Out of the BLU

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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:

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.
  • 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.
  • 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%

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.

Gear Suggestions
Item DW
Eabani Earring icon.png Eabani EarringEabani Earring description.png 4%
Suppanomimi icon.png SuppanomimiSuppanomimi description.png 5%
Herculean Boots icon.png Herculean BootsHerculean Boots description.png AugRank.png 4~5%
Adhemar Jacket icon.png Adhemar JacketAdhemar Jacket description.png 5%
Adhemar Jacket +1 icon.png Adhemar Jacket +1Adhemar Jacket +1 description.png 6%
Reiki Yotai icon.png Reiki YotaiReiki Yotai description.png 7%
Rosmerta's Cape icon.png Rosmerta's CapeRosmerta's Cape description.png AugRank.png 10%

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 +1Cacoethic Ring +1 description.png might seem like one of the best accuracy rings for BLU, it isn't. A Ramuh Ring +1link=] 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 EarringBrutal Earring description.png to Cessance EarringCessance Earring description.png before using a Telos EarringTelos Earring description.png 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 (Level 119 III) icon.png Almace (Level 119 III) icon.png Tizona / Almace combo that puts your Acc at 1200/1200 would be 1220/1195 at worst with an unaugmented Almace (Level 119 III) icon.png Colada icon.png 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.
  • Grape Daifuku icon.png 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:

ElementRelations.jpg

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 icon.png 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.

6276 icon.png 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 icon.png 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 icon.png 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 icon.png 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 icon.png 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 icon.png Rabbit Pie

  • STR/VIT +5, Attack/Defense +100
  • Niche food. Could see using it for certain runs where

Black Curry Bun icon.png Black Curry Bun

  • DEX +2, VIT +4, Defense + 180
  • This is essentially the best defense food. [Curio Vendor Moogle]] and chill.

Miso Ramen icon.png 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 icon.png 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

Rolan. Daifuku icon.png 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.

Tropical Crepe icon.png Pear Crepe

  • INT/MND +2, Magic Accuracy +90
  • Magic accuracy, 'nuff said.

6223 icon.png Cehuetzi Snow Cone

  • MP +100, INT/MND +5, Magic Attack Bonus +13, Lizard Killer +5
  • Pew, pew. Also, killer effects are undervalued.

Fruit Parfait icon.png 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:

  • Light-BLU-Icon.gif Actinic Burst: 180 CE 1080 VE
  • Lightning-BLU-Icon.gif Temporal Shift: 180 CE 1080 VE
  • Dark-BLU-Icon.gif Jettatura: 180 CE 1020 VE
    • Gaze move but you gain enmity from it regardless of positioning and the “no effect” message.
  • Fire-BLU-Icon.gif Exuviation: 640 CE 640 VE
    • Per person it lands on.
  • Fire-BLU-Icon.gif Fantod: 320 CE 320 VE
  • Dark-BLU-Icon.gif Geist Wall: 320 CE 320 VE
  • Light-BLU-Icon.gif 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:

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 +1Pixie Hairpin +1 description.png) 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.

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 SequenceSequence description.png. 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 SC Icon.png Scission
Burning Blade 30 Liquefaction SC Icon.png Liquefaction
Red Lotus Blade 30 Liquefaction SC Icon.png Liquefaction / Detonation SC Icon.png Detonation
Flat Blade 75 Impaction SC Icon.png Impaction
Shining Blade 100 Scission SC Icon.png Scission
Seraph Blade 125 Scission SC Icon.png Scission
Circle Blade 150 Reverberation SC Icon.png Reverberation / Impaction SC Icon.png Impaction
Spirits Within 175 Status Ability.png None
Vorpal Blade 200 Scission SC Icon.png Scission / Impaction SC Icon.png Impaction
Savage Blade 240 Quest Fragmentation SC Icon.png Fragmentation / Scission SC Icon.png Scission
Sanguine Blade 300 Status Ability.png None
Requiescat** 357 Merit Gravitation SC Icon.png Gravitation / Scission SC Icon.png Scission
Chant du Cygne Empyrean Scission SC Icon.png Light / Distortion SC Icon.png Distortion
Expiacion Mythic Distortion SC Icon.png Distortion / Scission SC Icon.png Scission
**Requiescat becomes a Dark SC Icon.png 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 terminalIt's Terminal.jpg 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 terminalIt's Terminal.jpg 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]:

  • 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.

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 = Element: Dark 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 :

  • Fighter's Mask icon.png /WAR
  • Drachen Armet icon.png /DRG
  • Ninja Hatsuburi icon.png /NIN
  • Runeist Bandeau icon.png /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.

/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:

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 Scission / Impaction
    • 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 {{{2}}}px Kaja SwordKaja Sword description.png

When to not use CDC

  • Savage Blade Fragmentation / Scission
    • If you are at ~2,000+ TP or ~1,750 with a proper {{{2}}}px 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.
  • Requiescat Gravitation / Scission
    • Mainly for skill chaining or rarely to bypass resistances. Otherwise the damage leaves much to be desired.
  • Sanguine Blade None
    • 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 Fusion / Impaction
    • 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 Fragmentation / Compression
    • Great blunt damage, and is especially respectable with a {{{2}}}px Kaja RodKaja Rod description.png or it's upgraded version.

Tank and Spank

Subjobs :

  • Fighter's Mask icon.png /WAR,
  • Runeist Bandeau icon.png /RUN

Situationally:

  • Ninja Hatsuburi icon.png /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:

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:

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
  • 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:

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).
  • 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:

DD

Focus on smashing it!




Support

Focus on being the dude.

Tanking

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

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.

Solo AoE Burn

Tanking /BLU

SubBLU.png

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:

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.

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.

Voidwatch Procs

You probably will just wait for a lights campaign anyway

Spells You Can Make Use of


Spells You Don't Need to Learn


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 CharuqsLuhlaza Charuqs description.png. 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.

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.

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".

In modern times, Naegling icon.png Naegling's Savage Blade and R15 Tizona (Level 119 III) icon.png 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.

  • Tizona (Level 119 III) icon.pngR15 Tizona/Thibron, 20 Expiacion WSs: 920,000 damage.
  • Almace (Level 119 III) icon.pngR15 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?

  • 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 icon.png 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

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.

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.

Basically you have two choices for BLU unless you craft. No, the movement speed ring is not a choice, and the others suck.

So, your two choices:

Weather. Ring icon.png Weatherspoon RingWeather. Ring description.png
Karieyh Ring icon.png Karieyh RingKarieyh Ring description.png

Originally, forever ago I started off with the Weatherspoon. It made sense as I didn't have other quick cast gear, existing fast cast options weren't released or in my possession, it let me get rid of some items, had the best magic accuracy, I was AoE burning with Blinding Fulgor (best ring for it), etc. Now almost all of those reasons have vanished. Items like the Stikini RingStikini Ring description.png and Kishar RingKishar Ring description.png exist now to fill the gaps.

The final straw for me was when I completed the Ygnas Directive. I ditched the Weatherspooon and obtained the +1 version of the Karieyh Ring +1Karieyh Ring +1 description.png which is great to idle in for regain and the best ring for Savage Blade along with a nice accuracy boost to it to boot. Even the NQ is narrowly better than any other options.

TL;DR: Get the Karieyh Ring icon.png Karieyh RingKarieyh Ring description.png

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.

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)





Misc Sets

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

SIR  
32x32.png 32x32.png 32x32.png Staunch Tathlum +1 icon.pngStaunch Tathlum +1 description.png
32x32.png Loricate Torque +1 icon.pngLoricate Torque +1 description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 Magnetic Earring icon.pngMagnetic Earring description.png 32x32.png
32x32.png Rawhide Gloves icon.pngRawhide Gloves description.png 32x32.png 32x32.png
Fi Follet Cape +1 icon.pngFi Follet Cape +1 description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 Rumination Sash icon.pngRumination Sash description.png Assim. Shalwar +3 icon.pngAssim. Shalwar +3 description.png Amalric Nails +1 icon.pngAmalric Nails +1 description.png
  5/5 SIR Merits
102%

I don't believe in not having 5/5 SIR merits.
I also don't believe in owning an Ethereal Earring.

Counter  
32x32.png 32x32.png 32x32.png Amar Cluster icon.pngAmar Cluster description.png
Herculean Helm icon.pngHerculean Helm description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 Bathy Choker +1 icon.pngBathy Choker +1 description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 Genmei Earring icon.pngGenmei Earring description.png Cryptic Earring icon.pngCryptic Earring description.png
Herculean Vest icon.pngHerculean Vest description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 Herculean Gloves icon.pngHerculean Gloves description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 32x32.png 32x32.png
Rosmerta's Cape icon.pngRosmerta's Cape description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 32x32.png Herculean Trousers icon.pngHerculean Trousers description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 Herculean Boots icon.pngHerculean Boots description.png
Augment-Icon.png
  +77% w/ T4 Trait &
O. Counterstance
Caps 80%

Reforged! Armored and Dangerous

Many people ask what 109/119 AF1, 2, and 3 they should get when playing BLU. Like most other jobs they are generally macro pieces. Here is the breakdown though.

Rosmerta's Are Red and Clueless Are BLUs

These capes are sweet, like a drunken screw.

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

Rosmerta's Cape icon.png The Rosmerta's Cape of course comes from Ambuscade. You may only get one each real life month, but you can hold as many as you want since they are only Ex-Icon.gif. Then comes the wardrobe 3/4

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 icon.png GinsenGinsen description.png, {{{2}}}px Voltsurge TorqueVoltsurge Torque description.png, or Rem's Tale Ch.1 icon.png Rem's Tales.

Tenzen
YouTube Icon.png Videos
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.
YouTube Icon.png Videos

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.
YouTube Icon.png Videos

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.
YouTube Icon.png Videos

Videos

For solo and older, but still valid melee tactics escha HELM videos I have made, see my YouTube Icon.png 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.

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 S. Astral Detritus icon.png 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 Popo. con Queso icon.png 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 icon.png 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 icon.pngMaxentius description.png Bunzi's Rod icon.pngBunzi's Rod description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 32x32.png Staunch Tathlum +1 icon.pngStaunch Tathlum +1 description.png
Nyame Helm icon.pngNyame Helm description.png Bathy Choker +1 icon.pngBathy Choker +1 description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 Eabani Earring icon.pngEabani Earring description.png Infused Earring icon.pngInfused Earring description.png
Nyame Mail icon.pngNyame Mail description.png Nyame Gauntlets icon.pngNyame Gauntlets description.png Defending Ring icon.pngDefending Ring description.png Shneddick Ring +1 icon.pngShneddick Ring +1 description.png
Rosmerta's Cape icon.pngRosmerta's Cape description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 Kasiri Belt icon.pngKasiri Belt description.png Nyame Flanchard icon.pngNyame Flanchard description.png Nyame Sollerets icon.pngNyame Sollerets description.png
  • 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.
Omen Evasion AoE Burn Spellset
Spells Cost Traits Gained
Molting Plumage 6 Dual Wield III
Erratic Flutter 6 Fast Cast II
Occultation 3 Evasion Bonus III
Screwdriver 3
Tempestuous Upheaval 6 Evasion Bonus IV
Silent Storm 8 Evasion Bonus V
Spectral Floe 8 Magic Attack Bonus III
Subduction 6 Magic Attack Bonus IV
Magic Hammer 4 Magic Attack Bonus V
Reactor Cool 5
Dream Flower 3 Magic Attack Bonus VI
Sound Blast 1
Entomb 8 Defense Bonus III
Tenebral Crush 8 Magic Accuracy Bonus III
Retinal Glare 5 Conserve MP
Total Cost 80

Odyssey

You can go in and Naegling/TP Bonus Thibron like the best of them, and that is perfectly good. Unless you are one of those dirty elitists that knows most BLU are not going to gain the group as much as a good WAR, DRG, or even DRK or SAM.

Now, of course I go BLU, and of course since you are reading this you want to as well. So, what I personally like to do more is be all the BLU that I can be, and limit liability while contributing more than a traditional tank. This means taking point to aggro, establish enmity, crowd controlling, and contributing to alliance DPS 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.

Evasion Tank  
Naegling icon.pngNaegling description.png Sakpata's Sword icon.pngSakpata's Sword description.png 32x32.png Staunch Tathlum +1 icon.pngStaunch Tathlum +1 description.png
Nyame Helm icon.pngNyame Helm description.png Bathy Choker +1 icon.pngBathy Choker +1 description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 Eabani Earring icon.pngEabani Earring description.png Infused Earring icon.pngInfused Earring description.png
Nyame Mail icon.pngNyame Mail description.png Nyame Gauntlets icon.pngNyame Gauntlets description.png Ilabrat Ring icon.pngIlabrat Ring description.png Shneddick Ring +1 icon.pngShneddick Ring +1 description.png
Rosmerta's Cape icon.pngRosmerta's Cape description.png
Augment-Icon.png
 Kasiri Belt icon.pngKasiri Belt description.png Nyame Flanchard icon.pngNyame Flanchard description.png Nyame Sollerets icon.pngNyame Sollerets description.png
Odyssey Evasion Tank, DD, and Cruel Joke Combo Extravaganza
Spells Cost Traits Gained
Molting Plumage 6 Dual Wield III
Erratic Flutter 6 Fast Cast II
Occultation 3 Evasion Bonus III
Screwdriver 3
Tempestuous Upheaval 6 Evasion Bonus IV
Silent Storm 8 Evasion Bonus V
Spectral Floe 8 Magic Attack Bonus III
Subduction 6 Magic Attack Bonus IV
Magic Hammer 4 Magic Attack Bonus V
Reactor Cool 5
Dream Flower 3 Magic Attack Bonus VI
Sound Blast 1
Entomb 8 Defense Bonus III
Tenebral Crush 8 Magic Accuracy Bonus III
Retinal Glare 5 Conserve MP
Total Cost 80

Dedication

For everyone, except you.

Version

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

Last Updated by Spicyryan: 07 05 2022

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