Which Shamishir Is Good?

Just hit BLU75 and curious which of the shamshir line might be worth it. 1st and foremost I do not participate in organized endgame or event shells anymore, so anything i would use is based off of pure solo survivability, not party damage output. I was looking at having at least one M. Acc and MP if not 2. Or possibly VIT + -PDT or maybe something along the EVA line. Asking this now since I wanna do these in little blocks as I solo my way toward 90. (I dont ex pt either ^^) Ideas? I even thought of going down the Occ. Attk 3-4x route for /DNC fast TP'ing, or is /DNC still sacrilidge? Been out of the game a looonngg time so im almost back to being a noob :/

If you're purely focusing on a defensive playstyle, PDT swords are a good choice. If you really want to make an OA4 for /DNC then knock yourself out, but I would not be the least bit surprised if a PDT sword worked just as well in the long run given the mediocre hit distribution, low priority on multihit procs, and additional TP fed by the OA4.

Evasion swords and make a build to go with it. BLU has no trouble reaching cap now.

M.acc swords are terrible, they just are, why people make them is beyond me. I've seen a jp drk with a M.acc greatsword even, it's just rediculous. I personally would recommend making STR shamshirs which you would benefit a lot more from in comparison to those useless M.acc abominations.

Going back and really thinking about it your right on that. I did a OA4 Antheme for DNC main and most of the time it sits im my mog locker. I remember now the proc'ing was kinda lame and never thought of feeding the mob tp. Lol now i wish BLU could use it for spell learning tp feeds.

STR swords without a doubt, M.acc swords are for clueless JP onry yo

Just to clarify (remember ive been out of ff a long bit) the new spells like gob rush and benthic typhoon are a higher STR mod then?

Str shamshirs are the best bet imo. Don't do double macc sticks!

I guess i'll do two sets. a STR set and a -PDT set and test both. Glad i asked before i went down M ACC path, thanks everyone.

Goblin Rush = STR+DEX
Quad. Continuum + Delta Thrust = STR+VIT
Benthic Typhoon = AGI
Vanity Dive = DEX

Evasion or PDT- is good if you want survivability. Eva sword with eva set and atma is pretty effective in scars/visions abyssea zone if you still do abyssea stuff a lot.

STR sword for DD situations.

I made a pair of these and have never looked back:



It's way better than the STR shamshirs because it's got higher damage.

Which would be super awesome, if weapon base damage affected spell base damage.

Mine does.

If you are on BLU solo you will benefit a lot from dual +AGI. I use dual AGI Shamshir +2 a lot along with good evasion gears to solo/duo. STR is interesting for better damage but BLU can get to +60STR easily without those swords.

On the other end you need a way to avoid getting hits. Trust me +40 Evasion and +18AGI (A little boost to Benthic) will be much more efficient in solo/duo situation. You need to be capped in evasion to avoid recasting ishi/ni/occultation since they lower you DOT/MP. Every bit of MP saved not curing/blinking on BLU equal more damage casting a stronger spell (Quadratic / Globin) rather than low MP spell (Delta / Benthic).

In the end avoiding hit will overcome +18STR added damage on DOT and survivability. Additionaly Eva swords still offer higher base Evasion while gear swaping and casting long blue magic spell.

I would say get +AGI and Evasion, and macro on max +STR on spell and cast between mobs hits...

And loose all your tp every time you cast a spell? o.O

Not at all. I meant "macro on max +STR Gears" without removing the swords.

I don't have +STR swords and I don't feel I would gain advantage of losing +40Evasion and +18AGI (Subtle blow) for a +18 STR (Attack not considered in blue magic spell).

Question. What level mobs do you solo with your evasion gear / how is their hit rate? Just asking as I've not played in a while and would never have considered an evasion set for blu before updates. I understand their evasion is higher now w/ higher level, but it still seems unlikely to be able to dodge enough blows against EM+ to warrant a full evasion build. At least to me.

I thought the same thing, our evasion is C-, which is like, 50 levels below thf at 90. I've heard it's quite good but never tried it myself either.

You're not going to dodge current content effectively but it works for 75-80 content, maybe some Scars NMs.

I've only used it on old content like Limbus, was very effective there.

Well heres where I stand atm: Got 1 VIT + -pdt going as well as starting one of the DA+ Just for kicks. Twin AGI would be a nice boost since I have near capped 90THF eva. Ill leave it at this since i'm soloing to 90 anyway I'll just work on a bunch of em while exping and see where they lead me.

DA sword is kind of a waste of time- get a STR sword if you want a DD tool.

two m.acc sticks

those 11 or so head butts will be absolutely outrageous

I have one Khanda +2, a STR sword, a DEX sword, a -PDT sword, an Almace, a Hannibal's sword, and an Isidor. Between them, making any combination to do what I want to do isn't hard, but if you don't have the inventory for it, cut the Hannibal's, the DEX and the Khanda. Two STR, two AGI, and a -PDT should run you just fine. Been too busy working BLM staves to build my AGI, but I'm working on it.

Eh the Khanda is just kinda a toy. I'd be killin 600 wyverns or w/e anyway why not. I got inventory now with mog sacks and the porter guy so i can spare a few diff wpns for various combos. Like THF and DNC i have DEX 2x EVA Antheme OA 4x Last stage before twashtar empyrean (still need 40ish shells /grumble) DEF- add effect and ACC- Add effect. Some i use regularly, others i dont, always nice to have an aresanal to choose from.

Quickly from memory I have soloed Gieremund, Wherwetrice, Es'euvhi, Yearner (This one need -PDT and Evasion), Fistule (That one need support for 4+ adds), Minax Bugard, Chhir Batti... Usualy if a DNC, NIN of THF can solo im pretty confident a BLU can do so with some spell combination.

I didn't solo stuff outside Abyssea up to now. But I do Limbus and evasion set proved to be really usedfull and make BLU a really good tank by spaming Delta Thrust and Head butts. Doing Trials and learning magic with Evasion setup is a breeze !!

Four things made BLU Evasion viable since 76+ IMO.
1) Auroral Drape which add Blindga (-60 Accuracy).
2) Seconds is Occultation (Mostly inside Abyssea), this spell is goddy when mixed with a Cocoon and Tavnazian Taco. You can get 600-700 defense + 520 Evasion + 8 shadows. Blue mage have so much Haste + Fast Cast that you can get Occultation/utsusemi request halved without external support. I usualy roll only Occulation and use NI + Ichi + Actinic Burst for emergency.
3) Dual Shamshing AGI +2 that grant almost 50 Evasion while still getting really good base damage and DPS from swords.
4) Delta thrust is an amazing spell doing consistent damage for a incredible low amount of 28MP with recast as low as 7-8 seconds plus added bonus of plague which lower mobs TP. This spell add big time to our DPS still being MP efficient.

One fun thing about BLU is we don't entirely rely on weapon to do damage. That mean we have no real need to idle in hybrid Haste/Evasion/doubleattack/accuracy gears to get effective. We can idle in full evasion and macros everything in between mobs hit since most DD spell are less than 0.5 or 1 seconds (20-29% Fast cast). In fact, some NM I soloed consisted of fighting backward to avoid feeding TP while spaming Delta Thrust. Plus using VV to gain 100TP to turn and Chain Affinity + Quadratic for some damage burst and get backward.

Here is my evasion setup:

I usualy use VV / Cloack and dagger / MM. Evasion setup:

Dual Shamshir +2 AGI
Wivre Mask (Defense + Evasion) Im looking to replace if with Anwig Salade (+3 Haste, +10 Evasion)
Mavi Mintan +2 (Haste +3%, Accuracy+12, M.acc+12, refresh +2 too good to replace for +10 evasion, Refresh is damage for BLU)
Evasion torque
Triton Earrings
Derobade Mittens
Heed ring (Alert if more evasion needed, but subleblow is usefull)
Boxer mantle
Sveltesse Gouriz
Alcide's Subligar (Ocelots or Desultor Tassets could be an upgrade)
Blue mage AF

305 Base skill, Dual Evasion Shamshir, +27 Evasion Skill, +88 Evasion (including swords), +10 Evasion Trait, +8 Evasion merits, +40 Atma, 121 AGI (Divided / 2) for a total of 538 Evasion.

I just recently started taking blu a little more seriously but inside abyssea eva tanking is definitely plausible. I didnt have too much trouble tanking pretty much anything with an eva atma and a decent eva gear. Occulation is always there to fall back on if your timers aren't up.

Even alfard didn't give me too many problems and I don't have eva shammies, although that would probably be equivalent to an atmas worht of eva so you could just stick to DD atmas.

You have to work at it a little more than say thf dnc or nin but it gets the job done for sure.