Essential Spells.

I saw on the forums some tips for what to do as BLU if your just starting out. But I was just wondering your opinion on the Essential Spells that i should get on my way to 95. Im going to learn them all at some point. Just want to know the Absolute Essentials.

I thought the entire enjoyment with blue leveling was getting all the spells on my way up, but if you already leched the job up with no spells you probably only NEED --

Feather barrier for sure.

Also:
Headbutt/Sudden Lunge
Magic Fruit / white wind
Occultation
Harden Shell
Sheep song / yawn / dream flower
animating wail
battery charge
whirl of rage
phys dmg spells like : delta thrust / quad.cont. / disseverment

any yellow triggers probably should be got first on the list

No im only lvl 9 atm and its super fun to sit there and spam pollen/sprout smack/dia till they use the move you want. And I want to get all the spells on the way up. Just asking if i miss a few here and there which are ones i SHOULDNT skip. =)

Wow, that's a long list of spells to fill-in, and one not everyone will agree upon, but here's a start for your early spells:
Get Foot Kick & Pollen @ lvl 1 for helping you lvl Blu magic. Travel around as needed on a high level job, job change back to Blu as needed @ get these right away. Then get Power Attack, Sprout Smack and Wild Oats ASAP for the same reason, then add these as soon as you can: Head Butt, Bludgeon, Sprout Smack, Cocoon, Healing Breeze, Helldive, Sheep Song, Screwdriver, Wild Carrot, Blank Gaze, MP Drainkiss, Jet Stream, Uppercut.

If possible, and needed, cap your Blu magic every couple of levels to make learning new spells easier. If you Abby burn or Smn burn Blu I pity you for the road of leveling 400 skill points worth of Blu magic. It is SO sad to see a lvl 95 Blu in Abby using Uppercut and other low level spells that do little to no dmg to Abby lvl mobs.

Some Blu magic spells are totally useless, and will never be equipped. Others you will need help to get early on, but will want to use for the combo traits. (Voracious Trunk is a good example as the marids start @ lvl 78, but can be learned @ 58 and equipped @ 64.) Whenever possible I use Abyssea to learn Blu magic. In a duo situation a high level person can tank with good Atma until you learn your spell(s).

Working on BLU myself and I will say that in the current environment of the game the ~ONLY~ way to not "leech" is to solo the entire thing from 1~95. Even xp from 20-70 is all GoV spam which is easy to get ~10 levels in a good sitting of that. You will still outstrip your magic skill ups and spell learning regardless of Abyssean xp or not.

That said, I will say it is much less nervewracking or frustrating having the levels then going back to collect spells while you skill. I agree...all spells will happen before I call BLU done but having your basic set of spells to get shtuff done will help more in the long run.

Mob finally casts the spell you want? Wail on it w/your powerful spells to kill fast saves time rather than dinking away at it with Bludgeon or your 3/1 DMG clubs.

On the brightside BLU skill levels fast as most of your actions are verses a mob. Try leveling SMN either now when levels blaze by or before hand when "oh your a SMN? great we needed a healer."

Take into consideration which traits you might want:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Blue_Mage/Job_Traits

Also factor in enfeebling effects. Not often a priority for BLU, but for learning spells or in a lowman group being able to slow/silence/etc can be handy.
Some otherwise less useful spells might be necessary for them.

Also, not really factoring in damage spells much prior to higher level.

For 1-20:
Cocoon
Head Butt
Healing Breeze
Bludgeon
Sheep Song

21-40:
Wild Carrot
Chaotic Eye (silence)
Blank Gaze (dispel)
Mysterious Light (proc)

41-60:
MP Drainkiss
Magnetite Cloud (proc)
Ice Break (proc)
Filamented Hold (slow)
Radiant Breath (proc)
Feather Barrier
Magic Fruit

61-80:
Eye on Me (proc)
Maelstrom (proc)
Regurgitation (bind, near hateless damage)
Amplification
Heat Breath (proc)
Disseverment (potent poison on top of physical DD)
Mind Blast (proc)
Actinic Burst (flashga, also great for auto-refresh combo)
Acrid Stream (for double/triple attack)
Animating Wail (self Haste)
Battery Charge (self Refresh)
Demoralizing Roar (for double/triple attack)
Blazing Bound (for dual wield)

81-95:
Goblin Rush
Whirl of Rage
Quadratic Continuum
Thermal Pulse
Dream Flower
Empty Thrash (DA/TA)
Charged Whisker
Occulation (when you have major Refresh)
Delta Thrust
Winds of Promyvion
Mortal Ray
Heavy Strike
Sudden Lunge


(apologies if I missed something, just me skimming down the list)

That should net you the ability to set a fair number of utilities (self Haste, Refresh, cures), some basic enfeebles, DA/TA, DWII, Auto-Refresh, Auto-Regen, and do bread n' butter physical or magical damage at 95 (obviously, more spells there for either type).

Definitely a few more potentially good things to snag, but hopefully that looks like a more managable list.

Here's a guide assuming you don't want to push Blue Mage limits:
A - While leveling, get these asap to help with leveling. If you're burning may can bypass them if they don't have an "N" too.
B - Get for a combination stat.
N - "Necessary" at max level. Should have them even if you burned Blue Mage.
P - Proc spell, important if you plan to use Blue Mage in Abyssea.
S - Situationally useful at max level, but not necessary immediately.
X - Not needed.

Required Physical Damage Spells:
Disseverment (Acc bonus + 22/tic poison + moderate piercing damage)
Vanity Dive (Acc bonus + Moderate and somewhat cheap slashing damage)
Goblin Rush (Skillchain bonus + Moderate blunt damage)
Benthic Typhoon (Skillchain bonus + 10% DEF/MDEF down and moderate piercing damage)
Whirl of Rage (AoE moderate slashing damage + Stun)
Quad. Continuum (Dual Wield + Moderate to High piercing damage)
Delta Thrust (Dual Wield + Very cheap moderate slashing damage)
Heavy Strike (Double attack + Very cheap inaccurate but high blunt damage)

Required magical Damage Spells:
Dark Orb (Efficient dark damage)
Everyone's Grudge (Inefficient dark damage)
Regurgitation (Efficient and nearly 100% hateless water damage)
Charged Whisker: (AoE lightning damage)

Required Utility/Trait Spells:
Sudden Lunge (Store tp + stun)
Magic Fruit (Heal)
Animating Wail (Dual wield + Haste)
Battery Charge (Refresh)
Cocoon (DEF+50%)
Sprout Smack (Efficient 3 minute 15% slow)
Sub-zero Smash: (10% Paralyze)
Auroral Drape: (30~60 second Blind + Silence)
Dream Flower (Magic attack bonus + AoE dark sleep)
Yawn (AoE light sleep)
Occultation (Eva bonus + 9 shadow blink)
Actinic Burst (Auto Refresh + flash)
Winds of Promyvion (Auto refresh + AoE erase)
Fantod (Store tp)
Sound Blast (Magic attack bonus)
Empty Thrash (Double attack)
Blazing Bound (Dual Wield)
Uppercut (Atk bonus)
Battle Dance (Atk bonus)
Screwdriver (Eva bonus)

Required Proc Spells:
A = Abyssea
V = Voidwatch

Firespit V
Heat Breath A+V
Thermal Pulse V
Blastbomb V
Hecatomb Wave V
Myterious Light A+V
Reaving Wind V
Leafstorm V
Infrasonics V
Ice Break A+V
Frost Breath V
Cold Wave V
Sandspin V
Magnetite Cloud A+V
Bad Breath V
Cimicine Discharge V
Acrid Stream V
Maelstrom A+V
Corrosive Ooze V
Cursed Sphere V
Death Ray V
Eyes on me A+V
Sandspray V
Actinic Burst V
Radiant Breath A+V
Blank Gaze V
Light of Penance V
Temporal Shift V
Charged Whisker V
Mind Blast A+V
Blitzrahl V

Is setting the triple attack spells worth anything?

Only if you're /WAR, otherwise just keep it at double attack.

i thought ice break was the Abyssea trigger now?

Ah this is great! Thank you! I love that you broke it down by level as well. ^^

Thanks to Prothescar as well for the details behind the spells and categories. Makes an excellent base to build off of then.

It is.

haha, it's still good to have them all! I mean, I X'd things like Blood Saber, but I still enjoy using it. Especially in burns where hordes of monsters are around me.

That list is not great tbh. You "x"'d a lot of spells that are required for other things like trait bonus such as Tail slap. You also did it to a few Voidwatch procs and situational spells. Short answer is just stop being lazy and get all the spells.

any one test out the new spells yet? any worth adding to the list :o?

I don't have it yet but I've heard good things about Bloodrake. BLU/RDM >> Convert >> Bloodrake back to full. Not sure what gear/abilities were if it was boosted or not from the example I had heard.

Sandspin is amazing for low level blu. It is similar to dia in the way it can never miss, so its awesome for insuring you land a spell if you're trying to skill up your blu magic skill

I heard that pollen is great at 99

Great for skilling up over night.

Mild derail-
What is the best swords for Blue, Non emp/relic/mythic? Str Shamshir?
...I will Eventually get the emp sword but there is just too much to do in the next few months

Tizona

I guess Isador is ok too if you don't have time to do trials.

The sword from Aello. That is probably harder to get than Almace though lol, at least with VW luck.

i do dyni as a static and was wondering if taking a day to do xarc to get Quadrastrike was worth my while anyone manage to get any good numbers? worth getting at all? most of these spells seem so disappointing from what everyone around my server is telling me.

For me it's one of our best spells.
I only use it with efflux tho, since it only can crit with CA or efflux and with CA i use amorphic to do darkness.
Inside abyssea damage is very similar to cdc damage, i see you have almace so you can figure it out, it's easy to see it doing 4-6k every efflux, my lowest was around 2,8k
Outside abyssea, on lower ***, dyna mobs, etc, it beats cdc on damage by quite a few, didn't had a chance to play with it on anything worthwhile outside.
This was with a STR/DEX mix set, didn't know it was 25% str mod only til today, i guess that with a good STR/Crit set it could do better.

i'll make it simple, GET all the spells, they are all essential if you never want to farm spells again, just get them all done and out of the way ^^b that's what i did and never looked back