The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

Yeah, no bananasword for me, I've a different mythic in mind.

I flatly refuse to play the lottery that is augmenting, especially weapons, so I suppose I'll try and round up some Nibiru swords for the acc boost.

Fenrir's sword is no good?

Fenrir's sword is fine for nuking and the idle refresh, but for TP, no, it's not a very good option. If you don't want to make a Claid, I'd suggest 2 Nibiru Blades, either A/B or A/A. They'll be your best bet.

Oh, I have a Claid, it just sucks because I refuse to pump gil into it, only using stones I happen to farm.

Can you please remind me what mob drops Nibiru Sword, so I know which UNM I need to slaughter en masse?

Thank you for helping me, by the way. I do truly enjoy BLU, it's just that it's a ton of work to do all at once, so I do it periodically to try and make that manageable. The fact that it's damned near impossible to bandwagon the job is only a better reason to play it, I think.

Oh I know what you meant, it's just that, as you said, Claid is trash without proper augments. So by "make" a claid, I meant getting the augments for it.

Nibiru Blade drops from Nosoi, the T2 Tulfaire in Escha - Zi'Tah.

This guide is here to help people with BLU. The vast majority of people who post here love the job and enjoy contributing to the community. People are always welcome to ask questions and learn the job. And I absolutely agree; BLU is not a job you can accomplish all at once. It takes a very large time sink.

Pfft, Nosoi is no problem, though I believe that's Ethereal Incense so I'll need to snag s friend for that UNM; my ninja can pick them off if I have a supertank.

I'd rather farm those than buy. ^.^

This guide is exceedingly helpful, though some of the gearsets really do show items that are pricey and/or hard to obtain for some players. Are there any suggestions for farmable gear that's suitable for endgame activity? I know I'm not the only BLU on a budget. For instance, a lot of my recent nuking gear has come from Sinister Reign (Samnuha Coat, Leyline Gloves, Lengo pants, the Vamps). I've seen Empy +1 hands and think those could be best, if I can get past the crafting item requirement.

I do apologize for all the questions; insomnia snagged me and then I came here, lol.

Nosoi is actually Ayapec's shells. But yes, he's quite an easy kill with SC/MB.

I've gone BLU to every event in the game (outside of brand new stuff), all the way up to Ilvl 135 content and everything considered melee unfriendly. The only armor piece I have from my top-tier sets are the Samnuha tights. I use almost entirely High-tier pieces, and I'm able to accomplish everything I've attempted so far. The highest end pieces are just that. They're the best of the best, the absolute greatest pieces to aim for. They're not required to do content on BLU. I simply list them because they're the best we have and what we can aspire to one day attain.

For farmable gear, Rawhide pieces are very good options for TP and WS. Then there's always Taeon and SR gear pieces. A few new accessories or miscellaneous armors from the new random pop Ruaun NMs or high tiers are also good choices, such as Cessance earring and Thereoid Greaves. Basically anything in the high/mid tiers can be farmed through low-man content and will still serve you very well.

For nuking hands, Leyline gloves are one of our absolute best hands, and beat AF3 hands quite handily.

I'd rather somebody ask questions and improve than never ask and never improve.

All I need for Ayapec is something to hold it and two RNG that have a passing familiarity with light skillchains, so I can wreck his face with Thunderstorm... so that too is doable. Plus some RNG still lack the Perun so there's always that. :D

I'm using Rawhide body, Taeon hands, some really well aug'd but not capped Samnuha Tights, and Taeon feet in my TP set. I don't recall what headpiece; I don't think it's Taeon, it may be a Dampening Tam. If it is I need to not be using that because my augs on it are terrible, lol. (It's not. I'm using Whirlpool Mask because I don't have Skormoth yet.)

I completely understand the concept behind wanting to display the very best there is; it is something to work toward, and heck, maybe I'll hit the Mog Bonanza and be able to afford +1 abjuration gear and such.

With all that lovely MAB gear from Sinister, my Sanguine Blades went from Meh to a lifesaver. Archon Ring beats NQ Shiva for Sanguine, correct? And I'd want to use Archon for Tenebral/Entomb once the elementals cough it up?

I also need a better nuking head than my dusty old Hagondes hat. Helios seems to be the recommendation, but is there another that won't force me into rock roulette?

Yeah, Ayapec is incredibly easy with bursts.

That TP set is incredibly close to mine, so don't worry too much. Upgrade the whirlpool mask when possible, but it's not bad overall.

Archon ring actually beats HQ shiva, as well. Affinity is crazy strong. You'll want to use Pixie Hairpin +1 and Archon ring for Sanguine, Tenebral, and any other dark nuke. Archon ring is only darkness affinity, so no effect on entomb.

Hagondes head is still a very good choice for nukes as long as you have decent augments. Yes, Helios is better, but you'll also need augments on that. Unfortunately, we can't escape the RNG crapshoot all the time.

Pixie +1 is out of my price range unless I go make a couple more Pandy pops, but my COR could use one as well so I think I'll work on that. I heard the affinity on that one is crazy. What's the difference in potency between Pixie+1 and something with, say, 25 MAB? If the math's been done, feel free to point me to where I can learn.

Note that I'm on my phone right now and can't load a bunch of stuff, like the nodes crap out on me a good 75% of the time.

I guess the main difference between Hag (mine is still 113, and it shouldn't be, I should go solo some Rakaz) and Helios is 119 stats, and I believe some MACC with potential for some nice benefits. I guess I need skirmish for another, as my current Helios is for summoner.

Again, I appreciate your help, and by extension the BLU community's help. I'd really like to be able to play BLU in the later stages of endgame, and stuff like this can guide me on how to be effective without going totally broke.

...I feel insane urge to try and solo Tojil delve. (With trust!)

So haven't seen this posted.
Cesspool: -100 TP/tick, -8 MP/tick Plague
Duration: 1min
zzz

Assuming I am starting from ground zero(as in no assaults done no nyzul climbed etc) but with ToAU and RoV finished, how long would you say a Tizonia would take if I can play like 4 hours a day?

Another helpful assumption here is that I have literally no support to do Nyzul and Einerjahr, as well as no real experience in them.

I really want to build this mythic, but I've never built any REM weapon before.

Well a quick shout or two for Nyzul/Einherjar before you go could get you a few members easily, same with assaults :) Rest is how much salvage can you stomach in the same day?

With RoV key items you'll probably need to budget a full day for Nyzul Climb, probably three days for assault(let's just say 10min each since that's refresh time on tags, so 6 an hour = 24 a day for you, round the 2nd day up for finishing/bad luck on some/total travel time not being accounted for etc).

Also depends on where you are on NM status for pre-quest. Odin would take a few days if you've never done before since you'd have to build all 9 feathers...I'm not sure what new King spawn is like but it took me at most 3 days for each...but I believe it's a much faster spawn now.

Thanks to RoV the actual bulk can be done in any order instead of a "I have to do my daily X Y and Z or I'm set back entirely". Assuming average of 100 Alexandrite a run(70 linen plus 30 rampart farm in Arra/Bhaf), 4 salvages a day would require about 75 days to farm all Alexandrite.

Add on however many days it took you to do the assaults since you have to do all 50 again.

13-14 days for Einherjar assuming you do 4 T3s a day and are starting from 0 Ichor.


5 days for Nyzul assuming 5k tokens a run and 8 runs a day(I'm not sure if this is fair or not...I think I got like 7-8k solo), and starting from 0 tokens.

Another 1-3 days for making ZNM T4 sets.

So 11-13 days prequest,
94 days currency farming
1-3 day victory lap

~110 days at 4 hours a day doing strictly nothing else. Obviously the bulk of this comes from Alexandrite solo farming. That's only about 700-800k an hour at 100/run...so it's probably more time efficient to spend the time farming gil in another method and buying as much of the Alex as you can find, assuming you find a suitable method of breaking 700-800k an hour.

Bump :p Since this post though, I see that you had also replaced Dampening Tam with Adhemar Bonnet +1 (which is a bit sad ; ;) so what about 3 pieces of NQ Adhemar + NQ Carmine feet? I believe body (due to DW capping delay at magic haste cap), hands and feet (mostly due to stp on top multi attack) would still be fine as NQ but have my doubts about the head.

So it's basically the same as Delta Thrust except more MP and costs a 5min ability. Nice.

Only remarkable thing about this is it doesn't follow the regular pattern: every other Plague in the game is a 5:3 ratio for TP:MP reduction.

Is it AoE or single target? Ran vagary on patch day on all three zones and couldn't get any of those damn 3 spells =/

It's not very hard, personally I recently got my Nibirus (also didnt want to play the Claid game) using Sch+Sch and a naked Cor mule. August is a beastly tank for most things in escha I find. I imagine just using a Sch to SC and a Blu to MB would work perfectly well, 3rd job wouldn't matter much but Geo/Blm/Sch/nukey things would help.

Is Tizona still worth it for blu? I have kinda been away from blu for about.... idk 4 years or so, not really knowledgeable about the newer stuff.

It remains our strongest sword for DPS, although the margin has been reduced a bit as of late. It also adds bonuses in the form of the MP restoral and additional magic accuracy. If you really enjoy BLU, it's a good investment.

I actually think that Tizona has received a huge buff this last update because you will actually likely run out of mana casting Mighty Guard at its 300 MP cost. Previously UL was for Tourbillion, which has a 108 MP cost and you almost never used on cooldown. Now you have Mighty Guard with a 300 MP cost that you want to have 100% uptime on. I've been setting Battery Charge now to keep up with it which I never had to do before.

this update is what has renewed my interest in it.

My damage went up an insane amount from mighty guard and I was wondering what else I could do with a banana sword or a properly augmented Claid. After today I feel like it will be easier to get the Tizonia...

Edit: was just in a bat camp Job Point party in Woh gates and MG is hard to keep up without regular MP refills from somewhere(I usually get mine from Apururu).

Hello :)
today i was looking for a linkshell ( after a long break )
and i have only one job blu mage , my other job aren't very good actually .

but they tell me "this is difficult to put blu in pt today"
"we need skillchain + magic burst"
"blu is limited"
"we need rdm/geo/whm/brd/cor/sch/blm"

do you know if blu is realy useless ?
or i need to look for an other ls ?^^

( sorry my english isn't perfect^^ )

En tant que main BLU sur ton serveur, je peux te dire qu'ils te racontent de la merde. BLU est actuellement le meilleur DD du jeu. Sur ma LS on a des BLU en vagary, sinister reign, parfois en escha etc. En bref Trouve toi une autre LS xD

Edit : Bon après en tant que modo d'event, je te dit sincerement, si tu n'as QUE ce job, c'est très compliqué d'avoir un membre qui squatte un poste que peut etre d'autre joueur aimerais joué. Et que peut etre d'autre joueur joue mieux que toi pour les events les plus difficile ^^: Monte quand même d'autre job, tu te prive d'un des point fort de ce jeu après tout

oui j'ai rdm mais mon équipement n'est pas au point
ansi que bst et thf ( ce dernier est étrangement le plus avancé )

mais depuis que ma ls a déserté et l'arrivé du stuff ilvl 119 , des jobs points j'ai pris pas mal de retard.

c clair que d'autres mage bleu joue mieux que moi , avec abyssea on me demandé de trigg jaune sur les boss donc j'ai pas été habitué à "bien joué" , et puis j'ai jamais aimé les phases d'xp , mais aujourd'hui ça va^^

If they really are needing more MB damage then yes blu is limited to the burst affinity timer. Certain strats need certain jobs so I'd say if you want to go to every event level up some more jobs. In today's FFXI being a one trick pony is just lowering your chance at going to events.

Edit: on a side note Oraen can you change the text for some of the swords in the guide? Halachuinic sword is no longer a "powerfull option" and Xiutleato when augmented with acc+15 offers far more acc than Halachuinic can provide. The last apart of almace just doesn't make much sense these days as that part was from before ilvls.

Everyone, in my opinion should have at least one support, one DD, and one tank job levelled.

The fact that BLU can do all of these things is sort of funny. Last night, while trying to pop Warden of Temperance, a friend informed me that someone I knew was having some slight issues with Wardrn of Love. I joined up with my trusty paladin and we grabbed it before it could regen, whereupon I got go use all the lovely elementals' spells I just farmed in Skirmish.

Idk, something satisfying about Entomb+Searing Tempest and watching things melt.

That NM is a pain in my ***, though, as I ended up getting flattened through Cocoon/Occultation by something, so I recognized the need for a bit of human status curing, HPed, and came back /WHM.

Since I'm still new (relatively speaking) to BLU and hadn't actually tried to be a support role yet, I wasn't sure how effective I'd be.

The answer, of course, is VERY effective. Maybe TOO effective, as on at least one subsequent Warder fight, the Euvhi one, I was relegated to the twenty yalm line because I had to Stona the other BLU and the PLD approximately every five seconds, and no, I'm not exaggerating.

I have a new appreciation for BLU as a purely defensive and supportive role, now. White Wind and Winds were indispensable, as well as Diffusing Verve purely for that ForeverAquaveil. Add this to my AoE stuns and ability to neutralize adds that may not cooperate for shield block positioning...

.^

tl;dr I played Periwinkle Mage and learned something.


EDIT: My 666th post is in the blue mage thread. Lol.

If you wish to set it you can stick stoneskin on everyone too though I can't remember the AoE range but you should be able to put it up relatively safely. Being able to be a very effective support when needed is what makes blu so much fun. It's a shame that diffusion is on a 10 mins timer and not on a charge system like stratagems. There are a number of spells I'd love to diffusion at the same time but I suppose that would be too OP and we would be going into brd/cor terratory. AoE Flutter/Mighty Guard/Nat. Meditation would be sooooo awesome.

It sounds like your LS is not very willing to break the "mold" they find online for certain event strategies. In my experience the people who think BLU are worthless are operating under very outdated assumptions or have only played with BLU who are not very good.

Wouldn't Samnuha Coat beat Hagondes Coat +1 for Mab with Decent Augments? More macc to boot?

It depends on if the macc matters and/or whether or not you're magic bursting. Keep in mind that Hagondes still has a sizable INT advantage.