The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

Somewhat of a newbie here with respect to the DPS spreadsheets.

1) One thing that befuddled me was "resetting" the spreadsheet so that both sets look alike. For the life of me I tried to compare some sets and could not even get the same gear/same spell to produce comparable numbers (i.e. Set 2 = Set 1 + some reasonable margin of error). Basically I tried setting the TP and WS gear to be the same, and also set the WS themselves to be CDC for both. I could not get the numbers to look similar.

2) Is there an easy way to set Set 2 to be equal to Set 1 so that one can then modify Set 2 to see how the numbers change upon modifications?

Nevermind I figured it out; there were custom values in the Gear page that were different and I had assumed these were merely copied/pulled from the Custom Augs page (they are not, you manually modify them).

Hi all,

Love this thread. It's made me a better BLU. Question for you experts out there -- I've read about being able to self-skillchain without using CA, i.e. Requiescat -> CDC = Darkness.

What kind of stats do I need to accomplish that? I'm stacked with as much haste, DW, and DA+TA as I can. Probably over stacked and need to do some tweaking. I'm only @700JP so I don't have JTB2 yet. Is the window for skillchaining really generous or do I just need to pray that DA, TA, QA procs enough after my first WS? I'd like to be able to do this consistently. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

The window for skillchains is 3-10 sec. You will always need some multihits to proc in order to get tp fast enough, but that shouldn't be an issue. Blu get's so much multihit from gear and traits you can practically say we "occasionally attack once."
Make sure your gear and magic haste are capped. Set STP trait as high as you can, and stack as much of it as possible on gear. Do the same with multihit. And don't overdo it on DW. Every bit of DW you set reduces your TP/hit. If your delay reduction is capped and you set more DW, you'll get no benefits and just less TP. When magic and gear haste are capped and you have DW3 trait set, you need 11 from gear. Hitting 11 needs some very specific gear, so 10 or 12 is fine.
That's pretty much it. If you're having trouble with your current gear, it will get much easier once you get JTB2.

Adding to the above, the longer the skillchain steps, the shorter the window becomes.

I'm trying to make a serious go at a blu tanking build.

I was wondering what spells would be good for building hate.

I have Fantod and Jettatura

Wondering if there are any other suggestions out there?

Exuviation can be a good enmity spell and helps with status effects simultaneously.

Actinic Burst is only ~15% weaker than Flash for Volatile Enmity but is AoE, making it an incredibly good tool for large pulls. Retinal Glare is also a fantastic option, but with a fan AOE rather than circular.

As far as I know, Retinal Glare enmity is just based on the damage it does, so you're mostly just getting some benefit from the additional effect: Flash.

Alright, that was my misunderstanding, then. Thanks for the clarification.

I need my hand held through some math.

I have been running my CDC set based on the BLU spreadsheet for over six months thinking I had the best setup equipped. However, last week I went with a BLU for Escha clears and he was doing nearly 25%-40% more WS damage ON AVERAGE than me. I was blown away by this so I asked him to show me his set. Nothing crazy just lots of CR/CD pieces. So, I looked at my gearswap and sure enough I was using Herculean DEX/TA gear suggested by the spreadsheet. I ran the numbers again even with max Taeon Cr/Cd specs and my current Herc gear still won out by a large margin. However, it wasn't translating in game. Not even close. The other BLU was hitting 25-28k CDC while I was between 14-17K.

So, I switched to my CR/CD Taeon that my RDM uses and sure enough I shot up to his numbers in the high 20k's. What am I missing with the spreadsheet (I literally base every equipment slot on the spreadsheet WS section because I have heard it is so reliable.)? I looked through the data section and it seems to be calculating crit rate but I cannot tell for sure if the spreadsheet weighs/calculates rate the way the game does as that's the only thing that stands out. I know it's equating for crit damage.

The only major difference in our sets is that he subs Sequence and I sub a max DEX, CR2 Colada which I have used assuming that would weight more heavily during WSs than my Sequence. Please Help!

Ta is not a good herc aug for cdc.

You need reallllyyy good dex+critD augs in herc to even make it competitive with nq adhemar hands or samnuha legs. Herc body yuo need almost a perfect augment to compete with abnoba

Which I am learning, now. But you say TA isn't a good aug yet are stating adhemar hands and samnuha legs are good. Is it for the DEX? Is the spreadsheet reliable for CDC? (It seems not.) It says my Herc gear is better than my Taeon but, again, wasn't the case in real world situations.

It even says my Herc TA beats out Thereoid and that's better than the Taeon feet. There is a .00001% difference between the two and the Herc has more DEX so I assume that's why it's weighing more in the spreadsheet than in game as the Herc has more DEX than the Taeon. Something's off or I'm not understanding something.

I'm not sure if you mixed up settings or missed pieces in general, but Crit damage Herculean has always been shown to be the best for CDC. The front page of this thread suggests DEX/crit damage Herculean, and has for a couple years, now. TA is obviously great for TP phase, but CdC shines with crit damage augments.

Oh, I completely understand that. That's not my concern as I know that would triumph. My concern is the BLU spreadsheet linked has been telling me my TP pieces are better than my Taeon pieces for CDC. However, in game that is not true. I'm wondering if the sheet is reliable in this regard (I've been using it since I returned in 2016.).

Vorseals may also be a contributing factor to consider along with gear, buffs, ect.

I caught up in damage when I switched to the Taeon so I am assuming our Vorseals are near equal.

I mean it makes sense obviously that the CR/CD gear would be better. It's what I used before calculating in the spreadsheet. However, I heard spreadsheet WS damage is very reliable so I switched to what it told me was better. Which, when I plugged in my TA gear in WS section, told me my Herc TA would outperform my CR/CD Taeon. Nope.

This could be true. One must also consider the main weapons. Also, what foods you were eating and the exact augments on your colada. Escha can present variables if you both aren’t holding the same Vorseals. Did he use temps? Were you fighting a higher Eva mob like Neak? Needs more information.

NOW I will say that I too have been using the spreadsheets for years and they haven’t steered me wrong so long as I took caution with reading the results. However the BLU sheet’s core formulas are probably hidden; do you have the most updated one?

one day i’ll get around to a blue sim

1. Both Main Almace
2. Both Sublime Sushi
3. D9, DEX15, ATK19, CR2
4. None
5. All Zitah mobs and All T1-3 RuAun
6. V3.1. I have made MANY custom edits and have had trouble in the past moving info worksheets to different documents. So have stayed with the version I have.

Thanks for responses, by the way.

For T3 and lower, I have found that (at least for my gearset and vorseals) adding in Atk Bonus traits give me better overall DPS as well as better CDC's. The "ultimate" DD spellsets on page one and the one listed on the "Out of the BLU" guide on BG Wiki are overkill on STP and arguably on Acc if you have a support job such as BRD, GEO, or COR in your party.

Have you considered tweaking your spell set to make use of Battle Dance + Uppercut and Embalming Earth?

You're subbing WAR anyways, so that's 10 there. Losing 5 STP for 25 attack is generally a pretty bad trade. If you have those support jobs, you should be overflowing with attack buffs, anyways.

EDIT: With SAM roll the 5 STP becomes less important, but STP is just always important.

It's very hard to tell because there are more than 1 factors that affects ws avg on parse:

1) Luck: CDC isn't very consistent. So you won't see real ws avg until you ws maybe like 100+ times. It is entirely possible that your 20k is just luck.

2) TP overflow: Did you always ws at exactly the same TP? It may be possible that you somehow Ws at higher TP for one of the set, which pushes your ws avg higher.

3) It is fact that spreadsheet may have glitch. What is your setup for both sets? Maybe I can check it on my end.

Dex is huge on a 80% mod ws, ppl tend to overlook and focus on crit.

The other blu doing more dmg, are you using the right blu spells? stuff like sinker drill = 11% crit d.

Unless you have enough STP to reduce your total number of attack rounds by 1 or more in between weapon skills, I do not see how 5 STP would make much of a difference.

Wouldn't the attack stack onto each hit, in particular multi-hits? So not only do you get more attack for each hit, but CDC (being multi-hit) would also gain the benefits that should add up to a larger margin over time.

I am still fairly new to this so any education on this for me would be greatly appreciated. When I have time to test this further on parses, I will share what I find.

Being multi-hit does not intrinsically make attack better for a particular WS.

That said, Tail Slap/Sickle Slash are the least efficient spells on the max DPS list and I don't set that last STP level very frequently in favor of either utility or another accuracy tier. If I wasn't too lazy to modify my lua to support it, I would actually consider using another DW level instead in the situations that allow for STP V.

1. Yeah, his WSs were constantly 25-45%~ more than mine then when I switched gearsets I jumped to his numbers.

2. I always hit as soon as I saw 1000TP (some overflow of course) to make sure I was being consistent. But, again, when I changed gear to Taeon I saw his numbers and we were competitive.

3. I'll PM you my sets so I don't clog up the thread.

Thanks, Afania.


I'm assuming spreadsheet liked my Herc more because of the DEX but in game it liked my CR/CD taeon better, as I shot up to his numbers once I switched.

So, this is my everyday utility set (used during our Zitah/RuAun clears that day) that I researched right when I came back to the game in 2016 and just kinda stopped researching so there could be things I'm missing but 25-40% damage increase seems like something I would logically realize I was missing in my spell sets. But again, haven't looked at it in a year probably so be easy lol:

2100JP, nat med, thrashing, sudden, cocoon, magic hammer, fantid, heavy strike, empty thrash, tail slap, sinker drill, dreamflower, battery charge, magic fruit, erratic, subd, occult, sickle, barb, tenecrush, delta

Even before I hit 1200 JP I was able to self-skillchain when soloing with trusts using BLU/WAR. Your spellset should focus on two sets of double attack (which turns into triple attack), accuracy, and STP (in that order of priority IMO). Your WAR sub will also give you a separate double attack trait.

Gearwise, I tend to focus on acc and multi-hit for TP.

In a zerg situation (which is mostly why you would want BLU anyway), you should be able to comfortably swap out cocoon, magic hammer, battery charge, magic fruit for spells that add to your damage output. A competent tank should negate the need for cocoon (although it is very cheap and you may very have 1 point left over for it). Likewise for magic fruit (tank should be holding hate, and healer should be healing if occultation doesn't proc). You also do not need refresh Escha since you start with full MP (buff before you pop) and most fights do not last all that long. There are also MP temp items, too.

EDIT: Glutinous Dart and Whirl of Rage, even though they don't add any traits, will give you a decent additional DEX to give you slightly better CDCs.

There's a lot of variables there (do you still have an X-hit build with SAM roll? What happens to your x-hit build when you DA,TA,QA? etc.), but the real question is does the possible TP overflow and resulting crit rate increase equate to as much damage as 25 attack?

If you're under buffed, maybe it will. maybe it won't. That would vary based on what you're fighting and your gear.

But there's one constant. WHen you're buffed to attack cap, it is what it is. More attack won't help. More crits and / or more weapon skills will.

STP isn't always about hitting that exact threshold to reduce your rounds/WS. That is the ideal result, but extra STP leads to TP overflow, which helps with overall WS damage. CdC does not benefit as much from the overflow as Savage/Expiacion, both of which get straight bonus damage from higher TP values. However, bonus TP on CdC boosts crit rate, and seeing as how the WS gives best results when it crits, the excess TP still benefits you.

My biggest reasoning behind suggesting the 5 STP over the 25 attack is that STP will always benefit you (if using WSs that improve with TP overflow) whereas the attack does nothing for you when you hit capped ratio. There's only one STP buff in the entire game and a gorillion attack buffs, so STP is more highly valued.

All that being said, Kyte makes a very good point. 8 set points for 5 STP is a heavy investment. I set it frequently, but I don't set Anvil Lightning with the extra accuracy tier in favor of utility spells like White Wind or Winds of Promy and Barrier Tusk. If you find yourself in a situation where you need more utility, Tail Slap and Sickle Slash are good candidates to drop. It's not because the STP is bad, but rather that the point investment is higher than other DPS boosts. I've also been considering Kyte's idea of going up a DW tier. I need to check it out, but with appropriate gear, it should be a damage gain.