Much needed improvements to blue mage

[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.