Blue mage Job adjustments

[Tennotsukai]

With the talk of even more spells via the jp dev posts, I'm hopeful that we do end up with some new enmity spells. That and some more buffs to help us track would be handy.

[Tennotsukai]

Tank*
dumb auto-correct

[Metaking]

O do tell on the new spells, also yes auto-correct has fowled many a person >.>

[YosemiteYogorockBlondelle]

So why do you think the blue mage job should be another added tank job to the all ready added or changed to tank jobs in the game because I really seriously liked to know myself?

[Tennotsukai]

Blu has always been somewhat of a pseudo-tank, even in the 75 days. SE has even declared them somewhat-tanks via a reply they gave in a thread about magic giving too much hate when adoulin was new. Just today I tanked Colkhab the whole fight. It's not saying too much, but we can hold our own with what spells we have. I just want more...

Also, they didn't give us any spell names in that jp post, just the job traits we're getting with the 3 upcoming. Also, job traits of future spells will include dual wield, and future spells will be stronger somehow. That's pretty much all that they said. Oh, and we're not going to receive anymore spell slots.

[evanwimbish]

More than 3 spells tomorrow?!?!?!

[Tennotsukai]

No, sometime in the future. Sorry for giving false hopes.

[Camate]

Greetings,

Thank you for the feedback regarding blue mage.

I’d like to share some information in response to some of the comments we’ve been receiving.

• New blue magic spells
  The following table shows the additional traits and blue magic point cost for the new blue magic spells that will be added in the July version update.
  
  

  Blue Magic Spell	Trait	Job Trait Value	Blue Magic Point Cost
  Erratic Flutter	Fast Cast	8	6
  Thrashing Assault	Double Attack	8	7
  Subduction	Magic Attack Bonus	8	6

  
  
  Similar to other spells that were added after Seekers of Adoulin, in exchange for a higher blue magic point cost, the job trait value is higher and you will be able to gain the additional trait by only equipping that one spell.

• Additional traits
  The additional traits that are gained by equipping blue magic spells were designed based on the monster that you learned the spell from and are meant to be useful for that particular spell.
  
  I understand that there has been some feedback that even with the implementation of Erratic Flutter it will be tough to remove Animating Wail from blue magic sets due to the dual wield trait. However, moving forward we will be adding various blue magic spells that cover a wide variety of job traits including dual wield.

• Physical blue magic spell strength
  Blue mage is a job that fights with a combination of auto-attacks, weapon skills, and blue magic spells, and in situations where they receive a multitude of support from other party members there are cases where they will excel in damage over time through auto-attacks and weapon skills.
  
  However, moving forward we will be adding blue magic spells that consume a high amount of MP in exchange for a powerful attack just like Quadratic Continuum and Amorphic Spikes so that they will be able to deal heavy amounts of damage in a shorter time in battles with parties.

• Blue magic spell set cap
  System-wise it is rather difficult to increase the cap on blue magic spell sets. As an indirect method for addressing this issue, we will be adding blue magic spells with job traits that have higher values which can be gained by equipping less spells.
  
  We’ll be making it more advantageous to boost blue magic points with job points as we add new powerful spells that require a higher amount of blue magic points moving forward.

[Olor]

Greetings,

Thank you for the feedback regarding blue mage.

• Blue magic spell set cap
  System-wise it is rather difficult to increase the cap on blue magic spell sets. As an indirect method for addressing this issue, we will be adding blue magic spells with job traits that have higher values which can be gained by equipping less spells.
  
  We’ll be making it more advantageous to boost blue magic points with job points as we add new powerful spells that require a higher amount of blue magic points moving forward.

if you won't increase spell slots can you please AT LEAST make it so all voidwatch BLU procs can be set by one BLU using available slots?

Also "adding dual wield in the future" does NOT help BLU mages today. We have fallen really far behind after the weaponskill update made 2-handed jobs SO MUCH STRONGER than they already were. How many months do we have to fall behind before something is done? Other DDs can put out large damage output without MP, why must any spell that does damage worth doing cost a lot of MP? It's very hard to maintain enough MP while doing damage as it is...

Also I thought job points were supposed to be a bonus, not something we had to grind out to get the bare minimum of usefulness on our jobs? They are way too horrible to make necessary for any job... and since I never get invited to any group activities as BLU because we have no role, it means essentially "grind job points alone for 200 hours" which is NOT FUN.

[Rwolf]

Sorry for the wall of text. I stand behind my feedback and opinion that this is a poor route the development team is taking to fixing Blue Mage.

• New Blue Magic Spells
  Adding new powerful spells that cost more and set full traits is great in theory, but it removes any variety to Blue Mage. Whatever happened to Monster Correlation? I don't understand the aversion to revamping Blue Magic entirely. It was done with Healing Magic, Elemental Magic, Weapon Skill/TP Gain, and recently a post about how Blood Pacts are about to scale more with Summoning Magic. There is no other job in the game that has been told to just completely ignore their early learned abilities for "eventually in the future" new ones.
  
  Over 150 spells eventually being discarded for new spells with adjusted traits just seems like extra work with not a lot of praise for it. Because until we receive all spells to replace older ones. Old ones will still be used and even afterward, players will complain about the lack of variety. It just seems counterproductive to me.
  
  
• "Additional" Traits? More like only traits...
  These traits we set are the only traits Blue Mage has natively. Unless you really want to be technical about Assimilation and Enchainment. The way the development team keeps wording it as if these traits are so overpowered that Blue Mage needs to be watched carefully. Granted, the ability to change your job traits makes it natively stronger. However, there are really only 1-2 commonly used sets players use for Job Traits. So the ability to change job traits is lessened because you'd never do it and sacrifice more essential traits.
  
  
• "The Melee Condition" and Blue Magic Spell Strength
  It is not just "in situations where they receive a multitude of support from other party members". I can auto-attack on my own stronger than burning through MP for damage in a lot of instances (not counting augmenting spells with Job Abilities). It's not a practical strategy to spam Physical or Magical Blue Magic for damage in content level 109+ zones. Elemental Magic is so fast, strong and MP efficient, it completely eclipses Blue Magic in spike damage. Magical Blue Magic is relegated primarily to Voidwatch procs, AoE farming in older content and for amusement but it's high MP cost to low when unassisted damage ratio on magic evasion targets is lackluster.
  
  
• Blue Magic Spell Set Cap
  I think claiming it as a system that can't be worked around is a snap judgment to me. I don't claim to know how the system works on the back-end, but I'd love to know how exactly this is impossible to work around system wise besides making all new spells to fix the old ones. Even if we just had access to more spells like how Unbridled Learning spells are separate, but not their attributes and traits it would be worth looking into.
  
  
• Assimilation and Job Points are basically a requirement, not supplemental.
  The idea conveyed of Job Specific Merit Points were to be ways to specialize your job. Except all other options pale in comparison to 5/5 on additional spell points, especially now with these 6-7 cost spells.
  
  Job Points have been conveyed as a casual reward system for players dedicated to their job, be supplemental, and not job changing. However all of the adjustments mostly revolve around having additional Blue Magic points to equip new spells/traits, making it a requirement.

I apologize if the post comes off as complaints because of the length but it's purely constructive criticism. I love Blue Mage and the principles behind the job. While it may be more difficult, I'd rather see more effort put into adjustments so that it retains the integrity of being a completely moldable versatile job that has to incorporate Monster Correlation and Element/Damage Type into strategy.