The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

BLU needs to be the best, but I would settle for some small upgrades and QoL adjustments. Nobody even posts in this section anymore because all the bandwagon thumpers moved onto the next thing. Anytime anyone asks for update buffs, the flavor of the month jobs come in and shoot them down. RDM, COR need nerfs, BST needs to be deleted and BLU should be on the top.

This, this and this.

Until RDM and cor get to use a r15 Tizona I just don't see them beating a blu as a physical DPS. Although other additional benefit from rdm cor may outweight the gap so the complain is still legit.

I mean, FFXI dps check is so low, to the point that additional benefits often outweight slight dmg difference. If people are shouting for 2 CORs for this month's ambu, then it's obvious that dmg doesn't matter. Gallants roll does.

I do agree that magical ws OP is the real issue here. Any job with a strong magical ws will be OP because of the mechanics. If BLU gets magical ws as strong as croc sanguine, leaden or TF then every Dyna D alliance will ask for 3 BLUs.

The best fix is nerf magical ws, IMO. The dmg gain from malaise and gambit needs a nerf, so does hate mechanics.

I really really doubt giving out better dps gears to blu can fix it. Since the content doesn't even have dps check atm and people invite DD for utility or mechanics, things that makes organization easier. Even if BLU gets much better gears people will still shout for 4 cor in dynamis for hateless magical ws, or 2 cor for ambu for gallants roll. Nothing will be fixed with better gears because mechanics just favor certain jobs.

It's basically SMN balance issue all over again. The job itself isn't OP, but mechanics just favors SP spam/reset.

Welcome to MMOs, enjoy your stay.

Huh? RDM is incredibly good in dyna D now. But mostly because of their 50k sanguine blades which is almost on par with semi decently geared cor leaden.

When you have a job that does 50k magical WS AND provide additional benefits like haste dia3 silence bind etc yes it's pretty OP. Still magical WS's fault though, not the job.

It isn't just magical WS. They do very good SB's now in addition to all their debuffs and 10m+ buffs. It was what I was saying earlier, they are nearly matching and sometimes surpassing the dmg a BLU can do, in addition to all their other benefits. I don't see that as fair at all, which is why I said BLU needs a boost via gear and updates similar to how all other jobs have gotten them. RDM has mostly risen due to gear additions.

Most gears in ffxi is like 3% to 5% dps increase, you would just do 8300 dps instead of 8000 as Tiz BLU, would that really help?

If a job is behind due to the lack of raid utility, it seems that boosting utility is the way to go no?

IMO the lack of useful utility in endgame raid(and how community only cares about endgame raids) is the issue here. People dont care about 6 man content that could favor BLU, but they will complain forever because blu doesn't get a spot in Dyna D alliances.

BLU is fine, RDM and COR is probably too good in dyna D. That's not BLUs fault.

They can do SB but not expiacion. expiacion is stronger than SB so I don't see the physical dmg being an issue here.

If it's an issue it's utility+physical dmg, not just physical dmg alone.

Did you read what I said? I said exactly that.

Gear increases by themselves aren't big, but added up over the course of updates and it can completely change how a job operates or excels. BLU needs that type of care right now, we have been left off a lot of good gear and not gotten anything unique outside of the malignance set (not even the earring.) If they gave unique items that enhanced certain aspects of the job, it would boost it up. I would like something like that and some QoL adjustments to our existing JA's etc.

Sure. But You brought up SB as an issue, but SB isn't godly in today's ffxi. First It's not particularly good at skill chaining. Last time I checked even maxed SB set is about 37k avg at 1000 TP. Which is still lower than expiacion.

So why do you mention SB at all. Just mention utility if that's the real issue lol. If SB can single handedly make a job good everyone would be shouting for SB NINs.

The issue is its DD capability in addition to its utility. SB has risen to godly levels, yes. Not sure why you would say that when its pretty obvious given all the gear upgrades we have now to power it up. Expacion isn't the best for SC either and the avg is not that far ahead of the number you placed. It isn't solely for SB, we know RDM's and COR magical capabilites as well, its overall balance. I use them specifically as examples to show how far BLU has fallen behind when jobs that are considered SUPPORT, are on par with BLU and sometimes ahead.

I prefer seeing solutions that directly solve the design issue, not "make the players happy by giving them candies" that may not change anything.

The gear update that made RDM relevant is croc. It opens up a new role "magical ws dd" for them. That makes rdm game changing in dyna D alliance raids.

It's not the random "good SB gears" that made rdm good. Rdm doesn't even get invite to most 6 man pt, whatever they gain from SB is very irrelevant in most contents using a rdm. I don't see people shout for SB rdm because ambu needs it. I only see people abuse croc and enspell builds like mad.

I mean, if you guys just wants new gears for the sake of feeling happy then so be it. Doesn't mean it will change current "meta".

The DD power up applies to every job and most relevant ws. Torc is stronger, decimation is stronger, expiacion is stronger, upheaval is stronger, VS is certainly very strong....And list goes on.

SB had higher ws avg than CDC since....2015? It's always been that way. Above avg but ultimately not godly. Yes it gets stronger in last 4 years so does other ws that's not dagger nor katana ws.

SB just gets noticeable because many jobs can abuse them and it doesn't require rema. But the relative power of it has always been the same. And that comes from someone who abused SB build like mad since 2015 when such build was discovered.

I honestly could care less about Dynamis D, I don't even think 80% of the population even does that content so not sure they do either. I want new toys to play with and to keep things interesting, not asking for nerfs specifically but it would be nice to have an update for BLU especially on QoL aspects. Why do we need to constantly spam buffs every minute when a job can keep buffs on for 20 minutes? Not really a game changer to do some buffs to the job.

Also this month SB has been very good for ambuscade, it isn't a weak WS by any means. Maybe on your dead server they don't get invites, but I see RDMs everywhere.

Huh? Last time I checked people prefer 2 cor for this month's ambu. But whatever. Kinda silly to to take a jab at other servers over this.

I said SB is above avg, not weak nor godly. Its also silly to twist my words because you want a blu buff. Not godly =/=weak.

But hey internet, everything must be OP or terrible with nowhere in between.

Well I came to inspire ideas about buffing BLU and getting it an update from SE, and some people come in to say "quiet down now kids BLU is fine." The discussion was mainly for what people wanted to see in a BLU update, and to try and get SE to do it. Not for people to turn the conversation to something else.

You came in saying BLU was losing DPS grounds to RDM and COR though which simply isn’t true. It’s gonna take quite a lot to close that gap (except Leaden, but that’s a specific setup).

After that, we all agreed and even brainstorm’d some really good QoL ideas for BLU to help fix some problems it genuinely has (Spells serving no purpose other than traits, JAs that are almost never used, etc). I know I’m guilty of asking for gear inclusion and even wanted some ridiculous additions but I already know it won’t happen, not gonna lose sleep over it. Getting skipped over every update on the good stuff needs to stop though. Small gain or not, that’s long sense been old. At first it was Melee Oriented gear, now it’s starting to get to Mage Gear (Malignance Earring).

Yes it is true, the gap truly is not as wide as you thought. You even didn't know about DRG, so can we really think your word on this is right? BLU has fallen quite a bit behind with the lack of updates.

So, decided to augment Metamorph ring +1 first in regards to Odyssey. Have it rank 13 at the moment, and I was curious if it beat Shiva Ring +1 for nuking.

Same method for testing as Max/Kaja rods. All under 1 distance for Sash.

Subduction:

Shiva +1:9657
Metamorph ring +1:9699

Tenebral Crush:

Shiva +1: 19304
Metamorph ring +1: 19538

Retinal Glare:

Shiva +1:12417
Metamorph ring +1: 12751

Entomb:

Shiva +1:15176
Metamorph ring +1:15400

Spectral Floe:

Shiva +1: 17938
Metamorph ring +1: 18498

Anvil Lightning:

Shiva +1: 14407
Metamorph ring +1: 14621

Searing Tempest:

Shiva +1: 14199
Metamorph ring +1: 14407

So, it does across the board. New nuking ring for BLU

Sailfi belt for expia/savage?

In that quotation I was speaking strictly about Distract, not RDM overall.


Why are people keep talking Torc is that good? It's only that good if you pair it with Savagery Warcry, which is not a DRK native buff. Caladbold is not exactly a weapon that gets TP fast or have big TP overflow, so if you WS asap, then you will WS around 1000-1300TP a lot and at that range (+moonshade for effective 1250-1550) Torcleaver will "only" do like 32-39k and will have at least 5% misses (which is very significant for avg WS damage actually. Gets above numbers to like 30-37k). I mean its still good damage, but its nothing OP (definitely not close to Torcleaver myths). Idk maybe its because people really only use Caladbolg with Warcry and in Escha zergs or simply hold TP. Power of Caladblog comes from good WS AND very good white damage, not from mythical 70k avg Torcleavers.

Yes, its bis belt for any WS that has STR WSC and has most fTP on first hit.

Edited the damage above to reflect R15.

My jobsite shut down from COVID-19... So I took the time to actually do this. Only did BLU vs COR so far. Might do RDM later, haven't decided yet(Its a lot of time)

As for DRG, I already admitted that I didn't know. I never see it and when I ask others about it all I get is "Meh" so that was my mistake.

These were constructed with the BiS settups for both BLU and COR from their respective forums and placed side by side. Adjustments to COR's Acc, Attack, Skill were made in COR's weapons to reflect the differences so as not to embellish COR's power. Both were given the same buffs and support and as equal a stride as possible. Certain gears were Augmented to represent the WSD from DRG sub because I simply don't know how to add the tables for them? I'm a Pipefitter/Welder I know complex laws of Thermodynamics and Metallurgy but operating a spreadsheet was never in my profession.

THIS IS NOT A DOWN ON CORSAIR, I LOVE CORSAIR AND THEY ARE, IMO, THE MOST ESSENTIAL BUFFER IN THE PARTY NEXT TO GEO
but Corsair's absolute best Melee DPS is 16.575% behind BLU's. SE has been making it so they can contribute more but that's still a very far cry from catching us.

and just as extra food for thought, I ran the numbers against one of the biggest DPS, SAM.

With the exact same conditions we are very seriously on SAM's heels when it's Meditate is down (2.103%)and fairly close when it's Meditate is up (7.843%). Quick caveats to bear in mind. Animation lock is a thing so all of these averages will go down in field. You will never be able to fire off perfectly at 1000 TP because of Animation Lock and Multi-Attack causing Over-TP. This is especially prevalent with WSs like Resolution that have VERY long animations. However Savage, Expiacion and Fudo are more or less the same and should experience losses equally. It should also be made known that SAM will likely mop the floor with BLU if it's able to Skillchain. There's no way to get around that, especially for SAM. This was nothing more than food for thought.

I say again, I'm with you. I want BLU to get more updates, I'm sick and tired of being skipped on Juicy gears and only getting little side grades but you must understand that BLU is very powerful. The Expiacion Average is 45953, there are spikes nearly hitting 60k. Like Eiryl said, we're stronger than we should be. We can hand a Top-DPS his *** if it slips up, and that shouldn't rightfully be possible given how flexible this job is.

But that's against Cor's second best WS. And most things are not resistant to dark(like the bats)

Oh no, I agree, COR should be using something else, this whole debate spurred from COR "Catching up to BLU with Savage Blade"
COR should be using Leaden or Last Stand and such imo but iirc, those require Magic Oriented setups to shine properly? Or can they be let out with no Magic Buffs at all and still do well?

Edit:
I ask because my Trueflights on RNG are only.. "Okay" when naked/not-buffed but if I get a GEO I tear things up. Just for example

It does very well regardless, and if they are main handing a dagger(Rostam) they can properly multistep it.

Cool, well either way, this was a response towards COR's Sword-Antics. I don't have enough knowledge to speak on Leaden Solute set to a similar fashion but I feel like you'd be better off shooting instead of swinging at stuff if you were going that route. I have a COR mule but I'm not a true COR by any means.

As for things I want to see for a BLU updates:

- More spells, preferably support spells from families we are missing.

- Fixing of BA and CA. Being able to burst every 2 minutes or skillchain with your physical spells that are never used is pretty worthless in today's game. Possibly change them to stances where you can burst with magic stance up, and skillchain with the melee stance up. Probably would have to make the melee stance only able to skillchain with weaponskills, not with itself

- Posted on OF years ago about them adding "enhance blu magic duration" gear, still wish for that

- A fusion weaponskill lol

- Forgot about this, make Mythic weaponskills have light/dark weaponskill properties. So, Expiacion can skillchain with itself. But, that's just a general QoL change. Never understood why Mythics were the only ones without light/dark attached to them

Shooting is a DPS loss unless you have Triple Shot up. Cor gets TP incredibly fast.