To Devs: Fix Blu

[Tennotsukai]

poison 1 and bio 1 get used once in your jobs life time. breath spells except for heat breath for proc neeeeever get used. all those spells that you listed can serve a purpose even though no one will utilize that purpose of boost chr (maybe with the newer jobs). breath spells had a purpose, but now are extremely resisted. would you ever use vapor spray? no... would you ever use bio 1? of course, though earlier on.

Hope you also know I am talking of Tourbillion and Barbed Crescent. They are broken.

oh and subbing those jobs you'll want to still use many of those spells you listed.

[saevel]

Tenn you do realize I play BLU almost exclusively whenever I'm not on WAR / DRK for zergs?

What your saying is "Blue Mage is broken cause these small minor things don't work right!"

Which is utter BS.

If you want to see broken go take a long hard look at RDM, BST, SMN, PUP, THF then DNC. SMN is still plagued by only being wanted for it's 2hr, though Squall is slowly changing that, but then they'd be wanted as a stun monkey. PUP and BST are horribly broken due to the mechanics that effect all pet jobs, though both are trying really hard to carve out functionality from a pile of sh!t. THF suffers from only being wanted as TH whore, same as for the past decade. DNC suffers from poor job design with timers. And RDM ... well RDM just doesn't exist anymore.

BLU is borderline overpowered because it does everything well enough to be acceptable. It has both Physical and Magical DD power, crowd control / enfeebling power, healing and status removal power, damage reduction / tanking power, and kiting / ranged damage power. It can do all of that and be very very good at it. SE knows this, they can see it. And if BLU becomes too powerful in any of those area's then SE can and swing the nerf hammer, which I don't think anyone here wants.

Best you can honestly hope for is SE not screwing with the job and letting it continue to be as awesome as it is.

[Llana_Virren]

poison 1 and bio 1 get used once in your jobs life time. breath spells except for heat breath for proc neeeeever get used. all those spells that you listed can serve a purpose even though no one will utilize that purpose of boost chr (maybe with the newer jobs). breath spells had a purpose, but now are extremely resisted. would you ever use vapor spray? no... would you ever use bio 1? of course, though earlier on.

Hope you also know I am talking of Tourbillion and Barbed Crescent. They are broken.

oh and subbing those jobs you'll want to still use many of those spells you listed.

During the good old days of actual parties and level ups and serious battles, those that used Bio were fools, plain and simple. The circumstances where Bio was more viable than Dia were so rare that you only used it when you were soloing something on RDM and needed the DoT damage, because the benefit to Dia on every DD was greater than the benefit of Bio for your (hopefully) 1 tank....

Poisonga? Yeah never needed that spell ever*.
Diaga? Nope*.

(*Note that until ToAU no mobs put up 3+ shadows with a single move; as a result mobs typically lost all shadows before this spell would be viable. So, in that regard, the usefulness of Diaga (or any quick-casting -ga spell) actually came later in the game.

Not every spell in the game needs to have a purpose; I don't see many BLUs Bomb-Tossing, but its certainly an emotional event for anyone who partied in the 'Dunes to be able to run around the zone and frag every one of those damned mobs.

[Yugl]

Poison 1 is a waste of coding after Poison II. Same with Bio 1. Dia 1. Cure 1-3. Protect/ra 1-4, Shell/ra 1-4, etc. This is what happens when a game is no longer "progressive" and becomes stagnant in old age. FFXI is not dying, but what you're seeing is gameplay engineering from when the game was actually played from Lv1-Lv75+endgame.

The argument about BLU spells being an issue doesn't work when you compare it to jobs like BLM or WHM. I don't remember the last time I casted a tier 1 nuke (tier 2 is the lowest as a proc) or tier 1 -ga, or Cures 1-3. Or Protect II. Or Boost-CHR.... Should these spells be removed just because they serve no purpose?

Yes, there are areas in BLU, like any job, which could be improved (cough, BLU procs, cough). But to suggest somehow that BLU needs to be fixed is simply wrong.

Way to miss the glaring flaws with your argument: The spells referred are the top-tier of their respective class and the test server's magic accuracy differs from the real server. What does the former mean? That means he's not complaining about a spell outclassed by later tiers of said spell. Your "progression" argument is irrelevant. What does the latter mean? That means there's either a flaw with the magic accuracy of the test server or the real server. In other words, a glitch. Given that the magic accuracy of said spells and weapon skills (Yes, this issue has implications beyond BLU), were greater prior and SE never mentioned a universal nerf to the additional effects of . . .

-Tourbillion (Add. effect: Defense down)
-Sandspin (Add. effect: Accuracy down)
-Barbed Crescent (Add. effect: Accuracy down)
-Hecatomb Wave (Add. effect: Blind)
-Tachi: Ageha (Add. effect: Defense down)
-Metatron Torment (Add. effect: Defense down)
-Onslaught (Add. effect: Accuracy down)
-Full Break (Add. effect: Accuracy, Attack, Defense, and Evasion down)
-Armor Break (Add. effect: Defense down)
-Shell Crusher (Add. effect: Defense down)
-Randgrith (Add. effect: Evasion down)
-Nightmare Scythe (Add. effect: Blind)
-Skullbreaker (Add. effect: INT down)

This would imply that the discrepancy between the real server and the test server is due to an error with the real server's magic accuracy rate.

[Tennotsukai]

savael, I think you are not getting it at all. tourbillion and barbed crescent are broke. we can all agree... this needs fixed. you already said we could take a fix to the level correlation to tougher mobs, lesser spells for proc, and I'm sure you should know, because you think that you're the best blu ever, is that blu breath spells get resisted way too much.

my main complaints you disagree with is something SE has agreed already to look at, spell durations on two or three spells and breath spells. So please, savael... you're just arguing because certain other jobs suck. blu is not broken but have completely wasted and broken elements.

Thank you, Yugl, for the explanation to Llana. According to Prothescar, whom I spoke with on this, you can't really compare tourbillion to poisonga.... skipping on some vulgarities as well.

people are blindsiding too much into all of this. blu is powerful in its own aspect that it is flexible but weak in all specific categories. we can nuke but we'll never be as good as blm. we can dd, lcm prevents us from being invited over two handed weapon jobs, we can tank never as good as a pld, and etc. blu is not overpowered... just flexible. this argument happens way too often on other forums. go check out bluegartr.

savael, you are completely right on those other jobs, and I do believe with this new producer and better communication with SE... things will improve, but my main objective here, on this blu forum, is to get out to SE what needs a good look at on blu and to fix what bugs still exist. You can start up a forum on those broken jobs somewhere else. I already did before, but like always, SE had no response. So please... stop trolling... thank you!

[Llana_Virren]

Way to miss the glaring flaws with your argument: The spells referred are the top-tier of their respective class and the test server's magic accuracy differs from the real server. What does the former mean? That means he's not complaining about a spell outclassed by later tiers of said spell. Your "progression" argument is irrelevant. What does the latter mean? That means there's either a flaw with the magic accuracy of the test server or the real server. In other words, a glitch. Given that the magic accuracy of said spells and weapon skills (Yes, this issue has implications beyond BLU), were greater prior and SE never mentioned a universal nerf to the additional effects of . . .



This would imply that the discrepancy between the real server and the test server is due to an error with the real server's magic accuracy rate.

2 things:
1. Not everything is supposed to be so useful as to matter at all, or even all the time. As I said specifically with Diaga and Poisonga: no purpose, not even at the level they are first available.

2. Discrepencies between the test server and live server do not inherently mean a glitch. The conditions and in some circumstances the mechanics are significantly altered.

More to the crux of the issue though; while some aspects of BLU need to be addressed, the job itself is not broken or in need of fixing.

[Mefuki]

No, the job itself is not broken but those spells and WS he listed, quite literally, are. As in, they don't work like they're supposed to or as their descriptions say they do. I dont think it's unreasonable to want them fixed, do you?

[Yugl]

2 things:
1. Not everything is supposed to be so useful as to matter at all, or even all the time. As I said specifically with Diaga and Poisonga: no purpose, not even at the level they are first available.

2. Discrepencies between the test server and live server do not inherently mean a glitch. The conditions and in some circumstances the mechanics are significantly altered.

More to the crux of the issue though; while some aspects of BLU need to be addressed, the job itself is not broken or in need of fixing.

Diaga is utilized even at 99 (ex: Odin v2 adds, gather mobs for magian trials, or generic gathering of mobs), so how you manage to classify diaga as a "purposeless" spell is questionable. As for your second point, the fact that there's a discrepancy between the test server and the real server regarding magic accuracy of a mix of weapon skills and blue magic highly suggests that the discrepancy is unintended. The OP isn't referring to a set of spells introduced with full magic accuracy and initially implemented on the real server with varying accuracy. We're talking about spells and weapon skills that have behaved normally for years, saw reduced magic accuracy on the real server, saw normal magic accuracy on the test server as a result of a following update, and subsequently never transferred that regained magic accuracy to the real server. In short, there's no reason for the discrepancy between the two servers. If the intention is to nerf magic accuracy, the test server should reflect that.

Finally, the fact that these magic accuracy discrepancies have implications for weapon skills BLU may not access inherently suggests this matter is beyond BLU itself. Thus, your last comment is utterly irrelevant for the matter. Diaga and Poisonga do what their description says. They inflict dia/poison to targets within a range. Spells and weapon skills that don't carry out their description either have poor descriptions or glitched mechanics. The fact that they have worked in conjunction with these mechanics for years indicates the latter is the likely scenario.

[Metaking]

well one major difference between his post and yours llana is at least every spell you mentioned was at one point useful, and some are useful from subs, blu has tons of spells that were never useful outside of procs, and blu has alot of spells if they scaled better ( like icebreak or maelstrom ) that would not even remotely over power the job but would give it a few extra toys. Now in reference to are buffs i think all blu buffs should be 3 or 5 mins(with maby are blinks brought up to 10), as well as diffusion brought down to 5 mins, that was any blu could keep 1 5min buff up on there party full time, and one that goes the diffusion path(+relic boots) could also keep up a 3min one for 5 mins on there party

ps if se buffed eyes on me and mysterious light to match there mana cost, boost chr might have a use >.>..... maybe

[saevel]

Barbed Cresent isn't broken, it has a use. It makes Dual Wield III.

Tourbillion is one of those spells that if it worked, then BLU would shortly be nerfed. It's -33% Defense down which is BEYOND broken.

You want to know how *broken* that is?
100/(100-33) = 1.4925. That makes it the equivalent of a 49.25% attack bonus for every attack, including Blue Magic spells and pet attacks.

Where as Dia III is 15%, Angon is 20~25% and Bilgestorm is ~25%. Defense down scales like Haste does.
15% is a 17.6% attack bonus, 20% is a 25% attack bonus, 25% is a 33.33% attack bonus.

Now the prime reason Blue "magic" type spells don't work is that they are not magic nukes, their magic weapon skills. And like most magic weapon skills their all whacked out when it comes to balancing fINT (fMND / fCHR) and MAB. There are a few spells though that are fairly good damage for their MP cost when compared to BLM nukes. Dark Orb, Everyone's Grudge and Wind Breath all can put out nice damage but require staves and other "mage" type gear. Because they tend to be balanced along the same lines as BLM spells (Thunder IV is 171 MP, Thunder V is 294 MP) their cost looks outrageous to a BLU who's used to using cheap physical spells. Then you have the grand daddy of them all, Charged Whisker at 183MP and it can do more then Thundaja which is 396MP.

Most magic spells prior to 75 are useless just as most magic WS's prior to 80~85 are useless. You don't see people running around using Seraph Blade, Red Lotus Blade, Cyclone, Shadow of Death, or Raiden Thrust.

Right now what I keep seeing is people complaining because some minor spell is sh1t and they want all 100+ Blue Magic spells to be useful and functional. I'm sorry but that's OP, if everyone BLU had worked "the way it should" then SE would nerf the sh1t out of this job. Tell me one area that Blue Mage can't be a bad ass in? The only two I can think of are primary DD during a 60s super zerg fight, and primary healer for legion type super events.

As for Proth .. considering he shot his own argument into the ground when he demonstrated BLU being 2~7% behind a MNK in damage output while illustrating that the only problem with BLU's *damage* was the common 2.0 pDiff limit that all 1H/MA players face. So now there is a job with nearly as much firepower as a MNK yet infinitely more utility. And people here say it's "Broken and needs fixed".