The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

This is what I currently have as a CDC set. I know there's a couple things I could upgrade (eponas ring specifically) but things like wanion and myrmex I just have to wait on drops. My specific question is whether it would be better to switch in Athos's boots instead of thaumas nails. Would the 3% crit rate from athos's boots beat out the #% DA and extra attack on the thaumas nails? Either seem like they would beat kacura leggins +1 at this point. I haven't gotten athos's gloves to drop either, so I can't switch them in for the crit bonus.

Stick with Thaumas Nails.

Why don't all job forums have such an awesome guide sticky'D to them? Best BLU guide around: current and colorful.

Moonshade TP Bonus25% also

Yeah, I just switched the the TP bonus moonshade actually. I had refresh for a long time.

Finally just got saio for my WF set, was curious how it would compare to toci's for CDC.

You're basically comparing 7 attack (saio) to 10 acc, 3% DA, and 3% TA (toci's + ocelomeh head set bonus)

If your acc isn't capped, toci's wins by a far cry. If acc is capped, the mob is easy enough to where DA/TA overtakes the attack.

short answer: toci's is still the best CDC body

Anyone have a decent spell set they use for Neo Nyzul?

EDIT: Found Pro's set from other thread.

How much damage difference is TP bonus ear vs. Ghillie+1, DEX+4 ear, etc? I play SCH and SMN quite a bit, so refresh ear has been my choice for once I finish wotg.

100%= Crit+15%
200%=Crit+25%

There's a difference of 10% critical hit between 100% and 200% TP values which, if the growth is linear, 25% TP should be 1/4 of that 10%(again, the difference between 100% and 200% Chant du Cygne is 15% crit vs 25% crit) which means TP Bonus+25% at 100% TP is 125% TP which should be a +2.5% crit increase, unless my mathology is wrong. Whether 2.5% crit > 4 DEX or 9 attack, I dunno.

Awesome guide. Only mistake I saw was Bloodrake missing from the Physical Spells Spoiler list.

So the Devs said that Physical Potency merits actually affects damage, so Byrth, go get to testing to see if 5 merits increases Blue Attack by 10!

Hey I'm very new to BLU. I haven't even leveled it to 99 yet (hit 95 yesterday while doing sword trials). Just looking for some advice on some easy upgrades that I could get between now and the sets posted on the first page.

For CDC, this is what I currently have:


I know about the replacements that are posted on the first page, I was just wondering if there was something I could easily get from Abyssea or semi-cheap from the AH that could tie me over until I get things like Toci's or Ocelomeh Headpeice +1.
Chest - I guess Loki's would be something pretty easy to pick up.
Head - I wanted to know about Anwig Salade. Currently my augments for that are STR+4, AGI+4, WS ACC +15, and WS DMG +2%. Would this beat Aias Bonnet for CDC? (These augments are currently for my mnk, bst, and thf)
Gloves - Would it be a good idea to grab the Relic +2 gloves? Kacura+1 is pretty rare on Sylph
Belt - I have no idea what's available besides Wanion

This is for TP:


Dusk Ledelsens +1 don't seem to sell on Sylph anymore so I'm just waiting till I get Athos Boots. I haven't even put together a physical or magical spell set yet... *embarrassed* Thanks for the help =)

The sticky should note that the PDT-% exceeds 50% cap, though it is very helpful in seeing all viable options.

Should also note Shadow Mantle and Black/Darkness Earrings.
Follow-up to this is that it seems to be decently significant, but I haven't had time to test further. ~+25 is my initial figure, but I need to examine the possibility of it actually being a small multiplier.

This is my current tp set. I can't get Toci's to drop so I'm stuck in Mextli for the time being. Was wondering if Ocelemoh Headpiece +1 would be better than the NQ Cuauhtli?

Basically does 7DEX & 7AGI beat .6% haste?

@ Peldin Alcide's Mitts +1 would be a better alternative to Ocelot I think, less DEX but they have 9 attack, Kacura +1 would be better than Alcide's. For belt you could use Warwolf(STR/DEX +5) or Cuchulain(DEX+6 Att+10)

@Squal: It depends on your target, your DEX before the +7, and other such variables; i.e., how much crit rate you're getting out of the DEX. In most cases I'd say, no, it wouldn't be worth the swap without Toci's.

Thanks for the response. Sorry, I should have mentioned DDing in VW is all I really do these days, specifically Pil & Qilin spam. Which I'd assume would only solidify your point as my crit rate is kinda meh, 7DEX probably wouldn't raise it much.

Hey thanks for the tips Calatilla =)
If Alcide+1 is my only option before Kacura+1, then I'll probably just wait until I see Kacura+1 up on the AH again (or hunt someone down to craft it for me).
As for Warwolf, that belt looks great for most of my phys spells too. I'll definitely grab one of those next time they pop on the AH.

Man, that post was only like a week ago and I've already made several changes to my BLU (besides leveling it to 99 of course lol)

CDC:


Not sure if Oce. actually beats Aias Bonnet since I don't get the set bonus until Toci's. Does 5 dex beat 8 str for CDC or is that a "depends on dDex" scenario?

CDC has a 60% dex WSC, this means every dex adds .6 base dmg to your WS. str contributes to 2 things, fSTR and attack. 8 str will increase your fSTR (1 fSTR is 1 WS base damage) by ~2, and your attack by 4.

Compare this is ocelomeh's 5 dex, which is 3 base WS damage, plus whatever crit you get from dDEX (varies greatly depending on mob).

Short answer, ocelomeh should usually win.

Thanks. Now if I could just find a good str helm for certain spells, I could toss out Aias completely.

Mirage Keffiyeh +2 has STR and blue magic +7, it's what I use for spells.

In the Dynamis section of the guide, you state that you should find a good camp - implying that instead of switching camps/mobs to stay in the "JA" proc for each timeslot, you instead stay at one camp/mob, and proc using JA, magic, or WS depending on the time. Is this correct or am I reading too much into it? I'm obviously looking into getting the highest coin count possible on blu in dynamis. Your guide says 220 on average, but I'm not quite there yet. Can you share more details, perhaps an example of a zone & mob per timeslot you used to achieve this?

edit: found answers here: blu solo dynamis thread - sorry for post

JA proc only. I prefer Buburimu doing a crawler/raven > mandy/bunny > crab rotation.

For Bubu, I think you will like scorpions more than crabs, unless you're using Osmosis or Geist Wall or something to remove Scissor Guard (or whatever that nasty defense buff is). They are located very close to crabs for both EP and DC.

I've been eaten by the scorps enough times that I just avoid them now. The crabs seem to have pretty low defense and/or hp and I've never had a problem killing them before they can use tp. They're also never camped by anyone else on my server so it's normally the only time in the rotation where I don't have any competition at all.

Anyway, I don't wanna derail this sticky anymore since there's already a blu dyna thread.

Oh forgot about AF2. Thanks for the reminder =)

Apologies for my original post - I carefully reread the blu solo dynamis thread and the answers are there in bits and pieces.

I may try to consolidate all the info in one spot for future ppl looking for this information.

I suspect my problem was waiting for every mob to proc - if it does not proc quickly, just kill & move on to next.

The Dynamis section needs a rework. It's outdated, 220 average coin count being quite low, and some of the information is off. Will get around to it at some point.