Blue Mage Tanking

[Ultimagi]

Assume the Blue Mage is recieving the same support any other tank job would.

Physical Damage Taken -25% (31% at night)
Full Darksteel Harness +1 Set
Umbra Cape
Jelly Ring

Exluding Defending Ring due to rarity.

Physical Damage Taken -10% Enmity +4
Ability to gain TP and use for Weapon Skills or Chain Affinity
Macuahuitl +1
Genbu's Shield
------or------
Physical Damage Taken -20% Enmity +3
No TP or Weapon Skills
Terra's Staff
Shark Strap

How feasible is this for possibly tanking in an endgame situation? Being able to equip Defense Bonus, Evasion Bonus, Auto Regen, and other defensive job traits would also help. Which weapons would you use in the comparison above? Is there a better combination I'm overlooking?
For tanking Mage type bosses:

Magical Damage Taken -26% (50% after Shell)
Full Coral Scale Mail +1 Set
Merman's Rings
Merman's Earring
Lieutenant's Sash

Filling the other slots with Enmity would help hold hate. I'm pretty sure Saline Coat caps Magic Defense at +50 so there would be no need to waste equipment slots on it. Although it does deteriorate, it's not hard to cast it just before the enemy finishes their spell. What weapons would be worthwhile for this setup? Macuahuitl +1 would probably work nice, but what Shield?

Subjobs

Warrior
Has innate Defense Bonus, freeing up Blue Magic points for other spells, and Defender for even more. Also provides Provoke for volatile enmity generation, but lacks cumulative enmity.

Red Mage
Can spam Blind to generate lots of enmity, and provides weak Phalanx and Barspells if they're unavailable from support mages. Fast Cast and Magic Defense Bonus are also available without using Blue Magic points.

Ninja
Has Utsusemi, but no enmity generation. Utsusemi would probably be necessary for some fights though.

Personally, I think Red Mage would work best for the cheap MP Enmity, unless you absolutely need Utsusemi. Any other ideas?

[Valkrish]

Sub /rdm and try tanking some things that are difficult to solo tank as a casual Tank-ish job~

i'm interested in this sort of thing, so i won't give any negative feedback but i would like to see some results

In shorter words: Try first~

[Nekio]

I think the word "supertank" in the title is misleading. You're talking about regular tanking here. With that said, I have no idea how well it'd work. The major issue I would see with it was using up all your MP for defensive spells and not having any to help cure yourself.

[Tsuko_Asura]

Kinda' sounds like a lesser version of PLD/RDM. I'm Sure the damage intake wouldn't be awful, but it'd be nothing write home about without the shield factor.

You'd definitely want to use Terra's regardless of the losses, because that 10% really makes a difference when you already have ~34%. The only benefit to shield/sword would be the 4 enmity from Mac+1; dealing damage for enmity would be extremely MP inefficient for BLU.

[Bozo]

It would be interesting to see, not to mention BLU's ability to spam Head Butt would help tons.

[yrpaine]

3rd hand info, but Pld in my ls often mentions a JP post about blu/sam w/ terra staff, third eye tanking and using meditate to get tp up for stronger spells. dunno how much truth there is to it, just throwing it out there.

[orson]

I think the word "supertank" in the title is misleading. You're talking about regular tanking here. With that said, I have no idea how well it'd work. The major issue I would see with it was using up all your MP for defensive spells and not having any to help cure yourself.

Agree with Nekio. Supertanking denotes holding many mobs usually, which Blu actually does really well. Regular tanking they really don't do very well. This has been already tested and posted I'm pretty sure. You should probably look at the Blue Mage findings thread. Most Blu spells aren't able maintain hate long because of long recast timers and high MP costs. The cheap cost and lower recast spells just don't have high enmity values attached to them.

[Malacite]

Interesting, I'm all for finding new applications for each job but I've got my doubts here. BLU's not exactly known for it's MP Longevity.

However, if you can manage to maintain hate, you should be fine given BLU has something like 5 stun spells? 1 of them is AoE if I'm not mistaken. Should be an interesting experiment at the least.

[The Stig]

I think the word "supertank" in the title is misleading.

Haha I thought the same thing, and then came to read about a BLU tanking HNMs/endgame stuff, rather than 100 mobs beating on a BLU.

After reading, I concluded that you'll be a MP sponge over time, despite your -% gear, and DEF is quite meaningless (at that level) until they fix it. PLDs have at least shield blocks to help them not become such a sponge, with the abilities to back it up. You're placing too much "hope" in WAR's "Defense Bonus" which is what, 10 DEF and Defender. You're also thinking/looking too much into being able to slide Evasion Bonus to your traits. With BLU's evasion skill you won't evade anything.

Otherwise, if you disagree with what I said, go out and do it and show us some results.#

EDIT: Wow so many replies as I was typing this -_-.

[Nevex]

Interesting, I'm all for finding new applications for each job but I've got my doubts here. BLU's not exactly known for it's MP Longevity.

However, if you can manage to maintain hate, you should be fine given BLU has something like 5 stun spells? 1 of them is AoE if I'm not mistaken. Should be an interesting experiment at the least.

BLU is the only job with access to both Auto-Refresh and Conserve MP regardless of SJ so that counts for something.
Many key spells also have relatively small MP costs (Head Butt, Cocoon, Exuviation, Actinic Burst) for the amount of enmity/effects they generate.

The problem is that BLU as tank can't rely on damage and job abilities (with the exception of a very long recast time Diffusion) for enmity generation.
DD spells feed way too many TP, magic spells are out of the question, melee and ws damage are kind of meh and absolutely no use on any high level NM. That leaves debuff/stun spam to generate enmity, which BLU is capable of doing well.

Also mobs that can't be stunned with physical spells (Cerberus comes to mind) pose a serious problem since that takes away the only real advantage over NIN/DRK.
Temporal Shift is almost a guaranteed (aoe) stun but comes with a ridicolously long recast time; Head Butt/Frypan/Tail Slap won't proc on any kind of HNM, Blitzstrhal is no use due the long cast time and high MP cost.

Been said that, BLU/RDM or BLU/DRK works very well on JoL and possibly on Ouryu, but other than those I have yet to find an application for BLU tank in end game where it's not just "acceptable" but it works well.

[ringthree]

As I understand it, BLU/NIN is a decent tank for Proto-Ultima, and like many different jobs can tank decently with SATA support. They use AoE support songs and some flash spell and a couple others for hate. Given some time they can get decent enough hate. I think they were notable because they could easily survive Citadel Buster.

[Ultimagi]

Yay! Positive feedback.

I never thought of subbing Samurai and using Terra's Staff for Seigan, that's really interesting. I would definately like to try this and give some results, but these items are never sold on my server, I'll have to have them crafted.

[Sonomaa]

corrected title because of supertanking difference

[Ultimagi]

Thanks, just wanted to express its non-mediocre nature of tanking potential.

[Karshe]

Subbing /SAM doesn't make any sense to me... what good is meditate with /SAM when you'd be using a staff and won't land any physical spells while wielding the Terra's Staff due to BLU's (lack of) staff skill.

[Ultimagi]

The purpose is to get Seigan, but I just remembered that it gives -100% Fast Cast while active, making it definately not worth it.

[Saithorx]

I can't see BLU being anything more then mediocre at tanking. I might try out BLU/SAM with earth staff on some easy prey to see how it works.

[Dimmauk]

Diffusion + Exuviation or Refueling generate tons o' hate. I wouldnt use it, but if shit hits the fan a BLU could step in till a recover.

[fantasticdan]

Using blu/sam instead of blu/nin to tank makes absolutely no sense.

[Sho]

Subbing /SAM doesn't make any sense to me... what good is meditate with /SAM when you'd be using a staff and won't land any physical spells while wielding the Terra's Staff due to BLU's (lack of) staff skill.

You can easily macro a sword into a spell, much like how Ele staves are macro'd into elemental magic. Then you could keep Earth/Terra Staff on Seigan/Third Eye macro. Hell of alot of blinking would be done tho.