New BLU - Few Questions

Hello fellow Blue mages!

Long story short: got an almace for PLD, got BLU gear ready from left over seals and +2, so I started messing around on BLU, I quickly come into a few problems:

1. If I do not use spellcast, should I keep going with BLU?
Reason I asked is that I am always using 2~3 macro buttons for gear swapping for all my jobs, but with BLU's arsenal of spells this seems a bit hard to do correctly by setting it all up from macro books and the given 6 lines for a macro button.

2. Is there a path/guide/premade excel out there to ease out the pain of learning blue magic? I want to, and am trying to learn EVERY SINGLE spell and I won't complain about a 7hr wait for a self-destruct either, but I tried to follow some of wiki's guide and it's either outdated or too messy...

3. I think I would need 4 sets of gears to begin with according to Proth's guide (WS, TP, PDT, CW), but I am also very limited in inventory space because I am mage main, can I get an estimate of the basic inventory slots I need to accomplish some of the sets so I can free up spaces? I know there are guides, so this question is just for a rough estimate/general consensus from BLUs all around.

I will admit I know nothing about BLU and please pardon me for my noob topic, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

1) I would suggest at least using windower macros. There's way too much gear swapping necessary to use normal macros.

2) http://173.192.108.24/~tforum/blu/BLUMain.html

3) I generally run with 75~ items in my main inventory with some auxiliary sets such as Sanguine Blade and Evasion in my mog sack.

XML would really help out yes. It'll let you customize your sets way more than conventional macros.

Blue Magic Hunting Grounds for all your magic learning needs.

I myself go out with 65/80 spaces on BLU gear including WS TP PDT and misc gear. I keep other sets handy in my sack for easy swaps. Such as curing, white wind, etc.

Beaten! Curses.

First reply is from the maker of the stickied BLU guide, I'm a happy taru!!

1. Figured this would be the answer, I will look into it, thank you!

2. I <3 you, probably not the first time you heard this from random BLUs... wishful thinking though, would there be a by location guide? XD

3. .... seems like SE is getting another dollar from me every month so I can mule more stuff. >.>

Thank you!

Not sure what you mean by "by location" D:, like, locations that you can learn multiple spells from at a time or summat?

For instance, I can learn like 7 spells in La Theine because of the mixtures of mobs they have in there(I just got done through 1-30 by zones that are near the 3 nations), so I don't have to zone ALL OVER in order to complete learning all spells, but again it's wishful thinking. D:

You can have my first-born, it's Chinese too so you'll have a trophy college kid. <3

I'll work on something when I get some free time, afaik no such thing exists yet

You can get a great deal of spells just from abyssea zones. They tend to have a pretty epic number of different mob types.

There are currently 2 guides that are somewhat like that in wiki,
one of them is incomplete(probably the closest thing to what I described), the other is just listing locations of where you can find the mob, I have been using that and use the alt+f function and search by location. >.>

Learning the Bare bones Outside Abyssea Core spells for the freshy aby burned blu:
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This is a rough guide of what spells I went after that prioritized utility (sleep/dispel/healing) so I could hold my own and go wherever after that.
I think alot of blu maybe spend a ton of time chasing down random stuff, and I think focusing on getting these things first is most important.

Assuming you have Cocoon+Wild Oats+Foot kick+Head Butt+Bludgeon as a minimmal core set to spam for skill or tp feed:

-Magic Fruit+Blank Gaze
( Opo-Opo , Lower Elshimo Outlands Outpost )
Bread and butter healing spell + Dispel spell for getting rid of ice spikes/buffs.

-Battery Charge / Mysterious Light
( upper delkfutt tower , via Outpost warp->Qufim / VW warp Lower Delkfutt tower)
To help with mp when learning outside abyssea or soloing/dynamis stuff.
Note you'll need 270+ skill to learn battery charge, which isnt unreasonable even if you aby burned and spammed head butt all the time.

-Jet Stream
( Garlaige Citadel entrance area bats or bats past 1st banishing gate).
Cheap finisher spell to kill stuff and self chain with.

-Chaotic Eye
( via Teleport Yhoat Crystal - Coeurl ) A spell to silence your target caster targets/adds.

-Sheep Song
( Lufaise/Misareaux - Tavnazian Sheep - use vw/Op/Tav ring Warp)

The 'Bibiki 3-pack'
learned at the entrance to Bibiki Bay zoning in from Buburimu Penninsula:
-Healing breeze (dhalmel) - set with Sheepsong and you'll get AutoRegen trait , good for outside abyssea while learning more spells.
-Wild Carrot (island rarab)
-Geist wall (eft)

At this point you have good core healing/utility spells to venture wherever and learn other spells both in or outside abyssea.

For gear, I prioritized pdt/refresh/regen/conserve mp pieces while swapping in +blu skill items and serpentes cuffs but tried to have af1 hands on all the time:

gearset assumes a new blu (like me) wont have any mavi. I had the relic body sitting around on porter and think it looks cool so I made that my refresh bodypiece.

Batching up what blu spells you can learn with minimizing travel will largely depend on what your BLU skill level is.
After your core spellset is obtained, I think its best to get in a merit party and cap all your merits out while getting your BLU skill as high as possible through the use of offensive blu spell casting before you go spell hunting.

I advocate the use of Refresh/Regen Atmas in abyssea along with /DNC to focus on survival+not running out of mp while capping skil in favor of damage/melee oriented atmas.

As for my first spellset that I worked towards, I built up and use a modified version of Proth's Dynamis Blu spellset with a couple changes that I used both in and outside abyssea:
These were the spells I mostly went after getting the core ones I listed in a previous post. After that I went after Abyssea/Voidwatch ones.

I mainly built this spellset so I could feel more comfortable tackling casters and things with annoying buffs/spikes while doing a mix of solo/farm/spell learning.

Blu/Dnc - solo spellhunter/dynamis hybrid for beastmen caster camps

Common Dynamis Blu spells
Delta Thrust
Sudden Lunge
Amorphic Spikes
Animating Wail
Battery Charge
Magic Fruit
Dream Flower
Charged Whisker
Everyone's Grudge
Chaotic Eye
Acrid Stream
Winds of Promy.
Actinic Burst

I drop these spells:
Zephyr Mantle
Regeneration
Fantod
Sound Blast
Heavy Strike

I substitute:
Water bomb (using it as a pull spell/silence-ga for multiple casters that cant be slept)
Occultation (instead of Zephyr mantle)
Empty Thrash + Demoralizing Roar *For Triple Attack trait*
Blank Gaze (dispel)

which gives me the following traits:
Conserve Mp/AutoRefresh/TripleAttack/Treasure Hunter

I never actually thought of using water bomb in such a way.

Forgive me, I'm not sure if you're talking about dynamis specifically;
But I do however keep Zephyr mantle equipped in my spell list because it is much more mp efficient than occulation, this then allows me make use of physical damage spells to kill mobs faster when they've been procced.

I am currently learning my BLU magic on this set as BLU/DNC, since I don't have any trait and would hate silence:



this should be good for spell farming ya?

Waterbomb has like 16 yalm range on it so I feel its an ideal tool for pulling a caster because you dont open yourself to a counterspell (sleep) like you do with a chakram pull, and a silenced mage target on aggro can be quickly dragged away from a group (or have it bring all its now silenced caster friends on purpose if they are in the splash zone to lock down with dreamflower at a spot of your choosing).

Yes zephyr is more mp efficient, I guess I prefer the sometimes flaky but extra occultation shadows and needing to recast less often.
I probably cast spells for damage less often which is why i'm ok with the cost of the spell.

You dont get Triple Attack with that set you are missing Demoralizing Roar but you shouldnt be setting TA unless you are /war. You shouldnt really go out of your way to set Conserve Mp either... its a rather useless trait. You will be wanting DWIII even with /dnc as it does make a difference to attack speed.

DWIII spells are:
Quad Continuum <--- should be set no matter what
Delta Thrust <--- should be set no matter what
Barbed Crescent <--- nice acc down added effect
Animating Wail <--- should be set no matter what
Blazing Bound
Mortal Ray <--- never actually cast this spell.

If you can put up with the slower attack speed then by all means dont set Blazing or Mortal like i said above the rest will be set anyway.

Zephyr is slow(7secs is just right out) and has only 4 shadows. Granted, it is only 8mp per shadow but still has a 60sec recast. Occ only has a 76sec recast and while it can give you 10 shadows, 9 is more reasonable and you can gear more haste that way. I agree though, it is heavy on the mp cost at 15.3mp per shadow, but a 1.5 sec cast time makes it effective for saving your *** when you need it. It's also possible to keep those shadows up full time with most mobs if you have good a good haste/fc set and animating wail up. Provided they don't do a shadow wiping attack which pretty much ruins everything.

But I rarely set either of those. If I don't want to get hit, I put on my eva gear and start stunlocking or burn a bit of mp and drop the mob. I've found myself rarely setting even things like cocoon since it just doesn't last long enough or I don't get hit enough to warrant its use. And my dynamis set just doesn't have any points to spare for it ^^;

Yeah lady bells are cool, I personally used shellbusters once I started learning higher level spells in abyssea zones and for areas with level 50+ monsters outside abyssea since they can handle the extra damage.

If you want to specifically tp feed from melee and cast less even in abyssea then yeah shifting to epona ring/haste/double attack gear works good. For some stuff I did that and set Apoc/Minikin/Mounted Champion or Vicissitude so I had a balance of multi attack/refresh/regen.



Creaucent: I have demoralizing roar set so yeah i have the trait, i forgot to add that to my list. editing

[ sarcasm ]

Make sure you farm worthless spells like self-destruct and Pollen, and complain about not getting them to ffxiah. Then exclaim you can show that being an extremely amazing blu is an extraordinarily easy feat, and that you can show everyone.

[ /sarcasm ]

lol sarcasm is a real tag >_>

No you dont... that set is 59/60 adding Demoralizing roar takes you to 63/60

The bold is my main argument, but It's easier to just deviate from them types of mobs, really, I can see both points either way and I do have it set as well incase ***goes south etc :P

Yeah my spellset is totally screwed, shame on me for doing this from memory and not checking in game. /sits in the corner
This is whats set which doesnt have TA cause I drop heavy strike for blank Gaze

Chaotic Eye
Sudden Lunge
Delta Thrust
Occultation
Animating Wail
Battery Charge
Magic Fruit
Blank Gaze
Everyone's Grudge
Water Bomb
Amorphic Spikes
Dream Flower
Winds of Promy
Empty Thrash
Demoralizing Roar
Actinic Burst
Charged Whisker
Acrid Stream

I swap out Blank Gaze for Heavy Strike sometimes which is where I either get double attack or triple attack and cocoon is never set (derp).

But yeah my reasoning for occultation is the fast cast usually followed up with Dreamflower/Waltz/Actinic Burst/Magic fruit depending on how dire things are.

Dual Wield II comes from dancer so I never bothered chasing after dual wield III and Expiacon->Amorphic Spikes->Grudgeoverkills stuff already so I never set quad continuum or barbed crescent.

You really dont need Chaotic Eye and Water Bomb or blank gaze. If that spell set is for dyna you are going to be killing nightmare mobs which 1. dont cast magic 2. dont really do many moves that must be dispelled. You are losing a lot of kill speed by not setting DWIII as well as Quad Continuum and by the looks of it you dont have CDC either so losing Req > Quad > Darkness.

I dont kill nightmare mobs when I dyna, my favorite thing to do lately is beastmen caster camps with 2 smns so we kinda 'magic cleave' them sorta.
I drop water bombs on everything/dreamflower/act burst/roar/blank gaze/chaotic eye/acrid stream and they spam dia on the main melee current target. Weird as hell but its fun and i never have competition so we can proc 1-3/4 things at a time.

We are usually limited by respawn rate which is why I will admit i'm somewhat hesitant to change my spellset or tactics.

I guess I should have put a disclaimer that its a spellset centered around dealing with heavy magic using mobs both in and outside dyna.

Changing to JA mobs would be most benefitial to farming as they proc faster and ultimately die faster because of the quicker procs. Procing a mob at 100% then one shotting with WS > Spell > Darkness means you are going to get a far larger amount of currency simply becasue of the kill speed.

I made up a little Blue Mage cheat sheet for myself since I tend to forget what spells set what traits. It's a quick handy reminder for me when I need to change up my spell list. Although it's far from all-encompassing, it helps me with a lot of basic things I should have memorized by now, hopefully it will help you out too. The Aby and VW proc spells are on there too for quick reference.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B40VJHsrthyYVEFsdk9va1JLajg/edit?usp=sharing

Google Docs messed up the formatting but if you print it Portrait it's exactly one full page.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Blue_Magic:What%27s_where

such thing exists!