Any Good Non-Magian Swords For BLU Out There?

No it doesn't work that way, because every choice you made is lost and gain.

You choose to drive a car, because you may need to go somewhere for work/school etc. You gain faster travelling speed and save time, that out weight the risk of getting into an accident.

For some ppl having super awesome performance in a video game (and not necessary to win any content, mind you)is just not enough gain to out weight the lose of risk account is taking.

If you think having better performance is worth the risk of account, then by all means do it. But whether others choose to do it or not it's their business.

Oh and btw, I do heard about ppl got hacked with 3rd pt tool before, it's not like it never happen.

No one has ever gotten hacked explicitly through a third-party tool from a reputable source. If you google "FFXI Stun bot" )(or whatever) and download something from some random site, you deserve what you got just like the people who got the Paris Hilton sex video permanently attached to their family desktops back in the day (Hi stepdad).

That's what I heard from LS when I log on tonight though! Unless it's false rumor or he got it from somewhere else.

I can tell you that google searches for certain popular 3rd party tools that were broken in the most recent updates return links with downloads containing keyloggers.

But these are not the tools from reputable sources that see widespread usage.

Guess it depends whether you considered Wiz to ever be a reputable source. The guy seemed like the real deal at the beginning, with a fairly solid recommendation from a prominent scripter on the forums of the previous major FFXI pay bot site.

That said, there was ample time to bail when the crazy started to appear.

Edit: The point stands, though. No one who played it completely safe with third party application downloads has been hacked to the best of my knowledge.

from BLU swords advice to windower/spellcast posts. way to stay on topic lol.

The quick and dirty choices are still basically Isador and Mageblade; both common drops from Aby NM's that are regularly spammed for Empy trials.

Obviously they aren't close to optimal, but they are free and will tide over a soloing BLU while they gear themselves up properly.

I respect Proth's guides, but the truth is that a lot of his gearing suggestions aren't suitable for a newcomer to the job, especially if they have FC'd themselves to 99 and are starting out with few spells and sub-par sword skill.

For someone in that position, who needs a lot of skilling and preparation, suggesting they make an Almace or a Fire Shikargar is good advice for further down the road, but doesn't really help with the immediate issue.

You may not like the FC culture that is so prevalent in the game nowadays, but it should be considered as its so common.

Why is it so hard to kill random monsters during fire weather/day? Even with an AH sword? There's no reason to not even at least get a Shamshir + 2 if gil for flame geodes is an issue.

edit: even if your sword skill is garbage, killing mobs in Abyssea during firesday will get you skill ups. Equip the ToM sword and use basic spells.

By further down the road you mean two weeks max right? Seriously starting from scratch, getting sword skill, and blu magic shouldn't take but a few days. After that getting a decent Whisker burn set is a breeze and from there you can burn the swords. Two 95 str swords within two weeks time np.

I actually did my 1 STR sword with just the standard DD spells and that only took me a few days too.

No excuses then. Do you even lift Inx?

Blue Mage is not the kind of job I would suggest to someone as their first job to 99. Before I played BLU, I had already leveled and geared other jobs at 99. My sword skill was already around 300ish from having leveled it on ninja.

When I decided to play BLU, I read Proth's guide and decided to make an Almace to 85. Once I did that, I FC burned my BLU to 99. I equipped the Almace and offhanded a Firmament. I did the quests for the AF hands and body, then I went out to go learn Sandspin. After getting that, I hopped in an xp party and leveled BLU skill to about 16 or so before they kicked me. Then I went out and learned pollen.

Over the next few days, I spent time farming BLU spells and while I was sleeping or working, I sat in Abyssea Paradox with minikin monstrosity on, skilling up my blue magic skill with pollen.

After I had learned most of the relevant spells that are used at 99, my blue magic skill was well over 300. So I started a fire trial sword. I skilled up the rest of my blue magic skill while doing these trials as well as gaining some sword skill points. Once I got to Shamshir +2, I vendored my Firmament. I used my BLU to farm dynamis to earn the money for flame geodes to finish Shikargar.

TL;DR - I've never bothered using any other sword but Almace and STR Shikargar and I leached my BLU from 30 to 99 in Abyssea.

*edit* However, I also found Proth's guide to be a little lacking in terms of suggested items for true noob BLU's. Other than that, his guide was extremely useful to me (and still is). I honestly stuck it out with some pretty crappy gear until I got Thaumas... mainly because I didn't know what else I could wear, lol. His guide includes a lot more alternate swaps now, as long as you have the money for some of them.

haha

lol. I gave BLU a bad name that day, I'm not gonna lie. I basically sat there and cast sandspin on a mob until someone else came up and killed it. But hey, I had enough skill to learn pollen which was all I cared about.

Erm lol... yeah, it doesn't take long to skill up but for that period of time why not use stuff that's free and easy to get?

I explicitly stated that they were sub-par, but when you are just gathering spells and skilling solo you don't need better. In fact your biggest hassle (especially when you have 17 other jobs >75 like I do) is managing inventory so why not use what you have lying around if it gets the job done?

Building any sort of Empy weapon (especially elemental types like Shik) is time-critical, because you want to make the most of the day/weather, so having something half-decent on hand helps.

Conversely when learning spells having a high damage weapon is not what you want in most instances - so again being over-prepared weapon-wise is not actually all that efficient - especially when you have spells to kill the mob fast if you need to.

For the record I wouldn't take any job into any sort of group activity until I felt it was at least passable, but seriously min/maxing for every situation is just pathological.

Wearing the "right" weapons isn't going to make you less of a gimp if you have ***all sword and blu-magic skill! Getting the fundamentals first is not heretical.

Now that the post was necro bumped let me say that after a lot of lame excuses, I was able to finish the fire shikargar and I am 30 sobek skins away from Almace 85. I found a couple of friends that helped me with Briareus and we are now doing Sobek.

I expect to be done with the skins in a month or so (doing just one run per week with 5 people). At the end, It will take me around 4 months to get both swords, but it can be done even if you don't have that much time flexibility.

This was what I was responding to. I simply disagree because I have personal experience with being in the position you were referring to. For me, BLU wasn't even worth playing if I wasn't going to play it/gear it right.

If you're using anything except a Bronze Sword or lower to skill up you're wasting time.


See Bronze sword or lower.


You skill/learn before and after the day. Though if you mean having a better sword to help you kill faster I have to ask why you wouldn't burn your trials.


Again bronze sword or lower though I prefer dia myself.


So wanting to be the best is insane. Cool lets all just hit decent and go on with our lives yay apathy!


Yes it will. A gimp with an isaderp is worse than a gimp with an Str sword. Though as I have said before skilling is a joke and is no excuse.

Fair enough, but for me capping magic, sword skill, and a having a comprehensive spell-list was absolutely my top priority. Gearing is important no-doubt, but without the things I mentioned you're just a good looking BLU, not necessarily much use at all :D

I'm aware of exactly how long it takes to make an Almace and a Fire Shik having done more or less the exact same mobs for myself on NIN, (Kanna + 99 Fire Arisui) and helped out on many Empy runs for other LS mates... its not a mystery and its not that big of a deal to me.

BUT. My point is that fixating on one aspect of the job (weapon) as whole from day #1 is not a requirement, especially when its not your first job.

I can understand wanting OChain before getting serious about PLD because its such a crucial piece, not to mention helpful in skilling shield, but for BLU, a job with over 100 exclusive spells many of which benefit from specific gear/atma/atmacite-sets... yeesh.

It just promotes the notion that having an Empy weapon makes you automatically good at a job, which is not true and a serious issue in the game these days.

Its important to be the best when performance matters, when you are doing humdrum grindy stuff by yourself... not at all.

In your mentality you'd take the Porsche to the store to buy milk, when you could just as easily do it on a push-bike. That's all about ego, not efficiency and yes it is pathological.

If anything I would take a Scion iQ EV to the store. Did you not see how I recommended a bronze sword for efficiency? The fact is an isaderp is inefficient and is nothing more than a crutch for people who don't ever feel like doing trials. Which is sad since Blu is one of the if not the easiest job to do trials on.

Before you go around saying what is and isn't pathological you should read my post.

The better geared you are while doing "humdrum grindy" stuff the faster you get done with it... How is that not logical?

Sansus Ensis, Isador, and Eradicator's Kilij are the only that come to mind.

First is Prov Watcher.
2nd is NM in [A] Uleguerand Range.
3rd is HQ version of AH sword.

Figured I'd do my best to actually answer the question rather than tell you whether or not it's a good idea.

I did, and you're being pointlessly argumentative over a point so trivial it boggles my mind.

Yes I saw you mentioned bronze sword, but here's the thing: I already had an Isador from doing a bunch of Isgebinds, same deal with Mageblade from Cep (SAM trials). They were free, and equippable by my FC'd 99 BLU with 66 miserable blue-magic skill and around 300 sword skill held over from my other jobs.

I'm under no illusions that its not in a fit state to party with, but guess what, floored evasion is floored evasion, so I can go and grind GoV pages in Zeruhn and skill blue magic and sword simultaneously off of the bats and worms with zero risk. As a bonus I get a trivial amount of XP for merits, and a low chance of scoring a Prouesse ring from gold chests.

With my 57 damage Isador I can afk and kill decently fast when I get bored of manually spamming sprout-smack/wild-oats/etc.

I get both skills to ~350 in a few hours and am ready to go and acquire spells, and finish up the rest of my skilling in aby at my convenience.

Is that flawlessly efficient? I don't know, and I don't care because its getting my objectives achieved quickly enough, and is going to leave me in a solid state to start working on the rest of the things I need to do, including Almace and Shik.

Point is, I don't need BLU to do all the prep-work for Almace, I can farm the item drops I need (including all armour as well as trial drops)easier and more efficiently on about half of my other jobs.

However being in a strong position on BLU is important for efficiency when doing the low level Almace trials and all of the Fire Shik because I need to have the trial weapon equipped...

Can you see the logic yet?


But skilling/trialling are apples and oranges. Skilling is per action, so it makes sense to fight the highest stuff you can to maximize potential for skillups and ancilliary bonuses like xp. Trialling is always per kill, and has a time imperative, so its always smartest to pick the lowest level prey you can find which consequently reduces and/or eliminates skillup potential.

I've never been one to care what means people use to reach the end, but the end certainly matters and while the means doesn't matter to me, it might matter to the one who has to trudge through it.

I agree that having multiple jobs means needing to prioritize. If you're leveling blu to try it out or for a specific purpose(ie whisker burning, procs ect) then spending your time getting an almace or str sword or even certain gear is probably not worth it. Now if you start spending enough time on the job, widen your use for it and either have trouble or need such sessions to go faster or are not going with a set group who will hold their judgments of your gimpness then better gear may be needed. Granted, being too subpar is going to get you quite a bit of negative association. I wouldn't be caught dead in aurore even on a new job that I'm skilling up, but that's my own OCD.

I'm fine with people who are using isador or firmaments as a stopgap as they work on something better, not everyone can devote 100% of their FFXI time to outfitting a new job. And if they only use the job for a specific purpose, then I couldn't care less about their gear as long as what they do have gets the job done, just please don't melee in empy hands and feet or make a macc sword...

I almost took you serious Inx till I saw the NQ Ocelo. head and I realized you don't lift.

You want to solo fine use what ever shitty sword you want. However if you ever plan on using blu for group play you should have 2xStr swords minimum; no if/ands/buts about it. Can't devote a few hours to make them? You have bigger problems than FFxi.

Like all my gear (barring Tayt+2) its a holdover from my other jobs, Oce isn't +1'd because my haste is already capped on THF from the rest of my set. I will upgrade it if I ever get Toci's to drop, but until then...

Feel free to critique my BLU set at present, I know it sucks! Which is why getting an Almace isnt my immediate concern - it would be a band-aid on a gaping wound.

As you have found - BLU can be very addictive. And many of us have evolved through the same mindset as you - starting out with:
1) Full AF3+2 looks great, but not sure if I have the time/help to achieve this.
2) STR sword trial look really good, but not sure I have the time/patience to achieve this.
3) Almace looks really good, but not sure if I have the time/help to achieve this.
4) Thaumus gear looks *really* good, but not sure if I have the time/help to achieve this.
5) . and the list goes on .. I'm sure SoA will add new juicy sets & weapons to salivate over.

But as you play the job more, you start working at these goals, and you find that meeting them was not as hard as you originally thought.

My advice to any new BLU - don't get overwhelmed by thinking you don't have enough time or that these things are just out of your reach. Make a reasonable goal, and work at it. Each goal you reach makes achieving the next goal that much easier.

One more comment specifically addressed to sword trials. BLU has a tremendous advantage on trials vs. nearly every other job. A modestly geared 99 BLU with all the main spells (not even counting UL) can easily AoE 10-20 mobs at a time for trials - making waiting for weather completely unnecessary unless the trial specifically calls for weather only.

Getting STR sword trial done should be one of the first goals - even for a casual BLU. Don't bother with any expensive AH sword.

Larrymc you don't know me but I just thought I would say that I lvled my blu after seeing you in action on Alexander. You are a boss.