JUST FOR DISCUSSION: How would YOU make BLU a normal job with rotation

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

The solution would be to give BLU all its spells through levelling, which makes BLU nothing but a BLM with extra lore flavour. BLU doesn't have a gameplay identity, it is, and always has been a sidequest activity in whatever game it was in, and that has been accurately portrayed in this game.

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Making BLU balanced for endgame content does not require that it acquire its skills in the same way. It's not among the first job choices; as a bonus job, it doesn't need to have the same ease of skill acquisition as everyone else. You can give it whatever additional requirements for 8-man content of their level that you want. To say that they must lose their unique content (skill acquisition) or must be unable to join in any and all standard content at level is a blatantly false ultimatum.

In every ff game I've played BLU is a perfectly complete job to play (meaning, it can do all the content the game has) except for this one. And its role has always been the equivalent for casters to the dancer we've got ingame. Yeah, it could have some healing spells, but not an entire set to make it a healer (curing waltz anyone?). I don't mind the idea of performing all three roles as long as the job can retain some functionality.

The collecting of spells could have been made via job missions, or it could even stay the same, just introduce systems to check what spells you have to queue for a certain role.

In terms of rotation/mechanic, I'd love them to expand the concept of combos: if the target is inmune to your debuff, make the spells apply some kind of "partially ..." debuff so that even if you don't get the effect you can still make combos. Include many more combos and add a system that forces you to rotate among combos to fill some kind of gauge. A system to that end could be something like you get a buff so you generate more if you use a different combo from the previous ones. Once the gauge is filled, you can unleash some kind of very powerful spell BLUs have had in other games. Or maybe, to be thematic, a single use spell from the mob you apply the skill on.

This was just some idea from the top of my head, but I do wish SE to stop the fallacy of "limited jobs". Any fan of a job that gets it in the form of limited is destined to be disappointed.

I would keep the Carnivale / field learning as an outside gimmick that does not work within current expansion instances. This would essentially be CC actions with BLU flavour. But if that's too much resources for one job, I'll happily give them up for a proper full job.

Then for the main job (DPS caster), I would give it a core rotation that is learnt through job quests and leveling. Those spells/abilities are mandatory and cannot be missed.
I'd see BLU working with a rotation that reflects its "hybrid" nature with a range of spells with several elements and damage type, and incorporate them in a thorough rotation. For instance a phase where you would build up debuffs on the enemy through elemental spells with a system of spell combo, and a burst phase where you can use powerful abilities (such as Primal stuff for instance). Or something like that, but essentially work on Combo Spells (because I think that's what BLU has that the other casters don't). And give things like White Wind / Mighty Guard as long CD abilities with a reasonable nerf to make them party wide and not too OP.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Making BLU balanced for endgame content does not require that it acquire its skills in the same way. It's not among the first job choices; as a bonus job, it doesn't need to have the same ease of skill acquisition as everyone else. You can give it whatever additional requirements for 8-man content of their level that you want. To say that they must lose their unique content (skill acquisition) or must be unable to join in any and all standard content at level is a blatantly false ultimatum.

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Simple fact is that duty finder/party finder exists. If you go into content without a specific skill, you could cause a lot of toxicity. The Devs have spent years trying to iron these problems out of the game, I doubt they would go backwards.

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Originally Posted by jon041065

BLU wasn't a "sidequest activity" in XI so wrong there. Sure, some would be turned off by the idea of having to go collect spells before running most content but there are also a lot of us that are fine with it and don't mind the idea of advanced jobs.

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The simple fact that you had to collect the spells in XI makes it side content. The difference between XI and XIV is that in XI you could also use it in content. I want you to go back to XI and tell me if you think the jobs are balanced and fair.

XI is a different beast that lacks job balance, group finders and the tight gameplay that requires jobs to be structured similarly.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Simple fact is that duty finder/party finder exists. If you go into content without a specific skill, you could cause a lot of toxicity. The Devs have spent years trying to iron these problems out of the game, I doubt they would go backwards.

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That's kinda like people going into 30+ content without job stones or not doing their class quests for skills. There will always be those people in the game and we can't avoid it with the systems we have right now.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Simple fact is that duty finder/party finder exists. If you go into content without a specific skill, you could cause a lot of toxicity. The Devs have spent years trying to iron these problems out of the game, I doubt they would go backwards.

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They could have checks or need to have certain spells already learned before being allowed to queue up outside of premade parties. If you meant it as they might not have the spell set, the concept of a loadout of blue spells was only in XI and not something that can be claimed to be crucial to the blue mage identity. SE could select a set of spells available to blu depending on whatever role.\

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

The simple fact that you had to collect the spells in XI makes it side content. The difference between XI and XIV is that in XI you could also use it in content. I want you to go back to XI and tell me if you think the jobs are balanced and fair.

XI is a different beast that lacks job balance, group finders and the tight gameplay that requires jobs to be structured similarly.

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I'm going to disagree with you that learning the spells made blue mage side content and that would also mean that summoner was side content because let's not act like the spirits made up most of what the job could do on that game.

I have played XI as recently as June and my blue mage knows all the spells and is mastered.

Bringing up XI balance was not relevant to the point your originally made about blue mage having always been side content in every game.

Learn all the necessary skills for the rotation with job quests and to stop people from going into duty without them you can only queue for a certain level if you have done the job quest. (Should be done for every job imo) And as soon as you are inside this content you will get a fixed hot bar with all those skills on it. (Kinda like PVP and RP instances)

And for the skills themselves, just choose something that is flashy but not overpowered (even though most of its skills right now are bad anyway).

On top of that for those that want to collect more skills you will have that still as a side content and you can use all these skills on the over world and the carneval. They are learned through mostly solo content too but at least if you have a few that can only be learned with group content you now wont just be carried by others, you are a full team member.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

The simple fact that you had to collect the spells in XI makes it side content.

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Have you played XI? You had to go out and collect spells for basically every Job with spells... You had to go out and get Ninjutsu Scrolls for Ninja to learn Ninjutsu. You had to go get Scrolls for White and Black Magic. Bard had to go get music Scrolls, heck to a lesser degree something like Ranger or Corsair had to buy Ammo... A lot of the powerful "required" ones were even rare/expensive drops... So I guess Ninja, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage, Scholar, Bard, Summoner (basically had to do Trials vs the summon it wanted to learn) Paladin and Dark Knight (both used White and Black Magic respectively), on top of Blue Mage, were "side content"?

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

You can't. Any idea that has BLU retain its signiture idea would revive long dead (for good reason) problems with the game. The cross class system from ARR for example, required that players go out of their way to obtain skills from other jobs that were vital, leading to WARs and DRKs going into raids without provoke. Learning skills from monsters (BLUs core identity) would bring this problem back into the core battle system.

The solution would be to give BLU all its spells through levelling, which makes BLU nothing but a BLM with extra lore flavour. BLU doesn't have a gameplay identity, it is, and always has been a sidequest activity in whatever game it was in, and that has been accurately portrayed in this game.

The only issue in current BLU is accessibility and availability of content. BLU should be 80, BLU should be able to do dungeons, Potd, Eureka, everything. But it should never be allowed to do raids and ultimates

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Blus gameplay identity has consistently been a support mage with good damage, but not top tier, this applies to ff5,6,7,8 to an extent, 9, tactics and bravely default off of the top of my head.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Simple fact is that duty finder/party finder exists. If you go into content without a specific skill, you could cause a lot of toxicity. The Devs have spent years trying to iron these problems out of the game, I doubt they would go backwards.

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So what? You can literally require BLU to have every single skill, however situational or likely to actually be used, before they can sign up for matchmaking.

Even now we don't automatically get every skill on regular jobs -- many come from job quests. The forums have long argued that you shouldn't be able to take a basic class into duty finder past level 35, or that you should have some minimum ilvl and ability count even for leveling dungeons. How is this any different? You set the requirement and the issue is done and gone.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Simple fact is that duty finder/party finder exists. If you go into content without a specific skill, you could cause a lot of toxicity. The Devs have spent years trying to iron these problems out of the game, I doubt they would go backwards.

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You can do that with any job right now. There are enough stories in the mega thread that tell us about bad players without their skills or still being a class instead of a job. Yet somehow it still did not destroy the game..maybe because people would either learn the hard way if they dont take skills with them by being kicked or they are carried because most of the dungeons are not that hard.

Also dont forget that you do already only get certain skills for blue by doing a quest and by getting totems. Its not 100% fully monster only.

All that they need is a certain amount of fixed skills that can be used in instanced content and the rest is forbidden there. Now you have a balanced job that can still learn most of its other skills with monsters..you dont use your side content...(wonder how many truly are playing Blue regularly right now) and on top of that others can enjoy the job they wanted for years in the rest of the game.

A lot of people neglect to use several skills in their class/job's kit so they may as well not even have them in the first place.

I really don't like the double standard they're enforcing where BLU isn't allowed in duty finder because it *might* not have certain skills when it's perfectly okay for normal jobs to queue without finishing their quests for skills or while not even having their soul stone equipped.

You know, the problem is they went for a classic Final Fantasy V route with Blue Mage, when they could easily have adapted something like how Kimahri functioned as a Blue Mage to pigeonhole the Job into XIVs rigid role system. Just make Blue Magic something you learn on the fly, make Lancet a "Learn enemy skills" spell, so you use it on an enemy, and learn 2~3 skills from that enemy that you can then presumably spend the Jobs gauge on; Direct damage skills, AoE skill, utility skill perhaps. Doesn't even need to be a balance issue that way, you can literally have it so the learning aspect is purely cosmetic, learning Chocobo Kick from a Chocobo, or Goblin Punch from a Goblin? Same potency and effect. It's just the name and animation that changes.

That keeps to the spirit of Blue Mage, IMO, while making it a functional and simple enough to balance Job for regular gameplay. Could even keep the Blue Mage we have now as essentially a mini-game off the main Job, ultimately no different from say Bards Performance functionality. Just like Bard can't actually use Performance to customize its songs in combat (or even use Performance in instances), Blue Mage wouldn't be able to use Final Sting in regular content, at least not the version we currently have. It could learn it for the Spell Book almost exactly as it does now, and Masked Carnival could function exactly as it does now (same way PvP gives you a different hotbar, Masked Carnival could give Blue Mage a separate hotbar). Essentially we'd have the best of both worlds... People who want a functional Blue Mage get it, people who want a spell-collect-a-thon get that too. Everyone wins.

Would actually be really smart if, once Blue Mage reaches the level cap (I know they said it'll always be behind, but humor me) we unlock Blue Magus, which is a functional Blue Mage. Just another way they could work it. You'd need to fully level Blue Mage, presumably clear some of the quests with whats-his-face and thus have unlocked some spells to clear Masked Carnivals. That alone justifies the "How did we learn these spells?" portion for a real Blue Mage Job. And if you like the current Blue Mage and want to keep playing it for various content, maybe fill out some spells in the book you missed? Equip that Blue Mage Job crystal instead of the Blue Magus one. Bam. Both the Limited Job and "real" Job exist side by side.

The way I would imagine BLU becoming a normal job is quite simple.

1.) Take off limitations of queuing into content when you obtain certain essential spells determined by square enix.
2.) Keep it's role as a Caster DPS
3.) Nerf a handful of skills like doom, missile, and white wind to not work on bosses.

Done.

Oh and increase it's level cap to 80 and add skills overtime till 6.0

Add Guage for powering the big spells, and skill level progression. Yes you can do thousand needles, but it might feel more like thousand tiny pins.

Monsters's spells would be acquired during Job quests (go find such monster kill it, get your job crystal infused with its power and then the quest giver turns it into a spell you learn within a cutscene).
You'd learn only specific spells ~hopefully enough to make it fully playable.

Its gauge could be a cane that fills up.
Once filled you could use a mega spell that would be picked randomly (on a wheel) among few.
Depending on what spell you used to trigger it, it would be a mega heal or a mega dps spell.

Basic idea.

I wouldn't, blu is fine as limited, which is to say unlimited as it does not use a limit breaker. If SE had not installed a false limiter on it at lvl 45 bluemage would have been the most powerful lvl 50 job ever added alas in order to create the need for primals to be "challenging" SE severely limited the jobs more dps heavy spells added at 50. I would instead take the classes and at level 80 upon completing all 4 class quest series have players take on a series of quests from each class trainer to unlock a limited form of the class which more completely maintains the spirit of each unique class before jobs made them confusing at the same time completely replacing the original class to change into these jobs simply unequip your soul stone and go nuts. And in some cases add twists that completely change the very spirit and purpose of the classes. The point of this? Currently players are discouraged from continuing to play as classes by both community and Dev team, this in part is due to a very real gimping that occurs at level 30 once jobs become active and specialized skills come into play, this breaking of the classes I believe would breathe new life into them at the same time opening the door to new broken unbalanced harder difficulty content in PVP, raids, even dungeons that balanced jobs cannot participate in but limited jobs like bluemage would excell at. That said here are the broken classes...

Gladiator >>> Paladin(tank) "so gladiator left the arena and found religion?"
>>> Champion(dps) with bare minimum tank skills champion instead focuses on physical attacks with dual swords
Marauder >>> Warrior(tank) "ok savage pirate becomes a warrior not so far fetched"
>>> Freebooter(dps) Again less focus on tanking more on dps with a scattering of support
Cleric >>> Whitemage(healer) "ok shirking the admonishments against overhealing, and ressurection magic we hear spirits and become pseudo Padjal"
>>> Excorcist(dps) Less focus on healing magic instead using neutral, prismatic, and white magic to inflict damage, does not use raise.
Arcanist >>>Scholar/Smn(healer/dps) This duality kinda makes sense but kinda doesn't
>>>Medic(healer/dps) summons onyx and pearl carbuncles at the same time while focusing mana into damaging opponents
>>>Sorcerer(dps/tank) summons greater egi Leviathan, Ramuh, Shiva, Sephirot, Sophia, and Zurvan up to 3 at once.
Pugilist >>>Monk(dps) "we were scrappers then we found religion now we follow a man wearing a tiara"
>>>Boxer(tank) using blocks and taunts as well as his/her fists holds the front line against opponents
Lancer >>>Dragoon(dps) "it makes sense, what doesn't make sense is the role we take from guard to freelance mercenary"
>>>Judge(tank) forsaking the air, and the freedom of the skies wears heavy armor and wields his/her heavy poleaxe on the earth below bringing judgement
Rogue >>>Ninja(dps) "made absolutely no sense whatsoever but we wanted ninja..."
>>>Thief(dps) made sense and promised as early as 1.5
Archer >>>Bard(dps/support) "again absolutely no sense whatsoever enforcer of the forests to twittering battlesinger"
>>>Sniper(dps) Focuses on the skills neccessary to master archery with terrifying results
Thaumaturge>>>Blackmage(dps) "master of 2 and a half elements... just 2 and 1 half"
>>>Gravedigger(healer) uses lightning, earth and prismatic elements to bring comfort to the dead and living can use raise.

Then I would go further for the jobs that are just that jobs, yet could use some love as well... They are
Dark Knight >>> Dark Priest(healer) "a dark energy using healer!!!!!!?"
Astrologian >>> Time Mage(Magic dps)
Samurai >>> Ronin(tank) "Because the definition of samurai is a feudal lord under the authority of a liege lord, we are mercenaries"
Machinist >>> Corsair(rdps/healer) and very good at both >>>
Redmage >>> Fencer(Physical dps) focuses all the elements into his rapier to devestating affect
Dancer >>> Too New buff please
Gunbreaker >>> Too New Buff please

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

A lot of people neglect to use several skills in their class/job's kit so they may as well not even have them in the first place.

I really don't like the double standard they're enforcing where BLU isn't allowed in duty finder because it *might* not have certain skills when it's perfectly okay for normal jobs to queue without finishing their quests for skills or while not even having their soul stone equipped.

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Well part of the issue I feel is that few of the spells are needed for job quest progression. They'd need to put more checks in to keep people learning spells so that we don't have people going into high end duties with all of 3 spells that hit like a lasgun on a spacemarine terminator.

I'd look to SMN. It has a weird rotation, and levelling it up also levels up a healer (or, the other way around, depending on your perspective). The BLU base 'class' could have healer, tank, and DPS job variants, but the story would only be tied to the base/DPS variant. But it doesn't matter anyway: they're doubling down on all the reasons we don't play BLU currently, and I don't anticipate they will ever give as the BLU we want instead. I think they'd let the job die before they revoked its limited status.

This will probably get buried in this thread but I hope someone sees it.

Weapon: Wand (Gets ranged auto attack like brd)

Resource: Blue Magic Meter that fills up gradually as well as when you successfully use combos.

Combat: Let me start by saying Blue Mages will now have a template when choosing spells

-Blue Magic Template: You will choose from your long list of spells and put them into the template.
3 Basic single target spells used for a combo
3 Basic aoe target spells used for a combo
3 Big attacks (can be aoe or single target) that use Blue Magic from the meter
3 Special spells (this is what makes Blue Mage special): These 3 spells are free range. You can choose any 3 spells that dont fit into the other templates. That includes spells that gives the Blue Mage CC, Heals, Damage, Mitigation, and Debuff spells.

So you have the bare bones of the blue mage where you choose your play style then you have the 3 special spells to change around depending on what your party or raid needs. If you need a BLU to help with heals have them pick up a heal spell or 2, need a BLU to just do more damage then have the 3 slots go to damage spells. Want them to debuff the mob so the party does more damage? or does an aoe haste to buff the party? choose that.

Combat rotation: Combo spells until you have enough Blue Magic in your meter then unload some big damage spells.



Side note: they can add a few slots for CD ability/spells. All the spells for each category will be the same potency to make it so none are chosen over others. It will be based on what spells you like looking at. This layout would make the Blue Mage a jack of all trades and possibly a master of Damage if the right spells are chosen for the specialty slots.

Would redesign it as DPS Class like Redmage, just with more support options from its 28-32 Base Skills id give it and a more Spellblade oriented gameplay that Redmage originally has but is focused more on spells to copy BLM n WHM, than actually a true Spellblade as Combat Mage.
I'd change the Weapon from a Rod to a Dual Blade Staff, literally Zidanes Weapon Type from FF9 late game weapons, when he changes from Daggers to that.

Base Skills would be

- Enfire, Enwater, Enfrost, Enstone, Enwind, Enthunder - Elemental Blade Spells to change the effects of your Basic Attack Skills > Azure Slash, Azure Slicer and Azure Flash/Bomb

- Exfire, Exwater, Exfrost, Exstone, Exwind, Exthunder - Elemental Armor Spells, that change your Combat/Movement Behavior based on which element you use and chang effects of your self heal/defense skills.

That alone makes already 16 Skills for the Base Set with a very high versatility in combat based on how you combine the 6 elements for offense n defense.

Other Base Skills would be:

- Analyze > Weakens Target Defense for a while and increases the chance for you to deal critical hits
- Quadra > The next Base Skill is performed 4x in a row but costs all your MP, potency is increased for each skill performance by 100.
- Azure Blast > An AoE Burst with Ground Target to place.
- Ether Control > Regain back some MP for the cost of some of your Beast Spirit Bar, that you use to perform Beast Spirit Skills from slayed monsters, starts with 50.
- Ether Refresh > Self Heal/ Condition Cleanser based on how much Beast Spirit Progress you victimize. Charge Skill, Effect on Button Release.
- Spiritual Ritual > kind of like Brotherhood, ally actions grant you Spirit Energy, but instead of Attack, Defense is boosted by 5 percent for all types of damage.
- Spiritual Bond > A support skill towards allies, which changes temporarely Single Target Skills to AoE Skills and lets Magic Spells that are already AoEs instead cost lesser MP, for a very munimal cost of your Spirit Energy for each skill performance.
- Azure Sphere > A ranged AoE DoT Shot of condensed magic that explodes in a sphere, dealing DoT to everything standing in the sphere.
- Blade Stream - A gap closer LoS Attack.
- Ether Wall > Create a defensive Barrier Wall that reduces frontal damage by the amount of Health the created Wall has, when you stand behind. Allies can attack/shoot through it without problems.
- Eruption/Quake > An Earth AoE Spell, performable while under Enstone, without it's the weaker Eruption.
- Whirlwind/ Tornado > A Wind Spell, performable while under Enwind, without it's the weaker Whirlwind.
- Geysir/Aqualung > A Water Spell, performable while under Enwater, without its the weaker Geysir.
- Heatwave/ Inferno > A Fire Spell, performable while under Enfire, without its the weaker Heatwave.
- Deepfreeze/ Shockfrost > An Ice Spell, performable while under Enfrost, without its the weaker Deepfreeze.
- Lightning Ball/ Chain Lightning > A Lightning Spell, performable while under Enthunder, without its the weaker Lightning Ball
- Spirit Unleashing > Activate Beast Spirit of Choice and perform a Monsters Signature Skill, due to them not anymore spammable, they can be designed to be more impactful.

Thats together alreader 33 skills quickly, took me not alot of time to come up with them.

Blue Mage could have a normal job rotation without a problem.

We could design him around the idea he is an entertainer (kind of Magician ?) in Masked Carnival.
Why couldn't he plays the "games" theme ? We could associate him with a Gambler too, then.
I don't have the full kit in my head but I think he could have a mechanic where he turns a wheel and get 3 skills he has to use in the right order to benefit effects and maximize potency.
In fact, it would use games and randomness from Gambler to spawn Blue Mage skills to use efficiency together or in a special order, something like that.

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Originally Posted by rachcouture

Who says a job needs a rotation?

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This galaxy brained statement is making my frontal lobe ache.

To answer you, basic design. Every single class in the game has an opener (or set of openers, in some case), and a rotation to follow through with because human beings will always find the correct and most optimal means of playing their class in an MMO. Even spamming frost bolt in Vanilla WoW was considered a rotation.

I was thinking just about that... And had some really "ambitious" ideas. The aetherical mimicry spell would put you into a specific role, thus flagging you as either tank/dps/heal. When you do that, only specific spells to that role would be available. It would be a MAJOR commitment for them to tune a job like this though.

Maybe a meter would be good, but I really thought about the "resource system" being an elemental wheel, inspired on the Eureka one, that you rotate using your "filler" spells, and choose the stronger spells based on the opposite element of the wheel, or something like that. This would do well with the apparent lack of "theme" on the job's flavor, since it brings all sorts of different spells.

They have 80 skills. It's not hard to make 25 dps oriented, 25 Tank oriented, and 25 healing oriented with 5 for fun/flavor. 24/25 spells seems to be the sweetspot range SE wants each job to have (controller limitations yo)

At their simplest form:

Every dps job needs a basic 123 combo attack, 2 aoes, and some buffing / utility

Example of 123 combo: Dropsy > Northerlies (Freeze debuff on mob even if not frozen) > Dragon's Voice (remove freeze)

Every tank job needs basic emnity combo, 2 aoes, a ranged attack, and some defensive utility

Heals need 1 dot, 1 basic attack, an aoe damage, 1 basic heal, 1 big heal, 2 aoe heals, and a bit of mitigation.

I mean, it's not THAT hard to imagine how BLU could function as all 3 roles.

My desire is to see BLU as a job sitting shoulder to shoulder with other DPS jobs. So, no equipping spells, no shifting between roles - no fancy pants, pie-in-the-sky anything. I don't want to buck the system, or make something new or "special" that the game doesn't already have. I want BLU to be just another in a long list of DPS jobs available, but the crucial difference being that I don't WANT to play DRG, or MNK, or BRD - I want to play BLUE MAGE!

So, what would BLU have?
- The now-standard two-step aoe combo. Aqua Breath -> High Voltage would work great for this. The synergy of debuffs enhancing the effects of other spells was one of the few cool things they did with the BLU that they gave us, and a DoT like Dropsy is one that I could see actually sticking around if BLU went mainstream (see MCH's Bioblaster).
- The standard, single-target combos could play off this concept, as well; perhaps a two- or three-step combo to inflict a buff which enables the comboing of a second, dps-focused combo until the debuff wears. The actual specific Blue Magic spells used in these combos are more-or-less irrelevant, but should be flashy and preferably include some classic BLU spells like Goblin Punch.
- The entire roster of Blue Magic would consist of no more than twenty blue magic spells, all of which would be available at all times, and not need to be "equipped" to use.
- BLU's kit would include a few job abilities to enhance them (for example, something like "Azure Lore: 10 sec duration, all Blue Magic spells are instant-cast and recast is reduced by 20%" or "True Blue: The next Blue Magic spell cast will deal critical damage")
- "Chance to learn" can die in a fire. All spells would be learned with 100% guarantee, so long as you are on the mob's enmity list when it uses the ability and still alive when the mob dies.
- Flying Sardine is here to stay. It is the best thing to happen to Blue Mage in the history of Blue Mage. Fite me.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

They have 80 skills. It's not hard to make 25 dps oriented, 25 Tank oriented, and 25 healing oriented with 5 for fun/flavor. 24/25 spells seems to be the sweetspot range SE wants each job to have (controller limitations yo)

At their simplest form:

Every dps job needs a basic 123 combo attack, 2 aoes, and some buffing / utility

Example of 123 combo: Dropsy > Northerlies (Freeze debuff on mob even if not frozen) > Dragon's Voice (remove freeze)

Every tank job needs basic emnity combo, 2 aoes, a ranged attack, and some defensive utility

Heals need 1 dot, 1 basic attack, an aoe damage, 1 basic heal, 1 big heal, 2 aoe heals, and a bit of mitigation.

I mean, it's not THAT hard to imagine how BLU could function as all 3 roles.

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They don't have enough cooldowns to tank, as for healer they would probably need some emergency ogcd spells.

As of this update, their DPS rotation is actually pretty structured and nice and i wouldnt mind them making full job out of that, needs more for tank and healer though

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

As of this update, their DPS rotation is actually pretty structured and nice and i wouldnt mind them making full job out of that, needs more for tank and healer though

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With the Aetherial Mimicry and the spells that get buffed if the buff is tank/healer, I do think they're already on a good road for that. Here's hoping they do more spells like these for the next BLU level update.

If BLU was to be a reg job, it would have to work like a reg job. Instead of open world farming you would have a quest and go get X skill from quest and be done and the kit would be pre-planned. While people would like both ways (classic blu and playable) and would be great if they could.



I think the player base needs to decide. Do they want a classic BLU limited job, or do they want homogenized BLU playable job. Does anyone truly see another option with the current SE mindset?

You should just get the ability to buy a different Job crystal which is used for being a balanced job.

Lore could be it could be a member of Martyns Blue Guild Selling BLU crystals on the black market which are pre-filledwith spells hes learned, which in essence is just what regular job crystals are, so theres a set level for all the skills are at on that crystal balanced around raids, then have it if you have some skills on limited blu you can skin them over the functionally identical skills on the full blu

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Originally Posted by Kaiserdrache

Would redesign it as DPS Class like Redmage, just with more support options from its 28-32 Base Skills id give it and a more Spellblade oriented gameplay that Redmage originally has but is focused more on spells to copy BLM n WHM, than actually a true Spellblade as Combat Mage.
I'd change the Weapon from a Rod to a Dual Blade Staff, literally Zidanes Weapon Type from FF9 late game weapons, when he changes from Daggers to that.

Base Skills would be

- Enfire, Enwater, Enfrost, Enstone, Enwind, Enthunder - Elemental Blade Spells to change the effects of your Basic Attack Skills > Azure Slash, Azure Slicer and Azure Flash/Bomb

- Exfire, Exwater, Exfrost, Exstone, Exwind, Exthunder - Elemental Armor Spells, that change your Combat/Movement Behavior based on which element you use and chang effects of your self heal/defense skills.

That alone makes already 16 Skills for the Base Set with a very high versatility in combat based on how you combine the 6 elements for offense n defense.

Other Base Skills would be:

- Analyze > Weakens Target Defense for a while and increases the chance for you to deal critical hits
- Quadra > The next Base Skill is performed 4x in a row but costs all your MP, potency is increased for each skill performance by 100.
- Azure Blast > An AoE Burst with Ground Target to place.
- Ether Control > Regain back some MP for the cost of some of your Beast Spirit Bar, that you use to perform Beast Spirit Skills from slayed monsters, starts with 50.
- Ether Refresh > Self Heal/ Condition Cleanser based on how much Beast Spirit Progress you victimize. Charge Skill, Effect on Button Release.
- Spiritual Ritual > kind of like Brotherhood, ally actions grant you Spirit Energy, but instead of Attack, Defense is boosted by 5 percent for all types of damage.
- Spiritual Bond > A support skill towards allies, which changes temporarely Single Target Skills to AoE Skills and lets Magic Spells that are already AoEs instead cost lesser MP, for a very munimal cost of your Spirit Energy for each skill performance.
- Azure Sphere > A ranged AoE DoT Shot of condensed magic that explodes in a sphere, dealing DoT to everything standing in the sphere.
- Blade Stream - A gap closer LoS Attack.
- Ether Wall > Create a defensive Barrier Wall that reduces frontal damage by the amount of Health the created Wall has, when you stand behind. Allies can attack/shoot through it without problems.
- Eruption/Quake > An Earth AoE Spell, performable while under Enstone, without it's the weaker Eruption.
- Whirlwind/ Tornado > A Wind Spell, performable while under Enwind, without it's the weaker Whirlwind.
- Geysir/Aqualung > A Water Spell, performable while under Enwater, without its the weaker Geysir.
- Heatwave/ Inferno > A Fire Spell, performable while under Enfire, without its the weaker Heatwave.
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All i can say, is wow!! I like your ideas!!