Blue Mage Tanking

[MS-Clydearrowny]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I don't care much about how well blu can tank in exp pt's but I would like to see how they do vs. hnm. At higher lv's they do get more def boost like reactor cool and a lot of magic def boosts like saline coat / amplification. I've personally tanked fafnir in 3/5 homam (body/hands/feet) which blu can equip. My shield skill is horrible since I play pld maybe once a month and I leveled it in pt setups where I main healed myself and almost always used staves (pld, brd+rdm, 3 rng or 3 blm usually, lots of +hmp, 2xrefresh, verm). So my shield was mostly worthless except for the random intimidations and small def bonus. With 2x refresh in the tank pt and with self-destruct/frightfulroar/lightofpenance/voracioustrunk equipped for auto-refresh mp shouldn't be a problem. If resists aren't horrible with end game equipment and if some of the higher lv blu spells generate enough hate it would be fun to try. Sometimes the 'best' tank isn't available when the hnm pops at 5am.

[zerochaos]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

Yea im a lvl 14 BLU and with the spells that give you +DEF makes me have the most DEF in my pt so i think BLU will be able to tank all the way till 75 but you are going to have to sub /war cuse i cant take hate for shit

[Taskmage]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I'd like to agree with you, but as it's been said before, a job's performance in Valkurm shouldn't be an indicator of how the rest of its career will play out. In Valkurm, a red mage can make a decent melee, and a drk/whm is a respectable backup healer.

Also, the most prevalent method of tanking for blue so far has been to sub /nin for extra damage mitigation from shadows, and hold hate through spamming blue spells, notably bludgeon.

[massaranger]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

if u decide to tank a good food is shallops tropical with that and protect and cocoon and full centurions armor i have 330 def which is pretty decent for a tank at lv 50 defender might be a good abilty to gain aswell with the earth elmental staff , i prefer to dd myself but the def also works good solo

[zerochaos]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

Yea thats ture lol ok well then i will just have to see

[Aeni]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

This is my own experience with BLU main tanking (last night) In this one setup (There was another, since I was with some of them for a total of 3+ hours last night) we got to chain 5s w/o problems and minimal downtimes. The key is the COR's luck and as luck would have it, this COR only busted once on her rolls.

58 R6 Hum BLU/WAR
60 R10 Mit BLU/NIN
59 R5 Mit RDM/WHM (Myself)
60 R10 Elv BLM/WHM
59 R10 Tar DRG/NIN
59 R10 Hum COR/NIN

We're in Ulegeurand Range fighting Navi (Sp?) Raptors, which were IT+~IT++ to me (Asking a RDM to con is actually a bad idea ... so I believe they were simply IT~IT+ to the melees in PT) The camp was an ideal one and we were fortunate to get it (Both ends of this ravine featured raptors in the event there were multiple parties in the area, but there were only one other and we pulled twice as fast as they did and there were more than enough raptors for the both of us)

Blue Mage/Warrior

• Defensive spells include: Cocoon and Metal Skin.
• Healing: Magic Fruit (290-300 HP recovery per cast on a consistent basis)
• Offensive: Not quite sure what the list was, but Dimensional Death was used a lot.
• Capped skill in staff and usage of Earth Staff for reduction of damage taken in conjunction with Defender job ability.
• High evasion gear (Emperor's Hairpin, SH+1) and DD gear (Valkrie Mask, etc.)

Blue Mage/Ninja

• Dual wielding Wise Wz. Anelace and Greed Scimitar.
• Offensive: Jet Stream (used in conjunction with Vorpal Blade) and several others.
• Healing: Magic Fruit, which is one of the most powerful restorative spell for a BLU.
• High evasion gear (See above) as well as DD gear.

This dual combination BLU tanking was critical to our success. The BLUs also had /p messages which communicated to each other what was going on. For example, if the BLU/WAR took too much heat, the BLU/NIN would instantly grab hate using Magic Fruit in macro by healing the BLU/WAR, spam Vorpal Blade, toss in Jet Stream and cast Recharge (Haste) and Feather (That ability that boosts evasion) and will tank through a good bit of the fight. This never really was the case all that much, but it was a safety net and a good backup strategy.

The BLU/WAR did an admirable job tanking and was on par (In some fights, even better) than a NIN/WAR at keeping hate. Of course, it went without saying that everyone did their best to pitch in. DRG/NIN was our puller and pulled with tathlas. COR/NIN was our co-refresher (I was the other 3mp/tick) and the BLM kept up with paralyna and stun. I made sure both BLUs were hasted at all times.

Damage output was really good and I think overall this PT was the best combo on a mob like raptors. In another situation, I'm unsure of how it will fare.

But to answer people's question on whether or not BLU/WAR can make effective tanks? The answer is yes.

[YouCanCallMeBubba]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

you can "tank" with anyjob in dunes /war....

[Kailea]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I dont see BLU tanking unless you have very top of the line gear, and to me that is not enuff to cal it a tanking job

[Aeni]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

I dont see BLU tanking unless you have very top of the line gear, and to me that is not enuff to cal it a tanking job

Have you ever been in a party with a BLU tanking post 50s? To me, everyone is voicing their opinion (For or against) but have yet to even experience this in the mid and end game situations...

[Cyborg]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

i do think blue mages can tank well, dont forget blu/nin and blu/war with a thf in there past 30 the thf ca always shift hate form n to another, thf can play a big role in giving jobs tons of hate, also very early in the post many of you guys were lsting off cut in stone DD"s and i noticed...... were's drg, they made us better ten fold we can keep pet alive and we beat out every job against bird and we are par on soft body animals, i just dont want you guys to forget there are jobs that you should count when you talk about DD's and Drg's are one and will be one, you guys try hitting 150+ and 200+ on IT birds in bibiki bay most melee cant but that attack boost we get on flying mobs rock, so plz i know that blu can tank and DD easily but most blue's mages on Caitsith DD past 30 <tahts basiclly what ya see on search >.< blu/nin > oh well i am rambling now, thxs guys and i hope ya take this to heart

[Kailea]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

Have you ever been in a party with a BLU tanking post 50s? To me, everyone is voicing their opinion (For or against) but have yet to even experience this in the mid and end game situations...

yeah maybe past 50....but at my current lv32 I have seen many fail at it

[Aeni]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

yeah maybe past 50....but at my current lv32 I have seen many fail at it

That's because much of the abilities do not come in until the upper levels. Thus, what I'm saying is that just because you saw a tiny sliver from a low level period of what the BLU was capable of doing (or incapable in this case) does not fairly assess the job class in the roles we're discussing.

PLDs have trouble tanking pre-30s. Even capable WARs can out tank many PLDs. Does this mean that the PLD job class sucks at tanking? No. This is what I'm driving at, how the masses believe the first 30 levels means everything in this game. You realize that the first 30 levels in this game is only roughly a fraction of the total accumulated exp all the way to 75 (Someone said that the halfway point from 1 to 75 pre-exp change was in the mid 60s)

[locus]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

Pointing out a few glaring errors.

Blue Mage/Warrior[list][*]Capped skill in staff and usage of Earth Staff for reduction of damage taken in conjunction with Defender job ability.[*]High evasion gear (Emperor's Hairpin, SH+1) and DD gear (Valkrie Mask, etc.)

-Capped Skill in staff is irrelevant because Blue has 0 staff skill and gets all its staff skill from its sub. Accuracy of weapon skills like Dimensional Death etc are dependant on your personal accuracy, so if he was using an earth staff all the time, I can guarantee you he was missing 90% of the time when casting Dimensional Death or the like. Yes. Even with Sushi. Yes, I've done this personally while wearing +38 accuracy from gear.

At low levels you might not notice this, but at high levels, using any weapon you do not have skill in, such as a lotus katana = ridiculous miss rate with WS skills.

-Defender and Cocoon don't stack. Net effect Def bonus 50% + atk down by 25% for absolutely no good reason.

-You can't equip both Valkyries Mask and Emperor at the same time. Emperor isn't exactly defense tank gear either.

This dual combination BLU tanking was critical to our success. The BLUs also had /p messages which communicated to each other what was going on. For example, if the BLU/WAR took too much heat, the BLU/NIN would instantly grab hate using Magic Fruit in macro by healing the BLU/WAR, spam Vorpal Blade, toss in Jet Stream and cast Recharge (Haste) and Feather (That ability that boosts evasion)

-Refueling, not Recharge.

-Feather Barrier is a 30 second buff with a 2 minute recharge. The evasion boost it provides is only slightly stronger than that of Warm Up, which by no means suddenly gives you ninja-rate evasion. I've tried tanking with it and it is absolutely horrible.

-Vorpal blade is quite unspammable without meikyo, meditate, or medicines. Unless you mean "use every time he got 100 tp", which would mean the warrior would have to wait about 50 seconds between uses.

[Aeni]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

Pointing out a few glaring errors.



-Capped Skill in staff is irrelevant because Blue has 0 staff skill and gets all its staff skill from its sub. Accuracy of weapon skills like Dimensional Death etc are COMPLETLY dependant on your personal accuracy, so if he was using an earth staff all the time, I can guarantee you he was missing 90% of the time when casting Dimensional Death or the like. Yes. Even with Sushi. Yes, I've done this personally while wearing +38 accuracy from gear.

Oh trust me, she wasn't missing that much. Reason why she was good at keeping hate.

-Defender and Cocoon don't stack. Net effect Def bonus 50% + atk down by 25% for absolutely no good reason.

Did I say they stacked? No. Having Defender up in the down time for recast or emergency is quite handy IMO. But of course, it already sounds like your spewing preconceived notions about this job class w/o playing it first.

-You can't equip both Valkyries Mask and Emperor at the same time. Emperor isn't exactly defense tank gear either.

Literacy is your best friend. Read what I posted up there (Defense + DD gears) You can still swap equipment via macros last I checked.

-Refueling, not Recharge.

Thanks for the correction. I posted this after the exp session and my mind was fuzzy for the hectic (frantic) pace of the DRG's pulling.

-Feather Barrier is a 30 second buff with a 2 minute recharge. The evasion boost it provides is only slightly stronger than that of Warm Up, which by no means suddenly gives you ninja-rate evasion. I've tried tanking with it and it is absolutely horrible.

It's good for that emergency (Again, literacy ....) Read above.

-Vorpal blade is quite unspammable without meikyo, meditate, or medicines. Unless you mean "use every time he got 100 tp", which would mean the warrior would have to wait about 50 seconds between uses.

Warrior? There were no warriors in this PT ... >.>

[locus]

Re: Blue Mage Tanking

Oh trust me, she wasn't missing that much. Reason why she was good at keeping hate.



Did I say they stacked? No. Having Defender up in the down time for recast or emergency is quite handy IMO. But of course, it already sounds like your spewing preconceived notions about this job class w/o playing it first.



Literacy is your best friend. Read what I posted up there (Defense + DD gears) You can still swap equipment via macros last I checked.



Thanks for the correction. I posted this after the exp session and my mind was fuzzy for the hectic (frantic) pace of the DRG's pulling.



It's good for that emergency (Again, literacy ....) Read above.



Warrior? There were no warriors in this PT ... >.>

-I meant Blue mage, not warrior. Slip of the tongue. If you were literate, you'd have realized what I was talking about from context.
-Dragoon pulling? With pebbles? Tathlums? HAHAHAHAHAHA. Dragoon can perform well in many roles, but "Puller" is not usually one of them.

Cocoon is a 90 second buff with a 60 recast. Downtime? HELLOOOOOOOO

I don't believe you for an instant with the earth staff nonsense. Your post is full of contradictions because you're insinuating that BLU has enough evasion skill for +eva gear to even make a huge difference when tanking on ITs. It does not. (Tested with full Crow - which by the way, is terrible tanking gear)

Being a good tank requires you to HOLD HATE. Missing dimensional death all the time does not hold hate very well. Having near-zero dps with your weapon doesn't hold hate very well. Equip swap for dimensional death - That's fine, but now you're killing your TP AND if the monster hits you while you're doing this, what exactly have you achieved? And why the heck are you even swapping to a valkyrie when your atk doesn't affect your dimensional death one bit?

As a matter of fact - I'm going to go out into wajoam and use dimensional death with sushi and full acc gear on on DC monsters while wearing an earth staff and show you exactly what "miss rate" means.

Preconceived notions: My dear, I'm a level 75 blue mage. Are you?

Edit: By the way: It's highly possible for BLU to tank at high levels - just not the way she described it. It IS, however, more mp inefficient than a PLD tank - be prepared for downtime. I also highly recommend ignoring the part about metal body/skin - It has its uses. Tanking is not one of them. (7 second cast, 110ish hp absorbed at level 75 - Diamondskin is SO much better)

Update: After realizing that I could hit EP Colibri with my acc gear on even with 0 skill, I got a friend to tank and switched to a few VT marids instead. Note that
-1) They are not high evade enemies like raptors are
- 2) They aren't "Incredibly tough".
Results with dimensional death and 105 staff skill entirely from sub, bream sushi and +38 accuracy from gear: 19 misses, 1 hit. Headbutt missed 27 times out of 29 uses. Whee?

Update Update: Tests on my Evasion rate on VT marids while feather barrier was up, wearing somewhere around +44 evasion (full crow, earrings, merits etc).
Normal: Out of the first 20 hits, 2 missed
Feather Barrier: Annoying since it lasted for all of 30 seconds and only 6 or so hits actually occurred during this time period, but out of the first 20 hits, 4 missed. I also ate a 623 damage stomp and died while both utsu recasts were down, amen for raise 3.

This is NOT enough to tank using utsusemi ichi. Samurai have B+ evasion. Try asking a Samurai how viable Evasion tanking is in exp parties. BLU has C- Evasion. That's exactly the same as the Dragoon - why not ask the Dragoon to evasion tank instead?