Is Blue Mage the most popular class?

[rog]

It may not be useless like it was before abyssea, but it is far from the most popular job.

[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).

[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.