Is Blue Mage the most popular class?

[Zyeriis]

Monk, Thief, Ninja, Warrior, White Mage, Black Mage.
I'd say those jobs are by far more popular currently than blue mage.
It's not even in the top 30% regarding popularity.
Sure, those that play it, talk it up a bunch but, so did I, on my Corsair pre-abyssea (I'll still maintain Corsair is amazingly pivotal in terms of what i can do, but I won't get into that right now).

[Vold]

BLUs never could keep up with the exp group TP burn thing but they make up for it with solo to an extent. In some cases BLUs fell back on back up healing which actually worked out better than you would expect. BLU strong point is what they bring to the table for NM encounters. It's always been their strong point and easily makes up for any short comings. It didn't help them level up in the past regrettably but that's the player base for you. It's a pretty interesting job but it's not easy to do right. Popular jobs tend to be "mindless" so to speak.

I've always been impressed with what BLU can do and makes me wish I had more space and time to play the job beyond level 32. But for now I'm stuck until my space issues are solved, hopefully with this incoming update in May.

In befor... never mind. He already unleashed his trap and someone is so biting.

[Kensagaku]

You'd be surprised at how versatile BLU could be back in the days, even in regular EXP pts. A good BLU against Colibri knew how to balance his spellcasting use. Red Lotus Blade -> CA'd Death Scissors or Mandibular Bite = Gravitation, then you'd Burst Affinity an MP Drainkiss and get anywhere from 80-120 MP back while doing a fair bit of damage. Granted, it wasn't as good as the SAMs, RNGs, DRGs, and WARs who could rape things in that time, but it had its place if the BLU knew what they were doing.

The problem? Most BLUs sucked. They didn't know how to manage their MP and thought spamming every spell then resting for two fights was the way to go. That was the reason we were often referred to as lolBLUs and didn't get invites; most of them didn't have a clue how to manage and conserve their MP.

That being said, that tactic worked wonders on pet killing camps. I remember tigers in Vunkerl, I'd get some nice Exp/kill. Raptors outside of Mamool Ja Staging Point were nice on BLU/WHM (for Viruna) too.