The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

The are dullahans deep in ka'kaznar, but it's long *** walk. A few scattered around in inner court too.

I'd suggest Sih gates map #2 accessed via the purple crystal at Ceizak G-11. There's a bunch of them just past the entrance. They're pretty high level, although I can't recall how high.

If you want something lower level, can try the earlier gates zone's map#2(or cirdas map#2.) Most of them have a couple dullhans in them somewhere.

Get Telchine and get cure pot bonuses for sure. Like you said, DD gear may change around, but this iLvl cure pot gear should mostly stay in tact until the final update. Can basically full cure yourself from 1HP with Restoral using a decent set, pretty sweet. Magic Fruit will probably still be used for most stuff but Restoral can be fun/nice.

I'm 5/5 Telchine and Helios now. 3/5 Taeon and dual Claids. Augments forthcoming~

Thanks for the info Martel, I'll check out Sih Gates.

Don't worry too much about Helios legs, as Hagondes are far superior. Helios head is a toss-up between that and Hagondes depending on how much macc you need, but body/feet/hands are all great. Aside from getting cure potency on the Telchine, toss some snowdims on the pieces with native macc, such as the head, to get even more. Excellent choices for landing some spells.

As far as swords go, I'd highly recommend not building a second Claid. Even with perfect augments, Claid/Bura will beat Claid/Claid in every situation I've tested.

Yeah, don't do a second Claid. Like I was saying a couple pages back, Claid/Claid vs otherthings simulation and spreadsheet comparisons were done with slightly higher augments than are actually possible on the sword. It was enough to make a second Claid worse than Bura or Uson in the offhand. Right now would suggest Claid(Dmg/Acc/Atk/DA augments)/Bura for nonmythic BiS.

Does anyone have requests for additions to the OP? I'm already planning to have gifts and job points included in a better way, and need to clean up the gearsets. With recent looks at switching this thing over to another place, regardless of whether i do so or not, this particular guide hasn't aged very well compared to some of the newer ones so looking to revamp it somewhat. I can't draw or anything so don't expect amazing visuals, I'm talking more about information that may be missing.

It might be helpful to note that augments can be done with NQ stones. Cost me about 3 stacks of nqs to get fast cast 5 on hands/feet. Same with my Taeon Set for str/dex, acc/atk .. though it took more nq to get those augments.

Noted. The second Claid is still better than anything else I've got right now, but I'll pass on investing too much into it pending better options as everything comes together.

Not really sure if this is worth putting in the OP but I wouldn't mine seeing some recommendations for those with Tizona. I know that Aftermath changes some things in how you gear but since I didn't have plans of getting one before I hadn't really worried about it. But now I'm nearing completion I'm quite a bit more interested. I know that as gear choices change advice now may slowly depreciate but I'm really more interested in a guideline sort of advice that'll help even after our dd gear gets replaced.

I'm 'okay' with spreadsheets, but I have to know the piece is going to be worth while before I'm willing to put it through 20 some odd situations and calculate everything out and I've often missed stuff due to simply not even considering it.

Nothing much should change, really. My TP set is same as the OP's "BLU (TP 1)" set except with Taeon head and Tripudio Earring over Trux. Could also throw in Taeon, Qaaxo or Luhlaza over Thaumas if you're afraid of non-ilv pieces.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect too much to change these days. The thing about Tizona is that you have a second weapon that still benefits fully from multiattack gear, and that gear is often a clear winner over alternative options and/or competes with gear that also has multiattack stats. There might be some small adjustments, but emphasis on small. I'll give it a detailed look myself sometime soon, my own gearsets are very out of date!

That's odd. I guess drg is different. My brother has different sets for AM3 up and down.

I'm okay with that though, less gear is nice.

It's moreso the difference between 2-handed mythics and 1-handed mythics rather than the jobs.

Qaaxo body has innate TA and can get 2 DA as an augment as well. In situations where you need accuracy, Taeon will win out, however. Relic body is also a good choice for the native acc/atk.

As far as spell sets, I believe Proth's 100 JP gift highest tier set is very much the best pure offensive set you can use. Although, you should swap in molting plumage instead of mortal ray & animating wail, as it will free up a couple points. Drop some spells if necessary based on the amount of utility you want to bring. If I know I'm getting consistent haste 2, I'll drop flutter for winds of promy or white wind. Choices like that.

Overall, the OP is pretty much up-to-date.

While I do have a number of AM3 sets, I can't really tell a significant difference. I guess that's expected since multi-attack is something that you just get lucky on.

But here's some possible attacks with and without AM3 and gear pushes:

No AM3, Multi-attack gear:
Mainhand 1-4 attacks
Offhand 1-4 attacks
2-8, probably a fairly high distribution on 3-5 attacks with our current gear and spellset options. 4 attacks probably being the average.

AM3, no Multi-Attack gear(not a likely scenario anyway):
Mainhand 1-3 attacks
Offhand 1 attack
2-4, probably an average of 3 attacks, can push STP out the wazoo on these 3 hits for a more reliable TP gain but you'd lose out on white damage.

I think what I like best is a mix. Reduce Double Attack, but still push gear that adds Triple Attack. Replace some of the Double Attack gear with STP.

While multi-attack on mainhand might feel like a waste on an AM OA3 proc, BLU still benefits from having the offhand. There are also times where AM won't proc at all, at which point the DA/TA/QA will be useful. So while multi-attack gear, and double attack gear especially, has reduced usefulness it still benefits a dual wielder.

I would love to see a sweet spot mathed out by someone eventually.

For MAB gear, you'll primarily want Hagondes head/body/legs and Helios feet/hands. Helios head can be used in place of hagondes for situations where you need more macc. This of course assumes that you can get good MAB or MAB/macc augments on these pieces. rAF3 feet actually aren't bad and can be used as a substitute for Helios. Eddy necklace, Yamabuki for waist, cornflower for back, shiva +1 for rings, friomisi/crematio for earrings, and I use Erlene's for ammo, although there may be better out there by now.

For a CDC set, I'd suggest building full Taeon with STR/DEX, acc/atk, and TA. Ele belt/gorget, Jukukik for ammo, Epona's and Ramuh +1 for rings, brutal/TPbonus moonshade for earrings, and a capped rancor for back.

Building crit Taeon pieces will increase your CDC damage by a bit, but will lower your overall DPS on average. I assume this is caused by losing multi-attacks in CDC, leading to less left-over TP and a slightly slower time to the next CDC. This comes just from the spreadsheet, so I don't have real world knowledge of the differences.

So I had taken a bit of a break prior to gifts coming out now im trying to max out my blu as far as job points go and I have a regular group I go with that mana-burns in cirdas. I have put together a decent Magic set for my blu but im trying to figure out what spells are best... so far in my testing i am using subduction and thermal pulse alot and a bit of charged whisker. Any other reccomendations of good spells to use?

Other good spells would be Embalming Earth, Nectarous Deluge, and retinal glare. I still like sticking water bomb in as well for the utility of an aoe silence. Honestly though, unless something resists subduction or is weak to another element, it's your best bet. It's just ridiculously strong.

Can I see your Subduction set? I've never seen it go over 500dmg in Yorcia Skirmish myself. Just wondering if i'm missing something.

Are you casting it on resistant mobs? Even my gimp set does way more than 500.

It sounds like the absence of Magic Damage, are you using clubs or swords?

Is it possible your set just isn't being put on for the spell?

This is my current set

ItemSet 335136

Theres a wait1 between fastcast set and magical set so it should be swapping with plenty of time.

The actual damage it does is probably a little over 500dmg its just not omg broken like some people make it out to be.

My subduction set does around 2500 damage in Alluvion Skirmish, and it's not much different from yours.

The biggest difference, I think is that I use an augmented skirmish club with MAcc/Mab+7, and fastcast +4, and the bolebunga, and Empyrean 119 blue mage boots.

The only differences between your set and mine are helios boots and dual Gabaxorea. I'm able to hit consistent ~3k on skirmish mobs if they're not resistant. Do you have high MAB augments on your Hagondes/Helios? That could be the issue. Or you may need more macc if you're getting resisted.

The first thing I would do is just lock your set in and then try. If it works and your damage goes up, then the problem is that the gear isn't getting put on or your aftercast is going off too soon.

I don't think I would even use a fast cast set for subduction unless you're using gearswap. Subduction has a really quick cast time compared to most other magical blu spells, so your gear is likely not changing fast enough.

I wouldn't flinch about using 1-2 pieces of gear in my set in slots where large amounts of fastcast are available (body/head/legs) depending on how much MAB/INT you have available in those slots. That's assuming you use a single macro with equipesets and waits. I'd rather use 2 macros and guarantee that a spell isn't going to be interrupted constantly or go off in precast gear, assuming you're against using gearswap.