Blue Mage DPS Rotation, Openers, and Abilities — Endwalker 6.45

This guide is intended for level 80 Blue Mages that have learned all spells. If you're not at that point yet, then check out the Leveling and Spells pages.

The last three spots can be used for utility spells. If you need even more utility spells, the order to drop spells is Bristle (but only if not using Breath of Magic or Mortal Flame), followed by Sea Shanty and then The Rose of Destruction.

The most important part dealing DPS effectively as a Blue Mage is being able to pull off a Moon Flute opener. Moon Flute grants 50% increased damage for 15 seconds followed by 15 seconds of being unable to use spells or abilities. We can abuse this to cram all of our highest potency spells into that 15 second window.

The timeline for the opener can be found below, where larger spells on the bottom are GCD and smaller spells on top are OGCD. Blue Mage spells are weird, and Surpanakha actually requires a quadruple weave to get the full effect. When we use it, we actually have multiple OGCDs in a row and a ton of GCD clipping, but it's the only way to make everything fit!

You might be wondering what to do after the Moon Flute opener. It's actually pretty simple, we basically follow this priority:

1. Is the boss nearly dead and in Final Sting range? Everyone (except the tank usually) should coordinate a Moon Flute, use any cooldowns they have available, and then finish with Whistle into Final Sting.
2. Is there raidwide damage about to happen? If yes, use Cold Fog to be able to spam a 400 potency instant cast spell for 15 seconds!
3. Is Nightbloom or Song of Torment (they don't stack) on the target? If no, use Bristle followed by Song of Torment.
4. Are any cooldowns up that will be up in time again for the next Moon Flute? If yes, use them. This applies to Feather Rain, Shock Strike, and The Rose of Destruction to name a few.
5. Is Triple Trident off cooldown, and you are running a Spell Speed setup? Use the combo with Whistle and Tingle! You can also hold until the next opener, and if you are running a Critical Hit setup you only want to use it in the opener.
6. Use Sonic Boom or equivalent filler spell.

The DoT opener requires a faster GCD than the Winged Reprobation opener, and execution of both is highly ping dependent. Players can complete the DOT opener with a GCD as high as 2.2s and the Winged Reprobation opener with a GCD as high as 2.5s, but depending on your situation you may need a faster GCD.

If you cannot fit everything due to lack of SpS, high ping, or something else, there are some adjustments you can make. First, switch your gear to a set that increases SpS. If that is not sufficient (or you insist on using gear that makes it harder for you), the easiest adjustment is to move J Kick before Moon Flute. If you don't expect to need J Kick for mobility, you can replace J Kick with Quasar since it has a shorter animation lock. If that still fails, you can drop the second Bristle in the opener entirely.

Each group should have one person applying Mortal Flame and one person applying Breath of Magic, everyone else can fill those spots with Winged Reprobation. If you are playing solo this mostly doesn't matter, but prioritize Breath of Magic first.

After the first opener, the Mortal Flame applier will switch to the Winged Opener. If you don't have spell slots for Winged Reprobation you can just fill the slots with Sonic Boom or whatever else you want.

You might be wondering why Phantom Flurry is the last spell used, and whether you should use the second activation. When we use Phantom Flurry at the end of Moon Flute, the damage buff snapshots and we are able to continue channeling even after we go into Waning. This means it is actually more damage to let it run out rather than try to use the second activation. On top of this, the opener is already so tight that it is unlikely you could even use the second activation if you wanted to!

Final Sting loses value in higher level content just due to how much HP enemies have. It is still valuable for Extremes and Morbol fights, though. If you've got slots after putting in utility spells for a fight, definitely bring it.

Off-guard is a great spell to bring if you've got room as well. Tank and healer should be the role to apply the buff during a Moon Flute opener, and DPS can just apply it at other times if they have it. It's not a huge gain outside of Moon Flute, but it's still something.

Use Winged Reprobation ASAP so it goes on cooldown to be up for the next opener. Use any other cooldowns as they become available, such as The Rose of Destruction. If you have enough SpS to reduce the cooldown of Winged Reprobation down below 80s, you can actually do this right after you come out of Waning without causing any drift:

• The Rose of Destruction
• Whistle
• Tingle
• Winged Reprobation
• Whistle
• Tingle
• Winged Reprobation

Whistle and Tingle on Winged Reprobation is actually a gain over using Sonic Boom and Winged Reprobation. This requires SpS to pull off, so people running slow builds will want to just use Rose and Winged Reprobation ASAP.

If we're looking at just target dummy damage, ideally we use an opener every two minutes when all of our cooldowns are up. However, in practice we usually need to handle mechanics, or might need to use Diamondback, or any number of things. What this means is that we still try to use it every two minutes, but only when it is actually safe to do so. Most of the time this will be right after a big mechanic or phase transition.

The exception to this is the person who is maintaining Breath of Magic. If it is possible to do so, they should Moon Flute every minute when reapplying it. This opener will basically consist of using any spells that have come off cooldown such as Feather Rain or Shock Strike, and filling the empty GCDs with Sonic Boom or Winged Reprobation

Apokalypsis is a strong spell that, similar to Phantom Flurry, benefits from being channeled for a long time. The actual ideal rotation would be to have two different openers, one that ends with Phantom Flurry and one that ends with Apokalypsis and alternate them each minute. This is not practical for just about any fight due to Waning and not being able to move while channeling, so the single rotation is suggested above.

The main healer will primarily be using Pom Cure to keep the tank alive and White Wind/ Stotram to keep the party alive. If you need utility spells, the order to drop spells is Sea Shanty then The Rose of Destruction. While Cold Fog is incredibly strong, it is unlikely you will get a full usage of it as the main healer so we do not bring it.

The off healer will play primarily as a DPS, but helps heal where necessary (such as after raidwide damage). If you need utility spells, the order to drop spells is Sea Shanty then The Rose of Destruction.

Healers do benefit from using this opener. It is common to have one healer act as "main healer" who focuses primarily on healing, and one healer act as "off healer" who focuses primarily on DPS but helps with healing where needed. Off healers will definitely be using a Moon Flute opener.

Tanks actually have the most flexibility in terms of spell slots since our typical utility spells are already baked into our loadouts! We mostly just keep our MP healthy with Blood Drain and Magic Hammer so that we can mitigate tankbusters with Diamondback and help heal with White Wind. Mighty Guard reduces the damage we deal by 40%, so we're not going to be doing that much damage to begin with! However, Goblin Punch is an amazing filler spell that has very little damage drop-off compared to even DPS mimic fillers! If you need even more utility spells, the order to drop spells is Chelonian Gate (if you can't get good use out of it) followed by Sea Shanty. Just like with main healer it is unlikely that we will be able to make full use of Cold Fog so we don't bother.

Frog Legs has a very small range and isn't a proper Provoke. It only sets your threat to be exactly 1 higher than the current highest threat. Its use is mostly limited to tank swaps, so bring it if the fight requires it. It can be used to help a tank get threat if they've died, but if a tank dies you're already in trouble and White Wind under Mighty Guard will usually do a better job of getting threat back, anyway.

There are almost no circumstances where a tank will use this opener. Tanks primarily have to focus on keeping MP up with Blood Drain so that they can use Diamondback for tankbusters. Additionally, tanks will be focusing a lot on using things like Bad Breath to mitigate raid damage and help heal with White Wind.

Soloing synced content on Blue Mage is possible with Basic Instinct and Mighty Guard. If we use these two spells along with tank mimicry, we deal a ton of damage while still being bulky. Rehydration provides an MP-efficient way to keep ourselves healed, and Devour gives us even more effective HP

The basic approach to soloing content is this:

1. Keep Basic Instinct and Mighty Guard active at all times, keep Devour up as much as possible.
2. Vibe Check ( The Ram's Voice and Ultravibration) trash packs when it's up, otherwise use Breath of Magic and other big AOE spells. Dragon Force and Peat Pelt + Deep Clean provide a ton of extra sustain.
3. Use Doom on bosses if possible, otherwise kill it normally with Goblin Punch and all other spells.

This mostly depends on the situation, but some basic recommendations would be White Wind for faster healing (if you can manage MP effectively), Mortal Flame for extra boss damage, or Moon Flute for even more damage on your main spells.

Some spells like Sea Shanty or Dimensional Shift are very strong for trash packs. Sea Shanty has no damage falloff on multiple targets so is quite potent. Dimensional Shift is a decent option for weakening enemies when they can't be Vibe Checked, but its slow cast time and the fact that it is based on current HP means it's not great for spamming.

The above information mostly applies to bosses, such as in Trials or Raids. Dungeons are slightly different for Blue Mage.

When running dungeons, we are able to use abilities like The Ram's Voice to freeze enemies and Ultravibration to kill them instantly. Some dungeon bosses are even vulnerable to effects like Missile and Doom! This means that we really don't actually spend a lot of time DPSing, and instead we just run straight through cheesing enemies along the way. When you are running dungeons with other Blue Mages, it's important to figure out a Ultravibration rotation so that you don't overlap cooldowns and waste them!