General

lumi for the poor nubs, if you wanna be great go bam or f/p

Totally unfunded maybe Lumi, because they get a lot of base magic attack while BaMs do not. If you plan on going past 170, go for a BaM.

Post FLY I would say Bam's are better unfunded. But currently, Lumi's would be the best compared to Bam's in terms of being unfunded.

With luminous you have to deal with split damage where as with BaM you don't.

My 176 BaM with half(60% Int with 262 magic staff) my evans gears does 300 to 500ks with hypers and has about 108k range.. my evan fully geared(level 200) about 120% Int has 130k range. I don't test it with my Lumis gears because my Lumi requires Psoks.
BaMs definitely get high range with ease due to auras.

For Mobbing, Lumis have the advantage but BaMs also get a great mobbing skill at 170 with their hypers.
I'd say go BaM.. because honestly the split damage with lumis becomes a major frustration after a while.

I think Battle Mages are the hardest mages to fund.

Or maybe that was Kanna.

Lumi gets the upper hand even after red.
Dont BS, he's just [b]really[/b] good.
YES, even unfunded.

luminous as of attack range and vast buffs that can easily keep you alive. Battlemage is a great class but doesn't do great damage unless you actually put some funding into it. As a luminous you can do pretty great damage to an entire map with minimal funding.

Battle Mage becomes very good after RED, this is a tough call. It depends on what you're looking for in a class.