The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

That's basically it. Just keep your TPing Rosemerta in your inventory, and set it in your tp-macro set. Then put your "WS Rosemerta" in another bag, like Wardrobe 1, and then set it in your ws-macro set (make sure and pick the specific cape you want to use from the appropriate bag, as it will lock this item in and always prefer this cape first).

If for some reason you only have 1 cape on you at a particular time, the game will automatically default to whatever cape that matches the set is available and equip it, so you have to make sure and keep them both on your character and specifically set the cape you want to the appropriate macro and it should work.

Am I missing something here? Wouldn't a DW cape be best for a second cape? Plugging it in, that is the biggest increase. While swapping Suppa and Adhemar body to Cessance and Herculean

You can do it with the default (aka vanilla) macro system. You need to put them in the same bag and use equipsets. When you are setting equipment in an equipset, you can check the augments to choose the correct copy and use "/equipset number" in your macros to equip the set which has the correct copy of the equipment.

If the copies of a given equipment is scattered your bags, the macro fails to make you equip the correct copy. There might be a subcommand to designate a specific bag that I don't know about. Regardless, there is no reason not to use equipsets to do it though. This way I am using 4 herc gloves, 2 herc feet, 2 herc legs without gearswap.

I'm not seeing how those adjustments would beat out an excess 10% Double Attack. I was under the impression we were all already using Cessance anyways. That doesn't seem like an advantageous way to maximize the back slot, because you're not improving the slots we are swapping drastically. Unless you can show me on paper.

Yea if DA and STP isn't making a large DPS increase over Crit hit rate then a STR WSD cape will be the next I one I would build.

With Tizona and Almace, I have Adhemar body, Cessance/Suppa + DA 2796.172. Same as above STP cape coming in as 2801.582.And, I have DW cape with Heculean +4 TA/Attack/Acc/Dex + cessance/brutal coming in at 2825.931 on a high augment. Not perfect.

Plus, with the DW cape, you can go DW cape + Adhemar body + Reiki + Suppa + Eabani for low haste set.

I've tested your method months ago and I can tell you that the only way for equipset to equip the item with the right aug is to put them in different bags.

If you put 2 herc gloves in the same bag and use equipset, sometimes they equip the wrong gear. The thing is that it doesn't always happen so you may not notice, but when it happens, you lose dps without knowing.

Since we only have access to 1 inv and 2 wardrobe, the max number of augmented item is 3 for none GS users.

Tizona AM3 should preferably use Telos, not Cessance.

Yeah, it is a minimal increase. We only killed AV once, and I didn't win it!

Did win the Polearm no one wanted though. It is working magic in my Storage

You both are effectively saying the same thing, that having items spread across bags helps the macro system on vanilla determine what gear to choose. As for the subcommand, its there, but off the top of my head, I don't remember (I think if you're just trying to put a piece of gear in a macro line and not a set, you can just specify /equip cape 'wardrobe 1' [unconfirmed, but something to that effect]).

However, Afaina is correct; the cap on amount of augmented gear of the same type that can be switched out is 3. If you are using 4 herc hands, there are undoubtedlty scenarios where the game is arbitrarily picking the correct piece for your macro, and others where it picks the wrong gear. If you don't believe it, try putting your 4 herc hands in one bag, and equipping your mab set (with herc hands macro). Then switch to your equipment list and confirm which piece of gear it picked. You'll effectively have a 25% chance of equipping the correct hands. The game macro system actually isn't reading your augment and specific piece of gear; its just reading the bag it is taken from. The proof of this is when you view your macro sets in the "Edit" list. It won't show you the current augments on an item from the gear when it's already mapped, only when you're picking the piece from the equipment list.

So yet again, the in-game system is limited in its uses, but still is practical for the casual/above casual user. If you're looking to have several pieces of the same gear for the same job, you'll either need gs or limit it to 3.

There is. The format is /equip [slot] "[item]" [storage #], where 0 is your bag, 1 is wardrobe1, and 2 is wardrobe2.

Does the Ambuscade cape augmented for nuking beat out the Adoulin cape with +8-10 Blue skill so much so that it's worth making a separate cape for it?

I thought you use GS. We're talking about maximum numbers of augmented gears vanilla FFXI users can use, which is 3 unless they add wardrobe 3 and more.

If you use GS then you can use as many as you would like.

Easily, skill does nothing to increase nuke damage. Cornflower Cape is competitive for macc, but Rosmerta's will win for damage.

And you're sure its pulling the correct herc hands every time? I ask because I tried it that way, and I noticed it actually wasn't always pulling the correct piece of gear. Once I separated bags, I never had the issue. Of course, I don't have more than 3 pieces of an item, so I'm good. But when that changes, I would like to know.

No Spicyryan uses GS, which is obvious in his vid. That's why he could use 4 pairs of gloves.

I don't use gs and I do fine. I don't understand the number games between using gs and not using gs. Of coz I can't beat a tizona/almace user but I do fine against all others.

I don't use GS because Im a video game purist that don't use any add on in any game. I also don't trust the developers (sorry no offense to GS devs)because I don't trust anyone online.

I also don't understand that why would you go out and troll someone who doesn't really play with you nor affect you negatively in terms of party performance. I mean, why would you care if others lose parse by 2% due to the lack of GS?

I am not using gearswap and I am not having any problem with having 4 herc gloves in the same bag using vanilla macros. Even if it is possible for the system to fail at times when all are in the same bag, it must be extremely rare due to some obscure bug, not anywhere near 25% for 4 pieces. When at least one pair of them are in a differen bag, it does fail mostly to wear the correct one, but not at all when all are in the same bag unless I am day-dreaming. I have checked numerous times to make sure it works.

None GS users are more likely to lose parse because of slower swaps and less room for human error, also they need more attention to detail and macro planning to maximize DPS. But the difference shouldn't be game breaking to a point to fail a run, and majority of the player base are exaggerating the negative impact for not using it IMO...you
don't suddenly lose 30% of DPS without GS.

The truth is 90% of players out there who doesn't parse high are GS users. I've see mythic DD with GS parse horribly, while a couple of Xbox players parse surprisingly high. Either way theres no point to troll someone without it unless his performance is so low to fail a run, in that case having GS probably won't help.

3 max is not true. Equipsets won't forget what piece it is unless u take it out of that box. If u have 8 herc gloves and keep them all in wardrobe2 and set your equipsets, all your equipsets once set after putting them there will remember which aug piece is which. Once you remove the piece from wardrobe2 and put it bsck you'd have to reset all the equipsets that use that piece.

Oh that makes sense.

If this is true, I would be pleasantly surprised! I did initially have an issue with the macro picking the wrong piece, but I didn't even test the second portion of your comment (not taking it out and switching bags without changing the macro set).

I will double check this tonight and confirm what I get. This is good news if it works, though. TY

Yeah, the DW cape is best second cape unless you have HQ body along with another HQ Adhemar piece. If you have three HQ Adhemar pieces(head, body, and hands) the DA back is best. This is all with Tizona AM3 up btw. With HQ head and HQ body the STP is better than DA by like 1 DPS.

But, for me having only the HQ head the DW cape is a decent upgrade for high haste, and a huge upgrade for when you don't have MG or marches.

Thanks for sharing that. My sets still need a lot of work, so I will keep that in mind when making my next cape. Still, I need at least 5 more months of ambuscade before I can acquire all of the needed capes I want for BLU ; ;

Question - In what scenario is Herculean Vest better than Adhemar body? Is it just enough to have 4% TA as the guide states? If I do end up getting 4% (haven't gotten in several hundred stones), where can I make up the extra DW? I know I could use a belt, but that's a really useful slot for me. I'm guessing its Eabani, which I don't have. any advice would be helpful.

You only use Herculean vest for high haste. This is assuming you're using DW3, where you would need 11 DW to cap. With the cape you would be 1 DW short(can live with that). This is what my sets will be looking like:


No Marches/MG
ItemSet 338722

Marches/MG up
ItemSet 336814


And yeah, TA +4. Have to remember Herculean vest already has +3 stp and +3% crit hit rate on it. So, using DW cape + brutal/cessance you are gaining +1 TA, +3% crit, +5 DA, and losing 6 STP if you want to use STP back. +1 TA, +3% crit, +4 STP, and losing 5 DA if using DA back

Do you make any changes for AM3 up/down?

I just keep AM3 up. Since I assume AM3 will always be up, or else would be using Almace.