The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

But in addition to ES you will also need a minimum of equipment for the magic to enter and last long enough, right?

sets.midcast['Blue Magic']['Absolute Terror'] = {
sub="Bunzi's Rod",
ammo="Pemphredo tathlum",
head="Malignance Chapeau",
body="Malignance Tabard",
hands="Malignance Gloves",
legs="Malignance Tights",
feet="Malignance Boots",
neck="Mirage Stole +2",
waist="Acuity Belt +1",
left_ear="Dignitary's Earring",
right_ear="Crepuscular Earring",
left_ring="Stikini Ring +1",
right_ring="Stikini Ring +1",
back="Aurist's cape +1"}

Ok lads.

-Redid the JSE equipment section. It's a little prettier. I'm no Falkirk but at least there's a table now. Redid the evaluation for each set by separating it by piece and adding a half subjective out-of-ten rating for upgradability.

-Remade many of the sets (not all of them changed, was mostly just to make the names the same next to each other because my brain works in mysterious ways). Added additional gear steps for most weaponskills, magic sets, and cleaned up other sets such as Fast Cast, Magic Accuracy, Reaving Wind, etc.; need to add a Phalanx set eventually and I haven't touched physical blue magic sets or cure sets yet. I'm burnt out so I'll get to it when I get to it.

-General formatting adjustments that no one is going to notice.

I'm thinking about some other alterations like making the job point table collapsible and whatnot, also thought about moving the JSE section down to equipment but I feel it fits with the job ability/job point section too so I left it alone. Anyway the changes are mostly to reflect that this guide's main purpose is helping out newer players, I didn't feel like it was doing that adequately anymore due to the lowest gear set tiers still being pretty tough for a newbie to get. Plenty of little things in there for established players too but I expect most people to be capable of doing most of this themselves by the time they're tackling things like Odyssey bosses.

does anyone have a blu lua? the one i use is suddenly not working and there were other things wrong with it anyways

I just used the SpicyRyan one's on the Out of the BLU guide and modified it how I wanted it https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Out_of_the_BLU#Gearswap

Thank you!

Thank you very much

I havent checked everything, but at least 3 sets are not right.

Expiacion attack cap should be this:
ItemSet 362899
Damage here is only marginally higher, but it requires less attack.
This is even more true for Savage Blade. Also Sroda is better than Karieyh+1 for even uncapped attack Savage Blade (including without Trusts).

BLU Sanguine should be this:
ItemSet 386092
Pixie Hairpin is better, but only by like 1.5%, so I would use empy+2 here instead, but hairpin is still better damage if you care only about this.

Does the -20 dex not come into play with Expiacion having a dex mod?

It comes. It almost cancels out STR bonus, but 3%PDL is still better than 4%WSD in this set at attack cap.

Bout time pixie got dethroned

Like I wrote, its not really dethroned, but difference in damage gonna be so small, that I would rather not lose all defensive stats and 51macc for it.

HP going from -35 to +56 on a WS that steals HP is a really nice change.

Ok I hope emotions are a little lower now and I can post this. While I agree BLU set haven't addressed main issues we have on BLU I disagree it's useless. It has really amazing utility and gonna be extremely useful in Sortie, especially solo.

Whole set allows to nuke at almost full potency with capped pet and 42 MDT (cap with shell) and very high MEVA.

ItemSet 386129

This is perfect for Sortie AOE farming.
5% set bonus is also kinda cool here, because it boosts damage by a lot on proc. Maybe it even closes the gap to full potency build on avg. Hard to tell. Need to math it out.

I'm not gonna touch each individual piece now and it's usefulness, because I need more time for that and I'm going on vacation for a week, but I wanted to throw at least this to sweeten this river of tears a little :D

I wrote a whole section on emp+2 and have it in multiple sets. I do understand why people are upset about the lack of job enhancements (I still am too, even with low to no expectations on getting any) on emp gear but it isn't useless.

That said this gear being good for magic on BLU isn't particularly surprising. We didn't get Agwu or Bunzi and have been wearing the same casting gear since Escha, essentially.

Is Ghastly better than Sroda?

Blows Sroda out of the water on BLU.

So I genuinely believe BLU tank in Sortie is going to become a thing, especially if the proc traits continue as they are. I went with a more defensive setup on my first BLU run by using the full evasive spell set, but lacked as many AoE spell options. Just wondered what sets you guys are going in with for Sortie. The Omen AoE one seems to be the best but figured I'd ask what had been tried so far and whats working well for you guys.

Ideally we would want one with some aggro options until /run becomes an option then Foil spam may well just be enough?

BLU isn't even on Sroda Tathlum.

Yeah, after going in on BLU last night... job gonna be really strong for AoE farming in there, and this set 5/5 is damn near perfect for that situation. I've already typically been using Nyame hands/feet for the solid Macc/MAB and defensive stats, so same idea here but stronger nukes.

Head+Body seems like a no brainer upgrade from Cohort +1 for Empy+2 head/body for stronger nukes and a ton more defense (DT-12%, 85 more Meva, substantially more DEF and MDB, and even Refresh+3 on the body). Hands/Legs are just terrific for Macc/MAB/DT. Feet are nice too for nukes even if they don't have straight DT- (but if you want to go more turtle mode, Nyame is still a really solid option).

Honestly, the whole set is some of the first Empy stuff I'm going to prioritize getting to +2. Only behind some of the crazy good pieces for other jobs (DNC head, MNK body, SAM body/hands/legs, etc).

I came across a topic that got touched upon a bit earlier in the thread but no real concrete conculsion was stated. I'd like to bring it up again.

Do BLU enfeebling spells (Sheep Song, Temporal Shift, Actinic Burst, Jettatura, ect) have a dstat modifier?

Meaning do these spells gain any magic accuracy from a certain stat, like INT or MND or CHR? or do they get magic accuracy purely from Macc & Skill?

This question is just for BLU enfeebling spells. No damage dealing spells and no spells which have an "Additional Effect" listed.

Thanks.

Believe it's similar to ninjutsu in that only skill and macc effects accuracy.

Yeah I believe so too. Which brings me to a follow up question.

What do those particular spells use in place of dStat in the magic accuracy formula?

Is it just a flat bonus, like is dstat always "1" for those spells? Always "0"? Is it just ignored?

I feel like if it is ignored or "0" that would have a big impact on the landing rate of the spell. So do they just have a higher than normal landing rate built in? Like how some elemental magic spells have different landing rates despite dstat, Macc, or even elements.

So far as i know there isnt one. Just assumed they maybe have an innate higher macc to compensate this, its hard to say really

Just doing some quick testing on a couple spells between cohort, my well augmented herc hat, and kavuk +2. Will do more testing when I get the full set, but was just curious.

Only did Subduction and Retinal Glare because of the low cooldowns before bed
Retinal glare:
Herc: 14,226
Cohort +1: 14,213
Kavuk +2: 14,234

Subduction:
Herc: 10,835
Cohort +1: 10,797
Kavuk +2: 10,789

I thought along the same lines for the set. I've actually started w/ the DT- pieces just because a living BLU cleaves a lot better than a dead one. Noticed my damage definitely went down quite a bit however I used sakpata + shiva+1 instead of max+d.ring. latter is probably a better choice I'll be switching to.

There have been tests conducted that strongly indicate a dINT component on Head Butt, but no testing has been done for other blue magic spells. It's a time-consuming process and each spell would have to be done individually since they probably all have a different dSTAT. Suffice to say I typically just assume a spell has the same dSTAT as its enfeebling/dark magic counterpart and go from there, but it really doesn't change much these days either way.

Well headbutt is a damage dealing spell, and has an additional effect, so Im not really including it under "BLU enfeebling spells".

I'm following your train of thought and could definitely see how that may be the case. One of the main things that makes me skeptical is that on many of the wiki pages for the base enfeebling spells (Slow, Paralyze, Gravity, Blind, ect.) we have information that tells us about the spell's dstat modifier, and if it has one, its potency modifier.

But once we get to BLU spells which more or less do the same thing, it becomes a mystery. And again nearly all of the wiki sources for these BLU spells don't mention anything about a dstat modifier or a potency modifier. Very few exceptions like Sheep Song mention a modifier, and then even fewer of those exceptions are actually "confirmed". (Like how headbutt & INT are confirmed, but again I don't really want to use it as an example.

The additional effects on blue magic are enfeebling effects with similar hit rate mechanics to any other enfeebling effect, so there isn't really any divide there and I don't really understand your trepidation. The only difference is the requirement of the spell it's attached to having to make contact with the enemy which is an entirely separate thing anyway.

As for the wiki entries, a majority of the bgwiki entries are from my own numbers so of course there aren't any dstats, and the reason for that was mentioned earlier. Nobody wants to spend 10 hours per spell trying to find individual dstats particularly since it's a largely irrelevant thing to know. Also, BLU enfeebling effects don't have variable potencies (at least not ones that are affected by stats, just random durations), so any dSTAT component would be for hit rate calculation only.

has anyone tested breath attacks in a really long time? also i cant believe no ones found ablu earring from sortie for augments yet ; ;