BLU for Duty Finder and Raids! Show your support!

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Originally Posted by Burningskull

Wow... why are like the first 10 spells I read say they come from dungeons that I would have to use a premade party to get... I thought this was a solo job....

I just counted. 25 of 49 abilities come from dungeons or trials... good luck in PF all you BLUs out there.

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Not only that but a few of them are also from extreme trials. So either the other skills are that awesome that you can do this with maybe 2-3 blue mages or you will need 8 of them or even lvl 70 players to get the skills. Some at reddit even pointed out that you would need to wait for it to be cast thus if you do this with lvl 70 players you will have to be really careful not to skip it.

Some of those skills seems also to be behind achievements. Strange way of learning them all from monsters SE...so I really fail to understand how this would have stopped them from putting some skills behind a instance rotation..

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Nothing in there says "never", unless you count the same "never" people assumed when asked if we'd ever have a Blue Mage or if they would ever release a job mid-expansion. At best, it says that it will be difficult to raise the level cap 30 levels higher during the course of 5.x.

But if BLU has its level cap raised by 20 levels while others gains 10 levels, it can be on par with everything in early 6.x.

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They also said that it would not be balanced in group content so why should they even give it max level? This would just mean that they need to make sure that people cant go into current raids with premades thus extra time to programm things.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

This would just mean that they need to make sure that people cant go into current raids with premades thus extra time to programm things.

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I don't think it would be that difficult to simply exclude BLU from Raid Finder. Once the difficult content goes to Duty Finder, the competitive aspect is far less relevant, so balance is not that much of an issue.

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Originally Posted by Liale

The problem with what you just said is that you are completely ignoring where they straight up said it would never hit full lvl cap at the same time as anything else. You are saying lets wait and hope that they don't do what they already said they are going to do as if they never said they were going to do it. If that comes off as convoluted it's because i'm having to dance around the convolution that is your logic. They have stated that it is not and never will be an actual job. It is a minigame hiding under the title of job. So go ahead and wait to see how a minigame designed by the se devs turns out. Diadem, Verminion, Triple Triad, The Gold Saucer, and for most Chocobo Racing, all dead failures.

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Cept they never said that. you need to read again and not put words in the dev's mouths

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Originally Posted by SamsaraLotusx

So all in all SE is fucked up. It as much solo as eureka. So if you dony rush doing blur day 1 you are fucked. I like how they force " side content ".
What more all the op skills will not work on bosses at all as they got no lvl. Why its limited job?
Blue be a dps as hp/def go, so soloing dungeons befor you like over lvled them by 30 lvls will not be a thing.
How will bleu do 40+ dungeons/fates in a blue party/solo.

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You have literally no idea what will and won't work on bosses beyond we know that level 5 death will work on dungeon midbosses and not the endbosses. You can reasonably extrapolate that this will also probably apply to the 4 or so low chance kill spells, but there's no way to know until we get in game. Also, I doubt very much that you will need to do the extreme trials, considering one of the very first things they showed in the blu reveal, and then confirmed later in an interview, is fighting shiva in a solo instance. But even if you do, people do the arr ex primals all the time for wt and mount farming so this isn't exactly going to be dead content once the blu rush is over.

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Originally Posted by Shirosama

Cept they never said that. you need to read again and not put words in the dev's mouths

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They did say it, during the fanfest live letter, I don't have to put words in their mouths when they already did it themselves.

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Originally Posted by Liale

They did say it, during the fanfest live letter, I don't have to put words in their mouths when they already did it themselves.

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Well, as long as you can't provide any official source, it's only your words.

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Originally Posted by Liale

They did say it, during the fanfest live letter, I don't have to put words in their mouths when they already did it themselves.

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Gonna need some of that sauce, please.

Moving on.... I was a little surprised on the job symbol for BLU being some type of glasses or visor, I was picturing something different like a spellbook or a pimp cane.

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Originally Posted by Cidel

I fail to see how making the dungeons above level 50 unavailable/grayed-out to players currently on BLU wouldn't sidestep this. Is the spaghetti-coding that bad? For me that's like saying "You're not level 50 on this new job you're leveling yet, so since you can't queue-up for Snowcloak you can't queue up for any dungeons from ARR at all until you hit level 50 on it first."

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Not even any need to code anything to be honest. You can't queue for a squad dungeon you're not high enough level for anyway.

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Originally Posted by Liale

They did say it, during the fanfest live letter, I don't have to put words in their mouths when they already did it themselves.

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Again except they didn't say anything like that. other people have even linked the exact quote. at this point you're making yourself look foolish by saying they said something when they didn't.

to quote what Reynhart posted:

It might be difficult to expect the level cap to reach level 80 during 5.0.

"Game watch: Will BLUs catch up to level 80 during 5.x?
Yoshida: If we keep raising the level cap with that pace, us developers and players will all faint (bitter smile)."

Nothing in what Yoshi-P said eludes to anything you've posted thus far. so unless you have actual statements from the devs to back your claims you're talking nonsense.

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Originally Posted by Shirosama

"Game watch: Will BLUs catch up to level 80 during 5.x?
Yoshida: If we keep raising the level cap with that pace, us developers and players will all faint (bitter smile)."

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*shrugs* I don't know seems pretty clear to me Yoshida is saying it's not going to happen. He's giving an interview here and that comes across as a polite way of saying "Are you crazy? We cannot support or sustain that pace of content release". It's a bit of PR banter but par for the course when you stick an employee down for an interview. He is not going to come right out and say "never" or "absolutely" instead the language will be couched to always leave a little "wiggle" room while delineating the most likely outcome. That outcome being, by and by, that Blue Mage will not reach level cap parity with every other class. Makes sense to me, too, as why should SE bother? The little Azure-Side-Mage project will never be allowed in any relevant content so why would they push to make it the same level as other real jobs?

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Originally Posted by Elerus

*shrugs* I don't know seems pretty clear to me Yoshida is saying it's not going to happen.

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He's saying it's likely not going to happen during 5.x, i.e, they likely wont give 30 new levels to BLU in Shadowbringers. Which, again, says nothing about increasing the cap by 20 levels during 5.x and another 20 during 6.x. They already said that, were BLU released for 4.4, 4.5 would have already given a level cap increase to 60. All and all, that's very different than "never reach the same cap as other jobs".

Especially since they have already said that they have more than twice the number of spells BLU will have at level 50, so it's not like they still have to design the skills for the jobs.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

He's saying it's likely not going to happen during 5.x, i.e, they likely wont give 30 new levels to BLU in Shadowbringers. Which, again, says nothing about increasing the cap by 20 levels during 5.x and another 20 during 6.x. They already said that, were BLU released for 4.4, 4.5 would have already given a level cap increase to 60. All and all, that's very different than "never reach the same cap as other jobs".

Especially since they have already said that they have more than twice the number of spells BLU will have at level 50, so it's not like they still have to design the skills for the jobs.

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I suppose it is possible, but I think it unlikely. Still, it's idle speculation on all our parts here so we'll just have to wait and see. I do not see the logic in having a limited job pushed to the same level cap as it would simply encourage people to minimize content by running PF groups with BLU if it is anywhere near as "OP" as it's supposed to be.

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Originally Posted by Elerus

I suppose it is possible, but I think it unlikely.

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It can, I just have issue with claims based on assumption.

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Originally Posted by Elerus

I do not see the logic in having a limited job pushed to the same level cap as it would simply encourage people to minimize content by running PF groups with BLU if it is anywhere near as "OP" as it's supposed to be.

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Personally, seeing that BLU is excluded from PotD, DF (We already knew those two), MSQ and Squadron, I wonder why it was not released with the same cap...after all, if you don't want to kill balance where balance matters, simply deny it the Raid Finder. People don't really care about optimization in dungeons and normal trials anyway.

On a sidenote, I think focusing more on the PF is a good thing. It will probably make people talking a little more if they have to meet before the duties. That's why I think it could be interesting to have some "limited features" available only for premade groups. My biggest hope being talent trees.

Keep in mind that, by the time 6.0 rolls around, there's a high probably that we'll have another limited job on the table, assuming SE doesn't stray from their set course. That will take development time away from Blue Mage. This my prediction for future planned content:

4.5: Blue Mage is released
5.1: Blue Mage is increased to level 60
5.3: Blue Mage is increased to level 70
5.5: New Limited Job is released

Now try to imagine going from there, accommodating both limited jobs, and possibly even a third by the time 6.5 rolls around. It's unlikely that Blue Mage will be increased by 20 levels during the duration of 6.0. I won't say that it can't happen, but I would consider it wishful thinking.

Next limited job: Dancer, but instead of being playable in battle, it can only be played while in Gold Saucer as a rhythm mini game GATE

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Originally Posted by redcurrant18

Next limited job: Dancer, but instead of being playable in battle, it can only be played while in Gold Saucer as a rhythm mini game GATE

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Please stop posting good ideas, this thread is only for pie in the sky blu fixes.

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Originally Posted by Blueyes

Keep in mind that, by the time 6.0 rolls around, there's a high probably that we'll have another limited job on the table, assuming SE doesn't stray from their set course.

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It's still early to predict what the set course will be, since BLU is the first limited job. You could very well say that we'll only have a mid-expansion job in 6.4/5, by looking at NIN and BLU.

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Originally Posted by Blueyes

Now try to imagine going from there, accommodating both limited jobs, and possibly even a third by the time 6.5 rolls around. It's unlikely that Blue Mage will be increased by 20 levels during the duration of 6.0. I won't say that it can't happen, but I would consider it wishful thinking.

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Well, BLU is a proof of concept. That could be part of the reason why it's implemented step by step. By the time the second limited job is released, they might have figured out what restrictions they need to put to keep proper balance and prevent drama (Basically, from my POV, "no matchmaking, no Raid Finder" is enough), without restricting the level cap.

And after all, having more and more jobs didn't prevent each expansion from giving 10 new levels to all of them, even though those jobs have to be balanced overall.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

From the few skills we've seen, some already seem to be kinda worthless, for example the fish slap ability has 10 potency, so that doesn't need balancing so if there are other abilities like that which are funny but bad then that narrows it down, theres also the potential of repeat skills, ie frost breath, aqua breath ect, which have the exact same function but hit different elemental weakness in the carnival, if we assume a few of these "Functionally idenetical but different looking" with the situational/ useless ones, a usable rotation of 24 could be reached out of 100 skills.

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So Quoting myself from earlier, but with the data mine out I was bang on the money for this. Whole bunch of the BLU skills seem to be 120-130 potency aoe's with different elemental damage types for in the carnival. Looking through them a usable rotation could easily be achieved with just 15 or so of these skills, let alone 24, balancing up to 100 would be easy if this trend continues.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

Looking through them a usable rotation could easily be achieved with just 15 or so of these skills, let alone 24, balancing up to 100 would be easy if this trend continues.

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Do we know the MP cost and the casting time of those spells ? Because they put a strange emphasis on "powerful spells cost more MP" so maybe you'd have to take that into account in your "rotation". Right now, no mage really cares about the MP cost to decide what sell to use because they roughly cost the same, or the MP difference is negligible compared to the potency/GCD.

With BLU, maybe you'd use the "Fish Slap" to keeping some DPS while waiting for Lucid Dream to be up. Or, more powerful spells can have much longer cast times, making them difficult to use in a situation where you have t dodge frequently. It would be an interesting setup to have some weaker spells be more mp efficient even if they have a weaker potency/second ratio.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Because they put a strange emphasis on "powerful spells cost more MP" so maybe you'd have to take that into account in your "rotation".

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I believe it was in the last Live Letter that they specifically addressed this. They said that because BLU spells cost so much, you'd have to devise a rotation in order to keep casting. I imagine that involves a stage where your dps tanks because you use skills that drain MP or are on a long cooldown while your MP builds again.
Which makes me laugh because that's literally BLM's playstyle. So with BLU being a limited job, we ended up getting exactly what all those doom-and-gloom sayers were saying, where it would be a BLM palette-swap.

Granted, we'll see for sure in a week, but given what was datamined and what they said in the LL, that's what it looks like to me right now

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Do we know the MP cost and the casting time of those spells ? Because they put a strange emphasis on "powerful spells cost more MP" so maybe you'd have to take that into account in your "rotation". Right now, no mage really cares about the MP cost to decide what sell to use because they roughly cost the same, or the MP difference is negligible compared to the potency/GCD.

With BLU, maybe you'd use the "Fish Slap" to keeping some DPS while waiting for Lucid Dream to be up. Or, more powerful spells can have much longer cast times, making them difficult to use in a situation where you have t dodge frequently. It would be an interesting setup to have some weaker spells be more mp efficient even if they have a weaker potency/second ratio.

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They have an MP drain skill with more potency than the fish, so It would probably be that, still doesnt take away from the fact many of these skills are functionally identical to each other. The general rotation i can think of is using off gaurd and bristle to buff Song of Torment, then just filler until its time to reapply Song

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

I believe it was in the last Live Letter that they specifically addressed this. They said that because BLU spells cost so much, you'd have to devise a rotation in order to keep casting.

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Which means that you likely won't have a "rinse and repeat ad nauseum" rotation like you have with other casters.

I wouldn't say this is really BLM playstyle considering only a couple GCD in Umbral is enough to refill all your MP bar. Strangely enough, it would be closer to PLD where you have a distinct phase of spending MPs and a distinct phase of refilling them, both tied to two 1-minute CDs...but it's still a very loose comparison.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

They have an MP drain skill with more potency than the fish, so It would probably be that, still doesnt take away from the fact many of these skills are functionally identical to each other.

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Sure, some skills are specifically designed with elemental weaknesses in mind. But, in past games, several damage spells were also technically identical outside of their element.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Which means that you likely won't have a "rinse and repeat ad nauseum" rotation like you have with other casters.

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You realise repeating is the definition of a rotation? Even in a priority system rotation, you would have to rotate through skills in an optimal way, aka repeating, If you've not seen the datamine already I highly suggest you look at it, because unless the mana costs and cast times are really whack, it does indeed look like a "Repeat ad Naseum" skillset.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

You realise repeating is the definition of a rotation? Even in a priority system rotation, you would have to rotate through skills in an optimal way, aka repeating

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Yes, but there's a big difference between predicting all your GCD and oGCD and deciding the 2-3 next GCD based on a random proc which can itself give another random proc, which makes, by definition the rotation not set in stone...

If you take PLD, for example. On a dummy, you'll always end with the exact same optimal rotation...with your FoF phase, you Requiescat phase, rinse and repeat. With BRD or MCH, depending on your different procs, the end result won't exactly be the same every time and it's not because you messed up your rotation.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Yes, but there's a big difference between predicting all your GCD and oGCD and deciding the 2-3 next GCD based on a random proc which can itself give another random proc, which makes, by definition the rotation not set in stone...

If you take PLD, for example. On a dummy, you'll always end with the exact same optimal rotation...with your FoF phase, you Requiescat phase, rinse and repeat. With BRD or MCH, depending on your different procs, the end result won't exactly be the same every time and it's not because you messed up your rotation.

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So, BLU doesn't have random proc's so thats thrown out right away unless you count doom or the petrify or tail screw, which we'll have to see how they work, but I'm not convinced they're worth the cast, especially doom. Machinists rotation is baiscally set in stone with the exception of the occasional slug or clean procs in the part of your rotation that does the least damage anyway. Bard has the aforementioned priority based rotation, where you are still cycling through a set rotation, just with added proc potential. By this token as well, red mage is on the same level as brd and mch.

Edit: A priority based rotation is still a rotation, as there will be optimal times and situations that you account for and do a set thing, also to quote a brd in my FC; "Of course it has a set rotation.
Very minor compared to others. But the songs are a rotation."

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

Edit: A priority based rotation is still a rotation, as there will be optimal times and situations that you account for and do a set thing, also to quote a brd in my FC; "Of course it has a set rotation.
Very minor compared to others. But the songs are a rotation."

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If there is nothing left to argue about BLU, just argue about the definition of rotation. LoL

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

Edit: A priority based rotation is still a rotation, as there will be optimal times and situations that you account for and do a set thing, also to quote a brd in my FC; "Of course it has a set rotation.
Very minor compared to others. But the songs are a rotation."

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Agreed, also I'm willing to bet there will be a rotation for the Masked Carnival. Blue Mage isn't even out yet and the dataminers have every single spell, what it does, and how to get it already figured out (there's even a full guide for it already on Reddit). We even have the full Blue Mage questline, story, and rewards.

But, realistically, I don't think there is a way for Square to get away from having a rotation. In a combat system like FFXIVs with a hard Global Cooldown on most abilities there is a limit to the amount of actions you can perform in a given moment - and that limit is usually really low (as in 1 with a oGCD sprinkled in occasionally). Even if you were to have a hypothetical class with a thousand totally random abilities with the above framework there would still be a rotation. It might be situational and slightly variable depending on the fight but given the above framework you must choose a single action per instance. In that regard it's no different from say tanking: do you use your agro combo or your damage combo? Does your party need you to pop a group utility spell or can you try and sneak in more damage? That's not Blue Mage's fault, and its' really not SE fault - it's simply the nature of combat in a game like this. The only way off the top of my head to circumvent it would be to totally redesign the combat system from a mechanical standpoint but now we're out in fantasy land and talking about redoing huge fundamental parts of the game.

That seems to be what some people actually want here though.

my thoughts on this is that SE currently locked the job because it is only partially ready. BLU takes a massive amount of time to convert the massive amount of monster data in the game to create learnable abilities for them all. By limiting it and then slowly advancing the job, they can take the time to do it right and not break something. My guess is Beastmaster will be the next limited job due to the same reason. they have to convert monster data and that just takes time to do. Once BLU is caught up, they can add it to be playable in all the other content. But who knows exactly how fast SE is planning to advance BLU. they only told us they will advance the level cap with each patch release. But does it get 10 levels each time or 5? at 10 levels, it would take 3 patch cycles to get caught up. Meaning at 5.2 it would be level 70.

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Originally Posted by Firesped

they only told us they will advance the level cap with each patch release. But does it get 10 levels each time or 5? at 10 levels, it would take 3 patch cycles to get caught up. Meaning at 5.2 it would be level 70.

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Judging from the last interview, they mentionned an intended first increase up to level 60, so I guess it will be 10 levels each time. However, I don't recall anything about "each patch release".

My guess would be level 60 at 5.1 and level 70 at 5.3...which could still open some very slightly chance of having lvl80 at 5.5, unless they indeed give us a new limited job during 5.5.

An entire expansion cycle before they reach the same level as the other jobs? Ugh...but it would mean that for the eventual 6.0 that it would be caught up by then.

I like the optimism but . . . I just cannot see BLU being allowed to participate in relevant content. Can you imagine the drama and rage if they accidentally forget to make a boss immune (or there's a bug or exploit) to such-and-such ability and it ends up trivializing a fight? Even if it's discovered relatively quickly the damage will have been done. No, it's a much safer and lazier solution for Square to just keep their level cap below the endgame.

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Originally Posted by Elerus

Even if it's discovered relatively quickly the damage will have been done. No, it's a much safer and lazier solution for Square to just keep their level cap below the endgame.

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BLU is already excluded from matchmaking, so, if you want to cheese a raid boss, you'd have to create a premade and wait for 7 to 23 other people to join you. The potential time you would game on that specific boss probably won't compensate the time you'll spend simply waiting to enter the instance. And frankly, I don't think people really care about dungeons bosses, especially when they run most dungeons for their roulette, so, no BLU allowed again.

As for "relevant" content from a competitive POV, like I said, you can simply exclude BLU from Raid Finder completely. So even if they forget to make a Savage boss or an EX Primal immune to something really important, you will brag that you managed to cheese it 6 months after it was released. Does it really matter at that time ?

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

BLU is already excluded from matchmaking, so, if you want to cheese a raid boss, you'd have to create a premade and wait for 7 to 23 other people to join you.

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Or . . . a static and/or Linkshells? I'll grant you it's been a while but when "unintended consequences" were discovered in WoW back in the day that's usually how one went about exploiting it. You got your guildmates and friends together and did it. For specific examples I'm thinking of the time Paragon exploited lockouts, for citation please see here:

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/3657282028

Hard to believe that was all the way back in 2011. Still it was not the first (and would not be the last) time. If you have a system like BLU that, according to SE, is designed to "break the mold" then the potential is always there. It's one of the reasons I've favored the solution of having a pre-set selection of spells for Blue Mage if it is allowed in Duty Finder or relevant content. Not only would it be easier to balance but Square can ensure this does not happen and do not have to worry each time they expand the Masked Carnival/solo side of the job. Hypothetical, but it seems the most elegant solution.

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Originally Posted by Elerus

Or . . . a static and/or Linkshells?

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A static ? For a normal raid or a trial ? It'll take more time to just consult everyone to decide a proper planning than running it at your own leisure with any other job, especially if you queue as a tank or healer. As for Linkshells or FC...Forcing a specific rendez vous with 23 people when every one of them could run it with strangers anytime they want, it won't be worth the time. Since BLU can't do the MSQ, everyone will have another level 80 ready to do content anyway.

And again, no content outside of Savage/Ultimate has any relevance so that you had to make sure no one could cheese it, and even then, the main relevance is not made by the game itself but by the playerbase (World first race, fflogs competition, etc...). So, no Raid Finder for BLU. Done.

Frankly, cheesing 6-month old content is as irrelevant as cheesing 3-year old content, which we know BLU will have access to.

I'm so split on BLU... On the one hand I don't want to support limited jobs... but I really want a new DPS to level...

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Originally Posted by Burningskull

I'm so split on BLU... On the one hand I don't want to support limited jobs... but I really want a new DPS to level...

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The real test for Blue Mage, and the thing I HOPE Square will look at (I have reservations) is engagement. Not how many initially pick up the job. This is because, and especially after, delaying it for a week there will be a lot of people who initially pick up the "new job" - it's new content when most have dipped their toes in everything new the patch has to offer. However, once people have hit 50 on the class and completed the Masked Carnival (which I imagine they'll do very quickly) how many will continue to play? A month from now? Two months? Three? It is the first class locked out of the endgame which everyone else can participate in. If it does not have its own staying power then that's a failure on the design front.

Very excited for BLU mage, not everything is end game or raids. I'm a very casual player and Blu mage is something very new, fresh, and very different from the other jobs.

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Originally Posted by Jkap_Goat

Very excited for BLU mage, not everything is end game or raids. I'm a very casual player and Blu mage is something very new, fresh, and very different from the other jobs.

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I don't care that much for endgame content or raids either, but Blue Mage should at least be allowed to participate in the main quest. If someone wants to main Blue Mage and do endgame content? The solution is to let them level another job if they want, not force them to use another job when they really want to go through the story as a Blue Mage.