Blue Mage To Me Is

Interference.

That's what Blue Mage is.

Blue Mage will always be a substandard choice if you focus on things like pure damage, main healing ability, enfeebling, nuking, etc.

When you start to play to the strength of Flexibilty and focus on the role of interference... people probably still won't notice you standing out.

Until you're gone.

Blue Mage excels in disrupting mobs' offenses, and making them less dangerous all around.

Being able to stun 83% of all tp moves attempted in a limbus run (NE Apollyon is where I like to BLU especially), emergency cure, crowd control with Gravity, Bind, and Sleeps (light+dark) more accurately than a BLM, Nuke efficiently and almost hatelessly (while enfeebling), and, on top of all that, still put out almost passable DoT or Spike damage, makes Blue Mage the most versatile job I can think of.


The point of my post is this, people should never focus on just one, or even just two, aspects of Blue Mage. If you're not going to take advantage of all the tools the job has to offer, why bother? You won't be anything but a subpar DD, and to that point, you're just making the rest of us look bad.

gtfo..just gtfo lol.. "subpar DD"? you're officially out of your damn mind lol.... "almost passable DoT or Spike damage" really now? ok i'm done here lol

... and then you run out of MP.

I think you haven't been on Campaign battle and see a BLU beating the crap out of mobs and stealing hate from 8 SAMs with Hagun and relic gear and 5 PLDs .

I think BLU is an awesome job but like you just did, most people underestimate its value because a lot of BLUs out there don;t know how to play the job. I stopped leveling BLU at 53 because it is so damn hard to find pt, but while I was pting I was doing equal or more dmg than the other DDs. Only bad thing is the MP management, but with the right gear and food/drinks you can compensate.

It is all about knowing how to play it. because you don;t know or have had bad experiences with other BLUs doesn't mean that it is crap.

How is the OP wrong? We can't DD as well as 2-handers. I love my BLU but I've come to accept this a long time ago. The thing I love most about BLU is the fact it can take on multiple roles and can be used in so many situations.

That goes double for BLU but applies to every job in general.

shoot, idk about you, but i dont even run the top line gear on blu and i can DD pretty damn well. those self SCs create a hell of a lot of extra dmg

"Pretty damn well" is relative and suggests a lack of parsing. I'll third the above statements.

I agree with the OP though... BLU to me is versatility more than anything else. I can fill almost any niche on demand, no trip to the moghouse required. It's also the ability to control the mob in a way few other jobs can even approach; a wide variety of tools allow us to direct the course of a battle as we will.

Before i leveled drk my only dd was blu and i had no problems out parsing an average gear sam on birds in merit ptys.

Blu is best suited to small group events/quests. Limbus and nyzul spring to mind.

800-900+ vorpal blades are easy to do in nyzul which is a very reasonable damage output.

dont get me wrong I know that no blu can compare to the output of a well geared sam drk war drg etc etc but your main job is to spam headbutt and keep the mob from doing much.

I like my Blu and it's my first job I plan to take to 99.

Overall damage on Blu I find is relative to mob level, for example when I do pages in cape terrigan I can rip through mobs quite easily and get a lot of wow nice and Blu is amazing etc comments.

However when I'm fighting somthing a bit stronger my damage falls a lot by comparison and I know that my Rng is hitting a lot harder in the same situation.

Thats just how Blue magic works though I guess with it's comparitively low damage rating against stronger targets there was somthing about the formula for it I saw somewhere.

Every job fills a niche and I do like Blu's adaptability and unusual combinations like light based sleep etc which is very effective on the many dark type mobs you encounter higher up and what not.

Many people claim to do damage on all jobs which in my experience is unreasonable too expect often so it's hard to say what is good and who is the best as everyone defends there favourite with a passion.

A lot of dd jobs also are heavily reliant on the presence of a bard, corsair, white or red mage to buff them while Blu can do a lot by itself e.g refueling instant 10% 5 minute haste and cocoon for when you know you need defense

Blu is a great job overall and it's worth having around for most things and remember being top dd is not always a good idea cause guess who will get killed or smacked first if the tank can't keep or by chance loses hate.

being safely in the middle has it's advantages and I know I'm normally still standing when things go a bit iffy.

In conclusion Blu ftw but all jobs are great.... even pup :p

If you think Blue mage is a top DD on anything VT or stronger, not even touching piercing weak mobs, you're wrong. It's simple math.

Physical Blue Magic "attack" is only really influenced by Blue Magic Skill, at a rate of 1 skill = 1 attack, and STR, at a rate of 2 STR = 1 atk.

Every other job in the game can get more attack on things with higher defense than a BLU can. There's minuets, attack food, Chaos Roll, tons of gear, Job Abilities, and job traits.

Blue Mage gets AF body, Relic Head, +STR equipment, and Etudes.

This is why at end game, BLU is usually forced into /THF and cannonball to use SA to force a crit and boost pDIF. If you don't believe me, you can always go /NIN to sky and hit Seiryu with some of those awesome 20 damage Disseverments, 4 damage Histeric Barrages, or 40 damage Frenetic rips (Gogo correlation bonus!).

To be fair with enough Defense down, BLU can hit bigger mobs like they were Imps and Colibri as well. Dia III, Angon, and Steps all stack, and can lover mob DEF enough to let you almost feel good about Big 3 damage on something like gods.

Still if you want to be anything more than a subpar DD, learn to "Run Interference" and be versatile. Otherwise you'll just look like a jackass bragging about his on tired claim to fame spike damage he occasionally did, like the Dark Knights of old, bragging about being the best DD because of your 1.5k SS (and 500 tping damage), while the WAR does piddly ~900 Rampages (and 1.5k in tping damage)

Data? Last I checked the Blue Magic pDIF function was not fully understood.

Attack is really only one portion of the overall issue with BLU DPS. The biggest problem lies in the relationship (or lack thereof) between melee buffs and the MP pool, notably the simultaneously limited and depreciated returns of Haste on half our DPS (spells). There's a variety of issues at hand though... mediocre weapon class, limited haste, needing Refresh, and low base attack + being a sushi/pizza job.

I agree on sky GODS blu does terrible damage. Now you have to be clear if your talking about a fully merited blu or just a lv 75 blu. A blu unmerited is trash but if you have 8/8 BMS 5/5PP 5/5Macc and some good gear you can do decent #'s on most NM's. You might not do Sam damage in 1 shot but Sam cannt do half the ***a Blu can enfbl lower mob def heal ect.. You have to adapt to the situtation people are acting like blu must sub nin lol. On hard ***HNM's ect..Where you have a good tank just sub/Thf if tank is good you should be ok. In situtations where /nin is needed go /nin where xtra heals can help sub /sch. People talk like this game is all about meripo. IMO meripos are a very small percentage of the game. So in meripos Sam/Drg/Mnk excel and are the jobs to go if you have 1... ok point made lets move on. I've done 400-500 on nyzul bosses this is decent damage off just 1 spell imo idk what others consider decent damage. Hunt registry NM's,Vnm,limbus and most situtations you can pull off some decent #'s if you know what your doing... the only places I see blu lacking is sky and dyna where you go /thf or just nuke..I havent even mentioned self sc's if we're going there you can really pull off some serious numbers if you total the WS+spell+SC I can easily pull off a total of 2400 ish per self sc with Light or Darkness on /nin, on /thf you might be able to almost double that total... just my experiences lol

BLU Ratio/pDIF testing:

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?fjob=16&mid=1264809115174556639&num=23&page=1


Now is the absolute best time for BLU melee. We've had the incredible Perdu Hanger, which is probably the best non-multihit dps weapon in the game. There's haste everywhere, PIZZA!, Mirke Wardecores, Antea (BLU's first multihit weapon), an age where endgame is easier than ever due to job advancements and player knowledge, and cheaper higher end gear than ever before.

Swords really aren't that deficient, our swords now are better than the axes and axe/sword combos (baring ridills) of the WAR/NINs of old, which are actually capable of being competitive today if weaked. Hell a properly built BLU/NIN is definitely no slouch in the DPS department. Vorpal Blade while often disappointing, can be pushed to passable numbers with enough buffs/debuffs. The thing that holds back BLU melee the most is the lack of any native JAs that boost melee whatsoever.

This may be overcome in the future if SE follows through with its claims that BLU may get a native DW trait, allowing BLUs to BLU/WAR and pump out incredible melee damage, especially when combined with a cap raise granting acess to aggressor. +25% ATK, +25 ACC, and +10% DA from a sub while getting at least 15% DW from main job traits, paired with the awesomeness that is Perdu/Antea? Hopefully SE really does it.

What BLU really suffers from is its spells being made garbage on mobs higher than merit levels by lack of being able to boost their ratio effectively. If Blue Magic Skill+ came in gear in blocks comparable to ATK+ for melee, Blue Mage would really be a DD then.

Oh yeah, while my BLU is sadly 4th on my priority list, it is no slouch in my honest opinion. I don't have Suppa (My Apocalypse DRK has Abyssal and my relic comes before my hobby), I don't have the sexy Anwig Salade (Got Selene's for my BLM), I don't have Blue Magic merits (Got 8/8 Enfeebling/Elemental for my BLM and RDM), hell I don't even have the DW Mirke (Chose Hauby Mirke for future MNKing but fell in love with BLU again), so I have an uphill battle.

I do, however, believe that if you're going to do a job, do it as best as you possibly can. So my DRK eats up most of my gil (Currently saving for Armada Hauberk, Dusk Gloves +1, Cerberus Mantle +1, Mars Ring, and Ninurta's sash), I can still get some nice R/EX stuff, and share the non-ex between jobs. I'll list my gear sets:

TPing:
Perdu
Demonslayer (Koggel drop rate is gay, Cheesehoarder hates me, and I'm 7 nails from Antea)
Tiphia Sting
W.Turban
Chiv Chain (As I type this I'm in sea farming for my Fort torque that never drops)
Ethereal Earring (can get better melee earrings, but I do get hate and do get hit, and the mp is just a great perk)
Brutal Earring
Mirage Jubbah
Homam Manopolas
Toreador's ring
Rajas ring (R.I.P. Thomas the Tamas Ring)
Forager's Mantle
Swift Belt
Homam Cosciales
Homam Gambieras

WS:
Perdu
Demon
Tiphia
Enkidu's Cap
Soil Gorget
Ethereal
Brutal
Mirke Hauby
Enkidu's Mittens
Toreador's Ring
Rajas Ring
Foragers Mantle
Warwolf Belt
Mirage Shalwar
Denali Gamashes

Casting Big 3:
Perdu
Demon
tiphia
Gnadbhod's Helm
Kubira Beads
Delta Earring
Minuet Earring
Magus Jubbah +1
Enkidu's Mittens
Flame Ring
Rajas Ring
Smilodon Mantle +1
Warwolf Belt
Mirage Shalwar
Denali Gamashes

Regurgitation/Blastbomb:
Neptune's Staff (Aquilo's staff for Blastbomb)
Bugard +1
Phantom Tathlum
Magus Keffiyeh (Mirage for Blastbomb; Getting Magus+1 atm)
Prudence Torque
Moldavite Earring
Novio Earring
Errant Body (Magus Jubah +1 for Blastbomb)
Errant Cuffs
Balrahn's Ring (Have Snow Rings but no room lol)
Omega Ring
Gleeman's Cape
Swift belt (Would use Penitent's here but waiting on mog satchel till I upgrade more)
Mahatma Slops
Denali Gamashes.

Magic Hammer/Mind Blast/Magic Fruit
Apollo's Staff/Jupiter's Staff
Bugard +1
Phantom (no room, working on Sturm's Report)
Magus Keffiyeh
Morgana's Choker
Moldavite Earring
Novio Earring
Errant Body
Devotee's Mitts +1
Karka Ring
Omega Ring
Aslan Cape
Swift Belt
Mahatma Slops
Mahatma Pigaches

Soporific/Sheepsong/MP Drainkiss/Yawn
Apropriate HQ Staff
Bugard +1
Phantom
Mirage Keffiyeh
Prudence Torque
Moldavite
Novio (I'm well aware that MAB has no effect but until I get mog satchel, my space is limited and I use the earrings as a place holder
Magus Jubbah +1
Nashira Gages
Balrahn
Omega
Gleeman's Cape
Swift Belt
Mirage Shalwar/Mahatma
Denali Gamashes



For the most part I know what I'm doing and I've taken my Blue to Limbus, Einherjar, Dynamis, Sea, Sky, SCNM, KSNM, Nyzul, Random Assaults, Missions, and currently working on my Regurgitation solos.

I love the job and work on my builds as much as possible. Though my other jobs eat up "character decisions" like DM, CoP, ToAU, AMKD, etc gear/merits, they also let me come into Blue Mage with some amazing gear.

I should really start lurking Alla, that's the second time this week I've been linked to BLU testing over there. Thanks.

I lol'd. I also included the mirke bit in my post because I think 10acc 10attk mikre beats da or dw one anyway, not that attk helps blu spells but neither does dw, not sure on that part. But the blu>>blm for crowd control .... yeah hmmm.

Love your avatar but this ... is way too loose a statement. Im gonna assume greatkatana sam on colibri with poor gear, not an actual "average" penta sam, nq dgloves hauby turban fuma thats unlikely even for tizona blus. Tbh thats unlikely for most relic jobs even amano to out dd average/decent geared penta sam on birds thats fact.

I have blu 75 fully merit, should use it bit more maybe but always finding myself on mnk sam rdm or blm for stuff i do. Good blu I know we often duo vt inc tough movs with me as blm, blu is a job thats good at fast rape of enemy hp whilst keeping it stationary. Mobs like demons and wivre even under gravity move pretty fast duo blu and blm like this makes some mobs whole lot easier requiring less binds/sleeps.

Well seeing as a BLU gets 46 base skill on a BLM just by existing, and can merit an extra 10MACC, a well geared BLU can land sleep better than a well geared BLM.

We can compare my BLM to my BLU for Sleeping.

BLU:
Pluto's/Apollo's
Bugard+1
Phantom
Mirage Keffiyeh
Prudence Torque
Abyssal Earring
-NA-
Magus Jubbah +1
Nashira Gages
Balrahn's ring
Omega Ring
Gleeman's Cape
-NA-
Mahatma Slops
Denali Gamashes

+20 skill; +31 INT (15.5 MACC if dINT > 10); +19 MACC (13 gear, 6 merits)


BLM:
Pluto's Staff
Bugard +1
Phantom
Genie Tiara
Enfeebling Torque
Abyssal
-NA- (need to rebuy Enfeebling Earring on new server, gonna count it it for this though)
Wizard's coat +1
Nashira Gages
Balran's Ring
Omega Ring
Altruistic Cape
Witch Sash
Igqira Lappa
Goliard Clogs

+64 skill (48 gear, 16 merits); +19 INT (9.5 MACC when dINT > 10); and +14 MACC

When you take into account the skill difference my Blue mage comes ahead by about 7 MACC? That's before capped Blue Magic Accuracy merits or Blue skill. That's not even with complete gear.

Also, DW +3 generally beats 10atk, do to faster DoT and tp gain.

It was many years ago and the sam but was not a well geared using GK and I wasnt parsing myself. I was told this by someone else.

I tried a merit pty on colibri about a year ago /thf and was making some nice 3.9k self SC darkness. Vertical cleave with CA alone was doing about 1.7k

You can only CA once every 1:40 at best. A SAM with a mildly acceptable Haste Build and a 6 hit will WS a bit over 5 times in that time period without factoring in DAs, Jumps, Meditate or Soboro.

I personally don't see why a BLU would even want to be in a merit party. You can get 10k an hour or more depending on your EXP rings, if the candy is in Al Zahbi, how much attention you pay, and how hard you push yourself. Chain 5 spam on imps without ever having to flag up makes me happy, especially because don't have to deal with retards.

Hell you can set Regurgitation+Blastbomb, Sleeps, Aspirs and a Stun, and head to pudding camp to duo with a BLM out there. If you do your job right, you cut out a lot of their down time and never have to rest yourself. As long as the BLM doesn't suck and you're both actively trying, breaking 10k isn't too bad.

Also, outdamaging a gimp is nothing special.

Such *** like you need to be shot in the head. Everyone has their own idea, either you discuss it or you can just go to somewhere else, you have no right to tell anyone to shut the *** off or get the *** off unless they insult you. How about you get the *** off ?

imo blu is really great, and if we are talking damage wise, specifically, in a burn situation, it can better than a 2handed/nin. I've seen it. A friend of mine is the best blu and war i know and i merit with him a lot and i parse everything. His blu is better damage wise than his war/nin. So my intention with this is to say that a competent blu can be a great add to the pt in such burn situations (limbus and etc).

Idk how it would fare on harder stuff (some pointed out it sucks lol)
Far from the truth though lol. If we don't consider h2h the best dps in the game (axe base damage with dagger delay), mandau has the throne on most dps on weapon in the game. If we dont take relics, then we have blau, x, pharpe with better dps than perdu hanger. And that's only on daggers. Outside of daggers, i know Thalassocrat is of the highests out there (higher than blau). Now with the trial of the magians, i'm pretty sure that the high damage version of each weapon class should surpass most weapons of that class on dps.

I wasn't including H2H because it changes based on the user's Skill and job traits, should have pointed that out. Relics were an obvious "no duh" though.

Blau Dolch is 11.12 dps.

Perseus's Harpe is 10.57 dps.

X's Knife is 10.15 dps.

Thalassocrat is 11.46 dps.

Perdu Hanger is 11.73 dps.

Now, to be fair, The Mezraq/Thal HQs are slightly better than perdu dps wise, but they're so rare I forgot about them lol. Also, since Two-handers get an ACC/ATK bonus, and a higher pDIF max value, it kinda skews the value of each weapon.

How about if I put it this way: If we just look at the weapons themselves, Perdu Hanger is an overall better weapon than any other non-relic/h2h/multihit, because it commands such a high dps value, and has relatively large stat boosts for the job that wields it.

BLU cannonball build also just got a huge boost with the introduction of VNMS. 6 str ring, 6-7 str neck, 8 str belt.

Same with breath builds. There's that 30 HP ammo piece.

To be honest, I find these two builds to come in handy a lot more than regurgitation, magic hammer, mind blast, etc.

Campaign is serious business!

lol completely forgot to factor the latent effect on it.

Well what i said about the trial of the magians is still truth though. Nobilis has 11.94/11.95 dps.

I wouldn't recommend using it in any endgame or group activity, really. I could go out and list all my BLU gear and such, but it's easier to just say it's everything Brain has + morrigan's + mahatma body + kogg + vbelt + a few other minor upgrades.. it's still worthless. It's a neat job for a few assaults/solos/etc, but it's not practical for anything group-orientated.

Meh gear aside my point was blm has 4 sleeps bind and gravity and blu has like 2 sleeps where the max casting range is smaller a bind and aoe? grav which often fails. Even if blu sleeps are stronger than my blms which i very much doubt it has less sleeps as its disposal and we arent about to take blu parties for crowd control in dynamis over blms is all. Yes its very versatile but imo the statement : "crowd control more accurately than a blm" is perhaps why u got rated down by others, I didnt rate down personally just assumed this was probably the reason.

I also quoted because you said your blm had the 8/8 enfeeb merits vs your blu with 0/8 blu merits im sure with those and a decent blm enfeeb build surely would be more trustworthy that a blu sleep. If u can prove otherwise mebe ill start using blu solo farm inc-tough sleepable mobs if I only see 1 sleep resist every 20hours and nearly all of them reach full 90second duration like on my blm.

Personally the whole merit party thing shouldnt bother anyone with a strong blu imo, blu is similar to blm in that yea xp solo is 1/2 or 1/4 what it could be in merit party but solo we only need to watch the screen half the time. Take duo Ule range inc tough demons blu and blm for example zerg 1 demon 400xp chain then rest / afk etc. Sure its only 10k an hour but theres gil with it and alot of chances to afk resting mp or looking at tv :D same with Mire blu solo.

K man thats fair enuf then, didnt think it wld be a penta sam nothing beats those >.>; seen parse 38% penta sam to 20% amano sam on birds.

And opinions like this is why you got rated down, also not by me lol. You cant seriously have that much blu gear and still consider it worthless? O.o. I mean morri and vbelt excusable as you cld have rdm , blm and other melee but owning Koggel for a job u only do assault for? Wat was the point. Mebe u got lumbered with it idk. Im still reading that again thinking no thats wrong "wouldnt recommend using it in any endgame or group activity" yep very very wrong.

Ahem. Yawn (Actinic Burst first to get them facing you,) Soporific, Sheep Song, Pinecone Bomb. That's two light-based AoE, one dark-based AoE, and one element-less Sleep Bolt-style damage+sleep.

Frypan and Temporal Shift for AoE stun.

Head Butt for a very, very low recast stun as opposed to your 45 seconds.

And Diamondhide to steal a little thunder from SMNs.

If you're comparing BLU and BLM, then typical FFXI answer: It's situational. Sometimes you're going to want that greater range, Elemental Seal, and a good old fashioned Burst II.

And sometimes you're going to want a sleeper that can actually take a little abuse from mobs, and brings more to the table than just ranged magic attack spells.