dev1024 - healing magic

[Seriha]

Were the BLU of today present at launch, I'd say community outlook toward them would be different. At the job's implementation, a main healing role wasn't exactly viable to the degree it is day. On the whole, the job's grown exceptionally well with the cap increases on all fronts. But more to the point, the job has had its time to be stereotyped, and some unfortunately see it as where all the gimp, whiny melee RDMs flocked to. Just as RDM also had its time to be stereotyped as a healer/support in game where people desperately needed such to do anything. Such a role is almost historically sparse on any MMO due to the often unrewarding nature of babysitting random, ungrateful people and how easily blame shifts once poo hits the fan. Some choose to endure this solely because of that scarcity, and this is possibly one of those times where FFXI's multiple jobs on one character bites us. Too often have I seen people using supportive jobs to gear up their pet jobs (not to be confused with actual pet jobs, just whatever their true joy is), conveniently getting gear for their supports because it'd otherwise rot and only the most bastard of leaders would tell them no. And if someone got wise, they could usually just run off to another shell, being gladly accepted because they WHM, RDM, or BRD. And once they finish girding their favorite job? Well, either they suddenly quit that shell or "got bored of X so sold its gear, sorry!" We've wound up kicking a few people like that over the years. Sucks, but there's only so much you can do.

[SpankWustler]

The only good thing about healing Blue Magic is that it puts large numbers in the chat log. The casting times are always a bit too long, especially considering they're compared against spells cast by three jobs with ways of greatly reducing casting time. Also, in order to have Haste and status removal spells at the same time, a Blue Mage is tied to White Mage sub and left with near zero tools for MP longevity. The job has more support elements than it's ever had, currently, but it's still not built like an efficient support job.

Of course, with the caliber of spells that I've seen every recent update, Blue Mage might be able to fill a support/healing role well by 99.

As for stereotyping, I don't know. Many of the reasons Blue Mage was seen as a poor job originally were totally true; such as immutably horrible attack values on spells, depending on MP to do less damage than most melee jobs, being totally useless within current zerg tactics, and benefiting far less from large amounts of Haste than most melee. I played the job regularly because I enjoyed it, but I had no delusions about it being super-awesome. I am elated that it's much better now, however.

Then again, I try to ignore anything stupid that I hear on FFXI unless it's a mistake about game mechanics so I'm probably not the best historian when it comes to ideas people have gotten about jobs.

[Seriha]

I just figure no party heal beyond Healing Breeze until Magic Fruit at its implementation helped BLU get its foot in the door for a front-line presence. Tying physical spell accuracy to main-hand also curbed the job away from staff swapping for everything. Even until Wild Carrot and other later goodies, Head Butt spam was arguably revolutionary as the game's quickest source of frequent stuns, and thus damage mitigation if used well. The job might not have brought the highest damage numbers, especially on HNMs without CASA Cannonball and proper support, but for most other things you could definitely find something to do for a BLU almost regardless of sub.

[Bubeeky]

Blue Mage was also seen as a horrible job choice originally because it had no defined role when it first came out. As a WHM though, I've never really been concerned about BLU being a healer because I think most of them prefer to use their spell points for their other spells that they can dish out massive damage with.

Also, it might be worth mentioning that their first healing spell is Pollen, which is self target only....I know that's common knowledge, but I think it sets the tone for people that play BLU, because it gets them kind of used to only being able to heal themselves for a while, where rdm and sch and whm have cures they can use on others from the early levels.

[SpankWustler]

I just figure no party heal beyond Healing Breeze until Magic Fruit at its implementation helped BLU get its foot in the door for a front-line presence. Tying physical spell accuracy to main-hand also curbed the job away from staff swapping for everything. Even until Wild Carrot and other later goodies, Head Butt spam was arguably revolutionary as the game's quickest source of frequent stuns, and thus damage mitigation if used well. The job might not have brought the highest damage numbers, especially on HNMs without CASA Cannonball and proper support, but for most other things you could definitely find something to do for a BLU almost regardless of sub.

I guess this is all Greek to me because you feel "front-line presence" is something extremely desirable while I'm not that attached to it. If the job had been made differently such that physical spells had normal magic range, very good innate attack and accuracy values, and were enhanced by elemental staffs, that would have been cool with me. Oddly enough, I'm pretty sure the job would actually perform better against high defense/high level monsters if this were the case. I'd definitely have leveled the job either way.

In fact, right now, I'd probably be telling some bro or bro-ette on the Blue Mage forums that Blue Mage is perfectly functional as a mage, doesn't need to hit things with things, and that I leveled it with no intention of hitting a thing with a thing. Feels weird man. I don't think "ironic" is a proper descriptor, but I'm sure somebody invented a word for this situation at some point.

[FrankReynolds]

SO anyways, maybe we should start a thread requesting that they add Cure V just to the test server.... see if it totally breaks the game and causes the universe to collapse in on itself like they think it will.

[saevel]

As someone who did BLU/WAR tanking and BLU/WHM healing I can say that job is ridiculously powerful. Seriha is right, at release BLU didn't have much in the way of healing spells outside H.breeze and M.fruit at "higher" levels. This pretty much made BLU's into "just another" melee DD. Once SE added W.Carrot it made BLU as a main healer possible as BLU's lacked a cheap heal at lower levels. M.Fruit scaling as a Cure V but only 72mp is ridiculous, outside of curaga it's the most efficient heal in the game. H.Breeze was amazing, 55MP for the healing power of a 120MP spell. It was so good that I would go RDM/BLU at 75 to merit on birds (this was before SCH was made). Now they have aoe erase, Curaga IV, Cure 4.5, Cure 4.8, Auto-Refresh, Self-Haste, Self-Refresh, Lullaby, Sleepga, Sleepga II, and whatever they get from their sub.

BLU is now the 2nd best healer in the game, and people still want tell a RDM it's their job to "shut up and heal".

[SpankWustler]

As someone who did BLU/WAR tanking and BLU/WHM healing I can say that job is ridiculously powerful. Seriha is right, at release BLU didn't have much in the way of healing spells outside H.breeze and M.fruit at "higher" levels. This pretty much made BLU's into "just another" melee DD. Once SE added W.Carrot it made BLU as a main healer possible as BLU's lacked a cheap heal at lower levels. M.Fruit scaling as a Cure V but only 72mp is ridiculous, outside of curaga it's the most efficient heal in the game. H.Breeze was amazing, 55MP for the healing power of a 120MP spell. It was so good that I would go RDM/BLU at 75 to merit on birds (this was before SCH was made). Now they have aoe erase, Curaga IV, Cure 4.5, Cure 4.8, Auto-Refresh, Self-Haste, Self-Refresh, Lullaby, Sleepga, Sleepga II, and whatever they get from their sub.

BLU is now the 2nd best healer in the game, and people still want tell a RDM it's their job to "shut up and heal".

It was actually worse than other melee, since no amount of haste or attack could affect the physical spells. I guess this is still true, but Blue Mage has more options now and it's less common to be buffed to infinity and beyond.

Blue Mage can definitely keep people alive like a champ. Alive and possibly without haste. Alive and without a worthwhile level of Shell. Alive and possibly engaged to a monster with no amount of Dia applied to it. And so forth. Typical healing in FFXI is mixed with support and far more than watching big cure numbers scroll by in a chat log.

I do agree that Blue Mage is the second best at restoring HP in FFXI right now. I also think it's too drastically different than Red Mage and White Mage for a direct comparison. It seems closer to Summoner, since both receive unique tools totally outside of White Magic. Heck, with Earthen Armor, Summoner could probably be considered the second-best healer for VoidWatch. The amount of HP loss that prevents can be amazing.

I also agree that Red Mage in a total healing role would be boring as sin to play, but expanding the job's enfeebling abilities and the like at the same time is a far better solution than letting the job's HP restoration/damage prevention abilities stagnate because casting spells on other players makes a minority of people feel sad.

Then again, letting Red Mage stagnate seems to be a favorite hobby of the development team, so I can't say it wouldn't match the theme of the job. It's really a testament to how strong the fundamentals of Red Mage are that the job remains useful.