Would Blue Mage make a good tank?

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

BLU has a versatile enough history that it could be DPS, tank, or even healer. Folks are dreaming, though, if they think SE's going to bend over backwards to make it fill more than one role, or any role outside of the ironclad trinity. FFXIV is not an ambitious game, like FFXI was. It's not breaking any new ground in MMOs - and the few areas where it DID try to break new ground (classes evolving into jobs, multiple jobs from the base class, multiple weapon types used by a single job) are being quietly and deliberately left behind and swept under the rug.

Like it or not, FFXIV is going to color within the lines and not take any risks. They can't afford to, after the debacle that was the original release.

That doesn't mean that Blue Mage can't be an enjoyable job. There's plenty of room for it to be fun, even while remaining strictly married to one of the three roles. The only folks who think otherwise are those who just can't let go of some version of Blue Mage that they favor from another Final Fantasy.

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It's ambitious it's in own right. Much of what you mentioned is from the previous generations of MMOS. In games like Everquest and DAOC, you'd start off as a base class and then once you reached a certain level, you'd choose a more advanced class. Also, you would train a specific weapon type. My personal favorite was the reaver from DAOC, which started off as a guardian, and had the option to use both a sword or chains.

What happened, however, is that over the years, designers realized that despite having a lot of choices, people would gravitate towards the few builds that performed the best.

FFXIV's advances are more in the line of having the ability to be any job at any time (an evolution of FFXI) and being very strict with the story.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Blue mages have always had mostly damage skills, with just a few supporty/healing/buff abilities on the side. DPS just makes the most sense, you don't need to be a full-blown tank to take a few hits...

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The concept behind Blue Mage as a Tank is based on counters, though... They could easily have a skill (or more) that directly takes an enemy skill and throws it back at the enemy in real time, and work plenty of similar skills into the Job. Ninjutsu updates based on Mudra combination, we could feasibly have a skill that lets you "absorb" the next special attack, then updates to let you throw that back at the enemy. Rather than dodging Bad Breath, you could take it to the face and throw the animation back in the Malboros face.

If we're sticking to past titles though, turn Warrior and Dark Knight into DPS, because Paladin should be the only Tank, and that's based off a single skill (Cover), since Tanks really didn't exist outside that... We're going to be getting new Tanks either way, there is zero chance we're only getting DPS from here on out, so... Some "established DPS" Jobs are going to become Tanks, I'd rather see something different and unique, like a mage Tank (and Blue Mage beats out Red Mage here, because of the whole Blue Magic thing), than something like Samurai which would just be a rehash of current Tanks. Beastmaster as a pet based Tank is the only other Job I can pick off the top of my head that could work, but if the Rising event is anything to go off, Red Mage, Blue Mage and Samurai are on the table next... Red Mage would be best off as a Healer, since it can retain its White/Black Magic that way, and Samurai as a Tank just strikes me as a great sword wielding Warrior, while Blue Mage would be a less impressive Summoner...

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Because there's no reason for it to be tanky if they are going to learn skills from class quests, the only reason they would need to be tanky would be, as I stated, if they were going to learn a move from every fight they go to. Which...isn't going to happen, as I also said.

Blue mages have always had mostly damage skills, with just a few supporty/healing/buff abilities on the side. DPS just makes the most sense, you don't need to be a full-blown tank to take a few hits...

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Like I said, there could be a skill that changes based on the most recent attack you get hit by; like how the Ninjutsu command changes based on mudras used before it. Or there could be several skills that have different effects based on what you're getting hit by, and there were several interesting abilities that were posted on page 1 that would be amazing if BLU was a tank or a support class.

I can see Blue Mage as a DPS answer to Dark Knight, a melee/caster hybrid. Traditional Blue Magic spells could be learned from something akin to the Hunting Log for the ARR classes. Primarily damage spells, add a couple of self heals and utility, have a set amount of spells to be able to set at once so you aren't running around with 50 accessible spells at any given time.

idk, i thought that beastmaster could be a solid tank, the player supporting the survival & battle control of his beast.

As fun as blue mage going out and learning monster skills is in other games is, the way FFXIV works it would basically be an impossible system.
Far more likely would be getting some standard scimitar and magic skills from leveling and the job quests being a "go out and hunt this monster to learn a technique from it"

so that you end up with a set in stone set of skills to use that flow together and can be balanced against other classes.

Also the system is set up so each class is hardcoded into one particular role, for instance it doesn't matter how well a warrior can dps they will always be a tank and it doesn't matter that an arcanist has healing abilities, until they change to scholar they are a dps

It's kind of the same problem with red mage, the idea of a pseudo melee/tank/mage/healer hybrid just plain does not fit into the games structure

I could see blue mage as a dps or tank melee mage that has strong support based cooldowns so that you could fit in.
It would probably actually fit as a tank better, not hard to retool blue mage spells into a tank type toolkit really like fire breath, goblin punch, and mind blast could very easily work like overpower, brutal swing, and tomahawk and the signature blue mage spells like mighty guard and white wind actually fit a tank well

red mage on the other hand i would see filling a role more akin to bard and machinist.
Maybe having a supportive ranged mode that uses spells and has access to stuff like refresh and regain
and a more damage focused melee mode that is like magic infused sword attacks

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Originally Posted by Nihility

It's kind of the same problem with red mage, the idea of a pseudo melee/tank/mage/healer hybrid just plain does not fit into the games structure

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I don't think so much that the community is calling for a hybrid so much as an intelligence/ mind tank and/or melee dps. This would solve a lot of loot lock problems that are currently happening, where you main a whm and use all your tomes, raid lockouts for healer gear, so it's be great if you could utilize that gear also fro say, a redmage mind tank or a caste dps main using the same gear for their bluemage melee dps.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

That doesn't mean that Blue Mage can't be an enjoyable job. There's plenty of room for it to be fun, even while remaining strictly married to one of the three roles.

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They could easily follow the Strago path and make it an eclectic Caster DPS.

If Yoshi & Co. are daring enough to develop this job, they might want to take a very innovative route (i.e. something that may be hit or miss). One idea might involve not 1 but 3 Soul Crystals, 1 for each role. Each Job Quest could involve learning 3 spells from 3 different creatures (whether that involves force-spawned creatures, Hunt targets, or Dungeon bosses is anyone's guess).

I'd sooner take Blue Mage as a tank over Red Mage.

But Samurai is still an infinitely more fitting role for a tank class than either.