Duration of Blue Mage Buffs

[Agerknux]

It's not like increasing duration on these buffs would break blu either.

Here are all the buffs that have duration/recast/set point problems. If all these were to be fixed, I STILL don't think blu would be unbalanced.

Cocoon: That defense helps but still wouldn't use a blu to tank serious VW NMs even with a duration boost.

Triumphant: Even with the attack bonus, the 2h jobs will still do more damage. Increase in duration would push blu slightly further and may even be useful to diffuse.

Barrier Tusk: Already inferior to phalanx until an extreme amount of damage. The cast time AND duration makes this utterly useless. This would find a little bit more use if it had its duration up to 3-5 minutes.

Feather Barrier: This would help in abyssea, but blu is already really sturdy without it. Not to mention no spell traits are attached to this. I think I only set it once because I wanted to see what it did, only to take it off because of how incredibly short the duration of this buff was.

Warm-Up: The duration on this thing is something they got right, but making it take 7 seconds to cast and 4 blue magic points to set? Doesn't even make a good job trait to set either.

Plasma Charge: 5 set points, 60 seconds, 3 second cast. Everything is wrong with this one. Buffing this would not make blu break any sort of balance.

Reactor Cool: Almost got this buff right if only it was 3-4 minutes and much less set points. (3 points seems good)

Amplification: Not only the recast is greater than the duration on this, the gain from this buff isn't that significant to justify using 3 set points and taking 7 seconds to cast it.

Memento Mori: Recast is 4x the duration of this 4set points buff. 20mab would be great to diffuse on mage parties but the duration of this is so bad that I rarely consider even setting it. An increase in duration may also spark an interest of blu nukes.

Saline Coat: This one is one of the few buffs that is decent. Seeing either an increase in duration or lower set points would be great. All this does is add survivability for blu.

Zephyr Mantle: This is one of the few spells that I think its casting time should be reduced. Make it 4 or 5 seconds (Equivalent to utsusemi: ichi).

Regeneration: This one is not bad, but seeing a duration increase would be great as this is already weaker than non light arts Regen II.

Orcish Counterstance: Recast is greater than duration. 5 set points. Pairs with other useless and point hogging spells to create counter. This spell is so useless because of the duration. Even 3 minutes would still make this barely useful because of other things holding it back.

[Tennotsukai]

regeneration would be much better if it was twice or three times more potent.... or 5 times...

[Camate]

Hi everyone

Thanks for the easy to read list and your suggestions.

We ran the feedback by the development team and they mentioned that since blue magic spells have such high stats, they would like to proceed with adjustments carefully. Basically, if we were to extend the effect durations right now, the MP cost for the time granted would be lower, causing blue mages to be in a superior position, so thought needs to given to this when making adjustments.

Of the list that was given, there was an impression that Feather Barrier being a passive skill is difficult to really utilize within the short effect duration of 30 seconds, but for the rest of the spells the development team feels that they are not extremely difficult to utilize within their effect durations.

We will be adjusting Diffusion in the next version update and this will enhance the usability of these blue magic spells further, so we would like to see the effects from this and determine the necessity for adjustments.

[Zerich]

BLU and SAM: you can have your cake and eat it too!

[Tennotsukai]

kinda happy about feather barrier. thank you, camate. though, I always thought we received stats from spells cause we can't have all spells like a blm has all his, and received job traits through the same manner since we have none that are innate. guess I had a different perspective. I suppose it comes down to the simple fact we are so flexible in what all we can do. I will say I am very happy our spell durations were looked at. i would be completely happy spending more mp on orcish counterstance and barrier tusk for longer durations. thank you

[Prothscar]

Are you counting spells that are useless with their effect durations when you say "easy to utilize with their effect durations"? because spells like Barrier Tusk are absolutely worthless because of it. At least lower the casting times.

I would have absolutely 0 problem paying double, triple, or even quadruple the MP cost for my buffs if their durations were higher.

[Alhanelem]

as per the previous post: I'm sure most players would be willing to compromise to get longer effect duraitons. if the devs expessed concern that the ratio of effectiveness to MP cost would get too high, then there's a simple solution- just raise the MP cost. The point is, it's a huge hassle to keep casting these spells. Most people would b e happy paying twice as much (or even a little more) for twice the duration.

[SpankWustler]

I would have absolutely 0 problem paying double, triple, or even quadruple the MP cost for my buffs if their durations were higher.

This.

Even if the MP cost per second goes up, gaining longer durations would be more than worth it.

In what is probably the most ridiculous example, Barrier Tusk currently has a casting time that is 10% of its one-minute duration. To maintain Barrier Tusk full-time would mean spending 10% of one's time doing nothing but casting Barrier Tusk. In what strange universe full of lizard-people is Barrier Tusk worth 10% of someone's time?

[larrymc]

I was initially excited when we first learned that BLU was going to get Barrier Tusk (to replace Phalanx from /rdm), but then was quickly let down when I realized that Barrier Tusk duration was 60 seconds - Phalanx was 3 minutes. I realize that the spells are not 100% comparable - but at the time I was just focused on blu cleaving, so the damage reduction from small hits would be about the same. Barrier Tusk really shines when you get bigger hits .. but .. I agree with Prothscar in that I would exchange higher spell MP for longer duration. Or at a minimum let us merit more "category 2", so we can fully merit diffusion without sacrificing Enchainment or Assimilation.

[Cabalabob]

I'd be happy with double duration for double mp costs etc. larger mp cost for longer duration so our spells will last for the duration of at least a fight beats having to cast the same spell twice/three times in one fight for small mp cost