done, I'll try to focus more on the Black Mage Guide (to whore more hits and because HNM has been slightly redundant lately). These posts take A LOT of work so I hope you enjoy them.
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Pic of the Day
Very old screenshot from 2005!
Tark is trying to learn English while Fry is trying to learn Japanese.
The 2 bought this ridiculous English<>Japanese translation book with basic pick up lines.
Tark would say the English phrases while Fry would say all the Japanese phrases.
In this pic, Fry is trying to hit on Tark at a bar.
Drama Thread of the Day
http://killingifrit.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=81936
Cait Sith Drama from 2005.
Involves a guy getting kicked from LS then getting mad when he doesn't get to "Cash Out" his LS points.
Thrown in are screenshots with some very racist comments against Muslims by the guy that got kicked.
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