The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

I definitely agree that you have to pick one or the other to focus on and that hybridization is probably the weaker choice, but it doesn't seem like a bad thing to have your weapons out hitting an enemy for free damage between spells(not taking EXTRA time between spells to specifically make melee hits) unless there is a compelling reason not to like worrying about bad AoEs or feeding TP to the mob or something.

The whole point people are arguing about now was whether or not that poster meant melee when he asked about the best non mythic swords.

It seems pretty clear that he's talking about melee. especially considering that he talked about accuracy.

Still not worth the gil, inventory waste, and the effort of macroing/manually switching them in/out for prefight buffs.

yeah, IDK if 1 shadow is worth inventory-2 just on its own.

Exactly like I said if you are talking swords that should be for melee only.

As far as hybrid swords go I'd rather not also have to switch into accuracy gear to hit something then to swap back out into casting gear. Let's face it with the acc dump from using the MAB swords and the loss of acc from using casting gear you aren't going to be hitting much.

As far as Adoulin rings, while I wouldn't suggest it purely from a BLU point of view, if you use Haverton for other jobs it can get some use on BLU as a DW option. It's certainly highly situational, but has its places.

Can allow you to get an extra DW+5 from ring slot. That's the equivalent of a whole tier of DW trait (with the exception of the DW+10 bump when going from DW2 to DW3 trait), so can be worth the loss of whatever else you might use in that ring slot if the additional freed up spell points provide more utility than the stats on the lost ring.

As a RNG COR, I'm very happy to keep Haverton as it's the best R.Acc and Snapshot ring in the game. DW is a side benefit for situational melee use on my BLU NIN THF DNC COR etc. (and hey, best Ninjutsu enfeebling too lol).

I'm confused as to your argument, here. The only time I would see that being an issue would be if you're not using Gearswap. Your file should automatically handle placing you back into your TP gear for melee and swap to your nuking set for nuking. It's not exactly a large amount of time invested.

Because some of us don't use gearswap and use the ingame system. Funny how people immediately think that everyone uses third party programs.

While I'm generally in agreement, and Claid/Nibiru is my standard choice, the best arguments for situational use nuke-swords (at least tossing one on as an offhand):

* Lowman/solo self-SC and MB. Could conceivably be more overall damage than an "optimal" physical or magical setup.
* Heavy use of Sanguine Blade (though honestly, with the armor we have these days you're likely already getting massive returns with a good WS set without needing more magic stats on a weapon)
* Any low difficulty situation where you're prioritizing additional flexibility over optimal physical DD (say, soloing Salvage or something where you may want to nuke particular mobs, but melee others)
* Vamp's added effect is kinda cool when I'm messing around and don't require the acc of the Nibiru (especially as a non-Tizona BLU, the extra MP never hurts).

Vamp/Iris are also reasonable options as straight up nuke weapons (#2 and #3 in slot I think?) if you happen to have them and no Nibiru Cudgels. I'm currently fine using my max INT aug Vampirism as a fairly close sidegrade to a Nibiru Cudgel, for instance (though yeah, I assume higher INT means Nibiru wins). It sent Gabaxorea to storage at least, and honestly I use BLU the majority of the time in more of a physical damage capacity so my "free" Vamp is fine for the situations I actually feel the need to go nuke-BLU, and I haven't really prioritized farming up a Nib Cudgel yet.


I don't use gearswap, and I still have TP set and nuke sets that I use in macros...

Do you also not use a WS set?

Well, it's a colossal improvement in terms of performance, so I do hope that people use GearSwap, yes.

as far as I know, with equip sets the in game system does the exact same thing but with more work from you to write macros and build equip sets.

Things i need to spend time doing: getting nibiru blade, actually compiling my gear into a gs so i can stop being just above mediocre.

We don't really have to turn this into "you need to use 3rd party tools to be good". I'm Windower-macros only (and honestly with in-game sets now I could just use those, but I got used to Windower back before in game full gear sets). I still manage to outparse most DDs I find myself with and swap all my gear with macros. I know I could probably optimize even more with automating everything with GS, I just don't find that an appealing way to play.

And the point remains, you can still use macros just fine to swap gear, including on 100% vanilla client. There's no excuse other than laziness for not managing to do that.

That one's me all day. Now that I'm starting to get gear worth swapping though I'm fast approaching where I can't be lazy anymore. I'm phenomenal compared to other BLU I play with, but I have the feeling I'd be lagging behind some of the people in this thread in a major way.

At no point did I say "you need to use 3rd pary tools to be good." I simply stated that "it's a colossal improvement in terms of performance," which it is. I do hope that people use it, as it makes life far simpler for them and improves performance. Please do not place words in my mouth when my actual message did not fall in line with your idea.

Well so far I haven't lost any yet and ive seen a lot of them even on my cor ive out parsed plenty of rngs and sams... yes they arent spectacular but they weren't bad either. Though spoken like a true 3rd party program user you cant be good and use the ingame system which is a total myth.

Im not a scrub and I dont see how you got that from I don't use gearswap but im also not going to keep swapping into my tp set just for a few seconds inbetween casts. Seem a bit much for a slight increase in dps.

But if you want to play that game you don't have physical spell sets? various acc sets for different levels of content? Healing potency sets? WW sets? Idle sets? Movement sets? I could carry on but meh pizza to enjoy but I assume you would have them so you shouldn't assume everyone TPs in full AF3+2.

Half my macro gear set list is for blu.

you're getting really angry at a bunch of stuff that no one is even saying(for instance, you're the only one saying scrub or anything like it). we're sorry we may use 3rd party programs. No one is calling you bad for choosing not to, we don't even know you.

That said, it doesn't detract from the argument that not using GS or in game macros for "swapping into my tp set just for a few seconds inbetween casts" for "a slight increase in dps" is sub optimal(that is, not the best possible) play.

Basically, even if you're amazing at everything else, but you don't have your optimized TP set on when you are TPing, you have room for improvement and this is where that room is. How you would correct that to get to more optimal play is up to you, whether using GS or in game equip set macros, but you can't argue that not doing it is anything other than sub optimal.

For instance, I don't gear swap at all right now, whether through the GS tool or through in game macros. I full time my TP set. I recognize this as sub optimal play, but I perform better than anyone else I play with right now so I don't need to fix it to be/feel impressive(I play with an odd assortment of people). This weekend when I have some time I am going to rectify this and get on a more optimal strategy.

By the way, this was a rhetorical question in case you didn't read it as such... My point is that I take it for granted that you DO use a WS set. And you don't need GS to do that. Just like you don't need GS to swap into nuke gear for spells and back to TP gear when not casting. GS can automate this, sure, but it's not exactly hard to do it manually. You can even put /wait lines in your spell macros to go back to TP gear after your cast without having to hit an extra button for TP set macro (as if that's a particularly difficult task)...

But anyway, enough about this tired old discussion.

Question: do Unbridled Learning II job points (increase UL spell effect duration on party members) work with Diffusion+Mighty Guard? If so, that... probably makes it the 2nd best JP category for BLU now, right?

Yes, they do. UL II JPs work out to a 27 second increase to MG. With Diffusion 5/5 and relic feet 109 or augmented, I believe it's a 288 second duration, which works out to 4 minutes and 48 seconds. So, 2 BLUs can almost keep 100% uptime on MG.

It does as far as I understand it. It's what I am putting points into at the moment.

Edit: one blu buffing himself has a pretty impressive MG uptime with just merits, the relic feet, and some JP in the category. I think in ten minutes I spend around a minute and a half to two minutes without MG up.

Far from angry actually I probably seem it because im northern.

Anyway this is the internet since when did anyone need to know anyone to call them bad? saying scrub though doesn't mean im angry and see that post for context about the scrub apart. if you missed it ill recap "Do you also not use a WS set?" this is what a scrub does and this is what I don't do.

Unless you didn't read my earlier post I don't engage when im in casting mode anyway since I use clubs if that makes me a bad blu then so be it im not changing. Im certainly not going to start using GS ill stick to the ingame gear sets.


Now this part im confused about I said I don't use GS but I have in a previous post said that half my Macro gear set list in game is full of blu sets. So idk who this is referring to as far as saying that not using gear sets is optimal. Ive never once said you shouldn't be swapping gear I did however say I don't like using hybrid swords so I don't use them and not wanting to swap back into my tp set between casts as its a bit overkill.

You use gear sets but seem to be arguing that not using them(which is all gearswap does) is perfectly fine, which it isn't. If that's not what you're saying then please correct me.

edit: like, we can show that it is sub optimal to not swap gear through parses and things like that. No one is saying you won't get invites or can't clear content because you don't use gearswap.

No, no not at all. You seem to have become fixated on this part.

"As far as hybrid swords go I'd rather not also have to switch into accuracy gear to hit something then to swap back out into casting gear. Let's face it with the acc dump from using the MAB swords and the loss of acc from using casting gear you aren't going to be hitting much."

Now lets get one thing clear I use Clubs and I don't engage when im in full nuking mode as id rather not get hit by AoEs apart from the fact I don't have the MAB swords in the first place. Whenever ive been nuking theres only been a few seconds like 2 or 3 between casts especially when im using Subduction. To effectively TP id also have to switch back melee swords aswell as gear so I wont be able to WS anyway.

Absolutely no one is advocating using clubs to nuke, then swapping to swords in between casts to TP.

I thought this was obvious I was explaining to the other guy why I stay in nuking gear with clubs.