The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

Austar vs SimonSes, that combo is his baby.

i don't know if cherukiki can land silence on easy or normal, i've tried adding 1-3 RDM trusts and/or Ajido-Marujido, they can dispel his dread spikes but even with the lunar wyrm memento (20% FC, 10% macc for trusts) it's not 100% accurate nor instant so you sometimes still get a attack round off.

but as i mentioned i've only seen tank trusts survive zantetsuken x and using trusts like cherukiki that try to reposition themselfs most likely out range geirrothr so the damage gets split between just 5 instead of 6 targets which is usually enough to one shot you or at least another one of your trusts and at that point you have no chance to survive the next geirrothr.
using brygid to pump trusts defense doesn't work either as for the same reason you want to avoid repositioning trusts.


another thing to mention that the BGwiki page hasn't listed is odin can use Kaustra on normal+, i think he only does it below 50% HP (only seen him cast it once). i don't know if it's AoE or just single target and wether or not it goes thru shadows. not sure if it can be erased either.
the dot on normal was somewhere between 100-300 dmg/tic iirc.

Arent you mixing too much here?

With just attack dropped by a lot, I still have Tizona/thibron easily winning (and I havent even bothered to change Gleti's out, which would be a far greater boost to Expiacion than to CDC). Also you need to remember CDC got a nice boost now with Gleti's, but only at attack cap.

"you can't sc for some reason " is kinda misleading. Its more of "you can't self sc for some reason", because Expiacion is much stronger if you SC with someone else. Not only because its stronger , but also because its getting even stronger if you need to hold 1-2 attack rounds to time SC. CDC is much more versatile tho, because it can SC with Light and Gravitation, while Expiacion only with Gravitation.

So in other words for Almace to win, you need to be in situation where you self SC and cdc>cdc>light is able to kill the mob, while 2x expiacion or req>expiacion is not able to kill a mob, which is super rare, because that mob would need to be in very narrow HP threshold for that to happen. Also in practice its even worse, because CDC being crit WS and multihit WS will actually varies a lot (its even worse with Tizona mainhand where AM3 is another factor). One time it can do 25k on 2nd cdc and actually not be able to kill the target and other time it will do 35k and overkill the target with unnecessary damage. Expiacion is way more predictable and consistent. Also with Expiacion closing you have ability to control damage up too. If for example you cant kill a mob with 1100TP Expiacion, you can simply wait one attack round and close with stronger Expiacion.

There are also other niche factors here. Like Expiacion having a lot potential improvement from DM gear. For example with my gear my Expiacion is around 44.5k avg with 1176TP avg before TP bonus gear, while CDC is around 30.9k with Almace/Zan. In this case 2xCDC wouldnt beat my Req>Exp.
Another thing is Req>Exp and Tizona/Thib is much safer usually, because white damage and Req usually dont push mobs under HP threshold where they start using TP moves at 2000TP and you are able to usually kill them before tp move with Exp>Darkness. With Almace and CDC you will a lot of time get hit by TP move, before you do a second CDC. This is even worse if you deal with something like Dynamis mobs, where they can use SP like Perfect Dodge, Invincible or Mijin. You can obviously counter this with Sudden Lunge, but thats a lot of DPS drop.

TL;DR Imo CDC is only better if acc on Thibron is uncapped or you want to specifically do light. Otherwise Expiacion with Thribon is about even (Almace might have slight advantage if you take avg damage, but you cant guarantee avg damage on every closing CDC, which lead to overkill or much less damage than avg, while Expiacion is consistent and can close for even higher than avg by holding tp if needed) if you can self SC and it doesnt matter if it darkness or light. Its obviously much better if you specifically want darkness and its miles ahead if you dont skillchain at all.

all that to say ***is situaational :)

No, not really.

Using what gear? I am not saying Expiacion on it's own isn't more damage, I'm saying when you consider SC and offhand damage during TP phase, it's not.

So is savage blade. If you can skill chain, you have better 4 step options with light based WSs in most scenarios.

Or cases where the fight lasts longer than that.

This is a huge crutch for your point, really. Good DM augs are not at all common and requiring them to make TP Bonus offhand on par or slightly better than even just offhanding a Naegling anyways in most situations is incredibly silly.

To further that point, doesn't even really need to be "self" SCing. If you're in a group and all the DDs are going balls to the wall and everyone is spamming Light based WSs... you're not really "self SCing" but you're gonna be pulling a lot of extra random Lights boosting your overall DPS.

WS to WS, yes. But if you can skillchain, if solo SC cdc > cdc with tizona/almace will be more dps, almace/zan is even more than that. If making a longer step with another DPS, it will depend a bit more, but I use sequence in several of these situations.

Almace can also do fine without AM3. fights you don't start with 3K(pre-gleti's), you can easily keep AM1 up instead.

I've never personally said that other than MP management being a concern. I do think tizona is a better weapon overall, though.

My Almace is R14 and my Tizona is R15. It is rare that I will be in a group situation where my Almace\Zan combo will outperform Tiz\Thib.

Solo though, there are a lot of situations where Almace\Zan will outperform Tiz\Thib.

I do not have the Gleti set yet though, so the situation may change for groups but knowing when you are attack capped is a bit rough.

There are definitely a lot of instances (mainly solo, but in group play as well) where CDC is better than Expiacion, but Expiacion spam with Thibron is definitely NOT overrated and is pretty easy to abuse in virtually all content. I am fairly certain that attack capped helps CDC more than Expiacion. Sure it helps both a lot obviously, but aren't multi-hit and critical hit weapon skills more reliant on attack? Offhand damage is pretty much entirely irrelevant for BLU so I don't see the sense in bring that up, our damage is heavily focused into our weapon skill damage like it is for most jobs in modern XI.

As for the Alamce v Tizona part, I never bothered to get a Zantetsuken so maybe that could be the difference maker, but even in the situations where CDC spamming was better than Expiacion, Tiz/Almace was still winning for me over Almace/Naegling noticeably. I ended up dumping swarts into maxing Almace for the Qiqirn month since I figured the Almace damage while Amnesia was in effect would push it over Tizona and that was still wrong. I really don't see any reason to recommend it over Tizona to anyone now-a-days.

If you already have an Almace and want to play around, sure go for it, it's not like you will be bad but Tizona is still better. I definitely would not recommend anyone else R15ing it just for BLU unless they have nothing better to spend cash on. It's applications are miniscule and if Zantetsuken really is the difference maker, that gap between it and Tizona would probably be very tiny anyway. The power of AM3 for Tizona and being able to wear more Malignance gear is just overwhelmingly more useful than mainhanding Almace. Also, it has always been said on here that longer fights skew towards Tizona, not Alamce because of their aftermaths. If it's a short fight where you can't build up AM3 and take advantage of the increase in weapon skill frequency, then maybe it would go towards Almace... though it would have to be a very fast fight where you can't build TP up beforehand for some reason.

By mixing things up I meant you wrote it like lower attack by itself could push cdc ahead, which is not the case. I dont see the point of mixing attack here at all if you suggest self SCing alone can already push cdc ahead.


Good DM augment might not be common, but with recent changes where you can send augments from mules and with SE doing DM campaign much more frequently, its perfectly possible to get good DM augment in just one campaign if you really want it.

Also even without my DM pieces Im getting 44k avg with Expiacion and 30.8k with CDC. Total for whole cycle are

AM3 Almace CDC>CDC
- 11k white damage x2
- 30.8k CDC x2
- 35.7k darkness
Total - 119.3

AM3 Tizona/Thib Req>Exp
- 4.7k white damage x2
- 44k Exp
- 51k darkness
- 10k Req
Total - 114.4

Im using mostly R20 Gleti's pieces for both (and jhakri hands for Expiacion and Adhamar bonnet+1 for CDC), which imo favors CDC. So you are right, total for 2x cdc is better by few k damage, but are we gonna ignore WS frequency here? Im pretty sure WS frequency can beat that few k damage advantage.

Using what gear then? Since it sounds like you're using 4/5 gleti's for both

Or just link me your spreadsheet

Expiacion

CDC


250 vit agi target being used. Capped attack with PDL. Uncapped accuracy on offhand for Expiacion.

Hi Simon how does stacking more multi-attack fair in the cdc set. Like in the set i posted

Hetairoi is super marginal gain (fractions of %), but I have enough buffs/debuffs to cap attack with it, in normal scenario +25attack on Ilabrat could actually be required, so Ilabrat is imo safer option.

Blistering Sallet is losing to Adhemar significantly and thats also without even considering way higher attack on Adhmar, which you will need to cap attack with all that PDL probably.

Coiste R20 is slightly loosing to A.orb+1 and DA on cape is super even with crit on cape (literally the same damage), but I have ddex capped, with uncapped ddex crit on cape will probably super marginally win.

do you have a link to the spreadsheet?

I'm also curious how and why you think expiacion doesn't fall off quickly when you aren't attack capped compared to CDC

I sent you pm.

I assume you are referencing crit adding +1 to ratio yes? You would need to be really low on ratio to get huge gains from crit. So yeah if you are at like 1.0 pdif, then CDC could start catching up on its own (without skillchain needed). At ~2.1 pdif, Expiacion still seems to be keeping ~1.4x more damage than cdc.

40%? I get closer to 18% and once the SC is considered, CDC > CDC trashes it since Requiescat is going to be worse as well.

Your CDC number is much higher than mine, so I wonder what you are using here?

same set you are other than DA cape instead of crit, and you can see my upper and lower pdif values for main and offhands

I dont get it, you have pdif spread from 2.14 to 2.89? how?

Also I wouldnt use Gleti's for uncapped attack.

because when you aren't capped on attack, that's how it works

Ok but wouldnt that ratio spread be much higher than 2.1 on avg? Which leads me to believe your CDC numbers are simply higher, because I used lower pdif, but then why your Expiacion numbers are so low? You used Gleti's for uncapped Expiacion or something?

It's a ~2.5 ratio, so obviously going lower would make CDC comparatively better. As for your uncapped attack expiacion set, what are you using?

Well obviously not Gleti's. This set for Expiacion only have sense with capped attack. For uncapped it's herc feet and head with 5%wsd /10str/20acc/20att, Jhakri hands+1, relic legs +3 and af body +3.

well I'm tired of asking you for variables since you never want to tell me what you use. so I'm just going to assume every time unless you state otherwise.

Either way, using the sets you use for capped attack. Your copy of the spreadsheet. And a better Req set than the 10K you mentioned earlier (14274), using 16% skillchain damage for both sets, 50/50 ratio since it's a two step, and changing no other variables

Almace gets 8788.332 DPS and Tizona+Thib gets 8604.141

As your attack falls off, even if you changed Expiacion and Requiescat gear, the disparity just grows.

For req reference:

Is there really even a point to doing Requiescat > Expiacion most of the time? I only ever really did that when I was soloing Gin and I wasn't even offhanding Thibron for that. In a situation where you can self-SC reliably, why not just spam CDC with Tizona? Tizona/Thibron is only really supposed to be the go to for spamming Expiacion, or at least that is the only way I have ever bothered using it.

If a mob resists light based damage, yes. It's still better than expiacion spamming.

CDC > CDC would be better even with Tizona for him.

That's my point. There are situations for just spamming your best WS but a large amount of situations allows for even a two step.

Yeah, until you can make an SC. Thibron is far more situational than it is "BIS" which is a stupid term for FFXI anyways.

Well yeah, I used CDC>CDC until he absorbed light then I swapped to Req->Expiacion.

But in pretty much every group setting on BLU, just spamming Expiacion works out better since there's always someone else there spamming weapon skills right beside me. Anytime I'm soloing I just spam CDC, unless the mob resists light, responds badly to skillchains, or dies in one Expiacion.