The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

I'm pretty pleased that I can get relic with login points right now.

Luhlaza means emerald green in zulu... I think SE mis-translated.

I have to respectfully disagree, as I think there is not enough emphasis on accuracy especially in light of newer content. On content where accuracy is not needed.....its going to be a win regardless is I have 240 STR in my cast set or 245. Accuracy on the other hand is extremely important when its needed.

So in regard to Head piece: I'd rather +4str and 25-26 acc (whirlpool) vs 13 skill. 13 skill will be worth 2-2.5% damage, whereas if you are not capping acc the lost would be 13%+ on damage. Same on Req., +25 att and 25 acc >>> 1 MND.

Feet: Same scenario here: I'd take 18 acc on AF+1 over the 8 skill for spells or the 18 acc over the 7 att for WS.

Body: I think the +1 version will likely be ideal for WS once its out, in its current form...meh

You're making up that spell accuracy in group 1 merits though, right? plus skill helps accuracy. Plus you have sword skill on your weapons to help with physical spell acc. Basically, there are many spaces on your gear set to allow you to get both accuracy needed as well as the extra skill. Unless I am completely mistake about how skill works.

You are mistaken about how skill works

Ah, on wikia it says that magic skills help accuracy, but then on BGwiki it clarifies that that is only for magical blu spells. The part about sword skill at least should be correct though.

only as it pertains to physical spell accuracy, magic accuracy for things like added effects is a different story. skill effects potency of physical base damage.

Physical Potency 5/5 gives 10 accuracy toward physical spells. That's irrelevant though. You don't compare two items and say you can make up for the stats on one by having merits. You either have the merits or you don't.

You also can't say "well my weapons have sword skill, so I have enough accuracy." That doesn't adequately compare two pieces of gear to each other.

skill affects potency

Sorry. Pet peave, lol

Physical Potency merits actually do seem to be +attack, rather than accuracy. I forget exactly how much, but as I recall it was a rather strange amount.


Which wiki are you looking at? I double checked them (since I vaguely remember writing that section) and I know it was correct a couple years ago and seems to be correct now.

I was more pointing out that the differences in accuracy per piece were possibly less important than getting the added skill, since those differences can be shored up in other slots, or with accuracy from other courses. I was in no way claiming that sword skill from your weapons would cap your accuracy.the issue was whether accuracy would be better than skill in a single slot.

I was looking at the wikia entry for magic skills in general. Not blue magic skill. When I went to check blue magic skill specifically on wikia, the site wouldn't load. It's probably safe to assume that they have similar info to BGwiki on the page for blue magic itself. I was under the impression that blue magic skill worked like other magic skills. I was wrong, obviously, since some blue spells are physical.

The issue would be Content Level + Accuracy required to hit to whether you are capped on BLU spells.

The skill piece is nice for things like Occulation and such but otherwise Accuracy is going to beat the small skill dmg boost. On content where the 2% dmg would win overall, you probably dont need the extra 2%.

I always look at my job and go "am I gearing for end game hard content or lol content I can do half asleep" I gear for Endgame and create an Accuracy set (1 2 3 and 4 dependent upon set up / buffs / food / difficulty). Evasion on current content is high so we should be biasing our equipment sets towards Accuracy rather than skill.

I normally don't load magical damage spells for the most part are any worth using now a days that aren't total mp sinks? Need the tier 1 blu spell that does a lot for a little guess I could use club/wand combo until I can get the aa sword.

Also does Requiescat mess with mata mata changes of physical to massive magic damage in 7 tp moves?

What exactly are we casting physical spells on that you need accuracy from your head slot for? If it's something so critically evasive that you need to gear all out for accuracy, you probably shouldn't be casting to begin with. Even if you were casting on such a target, that's what having more than one set available is for.


p.s., Luhlaza charuqs don't enhance the Diffusion augment at all, will have +1s later tonight to verify whether they do/don't, but I doubt it.

This is what I was getting at.

Not sure if SE thinks when they make blu gear. Our 119 af boots still say BA.

So I'm sort of new to BLU atm, used to play it a bit during abyssea era to AoE farm stuff, pretty much haven't used it for anything but that. Looking to expand it to be a DD/stunner in our ADL group, and got some questions.

1) Is any of the reforged relic useful?
2) Anahera Saber [>/<] Buramenk'ah? -- Which in main hand?
3) I assume CDC > Requiescat 99% of the time?
4) Is there anything i can do to improve the Fast Cast set that is currently on this guide?

1) few posts up
2) Buramenk'ah is ever so slightly better, but they're basically equal. It doesn't matter which one you main hand, but Anahera in main hand is worth extra style points.
3) No. The opposite. CDC is only better if you're in a situation where you're faced against a strong opponent with no buffs outside of your own.
4) Relic 109 body if you care about non-blue magic FC. Otherwise not really.

Awesome, thanks for the quick response! ^^

This is akin to saying "what is so critically evasive that did to gear all out for accuracy on melee".

Any of the new BC's in hard mode would be the example and yes by all means, if you have space make 2 sets. I have a lower content casting set (which I rarely use, just due to the fact I don't feel like swapping sets over on junk that I know is an easy win anyways - solo stuff or normal version on newer BC). On hard mode, you ought be using an acc set or else you are doing it wrong.

If you are in a group situation with typical DD like MNK, you will do more SC dmg using CDC than requiescat. This will mean more overall dmg compared to requiescat.

Not sure you see what I'm trying to say. If something has enough evasion that you need to stack tons of accuracy, it probably has enough defense to make physical spells impotent enough to be a loss in damage if you cast them. You can have all the accuracy in the world, it still won't help in this case. Having various sets for various levels of content is an absolute given, anyway. Space is hardly a concern anymore, even for BLU. There's no reason to have a single set for anything that has the possibility of requiring several; so many sets share gear and we need less overall pieces to complete each set.

Therefor, I'll return to what I've been saying for ages now: use common sense when using the sets in this guide to put together the amount of accuracy you need for x content. I'm sorry, but I'm still not going to compromise listing the best on paper damage pieces when I can still do so while listing accuracy alternatives (which hasn't been relevant for blue magic until now).

I may have to add general content tiers and their accuracy requirements.

so many high level mobs take reduced skillchain damage at this point it's probably a wash. in party content it's probably worth it, but in alliance stuff you're not getting those light chains regularly enough to justify using cdc with high buffs. and BLU is generally brought to stuff specifically for requiescat, so there's that, too.

This would probably be pretty helpful to people, like me, for instance, who walked blindly into this new territory of ilvl and didn't experience the transition period. I can usually just eat sushi and cover my accuracy problems, but if I knew how much accuracy I needed to add from gear beforehand, I could eat a better food. Some kind of "at a glance" chart for big bosses at different content levels would be extremely helpful/clear.

has anyone seen any reliability for landing plague or para on delve nm's? i haven't tried gearing for macc on spells, but it seems really inconsistent in a dmg build. I'm curious if any added effect debuffs are worth using in 6 man runs.

plague wouldnt really be worth it since having more than just yourself beating on something is enough to overpower the plague. para should be ok, but a mage would be able to put it on more easily. honestly the best debuffs you can provide are frightful roar and bilgestorm, maybe infrasonics if your group is having accuracy issues for some reason. diffusion harden shell is a better use for UL on NMs that don't dispel every 5 seconds though. added effect arsenal is more useful for solo or duo.

Anything wrong with Benthic Typhoon other than being 4 points instead of 3?

Even though you won't stop TP moves with plague, I still think it has value as it will slow them down. Of course, most Delve runs will take at least 1 monk who can put up the same effect with Shijin Spiral.

Are blu stuns effective at all in delve? I'm going to assume that temporal shift is, as it always has been but it has far too high of a recast to be a valid option. Mostly concerned with Lunge. Is it just a macc issue or is it some difference in the mechanic of the actual stun spell vs a spell with stun as an added effect?