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My BLU job hit 30 last night, and that means it's capped for my 60 PLD. Although I don't intend on continuing my PLD journey yet, I've been rambling on and on about the possibilities of /BLU for PLDs and WARs for a few weeks now. Since my BLU sub is now fully powered, I've begun doing a few experiments concerning the efficiency and application of physical blue magic spells when subbed. Basically, this thread is here to post my findings and discuss the possibilities. If you do your own testing, by all means, feel free to share it here as well. Knowledge is power, after all.
To make sure we're all on the same page, let's start with what we already know about physical blue magic. Once again, the geniuses of Studio Gobli have already figured out the general formulas as well as a large portion of the specific stats of each spell. VZX took the liberty of translating the info; you can find it all at his site. Most of what I know about blue magic comes from that information. Basically, the damage formula for any given physical blue spell boils down to:
---Feel free to skip this part if you already know how the formula works---
[(D + fSTR + Stat modifiers) * fTP] * PDIF
Looks just like the WS formula, huh?
D stands for DMG. No, not your weapon's DMG. It's a DMG value calculated with your Blue Magic Skill: [(Skill * 0.11) * 2] + 3. Each spell has a maximum DMG. At 30 BLU, Blue Magic Skill caps out at 83, which is 23 DMG. That means that at level 30, the DMG for your spells up to Claw Cyclone is capped. I'm mainly using Head Butt and Bludgeon, so we can just use their max DMG values (17 and 21 respectively) in the calculations.
Most of you should already be familiar with stat modifiers - a certain percentage of your stats that gets added to your DMG. The stat mods differ from spell to spell, just like they do from WS to WS. The correct way to calculate it is to multiply each stat by the percentage that corresponds to it, add the products together, drop all decimals, multiply that by the level correction factor (0.90 for level 60) and drop all decimals again.
Then there's fSTR. For normal meleeing, fSTR tends to go up by 1 for each 4-6 points of STR you add. Also, weapons are divided into "ranks" given by their DMG/9. The higher the weapon's rank, the higher its fSTR cap (8 + Rank) and the earlier you start getting positive fSTRs (for example, a Rank 4 weapon achieves an fSTR of 1 at -11 STR, whereas a Rank 1 weapon needs -4 STR.) However, my testing suggests that Blue spells actually don't have a cap at all. Just this morning I did a Feather Storm for 390 damage which had an fSTR2 of 38 (refer to the ranged calculations section of VZX's site for the difference between fSTR and fSTR2). Since Blue Spells don't seem to be bound by ranks and caps, I currently don't know at which STR-VIT values you'd have X fSTR.
fTP is basically the spell's multiplier. This only applies to the first hit. Since you can't use Burst Affinity with /BLU sub, always use the TP = 0 values. According to Studio Gobli's info, using a spell from a mob family that beats the target's mob family adds 0.25 to the spell's fTP, and the opposite applies if the mob's family is strong to the spell's type. Mob family also affects the spell's accuracy.
Then there's PDIF. Blue spells use the same PDIF ranges as physical melee swings. However, there's one big difference: while PDIF is normally calculated using your Attack and the mob's Defense, for blue spells, a different attack stat based on your Blue Magic skill is used. In other words, Attack (and by consequence Berserk, food, gear, etc.) has absolutely no effect on physical blue magic damage; only the mob's Defense. My tests suggest that the value for the "attack" stat that gets used in blue magic is 8 + STR/2 + (Skill). As some of you may already know, that's also the formula for your base Attack stat.
---Explanation ends here---
Right. Now on to the meat of the dicussion. I started out testing Studio Gobli's formulas by doing SA'd Foot Kicks and point-blank Feather Storms on Savanna Rarabs. Basically, I was getting consistent 3.0 PDIF on both spells. Everything added up neatly except for one thing - my fSTR was higher than it should be. That is, its value was higher than both the fSTR cap for my weapon, and what the fSTR cap for a weapon with the spell's max DMG would be. After messing around a lot with Feather Storm, I reached the conclusion that if there is a cap on fSTR, reaching it isn't feasable.
I was busy after that, but after returning in-game and helping Ashly (a good friend whom I met when asking random SAMs to help me with my skillchain damage tests) with her AF weapon, she returned the favor by helping me out with my tests. She changed to her 62 RDM and we set out to Wajaom Woodlands. I had two goals: 1) to get a feel for the damage I can expect from subbed spells on VT mobs, and 2) isolate the value for the attack stat used in blue spells. The fights were long (since it was basically just me vs the mob when it came to damage) and we got a bit sidetracked/distracted, so right now I only have parses against three mobs. I'll attach the parses to this post, as usual.
I went as PLD60/BLU 30. The details are as follow:
Total Stats:
HP 1165
MP 259
STR 65+5
DEX 45+13
VIT 66+11
AGI 34+11
INT 34
MND 62+4
CHR 55+8
Attack 255
Accuracy: (202 from skill + 29 from DEX + 22 from gear) + 15% from sushi = 290
Defense: (313 base + 40 from Pro.III) * 1.5 (Cocoon) = 529
Spells:
Sprout Smack
Wild Oats
Battle Dance
Head Butt
Feather Storm
Bludgeon
Bomb Toss
Cocoon
Food: Squid Sushi (already taken into account in the stats)
Now, on to the details of the first fight. It was against a (T) Lesser Colibri. These range from 63-65, and at level 60 a mob 4 levels higher starts checking as VT, so it must've been Lv.63. I had originally intended to stick to Head Butt and Feather Storm and ignore Bludgeon (since Bludgeon is a three-hitter and only shows me the sum of the damage, it's not useful for finding PDIF, fSTR, etc.). However, I couldn't land a single Feather Storm for reasons that still escape me, and halfway through the fight I decided that I had to kill it faster. So, I started alternating Bludgeon and Head Butt instead. Total melee damage: 1958. Total spell damage: 978. It's not hard to see that through blue magic spam, I increased my damage significantly. Ok, so Blue magic isn't a lost cause when subbed. However, I wanted to try to figure out the mob's Defense by falling into the PDIF tier in which mobs start to check High Defense, since in that tier, your max PDIF is always 1.0, which lets you figure out your fSTR easily (see this PDIF chart to see what I mean.) The colibri wasn't high defense, but I was hoping the level difference penalty would bump my Attack/Defense ratio low enough. This wasn't the case.
And so, I tried a VT colibri. Since I pretty much gave up on Feather Storm, I decided to just spam Head Butt/Bludgeon all the way. The damage came out much closer: 1595 melee damage, 1471 spell damage. You could almost say that the blue spells doubled my DoT. Pretty freaking amazing, in my opinion. Unfortunately, this colibri's defense wasn't high enough either.
At this point, we moved to Bhaflau Thickets to try some spiders. These are 63-67, so I wasn't supposed to have any trouble finding one that'd check high defense. I was correct - they were all over the place. My spell damage dropped in this fight, because I started using Feather Storm again to no avail. Feather Storm has always performed well for me on BLU main, so I figured it might've been the colibris and not the spell itself. I only managed to land a single Feather Storm. Regardless, 1107 spell damage (compared to 1605 melee damage) is still good. After it died, I found out it was Lv.64 from the EXP it gave us.
---WARNING: MATH AHEAD---
Since it was High Defense, I was able to find that my fSTR for melee swings was 4. Rank 4 weapons achieve fSTR of 4 when STR-VIT is between 8 and 13, so its VIT must've been 57-62. Now, knowing DMG and fSTR, I was able to solve for my minimum PDIF. I looked up the Attack/Defense ratio that corresponded to that PDIF range, then took into account the level correction (-0.05 to your Attack/Defense ratio for each level the mob is higher than you) I found that our Attack/Defense ratio was 0.98. Since I knew my Attack, I was able to solve for its Defense. It had 260 Defense (give or take a point, of course.)
Now that I figured out its stats, I tried to use the Head Butt data to solve for the blue attack stat, and try to find the relationship between "blue magic attack" and your blue magic skill. I already know Head Butt's DMG and stat modifiers; I knew my melee fSTR, so Head Butt's was probably 4 as well or one higher/lower at best. I just used 4 for the calculations. I also know Head Butt's fTP, and the mob's Defense and level, so it was just a matter of solving for PDIF. Head Butt's damage varied from 0 to 50, although aside from the one that did 50, none of the others broke 40. From there, I figured that the PDIF roll for the Head Butt that did 50 damage was 0.74, and the Attack/Defense ratio that corresponds to it is 0.277 (post-level difference.) So, the original Attack/Defense ratio must've been close to 0.427. Of course, I say "close to" because only one Head Butt went as high as 50; I can't just assume that's the very highest it could go, although it's most likely close to the maximum. So, the "blue magic attack" stat must've been 111 or higher. Now, my Blue Magic Skill is 93. If I plug that into Attack/Defense, the max PDIF that corresponds to it is 0.58, which would've produced a max damage of 40, much too low. Of course, your Attack isn't just your skill with your weapon. If you use 8 + STR/2 + Skill instead, then the max damage for its PDIF is 53, close to what I found. I'll do tests with a larger ammount of Head Butts to confirm/deny this later on.
---MATH END---
Anyways, while I'd like to get some numbers from a mob that isn't low VT, I'd say /BLU definetely has a lot of DD'ing potential. If magic spam can increase one's DoT by such an incredible ammount, then surely a refreshed PLD/BLU would be able to do as much damage, possibly more, as the other DDs, while tanking efficiently. And, if a refreshed PLD/BLU could do so much, imagine what a refreshed WAR/BLU would be able to do. Thoughts?
EDIT: Whoops, forgot the parses XD Give me a few...ah, hell, it's not like anyone'll be able to read all that before I upload it anyways.
EDIT2: Uploaded parses
To make sure we're all on the same page, let's start with what we already know about physical blue magic. Once again, the geniuses of Studio Gobli have already figured out the general formulas as well as a large portion of the specific stats of each spell. VZX took the liberty of translating the info; you can find it all at his site. Most of what I know about blue magic comes from that information. Basically, the damage formula for any given physical blue spell boils down to:
---Feel free to skip this part if you already know how the formula works---
[(D + fSTR + Stat modifiers) * fTP] * PDIF
Looks just like the WS formula, huh?
D stands for DMG. No, not your weapon's DMG. It's a DMG value calculated with your Blue Magic Skill: [(Skill * 0.11) * 2] + 3. Each spell has a maximum DMG. At 30 BLU, Blue Magic Skill caps out at 83, which is 23 DMG. That means that at level 30, the DMG for your spells up to Claw Cyclone is capped. I'm mainly using Head Butt and Bludgeon, so we can just use their max DMG values (17 and 21 respectively) in the calculations.
Most of you should already be familiar with stat modifiers - a certain percentage of your stats that gets added to your DMG. The stat mods differ from spell to spell, just like they do from WS to WS. The correct way to calculate it is to multiply each stat by the percentage that corresponds to it, add the products together, drop all decimals, multiply that by the level correction factor (0.90 for level 60) and drop all decimals again.
Then there's fSTR. For normal meleeing, fSTR tends to go up by 1 for each 4-6 points of STR you add. Also, weapons are divided into "ranks" given by their DMG/9. The higher the weapon's rank, the higher its fSTR cap (8 + Rank) and the earlier you start getting positive fSTRs (for example, a Rank 4 weapon achieves an fSTR of 1 at -11 STR, whereas a Rank 1 weapon needs -4 STR.) However, my testing suggests that Blue spells actually don't have a cap at all. Just this morning I did a Feather Storm for 390 damage which had an fSTR2 of 38 (refer to the ranged calculations section of VZX's site for the difference between fSTR and fSTR2). Since Blue Spells don't seem to be bound by ranks and caps, I currently don't know at which STR-VIT values you'd have X fSTR.
fTP is basically the spell's multiplier. This only applies to the first hit. Since you can't use Burst Affinity with /BLU sub, always use the TP = 0 values. According to Studio Gobli's info, using a spell from a mob family that beats the target's mob family adds 0.25 to the spell's fTP, and the opposite applies if the mob's family is strong to the spell's type. Mob family also affects the spell's accuracy.
Then there's PDIF. Blue spells use the same PDIF ranges as physical melee swings. However, there's one big difference: while PDIF is normally calculated using your Attack and the mob's Defense, for blue spells, a different attack stat based on your Blue Magic skill is used. In other words, Attack (and by consequence Berserk, food, gear, etc.) has absolutely no effect on physical blue magic damage; only the mob's Defense. My tests suggest that the value for the "attack" stat that gets used in blue magic is 8 + STR/2 + (Skill). As some of you may already know, that's also the formula for your base Attack stat.
---Explanation ends here---
Right. Now on to the meat of the dicussion. I started out testing Studio Gobli's formulas by doing SA'd Foot Kicks and point-blank Feather Storms on Savanna Rarabs. Basically, I was getting consistent 3.0 PDIF on both spells. Everything added up neatly except for one thing - my fSTR was higher than it should be. That is, its value was higher than both the fSTR cap for my weapon, and what the fSTR cap for a weapon with the spell's max DMG would be. After messing around a lot with Feather Storm, I reached the conclusion that if there is a cap on fSTR, reaching it isn't feasable.
I was busy after that, but after returning in-game and helping Ashly (a good friend whom I met when asking random SAMs to help me with my skillchain damage tests) with her AF weapon, she returned the favor by helping me out with my tests. She changed to her 62 RDM and we set out to Wajaom Woodlands. I had two goals: 1) to get a feel for the damage I can expect from subbed spells on VT mobs, and 2) isolate the value for the attack stat used in blue spells. The fights were long (since it was basically just me vs the mob when it came to damage) and we got a bit sidetracked/distracted, so right now I only have parses against three mobs. I'll attach the parses to this post, as usual.
I went as PLD60/BLU 30. The details are as follow:
Total Stats:
HP 1165
MP 259
STR 65+5
DEX 45+13
VIT 66+11
AGI 34+11
INT 34
MND 62+4
CHR 55+8
Attack 255
Accuracy: (202 from skill + 29 from DEX + 22 from gear) + 15% from sushi = 290
Defense: (313 base + 40 from Pro.III) * 1.5 (Cocoon) = 529
Spells:
Sprout Smack
Wild Oats
Battle Dance
Head Butt
Feather Storm
Bludgeon
Bomb Toss
Cocoon
Food: Squid Sushi (already taken into account in the stats)
Now, on to the details of the first fight. It was against a (T) Lesser Colibri. These range from 63-65, and at level 60 a mob 4 levels higher starts checking as VT, so it must've been Lv.63. I had originally intended to stick to Head Butt and Feather Storm and ignore Bludgeon (since Bludgeon is a three-hitter and only shows me the sum of the damage, it's not useful for finding PDIF, fSTR, etc.). However, I couldn't land a single Feather Storm for reasons that still escape me, and halfway through the fight I decided that I had to kill it faster. So, I started alternating Bludgeon and Head Butt instead. Total melee damage: 1958. Total spell damage: 978. It's not hard to see that through blue magic spam, I increased my damage significantly. Ok, so Blue magic isn't a lost cause when subbed. However, I wanted to try to figure out the mob's Defense by falling into the PDIF tier in which mobs start to check High Defense, since in that tier, your max PDIF is always 1.0, which lets you figure out your fSTR easily (see this PDIF chart to see what I mean.) The colibri wasn't high defense, but I was hoping the level difference penalty would bump my Attack/Defense ratio low enough. This wasn't the case.
And so, I tried a VT colibri. Since I pretty much gave up on Feather Storm, I decided to just spam Head Butt/Bludgeon all the way. The damage came out much closer: 1595 melee damage, 1471 spell damage. You could almost say that the blue spells doubled my DoT. Pretty freaking amazing, in my opinion. Unfortunately, this colibri's defense wasn't high enough either.
At this point, we moved to Bhaflau Thickets to try some spiders. These are 63-67, so I wasn't supposed to have any trouble finding one that'd check high defense. I was correct - they were all over the place. My spell damage dropped in this fight, because I started using Feather Storm again to no avail. Feather Storm has always performed well for me on BLU main, so I figured it might've been the colibris and not the spell itself. I only managed to land a single Feather Storm. Regardless, 1107 spell damage (compared to 1605 melee damage) is still good. After it died, I found out it was Lv.64 from the EXP it gave us.
---WARNING: MATH AHEAD---
Since it was High Defense, I was able to find that my fSTR for melee swings was 4. Rank 4 weapons achieve fSTR of 4 when STR-VIT is between 8 and 13, so its VIT must've been 57-62. Now, knowing DMG and fSTR, I was able to solve for my minimum PDIF. I looked up the Attack/Defense ratio that corresponded to that PDIF range, then took into account the level correction (-0.05 to your Attack/Defense ratio for each level the mob is higher than you) I found that our Attack/Defense ratio was 0.98. Since I knew my Attack, I was able to solve for its Defense. It had 260 Defense (give or take a point, of course.)
Now that I figured out its stats, I tried to use the Head Butt data to solve for the blue attack stat, and try to find the relationship between "blue magic attack" and your blue magic skill. I already know Head Butt's DMG and stat modifiers; I knew my melee fSTR, so Head Butt's was probably 4 as well or one higher/lower at best. I just used 4 for the calculations. I also know Head Butt's fTP, and the mob's Defense and level, so it was just a matter of solving for PDIF. Head Butt's damage varied from 0 to 50, although aside from the one that did 50, none of the others broke 40. From there, I figured that the PDIF roll for the Head Butt that did 50 damage was 0.74, and the Attack/Defense ratio that corresponds to it is 0.277 (post-level difference.) So, the original Attack/Defense ratio must've been close to 0.427. Of course, I say "close to" because only one Head Butt went as high as 50; I can't just assume that's the very highest it could go, although it's most likely close to the maximum. So, the "blue magic attack" stat must've been 111 or higher. Now, my Blue Magic Skill is 93. If I plug that into Attack/Defense, the max PDIF that corresponds to it is 0.58, which would've produced a max damage of 40, much too low. Of course, your Attack isn't just your skill with your weapon. If you use 8 + STR/2 + Skill instead, then the max damage for its PDIF is 53, close to what I found. I'll do tests with a larger ammount of Head Butts to confirm/deny this later on.
---MATH END---
Anyways, while I'd like to get some numbers from a mob that isn't low VT, I'd say /BLU definetely has a lot of DD'ing potential. If magic spam can increase one's DoT by such an incredible ammount, then surely a refreshed PLD/BLU would be able to do as much damage, possibly more, as the other DDs, while tanking efficiently. And, if a refreshed PLD/BLU could do so much, imagine what a refreshed WAR/BLU would be able to do. Thoughts?
EDIT: Whoops, forgot the parses XD Give me a few...ah, hell, it's not like anyone'll be able to read all that before I upload it anyways.
EDIT2: Uploaded parses
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