The best parts

Afterglow!

This past Tuesday, I finally turned in enough Boulders to finish my Almace!

Last Monday night, we did some more Tenzen and I was down to my final 600 boulders needed. One of my LS mates was kind enough to offer to purchase the remaining stacks to get me to the 10k needed, but the price wasn't right and I told him not to worry about it.

The following morning I went on another set and ended up being another 280ish short. I took out a loan with an LS mate and purchased what remained.

The result is one bad-ass sword.

I always wanted to have a reason to use this sword again, and after all that voidwatch and Tenzen, it is at my side and ready to wield.

Let's go over the amazing features of this sword.

* Ridiculous DPS: At 42.32 damage per second, this sword is the highest DPS sword that a blue mage can use. Sequence is next closest at 42.00.

* Easy to maintain Aftermath: Since blue mages' primary weapon skill is Chant du Cygne, you are almost guaranteed to have an aftermath status effect on during battle. The aftermath itself is improved with this version, causing a 30%, 40%, or 50% chance to deal triple damage. Dealing over 5k in a single attack round is not out of the realm with this piece.


* Attack and Accuracy boost: You have a sword skill increase of 269 instead of the usual 242 with this sword. This results in more base accuracy and attack. Also, you get +50 to Dexterity, resulting in even more accuracy.

* Magic damage: If I need to cast some magic attack spells while wielding this sword, I can do more damage than I used to. I still don't think it beats a Nibiru Cudgel or a max Vampirism, but still nice to know that I can mix and match this with a vampirism and do solid magic damage while still being a CDC beast.

And naturally, I have been putting this sword to use in many areas, such as Tenzen, lesser nms, unity nms, and gathering merits (for more Tenzens naturally).

Other acquisitions:

I got a few more Zi'tah clears with the linkshell on Wednesday. I managed to focus on getting Eschalixirs to complete my Souveran augments. I got to use this gear right away and tanked the T3 Escha Zi'tah NMs effectively. We had a couple of close calls and one wipe, but we were effective and efficient. We did not, however, get to clear the pixies or the evil bunny of death. Wouldn't mind getting another shot at the bunny and a chance at that nice body it drops.

Nicely timed terror proc

One of my acquisitions was a Falcon Eye. It sits in my accuracy set and is also effective for CDC when accuracy is needed.

Agema Cape & Luminary Sash

I got both of these during numerous Neak pops on Friday and Saturday mornings. Unfortunately, one of these was not a Herculean vest, which is what I really really want for my blue mages' CDC set. When properly augmented, it is likely the best option. I'd rather use this than Abnoba or Enforcers, but at the moment I don't have any of these.

Still for getting everything else, the luminary sash is an excellent magic accuracy piece. The Agema Cape is not really something I need as I have better options for all my jobs for each item this cape offers.

Kentarch Belt

I am able to quickly and effectively solo Centurio on blue mage with trusts providing he doesn't spam too many -aga spells. He's usually dead before that becomes a problem thankfully. This piece is in the accuracy set as well.

Coming up

* More Reisenjima NMs to round out gear I need. I am at the point where I can effectively tank Yakshi, Neak, and Maju (although I have not yet fought Maju I have an excellent idea how to do so). I have nearly 3k HP while in my "upper tier tank" set. I still want to fill in a few more pieces - specifically Odnowa Earring/+1 for another sizable boost to my HP.

* The ball is rolling on getting m black mage back in action. I sought insight on the FFXIAH boards and have targets gear-wise to obtain. Thankfully due to my work on getting my blue mage outfitted for magic damage, I already have a great head start on black mage. My first objective is to get a Lathi from Yilan (which is why I was fighting Centurio this morning in the first place). I made quick work of Yilan solo last time before Almace. I am fairly certain it will be even quicker this time.

* More Tenzen. I am sitting at just under 4k Beitetsu turned in for Burtgang. I would like to finish this for good during campaign, or at least make a sizable dent. I have been trading the Plutons to ls mates for Beitetsu and putting most of the boulders I get on the AH. I am actually at a good number of gil. My plan is to continue to accumulate gil and use it to finish Beitetsu if needed when campaign ends. Eventually I think I may want to procure some +1 Souveran pieces if my pockets get deep enough.

Owned by Kirin

Mini blog post.

After 0/2 on Kirin this morning, I am changing up my PLD turtle set - calling it "The Kirin set".

My original "tank" gear was capped on PDT and MDT, but on the low side of HP. Kirin could still practically one shot me if I was unlucky - which he did. It was a combination of Sulevia +1 pieces, souveran body, and the max loyalist sabatons. I now know the main reason Paladins don't wear these for uber difficult NMs like Kirin - good on DT, bad on HP (and not to mention haste).


Therefore, I will be making the following changes for this set.
* Wear all 5 Souveran Pieces - head path D, hands path D, rest path C. The main benefit here is HP, as this will increase my max HP by 628 alone, and account for -12% DT, -10% PDT, -4% MDT, -6% BDT.
* Acquire a Zwazo Earring +1 and an Odwona Earring +1, for another -2% MDT and -2% BDT (and a 100 MP==>HP).
* Get an Angha Gem for another -2% PDT
* Wear that Homeric Gorget I got the other morning, changing the -5% DT from Twilight Torque to just -6% PDT (and defense, attack, and enmity).
* Use Flume and Philidor (was already using both) as well as the 2x Dark Rings (another -20% PDT, -11% MDT, -6% BDT) (was already using the rings as well).

DT Totals:
-12% DT
-38% PDT (-50% PDT capped, plus -18% PDT II from Burtgang, giving me -68% PDT)
-17% MDT (-29% MDT, plus -45% MDT from Aegis, giving me -74% MDT, enough for Shell V to cap me)
-14% BDT (-26% BDT - only area of concern right now)

Long term I would like a D.ring, and will get 2 more attempts from login points this month.

This week I am looking good to finish the Almace 119-3, which will help me acquire those two earrings as well as kill a few more Escha mobs I have not gotten clears on as of yet.

7,776/10,000 Riftborn boulders turned in.

It's Tenzen o'clock (and blue mage gear 2.0)

Wow! What a wild past few days it has been.

I have been on quite a roll lately with things I am doing in game and acquisitions of gear. Sinister Reign has been really good to me the past few days, so i'll talk about that in this post. I will also talk about how Project Afterglow is going as well as show off the current TP and WS gear on Blue Mage.

I especially want to thank contributors on the blue mage board of FFXIAH for helping me determine what the issue was with Thereoid Greaves and why they were showing a lower DPS. The reasons were twofold - #1, my WS set did not have enough accuracy to compensate for the addition of the Thereoid Greaves and the spreadsheet was predicting a drop in my weapon skill accuracy on a 125 mob - enough that the herc feet's augments and accuracy would be a better option. Also #2, had I turned on Aggressor from /war. The answer was no, and once I did that it made the DPS change be positive just by itself.

Ok so, on to the post!

Most of the past few mornings have been Tenzen o'clock

Tenzen

I have been doing my best to get in 7 rounds of Tenzen every day since I finished bringing Almace to 119. I have been doing more runs with members of my linkshells and starting my own via shouts and yells. A few people have been added to my friends list as well and they are usually on in the morning when I am. We have a pretty solid strategy and setup that works 99 times out of 100.

My Tenzen spell set is a modification of my DD spell set with a few changes. First, I remove Subduction and a tier of Store TP and replace those three spells with Tenebral Crush, Silent Storm, and Dream Flower. I also remove magic barrier and another spell to free up the points for these three. After buffing (and calling trusts when we are going with 3-5), I hit the tarus with SS, TC, and DF. We melee and WS Tenzen until he uses his 1 hour WS immunity. We then melee him down throwing a CA+Efflux Sinker Drill at him as well. Whomever has hate then runs out of range when he invincible/meikyo shisui's and he stands in place. At that point, I have to resleep the tarus unless Cherukiki 1/2 resists DF, then I sleep her sooner. Cherukiki is also immune to SS, so it is important to keep her slept. The ranged attacks from one of the other tarus are not nearly as annoying as a shadow eating slowga.

We bring at least 3 melee to each, and if people are on with jobs like cor, geo, or whm we bring them as well. I try to bring RR when possible if we do not have someone who can raise. We fill out the party with trusts and can usually win in 3-4 minutes.

We have a High-tier mission battlefield campaign going on right now that started this morning so it was nice to get a third box/case/parcel each battle on top of the two we were already getting. This already had a significant impact on the amount of boulders I turned in just from the 7 runs this morning.

As of today, I have turned in 4288 boulders. Additionally, I have 69 Beitetsu Parcels and 16 Beitetsu Boxes in my mog house along with 121 loose Beitetsu.

Sinister Reign Acquisitions

When I wasn't doing Tenzen or capping merits (more on that later), I was participating in or starting runs in Sinister Reign.

I have been spoiled by going on runs of this event with Kaht, our resident AG-Tizona/AG-Almace blue mage. He's a bulldozer hands down. When we go with him, we're usually done with the run in around 4 minutes, give or take 30 seconds. The only tough fight we have at times is Arciela because her Naakuul's Vengeance move can be flat out unfair. When we do runs without Kaht, we average 5 or 6 minutes per run. I have gone on PLD and on BLU to this event and am pretty successful with either.

We also found out last night that August makes a pretty darn good trust tank in SR. It's also funny to watch him tank himself.

I'm the real August!

So what did I win?

I have two Vampirisms with nearly maxed augments. Useful for situations where piercing damage is useful on blue mage. They also are fairly good for nuking on blue mage. I do not know if they are better than 2x Nibiru Cudgels right now, but they do seem comparable.

Brilliance (max): Whoopee. Because this is so much better than Burtgang. Oh well I had nothing else worthwhile as an option at the time, so it sits in my mog house.

Medium's Sabots (max): An improvement over the addition I got last time to my cure set on blue mage. I can almost hit 900 on magic fruit now.

Lengo Pants (max): Idle legs for blue mage. I had just said the morning before I got these that I needed to get some Rawhide Trousers so I could get more auto refresh on my blue mage. However, they are no longer needed thanks to these.

Jumalik Mail (max): And I had also expressed the need for a refresh body on Paladin that same morning. This also works as a cure potency piece for Paladin and allows me to change the augment path on my Souveran Cuirass to path A. Because of the max Loyalist Sabatons I received last week, I can now keep capped haste wearing Souveran Body as well as the three Sulevia +1 pieces I have been using (head, hands, legs). Those three pieces are terrific in a Hybrid set, allowing me to easily go past 1200 accuracy with just sushi.

Funny story about this is when I had this as a choice, I also had near max Samnuha Tights as well I could have chosen. Kaht told me at the time that the bigger need was having refresh on my PLD and that I would see the tights again. If they were max, however, Kaht said picking the tights would have been better.

Words of wisdom for sure!

Leyline Gloves (almost max): This allows me to put the Thaumas Gloves away, as they have a total of 7% fast cast. I can also use them on Paladin, and this puts my Reprisal timer a little lower. It was 1:20, so I imagine I can get it closer to the 1:00 goal.

And my favorite...

Max Tights!

Samnuha Tights (max): I wish I could have shown you my celebration when I saw these. This was literally the 8th pair of tights I had seen in the past few days. I did one run two nights ago where we had Teodor 4 times in a row, and all 4 times I had the option for Tights, and the augments were bad. Since I saw the nearly max tights (when I picked the Jumalik Mail max), I had not seen anything close. Getting these tights makes all of SR worth it. They are amazing for TP, CDC, and for just in general awesomeness.

Samnuha Coat (max): In the very next run, we saw Teodor again and my choice was a Samnuha Coat with max augments. I have a lot of options for melee and magic on BLU so unfortunately this won't see action in all likelihood. Still it's a cool piece so I will keep it in my mog house.

So to say I had a good streak in Sinister Reign is an understatement. We had completed many battles for sure, but when each one takes 3-5 minutes it is easy to get 15 battles in an hour.

Other acquisitions

Cessance Earring: I finally got this to drop this morning in the One to be Feared High Tier Mission Battlefield. I needed to use TH4 (blu/thf) and the trusts August, Apururu, Arciela I, Selh'teus, and Joachim to get the win. I stun-locked Ultima and CDC'd it down and outlasted Proto-Omega and his pile pitch. It took me a total of 10 wins at this BC and I have now seen 2 Cessance Earrings (a friend had won the lot on the 1st one).

Early indicators on my BLU spreadsheet are that this earring will add a staggering amount of DPS to my current TP set. I switched this in for Suppanomimi and adjusted my spell set to include DW IV instead of III. The increase was a 55 point DPS increase. That's a lot for one single item being swapped in, but it makes sense. I'm trading 5 attack for 1 more accuracy, 3 more store TP, and 3% more double attack.

What's coming up

I am continuing to do Tenzen runs and getting more boulders for the Almace Afterglow and will follow that up with beitetsu for Burtgang Afterglow. To cap merits, I am fighting Mosquitos and Beetles in Reisenjima (melee or cleave - whichever I am in the mood for) and also farming stones from the ascended NMs that do pop when I am there. The ferns and taupes are going into trying to perfect my Valorous head, hands, and legs for my PLD CDC set. I am also throwing some at my Herculean Hands to try for superior WS hands, but right now my focus is the Valorous gear. I eventually am going to farm a Vatic Byrnie to play around with to see if I can get it to work with my CDC set on Paladin.

Thanks for reading. What a long post!

Current BLU TP gear

DPSssssss

Blue Mage gear

Ok I'm finally ready to write and publish this post.

Believe it or not, I get questions from people in game regarding my gear. Some have even asked me because of this blog - which means, yay outreach!

So here you go.

I will do this post in two parts. The first part is my current up to date TP set and numbers, a discussion on dual wield, what spells I set, my CDC set, and where I am hoping to make improvements.

Here is my current TP gear for standard situations. With sushi alone, my accuracy with this set is around 1200.

My current BLU TP gear

For purposes of this post, I removed all buffs that you can activate on the spreadsheet but kept Haste II (Erratic Flutter) and Mighty Guard related haste buffs, as I almost always have those active when on blue mage.

You can also see the current set of augments I have on my four Herculean pieces. Most notably is the +14% extra triple attack I have.

Why triple attack?

This seems to have an obvious answer. The more frequently you swing per attack round, the more TP you get, and the more CDCs you can get in. But from a DPS and attack round stand point, the extra augments on my Herculean actually account for a significant amount of DPS.

Here's my TP set without the extra augments from the Herculean set. I am fully aware that anybody who owns a herculean piece is gonna have it augmented with something, but still this is rather enlightening.

Same set with unaugmented Herculean gear

This means the Herculean gear amounts for a 900 DPS when augmented with my current augments. My 4 pieces' augments account for +14% TA, +17 DEX, +43 attack, and +90 acc.

Oh, and my rounds per WS with the augmented Herculean gear is 3.77, which means I am ready to weapon skill on average every 6 to 8 real life seconds.

Compare that to 6.38 without the augments.

Triple attack makes a HUGE difference in your TP set, and the only reason you should not go for it is if you own a Tizona and keep AM3 up all the time. In that case, Store TP is likely where it is at (although I have not investigated that as I do not have or plan to have a Tizona).

Why Adhemar path B?

The content I tend to do right now does not require significant accuracy. For those situations where more accuracy is needed and my BLU is, I do switch my three Adhemar pieces to path A for the extra +45 accuracy. I have a handful of accuracy swaps in other slots as well, such as Cacoethic Ring +1 and Sanctity Necklace. I currently lack a waist acc piece and do need to pick up one at some point.

Why only +10 dual wield?

I will discuss this at a later point.

Why are you TPing in your Ambuscade mantle?

After analysis, the extra critical hit rate, accuracy, and DEX you get with a typical CDC Ambuscade mantle is superior to the boost you get from the other typical back piece option Bleating Mantle (both have +20 attack). Using the CDC Ambuscade mantle increases your DPS by 80 points over Bleating Mantle.

My spell set

My standard DD spell set consists of the following spells.

Current spell set

Important DD traits are all included here and for the most part the spells that are set I do use, save the DW and most of the Store TP spells. I keep Subduction mostly for crowd control or when I am completing records of eminence tasks for magic damage kills, but I do swap this out when it is not going to be needed. I sometimes also remove one tier of Store TP if I need to say set Dream Flower or Tenebral Crush.

This spell set gives me a sufficient boost in many offensive areas, including +5% extra Triple Attack (I can get +10% Double Attack from /war), +35 accuracy, a +11% boost to critical damage, +28 MAB, and +30 Store TP. Attack bonus is not necessary almost all the time because Nature's Meditation and Berserk are significant enough boosts. Also note - only DWIII.

Ok now what gives - only 25% dual wield and +10 from your TP Gear? 

The below is a post I posted on Guildwork (where virtually nobody saw it) regarding Dual Wield.

DWIII reduces delay by 25%, but this is after all forms of haste have been taken into account.

Gear haste reduces delay by 25% (capped), or 256/1024

Erratic Flutter reduces delay by 30%, or 300/1024

Mighty Guard would reduce this by 15%, but the cap on magic haste is 43.75%, so that would make the haste reduction 448/1024. (The same would happen if you have two marches on you)…

This leaves you with 704/1024, or 68.75% delay reduction.

DWIII would reduce this number, which is now 320, by another 80 (25% of 320), giving you 784/1024 = 76.5% delay reduction.

If you have Suppanomimi and Adhemar Jacket, that's another 10% of DW.

DWIII + 10 DW from above stated gear would reduce the 704/1024 number by 112, giving you 79.7% delay reduction.

The cap is 80% no matter what. Further dual wield would reduce your TP/hit without giving you faster attack speed.

Ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. More is not necessarily better.

Weapon skill set

My current CDC set is as follows.

Surprising results

I am posting both of these sets to compare what I thought regarding Thereoid Greaves and Herculean Boots. I actually just made a post on the FFXIAH forums regarding this result.

Areas of improvement

I would like to get better augments on my Herculean Helm for the melee version. It only has +10 acc, but +4% Triple Attack. It will be a lot of stones before I see TA +4% again and hopefully it'll come with more accuracy when I do see it.

Obviously the work is still going on to afterglow the 119 Almace. That is going smoothly and I am about 16% done with that trial after 3 days. At this rate I should be done by next weekend.

Do you see improvements that could be made? Let me know!

The song of Roland will play

Just in time for the conclusion of this months' campaign...

Pouches upon pouches upon pouches...

 ...which saw me doing lots and lots of what you see above. So much so that I was waking up earlier than usual so I could have a solid amount of time to farm as many pouches and cinders as I could.

Turning pouches to plates, and depositing into what appears to be a not so sturdy crate.

After procuring 76 pouches on Friday morning, I popped them all in hopes of having enough to beat the statistical average by 33 and finish the trial.

Press Your Luck...

 Unfortunately, after popping the pouches, I still had 41 plates remaining to finish the trial. With 24 hours to go in campaign, I was not really looking to do another session of Qilin, still needing 4 more riftcinders. My LS came through, however, with one guy selling me the 14 plates he had for 75k each, and another member coming through with a loan so I could purchase the remaining 27.

The trial is finished!

 So with that, the most difficult stage of Empryean Weapons was complete! I have no regrets - I know this sword is going to be amazing when finished!

With metal plates out of the way, I proceeded to one more Voidwatch session the following morning (yesterday, during the last hours of campaign). I only wanted to kill 30-40 Morta in hopes of getting any of the remaining 4 riftcinders. I lucked out and got 3, planning to use Ambuscade to buy the remaining riftcinder. I also lucked out and was able to sell the loose 14 plates I received to a LS mate along with 2 riftdross for a good gil haul. All the Belladonna Sap I had received has also sold as of this writing, although a friend has 3 stacks still on him that I can begin selling as well.

After some solid Ambuscade, I had 60 riftcinders and completed the final upgrade for Magian Trial Almace!

(Ok, not final, but seriously who on any server has turned in 3,000 riftcinders for Afterglow?)

Thanks VW! It's been real!

I want to thank Yzzerdd in particular for allowing me to use one of his alternate accounts to make this trial actually doable. Without the extra chest pop each battle, I definitely would not have had enough time to farm Voidwatch during campaign to get all the materials I needed. It went by efficiently enough to not drive me completely insane.

So now that campaign is over, what's next for me?

Well as expected, time to make Tenzen my...dispenser.

I have enough experience with Tenzen that I have a spellset dedicated specifically to fighting him. On D with a Vile Elixir +1, I can definitely solo him. However, I have already joined two pick up groups that fought him on VD and three members were the same both times. One guy controls the PLD and the BRD and the BRD does a great job of sleeping the tarus, and the PLD has a full +1 Souveran set and an afterglowed Burtgang. We have fairly efficient runs and it is always good to walk away with two cases/boxes/parcels each fight. Also, one guy is working on a relic AG and is trading me his boulders for my plutons.

Between those two runs and some purchases, I have 600 boulders already. I am saving the Beitetsu cases/boxes/parcels for the eventual AG of my Burtgang - I haven't forgotten that! - and trading in the boulders.

Of course, 300 of those boulders had to go for the 119 upgrade on Almace. Unfortunately after lots of playing with the DPS spreadsheet, the closest I could get to my current TP set and one including a mainhand Almace (with AM3) was -140 DPS. This means I have to last a while longer with Tanmo +1/Nibiru A as my go to for BLU. It is looking like when I do finish the AG upgrade for Almace that Tanmo +1 will be the better offhand sword. I do not have any current plans to make a Tizona. I'm not counting it out right now, but it seems very unlikely.

So until that upgrade process is done, my playtime will likely look like this:

1) Farm merit points - currently I am farming them while camping Warder of Dignity.

2) Join or make Tenzen PUG or go with LS mates.

3) Trade Plutons for Boulders and purchases Boulders with gil (currently about a million gil per stack on Cerb)

4) Rinse and repeat.

While doing this, I am slowly getting more JP for BLU. I am at 1350 right now.

I am of course hoping for another campaign like the rainbow campaign to make my AG farming a bit more efficient, but I am not counting on it. Still, after only two rounds of Tenzen I have already 3% done with the AG trial. That's promising!

Almace 119 AG Progress

291/10,000 Boulders

Sorry I did not get a chance to do my BLU post I promised last week. I will get on that soon!