Turn an enemy's lesson into your own
Other casters learn from books; the Blue Mage learns from monsters. You study a creature, catch the move it uses, throw it back, and eventually make it a technique of your own. Your collection can grow large, but you prepare only a few techniques at a time and change that set out of combat.
At Novice Job Level 10, choose this path through Iona in Archer Village, under Other paths, and complete her short trial. You begin with Aqua Pulse, Azure Study and Mimic, so you can fight from the first minute. The Arcane Mentor in Geffen continues your training. Blue Mages stay at Job Level 1: Base Levels, your techniques, and the Azure Codex provide your growth.
Azure Study: read the monster
Azure Study marks one monster for a short time and opens a small panel with its element, its race and the techniques you could learn from it. Techniques you know are named; the rest show ??? with a hint. While it is studied, the monster uses those moves more often, every move you see counts extra toward learning it, and your techniques hit it a little harder. Study is cheap, quick to reuse, and never takes a prepared slot.
Against a Break shield, your first Study reveals a hidden weakness to everyone nearby, and a well-practised Study reveals more. Each new weakness a Blue Mage reveals, by Study or by striking it, gives you and nearby party members a Boost Point: Weakpoint Call. In the Siege of the Crown Lanterns, Study reads the Lantern too, and it must be read again each time the Lantern re-forms.
Mimic: throw it back
When a monster you are fighting uses one of a set of familiar moves, the move is caught in your Echo for a few seconds. These are the elemental attacks (water, fire, wind, earth, poison, dark, ghost and holy), the fire, cold and lightning bolts, Heal, Blind and Sleep. Mimic throws the caught move back in its Blue Mage form: a water attack becomes Aqua Pulse, Sleep becomes Dusk Pollen, a monster's Heal becomes Vital Bloom on you, and so on.
A move whose technique you have learned is thrown at your full rank, even if it is not prepared, so your whole collection stays useful. A move you have not learned yet is thrown more weakly, and a boss's move more weakly still. Thrown back at the monster that used it, a move always chips a Break shield, and every throw counts toward learning its technique. Mimic has its own hotbar slot; its icon changes to the move it holds and flashes gold when it catches something new.
Glimpses: see it, learn it
- Open your spellbook (S or the Skills button). Techniques you have never seen are dark ??? silhouettes.
- Fight a monster that uses one of them. Each time you see the move, or throw it back with Mimic, counts as a glimpse. Studying the monster first makes this much faster.
- After your first glimpse, the spellbook names the technique, gives a hint about where it comes from, and shows your glimpse progress. The Study panel shows it too.
- Help defeat the monster and survive the fight. When you have seen a technique enough times it becomes yours, and sometimes you learn it sooner. Chat stays quiet until you do.
- Prepare it in your spellbook, then drag its icon to a hotbar slot.
The Azure Codex
The Azure Codex is the Blue Mage's bestiary and takes the place of job levels. A monster species is recorded once, when you help defeat it while it is studied; low-level species still count. The Codex tab in your spellbook shows your species, your stat bonuses and the next milestone.
Every few species of one race raise a matching stat, up to +30 in total, the same job-stat budget as a Wizard: Brutes and Dragons raise STR, Insects AGI, Plants and Undead VIT, Fish and Demi-Humans DEX, Demons and Formless INT, and Angels LUK. MVPs fill pages of their own that earn Codex titles rather than stats.
The Codex tab's Open in Bestiary button shows your recorded species in the Bestiary (Alt+N), where every player can also read which monsters teach which technique. See The Bestiary.
| Species | Reward |
|---|---|
| 15 | Mimic throws unlearned moves harder |
| 40 | A fourth prepared slot |
| 80 | Mimic stronger again, and the Echo holds two moves |
| 150 | Echo Recall: throw your last caught move once more |
Techniques to discover
Beyond the first nine techniques, fourteen more wait in the world, spread from the first fields to the late game. Each one is a move a monster really uses, and it looks and sounds like that move when you cast it.
| Technique | What it does | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Scurry | A burst of speed and evasion | Thief Bugs |
| Quake Fang | Close earth strike that slows; hits petrified foes much harder | Snakes, Wolves, Hodes |
| Blinding Spore | Blinds a target and the enemies beside it | Drainliars, Mysts |
| Vital Bloom | Heals you or one ally; later also cures poison | Vitata |
| Sphere Burst | Spend part of your HP for a fire burst around you; it never takes your last HP | Marine Spheres |
| Bewilder | A monster wanders and swings at whatever is near it | Mystcases, Horongs |
| Wraith Lantern | Ghost bolt that hurts even ghosts | Marionettes, later the Thanatos spirits |
| Mire Spit | A patch of slowing mire | Green Plasmas, Stings |
| Mana Leech | Dark strike that restores your SP | Deviruchis, Wraiths, Evil Druids, Jokers |
| Sunder Quake | Earth burst built for breaking shields | Minorous, Evil Druids, Jokers |
| Stone Gaze | Turns one enemy to stone | Dark Frames, Demon Pungus, Elders, Medusas |
| Seraph Lance | Holy bolt, strongest against Undead and Demons | Angelings and Archangelings (boss lesson) |
| Thunder Choir | Thunder strikes over an area | The Orc Hero and Amon Ra (boss lesson) |
| Abyssal Breath | A cone of darkness, the strongest Blue Mage attack | Detardeurus (MVP lesson) |
Boss lessons: Breaker's Insight
Three techniques come only from bosses, from around Base Level 35. See the boss use the move, help Break it by chipping its shields or landing the Breaking hit, and take part in its defeat. A defeat that does not teach you the technique leaves a Lore Fragment of it in your spellbook, and enough fragments always teach it. Mimic can still throw a boss's move back, but those throws never count toward a boss lesson.
Technique twists at ranks 3 and 7
The first nine techniques gain new tricks at ranks 3 and 7 instead of only bigger numbers. Rank 3 sets up states anyone in the party can cash in: Aqua Pulse leaves enemies Soaked (weaker to wind and easier to freeze), Rime Needle's ice turns Brittle and shatters under the next physical hit, Dusk Pollen's sleepers take a hard Rude Awakening, and Granite Hide can shield an ally. Rank 7 goes further: a second Aqua Pulse, Feral Bite criticals on helpless foes, spreading poison, repeating bursts, shared healing, splashing shatters, wider sleep clouds and a reflecting Granite Hide. Each tooltip spells out its own twists.
Moonlit Lore and the possession gamble
- Moonlit Lore: monsters empowered by the night teach faster and give more mastery. Blood Siphon, Mana Leech and Wraith Lantern hit harder at night, and Dusk Pollen puts enemies to sleep more reliably.
- While you are possessed in the Covenant campaign, Azure Study reveals every hidden weakness and every move you see counts double. You learn fastest exactly when another death is permanent, so choose carefully.
Latent Power: Unbound Grimoire
A Blue Mage's Latent Power is the Unbound Grimoire. For a few seconds every technique you have learned can be cast, prepared or not, your attack and magic attack rise, and your skills recover faster. It is the moment your whole spellbook opens at once.
Practice the techniques you enjoy
Each technique has its own mastery and can reach rank 10 through useful battle participation; later ranks take far more practice. Prepared techniques also give small stat bonuses, shown in the spellbook. Azure Study grows as the monsters you studied fall.
Blue Mages have a Sage's SP pool, Feral Bite pierces part of its target's defense, and Echo Burst also strikes enemies around its target.
Two lasting lessons
Both passives have five ranks, and every rank can be earned by mastery rank 7. Check the Passives tab, accept a lesson from the Arcane Mentor when its requirements are met, complete the field exercise, and return to learn the rank. They work automatically and do not take a prepared slot.
- Living Grimoire increases maximum SP.
- Borrowed Resilience provides elemental protection tied to your prepared elemental attacks.
Traits after Base Level 99
Magic, Rare and Mythic monsters carry modifiers such as Stalwart, Frenzied, Fleetfoot and Spellbound. From Base Level 99, helping defeat one can teach you its modifier as a Trait. One Trait is active at a time; choose it in the Codex tab while out of combat. Rare and Mythic monsters are the best teachers, which makes a Blue Mage a welcome guest on a Lantern Watch hunt.
Azure Loremaster
At Base Level 99 a Blue Mage can take an advanced form through the Valkyrie, by the same offering and road to Valhalla as transcendence (see Transcendence). You stay a Blue Mage and keep every level, technique and piece of gear.
The Azure Loremaster gains the transcendence package (25% more maximum HP and SP, and 52 extra stat points), the title, a Loremaster's Mantle, a Lore slot that holds one boss-learned technique beside your other prepared slots, and Echo Recall if your Codex has not opened it yet. Your general prepared slots stay at four: choosing a loadout stays part of the class.
Laurels: mastery past rank 10
Mastery a technique earns after rank 10 is not lost: it becomes Laurels, and your spellbook shows your progress toward the next one. The Laurel Steward beside the Arcane Mentor in Geffen trades Laurels for classic headgear, a replacement mantle for an advanced form, or a reforge that rolls an unequipped Magic or Rare weapon's affixes again while keeping its rarity, refine, cards and runes.