Returning To BLU After 3 Year Break

blah blah blah

Yawn, needs more whine.


Hey if you don't like the attitude... tough? illiterate, sigh now your just being derp, Arrogant sure.

I like Blu, I tend to get agitated when things I like are damaged or lessened.

You seem to have a similar idea of Blu as I do, so your problem is with me and not with the core of what I'm saying, just how I'm saying it?

Hey you don't like me, I can live with that.

/nom nom
love the taste of those futile rage tears of internet impotence

(you mad) o.O?

Facts:

Blu can be badass, if you put in the required Effort.
Blu will suck if you don't put in the required effort.
Don't Join pugs as a derp Blu, and expect to not be looked down on as trash from then on.

just remember magic accuracy swords and 5/5 mavi gear

You can use countless of other words instead blu to fit your same argumet: sam, thf, brd, job, personal relationship, money, work, sex, etc.

Nothing new here.

For example Sex > Blu > Sam in required effort, but
Blu > takin a dump > Sam in required effort

1)Damage Dealer
Blue Mage has plenty of tools at its disposal for dishing out punishment. Not only are we adept at using one handed swords, we also have access to a wide array of both magical and physical damage spells that allow us to adjust the type of damage that we do to fit our needs.

Most of the time, you’ll be looking at dealing physical damage, and your swords will be the primary source of damage while your physical blue magic supplements them. Physical magic has seen some significant improvements since Seekers of Adoulin launched, including large base damage and blue magic attack buffs via sword skill and attack score on your main handed weapon, which has made it much more viable to use in combat against even the strongest targets, albeit in moderation. Every time you cast a spell, you impose a 2 second delay on yourself in addition to the casting time of the spell. This adds up quickly, making spell spamming a less profitable venture than it may seem. That said, tossing out a strong spell like Sinker Drill or Thrashing Assault every weaponskill or two, especially in conjunction with Chain Affinity or Efflux, should be a net damage gain in most cases.

Chant du Cygne is your best sword weaponskill, while Realmrazer is your best one for Club (more on this later). Requiescat should only be used if the target resists physical or slashing damage during a certain phase or with a certain buff up (Invincible for example), never use it as your primary weaponskill. Sanguine Blade and Flash nova are also strong options if you have good enough Magic Attack Bonus equipment, and they are the strongest you have access to if you have a Geomancer providing MAB+ and MDEF- bubbles.

The general idea of dealing physical damage with blue mage centers around three major facets: our wide array of powerful offensive traits, our utilitarian stock of support tools, and our ability to be able to deal decent burst damage even without having TP. In most circumstances, you'll want to pile on as many strong DD traits as you can while maintaining your powerful supports spells including Winds of Promyvion, White Wind, Nature's Meditation and Cocoon. Traits will include other useful spells already (Sudden Lunge for Store TP for example). This will affect your ability to deal damage significantly, turning BLU into one of the best sources of damage from the one handed camp, and indeed, even the two handed one.

Keeping up Nature's Meditation as often as possible is going to be more of an advantage for you than a disadvantage, especially if you have a high amount of fast cast to soften the blow of casting times. Additionally, keeping up a defense down such as Bilgestorm or Frightful Roar if your alliance does not have something like Angon or if Angon is down can be a major asset to the damage output of your entire team. BLU is in a rather unique position in this way: while you're capable of dishing out high levels of damage, you're also more than capable of supporting your entire team with heals and debuffs at the same time, something that almost any other DD job can not say that they can do. Never ignore the support aspect, but do use it in moderation; you're there primarily as a DD if you have a strong backline already. If you are running lowman with few support classes to back up the party, leaning on your support spells a little more could be advisable.

For the few exceptions wherein physical damage will be severely blunted, you’ll want to switch to primarily magical damage. Sanguine Blade or Flash Nova will be your go-to here, they won't be matched for single target magic damage by any of your spells. If you want, you can supplement them with Retinal Glare for the additional mitigation provided by its Flash effect, but it will more than likely be a DPS loss for you.

Blue Mage does have a decent variety of magical spells at its disposal however... if you for some reason can't be within melee range. While they may not have as much stopping power as a Black Mage or a Scholar’s spells over time, they are still sufficient in the situations where you’d want to be using magic damage, and some posses other qualities that make them desirable. For example, Regurgitation and Corrosive Ooze generate the absolute minimum possible amount of enmity per cast regardless of damage done, this makes it the most enmity efficient damage dealing action in the game, and with the recent addition of the magic damage+ stat, they've become even more efficient due to their fairly low fTP and WSCs being supplemented by straight base damage boosts in addition to low casting and recast times. Rail Cannon, Everyone's Grudge, and Dark Orb are also strong candidates for nuking while Retinal Glare is a fast, cheap way to not only deal magical damage, but also provide a fairly potent mitigation effect in the form of a nearly 100% uptime Flash effect.

Blue Mage also possesses the strongest and most efficient AoE magic damage available in the game. Subduction alone is capable of putting out 2,500-3,000 damage per cast at a nearly instant recast. Tempestuous Upheaval and Embalming Earth are also valuable for this role, albeit not nearly as efficient. Charged Whisker also remains a strong option.

It's also very much worth mentioning the power of Diffusion. With your +2 Luhlaza Charuqs and full merits, you can provide some very strong, fairly long lasting buffs to your party for little to no cost to you as the added duration on the buffs will pay for the additional cost of JA delay. Nat. Meditation and Erratic Flutter are obvious choices, but don't ignore things like Harden Shell, which provides a sizeable (40% or more) resistance to physical damage against most targets for a good amount of time. In the same vein, Barrier Tusk provides a static 15% damage reduction that stacks multiplicative with existing DT- and, with the buff duration adjustments, lasts a fair amount of time.

I forget, did Rending Deluge also have low enmity?

What information is missing? I never finished adding the club section (which I never actually finished researching), but other than that, looking for suggestions to improve it.

I wouldn't say much is missing as far as the purpose of the guide and has been instrumental in me not being a terrible blu but I was mostly talking about specific discussion of current content, certain mobs and unique strats. I occasionally see little tidbits about people doing stuff but they are usually lacking in details.

I haven't even touched clubs myself. I'm not really sure if I need other gear. I probably have some of it. I wouldn't think that TP gear would change any but I could be wrong. I haven't looked at sets for flash nova or Realmrazer.

...
But, BLU doesn't require any more effort to play than SAM, it does require much more setup and preparation, though.

I'll have to skim the other tbread, but did you ever post extreme/high acc TP and WS sets?

Side note: Don't need Tizona but you do need all the other tools. In regards to other DD I can't comment first Hand, but blu performance is up there with MNK and average Sams, if played at its peak.

Prob should mention both clubs are augmented +15 acc/+4stp

What are the normal optimal augments for lower acc situations?

WSD 4% and STP +4 On each.

My whole post just got deleted and I have to get ready for work, so I'll keep this brief.

Blu is more complicated than other DD jobs because it is not inherently a DD out of the box, and even when made into a DD, it can do this effectively in multiple ways, as well as ineffectively in multiple ways. It gets no native job traits (assimilation doesn't count), and while many traits are standard full-time, there are exceptions for different situations (like clubs or high evasion), and depending on job points you will probably have some points left over after your standard traits are set, and you'll have to make decisions about priority spells for casting or setting additional traits. Your list of needed JA/Spells to full-time DD is woefully inadequate because it doesn't take into account all the spells needed to make traits, and the knowledge needed to do that properly for a situation for optimal performance.

As for gear, there's multiple acc levels of TP sets, multiple levels of DW gear depending on outside buffs, CDC Requiescat Flash Nova Sanguine Blade Realmrazer sets, various offensive spellcasting sets and the need to know which offensive spells are worth casting and when (each spell is effectively another WS with different mods and possibly different damage types), PDT MDT Hybrid, and even acc/magic acc sets for things like Sudden Lunge or Benthic Typhoon and pure magic acc for stuff like Frightful Roar or Absolute Terror, assuming any of those have been set. Being a good DD blu is not necessarily just swing sword and WS until mob dead. Overall, once you know how it all works, it's not that hard, but compare it to something like MNK, or even SAM. Oh you have to have an Apex Arrow set, big deal.

First off, your analogy is terrible... But, BLU doesn't require any more effort to play than SAM, it does require much more setup and preparation, though.

Wow just wow. So I just had a chance to read the rest of the thread. I'd like to thank everyone that contributed useful information about actually helping out returning players to better their blu as well as current ones. Really not sure how half of this went into some blu vs sam vs dd rant. How is that even a helpful discussion? Luckily thanks to doc and sekundes (also thanks for the meebles tour) we seem to be getting back on topic. Does anyone have good tips for spell sets that are useful for cleaving outside abyssea. What traits are you finding useful mab focus with int bonus' or hybrids. I like the more situational conversation we seem to have been getting started here. Let's keep it on track. Thanks again to contributors

Edit: I'm sure some of this might be in another thread. I haven't had much time to browse through forums much lately. Cause....career