Prior to level 50′ish, black mage really had it easy in terms of gear. Just stack a lot of INT and MP gear and try to stay alive. However, once you get to level 51, the game changes completely. With the addition of elemental staves & artifact gear, black mage takes a massive jump in both power & efficiency. In this 2nd part of the black mage equipment guide, we’ll take a look at these potent pieces of equipment and how to use them to maximize your performance.
Weapons
Elemental Staves: The bread and butter of any mage, these elemental staves boast the hidden attribute of enhancing both the potency & magic accuracy of spells matching their elemental type (i.e.: Thunder Staff for thunder based spells). Now let me make this perfectly clear to all of you…
>>> GET THE HQ STAVES!!! <<<
While NQ staves may be cheaper to buy, they only grant around a 10% bonus to magic damage (and associated magic accuracy). HQ Staves on the other hand run around a 15% bonus to both damage & magic accuracy. Now that’s one heck of an increase when it comes to using them at the higher levels. Do what you can to get the HQ staves as soon as possible.
Also, while it’s generally accepted that you should get all 8 elemental staves. In reality there are 5 that you will use most of the time in an endgame situation
Earth/Terra’s Staff: While not so much used for spellcasting purposes, having an Earth Staff handy is just a lifesaver when you’re getting pounded on. The staff reduces physical damage by 20%, which goes a long way to increasing your survivability in any number of situations.
Dark/Pluto’s Staff: Not only does this monster give you +10 MP recovered while healing, but they greatly influence dark-based spells such as sleeps, drain & aspir.
Wind/Auster’s Staff: While it may be strange to devote a HQ staff to a single spell, when that spell is gravity it’s essential you land it without resistance. Also, in the event you need to throw an emergency silence on a mob, this piece will come in handy.
Ice/Aquilo’s Staff: Good for ice-based spells (blizzard & bind), and an excellent overall piece with enhancements to both INT and elemental magic skill.
Thunder/Jupiter’s Staff: Another bread & butter nuking staff to put a few more volts into your thunder spells. Can also be used for stun, though magic accuracy is rarely an issue for that particular spell.
Armor wise, starting with your artifact gear, the priorities for black mage change significantly. Whereas before you would just keep stacking more and more INT, now we’ll start transitioning toward magic skill/magic accuracy gear.
== Head ==
Wizard’s Petasos (Level 60): After near 30 levels of using a Seer’s Crown, it’s due time for the black mage to get a good piece of head gear. Not only do you get a huge chunk of MP, but also a solid INT boost and a significant enmity decrease on top of it all. Not to mention that it looks damn good looking. Don’t level past 60 without it!
== Neck ==
Grandiose Chain (Level 60): An alternative piece to Beak Necklace. This gives a solid addition to both HP and MP recovered while healing. Can be obtained through Assault points in Aht Urhgan.
Skill Torques (Level 65): These rare pieces of gear give significant boosts to various magic skills. At minimum you’ll want to pick up the elemental, enfeebling, and dark torques as soon as gil allows. They can also be won through several different 60-capped BCNMs.
Uggalepih Pendant (Level 70): While it is a situational piece, the Uggalepih Pendant adds a significant magic attack bonus to your damaging spells when active. Its latent effect kicks in when the caster is below 50% MP.
== Earrings ==
Antivenom Earring (Level 50): Good resting piece with additional MP and a slight resist poison effect. Worth either buying from the AH or getting from Assault.
Phantom Earring (Level 60): A slight upgrade to the Morion Earrings.
Sorcerer’s Earring (Level 70): Another defense oriented piece of gear, the Sorcerer’s Earring kicks in at below 25% current HP and reduces both physical and magic damage taken by 30%. Couple this with an Earth or Terra’s Staff for best effect.
== Body ==
Shaman’s Cloak (Level 56): A solid piece of gear that grants MP +25, INT +4 and Elemental & Enfeebling Magic Skill +5. It’s great for nuking purposes until later on. The only drawback is, being a cloak you can’t equip a head piece with this body.
Wizard’s Coat (Level 58): The body portion of your artifact gear, this is the best overall enfeebling piece for black mage in the game.
Black Cloak (Level 68): While their are better options for nuking just a few levels ahead, this is the cheapest method of refresh available for black mage, and makes a solid choice for a standing gear set. It’s also very affordable on most servers.
== Hands ==
Wizard’s Gloves (Level 54): Until you reach the endgame levels, their is nothing that will beat these for nuking equipment. With +15 elemental magic skill, you will see your resist rates drop to nothingness.
== Rings ==
Zircon/Genius Rings (Level 54): Another upgrade to INT gear. Nothing fancy at this point.
== Back ==
Cheviot Cape (Level 68): Once again, this is another of those terrific defensive pieces for when the going gets tough. Also, at nighttime, the physical damage reduction of the cape doubles from 5% to 10%.
== Waist ==
Penitent’s Rope (Level 60): A huge boost to both intellect and mind as well as enmity reduction. It does come with a slight ding to max HP, but the benefits are well worth it.
== Legs ==
Wizard’s Tonban (Level 56): Dark magic skill is a huge nessicity when it comes to casting epic level drains & aspirs, and with a +15 boost to the skill from these pants, you can’t go wrong here.
Druid’s Slops (Level 64): Another good piece of elemental magic skill gear. These should last you to the mid-70′s and errant gear.
== Feet ==
Wizard’s Sabots (Level 52): Not the most useful piece of black mage relic gear, but it does give a 20% reduction to spell interruption rate when you need it.
Cobra Crackows (Level 68): This relatively new piece of gear from past Vana’diel offers a solid magic attack bonus as well as bonuses to the conserve MP trait. Also, when coupled with other Cobra pieces, they give additional magic accuracy. However, these require a high rank within Campaign which may be difficult to get prior to endgame, and the other pieces usually pail to their modern day counterparts.
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