Broken/Useless BLU magic

[Olor]

You're saying, "They are aware that there is a limited variety of single-target physical blue magic and support-type blue magic in the high-level tier so they are planning to add more"...but do they not see we have them already. We have a ton of physical BLU spells and various support abilities. All we need is a spell that does X that isn't heavy penalized right out of the gate. WE HAVE THEM ALREADY BUT they're content with keeping them not worth casting while trying to scrounge around for spells from monsters that can replace the things that already barely work. That's a really obtuse way to fix this problem.

No, the solution is to make every spell useful but in different situations. Am I saying that even Foot Kick should serve a function at 99? Well, yes. You can't just look at spells and say, "This is a single target physical spell. Just replace it with another." Great, now we've got a grand total of 1 spell that's worth bothering with(or at least it would be if BLU magic was worth casting on targets you'd want to use non-autoattack solutions on) instead of 2 that can both be useful if given the ability to be so. What should be happening is:

*Your opponent is a Lizard who's weak to slashing. You want to deal single target physical damage. What do you do?*
"Oh, use Foot Kick."
*Now you're fighting a Plantoid who's weak to blunt. You want to deal single target physical damage. What do you do?*
"Power Attack, probably."
etc.

Instead, what IS happening is more like:

*Your opponent is a Lizard who's weak to slashing. You want to deal single target physical damage. What do you do?*
"I swing my sword."
*Now you're fighting a Plantoid who's weak to blunt. You want to deal single target physical damage. What do you do?*
"...I swing my sword"
etc.

Make no mistake there's a way to make every spell in our spell list useful but the Devs have to be willing to actually make them useful.

I can't express how much I agree with this. I think foot kick and power attack etc, all our low cost spells should be just as useful as stone 1 is to black mages. We have the makings of a really interesting magic system already - the spells we have should be fixed.

I want all the time I spent learning blue magic to be respected - the way to respect that time and effort is to make EVERY SPELL USEFUL. There is no flexibility possible if 99% of our magic is left broken.

Basically, if you use a low level spell, correctly with monster affinity/damage types - it should do similar damage to stone 1 used by a sch or rdm at the very least.

We also need more gear with blu magic skill on it, or the effects of the blue magic skill we already have need to be boosted significantly.

[Damane]

That doesn't address the problem of broken spells there are several spells that have basically never worked. They were unlandable on anything worth fighting and that includes higher level spells too. Really should fix them since it's been idk what 5 years now they have been broken

I have given up on this dasva, really I dont give a shit anymore if they ever fix barbed crescent, tourbillion etc... including metatron torment and various other WS add effects. Its a shame but I have given up that those things will ever get fixed

[Damane]

I can't express how much I agree with this. I think foot kick and power attack etc, all our low cost spells should be just as useful as stone 1 is to black mages. We have the makings of a really interesting magic system already - the spells we have should be fixed.

I want all the time I spent learning blue magic to be respected - the way to respect that time and effort is to make EVERY SPELL USEFUL. There is no flexibility possible if 99% of our magic is left broken.

Basically, if you use a low level spell, correctly with monster affinity/damage types - it should do similar damage to stone 1 used by a sch or rdm at the very least.

We also need more gear with blu magic skill on it, or the effects of the blue magic skill we already have need to be boosted significantly.

you DO know that tier 1 nukes of the mages are basicly their normal "melee swings" (since they sit in the backline) and their "WSs" are basicly the tier 3-5 nukes right? BLU has decent melee swing power they dont need a equivalent to tier 1 nuke of mages.
This is also the reason why magic damage has a significant higher impact on T1 and T2 spells then on T3-T5 spells. They were designed that way. Besides in a fully buffed (capped haste etc).situation your BLU will do more dmg auto-attacking then any mage constantly nukeing T1 spells with zomg uber gear.

[Olor]

you DO know that tier 1 nukes of the mages are basicly their normal "melee swings" (since they sit in the backline) and their "WSs" are basicly the tier 3-5 nukes right? BLU has decent melee swing power they dont need a equivalent to tier 1 nuke of mages.
This is also the reason why magic damage has a significant higher impact on T1 and T2 spells then on T3-T5 spells. They were designed that way. Besides in a fully buffed (capped haste etc).situation your BLU will do more dmg auto-attacking then any mage constantly nukeing T1 spells with zomg uber gear.

The thing is, if people want straight melee damage BLU is a really really crappy job to bring. What BLU brings to the table (or should bring) is flexibility of damage types - as Mefuki noted - we should be able to tailor our spell list to hit the weaknesses of our prey. We should be the ideal job for NMS like say Calydontis (which switches damage type reduction shields)- but that only works if we have real T1/T2/T3/T4 spells for every ecosystem and damage type, as well as better magic based spells. Currently, we don't - so BLU loses the ONE MAJOR ADVANTAGE it should have against straight-up heavy DDs.

Why bring a BLU other than maybe for absolute terror? No reason whatsoever. Auto-Attack damage is a really #$%%y reason to bring a BLU to a party given so many other jobs do it better and don't have their damage gimped by having to constantly babysit their MP.

As for things which demand switching to magic damage only - we get screwed there completely since our only USEABLE spells are physical magic. We need at least 1 usable magic spell from every element - and we should have several tiers of every ecosystem/damage type as well. Otherwise parties really have no reason to bring a blu outside of the occasional need for something gimmicky like terror.

[Tennotsukai]

Well, at least we have requiescat. Oh wait, monks have formless strikes, nvm.

At least we have nature's meditation, dang nvm that, 60 seconds.

Oh! We have enfeebles we can use... but those usually don't ever land. Hmm...

Cocoon? Other jobs can sub and use.

Breath spells? Wtf is wrong with those!? Why are they so bad?

Okay, so most of our spells are terribad except a few that end up being worthless in high buff situations.

Honestly, I don't care for the fact they are going to neglect all our spells just please give us a significant amount of new spells with reasonable costs, job traits we'll use, and a reason to use (not broken).

Thank you.

[Damane]

Well, at least we have requiescat. Oh wait, monks have formless strikes, nvm.
same applies to nukers, if you want to change it, you have to nerf formless trikes (which is imho a good thing to do)

At least we have nature's meditation, dang nvm that, 60 seconds.
because adloqium, phalanx matter so much nowadays...

Oh! We have enfeebles we can use... but those usually don't ever land. Hmm...
you mean like all those resists RDM WHM and SCH get when yours resist? If the fight allows to stick all mage debuffs, BLU debuffs work too. Those fights tough exist rarely, and mostly mages can only stick 1 TOPs 2 debuffs (not counting in dia), because everythign else insta resists on anything remotly hard. (and dont get me started on hardmission battles on D+)

Cocoon? Other jobs can sub and use.
yeah because so many melees are subbing BLU to up their defense... only for RUN would this make sense and thats pretty situational

Breath spells? Wtf is wrong with those!? Why are they so bad?
nukes on D+ Hardmode mission battlefields, wry are they so bad!!!!! because of fucking innate 50% MDT and like obscene amounts of INT the mob has!!! nuuuuuu

Okay, so most of our spells are terribad except a few that end up being worthless in high buff situations.
EVERY spell/neglectable ability you cast in high buff situations is BAD, because you sacrifice that more DPS due to lock animations etc etc. that accounts for all jobs across the board

Honestly, I don't care for the fact they are going to neglect all our spells just please give us a significant amount of new spells with reasonable costs, job traits we'll use, and a reason to use (not broken).

Thank you.


Now dont get this the wrong, I am all for fixing jobs, but your rant sounded like a crybaby that doesnt see that NOT only BLU is suffering, there is quiet a few of other jobs that suffer the same or worse. I think actually BLU has atm the better end of the stick compared to other jobs (nukers(BLM GEO), THF, DNC, RUN, Pet jobs etc).

FFXI has gigantic flaws that need nerfing if you want to balance the jobs across the board:
1. Formless strikes, it reduces the needs for nukers or magical WSs, makeing them almost redundant
2. The miriads of buffs people can get from brds and cors swaping in and out. For ally content swaping for buffs shouldnt be possible (auto loose buffs)
for PTs: BRD should have never gotten more then 2 songs.
Reason: with the potent buffing BRD has now, there is no reason to bring other jobs that can grant different buffs, or unique debuffs to help the battle (debuffing is for me reversed buffing)
3. base dmg raising after ilvl weapon introduction was flawed, reason: mnk got a 80% base dmg increase going from 99 to ilvl 119, the rest is howevering around a 50% increase AT BEST.
4. haste, its the most OP buff, and its the reason why anythign mage like will NEVER be good enough for content unless the mage starts farting nuclear bombs out of his ass while nukeing/casting any offensiv spells. The more haste melees have the more exponential their dmg goes up. There is no buff that allows that to happen for mages or jobs that cast spells...

[Trangnai]

One of the core design concepts for blue magic is based around the fact that as you level up, more powerful spells will become available. Due to this, the development team would prefer to focus on adding new blue magic at the higher-level tiers rather than to adjust low-level spells. However, they are aware that there is a limited variety of single-target physical blue magic and support-type blue magic in the high-level tier so they are planning to add more, but it will take some time until they become available.

I really dislike this statement. But then again it could also be why I don't pull out blu much anymore. You could say "well better spells are obtained as you level up" for any caster class. One of the unquie traits of blu, was that you could build your spells to fit the role you are trying to play. The cost however is the point requirement on the spells, having no native traits until spells are equiped, and a rather low starting stat pool, that can be pushed to numbers that rival those of primary class roles.

During 75 cap (where most of our formerly good single target Magical spells are), I could reach nuke numbers on par with blms of the time. and while that may still be possible in some situations all of the good magical spells are AoE, and all of our magical spells regardless of level, with exception of a few heals and Poison Breath, maybe a few support spells like Fantod and Cocoon etc have insanely long cast times, and the damage doesn't scale well, debuffs are resisted most of the time, etc.

I feel blue magic needs scaling fixes across the board, even more so for magical spells, we also need more single target magical nukes, and ones that don't have long cast times. Backline blu isn't really much of an option anymore. Thought most people probably won't use it anyway, I would like the option for the role to be there.

Also, can you change are heals to be Alliance target able please? I'm sure this has only been asked 1000 times. It would be nice to be able to play a support/healing role as well.

[Olor]

Now dont get this the wrong, I am all for fixing jobs, but your rant sounded like a crybaby that doesnt see that NOT only BLU is suffering, there is quiet a few of other jobs that suffer the same or worse. I think actually BLU has atm the better end of the stick compared to other jobs (nukers(BLM GEO), THF, DNC, RUN, Pet jobs etc).

Not really. I mean my BLU is marginally more useful than my BST but not enough to get me an invite. A zero percent invite rate is a zero percent invite rate, even if my BLU is 15% more powerful than my LOLBST or my LOLTHF.

Crikes, they even made TH not matter even 1 bit in all the new events, poor THF... but really all jobs excluded from content are equally screwed.

[Lithera]

Lol breath attacks were always lulz on the player side of things. They're just even more lulz now.

[Rwolf]

I think the first step to bettering the feedback community is to stop playing triage with suggestions/feedback. Just because X job is currently worse than Y job doesn't matter regarding feedback. The development team has shown with these quick bountiful updates lately, they can push things out quicker. And even if they couldn't, we should give feedback unbiased and not based on what we think they will or will not do with it. I think that defeats the purpose in and of itself.

It's counter-productive of them to try and produce new spells to make up for large amount of spells already present in the game. Blue Mage's power is in their utility and that's what the job needs to shine again. Utility comes through diverse spell setups and choices allowing quick adaptation. Having the ability to target a monster's physical, magical, and ecosystem weaknesses while also having decent hard to resist breath-type (it's not magical) damage is a huge boon. Also it is a unique form of play that shouldn't be diminished in this recent bout of keeping job identity with the count now at 22. Blue Mage is a weak auto-attack choice over other jobs and I don't agree with continuing to emphasize on that aspect. Auto-attack was meant to be supplemental and slid into being more and more dominant because of spells falling behind.