Blue Mage Tanking

[Tirrock]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I see what the original poster was trying to do...but I agree that any job that can hold a sword can tank in the dunes.

It's hard to get an understanding of the concepts of a job in the dunes, because your stats are so similar to the stats of melees/mages/tanks at that level.

[Tsikuro]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I was tanking today as BLU36, and it went pretty well. Subbed /WAR, had most of my gear as RSE... we had another BLU that was /NIN... cast cocoon as BRD pulled a mob every fight, and then voked it off him... hate was never an issue, it all went pretty well. I asked a lv35 PLD what his DEF was, and with cocoon, I had more DEF than him, and had +12 VIT from spells and gear to top it off. During the fights, I spammed Head Butt to stun the enemy, as did the other BLU... mobs went down quickly, and only occasionally hit me. We got EXP chains, and having over 300mp, I never had any trouble in that area, so I didn't have to rest for 4-5 fights before getting low on MP.

[Taskmage]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I'm flipping through the armor listings on somepage, and I don't see any evidence of blu losing access to high def gear at level 20. Eisen at level 29 is unavailable to blu, but they can wear the Centurion set at level 30 which only has 4 less defense. Pld gets Silver Mail at 36 that blu can't wear, but again, it's only one level later that blu gets Iron Scale Mail which has the same def. At 40 blu loses out on Breast Plate, but at 42 they'll both be wearing Earth Doublet. ... Please back up this statement that blu doesn't have access to high defense gear from the 20s, assuming you didn't just make that up to serve your point.

[Tirrock]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I personally used HQ eisen legs/feet (and still do) for my PLD at 45. DEF seems to be easy enough to get as PLD through food/protect to me. Just throwing that out there. >_>

Mini-edit:
Although, I will admit I'm a bit close minded when it comes to BLU tanking after the dunes... It just seems broken to me that they apparently can. It slipped my mind that cocoon was a % based DEF boost, not a certain set number too. Assuming that a BLU's base DEF isn't to different from PLD...I suppose there would be no real difference in ability until auto refresh for PLD at 35...

I wonder if it's even possible for BLU to hit the point of DEF where more starts to make little difference at that level...it probably is with cocoon and the right food...

Anyway. Tired ramblings. I'll shut up now.

[Yoko]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I would assume that even as a new job, a fighter mage could tank in the dunes. After the dunes inviting a Blue Mage to tank is risky. Through the 20s we no longer have access to the high defense gear, and even with Cocoon we don't have the Vitality to back it up. Pollen doesn't scale up to match higher level cure standards, and our selection of shields isn't the best. It's obvious we weren't meant to tank well.

The fact is not that it can tank, Its that it can tank WELL. And especially past 20 imo. You see, pld's and war's dont get much different def+ gear then blu can at those lvls, and protect + cocoon + food + juices + vit bonus job traits = a heck of a good tank. I'm sorry but you should probably get more information before saying things out of, from my point of view, nowhere.

[Karinya]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I'm flipping through the armor listings on somepage, and I don't see any evidence of blu losing access to high def gear at level 20. Eisen at level 29 is unavailable to blu, but they can wear the Centurion set at level 30 which only has 4 less defense. Pld gets Silver Mail at 36 that blu can't wear, but again, it's only one level later that blu gets Iron Scale Mail which has the same def. At 40 blu loses out on Breast Plate, but at 42 they'll both be wearing Earth Doublet. ... Please back up this statement that blu doesn't have access to high defense gear from the 20s, assuming you didn't just make that up to serve your point.

I think they were probably referring to chain, but these days chain isn't as big a difference as it used to be; shade harness is only one level later and nearly as good def. You're right, with centurion they're not that far behind a WAR or PLD wearing eisen/kampf. Cocoon could probably make up the difference pretty easy.

They may be right about pollen being inadequate at later levels, though. People aren't very accepting of WAR tanks past 40; I think it's because, even though they don't take noticeably more damage than a PLD (with equal quality gear and food), they can't heal themselves to take some of the load off the other healer(s) (and it really helps to have 2 with a WAR tank, which is often hard to find). BLU is likely to have the same problem until Magic Fruit, and by then you're at AF levels and they probably *are* behind quite a lot in def (and also +enmity) - although it depends on the stats of their AF, which isn't released yet.

And the higher you get, the harder it will be for a BLU/NIN to hold hate by spamming offensive blue magic (plus, past 40, utsu ichi isn't very impressive for tanking anyway). The MP cost will rapidly become prohibitive (except maybe if you can spam MP drainkiss? have to see how effective it is.)

Looks to me like they're going to decline in tanking effectiveness about the same level a WAR tank does, and for a lot of the same reasons. On the other hand, I wonder about the tanking effectiveness of a WAR/BLU... they DO get heavy armor, plus cocoon on top of it, and probably still doing more damage than a BLU/WAR tank. Plus decent shield skill, better VIT, Warcry, and once you get high enough, +enmity AF.

[Tsikuro]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

Today, we had a party with the following setup:
BLU/NIN(me), BLU/NIN, COR/NIN, SAM/WAR, BST/NIN, WHM/(?)
Through all the fights, me and the other BLU kept hate easily by spamming Bludgeon & Head Butt. He was a Galka, and I was Hume, but he had Full RSE + 2x Astral rings, so he only had 10mp less than me at the same level.
Anyway, we could get up to chain 5 before having to rest, and got about 200xp a mob... it was great. Everyone kept laughing at how amazingly easy it was for us to hold hate, dish out amazing damage, and never get hit, saying things like: "Wow, who needs tanks?".

Edit: PT average level was 38, and I was lv39

[Hyrist]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

Cat Blue, so roughly same MP. However, I usually start a fight with Queasyshroom, Wild Oats, and Sprout Smack (Poison, Vit Down, and Slow respectively)

It's the Queasyshoorm that is taking you down. I would sugest replacing it with maybe head butt, power attack (which is good for interrupting spells) or somthing else that has a small MP drain and quick cast. Cyceling between those spells will reall y help you as far as making your MP endure more.

Pies dont hurt much either, I find myself lasting alot longer against Tough mobs solo with a large MP pool to keep spamming with, maybe this can help you too in your party situation.

[Tirrock]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I think the biggest problem with BLU tanking is a lack of shields. Can pretty much wear any shield a SMN can...so you have like 3 shields and all the level 30 "all jobs" shields... I think that's one of the things that sets PLDs apart from BLU on tanking.

[massaranger]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

We've had this discussion before. Blue mage = Aoi Madoushi. Madoushi = magic user. Paladins and ninjas both use magic, so I guess they're the opposite of tanks too.

locus has posted that blue mage can be an effective tank up to level 40. Very good party setups and equipment were involved, but if it's possible for blu to tank well at all at this point with our limited understanding of the job, then I think it's safe to say blue mage will be a good tank through the mid-game at least.

im sorry i dint say because they use magic they cant be tanks they dont have the word ***Mage*** in there name

[Taskmage]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

im sorry i dint say because they use magic they cant be tanks they dont have the word ***Mage*** in there name

It seems like you missed my point entirely, but seeing as there are blue mages posting that they tanked for chain 5s up until the late 30s and 40s that prove your point wrong on its face, I'll forego the semantic arguement.

Double Post Edited:
Karinya you may be right about the ability to self-heal, but I think we'll just have to wait and see. Blu does have the benefit of Auto-Regen, for what that's worth. Has anyone gotten to try out the hp and mp drain spells to see how worthwhile they are?

It's true that blu doesn't get shields, which is unfortunate if you're trying to tank, but they have other tricks up their sleeves to compensate. I bet the time the mob spends stunned from Head Butt is comparable to the damage mitigation you get from shield blocks. Probably not on par, but comparable.

[massaranger]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

It seems like you missed my point entirely, but seeing as there are blue mages posting that they tanked for chain 5s up until the late 30s and 40s that prove your point wrong on its face, I'll forego the semantic arguement.

Double Post Edited:
Karinya you may be right about the ability to self-heal, but I think we'll just have to wait and see. Blu does have the benefit of Auto-Regen, for what that's worth. Has anyone gotten to try out the hp and mp drain spells to see how worthwhile they are?

It's true that blu doesn't get shields, which is unfortunate if you're trying to tank, but they have other tricks up their sleeves to compensate. I bet the time the mob spends stunned from Head Butt is comparable to the damage mitigation you get from shield blocks. Probably not on par, but comparable.

i never said that they cannot be tanks i meant they should not be tanks, because if i can x chain 3 solo i know they can tank

[Taskmage]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

Well that's your opinion so I'll try to respect it, but I disagree. The game needs another tank option, even if it is inferior or only applies to certain level ranges, so long as it is occasionally viable. So far it looks like blu isn't inferior, just different. Whether blu is an effective tank up to the endgame or just for the first half remains to be seen. The fact they have mage in their name doesn't bother me a bit as long as they're doing a job that needs to be done. I'm very happy that blu didn't turn out to be just another damage dealer.

[DakAttack]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

It seems like you missed my point entirely, but seeing as there are blue mages posting that they tanked for chain 5s up until the late 30s and 40s that prove your point wrong on its face, I'll forego the semantic arguement.

Karinya you may be right about the ability to self-heal, but I think we'll just have to wait and see. Blu does have the benefit of Auto-Regen, for what that's worth. Has anyone gotten to try out the hp and mp drain spells to see how worthwhile they are?

It's true that blu doesn't get shields, which is unfortunate if you're trying to tank, but they have other tricks up their sleeves to compensate. I bet the time the mob spends stunned from Head Butt is comparable to the damage mitigation you get from shield blocks. Probably not on par, but comparable.

Sorry if this sounds like I'm picking apart your post, I'm not trying to.

For one, the Blue Mages that are already level 40-50 aren't exactly using "normal" methods. I'm sure by tanking they mean provoking whenever the PL loses hate. If it sounds like I have a bug up my butt about this, I do, and for obvious reasons.

Auto-Regen is one HP a tick, only worthwhile if you're soloing, but even then it isn't groundbreaking. Pollen seems to scale up a single HP per level, which will most likely become useless around level 40. People say it's based on Chr only, but I know it's based on Mnd as well. I havn't had time to obtain MP Drain, but the HP drain has a few second cast, only drained 30 HP at most, and has a 1:30 cooldown. I've heard others having better luck with it, might be more Int based.

Seriously, they'll tank okay enough if you like sub par tanks, but just like the warrior they have more equipment that gears them towards dealing damage rather than tanking. Why suit up in a NQ set of armor that people only buy for the Bridgette the Stylist quest when you can gear up in HQ melee offensive armor and fill that role more easily? They can't use Chain set, the R.S. Chainmail set, the Plate set, Alumine set, Mythril set, I.M set, R.K. chainmail, and any armor similar.

Against IT enemies a lot of abilities can/will be resisted. You can't count on Headbutt to be a reliable stun when you need it.

If anybody were to ask me, which nobody here has yet, Blue Mage makes better melee offensive role than anything. They have the ability to enfeeble, skill chain, and magic burst as reliably as any other job. The only problem with magic bursting is you have to open the skillchain if the spell you're using has a long casting time, such as bomb toss.

[massaranger]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

Well that's your opinion so I'll try to respect it, but I disagree. The game needs another tank option, even if it is inferior or only applies to certain level ranges, so long as it is occasionally viable. So far it looks like blu isn't inferior, just different. Whether blu is an effective tank up to the endgame or just for the first half remains to be seen. The fact they have mage in their name doesn't bother me a bit as long as they're doing a job that needs to be done. I'm very happy that blu didn't turn out to be just another damage dealer.

The game dont need another tank options theres already 3 there's : war attack based tank, pld def based tank, and nin a dodge based tank. Really a blue really is a little of both some melee with sword some def with vit boost(yet i must regard vit boost only limit so much) and spells that do that and then stoneskin for some dodge type abilitys but not highly reliable because the others are pure and take full advantage of one type except for war which is hardly used anymore.