I think it would be better still though. I mean SMN threads have died down a lot since Ahk Morn and Demi-Bahamut, I personally went from "...this doesn't touch upon the grand summoner image enough" to "yeh okay, that's good - I'd like more but we're going a good direction now! I'm not worried anymore". So if Blue Mage had a meh start but was improved over time I think people would prefer that than no hope at all. Basically, a summoner to complain about is better than no summoner at all - given that the devs have shown that with time they will adjust things to feedback/expansion growth.
Also in other news the blue mage book looks pretty cool:
https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/lds/...UqrEFCZC_s.jpg
Imo, and I'm not saying it's "just this simple", we see this book here - add a gold trim to some of the spells in the book and put a level notice somewhere on the screen for those gold trim abilities. When you use duty finder (not party finder) you can only use the gold trim abilities, which will be balanced / have a variant around current game content. Management between the bars and gear I've seen suggested through jobstone (flip the stone, or on/off) would help keep it simpler for players.
Then not let players join content when they don't have gold trim abilities for the rank of content they're attempting to join (don't need them all, only the gold trim ones that you could use in the content you want to participate in).
This would make Blue Mage quite special in that they get a side solo content, uber spells (outside of duty finder), and end game ability but I'd still prefer that over not ever seeing blue mage in current content. Just my imo...
Not saying I wont enjoy what SE plans, the book and circus look cool at least but I will always be sad you can't main blue mage if it stays that way.
