The albatross

I probably wouldn't have even bothered leveling black mage all the way to 75 were it not for the Sorcerer's Ring, which allowed me to "one-shot" Yagudo's elementals and Goblin's pets up to level 70.

When elementals pause to cast magic before pursuing you, and the vagaries of beastmen movement can interrupt experience chains, the additional damage from the ring can provide just enough oomph to kill with a single ancient magic spell and allow you to avoid these issues. For me, the irritating expense of cobbling together a set of HP-reduction equipment was worth reducing the risk inherent in soloing.

But since there was no reasonable way to one-shot anything T-IT for experience after Newton even with the Sorcerer's Ring, I considered the ring to have no practical use any longer, and so I got rid of the ring and the latent-activating gear altogether.

Recently though, the tantalizing prospect of killing an Ebony Pudding with only three "tier IV" nukes led me to reacquire the ring. And since soloing puddings is a bread-and-butter activity for any "respectable" black mage, this is enough of a pretext for me to keep the ring for good and to put together a set of HP-reduction equipment that is "acceptable" for situations beyond puddings.

The whole point of being able to kill a pudding with only three tier IV nukes is to minimize the MP expenditure per kill (since tier IV spells are among the most efficient of offensive magic available to BLM, in stark contrast to the AM II series, which are generally less MP-efficient than tier 4 and even the tier 3 nukes), thereby allowing a reasonable opportunity to attain exp chain #5. Unfortunately, doing the math with my current equipment and maximum lightning and ice potency shows that this is possible only with the Rairin Obi (lightning) to activate the damage bonus on Lightningday.

For example, with a Rairin Obi a sequence of Thunder IV > Gravity > Blizzard IV > Aspir > Thunder IV on Lightningday should inflict 4467 damage (1548, 1371, 1548). With a 200+ HP Drain to finish the pudding off, the total MP cost is 551 MP at worst.

What about Iceday? With a Hyorin Obi a sequence of Blizzard IV > Gravity > Thunder IV > Aspir > Blizzard IV on Iceday should inflict 4393 damage (1481, 1431, 1481), but it's optimistic to think that Drain will finish off a pudding (544 MP at worst), although it's possible. Here, the Sorcerer's Tonban would be useful, but I don't expect to obtain this ever.

While I don't ever expect to obtain Sorcerer's Tonban or any of the Zenith gear, much less a Novio, at least there's a window of opportunity to be able to chain #5 with puddings even if it's a small one. For all other days I resign myself to chain #4.

As for situations beyond puddings, the extremely peculiar properties of the Sorcerer's Ring latent (which I will not discuss) actually allow the latent to activate above 75% of some "base" HP level and thus without drawing blood aggro. Although this is rather annoying to accomplish without relying on Zenith Mitts (which I don't have), I was actually able to configure a set of HP-reduction equipment so that the Sorcerer's Ring activates at 579/771 HP--it is important to note that the "base" HP is 762 HP before Rainbow Cape, which adds 9 HP--with the following equipment:

 Main Asklepios        (-30 HP)
  Sub Astral Aspis     (-25)
 Head Wivre Hairpin    (-20)
 Neck Evasion Torque   (+ 7)
 Body Black Cotehardie (-25)
Hands Errant Cuffs     (-20)
Ring1 Ether Ring       (-30)
Ring2 Electrum Ring    (-20)
 Back (empty)          (- 9)
Waist Penitent's Rope
 Legs (empty)
 Feet Errant Pigaches  (-20)

Since Penitent's Rope is used for nuking, the net HP reduction is -192. Unfortunately, this setup includes nine pieces of equipment that I would otherwise not use. If I had Zenith Crown, Zenith Mitts, Zenith Slacks, and Serket Ring (three of them I would otherwise not use), the setup would instead be this:

 Head Zenith Crown     (-50 HP)
 Neck Evasion Torque   (+ 7)
Hands Zenith Mitts     (-50)
Ring1 Serket Ring      (-50)
 Back (empty)          (- 9)
Waist Penitent's Rope
 Legs Zenith Slacks    (-50)

Although I do save inventory space, the net HP reduction (again using Penitent's Rope for nuking, but not using Zenith Mitts) is -202. Suppose I had three more HP merits (pretty much for the sake of using merits, as extra HP "wouldn't hurt") so that my maximum HP were 801 HP instead (or 792 "base" HP for latent activation). The ring would then activate at 601/801 HP instead. At this point I wouldn't remove the Rainbow Cape for HP reduction, and my HP-reduction equipment would then look like this:

 Head Zenith Crown     (-50 HP)
Hands Zenith Mitts     (-50)
Ring1 Serket Ring      (-50)
 Back Rainbow Cape
Waist Penitent's Rope
 Legs Zenith Slacks    (-50)

From 801 maximum HP (in the presence of Penitent's Rope), a swap of just four pieces (Z. Crown, Z. Mitts, Z. Slacks, Serket Ring) reduces max HP to 601, which is 75.88% of 792 (before Rainbow Cape's HP+9) and 75.03% of 801 (after Rainbow Cape's HP+9, and still "in the white"). And if I chose to use Zenith Mitts instead of some other hand equipment, the "base HP" would still be 792, but the actual HP would then be 601/742 (also in the white). I could elect to use Wizard's Gloves (+1) where warranted, and Zenith Mitts for everything else while still maintaining "white" HP.

Zenith pieces would indeed make life easier, but since I don't count on ever getting them, I can make do with an unwieldy 12-slot equipment swap... without Windower macros. I did say "make do"...