[REQUEST] Give Limited Jobs Evolved Forms!

Reborn blue mage is the limited job while Evolved is an official, static hotbar balanced around standard content. I like this, and it's something I've said blue mage should get for years. It's been a disservice to players who love the blue mage fantasy to not be allowed to actually engage with it outside of the extremely limited selection of content blue mage can access and it gives everyone what they want. People who like the blue mage challenge log keep the ongoing opportunity to challenge old content with the existing spellbook while players who want to take blue mage into the MSQ and use it for roulettes, raids, and other content can have a job for them as well. There's no downside here.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

A long time ago (like, before the SHB additions to BLU) I was able to make a spreadsheet of actions that would function effectively as 'character action skins' of one another. In total, I had it down to 25 'spell categories', unfortunately a little higher than the Evolved mode's target of 16.

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This is a lovely writeup! There is definitely a toooon of overlap in spells (something which can get to be disappointing with the limited version). Hopefully if the devs consider this suggestion, they see this! With the action glamour system they'd already have so much headway on blue mage haha.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

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If someone doesnt want to switch jobs that is a personal issue. It sounds to me like those people already dont want to play blue mage or beast master if they are unwilling to switch, so the content must not be that enticing for them.

That said, I'm all for other jobs getting side content as well, but it deserves its own thread rather than being hidden in the topic of another one. Perhaps you can link it here after you make it, its a related topic and I'd throw a like ^^

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

It's also why I never understood this obsession with wanting a standard BLU because it would play identical to every other caster right down to a homogenized kit and rotation.

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To me at least, I been feeling for years at this point that blue mage kind of needed a graduation moment.

And there is actually kind of a reason for such a moment in-world for it to happen. That after evaulation by a shaman* from the whalaqee people after undergoing a trial, usually the student is another member from that culture but not always, the shaman deems if the blue mage student has successfully passed or not. On passing the student becomes a fully fledged blue mage.

So after the level 80 quest, one more quest, have a member from the whalaqee people talk to the player, this person explains they been watching your progress and that you as the player have gone above and beyond what most students have gone through and so they would like to impart upon you knowledge of how to fully unlock your potential (aka evolved) along with a secondary quest reward that is a cane that actually has primary and secondary stats and still has two materia slots.

* = The term shaman is used in the japanese text of the game and is more used to refer to an instructor/teacher/evaluator of students as it does in english for example.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

People who like the blue mage challenge log keep the ongoing opportunity to challenge old content with the existing spellbook while players who want to take blue mage into the MSQ and use it for roulettes, raids, and other content can have a job for them as well. There's no downside here.

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That's assuming Square-Enix bothers to maintain the limited part of it once they give it a standard kit. Keep in mind they ALREADY DID THIS when they cancelled the BLU update this expansion, or how people already assume that reborn jobs will eventually be patched out and jobs become evolved only.

Personally, losing what made BLU unique and actually feel like its job from other games in the franchise just so it can become another bog-standard job doing dull content isn't a good trade-off to me.
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Originally Posted by Tabbs

It sounds to me like those people already dont want to play blue mage or beast master if they are unwilling to switch, so the content must not be that enticing for them.

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I could say the same for those who keep wanting to turn BLU into Gray Mage #5. If they don't like its limited form, they have other options to choose from to do their roulettes and raids as a caster, and they don't sound like they actually enjoy what makes BLU and BST unique if they want to lock it down to a handful of PF-compliant skills.

I don't want Square-Enix getting the bright idea that they can butcher and homogenize BLU for half the time and effort and still get praised for it while limited BLU gets retired along with reborn jobs. I don't want to lose the BLU I know in return for something that was a husk of its former self because their budget won't allow both, doubly so when that same budget screwed it over once already in the expansion where it SHOULD have had a presence because it took place in the damn continent the job originates from.

Even if you and others aren't asking for limited BLU to be done away with or ruined, it's still a valid concern based on how SE has acted so far.

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Originally Posted by Tabbs

With all due respect, this is all addressed in the original post. They would not need to throw away everything done to blue mage NOR would they need to stop updating the limited element of it. Adding an evolved form would just be an alternate form of progression and playstyle! Spell collection would still exist in the reborn form and updates would still mean people get to have fun going back to play blue mage the original way.

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then whats the point in collecting spells when i can just get a curated amount and play whatever i want? there is no fun in collecting spells and leveling anyways. Adding a limited job was a mistake to begin with, but in this case might as well un-limit it and rework into another two casters

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

That's assuming Square-Enix bothers to maintain the limited part of it once they give it a standard kit. Keep in mind they ALREADY DID THIS when they cancelled the BLU update this expansion, or how people already assume that reborn jobs will eventually be patched out and jobs become evolved only.

Personally, losing what made BLU unique and actually feel like its job from other games in the franchise just so it can become another bog-standard job doing dull content isn't a good trade-off to me.
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I could say the same for those who keep wanting to turn BLU into Gray Mage #5. If they don't like its limited form, they have other options to choose from to do their roulettes and raids as a caster, and they don't sound like they actually enjoy what makes BLU and BST unique if they want to lock it down to a handful of PF-compliant skills.

I don't want Square-Enix getting the bright idea that they can butcher and homogenize BLU for half the time and effort and still get praised for it while limited BLU gets retired along with reborn jobs. I don't want to lose the BLU I know in return for something that was a husk of its former self because their budget won't allow both, doubly so when that same budget screwed it over once already in the expansion where it SHOULD have had a presence because it took place in the damn continent the job originates from.

Even if you and others aren't asking for limited BLU to be done away with or ruined, it's still a valid concern based on how SE has acted so far.

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Limited Blue Mage can be the most exciting and engaging job in the entire game, but it doesn’t really matter because I can’t do anything as blue mage. Giving it a stable kit to engage with all content shouldn’t have to mean making it a generic reskin of other casters. PVE job kits should be more unique and fun, and Blue Mage could very easily have one, and I think that’s what should be asked of it.

That would be almost impossible considering that blue mage changes spells frequently and depends on the content itself. Also most of blue mage spells are instant cast so I don't know what you want more from it...

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I could say the same for those who keep wanting to turn BLU into Gray Mage #5. If they don't like its limited form, they have other options to choose from to do their roulettes and raids as a caster, and they don't sound like they actually enjoy what makes BLU and BST unique if they want to lock it down to a handful of PF-compliant skills.

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Blue Mage currently not participate in:

• Duty Roulette for PvE (Trials, Any Dungeons, Normal Raids, Alliance Raids, Mentor)
• PvP (Frontlines, Rival Wings, and Crystalline Conflict)
• Field Operations (Eureka, Bozja, and Occult Crescent)
• Deep Dungeons (Palace, Heaven, Orthos, Pilgrim)
• Main Story Quests (First-time completion and NG+)

What Blue Mage can do and is known for:

• Blue Parties (Dungeons, Trials, Normal Raids of varying difficulties)
• Treasure Dungeons (Soloable)
• Soloing a good number of Dungeons/Trials/Normal Raids
• Fates
• Masked Carnival

Oh and let me not forget to mention the umbrella incident with blue mage where the new weapon for the job couldn't even be obtained from Another Aloalo criterion dungeon. And since beastmaster ate all of blue mage's resources for Dawntrail, we can't even do the criterion dungeons this expansion when we normally would have if it weren't for Beastmaster.

And I am going to be real, its not wanting it to be butchered, its wanting an alternate version of blue mage to engage with the rest of the content. After all, blue mage came out on January 15th 2019. By the time we get evercold that is going to be Eight Full Years. That this is the request to expand its availbaility of content has been a thing since it was originally ARR-only. And now, in 7.56, we are going back to ARR with another limited job with what little content that it will be able to do with other players or solo.

Like no really, think about it. When that new tank and physical ranged come out in 8.0? They are both going to have a larger amount of content they can do because they are not limited.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I could say the same for those who keep wanting to turn BLU into Gray Mage #5. If they don't like its limited form, they have other options to choose from to do their roulettes and raids as a caster, and they don't sound like they actually enjoy what makes BLU and BST unique if they want to lock it down to a handful of PF-compliant skills.

I don't want Square-Enix getting the bright idea that they can butcher and homogenize BLU for half the time and effort and still get praised for it while limited BLU gets retired along with reborn jobs. I don't want to lose the BLU I know in return for something that was a husk of its former self because their budget won't allow both, doubly so when that same budget screwed it over once already in the expansion where it SHOULD have had a presence because it took place in the damn continent the job originates from.

Even if you and others aren't asking for limited BLU to be done away with or ruined, it's still a valid concern based on how SE has acted so far.

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Another thing that just came to mind, is that Evolved DRG showed the big LB Jump, and it had 90% damage mitigation attached. Diamondback, the reason that BLU can 'cheese' mechanics in BLU-Raiding, is 90% mitigation. So in theory, Evolved would allow every Job to have 'OP' potential to one extent or another, without having to sacrifice that potential in service of 'Balance' quite as much. IE, maybe NIN can have Utsusemi back instead of Shade Shift, and dodge one Physical attack entirely with it? In which case, maybe BLU could end up being the 'support heavy' paradigm of the Caster role, with actions that help allies such as using White Wind in combination with Healers to assist with a Heal Check, a Magick Barrier-esque mitigation effect via something like Mighty Guard, being able to tap into that same 90% damage mitigation that DRG will now have access to via Diamondback (opening up new potential strategies like 'take this Stack Marker solo'), or even 'being the only Caster with an Interrupt' via Flying Sardine.

A rework to Offguard/Libra (which would be skins of each other presumably) to make them give a flat potency increase rather than a % increase, would let an Evolved BLU have a different, more support-y damage profile, while also removing the 2min meta. For example, if Libra were reworked to an effect like 'increases potency of the next 5 attacks from each ally in your party by 150p' (example numbers), it wouldn't matter if your SAM ally uses Enpi or Midare or uncombo'd-Gekko, as they'd all be boosted by the same flat 150p, and that 150p would be based on the BLU's stats and gear, not the ally

And of course, BLU already has a TON of 'character action skins' to pull from, and could learn more via, well, Learning, the thing BLU is known for

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Originally Posted by Tabbs

This is a lovely writeup! There is definitely a toooon of overlap in spells (something which can get to be disappointing with the limited version). Hopefully if the devs consider this suggestion, they see this! With the action glamour system they'd already have so much headway on blue mage haha.

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Thank, it's quite insane to see that like, half of the BLU spellbook fits into one of the five 'attack spell' categories. Cone, Line, ST, Circle and Circle-but-around-you make up way too much of the list IMO. I was asking for 'character action skins' for BLU way back then (as a solution to keep BLU's 'learn spells' gameplay, but give a way to allow it into current content), and I guess I got it for everyone but BLU somehow

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Limited Blue Mage can be the most exciting and engaging job in the entire game, but it doesn’t really matter because I can’t don’t anything as blue mage. Giving it a stable kit to engage with all content shouldn’t have to mean making it a generic reskin of other casters. PVE job kits should be more unique and fun, and Blue Mage could very easily have one, and I think that’s what should be asked of it.

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The fact that it and BST can't go into something like Eureka, a zone that seems like it'd be the perfect place for them to roam around and find an incredibly diverse selection of monsters to learn from/capture, is the greatest tragedy of the Limited Job system. It's content where you already are OP, it's not like BLU having Death spells is going to matter in Eureka, for example, because ANYone can have Death spells via Logos actions, so I don't get why they're locked out

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Originally Posted by MayuAmakura

That would be almost impossible considering that blue mage changes spells frequently and depends on the content itself. Also most of blue mage spells are instant cast so I don't know what you want more from it...

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A lot of those changes are entirely because of Carnivale's specific solutions for each puzzle. You swap from Choco Meteor to Electrogenesis, not because Electrogenesis is stronger (it's not, it's weaker), but because you need the Lightning element trait of that specific spell. You don't choose between Flamethrower, or The Look, or Kaltstrahl, or Ink Jet for any reason other than 'the Carnivale puzzle demands this specific one, for this specific solution' (Ink Jet's blind, Flame's Fire element). So, Evolved having just 'Cone AOE attack' as a hotbar slot, and choosing which 'skin' you want to use for it (and the same with all the Line AOEs, or Circle AOEs, or ST attack spells like Water Cannon), will have zero gameplay impact. And Reborn would be the current BLU, with all its scuff and quirkiness, still able to do All-BLU challenge raids for the Log/Morbol, still able to do Carnivale

In fact, if Evolved were allowed in more content (IE Eureka, Bozja, Deep Dungeons), those would become an alternate source of 'locations to learn current spells from' for Reborn's kit. IE, instead of needing to do Sastasha Hard to lern Tail Screw, you could also find that kind of enemy in one of the Eureka zones, or in one of the Deep Dungeons, and learn it from there instead (I know you can find that mob in The Peaks, it's an example)

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Giving it a stable kit to engage with all content shouldn’t have to mean making it a generic reskin of other casters. PVE job kits should be more unique and fun, and Blue Mage could very easily have one, and I think that’s what should be asked of it.

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okay would be a healer?
would be a tank?
would be a dps?
how will it be chosen?
why 66% of the blu enjoyers have to be invalidated bc it was decided on role X not Y or Z?