Blue mage is a waste of potential, change my mind.

[Shougun]

The only thing that has me still going at this point is that I want to try the Masked Carnival at least once. With the allied seals, are these a weekly reward or just a one time thing? The seals would be nice to work on for awhile in order to get all my speed buffs + GC outfits, but that's about it for me :X

There are three weekly reset rewards, and then the total set of challenges that are one time rewarded. So you go through all the challenges once and then get special weekly tasks for rewards again. For example the first time you do a challenge that also has a weekly challenge its reward will feel like x2 normal if not slightly more.

[Whanext]

I thought I was going to go around the over world collecting spells. MAYBE a handful of abilities from dungeons. I didn't expect that over half of the currently released kit was going to be from dungeons/trials that require a group. Sorry SE but this isn't what you advertised at all. A solo job is just that a job in which everything you need to do can be done by yourself.

I really had fun at the beginning. I can run around and collect spells by myself, and that is actually interesting. After that, blue mage is just horrible.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I have the solution! Remove Blue Mage!

[JunseiKei]

Blue Mage is a Solo Job: Only when you're leveling and even then, people are getting help from 70s to kill mobs.
Blue Mage Is too Overpowered: This job is more like a Red Mage. Jack of All Trades and master of none. It doesn't do anything better than any individual job role. This could have been balanced as an actual job. Especially when you consider that the whole gimmick for blue mage are these OP spells that don't work on alot of bosses because they fully resist them. Whats the point in making a blue mage a limited job if you can't use their gimmicks on everything? That's stupid.
Blue Mage is all about learning mob spells. You can't make that into an actual job: ...You can lock blue mage from lvling until it learns certain spells or put them behind job quests or just grant the skills to them on lvl up... It's not hard.
Blue Mage is a Solo Job thats why you can't use duty finder: Then why let us use party finder? Why is it that Blue Mage has to get spells from lvl 50 dungeons/trials that requires help from others? That directly contradicts what the blue mage was advertised as. There is nothing about blue mage that is solo at lvl 50 other than masked carnivale which is one and done content.

~snipped non-constructive criticism~

Even then, when you consider what the damage output was of BLM at T13 level (since the job gear you're given is on par with Dreadwyrm and Augmented Ironworks), BLU doesn't come close. Aside from its gimmicks mostly only working on normal monsters, its statuses last entirely too short or have a laughable potency (or both) and even with off-guard, the damage is just unsatisfying. There's really nothing that strikes me as warranting this job to be limited other than how you learn skills, which could be done through job quests that send you to a solo dungeon like you saw in RDM's quests. The worst offenses seem to be Missile and Tail Screw, but, you know, gimmicks don't work on bosses to begin with.

All in all, it comes across as hitting the point home that Yoshida really didn't want to put BLU into XIV, but relented just to have people stop requesting it. However, that's my assumption as long as nothing is really added to BLU and the limited-job system (other than more limited jobs).

Let me re-iterate: I think the limited job system is so they could put stuff into the game that would otherwise break it. However, there is nothing BLU offers that is game breaking that works on boss monsters.

[BillyKaplan]

Let me re-iterate: I think the limited job system is so they could put stuff into the game that would otherwise break it. However, there is nothing BLU offers that is game breaking that works on boss monsters.

And therein lies the crux of the matter, doesn't it? Because it all boils down to a matter of design and decision making on the side of the devs. Because they could've made it that broken - but didn't.
They did smart things, like keep status resistances on a lot of the bosses and even some overworld enemies. Tail Screw doesn't work on dungeon end-bosses and not even on B ranks (fully resisted, thank the heavens). But the flip side of it is that BLU by definition will never be the broken, dangerous entity they advertised it as being because that sort of thing isn't only game breaking, it's also only too easy to grief. Imagine an S rank spawning and gets two shotted because someone Tail Screwed it to 1 hp, and followed up with a Flying Sardine. Breaking the ToS? Sadly, no. Pissing off an entire server's hunting community? Definitely. So SE were smart enough to not let us do that.
But then if Tail Screw doesn't work, what else in my kit is supposed to be useful instead? All these 150 max potency attacks? Oh no wait my bad, some of them do more if there's a status ailment - which these enemies are immune to. WELP.

And it kind of makes sense to me because BLU lives in the overworld. It levels there, it does its quests there, it does get a lot, if not too many, of its skills out there. So BLU had to be reigned in in the overworld.
But as soon as the devs did that they basically admitted every reason they ever gave to locking BLU was a half hearted excuse because these very limitations are what they said they didn't want to impose on the class, but then they went and did it anyway.

[Elerus]

So . . . question to the OP: do I have to change your mind or can I just agree with you?

[MagiusNecros]

Considering people will readily form farm groups for BLU really tells me locking them out of Duty Finder is just silly. Personally they should have full access. They just can't do content above 50 for now.

I find it cute they want the job to be fun but they also want to force an unfun grind to obtaining spells as well. Or the latter half. And force Party Finder use to do so.

Because when you get to farming for the Tier 5 spells you may as well be farming for mounts. That's how low drop rate is.

Levi Hard is even more silly because the fastest way is to run with 2 70 RDM and burst the boss and RES the Blues after Tidal Wave for a quick 1 minute runs.

Which is silly to me.

[Whanext]

So . . . question to the OP: do I have to change your mind or can I just agree with you?

I really hope someone can just tell me blue mage is actually viable. Unfortunately, I do not think that can be true.

[Burningskull]

I really hope someone can just tell me blue mage is actually viable. Unfortunately, I do not think that can be true.

I'm sure if you had a regular party with a Tank, Healer and other DPS. Maybe 1 other BLU you would be fine for Hard Mode Primals. I'm not sure on EX Primals.

It would probably still feel like being carried tho.

[BillyKaplan]

It would probably still feel like being carried tho.

It does because BLU's entire kit is built for the Carnivale. Given they didn't give us alternatives for Tail Screw against bosses (hitting for a lot either on cooldown or still with the low success %) there really isn't much BLU can offer in party content. I'll admit I haven't gotten all skills yet, I'm at humble 31, but you have maybe the one single target spell in Water Cannon with 120 potency. And that's if you don't have Mighty Guard up to make sure you don't die the first time the Primal breaths your way. There's Drill Cannon at potency 420, but you need the enemy to be Petrified - probably not going to happen on bosses. Paralysis doesn't work... all other potencies I see here are 150 MAYBE at best. Anything with potencies worthwhile will kill you. The best you're going to get is the Ram-Dragon voice combo but I'm not even sure how much Deep Freeze will work on bosses, and it's still 130+310 which averages to 220 without Bristle which IS nice - assuming Deep Freeze works on the boss in question.

The one good thing you'll bring to the party is Peculiar Light, but even synced everyone's gear will probably make a mockery of it if they know half the mechanics.