Azure Lore -- A Guide To AoE Burning On Blue Mage

Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Sub Jobs
III. What You Will Need
IV. Atma
V. Preparing for the Burn
VI. The Burn
VII. Lights
VIII. Conclusion


I. Introduction
Hello,

I see countless BLUs wondering how to farm for time, key items, other things within Abyssea at the astounding rates of others. There are so many, in fact, that I feel compelled to write a guide expressing how exactly to perform this act. You may AoE burn alone or with others, having a healer helps but is absolutely not necessary if you have the gear and atma required. Usually, someone who is at the baseline of Blue Mage equipment will need outside help from a White or Red Mage.


II. Sub Jobs
Sub jobs are a matter of preference and what you'd be doing later on in the night. Essentially, /NIN offers nothing but a little bit of INT and /WAR offers absolutely nothing extra for a Whisker burn. /RDM, however, lends a variety of tools to your arsenal. Phalanx, Stoneskin and Aquaveil are incredibly useful tools, causing most monsters to hit for 0-20 damage each. Aquaveil protects you from being interrupted, which is also very useful. Again, the choice is yours based on what you're doing before/after your Whisker Burn, however /RDM is the superior sub job for this specific activity.


III. What You Will Need
Things you will need to make this as efficient as possible:
Blue Mage
STR gearINT gearINT+DEX gearPDT- gearEvasion gearMovement speed+ gear
Atma of the Lion/Atma of the Blinding Horn/Atma of the Smoldering Sky/Atma of the Lone WolfAtma of the Minikin Monstrosity/Atma of the Beyond/Atma of the Baying Moon/Atma of the Ultimate/Atma of Hell's Guiardian/Atma of the Razed Ruin

*On PDT vs. Evasion: If you have an evasion set, it will likely be more effective than a PDT set for burning. Your monsters should never be above DC, for any extended period of time anyway, and thus evasion will almost always be high enough to outpace PDT.


IV. Atma
Atma choices are rarely situational. The best set for most monsters would be (1)Lion + Hell's Guardian + Ultimate or (2)Lion + Blinding Horn + Ultimate. For bombs or other lightning resistant monsters, you would want to switch Lion and Blinding Horn for Smoldering Sky and Lone Wolf. Generally speaking, if you do not have one or either of the lightning damage+ atmas, magic attack bonus atmas make for the best substitute; Atma of the Razed Ruin is also an acceptable atma to use as the 50 dexterity bonus that it grants adds plenty to your Charged Whisker when used in conjunction with Burst Affinity, which you should always have available on pulls anyways.


V.Preparing For The Burn
Now for the burn itself, it's a rather simple procedure. Based on zone and what you're looking to farm, the first thing you will want to do is farm up some Azure, Pearlescent and/or Amber. If you only want time and cruor, Azure+Pearlescent is the way to go, but if you want some augmented items, key items or empyrean foot armor/synthesis materials, then you'll want some Amber as well. The exact values of Amber depend on what item you're going for. Generally, key items only drop from upper tier large sized gold chests, high quality augmented items have an elevated chance of appearing in large sized gold chests, and everything else has a chance to appear inside of the smaller ones. If you're targeting Empyrean feet, then you'll want to limit your amber to around 70~80 at most. Further within this guide are a series of general guidelines of what to farm lights on based on zone.

Once you have lights, you get to the crux of the situation. You'll want to locate a suitable type of monster to pull multiples of and AoE down using specific spells for the greatest effect. Generally you'll want to find monsters that aggro and link, but sometimes this is not possible. As long as they do one or the other, you will do fine. You will also want to make sure that these monsters do not cast magic, as it will make the pulls more difficult and sometimes more dangerous. Depending on whether or not other people have been killing the monsters that you're targeting, (be respectful, don't pull over people if they are still there), then you may have to delevel them. I don't know how it works exactly, but after a couple of pulls the monsters will go from higher levels to Decent Challenge/Easy Prey. Keep pulls small until then.

You should also make sure you have the proper spells set for the job, the best spell set I've found includes:

Whirl of Rage
Benthic Typhoon
Charged Whisker
Thermal Pulse
Dream Flower
Sound Blast*
Memento Mori**
Cocoon
Occultation
Magic Fruit
Actinic Burst

*Only necessary if you are not subbing RDM.
**Same as above, however this one provides a slight stat bonus as well at the cost of more set points.

With the rest of your points being allocated to stats or other enhancing spells of your choosing. Some may choose to put in more AoE spells such as Body Slam, Battle Dance and Grand Slam, however these are absolutely unnecessary, as most of the time monsters will die from the initial Charged Whisker, and if not a quick Whirl of Rage and/or Benthic Typhoon will finish them off.


VI. The Burn
The method for taking down your marks will vary slightly based on monster type, but for 95% of monsters, the cycle should look like this:

Pre-pull: Use your Ascetic's Drink and proceed to cast cocoon and occultation, then if you're subbing RDM, cast Phalanx, Stoneskin and Aquaveil as well. Put on PDT/Evasion gear as well as movement speed and prepare to pull.

Pull: Based on monster, you will have to do different things to pull. If you're new to AoE burning or the monster is particularly fierce, I would suggest keeping pulls down to 5-10. If you're an advanced whisker burner, or the monster is not very threatening, 15-20 monsters should be possible. If you have support, you may always try to pull more than 10. If the monsters aggro to sound, then it's easy to pull a large group: just run around in PDT/evasion gear and movement speed, gathering up however many monsters you feel comfortable with, then return to a safe spot to kill them. If they aggro sight, you can still do this, however it will require more work on your part. Magic aggro monsters are easier than either to get en masse, just start casting a spell like Occultation or Memento Mori in the middle of them and you'll have yourself a few at a time. When pulling, it's always important to make sure you aren't running too far ahead of the monsters or they will deaggro. Try to find the sweet spot in between or let them catch up every now and then.

The Burn: Now for the fun part. There are two ways to do this, starting with the beginner friendly variety.

(1) Start by using Chain Affinity and Efflux, and follow that up with Whirl of Rage. Immediately use Dream Flower to sleep the hoard, (you may need to cast Actinic Burst first if you do not have Aquaveil up), and heal up any damage you have taken. Continue by using Burst Affinity followed by a Charged Whisker or a Thermal Pulse depending on the monster, (generally only bombs will require Thermal Pulse due to their resistance of other elements). If this does not kill every monster in the group, (probably due to lack of atma or gear), then Whirl of Rage or Benthic Typhoon, followed by another Dream Flower and either Thermal Pulse or Charged Whisker if required. It will take a pull or two before you know if you can take monsters out in one-two shots or not, so try smaller numbers at first. If you're gear is in the mid-to-high range, then you're likely capable of the second option.

(2) If you are not subbing RDM, start the burn with Actinic Burst followed by a Dream Flower. Following that, use Burst Affinity and cast Charged Whisker. Most, if not all, of the monsters in the pull should now be dead. A few stragglers can and will persist, so clean them up with a Chain Affinity + Efflux Whirl of Rage.

If you follow those basic guidelines, you should encounter no issues.


VII. Lights
Now, every zone will have different monsters that are preferable over others for AoE burning as well as different methods of acquiring lights, (although this is mostly based on which expansion that the zone derives from). Below are the monsters and methods that I have had experience with and found easiest to manage. Feel free to deviate from this and try your own types of monsters if you want to experiment.


Abyssea - La Theine
Visions of Abyssea zones are a little more difficult to do this in, as the methods of farming lights are a bit more time intensive than in Heroes or Scars. Essentially, you'll want to buy a Clear Demilune Abyssite from the Cruor Prospector NPC (300 Cruor). VNMs, when killed with a melee attack, will supply you with pearlescent light 100% of the time. Any NM works in this regard, so if you're having trouble finding VNMs you can always pop any other easy T1 NM. Ephemerals Clionids supply enhanced Azure light at seemingly random intervals of 16, 32, 64 and 128 lights per kill. They can be tricky to find sometimes as in the Visions zones, Ephemeral mobs can be somewhat difficult to track down. Your general plan of attack should be to kill multiple VNMs/NMs and Clionids until you obtain top tier blue chests, (Intense Soothing Light, familiar stone fragment, princely amount of cruor, etc.), and gold chests if you're after those.

Generally, T1 VNMs in La Theine are found around the rabbits and the tigers in large quantities, though they can go as far as the corpselights.

Once you have your lights to an acceptable level, you will want to find a suitable type of monster to pull for AoE burning. In La Theine, you can try frogs, worms, birds, or puks for the easiest time. Frogs are on the top of the list with birds and puks in second, although puks can be difficult to pull due to them being somewhat spread out. Worms should be used as a last resort as you can not rely on pulling them, you must hope for them to clump together naturally and you must also contend with avoiding the Notorious Monster.

Abyssea - Tahrongi
T1 VNMs in Tahrongi tend to be found most often East of Conflux 1 in the Clionids and Northwest of Conflux 2 in the Hecteye and Scorpions. Take caution if you go for the ones near the Clionids as a Notorious Monster that detects by low HP and is invisible until it aggros wanders amongst them.

Tahrongi doesn't have many choices, in fact, the only good choice here would be the scorpions as they are the only decent aggroing and linking monsters in the zone that are easy to manage. Sandworms and Manticores may work, in theory, but I have never tried these as sandworms are fairly spread out and manticores aggro to sight and are not very numerous. Gnats may also be eligible, but contending with the Notorious Monster may make it hazardous. Corpselights follow the same line, except instead of a notorious monster, you have to deal with their frequent magic usage.

Coeurl and bats work as an alternative as well. Thanks to Nightfyre and Raenryong for the suggestions.

Gnats are also a good choice. Thanks to Helel for the suggestion.

Abyssea - Konschtat
T1 VNMs in Konschtat are often found near the leeches and in the empty places between confluxes 4, 5 and 7.

Konschtat is open to more options than Tahrongi, thankfully. Leeches and Tonberries are tried and true families, and slugs may also work. In a pinch, corpselights are also applicable choices, however their frequent casting and ability to bind and stun you while pulling make them unattractive.

Abyssea - Misareaux
For Scars zones, farming for lights becomes a lot easier. Killing Ephemeral Murexes becomes a valid tactic as they are not nearly as rare as in the Visions zones and spawn in very predictable locations. There is one ephemeral in every monster family. T1 VNMs are still useful for Pearlescent light, however.

T1 VNMs in Misareaux are frequently found around the bomb clusters and the orobons/crabs.

The king of all monsters in Misareaux is the mighty frog. Unfortunately, finding these uncontested will be nearly impossible. Between other AoE burners or people camping the frog NM for their empyrean weapon triggers, they are often overcrowded and impossible to pull in frequency or at a decent level. The best alternative would be detectors, as they're easy to pull and not incredibly strong. Alternatives also exist in the crabs, orobons and flies, although flies can be hazardous due to the Notorious Monster and orobons may be too high of a level due to farming for the orobon notorious monster's pop item.

Apkallu are also a good choice. Thanks to Helel for the suggestion.

Abyssea - Attowha
Note that in Attowha, Ephemeral monsters don't appear to give enhanced lights.

T1 VNMs in Attowha can be a pain to track. I find them most often within the Coeruls and Cockatrice, so I would start there.

As for burn monsters, chigoes are the best in the zone. They're weak and numerous, however they are also highly contested. The Notorious Monster may also complicate things if it isn't being farmed. Mandragoras are a good alternative, as are wamouracampa, however the campa move very slowly which can be annoying on pulls. Scorpions and eruca also make decent candidates.

Abyssea - Vunkerl
T1 VNMs in Vunkerl can be found with frequency around the rabbits and puks, as well as around the bats.

Most of the time I try to do the djinns in this zone. They're easy to pull and aren't very strong. Unlike normal bombs, they do not resist Charged Whisker. In the event that they're taken, however, Vunkerl does not lend very many alternatives. Puks can work, as can spiders. As a last resort, corpselights are also viable but present the same issues as those in Konschtat and Tahrongi.

Tauri are also a good choice. Thanks to Helel for the suggestion.

Abyssea - Uleguerand
The Heroes zones are the easiest to farm lights in -- in fact, most of the time, you don't even have to. Due to morale buffs in these zones, you get a bonus to your lights just by obtaining visitant status. Normally I just pull like I would if I had already farmed lights and cap azure in a couple of rounds. Pearlescent will be capped through red chests soon after beginning as well, but doing a couple of NMs or just melee killing some mobs works too. For these reasons, as well as the fact that Elementals are incredibly annoying, I will not bother outlining T1 VNMs in these zones.

For burn mobs, I would suggest snolls as being the easiest to pull and to deal with. Even if you get the elemental in their ranks, thermal pulse and charged whisker will easily deal with it just like the snolls themselves. Detectors present a wonderful alternative, and if both of those are occupied then so do gears.

Abyssea - Altep
Altep's creme de la creme would be the mandragoras. They're very easy to pull and are incredibly weak. Two problems do exist, however: one, they are often contested and two, the Notorious Monster cactuar that spawns amongst them can be an annoyance. It isn't difficult to avoid, just make sure you're paying attention when pulling. Alternatives are all relatively unattractive, however often they are the only option. Detectors work, however the two elementals that roam within them may be annoying. You seldom have to worry about the chariot being alive long enough for you to have to worry about it, but do take caution. Puks are very spread out, but otherwise they work well enough. You may not want to pull many if you're alone just because of their distribution and how you'll be taking a bit of damage on the pulls. Bombs also work, but they tend to hit rather hard and pulling too many is not preferable.

Abyssea - Grauberg
Grauberg is very similar to Uleguerand in the types of monsters that work well. Djinns and Detectors are on the top of the list, and are often uncontested. In the event that they are, however, you will have to deal with much less suitable conditions. Goblins work, however they tend to be very spread out and deaggro easily. Puks are acceptable, but the Notorious Monster can complicate things.


VIII. Conclusion
That covers every zone, and pretty much wraps up this guide. Comments, suggestions and other such responses are welcome below or via PM. Additional options for monster types to farm are welcome and will be added if they are acceptable. Aside from that, thanks for reading, and I hope this helps those of you that are new to AoE burning on Blue Mage.

Any tips on getting atma of the blinding horn... kinda failed a couple of times

Coeurl work quite well in Tahrongi.

Bats in Tahrongi are ~19 per pull and very manageable.

Failed killing it or getting the atma? Side step his lightning spear, the amensia lasts a bit so slows down kill. WHM is best healer for it, just have them spam heal basically and tank it. Not much more to it.

Also should mention that /rdm is a great burn sub due to Aquaveil, which saves lives!

Yeah thinking my tanks just really sucked hard lol

What I'm wondering is I recently tried AOE farming on rdm/blu and even with capped pdt and phalanx and over 700 ***hurt. Couldn't really get anything down to 0. And that was only pulling a few. Granted most those targets couldn't find that many anyways. How's blu do it while taking an 30 dmg per hit? Well maybe more since I might have more def too

Only reason I didn't add bats is 'cuz they're a common exp party target. Haven't tried coeruls myself. Added both to the OP.

@Dasva usually you're only taking damage on the pull. After you get them to camp, Whirl of Rage and Dream Flower will take care of it assuming your spells are up to snuff and you can 2 or 3 shot stuff. If you have to choose, Atma of the Lion is probably easier to get than Blinding Horn.

Already got lion. Don't have ultimate either :(

Really don't need blinding horn then unless you're going for completion. Lion is better than it just cause of the extra PDT on it.

Want it for more dmg. Release I don't have ultimate and even if I did it would be alot more dmg than MM so wouldn't need no where near as many spells to kill them

I just got this atma yesterday. Setup we used was nin/war(RR GH VV), mnk/war(RR, GH, AoA) brd/whm(MM, Ambition, Rescuer). I dual boxed the brd, troubadour soul voice marches and ballads(+2 crooner's/af3+2 legs). Save TP for Ascetics/Smite on Ga's and should be pretty smooth fight.

DEX gear for Whisker is pretty important. Under Burst Affinity it takes 2 INT to match 1 DEX for the spell.. and each pull you should have BA ready to use.

I can't think of very many pieces for BLU that have a super high DEX aside from Loki's and Aias bonnet. What pieces are you thinking?

af3 legs have 8. 7 on rings. 7 dex waist. Even if it isn't much it's almost always better than int options in those slots

Phalanx from /rdm is invaluable. Should be mentioned along with PDT gear in original post.

Misareaux: should have mentioned apkallus

Tahrongi: I've actually found gnats to be the easiest mob to round up. They don't deaggro no matter how far ahead you run and they're not spread out at all.

Vunkerl: not sure why you didn't mention taurus? I've found taurus to be the easiest mob to round up here. They're mnk mobs so they hit for 0 with phalanx.

I agree with the rest of the mobs you list.

Edit: Oh you forgot fantod too. Fantod stacks with ascetics drink if you need it. It's nice for earth days.

Updated OP and added a subjob section.

What does mementori mori not stack with ascetics?

Nope

Well I am dissapoint. Too bad it isn't easier to get ascetics gambir

i've become the official te *** for the ls during events doing this. a puller and i (usually my pld friend corv) have this down to a science now.

the method we use is pretty much as described above. he pulls around 20 mobs (we try to use detectors whenever possible). while he is pulling i pop my ascetics tonic and use amplification, stoneskin, occultation, haste, phalanx, aquaveil. once they are all bunched around him it goes:

dream flower--> sound blast-->enervation-->BA-->CW-->they dead.

i usually do 5400-5700 damage to them. the last time i did this i had a smn with us who dream shrouded me, then left shiva out for the + int and i was doing 6445 to them all, it was sick.

if on the odd chance some live cause of resist, i follow up with thermal pulse.

always use lion/blinding horn/ultima atmas, just get mp out of chests.

and since BA is always up for by next pull i stack dex over int where there is more dex in a gear slot than int


still working on hands and feet +2, and there is a +3 dex grip id like to get, but never any on ah.

anyway, its alot of fun

Hey Dasva I will be in bahamut next month and I know you are ready to welcome me and my friends with open arms.... So lets get blinding horn and Ultimate when I get there.

If you have movement speed gear, and/or are able to out range the mobs you are pulling, you can run back at them and get their attack rounds going off at nearly the same time. This makes it fairly easy to get dream flower off because of how short of a cast it is. I also don't see a point in doing your pulls with a sword equipped when its easy enough to just macro it in. You're losing out on 20% PDT from a Terra's.

Enervation is nice, I use that too. I didn't shell out for a Cuchu belt, just use my Warwolf belt. I still need a Loki's and Aias bonnet, been passing all of em to others so I should almost be up for one. One thing about farming lights. If what you are killing will naturally give you azure, then you don't need to pre-farm it. It may take a few pulls, but you generally get 2-4 azure lights per pull, at least from my experience. You should pretty quickly cap on azure just from the actual burn. The wamouracampa in attowah aren't to bad, you just need to run the train back on itself before you sleep em. The eruca go to sleep at night, so don't know how well that will work.


This 100% Having the Terra's staff in while you are pulling is really nice. CA still enhances a spell even if you don't have TP to feed into it, so it still will help out with Whirl's damage.

In Misar(tab) crabs are really nice options. Aggro to sound and are nice and clumped up. There are 2 types, I prefer the ones right next to the Squib.

VIT Shamshir +2 and a Genbu's Shield is 9VIT, -20PDT, which technically beats a Terra's Staff, and if SE continues to add trials for the elemental swords, will strictly beat a Terra's Staff in the future.

Since I generally idle in a PDT set, I like being able to shoot of a physical spell or melee something to death when it doesn't die to an AoE spell.

I cant really justify making a PDT Shamshir specifically for a job that is so easily capable of capping it. There's also still no reason to fulltime a PDT Sword/Shield when you can macro a decent sword in for your spells that take half a second to cast.

I no longer play so sorry for the vague post in advance. But in the first 3 original zones you prolly are better off going for evasion for your pulls imo. I remember while doing vere/ukons etc pulling bats/couerls that they miss a 90 blu alot. I just put together a junk evasion set + whatever spell gives you a boost to evasion. If your /rdm you should already be taking next to nothing so i personally think evasion is better, again only in the first 3 zones. Other zones have harder mobs which hit harder and have more accuracy etc etc.

~also if you dont have the two thunder atmas nor ultimate/PW's one(forget name) your best bet imo is DEX ones like RR. iirc charged whisker was your best nuking spell and you should be using BA every cast really so the dex is gonna beat the int from MM or anyother int atma. MM does have refresh but you should really never run out of mp because out of 15+ boxes you should always get either a 2hr box or temp items. Even then i dont remember Charged/dream taking that much Mp so should be able to do 2-3 pulls on one mana pool.

~and dont quote me on this again havent played in like 3 months now but i remember something like 1MAB=2.5ishDex for whisker. So every gear piece should be slotted for DEX cept like af3 hands/feet/legs(they have dex). Also a good shield if you kno you can one shot the mobs after whirl with whisker is that mab shield from KA inside SW, it has mab+5 i think, also +pdt but that doesnt really matter if you kill mobs with that one spell. And for some mobs it was the edge i needed from getting them to 1-2% to completely dead in one whisker.

Even with that shield you wont beat out the Affinity on Jupiter's, Staff > Sword/Shield for pure damage on magical spells.

Oh i thought i remember the dex one being better ; oh well since how much i remember, but yeah the staff sounds correct. since i was like 15% or sumthing