The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

For solo, which?

Vassal's Mantle
Attack+25 Evasion+5

Blithe Mantle
AGI+5 Evasion+5
DA+2%

If we assume your target has 500 defense, and you have 20% DA..

adding 2 DA would be a 1.67% increase to melee damage, and increase WS frequency by roughly the same amount. Your attack ratio will increase from 650/500=1.3 to 675/500=1.35, a 3.8% increase before pdif.

This doesn't account for TA diminishing DA returns. However, this is too close to call. Need more info about your setup and mob's stats to see which is clear winner i think.

I use the regular hybrid evasion set for solo:
Almace
AGI Shikargar
Alyiat Chakram
Ocelomeh+1
Torero Torque
Brutal/Supa
Thaumas Body
Thaumas Hands
Ocelot Legs
Athos Feet
Rajas/Eponas
Phasmaida Belt


Usually with DW2/DW3 and Triple Attack trait set. Targets include;

-Easy Prey-Decent Challenge Dynamis mobs
-All Apollyon mobs
-Sky triggers
-Random sea NMs
-Assorted random solo 75 content or Abyssea NMs

Personally i would go with vassal's over blithe. The amount of QA/TA would diminish 2 DA quite a bit. However, on tougher mobs you should use blithe due to the agi on it, if necessary.

Blithe Mantle

this

Bah was hoping to make good use of that damned legion cape, guess I'll sell it then lol

in vw and using wings


Is it worth it to keep spamming wings as soon as they're up or is it bad? I normally spam them as soon as I can and before I'm close to 100tp on blu but this doesn't always happen due to ta/da procs before activating the wing, which causes the pause, and the overflow is lost. Some other jobs don't use wings as much or not at all because of this and I was wondering where blue stood in all of this.



To refresh Almace ODD? Sure that's a given, but increased crit chance increases with tp level so I wasn't entirely sure.

Also because I forget about aftermath levels I know that if you have an existing level 3 a new ws at 300tp wont overwrite the old aftermath effect. But does a level 2 replace the level 1 and the level 3 replace both? I really can't remember

When used appropriately all jobs benefit from Dusty Wings. Use it after your WS and before your first melee swing to get the most DPS. And yes to the aftermath stuff. 2 overwrites 1 and 3 overwrites both. Though in VW, after the first fight, your first WS should always be a 300 tp WS anyway

As long as you're bearing in mind that this frequently means "activating AM3 only" or "only when outside of battle", sure.

Obviously, but that doesn't do anything to fix the fundamental issue with wings which is the three second total delay.

For BLU, I just use them to replenish AM3.

^ Only use they have for BLU... and indeed, most jobs.

I feared as much. I'll try it that way and see how much DPS I've been losing that way. Thanks for the help.

Sets edited to reflect new gear. Only a couple of additions (Fast Cast set, SB and Nuking sets) and two errors fixed in the cure potency set brought to my attention by Nightfyre.

Additionally, Nemetona Cap is the new second best piece for TP and physical blue magic in a lot of situations. Unfortunate that it looks like balls.

Pyracmon Cap is hereby deemed the best all-around fulltime hat for BLU just based on pure swag.

Nemetona is a *** beret? Ugh.

I'll be updating my own sets this evening... Even digging into the really niche stuff, there's only a handful of items worth looking at. Was thinking about my sets earlier and decided that I'm long overdue to remove the Savage Blade set, and the Vorpal Blade set can probably afford to go as well.

I've learned a lot from this guide and the guide about AoE burning over the course of playing BLU, my gear is no where near the best since I have yet to do any Neo Nyzul or Voidwatch, just have one question.

For the pure and hybrid evasion sets, would the Boxer's Mantle not have a place in either for its Parry and Evasion skill +10

Evasion skill gives .9 evasion each. This is why fugacity mantle beats boxer's. And generally parring is too minimal to ever bother with.

As far as the hybrid evasion set, boxer's offers no boost to melee dmg or tp gain. So if blithe mantle isn't offering enough evasion, go right to fugacity.

Ah ok, thanks for info man

Hey Prothescar, I was looking through your XML because I've been using it as a template for my own BLU XML. I'm relatively new to XML so forgive me if this is an obvious answer, but where exactly do you use your hybrid and full evasion sets? I see the sets in the XML but I don't see anywhere in your rules where you would tp in either of those sets and ignore your TP set. I assume there is a command or macro you use that I'm unaware of, or is it something else?

I'm thinking he may just use those in situations that he may use it. Either that, or he can use a variable to stay TPing in those sets, if he has them on/types something ingame to change a variable thing. (Not THAT into spellcast/xml stuff to really know 100%) :x

Fairly sure he uses macros for at least a few of his sets.

Anyway, I use a modified version of Proth's xml and I have macros to switch to my PDT/MDT/Idle sets (/sc set "idle"/"MDT"/"PDT"), you can do the same with Evasion. Hybrid evasion I'm not completely certain about, but I imagine as long as you macro swap to that set and then don't lock target it will stay equipped.

/displayhead

Considering that there are no circumstances where you need both a Hybrid Evasion set AND a Full Evasion set, I just toggle my macro between the two manually. I have macros for PDT and MDT sets as well. Easy enough to just hit those when I need to rather than having a toggle switch and all the bits and bobs that are just redundant clogging up my spellcast.

Eyepatch

idk what looks worse, thaumas body with a red beret, or thaumas body with no headpiece

Cat ears look pretty good to me. I'll probably just datswap the beret, not a lot that really goes with Thaumas though.

Now Spurrina Coif... If I ever get that, you better believe I'll turn off displayhead.

I assume if you macro to tp in a different set than your tp set, spellcast is going to revert back to your tp set after every spell or ws you use, right? If that initial assumption is correct, then I assume you just have to keep hitting that macro after each spell/ws?
inb4 ***-u-me comments

yes. it's a rare occurrence where I have to be fulltiming any of those sets in place of a TP set to begin with