Blue Magic - do the spells truly need to be learned manually?

Whenever the subject of Blue Mage comes up, this is the main obstacle to adding it into the current battle system. Even Yoshi-P addressed this before last year when the subject came up.

Now, the thing is: none of the other Disciplines of Magic had to purchase their spells from a magic shop. They either learn it via level up, just like Final Fantasy IV and the Dragon Quest series, or through a class quest.

If BLU were to be added to FFXIV, why should it be any different? Is Blue Magic defined as learning abilities from monsters, or using otherwise exclusive enemy skills?

There's also the subject of party role: how it could fit in the trinity Looking at Blue Magic in V through X, it was always an eclectic school of magic that nevertheless mostly focused on dealing damage. In that respect, I'd say Blue Mage would be best implemented as a Ranged DPS caster.

It could be like a job quest. The NPC send you to slay a certain monster and you automatcally receive the spell as a reward.

http://ffxiclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Blue_Mage << Blue Mage info/job skills and abilities to learn :P

There is also Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1 and 2, they did a better job in "condensing" blue mage and how it should play.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Blue_Mage_(Tactics_A2)

Make it a special class that you start at level 10 or something? Class and job quests can be how you learn new spells, I guess. Maybe throw in some unlisted spells that you can get from killing certain monsters in different corners of Eorzea.

Prob become a 2nd job class for CNJ or THM ....

For me it is one of the best things about the job generally, but I don't think I really care in this game because it would be a fast learning experience in a world where exploring is very meh so I might as well just get spells via leveling up normally.

It would be relatively easy to incorporate it into the class/job quests. Of course, that would bypass the mechanic of going out by yourself to find monsters to learn abilities from, but I can see it working as some sort of "hey, Blue Magic student, I found a monster that has a worthwhile ability for you to learn, it should be holed up in such and such region". At first, of course, the teacher would have to go with you to teach you how to learn these abilities, but later she would send you out on your own.

Maybe the way to make it unique would be to have the leveling process only teach a few basic abilities, and then loads and loads of job quests could give you the rest. That might require you start at level 1 though, because you wouldn't want a level 30 character starting with just three abilities.

What makes a blue mage a blue mage other than stealing the powers of monsters?

As others have said, advanced job quests would be the most logical way of solving this. Something like staying alive against a mob until it casts the spell you need to learn without killing it, maybe it only casts it as a desperation move at low HP (I'm thinking something like White Wind here), maybe you need to hide behind things to survive it (teach meteor mechanics) and so on.

It doesn't HAVE to just be, "Go to Outer La Noscea, pick a fight with a Coeurl, stand still and yawn until it casts Blaster once."

I say SMN's trance is as close to BLU as we'll ever get.

Channeling the power of monsters to use their skill..... Sigh.....

It wouldnt be a Blue Mage otherwise. That way he can learn many spells as soon as more monsters are making their appearance in the world. So it gets more variaty of spells faster.

Yeah, I'm like 99% sure that, if Blue Mage makes it into the game, its blue magic spells will be learned via scripted class quests. There's really no other way they can do it, considering how cookie cutter they've set up their job and ability system. Any deviation from that would stick out like a sore thumb. I'm not even saying it like that to talk smack; that's just how it is.

Yeah, ot's not hard to image: It'll have its standard skills based on its role and then will learn the blue skills through job quests. While the connected skills will be learmed through levelling. It can easily fit every role too.

Just make it like every other ridiculously easy class quest out there or better yet just hand it out to them at certain levels. No reason to make it like ffxi where you feel like you accomplished something with your hard earned game time anyway. The new generation of gamers doesnt have the patience yet alone the attention span to do long difficult or help seeking quests.

As I've said before, the best way to do this would be having the normal, non-quested spells be learned naturally, but tying them to a sort of hunting log.

An idea I had for this was that story-wise, a BLU sort of knows these spells from monster observation, but needs to kill and absorb a monster's essence in order to get a true understanding of a spell. So if you learned, say, Acid Mist at lv10, you'd have a hunting log-type entry that requires you to kill 3 Ochu type mobs to unlock Acid Mist's full power.

The big spells would be learned via the job questlines, and by design each quest would involve the monster you'd learn the spell from (so if the lv35 quest rewards you with Bad Breath, that quest is going to involve a marlboro type mob).

They could just be groovy and go with a stance based blue mage.

Bombard Stance unlocks mage attacks

Marlboro Stance unlocks debuffs physical and magical

Dhalmel Stance unlocks physical attacks where you hit like a truck

It would be like swapping pets or fairies where your hotbar abilities change depending on stance.

The pokemon Smeargle comes to mind.

Sketch could be a ability that's on a 20 second or so cooldown that allows a blue mage to copy a monsters ability. Maybe give it an reload type currency for it and then sketch has to be used again ? Idk

Not sure how they would implement the spells, mind you ffxi had way way too many spells, many just repeats of the same effect or trivial differences..no need for that mess.

But I love blu still, is still my main in ffxi as of right now. I enjoyed learning the spells , dont really know why, but I did lol
Would like to see this job implemented properly into this game yup.

No stances please as suggested, another gcd we dont need, combat is already clunky enough.

Could have an ability that once a target uses their ability, you send it right back at them.

I'm ok with just skills remembering old games. There is so much to be done with either a Healer or DPS Blue Mage! Mighty Guard, White Wind, Expose, Life Drain, Transfusion... The possibilities are really high in number, it all comes to how "game balance" will prevent something new and well done.

Yeah, they'd have to put them in as job quest rewards. Most of the classic and XI BLU spells aren't present in the game anyway on the existing mobs. It's unfortunate from a flavor aspect, since I did always like hunting for blue spells, but unless they're willing to add a wildly different skill setup to the game that's pretty much how it'll have to go.

Blue mage can do two things; Monster attacks and auto-attacks.

It would be a bit much if every skill learned was a monster skill, solely because a lot of them would have to be reinvented in order for that to work. So, we can easily split it up between unique monster skills, and "auto-attack" skills. The auto-attack skills could be learned naturally by leveling up, where as the monster skills can be learned from quest via hunting a monster, or defending something. So you have your standard 1-2-3 that would be whip skills, you have your CD's, and then you have abilities where you cough up bad-breath, explode, drop spikes on someone, or straight up goblin punch a b-word.

Having a good balance between Whip and Monster skills is the only way I can see it working and keeping the feel of blue mage within the confines of FFXIV. But with this set up it can easily fit into the role of DPS or Tank. Really, blue mage is going to be easier to implement and appease people with than Red Mage; a class that literally doesn't wholly belong in a trinity unless it can be any role. This can also allow SE to do something unique with the current melee set up; make it specialize in AOE rather than Single target. Make the monster spells cost mana, and add real management to them unlike DRK which ends up feeling more like a struggle. Put insta-cast on some, and a cast time on others. The cast time might be a bit jarring, but it also gives a native TP regen which allows it to instead pull abilities from ARC and THM, which also gives it access to swiftcast a sure cast; two abilities that a melee caster would need and find great use for.

Just my two cents.

Have job quests open up "spell and ability slots" that you can equip mob traits and abilities in.
Lvl 1 Ability - Learn = When active, learn the next ability targeted mob uses/or hit by...if desired. Chance should be 100%.

At lvl 60, there should perhaps be about 20 spells and 10 trait slots open.
A separate menu should be available to choose which spells and slots to "socket" at any time.

-> This way, Blue Mage can be a versatile and flexible job depending on what is in play. The abilities learned can also taken from the mobs as in previous games.
-> Combos can be done entirely via mob abilities.

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

I'm ok with just skills remembering old games. There is so much to be done with either a Healer or DPS Blue Mage! Mighty Guard, White Wind, Expose, Life Drain, Transfusion... The possibilities are really high in number, it all comes to how "game balance" will prevent something new and well done.

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Personally, I think it'd make more sense if Blue Mage was a Caster DPS with options.
For the "healing" part, though:

- White Wind could be a percentage-based healing spell (like what Lustrate used to be pre-Heavensward).
- Magic Hammer basically being their version of ACN/SMN/SCH's Energy Drain (but for MP only).
- Angel Whisper could be a raise spell.

Sadly, Mighty Guard is already used as a Lv.2 Limit Break for Tanks (not to mention that the current "Protect" works like a Protect + Shell, effectively making it redundant).

Still, and as you said, the possibilities are really high, so we'll just have to see what they come up with.

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Originally Posted by XLauncher

Yeah, I'm like 99% sure that, if Blue Mage makes it into the game, its blue magic spells will be learned via scripted class . Tests. There's really no other way they can do it, considering how cookie cutter they've set up their job and ability system. Any deviation from that would stick out like a sore thumb. I'm not even saying it like that to talk smack; that's just how it is.

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And thats what I fear about this game and the fate if blue mage. streamlining it kills the identity of the job and basically becomes just another get x level here x scripted skill please look forward to our non deviated 6-9 button rotation with some SUPER UNIQUE BLUE MAGE FLAVORED OFF GLOBALS.

This class is going to murdered harder than scholar did.

I would much rather see a kind of "Gun Mage" from FFX-2 than a Blue Mage and I'll tell you why.

In FFX-2, Gun Mages had access to Blue Magic, but they also had access to a variety of other skills, namely with exploiting weaknesses in enemies. If we could get a bunch of Blue Magic to be learned through Job Quests and otherwise have weaponskills for everything else (kind of like how Rogue/Ninja is set up), that could work really well here.

Don't know about the rest of the games, but in V and VII I used Blue magic/Enemy skill primarily as an off heal/buff class that had options to lay down the damage. Most of the attacks are increasingly useless in the games, supplanted by better ones. The heals and buffs are always useful.

I'd make Blue a Healer, but I'm aware that this is mostly due to my own experience with the class.

Also: Berets, Capes and Masks, all the way.

With the way Soul Crystals work..

"Upon the surface of this multi-aspected crystal are carved the myriad deeds of <X Job> from eras past."

It could be implied that we learn out base abilities from the soul crystal without having to kill 20-30 different monsters. Then to unlock further abilities we go on Monster Hunter esq. quests.

They could also just re-invent blue mages from what we know into something new.

So, um... idea to split between the two options.

Remember how the Summoner gained a new Job skill and it's older class skill changed it's design and effect slightly, and how the earlier Class quests always had you kill some open world monster before you got to the meat of the quest? Mix these two things.

You go to your Job master, and they tell you to go fight X monsters, then they'll send you off to fight the one that you'll learn the new Job ability from. Once you're done, you'll learn the new job skill, and skills XYZ change to monster based variants of those skills. At fifteen class skills not learned from quests ((Based off Gladiator, numbers may be different for other classes)) and five Job quests from levels 30 to 50, shifting three skills each would cover them all, minus the 15 and 30 abilities.

Personally I would rather get some new DoM starters out. There is only 3 compared to the like 6 DoW starters. The new 3 don't count as such perfectly but still, I'd like to see a few more added starters so when they add things like Red Mage and Samurai or Blue Mage they can pull from new tertiary classes instead of the same old small number. I'd think there would be a wider variety than just conj, arcanist and Thama.

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Originally Posted by Zer0

Personally I would rather get some new DoM starters out. There is only 3 compared to the like 6 DoW starters. The new 3 don't count as such perfectly but still, I'd like to see a few more added starters so when they add things like Red Mage and Samurai or Blue Mage they can pull from new tertiary classes instead of the same old small number. I'd think there would be a wider variety than just conj, arcanist and Thama.

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As much as I'd like to see more starter classes, I don't think they'd be inserted without getting the Rogue treatment. There is room in Limsa and Ul'dah, too. Musketeer for Limsa Lominsa (no, I'm never letting it go) and a caster class that is based out of the temple of Nald in Ul'dah (the one that's been closed down for repairs since ARR's launch).