95 abby bluemage endgame! ramble on!

[mugin]

this post might ramble a little, be warned.
i'm always stuck on blu. its a great job, and powerful and versitile inside abby. Outside abby, its still ok, but inside is where it really shines.

solo darkness:
almace for this job will change it considerably. You can solo darkness, closing with benthic typhoon, or vertical cleave. benthic typhoon is about the same damage as vertical cleave, you may get a little more out of benthic if you have goblin rush equipped for the skillchain bonus. I ususually dont put gobby rush anymore tho, and vertical cleave is 3 points, not 4 like benthic.

abby blu!:
Please keep in mind though that i use my blu mostly inside abby. Also, i dont use a mule, and my LS is sort of low on healers. Most of them use their own mules, so i pretty much heal myself a lot. I can still stay alive vs hard NMs that spam aoe, but its tricky.

atmas:
because of this, my atmas choice for single target killing and NM fighting is usually :
razed runes, apoc, and minkin. Omnipotent will give you better melee and chant du cynge damage, but its easy to cap haste on blu or get 25%. Also, minkins gives you more ability to cast magic over and over.
This allows for specifically needed things at the right time:
many many more self and party cures,
the ability to switch in heavy DD magic spam spells (good for capping azure light and zerging easy mobs to low hp fast for sanguine blade ambering and perl light),
the ability to spam occulation, magic barrier, barrier tusk, saline coat, and possibly diamond hide on heavy magic using NMs that would otherwise kill you with out a good whm or a cure 6 mule having your back
ability to tank as blu/nin rotating occulation, ni, ich and phalanx, hardenshell/cocoon, cures, or whatever else you need. 11 tick refresh goes a loooong way. So do the magic defense spells, and occulation. Barrier tusk, magic barrier, cocoon and triumphant roar and saline coat is annoying to spam, but it works pretty well against hard NM to not get ~1 shot and not tp feed from low damage melee hits.

lokis:
try to get a lokis kaftan if you can! its amazing on blu. i manged to solo mine using about 4 brews, no th. lucky yea. just run into the zone and spend some brews on it if your friends wont help you, it will drop eventually, and i almost never take it off. This stacks with rancor collar (or wivre crit gorget) razed runes and my crit earring nicely.

my sword choices:
i have almace 85, and its great. Stack dex and attack for it. My offhand is the +3 khanda that is like a mini kraken club, giving 2-4 hits and has 30 damage. i like this setup, becuase it gets me to 100% tp extremely fast, and when you keep triumphant roar up it is not a total tp feeder. It is also relatively easy to get when you have a decent aoe setup, which ill explain later.
Isador is also not a bad offhand either, and i still equip it sometimes when im on stun duty on a "heavy tp move dependant mob" such as glavoid or briarus ( easy bosses regardless, but a total joke when you have a lot of fast cast and rotate temporal shift, sudden lunge, and headbutt).
I dont even melee really in these cases, i literally stare at the screen, with my stun ready to go, waiting for the animation when the boss is going to use its tp move ( those red lines that come out of it in all directions) and hit enter as fast as i can. With fast cast, this works every time until it builds resistance. (ususally it is dead long before, this happens when TH or something wont proc). Use temporal shift when its up, its the most reliable stun you got. haste gear + fast cast trait and gear + acc gear for doing this.

aoe blu! bear with me, its a tad complex
blu is versitle for offense and defense. there are other things blu can do though. speciafically, aoe.
Atmas :
the common misconception for blu aoe is the atmas people pick. Dont pick three MAB atmas, you will get lower damage.
Atma of the lion, atma of the blinding horn should always be your first 2 choices. thunder %+ will always get you a higher damage charged whisker, and thunderbolt. Stack these 2 atmas with either atma of the ultimate, or atma of the beyond, or hells gardian.
(note: Few people have hells guardian, including myself, so i will ignore it for now. If you have both ultimate + guardian, test them together, and with these other atmas and let me know what you get, please lolz)
I have hard numbers here though, and can 1 shot mobs in abby doing this method, regardless of using either beyond, or ultimate. lion + beyond + horn will cap out around 5-6k when you use debbufs on the mobs, w/o an acetics tonic. Lion + ultimate + horn will get you into the 7-8k range without debuffing the mobs. Most mobs in abby will die around 5-6k anyway, so dont worry if you dont have ultimate yet.
Charged whisker is modified best by dex gear, and magic attack bonus gear. Put magic attack bonus into the slots you can, and fill out the rest with dex gear, not int. Use jupiter's staff. blue skill wont help aoe either fyi.

aoe and pulling method:
having to completely change out your magic from single target to aoe depends if you are solo, or in a group (depends if your pulling or not). But regardless, you need certain spells set. yes, blu can be a decent puller, i do it all the time, and can still aoe for these 5-8ks after you just pulled 20 mobs too. The problem with a blu puller is having to sit there a little extra to buff yourself up before you go out and start gathering mobs. It is a slower puller, but its possible.

You need a physical damage taken %- set. nothing fancy, darksteel is ok. Twilight neck at least, cheviot cape, jelly ring + a modded dark ring, earth staff at least, gets you near to 50%-. Throw a couple eva pieces if you want into the other slots, wont matter too much, blu gets eva but its not great.
you can pull and aoe as blu/nin or blu/war or whatever else, but /rdm is pretty much the easiest. cast these spells to pull as blu/rdm:
phalanx (last longer than barrier tusk, less points)
ice spikes (paralyze is good)
diamond hide
aquaveil (this helps you get dreamflower off w/o interrupt)
regeneration
warm-up
refresh (optional)
cocoon
acenic burst
animating wail (optional)
(i think thats it for pulling, might be missing one, doing all this off the top of my head, ill edit if so, eva bonus trait might help a little if you have space)

After you have gathered up a bunch of mobs, sleep them with dream flower. set sheep song too for backup. If you are using beyond + lion + horn, set enervation, memento mori, soundblast, and whirl of rage + charged whisker, and 1 more aoe spell for backup, such as thermal pulse or water bomb if you have room in the points.
After dream flower, cast memento mori, then enervation after, then hit your MAB/dex macro, burst affinity, then charged whisker. Af+2 hands and feet go a long way for this. If the mobs are not getting 1 shot by this method and have a sliver of hp left, you can die, so here is how to get around that:
cast soundblast before you cast memnto mori. might take care of it right there.
make a macro that equips your sword, then whirl of rages. hit chain affinity and efflux right before you hit burst affinity, use charged whisker, then hit that macro afterwards. be quick tho, enervation wears off fast.
if unbridled learning is up and you have thunderbolt, just cast that after sleep. cast charged whisker immediately afterwards while the mobs are stunned, and you can get the spell of before they hit you pretty much. This will kill them and is uber lazy/easy.
If you have ultimate + lion + blinding horn, just fire away really after they are slept, buffs/debuff doesnt matter much in that case. maybe toss yourself a memento mori.

If you forgot to hit chain affinity and they have a sliver of hp left, dont panic. make a macro that has all of your pulling gear, and hit that button after charged whisker. I myself use a macro that equips my sword, then does chain affinity, then efflux. I then have a seperate macro for whirl of rage. This way, if i forgot to hit chain affinity and they didnt get 1 shot, you can switch to pulling gear, then hit the chain affinity macro and spam the whirl of range macro, and you will survive even if they all hit you. This is another reason why i like aquaveil and diamondhide. but whirl of rage will almost never get interrupted regardless. acenic burst helps here too, and you can always sleep them again. its still better to just 1 shot them with 2 debuffs and memento.

If you are /nin or something, try to use barrier tusk and plazma charge. acenic burst + charge gives refresh, and even though they dont last long, they still help for pulling. /war, use defender. When soloing, watch your mp too... no minkins is risky if you get over confident in your pulls. If you can 1 shot with whisker, you dont need minkins. put minkins in place of beyond though if you need it, not in the place of lion or horn.

Single target smacking spells:
When you get almace, you will want to melee much more. I like to put fantod + sudden lunge for store tp, dual weild 2 + triple or double attack if i can afford the points, magic fruit, regeneration is handy if you are not getting cured, occulation (best spell ever), vertical cleave for darkness sc, triumphant roar, acenic burst + winds of promy;
adapt to what your fighting, inserting the magic defense and other spells i listed before if you need to. Put magic barrier over saline coat if you have to choose, its better and last a lot longer. They do stack though and thats good to stack against certain mobs.
Using just the double attack or triple attack trait and dual weild 1 or 2 gives some nice DD spells, defense down from acrid stream, attack down from demoralizing roar as well as a good stun from your store tp trait. the mantis eye from kagan will help your heavy strike land much more. acenic burst is a good zomg save me spell, paired with occulation. I like to /nin, that way i free up some points from dual weild ( and will get a better daul weild) and i get ni, b/c i end up backup tanking almost every night. i do like /rdm tho as well for heavy aoe nights. /war is ok, and if you did the haloween event you can proc polearm and other stuff, and stack double and triple attack. But i was dieing a lot as /war lol. thats just me tho. And we have a fulltime war in the linkshell.

/thf was a good choice at the 90 cap, not so much anymore. its worth mentioning rq.
I would sneak attack then hit vanity dive for good 1 shots on normal mobs, and i would do a sneak attack > benthic typhoon darkness skill chain on NMs that could reach around 15-18k all together. This skilchain however is very hard to pull off without getting interrupted, and at 95 blu/thf is not as useful as blu/nin, imo. Flee was nice for pulling tho. lol


pretty much just rambling at this point:
I like to start off NM fights with 300 tp ws, so that i keep a long aftermath up. When i hit 100% after that is when ill pop a darkness SC. I say soemthing like "sc now" in the log for blms. Keep spamming CDC ws and occulation when your shadows go down. When you get hate, hit unbridled learning and pop your harden shell. Depending on the mob, you might have to do the defensive roation i stated earlier, but with occulation and ni, its usually enough to get by on a lot of NMs even when you pull a lot of hate. Just keep triumphant roar up, and occulation. barrier tusk is only really necessary to spam if you need it. otherwise, its too annoying to spam b/c it only lasts 1 minute with a long cast time and will hurt your damage output.

my gear to tp:
lokis kaftan
dusk +1 hands and feet +1
bluemage +2 legs, +2 head
almace, khanda +3
mantis eye
aethling mantle
brutal ear
light earring ( crit +1)
tiercel necklace or wivre gorget (+2 crit) i tp with tiercel usually for haste
twilight belt
eponas ring
rajas ring

most of the gear your wear works well with chante du cynge regardless of swaping. I do not swap hands and feet if im tanking, only neck and belt. I do swap in dex hands and feet and belt and crit neck if not.

Switching to physical defense gear when tanking when shadows are down is something i do not do really. Its there though, and it can make a little bit of a difference i guess. you wont last long w/o shadows regardless against hard NM.

Voidwatch :
pretty self explanitory. Set all your proc spells, and sit in the back casting them. zomg so fun. drop the body i want! wait, it never does ><
Dont even try to damage imo. better to have as much set as you can, then switch in something if you need an HQ. save your wing pops imo for some ws procs, its better than a CDC here and there. TOTALLY my opinion tho lol. Im not the biggest fan of voidwatch and dont do it every day. I just show up and proc at voidwatch if im on blu.

The problem with blu in general is the switching spells. This can be made a little easier if you go to the spell menu before you hit "set spells", and then hit the manual button. organize your spells in this spell list, and they will orgainze the same way when you hit "set spells". I put all my abyessea proc spells in a row in the order of the days of the week, and other spells next to eachother if they make a trait (like sudden lunge + fantod are next to eachother, etc) This makes it much faster when switching in a few things, or overhauling to go aoe, and helps you remeber what spells make which traits..
Maybe put all your pulling spells in a row, all your aoe in a row, and all your single target prefered spells set in a row. Anything to get you switching magic in and out faster, so you have less downtime during that 1 minute period + the time it took you to set. MUCH less annoying too than trying to cherry pick between spells you never use. ( like 1000 needles! best spell ever!)

Outside abby, spam delta thrust and heavy strike for your dd spells. lol. The job changes so much outside abby, people will expect too much of you more often than not. Remind them that you dont have minkins + occulation + cure spam + infinite RR (something other jobs can get outside abby with twilight set). Rely on triumphant roar and utsusumi + sudden lunge + acenic burst, and other low mp spells to get you by (like regeneration).
IMO, Almost always have sheep song set in your list, regardless of inside or outside abby. Not having it set then neededing a sleep can be death if you have to wait the 1 minute. It is only 2 points, and can save your life and your whole party too. If you dont have it set and 50 mobs start to attack you becuase you were running while setting magic in a rush and forgot sneak ( this will happen to you at least once) hit unbridled learning, and then thunderbolt and run away. unbridled learning still works if you recently set your spells. This lets you run to a flux, or gives you a small chance to kite around dynamis or wherever else to a safe spot to die, or until the minute is up to sleep if you can. Blu is a situational job though, so if your in a safe spot popping the same NM over and over, yes, sheepsong is a waste. just dont forget to reset it when you start doing other stuff.

let your linkshell leader know that you have to set magic and atmas and stuff if he does not play blu. The better you get at the job, the faster people will expect you to set magic and atmas and be able to switch from single target damage to a pure aoe setup on a dime.

i think thats pretty much it. This is just how i play, not saying its how to play blu. I have been on this job a lot this year, and this is pretty much what i repeat doing now. It:
keeps me alive during hard NM fights, and does decent single target damage (good damage in ffxi is relative lol, some of these people are insane);
i can pull large groups of mobs, sleep then 1 shot aoe them,
be backup cure spam healer;
spam 3 shadow sets as an off tank,
cap amber pearl and azure lights fast (azure light faster than pretty much any other job),
proc 2 sets of yellow (blu/nin),
doesnt drive me nuts switching atmas and searching for magic all night
and am able to survive effectivly w/o the use of a fulltime cure 6 mule. ( i kinda want one tho, lol... got the jiin name stored and ready to go!)

might edit later, but thats too much information as it is. thanks for reading!

ftw

[Gabai]

lol

[Nightfyre]

[Neisan]

What in the fuck did I just read

[Selamis]

http://files.sharenator.com/wtf_is_t...109368-580.jpg

[Kensagaku]

I stopped reading when I saw you fulltime a Loki's Kaftan in your TP build. And I only read because Constitutional Law is boring, or else I'd simply agree with the above answers. And as a BLU95 myself, I'm vaguely insulted.

And... I've got nothing else. I just wanted to say and again.

[Vriska]

Spoiler: show

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...49/01652_2.gif

Also, who is Abby? >:/

[Kipling]

Mr. Mugin, what you've just typed is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent post were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this thread is now dumber for having read it. I award you no internets, and may God have mercy on your soul.

http://collider.com/wp-content/uploa...e_image_01.jpg

[The Blackrose]

Sorry fellas. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

[isladar]

I moved this back to Advanced from the graveyard to make sure this is seen by more people. This fucking jackass.