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Final Fantasy 14 has always been bold in changing the formula of specific jobs and abilities. As a result, some jobs get major overhauls almost every expansion, making them look new and fresh every couple of years.
But deep down, this has created a strange divide within the community. On one side, you have the players that love these changes as it keeps the material, like the playable jobs, from getting to see me or stale on the other side, you have players that are confused or upset, annoyed that their once favorite job now plays like something completely different.
You see as many people loving the changes as people hating them.
One job in Final Fantasy 14 has changed remarkably little. It has only been improved as the game has moved into the future. But, of course, I am talking about the only limited job in Final Fantasy 14, Blue Mage.
While the current jobs are always at the mercy of whatever patch or expansion changes them, Blue Mage has retained its creative versatility, not even once.
Even though it’s a limited job, it has a rich history, and during the heydays of Final Fantasy 11, Blue Mage was well-loved by those who mained it.
Final Fantasy 14 is a surprisingly tough game when placed under a lens. Most experiences are, in fact, standardized.
But Blue Mage defied this system and was loved for it. Its unique abilities and innovative spell-learning mechanic make it an unparalleled class.
TL; DR
I’m sure being a Blue Mage has got your hands full. I know that you must tend to your blue stockings and extensive Spellbook.
Though I highly suggest you read the whole thing, I don’t want this guide to keep you from uncovering the joys of playing as a Blue Mage right away. So, here is a bottom line up front:
- Job: Blue Mage
- Type: Caster DPS
- Key Spells:
- Early levels: Sticky Tongue and 100 Needles
- Endgame: Ram’s Voice and Ultravibration
Blue Mage Final Fantasy Guide
Blue Mage Overview
The Blue Mage is a job that was introduced before the launch of Shadow Bringers. However, unlike typical battle jobs, this one comes with the title of a limited job.
Blue Mage is designed to be more like a theme park, entirely for fun and a gimmick job.
This means it cannot take place in current in-game content. Their level cap will always be 10 below the current cap for the rest of the jobs. They also can run duties differently than the other jobs in the game.
With the Blue Mage, you have a job that can explore the world and copy the spells and abilities of the monsters you find. Be they in dungeons, trials, or out in the wild. Due to this, the Blue Mage spellbook is massive.
One of the critical reasons why Blue Mage is delegated to the limited job slot is due to these monster abilities. They are compelling and, in many cases, openly overpowered, making them really fun.
They also level up in a very unique way. Unlike other jobs that may quest around or run dungeons, a Blue Mage actually gets a vast experience boost for killing monsters out in the open world. This makes leveling the job relatively swift compared to all the others.
Despite the restrictions we’ve discussed, the Blue Mage has excellent potential. There are a lot of fun aspects to it. There are also some things you can do with the Blue Mage that are much easier to do than if you were on another job.
For example, while you cannot use the Duty Finder as a Blue Mage, you can run dungeons in pre-formed parties with friends.
If you enter as a Blue Mage, you can very swiftly speed up the time of the dungeon run due to how potent your abilities are, which makes for an enjoyable time.
Helping a friend Quest can also go much faster due to your ability to potentially one-shot enemies. But, of course, it all depends on the spells you have acquired.
Spellbook and Spells
Speaking of those spells and abilities, let’s talk about those a bit more. Blue Mages have their unique Spellbook, which can be accessed via the character tab once you’ve unlocked the job.
You have a selection that shows all of your currently obtained actions and those you have not. These will appear as grey question marks.
Below will be a bar showing the actions you currently have set to active. You can have 24 of these active at a given time, but you can swap them out as you wish.
When you wish to search for a new action, all you have to do is click on the question Mark box in your Spellbook here. While it won’t tell you the exact mob you need to kill for the ability, it will tell you where you need to go. Be it a dungeon trial raid or a unique totem.
All this content can be run with a party of Blue Mages, giving you a 100% chance to learn the spell. Or you can have a friend at a higher level take you through these dungeons unsynced, which you can still get the spell, but it will be at a decreased percentage.
The Masked Carnival
What ties all of this together and gives a bit of direction as a Blue Mage is the Masked Carnival. This excellent solo content you can do allows you to fight in the Ul’dah arena against powerful foes.
In exchange for defeating these foes, you get a currency known as Allied Seals, which also comes from the Realm Reborn hunts and a fair amount of Tomestones of poetics.
Some of these bosses also come with their own achievements and titles. But that is not the full extent of it.
Despite its limitations, there is no lack of antics to get into as a Blue Mage.
Unlocking Blue Mage
First, you must have completed the MSQ quest “The Ultima Weapon.” From there, you will want to go to the Limsa Lominsa lower decks. You’ll find an NPC with a blue quest marker with a plus sign on it by the name of Zealous Yellowjacket, and they’ll be at X: 9.9, Y: 11.0.
They will lead you through the Blue Mage questline, which doesn’t take too terribly long to get done.
When that is unlocked, you can continue the quest for the Blue Mage and unlock unique totems that you can use to gain spells. These totems will be called Whalaqee Totems, and you’ll get them through your Blue Mage questing.
You will get a new vendor that opens up at Ul’dah (X:2.5 Y: 13.0). From here, you can spend your allied seals for music, rolls, minions, emotes, and materia.
Note that you can deck your Blue Mage out in any disciple of Magic Gear up to level 70, including raid gear from the Stormblood raid. So you can power up depending on the gear you get ahold of.
How to Level Blue Mage
Want to level your Blue Mage? Here’s a crash course on how to get to the level cap in no time.
Squeezing EXP
First, you want to ensure you get as much experience as possible. Use items like the Brand New Ring, experience hats, meals with EXP bonuses, etc.
Picking the Right Area
First, make your way to Central Thanalan. For these first few levels, you want to find enemies near your level and blast them with your water cannon. Do this until you reach level 13 when you want to start making your way to the Northeast.
Acquiring Your First Spells
Here, you’ll get your first couple of blue spells. You must see the enemy, cast it, and then kill it to learn the spell. You also have to be alive. The first spell is Blood Drain, cast by the Sun. This spell is required for the Blue Mage questline but is otherwise unimportant.
The second spell will be Sticky Tongue from the Toxic Toads near the Unholy Air.
Continue your murder spree until you’re about level 24. At this point, you want to make your way to Southern Thanalan and fight as Sabotender Bailaor. However, this little cactus has another significant spell we need to learn: 1000 Needles.
1000 Needles is a brief spell with a direct effect. It does 1000 damage, no more, no less.
Your Level 50 Combo, Ready
With Sticky Tongue and 1000 needles, you now have the critical leveling combo until level 50. The strategy is simple. You stick your tongue into the enemy and immediately start casting 1000 needles.
- If the enemy is level 30 or below, it takes 1 cast.
- If they’re 35 to 40, it takes 2 casts.
- At levels 45 to 49, it takes at least three.
You can also hunt for a few extra spells to give you experience. Upon acquiring 10, you’ll get two valuable spells from the spell tome vendor.
White Wind is a powerful heal and mighty guard which gives you 40% damage reduction at the cost of doing 40% less damage.
But since you’re using a thousand needles, which always has 1000 damage, it’s unaffected if you’re going to go spell hunting.
A few that I’d recommend picking up are:
- Basic Instinct from Master Coeurl (Upper La Noscea; X:8.9, Y: 21.4)
- Acorn Bomb from Treant Saplings (North Shroud; X:27, Y:28)
- Plaincracker from Sandstone Golem (Southern Thanalan; X:24, Y:13)
- Faze from Qiqirn Shellsweeper (Central Thanalan; X:16, Y:19)
- Toad Oil from Giggling Gigantoad (Western Thanalan; X:15, Y:7)
- Ice Spikes from Trickster Imp (Central Shroud; X:27, Y:24)
- Flying Sardine from Apkallu (Eastern La Noscea; X:27, Y:35)
- Bad Breath from Stroper (Central Shroud; X:12, Y:23)
Once you have everything you need, head to the highest level area you can handle and start farming enemies until you reach level 50. If you can try to kill multiple enemies together for a chain bonus to help speed up things a little bit
Leveling to 60: Halfway There
Time for some new spells!
After hitting level 50, the first thing you’ll need to do is upgrade your gear. Otherwise, you’ll explode. Once that’s done, it’s time to find some new spells because, sadly, the tongue+needle isn’t going to be that effective anymore.
Thankfully, we do have some options for new spells.
Choco Meteor can be acquired from Courser Chocobo (Dravanian Forelands; X:34, Y:28), which has a potency of 300 as long as our Chocobo companion is with us.
The Ram’s Voice is a spell dropped by the final boss Chimera at Cutter’s Cry. It deals 220-potency ice damage to nearby foes.
The Dragon’s Voice is also dropped by Chimera. It deals the same amount of damage, except lightning aspected.
Peculiar Light is another easy spell from the Lentic Mudpuppy at Mor Dhona. It just helps kill groups faster.
While not required, the eruption can be easily acquired by beating Ifrit. It deals 300 potency fire damage to all nearby enemies.
Farming
Head to the highest level area you can survive, freeze the enemies with Ram’s Voice and start spamming Choco Meteor until they die. Repeat this until you’re level 60.
Alternatively, you can spam Fates if you want to work on Heavensward or Shadowbringer relics or just break up the monotony.
Leveling to 70: The Home Stretch
Things will be faster. There’s only one new spell we need to pick up.
Ultravibration will KO all nearby enemies afflicted with Deep Freeze and Petrification. You can grab this spell from Kongamato at The Peaks.
Getting the spell can be challenging if you go for it right as you hit level 60, but it is possible with some luck.
Once you grab ultra vibration, things will speed up dramatically.
You go to an area with the enemies at the same level as you, ideally with a large amount of mob density. Pull as many as you can and wait for them to group up.
At this point, cast Ram’s Voice and start casting Ultravibration. All the enemies will die instantly, giving you a massive chain bonus, which is a good amount of bonus experience.
“But the cooldown is so long,” I hear you say. Well, you can get around that cool down by going into the Duty Finder and going into an unsynced instance.
The only catch with this method is you’ll need to be changing the area that you’re farming. However, this method is almost as fast as being boosted, so it’s a small price.
FAQs
Question: What does it Mean that Blue Mage is “Limited”?
Answer: Blue Mage is restricted from completing the MQS and joining parties in duties. Also, it can only level up to 70.
Question: Do You Need to be Synced for Blue Mage Spells?
Answer: As a Blue Mage, you can learn new spells for your Spellbook while unsynched.
Question: Why am I not Learning Blue Mage Spells?
Answer: If you keep defeating enemies but are not learning spells, remember you must meet the following criteria:
• Watch your foe cast the spell
• Defeat your foe after you see the spell
• Avoid dying during the encounter
Parting Words
All in all, I really do enjoy Blue Mage. It’s a fun way to burn some time and work on collecting the various spells while exploding most of your foes that you come across.
I do encourage folks to give it a try if you have some time to spare. It’s a unique game aspect for solo play or running around with friends.
If the developers could find a way to keep Blue Mage’s versatility intact while also allowing it to play in modern material, people would likely find a reason to rejoice.
So while Blue Mage might be a limited job and a meme to most people, the players still love it despite all of that because it’s a job that offers something that no other can and an entirely unique player experience that breaks away from everything the rest of the game stands for.
If they choose to create more content for it, I’ll be amongst the first in line to try it out.