Cannonball Vs. Heat Breath - An Analysis

I've decided to write this post due to the severe ignorance that plagues FFXI's BLU community regarding endgame builds.

Now, most people are of the opinion that BLU have no place in endgame whatsoever. Nothing could be more untrue, but I will concede that the odds are stacked inordinately against Blue Mages. To be effective at endgame, BLUs are heavily gear and merit-dependent, and are called on to furnish expensive builds that they aren't afforded many opportunities to use. Even so, BLUs who truly love the job and are committed to it will go the extra mile to offer these builds in certain endgame contexts.


Why BLUs Love Cannonball

Why is this spell so popular? First of all, it is a single hit physical blue magic spell with a fairly high damage potential; unlike multi-hit spells, for which Sneak Attack will only affect the first hit, accuracy and damage are generally less of a headache than with the so-called "Big Three" on the Incredibly Tough and higher.

Perhaps of even greater interest is Cannonball's unusual range. Unlike other blue magics, which are close-ranged (between 4 and 12 yalms), Cannonball sports a whooping 20-yalm max distance without being considered a ranged attack. This helps keep Blue Mages healthy by being out of range of AoE TP moves.

Finally, there is the notion of MP efficiency. For a pittance of 66 MP, one can deal as high as 1100 damage or more every 2 minutes and 700-900 damage every other minute. With TP, one can deal up to 1900 or more damage depending on the target's defense, physical damage reduction and the Blue Mage's own stats. Seems like the perfect spell, right?

Wrong. There are downsides to this spell. Against enemies with "When taking hate from behind" TP moves, use of this spell is strictly forbidden; such sacrilege against Niddhog would cost an alliance worth of human life as well as the claim. Likewise, each successful casting of this spell bestows upon your enemy 10% TP, which further restricts its welcomeness. There's a reason why Rangers are so unpopular for HNMs that don't resist magic. Finally, against enemies with extremely high defense or direct physical damage reduction, once more, this spell's usefulness is hampered.

Access to Magic Damage

There's a good reason to look at a spell worth three times as much as Cannonball and with lower damage potential. Access to magic damage of any sort is a blessing. People don't seem to understand this. They seem to think that if you need magic, hire a BLM. There are only 6 of the 20 possible jobs on FFXI that can nuke in the traditional sense: BLM, SCH, RDM, SMN, BLU, PUP.

Now I know what you're thinking: "How did those last three make the list?" To this date, Puppetmasters can still nuke on par with BLMs on Mount Zhayolm with the added bonus that their automatons never run out of MP (If you don't believe me, watch PUPs solo Diabolos Prime on youtube). SMN's magical blood pacts have been neglected in the past precisely because people foolishly argue that the physical blood pacts have higher damage potential, thus making the magical blood pacts worthless. However, there is something to be said about the utility of versatility. RDMs, PUPs, SCHs, DNCs and BLUs have demonstrated what would normally need twice as many people can be done with half; what would take both a Ranger and a Black Mage to do on an enemy such as Proto-Omega, a Blue Mage can do on his/her own, with support of course.

The Beauty of Breaths

If BLUs can indeed offer magical damage, why focus on the breaths instead of the stat-based nukes? In a StatvStat calculation, a Blue Mage is, by default, at a disadvantage. While they can tailor their stats with spells and gear, it takes exceptional gear to put out semi-decent numbers on anything difficult. To this date, BLUs are extolling the godsend that is Eyes on Me, noting its impressive Damage/MP ratio, Demon-based monster correlation and dark attribute. However, this spell flounders under pressure; though Raubhan uses it to devastating effect, even against Fafnir, where monster correlation is on your side, copious amounts of charisma gear do not compete with the naturally high charisma of the Paladin wyrm. That and there is the fact that while there is no dark-based nuke outside of Eyes on Me, few, if any, enemies actually are specifically vulnerable to darkness-based nukes in the first place.

Breaths offer a good solution. Unlike nukes, which depend on StatvStat calculations, damage from breaths is completely unrelated to the stats of the target. Of course, magic evasion and elemental affinity raise the possibility of resistance, but high INT/MND/CHR will have no direct effect on your damage or accuracy.

There is More Than One Breath

That being said, Heat Breath, properly equipped, can deal over 1000 damage from a Hume consistently. The key here is consistence. Unlike the physical spells, whose damage waxes and wanes, breaths will always do the same damage (assuming no resists). Furthermore, a positive monster correlation will boost breath damages by 25%, further enhancing their numbers.

Now, some BLUs have been clever enough to realize Heat Breath is not the only breath worth using. Poison Breath, with its incredibly low MP cost and recast time, as well as elemental affinity, is another useful spell to have. Against enemies with high defense, this spell can trounce the big three in terms of damage for a third of the MP cost.

Further still, there is virtue in using the other breaths as well. Any BLM worth his or her salt will know that they cannot afford to hyper-specialize in a single element. This is one of the reasons why BLMs choose Burst and Freeze II as their merited AM. When in breath build, one may find that Frost Breath, Radiant Breath, Hecatomb Wave, and Magnetite Cloud, though less potent, are likewise worth using depending on the context.

I will concede that Bad Breath does not make the list. At a whooping 212 MP cost per cast with status effects that will hardly land, and will be overwritten by any White or Black Magic spell, this spell serves more as a conversation piece and cameo than anything else...

Take-Home Message

Why is BLU such a great job? Is it because it's categorically better than all the others? No. There will always be a need for specializers like BLM, SAM, RNG, and WHM, and jacks-of-all-trades like RDMs, SCHs and BLUs. The utility derived from the latter is that they can offer a little of everything, with BLU being the only job that can offer both physical and magical damage, as well as self-skillchains, DD, healing and so on.

Therefore, a BLU who refuses to offer magic is only half a member--a weaker, MP-dependent version of Samurai, Monk or Ranger. And if you subscribe to the logic that nuking is for nukers, then you may as well hang your keffiyeh now; damage dealing is for damage dealers.