Give BLU a chance! Bring to FFXIV!

Please consider Blue Mage for Final Fantasy XIV
http://oi61.tinypic.com/2i28y6e.jpg https://www.bg-wiki.com/images/b/b2/Blue_Mage.jpg

How they could play, Ideas?
Hybrid Class?
Main Stat INT?
Branch off Rogue? Requiring Grandmaster of Mage Achievement?
Extremely High Execution, for High Risk, Mid Reward.

Abilities like NIN, DRK, and BLM to activate spells/skills to gain access to Higher Tier spells, requiring MP and/or of 2-3 Different Combinations Mudras for a certain Skill/Spell. Make it more specific, and only 1 Combination for each skill/spell. Requiring High Execution than NIN, allow using Skills in between combinations of Signs. (Not requiring each spell to be on bar, Eases up on Crossbar/Hotbar)

Have Dark Arts-like ability to Increase Magic DMG,
another Dark Arts-Like ability to Increase Physical Dmg on spells/skills
for different effects in-exchange for MP. Burst Affinity/Chain Affinity?

Give them Melee/Magic Stances? like AST Healer/Barrier Stance?
Offer Magic Vulnerability Debuff and/or Physical Vulnerability Debuff depending on Stances?
Magic Stance requiring to stay still, like a Turrent like Wandering Minuet, BLM Leylines+Enochian to cast Magic spells.
Melee Stance allowed to move freely, to cast Physical Spells like NINs.

Melee Stance requiring to Build stacks like MNK/WAR?
Magic Stance requiring to Build stacks of Elements like BLM?

Offer MP Cost reduction Ability only in Magic Stance?
Offer TP reduction ability only in Melee Stance?

DoTs comparable to SMN(Multi DoTs, Frontal Cone Poison breaths?)
AoE/Magic Potency comparable but weaker than BLM, Strong Single Targets Spells.
Skills Comparable to NIN (Mudras, allow to use skills between Mudras)
Positional comparable to MNK (Flank, Rear, Front?).
Utility Comparable to MCH (AoE Location buffs).
MP recover and usage comparable to DRK (Blood Weapon, MP Micromanaging).

Weaknesses: Low Health, Low Defense.
Can't Tank (Maybe offer DMG reduction, AoE Stoneskin in combat in-exchange for High MP Cost?),
Can't Heal (Maybe offer AoE Stack-able Barrier/Heal?)
Highest Execution, Lots of Positional, Memorization for Spells, Tons of Micromanaging MP and TP.

Strengths: High Utility, High movement speed, Comparable DMG when in the right Stances depending on needs of the party.

SE can't seem to do hybrid's well at all.

They could easily keep the flavor of the job and opt for a ff14-style of new interpretation but it would be summoner all over again in player response. People would want 11's systems and a zillion skills.

You can edit your original post to go over the character limit :).

I would also love to see Blue Mage, I like skeptical power sources lol (hence I'd also like to see a FFXIV version of harmonixer).

Three things.

One: This was already addressed around a year ago for a live letter:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...809-11-2014%29

Long story short, they've shown interest in implementing it, but it'd be difficult considering its subtleties (how it would work, what role could it play, etc.).
So...never say never, I guess.

Two: The middle-eastern motif was only exclusive to FF11.
In other FF games, they looked more European-like, complete with domino masks and berets:

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...5-BlueMage.png

Three: They stated that adding an Hybrid role was out of the question, given how it would affect both, party composition and queue times.
Thus, if Blue Mage was ever implemented, it'd be more likely to be a DPS with options.

Now, with all that said, I would also LOVE for this job to be implemented someday.
Here's hoping we'll end up getting it further down the line, even if it's on the next expansion(s).

I've been begging to see Blue Mage playable since starting this game. I doubt we'll ever see it with how complex it would be to incorporate such a diverse job into the very clean cut role system of XIV, but... a man can dream. T_T

Just gonna throw in some concepts to help the discussion along:

Quote:

---

Blue Magic

Along with White and Black magic, a third school existed during a time now forgotten. Called Blue Magic, it was an amalgamation of primal forces. Derived from the energy and aether of beasts, practitioners of this lost art at one point could tap into these energies and manifest the fury of beasts in combat.

Two echelons of Blue Magic are known of. The first is the lower echelon, composed of abilities from lesser beasts; still formidable in their own right and relatively easy to put into use, but ineffective in the greater scheme of things. The second echelon is that of the higher beasts. While spells from this echelon place a great burden on the caster, the powers of the greatest beasts to roam the world are a sight to behold.

---

tl;dr - Blue magic is split into two types of abilities: lesser beast abilities and higher beast abilities.

--------------

Role-wise, caster DPS would be a good place for BLU.

As for learning abilities, an option would be still having spells automatically learned as you level, but not achieving full power until you absorb the essences of the monsters involved (sort of like their own version of a hunting log). For example, at lv15 you'd have the ability Sticky Tongue. When you learn it, it has a 15 second cooldown and higher MP cost, but if you kill 3 toads, you absorb their essence and thus unlock its full potential, turning it into a spell with a 2.5 second cooldown and a reasonable MP cost.

Higher beast skills would be learned via the job quests, and potentially share cooldowns (to keep in line with the higher skills straining the caster in some way).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Duelle

-

---

A better way to handle it would be to use your "Two echelons" separate standard skills learned every couple of levels and traits and use the logic that you learned the skill/trait while leveling up to the point you unlocked it. A Hunting Log might be a reasonable way to give it that flavor.
The "Higher echelon" you mention would be the Job Skills learned very 5 levels, with the quest being very much BLU traditional learning.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sylve

A better way to handle it would be to use your "Two echelons" separate standard skills learned every couple of levels and traits and use the logic that you learned the skill/trait while leveling up to the point you unlocked it. A Hunting Log might be a reasonable way to give it that flavor.
The "Higher echelon" you mention would be the Job Skills learned very 5 levels, with the quest being very much BLU traditional learning.

---

That was my intention. Spells learned from leveling would be lesser Blue Magic, while the quested spells would be high Blue Magic. Here's a concept I've been putting together. Mind you that it is very much a work in progress and I feel is a bit messy and incomplete.

Blue Mage

Concept: A caster that uses monster skills to deal damage.

Mechanics

a) Magic: Blue Mages have two different levels of spells. The first is known as "lesser" Blue Magic, which are abilities learned from common monsters. The second is "higher" Blue Magic, which are abilities learned from very powerful creatures (marlboros, dragons, behemoths and so on).

Lesser Blue Magic is stand-alone, and makes for the bulk of the normal abilities you learn while leveling. What makes lesser Blue Magic different is that some spells react to each other in such a way that one can make the next more powerful. In order to do this, the BLU must use them in the appropriate order determined by the correlation between monster families.

High Blue Magic is affected by Azure Lore and a resource called Lore. Units of Lore can only be generated while Azure Lore is active.

In addition to Blue Magic, BLUs have three innate skills. Magic Missile, Magic Arrow and Magic Hammer.

b) Learning spells: Spells are learned naturally, as with other mage jobs. The key difference is that BLU's spells start off weaker and with much longer cooldowns (15 seconds on all spells that would normally have a 2.5 second cooldown). To unlock the full power of the spell, the BLU must find and kill the creatures the spell is derived from.

The lore explanation for this is that a Blue Mage starts off with a conceptual version of the spell, derived entirely from observing monsters. By absorbing the aether from beasts upon death, the BLU learns the "natural" part of the spell; that is, the actual application of the spell by the relevant beast and the "feel" of the spell.

To simulate this, lesser blue magic requires you to kill three monsters connected to a spell to unlock its full potential. For example, you learn Neck Rip at lv18, but it deals 20 potency damage and has a 15 second cooldown. To unlock Neck Rip's full power, you'd need to find and kill three wolves (like the ones outside Moraby Drydocks).

This rule does not apply to quested monster magic, since it's high Blue Magic and the quests would ideally involve the monster you will learn the skill from.

Weapon: Jeweled Gauntlet (in before Infinity Gauntlet jokes)

Abilities

01 Magic Arrow - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100. Instant cast.
02 Draw Out - Tap into the target's life essence, making them more vulnerable to your direct attacks for 30 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
04 Power Attack (Bettle) - Deals blunt damage with a potency of 120.
06 Screwdriver (Pugil) - Deals water aspected damage with a potency of X.
08 Acid Mist (Ochu) - Release a toxic mist, poisoning targets in an area of effect. DoT potency: 30. 24 second duration.
10 Magic Missile - Deals damage with a potency of 100 to target and enemies nearby. If the target is affected by any damage over time effects from your Blue Magic, magic Missile will explode an additional time per DoT effect active dealing unaspected damage with a potency of 50 per explosion. 9 second cooldown.
12 Hammer Beak (Ziz) - Deals blunt damage with a potency of 100. Additional effect: Reduces Blunt resistance for 30 seconds.
15 Lancet - Channeled attack. Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 50. Restores MP over 9 seconds. Effect ends if you move or perform a different action.
18 Neck Rip (Wolf) - Delivers piercing damage with a potency of 180. Additional effect: Bleed for 18 seconds.
22 Dream Flower (Mandragora) - Places enemies within 5 yalms to sleep for 10 seconds.
26 Wing Cutter (Vulture) - Deals wind aspected damage with a potency of X in a cone before you.
30 Magic Hammer - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 250. Restores MP based on damage dealt. 45 second cooldon.
34 Chain Affinity - Grants two stacks of Chain Affinity. Increases spell speed by 25% per stack. Each stack is consumed when a spell is cast.
38 Eerie Light (Eft) - Reduces the magic resistance of enemies in range by 5% for 10 seconds.
42 Detonator (Bomb) - Deals fire aspected damage with a potency of X to enemies in range.
46 King's Will (Dullahan) - Raises damage dealt by target party member for 15 seconds. 3 minute cooldown.
50 Thousand Needles (Cactuar) - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of X.

Traits

08 Enhanced Intelligence
28 Prolongation - Using Magic Arrow on a target under the effect of Draw Out extends the duration by 20 seconds. Subsequent extensions are half as effective.
48 Lengthened Chain - Activating Chain Affinity now grants three stacks of Chain Affinity.

Quested Abilities

30 Azure Lore - Allows the acquirement of Lore while using lesser Blue Magic. Effect persists until you reach 0 units of Lore. 60 second cooldown.
---Lore - Gain an understanding of the power of monsters. Allows the use of higher Blue Magic. Maximum of three stacks.
35 *Bad Breath (Marlboro) - Inflicts Paralyze, Poison, Blind and Slow on enemies standing in a cone. Duration: 10 seconds.
40 *Bubonic Cloud (Dragon) - Places a pulsating orb that deals lightning aspected damage with a potency of 50 to enemies in range for 18 seconds.
45 *Exhaust (Magitek Colossus) - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 80. Additional effect: Knock back.
50 *Grand Delta (Hidon) - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 300.
52 Burst Affinity - Reduces the potency of the next single-target Blue Magic spell by 40% but allows it to affect enemies near the target. 90 second cooldown.
54 *Death Sentence (Wyrm) - Deals physical damage with a potency of 500.
56 *White Wind (Enkidu) - Restores own HP and those of nearby allies. Cure potency (self): 350. Cure potency (allies): 150.
58 *Thunderbolt (Behemoth) - Deals lightning aspected damage with a potency of 250. Additional Effect: Stun for 3 seconds.
60 Unbridled Wisdom - Grants you four stacks of lore. 5 minute cooldown.

Limit Break (caster) - Shockwave Pulsar

PvP Skills
Moldy Phlegm (Gobbue) - Deals water aspected damage with a potency of 80. Additional effect: Decreases HP recovery from healing magic by 20% for 20 seconds.

Notes

- Unlike Blizzard IV's relationship with Enochian, Magic Arrow does not refresh Draw Out duration. Instead, it extends said duration by 20 seconds on first use. If used a second time the extension will be 10 seconds. If used after that the extension will be 5 seconds, and if used after that the extension is 2.5 seconds.
- Draw Out is designed so that it runs out and has to be reapplied, creating variances in DPS over the course of a long fight.
- Quested spells marked with an asterisk consume stacks of Lore.
- The weapon choice may come off as odd, but it sort of goes along the idea I had of Blue Mages storing monster essences inside gems on their person (an extension of the idea behind a lich's phylactery).
- The gauntlet would be invisible unless the BLU is in combat, at which point it would phase in and cover their right hand. Casting animations would have the BLU drawing power from their gauntlet to use monster abilities. Once the BLU goes out of combat, the gauntlet would become invisible again.
- Despite having been a melee attack in FFX, Lancet is long range like the other BLU spells. It would sort of look like Scorpion's "get over here!" hook thing but without pulling the enemy to them, and instead draining aether to restore their own MP. Keep in mind that this is a channeled attack, so while the BLU does recover large amounts of MP, it cannot do anything while the attack is active.
- Yes, this is supposed to look like a mage that is dependent on a version of combos to do what they do.
- Azure Lore is half stance, half persistent buff. The idea is that clicking on it gives you one unit of Lore to use for high Blue Magic. You could consume that one unit and lose the effect of Azure Lore, leaving you to wait 60 seconds until you use it again. As such, you're encouraged to keep the buff up at all times to ensure you have lore Units to use for high Blue Magic by measuring how often you consume Lore. This would be BLU's pacing mechanism.
- Unbridled Knowledge is intended to bypass the limit you have on using of Lore.

Open Topics

1) Monster correlation?: FFXIV does not have an official source for monster correlations. The Raimdelle Codes covers monster types and classifications, but little else. The correlations I am using are derived in part from FFXI's monster correlations combined with some stuff from the Raimdelle Codex.

Plants => Beasts => Scalekin => Vilekin => Plants (repeat)

Cloudkin => Wavekin => Vilekin => Plants => Cloudkin (repeat)

Cloudkin => Vilekin => Plants => Cloudkin (repeat)

2) Where are the traits?: The reason I have given BLU very few traits is because the bulk of its gameplay is intended to be unlocking the full power of each lesser Blue Magic spell as they are learned, and the special effects normally covered by traits in this case are triggered by using skills in proper order. For example, Hammer Beak has the additional effect of reducing Blunt Resistance, but the effect can only proc if used in proper order (according to monster correlation, Vilekin => Scalekin, so to get the bonus the BLU would have to use Power Attack and then Hammer Beak). This may be negotiable if someone can come up with a better system.

3) Lore as a resource: The way I wanted to see Lore be implemented is as a resource that fills up as you use abilities. It's not like Wrath stacks (directly generated by abilities) or Aetherflow stacks (limited when generated with the cooldown on Aetherflow as a pacing mechanism), and instead is more like the Limit Break bar.

The idea is that using abilities fills this mini-LB bar to get you one unit of Lore. Using certain abilities depending on the situation would gain you more. Ticks from your DoTs would also contribute, as well as using lesser Blue Magic in proper order (AKA taking advantage of monster correlations). Higher Blue Magic would consume one unit of Lore per use. Upon use, all other high Blue Magic spells are placed on a cooldown (6 seconds?).

An idea I had was that the really powerful BLU spells (Grand Delta and Thunderbolt) would consume all Lore units, knocking you out of Azure Lore in echange for damage/utility.

---------------------------

Suggestions, corrections, comments and so on are welcome.

PS: Yes, this BLU is basically a caster DPS, so it would join the ranks of BLM and SMN. You can blame it on Strago Magus being the first Blue Mage I ever saw.

Dammit SE... just make a support role already! Every lame excuse you gave for why it wouldn't work got thrown out the window when you gave us MCH and AST for Heavensward and then even kinda referred to them as supporting jobs. 4.0 support jobs/classes/roles or riot!

lol, riot.

If blu makes it to XIV, it won't be the blu you love so much.

I thought they've already stated that it's a difficult job to put into the game? Therefore, my inference would be it would require a lot more than a month after HW to make it real.

Heck, I wouldn't hold my breath if it makes it for 4.0.

A job like BLU is kind of complicated and requires a lot more refining. I thought there was something I read that says that designing jobs is a lot harder than it looks and it was the bulk of HW to put 3 jobs at the same time. Therefore, 4.0 and so on would see only 1 or 2 jobs to be introduced.

But hey, BLU would be a great addition. I personally wouldn't mind playing a job described (and to a lesser extent, "designed") by people here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by elemental10

A job like BLU is kind of complicated and requires a lot more refining. I thought there was something I read that says that designing jobs is a lot harder than it looks and it was the bulk of HW to put 3 jobs at the same time. Therefore, 4.0 and so on would see only 1 or 2 jobs to be introduced.

---

The challenge is in sticking to thematics while also playing to the rules the devs set for class design. I get the feeling the rules will have to be bent or broken at some point.

This said, Blue Magic is a tough one because none of the in-game things have anything that can clearly support it (specially since mob skills are either telegraphed, rotation attacks that deal only damage, or involve statuses that aren't useful in combat). I figure the BLU questline would have to explain not only how they learn magic, but also correlations between monster types (assuming they want to go down that route).

I like the way Duelle has it working. More of a blue mage, except give us even more skills, and make it up to the players to decide which moves they want or need to use base on the party setup. Making all blu's different. I like that.

The game is ripe for some sort of melee mage type with a one handed weapon and no offhand. Whether that be the red mage with a rapier or blue mage with a mace/hammer or some other kind of weapon, it's definitely something I feel needs to be present in the game.

I never actually liked the FF11 incarnation of them in which they were essentially ninjas with funky magic.

I'd prefer another caster dps class.

We have the dot based SMN
We have the direct burst based BLM

We could use a more sustained direct damage combined with some dots, or perhaps a more mobile bursty dps.

The job could focus on "learning" powerful spells we've seen throughout the series but possibly converting them to less deadly versions, like.

Ultima
Megaflare
Supernova
etc...

SCrew Blue Mage, give us Time Mage!!!

Hell, I even have a good idea for its main weapon... It doesn't have one!!! Instead it has an offhand only weapon which is could be a time glass/time shield object, think Homura Akemi from Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

http://img04.deviantart.net/6ff2/i/2...ad-d5rdmk6.jpg

One of the features with this idea would be an ability could "Rotate" where it rotates the time glass/shield to allow for an increase/decrease of already applied time related debuffs/buffs. But the catch is that this would apply to ALL buffs and debuffs cast forcing one to think of when it'd be best to "Rotate" all abilities, will you rotate the time you have left when the enemy has alot of time left on their debuffs and your allies have none on their buffs so that you can give them more time and your enemies less DoT damage? Or vice-versa?. I think it'd be a superb kind of play style. :3

Another feature to the job would be that all of its Dots and party buffs would last an unusually long time compared with other jobs, maybe a whole minute for the shortest length of time. The drawback with this to ensure that you don't cast everything and then have nothing to do would be that for casting Dot's/debuffs and buffs which all last a long time would be to make it so that Time Mage has it's own unique default speed of casting set at 10 seconds, making it a job where selecting where to cast needs to be paramount too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonius2004

SCrew Blue Mage, give us Time Mage

---

Not to burst your bubble, but AST is pretty much time mage in everything but name. Between Time Dilation, Haste/The Arrow, and Gravity, the only thing it doesn't have is the Meteor spell. =/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Duelle

Not to burst your bubble, but AST is pretty much time mage in everything but name. Between Time Dilation, Haste/The Arrow, and Gravity, the only thing it doesn't have is the Meteor spell. =/

---

After further study... You're right!!! Ast kind of is just like the conventional Time Mage... I'll just crawl back into my underground lair for now. >:3

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

If blu makes it to XIV, it won't be the blu you love so much.

---

i think so, too..

If you ask me.. the jobs in FFXIV 2.0. /3.0. feel more like WoW classes than FF Jobs..


Summoner is the best example which feels more like a Warlock from WoW.
And Dark Knight, oh well.


As great yoshida did by turning around FFXIV from a flop into a success.. it now is much of a WoW themepark copy
I miss partly the unique gameplay of 1.0. and the openworld and feel to it and to the classes..


FFXI did the best job with the final fantasy jobs so far. A Summoner was a Summoner and a DRK was a DRK.
But well a themepark MMO where classes have to fit specific rolemodels of that duty finder tool.. does it make hard to implement hybrids... this themepark automatized system sucks on the other hand.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sub-Xero

Dammit SE... just make a support role already! Every lame excuse you gave for why it wouldn't work got thrown out the window when you gave us MCH and AST for Heavensward and then even kinda referred to them as supporting jobs. 4.0 support jobs/classes/roles or riot!

---

Its because of the stupid duty finder that they can't make real support roles in 1.0 BRD was a real support role that could keep mages bald up with out draining their mp or lower their dps but since the duty finder came into play they need to make things clearable with any set up that means balancing the crap out of stuff.

I'm getting sick of duty finder its also the problem as to why we can't have more fun rewarding dungeons. Even in 1.0 if you failed to compleat a dungeon it was still fun. I would love for blue mage to be added its the only dps jib I want to bother leveling.

I can see the lore being based out of Alage bio weapons. Or that Garmald found some old Alage reaserch on making chimeras and are using people from concurred lands as test subjects.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dererk

Its because of the stupid duty finder that they can't make real support roles in 1.0 BRD was a real support role that could keep mages bald up with out draining their mp or lower their dps but since the duty finder came into play they need to make things clearable with any set up that means balancing the crap out of stuff.

---

Actually, no. Support classes in general cause more balancing problems than they're worth to have around. This is why several MMOs axed support and simply baked in some of their aspects on to the other three roles (hence why generally tanks and DPS have CC while healers and DPS have group/raid buffs). Wish I could find some of the threads on this, because this topic has been discussed to death.

Quote:

---

I'm getting sick of duty finder its also the problem as to why we can't have more fun rewarding dungeons. Even in 1.0 if you failed to compleat a dungeon it was still fun.

---

"Run to the beacon while not fighting anything" was not fun or rewarding. In fact, it was such bullshit design that I refused to do dungeons back then because the notion of running to beacons to make mobs despawn sounded idiotic.

make them a dang high DPS with telegraph AoEs that can hit party members if not avoided and enjoy the rage on forums.

I actually would not mind blue mage, i beleive their issue would be what to classify them as. I think I'd they do something similar to AST sects which cannot be changed mid battle they can que as tank, dps before hand

On a side note, I wonder just how many Jobs SE can realistically add.

The more Jobs you add, the harder things become to balance ...

Anyway Blue Mage as people know them will be difficult to fit into the WoW-like balancing framework as many have already mentioned.

I wonder if SE is wiling to add non-raid-viable Jobs - i.e. They are only allowed in dungeons**, DF raids and levelling.

** Even this might be problematic, if the non-raid-viable Jobs end up making the dungeons too easy OR impossible. Maybe delay their access until "challenge" isn't an issue due to gear.