The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

That will be the end goal. I don’t have access to relic +3 yet

The Cath Palug Stone would have been pretty cool for cdc (not that I ever use it anymore), but BLU got left off everything again... :/

I’ve looked at two BG wiki guides and can’t find the details on spell learning. I haven’t learned a spell in years so have forgotten how it all works but each time the mob does the TP move do I have a chance to learn it or is it a one and done thing? You either learned it on that first TP move/spell or you didnt?

I’ve been holding Tchakka letting him do about 20+ carcharian verves. I’m 0/10 now and it’s getting old. Last 3 I’ve sat in full blu skill gear the entire fight. Am I wasting my time?

Not sure on the exact mechanics, but I would bet that only the first time matters. I've never kept track of it but honestly I've had mobs use moves multiple times on me and I never noticed it make me learn anything faster. I think you're safe just killing once you see the move, and you'll probably learn it faster that way.

My thought was “I’ve got to wait 3 hours anyway so what’s 30 more minutes if it increases my chances”.

I don't think having the mob use a TP move multiple times improves your chances to learn it. I learned many, many spells 1/1 killing once they'd used the move. Sometimes though, you just get unlucky. Verve took my main a while to learn too.

I'd go more with the idea that learning or not is determined when the mob dies, with TP move use adding the spell to the "drop" pool. So as mentioned, higher frequency would likely get you the spell faster.

You could always run Delve instead for more chances, and more benefits, if you have the characters/friends.

No hard testing from me either, but I tend to agree. Let it do it once, then kill it and have at it again. I dont think I ever let them do the same move twice, mostly because it was hard enough to keep them alive to do it once much less multiple times. I think it's just a chance upon death that you learned it and how many times they used it or which you learn if they used multiple that you can learn is just RNG.

No facts just my gut feeling after learning way too many spells.

What spells do we use for applying TH to big groups of mobs? Assuming blu/rdm generally. I don't want to do diaga, but I guess that is an option.

The sleeps work well for that. Depending on whichever one you set.

/blm sleepga

Dream flower?

Dream Flower works very well as previously stated.
I personally set Subduction for TH Tagging sometimes as well; you won’t lose TOO much damage swapping a couple of pieces and the super-potent Gravity is always nice.

Just one of many potential tools for this particular purpose

There are a slew of new swords out that BLU can use.

A lot of people are using the TP bonus sword to pair with, say Tizona, for expiacion, which I understand, despite the lack of any worthwhile stats besides the TP bonus, is supposed to be BiS for many situations.

Don't want to get into that debate whether to use the TP bonus sword or not. The sword is a pain in the *** to grind for, not HARD, but BORING.

Anyway, ALTERNATIVES to TP bonus sword offhand, particularly for content like wave 3 dynamis.

Main hand: R15 Tizona. It's the king.

Offhand choices: Almace AG is what I'm currently using. It's got that 50 DEX that is one of the secondary stats to expiacion if I remember right.

Sequence: it has store TP but nothing else for offhand (since TP bonus doesn't affect the main hand).

Naegling: has some DEX INT and MND (DEX and INT being secondary modifiers to expiacion), ontop of ACC+40/ATK+30. Does the savage blade damage affect the main hand? Does the weaponskill attack bonus depending on buffs affect the main hand (gut tells me no, because SE hates offhanders affecting the main hand by a lot).

Zantetsuken - From the odin fight, has less acc than naegling, but has a slight atk advantage, and 15 STR. The gear haste is useless, but that quadruple attack is TEMPTING. You can get upwards of 8% quad attack with windbuffet +1, dampening tam, and the sword (even more if you count dark matter augments on herc gear). Too bad quad attack doesn't really affect expiacion much. I don't have that sword yet.

My gut is telling me Naegling or Zantetsuken would be really good offhands, alternatives to TP bonus sword, maybe allow me to do more than an Almace offhand. But I'm not sure. Thoughts?

Note: I favor other swords to finishing that TP bonus sword, because in wave 3, TP overflow allows me to WS over 1k a lot faster, I just have to wait a moment more, and I get another attack round in.

If multiple uses makes you feel luckier, knock yourself out, but to date no testing has shown anything but Blue Magic skill and relic hands affect the learn rate.

Technically you don't even need to be present when the TP move happens, as long as you arrive in time to get credit for the kill.

Personally, I like Naegling for it, though I do have/use TP bonus as well.

Per the item description, it doesn't get the WS bonuses offhand. Effectively, it's just got great all-round base stats, and not just from a melee standpoint. It's also one of the best MACC or nuking options for the slot too, things that Almace or Zantetsuken are terrible for.
If looking to get some marginal gains for pure melee damage though, I don't think it'd do that (dDEX on Almace probably helps more), or QA on Zantetsuken like you said. It's a strong option, but not the min/max best. Key thing to me is that Naegling is a strong option for just about anything, which is great if you're playing hybrid and not just WS spam.

The Ambuscade weapons linked WSdmg component and their fancy effects in their final forms work the same as REAMEs' do: main hand only.
Zantesuken only drops your Acc by a little bit under ~20ish compared to Naegling, and the haste is good for freeing up the waist slot for Windbuffet +1... should you be using something with low or weird Haste. (Like using Ayanmo body before you get a Adhemar+1.)
STR is also a component for all physical WSs, but not very potent without a STRmod. (so you'll at least be getting something)

Really, it's all about that QA and moderately low delay. Faster TP, more hits on CdC... it's a good offhand if you're not doing Almace or the TP Bonus. (Or if you're mainhanding Almace R15)

EDIT:Isiolia beat me to the punch.

I'm gonna go up to bat for pairing Zomorrodnegar with R15 Tizona on Wave 3. The 50 Acc and 70 M.Acc makes it a powerful weapon for landing Sudden Lunge reliably, which is what I typically focus on in addition to DDing, especially when dealing with the RDM and BLU Leaders.

If that’s the case mimesis would be just as effective if not more so for TP gain. 20 less BMS but has much lower delay for DD and even some stats for modifiers. Plus it’s basically free vs 200M for those who don’t already have the SU5.

pff, I can do it in 3 minutes, with all my alts in a alliance...

Since this is going to spread stupid information. No, no, no, no. That's the answer to the question, No. There are no "ALTERNATIVES". You can use the TP bonus Thibron with a rank 15 Tizona since its best in slot or you can use anything you want and be bad.

Take these numbers for example and do with them what you will I don't care anymore.

Tizona/Thibron - 8416.933

Sequence/Thibron - 6802.085

Tizona/Sequence - 6793.892

Tizona/Almace - 6759.280

Tizona/Naegling - 6681.377

Naegling/Thibron - 6636.716

Sequence/Naegling - 6529.701

Sequence/Almace - 6511.561

Naegling/Sequence - 5360.876

Naegling/Almace - 5192.411

Don't ask me why Tiz/Seq is that high, I'm away from the spreadsheet right now and that could be user error and I clicked Seq(MH) instead of Seq(OH). You can clearly see the difference in class from using Thibron. So theory craft all you want, I for one will not waste my time running those swords as OH in the sheet.

I show /Zantetsuken as being just behind /Almace FWIW. /Sequence is lower so maybe you did select Sequence MH.

Yea, I believe it 100%, it was like 4 A.M. and I couldn't sleep.

Has anyone ever tried comparing R15 Almace and R15 Tizona side by side in game rather than a spreadsheet?

I tried an experiment with both R15 Almace and R15 Tizona, and here is my findings with the following combos, ranked in terms decreasing DPS:

1) R15 Almace / Naegling (+9% DPS vs no 2.); used CDC at 1000 TP
2) R15 Tizona / Thibron (+7% DPS vs no. 3); used Expiacion at 1000 TP, except for AM3 maintence
3) R15 Almace / Decent Colada; used CDC at 1000 TP

I tried to do this "experiment" under controlled conditions so the results are fair and comparable. Hopefully someone can repeat my experiment and get similar results.

1) Mobs: Apex Toads (iLvl 135?)
2) Buffs: Sylvie(UC)'s bubbles, Joachim's March, and Erratic Flutter only (no sweeping gouge, no berserk, no nature's meditation etc.)
3) Food: sublime sushi only for set 2 to make up for the poor OH accuracy (~1120 before food) so that results are independent of accuracy. For sets 1 and 3 didn't need food (acc 1300+ before food)
4) Sample size: average DPS over 20 minutes
5) Gear sets: TP sets: BIS for each case. WS sets: Expiacion and CDC are only 1-3% off from BIS (based off spreadsheet) so results should be independent of my gear sets

Conclusion:
These results suggest that R15 Almace / Naegling is the DPS winner which contradicts the belief that R15 Tizona / Thibron is the winner.

Discussion:
Why is R15 Almace / Naegling better? I suspect it is because of faster TP gain (and in situations where accuracy matters, this combo offers tremendous accuracy) and the extra AM white damage makes up for the larger WS dmg seen by R15 Tizona / Thibron's Expiacion.

Further work:
As Eiryl suggested, perhaps this experiment can be repeated by obtaining attack cap. I don't have access to support alts to reach attack cap, so it would be great if someone was able to repeat this experiment at attack cap.

Well there's your problem. You failed to be attack capped.

All fights on all mobs in all scenarios assume mobs have literally 1 defense and cant ever even consider using debuffs or dispels. 8 songs 4 rolls and 4 GEO effects.

Ain't nobody runnin' numbers for casuals up in this ***.

When you're self skillchaining and you're far from being att capped ofc almace will perform better, in fact spamming cdc with tizona is still better dps than expia.

I'm curious what the damage difference between R15 Expiation and Tizona Savage blade is?

It lookes like you could alternate Savage Blade > Expiation for Distortion in situations where you can SC. If the distortion isn't negligible, I would assume that that would be better for overall DPS than just spamming Expiation.

Doesn't Tizona need some amount of R? to overtake the damage of Savage Blade?

So it doesn't seem like a huge DPS hit to put up AM3 then alternate SB and Expi for the Distortions.

That's not the worst idea in a Thibron situation where you're at a base 2250 TP.
And as long as you're closing with Expiacion, the loss of the bonus 50ish% damage of the opening WS should be made up for in the SC damage.

Any other situation though.... using Savage would be a net loss always. (They have near identical fTPs; but with Tizona R15, you get +50ish% damage on Expiacion. And even just base Tizona is getting a +30% damage boost.)

Let me make sure I am understanding you. Are you saying that R0 Tizona actually does 30% more damage when using Expiation over Savage blade? Meaning that if savage does 30k, Expiation would actually do 39k damage?

I mean I understand that Mythics have a base 30% boost to the mythic weaponskill (applied to all hits), but you seem to be saying that we should be using Expiation even without Tizona because it should do the same damage as Savage blade.

Should only be using Expiacion with the R0 and above Tizona, any other sword in your main hand it's Savage Blade.

To follow up, using gross napkin (excel) math, and assuming capped attack/full damage hits, only 2 hits (main hand) using the stats on the top set in the guide, I only see a 1% difference in damage between Savage Blade and Expiacion with R0 Tizona @3000 TP.

Multi attacks would skew in favor of Expiacion, but I don't think the damage difference is large enough to warrant saying it wouldn't be worth Skillchaining if its a possibility.

Edit: the reasons for this are pretty simple. Expiacion has a significant penalty in both WSC and fTP out of the gate. At low TP values, the 30% bonus from R0 Tizona more than makes up for both of those penalties, but the fTP penalty @3000 TP is enough to completly negate the 30% bonus.