The Beast Within -- A Guide To Blue Mage

Outside of wanting to collect it just because you want to, You'd be better off making almost any other weapon.

Tizona is still king as far as blu goes.

Tizona is king but this a solid no.2 ahead of naegling

I'm not really seeing it, SB so far is the better WS, +15% on naegl, then x% additional atk per buff, which makes it easier to reach higher pdl thresholds. In contrast you get DT-10~, 4~ refresh and ODD/OTD depending on stage

ODD/ODT that only works on the first hit of an attack round, on a weapon class that doesn't typically care as much about capitalizing on auto attack damage

I would argue it's actually behind Maxientus too for raw damage, but if you can 3 step darkness it can probably pull ahead of everything beside Tizona. Tizona AM3 is just too strong for tp gain on BLU. Otherwise to reach some nice amount of multi hit, you need to sacrifice tons of meva and survivability. With AM3 it's smooth sailing with Malignance.

That's what was I was expecting, gotta love SE continuing to *** over blue every chance they get lol.

Idk Tizona is just too good. Expiacion is hitting cap damage with SV Aria and that's with Tizona offering AM3 and infinite MP. You simply can't beat that.

RDM/PLD also got shafted some, pld less so as dubans a nice ochain upgrade with some aegis/priwen thrown in with its MDTII/meva.

Says more about how good tiz is, solid WS that matches/beats naeg SB, very good mp recovery that allows you to be more free with your spells, opening some good utility options while you DD, and it pairs great with one of the best hybrid sets in the game.

Honestly even if the WS on prime was better id be had pressed to give up the mp/easy hybrid utility of mythic

Caliburnus would need to be seriously OP to beat Crocea Mors, Tizona and Burtgang. There was never any chance that it would be the best sword for any of those jobs as the 3 listed above are just that strong . Its really not blu getting neglected when we already have one of, if not the best, damage and utility mythics in the game.

BLU doesn't really need anything else, got malig, got Tizona, got a stupidly good +2 neck, got a massive amount of PDL choices and got an incredible EMPY +3 set. I'm not going to include Nyame path B as every job got that but Tizona BLU uses path B really well.

Caliburnus doesn't need to beat Crocea Mors or Burtang, as it is competing with Naegling and other self Dark SC options. So for RDM, at least, it has a spot for self 3 step dark SCs with 3 powerful WS (realistically, it is competing with the Mandau for RDM). For PLD, it may be a viable option over Naegling but I do not play the job.

I agree, Tizona is just to good. So good that any weapon that would beat it, would be seriously OP. BLU can already easily make powerful darks, which is where the Caliburnus shines.

The biggest buff BLU got from Primes, is Aria.

I was hoping for a weapon better suited to the hit and run combat a lot of content has become something that didn't need to keep am 3 up to be effective would of been nice. A pure dps weapon without any other function that acted like it and could top tizona has been on my wish list for a long time. probably just dreaming that blue would ever get that though. nice to see the brd song is putting in work though.

The gift of getting a bad Prime Weapon is that you don't have to make it.

Always found the BLU neck to be more of a jack of all trades compared to other necks. Sure it's good for
It's good for TP phase, expiacion and savage blade but I'd rather have those kind of pieces amplify a speciality of the job, fix a weak spot or bring something new and creative to the table instead of boring stat vomit.

It's mostly a ACC piece which BLU didn't realy need that bad.
BLU has maybe 2 spells that get a mediocre benefit from BLU skill and outside of that it's just extra MACC which I also feel kinda meh about. BLU magic was already quite accurate vs fodder mobs but it's left out of the immunobreak mechanic which makes it's, on first sight, large arsenal of utility spells less usefull vs NMs.
The DEX and crit on the neck can't save CDC either, they better should have focused on fixing BLUs poor buff/debuff durations, maybe a potency buff, too.

Feel similar about BLU Empy +3.

I don't see the great PDL options either, we have malignance but that comes with zero ATT which doesn't help reaching the PDL effective zone. Many JSE necks got it but BLUs of course did not.

You need accuracy to keep using Thibron in hard content.

You need macc to land TP reset and potentially def down on hardest content in the game.

That being said MLs can probably push you far enough, that you could maybe use different neck.

He probably meant Gleti's. That being said Gleti's PDL is really only useful for something like CDC, because for Expiacion, Savage and Black Halo it's still better to use Nyame. Ephramad is a good pdl option, but it might not be your choice if you prioritize different job over BLU.

I definitely disagree here. Empy +3 is awesome. It's amazing for cleaving, idle, debuffing, tanking (all the things that BLU is doing in endgame). Head is perfect for Savage and Expiacion, but also very good for Black Halo. Ofc I would like +100% buff duration somewhere too, but it doesn't change the fact that Blu Empy +3 is phenomenal.

They really missed a chance with a SU5 set that increases duration of BLU buffs :-(

This is a tell me you don't play BLU post without telling me you don't play BLU.

Every single piece of EMPY+3 is used for nuking and macc. Head also gives you a very large acc/att bonus for sword weaponskills, body is a great idle piece, hands for recast time especially useful for tp reset spells, legs are a huge macc piece and feet give a massive damage bonus to burst affinity.

Gleti's body and legs are the main swaps for PDL and they also provide you with attack.

As Simon was saying if you want to use TP bonus offhand in higher level content you need all the acc you can get.

BLU +2 neck is simply one of the best of all the +2 necks in terms of how much it does for you imo. It isn't a RDM neck or anything but man, packing so much acc and macc into one accessory slot while also offering best in class store tp is pretty nuts. It's one of the ones where I'd almost feel bad getting +1.

By the end you're talking a little under 40 acc and macc, double dipping WS mods for Expiacion, best tp neck, and a little crit rate on top though that doesn't matter really. 20 skill is also a big chunk for something like squeezing an Occultstion tier.

Middle of the pack at best. Nothing on it can't be found on other peices aside from the blu skill.

Any neck with pdl is better. Drg is better because of massive wyvern dt and pdl. Geo is better for the massive lupon abortion and duration. The list goes on.

Only jse necks honestly that I'd say are worse are war and run.

Don't get me wrong, every jse neck is good but blu neck is definitely one you could leave at plus one and never notice.

That exist already, in the Naegling\Maxentius. The Caliburnus will likely top the Tizona without AM3 up. Tizona being BiS damage is always with a asterisk, it needs AM3 to do so.

The hit and run combat you described is a reason to make the Caliburnus for BLU but the Naegling is just as good and way easier to make. The biggest issue for the Caliburnus, like the Alamce and Sequence, is that the Naegling exist.

As someone with a stage 3 Caliburnus, it is a nice option, especially if you are self SCing. It just not best option for BLU.

maybe I am just selfish but I wanted the sword jobs to have a sword that was far and above the best sword. better dps than naeg and not as locked to a am3 build. The added fact they put more or less useless dd stats on the weapon was also pretty shitty lol

I think the huge atk is very nice on it, but the DT and Refresh making it essentially Sakpata's sword +1 is pretty stupid. Either way, Tizona is still king for BLU atleast

Well not really a +1, Caliburnus is only 24 attack over Sakpata's Sword. It has a bit more acc and 1 more refresh but then drops phalanx+5 and fast cast+10.

As was said earlier, you guys are forgetting about the skillchain. Having a 3 step that's actually worth a damn is huge. An ls mate has the sword and was doing consistent 60k ws with it (no idea what tp threshold he was at) so the dmg is close to naegling and the skillchain ability in solo stuff is way beyond naegling.

Tizona is still king though and we should be happy blu is one of the only jobs that can still use a mythic in this day and age for good dmg.

Using same WS for 3step SC is pretty limited, because of WS wall. Now for solo/lowman outdated content you will probably want nuke weapons for AoE or Tizona for MP recovery anyway. To avoid most of the WS wall you would need to do RedLotusBlade>Imperator>Imperator, which is kinda meh. It is not as good as Disaster>KJ>Disaster or Mumei>Mumei>Fudo or Sidewinder>Sarv>Sarv or Stardiver>Diarmuid>Diarmuid.

Imperator > Imperator > Expiacion is also an option if you're worried about a WS wall.

And so does spamming savge blade. Not everything has a weapon walk and blu has crap skillchain options.

Expiacion without Tizona is much weaker WS. Unless you mean switching weapons?

It wouldn't be that great either way cause you'd still be missing AM3 if you're switching weapons mid SC, not to mention that you'd probably miss SC window every now and then.

I don't think swapping weapons would be a good idea, but given the two 3-step scenarios mentioned, we're talking about closing with either a non-Tizona Expiacion or a walled Imperator. Neither are ideal (though that's the sacrifice you make on WS-walled content), but the difference between the two is going to be pretty negligible. However, opening with an Imperator instead of a Red Lotus Blade is significant from the WS damage aspect.

This is all hypothetical, though. I can't really think of a scenario where BLU is free to self-SC without interruption *and* there's a WS wall to contend with... maybe soloing the E boss in Sortie? (though you wouldn't want Darkness on him specifically... so I dunno)

/sigh. I bor anyone else said it was better than Tizona......