Smn/blu

[Armando]

Re: Smn/blu

Ok. As someone who is itching to try PLD/BLU (and WAR/BLU, but that's a totally different thing,) I figured I'd step in.

From my experience, Blue Magic, even when subbed, even against VT/(low) IT mobs, is cheap enough (who cares if your subbed Head Butt only landed for 40 when it cost you 12 MP?,) quick enough (0.5 sec cast time,) and spammable enough to put up quite a bit of damage over time. Just think of how many more hits you can squeeze in against a mob by casting spells that'll hit for 20-60 every 3 seconds or so. It's practically free damage. I've tried it in Eldieme/Beadeaux coffer key parties and against low VT mobs outside of Al Zahbi as 60 PLD/BLU and Blue Magic ends up doing from 3/4 to 100% of my melee damage. And it's not that my meleeing is weak, either; I have a Bastard Sword +1 (which is, unarguably, a very strong weapon; high DMG and high DMG/sec), a Haubergeon, Life Belt, Woodsman/Venerer Rings, R.G. Collar, and ate Sushi for all these little trial runs (with Cocoon, who needs defense food?) Being an Elvaan PLD, my STR is quite high.

Of course, that's all fine and dandy, but in my opinion (barring how willing others are to give the combo a try) /BLU is only viable (in theory; still haven't given it a shot in a real EXP party. Then again, we are all discussing SMN/BLU theorically as well, so I think it's fair) for PLD and DRK. Why? Well, for /BLU to work offensively, you need a good (i.e. higher-than-what-you-get-from-your-sub) MP pool. You pretty much have to spam your blue magic as often as your job will allow, or it just won't add up to anything meaningful. SMN has the max MP, for sure, but if I'm not mistaken SMN is a job that eats a lot of MP. Aerial Armor and Earthen Ward aren't cheap, and now SMNs can use both offensive and defensive pacts "simultaneously." The added MP strain from spamming blue magic may be too much. Also, how much time you can hit the mob with blue magic will be determined by how much time you can spend meleeing.

That aside, Blue Magic needs meleeing stats. PLDs and DRKs have A+ weapons, PLDs have access to most Acc gear DDs do, and DRKs are DDs so they should be geared for Acc anyways. Both can use sushi (Cocoon covers any defensive needs, and the DRK is probably going to eat sushi anyways, being a DD.) STR (something neither job lacks) is also fairly important. As far as I can tell, physical blue magic is about as accurate - or inaccurate - as one's own meleeing. This already makes SMN/BLU look like an iffy proposition.

Not that it has much relevance to SMN, but the other reasons why PLD and DRK can take advantage of blue magic and other jobs can't is because these jobs are going to be getting Refresh anyways. Even if other DD jobs had the MP pool to support /BLU, what RDM would want to have to refresh 5-6 people instead of 2-4?

The benefits from Healing Breeze and Cocoon are certainly there and at full power, but I don't see the DD'ing side of /BLU working very well for a SMN.

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).

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.

There's one more thing Blue Magic skill does that hasn't been mentioned. Blue Magic Skill serves as the "Attack" portion of PDIF. It's probably not a direct comparison - I'd assume your skill would be modified a bit in some way before plugging it into the PDIF formulas - but that's the real reason why /BLU spells hit for so much less than a BLU's (after all, you can cap your spells' DMG pretty quickly, and stats would be similar, so as far as DMG is concerned there isn't much of a difference between BLU and /BLU.)

One more little note: /BLU's DD aspect (as well as the entire pseudo-DD approach to PLD) totally falls apart if your party overhunts. The accuracy, damage, and MP-efficiency of your spells totally goes out the window.

EDIT: Oh, and the other reason DRK/BLU seems viable is using Bludgeon/Head Butt with Souleater up, while letting Cocoon do its thing XD

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Smn/blu

EDIT: Oh, and the other reason DRK/BLU seems viable is using Bludgeon/Head Butt with Souleater up, while letting Cocoon do its thing XD

>_>?

Isn't Cocoon just defense up? Would that affect Souleater? Do you mean metalic body (damage absorb) instead?

[Armando]

Re: Smn/blu

No, I meant Cocoon. Yes, it's just Defense Up, but if you're spamming the hell out of Souleater, you WILL grab hate. At least with Cocoon you can have more Defense than a traditional tank. You'll lack a shield, but you won't get ripped to shreds unless your healers are sleeping on the job (or you made them run out of MP ;P)

[Sabaron]

Re: Smn/blu

I'll say it again... Metallic Body is crap... It does next to nothing verus EM and higher mobs. Cocoon is just 50% more defense.

[Armando]

Re: Smn/blu

Yeah, Metallic Body IS disturbingly weak (and MP-inefficient, for some reason.) I keep it equipped when going solo, though, because you never knew when you'll get hit by a really untimely Bio II. Having a Stoneskin, even if it only lasts for 40 HP, to let you /heal back enough MP to cure yourself can be a real life-saver. Outside of that, it really is horrible.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Smn/blu

Sorry, I was assuming DRK's would hide behind PLD's Cover during Souleater, so wasn't very concerned about being hit. (I was hiding behind the PLD during every Souleater on my DRK yesterday. >_>; )

BTW, wouldn't spamming multiple lower MP blue magic be better than using Bludgeon/Head Butt? I'm thinking that it doesn't matter much how much dmg the blue spells do, as long as they connect and souleater kicks in the damage.

Wouldn't be for exp parties, of course, but maybe for killing off some nasty mobs in certain BC fights? A DRK40 with full HP and MP can basically deal equivalent damage to his HP spamming Foot Attack, Power Attack, Sprout Smack, and Wild Oats in the one minute period--if all those would connect. (0.5s cast time, 6s recast each, I think.) More, if the PLD and mages are curing.

Disclaimer: BLU is Lv.1. Number of spells: 0.

[Armando]

Re: Smn/blu

Well, for the Souleater + Blue Magic "method" of dealing damage, there are two factors to consider: MP, and number of hits. Even though recast timers aren't an issue (since physical blue magic spells are relatively low-recast and you can cycle through them) there's still a limitation imposed by those 3 seconds you have to wait between spells. Bludgeon, aside from being one of the most MP-efficient spells early on, has one significant advantage over other spells when it comes to Souleater - it counts as 3 hits in a single spell cast, so you can get more hits in with the same number of casts. Moreover, it has an MP cost of 16, which means it's really 5.33 MP a hit. Head Butt is the second most MP-efficient spell when subbed in my opinion (Feather Storm has some very strange accuracy issues when subbed, and Souleater doesn't stack with ranged spells anyways.) It does good damage and on non-EXP mobs, it'll still Stun with some frequency. However, since the damage of these spells is totally eclipsed by Souleater's, then, yes, if MP is a concern you're certainly better off replacing Head Butt with Foot Kick/Power Attack.