Blue Mage: My humble suggestions

Why am I making this?
I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan, and I love the concept of blue mage.
If you're a fan of blue mage, you likely already know why I'm here, or at least why now. We've all seen the 7.5 blue mage update get delayed to at least 8.0 because the devs prioritized beastmaster content.
However, I'd argue that the current state of blue mage in FFXIV is more concerning than its lack of update in 7.X.
(I had to shorten this post significantly due to the character limit. The initial post was thrice the size. Oopsie.)

My suggestions
(Keep in mind these are basically my opinion. You might not agree, and that's fine.)

Make mimicry change the actual role of the job (but also make it required for the job quest). The easiest way to implement it would be to have the spell change your blue mage job crystal to a "blue mage (role)" job crystal. That'd make it work a bit like summoner and scholar do right now. The role is very important because a lot of fights' mechanics rely on roles, which makes most mechanics for blue mage unpredictable.

Give limit break to blue mages. And you know what? Actually, make them learn limit break. If only there was already a fight within the game where they could learn such a spell...

Allow blue mages to do seat of sacrifice. Instead of hard-coding the tank LB3 requirement, allow blue mages to survive using diamondback. Or, keep it hard-coded, but use a different check for parties with only blue mages.

Implement a "blue finder". And by that, I mean, a duty finder specific to blue mages. I don't think it would take that much resources to implement, and it'd be a solid QoL. (I know that party finder is a thing, but I've been told that the Japanese players are duty finder enjoyers.)

Angel whisper should have a lower cooldown specifically when using healer mimicry.

Transform some of the spells into traits or abilities. For example, basic instinct should be a passive trait (that you should still learn, obviously) that should always be on. That'd be a nice QoL, and I reckon it wouldn't impact the balance of the job. Loom could be an ability with charges and a 30s cooldown. The initial cast of cold fog could be replaced by an ability. Mighty guard could be an ability.

Some of the spells should become part of the basic kit of blue mage when you learn them. This goes hand in hand with my previous suggestion. Some of the spells are just too important to be removed once you learn them, and they shouldn't be part of the 24 active actions you pick. For me, these spells should be: angel whisper, aetheric mimicry, basic instinct. I'd include the limit break if we ever learn it. Water cannon could also be added to the list for the sake of always having at least one damage spell. Anything else would feel perhaps too strong.

Thanks for reading all of that. You're welcome to share your opinion or your own ideas.

Oh sweet this isnt another make it a boring regular job post! Good qol requests blue brother.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

Oh sweet this isnt another make it a boring regular job post! Good qol requests blue brother.

It is my firm belief that blue mage, in its current implementation, could work as a regular class in some MMO settings. But I don't think it would work with FFXIV specifically, where every other job are basically plug and play with no strings attached if you see what I mean.
Even if you somehow enforced spell requirements, and made blue mage a regular job, well, nothing's stopping players from simply not equipping spells (or they could equip bad ones, be it on purpose or not).