FINAL FANTASY XI Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto [Blue Mage]

[Tashan]

@tashan AND other crybabies

Don't ever refer to me like that again.

My reply was not intended for you. It was an explaination for Saeval. But since you want to be captain obvious, I'll indulge you.

It was not a discussion about a Blue Mage being a Hybrid Job.

It was not a discussion about being able to cure, enfeeble, buff or proc.

It was not a discussion about every job's productivity.

It was not a discussion about Notorious Monsters.

It was a discussion about Saeval's statement, Level 95 Findings and Voidwatch mechanics:

Considering Heavy Strike is like 36MP it's to be expected. Or were people expecting to become like pre-nerf RNG?

SE already said it was meant to be an all or nothing attack. It already hits harder then spells that are double it's MP cost, just use /THF if you absolutely want it to land for high damage. Otherwise it's a gamble.

Literally all your saying is "HS can't out damage out jobs emp WS, SE please make it better". It's 32MP and 2 set points, you want to know what else is 32MP?

Blizzard (yes Tier 1) 30MP
Thunder Tier 1, 37MP

But your BLU's not BLM's, So,

Mandibular Bite, 38MP
Delta Thrust 28MP
Empty Thrash 33MP
Vanity Dive 58MP

And you can sit there and straight faced tell me that SE should just let Heavy Strike be a heavy damage spell that beats all the others...

If you want to discuss your views on Blue Mage's productivity, then make a proper post.

But know you will just be wasting time if you can't even read the damn thread.

[Prothscar]

He's a disgruntled melee RDM who I doubt even has BLU leveled, I wouldn't expect him to care about BLU's shortcomings and instead is one of those who seems to want to inflate our abilities into godliness even though every role we can fill is filled at 66% the efficiency and productivity as any other job that can fill that role.

[Nightfyre]

It's not like Covenant ever stops to think about what he's posting or responding to anyway.

Large groups benefit from specialization because they have enough party slots to fill all needed roles with the best instead of hybrids. Small groups can become more functional with hybrid jobs, but Blue Mage's design (utility, notably in debuffs) and the mechanics of current lowmannable content (easymode) are at odds and it often finds itself without a strong place in these settings. When specifically discussing high-level content (read: non-easymode), Blue Mage falls behind more than most due to mechanics Covenant has probably never even looked at, much less attempted to comprehend. Attack is more valuable as enemy level increases. Our spell attack is lower than any melee's, so we suffer more than most. I've covered issues with debuffs previously.

THIS IS GAME BALANCE is the funniest thing I've ever heard given the quality of his "balanced" suggestions.

[Scuro]

@tashan AND other crybabies. You use jobs whose only purpose is to do specific damage.. DoT(DRK, SAM, etc) and spike damage(BLM) to explain why blues are unfairly limited. This is the reason ALL jobs that cry foul for additional melee/magic options.

HOWEVER, blue mages are a "HYBRID" job. Like a lot of the other "HYBRID" jobs blue does a lot of other things other than the specific types of damage you mentioned. The cost of doing "OTHER" things is a lowered performance in the "MAIN" melee/magic areas. A blackmage can't cure bomb magic fruit and healing breeze. A warrior or samara can't diamond hide a party, nor conal breath a group of mobs at once.

Not only that but you use a specific mob(HNM, VNM, "high" mobs) in your arguments why blue are unfairly weak against. ALL jobs take a hit to their productivity when talking about these specific mobs.

THIS IS GAME BALANCE.

I'm not going to lie dude, I read your posts to laugh. You see when I or some of these other fellows pitch an idea, it has negatives, and most importantly it has positives! Your suggestions, are making crap that nobody cares about anymore, be used, even though we have out grown them. The point that these gents are trying to get at, that you are obviously lapsing in, is that BLU is desired NOW because it is a yellow procer, and it procs in VW. THAT IS IT, if content were to shift, do you know just how useless we would be in the community? We can be out tanked, we can be out DD'd, we can be out enfeeble, out buffed, and out healed.

While I have always said this class should never overshadow another class, this class is the TRUE DD MAGE. Its I'm willing to bet that 85% of the BLU community AT LEAST is a DD, therefore we should be on par with other DDs. Right now we have a nice spot light because we can do things that only our job can do, but if that were to change, if new content were introduced or made extremely relevant, many of us would be back to where we were. Solo'n in campaign and imps in the mire. I believe that is what these people are trying to get at, that we can shred fodder mobs like they are nothing, but when it comes to the big kahunas, we got nothing. The spells of HNMs in the days were breaths and cannonball SATACA, and even that was sheer garbage in comparison to other DDs.

The whole point of these updates as mentioned form the beginning of when Abyssea was introduced, was to give the game options for minimal players to accomplish goals that would take 18 people. So again, the job shouldn't eclipse all other forms of DD, and honestly, I doubt it ever could, but it should be at least in the same league, and as it stands we are not even in the same ball park. We finally got in the same sport, but that doesn't say much.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

It's a better DD mage than all the others, but it's still a Hybrid so... inferior to the actual jobs.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Sadly there's no real prize for outmeleeing BLM/SMN/SCH/RDM/WHM(and bard).

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Sadly there's no real prize for outmeleeing BLM/SMN/SCH/RDM/WHM(and bard).

True enough.

But the point was more that it out-melees the mages but not the DD, therefore it's the hybrid it ultimately is.

[Tashan]

It is a hybrid, and in small group content it truly shines. However, with newer content moving towards old school 3 Party Alliances, being a hybrid loses to teams of specialists.

That, in actuallity, is how Blue Mage should be.

For Blue Mage to find a place in newer content it needs to have something which makes it into a specialist. However, at the same time you risk the job becoming over dominant. Or rather, LV75 Red Mage.

Back before the LV cap raise to 80, Red Mage was practically "God Tier". There wasn't a single Strategy in the game which didn't involve having a RDM besides KSNM30 BLM Burn. It was a hybrid job turned specialist as it was the only one which could Refresh & Haste cycle, stun, main heal, and enfeeble all in one slot. If it wasn't for RDM, TP Burns would never have worked.

Nowadays RDMs have lost their speciality and whilst still nice to have around they bring nothing unique to the table anymore.

This is the same issue Blue Mage faces. Amongst teams and teams of specialists, a weaker hybrid begs little requirement.
The only way it can work is if it were within a team of hybrids.

Right now the only specialist things a Blue Mage brings to the table are:

1. Weakness procing - This doesn't work too well and suffers from being a token job, arguably neglectable.
2. Weakened DD - Physical spells are not affected by weakened state. This was a strategy for many LS' for fighting Pandemonium Warden at LV75.
3. Multiple stun options - A single BLU can lock a HNM down by rotating 2-3
Different stun spells if they don't build resistance (which they virtually all do).

That's it. Unless I missed something.

Now unfortunately there are many jobs in this position. DNC, DRK, DRG, PUP, BST, COR and THF all suffer from lack of speciality.

For Blue Mage, one recommendation I'd have is to change the weakness procing system in voidwatch/dynamis so that all spells have a CHANCE of procing if the same element, rather than being one specifically of that element. That way you could set 1-2 spells of every element and keep trying them again and again for a proc, rather than having to unset and reset spells and suffer he 1 min cooldown.

The problem with this though is that it would still be a token job and once at one person has filled that spot mo others are needed.

[Nightfyre]

I'm hoping for an enhancement to our discernment abilities down the line that will tell us what magic type (elemental, enfeebling, dark, ninjutsu, singing, blue) a magic weakness is. It doesn't completely solve the issue, but we'd need to set/cast fewer weakness spells and do so less frequently.

I can't speak for Dreamlands Dynamis procs, haven't been in there yet, but unless they've drastically reworked the system for the new zones then Dynamis procs are already as you've suggested. There's a set chance per action to trigger a weakness. The chance varies by action type though, JAs > WS > magic iirc.

[Tashan]

...I KNEW I WASN'T INSANE.