Leveling Rotations and Tips for Blue Mage — Endwalker 6.4

Blue Mage starts at level 1 and has a maximum level of 70. The leveling process for Blue Mage is dramatically different from the rest of the jobs. Since Blue Mage gets massively increased experience from enemies in the open world (10x) and is unable to queue for roulettes using the Duty Finder, the most effective way to level up is just by killing enemies in the open world!

There are two methods of leveling up: being powerleveled by someone at max level, or by solo leveling by killing enemies around your level until you reach level cap. I'll explain each method, but it's important to note that there is no practical benefit to leveling solo. It takes significantly longer and you don't get to "learn" how to play Blue Mage while leveling. The game really starts for Blue Mage at max level, so it's better to just get there ASAP. For Blue Mage, learning spells from enemies is more akin to leveling up other jobs. The actual process of leveling to 70 is merely a formality.

As mentioned before, Blue Mage gets a massive bonus to experience from defeating enemies in the open world (outside of FATEs and duties). This bonus applies to any enemy up to level 70, but no higher than 70. Experience in FFXIV is interesting because whoever tags the enemy first gets the full experience. Knowing this, we can level up by having a low level Blue Mage tag a level 70 enemy and having a max level player kill that enemy. The result is that the Blue Mage will get the full experience for the enemy and level up extremely quickly.

It is important to note that when powerleveling, the Blue Mage should not be in a party with the max level player or they will receive very little experience. Being in a cross-world party is fine since that doesn't technically count as a party. Additionally, multiple Blue Mages can be powerleveled at once by being in a party together as long as they are close to each other in level. If powerleveling multiple Blue Mages at different levels, start with the lowest level one first. Once they reach the level of the next lowest, those Blue Mages can join a party together. Repeat the process until all are in a party and all reach level 70.

There is not a lot of preparation that is needed for this. I usually recommend learning Flying Sardine since this is a ranged attack with no cast time. This can be learned from Apkallu in Eastern La Noscea (x:27, y:35). These enemies are level 30 so you will need help from the person powerleveling you in order to learn it.

The best enemies for leveling up are the Hobgoblins on the beach in Kholusia (x:37, y:28). Hobgoblins are good because they are melee-only, so the risk of dying is very low. If the person being powerleveled doesn't have access to Shadowbringers yet, then the highest level enemies available should be used. For example, level 69 Bhoot enemies in The Lochs (x:23, y:9) can be used. If the person being powerleveled doesn't even have access to that (e.g. free trial) then enemies in the Alpha Quadrant of Azys Lla can be used.

Once you know where you'll be power-leveling, the process is easy. The Blue Mage tags an enemy and the max level player kills the enemy. Repeat until you reach level 70. The job of the max player doesn't matter too much as they're all about the same. I personally like using shield healers since I can put a large shield on the low level Blue Mages for extra safety and resurrect them in case they do die somehow. Ranged DPS like Machinist is really good because of how quickly they are able to burst enemies while moving. Ultimately it makes very little difference in time.

When being power-leveled your gear doesn't matter at all! You can go from 1 to 70 with no gear whatsoever.

It will take about an hour to go from 1 to 70 when being power-leveled. The use of experience buffs such as expansion preorder earrings, battle manuals, and food will make the process faster.

The process for leveling up solo simply involves killing enemies at or above your level until you reach level 70. This can be broken up into a few stages, but the only thing that changes in each stage is which spells you will use.

The process of solo leveling is pretty boring and grindy. We will break it up into three phases: before 1000 Needles, 1000 Needles, after 1000 Needles.

Our goal before learning 1000 Needles is simply to get to a level at which we can learn 1000 Needles. If you have someone that can help you learn it, then you can do this at level 1. Otherwise, you will need to run around killing enemies until you reach roughly level 20.

1000 Needles has an interesting property where it always deals exactly 1,000 damage evenly split by all enemies around you. 1,000 damage is enough to kill enemies in one or two casts early on, even enemies that are a much higher level. We can abuse this to level up slightly faster.

1000 Needles is learned from Sabotender Bailaors in Southern Thanalan (x:16, y:15). Sabotender Bailaors are level 25-27, so we are able to kill these at roughly level 20. Once we have learned the spell we are able to start this stage of the leveling process.

All we want to do at this point is use 1000 Needles to kill enemies. This will one-shot enemies for a bit, but eventually it will take two casts. For extra safety we can use Sleep which will allow us to get the full 6-second cast off. Swiftcast can also be used to make the cast instant

This process can be repeated until we reach the point where spamming a standard 220 potency spell is faster than using 1000 Needles. At that point, we enter the final (and longest) phase of the leveling process

1000 Needles does exactly 167 DPS since it does 1,000 damage and has a cast time of 6 seconds. Once a standard 220 potency filler spell does more than 167 DPS, it is faster to use that. Given a 2.5 second recast time, this means once we're doing 417 damage per cast that it is better to switch spells. I recommend using The Ram's Voice since it has the benefit of freezing enemies making them unable to attack for 15 seconds.

Once we get to about level 50, we can learn Choco Meteor from Courser Chocobos in The Dravaniand Forelands (x:34, y:28). This deals a whopping 300 potency when we have our companion chocobo summoned, which is the most powerful spammable spell we have in the open world until we reach level 70. At this point we will just spam Choco Meteor (and optionally The Ram's Voice to reduce damage taken) until we reach level 70

There isn't really a great answer to this since there are many options. You mostly just need to find enemies around your level and kill them. An easy way to figure out a level-appropriate zone is by seeing the level of FATEs in that zone. Some suggestions might be:

• Levels 1-15: Western Thanalan
• Levels 15-20: Western La Noscea
• Levels 20-30: South Shroud
• Levels 30-35: Eastern La Noscea
• Levels 35-40: Coerthas Central Highlands
• Levels 40-45: East Shroud
• Levels 45-50: Mor Dhona
• Levels 50-55: Dravanian Forelands / Churning Mists
• Levels 55-60: Sea of Clouds / Azys Lla
• Levels 60-65: The Peaks / Yanxia
• Levels 65-70: Yanxia / The Lochs

When you get past the point of using 1000 Needles you will want to make sure that you have level-appropriate casting gear. This basically means using vendor/crafted gear below 50, and then Tomestone of Poetics gear thereafter. At level 50 you can use Ironworks gear and level 60 you can use Shire gear.

It will take many hours to get to level 70 when leveling solo. As I mentioned before, there is very no practical benefit to leveling this way. It is only mentioned here as an option, but it is important to recognize that it should be avoided if possible.