Out of the BLU

A guide by Spicyryan of Asura, formerly Pandemonium.

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Forum Thread

There is a thread for this on the BG forums.

See: here

Feel free to leave any questions about the job or things about the guide there.

Preface

After seeing Sabishii’s guide on Spells. I figured that I should write the final piece of the puzzle missing for many BLUs.

Formerly Prothescar, but now run by Oraen, is the AH.com guide/thread which encompasses gear as well as most questions and discussion.

Which leaves the subject of the subjective, play style itself. While I am at it I might as well cover the gauntlet. Except for equipment sets, forget that, AH.com can keep that shit.

So this is to be the guide of guides and written until I am BLU in the face. I also use the word “write” loosely for what is sure to be a collection of crap. That of bad puns and quips the likes of which no one has ever seen or wished to see.

The recommended reading position for this is on the toilet.

Introduction

The dedicated and devoted BLU community stands apart from the pack. At least, it has been shepherded by stronger personalities and more noteworthy players over the years than others.
Prothescar, Nightfyre, Draylo, Oraen, Myriads, and the list goes on. Perhaps even Sabiishii for his raw enthusiasm alone. That counts for something, right?
Right..?

There's them, there is the community, and then there is me. I don't particularly care to describe myself as anything other than average. Which is no issue, as there is a definite divide in opinions circulated on my behalf. Chances are anyone claiming to know me doesn’t actually, but rather of me. As I don't especially affiliate with others and ruffle feathers without remorse; my reputation precedes me.
Notwithstanding, I never profess to be the best, nor to have all the answers. In spite claims that I am some egoist. Surely there are those who are more exceptional, but I guarantee there are things I do which are wrong as well as “wrong”.

That all being said, what I do know somewhat, is Blue Mage, and shitty puns. I have played BLU for well over a decade now. So that counts for something, right?
Right...?

Things become funnier if you repeat them, right? Right....?
Wrong.

Finally, we never cease learning, and this includes FFXI as it refuses to stay static. When it comes down to it, commanding a comprehensive knowledge will allow you to improve rather than be stuck playing catch-up. This way you may enjoy the game more on your own terms rather than be the one which others seek to exclude from certain content.

TL;DR

Wow.. Rude.. BLU your load already?

Here are the more important aspects of the guide you likely need:

• Dual Wield?!
• Suggested Spellsets
• Herp Derp. What Spells Do I Need to Learn?
• Merits?!? Which Weapons are Good?
• Gear Progression and Which AF, Relic, and Empyrean 119 Armor are Gewd?

BLU’t Camp

So, you are a BLU, and you are reading this play style guide. Pft, why even waste your time?

Be the BLU

People tend to create false associations.

• “PUP is a MNK with a pet”
• “SCH is what RDM should have been”
• “COR is like a BRD with different buffs”
• “As a GEO I just stand here like a bad BRD with bubbles and don't have to dispel, nuke, or cast anything!” I hate you..
• ”There should be a boat to Adoulin because we took one to Whitegate”
  • etc

These ideas are as false as they are fatuous, and your first task on the track to success is to be in the right mindset.

However, there is BLU, and then there is them. Don't try to relate this job to any other as it is it's own:

• You do not frontline "like a melee RDM", and you do not backline like one either.

• However, you do frontline and sometimes backline as BLU.

• You do make use of both swords and clubs.
• You also should carry around more gear and sets than other jobs or even than you can carry.

• Many people try to skip this step. You will only be as effective as you plan to be. If you are going to do something then see it through or throw it away.

• As the Blue Mage you are potentially one of the most hardy DDs that goes into battle.

• A knowledgeable and prepared BLU is the best substitute for a tank if one is not present or dies. Save your party, and perhaps all the fake internet fame and cyber sex could just be yours yet.

• Just make sure to check if the mithra has a tail in the front. The odds are not in your favor.

• While you are capable of all sorts of magic, frequently the best course of action is to not cast any offensive spells at all.
• As a BLU you are the only job to be able to pick and choose what traits, buffs, and debuffs you go into battle with.

BLU is collectively more gear, play, and knowledge intensive than other jobs or perhaps any. This is why Blue Mages also need a wealth of information in order to adjust and optimize their play style.

Three Things to Know

The ‘official’ BLU mantra. Protect the empress, kill pirates, and knock boots; in no certain order.

All that jazz about taking your weapon off before entering the palace is cool and all (empress, this weapon doesn't detach~), but you can never be a good BLU if you don’t attempt to master your environment. This means knowing basic yet random things.

• Your Dream Flower isn't going to work on a Greater Bird and will always have half duration against an enemy such as a ghost or skeleton when it lands.
• You can't apply defense down to something that resists wind.
• Regardless if a spell is physical or magical and regardless of the element; all added spell debuff effects are always of the same element.

• This is covered in the debuff section later.

The three rules for BLU are as follows:

• 1) Know yourself

• Your resources such as BG wiki and the BG or the AH.com forums.
• Your weapons (swords AND clubs), when to use which, and your armor options.
• Your spells and their damage types.

• Their modifiers too.

• How to skillchain.

• Yes, most of these rules apply to most jobs in this game.

• Your job traits.
• Your mechanics.

• E.g. Delay cap from haste forms and Dual Wield (covered later).
• Additional effects from physical spells like stun from Sudden Lunge rely on your main hand weapon accuracy, blue magic skill, magic accuracy, and are related to an elemental affinity to land.

• If I lost you that means sudden lunge requires physical accuracy and magical accuracy to work and is related to an element. In this case thunder, and won't likely stun a thunder based opponent.

• Certain help texts for spells such as “Chance of critical varies with TP” for something like Quadrastrike only applies under the effects of Chain Affinity and/or Efflux.
• Your quirks.

• A spell like Heavy Strike always lands a critical hit (blunt damage), works with critical damage+ gear, but has an innate accuracy penalty of about -100 accuracy.
• Spells such as Blank Gaze and Jettatura are gaze moves. Meaning they only work when the mob is directly facing you. Yet increase your enmity even if they don't take effect.

• Hate spells such as Actinic Burst, Dream Flower, or perhaps even Yawn, for controlling a mob or a crowd.

• 2) Know your enemy

• Gearing for damage or switching out for accuracy pieces makes all the difference.

• For example, sometimes it is better to forgo damage taken equipment in favor of pure magic evasion, and BLU certainly can sport more of that stat on equipment than heavier DDs by far.
• Google and the BG wiki/forums are your friends. Never be afraid to ask and find out.

• Monsters often have physical or elemental weaknesses, resistances, or outright gimmicks. Exploiting or avoiding these is essential.

• 3) Know your companions

• BLU stands tall on the frontline, but you are not going to carry your group.

• Don’t forget that you can provide support. Otherwise why are you not just on another DD job?
• Sometimes that "support" is also just DDing while not taxing your backline.

• Using a defense down spell or using Magic Fruit if things are dicey instead of ignoring your party like you are some emo Dark Knight or a clueless Dragoon.

• Perhaps even AoEing Barrier Tusk, Mighty Guard, Winds of Promy., or maybe using White Wind.

• Some of your initial Sudden Lunges (especially if geared) will stun something like a Tojil or Muyingwa before they begin eventually resisting. Stopping moves, on top of sparingly throwing out support, debuffing, buffing, AoE erasing, and saving yours or another’s life with a cure. No other job can come close to this usefulness.

• Paying attention and providing balance is important. If you just want to be mindless then don't even play this job.

It is pointless to doubt yourself as this is a game. You are only as good as you choose to be.

So When BLU I Actually Learn Something?

Never! You already learned all I have to teach you.

Okay, well here are a collection of mechanics. Utilize these for playing and gearing.

Gear Mechanics

Delay! DW!

Understanding Dual Wield is an area which I feel the average player skips right over. For those unfamiliar with the 80% delay cap. I’ll refer you to the lovely BG page on Attack Speed. That page tells you all you need, but below are potential examples to make this even easier. You want to cap your delay before worrying about other equipment stats, assuming accuracy isn't. Focus on Dual Wield items before STP and multi-attack. A few DW pieces tend to direct how the rest of your set goes. Once you reach delay cap you may mix and match pieces for a more optimal set. DW III is the most common tier to have. Either from /NIN or from setting DW I with the 1200 Job Point gift.

DW Per Trait
Tier	DW
DW I	10%
DW II	15%
DW III	25%
DW IV	30%
DW V	35%

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Here are some DW requirements to delay cap under various haste situations that I thought of at random.

Note: If two values are listed one is slightly under cap and one is slightly over. Either are fine.

• All listings assume capped gear haste.

Forever Alone
BLU Buffs	Other Buffs	Cap DW
Flutter	No Other Buffs + Dual Wield II	41/42%
Flutter	No Other Buffs + Dual Wield III	31/32%
Flutter	No Other Buffs + Dual Wield IV	26/27%
Recognize Me Senpai
BLU Buffs	Other Buffs	Cap DW	W/ DW3
Wail or Haste I	Embrava (Capped Skill)	45%	20%

Dancer in Toe
BLU Buffs	Other Buffs	Cap DW	W/ DW3
Flutter	Haste Samba (Trust/SJ)	51%	26%
Flutter	Haste Samba (5/5 Merit)	44%	19%
Flutter	Haste Samba (Trust/SJ) + Joachim's Advancing March	37%	12%
Flutter	Haste Samba (5/5 Merit) + Joachim's Advancing March	33%	8%
None	Capped Magic Haste + Haste Samba (Trust/SJ)	24%	-1%
None	Capped Magic Haste + Haste Samba (5/5 Merit)	12%	-13%

Magical Haste Cap
BLU Buffs	Other Buffs	Cap DW	W/ DW3
Flutter + MG	None	36%	11%
None	Embrava + Entrust Indi-Haste or March	36%	11%
Wail	March +5 x2	36%	11%
Capped magic haste (~44%) and capped gear haste (~26%) means you just need a total of 36% DW.
Note on GEO Haste:
Potency = floor[1+(skill/37.5)] + 1.1% per "Geomancy +" So a Dunna adds +5.5%; Idris +11% Entrust removes the Geomancy + Bonus

Sing Along Songs
BLU Buffs	Other Buffs	Cap DW	W/ DW3
Flutter	Joachim’s March	50%	25%
Flutter	Honor March +2/3/4	36%	11%
Flutter	Victory w/ March +3	37%	12%
Flutter	Victory w/ March +4	36%	11%
Flutter	Dual Trust Marchs	36%	11%
Wail	March x2 w/ March +3	43%	18%
Wail	March x2 w/ March +4	38%	13%

Slow Really Sucks If you get slowed then game over man. You will essentially need a BRD/GEO and/or Soul Voice/Bolster to even counteract it. Wear full dual wield if you are slowed. Weakness counts as +100% slow. Extra haste and DW helps tremendously. "Joach-a Joach-a" Why Joachim for march calculations you ask? Well, he generally casts March; with the added bonus of Elegy. Where as Ulmia loves to bail on you with crappy ballads as your MP falls. Sing me the useless song of your magical people Ulmia, I find it, refreshing. Joachim's march and Erratic Flutter with' DW3 set means we just need an additional 25% to Cap DW. This is useful in a "I don't have or feel like casting Mighty Guard" situation. If using only Flutter and an unmerited Haste Samba it would be 26%, so essentially the same gear scenario. Remember, excess DW hurts your DPS as it reduces TP gained per hit while not reducing your delay further. However, being over by 1-2% is nothing to worry about. The dual wield boogie man isn't going to come out of your Mog closet and rape your ear canal or anything. Then again, rule 34 for someone out there.

Your Acc is Whack

Yes, there is in fact a cap on Hit Rate.

For Dual Wielding jobs like BLU, you will average to around 97% as the main hand caps at 99% and the offhand caps at 95%.

• No amount of accuracy will grant you a 100% hit rate.

So, where am I going with this?
I've often seen players wearing nothing but accuracy equipment, far overcapping it. On top of that they even eat a piece of sushi. This is significantly hurting your DPS. Stahp it!

Accuracy is essentially the baseline to your DPS, and understanding it is important. Don't take your accuracy for Granite.

Outside of content around and into the level 130+ range you are most often fine with ~1250 accuracy at or even before buffs.
Once you have job points capped and improve your equipment, 1250 before buffs becomes much more likely than it ever seems as a new player.

• Often early player content requires ~1200 or less, but for something like a Very Difficult Vol2 Ambuscade or Sinister Reign run you want ~1250 accuracy after buffs.
• However, something like Omen bosses or Difficult/Very Difficult Volume 1 Ambuscade (month depending) and beyond travels well into the 1300+ accuracy range.

• There is often a significant gap between accuracy for Ambuscade Difficult and Very Difficult. Your baseline TP set may go from just right to missing (hah!!) the mark.

Keep buffs in mind. Geo-Torpor (+75 accuracy @900 skill with Dunna, +150 with Idris) from a GEO will not show in your /checkparam <me> command.
Checkparam is your friend and the only real way to determine if you have too much or too little accuracy after parsing. From there you can calculate how much accuracy you need.

For any weapon the dexterity contribution is DEX x 0.75 = Accuracy+.

• While a Cacoethic Ring +1 might seem like one of the best accuracy rings for BLU, it isn't. A Ramuh Ring +1 is worth one one or two more accuracy with a (potential) crit rate bonus.

Finally, I would advise you to scale your accuracy gear up and not just make a normal set and a full accuracy set. You should scale your gear up in certain slots to maintain your DPS from a more optimal combination of accuracy gear.
Going from Brutal Earring to Cessance Earring before using a Telos Earring as an example.

Calculating How Much Accuracy to Add:

Things to note:

• Accuracy+ / 2 = Hit Rate Increase

• +20 Accuracy adds about 10% to your hit-rate.

• 99% is the cap for the mainhand, and 95% for the offhand.

• Thus the main requires 8 more acc to hit the 99% cap over Sub's 95%.

• Accuracy+ from both weapons contributes to your overall accuracy, and not just that weapon.
• The hit rate for each weapon is calculated individually based on their combat-skill levels.
• Your overall Item Level is determined by the iLvl of your Mainhand, and not impacted by your Offhand.

Hit Rate Formula:

(Desired Hit Rate - Current Hit Rate) x 2 = Accuracy Needed

E.g., You parsed a 70% hit rate overall. You want a 99% for your mainhand.

Assuming you happen to be a BLU with Tizona+Almace or some other same-skill DW combo, add at least 58 Acc for a 70% hit rate, 20 Acc for a 89% hit rate.

Obviously parsing isn't perfect, so it is better to err on the side of caution and add at least 5-10 over the perceived cap.

Skill Differences Between Weapons

(Skill Difference) x 0.9 = Difference (round up)

The quick, dirty, and oversimplified way of finding the accuracy difference from skill between weapons is to subtract their differences, multiply by .9, and round up to the nearest whole value.

For a more direct comparison, an unaugmented Tizona / Almace combo that puts your Acc at 1200/1200 would be 1220/1195 at worst with an unaugmented Almace / Colada combo.

• REAMD weapons have 269 skill where Colada/119 weapons have 242 skill, a difference of 27 x 0.9 = 24.3 = 25.

• This does not work as accurately (hence, quick and dirty) when finding the accuracy difference between Something like Tizona and Thibron.

So, to sum that all up:

• Don't use too much accuracy gear. Have tiered sets.

• Don't assume a max accuracy set needs to literally be the most accuracy you can put on. Be willing to sacrifice an accuracy for STP or multihit.

• Why? Well buffs matter the most, you often can't just overcome something serious with just gear and traits.

• Generally, I don't ever have to go past my midset.

• Use /checkparam to see where you are at. Sometimes DEX is more valuable than flat accuracy.

• If they are the same (E.g. Falcon Eye to Honed Tathlum) go for the DEX as it enhances crit rate.

• Eat appropriate food, Sublime Sushi isn't always correct.

• Grape Daifuku can easily be better if accuracy is in the 80+% range without food. Capping accuracy and gaining attack is obviously a winner over being lazy with sushi on everything.

• Figure out how much accuracy you need with mental math after parsing.
• Parse your accuracy with something like Scoreboard, Kparser, or Parse.
• A mainhand DW weapon requires 8 more accuracy to cap over the sub.
• 97 - <your hit rate> = Accuracy to add. If using a 269 skill weapon with a 242 skill weapon, add 24~25 extra accuracy.

• In the case of a Colada It already has +20 accuracy before any augments.

Debuff Deez Nutz

Debuff association is another area which merits discussion. For example, Sudden Lunge against a thunder resistant opponent isn't going to work well or at all. You may think lunge is a physical spell with an additional effect stun, and not a thunder based spell, right?
Well, yes and no. It is indeed a physical spell that does physical slashing damage however, all additional effects are subject to their magical alignment. This means all stuns are thunder based effects and subject to thunder resistances. Regardless of being attached to a physical move.

Another good example is Tenebral Crush. This is a dark based spell, but the defense down is wind based; as are all defense down effects. Other spells like Blastbomb and Regurgitation may be fire and water based, but their binds are ice based.

Remember, all additional effects of BLU spells are subject to magic accuracy and Blue Skill. They are not guaranteed to land either, and unfortunately we only know they landed if we see the effect wear off in the chat log.

The following are the elemental alignments:

Debuff Association
Element	Aligment
Fire	Plague, Amnesia, Addle, Burn, and Magic Attack Down
Earth	Slow, Petrify, Terror, Rasp, and Accuracy Down
Water	Poison, Drown, and Attack Down
Wind	Gravity, Silence, Choke, and Defense Down
Ice	Paralyze, Bind, Frost, Evasion Down
Thunder	Stun, Shock, and Magic Defense Down
Light	Charm, Certain Sleeps, Dia, Flash, Finale, and Magic Accuracy Down
Dark	Certain Sleeps, Bio, Blind, Dispel, and Magic Evasion Down

So, keep this all in mind when you are debuffing dat ass.
You may also inversely apply it to preventing these debuffs from affecting you and your party as well. If you are fighting an enemy where Amnesia is a concern then run in with Barfira and Baramnesra.
Even on the hardest NMs in the game you may reliably resist your average annoyances, such as amnesia, stun, or slow. When bolstered with debuffs like Addle and Geo-Vex. In addition to magic evasion equipment and buffs such as Barspells, Carols, Runeist's Roll, or Geo-Attunement.

Also, when attempting to resist ailments outside of using magic evasion. Specific bonuses such as the Tenacity trait or equipment that specifically resists ailments such as the Hearty Earring operate in a separate check. Similar to how you must fail to evade a physical hit before parry, guard, or a shield block activates.
Furthermore, unlike magic evasion, these resist bonuses are halved in potency against NMs. That 5% on the Hearty Earring then becomes ~2.5%. Which is why I don't even bother spending an inventory spot on it anymore.

Finally, one notable exception would be resisting terror. Petrificaiton, stun, and terror occupy the same debuff slot. You can not be stunned or terrored while petrified for example. Therefore Barpetra helps resist all three. It is whacky, but that is how it goes in Vana'diel.
You would then use Barthundra and Barpetra for stun resistance for example, but Barstonra for petrification and terror.

Gearswap

---

Gearswap (GS) is all there is, was, and ever will be. Also known as an add on for Windower that handles actions like changing gear for you.

Some people get all bent out of shape about third party tools. However, I personally enjoy being able to actually play the game and not worry. So nuts to those people.

If you don't use gearswap then essentially you are like that old lady who sits on a chair to get up the stairs. Also known as a burden to society, but not yet ready for the glue factory.

I have four gearswap .luas available:
You may find them all in my Github.

Here is how they break down:

• Mine: I publish mine, the gear I wear, and it contains customization for myself as well as AM3 Tizona recognition, DW rules, etc.
• Advanced: Gear locking of any custom set (not really needed) is removed as are Tizona AM3 DT rules. Tizona AM3 TP rules remain.
• Basic: The prior, as well as DW rules, AM3 rules, and sets are reduced further. One less acc TP tier, and WS sets are just Attack and Accuracy, sans AttackCap/Uncap.

Getting Started with Gearswap:

• First, download a text editor. I use Notepad ++ personally, but feel free to use anything else.

• Next, cntrl + A the (or highlight it) and copy paste the raw paste data at the bottom of the pastebin page into Notepad++.

• Then, Save As a .lua file. This file is saved in your Local Disk (Probably C:) → Program Files (x86) → Windower 4 → addons → GearSwap → data folder.
  • Feel free to right click this data folder and pin to your quick access if you want. Personally I just pin Notepad++ to the taskbar, but do whatever.

• Afterwards, save the file as either BLU or Yourcharactername_BLU. If you do not have file extensions hidden under your folder options in Windows then you will see .lua after the name.
  • Saving as BLU.lua will load the file for any character that plays BLU on your computer. Saving it as Saladtosser_BLU.lua will only load it for any character named Saladtosser that plays on your computer.

• Finally, all you need is to have the GearSwap addon turned on in Windower before you launch it. Otherwise as long as it is downloaded you can type //lua load gearswap. Alternatively typing unload will obviously unload it.

Pro Tip: Stay in school, don't abuse opioids, and get laid often. Also, when changing out gear in a live file of gearswap you must save the changes, and then reload the .lua to have any changes happen. Type //gs reload and this reloads GearSwap for you.

Gameplay - I Guess These Can be Mechanics Too

Om nom nom, a BLUffet

Yes, you should eat food. Don't be that guy.

I have a cooking mule so this affects some of the things I eat on BLU, but here are the general ones:

Accuracy:

---

Sublime Sushi

• HP+ 40, STR +6, DEX +7, Accuracy +100

• Outside of something fancy, this is the best for accuracy. However, if you are overcapping accuracy, and not capping attack (common), then a Grape Daifuku is going to be a better food.

D.-fried Shrimp

• VIT +3, Accuracy +70

• Very easy and cheap garbage accuracy food to mass produce if you are a cook. That, and it is fun to ask if your party members want 'the D' when they forget food.

Grape Daifuku

• HP +20, STR +2, VIT +3, Accuracy +80, Attack +50, MAB +3

• The fact this food seems to be underused somewhat amazes me.

Attack:

---

Red Curry Bun

• HP +25, STR +7, Attack +150

• There are better attack foods, but these stack and are easy to find. I just crafted stacks of these one day, and rarely use them because of the next food.

Carbonara

• HP +175, STR +4, VIT +2, Attack +65, Store TP +6

• This or preferably Arrabbiata (Arrabbiataryan!) is my preferred attack food because of the HP, Atk, and STP, and is also readily available from Curio Moogles.

Behemoth Steak

• HP +45, STR/DEX +8, Attack +165, Triple Attack +2%

• Crafted, expensive, and doesn't stack. Perfect to roll up with while holding a pinky out.

Defense

---

Rabbit Pie

• STR/VIT +5, Attack/Defense +100

• Niche food. Could see using it for certain runs where

Black Curry Bun

• DEX +2, VIT +4, Defense + 180

• This is essentially the best defense food. [Curio Vendor Moogle]] and chill.

Miso Ramen

• HP +100, STR/VIT +5, Defense +170, Magic Evasion +50, MDB +5

• Magic evasion is is a wonderful stat. Just like physical evasion.

Salt Ramen

• DEX/AGI +5, Accuracy +90, Evasion +90

• This is typically rarer to find on the AH, and pricey. It is also something you would only use for an evasion build such as pulling Omen or Odyssey fodder. Due to BLUs lack of native evasion that 90+ can be crucial for an evasion set.

Magic

---

Rolanberry Daifuku

• HP +20, DEX +2, VIT +3, Accuracy +80, Magic Accuracy +50

• Great food to carry. I am sure that I am not alone in being concerned if Defense Down from Tenebral landed against VD Ambuscade NMs or not.

Pear Crepe

• INT/MND +2, Magic Accuracy +90

• Magic accuracy, 'nuff said.

Cehuetzi Snow Cone

• MP +100, INT/MND +5, Magic Attack Bonus +13, Lizard Killer +5

• Pew, pew. Also, killer effects are undervalued.

Fruit Parfait

• MP +50, INT +3, MND +2, Magic Accuracy +3, Magic Attack Bonus +6

• Snowcones are three times as good, but these are available from the Curio Vendor Moogle and last for 3 hours. Sadly they don't stack. I sort of struggle to see the need for this food.

Enmity

For those of you unfamiliar with Enmity you can read up on the wiki.

The values for the notable Blue Mage enmity spells are as follows:

• Actinic Burst: 180 CE 1080 VE
• Temporal Shift: 180 CE 1080 VE
• Jettatura: 180 CE 1020 VE
  • Gaze move but you gain enmity from it regardless of positioning and the “no effect” message.
• Exuviation: 640 CE 640 VE
  • Per person it lands on.
• Fantod: 320 CE 320 VE
• Geist Wall: 320 CE 320 VE
• Blank Gaze: 320 CE 320 VE
  • Just spam Fantod instead of Blank Gaze or Geist Wall. Save those for /BLU tanking.
    • While I am mentioning tanking /BLU, all of the sleep spells such as Sheep Song and Soporific seem to have 320 CE/VE enmity.

Wearing enmity gear while casting these spells increases their effectiveness by a measure of 1% per 1+ enmity. This caps at 200+

Inversely -1 enmity works in the same way except has a cap of -50.

Modifiers

I mentioned knowing modifiers for spells, but it does matter if you want to increase your output.

While physical spells are affected by STR and Attack and magical by INT and Magic Attack Bonus. They may have drastically different modifiers than what you would expect or what all the others do.

For example:

• Benthic Typhoon is a 60% AGI
• Charged Whisker is 50% DEX
• The hybrid elemental nukes are their respective elemental stat property.
  • Searing Tempest is 80% STR
  • Silent Storm is 80% AGI
  • Scouring Spate is 80% MND
    • The exceptions are light and dark.
      • Tenebral Crush is 30% INT MND VIT
      • Blinding Fulgor is 30% STR DEX AGI
• So on and so forth.

Something useless:

• Blazing Bound gains nothing from Magic Attack Bonus. Instead it increased by Magic Defense Bonus.
• Similarly, Cannonball is increased by a users defense instead of attack.
  • This shows the intricacies of BLU. Whilst you are likely not ever casting Blazing Bound or Cannonball it is just an example of not taking things for granted.

This begs the question:

• "Should I use gear based on the modifiers of the spell? AGI for Silent Storm instead of INT?"
  • No, you generally shouldn't unless there is an powerful enough Elemental Affinity (E.g. Pixie Hairpin +1) attached to the piece.
  • Just like almost all physical spells are increased by STR and Attack regardless of their modifiers, so are almost all magical ones by INT and MAB. Due to the nature of the power attached to equipment as well as the number of options now compared to the past. General best in slot physical and magical pieces will win in most situations.
    • What this does mean though is that while using Burst Affinity, spell modifiers become doubled (Hashishin Basmak +1 add to this). Since INT not only increases damage, but is attached to most of the best nuking gear this means a spell like Spectral Floe or Tenebral Crush (with the aforementioned affinity especially) will be your strongest nukes if a monsters elemental resistance is not a factor.
      • Secondary consideration would go to MND as it is also on nuking equipment. So your Scouring Spates will do more than your Silent Storms

Skillchain in the Membrane

Cant skillchain, got no brain!

So to skillchain you just "toss that ham in tha fryin' pan, like spam. It's done when it comes in, slam." It is just another section the same, don't feel no shame that you can't skillchain without knowledge in your brain.

Skillchaining, much like writing out some quick crap rap, is actually very easy.
It is something you should learn about and take advantage of. There are many times that it enhances your gameplay, strategy, or the strength of you/your party to take advantage of, and besides you get a good skillchain bonus trait on BLU so use it, damn it.

Admittedly, I didn't fully understand skillchaining for a very (very) long time because I never stopped to understand how they work or which properties were attached to what. Rather I just learned "this SCs with this" and worked off my memory for a long time. "Try it and lets see, and I will try to remember"

This is no way to do it, and the of Apex pts forced me to learn more than some combinations, and it is very simple. Perhaps, I shouldn't even be admitting all of that as it reduces my credibility, but we both don't care about that since you are reading this and I am writing it! So, lets connect over my ignorance.

What confused me from the very start years ago were those dumb skillchain picture graphs. What made me understand was looking at the organized ones on the Skillchain page I will borrow below.

Level 1

Second	First Property
Property	Transfixion	Compression	Liquefaction	Scission	Reverberation	Detonation	Induration	Impaction
Transfixion		Transfixion	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Compression	Compression		N/A	N/A	N/A	Gravitation	Compression	N/A
Liquefaction	N/A	N/A		Liquefaction	N/A	N/A	N/A	Liquefaction
Scission	Distortion	N/A	Scission		N/A	Scission	N/A	N/A
Reverberation	Reverberation	N/A	N/A	Reverberation		N/A	Fragmentation	N/A
Detonation	N/A	Detonation	N/A	Detonation	N/A		N/A	Detonation
Induration	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Induration	N/A		N/A
Impaction	N/A	N/A	Fusion	N/A	Impaction	N/A	Impaction

Level 2

Second		First Property
Property		Gravi	tation	Disto	rtion	Fus	ion	Fragmen	tation
Gravi	tation			Darkness		Gravitation		N/A
Disto	rtion	Darkness				N/A		Distortion
Fus	ion	N/A		Fusion				Light
Fragmen	tation	Fragmentation		N/A		Light

Level 3 and 4

This is merely Light>Light or Dark>Dark properties to create light or Radiance or dark and Umbra skillchains. Level 4 is made possible in the exact combination as level 3 except it may only occur while the user is under the effect of Aeonic Aftermath. Which is simply gained by using the weaponskill of the Aeonic Weapon, in our case Sequence. Furthermore, the number of weapon skill steps required to create a level 4 skillchain vary based on the level of aftermath.

Sword Skillchain Properties

So to explain the tables there, you must understand the WS properties of our weapons. If a weapon has two skillchain properties then it attempts to skillchain with the first one listed before moving on to the second element if unable to skillchain with the first.

Blue Mage Sword Weapon Skills
Weapon Skill	Property
Fast Blade 5	Scission
Burning Blade 30	Liquefaction
Red Lotus Blade 30	Liquefaction / Detonation
Flat Blade 75	Impaction
Shining Blade 100	Scission
Seraph Blade 125	Scission
Circle Blade 150	Reverberation / Impaction
Spirits Within 175	None
Vorpal Blade 200	Scission / Impaction
Savage Blade 240 Quest	Fragmentation / Scission
Sanguine Blade 300	None
Requiescat** 357 Merit	Gravitation / Scission
Chant du Cygne Empyrean	Light / Distortion
Expiacion Mythic	Distortion / Scission
**Requiescat becomes a Darkness property under the effect of Aeonic Aftermath

So what does this mean? Well, lets look back at the tables.

Lets say you want to make a light SC. Well, the most common one for BLUs is CDC x2 due to reasons about to be discussed. Only the weapon skills from the Ultimate Weapons have the ability to create 2 step dark or light skillchains. So the only thing that can do solo on BLU is CDC>CDC as it is the only WS we get in the list above with the light property.
Now, what if you don't have a light property WS? Well if you refer to the charts you must use fusion>fragmentation or vice versa.
However, BLU does not get a fusion weapon skill, and in fact the only ones for sword are Atonement and Knights of Round which are both absolutely abysmal. So this means you must multistep!

Obviously you would just use CDC>CDC for light instead of, well— Attonement, as the damage outweighs weaker weapon skills being used just to make a skillchain.
While multistep skillchaining does increase the skillchain damage to a mob it is a DPS loss to start using flat or circle blade to do this, but this is something a Sequence user has to deal with to make level 4s, and why BLU makes a poor Aenoic multisteper.
With that said, in order to make fusion with swords solo as BLU you must use level 1 skillchains to make a level 2 (fusion), and then to make light you need to weapon skill with with a fragmentation property. CDC is light/distortion, and that is why all those Fusion SCs you see go by and then die after you use CDC as you fail to make light with those properties.
So to make fusion with level 1 skillchains you need to combine liquefaction>impaction, and no it does not reverse this time or else it will create liquefaction. This then makes fusion and you must then use a fragmentation property move to make light. In our case the only one we get is Savage Blade, but that is thankfully a good weapon skill. Yeah, I am looking at you, crap-uiescat. If Attonement and Knights of the Round didn't exist then Requiescat would be the great sword tragedy of our time.

So all of that has has just made a light skillchain, and now you can use CDC to close a double light!

WHAAAA, double light?! Yes, double light.

Why can't you do this with multiple CDCs you ask?
Well, Empy weapon skills and any other Light/Dark WSs are terminal meaning they can not make double skillchains with themselves because they are making a level 4 (light→light or dark→dark) right off the bat. You must use two level 2 skillchains to first make a level 3 light or dark skillchain before using a light or dark weapon skill to make a double light/dark skillchain. Afterwards, this is also terminal as you can only continue a light or dark skillchain once before having to start over.

E.g. CDC→CDC = Light → CDC ≠ Double Light.
E.g. Dimidiation → CDC = Light → Dimidation OR CDC ≠ Double Light
E.g. Fusion WS or SC → Fragmentation (I.e Savage Blade) = Light → Light WS (CDC) → Double Light
E.g Evisceration → CDC or Rudra's Storm = Dark → Rudra's Storm = Double Dark

So why does Rudra's get to double dark, isn't it a Darkness WS? Well because it is using the secondary property (distortion) to make the first dark skillchain, and Evisceration is gravitation.

Don't worry though, you aren't on your own if you still need some help. Technology exists, you can always download the FFXI calc and use the skillchain section in it for all of your jobs, weapons, and even magic. It has been around for many many years.

If you prefer a web based solution, Flippantry is a good/better solution.

Sequence Skillchains

I would imagine most of the people reading this probably don't have sequence. If you are wondering if Sequence is worth it, that is covered in the sword section.

However, if you have a Seq you may self [[Radiance]:

• Requiescat → Savage Blade = Fragmentation → Chain Affinity Thrashing Assault = Light → Chant du Cygne = Light/Radiance

• The unfortunate part is Chain Affinity as not only is it on a timer, but it leaves you with 0 TP after use and may cost you the radiance.

The sword is designed for self Umbraing though. Unfortunately Requiescat is a crap weaponskill.

• Savage Blade → Chant du Cygne = Distortion → Requiescat = Darkness → Requiescat = Darkness/Umbra

Essentially any similar pattern of multistepping works with any closing WS as long as either AM is active or activated mid sequence.

• Something + Something = Level 2 + Something = Level 3 + some Light or Dark = Umbra/Radiance.

Don't skillchain for the sake of skillchaining, you need to use solid weapon skills to make it worthwhile.

I’m a Loose Cannonball BLU Who Plays by His Own Rules

TPing

• Do not spam your spells while meleeing.
  • THIS MEANS SUDDEN LUNGE TOO! Holy shit, please if it isn't stunning the mob then don't. You also cut your DPS to cast it.
    • There is a two second casting delay for casting a spell. This means you are penalized twice over, casting time along with casting delay.

• When you are in a capped haste situation on harder NMs. Do not bother with casting DD spells or self SCing with Chain Affinity. It is simply a loss in net damage.
  • You are likely to have your SC interrupted anyway.
  • Not only will your DD spells do less damage to these stronger target NMs, but your DD spell sets have much less accuracy than your TPing sets.
  • Exceptions to this rule would include things such as Tenebral Crush, Sweeping Gouge, Mighty Guard, Nature's Meditation, [Erratic Flutter]] etc. These are not really DD spells (well, Tenebral is a good nuke) in any case.
    • Furthermore there are times where it is beneficial to use physical spells to exploit a target's weakness, but this is often against lesser NMs or maybe an Ambuscade.
      • E.g. Chain Affinity → CDC → Sinker Drill = skillchain. Efflux → Sinker Drill. Against a bird NM like Zduhac is an effective way of fighting it as a buffed sinker drill with GEO and the sort can and should easily be pumping out weapon skillesque damage.
  • These rules are never universal and only general. There are times where it is very beneficial to exploit certain monsters weaknesses.
    • If your physical spell will finish off the remaining HP of any target then it is advantageous to do such. Especially on weaker monsters.

• Using your job abilities right before battle will remove the JA delay you are faced with once the fight starts.
  • E.g. Efflux > Berserk → Face monster and take weapons out → immediately cast something like Sinker Drill as your swords are coming out.
    • You could macro this with something like:

/attack <t>

/ma “Sinker Drill” <t>

Physical Spell DDing:

• Separate the use of Chain Affinity and Efflux for best results in overall DPS if casting spells is beneficial. Which is to say it does enough damage to warrant use. There are times to combine them still for closing a SC, generally with Sinker Drill on piercing weak monsters. Don't worry too much about it, but I am just saying it for posterity.
  • Overall far more than half of your overall damage is skewed towards weapon skills and you don't want to have spell and JA delay impacting your TP gain.
    • Keep in mind that you can not surpass 3,000 TP in the damage calculations from the bonus from either Efflux or Enchainment, if you have that merited for some reason. Any TP bonus provided by gear or abilities will be wasted in this case.

• Despite what the above may lead you to believe about spell use. Using a sufficiently strong spell like Sinker Drill or Thrashing Assault after every couple of weaponskills (depends on your MP pool) especially with CA or Efflux should be a DPS gain in several situations.
  • This is why you simply just have to know your enemy. You don’t generally want to bother casting DD spells on a harder Escha mega boss or a high leveled and evasive Unity, but weaker targets (aka "fodder") and weaker NMs have lower stats and defense, and thus take more damage from a well built and buffed physical spell.
  • Don’t worry this will all come naturally over time (hopefully). It is not about being the best, and no one can know everything either.

Nuking:

• If nuking, use Burst Affinity whenever it is up unless you are planning to actually magic burst as it boosts the damage of even unbursted spells.
  • Doubles the spell attribute modifier regardless of if it is bursting or not.
    • Be mindful of spell modifiers for reasons like this.

Changing Gear:

• Change gear for almost every action you perform or else you are just handicapping your output.
  • Any random job with a full PDT/MDT (Physical/Magical Damage Taken) set will outlive you and your barrier tusk/cocoon/occultation in TP gear most days of the week. If you don’t have at least something for a PDT/MDT set then you are doing it wrong.
    • There is a dramatic difference in survivability between hitting a macro when it readies the TP move for a defensive set and just DDing the night away with a foot in the grave. The difference between an instant death and going into low HP from a PDT set is pretty clear cut for certain monsters.
    • Similarly I carry a pure magic evasion set. This greatly aids in the evasion of amnesia, debuffs, or even certain dooms and charms from TP moves. I have used this to my benefit and to save my entire group many times. Consider carrying one. This was more of a thing before the Malignance Attire Set simplified this.

• This is all why gearswap or at the very least the limited in game equip sets are vital to success. Changing gear is a core aspect of FFXI, and this sets it apart from other MMOs. Gear min-maxing gives XI a long lived depth and variety to its gameplay. So don't ask to have it both ways.

How to DD, Tank, and (Duke) Nukem

Did somebody say DDs?!

Get your mind out of from the bottom of the gutter.
No, this is not a section dedicated to round sections of a voluptuous female's anatomy. It should be though. Lets have a moment of silence to honor big tits.

*intermission*

*intermission continues*

Now, to be the breast and brightest BLU out there it all starts with damage dealing.

DD Subjobs :

• /WAR
• /DRG
• /NIN
• /RUN

WAR is your go to sub for the majority of situations as Berserk, Warcry, and Double Attack to go along with your Triple Attack trait gives it the edge.

DRG comes into play as your best sub if you are in a situation where you are capping attack and thus no longer benefiting from Berserk and Warcry.

• The WS Damage Boost trait from /DRG is a benefit to all WSs, and not just something like Savage Blade or Expiacion. Most of your damage is from Weapon Skills so— yeah.

/RUN and /NIN are niche for damage reduction.

• /NIN should be obvious, but is more rare to need.
• /RUN is really nice for reducing magic damage or resisting enfeebling/TP moves.

Wait! No /DNC?! Fuck no, unless you are goofing around or doing storyline missions where you need to heal a NPC or can use jig while running between zones. Then there is no real reason to ever sub DNC. This goes for all you THFs out there I get when shouting for my runs too. Stahp.

---

Now, if you lack a Tizona which grants you the ability to not worry about your MP (most of the time) without having refresh set. Then you should know your most MP efficient DD physical spells. You should probably just know them anyway.

These include:

• Delta Thrust (Addition Effect: Plague)
• Heavy Strike (-100 Acc and a forced critical hit)
• Glutinous Dart (~22’ casting range)

This was more important before the days of five trusts. However, it still matters for taking down fodder

Keep Nature's Meditation up while DDing on targets that matter.

For checking your accuracy hit rate the Scoreboard add on to Windower is easy and very helpful. For your literal accuracy you may use /checkparam <me> though.

If you don’t use Windower/Gearswap then it is my deepest regret to inform you that you are gimping yourself for whatever silly reason.
It isn't that hard either just take a working one or the one I offer and change the equipment to your own . You have no idea how times I have heard that too excuse too. So don't be a big pussy.

Anyway, it will takes less effort for any DD or even ones with worse equipment than yourself to out perform you if they have a solid GS (gearswap) set up along with the ability to gauge their performance better with scoreboard. If you care to play this game with others then you can care about yourself and the welfare of others by not bringing them down.

Weapon Skill Options

While you should get CDC through either buying the items or farming them in Walk of Echoes, you should know how to evaluate your options with and without it.

I don't have CDC

• Vorpal Blade /
  • Gear up and spam Vorpal Blade as an alternative at early levels until you obtain Chant du Cygne or a Kaja Sword for primarily Savage Blade spam. The main difference between Vorpal and CDC, besides being weaker and SCing poorly, is that STR is a modifier instead of DEX.
    • Use Vorpal at ~1,500 TP or less unless you can SC with Savage Blade or have the Kaja Sword

When to not use CDC

• Savage Blade /
  • If you are at ~2,000+ TP or ~1,750 with a proper Moonshade Earring then a properly geared Savage Blade should be your choice of WS even after unlocking CDC. The WS scales better with TP than CDC.

• Expiacion /
  • If you happen to have a Tizona then a properly geared Expiacion will replace Savage Blade in the same situation.

• Requiescat /
  • Mainly for skill chaining or rarely to bypass resistances. Otherwise the damage leaves much to be desired.

• Sanguine Blade
  • When properly geared this is a solid WS, but it is niche. You will use it to save your life typically, but it rarely comes in use as a darkness magical damage WS. It doesn't interrupt (or cause) skillchains either.

• Realmrazer /
  • For opening up to close a light SC with Black Halo
    • Extra TP only increases the accuracy of the WS, so don't hold TP or use Moonshade.

• Black Halo /
  • Great blunt damage, and is especially respectable with a Kaja Rod or it's upgraded version.

Tank and Spank

Subjobs :

• /WAR,
• /RUN
  

Situationally:

• /NIN

As a BLU you have the unique ability to stand-in this area if need be.

I would like to stop and mention before going further. Enmity gear is very important.

Paladin or Rune Fencer has Crusade for +30 enmity right off the bat, then all of their gear generally has enmity on it, and their abilities (especially Sentinel) grab hate. Couple that with the enmity changes and you are way behind the curve before even getting started. Enmity +50 is the same as multiplying the enmity from a spell by 1.5. It is trivial for those jobs to get that much enmity +, but a BLU has to really try for that much enmity + equipment.

---

If you want to tank:

1. Carry yet more armor.
2. Understand Enmity and enmity loss.
3. Understand BLU enmity spells.

Understanding enmity:
While reading the page is best, here's the quick 411.

There are two types on enmity:

• Cumulative Enmity (CE)
• Volatile Enmity (VE)
• Both cap at 30,000 each.

CE is gained from dealing damage, certain abilities, and certain spells. It does not decay, but instead must be lost. It is also harder to build than VE.

CE is lost when taking damage, being enfeebled, having a shadow taken, or having it reset by a TP move. Having higher HP decreases the amount of CE lost. This is what will end up keeping hate, and it is what tanks have the hardest time building.

VE is lost over time and that is it. It is rapidly gained and rather rapidly lost at -60 per second.

• E.g. Provoke is 1 CE and 1800 VE when used with enmity +0. At -60 a second it is completely lost in 30 seconds.
  • If used with enmity +50 in gear this becomes 2,700 VE gained from provoke. See the importance?

Understanding BLUs enmity spells and tactics:
Actinic Burst is the quickest recast on your big three hate spells, and should be spammed if you are seeking to be an attention whore. Temporal Shift and Jettatura are your longer recast spells.
Fantod is a solid spamming option between those spells for building CE. Exuviation is double the CE and VE of Fantod, but has a longer cast and much longer recast.
Fast cast gear is important, but you don’t need me telling you that, but I do need to tell you to macro in enmity gear for all these spells in a midcast. Otherwise, don't bother trying to tank anything that matters.

White Wind is another great way to pull and hold hate if you can heal more than a couple of people. Once again though, unless you are next to a bunch of melees though this will be useless.

If you have the MP to support it, Occultation can be an amazing damage mitigation spell.
Various magical TP moves like Astral Flow generally don't remove Occultation either. The flip side is that physical AoE moves absorbed by utsusemi shadows will remove occultation without mitigating damage. This includes attacks from Iron Giants and various other monsters and NMs you will encounter.
Multi hit single TP moves however, do tend to hit occultation shadows though. I say tend to because it is not a 100% effect (well, it is Blink) like shadows are. It is around a 75% rate, and weakener monsters tend to have a higher rate of hitting a shadow. You gain 1 shadow on occultation for every 50 skill you have so macro accordingly. So Between BLUs various aspects of haste, fast cast, and gear Occultation should be up pretty quick. If you get hit with slow you are looking at a recast timer of closer to a minute compared to being ready in ~15 seconds or so. Haste and fast cast are important if using this spell seriously to mitigate damage.

What is very handy and perhaps even overlooked is Magic Barrier.
If you are solidly maintaining hate against a creature inclined towards magical damage then using this may be helpful. Taking less damage also helps keep the hate focused on you. Along with this is, Saline Coat and Magic Defense Bonus traits allows BLU to pass even a RUN in MDB. Think of Saline Coat as your decaying cocoon for magic damage. A BLU that is properly geared in an MDT set, with traits set, these spells, and even /RUN in fitting situations. Will simply laugh at magical damage from monsters.

Cocoon and/or Mighty Guard] should always be on. The spells are simply great, and since we were bragging about RUN we can go ahead and brag how a BLU can surpass even the defense of a PLD thanks to the introduction of Mighty Guard!

Beyond that, Barrier Tusk is a -15% damage taken spell that lasts for three minutes and bypassses the 50% DT cap. No other jobs can achieve this feat (excluding pets with Abyssea atmas) aside from a Paladin with Aegis and/or Burtgang and RUN with Aettir or Epeolatry.
Unfortunately, the -% DT of Barrier Tusk is calculated after gear. Thus it is only -57.5% if you are already at the 50% cap.

For more physical tanking obstacles you can keep flash on a target most of the time with Retinal Glare. It has a solid duration for the recast. However, I typically find I don't generally have time to bother with that.

Inquartata is a real gem. It is different than parry skill and the like. Inquartata adds to your base parry rate. Subbing RUN or setting Saurian Slide will provide you +9% parry rate regardless. This is important for mitigating damage past your PDT/MDT alone. It is rather invaluable.
You can also parry the moves of Iron Giants or other monsters that attack with TP moves. You simply will get an "evades the attack" message instead.

Finally, about Counter. Despite having a cool counter rate with O. Counterstance on and the counter trait set. Counter has an accuracy check before it goes off. This means if you could not hit the monster after an accuracy check then counter won't occur. Your 20%+ counter rate might go of off ~4% of the time while tanking like this. Thefore, niche uses for counter builds must be balanced with your accuracy needs.

Summary:
All these tidbits should help you cover the general ins and outs of tanking. There is no way I could cover all of the different ways to tank XYZ in this game, but applying these general tactics will help you go far. Overall, your biggest challenge will be holding hate more so than surviving provided you have buff, gear, and someone who is not asleep at the wheel curing you. Then you can pretty feel like that real third best tank in the game that you are.

OBLUterate it with Magic

Subjobs:

• /RDM
• /SCH
  • For weather with a Hachirin-no-Obi.

It is time to nuke ass and chew bubble gum, and I am all out of gum.

BLU is actually pretty awesome at nuking (minus the magic bursting factor). In the past it used to be a niche, but now after several large additions from SE it is an awesome experience. The 8 hybrid elemental nukes alone are a testament of this. As is being able to have room from extra spells from the Gift gifts.

Certain NMs, Events such as Alluvion Skirmish - Yorcia and Vagary, AoE Capacity Point parties or soloing, Einherjar, etc will all see you nuking.

AoE Burn it with Fire

Subjobs:

• /RDM
• /SCH
  • For weather with an Hachirin-no-Obi.

Sing it with me: My Blue Mage love, AoE AoE-oh, mobs I ‘d love to show yah~~

This section goes along with nuking, and apparently singing. But, AoEing is important to any career BLU as it is the best way to gain EXP and CPs.

Ever since the birth of Charged Whisker burning in Abyssea BLU has had yet another trick added to the bag. Being able to round up a bunch of monsters and then go Bosnian on them.

A random tidbit that Black Mages may be familiar with. Unlike the penalty to -ga nukes, BLU magic AoE nuke damage is not reduced by the number of targets hit.

On top of this advantage BLU has the greatest (well, it is cool at least) AoE nuke in the game via Subduction which is near instant cast, with a low recast, for a very low amount of MP, and a -76% movement speed gravity effect. Properly geared, your subductions should be doing ~3k damage or more to monsters. That is the floor pretty much in terms of damage as the rest of BLUs AoE nukes, especially the new big 8 hybrid elemental nukes, are even more powerful.

You can easily wipe out an army of mobs like no other job while in a group or solo.

You do however need to have the gear to compensate for your pulls. A full PDT set is important with evasion in in an extra spots. With so many mobs the different between even 40% and 50% PDT will matter.

The next and most important thing is aquaveil. Yeah, that blue bubble icon you forgot about a million years ago because you never needed it while leveling up. Having this on is the difference between life and death. Carcharian Verve should be your go-to option here and is also much more potent than casting aquaveil from sub mage. The attack and magic attack from the spell may wear off fast, but the aquaveil lasts for 15 minutes.
Depending on your rate of pulling/being beaten, you will still be falling back to sub mage aquaveil, but it is still enough to get the job done with other buffs protecting you. Watch your zealousness.

Don't forget about Burst Affinity either. Using this is an easy way to pull some extra mobs and depending on several factors, one shot them.

The AoEing Process:

• Buff
  • Occultation
  • Diamondhide
  • Barrier Tusk or Phalanx
  • Aquamotherfuckingveil!
  • Cocoon and/or Reactor Cool
    • Reactor cool is weaker, but 3 minutes, ice spikes, and an MAB bonus trait with some INT+. So I tend to use this.
• Pull
• AoE

• Favor Entomb and Spectral Floe for their stopping power of petrify and terror respectively.

• Repeat

Now, it depends on your target, but I like to open up with Spectral Floe for the terror effect, and then the secondary depends on the target. If you are pulling Acuex fire is best, but chances are you could use almost anything to finish them. Against a combo of Umbrils and Dullahans, Blinding Fulgor and Searing Tempest will also shine. However, it makes most sense to follow up with something that also protects you if you aren't finishing enemies off in two volleys. Petrify from Entomb, or stun from Anvil Lightning are what I am talking about here.

That is all there is to it.

For those using gearswap, don't forget to lock in your CP mantle (you have that right? AH or Incursion with //gs disable (or enable) back. This works for any slot by the way.

Phalanx vs Barrier Tusk

Don't feel like a BLUfus if you don't know which to use. That is what you are reading this for now. Phalanx can actually be a lot more effective for AoE burning than Barrier Tusk. This likely means having the enhancing gear and augmented phalanx +3 Taeon set (or +5 with herculean and dark matter) gear though.

Here is a chart I made to illustrate the mitigation potential of both:

The chart (click →)
As you can see, phalanx is more effective on weaker opponents where Barrier is better for fighting more powerful NMs. As such, if you are AoE pulling, Phalanx is the better choice. Barrier Tusk doesn't start becoming special until taking around 400+ damage compared to a geared Phalanx.

Soloing Capacity Points

There becomes an immediate personal choice available.

Meleeing or Maging.

There are those who rather hack and slash their way through earning CP while solo. Then there are those who believe in AoEing a lot of mobs at once with magic to gain points. AoEing is a much more efficient way of doing this, but you need to be geared for it. I am more of a hack and slash guy most days myself, but I know there is no real reason not to go AoE for if you team up with another BLU you can even pass the CP/hr parties are hitting.

That being said AoE burning mobs on BLU is a thrilling experience. You know, for the first couple of pulls. :P

If you are meleeing solo then pretty much you are just chilling in Escha, have fun.

Camps for AoEing CPs

There are several good camps. They occur in the secondary dungeon maps in Adoulin. Examples:

• The bat camp at ~(F-9/10) in Woh Gates map 2 off of the Marjami Ravine teleporter on the cliff, up the vine, and around the corner from Bivouac #3, ~(F-11).
  • Make use of the Umbrils there for MP off Magic Hammer.

• Acuex camp at (J-7) in Sih Gates map 2 off of the Ceizak Battlegrounds teleporter at (G-11).

• Leech, Eft, Raptor camp in Moh Gates off of the Morimar Basalt Fields teleporter at (H-5) near Bivoauc #5.
  • Personally, I don’t like raptors as they have enhanced movement speed.
  • In the big room there are also a lot of Umbrils and Dullahans which you can prey upon.

• Escha nowadays is probably the best place for CP (grab a Mollifier from the NPC). There are also Records of Eminence objectives for the mobs in these zones.
  

Beginners:

• Escha - Zi'Tah at camps like #2 or #6.
  • Conflux 6 conveniently forms a loop you can circle around doing efts and bugards, but it tends to get crowded.
    

Intermediate:

• Escha - Ru'Aun
  • Sharks and Aerns after running straight from the entrance.
    • Gargouiles aggro at night only.
      

Advanced:

• Reisenjima
  • Camps like the bridge near #5 or the Raaz and Porxies near #3
    • Soloers and XP pts frequent Reisen. So you may end up getting infringed upon.

Suggested Spellsets

A Blue Mage finishes off leveling with 55 set points available.
Once you immediately merit that to 60 you need to spend job points to gain access to 80. This is o-BLU-iously game changing. It is (opinion warning!!) the single most important job point category out of all 22 jobs and all their different categories in terms of what it gives a job.

Once you have spent 100 job points (then again at 1,200….) you gain a Gift trait that increases your spell traits by a tier. E.g DW3 set becomes DW4, but this does not work on everything as you do not get auto refresh II or DA/TA II.

Don’t forget to form your own ideas, and not always blindly follow. The only things that are universal are Studios and remotes. Keep that in mind for your spell sets.

Obvious Note is Obvious:
Your spellset is highly situational and never a one size fits all. If you are primarily using Savage Blade or Expiacion as your WS then setting equal costing spells of Empty Thrash (+3 STR) and Searing Tempest (+8 STR) over Acrid Stream (+2 DEX) and Anvil Lightning (+8 DEX) will have a meaningful impact on your DPS, for example.

One last less obvious and less important note as well, several of our BLU traits are weaker than their job equivalents.
Off the top of my head these include:

• Triple Attack
• TA is a 6% trait while BLU receives a 5%
• Double Attack
• DA I is a 10% trait while ours is 7%
• Fast Cast
  • Fast cast I is 10% whereas BLU’s fast cast starts at 5%

DD

Focus on smashing it!

60 Points
Notes	Spells	Cost	Traits Gained
Base set
	Delta Thrust	2	Dual Wield I
	Barbed Crescent	2
	Molting Plumage	6	Dual Wield II
	Quad. Continuum	4	Dual Wield III
	Blazing Bound	3
	Animating Wail	5	Dual Wield IV
	Mortal Ray	4
	Erratic Flutter	6	Fast Cast ½
	Sudden Lunge	4	Store TP I
	Fantod	1
	Nature's Meditation	6	Accuracy Bonus I
	Magic Fruit	3
	Total Cost	46
Suggested options for remaining points:
Option A
	Heavy Strike	2	Double Attack
	Acrid Stream or Empty Thrash	3
	Sinker Drill	6	Critical Attack Bonus I
	Battery Charge	3
	Total Cost	60
Option B
	Sweeping Gouge (15% Def↓)	6	Lizard Killer
	Winds of Promy.	5
	Battery Charge	3
	Total Cost	60
Other Suggestions
	Frightful Roar (10% Def↓ AoE)	3
	Barrier Tusk	3
	White Wind	5
	Cocoon	1
Dual Wield IV was chosen over the III of later sets because if you only have 60 points to spend then I am willing to bet that you lack dual wield gear to cap delay under the magical haste cap. A new player will likely only have Taeon Boots or maybe Suppanomimi to go along with this. So, if you read the section before on dual wield in this guide you can figure out what to do for yourself, but new players typically lack Mighty Guard too so DW4 is a safe bet. Adjust to DW3 otherwise. The rest is pretty straight forward. Set what you need and aim to keep the base set in tact.

70 Points with the 100 point job Gift
Notes	Spells	Cost	Traits Gained
Base set
	Delta Thrust	2	Dual Wield II
	Barbed Crescent	2
	Molting Plumage	6	Dual Wield III
	Thrashing Assault	7	Triple Attack
	Heavy Strike	2
	Acrid Stream or Empty Thrash	3
	Paralyzing Triad	6	Skillchain Bonus II
	Erratic Flutter	6	Fast Cast I
	Sudden Lunge	4	Store TP II
	Fantod	1
	Sinker Drill	6	Critical Attack Bonus II
	Nature's Meditation	6	Accuracy Bonus II
	Barrier Tusk	3
	Magic Fruit	3
	Battery Charge	3
	Cocoon	1
	Total Cost	61
Suggested options for remaining points:
Option A
	Diffusion Ray	6	Store TP III
	Glutinous Dart	2	Max HP Boost II (W/ Barrier Tusk)
	Total Cost	69
Option B
	Searing Tempest or Anvil Lightning	8	Attack Bonus or Accuracy Bonus III
	Total Cost	69
If you have 71 points or wish to drop cocoon you can pick up Glutinous Dart for Max HP Boost II. Otherwise you should be more used to mixing and matching your DD spells by now.

80 Points and 1200 JP+
Notes	Spells	Cost	Traits Gained
Base set
	Delta Thrust	2	Dual Wield III
	Barbed Crescent	2
	Thrashing Assault	7	Triple Attack
	Heavy Strike	2
	Acrid Stream or Empty Thrash	3
	Paralyzing Triad	6	Skillchain Bonus III
	Sinker Drill	6	Critical Attack Bonus III
	Erratic Flutter	6	Fast Cast II
	Sudden Lunge	4	Store TP III
	Fantod	1
	Diffusion Ray	6	Store TP IV
	Tail Slap	4	Store TP V
	Sickle Slash	4
	Nature's Meditation	6	Accuracy Bonus III
	Magic Fruit	3
	Battery Charge or Barrier Tusk	3
	Cocoon	1
	Total Cost	66
Suggested options for remaining points:
Option A
	Searing Tempest or Anvil Lightning	8	Attack Bonus III or Accuracy Bonus IV
	Sweeping Gouge (15% Def↓)	6	Lizard Killer
	Total Cost	80
Option B
	Tenebral Crush (20% Def↓ AoE)	8	Magic Accuracy Bonus III
	Frenetic Rip	3	Accuracy Bonus IV
	Vanity Dive	2
	Total Cost	79
Option C
	Tenebral Crush (20% Def↓ AoE)	8	Magic Accuracy Bonus III
	Glutinous Dart	2	Max HP Boost III (W/ Barrier Tusk)
	Occultation	3
	Total Cost	79
So, using Sweeping Gouge over the 5% stronger defense down Tenebral Crush allows you to gain 8 dex and an Accuracy Bonus trait. It also costs 90 less MP, is single target, and casts faster despite the worst recast. Maybe you don't need an accuracy bonus trait though and the 5% defense down wins. So you will have to weigh your options. This is not to say don't use Tenebral either. It is a great spell and the additional effect applies better than Gouge which can also miss the mob since it is physical. For those who have have Tizona, you don't need Battery Charge 97+% of the time. So, Barrier Tusk or Occultation become your friends. I generally side with the more reliable Tusk, but for a mob like Maju I ditch it completely for Occultation to eat up his Delta Thrusts. If you find yourself with extra points after adjusting always swing to use spells like Glutinous Dart for the stats.

80 Points and 1200 JP+ Full Frontline Accuracy
Notes	Spells	Cost	Traits Gained
Base set
	Delta Thrust	2	Dual Wield III
	Barbed Crescent	2
	Thrashing Assault	7	Triple Attack
	Heavy Strike	2
	Acrid Stream or Empty Thrash	3
	Paralyzing Triad	6	Skillchain Bonus III
	Erratic Flutter	6	Fast Cast II
	Sudden Lunge	4	Store TP III
	Fantod	1
	Sinker Drill	6	Critical Attack Bonus III
	Nature's Meditation	6	Accuracy Bonus III
	Searing Tempest or Anvil Lightning	8	Attack Bonus III or Accuracy Bonus IV
	Frenetic Rip	3	Accuracy Bonus V
	Vanity Dive	2
	Disseverment	5	Accuracy Bonus VI
	Dimensional Death	5
	Battery Charge, Barrier Tusk, or Occultation	3
	Cocoon	1
	Total Cost	72
Suggested options for remaining points:
Option A
	Tenebral Crush (20% Def↓ AoE)	8	Magic Accuracy Bonus III
	Total Cost	80
Option B
	Magic Fruit, Battery Charge, Barrier Tusk, or Occultation	3	Drop Cocoon to gain the point back.
	Sweeping Gouge (15% Def↓)	6	Lizard Killer
	Total Cost	80
Option C
	Barrier Tusk, or Occultation with Glutinous Dart Winds of Promyvion or White Wind	3 or 5	Dropping Defense Down when it won't land. Max HP Boost (W/ Glutinous Dart and Barrier Tusk)
	Total Cost	80
It is of my personal style that when you are DDing on the frontline and need to set all the accuracy traits (that is +73 Acc in traits) then you generally drop all support spells. Namely Magic Fruit or Winds of Promyvion. Otherwise, you are dropping something like skillchain bonus, store TP, or defense down (fine if there is another BLU or DRG, etc) to accomplish this. If you are there to DD then you should likely be DDing to your fullest while relying on your support like other DD. Magic fruit is less valuable than Barrier Tusk or Occultation (if applicable) in these cases to improve your survivability. Furthermore, if Cure IV from a BLU is the difference between life and death on high end content then your group has some serious issues you can't just make up for. You generally should not set sweeping gouge/tenebral crush for 145 content either since it simply won't land, and you won't even know if it did for a few minutes which makes it unreliable. This is not acceptable for such content, and defense down needs to be on for alliance DPS without any question. On a final note, with Option C and group support. Yes, there are times when erasing slowga if your group lacks a Yagrush or something of the sort will be more beneficial to group than your DPS, and that is why it is an option. Doesn't mean these spells should always be on though.

Support

Focus on being the dude.

Support Setups Regardless of Points.
Notes	Spells	Cost	Traits Gained
Base set
	Delta Thrust	2	Dual Wield I
	Barbed Crescent (-30 Acc↓ 2 mins)	2
	Molting Plumage	6	Dual Wield II
	Quad. Continuum	4	Dual Wield III
	Blazing Bound	3
	Thrashing Assault	7	Triple Attack
	Heavy Strike	2
	Acrid Stream or Empty Thrash	3
	Erratic Flutter	6	Fast Cast ½
	Sudden Lunge	4	Store TP I
	Fantod	1
	Nature's Meditation	6	Accuracy Bonus I
	Magic Fruit	3
	Total Cost	48
Suggested options for remaining points:
Support Options
	Frightful Roar (10% Def↓ AoE 3 mins)	3
	Benthic Typhoon (10% Physical & -10 Magical Def↓ 1 min AoE Conal)	4
	Tenebral Crush (20% Def↓ AoE)	8	Magic Accuracy Bonus
	Sweeping Gouge (15% Def↓)	6	Lizard Killer
	Barrier Tusk	3
	White Wind	5	Auto Regen
	Sheep Song	2
	Winds of Promy.	5	Auto Refresh
	Actinic Burst	4
	Retinal Glare (15 second Flash to combine with a blind)	5	Conserve MP
	Dream Flower	3
	Diamondhide	3
	Paralyzing Triad (?% Paralysis 1 min)	6	Skillchain Bonus
	Frost Breath (12.5% Paralysis 3 mins)	3
	Mind Blast (~20% Paralysis 1.5 mins)	4
	Sub-zero Smash (~10% Paralysis 3 mins with a side of FC)	4	Fast Cast
	Auroral Drape (Blind (-60) with some Silence ~1 min and FC)	4
	Sandspray (Blind (-25) 1-2 mins)	2
	Water Bomb (Silence 1.5-2 mins AoE)	2
	Silent Storm (Up to a 5 minute duration)	8	Evasion Bonus
	Scouring Spate (-20% Atk↓ ~3 mins)	8	Magic Defense Bonus
	Palling Salvo (-10% Atk↓ (from Bio))	7	Tenacity
	Saurian Slide (-25% Atk↓ ~1 min)	7	Inquartata
	Temporal Shift	5
	Filamented Hold (Slow (~25%) 1.5 mins AoE Conal)	3
	Cimicine Discharge (Slow (~19.5%) 1.5 mins AoE)	3
	Embalming Earth (Slow (~25%) 3 mins AoE)	6	Attack Bonus
	Geist Wall (Dark based dispel AoE)	3
	Blank Gaze (Light based dispel Gaze)	3
	Foul Waters (31/tic Drown with -65 STR ~3 mins)	3
Drop Triple Attack for 12 extra points if need be. Fill with DD traits from above if you have extra points. As you can see, there are tons of support role / enfeebling spells available for BLU to use, and unique ones too like Foul Waters or Accuracy Down from Barbed Crescent, etc. You will have to pick and choose what is right for your situation. These are only a list of all likely options.

Tanking

• Focus on enmity spells, enmity gear, survivability, and getting your meat beat.

Tank Setups Regardless of Points.
Notes	Spells	Cost	Traits Gained
Base set
	Delta Thrust	2	Dual Wield I
	Barbed Crescent	2
	Erratic Flutter	6	Fast Cast ½
	Barrier Tusk	3	Max HP Boost I
	Glutinous Dart	2
	Saurian Slide	7	Inquartata
	Actinic Burst	4	Auto Refresh
	Winds of Promy.	5
	Fantod	1
	Jettatura	4
	Temporal Shift	5
	Magic Fruit	3
	Battery Charge	3
	Occultation	3
	Cocoon	1
	Total Cost	51
Suggested options for remaining points:
Magical Resistance Options
	Saline Coat	3
	Blinding Fulgor	8	Magic Evasion Bonus
	Palling Salvo	7	Tenacity
	Rending Deluge	6	Magic Defense Bonus
	Scouring Spate	8	Magic Defense Bonus
Physical Resistance Options
	Atra. Libations	6	Defense Bonus
	Entomb	8	Defense Bonus
	Vertical Cleave (With Saline Coat)	3	Defense Bonus
Stat Boost Options
	Restoral	7	Max HP Boost
	Animating Wail (HP+20, swap out Barbed Crescent)	5 3	Dual Wield
	Sweeping Gouge	6	Lizard Killer
	Vapor Spray	3
Obviously situations are going to vary a lot, but these options should work in just about anything I can think of. Since you have already given up the bulk of your DD spells for most of the required tanking ones you shouldn't bother setting them. Besides, you won't be hitting things that actually matter, and if you are then you probably could have just kept DD traits on with occultation or something. This means mitigating damage and increasing your max HP is your next order. This increases your ability to maintain hate and your survivability. If you need to be your own wingman then reference some support spells. Check your Fast Cast too.

Magely-Mage

• Highest attainable Magic Attack Bonus is tier VI, V and IV even though we have the theoretical capability of reacing VIII.
  • Anything past IV requires the job bonus trait at 100 and 1200.
• Magic Hammer makes Battery Charge useless in 90%+ situations you run into, and you are likely sub RDM with convert and refresh anyway.
  • Remember that monsters need MP for hammer to work.
    • Don't forget beetles, crabs, mantids, acuex, umbrils, hippogryphs or other monster you might not expect, have MP.

Nuking Sets Regardless of Points
Notes	Spells	Cost	Traits Gained
Base Set
	Delta Thrust	2	Dual Wield I
	Barbed Crescent	2
	Erratic Flutter	6	Fast Cast ½
	Spectral Floe	8	Magic Attack Bonus I
	Subduction	6	Magic Attack Bonus II
	Magic Hammer	4	Magic Attack Bonus III
	Memento Mori	4
	Cursed Sphere	2	Magic Attack Bonus IV
	Sound Blast	1
	Tenebral Crush	8	Magic Accuracy Bonus
	Total Cost	43
Suggested option for remaining points:
Fire
	Searing Tempest	8	Attack Bonus
	Thermal Pulse	3
	Firespit	5
Earth
	Entomb	8	Defense Bonus
	Embalming Earth	6	Attack Bonus
Water
	Scouring Spate	8	Magic Defense Bonus
	Nectarous Deluge	6	Beast Killer
	Rending Deluge	6	Magic Defense Bonus
	Foul Waters	4	Resist Silence
	Water Bomb	2
Wind
	Silent Storm	8	Evasion Bonus
	Tempestuous Upheaval	6	Evasion Bonus
	Leafstorm	4
Ice
	SE never gave us anything besides Spectral Floe
Lightning
	Anvil Lightning	8	Accuracy Bonus
	Charged Whisker	4
	Mind Blast	4
Light
	Rail Cannon	6	Magic Burst Bonus
	Diffusion Ray	6	Store TP
Dark
	Palling Salvo	7	Tenacity
	Evryone. Grudge	4
The situations you will be nuking in vary far and wide, but you read this guide, so you should be good to ride. Obviously, I didn't include spells that were in the base set over again.

Solo AoE Burn

AoE Burning Regardless of Points
Notes	Spells	Cost	Traits Gained
Base set
	Delta Thrust	2	Dual Wield I
	Barbed Crescent	2
	Erratic Flutter	6	Fast Cast ½
	Spectral Floe	8	Magic Attack Bonus I
	Subduction	6	Magic Attack Bonus II
	Magic Hammer	4	Magic Attack Bonus III
	Reactor Cool	5
	Cursed Sphere	2	Magic Attack Bonus IV
	Sound Blast	1
	Entomb	8	Defense Bonus
	Tenebral Crush	8	Magic Accuracy Bonus
	Magic Fruit	3
	Occultation	3
	Diamondhide	3
	Total Cost	61
Suggested Option for Remaining Points:
Spells
	Blinding Fulgor	8	Magic Evasion Bonus
	Retinal Glare	5	Conserve MP
	Water Bomb	2
	Regurgitation	1
	And Either...
	Barrier Tusk	3
	Or use Phalanx and set...
	Battery Charge	3
	Total Cost	80
One size doesn't fit all, but you can pick which spells to swap out for other ones at this point. I recommend Fulgor due to the big HP +40 it provides on top of being powerful against certain enemies like Umbrals, and the flash isn't terrible either although in the order of spell rotation it shouldn't come into play.

Tanking /BLU

Digression alert!
This has nothing to do with being a main BLU. It just belongs in this section to assist with people subbing BLU.

This is a topic that comes up a lot for people unfamiliar with BLU, and while this mostly deals with being a PLD or RUN it is something I want to cover on the BLU spectrum of this.

• For those of you just being linked here, go take 5 seconds to read the Enmity Section of this guide.

Now, you only are able to set 14 spells or a total of 30 points (whichever comes first) as a level 41+ /BLU. While the idea of such a limitation might give you BLU balls, it is nothing to worry about. Unless your issue persists and lasts longer than four hours. In which case unless you are reading this in the waiting room, you should probably go see a physician.

For those of you who are not inundated with the ins and outs of tanking with /BLU here is how it works:

• Use Cocoon to boost your defense.
• For maintaining hate on a target outside of your job specific abilities you use:
  • Jettatura, which has a long recast.
  • Blank Gaze, which has a very short recast and you may spam in between abilities, the cool down for Flash, etc. This is your bread and butter.
• For maintaining AoE hate on a target outside of your job specific abilities you use:
  • Sheep Song
  • Geist Wall
    • Geist Wall recasts twice as fast as Sheep Song

If you were really desperate for AoE hate then you could also use Soporific, but coordinating your abilities with the recast of the aforementioned two spells is likely enough in most situations.
I also find Sandspin worth a mention as it has a niche use. While Sandspin will gain you just about no enmity it casts twice as fast as the previous spells and is an AoE. This is valuable for tanks who have many mobs on them and are being interrupted while casting the typical AoE hate spells. Sandspin can be used by those without a -102% spell interruption rate midcast set to tag mobs and then use an ability for hate, if only a little more successful.

Setting spells on for tanking /BLU focuses simply on a few enmity spells and then the rest are either for some traits or mostly due to their stat boosts. I personally focus on HP+ first before moving to VIT and AGI.

/BLU Tank Setups Regardless of Points.
Notes	Spells	Cost	Traits Gained
Base set
	Healing Breeze (Curaga II)	4	Auto Regen I
	Sheep Song (AoE Enmity)	2
	Wild Carrot (Cure III)	3	Resist Sleep I
	Pollen	1
	Terror Touch	3	Defense Bonus
	Grand Slam	2
	Cocoon	1
	Jettatura (Enmity)	4
	Blank Gaze (Enmity)	2
	Screwdriver (VIT +1, HP +10)	3
	Total Cost	25
Suggested options for remaining points:
Utility Spell Options
	Refueling (10% Haste, if your mages suck)	3
	Sandspin (VIT +1)	2
	Geist Wall (AoE Enmity)	3
Trait Bonus Options
	Cursed Sphere	2	Magic Attack Bonus
	Sound Blast	1
	Wild Oats (HP+10)	3	Beast Killer
	Sprout Smack	2
	Foot Kick (AGI +1)	2	Lizard Killer
	Claw Cyclone (VIT +1)	2
	Power Attack	1	Plantoid Killer
	Mandibular Bite	2
	Bludgeon	2	Undead Killer
	Smite of Rage (AGI +3)	3
Stat Boost Options
	Feather Storm (HP +5)	3
	Helldive (HP +5)	2
	Magnetite Cloud (VIT +2)	3
	Mysterious Light (AGI +3)	4
	Chaotic Eye (AGI +1)	2
	Stinking Gas (AGI +1)	2
Don't use Metallic Body. It isn't worth ever casting. You should only be casting your enmity spells (Gaze and Jet) and Cocoon. Keep cocoon up, use Blank Gaze between actions, and then rotate your other hate tools. That is about it.

Choosing What to Drop

Here is a mistake I can see someone making.
You are faced with the need to set something, but you already have DW3, Triple attack, etc set. So you need to pick what to lose. Well, you see that your DW spells take a lot of slots and that TA is obviously a nice DD trait to have. So you decide to drop your dual wield a tier to fit your extra spells.

This is a poor choice as DW will outperform TA. Especially if you are hitting delay cap with it. Drop TA first, and if you are subbing WAR just lose all 3 spells.

• Dual wield’s importance comes first.

Another item to drop is Winds of Promy. or your auto refresh trait if you are using that. There are simply too many good things to put on to set auto refresh. Magic Fruit is also not needed if you are in a party with healing or trusts.

If you lack the job trait bonus Gifts. You can drop Quadratic or Blazing Bound for Animating Wail and then remove Flutter if you have double marches from a decent BRD or a RDM or SMN giving haste II reliably.

The Order I Take:
I generally find I can not drop haste because I have issues trusting people and if I have 15-30 second moments before it is reapplied every time. Then I know I was better off just keeping it.

After that I would move to take off STP 2/3 traits from Sickle Slash, Tail Slap, and Diffusion Ray.

Then triple attack and if you are sub WAR then double attack as well since the sub job is providing the trait.
Remember that when it comes traits on BLU, the strongest takes precedence. What I mean by this is /WAR provides a stronger double attack than the BLU trait, and thus takes precedence. The same goes for setting a higher tier DW than /NIN provides, the BLU trait will not take precedence until it is stronger.

In Sinister Reign or real content I tend to take off magic fruit. If your party is not on their game you should likely help out the cause though by ditching DPS for support. Nothing is written in blue and white though.

Always keep your DW optimized for for what you are doing though. You should easily have enough points from ditching TA/DA and STP completely (including sudden lunge if need be) to fit what you need to.

BLU'd Where's My Spells?

All spells come eventually. Just move at your own pace, and don't worry about having them all.

After several years of everyone hearing the same line of "WHICH SPELLS DO I NEEDZ TO LRN GUIZ?!?!?!?!" I figured that I should share my take on all of BLU's spells.

So if you are new or getting into BLU here are the spells you should have, can use, or don't matter.

Certain spells fall under a use of both a nuke or a trait. If they were listed once they are not listed again (Except for VW procs). So while you could have just organized this list by "Physical" and "Magical" I figured this was a more logical breakdown.
Just go down the list I suppose.

Tiers of traits are separated by indentation and are in order of my set priority (generally), but it depends.

For example, I would set Anvil Lightning over Vanity and Frenetic if I wanted to drop a tier of Store TP for a tier of Accuracy bonus. It costs 8 points for Sickle Slash and Tail Slap and 8 points for Anvil Lightning which at the cost of three points saved provides 8 dex which is the best stat bonus you will get from those points as frenetic and vanity provide just about nothing.
However, if I needed to set Barrier Tusk or to cut down on point cost to set other things then I would set vanity and frenetic to provide the room assuming I had spell spaces.
There are times where I have also chosen to forego setting Barrier Tusk to allow me to set Occultation without sacrificing my offensive traits. Such an example would be on Maju as his Delta Trust is his worst offensive move.

Spells You Should Learn

Here are spells you should learn based on the traits they provide and their general uses.

Every 8 total trait points is 1 tier of an ability. Two 6 point Skillchain bonus trait spells is tier 1. Three of them is tier 3.

• Double Attack simply becomes Triple Attack as there is no DA II.

Refer to the linked bonus page or the Blue Mage Job Traits page for spell point costs and trait point values.

Spells for Melee Traits
Trait	Spells	Notes
Accuracy Bonus
	Nature's Meditation	Also a buff
	Vanity Dive
	Frenetic Rip
	Anvil Lightning	Also a nuke and AoE stun
	Dimensional Death
	Disseverment	Early level DD spell
Critical Attack Bonus
	Sinker Drill	Also a piercing DD spell. Closes Darkness with CA after CDC.
Double Attack / Triple Attack
	Thrashing Assault	Also a slashing DD spell. Closes Light with CA after Savage Blade.
	Heavy Strike	Also a blunt DD spell
	Empty Thrash
Dual Wield
	Delta Thrust	Also a slashing DD spell
	Barbed Crescent
	Molting Plumage
	Blazing Bound	Also a nuke and AoE stun
	Quad. Continuum	Early level piercing DD spell.
	Mortal Ray	Garbage spell
	Animating Wail	Early level haste
Inquartata
	Saurian Slide	Also a potent attack down debuff
Magic Defense Bonus
	Rending Deluge	Water nuke + dispel
	Scouring Spate	Also a nuke spell
	Ice Break	Also a VW proc
	Magnetite Cloud	Also a VW proc
Magic Evasion Bonus
	Blinding Fulgor	Also a nuke spell
Skillchain Bonus
	Paralyzing Triad	Also useful for paralyze
	Goblin Rush	Early level blunt DD spell
	Quadrastrike
Store TP
	Fantod	BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOST
	Sudden Lunge	Can you feel it? It is just so sudden.
	Diffusion Ray
	Sickle Slash	Killin' yo tankz and ruining yo expz
	Tail Slap	What did the five tails say to the face?

Spells for Magic Traits
Trait	Spells	Notes
Auto Refresh
	Winds of Promy.	Also an AoE erase
	Actinic Burst	AoE enmity spell
Conserve MP
	Retinal Glare	Also an efficient nuke with an added flash.
	Chaotic Eye	Crappy silence, meh duration, overwritten by and prevented by other silence effects.
	Zephyr Mantle	4 cheap blink shadows
	Water Bomb	Much better silence (AoE too) than Chaotic, and provides solid mage stat boosts.
Magic Accuracy Bonus
	Tenebral Crush	Also an nuke and potent defense down
Magic Attack Bonus
	Subduction	Also an nuke and super gravity
	Spectral Floe	Also a nuke spell
	Memento Mori	MAB buff
	Magic Hammer	Best aspir ever
	Sound Blast
	Cursed Sphere
	Dream Flower	Set situationally over another spell if you want sleepga.
	Reactor Cool	Also situational due to point cost, but it provides some int+ and defense bonus ice spikes
Magic Burst Bonus
	Rail Cannon	Powerful light nuke with a high cost and cool down. Provides INT/MND +6 though.

Remaining Spells for Use and Stat Boosts
Name	Notes
Cocoon	Duh-fense boost.
Sheep Song	Light ZzzzZZ
Geist Wall	AoE dark dispel and enmity
Jettatura	Enmity
Magic Fruit	:D
Diamondhide	AoE Stoneskin
Saline Coat	Magic Defense Boost
Temporal Shift	Accurate AoE stun and enmity
Regeneration	Regen II, but can be beefed up with Telchine Augments to 40 a tic for 102 seconds.
Battery Charge	Refresh.
Whirl of Rage	Stat boost and AoE stun.
Occultation	Great, but situational mass blink.
White Wind	Powerful curaga. Great for saving the party from bad healers.
Glutinous Dart	Stat boost, fast ranged spell for pulling, and Max HP Boost.
Sweeping Gouge	Cheaper costing, but weaker defense down with an HP and VIT boost.
Searing Tempest	Nuke spell and burn
Silent Storm	Nuke spell and our best AoE silence.
Entomb	Nuke spell, defense boost, and 1 minute AoE petrify.

Voidwatch Procs

You probably will just wait for a lights campaign anyway

Spells You Can Make Use of

---

Spells for Physical Traits (click)
Counter Asuran Claws Orcish Counterstance - Also a buff Dark Orb - Also a dark based nuke Gilfinder and Treasure Hunter Charged Whisker - Also a nuke spell Evryone. Grudge - Also a dark based nuke Amorphic Spikes Tenacity Palling Salvo
Other Stuffz
Frightful Roar - Three points for 10% defense down. Weaker than other options, but cheap to set. Filamented Hold - Slow Feather Tickle - Rare niche moments of wiping TP like for that cactus in Abyssea - Altep Yawn - Light based gaze sleep Zephyr Mantle - Shadowz, cheapz, Conserve MP if you had to use this for something too. Benthic Typhoon - Defense AND magic defense down, one more point than Frightful Roar, and same physical defense down Restoral - Big cure, big cost. I really don't use it ever, but in Walk of Echoes or something. Foul Waters - Powerful STR down with DoT Drown. Embalming Earth - Best slow debuff we get, and attack boost trait Nectarous Deluge Decent water nuke with an 80 a tic poison. Has to be some use somewhere. I used to use it in Alluvion on eles before the 8 elementals.
Spells Just for Stat Boosts
Regurgitation Well, it does have a bind effect, but for one single point left over it is a stat boost Water Bomb - Also a debuff spell, but I have almost never used it for that personally

Spells You Don't Need to Learn

---

Yeah, you can skip all that work I just did and read the ones you don't need of course! (click)

Pollen Footkick - Unless you are DRG/BLU to trigger healing breath Sprout Smack Wild Oats - Nope, not going to say it.... All over your face. Power Attack Metallic Body Queasyshroom Battle Dance Feather Storm Head Butt - Replaced by Sudden Lunge Healing Breeze Helldive - Only for accidentally saying Hello Blastbomb - I remember using this to bind Shantotto at 75 in the add on, but haven't since then Bludgeon - Gewd timez Blood Drain Claw Cyclone Poison Breath Soporific Screwdriver Bomb Toss - Used to be for stat boost at 75 Grand Slam - Much like the food Denny's attempts to call a breakfast. You don't need to runs- and get this. Wild Carrotchan Caotic Eye - Conserve MP, but meh Smite of Rage Digest - Hard to swallow how shitty this spell is. Pinecone Bomb Jet Stream Uppercut - Cheap and minor stat boost, but there's never really room for it Terror Touch MP Drainkiss - 75 days! Now you just use Magic Hammer Venom Shell Stinking Gas Mandibular Bite Awful Eye - Awful Blood Saber Refueling - Sub BLU often? Self-Destruct - Might as well just do hardcore drugs Feather Barrier Flying Hip Press - Where did SE even come up with giving us this one? Spiral Spin - I would rather ride the teacups at Disney. Death Scissors - Kewl for CA off of that Red Lotus Blade :P Seedspray - Only exists for people to be perverts with autotranslate. 1000 Needles Body Slam Hydro Shot Frypan Spinal Cleave - Grow one and skip it! Voracious Trunk - Everyone knows Voracious Vegeta is a better spell. Enervation - Really niche and probably not worth using, but AoE magic defense down. Had some use for Charged Whisker burning, but now you pretty much just use another big 8 elemental nuke I suppose. Warm-Up - Never warmed up to this spell. It could have been good, but it blows. Hysteric Barrage - Hysterical Barrage Cannonball Sub-zero Smash - Slang for Canadian sex. Ram Charge - Baa~aaa~aaa~d Mind Blast Plasma Charge Vertical Cleave Plenilune Embrace - Nope, fruit or restoral Demoralizing Roar - You get enough of this from your spouse. You don't need it in game. Final Sting - Another WTF spell with a WTF trait to boot Osmosis - We have better things to be doing Vapor Spray - Never used it once Thunder Breath - I don't even have this spell Atra. Libation - Never used it

I Just Started BLU! WHAT DO?

Merits!

Merits
Ever since the introduction of Mighty Guard there is pretty much only one merit path IMHO.

Group 1
Name	Description	Level	Notes
Chain Affinity Recast	Shorten recast time by 4 seconds.	0/5	Nope
Burst Affinity Recast	Shorten recast time by 4 seconds.	0/5	No~ope
Monster Correlation	Increase monster family related effects by 1.	0/5	Just why..?
Physical Potency	Increase the potency of physical blue magic spells by 2.	5/5	Previously only believed to affect physical spell accuracy. It was many years later discovered to also affect potency of physical blue magic.
Magical Accuracy	Increase the accuracy of magical blue magic spells by 2.	5/5	Self explanatory

Group 2
Name	Description	Level	Notes
Convergence	Increases the power of your next magical blue magic spell. Limits area of effect to single target. Recast: 10min. Increase magic attack by 5 and magic accuracy by 5.	0/5	Meh
Diffusion	Grants the effect of your next support blue magic spell to party members within range. Recast: 10min. Increase duration by 5%.	5/5	For that sweet extra Mightyguard time where you put the kids to bed and turn out the lights. Remember, Mightyguard is the best defense against the Zika virus. Read it somewhere on the internet. Oh and use the boots, you know, the Luhlaza Charuqs. NQ or HQ have the same augment.
Enchainment	Grants a TP bonus to Chain Affinity. Increase TP bonus by 100.	0/5	There used to be somewhat of a case for this, but it has fallen by the wayside.
Assimilation	Increases maximum blue magic points. Increase blue magic point maximum by 1.	5/5	Obvious.

Job Points!

Job Points
Here is a recommended order for job points. Keep in mind you can do whatever you want and some of these don't really matter which one comes first. See the Blue Mage page for gifts.

Job Point Category	Description	Effect per Tier	Order
Azure Lore Effect	Increases damage of physical blue magic while under the effects of Azure Lore.	Increases damage by 1	9th
Unbridled Wisdom Effect	Enhances the potency of Conserve MP while under the effects of Unbridled Wisdom.	Enhance potency by 3.	10th
Blue Magic Point Bonus	Increases the maximum number of blue magic points.	Increases blue magic points by 1	1st
Burst Affinity Bonus	Increases blue magic spell damage while under the effects of Burst Affinity.	Increase damage by 2.	5th
Chain Affinity Effect	Increases physical blue magic skillchain damage while under the effects of Chain Affinity.	Increase skillchain damage by 1 percent.	7th
Physical Blue Magic Effect Accuracy	Increases the accuracy of the additional effect of physical blue magic.	Increase additional effect accuracy by 1 percent.	6th
Unbridled Learning Effect	Increases the damage dealt by blue magic usable under the effects of Unbridled Learning.	Increase damage by 1%.	8th
Unbridled Learning Effect II	Increases the effect duration of blue magic usable under the effects of Unbridled Learning that affects party members.	Increase effect duration by 1%.	2nd
Efflux Effect	Increases the TP bonus from physical blue magic spells under the effect of Efflux.	Increase TP bonus by 10.	4th
Magic Accuracy Bonus	Increases magic accuracy.	Increase magic accuracy by 1.	3rd

Sword out of Compton

As I have also said before, the best source for gearing yourself is Prothescar’s/Oraen’s BLU guide here.

That being said I get asked ALL the time what to wear and see the question fielded in general. Here is my breakdown of various swords.

For the most part they are listed, Sequence-tially. Hah— these weapons are the ones worth caring about. The ones not worth caring about are discussed below these.

Swords Scutiny

Eminent Scimitar Buy it with Sparks. Your first baby, and unfortunately you should have just picked up some Plan B. Every BLU that just returned to or started the game begins with this puppy. The latent effect is active below 1000% TP or during a weapon skill. Pair it with the: Homestead Blade Buy it with Bayld. This little piggie is really only special in Reives for the new guys, but it makes a good offhand in the meantime. Which will help you upgrade to the next weapon listed. Xiutleato Drops from Achuka in Wildskeeper Reives. When you augment this at Prah Janimhar you can offhand this for a good long time until better options come into play. It lacks on accuracy for serious contents due to the lower skill and lack of actual accuracy on it (don't augment that...), but it will quickly become similar to your first time, wink wink. Assuming that you have had a first time. Sorry, if life sucks that isn't the case! Much like the tasty slut that it is though, do not bring this to your family dinner on real content higher than ~Delve. The lack of accuracy (skill) makes this weapon drop off fast. However, for anything weak this is the best offhand until Nibiru later. Augment it with Occasionally Attacks Twice and Crit rate +4%, not accuracy. That is not the point of the weapon. Buramenk'ah Drops from Tojil in Delve. You finally have a big boy sword! This is your next step after those two. Perhaps you are starting out here, and that is good for you, but this is a solid sword you can start feeling strong with. Good for you, fgt. Arasy Sword Su1 Sold from Antonia in Upper Jeuno (~100k gil) or Crafted (102 Smithing). This is an interesting sword SE added for newer players. I say that because you must have Su1 or Superior 1 equipment access unlocked before you can even wear it. This means getting and spending 50+ job points to equip it. Which I suppose isn't too bad, but I question if people will actually do that before getting better weapons. That being said it has some accuracy and dex which is nice, but has lower damage than other weapons with. This serves as a better offhand than the Xiuleato though unless you are fighting junk mobs. Usonmunku Drops from Ircinraq in Delve. You could just skip all the previous swords and start here if you had some help. Don't fight the NM outside of Delve (see page for drop rate) and you are fine. Airlixirs are easy to come by if you do the event or cheap if you have some gil. These are your last step before endgame swords. Augment it with path B Vampirism From Teodor in Sinister Reign. Awesome, time to spam a semi-fun event. Now this sword is not a bad sword and in fact it is quite good, but it is a niche sword. It has more damage for mainhanding so you could offhand the Buramenk'ah with it if you still have that and nothing better, but it is a magical sword. You can use it until you get Nibiru Cudgels to nuke with. It is also piercing damage! This allows you to cover all damage types on BLU. I personally offhand one if I fight a serious Tulfaire mob like Nosoi because Tulfaire mobs take a -50% to slashing damage. Being a bird this means they also take more damage to piercing. So this is your first niche forever sword. Oh, and keep in mind that weaponskills done with the Vampirism still count as slashing damage. Only melee hits are piercing. Nibiru Blade Drops from T2 Nosoi in Escha. This is a nice sword, and you will probably be glad to finally have some good accuracy options opening up. You can safely just dualweild these at this point if you spam him in a group and get two or something. It is a better offhand on fodder than using your old first love from Achuka, and we are back once again to fixed augments! Don't be intimidated by the bird. With some sturdy players you can kill him pretty good. You need to fight Ayapec in Unity (King Arthro 2.0) or buy the items on the auction house to spawn him. Use light SCs from CDC spam and some nukes to MB Akupara down. Once you get to Nosoi you can either do the same thing or get a PLD WHM 2 DDs and 2 support jobs. Remember he is a Tulfaire, and know that he is also evasive. He has a strong poison aura (200 a tic) effect going on. So now you are fighting big boy mobs here, but you can do it. If you are all alone with no friends just make a PUG (pick up group) and farm the unity and the NM together. Oh, and make some damn friends. Augment it with path A or B. A first. Reference the Nolan page. Iris Drops from T2 Yilan in Escha. No, you don't replace the Nibiru Blade with these. In fact this is a very mediocre sword not much different than a max Vampirism unless you need accuracy. I would only recommend going out of your way for this if you happened to come into them while farming the Jovian Abjuration: Head from the NM. If you haven't obtained the swords that are mentioned after this then mainhand one of these and offhand a Nibiru. As always accuracy needs vary, but it is certainly easier to make accuracy short term weapons instead of attack and then find yourself lacking. You certainly need high accuracy to go after the Unity sword mentioned next. People get all enchanted with these swords and want to dual wield because they have Bluemagic skill and things relevant to the job like Chain Affinity +25. I think a great BLU in a galaxy far far away once spoke these words or something; but "a BLU craves not these things." The DEX, Accuracy, and Double Attack (or STP and Attack depending) of the Nibiru make it a superior offhand. You are DDing so you need DD stats. Not some namby pamby Chain Affinity and Blue Magic Skill crap-iola. Well, at least this NM is easier than Nosoi IMO. Augment it with path B. Only use one unless you want to waste inventory for a blue skill build for a few spells. Reference the Nolan page. Tanmogayi +1 Drops from Sarama in Unity. Welcome to what is likely going to be your main hand weapon for a very long time. This is what you were aiming for. You can just call it the Tamagotchi and pretend you and your cheetah Snap Band are back in the 90s again. Unless you were too young to remember the 90s or weren't around yet. In which case you are a disappointment to me because you don't know why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. ANYWAY, the unity is a serious fight (level 135) so you can't just go jump into it. Play the game and progress as you increase your strength and pick up some Nibiru blades with accuracy armor. The game isn't going anywhere so enjoy the ride. Some people are really impatient though and that is their damn problem. The mob is evasive, and you need to be geared. The discussion page for Sarama (you do see the tabs on each wiki page that say discussion, right..?) has my testimony and stuff. That should be all you need, and the video is in the guide. You can replace all for the NQ in the mainhand until you get the HQ. Please don't use the HQ in the mainhand and the NQ in the offhand. Just, please don't do it. The delay kills it and you don't gain much from damage in the offhand for WS. So offhand a Nibiru if you need to. Colada Drops from Ironside in Reisenjima. The NM is a big pushover if you are a seriously geared nuking BLU or have decent friends. Oh, and I bet you expected me to make a reference to getting caught in the rain or making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape. No, that would be a Colada-l mistake because that pun is just BLU easy to make and BLU overdone. The fun comes from the bullshit random augmenting that is back again. You could say it is not a Colada fun. Bet that Tamagotchi feels good right about now in your mainhand, doesn't it?! Anyway, with great augments you can dual wield both of these for the best combo before ultimate weapons, but that will take a lot of playing roulette with the dark side of humanity. To tear the soul apart 7 times is almost unthinkable. Augment it with Taupe or Fern Stones at Oseem Aiming for DMG +15-20, DEX +10-15, Acc and Atk +15-25, and +3-4 of either Crit rate, DA, or STP. DA is the best of the augments. Reference this page for augments. Sequence Aeonic Weapon This weapon has a place situationally, regardless if you have Tizona and/or Almace already. When it comes to making Umbra or Radiance with the weapon the aftermath will disappear after one Lvl 4 SC and you must do a song and dance to get it again with SCs. This damage loss from lack of using better WSs like CDC or Savage Blade (Requiescat is terrible for dealing damage) is not worth it for the result. Add in the fact that other DDs are going to mess up your SCs or cut their own DPS to accommodate you and it is clear that this is a niche mainhand. Off the bat it is a replacement to your Tanmogayi or an offhand for Almace when accuracy is capped. Unless you have a rather perfect Colada augment. Which is rather disheartening either way if you ask me. The TP bonus is not active in the offhand either. Boo.. Outside of that there are two situations I have found where this weapon shines. 1) Savage Blade is your primary WS or fights you don't want to SC on. With Shiva's Crystal Blessing you are perpetually at 2k+ TP. Unless you would form a skillchain, go for Savage Blade. 2) Very short fights, especially something like Leviathan Prime spams. Think about it, Empyrean Aftermath does not proc on weapon skills so it is a matter of gaining 10 base damage, and 500 TP Bonus to your weapon skills versus increasing your white damage in a very short fight. You still keep the 50 DEX while offhanding Almace too, so it is a matter of feeding your ~70% WS damage output versus your ~30% white damage output. Yes, Sequence does favor Savage Blade, but even CDC would gain some damage and thus SC damage in this situation. It isn't that uncommon either, Most Escha T1s are really quick to beat down depending on your party. If you started the fight with 3,000 TP then things probably shift to Almace's favor. Of course accuracy comes into play if you aren't capped and you gain more from being able to offhand a good Colada (which would mean main-handing Almace) then go with the flow. Almace Empyrean Weapon This is your best friend. The one you are standing next to you at your wedding to your favorite waifu. Which we all know is Tharja from Fire Emblem Awakening. Sully was a shit waifu. There are situations where you can't reasonably maintain Aftermath on Tizona well or you aren't making any skillchains/need an accuracy boost. Then an Almace with an offhanded Colada or Sequence comes into the mix. Regardless of those things this weapon takes a mass amount of work (or just a lot of gil!) and is always used regardless of the second weapon. Overall, with Samurai/Fighter's roll on from a COR, you should have better DPS with Almace over Tizona. I recommend making this weapon first over Tizona. Tizona Mythic Weapon This is the crem de la crem, sometimes! Oh, how shit is indeed situational. It is not always the best sword to use, but as long as you can maintain Aftermath level 3 in a fight that lasts closer to 3+ minutes, without good corsair rolls, where you are skillchaining or just when you need MP or if you are getting stuck with 3k TP (rare mob mechanics, like Kin) then it is. The MP return allows you a good amount of flexibility too in your DDing and the WS is a powerful skillchain or high TP WS option (replaces Savage Blade, only with Tizona on) if you gear it. I have used Tizona just to heal shitty Omen groups too so it comes full circle. One of the remaining percs is that unlike Almace, Tizona's Aftermath may proc on Weapon Skills. As a result of the increased damage procs, this weapon favors skillchaining more than the Almace does to the point where it is competitive or situationally weaker than an Almace if you are not making skillchains or capping accuracy compared to offhanding a colada with one. Overall, Tizona takes time and dedication to carry out making all the way to the very last stage. Nothing like it used to, but some dedication nonetheless. Having Tizona doesn't make you serious or cool though (drink the stuff under the sink if you are one of those "I am serious so I make all weapons" people please), so only make this if you want it for niche purposes.

Arch Mimesis

Swords not to use!

That's right! The section of shame is named after it's mascot. It is almost fun to troll that damn sword, almost.

Swords of Shame

Halachuinic Sword, Iztaasu +2, Pukulatmuj, Perfervid Sword Drops from: I don't give a damn. Don't bother with these. Anahera Saber Drops from Ark Angel HM II and Divine Might II Hello lock syle! That is about all this is good for. This is the sword of sword you see after a night of drinking in a seedy bar. When you hear "last call" it becomes that mad dash to cross paths with something that just getes you there, if only barely. This old bird is no treasure now and it wasn't when it was young either. If you did have this weapon it would be below Buramenk'ah and Usonmunku. Essentially it is just better than the other free stuff non 119 stuff. Deacon Saber Drops from Ark Angel HM in Escha - Ru'Aun This sword model seems to just have bad luck because here we are again with another wet whoopee cushion. It lacks accuracy, it lacks dex, and the dual wield it either too much or too little to help so it is just a TP burden. You are better off using two Nibiru path A swords for anything that matters compared to this. Acclimator Drops from Putraxia in Vagary Given where it comes from and that fact that it blows the big bone. You don't have a reason to use this. Better off just using Usonmunku path Bs. Blurred Sword Su2 Drops from the auction house ^_~ because it is crafted only. This is like a more expensive version of Arasy with double the job point requirement that leaves you scratching your head in bewilderment. The NQ is trash and don't bother with the HQ. Claidheamh Soluis From Alluvion Skirmish in Rala Waterways and Kupon W-ASRW. Time has not been kind to this weapon. Sure, it is super easy to pick up with the Kupon now, and you may even use it temporarily if you are stuck with the Eminent weapon still. However, no one really farms Skirmish anymore and the stones now stack to 99 instead of 12. Which means tossing out gil new players need to invest elsewhere for a rather excessive amount of stones as most of the gear is not going to hang around for long/just for niche purposes. The final nail in the coffin for this was the introduction of the Ambuscade Weapons. The Kaja Sword is just superior and far easier to obtain. Augment it with +13-19DMG +10-15ATK +10-15ACC +4%DA if you want it. Reference the Alluvion Skirmish Weapons page. Medeina Kilij Drops from the The Moonlit Path II (Fenrir Prime). I have seen several new or inexperienced BLUs that get all excited about this sword. I assume it is the refresh. Maybe it is the fact they don't know it is worse to nuke in than almost all club options or worse to melee in than most weapons. Overall, this weapon is as exciting as watching a geriatric try to climb stairs because the escalator/elevator was broken. Mimesis Created with Oboro for a lot of wasted gil. Yes yes, the best for last. Mimesis, from the Greek word mimos. Which roughly translates to "wasting time with crap". If taken literally it would fittingly be "a BLUfoon who imitates bad examples or ideas". So with much ado about nothing lets discuss this 'bad hombre' we loosely call a sword. There are many things wrong with the concept of this weapon. First, without augments it simply doesn't win compared to other options. At best it is relegated to use as an offhand sword regardless of if it augmented or not. When finally augmented the most important thing it gets after all the materials dumped into it is 50 accuracy. Which may sound like a lot, but a Colada already has 20 before any augments of dex and (up to +40) accuracy let alone other things like double attack and attack. Nibiru Path A would also have 30 accuracy with the +5 DEX difference accounted for not to mention the +2 DA. Furthermore, if you were just using Savage Blade, a Hepatizon Sapara +1 would be a much better main/offhand investment, especially since you may use it on other jobs. It is great for something like COR, so Double-Up. (Oho~!) Not that Colada is weaker than the Sapara, it is not with augments, but it has justification for a job besides BLU. Once again, against a Colada, Shit-e-sis is already behind by 27 magic accuracy skill, 15 magic accuracy, and 46 magic damage before even comparing augments to potential augments. Not that you would want to make a Colada for that even though it is within your power to do such. Point being, people seem to believe the 50 magic accuracy augment on Mimesis is something special when it is just playing catch up. There is simply no defending this sword in light of other melee or mage weaponry BLU has access to. Now before you remark "BUT I CANT GET/DONT HAVE COLADA!" well, you could have. Look at the cost of making this weaker than a son of a Nibiru sword. Wasted money is just that, and you might as well pay a merc for a Colada. Not that I want to see such sleazebags being paid, but reason dictates necessity in the meager. Finally, "I will just farm the 450 materials for free from Leviathan runs" is not a reasonable idea either. That is not free at all, and just means you wasted time farming something slower than a better money maker. It is still spending money and you could have sold those items, so instead you are just wasting time. The prerequisites for the weapon mean you are capable of getting better things. The only semi-real reason to have the nonaugmented base weapon is because you got the sword components for semi-free from a rare login campaign and don't have anything better to wear on BLU. That is still somewhat of a reach though unless you are a socially awkward recluse who can't manage to group up and get better/easier weapons. So if you are fine settling for less in your life go for it and continue acting dazed and confused. Don't be bamBLUzled by this sword though, and don't settle for less. If you see someone wearing this then just understand that they don't. Which is what Mimesis is good for, singling out ineptitude.

Sword Progression

Here is the general progression for melee weapons. It is also useful for comparing them all on one page. The pictures link to the item pages.

It is hard to compare the weapons to all content. For example the Xiutleato is a great offhand for fodder and early in your career. It falls off quickly though as content level rises and accuracy falls. I also took out weapons that waste your time for no good reason.

In other words, "shit is situational". There are times where using a Tizona is not the best choice, even though it is "the best sword".

CDC Sword Chart of Progression
Mainhand	Offhand
Homestead Blade	Eminent Scimitar
	↓
Homestead Blade	Xiutleato Augmented with OAT and Crit 4%*
↓
Usonmunku Augmented with path B) DMG +3, DEX +7, Acc +10	Xiutleato Augmented with OAT and Crit 4%.
↓
Buramenk'ah Yeah, basically skip this.	Xiutleato Augmented with OAT and Crit 4%.
↓	↓
Usonmunku Augmented with path B) DMG +3, DEX +7, Acc +10	Usonmunku Augmented with path B) DMG +3, DEX +7, Acc +10
↓	↓
Iris Augmented with path B) DMG +15, STR+15, Acc +15	Iris Augmented with path B) DMG +15, STR+15, Acc +15
↓	↓
Nibiru Blade Augmented with path A) DEX +10, Acc +20, MAcc +15	Nibiru Blade Augmented with path B) STR +10, Atk +20, STP +3
↓
Eletta Sword	Nibiru Blade Augmented with path B) STR +10, Atk +20, STP +3
↓
Tanmogayi	Nibiru Blade Augmented with path B) STR +10, Atk +20, STP +3
↓
Hepatizon Sapara / Hep. Sapara +1 100 Job Points spent are required to equip the Hepatizon Sapara. The HQ is more of a small Savage Blade increase than anything else.	Nibiru Blade Augmented with path B) STR +10, Atk +20, STP +3
↓
Tanmogayi +1 Never offhand this weapon. Ever.	Nibiru Blade Augmented with path B) STR +10, Atk +20, STP +3
	↓
Tanmogayi +1	Colada Ideally augmented with Taupe) DEX +10-15, Atk/Acc+, DA+ Dont be afraid of very good DEX, Atk/Acc, and other augments like STP, etc. DEX/Atk/Acc are the most important stats here.
↓
Kaja Sword	Colada Ideally augmented with Taupe) DEX +10-15, Atk/Acc+, DA+
↓
Colada Ideally augmented with Taupe) DEX +10-15, Atk/Acc+, DA+	Colada Ideally augmented with Taupe) DEX +10-15, Atk/Acc+, DA+
↓
Tanmogayi +1 R15 Augmented with DMG +11, Acc/Macc +40, Atk +40	Colada Ideally augmented with Taupe) DEX +10-15, Atk/Acc+, DA+
↓
Naegling	Colada Ideally augmented with Taupe) DEX +10-15, Atk/Acc+, DA+
	↓
Naegling	Zantetsuken
↓
Sequence R15 won't change the ranking, but the accuracy is swell.	Zantetsuken
↓	↓
Almace (Level 119 III)	Colada Ideally augmented with Taupe) DEX +10-15, Atk/Acc+, DA+ This was just put here to add some perspective to the ranking.
↓	↓
Tizona (Level 119 III)	Almace (Level 119 III)
↓	↓
Almace (Level 119 III)	Zantetsuken No, Colada doesn't cut it here. Use the former combo then.
↓	↓
Tizona (Level 119 III) R15	Almace (Level 119 III)
↓	↓
Almace (Level 119 III) R15	Zantetsuken

Savage Blade/Expiacion Sword Chart of Progression
Mainhand	Offhand
Tizona (Level 119 III)File:Tizona (Level 119 III)description.png	An equally equipped Tizona must be augmented to beat Kaja Sword.
↓
Kaja Sword	Iris Augmented with path B) DMG +15, STR+15, Acc +15
	↓
Kaja Sword	Hepatizon Sapara / Hep. Sapara +1 100 Job Points spent are required to equip the Hepatizon Sapara.
	↓
Kaja Sword	Nibiru Blade Augmented with path B) STR +10, Atk +20, STP +3 It is not worth making a Colada over just using this.
↓
Naegling	Nibiru Blade Augmented with path B) STR +10, Atk +20, STP +3 It is not worth making a Colada over just using this.
↓	↓
Naegling -or- Sequence The accuracy, and attack, and human error clearly favors Naegling. While attack cap situations favors Sequence. So you could disingenuously say Sequence R0 is "better" than Naegling. Augmenting your Sequence somewhat seals the deal in its favor though for common usage.	Zantetsuken
↓	↓
Sequence R15 On paper, Sequence R15/Thibron makes a case for being better than Naegling/Thibron. However, I believe that typically does not occur, and is impractical.	Thibron
↓
Naegling	Thibron
↓
Tizona (Level 119 III) R15File:Tizona (Level 119 III)description.png	Thibron

In modern times, Naegling's Savage Blade and R15 Tizona's Expiacion has marginalized CDC. The two will pump out some big WS numbers when paired with a TP Bonus Thibron in the offhand compared to CDC. So, it is easy to just read the parrots posting online, who take the gist of what I have just written there and simply spread that "CDC is dead".

CDC isn't dead, and you should still have it ready to fire.

Now, it is not difficult to post of this online as if a BLU is always fully and ideally buffed, fully geared, capping accuracy with a non iLvl offhand, capping attack, starting with and perfectly maintaining AM3 over an ideal duration of combat, never losing buffs, rather perfectly WSing, and never factoring in SC damage, day bonus, mob weakness, party composition, etc. Which at the very least provides the impression of "Fuck Almace, and just make Tizona". All the while, things are basically simplified down to bias automated napkin math.
So yes, if you are in an alliance, say Wave 3 Dynamis or a similar uncoordinated and fully roided out DD riot. Then yes, you won't beat and augmented Tizona/Thibron or Naegling/Thibron as you mash your macro.
The closest you could come would be with a R15 Almace/Zantetsuken. Where for arguments sake lets use some reasonable generals. One BLU throws out an average 46k per Expiacion, and another an average 29k CDC over the course of 20 WSs, and lets say the Expiacion never skillchains and the CDC SCs with itself every time with SC Bonus III on from Paralyzing Triad. Which is already being absolutely unrealistically in Almace's favor.

• R15 Tizona/Thibron, 20 Expiacion WSs: 920,000 damage.
• R15 Almace/Zantetsuken, 20 CDC WSs: 580,000 damage.

• SC Bonus 3 Damage 10 CDC WSs: 336,400 = 916,400 combined damage, and still not enough.

Where am I getting those WS numbers? Well, after Googling over the ruminations and macinations of others, and spending way (way!) too much time in the spreadsheet trying to move the needle to and fro. I think those are reasonable maxims to proport as an example.
While it was many things in mind, that in particular is condensed from the notion of using full malignance, with capped pDif, facing a slight crit defense bonus, a 2 on SAM roll with no Fighters, capped accuracy, /DRG, AM2 for Almace and AM3 for Tizona, etc.
All these things aren't in Almace's favor, but they will demonstrate all the same for the purpose above. While those things all favor Tizona they don't really change the damage of CDC much. It is Almace's white damage that those things all don't flatter. The vast majority of our total damage is in our WSs. So yes, while Tizona does have a higher WS frequency from AM3. It is easier to focus above on the WSs each weapon is pumping out, and put the concept in a nutshell.

Now, not only will Expiacion likely either open or close some form of SC in a free for all, but even then CDC is too far behind.

Aditionally, if an opponent is weak to either Fire, Wind, Thunder, or Light damage (the day bonus/weather wouldn't hurt either) that obviously helps CDC a bit. A 30% weakness isn't uncommon at all for NMs. Which would increase 29k CDC→CDC making a 33.6k SC into a 43.7k SC. That then puts a SCing Almace back on top on paper.
However, that can't actually happen for a Wave 3 Zerg. After all fetters are destroyed a Disjoined NM has no elemental weakness or resistance and the weather is double darkness. On the wave 2 NMs you are also looking at a 50-70% reduction in magic damage for every element.

So, what is the point of all that mumbling and musing then? If Savage or Expiacion offing a TP Bonus just beats CDC from R15 Tizona or Almace why should anyone care?
Fine, don't— just spam your shit and get lost!
There are absolutely times though, to have an Almace R15 if you are the utmost dedicated to BLU. Certain NMs do take a good deal of magical damage from SCs. Certain group compositions, especially for Ambuscade do lend to CDC being the optimal choice.
If you have a MNK using Victory Smite, a SAM raining down Fudos, a NIN with Shun, Ten, or Hi, a DRG with Shining One using Impulse Drive, a Tauret THF spamming Evisceration, or a Mythic PUP using Stringing Pummel for example. Then yeah, CDC is going to kick ass in that small group if the mob doesn't take reduced SC damage. All the while you are always keeping a minimum of 30-40% ODD up with no effort.
The Qutrub ambuscade that is ending this month as I write this sees even a decently Augmented Almace as easily the best weapon for the fight as it uniquely favors white damage.

Furthermore, spamming typical UNMs, events where the flow of battle is reduced such as Odyssey, a confused PUG of a Divergence, a typical CP party, certain Ambuscades, or opponents which reset, inhibit, or reduce TP (looking at you, Sheol B Mimics..) lend themselves against either maintaining AM3 with Tizona or spamming Savage/Expiacion.
Lowman compositions in general for harder content tend to kneecap the use of Thibron where offhanding ~1,100 accuracy just isn't going to cut it. Did you die and lose all your songs and rolls? Well, you better have a plan B besides swinging at the air with a TP Bonus weapon. An R15 Tizona/Thibron will see about a 225 accuracy deficit between your mainhand and offhand, and that isn't even taking the DEX or Acc bonus of an offhand weapon into account. That doesn't just magically get erased with Sushi and buffs or traits. Furthermore, Carbonara is a great food for not only the STP, but the HP.

It may also sound like I am trying to justify other weapons like Almace for the sake of it. However, TP bonus offhand with R15 Tizona or a Naegling isn't always the best approach. So, if you can't get away with using a TP Bonus due to a deficiency in accuracy then an R15 Almace should beat any other weapon. That doesn't sound like I am reaching too hard there either, rather than it is simply a fact of life in Vana'diel. Sometimes, you just have to live your best "shit is situational" life.

Frankly, if you have geared up your job and are clearing content without much difficulty then it doesn't matter if you are topping a parse or outparsing everyone else. Chasing daddy's love by reaching the top of that parse is largely hollow if the fight was already won.
Yeah, saying that it all doesn't truly matter rather invalidates what I had to say. Likewise though, choices aren't simply dichotomous, and things can simultaneously be and not be. Ultimately, what I want you all to take away from my soliloquy of shenanigans here is simple. The posts people produce and others propagate around online are only conceptual. There are always a multitude of moments where things go awry. Furthermore, you aren't always as buffed as people want to assume when trying to hash out what is above what. Generally, in these cases it is Tizona or Naegling which has the most damage potential to lose compared to Almace, and are capable of slipping until they finally fall behind.
Regardless, it tends to be the group you are in which determines the weapon you should use, and what approach is more optimal within those parameters. As long as you understand that basic gist after all of this then you are good.

Now for the advice part. Where you just wanted me to suggest how you should play.

• A TP Bonus Magian offhand is the inflection point for all itents and purposes. So if you are buffed balls deep, then you know what to do.

• If you can't reasonably gain TP with it then it probably doesn't belong in your hand.
• If you are underbuffed in a group and and don't need MP, and have an Almace R15. Then there is a good chance you should be using that.
• Otherwise, the old rules always apply. Close a SC if you know you can with one of the aforementioned WSs.

• CDC at low TP, and Savage/Expiacion if your TP Bonus (Moonshade, Sequence, Crystal Blessing, WARs Warcry) hits ~2k+ as has been said prior in this guide.

• Samurai roll and multi attack procs see this happen regularly in highbuff situations as soon as you cross that 1k TP threshold.

• /DRG favors Savage and Expiacion setups more than Tizona/Almace CDCing.

• If you are CDCing, don't hold TP if you can help it.

• A lack of buffs hurts Savage/Expi damage more than CDC damage.

• Keep in mind, those "sick" Dark Matter WSD augments tend to lack accuracy on then.

---

So, you are a Casual BLU having fun simply fulfilling a role for your group, and don't want to sink lots of time/gil into making Tizona or Almace. What would I advise then?

• Grab a Naegling and a Colada, and eventually upgrade to offhanding a Zantetsuken.

• Assuming you have a TP Bonus Moonshade, favor using Savage Blade at ~1700 TP, and if you can close a light or darkness with CDC before then, go for it.

• No Moonshade? Then why do you even have a Naegling? Savage at ~1900 then, same rules as before.

• Don't have a Naegling? Well then Kaja works.

• No Kaja?! Spam CDC with another weapon on the chart there unless you can SC with Savage Blade.

• No CDC?!?! Holy shit, stop it already! You have work to do.

• Are you part of a linkshell that does Aeonics and you don't have anything left to make? Well, make a Sequence then!

• As long as you are sufficiently buffed then it should out Savage your Naegling thanks to that TP Bonus. Similarly, the TP Bonus and STP should likely edge out your DPS over Naegling's DEX and Attack for CDCing. There you go, your casual BLU is done.
• Savage Blade as soon as you get TP, assuming you have Moonshade. Which I shouldn't even have to write because you have it.

• That is right, you have it, and you aren't going to say you don't have it. You have it.

• Got it? Good.

• Well geared R15 Almace/Zantetsuken CDCing and R15 Tizona/Zantetsuken Expiacion in mid-buff content?

• It close and slightly favors Tizona Expiacion while following the same rules as Naegling did for more DPS, but you still should aim for SCing if possible.

• Little less close with 5/5 Malignance on in favor.

• No Sam roll and while in full or Hybrid DD gear? R15 Almace.

• Hybrid means 1-2 piece of Malignance (legs and/or hands), a D Ring, and PDT 10% on a cape. That's it. That is -27% ~ -32%. More than enough

• Stop capping DT in your "hybrid" set.

So this tirade is why those two tables of progression there exist. Trying to cover the spread here.

Clubbing Baby Seals

Clubs

And you know we don't give a fuck it's not your birthday. Here is a list of Clubs. While they are generally worn just for for nuking, BLU is also excellent at dealing blunt damage with the Ambuscade club as well. Tamaxchi - Weaker than the other options, but hey it is something. There is some cure potency you really shouldn't need on it either. Also, please don't be that guy who pronounces the monster's name as "Yum Cock" because you don't know how an 'X' sounds in words. The club augments like the Xiutleato did, but with magic stats. Which seems entirely needless as you can just use a Homestead Wand instead for nuking. Drops from Yumcax in Wildskeeper Reives. Eminent Wand - Yup, sparks stuff. Easily accessible. Purchased with Sparks. Homestead Wand - Easy to obtain and you may pair it with your other wand as you burn bright with the ambition of actually owning a ilvl119 weapon. Purchased from Craggy Bluff with Bayld. Bolelabunga - Time to smoke one! You just got an idle club! Replace your Eminent Wand with and use it to nuke until you obtain something better. This delve is generally the most frequently farmed during a campaign. Drops from Wopket in Yorcia Delve. Gabaxorea - Now you actually have something here, a step up. They are also easy to obtain, and should honestly be your starting point. These are roughly the equivalent of using the Vampirism mentioned in the sword section. With low augments being weaker, and max augments being a tad better. You would save a lot of time by just going after these or the superior Nibiru's though. Drops from Cherti in Kamihr Delve. Augments with path A: MP +30, MAB +10, INT +7 Nibiru Cudgel - Excellent clubs to nuke it, and once the best. The fish they drop from is not hard either compared to fighting with Nosoi for your Nibiru Blades unless you are under geared or under supported. Drops from Kamohoalii in Escha - Zi'Tah. Augment them with path B: MP+50 INT+10 MAB+15 Reference the Nolan page. Kaja Rod - Here we go, now here is a great blunt weapon worth meleeing with. Outside of Spectral Floe or Burst Affinity, this will beat a Nibiru. You will also see a large boost to Subduction from the magic damage jump. As the base damage for it is much lower than that of the big 8 elemental nukes. Ambuscade Weapon Reference the Ambuscade Rewards page. Maxentius - The only hang-up you will have here is grinding out a Pulse Weapon. This is the best club to both nuke or melee with. Now you just need to make another Kaja Rod to offhand, and while that is not be the greatest offhand for blunt DPS, at least you already have it. Ambuscade Weapon Reference the Ambuscade Rewards page. Anything not mentioned either isn't worth your time or not worth using when compared to the alternatives. A club such as the Nehushtan has a big hit in magic accuracy that makes it worth skipping completely. We already talked about the Mimesis too in the sword section.

Magic Weapon Progression

Here is the progression of nuking weapons. It is also useful for directly comparing them on one page.

Long story short, if you were wondering. Nibiru Cudgels are better than making mage Coladas.

Magic Weapon Progression
Mainhand	Offhand
↓
↓
Vampirisms augmented with INT+10
↓
Augment with path A: MP +30, MAB +10, INT +7
↓
Augment them with path B: MP+50 INT+10 MAB+15
↓
	Augment with path B: MP+50 INT+10 MAB+15
↓
↓
	Augments with MAB +25, good before that.

Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

Here is the other hurdle people face, Armor. I can't tell you how many people whine about the state of things in their online life because they apparently can't see the forest through the trees.

"No one invites me"

"I can't get better gear because no one helps me"

"This server sucks"

"This game is too hard"

"Everyone is stuck up"

"I am leaving the LS because people all think I am gimp"

"I don't know what to do"

"I don't want to make shout groups"

Stop whining!
If you lack the appropriate gear for the job then you don't get to swim in the pool. You need a bigger boat to catch bigger fish, so to speak. Part of the fun of the game is the dopamine drip in your reward center for achieving better things.

Then BLU Should Have Put a Ring on It

Figure I should have this section really quick about which Adoulin Missions ring to select as it is an occasional question.

I believe that the Shneddick Ring is the best choice. Not only is it something for all jobs. Many of which lack 18% speed, but it is important for idle sets. There is really no good idle set that involves Carmine Cuisses +1, and certainly no evasion set on the job with them either.

As someone who AoEs Omen for a quick completion or takes point for Sheol C runs to pull/tank while DDing (see section below) it is indispensa-BLU.

Don't underestimate the chances of death in your idle. Monster damage in endgame has reached previously unseen proportions and being in armor from the Escha era against it is often a death sentence. The ring is a low impact slot, and being able to move fast in a full DT set is an unparalleled benefit. The other rings, such as Weatherspoon Ring or Janniston Ring are very nice, but not as constantly impactful or as universal as Shneddick.

Armored from the Bottom Now We're Here

So where do you start? Million dollar question!

While everyone should make friends in this game, not everyone starts at the same point. If you have friends then obviously you may jump into it anywhere you want and leech.

Otherwise, refer to the The Beast Within - A Guide to Blue Mage on FFXIAH.com for what to wear.

Geared As BLU Are

As BLU are, as BLU were. As I want BLU to be.

This section was travailed after people forever mentioning that the Beast Within guide on AH.com is not sufficient for the lowest and lower rung of BLUs.

Now, I have no desire to rehash the same niche. The Beast Within handles gear, and that is what most people regularly use it for. However, I do know there is a vast arsenal of old options in which new players sift through.

Equipment is tied to the steps listed above in the Armored from the Bottom section. You may want to note that I am not plugging these early sets into a spreadsheet. That is once again the role of The Beast Within.

• Ambuscade armor is not included due to the fluctuating availability of the pieces.

So, since we already have a damn thesis on Blue Maging Against the Machine here.
We might as well come with it now. Less your keyboard explode and you shatter the molds or you have to get the fuck off the commode.

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NOTE: This has never been updated for Ambuscade Weapons, and other minor changes. One day. I just finished the damn sword nonsense so give me time. --Spicyryan (talk) 23:14, 8 January 2021 (EST)

• Starting to work on this, slowly. --Spicyryan (talk) 19:08, 10 May 2021 (EDT)

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Step 1
TP   Homestead Blade Eminent Scimitar Jukukik Feather Espial Cap Espial Gambison Espial Bracers Espial Hose Espial Socks Ziel Charm Suppanomimi Brutal Earring Enlivened Ring Vehemence Ring Dynamic Belt Kayapa Cape	WS   Homestead Blade Eminent Scimitar Jukukik Feather Espial Cap Espial Gambison Espial Bracers Espial Hose Espial Socks Light Gorget Moonshade Earring 4 Acc & TP Bonus +250 Mache Earring Enlivened Ring Vehemence Ring Light Belt Kayapa Cape	DT   Homestead Blade Eminent Scimitar Jukukik Feather Espial Cap Espial Gambison Espial Bracers Espial Hose Espial Socks Twilight Torque Suppanomimi Brutal Earring Jelly Ring Dynamic Belt Cheviot Cape
	Light Gorget and Belt work for Savage Blade and CDC only. Soil or Thunder for Vorpal Blade
Suppanomimi and Brutal Earring take some work to get, but they will easily last you till endgame.

Step 2
TP   Eminent Scimitar Xiutleato OAT and Crit Rate +4% Jukukik Feather Thur. Chapeau +1 Thaumas Coat Buremte Gloves PDT-4% MDT-2% Iuitl Tights DA or Crit Espial Socks Ziel Charm Suppanomimi Brutal Earring Epona's Ring Rajas Ring Cetl Belt Kayapa Cape	CDC & Vorpal   Eminent Scimitar Xiutleato OAT and Crit Rate +4% Jukukik Feather Espial Cap Espial Gambison Espial Bracers Espial Hose Espial Socks Fotia Gorget Moonshade Earring 4 Acc & TP Bonus +250 Mache Earring Epona's Ring Rajas Ring Fotia Belt Rancorous Mantle	DT   Eminent Scimitar Xiutleato OAT and Crit Rate +4% Jukukik Feather Thur. Chapeau +1 Thaumas Coat Buremte Gloves PDT-4% MDT-2% Iuitl Tights DA or Crit Thur. Boots +1 Twilight Torque Suppanomimi Brutal Earring Dark Ring -5% PDT/MDT Dark Ring -5% PDT/MDT Flume Belt Umbra Cape
	Mantle requires Tonberry Hate, see page for details.	Just use whatever Verdigris Stones you get on the Tights. Augments are wiped when upgrading to +1 so don't bother augmenting the rest yet.
	Savage Blade & Expiacion   Eminent Scimitar Xiutleato OAT and Crit Rate +4% Jukukik Feather Ejekamal Mask STR+8 Espial Gambison Buremte Gloves PDT-4% MDT-2% Quiahuiz Trousers MND+8 Wayfarer Clogs Tjukurrpa Medal Moonshade Earring 4 Acc & TP Bonus +250 Brutal Earring Ifrit Ring Ifrit Ring Prosilio Belt +1 Buquwik Cape	Nukes   Homestead Wand Eminent Wand Snow Sachet Hagondes Hat MAB/Macc Hagondes Coat MAB/Macc Hagondes Cuffs MAB/Macc Hagondes Pants MAB/Macc Hagondes Sabots MAB/Macc Quanpur Necklace Hecate's Earring Friomisi Earring Acumen Ring Shiva Ring Salire Belt Cornflower Cape MAB/Macc
	Requiescat   Eminent Scimitar Xiutleato OAT and Crit Rate +4% Aqua Sachet Ejekamal Mask STR+8 Espial Gambison Buremte Gloves PDT-4% MDT-2% Quiahuiz Trousers MND+8 Wayfarer Clogs Fotia Gorget Moonshade Earring 4 Acc & TP Bonus +250 Brutal Earring Epona's Ring Levia. Ring Fotia Belt Atheling Mantle	Fast Cast     Some Early Options Eminent Scimitar Xiutleato OAT and Crit Rate +4% Impatiens Haruspex Hat Mavi Mintan +2 Orvail Pants +1 Chelona Boots Orunmila's Torque Enchntr. Earring +1 Loquac. Earring Prolix Ring Witful Belt Swith Cape
	Sanguine Blade   Eminent Scimitar Xiutleato OAT and Crit Rate +4% Snow Sachet Pixie Hairpin +1 Hagondes Coat MAB/Macc Hagondes Cuffs MAB/Macc Hagondes Pants MAB/Macc Hagondes Sabots MAB/Macc Quanpur Necklace Hecate's Earring Friomisi Earring Archon Ring Shiva Ring Salire Belt Cornflower Cape BLU Skill
Now you actually have some equipment options to engage in. You are at the point where you should begin at least the outline of various different sets. PDT, PDT DD Hybrid, MDT, WS sets, TP, TP Accuracy sets, Fast Cast, Nuking, etc. Keep in mind some gear choices were made due to ease as they are only temporary at this stage.

Step 3
TP   Eletta Sword Usonmunku B) DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Ginsen Taeon Chapeau Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Thaumas Coat Taeon Gloves Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Taeon Tights Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Taeon Boots Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Asperity Necklace Suppanomimi Brutal Earring Epona's Ring Rajas Ring Windbuffet Belt +1 Bleating Mantle	CDC & Vorpal   Eletta Sword Usonmunku B) DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Jukukik Feather Taeon Chapeau Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Taeon Tabard Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Taeon Gloves Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Taeon Tights Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Taeon Boots Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Fotia Gorget Moonshade Earring 4 Acc & TP Bonus +250 Mache Earring Epona's Ring Ramuh Ring Fotia Belt Bleating Mantle	DT/PDT   Eletta Sword Usonmunku B) DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Staunch Tathlum Iuitl Headgear +1 PDT/MDT Emet Harness +1 Buremte Gloves PDT-4% MDT-2% Iuitl Tights +1 PDT/MDT Iuitl Gaiters +1 PDT/MDT Twilight Torque Suppanomimi Ethereal Earring Dark Ring -5% PDT/MDT Gelatinous Ring +1 Flume Belt +1 Umbra Cape	Nukes   Gabaxorea A)MP +30, MAB +10, INT +7 Gabaxorea A)MP +30, MAB +10, INT +7 Ghastly Tathlum +1 Helios Band MAB/Macc + INT + FC Hagondes Coat +1 MAB/Macc Helios Gloves MAB/Macc + INT + FC Hagondes Pants +1 MAB/Macc Helios Boots MAB/Macc + INT + FC Eddy Necklace Novio Earring Friomisi Earring Acumen Ring Shiva Ring Salire Belt Cornflower Cape MAB/Macc
You are going to have accuracy issues on content certain content in this gear. So make sure you have accuracy sets, scale up in tiered sets, and eat food.		Wailing Stones +1/2 for the augments on Iuitl +1.
Acc Swaps   Eletta Sword B)DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Usonmunku B)DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Honed Tathlum Ej Necklace Mache Earring Cacoethic Ring +1 Ramuh Ring +1 Anguinus Belt Ground. Mantle +1	Savage Blade & Expiacion   Eletta Sword Usonmunku B) DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Floestone Taeon Chapeau Acc/Atk, TA +2, WSD or STR Taeon Tabard Acc/Atk, TA +2, WSD or STR Taeon Gloves Acc/Atk, TA +2, WSD or STR Taeon Tights Acc/Atk, TA +2, WSD or STR Taeon Boots Acc/Atk, TA +2, WSD or STR Lacono Neck. +1 Moonshade Earring 4 Acc & TP Bonus +250 Brutal Earring Ifrit Ring Ifrit Ring +1 Prosilio Belt +1 Vespid Mantle STR +30 Acc/Atk +20 WSD +10%	PDT Hybrid   Eletta Sword Usonmunku B) DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Honed Tathlum Qaaxo Mask B)STR +7, Acc +15, PDT -3% Qaaxo Harness B)STR +7, Acc +15, PDT -3% Buremte Gloves PDT-4% MDT-2% Qaaxo Tights B)STR +7, Acc +15, PDT -3% Qaaxo Leggings B)STR +7, Acc +15, PDT -3% Twilight Torque Suppanomimi Mache Earring Dark Ring -5% PDT/MDT Patricius Ring Flume Belt +1 Umbra Cape	Fast Cast   Eletta Sword Usonmunku B) DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Impatiens Haruspex Hat Taeon Tabard FC +5 Telchine Gloves FC +5 Enif Cosciales Taeon Boots FC +5 Voltsurge Torque Enchntr. Earring +1 Loquac. Earring Prolix Ring Weather. Ring Witful Belt Swith Cape +1
Iqabi Necklace is a free alternative to Ej. Kayapa Cape is also an cheap instant help before the Grounded Mantle, and works for your Acc CDC set.	Weaponskill Damage is ideal, but since you will replace this just keep what you have on your TP/CDC Taeon rather than double up piece.	The goal of PDT Hybrid is to safely DD while taking less damage. Sometimes you simply can't get the accuracy to do this and just wear a full DT set, but other times you can maintain a good hit rate while not eating the floor. The goal is to mix accuracy and DT gear. Delve II Rewards/Mezzotinting	I would just keep the Chelona Boots until Carmine Greaves . Hashishin Mintan +1 for casting BLU spells. Voltsurge may be 1% less FC, but it is more rewarding (chapters and upgrade items) to go after rather than grind Meeble Burrows. In the end you cap without the 1%, and can use it for Sudden Lunge.
	Requiescat   Eletta Sword Usonmunku B) DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Aqua Sachet Whirlpool Mask Telchine Chas. DA +3, Acc/Atk, STR&MND Telchine Gloves DA +3, Acc/Atk, STR&MND Telchine Braconi DA +3, Acc/Atk, STR&MND Telchine Pigaches DA +3, Acc/Atk, STR&MND Fotia Gorget Moonshade Earring 4 Acc & TP Bonus +250 Brutal Earring Epona's Ring Levia. Ring +1 Fotia Belt Bleating Mantle	DT/MDT   Eletta Sword Usonmunku B) DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Staunch Tathlum Iuitl Headgear +1 PDT/MDT Emet Harness +1 Buremte Gloves PDT-4% MDT-2% Iuitl Tights +1 PDT/MDT Iuitl Gaiters +1 MDT Twilight Torque Suppanomimi Ethereal Earring Dark Ring -5% PDT/MDT Shadow Ring Flax Sash Engulfer Cape +1
	Telchine Cap with augments is better than the mask, but the mask is easy, and you would replace the cap eventually for Req
	Sanguine Blade   Eletta Sword Usonmunku B) DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Ghastly Tathlum +1 Pixie Hairpin +1 Hagondes Coat +1 MAB/Macc Helios Gloves MAB/Macc + INT + FC Hagondes Pants +1 MAB/Macc Helios Boots MAB/Macc + INT + FC Eddy Necklace Hecate's Earring Novio Earring Archon Ring Acumen Ring Salire Belt Cornflower Cape BLU Skill
Still a lot of temporary options in your sets like delve gear, but you can see your sets are starting to get somewhere. Don't obsess about the augments, half of it won't last in the next step.

Step 5 (Ambuscade Only)
This section only includes Ambuscade out of the Step 5 content (Ambuscade, Sinister Reign, Vagary, Unity under level 135s). The rest encroaches too much on leaving the area of topic. If something is NQ then it is superior to the previous item, obviously you HQ it. If it is HQ then the NQ is not sufficient compared to the previous item. This is the last cusp before you use a real gear guide, which this is not. +2 Ambuscade gear is not included, but it should be a very easy comparison for most pieces.
TP   Claidheamh Soluis DMG +13-19, Atk/Acc +10-15, DA +4% Usonmunku B) DMG +3 DEX +7 Acc +10 Ginsen Taeon Chapeau Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Ayanmo Corazza Taeon Gloves Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Taeon Tights Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Taeon Boots Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Asperity Necklace Suppanomimi Brutal Earring Epona's Ring Rajas Ring Windbuffet Belt +1 Rosmerta's Cape Dex +20 Acc +30 Atk +20 STP +10	CDC & Vorpal   Claidheamh Soluis Usonmunku Jukukik Feather Taeon Chapeau Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Ayanmo Corazza +1 Taeon Gloves Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Taeon Tights Acc/Atk, TA +2, Crit or STR&DEX Aya. Gambieras +1 Fotia Gorget Moonshade Earring 4 Acc & TP Bonus +250 Mache Earring Epona's Ring Ramuh Ring +1 Fotia Belt Rosmerta's Cape Dex +30 Acc/Atk +20 Crit +10%	DT/PDT   Claidheamh Soluis Usonmunku Staunch Tathlum Iuitl Headgear +1 PDT/MDT -4% Emet Harness +1 Buremte Gloves PDT-4% MDT-2% Aya. Cosciales +1 Iuitl Gaiters +1 PDT/MDT -4% Twilight Torque Suppanomimi Ethereal Earring Defending Ring Gelatinous Ring +1 Flume Belt +1 Moonbeam Cape	Nukes   Gabaxorea A)MP +30, MAB +10, INT +7 Gabaxorea A)MP +30, MAB +10, INT +7 Ghastly Tathlum +1 Jhakri Coronal Jhakri Robe Jhakri Cuffs Jhakri Slops +1 Jhakri Pigaches Eddy Necklace Novio Earring Friomisi Earring Acumen Ring Shiva Ring Yamabuki-no-Obi Rosmerta's Cape INT +30, Macc/MDmg +20, MAB +10
An augmented Xiutleato will continue to be the best offhand for fodder or when accuracy is not an issue. Until better swords like the Nibiru Blade which also win on fodder. The overall reason for the body change is because I feel that overall at this point the accuracy and other stats provided by even the NQ Ayanmo body will be more important.	Begrudging Ring replaces Ramuh if you have it and requires Tonberry Hate, see page for details.	Wailing Stones +1/2 for the augments on Iuitl +1. This set overcaps you on DT with max augs. The cap is 50% (true cap is actually 51~52%, much like 25% gear haste is really 26%) so use Ayanmo +1 instead of Iuitl Pieces in this case.
Acc Swaps   Claidheamh Soluis Usonmunku Honed Tathlum Ej Necklace Zennaroi Earring Mache Earring Cacoethic Ring +1 Ramuh Ring +1 Olseni Belt Ground. Mantle +1	Savage Blade & Expiacion   Claidheamh Soluis Usonmunku Floestone Taeon Chapeau Acc/Atk, TA +2, WS Dmg+ Taeon Tabard Acc/Atk, TA +2, WS Dmg+ Jhakri Cuffs Taeon Tights Acc/Atk, TA +2, WS Dmg+ Taeon Boots Acc/Atk, TA +2, WS Dmg+ Lacono Neck. +1 Moonshade Earring 4 Acc & TP Bonus +250 Brutal Earring Karieyh Ring Ifrit Ring +1 Prosilio Belt +1 Rosmerta's Cape STR +30 Acc/Atk +20 WSD +10%	PDT Hybrid   Claidheamh Soluis Usonmunku Honed Tathlum Aya. Zucchetto +1 Ayanmo Corazza Aya. Manopolas +1 Ayanmo Cosciales Aya. Gambieras +1 Twilight Torque Suppanomimi Mache Earring Defending Ring Patricius Ring Flume Belt +1 Moonbeam Cape	Fast Cast   Claidheamh Soluis Usonmunku Impatiens Haruspex Hat Taeon Tabard FC +5 Telchine Gloves FC +5 Enif Cosciales Taeon Boots FC +5 Voltsurge Torque Enchntr. Earring +1 Loquac. Earring Prolix Ring Weather. Ring Witful Belt Swith Cape +1
Iqabi Necklace is a free alternative to Ej. Use Ayanmo as needed for more accuracy. Keep your DW in mind (give it up in dire needs), and don't use Jhakri as it has no damn haste on it.	Weaponskill Damage is ideal, but since you will replace this stuff, just keep what you have on your TP/CDC Taeon rather than double up piece. In which case you should just use Jhakri +1, Vespid Mantle if you don't have the WSD Rosmerta	The goal of PDT Hybrid is to safely DD while taking less damage. Sometimes you simply can't get the accuracy to do this and just wear a full DT set, but other times you can maintain a good hit rate while not eating the floor. The goal is to mix accuracy and DT gear.	I would just keep the Chelona Boots until Carmine Greaves . Hashishin Mintan +1 for casting BLU spells. Voltsurge may be 1% less FC, but it is more rewarding (chapters and upgrade items) to go after rather than grind Meeble Burrows. In the end you cap without the 1%, and can use it for Sudden Lunge.
	Requiescat   Claidheamh Soluis Usonmunku Aqua Sachet Jhakri Coronal Jhakri Robe +1 Jhakri Cuffs +1 Jhakri Slops +1 Jhakri Pigaches Fotia Gorget Moonshade Earring 4 Acc & TP Bonus +250 Brutal Earring Epona's Ring Levia. Ring +1 Fotia Belt Rosmerta's Cape MND+30, Acc/Atk +20, DA +10	DT/MDT   Claidheamh Soluis Usonmunku Staunch Tathlum Iuitl Headgear +1 PDT/MDT -4% Ayanmo Corazza Buremte Gloves PDT-4% MDT-2% Aya. Cosciales +1 Iuitl Gaiters +1 PDT/MDT -4% Twilight Torque Ethereal Earring Defending Ring Shadow Ring Flax Sash Engulfer Cape +1
	No one makes an ambuscade cape just for Req. Use your WSD one or something.	While the MDT cap is the same -50% as the PDT cap. Keep in mind that Shell V grants MDT while Protect does not do the same for PDT. In which case you only need ~26% MDT Gear with Shell V on. Use magic evasion items in the rest of the slots. DT works for all damage taken ,including breath. MDT, PDT, BDT, are obviously their respective reductions only.
	Sanguine Blade   Claidheamh Soluis Usonmunku Ghastly Tathlum +1 Pixie Hairpin +1 Jhakri Robe Jhakri Cuffs Jhakri Slops +1 Jhakri Pigaches Eddy Necklace Novio Earring Friomisi Earring Archon Ring Acumen Ring Yamabuki-no-Obi Rosmerta's Cape INT +30, Macc/MDmg +20, MAB +10
Much less in the way of temporary options in your sets now as you expand out your equipment. Now you are ready to jump into the Beast Within guide on AH.com for your gear sets. And yes, we all know augmenting sucks for Skirmish gear, focus on the Taeon feet as those are the most important for TPing until Adhemar Jacket . There is always Ayanmo NQ if you have no augments, or getting into Rawhide or Herculean, which is beyond the scope of this section.

Misc Sets

Just going to throw some miscellaneous sets here from time to time. Maybe I will write a section one day.

SIR     5/5 SIR Merits 102% Staunch Tathlum +1 Rawhide Gloves Assim. Shalwar +3 Amalric Nails +1 Loricate Torque +1 SIR 5% Magnetic Earring Rumination Sash Fi Follet Cape +1 FC +10%, SIR 5% I don't believe in not having 5/5 SIR merits. I also don't believe in owning an Ethereal Earring.

Counter     +72% w/ T4 Trait & O. Counterstance Caps 80% Amar Cluster Gleti's Mask Counter +10 Herculean Gloves Counter +5 Herculean Trousers Counter +5 Herculean Boots Counter +5 Bathy Choker +1 Counter +10 Genmei Earring Cryptic Earring Rosmerta's Cape Counter +10

Reforged! Armored and Dangerous

Assimilator's Attire Set +2/+3 Bonus Set Bonus, Accuracy, Ranged Accuracy, Magic Accuracy + 2 Pieces: +15 3 Pieces: +30 4 Pieces: +45 5 Pieces: +60 Max bonus at 5 pieces. Combining +2 and +3 pieces together will still activate the set bonus. You may also combine it with the Regal Earring.

Artifact Armor Upgrade
Item	Upgrade?	Notes
Assim. Keffiyeh +3	Yes	Great magic accuracy piece.
Assim. Jubbah +3	Yes	Skill piece, and WS piece until Nyame Mail Path B ~20+.
Assim. Bazu. +3	No	While you can pick an earlier piece like the 109 or 119 +1 for spell learning. There is no reason to waste time or money for this when you can obtain several other DT hands such as Malignance, Gleti's, or Nyame.
Assim. Shalwar +3	Yes	Great magic accuracy piece. Potential for an SIR set.
Assim. Charuqs +3	Maybe	Chain Affinity piece, but that is about it.

Relic Armor Upgrade
Item	Upgrade?	Notes
Luh. Keffiyeh +3 Enhances Convergence	Yes	This is for the skill as Convergence is rather useless. This entire set can be used for Realmrazer and Requiescat.
Luhlaza Jubbah +3 Enhances Enchainment	Maybe	This can also optionally be used for a fast recast set for Sudden Lunge, Feather Tickle, Reaving Wind, Osmosis, etc.
Luh. Bazubands +3 Enhances Azure Lore	Maybe	You don't need to take them this far for the extra 10 seconds to Azure Lore. They really only serve a purpose as a niche Subtle Blow piece or for Realmrazer and Requiescat.
Luhlaza Shalwar +3 Enhances Assimilation	Yes	The augment adds a magical critical hit rate for that merit point you already have, which is rather irrelevant. These pants do make a nice nuking piece with magic accuracy. As well, they are an excellent WS piece. Finally, the lack of attack and lower MND makes even base Nyame Flanchard or otherwise potentially Jhakri Slops +2 a better choice for Realmrazer and Requiescat.
Luhlaza Charuqs +3 Enhances Diffusion	Yes	Another skill and Realm/Req piece. You absolutely need the base iLvl version for the augment, and might as well just upgrade it.

Empyrean Armor Upgrade
Item	Upgrade?	Notes
Hashishin Kavuk +2	Yes	Best magical WS piece outside of Sanguine Blade. Great for nuking, and the best for Chain Affinity usage.
Hashishin Mintan +2	Yes	Excellent for idle, precast, AoE DT nuking or nuking in general, and MND based WSs like Realmrazer.
Hashi. Bazu. +2	Yes	Excellent for idle, midcast, AoE DT nuking or nuking in general, and MND based WSs like Realmrazer.
Hashishin Tayt +2	Yes	Skill piece, AoE DT nuking piece, and Efflux casting piece.
Hashi. Basmak +2	Yes	Excellent nuking piece, and the best for Burst Affinity.

Rosmerta's Are Red and Clueless Are BLUs

These capes are sweet, like a drunken Screwdriver.

I get questions about this quite a bit so here is a section.

The Rosmerta's Cape of course comes from Ambuscade.

• See Ambuscade Capes for augment info.

Rosmerta's Capes
Item	Upgrade?	Notes
Rosmerta's Cape STR +30 Atk/Acc +20 WSD +10% PDT -10%	First	A cape to improve your WS damage is the first priority. You may melee in it until making the next one.
Rosmerta's Cape DEX +20 Atk +20 Acc +30 DA +10% PDT -10%	Second	Standard TP cape unless under Tizona AM3 aftermath.
Rosmerta's Cape INT +30 Macc/MDmg +20 MAB +10 PDT -10%	Third	Chances are you will be AoEing mobs for Omen, Merit Points, or something. So I would make this third.
Rosmerta's Cape DEX +20 Atk +20 Acc +30 DW +10% PDT -10%	Fourth	Sometimes you are weakened or unbuffed.
Rosmerta's Cape MND +30 Eva/MEva +20 Cure Potency +10% PDT -10%	Fifth	Magic Fruit
Rosmerta's Cape DEX +30 Atk/Acc +20 Crit +10% PDT -10%	Sixth	CDC.
Rosmerta's Cape DEX +20 Atk +20 Acc +30 STP +10 PDT -10%	Seventh	Make this if you are making a Tizona.
Rosmerta's Cape HP +60 Eva +20 MEva +45 FC +10% DT -5%	Eighth	Make this if you are interested in a magic evasion set. Which you absolutely should be. It doubles as a FC piece to strengthen your midcasts.
Rosmerta's Cape HP +60 Eva +20 MEva +45 Enmity +10 Parry +5%	Nineth	Make this if you are interested in niche tanking stuff.
Rosmerta's Cape AGI +20 Eva +45 MEva +20 FC +10%	Tenth	Evasion set. The FC is there for when you cast without removing evasion equipment.

Endgame and You

Old Content

---

Capacity Points This was touched on with the section on solo AoEing CP, but just make or join an Apex party.
Otherwise, yes if you have limited time then soloing CP is a valid use of it, and an important way of building out your character. However, teaming up, even just to duo, is a better usage of time.

High-Tier Battlefields A few important items are still found here, such as

Ginsen, Voltsurge Torque, or Rem's Tales.

Tenzen

• The fight BLU is most equipped to tackle. Dream Flower the Taru-tarus, Silent Storm them, and ride Occultation shadows to victory.
  There is a little more to it than that, such as not spamming WSs like a dope during Yaegasumi and standing back out of range during Meikyo Shisui.

Videos

• Tenzen Solo - 2015

Avatars

• The general target for farming Rem's Tales. Subbing /RUN will allow you to tackle these targets.
  Avatars have their own procing system which is listed on their pages. The procs remove an associated -30% DT in four separate categories. Job Abilities, Magic, Weaponskills, and Pet Abilities are the four proc categories.
  Titan for example has it's physical resistance removed via a pet ability. So take these things into account.

Videos

• Fenrir Solo - 2016
• Diabolos Solo - 2016

Alluvion Skirmish

• BLU is the best job for tackling this event. Set some clubs on with a magic based build and a few utility spells. In this case, Occultation, Magic Hammer, and Sinker Drill (for the large Twitherym) and then clean house.

Delve

• There are a few gimmicks here well suited to BLU. Sleeping adds and various damage types means you won't get bogged down.
  The most important ones being the Matamata and Craklaw. They require one damage type being done (physical or magical) where the multiplier to the opposite type damage increases after each timed TP move. Instead, you may just use physical blue magic as the source of damage and it will increase the damage multiplier for itself.

Videos

• Kamihr Delve Trio - 2015

Sinister Reign

• There is not too much to say about this. Set up for DPS output with a little bit of support, and go to town.

Videos

• Group - 2015
• Solo - 2019

Videos

For solo and older, but still valid melee tactics escha HELM videos I have made, see my Youtube Channel.

Unity

This knob of a section is just to point out that various NMs are important not for the base item, but the augmented version of their Unity Rewards.

• There are too many fights to bother going over, but look at items like the Aurist's Cape +1, Bathy Choker +1, Sailfi Belt +1, Acuity Belt +1, etc

Ambuscade

There is a lot of variance here, but BLU is valid for just about any Ambuscade as a DD. When applicable, my favorite usage for it is to replace a tank and get more from the slot. As long as you understand the battle, are equipped, and supported then you can employ everything from a counter/parry build as /RUN to a job that just throws up Occultation and some hate spells while DDing.

Omen

AoEing for Detritus is a lot more efficient than fighting single targets. Yes, you can just throw on Occultation, Stoneskin, Phalanx, Aquaveil, etc with and Nuke this with some moderate risk depending on your gear and how many you aggro at once.

However, BLU has the capacity for some of the highest evasion in the game, and you can put that to work to make this even safer.
You only need about 1200 evasion to cap against fodder, and roughly about 1250 evasion for the Transcended. So all you realistically need is to cap against the fodder. Which is pretty easy with some equipment and traits. You don't need Evasion Food with a proper set, but Popotoes Con Queso work for newer converts.

• It depends on what you have access to or need, but Malignance has 21 more evasion than Nyame. It also has more DT and Defense.

• I started with Malignance, and with the Evasion/AGI gained with Master Levels from regularly farming it, switched to Nyame.

Other notes:

• Shneddick Ring is the best for this, and I recommend giving up the other rings in this game. It is ideal for making an idle/kiting/etc sets with it for all important content.
• Sub RDM for Stoneskin, Phalanx, Cure, Aquaveil, and Refresh.
• Make rules in your lua to not change from your evasion gear while casting Dream Flower. Otherwise you will just die midcast.

• Example:

function pc_Magic(spell, act)
    if spell.skill == 'Blue Magic' then
		if player.status == 'Idle' and Idle_ind == 3 and spell.english == "Dream Flower" then -- since you are already in your evasion set, you don't need a mode, just a rule
			ChangeGear(set_combine(sets.Idle.Evasion, {ammo = "Sapience Orb", ring1 = "Kishar Ring", ring2 = "Rahab Ring"}))
		else
			ChangeGear(sets.precast.FC.Blue)
		end
	else
		ChangeGear(sets.precast.FC.Standard)
    end
end

• Where the Idle_ind is number of the order of your idle sets in gearswap. So if you only have two idle sets, and the second is your evasion one then it be ind == 2.

• I then open with an Entomb with TH gear attached to it.

Evasion Omen

Maxentius Bunzi's Rod MAB+ Staunch Tathlum +1 Nyame Helm Nyame Mail Nyame Gauntlets Nyame Flanchard Nyame Sollerets Bathy Choker +1 Evasion +15 Eabani Earring Infused Earring Defending Ring Shneddick Ring +1 Kasiri Belt Rosmerta's Cape AGI +20, Eva +45, MEva +20, FC +10%

• A Kaja Rod functions as your offhand of choice if you lack Bunzi's.

• If you lack Maxentius then go take another gander at the Clubs section.

• Malignance does not cap DT with a tathlum +1 and defending ring (-44%) without giving up more evasion in the accessory slots.

• This is fine though, and shouldn't cause any issues if you don't have Nyame or just need more evasion.

Odyssey

You can go in and Naegling/TP Bonus Thibron like the best of them, and that is perfectly fine and dandy. Unless you are one of those dirty elitists that knows most BLUs are not going to put out nearly as much for the group as a good WAR, DRG, or even DRK or SAM. Which is why you don't tend to get an invite on BLU for the event despite the possibilities.

Now, of course I go BLU, and of course since you are reading this you are thinking about it as well. So, what I personally like to do more is be all the BLU that I can be, and limit liability. All while contributing more than a traditional tank would, but bringing more stability and safety than a full DD tankless setup. This means taking point to aggro, establish enmity, crowd control, and contribute to alliance DPS more than any traditional tank can. All while you yell "DODGE!" For BLU is one of the best evasion jobs in the game, and you can use that to your advantage.

As with Omen, this also requires special, but rather simple rules in your .lua so that you don't die on a pull when casting. You want to stay in full evasion gear when using Dream Flower. You want a toggle (mine is cntrl + space) for an evasion casting override mode. This way you can go cast Temporal Shift or Actinic Burst on a halo family or recast Occultation without dying, etc. Dropping out of evasion is suicide. In fact I use Equip Viewer to see when I dropped packets and am sitting in the wrong set so that I can quickly get out of it. This again is not a deadly issue with a proper override, but it can be. You also don't want to forget to toggle it back on if you take it off. Yeah, that happens— and you die. Yup...
Why is it off? Well, you get more shadows with Occultation when you don't remove all of your skill gear with a midcast override, etc.

This entire ecstasy inducing setup does also somewhat require what is arguably the only healer you would want to take to Odyssey, SCH. As Regen V/Embrava/Refresh means you are not only without MP worries, but safe to go fuck off on your own. You can do it with a WHM if you must, but it doesn't feel nearly as good. I recommend Popotoes Con Queso for this as evasion food is also required. Subbing RUN is also essential for gaining hate on halos after tagging mobs, even if you already used with Actinic Burst and Temporal Shift. The final requirement is a BRD that can do more than hit a script. You are fine with two JAed Mambos through the run. Soul Voice towards the end of the run and/or again after a Wild Card, with two Mambos sees you hitting around 1450 evasion. Which is enough to cap for the last floor. While I did not check exactly where the cap is, it is probably somewhere roughly around 1400+ for the last floor. Soul Voice shouldn't be used at the start of an Odyssey run anyway since the last floors are when you really need the boost.

As for strategy, last floor is also the optimal floor for you to gather and doom things and make up on a lack of remaining time. Communicate with your BRD that you are going to gather families while the DDs take care of things you can't doom or pick off halo mobs. Otherwise, I like to break off to the basement or attic of the third floor to either solo Joke (waka-waka, my comedy kills), pull to the group, or divert the party to a Halo. If I zone up to the third floor and there are two doomable families to the left before the basement. I will gather them, and the group will run down there. Otherwise they will start the culling, and I run to the basement while they then proceed to the fountain. You eventually get the feeling for coordinating this.

When it comes to any technique outside of the aforementioned details. Halo AoEs remove Occultation, and you sort of want it on, and not to eat up MP recasting it needlessly. So when you Leroy the halos, as you do in this approach, run past the congregation to a wall or something away from the AoE range of the halo. Then tag the gaggle of your new fans with a Temporal Shift, Actinic Burst, and then a JA. At which point the BRD sleepgas the group, and you go to town. My Evasion melee DT set override is below, but with little change. You can play around with this and alter an evasion DD set while Swordplay is on or by gaining evasion with Malignance to drop accessories in order up your DPS. Nonetheless, foes here have abnormally high attack making the large defense boost from Nyame while capping evasion with accessories rather important. Remember, DDing is just a large secondary benefit for you there. The primary focus is to pull, evasion tank, support the party, and cruel joke. Do not die for some DPS. Joking two or three families at once is a massive invisible DPS boost.

Other useful bits:

• Phalanx+ set for the SCH to apply some fun 14 or so minute boosted Phalanxs to you.
• Aquaveil+ set.
• Don't forget to keep Reactor Cool up.
• Macros to change weapon combos. As you absolutely blow up Skeletons with Maxentius and Thibron. You should/can surpass a DRG, DRK, or even a WAR with this combo.
• Sudden Lunge the last floor halo NMs to stop Hundred Fists, Eagle Eye Shot, Invincible, and Mijin Gakure. Assuming your group focuses on one NM at a time.
• Ziz are immune to Petrify. If you are Joking them solo without a long sleep from a BRD. Then you want to make sure you have Temporal Shift ready to go as you will have to dodge in place while the time ticks down.

Evasion Tank

Naegling Sakpata's Sword Staunch Tathlum +1 Nyame Helm Nyame Mail Nyame Gauntlets Nyame Flanchard Nyame Sollerets Bathy Choker +1 Evasion +15 Eabani Earring Infused Earring Ilabrat Ring Shneddick Ring +1 Kasiri Belt Rosmerta's Cape AGI +20, Eva +45, MEva +20, FC +10%

I like to get more Offensive, and use a Defending Ring with Thibron offhanded instead of Sakpata's Sword.

Evasion Tank DD

Naegling Thibron Staunch Tathlum +1 Nyame Helm Path B Nyame Mail Path B Nyame Gauntlets Path B Nyame Flanchard Path B Nyame Sollerets Path B Bathy Choker +1 Evasion +15 Eabani Earring Infused Earring Defending Ring Ilabrat Ring Reiki Yotai Rosmerta's Cape AGI +20, Eva +45, MEva +20, FC +10%

• It would be nice to have Windys of Promy over Chaotic and Zephyr, but Conserve MP is more valuable than a 1/tic Auto-Refresh.

• That being said, you get one from Sigil anyway, and your SCH should cast Refresh on you.

• Vile Exlirs are also somewhat of a modern mandatory medicine to carry for mages anyway.

• Coalition Ethers are also great.

Dedication

For everyone, except you.

Version

Version:2.4, 7th January 2021 ^(DD/MM/YYYY)

Last Updated by Spicyryan: 19 April 2023