State Of Blue Mage

I leveled blue mage up to 75 within the first two months of its release. I can say that at the time the job was not as powerful as the initial hype suggested. I had access to the job during much of my HNM career and found that the use of it was extremely situational and generally was not desirable. Please, do not mistake what I'm saying. Most linkshells are unable to think outside of the box and therefore it was a job that was not "pro".

My question is thus: What has changed? Obviously blue has gained a lot more job traits and spells but what is the current state of this job? Is this job now valuable, if so why? Can this job out parse other DDs now? Etc. Persuade me why I should or shouldnt take my blu from 75 to 85.

BLU in its current state is a powerhouse. Ability to do massive physical and magical damage and also support whenever needed. It is a hybrid, but one that can specialize to a particular role if needed and do it well. With that said, it is very gear intensive and the different roles obviously require good builds. I can out DD almost every DD atm with very little support in all old content, abyssea I can't speak much for but I'm sure it holds true there as well. The only fights BLU can't out DD other jobs or even be more useful is zergs and really high end mobs.

I've done everything from tanking JOL/big mobs (which we are way better than any other tank for due to being able to deal a lot of dmg still, 1k+ QC while tanking JOL), main healing easily (main healed many abyssea NM's low man), magical dd (with proper gear and support spells like amplification you can deal a lot of dmg, I did 900+ to prudence etc), and physical dd (2k+ QC anyone?) and being able to stay defensive when you get hate rocks with cocoon and sanguine blade. It's an all around awesome job that benefits every group that has one if they aren't gimp.

BLU right now is the most powerful DD in the game.

because while your new power is in the form of new Weapon skills ours was new spells


also base D for spells at 75 was 68(max merits and relic hat)

it is now 85(max merits AF3+1 legs tath and relic hat)

along with Efflux taking that to 126 and the new AF3 hat making WSC from 32%(QC w/o chain Affnty) to almost 75% giving the job a huge boost to DMG

its by no means a job you can get power from just by leveling tho you need to know how each spells works along with how gear works for it.

Have you done any parses to see how you compare? I'm glad that blu can be used for JOL, before 80 cap I was looking at methods for that.

Hm nope I haven't, I find parses to be really skewed anyway but its eyeballing from where I always have hate on almost everything I fight. Did all jailers last week, nobody could take hate off me. Constant 800+ every spell and I was cycling 5 spells, H barrage, dissv, QC, gob rush and BT. This was all was extreme minimal support (just a refresh2 and haste spell). Compared to other DD that can only do that with a lot of support (haste spell, bard and probably corsair/dnc) and that is how I was basing it. The jailers I was doing this on was all except love (which I tanked) and prudence. Prudence spammed stupid PD so I just opted for a nuking build. Did 900+ firespits, 600+ regurgitations etc. When he had PD down, I did 1.5k+ QC with CA + Efflux.

This is all mostly on old content because I NEVER have enough stones to do anything anymore in abyssea it seems... so I don't know much about it there, but from what I've done in it, it still holds true.

Also if you gear for it not counting special buffs debuffs you can hit 1kish sanguine blades which not only do good dmg but keep you alive lol. Recently was doing byakko just my melee/ws at 80 was doing comparable dmg to the 85 sams

Level cap being raised actually benefits BLU more than other DDs - our physical spells didn't hit for much on "old content".
I still think BLU's best at unengaged alliance tanking, though. The hierarchy of tanking varies A LOT depending on your situation.

Yea support is definately a defining factor in traditional DD. The biggest aspect of BLU that interests me now is the prospect of nearly unlimited MP in abysea. If you ever do decide to do a parse I'd love to see the results.

Depends on the fight as well, because some you don't have to stay purely unengaged either. Breath spell or QC is nice dmg overtime for a tank role.

A parse would be skewed, but the main drawback isn't mp anymore; it's recast timers. Friggin QC has a 24s recast or something.

Blu ftw... funny thing is even the gimp Blu's are doing good damage now...I remember b4 the the last update you can seek on blu with no prty inv's...now I have gotten /tells for prty inv and I wasn't even seeking lol basically Lv cap 85 and Efflux has changed Blu drastically to where you had to push the limits of Blu to do decent damage now its you have to hold back just to stay alive...again Blu FTW

Yeah but if you have decent support you can use a lot of set points for pure DD. Not having to set animating wail or Battery charge and few others lets you set a lot of Dd spells. Dissvernment, H barrage, QC, Gob rush, vanity dive among others and you can cycle through them.

Well yeah no one has the hate capabilities that blu has unengaged anymore. And that's not including the dmg spells. And has surivivability just below rdm who can't really tank anymore

i have done afew most put the 4-5 BLU friends i have and me in the 10-15%s and other DD at like 3-5% (also blu can cap shadow recasts solo along with getting fast cast gear and traits.)

i dont parse old content because it is all but useless now so these few im looking at are all low tier abyssea NMs

Eh not all old content is useless... still have good profitable things like Dynamis and such. BLU is amazing in dyna now, we sucked bad in xarca previously but we rock there too now.

You mentioned half the worthwhile dyna!
(The other half is Tavnazia)

Well if you do Woe "Walk of Echoes" you can kinda parse yourself every time I do Woe i'm on Blu and I rank in at least 1#-3# where other specialized DD don't even rank 5 and get a personal box lol

Pretty much anything that gimped our dmg because of lvl correction and the fact we couldn't just overpower it to an extent like normal DDs with att buffs and/or ws that have traits like that is now awesome. I mean even using the exact same spells with the same gear and stats just the extra skill is making a huge diff

Whoever is -1 each post that says something good about BLU is clearly QQing over a "useless" job being just as good/better source of dmg than their job.

Probably thornny!

lol this ^^

I don't like BLU magical nukes (regurgitation anyone) but I wouldn't go as far to -1 everyone else.

Why don't you like the magical nukes? They do very nice damage with proper build, especially regurgitation which is basically hateless.

Maybe cause he has rdm?

I personally don't bother with a magical build cause I have rdm and blm lol

Dumb reason to not like them, they still deal good dmg.

not really. If you need to use them and can go to a job that can do better no point. Especially no new ones in the last 10 lvls not that are good anyways

The State of Blue Mage is quite obviously in the Empire.

@ thread & op.