Much needed improvements to blue mage

[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.