The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

The real question is, what's the percentage difference between them? We know that going from 90 to 99 Almace is not a huge jump, so if the new weapon is in between them then it's pretty much equal.

And yeah BLU should always have a Req build, it's just too damn useful. In those situations where all the other melee's are being made to look weak a BLU will stomp it into the ground. This goes double now that Twilight DRK has been nerfed so heavily.

I dunno, 9 main hand damage and 5 dex is pretty big for a sword.

After fSTR and adding in off hand it's not a huge jump. It's noticeable just not a make or break type of thing. As base DMG gets higher each additional point becomes worth less and less. It becomes more about the special effects then anything else. 30~50% ODD is a pretty powerful effect.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item/19807/almace

Aftermath is about a 30% increase in melee DoT, it isn't much different than sticking extra base damage onto the weapon over time and its overall value can be approximated easily as a result; it brings Almace 99 up to an effective 91D~ or so. Coupled with 20DEX likely being a large chunk of crit rate and 10ACC as well as a superior weaponskill, it's more difficult to beat than lesser variations.

95 and below, on the other hand, are easier. 95 Almace's "effective" D is 84~, 90's is 77~, and 85's is 73~. This is assuming you're able to maintain aftermath 1 95%+ of the time whilst engaged.

The basis for Naakual sword's victory over 85 and 90 Almace is thus: superior base damage, effective or not, along with Requiescat not being so horrible that it can't ever stand in the place of CDC. 90 sword is going to be very, very close so I wouldn't sweat it if you've got at least that. It'll be a pretty swish offhand for some situations, too.

Skirmish sword, on the other hand... sort of a scary piece of equipment. Waiting to see +2 augments, but it's already superior to 85 and 90 swords at +1 while licking at the heels of 95.

Is it also true what Saevel said, Prothescar?

It depends on what he means, in the context of weapon usability... no, not at all.

Relative worth of D in comparison of D to D is decreased, because:

x/y is less of a relative increase than (x+z)/(y+z)

For example, 1D + 1D = 2D, a 100% increase, but 100D + 1D = 101D, a 1% increase.

With jumps as large as the ones we're seeing between Almace and SoA swords, it isn't as relevant.


The actual function of D does not change as you add more. It's a static bonus that will always provide an increase in damage of equal or greater amounts, never less. Greater only if it happens to increase your weapon rank and you can take advantage of that.

So, if you're doubling your base damage? You probably want that over 20 attack. 1% increase? The 20 attack is better, though other stats tend to go up as well so it isn't always relevant in this sense.

I guess I'm in the minority on the whole "Hell yea Req is coming back!" Well anyhow so the higher damage does make up for the occasional lower damage of Req and loss of aftermath. That's what I needed to know. I fell asleep btw so sorry on the delayed the response, but thank you guys for clearing that up.

P.S.
Req > Quad Cont FOREVER!

I don't know in this case particularly, as I finally blocked him and don't see his reasoning behind that small snippet, but a good rule of thumb when asking that question is no. Never. Ever. Not even once.

Nice way to agree with me while appearing to disagree with me.

My exact saying


I never said anything about it being irrelevant.

And as you put it, adding 1D to a 100DMG weapon is less of a boost then adding 1D to a 1D weapon.

If only I hadn't said "It depends on what he means" you might be right about your first bit.

As for the second bit, relative boost, that's my only issue with your wording, and I don't remember saying that you mentioned anything being irrelevant. Adding 1D onto 100D or 1D onto 1D is the same actual boost. The chances of the 100D weapon having other stats on it to make the 1D less impressive, however, are much higher, but we're working with D boosts of much higher magnitudes than ever before here so it isn't really the same ballpark in this case, even an effect as powerful as empyrean ODD isn't difficult to overcome with D increases this massive.

If only we didn't already have a context about the relative difference between the weapons.


If the new weapons are approximately the same as a 95 Almace then the relative difference between them and a 90 Almace is very small. We know that the jump between 90 and 99 isn't large. People keep saying X > Y without quantifying by exactly how much it's greater.

If it boosts your ego to pretend to disgaree with me then by all means don't let me stop you.

Your usual paranoid pretend-to-be-attacked-then-act-innocent *** will not be tolerated here, Saevel, nor will I cater to or entertain it. I won't bar you from posting here, however if this behavior turns out to be a common occurrence with you here as it is everywhere else you choose to wag your tongue in, I will not hesitate to request a topic ban.

Learn the difference between personal attacks and other methods of conversation and stop trying to stir up ***, or stay out of my thread.

Are the SoA hands (the light armor melee ones) any use for blu?

tp if you dont have any better options. they're listed in there somewhere for the mid and low tier sets

They're listed as the gloves of choice in the high tier TP set, and multiple swaps within the CDC sets.

So they are. basically I wouldn't use them over nomkhapa or thaumas, but otherwise they're pretty ace

I'm curious as to why you place them below the thaumas hands. I'd figure the large amount of accuracy and dex would put them above thaumas. What am I missing?

EDIT: NEVERMIND. Set bonus. I'm a tard.

Yeah I totally flaked out and didn't realize my thaumas gloves already had +9 acc on them >_<. So I basically just wasted 15k bayld /tableflip. Here's hopin the augments get better as the coalition is leveled up -_-.

No you didn't. There isn't a pair of hands with that much DEX/AGI on them, unless you're using 3+ pieces of thaumas or the blu skill on Fea's/Kephri bring you up a tier, they're top dog for at least a few spells.

I think I'd still use athos hands for physical blu, since I don't have khepri, because of the str. Unless I'm way off base here, I thought Athos were the general physical blu gloves to use if you didn't have fea/kephri.

I THINK Thurandaut would be the best gloves for Benthic and other such AGI spells, but I am nowhere near competent with the maths, and this is all eyeballing. However, I'm sure the acc would help that spell. I swear that and Heavy Strike only miss when I use Efflux or CA.

Accuracy is based on mainhand accuracy, dmg is based on blu attack and spell mods.

Obviously STR on athos's is doing nothing for an AGI spell.

not true. fSTR and attack

Reevaluated Physical Potency merits and came to a final conclusion, they're more potent than originally thought.

Recorded attack values for Pinecone Bomb between no merits, 4, and 5 on highest level Lesser Colibri with 440skill, 165str, and 116agi:

542->584
517->557
522->554 (4 merits)
522->563 (5 merits, but ends up 1 too high)

Using my previous tests as precedent in conjunction with recent breakthroughs in ranged pDIF, this implies a 4/256 attack boost per merit, or a final total of +7.8125% attack for 5/5 merits. Final merit is anomalous at some points, but I'm attributing that to a strange rounding issue as the following formula fits perfectly at every other point.

(attack * (256+Merits*4) + 88)/256


Will edit guide to reflect this.

New Skirmish sword:

Iztaasu (RDM/PLD/BLU) – Sword
DMG: 68, Delay: 236

NQ
HQ
- DMG +6-11
- STR +0-7
- DEX +0-7

HQ2
- ???

Based on that info so far, how does it hold up using Requiestcat?

as I said previously I'm not evaluating that sword until +2 augments are recorded

God I wish my server had more T.hands-1/T.Legs-1 for sale, I can't find them anywhere and almost nobody synths them. Still I'm seeing them go for 50-70m across all servers....sigh

with your new findings in the physical potency merits do you still advocate macc merits or is it worth it to switch them over. I realize it's most likely still a preference in the end.

Fea's cuffs are far more accessible at the moment.

Switch them to Physical potency, they were tested after the dev response on them as well.