The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

I know little to nothing of most if not all the gear that was introduced in the past 4 years, since I been MIA. So I have not a clue on all the new items. And I never did Legion before, and was only just recently made aware of Spurrina since I seen it on a BLU in Windurst this morning.

Are there some honorable mentions for other gear that you'd be willing to list in your guide for sake of clarity? Otherwise I have 0 problems with this entire guide. I find it really appealing.

There are often half a dozen potentially suitable, albeit ideally temporary, alternatives for any given set in any given slot. BLU has access to five refresh hats: Spurrina Coif and Herculean Helm can get refresh+1~2 (Herc through Dark Matter augments only); Rawhide Mask, Auspex Coif, and Wivre Hairpin (Aby-Konschtat) all offer refresh+1.

While this is a reasonably clear-cut case insofar as there is minimal differentiation between items, this does not hold true for many other pieces of gear. At some point it's simply not worth the effort of the guide-maker to keep up with every third or fourth-rate option, especially given that the value of an item may depend on random augments. The burden thus falls to the reader to make use of the resources available to them. In other words, to do your homework yourself. Make judgement calls on gear progression based on what is most readily available in your unique situation.

You can find 99% of what's relevant via intelligent use of FFXIAH's power search tool and the following BGWiki pages for augmented items:

Arcane Glyptics Inscription (Reisenjima augments)

Nolan (Escha Zi'tah and Ru'aun item augmentation)

Sinister Reign

Alluvion Skirmish Armor

Skirmish Armor

JSE Capes

and to a lesser extent:

Prah Janimhar (WKR augments, primarily of note for PDT-4% Buremte gloves if you want to make a PDT+curepot received set)

and perhaps the augments for Delve II armor, but it's pretty easy to bypass this stuff completely.

HI so sorry to bother you atm, read the guide and i bloody love it. I'm new to BLU and i wanted to join the club, I wanted to ask what pieces of the AF relic and Emp should i 119. atm i dotn have the space to 119 all pieces but i do have the space to 119 the most important ones and when SE decides to give us more room i can +1 the rest of the not as important pieces.

AF body and Empy legs are good for +skill buffs like Occultation and Diamondhide. Empyrean feet are very nice for nuking. Empy body is good for pre cast on blue Magic spells.

ty so much. ill work on those pieces. I also need the AG hands i heard cuz it makes it easy ot learn BLU magic?

Relic feet for Diffusion effect bonus duration.

I'm not sure if there's a difference between normal version of AF hands over 109/119. I simply 109'd them and haven't had any issues learning spells.

I don't think you read my post clearly. I am aware TP bonus doesn't apply offhand. I never said it would beat Almace offhand to a Tizona. I am just reporting data via the spreadsheets. There is no eyeballing here. I just didn't bother going through the full range of Colada augs so I can't rule that out.

A sequence in the mainhand is ahead of a Tizona 119 w/ 242 skill but behind a Tizona 119 w/ 269 skill. For people like me, who aren't close to done with an Almace, this is probably the best offhand option until you can make one.

White borders, obviously, is a major benefit!

I can't believe I forgot relic feet, lol. Relic feet you can take to Lv. 90 and do the augment trial if you don't want to waste the chapters/gil on upgrading to 109/119. Works the same.

The extra skill can be nice for certain buffs. It's also nice to have ilvl stats in case you need to cast mid-battle.

Slightly different version of my last post on the subject:

Important upgrades that retain value:
-Assimilator's Jubbah +1: blue magic skill
-Luhlaza Keffiyeh +1: blue magic skill
-Luhlaza Bazubands: Azure Lore duration bonus, not necessary to +1
-Luhlaza Charuqs +1: Diffusion duration bonus, blue magic skill
-Hashishin Mintan +1: blue magic precast
-Hashishin Bazubands +1: blue magic -recast
-Hashishin Tayt +1: blue magic skill

Valuable upgrades that are potentially replaceable or have finite value:
-Assimilator's Bazubands +1: Worthless once you've learned all your spells.
-Assimilator's Shalwar +1: Tied with HQ Carmine for BIS -interrupt, but the Burst Affinity enhancement isn't worth using so Carmine+1 is inventory+1.
-Assimilator's Charuqs +1: Still evaluating this, but there might be better options for CA.
-Luhlaza Jubbah +1: Decent FC/recast piece, but not BIS (loses to Taeon with FC+5 augment). Probably not worth using for Enchainment once you get into abjuration and Reisenjima gear.
-Hashishin Kavuk +1: Another piece I'm still evaluating for CA.
-Hashishin Basmak +1: Beats NQ Amalric for nuking under BA, possibly beats HQ depending on other stats/buffs. Also one of our better macc feet, so certainly not a bad investment. May move up to the first category with further review.

Don't bother:
-Assimilator's Keffiyeh
-Luhlaza Shalwar

Occultation yes, Magic Barrier as well. Diamondhide you can eventually get away with a very limited set of +skill gear. Most efficient combination (relative to FC options) to hit 500 skill with gifts is probably Cornflower Cape with at least skill+9 augment and Incanter's Torque.

So, uh... you know that 100% DEX mod Sinker Drill?

It's actually STR/VIT. No DEX mod whatsoever.

Nice thing about the pDIF update, collecting data is a lot faster/easier. Should also make attack bonus/penalty testing easier/more precise.

Will test further for fTP/WSC values soon.

Don't shatter my life! The next thing I know you'll tell me Provoke isn't modded by CHR!

Note: thanks for the test

Well, I just believed the old findings. That sure is a kick in the pants.

Don't worry, with all that DEX I'm sure the kick didn't miss.

Yeah, I'm surprised that it's a completely different set of stats for WSC. That's a significant difference.

In an even more earth-shattering revelation, I have discovered that Subduction STR and VIT modifiers aren't 10%...

They're 122/1024, or just a touch under 12% each. :D

Okay, maybe not so revolutionary.

I did work out a few useful things regarding BLU's magic damage calculations along the way. Notably in the way WSC is calculated: the 550 JP gift (stat*1.05) is applied to each stat independently, the stats are summed, then the % modifier and alpha are applied.

That resolves all inaccuracies I previously experienced in calculating Subduction damage.

Magic damage formula for blue magic is thus:

((level+2+(((WSC_A(*1.05 for gift)+WSC_B(*1.05 for gift))*WSC_Multiplier)*alpha)*fTP*Convergence)+dINT*fINT_Multiplier+MDmg)...
*affinity bonuses (Pixie Hairpin +1 etc)*Species Damage Taken (SDT)*Resist fraction*Magic Burst multiplier*Magic Burst Bonus*Day/Weather bonus*(MAB/MDB)*MDT (aka TMDA)=Total damage

Potency multipliers (Ebullience for instance) would go after TMDA, but BA and Convergence both operate at known points within the equation so that's not terribly relevant. Likewise, we can disregard staff bonuses nowadays and multiple target reductions have never been a thing for BLU AoE so I omitted them from the later steps. Floor at each step of course, but I removed that from the above to salvage readability somewhat (still a mess, sorry). If a spell has two WSC and each has a different multiplier, it stands to reason that they're separated accordingly. From what I can find elsewhere, I believe WSC would then be applied, the two values summed, then multiplied by alpha. Will verify at some point, but most relevant nukes now are single mod or have mods with matching multipliers.

Why is Blurred Sword +1 not an option on this guide

Because it's both expensive and not very good.

I got mine for ~-8M after I profited selling all my NQs. Now that BLU can cap haste solo I agree its not the best but if you only have haste 2 rolling it's pretty amazing.

Sorry, but it's really not good. For the price you paid, you easily could have picked up Tanmogayi and made a good Colada. BLU has enough multi-attack to not really benefit from the OaT, as well as the sword coming with zero offensive stats aside from accuracy. Ridiculously low base damage and a relatively high delay make it a lockstyle piece and not much more.

I got paid to have it lol

Haste takes time to proc.

Yeah man that haste 1 is awesome when you're too lazy to recast flutter