Alright, I Did It. [Blue mage Review]

[Kalise]

My apologies. Off-guard wasn't the the proper example. The point I meant to make was that we have conflicting information about Drill Cannon's damage type, and by extension, conflicting information about Mountain Buster. From what I understand, when an action states that it "deals unaspected damage with a potency of X", under normal circumstances, that means it deals magic damage. Actions that deal physical damage ordinarily state that it "delivers an attack with a potency of X" which isn't the case with Drill Cannon. Basically, the "unaspected" property, which is included in Drill Cannon's action description, suggests that the attack is magical in nature.

If we take all information that we're given, from both the action description and the spell book description, Drill Cannon should be considered both magical and physical while dealing piercing damage. I'm hesitant to consider all of that to be 100% accurate under all circumstances, but it's possible. I'm more inclined to trust the action description, hence my suspicion that the physical aspect (that's only mentioned in the spell book) only applied while inside the Masked Carnival, but testing will have to be conducted to determine its properties.

After some limited testing, it would seem that it's the action description that's inaccurate, but verification from anyone able to conduct more extensive testing would be appreciated.

Yeah, while I cannot confirm if it actually deals Piercing damage (Thus would be bolstered by DRG's debuff), it at the very least, isn't considered Magical, because it does not benefit from Peculiar Light.

To ascertain whether it truly is dealing Physical damage though, would require something like a RDM to apply Embolden (Which increases party members physical damage) and see if its damage is affected. Then for checking Piercing, there would need to be a DRG using Disembowel.

But yeah, there is currently some issues with the tooltip and description.

Since, we have plenty of "Unaspected" damage spells (Notably, AST uses entirely unaspected damage), we do not have a precedent for "Physical" damage spells, which I assume is where this tooltip discrepancy comes in. Since, "Deliver an attack", the usual wording for physical skills, would still be inaccurate, as it's not an attack, it's a spell.

As for this further testing of Phys/Piercing damage, I'm afraid I lack the capacity... I don't have anyone I can call on to help apply the necessary buff/debuff to test with.

[Bigsby]

I think the best way, although I don't know how easy it would be to implement since I'm not a game designer, to fix blu's dmg is to make all spells magic dmg and just benefit from blanket dmg buffs like trick attack and magic dmg buffs the spells that have specified dmg types beyond just being magic benefit from piercinf slashing blunt dmg buff respectively and just add magic dmg and intelligence to the blu af weapon and make future weapons for blu thru its lvl ranges in the future. Adding stats to the lvl 1 weapon wouldn't matter too much because if they did do this it probably won't be until shadow bringers, but they could just make it op for a lvl 1 weapon for new blus in 5.xx. I think that's all that needs to happen to make blu useful, and they could put it in older sb and lower df stuff to study how to balance it and hopefully unlimit the job in 6.xx.


Although if they did ever fully unlimit blu it may lose ifs opness in certain scenarios that it has now, but they absolutely need to add stats and dmg to the weapon

[Kalise]

I think the best way, although I don't know how easy it would be to implement since I'm not a game designer, to fix blu's dmg is to make all spells magic dmg and just benefit from blanket dmg buffs like trick attack and magic dmg buffs the spells that have specified dmg types beyond just being magic benefit from piercinf slashing blunt dmg buff respectively and just add magic dmg and intelligence to the blu af weapon and make future weapons for blu thru its lvl ranges in the future.

Well, they don't particularly NEED to add stats to the weapon (Though, it would help them scale), they really could do that.

Ironically, I believe the reasoning they gave for not putting stats on BLU's weapons was because they "Didn't want BLU's to have to farm dungeons for weapons"

Well, specifically: (Source)

Famitsu writer: Do we need to participate in content to collect weapons?

Yoshida: We designed it so you aren't forced to do so. Unlike other jobs, the BLU weapon doesn't have any stats on it. If it did have stats, you would end up going to dungeons over and over again. BLUs have restrictions to "queue with randoms", so it will just be stressful.

So apparently, going to dungeons to get weapons (If you even bothered to do that given how fast BLU levels, you'd really able to get by on store bought stuff... If even that given that 1000 Needles AKA the only damaging skill worth anything levels 1-49 doesn't scale with stats at all) is "stressful" but farming Dungeons and EX Trials for the spells is apparently fine and dandy...

*Sigh*

Anyway, to fix BLU's damage... Make all their damage "Magical" with different elements in order to do Masked Carnival (Make their Physical damage skills just deal some form of Physical damage like Piercing or Slashing which, should only be the case for Drill Cannon? Mountain Buster should deal Earth damage, just like Titan-Egi)

Then nerf Off-Guard down to a more reasonable level of damage amp (Like 20%. Still more than other classes 10% damage boost, for the cost of only being single target because its a debuff rather than a self buff) and give them more reasonable potencies across the board. This should make it easier to balance them at all levels, so they're not utter trash while leveling up without using 1000 Needles, while also meaning they don't have some stupid scaling issues (Such as combo effects that triple the potency of a skill getting amped like crazy by the 50% boost from Maim and Mend and then the 50% boost from Off-Guard)

[Blueyes]

YAs for this further testing of Phys/Piercing damage, I'm afraid I lack the capacity... I don't have anyone I can call on to help apply the necessary buff/debuff to test with.

I think it might be safe to say that Drill Cannon inflicts piercing damage. Though my testing was limited, what I did was I got on Dragoon, hit a dummy with Disembowel, then swapped to Blue Mage. There did seem to be a slight increase whereas I didn't notice any change when using Peculiar Light.

It actually is an interesting idea to give Blue Mage different damage types to work with, but I suspect it will be a niche thing that may fall the wayside as more powerful spells are introduced. Physical and magical resistances (or damage reflection effects based on damage type) are fairly significant during certain stages within the Masked Carnival. Blue Mage has basic access to all damage types which should work well enough for any threats the carnival might through at them. We may see some more physical spells going forward, but it probably won't be a focal point.

So apparently, going to dungeons to get weapons (If you even bothered to do that given how fast BLU levels, you'd really able to get by on store bought stuff... If even that given that 1000 Needles AKA the only damaging skill worth anything levels 1-49 doesn't scale with stats at all) is "stressful" but farming Dungeons and EX Trials for the spells is apparently fine and dandy...

*Sigh*

Yeah, their explanation for cutting weapons out of the equation doesn't hold up, much like everything they've said about Blue Mage. Honestly, I feel almost certain that the real reason why Blue Mage lacks weapons was entirely determined by a desire to cut down on production costs. It's the most likely reason why Blue Mage was limited in the first place. "Should we invest into making LB3 for Blue Mage? Nah, let's just remove LB from Blue Mage entirely. Problem solved. PvP actions? Nah, cut PvP out too." I could go on...

[KageTokage]

I was under the impression that anything with an element would be considered magical damage and not physical but Fire Angon is apparently physical fire damage because it triggers physical counters like the one present in round 1 of the Azulmagia fight.

[Mholito]

I was under the impression that anything with an element would be considered magical damage and not physical but Fire Angon is apparently physical fire damage because it triggers physical counters like the one present in round 1 of the Azulmagia fight.

Fire Angon is currently mislabeled in the Blue Magick Spellbook. It does physical piercing/fire damage. Mountain Buster is also a physical skill with an element. It's blunt/earth.

[Blueyes]

I was under the impression that anything with an element would be considered magical damage and not physical but Fire Angon is apparently physical fire damage because it triggers physical counters like the one present in round 1 of the Azulmagia fight.

There are definitely some oddities in how some spells are treated compared to how they are labeled. When fighting Leviathan, I noticed damage reflection when casting Fire Angon and Drill Cannon, but not for Flying Frenzy, Sharpened Knife, or Mountain Buster. (All against Leviathan's head.)

[Ceallach]

I didn't read the entire thread, but I would like to point out Aqua Breath into High Voltage is 260 potency overall and includes 30 seconds of paralysis. If you need the paralysis more than the damage, this is your combo over the Voices because the Dragon's Voice releases your victims from the deep freeze. In comparison, the Dragon's Voice only inflicts 9 seconds of paralysis, and then only 10% of the time.