The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

If the new spells are potent enough, would diffusion 5/5 be any good? Old content doesn't really need Enchainment merits anymore and I'm often asked to BLU in Delve :P

I've had Diffusion 5/5 for quite a while now. Being able to occasionally erase slowga and apply your own hastega for your party more than makes up for losing Enchainment. Harden Shell is nifty too

1/5 diffusion and 5/5 diffusion have the same cooldown thou since that merit revamp, it just effects buff duration. If your melee got hit by AoE slow in the first place, they're probably going to get hit by it again inside of 5 minutes, before the increased duration would matter. And if they don't, whatever you're fighting is likely to be dead by than anyway.

My first thought was diffusion could be awesome with verve (if verve itself is decent), but the only melee likely to benefit from the attack bonus are requiescat users anyway(and mythic drg maybe?), so idk.

I like the AoE Terror and AoE Dispel UL spells. Most may be thinking that we have similar spells already but I think the point of the news ones are pretty obvious. If you haven't set Dream Flower or Whirl of Rage or some kind of crowd control spells(you're in full DD spell selection mode) then having an OHSH*T button UL spell that's AoE Terror will save you. Additionally, how many of us have been lowmanning or soloing something and we forgot to set Geist Wall or Blank Gaze? At least now we'll have a 5min dispel UL spell to take care of that.

I'm all for them adding UL spells with utility since unlike other mages we can't use all of our spells at the same time. Hopefully in the future they'll add a White Wind-esque spell to UL for those ohsh*t moments when you need to heal your party.(White Wind is such a fantastically efficient spell, I REALLY wish they made it UL. With the proper HP set, it can heal well over 900+).

So Diffusion Harden Shell? The point is that augmenting Chain Affinity is substantially less useful at the moment

Everyone needs a little help with their cannonball builds... right?

I like the new WKR sword lvl 116 :)

how u get it ??

Morimar WKR

damm more achuwka then :p

Guessing Thurandaut+1 hats replaces the NQ obviously, and that Assimilator's set gonna have a few macros swaps too ;)

Xiutleato sword fron Morimar WKR

DMG:116 Delay:240 STR+12 VIT+12 Element: Fire+20 Sword skill +188 Parrying skill +188 Magic Accuracy skill +146 Physical damage taken -4%

Beats Skirmish+1 perfect augment sword I assume?

too busy testing spell parameters to have looked thoroughly at gear yet, will get around to it

What the hell at 6 spell points for Nature's Meditation. <_<

Edit: Just got 2 more and 6 spell points also. Are they all that expensive to set? :x

Double Edit! Nevermind, just saw the other thread. Well that sucks. :3

Updated abilities, spells, traits, skillchains, weapons, and gearsets. Removed a lot of superfluous swords from the list as they are no longer to be considered. Gearsets aren't 100% tuned, but whatever.

2 questions:

Is it worth using the Mavi head and legs with their respective JAs now or is the stat drop from not being ilvl100+ too big?

Also since I don't have the new AF body yet, should I use the AF+1 or Iuitl body for my blue spells (those are my only options atm)?

Wow faster then i thought. Thanks a lot!

Camraderie Blade looks like a 40-45% OAT in Lair/Colonization/WKR. Probably not that good but kinda cool looking/neat toy.

Would I be correct in assuming Quiahuiz leggings are a better TP option than Iuitl if I'm not bothering with DA augments?

Can't really analyze in depth right now. You have a bit more STR and the extra attack on Quiahuiz, however you gain Store TP and a bit better defensive ability (if you at least use an NQ stone and get 1~2PDT) with Iuitl. Comes down to the potency of the DA damage increase really, Store TP is a stronger boost to 1h weapons than most people give credit. If it's a 5% bonus to DA damage like the Head (supposedly) is, then it should be worth it, albeit just barely (fraction of a percent at best).

If you're strapped for inventory, DAdmg pants are probably your best bet. They're useful for more things than Iuitl, which are basically just for TP, the PDT benefits can be substituted for minimal loss.

p.s. with the ideal tp set, you can wear cetl belt instead of twilight if you have Ionis benefits. adding a note.

I always wondered, is it worth it to just use your physical set for pretty much every physical spell? (Same set for Amorphic and Quadratic) and then use a different set for Heavy Strike? I kind of switch gear around a bit for Amorphic since it has different mods. Also new bee pants kind of look competitive for TP. Has similar stats to Iutil Pants, no STP but also has some acc/att. Seems like a solid balanced piece to me between Iuitl Quaihuiz and Manibozho.

Usually you'll be carrying other pieces of gear that better suit certain spells. The set in the OP is a baseline set suited as an average, all around good spell set. It's up to the reader's discretion whether they keep the gloves with 5str 11dex for Delta Thrust or switch to the gloves with 4str 13vit that they're carrying anyway. I wouldn't go out of my way to carry extra gear, though.

I don't have the patience, nor do I think it would look good from a formatting standpoint, to have a separate listed set for every spell.

Those pants could potentially allow you to wear Cetl Belt over Twilight even without Ionis. Should put you at 25% "visible" haste.

Thanks. The Store TP is why the choice wasn't clear cut to me; I didn't want to write it off prematurely. I'll stick with Iuitl since it's more of a known entity right now. I'm expecting the next delve tier may replace both anyway, so I'm hesitant to toss a lot of gil at an augment lottery for DA.

Out of curiosity, does the Cetl recommendation mean we are now getting an actual 25% in gear haste (eliminating the need to get a visible 26% to reach the actual cap)? I read newer gear isn't shortchanging us on haste values as before (unsure if this is true because I haven't seen it mentioned much) and that Ionis is slightly more than 1% gear haste which would at least partially make up for a potential shortfall in armor.

If Cetl + Ionis isn't quite giving 256/1024 haste, is the difference just too small to even matter (or only matters in high buff situations)? I realize I might be asking another question without a clear (or meaningful in the real world) answer, but knowing the theoretical best option is fun.

Gives more than 1% now with the Bay Roof, so it'll cap you out completely.

Unless there's a translation error somewhere, I think BG wiki is wrong about that and it's actually "Moderate Critical Hit Rate" instead of Haste. From here to about 5 posts down.

How unfortunate. Should still be worth it, but the difference really isn't worth the inventory space.

Does Requiescat really beat CDC on Delve bosses? I mean I know Req wins when ATK is capped but as BLU/WAR with sushi and SV and Rolls and Angon and Dia I doubt our ATK is still capped. Meat is a bad idea because even with the Max TP set, accuracy is not that good(the Iuitl pieces have almost no acc compared to Manibozo which has tons of ACC even on Path A. Even if I eat meat with berserk and meditation buffed to the teeth, will I really be at capped pdif on delve bosses to warrant using it over CDC?