Blue Mage: Best thread ever

[Vriska]

You mean brawny adargas, or a full pdt set to tp in? If you mean just the weps..I use those and pull 1k+ shijin spirals on kaggen, etc and am only 3/5 shijin. Granted thats not on par with Vere, but it's still better than some 1H jobs.

PDT Magians, not part of a set. (I'm not sure if that would be better or worse...) Also 1k is nothing to shout about, if I CDC below 1k it means I missed like two hits.

Also, we're talking 5min+ Pils where at least 3 people died every fight. Such was the quality of the DDs. Another WAR had that Accuracy- Gaxe and nearly full +1. zomg.

Re: Fake, I don't think it's any problem with BLU per se, it's more a problem with 1h weapons. :/

[Fereydoon]

For sure, I had to restrain myself from a screaming fit in a VW party where a PDT- H2H MNK and Widowmaker WAR with Perle hands and feet (and a suppa!) were in the party with the COR and I was stuck with mages.

As much as I hate doing this, BLUs are usually so terrible it hurts, TPing in Bazubands (No, not even Mavi, I'm talkin Magus.) and Basmak with awful swords. Even PDT MNK and Double Axe WAR outparses them with those buffs. If I know they're a good BLU, or I'm going BLU, they get buffs, otherwise they can play tickle me mage in the corner.

[Fake]

Re: Fake, I don't think it's any problem with BLU per se, it's more a problem with 1h weapons. :/

There is a problem with blu though, the same as there is with bst and pup. Blue magic and pets don't receive the massive attack/accuracy boosts that melee weapons do during high buff content (legion etc) so they become pretty much useless. The difference between 1h and 2h weapons in these situations is far less sigficant than that.

[Prothescar]

The brunt of it is not really an issue with magic tbh. We can make use of utility spells rather than damage spells (as much as I'd love to be able to use my physical spells on high level content), it's the fact that 1h weapons are at such a severe disadvantage compared to 2h, it is a massive difference overall and is the only reason that strong 1h jobs like DNC and BLU aren't applicable to higher end content. If 1h weapon ratio/pDIF capped at the same value for 1h as for 2h, BLU would be a pretty immense DD, as we have literally all of the tools necessary to do it otherwise (rather good TP gain rate, a large amount of powerful DD traits, a relatively immense avg attacks/round, a very powerful weaponskill attached to a moderately powerful weapon), and a very strong range of gear options.

Physical Blue Magic being useful would be a major boon, but 1h weapons being on the same level, behind the scenes, as 2h weapons would achieve the goal more effectively. Ideally I'd want both facets remedied, as a BLU with effective swords and a couple of decent spells would be scary.

[Nishida]

I feel like a dumbass asking, but..

Physical BLU Spells:
Tessera Saio vs. Magus Jubbah NQ

I don't have the +1 pieces just yet. Just wondering if I should use NQ over my Tessera or not.

[Ophannus]

It depends on which spell and it also depends on if you have CA active or not. I use Jubbah for amorphic/delta and quadratic without CA up but with CA up I use toci's for quadratic and for r heavy strike. I think the doubled modifier means the +10 str outweighs the 15 skill especially for QC and Heavy Strike which have 32% and 50% modifiers respectively. Saio is basically a lot like Toci's so I'd say use that for the heavy modifier STR spells like Quad/Heavy/Whirl of Rage. I'm almost positive the 13 STR will give higher base damage than 15 skill for most of the STR heavy WSC spells since I think the anchor points for base damage increasing due to Blue Magic Skill ended up being roughly 1 base damage every 7-10 skill. But should probably wait for a more mathy answer from Proth or Night.

[Yugl]

10 STR 10 DEX 13AGI v 15 Skill

Skill = ~2 Damage

The STR alone is ~2 fSTR

Both Damage and fSTR constitute base damage.

If your spell has STR, DEX, or AGI, you'll end up gaining more base damage from Saio. Saio can also win if fSTR plays in your favor. That said, the body has more attack and you'll use the body for magic accuracy if those are important to you.

[Prothescar]

Um, so, I made a post on the official forums in the Localization section about changing Physical Potency to Physical Accuracy, this is what I got back.

Hi Prothscar!

Thank you very much for your inquiry.

We had the devs check this one out on their end--just to make sure it wasn't a bug with the ability, because the English perfectly matches the Japanese--and they informed us that the ability is, in fact, correctly increasing damage and is not erroneously increasing accuracy.

I apologize for any confusion this issue may have caused.

Unelonborro
FFXI Localization Team

Guess I need to go test it some more. Probably something stupid and untraceable like +2 attack per merit.

[Nightfyre]

Do Queasyshroom and Feather Storm have an attack bonus I'm not aware of? If not, it would appear to be decently potent. I've gotten as far as -20 attack from Ratio cap thus far and I'm still doing damage consistent with 3.0 Ratio with max merits.

EDIT: scratch that, I forgot the (presumed) base 8 attack. Still more than +2/merit thus far though.

[Prothescar]

I recall doing some extensive tests on this merit a while back, and the results were weird. It's why I never concluded any sort of damage bonus aside from a presumed increase from accuracy.

Currently, I want to do regular /ra tests, as it's entirely possible that ratio caps below 3 as we're only sure about pDIF capping at 3.

[Nightfyre]

Well for what it's worth, I'm getting +25 attack with full merits.

[Prothescar]

That's not so bad tbh.

[Nightfyre]

Bleh, I'm stupid and made the same mistake twice. Hang on...

would help if mobs didn't die every 4 casts

EDIT: Proth, were you accounting for distance penalty in your earlier tests?

EDIT2: I seriously do not know what the fuck. Even accounting for the 8 base attack there should have been at least a +15 bonus and now I'm getting results that are too low even when I know I should be capped without any bonus. What the fuck gives?

[Prothescar]

yeah, categorized samples by distance which was almost never varied.

[Nightfyre]

Dunno why, but numbers against crabs got wonky in further tests. Moved to Misareaux Gigantobugard...

189 def (/c low defense at 237 attack), 77+16 INT, 96+76 STR with 448 skill for 542 attack, 423 damage Queasyshroom
96+79 STR, 543 attack, 429 damage (3.0 ratio)

So it appears to be +24 rather than +25 here, which suggests to me that it may not be a static value but instead a small percentage bonus. This may also explain the +2 in the description, which otherwise appears to be meaningless. I can't get a multiple of 2 to line up though... 10/256 is close, but a little under.

Will investigate further later.

[doctorugh]

In regard to body piece for casting:

Blu skill also adds attack (not just D), and as we sorely lack it, every point counts for a fair bit. This will vary depending on mob level and defense, but its fairly safe to assume that 1 blue "attack" will result in a 0.22 -> 0.25% increase in damage.


Once our D value gets relatively high on a given spell, the added STR does a bit less on average, esp when fSTR is being capped. On QC, 1 STR will add on average 0.12% to the D and another 0.11->0.125% as a half point of blue "attack" (roughly 0.24%)

So for all intents and purposes (for QC), when fSTR is capped 1STR = 1 blue skill (without adding potential tier)

Under CA, STR will add a touch more than blue attack (0.3% vs 0.24%)
If fSTR is uncapped and under CA (ideal situation for adding STR), then its closer to
(0.38% vs 0.24%)

The jubbah +1 is very hard to beat, but there are certain circumstances that present themselves in which another piece might beat it (slightly).

[Xilk]

is the enchainment bonus from augmented mirage Jubbah +2 ever worth it?

[doctorugh]

is the enchainment bonus from augmented mirage Jubbah +2 ever worth it?

Maybe if you want some acc for Heavy Strike?

[Prothescar]

toci would still be superior

[doctorugh]

toci would still be superior

Toci has +8 STR: This is 4 blue attack at roughly 0.11% damage each (less than normal due to crit) = 0.44%
Assuming 200 STR, 20fSTR and 471 skill: duing CA your base D will
be (105+20head+20+170) = 315
8 STR will get you to (105+20head+22+176) = 323 (or +2.53%)
In total ~ +2.97% and 16.5acc

Enchainment (assuming 4/5) = +20 tp
HS is listed at 2.5 fTP at 0% and 3.5 at 150% (a 40% increase)

20/150(linear?) x 40% ~ +5.3% increase with 17.5acc

Athos tabard at +5% and 14.5 acc is also viable