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**Taskmage** · 12-20-2006, 09:23 AM

Re: i think smn/blu would work. we would be a real DD with avatar bp and us skillchai

I don't really see the point in this.

As far as your backup healing role, the only curative spell you're going to get is Healing Ruby until level 32 when you finally get Healing Breeze from /blu. Actually using Healing Ruby means you can't do other useful things like Shining Ruby and Aerial Armor with your Blood Pact: Ward, and even then two cures a minute does not make an effective backup healer. Wild Carrot doesn't become available until smn60/blu30.

As far as your DDing is concerned, /blu doesn't seem to add much there either. /blu doesn't get the staple Head Butt and Bludgeon until level 24 and 36 respectively, and at that point your blue magic skill is going to be far enough behind that the stun rate and damage probably isn't going to be high enough to justify spending the mp. Other offensive spells aren't much to speak of, and are going to suffer from the underlevel blue magic skill as well.

As far as being less of a Cure sponge, all you get is Cocoon and Auto Regen. Cocoon isn't going to have any effect on most commonly encountered AoEs like Cursed Sphere, Bomb Toss, and -ga spells. Auto Regen only gives 20 hp a minute. Your whm isn't going to want to chance seeing another Bomb Toss go off and kill you in the ten minutes or so before you regen back the damage, so they'll be spending the exact same amount of mp curing you.

As far as getting into the melee and opening Gravitation for your avatar, I don't see anything wrong with that as long as you're not up against something with AoE, provided you keep your mp up enough to do your job. You've got a higher staff skill than pup does h2h after all, and the long delay on staves means you won't be feeding the mob as much TP as said pup or a rdm with a sword. Most of the time, though, it shouldn't even be necessary for you to open the skillchain yourself. Raging Axe and Red Lotus Blade are pretty commonly used weaponskills, both of which open Gravitation. Later on you've got Blade: Jin, Tachi: Jinpu, and Slug/winder to choose from as openers.

Meleeing as a smn? Lukewarm on the idea. Situationally acceptable. Subbing blu to smn? No point that I can see.

**Icemage** · 12-20-2006, 09:52 AM

Re: I was thinking Smn/Blue it might work?

A few notes:
- Earth Crusher is an area attack, and is inappropriate for use in an XP party in most cases (since it will quickly make you dead if there are any neutral monsters in range)

- Shell Crusher is just... terrible. Don't close a SC with this WS if you have any choice whatsoever. The damage is beyond pitiful, which will make your skillchain bonus damage equally pitiful.

- Rather than doing solo skillchains (which SMN are, frankly, very bad at until higher levels), a better bet is to use your avatars to set up a second skillchain for the party (usually you have 3 melees in a traditional party - 2 DDs and a tank). Since the tank is usually left out of the loop without a SC partner, a SMN can fill that void by setting up useful skillchains. For a Paladin tank, Poison Nails (Carbuncle) to Fast Blade produces a very potent early Distortion skillchain, and you can do the same for Ninjas with Blade: Retsu. It's also a good setup for a Samurai with an extra Meditate - they can close Distortion with Tachi: Enpi. You could also do this for Thieves and Viper Bite, though it's probably better to let the dedicated DD's do this as the timing is pretty tricky.

At level 50, you get Shiva's Double Slap, which is a very strong Distortion closer, and can be used to set up for hard-to-SC-with jobs like Ranger (Split Shot -> Double Slap : Distortion).

EDIT: Merged this with the cross-posted copy to avoid forum clutter.

Icemage

**Celeal** · 12-20-2006, 10:21 AM

Re: Smn/blu

I don't really see the point for /BLU too. When we take a look at the type BLU's spell, there are:

(a) Single target on enemy.
(b) Area of effect on enemies, originate from the BLU.
(c) Fan shape area effect on enemies, originate from the BLU.
(d) Self buffing, for BLU himself.
(e) Misc spells target on party member.

Unless S-E continues to add more BLU spell in the future, majority of BLU spells now is target on enemies, which depends on blue magic skill. /BLU means half of blue magic skill, which means for spells that target at enemies, physical blue ones will be weak, the magical ones would be resisted.

For Job Traits that can be obtained from combination of Blue Magic, the useful one comes in very late levels or impossible to obtain from /BLU (like Conserve MP, Accuracy Bonus, etc).

For self buff spell or misc spell that targets to party members, BLU has a very limited selection, even less in pre-level 37 (for subjob). /WHM provides much more selection and can use from early levels, like from Cure, Regen, Stoneskin, Protectra, Bar-, -na, etc.

I don't notice any blue magic buff that target the entire party... there are not much buff from BLU that can benefit the party members anyway, besides the BLU himself.

In terms of DD in general, the OP has not consider damage output over "time" and damage output over "mp usage" --- which IMHO is important to decide if the tactic is practical in Exp. Parties.

For event like boss fight or BCNM, SMN's 2hr and deal big punishment on the mob is great. However, for exp. parties, where DoT and Damage per MP usage ratio is a major concern, self skillchain from SMN in exp. party is not practical. The SMN's self skillchain is restricted by SMN's TP, SMN's MP, and SMN's blood pact-timer as the same time:

(1) Poor melee gear and weapon selection for SMN, low weapon skill rating --- poor DoT, slow TP gain.
(2) 1 minute offensive blood-pact timer, heavy mp consumption per blood-pact over damage --- poor damage over MP, poor DoT.

I would consider SMN damage output as a support in exp. parties (I am not talking about BCNM or mission, etc). It make more sense to invite BLM or BLU to fill in primary DD role with magic.

**eva00r** · 12-20-2006, 10:58 PM

Re: Smn/blu

Terrible idea.

At lv 65 you will get Eclipse Bite and Neither Blast, Both will do a lot more damage than that skillchain.

**Sabaron** · 12-21-2006, 12:16 AM

Re: Smn/blu

The context of this idea is a level 38 SMN who likes to melee btw, so at this point access to Healing Breeze is a non-issue, so there will be no Healing Rubies flying around.

He would be opening Gravitation for Double Punch not closing it with the abysmal Shell Crusher and he could use Earth Crusher in open camps.

The SMN's armor selection is the same as PUP and PUP himself can put up very nice numbers in this level range. I provided a list of equipment for this purpose later on in the original thread.

Physical Blue magic depends upon the user's weapon. SMN has a nice weapon. I don't know exactly how this works, and my research has yielded very little in the way of concrete data except that STR, Attack, and Accuracy all play a role in Physical Blue. Does anyone actually know what BLU skill does besides determine resists on Magical BLU, stat procs, and helping you to learn spells or how the statistics on a weapon or a player's stats affect damage? I would really like to know this since as RDM/BLU I still get very good damage off of Bludgeon although I haven't tried this in any XP-style mob situation since (A) RDM is too busy casting to actually take a swing and (B) If I swing, I miss since I'm under-cap and not eating melee food.

I don't know what Eclipse Bite damage is--except that you say it's "a lot more than an untested, hypothetical self-Gravitation Skill chain closed with Double Punch"--I'm not disputing the power of 65th level Blood Pacts, but I would really like to know how much. The suggestion of /BLU was aimed at a 40ish SMN, not a 65th level one originally, and I attempted to extrapolate it as far as 70 though Eclipse Bite does most likely outdo Self-Gravitation [>>Double Punch] to Death Ray Magic Burst as I threw out after a bit more contemplation.

One of the basic premises regarding the Self-Gravitation being "What can SMN do on his own as a melee if he isn't able to get an SC set up". If you'll notice I mentioned skill chain with other (cooperative) party members as being optimal since SMN cannot garner TP fast enough to participate himself and he has to rest all the time. The Self Gravitation chain is a suggestion for when the SMN gets "left out" of the chain which they often do since it's almost impossible to get some melees to stop blowing their wads within 2 seconds of hitting 100% and actually cooperate with another melee (much less a SMN) to create a skill chain. [OMGZOR!!!11!!!1 I gotz da mad rampagez!!! STFU N00bs I rool.]

Basically, I want to see a parse of this. My concern is the effectiveness of SMN/BLU as a front-line DD in XP party and in other situations where it may prove viable at the OP's level range and as far up as he would wish to take it. I have no idea how much of a damage boost that /BLU would provide a melee Summoner, but I would like to see it. Thoris' original post was regarding SMN/BLM which IMO is much worse as a sub than /BLU. I was attempting to provide a possible (even if only temporary) escape from the /WHM sub and the all-too-common pigeon holing of a mid-level SMN as a back-up cure or 3rd string main heal in XP.

One more thing... With the Gobbie Bomb/AoE move aspect, a good tank who can back-peddle ranged AoE's like Cursed Sphere and Gobbie Bomb or a stunner to interrupt them can effectively mitigate the damage. Blinkga or Stoneskinga from the SMN will provide adequate protection versus these attacks especially in light of Barfira/Barwatera from your WHM.

**Icemage** · 12-21-2006, 01:36 AM

Re: Smn/blu

Originally posted by Sabaron View Post

The context of this idea is a level 38 SMN who likes to melee btw, so at this point access to Healing Breeze is a non-issue, so there will be no Healing Rubies flying around.

I don't have issues with Healing Breeze. It's a very effective Curaga substitute, and is slightly more efficient, too. It's still just as hate-happy, however.

He would be opening Gravitation for Double Punch not closing it with the abysmal Shell Crusher and he could use Earth Crusher in open camps.

True... but who uses Gravitation skillchains? What are you going to magic burst off of it? The only enemies in the game that's weak to Earth magic that you might fight for XP are Torama. There's a few enemy types of enemies that are weak to Dark magic, but the magic burst potential for dark magic is very sad - /BLU magic spells won't magic burst for hardly any damage since their damage is linked to Blue Magic skill, and the only job that can MB off of Gravitation effectively is Dark Knight using Absorb-TP (well, BLM or DRK could use Drain or Aspir, but those are rather situational).

The SMN's armor selection is the same as PUP and PUP himself can put up very nice numbers in this level range. I provided a list of equipment for this purpose later on in the original thread.

In the high 30s, yes PUP and SMN still have acceptable defense ratings with the right gear.

Physical Blue magic depends upon the user's weapon. SMN has a nice weapon. I don't know exactly how this works, and my research has yielded very little in the way of concrete data except that STR, Attack, and Accuracy all play a role in Physical Blue.

Physical Blue Magic derives most of its effectiveness directly from STR and melee Accuracy. Attack does not affect the equation at all from what I can tell (which is why you generally don't see BLU using /WAR except solely for Defender and Provoke since Berserk doesn't do anything for their physical spells).

Does anyone actually know what BLU skill does besides determine resists on Magical BLU, stat procs, and helping you to learn spells or how the statistics on a weapon or a player's stats affect damage? I would really like to know this since as RDM/BLU I still get very good damage off of Bludgeon although I haven't tried this in any XP-style mob situation since (A) RDM is too busy casting to actually take a swing and (B) If I swing, I miss since I'm under-cap and not eating melee food.

BLU skill seems to:
- Affect additional effect proc rate. This includes stuff like the Stun effect from Headbutt.
- Affect magical Blue Magic accuracy. For magical Blue Magic, it acts very much like Elemental Skill does for Black Magic, and thus suffers equally from heavy resist rates when subbed.
- Affects magic learning rate. The higher your Blue Magic skill, the easier and faster you'll learn spells (this isn't much of a consideration at higher levels, since it's not hard to keep Blue Magic capped or close to capped in XP parties since it's in constant use)
- Weapon stats don't affect blue magic potency at all, except where the coincide with one of the trigger stats for the spell (STR, Blue Magic, INT, whatever - depends on the spell). Elemental Staves affect Blue Magic potency and Accuracy in much the same way that they do for all other types of magic (I haven't seen anyone test this with something other than RDM/BLU, however - maybe I should go try it out on WHM/BLU since RDM has no inherent Staff skill and neither does BLU).

I don't know what Eclipse Bite damage is--except that you say it's "a lot more than an untested, hypothetical self-Gravitation Skill chain closed with Double Punch"--I'm not disputing the power of 65th level Blood Pacts, but I would really like to know how much.

The difference is very large. Eclipse Bite, from personal observation, likes to hit for 450++ damage on VT+ enemies when first acquired at level 65, and the damage goes up from there (I saw a few that were over 1000 damage while XPing in my static party on Bard). It's also very accurate compared to any non-elemental Staff WS, and infinitely more accurate than any of Ifrit's BP attacks. Ifrit is the most inaccurate avatar (though he makes up for it somewhat in higher physical strength).

The suggestion of /BLU was aimed at a 40ish SMN, not a 65th level one originally, and I attempted to extrapolate it as far as 70 though Eclipse Bite does most likely outdo Self-Gravitation [>>Double Punch] to Death Ray Magic Burst as I threw out after a bit more contemplation.

Yep. See above. I can see it perhaps seeing some use at level 40, but it lacks the potency of /WHM by level 42, when Cure III becomes available. Blue Mage doesn't get a Party castable Cure spell until level 30 with Wild Carrot, so you can't heal your party members with spells other than Healing Breeze until level xxx60/BLU30 (which just doesn't cut it).

Basically, I want to see a parse of this. My concern is the effectiveness of SMN/BLU as a front-line DD in XP party and in other situations where it may prove viable at the OP's level range and as far up as he would wish to take it. I have no idea how much of a damage boost that /BLU would provide a melee Summoner, but I would like to see it. Thoris' original post was regarding SMN/BLM which IMO is much worse as a sub than /BLU. I was attempting to provide a possible (even if only temporary) escape from the /WHM sub and the all-too-common pigeon holing of a mid-level SMN as a back-up cure or 3rd string main heal in XP.

I see no reason why a SMN couldn't do some odd things as /BLU in the mid-late 30s range IF (and this is a big IF) you have the right gear. Coccoon is a great equalizer as far as tanking goes, so provided you had a Thief and a potload of enmity+gear to help with enmity you could probably even tank using SMN/BLU since you have Auto-Refresh and Bludgeon available by level 36.

One more thing... With the Gobbie Bomb/AoE move aspect, a good tank who can back-peddle ranged AoE's like Cursed Sphere and Gobbie Bomb or a stunner to interrupt them can effectively mitigate the damage. Blinkga or Stoneskinga from the SMN will provide adequate protection versus these attacks especially in light of Barfira/Barwatera from your WHM.

Aerial Armor doesn't stop most area effect attacks, since most of them are magical except for a handful of physical ones like Whirl of Rage/Whirl Claws/X-Claw. Headbutt isn't a reliable stunning tool when subbed. Earthen Ward is useful, but works best for blinktanks who won't generally lose it until their shadows are down.

I think with a party that has an open mind and a better healing option (read: RDM), using SMN/BLU is possible at level 41+. Prior to that it's pretty sketchy since you (a) don't have access to Refresh except maybe Ballad I from a Bard. and (b) generally won't have another dedicated healer in your party without a RDM.

Icemage

**Taskmage** · 12-21-2006, 07:09 AM

Re: Smn/blu

According to the information translated by VZX from Studio Gobli (http://www.freewebs.com/vzx-01/blumag.htm), blue magic skill determines the D value of blue magic spells. The damage at that level would be comparable to a melee using a weapon 20 levels behind or a white mage using elemental magic.

Blue mage has practically nothing to add to the job, other than a gimpy version of Curaga and a substitute Cure III 18 levels later than you would get it with /whm. Why not just sub whm and get better versions of both of those spells and more? I don't have a smn, but as a level 40 blm/whm I have 26 str and 38 dex. As blm/blu with all available str and dex enhancing blue magic spells equipped I have 26+2 str and 39+4 dex, not enough of a stat difference to make a noticable difference even with a parser, and that assumes you use 4/10 blue magic slots and 10/20 set points on spells that are otherwise useless to you.

As I said before, if you want to melee vs mobs with no AoE damage, go for it. If you balance your gear well you might be able do some ok damage with your staff and squeeze an additional 30-60% out of every 2nd or 3rd blood pact, assuming you eat sushi and gain TP at the rate of my dark knight. I won't argue that it wouldn't be a conditionally viable way to increase your damage output and better support your party. But meleeing isn't any reason to use /blu. It brings practically nothing to the table to enhance your melee and substantially less support capability than /whm.

Originally posted by Sabaron

One more thing... With the Gobbie Bomb/AoE move aspect, a good tank who can back-peddle ranged AoE's like Cursed Sphere and Gobbie Bomb or a stunner to interrupt them can effectively mitigate the damage.

Regarding this, it may be true that it's possible, but I have never been in a party where this has been accomplished more than once or twice as a fluke. Your hypothetical stunner is very good and the tank is of exceptional skill. If you're in a position to count on that on a regular basis, then you're in a static party and the only people you need to justify your subs and strategies to are the 5 other people you're playing with.

**Sabaron** · 12-21-2006, 08:32 AM

Re: Smn/blu

True, I've only been in a few parties that utilized this strategy consistently and effectively. The stun session was a PLD (Shield Bash), and myself (Head Butt, BLU Main). It's hard, but it's possible and fun to do. Stunning gobs during bomb usually (always?) kills them.

Oh well... I suppose BLU isn't a great sub. I was under the impression that having a higher damage weapon would enhance blue magic. Gimped it's pretty weak and there's no way /BLU beats /WHM as Cure/Support.

That notwithstanding, you can still impress your associates with a self-Gravitation skill chain when your melees are uncooperative. You will also note that even though self-gravitation is useless to mages, it does do extra damage on its own. Speaking of Gravitation's usefulness, I've only used it in PT one time and I was bursting Bio b/c it's fast and easy to cast but I was wondering what happens when you burst Drain. Is the damage output good (one can never see drain's actual damage which I think should be fixed, but I'm not terribly worried). I'm assuming burst Aspir just helps to maximize your returns on MP which could be quite nice vs. mobs that have MP.

I also mentioned that there were other self-SMN skill chains most of which are not quite as "big" as self-Gravitation [<<Double Punch] but could be used primarily for setting up magic bursts as opposed to the SMN doing damage--more useful in parties with multiple nukes.

**Taskmage** · 12-21-2006, 09:04 AM

Re: Smn/blu

Drain MB is great. The one problem with drain is that even with an A rank in the skill it's terribly inaccurate on IT mobs, at least in my experience with drk up to 37. When it goes unresisted, the damage is awesome. It's hard to tell just how awesome if your whm is keeping your HP up, but based on the one 100+ drain I got that capped my hp and another 15 point drain that didn't cap my hp, I'd estimate drain's damage at 150-160 at level 37 with capped skill. That's with no Magic Attack Bonus trait. A blm would do more damage. With the 30% damage bonus and greatly enhanced accuracy of an MB, you'd be looking at 200ish damage and up to that amount of healing for 21 mp. Extremely efficient and comparable in damage to an MB from a blm's top nuke at that level. The blms in that party were MBing for 220ish with Aero II on Fragmentation on bats, who're weak to wind.

Of course, if you're up against beetles or crabs, an MB Aspir from any mage subbing blm could save you some downtime. I haven't gotten to play with Aspir as much and haven't tracked the results I have gotten at all, so I couldn't say how much, but I'm sure it would at least be worthwhile for the whm or rdm to do.

I haven't gotten Absorb-TP at all, so I have no idea how that would work as an MB. Presumably it would have a lower chance to fail, but I don't know if you'd get a "damage bonus" in the form of TP returned. It's entirely possible that at 60+ getting half a Guillotine worth of TP would be better than whatever amount of damage drain would give you. It would be worth testing.

**Omniblast** · 12-21-2006, 09:50 AM

Re: Smn/blu

Check my job, check my possible subs.

Ok, I've played SMN/BLU at level 75.
Tried it in Beseiged. Useless. Doesn't offer the re-raise benefits of WHM.

Ok that was pre-patch. I didn't get Wild Carrot yet. Still, buffing with Cocoon & Metallic body which wore off too fast, kept me too busy with Pollen trying to cure myself. What about Healing breeze? The recast time is too long for it to be effective.

It's like subbing blm. Why the hell would I want to sub blm for. Just for warp.
No blu spell from the lower level ranges would ever hit anything for any amount of damage over 200. And 200 is me exagerating.

My suggestion. Don't sub BLU. I only did it for fun, and it wasn't that fun. Your better off with Cure 1, 2 and 3. You can cast thos off far faster than you can cast off pollen even if it is more curative than cure 1. It's casting time is a little slower.

I wouldn't dare go into a exp zone with /blu unless I didn't care about my reputation or I was with a Linkshell that thought it would be a novelty.

They'll say, "Oh look at Omni he's so cute being blue and subbing blu."
Cuteness +1, Novelty +1, Usefullness -2

**Sabaron** · 12-21-2006, 09:53 AM

Re: Smn/blu

Originally posted by Omniblast View Post

Cuteness +1, Novelty +1, Usefullness -2

Lol... Only taru and females can get points for cuteness...

I don't even put Metallic Body on my list of spells any more. It absorbs... maybe one hit from an Even-match mob so I find that for it's casting time (even not engaged) to be not worth the trouble and I'd rather have a stat boost from one of the other 1-point wonders if I've got 1 left over instead of the nothing I get from Metallic Body.

Some people tell me that Metallic Body is, in fact, not useless, but they have yet to convince me despite my repeated attempts to like it even as main.

I will, however, say that Cocoon rocks for a sub. Like I said, for a non-evasive job (like RDM) I think you get more effectiveness out of Cocoon for solo than you would out of Ichi shadows that get torn off extremely quickly even by Too Weaks and Easy Prey. If you sub NIN just for Utsu:Ichi and still use your shield, you should really try BLU--just for Cocoon.

**Omniblast** · 12-21-2006, 10:02 AM

Re: Smn/blu

Oh one thing I didn't do when I subbed blu, was load up with melee stuff.
I didn't bother to try and get all the melee gear possible for my level. I don't know, there isn't such a item necessary for smn since most of the time YY robe is enough, since we won't be the ones absorbing damage or taking damage. Our Avatars are.

If anything that would be pro smn would be to have our avatars have 75% damage reduction as opposed to the current 50% now. Also reduce the mp usage for blood pact usage.

If I do manage to get some free gil that I can use to get melee equipment. I may try this again. Or stick with /thf. THF sub seems to be a lot better, especially with spirit taker.

**UnnamedGalka** · 12-21-2006, 10:38 AM

Re: Smn/blu

My question is, how do you even find the time to melee in a PT?

Leveling SMN to 37, when I wasn't resting to regain MP, I found myself constantly busy -- much too busy to even take a few pitiful swings at the mob with my staff.

Leave the DD to your avatars - they're good at it; you're not.

**Sabaron** · 12-21-2006, 11:22 AM

Re: Smn/blu

Originally posted by Omniblast View Post

Oh one thing I didn't do when I subbed blu, was load up with melee stuff.
I didn't bother to try and get all the melee gear possible for my level...

As I mentioned in the thread this one was split from, the Hydra Relic set from Dynamis-Tavnazia might be interesting for the quixotic melee summoner at 70th level, though by this time, his class B staff skill will most likely be quite tarnished, and I doubt that SMN would get lot permission... Now if you could find a free-lotting Dynamis-Tavnazia group...

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