The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

you also lose 3% triple attack..

Forgot about set bonus XD.

With being 28/50 skins, I'm making my CdC set. I would like improvement suggestions from VW and AH, if possible. Nobody wants me for Neo Nyzul (for shame), so those gears aren't accessible at the moment.

My current CdC set:


STR sword, Attack/TP Bonus +25 Moonshade.

Probably worth nothing that I would like to use items that have more than just CdC purpose. I'm aware of needing Ocelomeh Hat +1 and Toci's Harness. Any other suggestions would be neat. Thanks!

Toci > Athos Body > Loki

Myrmex > Athos (on downday) > Thaumaus (?>) Kacura +1 >Mirage +2

Thaumaus Pants > Athos legs > Tumbler's

Thaumaus feet > Athos feet

Oce+1 > Oce > Aias bonnet


your big improvement is when you get your toci's to complement your dot and CDC and also athos legs are a pretty nice upgrade. You're pretty much on the right track, however I do carry anguinus and mantis eye for ws just in case I do need it (I dont have ig-alima's atmacite though) on prov watcher, maddening radiance or something like Ig-Alima.


Nishida: Get frightful roar because Bilgestorm wont last forever. P. Embrace for Main Healing if you're actually needed or that or a backup cure behind fruit if you're soloing in abbsyea maybe.

B. Typhoon and Vanity dive are your current /thf spells if you do that you dont have to get vertical cleave if you're completely leeching 99.

Get Mind Blast (potent paralyze) and the Walrus move(makes fast cast and also a good paralyze)

Going to guess you're going to steer clear of proc'ing blu in VW and abbsyea since you dont have those.

In VW and in fast killing groups(normally) I set dex stat spells in place of where my proc spells would be. Frypan Headbutt Goblin Rush Battle Dance Whirl of Rage then remove them for EV or an HQ proc (sometimes, killspeed can be too fast to warrant even that)


Triumphant Roar when you dont have stalwarts tonic in any event you're doing


Lastly Pollen for skillups!



Can you use whirlwind durs over +2 pants for Heavy strike?

Gimp more or less nailed it.

And can you use the Duuuuuuuuuurs over Tayt +2? Sure, sure, you could. Should you? Absolutely not.

This is my current CDC set, slowly working on a STR sword. NNI gear is a little out of reach at the moment but its in the pipeline.
Moonshad is TP bonus Attack+4
Am I doing it right?

Edit: Also a quick question, Athos's tights or AF3+2 for TP?

Fixed. Same deal as Mavi +2 vs Tumbler basically, the STR on Thaumas generally goes to waste in higher end sets and you're left with DEX+5 critdmg+4% and potentially some critrate vs some 18-19 attack + set bonus considerations. This can result in Thaumas sidegrading to Tumbler depending on how much of the set you're using. May be debateable pre-Toci's since you lose a large amount of STR in the body slot, but irrelevant for this particular case anyway since he said NNI gear is out of the question for now.

no

oh? That's pretty interesting, good to know tyvm


edit: Cat athos tights > emp +2

Edited most of the sets in the Equipment section with new pieces of gear. Should cover most or all of it.

Wouldn't Mavi+2 body be better for Fast Cast? Assuming the spell is blue magic anyway.

General purpose fast cast set rather than one centered around blue magic. Obviously yes, mavi mintan would be better for blue magic.

Blah blah haven't checked myself blah (time to update my sets for hexed augments...), but did you run augmented Khepri Wristbands (MAB+6) vs Mavi Bazubands +2 for Sanguine Blade? I'd consider keeping Bazubands in the nuking set due to recast reduction but Sanguine doesn't have that concern.

If you haven't I'll do it myself in a minute here.

Khepri are superior by a smallish margin (~1-3%)

tbh I don't think I'd bother wasting resources on augmenting them seeing as how the head and legs are so much more worth the time and how relatively rare the pages are.

Edited: Here's my CDC set. I am mostly concerned about CDC damage in Abyssea, Dynamis, outside content, and (eventually) Neo-Nyzul. I am wondering about immediate upgrades from AH so:

Cuchulain's vs. Pipilaka?
Tumbler Trunks vs. Tayt+2?
Suppa vs. (um) everything on AH?

Pretty sure Wanion > Cuchulain's > Pipilaka.

I just had a discussion on Tumbler vs Tayt +2. Tumbler wins if your base + gear STR is around the 100-110 area from what I gather (someone please correct me if I am wrong because if I am I need to adjust my set).

Never considered keeping Suppa on for CDC (switching to Thunder Earring now b/c of no Moonshade)...curious to know which is superior.

Kacura Leggings +1 > Athos if the Athos feet are the only piece in your set.

earrings besides suppah are marginal upgrades the only thing that stands out as far as a big improvement is tp bonus moonshade attack 4.


been told suppah is nearly equal to a dex +3 earring and it has some acc so it helps if you're whiffing but if moonshade isn't being used for tp bonus then the last upgrades I can see are ghille +1 or dex +4 earring. When it comes down to damage 5 attack vs 3 Dex is very small I'd go with the dex since your accuracy should be fine in most situations.

Tumbler is great because of how attack starved blu is going to be normally(curse of 1hander) and how often you aren't going to be placed in the minuet/chaos in a pt. Tayt +2 work before then because you may have it done first (or both now i guess because trunks are cheaper than it was a year ago or so when scars was the ***).

cuchu is better than pipilika

I believe Ghillie Earring (+1) would be better than a Dex+2 earring? Don't quote me. <_<

Guy above me answered the stuff and I somehow didn't even see it :p

Also forgot to thank people for the advice on my CdC set. Thanks!

Yea xD

I'm going to go with Ghillie +1/Brutal until I get Moonshade based on Gimp's explanation.

Depends on fSTR, so target VIT is also a factor. 100-110 is pretty low, doubt there's anything above very low EPs that would have a low enough VIT for you to be capped there.

Lightsday too.

Orly? Then I may have to re-look at my exact stats.

Target STR for stuff in NNI? Closer to 130-140?

Ok so I am looking at my sets/stats and here is where I sit...


Set #1 - Tumbler over Mavi Tayt +2



Stats after set spells (using all out DD set from Proth's post)

STR = (base)85 + 28 = 113
DEX = (base) 83 + 80 = 163
Attack + 78

----------------------------------------------

Set # 2 is the same just swap out Tumbler for Mavi Tayt +2

STR = (base)85 + 36 = 121
DEX = (base) 83 + 83 = 166
Attack + 60



So do I stick with tumbler or go with Mavi Tayt +2 until I get Toci's?

Let's assume this is for low-moderate mobs such as EP-DC mobs in Dynamis and most monsters in Nyzul.

Toci's or Magus for Heavy Strike? Was screwing around on TW level 20ish mobs and seemed like Toci's/Athos Hat>Magus Jubbah/Mirage+2 head. Average with the first was like 1623ish and average with the latter was around 1540. I'm guessing STR>Skill tiers for Heavy Strike due to its massive STR mod?

I am back again with a question about Athos set.

I got gloves yesterday but saw that kacura +1 gloves are better for CdC.

Howeverrrr, would the kacura mittens+1/kacura leggings+1 combo for CdC be better than athos hands, legs/body, and feet together? I was thinking no cuz it looks like you need three pieces of athos to beat the kacura +1 combo.

For athos gloves swapping in on certain days how would you write that for xml?

Not sure if I should keep the tiers for Heavy Strike or go with STR. It seems like STR is outperforming skill on low level mobs and in abyssea but for harder content, the blue attack could be more useful. On TW's Toci/Heafoc/Potentia was netting me about 100ish more damage than with magus/khepri/zaffre. Also how's Strendu for Sanguine Blade? Trying to get more inventory by using Strendu as the 2nd ring for Sanguine(Icesoul+Strendu vs Icesoulx2) and CW with BA&Atmas (Thundersoul+Rajas vs Thundersoul+Strendu).

been thinking about it, it'd be so easy for them to fix blue magic to actually be useful on higher level targets. Pisses me off that they won't.

(Blue Magic Skill + 8 + STR/2) * 2

Semi-fixed, but won't happen.

Blue Magic Skill + 8 + STR plus ignore 25% ~ 50% of level correction

Fixed. Definitely won't happen.



Come on SE, I'm waiting.

I'm a bit in the dark on level correction, but it's a reduction of pdif based by the level difference?

essentially. it's a reduction to ratio, def vs attack, which correlates directly to a reduction of pDIF.

it'd be a very sizable boost to effective attack... tbh I'd be very happy with even a 1.75 multiplier on blue magic attack. silly example:

475 + 8 + 140/2 = 553

553 * 1.75 = 967

967 * 1.25 = 1208 attack

967 * 1.66 = 1605 attack

Tons of recent blue magic spells having a 25% or higher attack bonus, Vanity Dive having a projected 66% attack bonus and being the assumed high, I never finished testing. It's basically BLU Yukikaze. Would make Blue Magic relatively useful on higher level targets, and when supplemented with sword damage would be pretty sexy. Wouldn't be terribly abusive either.

While ignoring part of level correction and getting an attack boost of some kind (even just making STR = attack like I said above) would be infinitely superior, I'm taking into account sword damage as well. Swords + magic would become a powerful combo and potentially would pretty seriously elevate BLU's standing in the DD heirarchy to be closer to upper tier DDs such as DRK and WAR, but still not matching them.

Yeah it would rock, It's sad seeing spells do such inferior damage during VW :x

I have to ask though, besides food and gear- would minuet work towards blu physical spells?