Much needed improvements to blue mage

[Malthar]

Ok, SE. I know some of what I'm about to post has been mentioned before, but I'm going to tidy everything up in a summary here.

Below are some of the improvements that needs to be made to blue mage and the reasons for them.

1) Physical blue mage spells should grant tp.
Dark knight, scholar and black mages have occult acumen. Why shouldn't blue mage? I mean, what's more occult than blue magic?

2) Physical blue mage spells should have the chance to double attack and attack should factor into the damage.
They're physical. Physical damage should have all the physical modifiers attributed, such as attack, critical, and double attack. TP can already be applied to spells using chain affinity. Let's go the rest of the way and include attack, critical, and double attack.

3) Blue mage has too many procs to do in voidwatch.
For the love of all that is right and good, do something about this! How about an ability for blue mage to use any spell in its repertoire for a minute without the need for spells to be set? Actually, how about dual-purposing Unbridled Knowledge to enable such an effect.

4) Give blue mage a spell to protect and shell themselves.
Do I need to explain further?

If you like these improvements then like this post.

[Tennotsukai]

Nice! I'll show support of this and add some. Breath spells + many other spells are completely useless other than as procs. We do not equip them...EVER!!! I.E. Ice Break (except for proc), feather barrier (previously said duration will probably increase), and about 50% of our other spells are useless now. All of these should be examined, played with, and compared to our more mp efficient and more utilized spells. On content we fight now there is no reason to use breath spells except for procs. A nice overhaul on blu (not to nerf it) could happen for the new expansion.

New spells, fixed spells, and maybe even new JAs to change things around (like a magic attack bonus stance JA or, consume, an ability to increase chances of learning a spell.)

[Rambus]

I always thought only CA spells should be the ones that give tp/ double attack/ so on. How is giving blu a few buffs when the overpowered talks go to the GS merit ws?

Also I like them to think about ways of just letting us use all our spells while set point stuff be more for traits and maybe more upgradable traits:


With limited MP pool and only a margin of our spells even being useful, I don't think having access to all spells at once would be overpowered while we only gain traits from those set, that sounds like a perfect idea because Job Traits are the only main reason it'd really even be overpowered. And if your worried about because we'd no longer have to set damage spells to take up our points, then lower the number of points o something to allow fewer traits.

I lot of upgradable traits is hard to do unless you are stuck curing (I/E 30 something set points for clear mind IV)

I just got gates the other day and i am not impressed. Are all the special spells like that underwhelming too?

Anyways the VW crap is ridiculous. After being gone for a year that was the change i expected most to happen (Along with AL changes but 50% is still a failing grade), not different menu icons for spells and ws.

IF SE did not want me playing blu then that was a good way to do it since it did work.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

1) No. Let's look at Occult. DRK - Useless. BLM & SCH - Useless. BLU - Useful. Sorry, BLU doesn't need anymore ways of TP gain or Damage output.

2) No, powerful enough.

3) Yes, but only for a reduction of the spells.

4) Yes, No, Maybe...

[Plasticleg]

1) No. Let's look at Occult. DRK - Useless. BLM & SCH - Useless. BLU - Useful. Sorry, BLU doesn't need anymore ways of TP gain or Damage output.

2) No, powerful enough.

3) Yes, but only for a reduction of the spells.

4) Yes, No, Maybe...

So when is BLU nuking with Elemental Magic spells?

[Daniel_Hatcher]

So when is BLU nuking with Elemental Magic spells?

What are you on about? the OP wants BLU to get a trait that works with BLU spells.

[Prothscar]

Blue spells wouldn't give nearly as much TP as a 200~400MP elemental magic spell would.

Further, no, physical blue magic is not powerful enough. Try casting some physical blue magic on anything that checks T++ or above, targets where additional attack or critical hits would make the most difference, and tell me how that goes for you.

[Tennotsukai]

TP is tp...always nice to have.

[Aeonk]

I'd settle for removing the damn accuracy penalty to Heavy Strike.

[saevel]

Blue spells wouldn't give nearly as much TP as a 200~400MP elemental magic spell would.

Further, no, physical blue magic is not powerful enough. Try casting some physical blue magic on anything that checks T++ or above, targets where additional attack or critical hits would make the most difference, and tell me how that goes for you.

That's LCF and you know it. Blue physical spells have an attack bonus that varies with each spell that more then ensures you get a decent Ratio on them. All melee's hit for sh!t on IT++ stuff, it takes double if not triple Min + Chaos with Berserk and / or Last Resort to make them do decent damage on things 10+ levels above you (-0.5 Ratio). In all other ways BLU is ridiculously stupidly powerful. It doesn't help that current game content focus's on 60~90s fights vs overpowered super NMs, content which reduces the game to a couple of jobs only.

OC wouldn't do much for BLU anyway, but DA / Attack working on BLU spells would just have SE nerfing the sh!t out of BLU later. Go ask the RNG's how that felt.

The most you can ask for is having the LCF penalty reduced a bit, instead of -0.05 per level make it -0.03 ~ -0.04. This way spamming BLU spells won't become stupidly overpowered while making them a bit more effective in those super short 60~90s fights that Tanaka was so fond of.

[Metaking]

well some blu spells have attack bonuses but lets look at the 2 more popular amorphic which is thought to be about 12% and quadradic which is thought to be 25% (think it was found to have a pritty decent acc bonus), lets assume i dont know 475 skill and 150str so a base blu attack of like 550, 12% attack bonus 616 attack or 25% bonus 687attack which isnt horrible but im sure most 2 handed jobs are easily beating that with just gear

there are 3 wild cards for really higher level stuff tho heavy seance it forces a crit making your attack not matter as much

a relatively unpopular spell, vanity dive which supposedly gets more than a 60 acc bonus as well as a 45% attack bonus dosnt sc well tho, and lower mods and multipliers than quad and amorphic

as well as quarter strike which requires chain or enfflux to be even remotely worth using and is a bit of a gamble if more hits than not crit

these 3 make up to lower end vts ok for physical spells tho that might be because blu is general also dropping the targets def some if they can , now how to fix the issue is a stick situation i mean if se let food berserk and attack spells/songs directly effect blu spells physical attack, blu would quickly jump from a dw dmg class to mid 2hander class which would have drgs crying twin rivers on the + side tho, who doesn't like stomping on failgoons ^.^/

[Afania]

2) Physical blue mage spells should have the chance to double attack and attack should factor into the damage.
They're physical. Physical damage should have all the physical modifiers attributed, such as attack, critical, and double attack. TP can already be applied to spells using chain affinity. Let's go the rest of the way and include attack, critical, and double attack.


Lol then BLU will be way too overpowered in endgame content....imagine zerg NM fight like higher tier VW or legion, a bunch of super buffed BLU spamming 5k physical spell back to back to back, not restricted by amnesia or any sort, have higher survivability than pure DD job, able to deal dmg type that's weak against that NM, on top of tossing random stun or debuff when needed......

BLU already dominate lowman lower level content, if it dominate higher lv content with an alliance that wouldn't be too balanced no? Just leave legion and prov to DRKs and WARs, salvage/nyzul/meeble burrows/limbus/dyna to BLUs...

[saevel]

well some blu spells have attack bonuses but lets look at the 2 more popular amorphic which is thought to be about 12% and quadradic which is thought to be 25% (think it was found to have a pritty decent acc bonus), lets assume i dont know 475 skill and 150str so a base blu attack of like 550, 12% attack bonus 616 attack or 25% bonus 687attack which isnt horrible but im sure most 2 handed jobs are easily beating that with just gear

there are 3 wild cards for really higher level stuff tho heavy seance it forces a crit making your attack not matter as much

a relatively unpopular spell, vanity dive which supposedly gets more than a 60 acc bonus as well as a 45% attack bonus dosnt sc well tho, and lower mods and multipliers than quad and amorphic

as well as quarter strike which requires chain or enfflux to be even remotely worth using and is a bit of a gamble if more hits than not crit

these 3 make up to lower end vts ok for physical spells tho that might be because blu is general also dropping the targets def some if they can , now how to fix the issue is a stick situation i mean if se let food berserk and attack spells/songs directly effect blu spells physical attack, blu would quickly jump from a dw dmg class to mid 2hander class which would have drgs crying twin rivers on the + side tho, who doesn't like stomping on failgoons ^.^/

Your first mistake was comparing BLU to WAR / DRK / SAM / DRG / MNK, don't do that ever. Those jobs only function is to hit things really REALLY hard, and keep hitting those things until they fall down. DRG is about the most versatile in that group as it can use it's pet to heal itself or others thought typically at the expense of losing the awesomeness that is /WAR or /SAM. If a BLU could hit as hard or even remotely close to what a WAR / DRK / SAM / DRG / MNK could then it would be stupidly broken, pre-nerf RNG broken. We would all abuse the sh!t out of it until enough people complained that SE would nerf BLU into the category that RNG and RDM have been put into. The damage output of a BLU should be compared to the other utility jobs, NIN / THF / RNG/ DNC (to an extent) and so forth. In that regard BLU is kicking major a$$.

BLU physical spells are just weapon skills that utilize the H2H formula for base damage. Individually they are not stronger then a buffed DD's weapon skills but they don't require TP to use and can be spammed back to back until the target is dead or the BLU's MP supply is exhausted. On anything EM or below your going to have a decent cRatio, it wont' be capped but it won't be under 1.0 either. Once the targets level starts going up LCF kicks in and suddenly your cRatio is under 1.0, a very bad place to be. That is why BLU spells do amazing damage and then suddenly drop like a brick, your cRatio just went under 0.8 ~ 1.0. It's also why HS still does nice damage (when it lands) even on high stuff, the +1.0 ratio bonus from it's auto-crit keeps it out of the low pDiff land.

That is why my idea would be to just reduce the LCF penalty. The spells would retain their same damage but wouldn't suddenly plummet on harder stuff. A small attack bonus wouldn't be bad either, possibly using the 2HR 4:3 formula or just giving a flat 10% across the board buff.

[Tennotsukai]

I think I'll have to concur with Saevel here. Good post!

[Metaking]

yes and no, if im not mistaken most blu spells spells are caped at 2.0 not 2.5 like 2handers so 10 levels over would drop them to 1.5 and 2 respectively and blus Cap on spell base D from skill is 113, tho almost no blu would use it since you lose to much for what you gain, will have to get home later and see what i myself actually use. and even with berserk food and attack songs blu wouldn't keep up with an ukon war or rag drk during high haste sams i really dont see often and when i do there not that good, but i would figure we would lag behind them too, drg, well... poor drgs without there mythic they can lose phases to 1 handers, mnks well there seems to be a big quality control issue with them there top tier players are defiantly impressive to see what they can do, but because of human error they don't tend to be as good as math would say under high haste, if they could be as math says they should they would also dust blu after buffs at that point, but yea blu would close in at about the same potential as mnk, which would only be so much of a boost over just spamming cdc which will still let a blu break very high in a phase(still losing to war and drk easily tho)

do have to say this tho, not very many target nm's a blu is going to have more than 2x blue physical attack vrs there def even with full buffs (maybe if you throw in full debuffs too) wanted to type more, but lunch break is over, so play nice

[Ophannus]

We wont get protect/shell since we have harden shell/cocoon/saline coat/magic barrier. BLU is about powerful shorterm buffs not long lasting weak buffs. Doubt we'll get a 30min long prot/shell, besides most BLU would set it and then cast it then replace it, which isn't what SE wants us to be doing.

[Metaking]

ummm ophan i think you posted that in the wrong thread

[Prothscar]

You'd be lucky to be capping ratio, or even coming close to capping ratio, on a DC Dynamis mob with physical blue magic. Level correction is an issue across the board for 1 handers, not just BLU, and in terms of physical blue magic you're being hit by a crippled ratio and poor favorability from level correction.

A Blue Mage in the best possible physical blue magic gear will have somewhere between 584~594 base blue magic attack depending on race and spell set. The highest known/tested attack bonus on a spell right now is around the 40% mark, Vanity Dive, putting that spell's attack at 823. 823 attack is pitiful on just about any target, as I specified, over T++, and that's before level correction lowers your already low ratio even further. Tack on high MP costs for most spells that are worth casting and a limited MP pool (among other factors), and the "they're just TP free weaponskills" thing is out the window.

Using the average STR value of this range (190 or so, rather high all things considered) with average WSC stats and varying JAs, on targets of a static level and varying defense values, average damage on our two strongest physical spells, Quad. Continuum and Quadrastrike, as well as Vanity Dive looks like this:


Monster DEF: No CA or EFF/CA and EFF
Monster Level: 120 (Between Qilin and Bismarck range or so, est.)

QC
350DEF: 786 1613
375DEF: 662 1359
400DEF: 541 1110
425DEF: 434 891
450DEF: 347 713
475DEF: 278 570

QS
350DEF: 651 1737
375DEF: 548 1556
400DEF: 448 1392
425DEF: 359 1256
450DEF: 287 1149
475DEF: 230 1061

VD
350DEF: 429 961
375DEF: 361 810
400DEF: 295 661
425DEF: 237 531
450DEF: 189 425
475DEF: 151 340



This is an entirely experimental, linear progression in terms of stat:level increases, in all reality a monster of such a high level as 120+ could have far higher DEF values than these, or slightly lower ones. High end content, such as higher tiers of Voidwatch or any chamber of Legion, would see far, far, far higher DEF values than these, and on some targets higher levels. That aside, you can clearly see the impact of even a small jump in DEF, 25 each step, on average damage done across the board. These DEF values are relatively low, particularly in terms of NMs, and as I said earlier while level correction has its impact, so does the issue of Blue Magic's abysmal attack score.

Physical blue magic should be strong enough to supplement sword damage (which is also horrible on high end content). While the "BLU is a hybrid can do lots of thingz" argument is nice on paper, fact of the matter is it's not a necessary role for much of anything, particularly not endgame content. Lowman situations can see some benefit, however those situations are still laughably faceroll for any combination of melee + healer/support to begin with and barely benefit at all from a "hybrid" class. There shouldn't be an argument for "hybrids" being "good already for what they do", as they don't do anything particularly well, and thus are not particularly needed for anything as a result of that. BLU could easily fill a DD role with limited support capability if needed, similar to DRG, however in the current state of one handed weapons and physical blue magic, that simply is not possible. Currently, it's not worth the MP cost nor the time cost required to cast the spell, let alone to "spam magic until the enemy falls over". Three solutions are as follows:

Solution A)

Augmentation of the blue magic attack operation.

Current blue magic attack operation: (Blue Magic Skill + 8) + STR/2

Proposed new blue magic attack operation: ((Blue Magic Skill + 8) + STR/2) * x where x = 1.33, 1.40, 1.50, or 1.66


This would provide a moderate to high attack bonus across the board for blue magic.



Solution B)

Variation on augmented blue magic attack operation.

(Blue Magic Skill + 8) + STR as well as physical blue magic ignoring a portion of level correction.


This would be a second way of enhancing spells to allow them to supplement sword damage in a meaningful manner. A small attack boost from doubling the current bonus from strength as well as a small to moderate portion of level correction being ignored. cRatio formula could be changed to:

cRatio = ratio - (target L - attacker L) * 0.015

Effectively enhancing ratio by +/- 31.9% on targets above level 99 compared to current. Alternatively, physical blue magic could use the cRatio formula that is used by ranged attacks, enhancing ratio by +/- 25% on targets above level 99.



Solution C)

Allow blue magic attack to be enhanced by other blue magic spells (Triumphant Roar) and/or other attack bonuses (job traits, job abilities, songs, corsair rolls).

Would cause spells to be enhanced on a completely dependent level rather than on an across the board level. Spell potency would be dependent on availability of buffs, just like weaponskills. This is not the preferred method, as even I concede that this would be far too overpowered if abused.

[Siiri]

So many people get blinded by their favorite job they lose sight of the fact there is 20 jobs in game. Blue mage has a wide variety of spells and abilities, and dominates low man and easier content. They are not meant to be a high attack DD like DRK and WAR, because again, what would be left for those jobs if blue and its dizzying array of spells comes in and competes on high end content.

[Metaking]

hmmm you realize even with all these buffs thx to blus abysmal base physical spell attack like all one handed jobs(base attack) still wouldn't be able to hold a candle to a war or a drk, and things get extremely noticeable in high haste, now drg and mnk might have a reason to complain but those 2 jobs can also do other things too, and yes blu has a lot, and i mean a lot of spells to bad at least 75% of them have never been useful, drk(such low tier elemental nukes) and to a lesser degree brd (a lot of songs no one ever uses) can even come close to saying the same. The reason for so many spells is blu out the box is a very weak job(before race bonus i think we have like the lowest every stat or close to it), but we have the interesting ability to stack are self to be better at killing what we are fighting on paper, anyhow, doesn't always work out that way aka stuff like family correlation is rarely used.

[Prothscar]

So many people get blinded by their favorite job they lose sight of the fact there is 20 jobs in game. Blue mage has a wide variety of spells and abilities, and dominates low man and easier content. They are not meant to be a high attack DD like DRK and WAR, because again, what would be left for those jobs if blue and its dizzying array of spells comes in and competes on high end content.

So we dominate things that any other job could do and things that don't matter. k. I don't think anyone's asking to be more powerful than WAR/DRK/etc., however being sufficient for current endgame activities would be fantastic.

Other spells have little to do with it. Most of BLU's spells are inferior to their real counterparts for one reason or another, and balance themselves through MP cost and time cost. In what situation am I going to have to use any of my spells, outside of the occasional damage spell and Tourbillion, on anything relevant?

[saevel]

Monster Level: 120 (Between Qilin and Bismarck range or so, est.)

This pretty much destroys your argument. That is 21 levels of LCF or -1.05 Ratio, you'd be slamming into the pDiffMin=0 floor. 600~800 attack is exactly what other 1h's get (THF / MNK / DNC / NIN / ect..), it's what BLU's typically have. The difference is that melee attacks can be buffed with Min, Zerk, Chaos, Fighters and other sources. Though you could use Dia II/III or Agnon to buff the "Attack" on Blue Spells since those are defense down effects.

Blue spell attack is in the right spot, only a slight nudge upwards would be necessary (hence my mention of using the 2H 4:3 component). The true culprit is that your attempting to fight something that is 21 levels above you, that's -1.05 which is crippling even to my Wagnarok DRK / WAR. Everyone who isn't super buffed is going to be hitting for 0's in that situation, BLU isn't spared the grief.

Another thing that needs to be said, no amount of attack can overcome LCF. Something that was found out during the testing of Gekko and Spinning Slash's attack bonus was that Ratio is capped first then LCF is applied. So no matter how much attack you pile on your looking at 2.0 - 1.05 = 0.95 cRatio as the absolute max. This is why we use 2H's on things of that level, their 2.25 Ratio cap allows all that extra attack we buff them with to actually do something. It's also why HS's +1.0 bonus, which is subject to the 3.0 Crit cap instead of the 2.0 regular cap, makes it deal good damage even on stupidly powerful monsters (when it lands).

Again it needs to be said that BLU spells should not be more powerful then melee Weapon skills, otherwise you'll just have a squad of BLU's riding embrava and other super buffs while chain casting their three to four most powerful spells. The exact number would depend on their capped recast. The damage from BLU spells seems to be balanced against targets that are level 105~107 which puts them in the VT~low IT category. Anything EM or under BLU pretty much crush's completely, anything VT or higher and spell damage drops like a rock. You don't want BLU's doing Rambo on level 120 Mega NMs, there will be screams for nerfs and I enjoy this job entirely too much to have to deal with that. Plus Tanaka is gone now, we can expect most future content to be less focused on "kill something in 90s or die" and more small group / dungeon focused. The new Meeble barrows for example pretty much screams "Blue Mage".

[Prothscar]

Other one handers, including BLU, with no buffs outside of berserk and food, have between 1000 and 1100 Attack. In the event that they have buffs (a MNK often will, a THF might) they'd have a much more reasonable attack and suffer from a dwarfed cRatio, which is another issue entirely that needs to be resolved. Blue Magic Attack can't be enhanced passed that base of 590~ outside of those spell-specific attack bonuses, and the higher values (800~) are on one or two of our weaker spells. The damage reduction between 350 and 475 attack in my previous post was over 70% by the time we reached the end of the scale, and I can assure you that endgame monster DEF goes much higher than that. Attack and base ratio are an issue, don't ignore them. The attack used is also under the assumption that the BLU has the absolute best of the best gear, including two pieces of Khepri armor. In all likelihood, an average to above average non-elvaan BLU will be missing quite a bit of the attack that was used in this ideal simulation, and since they can only get attack from gear they're in a pretty bad spot.

Further, no, the level does little to decrease the validity of my argument. You could do the same thing for a monster of any level and you'd still see a steady decrease in damage over time as you increase the monster's DEF as base ratio is not dependent on level correction.

If you'd read the rest of my post, you'd see that we're actually somewhat agreeing on how blue magic spells need to be adjusted.










Some more numbers for defense:damage variation, all QC 'cause I cba to do the other ones again. Using the same attack value as before but slightly higher WSC to make the numbers prettier, has no effect on ratio/cRatio. Only two polar DEF values to show general difference:

Lv99
300DEF: 2057
500DEF: 1206
41% Reduction in damage

Lv104
300DEF: 1759
500DEF: 1004
43% Reduction in damage

Lv109
300DEF: 1461
500DEF: 797
45.5% Reduction in damage

Lv114
300DEF: 1230
500DEF: 520
57.7% Reduction in damage

Lv119
300DEF: 1027
500DEF: 250
75.7% Reduction in damage


Overall reduction in damage from level correction, lv 99 to 119: 50.1%

As you can see, and as you should if you're thinking logically, the value of attack increases exponentially as level increases, it doesn't suddenly become less important just because level correction kicks in. The difference could be even more drastic if the monster has more than 500DEF.

[saevel]

Other one handers, including BLU, with no buffs outside of berserk and food, have between 1000 and 1100 Attack. In the event that they have buffs (a MNK often will, a THF might) they'd have a much more reasonable attack and suffer from a dwarfed cRatio, which is another issue entirely that needs to be resolved.

Bulvine Scatology.

99 BLU/WAR Elvann with 12 STR merits
No food / buffs

STR: 103+37
Attack: 603
+RCB
STR: 103+44
Attack: 745

+ Berserk
Attack: 907

That's with one of the best TP sets you can build. Only things I could change to be "perfect" would be neck to Rancor over Nef (I have both) and ammo over Aureole (I use for SL accuracy and to pull). Most players will be in the 600~800 range depending on food and whether they have zerk up or not.

1000 Attack .... maybe with Triumphant roar, that's just for cheese picture though.

Secondly you've pretty much proved why the attack component shouldn't be significantly buffed. The damage vs anything not EM or higher would sky rocket as your blue magic attack would hit the 2.0 ratio cap where as now it doesn't hit that unless your fighting really weak stuff. Your attempting to put BLU on par with the other dedicated DD's by allowing additional attack buffs to spike Ratio.

I know it's a hard pill to swallow, we all love BLU an want to be "desired" for "End Game" events. BLU's kick ass in everything except super buffed NM zergs, which right not happens to constitute nearly all of end game. Thankfully it looks like newer content will be less focused on super NM zerging and more focused on dungeon clearing or single party events.

[Prothscar]

I'll concede to that attack point as I was probably thinking with Stalwart's as well

As for the rest, I'm not implying that blue magic should be as strong or stronger than weaponskills, however I am advocating that they be a worthy supplement to sword damage. In their current state they're nowhere near worth the time and Mp cost, and unless we get a pretty big level correction ignore bonus we're not gonna get much benefit out of that alone. I already said in the post where I offered 3 different solutions that letting attack buffs affect spells is not the preferred solution.

As far as damage getting much higher on EMs and below, that isn't necessarily true, nor is it necessarily a major issue if it did happen, however once again I'm not condoning major attack buffs. Ignoring attack altogether, however, would be a foolhardy venture.

[Afania]

So we dominate things that any other job could do and things that don't matter. k. I don't think anyone's asking to be more powerful than WAR/DRK/etc., however being sufficient for current endgame activities would be fantastic.


Salvage/dyna doesn't matter o.o? I do those almost daily o.o And I fail to see other jobs(besides BST in dyna) can solo it more efficient than BLU can. Most of the DRK WARs in dyna and salvage, all run around with a mage mule, while BLU can do it twice a day and net more gil if you have 2 char.

The thing is, endgame events in this game is pretty much "If your job isn't THE BEST in this role, don't use it", even if SE buff spell dmg a bit, unless it beats WAR DRK it's still not worth using.

Majority of Legion Hall of Mul DD pt is Rag Army, unless your DRG MNK SAM super elite, like Mythic DRG etc, it's still not worth bringing over a lv 95 avg geared Rag DRK WAR. Most of the times from what I've seen, avg geared 95 rag WAR DRK still parses higher than say, 99 relic MNK, 99 Masa SAM and so on.

So buffing BLU spell output a bit won't be "fantastic", it won't change anything. It won't change the fact that pp still use Rag WAR DRK in legion hall of Mul, not BLU. Unless they buff spell dmg to a point to beat WAR DRK. I'm not against spell dmg goes up a bit, but I don't believe it will change any pt setup for any event either, it just makes dyna/salvage farm(which I already been doing it daily on BLU) more efficient and that's it, unless it's buffed to a point to beat WAR DRK which isn't balanced of course.

[Rambus]

Salvage/dyna stopped mattering when the game turned 80 and also the point it was not endgame materiel.

I am not sure is salvage was ever end game material, i guess that depends if you did it pre nerf.

Then again once the game turned 80 it was my view endgame did not exist in this game anymore and at 99 I see that fact reinforced.

The only thing I seen that approaches hard is maybe legion.

In fact can someone explain what people refer too as endgame today? because I am lost finding an endgame event.

BLU in VW is used as a proc monkey, an event i would not even play blu in.

Then you have 99 versions of 75 things that is melee burned just like before, unless you are having that magic damage party for physical shield.

So in that viewpoint you kinda need to fix the game along with blue mage is the point I'm getting at, even if i went a bit off topic.

I think BLU is best at getting all the different types of abyssea lights solo, so there is that I guess but I think that would fit 'excelling at stuff that does not matter'

[saevel]

"End Game" content is anything you do at level cap that requires you to be there for progression. Right now that's Voidwatch (T5+), Legion, NNI, Neo-Odin, and to some extend ADL. Meebles is out and it looks to be as somewhat useful event, the fourth tier boss looks to be a total d1ck with Chainspell Aoe Death.

Prior "End Game" was frequently used to refer to Sky, Sea, Dynamis, Ground Kings, Wyrms and Limbus. Then it was extended to mean ToAU Kings and Sandworm / DI. Those were all "claim" contests with the NM fights themselves being rather straightforward. They were only hard until we discovered a functioning strategy then they got reduced to farming status.

Having played a ton of different MMOs I can say that the best "end game" content is dungeon crawl / raids and not short spammable mega boss fights. I would rather we had events that required a balanced group to run through a multi-floor dungeon with various objectives / mechanisms that eventually ended at a single big fight. Those type of events tend to keep people engaged as support, DPS and crowd control are all required instead of a super zerg DD fest. Even have a boss that goes through multiple stages and summons adds, just don't give them some stupidly cheap AoE moves of death. That is when zerging becomes your only option as it's a "kill it in 90s or die" event.

Anyhow, those types of dungeon crawls is where BLU excels the most. It's a perfect balance of DPS, support and CC. One of the few jobs that SE got right.

[Rambus]

I know what past end game is lol. I just do not see a true endgame now. I want to fight something in a group that can fight back? not be stun locked and die in 5 minutes. I do admit I have no idea what level VW I did so far but then there is always items for back-ups too.

The problem with your idea of the perfect event is would a versatile job like blu dominate it where a mix of blm sch whm brd and melee jobs could do as well. In other words it probely should engorge an ally but there is a problem having too meany classes in the game. Who gets left out of what? Would the game be better if it was 6 classes ? (one job per party slot) Would that make versatility seem dull though?

So the question is how to make all jobs useful not this DRG and MNK burn to rng burn to nuke burn to mnk burn, to 2 hand burn (drg burn) < look full circle, then abyssea makes blm useful again and allows 18 jobs to exp but only a team of 4 jobs to go for farming things < so abyssea got it 1/2 right I guess.

VW is nice since people tend to accept all jobs and the combination is what they could find. In old endgame it was *get strong teir melee* with a team of blms and a tank. Then people discovered brd rotations and just went melee and brds. < A lot of endgame now still mimics this like ADL and the new nyzle ile. The only difference now is SCH 2 hr or SCH and SMN 2hr.

So in a zerg setup on most things blu does not have a place and part of that reason was explained by not being effected by buffs as much. So to me this causes a situation if you can't make use of emp sword well it is get on brd, war, drk, smn, or sch.

[Afania]

Salvage/dyna stopped mattering when the game turned 80 and also the point it was not endgame materiel.

I am not sure is salvage was ever end game material, i guess that depends if you did it pre nerf.

Then again once the game turned 80 it was my view endgame did not exist in this game anymore and at 99 I see that fact reinforced.

The only thing I seen that approaches hard is maybe legion.

In fact can someone explain what people refer too as endgame today? because I am lost finding an endgame event.

BLU in VW is used as a proc monkey, an event i would not even play blu in.

Then you have 99 versions of 75 things that is melee burned just like before, unless you are having that magic damage party for physical shield.

So in that viewpoint you kinda need to fix the game along with blue mage is the point I'm getting at, even if i went a bit off topic.

I think BLU is best at getting all the different types of abyssea lights solo, so there is that I guess but I think that would fit 'excelling at stuff that does not matter'

I'm under the impression that Endgame content means content design for current lv cap, so lv 99 content, such as Legion, Odin v2, Nyzul v2 and higher VW are considered endgame.

But in this game, "true endgame" is not everything many ppl do. I don't consider salvage/dyna endgame, but I can't deny the fact that quite a large amount of player actually do salvage/dyna more than real endgame(legion/prov).

I just did sea all earlier this evening, found 16 ppl in SSR, 8 in AR. Search dyna, it's at least 10~20 ppl in CoP zone everyday. Now if you search prov and legion area, you're not going to see more than 1 ally most of the time. Half of my LS, including myself, usually do legion 1~2 times a week and 1~2 runs at once, rest of the time is all dyna/salvage. But when it's legion event time, I often have to work my ass out of my connection to even make a full ally. Real endgame content with super high level NM such as legion and prov isn't even popular for majority of players who just want to log on and do easy stuff with any setup without having elite gear.

You can keep saying only real endgame content matters, but that's really minority of the players that does nothing but prov/legion. Majority of players /shout for Abyssea NM team up, /shout for T3 VW(but not T6/prov), solo in dyna/salvage with mules and friends, or do nyzul V2 with static. Legion/Prov is actually the content that majority of players doensn't care about and not interested in doing. I wouldn't say salvage/dyna it's not important just because all the mobs isn't IT++++. An event matters or not should be decided by whether it's rewarding and attractive/popular, not depend on mob level.

[Nawesemo]

*snickers -.- NERF BLU!!!!! /em runs back to his mog house and breaks out the popcorn

[Cabalabob]

I think BLU spells are fine, they may not be great against high lvl stuff but BLU has the ability to set itself up to be proficient with its sword while covering itself with buffs, so for content that is too high for our spells we should be setting up to buff ourselves (fantod, triumphant roar, etc.) with maybe heavy strike and quadstrike thrown in for CA/efflux. only problem is VW cause we have to set those darn proc spells so can't setup for DDing if they weren't a problem BLU would be fine just setting spells and traits to buff it's sword use.

[SpankWustler]

I'd like to see all of the "utility"/"hybrid"/"cheap chili on an artificially cased hotdog in an attempt to make something tasty"/etc. jobs gain more damage or more of a purpose than they currently have, Blue Mage included.

Being better at farming level 75 content, which almost any job can do exceptionally well in a duo environment, doesn't do much to alleviate out-and-out terrible performance against anything of level 120 or above. The most extreme comparison would be Salvage VS Legion, an event where the only reward for better performance is being done a half-hour early VS an event where poor performance from the Melee Bros produces a straight-up failure to kill the things you wanted to kill.

Blue Mage is definitely the most well-made job amongst the huge, goofy "something (probably one-handed melee) and something else (meant to add utility)" group of jobs, but I'd say that whole strata generally gets the short end of the stick. There's plenty of room for the damage dealt by Blue Mage, Thief, Dancer, etc. against high level monsters to increase without encroaching on the position of Warrior or Dark Knight or...Warrior or Dark Knight, I guess.

[Tennotsukai]

I think BLU spells are fine, they may not be great against high lvl stuff but BLU has the ability to set itself up to be proficient with its sword while covering itself with buffs, so for content that is too high for our spells we should be setting up to buff ourselves (fantod, triumphant roar, etc.) with maybe heavy strike and quadstrike thrown in for CA/efflux. only problem is VW cause we have to set those darn proc spells so can't setup for DDing if they weren't a problem BLU would be fine just setting spells and traits to buff it's sword use.

I always thought Triumphant Roar had a terrible duration. I'm not sure if Fantod would exactly help our sword strikes unless you used 4 Fantods before you went in for a hit. Plenilune Embrace has a decent duration, though it's not reliable. I can't think of any other buffs that would help out our sword damage with the exception of job traits. We have some really nice debuffs, at least. Once Tourbillion gets fixed that is.

[saevel]

T.Roar should of been a 5min duration for it's cost / casting time. It's completely BS that it's so short.

[Tennotsukai]

yup...agreed.

[Metaking]

i think they were trying to make it a ghetto form of war-cry


odd thought why not give blu spells(and all 1 handers for that mater ) a low ratio cap(aka cant go below) of .75 maybe give 2 handers .50 and ranged none. would help 1 handers a ton on high level stuff as well, and give them some advantage over 2 handers which atm do every thing with wepons better than them >.>

[Prothscar]

T.Roar should of been a 5min duration for it's cost / casting time. It's completely BS that it's so short.

Three minutes at the very least. Barrier Tusk is in the same boat, could also say Feather Barrier is but meh.

[Wisesam1984]

I have to say there is alot of intersting fact given here and I am totally on board with everyone. Is SE going to listen to what we have to say because I do believe Bluemage should not have to equip all spells but only the ones that give us triats and enable us to use the rest aswell as the one set with traits which I do beleive is a good idea, posted above by someone.