Blue Mage/Blue Magic Guide by Sabishii

=Intro=

This guide was created with the intention of informing aspiring Blue Mages of the usefulness of spells at different levels. Some spells are useful, some aren’t, some are useful at certain levels, but lose their usefulness, others are always useful. This guide was created to explain which spells are the most useful, when to use certain spells, and so forth. I won't be going into all the traits we get for setting certain spell combos.

=About Blue Magic Spells=

There are several types of blue magic spells. You have your Magical Nukes, that do damage to enemies and sometimes have an additional effect of an enfeeble, you have plain magical enfeebles like Chaotic Eye silence, you have magical buffs that can either be party cast, or self-cast (like Diamondhide and Warm-Up respectively) and healing magics (such as Wild Carrot), and then you have physical spells. This next section goes into detail about each different type of spell.

=Magical Spells=

Good link to show where and when to get your spells: Click here.

Magical Nukes
At the time of writing this guide, there are 100 blue mage spells. They all have a variety of effects. Some spells cause blindness, some give weight (gravity), attack down, and so forth. They’re as varied as the enemies that give us our spells. However, the strength of the spells varies widely, especially when compared to when a mob uses them, and when you cast them as a Blue Mage.

For example, Bomb Toss, the spell we learn from goblins, is very powerful in the hands of a goblin. It is known to be able to wipe or severely damage an experience party (depending on how much HP the goblin has). However, when a blue mage sets Bomb Toss, the results are much different. You would be disappointed the first time you cast this spell and it does minimal damage. Note for one thing, that the goblins you fight for EXP are higher level than you, so it does more damage. But when you fight that same goblin when you’re a higher level than it, the mob’s bomb toss will do much less damage. The same applies for when you’re casting bomb toss (or other spells) against stronger foes. Also, Bomb Toss is dependent on INT for damage. A Blue Mage might need to completely re-gear himself with INT in order to get any reasonable amount of damage from Bomb Toss. You might even need to sub a mage job to get more INT to do more damage with his magical blue spells (like Bomb Toss).

Another note to make is that most magical blue spells are MP inefficient. They take a lot of MP to cast, but won’t do as much damage (also running the risk of being resisted) compared to the MP it cost to cast it. The big examples this is 1000 Needles. This does massive damage to a player when cast by a Cactuar, 1k damage, which can decimate even a lvl 75 player solo. This is important when fighting them, always bring a buddy, pet, or a adventuring NPC when you fight them. However, as a blue mage spell, this costs 350 MP! Now, you say to yourself, that is a lot of MP for 1k damage. You could do this same amount of damage, or more, if you do a fully geared up SA + CA Cannonball, or Vertical Cleave, for a fraction of the MP. Also, another big problem with this spell is that it is hit or miss. Most of the time in fact, against strong mobs, the spell will fail. It is unreliable, perhaps elemental seal or convergence can help the accuracy of 1000 Needles, but it still isn’t fool proof, and it’s still a lot of MP to cast for a single spell (and it has a long casting time). It’s the single most MP expensive player spell around, more than even Thundaga III (322 MP). So, this isn’t worth casting.

The conclusion is that most of the time, most damage dealing magical Blue Magic spells aren’t worth casting. Not to say they aren’t all are useless, I will note which ones I’ve found to be useful in my experience as Blue Mage, and from what I’ve seen on message boards. Which ones ARE useful though? The most important Blue Magic nukes are breath spells. This is because the damage is proportionate to your current HP. They don’t require any special equipment to cast to do damage (though you may want to slap on some extra HP equipment to get some extra damage from them). But you need to be fully healed to get the full damage from them. Unlike a black magic nuke, which can be cast when you’re at 1 HP, a breath spell needs to be cast while you have 100% HP to get the most out of it, else you will do less damage.

But there are also other magic spells that are useful, if you’re geared correctly for them. Mind Blast is a high level thunder spell that can paralyze. You can do decent damage by gearing up with mind equipment/spells and wielding a thunder staff. But it takes a lot of MND equipment to do decent damage, as well as magic attack bonus spells, equipment, and equipping spells for the trait Magic Attack Bonus (unless you sub BLM or RDM). Eyes on Me also has potential to be a strong nuke, however, this spell requires Charisma. The point is, you will need to have elemental staves, and the proper stat gear to do decent damage with magical nukes, and it’s mostly not worth it for EXP/merit parties, but can be worth if for, let’s say, sea jailers that are strong against physical damage. You can also use burst affinity to burst off your own skillchains to help increase damage, however, this is most worth it in the cases of spells like Digest, MP Drainkiss, or Magic Hammer, since those spells give you HP or MP back. Many spells have such a long cast time that it is too hard, or impossible to self-burst off your own skillchain (like 1000 Needles).

Also, of big importance is the fact that certain mobs in Aht Urhgan (Colibri and Greater Colibri, but not Lesser Colibri) can mimic magical spells and songs cast at them. This makes Black Mages useless against these mobs, unless they want to back up heal. You don't want to get a Thunder IV spell or whatever mimicked (it's not reflect, reflect would imply that the spell is bounced back without affecting the mob that you cast the spell at, the colibri is still vulnerable to spells, it just casts it back if it's still alive after getting hit) back at you or your tank. Dark Knights' absorbs are mimicked back at their caster, so if a DRK tries to absorb-TP, if he's not fast enough, he'll get his TP absorbed back, Bard songs are affected so a BRD can get hit by his own lullabies or requiems, ninjutsu gets mimicked back at their casters. This sounds like it would be bad news for BLU. Who would want to be on the receiving end of their own Disseverment? However, this isn't the case for Blue Magic. For whatever reason, both Blue Physical AND Magical spells can't get mimicked by Colibri. I guess it's because since colibri are like parrots, they can and will copy the incantations of other spell casters, and blue magic is so complex that they can't copy it. Whatever the reason, you can cast MP Drainkiss on any colibri, and get MP back, and not have to worry about another MP Drainkiss being sent back at you. Also, summoner's magical (or Physical) blood pacts also don't get mimicked by Colibri. ( BLU and SMN spells can't be mimicked becuase they are considered as TP moves ... Aluard, Ragnarok)

Healing Magic
Another important note about Blue Magic Spells: we get a few healing spells. They are all affected by MND (some are also affected by VIT, Wild Carrot and Magic Fruit in particular), just like cure is. However, the White Magic Cure spells have one advantage that Magic Fruit and Wild Carrot don’t have. You can target someone outside of the party to cure them. Blue Magic healing spells cannot target someone outside the party, so you can’t use them to power level someone, you cannot even target someone in another party, but is in the same alliance. Just be mindful of this fact.

Diffusion and Buffs
Eventually, when a BLU gets to level 75, they get the chance to put in merits. One of the job abilities and traits we can merit is Diffusion, which when a self-target buff is cast after the job ability is used, the buff gets turned from a self target to a AoE Buff for all party members. The following spells can be used with Diffusion:


 * Pollen
 * Metallic Body
 * Cocoon
 * Refueling
 * Feather Barrier
 * Memento Mori
 * Zephyr Mantle
 * Warm-Up
 * Amplification
 * Saline Coat
 * Reactor Cool
 * Plasma Charge
 * Exuviation
 * Triumphant Roar
 * Regeneration
 * Battery Charge
 * Animating Wail

Plenilune Embrace, Magic Fruit, and Wild Carrot do not work with Diffusion because they aren't self-targeting spells, they can target party members. Diamondhide and Healing Breeze are self-targeting, but are party AoE spells anyway.

Diffusion combined with certain buffs can generate a considerable amount of hate, which can make them useful for tanking situations. Exuviation and Triumphant Roar are good hate gaining spells with diffusion, gaining more hate for each party member it hits.

=Physical Magic=

Physical Spell Stat Modifiers and Accuracy
Physical spells are different from magical nukes. Like Weapon Skills, they also use a variety of modifiers. How do you know what stat to boost for what spell. The safe bet is Strength, since all spells are modified by a stat dependent on your STR, then are modified by whatever other stats it’s dependent on. For example, Bludgeon, you might find, is modified by Charisma. However, if you deck yourself out in full CHR gear, you’ll find you may not do as much damage as if you decked out in STR. That is because it is modified at first by Strength, then by charisma. When you use chain affinity, it gains a bigger boost from CHR, but since STR affects all your physical spells it is important to concentrate on STR gear. DEX is your second best bet, the three big multi-hit spells are affected by DEX. Also, DEX gives you accuracy which brings us to the next big point: physical spells are dependent on main hand accuracy. Just like a DD needs accuracy to hit a mob, a Blue Mage needs accuracy to insure not just their sword hits connect, but their spells connect too. If your spell misses, you’ll see a message like: “*Your Name here*’s spell has no effect.” You don’t want to see that, so you’ll end up gearing yourself similar to any other damage dealer, like DRG, SAM, DRK, MNK, or WAR for example. You’d better buy those woodsman/sniper rings, and wear that life belt. Sushi is also an excellent food to eat, though early levels, it is better to eat Rice Dumplings, since the straight accuracy bonus will be better than the percentage increase you get from sushi, and it’ll increase your STR and attack as well (good for those sword hits). But attack, while it should not be neglected, does NOT affect physical spells. It’ll just affect your sword damage.

Physical Spells and TP
There is a big misconception among new BLU with physical magic and TP. The spell descriptions say that certain effects of the spell are modified by TP. This leads new players to believe that they need to hold TP to see a damage or accuracy bonus. A good example is Bludgeon. The spell description says, "Accuracy varies with TP." The problem with this is, TP only affects the accuracy when Chain Affinity is used. Square-Enix noted that in the version update that came with the expansion Treasures of Aht Urhgan. When you use Chain Affinity, the next physical spell you use gets enhanced, damage modifiers or accuracy modifiers will be affected by your TP, and you will lose your TP once the spell is cast. But it doesn't matter, since TP won't affect your magic normally. Only when Chain Affinity is used will TP affect your spells. That means you can stop storing your TP and not using any weapon skills before you get chain affinity.

On the other side of the matter, blue magic spells give TP similar to how regular magic spells give TP. However, some physical magic spells hit more than once. Bludgeon can hit thrice, so the mob can get triple the TP of a regular spell if all hits of the spell connects. Normally, physical spells give 10 TP per hit. So Claw Cyclone will give back 20 TP, Bludgeon, Jet Stream, and Frenetic Rip give back 30 TP, and Disseverment and Hysteric Barrage give 50 TP back, all the other single hit spells give 10 TP back. Now if a spell doesn't completely connect, if only one hit of Bludgeon connects, the mob gets back 10 TP instead of 30 TP. If you only get 2 hits in, the mob gets 20 TP. The amount of TP given back to mobs can be reduced by subtle blow, so a BLU/THF with Raja's ring for example, gives 5% less TP to the mob with all their attacks, including physical magic. A BLU/NIN gets the Subtle Blow job trait, so they get a larger negative bonus to the TP they get back, and even more so when your BLU/NIN has Rajas equipped, or whatever other equipment you can find that has Subtle Blow (not that there are many). This normally isn't that important, but just be aware that a BLU spamming multi-hit spells may cause the mob to use TP moves faster.

Skillchains
Physical magic spells are going to be your main way of dealing damage (along with meleeing) most of the time. They are your most cost efficient, fastest casting/recasting, and strongest spells available. They are similar to weapon skills, in that they are have different stat modifiers that affect the damage. Also, when you use the job ability Chain Affinity, they become quite potent, and allow you to skillchain with other players, and even self-skillchain. This makes the Blue Mage extremely versatile skillchain partners once we reach level 40 for Chain Affinity. Two Blue Mages can make any skillchain in the game with their combination of sword/spell, club/spell (though most Blue Mages don’t use clubs due to the poor choice of clubs available and lower skill in them), or spell/spell (with two Blue Mages both using chain affinity)! Early on, our skillchain of choice is Fusion and Gravitation (if you use a club, you can do Fragmentation). At high levels, once you get Savage Blade, you can do Self-Distortion, and Self-Light very easily. Savage Blade + Disseverment gives you Distortion, and Savage Blade + Cannonball gives you Light. However, it takes some fancy macroing and timing to do decent damage with self-light (which would involve using Sneak Attack and DEF, STR, and VIT gear). Most BLU/NIN prefer (due to the lack of SA) to use distortion, since disseverment is such a powerful spell in most cases, and the skillchain will do more damage than Light, surprisingly. In HNM cases, you would find yourself more useful to not skillchain at all, and use Chain Affinity + Sneak Attack + Cannonball (or Vertical Cleave, depending on whether the mob is kited or not and your gear set up).

SATA Spells
This brings up another point. Physical spells are capable of being combined with Sneak Attack and Trick Attack. Sneak Attack guarantees a critical hit, boosting the damage of the spell, however, similar to weapon skills when combined with sneak attack by a player subbing THF, only the first hit of a multi-hit weapon skill or physical spell (yes, physical spells can have multiple hits, just like a weaponskill) will be a guaranteed critical. Just like a DRK/THF doesn’t use sneak attack with Guillotine, don’t expect to use sneak attack with bludgeon and expect a HUGE damage increase, only the first hit of the spell will get the damage bonus. However, Trick Attack works differently. Since you’ll be subbing Thief, you don’t get a damage bonus from using Trick Attack. However, trick attack transfers the enmity (hate) gained from the WHOLE spell onto your trick attack partner, so it works with multi-hit spells like Bludgeon and Jet Stream. So, your best bet with Sneak Attack is to use a single hit spell. The very best spells to combine sneak attack with are as follows: At lower levels, Mandibular Bite and Sickle Slash, at mid-levels, Death Scissors and Dimensional Death, then at endgame: Cannonball and Vertical Cleave. When you use Sneak Attack with a spell, you’ll want to macro in ALL your STR gear (with the exception of Cannonball). This is due to the fact that all those spells rely on strength. Cannonball uses defense and VIT, as well as STR as modifiers, so it requires a specialized build.

=Spell Strengths and Weaknesses=

Magical spells have different element types (earth, fire, wind, etc.), come from different enemy types (aquan, beasts, demons, etc.), and physical magic comes in the three different damage types (blunt, piercing, and slashing). Some enemies have resistance to some damage types (slimes are resistant to physical damage), while some are weak against others (pots are weak against blunt damage). Know your enemies well, for as a BLU, you are using your own enemies attacks against them, it is similar to how a BST needs to know how to use the creatures he charms against other enemies.

Spell Types – Ecosystems
Spells come from different kinds of mobs that serve different roles in Vana’diel’s ecosystems. If you’ve played BST, you’ll know that certain mobs can intimidate, or be intimidated by other mobs. It’s like rock-paper-scissors that goes on like this: Beasts beat Lizards which beat Vermin which beats Plantoids which beats Beasts, Aquan beats Amorpha beats Birds beats Aquan, Undead and Arcana oppose each other, Dragons and Demons oppose each other, Lumorian and Luminion (two types of creatures in sea) oppose each other, and Beastmen stand on their own. A beast type spell will have an advantage against a lizard enemy, but a beast spell will be weak against a plantoid mob. Not only that you need to be aware of the elements as well. Magical spells of one type can be resisted if used against a mob type that it is weak against. This is called Monster Correlation (BLU’s AF helm enhances this effect, as do one of our group one merits).

=Blue Magic Job Traits=

There is a guide as to what job spell combos make what job traits. I mention some of them in this guide. But what job traits will you use? Which are good to use? It's all situational of course, but there are several which you WILL want to use most of the time.

=Blue Magic Spells=

Levels 1-10
lvl 01 - Sandspin – Magical – Earth Damage and Additonal Effect: Accuracy Down – This spell is usable at level 1, it does minor earth damage, but more importantly, it gives accuracy down to enemies in a small area of effect. No one is going to equip sand spin for the damage. But they are for the accuracy down. This is useful even at high levels and in BCNMs.

lvl 01 - Pollen – Magical – Recovers HP – Also usable at level 1, this should be one of the first spells you should try to get. This is the equivalent to a cure. However, it’s only a self-target spell, meaning you can’t use it on anyone else. It’s good early on in your early levels, however, unlike the mob you get this spell from (Bees), this spell has a cap of 34 HP healed (there are ways to increase it, such as the Light Staff). So, soon you’ll find that Pollen becomes less and less useful, and you would want to replace it with another spell that’s more useful. However, early on, you may find you can pseudo-cure tank in the dunes. With pollen, cocoon, provoke (sub WAR), and high damage spells, you can cure tank like a Paladin does (maybe even better in the dunes). Just bring some MP drinks to reduce down time to help. It might be a good time to start leveling your cooking skill.

lvl 01 - Foot Kick – Physical – Damage (Blunt) – No Thrills, basic low damage spell. No bells or whistles here. It can be useful for building a mob’s TP for learning spells.

lvl 04 - Power Attack – Physical – Critical Damage (Blunt) – No thrills, low damage physical spell. Like foot kick, you’ll use it once you get them, and then replace it when stronger spells come across. Though this CAN be useful later on, just when you want to spam a low damage spell just feed a mob TP so you can learn a spell.

lvl 04 - Sprout Smack – Physical – Damage (Blunt) and Additional Effect: Slow – This spell does something neat, it gives the enemy the Slow status effect, around 15% Slow. This can be useful with a ninja tank for keeping up shadows. It’s definitely useful for awhile.

lvl 04 - Wild Oats – Physical – Damage (Piercing) and Additional Effect: VIT Down – This spell is a godsend at low levels. The damage isn’t significant, the VIT down effect is important, especially on mobs like Crabs that have High VIT and DEF. The effect decays over time, so the mob will regain VIT gradually.

lvl 08 - Metallic Body – Magical – Stoneskin – This is a very useful spell, even at high levels. This gives you Stoneskin, though it is weaker than the white magic spell Stoneskin. It is overridden by stoneskin, and is affected by your level and blue magic skill. It’s low cost, and still usable at level 75, though it won’t take a whole lot of punishment.

lvl 08 - Cocoon – Magical – Defense Bonus +50% – This is also a very useful spell, this increases your DEF by 50%. Good for when you take hate, are tanking, or soloing. Also, this spell is a MUST for when you use Cannonball. Since Cannonball has a DEF modifier, this will boost your damage by a noticeable amount.

lvl 08 - Queasyshroom – Physical – Damage (Piercing) and Additional Effect: Poison (3 HP/tick) – This spell has some use, while it has a weak poison effect, in ballista, this spell STRIPS all shadows from Utsusemi, which is useful.

Levels 11-20
lvl 12 - Battle Dance – Physical – AoE Damage (Slashing) and Additional Effect: DEX Down – This spell can help you decrease accuracy further (though not as well as Sandspin), but the damage isn’t stellar, and you don’t see a huge change. However, you would want to equip this spell since it is one of the spells that can give you the attack bonus job trait.

lvl 12 - Head Butt – Physical – Damage (Blunt) and Additional Effect: Stun – This spell is godly, you will always be using this spell, even at level 75. This spell can helps make the BLU what it is. This allows you to stun enemy TP moves, spells, and keep enemies from attacking so you or your party can get utsusemi shadows back up. Always keep this equipped, you can alternate using this spell with other DD physical spells. Your NIN tanks will love you for this spell. Always keep this spell set.

lvl 12 - Feather Storm – Physical – Damage (Piercing) and Additional Effect: Poison – This is similar to queasyshroom, fairly low damage combined with low damage poison. Not much special to say about it. Can be used for the useless Rapid Shot job trait (useless for BLU anyway, since we only get throwing weapons, yet lack a skill in them).

lvl 16 - Helldive – Physical – Damage (Blunt) and Additional Effect: Knockback – Another no thrills physical spell, but this does knock back, which has a possibility of interrupting spells cast by mage mobs.

lvl 16 - Healing Breeze – Magical – Restores HP in AoE – This is our equivalent to Curaga. It is affected by MND, and has a soft cap at 180 HP. Useful for support situations in parties, though it draws in hate. It also can be used for the auto-regen trait when combined with sheep song. Divine seal increases the amount healed by this spell, and so does a light staff. Seems to cap at around 120 HP cured.

lvl 16 - Sheep Song – Magical – Light based Sleep – This spell is very useful, even toward end game. If you get a link, perhaps while fighting undead, whip out sheep song, and all the mobs in a small AoE (centered around you) will fall asleep. This is similar to lullaby, in that it is light based. A light staff can help the potency of this spell.

lvl 18 - Bludgeon – Physical – Three-fold damage (Blunt) – This spell will be your basic, bread and butter attack for awhile. It is affected by CHR, which is surprising, but it is also affected by STR, and you’ll notice a larger return if you increase STR rather than CHR. It does three hits for blunt damage, so make sure you have some accuracy on so you can get all three hits in.

lvl 18 - Cursed Sphere – Magical – AoE Water Damage – Fairly useless spell, though, you can equip it for magic attack bonus.

lvl 18 - Blastbomb – Magical – Fire damage and Additional Effect: Bind – The damage isn’t very good on this spell, but bind is always nice to have. It’s good in ballista for getting your opponent to stand still.

lvl 20 - Blood Drain – Magical – Steals enemy’s HP (Dark Damage) – This spell pales in comparison to digest. When I used it, I was getting around 20 HP back, less than pollen. It doesn’t really seem worth using.

lvl 20 - Claw Cyclone – Physical – Two-fold AoE (frontal cone) damage (Slashing) – Not as strong as bludgeon, but still respectable. Be careful if there are any other mobs around you, because it hits anything in front of you. It’s worth having equipped for awhile. Can be turned into a single target by facing away from the target and casting.

Levels 21-30
lvl 22 - Poison Breath – Magical – Water Damage and Poison in a fan shaped AoE (Damage based on HP) – This spell is your first breath spell, however, it is rather weak. The poison effect is 4 HP/tick, but only lasts for 30 seconds, so it does around 40 damage worth before the poison wears off. It’s useful for the clear mind traits.

lvl 24 - Soporific – Magical – AoE Darkness based Sleep – Similar to sheep song, this puts all enemies in the AoE to sleep. But unlike sheep song, this is dark-based sleep (like the Sleep spell). It is useful for links or emergencies.

lvl 26 - Screwdriver – Physical – Critical Damage (Piercing) – This spell is useful against amorph mobs (like hecteyes). Not as strong as bludgeon, but if you do a BCNM such as Under Observation, you’ll want to use it, since it gains a damage bonus due to both it’s piercing damage, and it’s aquan nature.

lvl 28 - Bomb Toss – Magical – Fire AoE Damage – This spell is useful for only one thing, the STR +2 stat bonus it gives when set. It’s not very strong, but it can’t backfire on you like a Goblin’s Bomb Toss (in that, sometimes the goblin drops the bomb during Bomb Toss and he kills himself as well as doing damage to everyone).

lvl 30 - Wild Carrot – Magical – Restores HP to one party member (Light) – This is a VERY useful spell, and I wish I had it early on in my BLU career (it wasn’t learnable when I started leveling BLU right after the Expansion came out). It is much stronger than pollen, and you can cast it on any party member (but not people outside of the party). It is based on MND and to a lesser extent, VIT. It’s replaced by Magic Fruit later on.

lvl 30 - Grand Slam – Physical – AoE (Blunt) damage – Not very useful in most cases. You learn it from Gigas, but there isn’t much reason to set it. It can be used for the Defense Bonus Trait, but that trait isn't that useful. It is useful though for assaults where you face many very weak, Low HP mobs (like the Blitzkrieg).

Levels 31-40
lvl 32 - Sound Blast - Magical - AoE INT Down (Fire) - Lowers INT, making enemy spells do slightly less damage, and decreasing magic defense (which is dependent on INT). It's only one spell point though, so you could set it with Cursed Sphere for a cheap Magic Attack Bonus trait. But other than that, not that useful.

lvl 32 - Chaotic Eye - Magical - Gaze attack Silence (Wind) - This spell is one of the more useful ones, though if you have a WHM or other mage, you won't really need this spell, but it can be useful for soloing. It's silences, but it is a gaze attack, meaning you need to be facing the mob's face for the silence to stick, else it has no effect. It can also be used for getting Conserve MP.

lvl 34 - Death Ray - Magical - Darkness based damage - It's interesting since it's one of the few darkness based nukes, but at 49 MP, (opposed to Bludgeon's 16 MP cost) it'd be cheaper to just cast anything else instead, besides the fact that you need CHR to get it to do decent damage.

lvl 34 - Smite of Rage - Physical - Damage (Slashing) - It does some nice damage, and when combined with Bludgeon, it gives you the undead killer trait.

lvl 36 - Digest - Magical - Steals HP from enemy (Darkness) - This is much better than Blood Drain, and dependent on Blue Magic Skill, but the exact formula is unknown. It's nice if you burst it once you can do Gravitation.

lvl 36 - Pinecone Bomb - Physical - Damage (Piercing) and Additional Effect: Sleep - The damage isn't that great, but that's not why you set this spell. You set this spell because you want to sleep something. It's similar to the WS Shockwave in that it does damage and sleeps at the same time, but it's single target. If you get a link, or aggro, you can quickly pop off a pinecone bomb and run away or finish what you're fighting. Fairly fast recast time compared to sleep spells, but the sleep doesn't last as long as the spell Sleep (though the duration depends on how much TP you have if you use Chain Affinity). The sleep is Darkness based.

lvl 38 - Blank Gaze - Magical - Gaze attack Dispel (Light) - It's unique because it's a light based dispel like BRD's magic finale. Very useful in case you don't have a RDM or BRD (or if the one you have is too busy to dispel at the moment, or he sucks). You must be facing the target's face in order for the spell to be effective.

lvl 38 - Jet Stream - Physical - Three-Fold Attack (Blunt) - This is Bludgeon's big brother, it uses more MP, but it's stronger. But once you get it, it'll be one of your favorite spells. It's useful in two levels after you get it, because once you get Chain Affinity, you can use Red Lotus Blade > Jet Stream > Fusion. It can be cast from a bit of a distance, and it will always hit three utsusemi shadows in Ballista.

lvl 38 - Uppercut - Physical - Damage and Additional Effect: Knockback (Blunt) - It has some nice stats when set, and can also be used to make the Fusion skillchain, but it's not as strong as Jet Stream. Best use for this spell is for the Attack Bonus trait.

lvl 40 - Mysterious Light - Magical - AoE Wind Damage and Additional Effect: Weight - An expensive alternative (73 MP) to the Red Mage's Gravity spell. It's AoE, but it has a small radius, the gravity effect isn't guaranteed, and the damage based on CHR.

lvl 40 - Terror Touch - Physical - Damage (Blunt) and Additional Effect: Attack Down - It's useful only for the attack down effect, it has a long cast time for physical spells.

Levels 41-50
lvl 42 - Venom Shell - Magical - AoE Poison (Water) - Very expensive MP-wise for a poison spell, it doesn't seem as strong as the mob version (12 HP/tick). Not worth it.

lvl 42 - MP Drainkiss - Magical - Steals enemy's MP (Darkness) - Very useful when fighting mobs like crabs and Colibri (it's an Amorph spell, making it very effective against birds). It doesn't require any INT to work well, but just slap on your AF hat when using it against Colibri to increase it's effectiveness (since it has the Monster Correlation increase on it). Colibri and Greater Colibri mimic normal magic spells, but not Blue Magic, making this safe to cast against them. However, certain NMs (see Chamrosh) can mimic any kind of magic (including blue magic physical and magical spells, excluding Self-Destruct), so Chamrosh will reflect it.

lvl 44 - Mandibular Bite - Physical - Physical Damage (Slashing) - A very useful physical spell, it does good damage, costs less MP than Jet Stream, but the damage is on par with it. A basic, bread and butter spell you will be using for awhile, since after you get this and sickle slash, there is a drought of physical spells. Oh, and you can do Induration with it if you want the mages to magic burst Ice off of your skillchains. Circle Blade > Mandibular Bite > Induration. It's a good Sneak Attack spell when you're BLU/THF.

lvl 44 - Blitzstrahl - Magical - Damage (Thunder) and Additional Effect: Stun - It does low damage unless you stack up on INT and MND gear, slow casting and recast time, this isn't a suitable stunning spell, since when you want to stun something, you want to stun it fast, and this spell is anything but fast.

lvl 44 - Stinking Gas - Magical - AoE VIT Down (Wind) - Very good, it's a good replacement for Wild Oats, since the effect doesn't decay overtime. Also used for an auto refresh job trait.

lvl 46 - Magnetite Cloud - Magical - Earth Damage and Additional Effect: Weight - it does more damage than Mysterious Light, since the damage is based off of your HP (like a breath spell), but it's expensive at 86 MP per cast with a long cast time.

lvl 46 - Geist Wall - Magical - AoE Dispel (Darkness) - Useful, if you can't get in front of the mob, or you need to another dispel (such as for certain assault missions like Lamia No 13), though be careful with nearby mobs, since it is AoE.

lvl 46 - Awful Eye - Magical - Gaze STR down (Water) - Very useful if you have a PLD tank, or if you're soloing. It's a gaze attack where you need to be right in front of the mob with it facing you.

lvl 48 - Sickle Slash -Physical - Critical Damage (Slashing) - Very powerful, can be alternated with Jet Stream and Mandibular Bite. This was one of my standard spells until I reached the three big multi-hit spells (hysteric barrage, frenetic rip, and disseverment). Can be used for Gravitation, Red Lotus Blade > Sickle Slash > Gravitation (Earth & Darkness). If you're a BLU/THF you can use SA when you use Sickle Slash for a guaranteed critical hit, it does some nice damage. If you can do so, you can also magic burst MP Drainkiss if you're EXPing on something with MP (like Crabs).

lvl 48 - Blood Saber - Magical - Drains HP from all mobs in range (Darkness) - Seems fairly pointless in most situations, it's not as strong as Digest, and if you're getting pummeled a bunch of mobs, you're better off trying to sleep them all than draining their HP. It's very situational. But it IS a godsend when trying to defeat many weak attacking mobs (like the Blitzkrieg assault).

lvl 48 - Refueling - Magical - Self-Haste (Wind) - This spell gives you about 10% haste, with a fast cast time, and fairly fast recast. For BLU/NIN, who crave haste to reduce dual-wielding delay, this is awesome. It's free haste. Only other jobs that get free haste are RDM and WHM with their own Haste spell. It lasts longer than the white magic Haste spell too, though it's slightly less haste. Refueling is overridden by the white magic spell Haste. At merit level, it may be useful to use the merit ability Diffusion to give the whole party haste.

lvl 48 - Jettatura - Magical - Gaze attack, enemies in a fan shaped AoE are afflicted with Terror (Darkness) - This is a unique spell, in that it's the only player spell that gives the status effect terror. Terror is just like stun, it stops the target from acting temporarily. However, it can be resisted easier than stun. It is not as potent as the version the hippogryphs you get it from use (or the terror abilities wyrms use), but it can terrorize multiple targets that are in front of you, and are looking at you. This spell does generate a lot of hate, so it can be used as a hate tool.

lvl 50 - Frightful Roar - Magical - AoE Defense down (Wind) - This spell ranks among the more useful spells. This is the same kind of DEF down that acid bolts can give. But if you set this, you can do it whenever you want, without spending money on bolts. Also, it can be used for getting auto refresh.

lvl 50 - Ice Break - Magical - AoE Ice Damage with Additional Effect: Bind - This spell is fairly useless, since you already have Blastbomb for bind, and that is ranged with a longer cast time, though if you were in a situation with a bunch of mobs on you or someone next to you, you could possibly cast this spell, then move out of melee range. But wouldn't it be better to just cast a sleep spell instead? Very situational.

lvl 50 - Self-Destruct - Magical - AoE Fire Damage (dependent on HP) - You know that attack that bombs do? When they blow themselves up? This does just that. You blow yourself up. Except when bombs do it, they die, and this just reduces you to 1 HP, not only that, but it weakens you as if it DID kill you. This spell is useless, except for the fact that you can use it for the auto-refresh job trait. Only reason you would need to use this spell is if you want to die fast for some reason, like to get tractored somewhere.

Levels 51-60
lvl 52 - Filamented Hold - Magicial - Slow in a Fan-shaped AoE (Earth) - It's a stronger slow than the slow that Sprout Smack gives, so it can be useful for soloing if you want a mob to attack slower, it gives 25% Slow.

lvl 52 - Cold Wave - Magical - AoE Frost - This gives an agility decreasing frost effect on all enemies in the AoE. This is helpful on high agility/evasion mobs since it's very strong (more than -35 AGI) but the effect decays over time, and does 18 damage per tick. It is also used for auto-refresh.

lvl 54 - Hecatomb Wave - Magical - Wind damage in fan shaped AoE with Additional Effect: Blindness (based on HP) - Not so useful, it is very MP costly (116) and has a long cast time, though it does damage proportionate to your HP like a breath spell, but it is a lower tier breath spell, at 75 with 1195 HP, it should do around 350 damage, while later breath spells do a greater proportion of your HP in damage.

lvl 54 - Radiant Breath - Magical - Light based damage with additional effect: Bind and Silence - Interesting to have a light based nuke that isn't Banish or Holy. It has a long cast and recast time (as do most breath spells), but it does even less damage than Hecatomb Wave.

lvl 56 - Feather Barrier - Magical - Evasion Bonus (Wind) - This gives you an evasion bonus that lasts even less than cocoon does, it lasts only 30 seconds, making it's usefulness limited. But it can be combined with Diffusion.

lvl 58 - Flying Hip Press - Magical - AoE Wind Damage based on current HP - If you need another breath-like spell early on, here is one. Damage is one-third of your current HP.

lvl 58 - Light of Penance - Magical - Reduces TP with Additional Effect: Blind and Bind (Light) - This sounds useful, but it really isn't since there's no way of telling how much TP you're removing from the target, it isn't as strong as the full TP wipe that the Tonberry get when they use it. If you can use it in Ballista, it could be cool. However, you'll want to equip this as soon as you can, because it can be used for auto-refresh.

lvl 58 - Magic Fruit - Magical - Restores HP to party member (Light) - This is a must have spell, great for soloing, and just an all around useful spell. It's stronger than wild carrot, based on MND and on a lesser degree VIT. It only can cure within the party though. But with a /WHM sub, and full MND gear, you can push this spell into Cure V levels.

lvl 60 - Death Scissors - Physical - Physical Damage (Slashing) - Finally another physical spell! This one is very strong when combined with Sneak Attack. An early staple for BLU/THF, and is part of an Attack Bonus trait combo. Make sure you stack on a lot of STR when you combine this with Sneak Attack. Also, it's best used when you have a bit of TP built up.

lvl 60 - Dimensional Death - Physical - Physical Damage (Blunt) - Another spell that's good with Sneak Attack. Not as strong as Death Scissors, due to the lower STR modifier, but it can be used to make a Accuracy Bonus Trait.

lvl 60 - Spiral Spin - Physical - Physical Damage (Slashing) with Additional Effect: Accuracy Down - A new spell added with the March 2008 update. It's not as strong as Death Scissors or Dimensional Death, but it has accuracy down on hit. The accuracy down effect doesn't seem to last as long as Sand Spin's.

Levels 61-70
lvl 61 - Eyes On Me - Magical - Darkness Damage - Another, stronger Darkness based nuke. It's based off of CHR though, so you need specialized gear to make it worthwhile. Very useful at end game against mobs that are strong against physical damage if you have the set up for it.

lvl 61 - Maelstrom - Magical - AoE Water Damage with Additional Effect: STR Down - Another costly nuke that has INT as a main modifier, with a MND secondary modifier.

lvl 61 - Bad Breath - Magical - Earth damage in a fan-shaped AoE (based on HP) with Additional Effect: Multiple Enfeebles - A staple of Blue Magic, can Bad Breath live up to it's reputation in previous FF games? The survey says no. It does a minimal amount of damage for a breath spell (175 damage for a lvl 75 with 1200 HP), it costs 212 MP (more than the other breath spells, even ones you get later on), and the only good thing about it is the myriad of status effects it can inflict. The only time you would want to use it, (NM mobs) there are other jobs you can count on to do any of those enfeebles for far less MP that'll stick longer. Don't bother using it unless for fun, or for a Fast Cast trait when combined with Sub-Zero Smash.

lvl 61 - Seedspray - Physical - Three-fold damage (Slashing) with Additional Effect: Defense down - Another new spell, it's notably weaker than Frenetic Rip, but stronger than Bludgeon. It is a ranged spell, similar to Cannonball. Tests show a 15 foot range. Defense down is around ~9% instead of 15%, so it's weaker than Frightful Roar in that regards.

lvl 62 - Body Slam - Physical - AoE Physical Damage (Blunt) - Not very useful, you don't really need AoE physical damage much, and it isn't a great amount either. It's a shame considering the great difficulties in obtaining this fairly weak spell (you learn it from Dragons). Good against large amounts of weak enemies (like certain assaults like Blitzkrieg or the burning circle fights in Wings of the Goddess like Fire in the Hole).

lvl 62 - Memento Mori - Magical - Magic Attack Bonus (Ice) - Very important if you plan on casting magical nukes, though they don't affect breath spells. It adds +20 magic attack for only 30 seconds, so make it count, that's probably enough to cast one or two good spells.

lvl 62 - 1000 Needles - Magical - 1000 damage divided between all targets in the AoE (Light) - Useless, plain useless. It's very unreliable, being it's a hit-or-miss spell. Most of the time, the spell will fail, unless convergence is used, a light staff, and/or magic accuracy gear is equipped, and no damage will be dealt, while you waste 350 MP. We will not be 1k Needling HNMs any time soon. You'd be better off using a buffed SACA Cannonball, a geared Mind Blast or Eyes of Me. The only use for this spell is for fun.

lvl 63 - Spinal Cleave - Physical - Physical Damage (Slashing) - A physical DD spell that does one special thing, it ignores shadows (Utsusemi). This trait is shared by Vertical Cleave. This

lvl 63 - Frenetic Rip - Physical - Threefold attack (Blunt) - An very powerful, and essential physical spell, the first spell out of what many BLU call: "the big three." These are multi-hit spells that BLU/NIN at high level use do to a lot of damage. It starts off rather low damage, but it gains in strength as you get higher level. This spell is a bit more consistent in damage than Hysteric Barrage and Disseverment (since it has less hits). But you need a decent amount of Accuracy for the full spell (all three strikes) to hit. This spell isn't so good against mobs that have high evasion or high defense. Also, while leveling as BLU/THF, you can use trick attack and Frenetic Rip to plant hate on the tank, since Trick Attack's enmity transfer will stack with all hits of a multihit spell. You may use a high damage, single hit spell with sneak attack (like Death Scissors), then shed some of the hate by trick attacking someone else with Frenetic Rip.

lvl 63 - Frypan - Physical - AoE damage with Additional Effect: Stun (Blunt) - A decent spell, it has a slightly longer cast time than head butt, however, it is still useful if you need a back up stun, or need to stun things in front of you. It also looks funny, it's an actual frying pan being banged in front of you. It is also good when fighting large amounts of weak enemies, like farming, or certain assault-type missions with weak enemies (see Body Slam).

lvl 63 - Hydro Shot - Physical - Physical Damage (Blunt) with Additional Effect: Enmity Down - This is another interesting spell, it decreases your enmity? The damage isn't very good though, and if you sub /NIN, enmity is never a trouble, since you can blink through most things with shadows. Why is this a physical spell instead of water?

lvl 64 - Feather Tickle - Magical - Reduces TP (Wind) - A use challenged spell, since it doesn't do a full TP wipe, you can't really tell how much you're decreasing the mob's TP by. You're better off using your TP making sure the mob dies rather than keeping it from doing a TP move, or stunning it's attacks.

lvl 64 - Yawn - Magical - AoE Sleep for all enemies facing you (Light) - A very useful spell, though enemies need to be facing you, so maybe it might be useful for you do to do a spell like Actinic Burst to get their attention, then hit them with Yawn to put them to sleep.

lvl 64 `- Voracious Trunk - Magical - Steals one beneficial effect (Wind) - This is dispel, but with a twist, you transfer the buff you remove to yourself, so if your target has haste, you get haste. But it has a high MP cost, and a long cast time, plus it can be resisted. However, you WILL want to equip this when you get it just because it offers points toward Auto-Refesh.

lvl 65 - Infrasonics - Magical - Decreases enemy evasion in a fan shaped AoE (Ice) - Finally, a spell that can decrease an enemy's evasion, is this the solution to DD's need for sushi? Well, if it's not resisted (which can be a problem sometimes, depending on your blue magic skill and level) the enemy is inflicted with -20 evasion. But it may not last the whole fight, and if there are any other mobs around you, if can aggro them too if they're in front of you.

lvl 65 - Zephyr Mantle - Magical - Blink (Wind) - The usefulness of this spell varies on your subjob. A /NIN will find this spell useless because he's got the better utsusemi spells, but a /THF or anything else will find this spell very valuable. This works exactly like the white magic spell Blink except for one thing. Regular blink gives you 2 shadows, this spell gives you 4 shadows. That is why the recast time is longer than blink, it's basically a double blink, but still goes by the rules that it has a chance of blocking attacks instead of always blocking attacks like utsusemi shadows do. Also, it's useful for setting in conjunction with Frost Breath or Chaotic Eye for the Conserve MP job trait.

lvl 66 - Frost Breath - Magical - Ice damage in a fan-shaped AoE with Additional Effect: Paralyze (Damage dependent on HP) - This is one of the best breath spells you can use. Useful against anything resistant against physical damage, like NMs/HNMs/gods/Jailers. It can paralyze, which is always a good thing, and like all other breath spells, it ignores magic defense, but not magical resistance (like Proto-Omega), though it is still subject to resists. You need to have full HP to do full damage with this spell, so if you get hit, you'll do less damage with it. HP+ gear can help a bit to squeeze out more damage, but the cast time is rather long, so it is hard to hit kited mobs with it. It is also one of the spells you can set to get Conserve MP.

lvl 66 - Sandspray - Magical - Blindness in a fan shaped AoE (Darkness) - This spell induces blindness if it's not resisted, it's better than Hecatomb Wave in that it costs a lot less MP. However, darkness based enemies, and enemies resistant to darkness can resist this spell.

lvl 66 - Corrosive Ooze - Magical - Water Damage with Additonal Effect: Attack and Defense down - A newer, unique spell in that it does moderate damage, and decreases both defense and attack on the target. But the defense down is only ~5%, and the attack down is likely to be the same, so it's a weaker defense down than Seedspray and Frightful Roar.

lvl 67 - Enervation - Magical - AoE Defense down and Magic Defense down (Darkness) - This spell would be useful in HNM type instances where mobs can have a great amount of magic defense/resistance. But this spell itself can be resisted. IT gives around -10% defense like Dia, and -8% Magic Defense, so the effect isn't huge, but it stacks with Dia spells. It doesn't last very long though.

lvl 67 - Diamondhide - Magical - AoE Stoneskin to all party members in range (Earth) - This is spell is stronger than Metallic Body, and is just like Earthen Ward. The amount of damage absorbed by this spell is computed by your level and blue magic skill. MND has no effect on it like Metallic Body, and unlike the White Magic Stoneskin spell. Though it has a rather high MP cost (99 MP), it is useful for fights against mobs with strong AoE attacks.

lvl 68 - Warm-Up - Magical - Accuracy and Evasion up on the caster (Earth) - A very useful spell in cases you need accuracy/evasion, and don't want to use food, or food just isn't enough. For example, if you're fighting colibri, you can't really use sushi on them, because if you get hate, they can take your food away by using Snatch Morsel, and if you use something expensive like Sole Sushi, it'll be hard on your wallet. So, if you need more accuracy, you can cast Warm-Up. It gives +10 accuracy and +10 evasion, and lasts 180 seconds. At merit level, you can give the whole party a boost with the merit ability Diffusion, the whole party in range will get the accuracy and evasion bonus.

lvl 68 - Firespit - Magical - Fire damage to a single target - This one of the few single target magical nukes we get. It hurts when Mamool Ja use it, but it's not a breath spell. It's dependent on INT and MND, so it requires a specialized build (Fire Staff helps too). The stats it gives when equipped are useful (+3 STR) but heat breath costs 1 less set point, so once you get that, you might want to set that instead of this.

lvl 69 - Tail Slap - Physical - Frontal AoE damage (Blunt) with Additional Effect: Stun - This is similar to Frypan, but is only frontal effect. If you need another stun that can do decent damage, you can set this (also part of the Store TP trait combo). But nothing will replace the cheap, fast Head Butt.

lvl 69 - Hysteric Barrage - Physical - Fivefold attack (Blunt) - This is the second attack of what is called by many BLU: "the big three." This spell starts of weak, but when you get higher level, get more powerful, around level 70+, you will see that this is one of your strongest physical, non-SA spells. It can also be used to solo Detonation (Wind): Vorpal Blade > Hysteric Barrage > Detonation.

lvl 69 - Regurgitation - Magical - Water Damage with Additional Effect: Bind - Another bind spell, it seems to stick quite well in early tests, and costs a single magic set point. A winner for the Bind effect, and cheap INT/MND from setting it. Dependent on MND.

lvl 70 - Amplification - Magical - Increases caster's Magic Attack and Magic Defense (Water) - This increases both Magic Attack and Magic Defense on yourself. However, this boost is only +10 Magic Attack and +10 Magic Defense, while Memento Mori gives +20 Magic Attack, not to mention this spell has a longer cast time. However, they cost about the same amount of MP.

lvl 70 - Cannonball - Physical - Physical Damage (Blunt) - This spell has some range to it, so you can cast it from afar, however, it still stacks with Sneak Attack (ranged attacks and ranged weapon skills like Sidewinder, don't stack with Sneak Attack). This is an excellent spell to use against HNMs as a BLU/THF. However, you need a specialized build to get the most out of it. Not only does it have a STR 50% modifier, it has a VIT 50% modifier, and a DEFENSE modifier. This makes Cocoon an excellent spell to have set and casting it before you shoot off a Cannonball improves the damage considerably. Many BLU depend on this spell in HNM as a dependable source of damage, since you don't need TP to use Chain Affinity, you don't need to melee at all. Slap on as much DEF, STR, and VIT as you can, use Cocoon, CA + SA, get behind the mob, and launch your cannonball. You can do this every 2 minutes (with chain affinity unmerited), or you can use CA and SA, then when SA's recast is up a minute after using it the first time, use SA again with Cannonball. Also can be used to solo Light (Light, Thunder, Fire, Wind): Savage Blade > Cannonball > Light. However, light is not always effective against many mobs. Darkness tends to do more damage (see Vertical Cleave).

lvl 70 - Asuran Claws - Physical - Six-fold Damage, accuracy varies with TP (Blunt) - This is a new spell, learned from Gnoles. TP modifier is accuracy. The power of this spell is notably much weaker than Disseverment, Frenetic Rip, or Hysteric Barrage while costing more MP than any of them. It does cost only 2 set points, and is combined with Enervation to form the Counter job trait. However, it is very disappointing, and usually not worth setting or casting. It would only do a bit more damage than a bludgeon, but at a much higher cost.

Levels 71-75
lvl 71 - Lowing - Magical - Inflicts plague on enemies in an AoE (Fire) - An interesting spell, the plague status effect decreases MP and TP. The target loses 5 MP a tick, and 3 TP a tick. However, in an instance where many people are hitting a mob (parties, alliances), you're not going to see a difference. Mob MP is inconsequential in most cases, they're not going to run out of it, and mobs gain TP rather fast, especially with direct damage blue magic giving 10 TP a HIT (more for multi-hit spells), and everyone swinging their weapons and casting nukes, the mob is going to get +100% TP rather fast even if you're draining 3 TP every three seconds.

lvl 71 - Heat Breath - Magical - Fire damage in a fan-shaped AoE (damage dependent on HP) - Another breath spell, this one is very useful against mobs resistant to physical damage (such as gods, sea jailers, and some mobs in Limbus). It costs a lot of MP, but it does good damage, more than the physical spells would do at the times you need it. Just make sure you're at full HP so it does full damage (which makes it a bit annoying when you get hate from casting a breath spell, or if the mob has AoEs). Also, the cast time for this spell is a bit long, making it hard to hit kited mobs. Again, +HP gear can help squeeze some extra damage out of your breath spells (but you still need to be at full HP for it to count).

lvl 71 - Triumphant Roar - Magical - Self-targeting, short lasting +15% (38/256) Attack bonus - This spell is like Warcry, but self-targeting (unless you use diffusion). It lasts for 60 seconds, so you can use it before a weapon skill for increased damage. However, it isn't that useful, since your sword damage isn't as good as say a WAR's dual wielding axe with rampage, or any higher level G-Axe skill. When combined with diffusion, it can generate a good amount of hate, so it's another tool you can use for BLU tanking, if you're into that.

lvl 72 - Disseverment - Physical - Fivefold attack with Additional Effect: Poison (Piercing) - One of the few piercing spells we get, and it is the most powerful multi-hit blue magic spell we get. Part of "the Big Three" spells (Hysteric Barrage, Frenetic Rip and Disseverment). This spell needs a lot of accuracy for all 5 hits. But it can do a lot of damage, especially against birds and imps. You can solo Distortion (Water and Ice) with this spell: Savage Blade > Disseverment > Distortion. Also, this spell can create Darkness (Darkness, Earth, Water, and Ice) when used in a skillchain with another BLU (Vertical Cleave) or any other weaponskill that has a Gravitation property (see a Skillchain chart). However, higher level mobs (ones with high amounts of evasion/defense), do not take a lot of damage from this spell. But it may still be useful if only for the poison effect. Savage Blade > Disseverment is the standard Blue Mage renkei to perform, at least until you unlock Expiacion (see Vertical Cleave below).

lvl 72 - Saline Coat - Magical - Increases Magical Defense (Light) - This handy spell is useful for times when you have to face a lot of magic, such as astral flow and other AoE magic (like Central Temenos 3rd Floor where you have to fight the Yagudo SMN NM: Pee Qoho the Python). It gives a +40 magic defense bonus that decays over time.

lvl 72 - Sub-zero Smash - Physical - Frontal Cone physical damage (Blunt) with Additional Effect: Paralysis. With Chain Affinity, TP modifies damage. The damage this spell does isn't considerable, but the paralysis can come in handy. I tend to stack on STR and MND gear, and hope the MND affects the paralysis potency. But this spell is cheap, and it's earned a spot in my spell set because when you set Bad Breath and this spell, you gain the Fast Cast job trait for -10% cast time, and -5% recast time on all spells. Not a big deal for most BLU spells, because they're already fast, but with homam legs, loq. earring, and ACP body/AMK head geared with fast cast, you can get 26% fast cast, which can help with /NIN Utsusemi: Ichi casting. However, most BLUs won't opt for that, because they can probably find other uses for those add-on pieces, such as a godly WS hat, or a free BLU hauby (ACC+ ATK+ 10) or something for another job. Also supposedly does more damage when you cast facing away from the mob. I've yet to see this damage bonus though.

lvl 73 - Ram Charge - Physical - Physical Damage (Blunt) with Additional Effect: Knockback - A rather useless spell that has the same stat modifiers as the Sword Weapon Skill Savage Blade (STR 30% MND 50%). Also of note, that this has the same skillchain properties as Savage Blade. However, this is only a single hit attack. Since you have Savage Blade, you don't really need to use this spell (especially since you can't self-skillchain with two physical spells due to the chain affinity recast).

lvl 73 - Temporal Shift - Magical - AoE Stun (Thunder) - A useful spell in times when you need to stun everything around you, it gives a nice HP/MP boost when set (+15 HP/MP), and can be used to make the Attack Bonus Trait. The stun effect doesn't last too long, it might be better to use Actinic Burst to flash everything to use Yawn than this.

lvl 73 - Mind Blast - Magical - Thunder Damage with Additional Effect: Paralyze - This spell is really cool looking, which is always nice, though it requires a substantial MND score to do a lot of damage. It is affected by MND, and you need some magic attack bonus too. A Thunder Staff always helps.

lvl 74 - Actinic Burst - Magical - AoE Flash (Light) - An extremely useful spell when confronted with many mobs attacking you at once, the flash effect doesn't last a very long time, but it draws some good hate, and may give you the time to cast a sleep spell (like Yawn). For those who don't know, Flash decreases accuracy for a short period of time, stacks with accuracy down and blindness status effects. It also very useful because you can set both this spell and Plasma Charge in order to get a cheap Auto Refresh trait. So you MUST set this spell and Plasma Charge, because it frees up spell points you'd otherwise be using for Auto Refresh.

lvl 74 - Reactor Cool - Magical - Defense bonus and Ice Spikes (Ice) - This spell increases your defense, and gives you ice spikes that can paralyze when a mob hits you. However, the spikes don't last very long, and most of the time, you're going to not want to get hit, you could be subbing /NIN for utsusemi shadows, or /THF for Sneak Attack and using Zephyr Mantle for blink.

lvl 74 - Magic Hammer - Magical - Light Damage and Additional Effect: Aspir - This spell does damage, and drains an amount of MP from the mob equal to the damage dealt (only if the mob has any MP). It can be useful when fighting things resistant to darkness, but you need a lot of MND gear to make it worthwhile. Also, the MP Drain won't work against undead. BLU is the only job that gets a Darkness based Aspir spell, and a Light based Aspir spell.

lvl 75 - Plasma Charge - Magical - Shock Spikes - This spell is essential, not for the short lived shock spikes (similar to Reactor cool, but without the defense up), but for the STR +3/DEX +3 stats it gives, AND the fact that it is part of the two spell Auto Refresh job trait combo (Actinic Burst is the other spell). The shock spikes also can stun the mob if they hit you, but most of the time, you don't want to get hit, that's what utsusemi and blink are for.

lvl 75 - Vertical Cleave - Physical - Physical Damage (Slashing) - This spell does very good damage, especially when you sub /THF and use Sneak Attack. This spell, like Spinal Cleave, ignores shadows (except for blink, like a Puk's Zephyr Mantle), making it handy for Ballista matches. Stack on STR, since it has a STR 50% modifier for it. Also, if you have another BLU with you in a party, you can use CA Disseverment > CA Vertical Cleave for Darkness (or the other way around, the order doesn't matter). Also, from the September 2008 update, the new Blue Mage Job-specific Mythic WS Expiacion allows you to solo Darkness. Expiacion + Vertical Cleave > Darkness. This WS would make this an even better skillchain to do than the Disseverment Distortion that most BLU/NINs do. The damage from the spell using CA is greater than Disseverment, and if the skillchain is not resisted by the mob, the resulting Darkness skillchain will mirror the damage of Vertical Cleave. A 400 Expiacion followed by a 700 damage Vertical Cleave can result in a 700 damage Darkness when not resisted (for example). If uninterrupted, and proper timing, you can also Magic Burst MP Drainkiss off your Darkness Skillchain (if the mob has MP and is not undead).

lvl 75 - Exuviation - Magical - Self-Erase and Restore HP (Fire) - This spell acts like erase, removing one status their own specialized spell to take care of. Further more, it also cures the amount of HP equivalent to a Cure II. Yeah, this spell is nowhere near as potent as the version used by the giant Wamoura mobs. However, it does have strong enmity generating ability, especially when combined with diffusion and nearby party members, a BLU can generate a lot of hate for tanking situations.

Levels 76-80
lvl 76 - Plenilune Embrace - Magical - Recovers HP and increases Attack and Magic Attack (Light) on party target - The new Cure IV. Depending on MND, it cures for over 400 MP (I was getting 488 HP cured at 76 with 100 MND). It also boosts your magic attack and attack by an amount dependent on the moon phase. The amount cured does NOT vary by the moon phase though. You can get a 5% (new moon) to at least ~12.25% increase in attack (Waxing Gibbeous). The magic attack bonus increase is unknown though. It could be useful to cast this before a nuke near a full moon. Otherwise stick with traditional magic attack bonus spells (like Memento Mori). It's more expensive for a cure, but as you gain higher levels, you get higher cures and more HP. Depending on your MP pool or set points, you may want to stick with magic fruit until you get a higher base MP (or if you need more important spells set).

lvl 77 - Acrid Stream - Magical - Damage in a fan-shaped AoE, additional effect: Magic DEF down (Water) - One of the new spells from Abyssea mobs. It's INT modified and heavily modified by magic attack. Grab a water staff, put on your INT and magic attack gear, use your convergence JA. Testing it quickly with an INT/magic attack set against marids, I got similar numbers to regurgitation with an NQ staff. Not sure how potent the magic defense down effect is, but it can help a group cast stronger nukes on a mob. Combines with demoralizing roar to make Double Attack.

lvl 77 - Leafstorm - Magical - Damage in an AoE surrounding the caster (Wind) - From treants, we learn another spell. LEAVES! I'm reminded of Woodman's Leaf Shield from Megaman 2. Anyway, INT modified and magic attack bonus like Acrid Stream. It seems rather weak, maybe a little weaker than the other new nukes, but it has some range because it's an AoE. Combines with Cimicine Discharge to make Magic Burst Bonus.

lvl 78 - Cimicine Discharge - Magical - AoE Slow around the caster (Earth) - Those annoying gnats give us another slow move. It could be useful if you have a bunch of mobs around you and you've got them slept, enfeeble them all with slow. It's slightly cheaper MP-wise than Filamented Hold, but I've yet to see information on the potency of it. I can't even use this spell yet. Combines with Leafstorm to make the new Magic Burst Bonus trait. I've also heard it has a very large AoE range.

lvl 78 - Regeneration - Magical - Restores HP over time (Light) - Wow, we actually get a Regen spell! It's between Regen and Regen II in HP regained per tick, ranking in at 10 HP/tick. HOWEVER, it lasts longer than regen II, lasting for 90 seconds for 300 HP restored. It looks fantastic for a cheap healing spell. A lot cheaper than magic fruit. But beware that it's not cure, it's regen. However, it's self-targeting and works with Diffusion.

lvl 79 - Animating Wail - Magical - Haste (15%) (Wind) - 15% haste that lasts for 5 minutes. It DOES work with diffusion, unlike with one of Scholar's abilities unable to make WHM or RDM haste AoE for the party. Replace Refueling with this as soon as you can use it, it's a godsend. Your party of melees and your mage will love you if you diffusion the party with it. Makes Dual wield with [[Blazing Bound.

lvl 79 - Battery Charge - Magical - Self-Targeting Refresh (Light) - A 4 hp/tick refresh only targetable on the caster, but can be combined with diffusion for an AoE refresh! Recovers 200 HP over time. Costs 50 MP. You have a net gain of 150 MP. Yes. This is what we've been waiting for! A way to keep your MP up without a red mage! With 15% haste AND refresh, it puts on par with RDMs for soloing some things, IMO. You need to set this spell!

lvl 80 - Blazing Bound - Magical - Deals damage to an enemy (Fire) - It's some sort of fire nuke. It combines with Animating wail for Dual Wield. It probably works similarly to Leafstorm and Acrid Stream in that it's INT based and heavily modified with magic attack. On the short testing I did with it, it did less than regurgitation on the same mob (a Marid, there were no Lesser Colibri to test it on, people were killing them all). I couldn't test it for very long because the marid I was fighting wanted to flatten me. But it does have a long range like cannonball. Combines with Animating Wail to make the Dual Wield trait.

lvl 80 - Demoralizing Roar - Magical - AoE Attack Down (Water) - The Wivre spell, when used by a wivre, it inflicts a potent attack down that basically strips down a majority of your attack, leaving you hitting the mob for single digits or 0's. We know terror touch inflicts a 15% attack down effect. I don't know how potent the attack down is on this spell. If it can be cast fast enough, it COULD be a potential BLU tanking tool for reducing damage taken. You can pump up your defense with cocoon, you can refresh yourself now, and you can reduce the damage done by the enemy further with Demoralizing Roar. Now if only SE will give us the wivres' stoneskin move. It might press us one step closer to godhood. Maybe with the next level increase. . . Anyway, combines with Acrid Stream to make the Double Attack trait.

Who knows what toys they'll give us as we move closer to the ultimate level 99. Considering how many nice spells we have from this update, all of them are magical. Disseverment, Vertical Cleave, and Cannonball aren't capped yet in damage (I think). I'm not sure what level you have to reach for the base damage of our big spells to be capped. They'll likely give us some even more powerful physical spells (possibly from abyssea, as a reward for buying the add-ons).