Blue Mage DPS Versus Other Casters

[Ceallach]

So, I thought I'd do some simple math trying to figure out if blue mage really is as weak as people are saying. I figured I'd look at simple, one-minute rotations to have some easier numbers to work with, so I'll list what I omit per job. Keep in mind that all comparisons are at level 50 to be fair.

Black Mage
Against one enemy, you're casting Blizzard III, Thunder III, Fire III, Fire five times, and you repeat this ad infinitum. I'm ignoring all traits and the Astral Fire buff here in terms of alterations to potency, as well as spell speed, and over one minute this comes out to about 5310 potency. I'm sure if we consider things like maximum MP, spell speed, and Astral Fire III, it'll be quite a bit higher, but this'll work as a baseline.

Summoner
Against one enemy, you're casting Miasma thrice, Bio II twice, using Shadow Flare once, and using Fester three times. The rest of the time, you're casting Ruin or Ruin II. Ignoring your primal-egi and traits entirely, this comes out to about 4510 potency. I'm sure someone else can do the math for Ifrit-Egi and/or Garuda-Egi, and if someone does, please don't forget about Rouse boosting the pet's damage by 40% for 20 seconds. With enough spell speed, you may be able to get an extra Ruin or two off as well, but your rotation's pretty simple: Aetherflow and Rouse, Miasma, Bio II (Aetherflow and Rouse can go here as well), Ruin II, Fester, Ruin, Ruin II, Fester, Ruin, Ruin II, Fester, Ruin a bunch more, Miasma as it's about to wear off, Ruin some more, Bio II as it's about to expire, Shadow Flare, and Ruin the rest of the time. We are ignoring traits again.

Red Mage
This can be tricky due to not knowing whether you're casting Jolt and something else from the hip or channelling Veraero and Verthunder alongside a countdown, so we'll assume the latter for ideal circumstances. Against one enemy and starting with 0/0 mana, and also assuming you always get Verfire Ready and/or Verstone Ready from each pair of spells you cast (remember, you do have Acceleration by level 50), that comes out to about 7910 potency overall. I am ignoring traits here, too. The rotation is simply Veraero/Verthunder, and then every subsequent pair of spells is going to be Verfire/Verstone and Veraero/Verthunder while building mana evenly, using Fleche on recast, and using Corps-a-corps, the enchanted combo, and Displacement once you're at something like 80/80 before continuing with basic spell pairs.

Blue Mage
And here we are! So for this job, I'd like to point out the building status resistance enemies have that makes them eventually immune to certain debuffs. For example, if you stun something for six seconds with Faze, and then cast something else that stuns, it'll only last three seconds at best, then one, and then the enemy will be immune to stun for a while. I'm going to assume (likely wrongly) that this building resistance resets one minute after gaining immunity. I am also going to assume that we are not casting Loom and can always get into position for the Dragon's Voice without clipping the GCD. Ignoring traits and assuming the blue mage has learned everything (and is not using suicide attacks), we're looking at a rotation that's a little like this...

Opener: Bristle, Off-guard, Fire Angon/Sharpened Knife (consider range, I'm assuming Fire Angon here), Peculiar Light, Bristle, Eruption/Feather Rain, Song of Torment, Shock Strike (Mountain Buster is physical, so we're not using it due to it not being compatible with Peculiar Light), Glass Dance (total of 2700 potency if we floor decimals)

And then...

If the enemy is vulnerable to everything and is a level that's a multiple of 5 (assuming everything lands): Reasonably you're only doing your combination of the Ram's Voice and the Dragon's Voice three times, and you'll need Swiftcast for it due to the running. You're also only reasonably doing your Level 5 Petrify into Drill Cannons combo three times simply because you won't have time for Drill Cannons to hit the fourth time for the bonus potency, and this is the weaker of the two combos. Don't bother with a stun and Sharpened Knife for damage, as that's actually 10 potency weaker than casting something like Flame Thrower twice or the Aqua Breath into High Voltage combo, but do exploit someone else stunning (this is too situational to include in my calculations here however). There's going to be another Bristle into Song of Torment in the middle as well, so you're probably looking at about seven casts of 130-potency spells if you can exploit everything and all the spells land. Use Fire Angon (only from range because Knife is stronger), Bristle, or Sharpened Knife (if you're close) to keep the GCD going while you use abilities learned from primals. Assuming only Sharpened Knife is used for its 1-second cast time to make room for abilities from primals and Off-guard, we're looking at about 4140 potency overall before we consider Off-guard (6120 potency with Off-guard).

If the enemy is not vulnerable to your eclectic debuffs: Basically spam 130-potency spells, casting Sharpened Knife or Fire Angon when you're about to use an ability learned from a primal, Off-guard, or Peculiar Light. Make sure you Bristle and Song of Torment so the latter lands as it expires, which should give you room to use Eruption or Feather Rain again on recast as well. Here we're looking at about 4485 potency considering Off-guard.

That means our totals as a blue mage are 8820 potency against enemies vulnerable to our debuffs or 7185 potency if they're not.

It's important to note that Veil of the Whorl potentially will do more damage than Glass Dance if you are going to take hits. It would take at least six hits for it to reach 300 overall potency.

I also feel Moon Flute is only useful if you're tanking because Waning Nocturne is pretty insane to deal with, so I left it out of these rotations because they're meant for damage, and losing six casts' worth of time doesn't help DPS, even considering Waxing Nocturne. I'll do the math here as well, however.

If we cast Moon Flute in our opener between Off-guard and Fire Angon/Sharpened Knife, the total potency there increases to 4050 potency (a difference of 1350 potency), but we'll lose six casts' worth of time to the Waning Nocturne debuff. You'll probably want to cast Diamondback just as Waxing Nocturne ends if you can. If we're only considering the 130-potency spells, that's 1170 potency lost due to Waning Nocturne, so you can definitely say it's worth it, as that's a gain of 180 potency. The trick with it, then, is timing. If we exclude Peculiar Light from our math, your regular spells would be 292 potency each, and Bristle into Song of Torment would be 1012 potency. Therefore, you'd be looking at 2180 potency during Waxing Nocturne and a loss of 1170 potency during Waning Nocturne (so 2180 potency total for 30 seconds) instead of 3595 potency during the same 30 seconds without using Moon Flute, to say nothing of the abilities you learn from primals and reusing Off-guard.

So Moon Flute's only worth something in the opener and shortly before the end of the fight or the boss leaving the arena.

All in all, though, I don't think blue mage is lacking in the damage department compared to what other caster jobs can do at level 50.

[Kalise]

Well... You also need to consider the fact that BLU scales differently to other jobs, due to their higher INT scaling to make up for a lack of weapon stats. Which adds a factor that we're not 100% sure on.

Also, BLU's rotation relies heavily on using the primal oGCD skills during Peculiar Light, which not everyone has access to (Thanks RNG!) which will cause BLU to feel weaker since without the Primal skills it's much more just spamming 130 potency skills as the sole damage output outside of Bristle > Song of Torment (Again, if people have that skill, not everyone ends up getting a group together to go farm Pharos Sirius to learn it)

[Valdegarde]

Also consider that currently other jobs aren't as balanced as they once were at level 50, the lack of Raging Strikes for example paints BLM and SMN a little low, while RDM's rapid raw potencies are a little much for 50. Still, this shows Blue Mage is far more traditionally balanced than some like to assert, with some small caveats like status immunities and potential issues like Peculiar Light for raidwide damage and White Wind's utility.
Compared to melee jobs, this damage proportion is within a range that correlates Blue Mage to the Ninja of casters, a comparison that I think would be apt with the inclusion of Peculiar Light and potential raid utility in the future (assuming some balance adjustment.) I don't believe this is out of the realm of possibility for Blue Mage to someday fill this competitive niche and create a dual meta again.

[Ceallach]

I realize that straight potency comparisons, especially since I ignored a few things, can't tell the whole story. My main point was simply that blue mage isn't exactly lacking in the damage department. I don't have the actual equations regarding Intelligence scaling, either, and I don't have a whole lot of time for testing. Perhaps you'd be willing to help me with that?

As far as how balanced jobs used to be, I'm not sure if that's a fair comparison. We didn't have blue mage or red mage back then, so we'd really only be comparing the single-target burn turret and the undisputed AoE king.

[Rongway]

Why are we ignoring easily-accounted-for traits and buffs though?

Assumption: For two equally geared DDs, before accounting for traits and buffs, potency should mean the same thing. That is, a 100 potency attack on one job should do the same damage as a 100 potency attack on another job, before accounting for traits. If this is not the case, the problem is not the potencies of one job's attacks but a problem in the formula, and it is the formula that needs fixing.

With this assumption in place (remember, I'm not saying, "this is the case" but "if this is not the case, fix this first"), then apply traits and buffs. For simplicity, let's also assume a 2.5s GCD around the board.

BLM Potency/GCD: 411 (0 Firestarters) ~ 469 (5 Firestarters), expected value 440 + extra Thunderclouds

Blizzard III: 240p * 0.7 [AF3] = 168p
Thunder III: 390p + 320p * 0.57 [TC] = 532p (+extra thunderclouds beyond the one scheduled Ice Phase use. this is the most complicated line)
Fire III: 240p * 0.7 [UI3] = 168p
Fire I x5: 180p * 1.8 [AF3] * 5 = 1620p

Total: 2528.4p * 1.3 [M&M2] = 3286.92
Potency/GCD: 411

Note: Firestarter-Fire III is 562p/GCD (including M&M2). Each firestarter will shift BLM's average potency/GCD toward this, up to a limit of 469.

SMN Potency/GCD: 416 + pet auto attacks

Bio II: 350p, 1 use every 12 GCDs (8.3 uses every 100 GCDs)
Miasma: 300p, 1 use every 9.6 GCDs (10.4 uses every 100 GCDs)
Ruin: 100p, All other GCDs (81.3 uses every 100 GCDs)
SMN base: 141.55p/GCD

oGCDs
Fester: 300p, 1 use every 8 GCDs (12.5 uses every 100 GCDs)
Shadow Flare: 250p, 1 use every 24 GCDs (4.2 uses every 100 GCDs)
oGCD total: 48.00p/GCD

Ifrit-Egi
Inferno: 300p, 1 use every 72 GCDs
Burning Strike: 135p, 1 use every 1.2 GCDs (59 uses every 72 GCDs)
Rouse: +40% bonus to (1 Inferno + 19 Burning Strikes) every 72 GCDs
Pet total: 130.78p/GCD not including auto attacks

Total potency/GCD: 320.33 * 1.3 [M&M2] = 416

RDM Potency/GCD: 453

Spells
Base from Jolt each first GCD: 180p, 6 mana
Every two GCDs ends with a Verslowspell: 310p, 11 mana
50% chance you can Verfastspell instead of Jolt: +45p over Jolt, +1.5 mana over Jolt
Dualcast total: 267.5p/GCD, 9.25 mana/GCD
On average: 17.3 GCDs to build enough for a combo

Melee Combo
E.Riposte: 210p over 0.6 GCDs
E.Zwerchhau: 290p over 0.6 GCDs
E.Redoublement: 470p over 0.88 GCDs
Combo total: 970p over 2.08 GCDs

oGCDs
Corps-a-corps: 130p, 1 use per 16 GCDs
Displacement: 130p, 1 use per 14 GCDs
Fleche: 420p, 1 use per 10 GCDs
oGCD total: 59.41p/GCD

Total
Dualcasts: 17.3 GCDs dualcasting at 267.5p/GCD
Melee Combo: 2.08 GCDs slashy-stabbing at 466.34p/GCD
oGCD total: 59.41p/GCD
Grand total potency/GCD: 348.25 * 1.3 [M&M2] = 453

BLU
Not familiar enough with the BLU panoply to do the maths on it, but if OPs numbers are correct, it's something like this (using the lower number because bosses are really what matter, and most of them are immune to most BLU gimmicks)

7185 / 60 * 2.5 * 1.5 (M&M5) = 449.06

But again, that's assuming OP's numbers are correct.
Please feel free to check my maths and add corrections if necessary.

[TsundereImouto]

Check out my thing I did on BLU theorycrafting!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...v9hVUg3DU/edit

BLU is actually pretty strong. I did synched Nael Van Darnus on BLU and was just under the BLM (who benefitted heavily from my Peculiar Light) in our group.

[Kalise]

Please feel free to check my maths and add corrections if necessary.

One thing to note, is that for BLM, Astral Fire's damage boost stacks with Maim and Magick to mean that Fire spells during Astral Fire have a 2.1 multiplier rather than a 1.8 multiplier then a 1.3 multiplier so that 5x Fire I only deal 1890 potency rather than 2106.

Also, Firestarter procs exist, so that 40% of Fire I GCD's are replaced by Fire III's.

I did the math of level 50 BLM Astral Fire DPGCD in another thread:

Essentially, potency wise, BLM has Fire which is 180 and then it's amp'd by 110% by M&M and AF up to 378 potency. They also have procs of Fire III which is 240 and then amp'd up to 504 potency. Meaning that on average they push out 428 potency with their Astral Fire CD's (Assuming perfect 40% of Fire I replaced with Fire III)

Which, if adding to the Umbral Ice phase would mean:

Blizzard III - 218p
Thunder III - 691p
Fire III (During UI) - 218p
Fire I x5 - 1890p
Fire III x2 (During AF) - 1008p

4025p / 10 GCD's = 402.5p/GCD on average.

Then I did previously calculate BLU damage sans Song of Torment:

BLU has Glower (Or another of like a million other spells) with 130 potency. Amp'd by M&M up to 195 and amp'd by OG up to 293 potency.

If you then account for their oGCD primal skills, they get 220 from Eruption (495 after amplification) for ~41 potency per GCD, Static Strike for 310 potency (~678 after amplification) for ~29 potency per GCD and Glass Dance for 290 potency (~653 after amplification) for ~18 potency per GCD.

Putting BLU's average potency per GCD to 381. With Peculiar Light averaging about 26 potency per GCD bringing that up to 407 potency per GCD.

I guess adding in SoT would be:

Base damage is 50 (25x10) = 300p
Amp'd by M&M to 450
You always wanna Bristle it because it turns Bristle into essentially a 150p GCD (As opposed to your next best option, which is Glower at 130p) so SoT is now dealing 600p
Add in Off-Guard which now makes it 900p

This will be used every ~12 GCD's which makes it 900p/12 = 75p/GCD but then remember it is 2 GCD's because Bristle so it's actually 75p/2 = 37.5p/GCD

SoT will add 600p * 0.3 = 180p to Peculiar Light, which is effectively another 180p/24 = 7.5p/GCD

So, BLU would be doing about 407 + 37.5 + 7.5 = 452p/GCD (Or a little bit less, because I don't think I averaged out how Peculiar Light wouldn't hit every Eruption/Glass Dance)

But again, if someone doesn't have the full DPS combo for BLU (Which is understandable because #SoloJob) then they're just stuck with Off-Guard/Glower/Peculiar Light which would be at best 292p/GCD (I.e. The potency of Glower against Off-Guard) with PL averaging about 14.6p/GCD (Making BLU's GCD be just below 306p/GCD) which is utter crap (Essentially about 50% more than a Healer)

[Laphael]

I think Blu should have been stronger than it is now. Its not weak, but it should be a bit more overpowered compared to other dps at lvl 50.
It should do dps numbers like a lvl 50 dps while in tankstance, then you could much better farm those primal spells with 8x blu.

[Rongway]

One thing to note, is that for BLM, Astral Fire's damage boost stacks with Maim and Magick to mean that Fire spells during Astral Fire have a 2.1 multiplier rather than a 1.8 multiplier then a 1.3 multiplier so that 5x Fire I only deal 1890 potency rather than 2106.

Are you sure they're additive?

Also, Firestarter procs exist, so that 40% of Fire I GCD's are replaced by Fire III's.

Fire I GCDs aren't replaced, though. Since Firestarter Fire III is free, it's in addition to Fire I rather than instead of it. That's why I gave a range of 0 firestarters (damage of 8 GCDs) to 5 firestarters (original 8 GCDs + 5 Fire IIIs), since the number of GCDs changes with each Fire III cast. Buut it's possible I added that edit after you'd already begun your reply?

[Kalise]

Fire I GCDs aren't replaced, though. Since Firestarter Fire III is free, it's in addition to Fire I rather than instead of it. That's why I gave a range of 0 firestarters (damage of 8 GCDs) to 5 firestarters (original 8 GCDs + 5 Fire IIIs), since the number of GCDs changes with each Fire III cast. Buut it's possible I added that edit after you'd already begun your reply?

The GCD's are replaced. Though, in terms of a rotation, you'll still cast the same number of Fire I's due to Fire III being 0 MP and thus your rotation is still "Use all your MP on Fire I, then Blizzard III"

But yeah, when I started my reply, you hadn't put in any Firestarter procs.