Zel's Weekly Digest
Week 26 - May 7 - 13, 2024
I guess that’s why they call it the Blues
Blue mage is fun. It’s honestly a really interesting class, even if I don’t have the brain power to remember all the spells and interactions and combos. It’s great if you’re fond of oldschool MMOs where to get real power, you need to know which spells synergize with other spells, and the best way to effectively use them, which is something very lacking in most of FFXIV for “balance” reasons.
I understand why the devs push the game the way they do, as they don’t want any class to be bullied out of the meta just because a Dragoon didn’t bring a Bard with them, or Scholar has chunky shields that can negate entire mechanics, or White mage keeps running out of MP and are slow. Why bring a machinist who has little utility when you could bring a summoner who can DoT everything to a painful death? These are all real gameplay issues that have long been changed or removed from the game (Scholar shields no longer stack and fishing for a crit shield for Deployment Tactics is no longer viable, Summoners no longer have a whole arsenal of DoTs, Bards no longer give a piercing damage bonus AFAIK, White mages have incredible MP management now), but I remember them.
Regardless, these quirks and synergies are never coming back, as they don’t want any one class to be superior to another in a real tangible way, and the only true difference is how each one plays and finding your specific niche.
Blue Mage, however, still follows those old school rules, and is there’s a big reason why they’re a limited class. As satisfying as it is to just freeze a pack of mobs and then explode them all at once, it is, in fact, a huge balance issue to normal gameplay compared to everything else. Why even bother with a Black Mage when their ice spells don’t even freeze things in place and prevent damage? Why even bother with making sure your DPS have their interrupts or for Tanks to know when to stun when you can just use Perpetual Ray? Imagine if stun resistance wasn’t a thing, White Mages would be above and beyond one of the most sought after healers in a normal dungeon.
While BLUs can go with premades into dungeons, they still can’t go into things like Eureka, Bozja, or Deep dungeons, and I’m pretty sure they’re barred entry from Variants too.
Anyway, that aside, you can’t really show your true power as a Blue Mage without your absolutely mind blowing arsenal of spells. While there’s quite a few spells you can get solo in the overworld, there’s many, many more that you need to do dungeon diving or boss trials or raids for. Which requires of course finding enough people for premades, assuming you’re not currently strong enough to solo the content. While you can run in Unsynced, this gives the downside of not bein guaranteed your spell. If you go in Synced, you have a 100% chance of getting the spell, assuming you live.
As such, while Blue Mage very much isn’t for everyone, a friendly and dedicated community has sprung up around it, and on any given day there’s most likely a listing in party finder to get some spell or complete a Blue Log entry (which are needed for the incredibly exclusive and prestigious Morbol mout).
While I enjoy the class, like I said, I’m bad at remembering things like which spells are actually useful and what combinations do what. I do still like going into Blue parties though, either to get spells of my own, or on White Mage to provide additional support, and most importantly, raises.
Mag, on the other hand, is a True Blue Mage, and occasionally with log on with the sole purpose of playing blue mage, usually helping others since he already has all the spells and has completed the solo Blue Carnival. He’s a veritable expert at the class, and can easily solo shadowbringers dungeons even without the echo bonus.
He usually ends up roping me into joining him when he does this, and we found a party that was after some spells, including a few that I didn’t have yet.
We started off with Chelonian gate from Hell’s lid, then took on Lakshmi and Tsukuyomi. While there were people hopping in and out of the party finder listing, we were able to get through quite a few duties for people, including Sukazu, Leviathan, and Ramuh.
Also I love how Suzaku's attacks are all based around music (aside from phoenix down).
A pretty fun, but tiring evening, but we met some nice people!
A slow week
So I haven’t actually been on much this week (other than taking care of some weeklies, like gold saucer, submarines, scamming the Domans, etc) for a couple of reasons. The first being that next week is when the new Mogtome grind begins, as well as Make It Rain (which is a bit early this year, probably so it doesn’t interfere with Dawntrail), so I was getting some non FFXIV time in before those drop.
The second is that no one else has been on. Zeb’s busy IRL, and I suspect Mag was offline for much the same reason as me (he was so excited to cheese dungeons with blue mage). Wren’s usually on every day, but she tends to do a lot crafting or such when she’s on, and not as much in the way of dungeons lately. There’s not really a whole lot of incentive to run things for tomes due to the approach of Dawntrail, and all of us are mostly geared up (I’ve got all three roles ready to go). The only thing left for me to do, prep wise, is to make some Grade 3 aetherial wheels for Make it Rain and Dawntrail.
We did manage to get some dungeoning in, but just a few runs on tuesday, and leveling+prae on sunday
It’s nice to just chill every now and then, but I already miss Eorzea and I’m ready to hop back in for the new grind.
Fare Thee Well, Clive
Tuesday was the last day to complete the FF16 crossover (well, technically it ended the 8th at about 8am Eastern), so I wanted to complete it on Edda. Saki’a sadly isn’t high enough level, and neither is Mimitchi, and it kinda doesn’t really fit Hahama all that much.
It didn’t take too terribly long when skipping all the cutscenes, and the battle took the longest.
I also decided to snag the pupper for Jacks, since she has barely any mounts.
Bonus round
This week's Fashion Report was actually pretty nice looking!
See you next time!
Posted 2024/05/14