The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

Go to the skirmish port for Cirdas Caverns, there's a bunch nearby in a room you can see on widescan usually.

I'm considering burning a brew on WoC to get my telos earring (bad luck killing this with aeonic ls). Does anyone have experience with brew inside escha and specifically WoC? Is this even viable?

I have access to an idris, two if I bring both my characters as geo but I would like to kill it with brew from blu. Also I could probably get a few friends to come on other jobs.

I'm not interested in trying to kill it the normal way except for aeonic clear.

Any comments, criticisms and advice are welcome. Also I have two attempts at this with wife's character (geo, thf, cor) as she has enough silt for a brew as well.

Cleaving spells depend largely on what you're cleaving and how good your gear is. My preferred set up for most things is the following-

<reisenaoe>
<slot01>barbed crescent</slot01>
<slot02>cursed sphere</slot02>
<slot03>tenebral crush</slot03>
<slot04>anvil lightning</slot04>
<slot05>magic hammer</slot05>
<slot06>magic fruit</slot06>
<slot07>cocoon</slot07>
<slot08>entomb</slot08>
<slot09>spectral floe</slot09>
<slot10>barrier tusk</slot10>
<slot11>sound blast</slot11>
<slot12>dream flower</slot12>
<slot13>delta thrust</slot13>
<slot14>erratic flutter</slot14>
<slot15>subduction</slot15>
<slot16>auroral drape</slot16>
<slot17>bad breath</slot17>
<slot18>sub-zero smash</slot18>
<slot19>wind breath</slot19>
</reisenaoe>

BLU/SCH using Hailstorm allows me to one-shot everything (Reisenjima #2) with Spectral Floe and Tenebral Crush. Entomb -> Anvil Lightning when one of those isn't up. That said, I have exceptionally good cleaving good. You will probably need to experiment and see what spells work best for your gear and location.

You actually picked quite a good time to return, as far as cleaving is concerned. Use your login points to get the Brygid and Star Sibyl trusts, as they are very helpful for cleaving. Brygid gives 9.7% defense and 5 MDB and Sibyl gives 19 MAB and 26 macc. Very helpful "bubble" trusts to assist with cleaving.

could you recommend a good entry level aoe nuking set of gear?

New morrigan gear is fantastic entry lvl aoe gear i think

Posted my first brew a while back in this thread:
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/48510/escha-brew/

Done a few since then but it's been the same experience each time. Load up on Dark everything, Bolster Malaise, spam. The real issue is getting people to sky in time before the scythe is lost.

how do i get that, and how does it compare to the new ambuscade stuff?

That is the new Ambuscade gear.

It makes for a very strong nuking set, but has some fairly severe drawbacks. Using the entire set puts you at only 6% gear haste, absolutely murdering your recast timers. The defenses on the set are also extremely low, not offering any HP/MP and drastically reduced defense/eva/mdef/meva. The set is quite a good entry set to aim for, just understand the drawbacks that accompany it.

I would say it's more standard than entry level. I think it's BiS other than Amalric +1 hands/body/legs/feet. Rare augments on herculean helm/feet might also be able to slightly outperform it but good luck with that.

Shiva's Rings x2 are good for just about everything (there's an INT component for all recent AoE spells.) Pixie Hairpin +1 and Archon Ring are good for Tenebral Crush. You'll want the elemental obi and some kind of MAB waist (Yamabuko-no-Obi, Eschan Stone, Refocillation Stone). I think Novio/Hecate are good. Cornflower Cape (JSE) is also very good although an Ambuscade cape is better (and you might want to use a CP cape.)

Edit: Just saw the post about haste, I hadn't even considered that. Not sure where it stands.

minor nitpicks, but friomisi is likely easier/faster to obtain than hecates these days and a better earring and blu isn't on refoccilation stone

Thank you for the info. Going to give this method a try today.

Edit: For returning players I'd recommend salire belt for entry level nuking as yamabuki-no-obi and eschan stone aren't easily obtainable.

thought the new ambuscade was jhakri set? morrigan's looks salvage related

Not disagreeing with you, but it's a great entry-level nuking/Subduction set for people who don't have a set already.

It's also not that bad to TP on, if you can still cap haste on other gear. I use the +1 head/body/feet and cap haste with adhemar wristbands with Acc/Att auguments and herculean trousers that I managed to get QA+2 and Acc/Att on it.

"New [Shared Salvage Model] Gear" is what people tend to call the Ambuscade gear until they get more familiar with their names. We're all talking about the Jhakri set.

Same. Still managing to get 26% gear haste and the huge accuracy bonus on the HQ jhakri stuff is great if you need it.

I use the Ambuscade cape.

I hate the Monster effects and the Efflux, but I put Haste +10%, Acc+30, Att+20, and DEX+20 on mine.

For TP that is.

Isn't Jhakri set+1 the best option for nuking aside from Amalric+1 right now? Can't you bypass the low haste/high recast by using gearswap (or macros)?

I believe recast takes place during midcast.

No, you can't bypass the recast because the gear needs to be equipped when your spell actually completes the cast.

It is the best, bar HQ Amalric, for raw, singular damage, but without making up the haste, it's going to fall quite a bit behind in prolonged fights reliant on the same elemental nuke.

Last I did any testing, changing to full Jhakri +1 from my set took me from a 23 second recast on Anvil Lightning to a 33 second recast with only Flutter for haste. That's almost a 50% increase in recast for approximately, in my case, a 7% increase to damage. IF you are not relying on a select few elements for a fight, or if you're in a situation where recast is not important, Jhakri is great. However, it's going to fall very far behind very quickly in prolonged, single-element fights.

Recast reduction from FC and haste are applied when the spells actually cast (midcast).

Can just invite a COR or RUN to pt and do FC buff to compensate the weakness.

I don't think filling a slot to do that is a viable solution.

That'll help, sure, but that same FC roll will also help other nuking options. I'm not trying to say that the set is bad and nobody should ever use it. I'm just trying to point out situations in which it is far from ideal. It's a very nice set for starting out and I even use quite a few pieces in various sets (additional effect, WSs, macc). I just want people to be aware of the drawbacks. I've seen too many BLUs TPing in the full set without any other haste pieces.

If you devote an Ambuscade cape to cleaving it will probably be less of an issue as you can add 10% haste to it.

I see. Full Jhakri+1 may be a bad idea if you need one element. I currently use the HQ head and body for nuking and I haven't noticed a huge recast problem. Then again, I purposely avoided the haste-less pieces.

As far as them in WS sets where Herculean, Carmine, and/or Adhemar aren't obtained yet, they're pretty great too (Sanguine Blade, Requiescat and Savage Blade/Exipaction at least).

lol

Maybe yes, maybe no. RUN is already a tank for mage setup, so it's not like it's a complete waste of slot since it can also tank and gambit. In cleaving pt it can also pull.

The only roll that is useful for blu nuking would be wiz and warlock, and for NM that people bring nuking blu for (low tier escha NMs), warlock isn't all that needed since many people aren't using them to begin with.

Overall IMHO it's not a major lose because fat chances are people may still invite those jobs even if you nuke in NQ abj gears for more haste, and run out of rolls to use after wizard.

I think the original context of this was for cleaving, in which case you don't have a tank or anything. I've never used BLU nukes for anything other than cleaving.

Considering people cleave with full parties, the conversation still applies.