Blue mage Job adjustments

[larrymc]

Greetings,

Thanks for the feedback on blue mage. We’ll be sure to inform the development team.

In the meantime, however, I did receive some word about some upcoming plans. In the August version update they will be making it so physical blue magic spells will receive effects from food, songs, and rolls.

This is something that will affect battle balance in a big way, so the team will be making adjustments very carefully; however, they would like to make it so blue mages can really use their magic to shine.

I have one word for this. WOW!

[Malthar]

Greetings,

Thanks for the feedback on blue mage. We’ll be sure to inform the development team.

In the meantime, however, I did receive some word about some upcoming plans. In the August version update they will be making it so physical blue magic spells will receive effects from food, songs, and rolls.

This is something that will affect battle balance in a big way, so the team will be making adjustments very carefully; however, they would like to make it so blue mages can really use their magic to shine.

Seriously... And you won't even give bst a reach around...

We ask for effects from food, songs, and rolls and all we got was some mochi....

Anyone else saw the post I made about "Please sir, I want some more?" I feel like that even more so.

SE, if you hate bst so much why did you even put it in the game?

[Balloon]

Seriously... And you won't even give bst a reach around...

We ask for effects from food, songs, and rolls and all we got was some mochi....

Anyone else saw the post I made about "Please sir, I want some more?" I feel like that even more so.

SE, if you hate bst so much why did you even put it in the game?

Let's just extend that to Pet job in general, shall we? Pup would also like some of that sweet sweet Porridge.

[Babekeke]

Greetings,

Thanks for the feedback on blue mage. We’ll be sure to inform the development team.

In the meantime, however, I did receive some word about some upcoming plans. In the August version update they will be making it so physical blue magic spells will receive effects from food, songs, and rolls.

This is something that will affect battle balance in a big way, so the team will be making adjustments very carefully; however, they would like to make it so blue mages can really use their magic to shine.

Can anyone else smell the incoming physical spell nerf?

"The attack power of Physical Blue Magic spells has been halved due to the fact that with food, rolls and songs there's the opportunity to make them much stronger."

It's coming.

[Glamdring]

Can anyone else smell the incoming physical spell nerf?

"The attack power of Physical Blue Magic spells has been halved due to the fact that with food, rolls and songs there's the opportunity to make them much stronger."

It's coming.

nope, instead you got the "deal with it" variant, not sure that's any better...

[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.

[Mefuki]

Post #150

Boy, it's times like this I wish I could upvote more then once.

"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."

[Olor]

Thanks Rwolf you did a fantastic job summing up what needs improvement in the developer's vision for BLU

[Arbalest]

The programming to up the amount of native slots, or adjust the amount of blue magic points we get with merits, is not that hard.. I really just think they're being lazy.

That being said, Blue Magic, especially the physical bits, really need a good boost in damage in order for BLU to be taken anywhere that's relevant.