Conclusion!
Conclusion on playing an Effective Blue-Mage
/nin sucks? I don’t know, if you think there’s more reason to use /nin in parties, by all means post a comment on the front. If you don’t reply after reading all this :O I assume you agree that /thf is the pwnage! Nevertheless, I’m just going to put some tips for playing an effective party blue-mage. I’d like to summarize a few things during my journey to 75 though. I don’t mean to blow my own horn, but it is the {fact} that…
- I was a team player, because I don’t need to use all my time to spam spells.
- I can outparse people, even warriors that are 2 levels above me (and they wern’t using shit gear)
- Blue definately not a shit job even in TP-Burn, playing smart on your /thf can also yield a.. Chain 17 on Lesser Colibri parties.
A few tips for any readers who intend to party on blue mage!
Effectively use your SA timer.
If the monster will take 30 seconds to travel back, please, pre-SATA. SATA timer does not wear off for a minute! So if you pre-SATA, your next SATA (assuming you engage on the 30th seconds after the puller calls the mob’s name), your SATA timer, is only, 30seconds away.
DON’T waste your SA.
There was a trick in outparsing warriors that were 2 level above me. All my SATA, rarely miss. You might think in TP burn, sea puks goin turn a lot and its going to ruin your SATA, yes that’s true when the warrior’s TPing up, but what if one Warrior starts using rampage? Hay! that’s when hate gets settled, and this is YOUR time to do SATACA death scissors. Never be discouraged because its TP burn. It just takes a lot more effort on your part, but hay, at least it proved, that Blu can be better than Warriors. But do take a few seconds to see if the Warrior’s rampge did a lot of damage. A 200 rampage won’t keep hate that long, so in that case, wait for another chance.
Assign yourself a trick partner.
Seriously, work it out, don’t play “I guess you will be my trick partner”, just point to them, and ask nicely! Anyone can be trick partner. I even had Dragoon as trick partner. You must be like WTF? Well, you can always tell the Dragoon to use those High-Jump and Super-Jump to decrease enmity instead of almost what 99% of the Dragoon does.. use Jumps for TP >.>. Teach them how they can help you out! Tell them they can get parrying skillup, and I bet they would do it :D
Don’t spam your spells until the monster’s near dead.
The worst thinkg a tank have to do, is to deal with the mob “spamming” JA’s. I’ve had ninjas in party that does shit Blade: Jin but wields a Kraken Club on Imps. The party was so lol. So when you do spam your spells, make sure it will die, or will die in the next few seconds.
Use your extra MP to Head-Butt.
I can’t express how important it is, to head butt. SE made headbutt to cost 3 points for a reason. Its GOOD! I’ve soloed an Imp using 1 blink! That’s because… I head butt to buy time. A Head Butt, takes 1.5sec to cast, but can “potentially” stun the target for nearly 3 seconds. You just bought yourself a nice 1.5 more seconds! (its a 100% slow!)
Head Butt is also effective in helping your ninja tank blink up Utsusemi: Ichi. Try to head butt on that too.
Frightful Roar is a Dia II!
Yes, 10% defense down! Indirectly saying, 10% more damage! Dont’ be gay, debuff the monster! (Even if it means you will be unable to do damage due to lack of MP, because chances are, the other 3 DD in your party will be able to make up the damage loss by you, plus more). Imagine your RDM also debuffs the mob with Dia II, Woot! Dia IV in effect! Be wary warned, it is AN AOE MAGIC!!
Last but not least, Effective Macroing
Calculations on every spell is done when the spell “finishes casting”. Lets put it on a timeline.
Maiev starts casting Death Scissors —— [ 1.5 seconds ] ————–> Death Scissors did 1000 damage.
Lets now add in where the calculatino takes place.
Maiev starts casting Death Scissors —- [0.5sec] —- [1.0sec] – (takes a snapshot of your gear, does damage calculations) –> Death Scissors did 1000 damage.
Therefore, you can have your macro like this!
/ma “Frentic Rip” Target
/equip body “Blue AF”
/equip L.ring “STR ring”
/equip R.ring “Accuracy ring”
etc etc…
and still have the stats taken into account within the calculations. I personally, have tons of gear change, so I uses the Windower macro system which allows me to execute long equipment macro changes. But don’t be discouraged if you are on PS2 or Xbox. Just choose the most important gear to swap in the 5 lines, and everything should be fine. You can always use more than 1 macro for the gear change. But lets put it this way, CA is every 2 minute, lets not be lazy about it! I don’t want to see people starts resting MP in dalmatica anymore because I’ve seen enough as is.
Here’s my blue mage party macro for Windower. I use windower macro purely for massive gear swap, that’s about it. Minor gear swap for specific spells such as using Hysterical Barrage is still done using the FF macro. After that I just press the windower macro just to make sure all gear are correct for TPing up again. Below is just a brief explanation of my Windower macro keys.
Ctrl 1: Party TP up with balance accuracy and STR
Ctrl 2: Absolute STR gear
Ctrl A: Absolute Accuracy gear (for mamools)
Ctrl D: Cannonball Defensive gear
Ctrl M: Swap to Vermillion Cloak (M for MP, I need MP)
Ctrl N: I need to walk faster!
Alt X: Walking in town gear >.>
Anyway, I hope, after all the readings, I’ve really help you gain a greater understand of the job! If you find it very helpful, you can thank me by leaving a comment on the 1st page of this guide :3. Anyway, happy Exping :3
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