Broken/Useless BLU magic

[Rubeus]

I'm actually with Rwolf. When setting spells to solo the Rem's tales battlefields, I noticed a trend: I didn't have anything that didn't suck that was strong to the monster family in question. Wildskeepers are the same, as is pretty much any "you need to take this seriously" content. My options are set a bunch of traits that will either have minimal impact or set useful spells that won't be receiving any kind of monster correlation bonus OR elemental weakness. If BLU is to be taken seriously in end-game, then this doesn't fix the problem. Fixing the problem would be having at least 1 spell of every family that's physical that doesn't suck and a couple magical of most-common elements that don't suck.
Brothers D'Aurphe is a great example. There are no light-based Arcana spells, and the only fire is Self-Destruct. Our only real contender for physical is Smite of Rage or Bludgeon; which suck.

Not to mention by the time I've killed just 1 shadow, even with auto-refresh, 3 refresh in gear, and battery charge I'll probably be bone-dry AND waiting on recasts. That's broken. Let's also not forget that all the adoulin spells that were recently added have no WSC. ... Still. If you're going to add new spells I'm all for useful ones, or more enhancing/healing ones, considering we still don't have pixie, mantid, heartwing, leafkin, sandworm, and a great deal of other families. But make sure they're complete spells, not sort-of spells. I don't want to sort-of carry around 8+ sets of gear for stats and HP+ and sort-of deal damage that a WAR not trying very hard could achieve while stoned. That's sort-of unfair.

[Olor]

It's not just "sort of unfair" its purely unfair. Frankly, I'd rather they just allow our magic to scale like all other mages' magic has scaled - again if BLM can cast stone 1 at level 119, I'm not sure why I need a 5 point spell that costs 189 MP to do any kind of damage. We need low cost, quick casting magic that actually does damage or has enfeebles that land. We don't need 1 minute buffs and spells that do 200 damage max, which is most of what we got last time we got "new" spells.

[Draylo]

Upgrade 1000 needles and Bad breath!

[Rwolf]

I agree with all of you. It would be awesome to make monster correlation part of strategy again. Not only for Blue Mage, but Beastmaster as well. I thought with Adoulin being so specific with elements and types of monsters. That elemental offense, defense and monster correlation would become more strategic than currently used. I also agree with the low duration buffs. If Red Mage can Temper and Phalanx themselves for 3 minutes with no job abilities or gear. I don't see why we at least can't get 3 minute duration on things like Cocoon and Nature's Meditation. 1000 Needles doesn't need the MP cost, set cost or the inherent magic accuracy down. 1000 damage is a drop in the bucket for any job capable of damage now.

I feel like some of the ideas to fix Blue Mage is shot down as overpowered without even really considering what makes it so.

[Rubeus]

Honestly, if my BLU had about 50 slots to set spells and about 200 BMP to set them, I could maintain having a Dispel, a Sleep, a few elemental nukes and debuffs, a cure and -ga, an Erase, and a handful of "you NEED to use this to solo a double-darkness during azure lore" abilities. Hell, I wouldn't even mind if I had to unbridled wisdom some spells in that list. But then, I'll also need to keep Magic Hammer and Animating Wail and Battery Charge and ...

do you see the problem here? Now let's go ahead and add in attack bonus for +10 attack, skillchain bonus so I'm not laughed out of events, magic burst bonus so I can foam at the mouth when someone interrupts my skillchain during azure lore with a Flat Blade for stunning the boss, aaaand a bunch of other job traits that will all be outclassed by anyone subbing BRD at 49. Then we'll butcher blue magic physical accuracy -- which we have as yet not gotten an increase for, and even with a buramenkah and the ilvl119 Artifact and Relic sets with swap pieces for the still-80s-Mavi set, -maybe- I won't miss 1 out of 20 hits on a physical spell. Don't believe me? Go ask any BLU who has done Colkhab 20+ times for Droning Whirlwind, wearing blue magic skill gear at ilvl119.

With all those set spells and all those utility spells, it doesn't really matter where I try to cut corners. I could sub WAR for double attack, DNC for skillchain bonus and dual wield, RUN for anything I need to solo, or RDM for the not-nerfed fast cast (which is BS by the way). It really won't make a difference which job you sub to not "NEED" to set some worthless blue magic in order to have a balance of traits. It won't make a difference because right now I *DO* have 70 blue magic points but even with that the entire job grasps at straws for what any 109 ranger can do with a single flashy shot using eminent bow and old arrows. Item "old arrows," not pejorative old arrows.

Something, I feel, is wrong here. I'm supposed to be able to at least occasionally be useful to do stuff. Not stand around Jeuno and watch as countless hours learning blue magic go to waste as I sit there with windows calculator open trying to figure out how many blue magic spells I can squeeze out of 70 points with a less-than-ideal subjob simply because I'll get dual wield III if I just move a bunch of stuff around.

And no, increasing blue magic points to 90 over the course of another year in updates raising the job point categories to 30 a piece is not equivalent to "we fixed it!" -- and neither is "we added tiers for traits." Great, now I can open my handy calculator and figure out how on earth I'm supposed to fit Attack Bonus IV into the mix and still be able to do ANYTHING ELSE WORTH DOING.

/endrant

[dragmagi]

It be better if blue traits stacked with traits from subs too

[Mefuki]

Due to this, the development team would prefer to focus on adding new blue magic at the higher-level tiers rather than to adjust low-level spells.

Well, that doesn't make much sense. Why would you want to make such a robust spell list(BLU spell list) as shallow as possible? Every single spell should have a function. There should be some situation where I'd say to myself, "I might want to use X for now. It's probably the better option while fighting X, given the circumstances." And between monster correlation, elemental affinity, whether a spell is physical or magical, whether the physical spell is blunt, piercing or slashing, etc, you can make that happen. Doing that is what gives battle depth to a game. Not saying, "Here's 5 spells. They're the only ones worth using at your level." That makes for a really shallow battle experience.

That's not even getting into the fact that the VAST majority of spells had NO function even at the level you learned them(Ice Break, Death Ray, 1000 needles, Mortal Ray...there's seriously too many to name) aside from the traits they gave you. Which, again, doesn't make any sense.

You're saying, "They are aware that there is a limited variety of single-target physical blue magic and support-type blue magic in the high-level tier so they are planning to add more"...but do they not see we have them already. We have a ton of physical BLU spells and various support abilities. All we need is a spell that does X that isn't heavy penalized right out of the gate. WE HAVE THEM ALREADY BUT they're content with keeping them not worth casting while trying to scrounge around for spells from monsters that can replace the things that already barely work. That's a really obtuse way to fix this problem.

No, the solution is to make every spell useful but in different situations. Am I saying that even Foot Kick should serve a function at 99? Well, yes. You can't just look at spells and say, "This is a single target physical spell. Just replace it with another." Great, now we've got a grand total of 1 spell that's worth bothering with(or at least it would be if BLU magic was worth casting on targets you'd want to use non-autoattack solutions on) instead of 2 that can both be useful if given the ability to be so. What should be happening is:

*Your opponent is a Lizard who's weak to slashing. You want to deal single target physical damage. What do you do?*
"Oh, use Foot Kick."
*Now you're fighting a Plantoid who's weak to blunt. You want to deal single target physical damage. What do you do?*
"Power Attack, probably."
etc.

Instead, what IS happening is more like:

*Your opponent is a Lizard who's weak to slashing. You want to deal single target physical damage. What do you do?*
"I swing my sword."
*Now you're fighting a Plantoid who's weak to blunt. You want to deal single target physical damage. What do you do?*
"...I swing my sword"
etc.

Make no mistake there's a way to make every spell in our spell list useful but the Devs have to be willing to actually make them useful.

[Tennotsukai]

It be better if blue traits stacked with traits from subs too

That'd be sweet! I really hope they implement these newer spells in one of these next few months. I feel like they are beating around the bush with them.

I'd like +50 new spells please! This would help alleviate the worthlessness of our 100 other spells.

[Damane]

That'd be sweet! I really hope they implement these newer spells in one of these next few months. I feel like they are beating around the bush with them.

I'd like +50 new spells please! This would help alleviate the worthlessness of our 100 other spells.

I need more spells slots if the newer spells dont offer allready avialable traits in a condensed form, because right now after the job point grinding, that I can set more traits, BUT i am limited because of the spellslots avialable... and thus underuseing my max spell points available :/

[dasva]

One of the core design concepts for blue magic is based around the fact that as you level up, more powerful spells will become available. Due to this, the development team would prefer to focus on adding new blue magic at the higher-level tiers rather than to adjust low-level spells. However, they are aware that there is a limited variety of single-target physical blue magic and support-type blue magic in the high-level tier so they are planning to add more, but it will take some time until they become available.

That doesn't address the problem of broken spells there are several spells that have basically never worked. They were unlandable on anything worth fighting and that includes higher level spells too. Really should fix them since it's been idk what 5 years now they have been broken