Blue Mage DPS Rotation, Openers, and Abilities — Endwalker 6.4

This guide is intended for level 70 Blue Mages that have learned all spells. If you're not at that point yet, then check out the Leveling and Spells pages.

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 six 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.

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!

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

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.

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. You can find the different loadouts for healers at the Spells page.

The opener is extremely tight, especially if you are not running a Spell Speed setup or have high ping. There are some ways to mitigate this. The easiest option is to just meld more Spell Speed into your gear until you are able to consistently pull it off. If this doesn't work, you can also do things like move J Kick before Moon Flute and move each OGCD up one spot. This is less damage, but it is important to fit everything else in where possible

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!