The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

Way off topic here, but when they gonna mess with blu for job adjustments...?

They didn't release a schedule, it would just be a random guess.

Random guess, is last. (april?) It really doesn't need any adjustment of any kind as far as job wise. Just all the new job traits to steal at the end. (they could do something with ba/ca but really *shrug*)

If I'm not mistaken the jobs that still need to undergo their monthly adjustments are:

01) WAR
02) THF
03) PLD
04) DRK
05) SAM
07) SMN
08) BLU
09) COR
10) GEO
11) RUN

That's not including the SCH and BST coming in november. Sometimes you get 1 job per month, sometimes 2, so that's at least 6 months from december so there will be job adjustments at least until May.

Likely it will be more because of the 1-per-month thing and because sometimes they decide to do a second small tweak/adjustment to a job they already adjusted in the past.

No clue when BLU will be, could be December, could be any of the following months until summer, at my wild guess.

It needs a nice update, I would like a new JA to give an effect to buff spells or to add effects to physical/magical spells. They should remove the Assimilation and just give those points to BLU as its very restrictive since obviously nobody will merit anything else. After they do that, maybe they can buff Convergence and add another category. Additional effect duration bonus would be nice.

I wouldn't count on new JAs.
So far no single job has received a new Job Ability, I doubt this is gonna be the case in the future.

I think adjustments to Assimilations are likely and honestly due. If you ask me I would welcome with open arms a bigger number of total points, granted that most of the time I feel limited by the total number of spells more than the total number of points.

Didn't DRG just get a new JA?

Oh what's what you meant, sorry I didn't understand earlier lol.
I don't think they did, did they?
They got all their JA timers split, previously Jumps were merged together into 3 timers, the patch split all those timers so now it's 5 completely separated JAs each with their own timer.

I don't think they got a new JA on that patch? Could be wrong though hey.

Yes, Spirit Bond.

No, the month that split JAs is different but the latest patch(this month's) they got a new JA.

BLU's up there with COR/GEO/RUN in that i dont expect anything too substantial from them sides QoL adjustments like fiddling with self-buff durations again+like eiryl mentioned adding in the new job traits somehow, though itd have to be upgrades off previous traits at this point unless they want to make a spell make 2 different traits, which wouldnt be too bad if it was a wide change.

Hopefully they dont decide to put all their eggs into the "lets make phys spells better" basket, as that seldom works out, if only cause of the forced delays in cast/aftercast

I recently created this thread for any suggestions and thoughts in case if the Devs were planning on blu adjustments sooner or later, so probably a good idea to at least post something to get their attention ahead of time when they do prepare for it
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/56038-Suggestions-for-Job-Adjustments-Blue-Mage?p=620683

I wouldnt mind if they let some spells scale insanly good with TP under Chain affinity. So you could make some 80k+ damage with them. Since you need TP for that and chain affinity has long recast, it wouldnt be anything broken and then 1hr ability would have sense too, you could spam 80k spells, which again isnt anything broken, considering casting time + delay after cast + no white damage + recast on spells (it would actually still be super weak compared to 1hr WAR for example).

wouldnt mind that too much, like i wouldnt mind if AL lasted longer, and UL either had a shorter recast and/or more of the spells were actually worth using, its all minor stuff really, hell the entire update could be "hey for blu we put it on all the gear we kept it off of since omen" and that would be fine too

I would like to see Azure Lore enhanced significantly. It's such an underutilized SP, it could definitely be improved. It would probably take a ton of work to remodel all of the spells, but it would help revive some useless oness. Would be interested to see new spell effects augmented/altered while under AL.

A lot of spells are quite unique in themselves, but the additional effect is so poor that it doesn't actually do anything that is worth the time casting when compared with what you're fighting. Especially at ilvl

Voracious Trumk/Osmosis/Rending Waters are such cool abilities, but I would like it more if you could augment it to steal/dispel SPs with Azure Lore active. Would be nice to land a full potency Bad Breath for a change, with duration that actually lasted a good bit. And I've always liked spells like Pyric Bulwark, but felt they just didn't last long enough to warrant using it with UL.

Then there are spells like Acrid Stream, Terror Touch, Foul Waters etc that I never bother using because either the effect is so weak or there is a stronger version of the spell available (or another job can do the same better). It would be cool to get the monster's version of some spell's effect, ilke a capped Feather Tickle. So much they could do with BLU spells.

On one hand I agree, but seeing things that way is not gonna bring us anywhere.
I mean I too would've loved to be more of a Blue Mage that spams abilities learned from the monsters, rather than a dualwielding swords WAR that spams CDC/Expiacion/SavageBlade with some twerks.

BLU has such an insane potential versatility, but then you have

1) a Job Traits system that is potentially very powerful but also very complex (good luck sorting that out without using the Wiki)
2) "Only" 20 slots for spells at the same time
3) The majority of the spells you equip are just to create Job Traits combinations, you don't really use the spells (aside from a couple of very useful utility ones, or the AoE magic spells that are insanely good for cleaving setups)

There was a time where BLU was probably a "meh" job, but it was far more interesting in my eyes because back then it made sense to use a large array of physical and magical spells, to make SCs and MBs with them etc.
In that scenario the 2 related Job Abilities still had a purpose and, consequentially, Azure Lore could be an interesting SP.


Now you have a different chain of events:

Most spell are basically useless other than to create Job Traits > the JAs to make MBs and SBs with them also become useless > Azure Lore becomes super meh.


I mean, it's not Azure Lore in itself that is to blame, rather all the things that come before that generate that unfortunate consequence.
I don't honestly think you can "fix" that, it would require a complete and massive redesign of the BLU job, it's way beyond SE's capabilities at the time and honestly I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't probably like a completely different direction.


We can expect, rightfully, some minor tweaks though. Making Assimilation into a basic trait sounds in line with what they've been doing with Merits so far.
Not sure what else they could do, but I'll welcome any addition or positive change with open arms, as small as it will be.

We know it's going to be at least minor, but we just saw with Monk, Red Mage, and Dragoon, the changes were actually quite good. I'm not sure what they are using as their barometer for measuring who gets what (probably a dartboard), but they did get some jobs right that needed the help. BLU is in a similar spot, so I'm actually thinking they might do something big for BLU: either in a mage kind of way (meh) or spell/QOL improvement.

My idea about spells being overhauled was a pipedream and I don't actually expect them to improve a hundred spells as a job enhancement. But a few would be interesting.

Just let BLU cast all the spells it has learned and only get traits from whatever we set with the 80 points and I'll be forever happy.

I would love physical spells to come back. It'll never realistically be a primary DD method with how fast melee/WS speed is now. It's the problem BLM has.

However it would be nice for situations where you can't melee effectively or zerg. Undispellable spikes, amnesia, back turned to avoid gaze effects, controlling mob TP damage, etc.

My wishlist
Buffs at least be 3 mins without degrading.
Hydro Shot working like High Jump.
Physical spell increase at least for the 75+ spells.
Azure Lore duration longer. It's way too short with spell delay.
Unbridled magical AoE having at least 50% dmg over the big 8 elemental spells. Cruel Joke being a dark nuke/10 count Doom for fodder.
Unpopular opinion: Mighty Guard should be dropped out of Unbridled. You can just about full time it anyway. It diminishes the use of the others.

Just make nat meditation length 5min and don't nerf anything and I'm set

A 60 second Diffusion recast would be cool. Also making Verve act like Mighty Guard's duration would also be cool.

Possibly the worst idea ever.

hey blu give everyone MG
Now natures med
now erratic flutter
now cocoon
now verve
saline coat, magic barrier, don't worry about dps traits just buff
Do I ever get to attack stuff? Nah just keep buffing.

Congrats you're now bard

Maybe make diffusion 30 sec duration not wearing after cast.

Would also be cool.

Anyone having issues with azuresets being really slow?

It only happens to me when I start Azuresets with the inventories not fully loaded and/or I decide to perform other actions (even just engaging) after launching it.

If I do one of those things it sometimes become so slow it slows down my whole game, to the point I don't even see things happening on screen anymore.
Happened to me last month when I decided to launch it in vagary.
I couldn't see people moving, I could see just their models, but they weren't moving. Monsters weren't loading up on my screen. I could move but I was unable to perform any action and Azuresets took AGES to complete equipping the required set.
I'm talking about over 10 minutes probably.

Two questions for Expiacion

1) Is Fotia belt really BiS for Expiacion? I thought since the WS had such high ftp already that Prosilio Belt +1 or Wanion Belt would win

2) I got Herc boots with the augments WSD4% 50acc 20att (DM campaign). Would Jhakri feet still beat these out due to the raw STR/DEX/INT stats? (assuming every other slot is BiS)

1) I went back through and searched the forums. From what I gather (and hope to be corrected if so) is that Fotia is just a little bit better when you are at attack cap. I think that Prosilio Belt +1 is probably better in most situations.

2) Pretty sure for Expiacion, you'd be better off with the Herculean.


We'll see what others say but judging on other peoples discussion and asking a few LS mates, that should be close.

Expiacion’s WSC values are very low (30%STR/30%INT/20%DEX) so Prosillio is mostly for assisting in capping pDIF or fST. When Attack is capped, Fotia will pull ahead but the difference will be small. And BLU has very useful tools for getting its target’s DEF down so Fotia will probably be great most of the time.

And I agree with Unzero, those boots are very good.

Awesome, thanks guys for clearing it up for me!