The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

Yup, still feels like they had things just right in that period where things like pet moves/breaths, and spells were about right in dmg compared to the standard TP > WS cycle, ws' still needed a light nudge but then SE does what SE does best and took a hammer to the whole thing and called it good

75 days were nice when spamming bludgeon leveling up was a free weapon skill on lower cooldown for cheap MP. That turned into frenetic rip, disseverment, hysterric barrage, which often beat heavy DD ws's when combined with chain affinity, and people TP'd so slow you were a competitive DPS just casting.

Brings me back to soloing Imps for merits and clearing faster or on pace with a full party camped across from me.

Frankly, I think those days are dead and hoping for Physical spells to get love as an option like they were before is a lost cause. You TP and WS so fast these days it wouldnt even be worth it if Sinker drill did 20-30k a cast raw without JA's.

An awesome fix for BLU would be to make CA and BA work similar to light arts and dark arts. You pop them, and you're locked out from the other, but while CA is on all your physical spells maintain WS properties and can skillchain. Conversely while BA is on all your magical spells can burst. This will never happen of course, but it'd allow BLU to create easy multi steps to set up for a heavy DD to close a dark or light, or to play full mage with the blm and sch and burst heavily without relying on a cooldown.

that cat is too far out of the bag with WSs hitting 99k with Aria and no need for the JA delay that Efflux and CA adds, and theyd never make spells strong enough to hit that hard without them, so... yeah. Sadly relegated to only using magic for support and, sometimes, magic damage. Least things like crush don't have much more cost associated with their use compared to a melee having to blow their TP on a DEF down WS.

Oh for sure, the only way they could "rebalance" things would be to raise damage cap, and that's a whole can of worms on its own so pretty much stuck with what we got, which is still better than 75 days, just forever annoyed that they were very close in the past to having a good blend of dmg styles

So, regarding gearing, I had a few more questions.

A Malignance set is a bit of a way off for me. Haven't finished WOTG just yet.

As of right now, I'm wearing Adhemar +1 Head, Body, and Gloves with Herculean pants & shoes. One of the sets uses the same base gear but with Samunha Tights, which is even further away for me than the Malignance set.

Would it be better to put the Adhemar +1 Pants on instead of the Herculean pants with +4% TA? Then replace everything with the Malignance set when I get it?

I realize gear swapping is the name of the game and we're supposed to have 8237421 different pieces of equipment to always swap in and out of. Would the Malignance set technically be "Better" to use while I work towards getting the other pieces of equipment to fill out other gear swaps for certain situations?

And is that Dedition Earring really that good? I'm guessing 10 ATK/ACC isn't that big of a deal. I mean it must be really good if it's in a lot of the gear set examples.

I use to be painfully casual on XI and never bothered with much equipment swapping before, so I'm doing mental gymnastics trying to put 2 and 2 together and not get 6 as the answer. lol!

-Herc pants > Adhemar pants for TP.

-The reason you would primarily end up using malignance is because you do exactly 0 dmg when you're dead as well as greatly reduced damage while paralyzed/amnesiad/petrified/etc, and malignance is great at preventing that from happening. Helps out your trusts/healer when in lowman content in general, even in older stuff. Helps that it has very good offensive stats (especially for Tizona but it isn't bad for Naegling).

-You can augment WSD onto some easier to get pieces than Nyame and use some of the other things in those easier to get WS sets. By the time you have a full set of malignance you'll be set. +2 relics/af/empyrean fills out most of the armor slots and really isn't that hard to get at all. Malignance really isn't a weaponskill set at all and has next to no utility stats like fast cast.

-Dedition is better than anything else for the most part but without Tizona, something like Brutal Earring is barely worse and it really doesn't matter.

Okay! That makes a lot of sense, thank you!! ♥

The Dedition Earring is a lot of sTP in a slot that doesn't have a lot of options. BLU is already one the more accurate jobs so the ACC loss is a marginal issue. BLU white damage (normal attacks) is not a significant amount of damage, so the atk loss is negligible. If ACC is concern, the Crepuscular earring or the Hashishin earring +1/+2 are very good stand ins.

Malignance is generally not "better" than the pieces it replaces but it works very well with Tizona\Thibron and AM3. Without mythic AM3, you are going to be loosing potential TP gain however, the gain in survivability is generally considered worth it.

As for your specific situation, it nearly impossible to answer accurately without knowing the rest of your gear. I generally use a spreadsheet or a simulator to find out what is better with my current gear. This is because, the more multi-attack you have, the more valuable store TP becomes while the inverse is also true (the more sTP you have, the more valuable MA becomes).

From an unnecessarily extensive theoretical research, if you are only considering TP gain and not white damage, 1 Store TP ~ 1 Double attack; 2 STP ~ 1 TA; 3 STP ~ 1 QA. As previously mentioned, they work together inversely and multi-attack has diminishing returns. Obviously, multi-attack is preferred because in addition to the TP gain, it's more white damage, but it's worth mentioning that less multi-attack is also less TP for the enemy. While it's not as noticeable as a good subtle blow set, it's worth weighing high STP low multi-attack gear into consideration for bosses with nasty TP moves. Not to mention niche situations you might get a stray triple attack countered or dread spiked and instantly die. All of this said, it's mostly useless information because Malignance is what you're going to TP in in most high-end content for the DT/MEva, but even without mythic AM3, maybe this info is useful to understand why dedition earring is good.

Edit: fixed STP/multi-attack values because I can't read my own spreadsheet.

How are you getting these values? 1 STP is 1% increase in TP

If you attack 100 times for 100 TP each, to keep the math simple:
No MA no STP: 10,000 TP
1 STP: 10,100 TP (1% increase)
1% DA: 10,100 TP (1% increase)
1% TA: 10,200 TP (2% increase)
1% QA: 10,300 TP (3% increase)

I think all your STP compared to MA comparisons are doubled in favor of MA.

nevermind i see what I'm doing wrong here. you are correct it's about 1:1. I was adding an additional hit to my multi-attack values when that's already calculated on my sheet.

I just did a test (on THF) because I hadn't considered the effect of DW on the TP gain, here are my results.

Both had 37% DW (THF + Reiki Yotai)

4 STP: 50 TP/hit
71 STP: 85 TP/hit

This is a 70% increase in TP/hit for 67 STP. I'm sure some rounding is involved, but it seems pretty much in line with the exact values. Maybe STP is added after the DW calculation or something else is going on here, but it doesn't seem (to me, based on small amount of testing) that DW negatively effects the values of STP.

STP iirc is done at the end, right before things that just add flat TP like some jump pieces, so no DW shouldnt have any impact

Sorry I was misreading the purpose of my spreadsheet. I was trying to determine the value of STP compared to multi-attack in multiple scenarios--particularly in regards to the Store TP traits BLU can get.

Since I can change equipment on the fly, but not which STP trait I have, I used my TP/hit value with Store TP trait as my new base line.

THF doesn't have STP trait, so with a 52 TP per swing, 1 STP = .52 TP = 1%
BLU with STPII(15) trait base TP per swing: 63 (I can't recall which swords I ran this with), +1 STP = .55 TP ~ .87%
STPV(40) trait base TP: 71, +1 STP = .55 TP ~ .77%

All this really demonstrates though, is the diminishing returns of high STP values.

AFAIK (and someone can correct me if I'm wrong here but I really don't think so) there is no difference between STP trait and STP on gear, and also no diminishing returns with STP. All STP is put together then applied to your base TP.

If you got 50 TP per swing then added a trait with 15 STP, you will get 57.5 TP. Add another 15 STP it will be 65 TP. It's a completely linear relationship with no diminishing returns whatsoever.

It's hard to be sure, but I think the problem is that you're comparing your previous result to the end result instead of comparing your base to the end result. If you do the same thing for MA it will have the same result, consider this:

10,000 TP for 100 attacks, using my math above.
Add 50 DA you get 15,000 TP
Add another 25 DA you get 17,500 TP, which is a 25% increase (from base), but when compared to the 15,000 it's only an increase of 16.67% (2500/15000). This seems like diminishing returns, but only because you're comparing to the previous state, not to *nothing*

While this is absolutely true, the amount of DPS increase you get for each +1 STP is not completely linear.
I mean it is, but there are threshold where even a single +1 STP will provide a massive DPS increase, out of these situations +1 STP provides the "regular" damage increase (assuming you're using a WS that benefit from excess TP lol, but that goes without saying)
These are the thresholds where +1 STP is the difference between one more or one less melee hit to reach 1000+ TP.

Altough it's more like an indirect consequence I guess? Aside from these situations the increase is pretty linear.
Not sure if I managed to explain what I mean °-°

Yeah, to be clear I'm just referring to the way TP is gathered, not in terms of DPS. Certainly there are situations where a little extra STP gets you to a lower "X-hit" build, which is a whole 'nother conversation because it depends on a million factors and in my opinion, especially for jobs like BLU, is not worth calculating...but that's like a whole research paper's worth of ***.

There's also a whole third conversation about the value of STP as MA goes up, the order of checking for MA procs, and various other things that have been beaten to death (Mythic AM3).

I wasn't trying to get into the entire bag of rats that is DPS optimization, just saying that for both MA and STP there's a linear relationship from 1-infinity (or 100 for MA) between adding more of that stat and the amount of TP you will generate, on average. As it relates to diminishing returns, there are no diminishing returns for any of these stats on their own.

Yes, you're all correct I'm just a spaz that likes to do stupid math that has no practical use lol. Exactly as you mentioned, MA also has diminishing returns when comparing somewhere in the middle instead of the starting point. I think in the end it's a matter of if you value the white damage over feeding less TP, or just prefer the consistency of STP, especially when you may have other buffs giving you MA like COR or aftermath.

This discussion resurface here like once a year. It's technically not diminishing returns term that should be used to describe what is happening when adding more da, ta, qa or stp. The increase per % is linear, but increase in tp gain or amount of swings is relatively weaker and weaker when compered to higher nad higher baseline.

The simplest method of compering DA to STP is just multiply them and see what gives higher number.

Example

You have 50%DA and +75STP
That's 1.5*1.75=2.625

Now you want to add 5stp or 5da
5da would be 1.55*1.75=2.7125
5stp would be 1.5*1.8=2.7

5%da is technically better for tp gain in that scenario.

The calculation becomes more complex, when you have mix of QA, TA and DA, because there is priority of MA proc and QA will diminish effect of both TA and DA and TA will diminish effect of DA. It becomes even more complex when there is some mythic AM3 to take into consideration or Occasionally attacks etc. Then you would also need to remember about things like kick attacks, Darken, Zanhasso. Yeah forget it, just make an excel or use existing sheet/sim :D

So I'm wondering what would be a good spell setup for BLU to use when doing Ongo V25 with Multi KI setup. In the first KI you tipically use BLU to deal damage/support.
This is what I was thinking of, 80 points, 20 spells.
Now Embalming Earth and Entomb would be the main two damage dealers, with Magic Hammer used to replenish your MP.
Sound blast is there for the MAB trait bonus (MAB tier 5 in this setup), since I assume it's not gonna land on Ongo V25 anyway.

Now there's a few things I was thinking about swapping.
Would Winds of Promy be useful or not? If not I can remove it, likewise with Acitinic Burst which was there just to get Autorefresh which honestly might not even be necessary with Magic Hammer.
What to put in its place though? Acrid Stream would be awesome but I'm not sure it's gonna land on Ongo.
Eyes on me + Reactor cool to get the last MAB trait tier?
I'm also wondering about Diamondhide. Put it there thinking it could offer some occasional form of damage mitigation from Ongo AoE stuff, not sure it's gonna make a difference and if you're ever gonna have time to cast it to begin with, with all the spells you'll be spamming.

Other tweaks you BLU pros suggest?
Thanks!

Have you actually tried magic hammer on v25 Ongo? I haven't, but I would expect it would do very little damage and won't be able to keep your MP pool high at all, but maybe I'm wrong.

No and if it were me I would've thought very little damage being done >> very little MP regained.
But I've seen a multiKI video from Velner and I've seen from the log that the BLU there uses Magic Hammer multiple times so I assumed it works to get MP.

If anybody wants to report a difference experience I'm all ears!
Think you might want Magic Hammer equipped regardless for the MAB trait, but it would be good to know if it's useless to actually cast it.

I only ran it about 8 or 10 times due to conflicting playtimes w/ my LS, but we ran BLU NIN SMN RDM PLD WHM, not sure how ideal that setup is, but:
SMN Spammed Diabolos nuke (Nether void?),
Rdm En-spelled like crazy and enfeebled trying to frazzle as much as possible, but it only seemed to land once, Maybe twice a fight if they put their JAs into it.
Nin spammed Ni and San, also rode TP from the lobby in order to facilitate one of our few darkness skillchains for a burst.
I spammed Embalm + Entomb, both did respectable damage but you have to spam as much as you can to keep up and MP is tough.

Magic Hammer iirc was useful, even if your hitting for like 250 its a net benefit when your MP is slim and you cant get anything back from Tizona.
Im not sure, but I tested both Diffusion MG to support VS Diffusion Memento Mori + Unbridled Tearing Gust. While yes... with Tearing gust up we lit a little harder, but the damage your doing is in the low thousands to begin with so the boost isn't as significant as i'd like... Personally you might be better off just giving everyone MG for the haste cap. However I was throwing Acrid Stream on it from time to time, but unsure if its additional effect actually landed.

At first I was doing Diamondhide but I scrapped it, as it was an inefficient use of time and the PLD was able to handle it.

This was my spellset; and by all means critique it or improve it:
*Delta Thrust + Barbed Crescent (Dual wield)
*Zephyr Mantle + Chaotic Eye (Conserve MP)
*Auroral Drape + Wind Breath (Fast cast... same 6 points as Erratic flutter, however Drape gives +3 INT)
*Entomb + Embalming Earth (Main DPS)
*Rail Cannon (Magic Burst Bonus)
*Tenebral Crush (Mag Acc Bonus)
*Searing Tempest (Used when Frazzle lands to try to stick the BURN as best I can, due to how potent it is)
*Acrid Stream (Used periodically to attempt to stick MDEF down)
___
*Spectral Floe
*Subduction
*Memento Mori + Cursed Sphere
*Sound Blast + Magic Hammer
___ ^4 tiers of MAB Trait
last 2 spells I had 2 slots and 2 points left, so nothing of value to set, so I went with the best attribute gains I could get
*Regurgitation (1 INT) + Cocoon (3 VIT)

The best we did was ~73%, but failed to clear afterwards. Most of the time we'd get between 75% and 79%... which should be plenty of damage to win on the 2nd KI though. Ideally you want to have the pet pop on spawn for the 2nd KI so you can get control of it immediately.
Hope this helps

Ungh you made me remember I completely forgot that I need to set DW to be able to DW clubs, and I'm gonna need that for sure... Duuuuh! Thanks.

How could you tell if Acrid Stream and Searing Tempest were landing?

I probably have something wrong set with battlemod or one of the addons, but I cant tell... I just pray. Don't be me. Be better lol

Also IIRC I used R25 Sakpata / R25 Bunzi, rather than Bunzi/Maxentius.

You technically can't. I think maybe you can spot effect wearing off, but in the moment of spell landing you simply can't. You can only notice difference in damage if it's not fluctuating from another reason.


Yeah this is what I would expect. It's gonna be some gain, but not much. Especially with 180s base cooldown.

Well ~250 MP per cast is not too bad eh!

Dexprozius did you notice how often those two spells were landing, if you noticed it at all?
And from what you and Simon said I guess it's not even worth trying to cast them if Frazzle 3 falls of, right?

Nah, additional effects from spells doing damage doesn't show effect landing or not landing at all. It was one of the most requested QoL, but we haven't got it until today.

250-40, so only 210MP gained. I would assume you will maybe have 70% cooldown reduction, so every 54 sec. For sure useful, but it's not infinity MP like in most other scenarios :)