Blue Mage: Are you kidding me!?

FFXIV is an MMORPG. So why is BLU being restricted from joining mainstream content and pushed as "solo-content" orientated? If I wanted to play an extensive solo-player experience with collecting blue magic, the previous offline titles exist for that purpose.

"BLU has to have certain skills, and it'd be no fun if they didn't work against raid bosses!"

You know what's even less fun? Not being able to participate in said raids to begin with. It isn't worth having those skills if those skills are the reason we are being "limited." No one in their right mind had the expectation that we needed lvl5 death, and that we had to make it work on the latest raid bosses.

"But if BLU is accepted and doesn't have the skills they're expected to have, they'll be kicked :( "

Is it so hard to implement a requirement for number of skills BLU must have in order to enter an instance? A rebuttal to this suggestion would entail that perhaps a certain BLU might only have buff/support spells, and not enough DPS skills. To that I say "classify spells for their function and specify a number of DPS-oriented spells needed to enter roulette."

People who care enough to go into Savage are the same ones who will care enough to get their "core skills" to perform correctly. Why are we killing the opportunity for your consumer base in order to appease a strawman argument of a bad player?

People wanted BLU in this game. People, like myself, would have been more than happy with simple job quests making us go on some silly hunt to "learn" skills if it meant being streamlined into the general population.

I can even accept grinding in the overworld like we're in some cheap pay-to-win Korean MMO, I can even accept being forced to learn skills on an RNG basis and hunting monsters for them, but allow us the option to play with everyone else in the content everyone is doing! Because after all, this is not a solo game-- This is an MMORPG.

SE, I implore you to reconsider.

I've never posted on the forum before, in all my years of playing since 2.0. I've never felt strongly about something to finally speak up here, or atleast ramble a bit.

I'm very heartbroken over a lot of design features they've decided to go with in reference to Blue mage.
It's a job I've waited for a long time to see in the game, and it's lore and setting fit right in with what I'm interested in, from the bits we've seen.
I understand that a lot of people feel like BLU can't be done without this Solo-focused mode, though I feel like a happy middle ground could have been found.

I want to play this game with my friends. I want to experience the world going forward as a blue mage. I waited for the moment I would feel like a bunch of my Samurai friends when they got their dream job announced. With the way it is, I can't even do the MSQ for the expansion when it drops.
Do I ask friends to simply run Aurum vale and Cutter's with me over and over instead of doing the wonderful new things Shadowbringers has to offer?
Square, You're at the helm with what you can decide to do and not do with this job. Finding the jobs, obtaining them? That's not the only thing the blue mage is about. What happens to your abilities after you stockpile them? What can we do? The last time I checked, the Blue mages of the past always functioned with their team, their friends.The Carnival that's been announced doesn't have anything seemingly more than it's 3 phases, and what happens to the blue mage after that? Will you keep developing content for JUST blue mages? What about when other limited jobs come? Will blue mage suffer with lack of new things down the road?

I don't know what to feel more than just incredible disappointment in the class I wanted the most from this game. I suppose I'll just sit out in east thanalan to farm moves while my friends become Warriors of Darkness.

1. Yeah it sucks.

2. Blue Mage is available in 4.5 and does not require Shadowbringers. baseline ARR has it.

3. You can dick around with your friends with Blue Mage.

4. Information is unclear. It sounds as if you both can't use Duty Finder, but can with pre-formed parties.

You know, people asked for Blue Mage, I honestly thought that it was implied that we meant that we wanted it to be in a Final Fantasy XIV-balanced context, much like Red Mage, and that we wanted it as a fully fledged Job like any other to be used in any content, and not a damn minigame.

I guess that it really wasn't, huh? It's apparently too hard to make Level 5 Death not able to be used on bosses or to implement any of its abilities into its own full, cohesive kit, it apparently just has to fully abide to old Blue Mage.

Blue mage is solo content and you can’t queue with it.... except for when you have to party play to get into fights you need to unlock new moves? So blue mage is in fact much less solo oriented than every other job since it’ll require groups to gain skills, and will be forced to do it through party finder? But then you can’t level quickly in parties, you have todo it in the over World? Mmm this all sounds odd to me. I like real jobs. I’m interested to see how blu plays out though. Maybe it’ll be fun.

I made a long rant over in the "BLU for duty finder and raids" thread, but I'll try to sum up my feelings here.

This Blue Mage is not a job. It's Triple Triad for battle content.

You don't need to follow previous iterations to the exact detail. You didn't do that for any of the other jobs, why is this one required? I have played Blue Mage in every FF game that has had Blue Mage. I know the history of utility and versatility that makes it difficult to implement in a Holy Trinity system. But Red Mage isn't the exact same as older versions. Nor is Summoner. Or Samurai. Or any other current job.

Implementing BLU as a slow burn could have worked. Cap the level and skills available in order to test for balance issues and gather feedback from the community. You would have my utmost respect for doing so. But you relegated it to side content.

You could have made BLU work in group play. Tone down potencies and additional effects on bosses. Require certain skills to be learned before people can queue for high level content. Instead, you gave up and said it was too complicated. You insulted your fans who have been desperate for this job for years.

I have been a lifelong fan of FF, and this design choice has made me sadder and more disappointed than anything I've experienced in a game. I beg you to reconsider.

First of all , i was shocked too.
But guys and gals relax pls, BLU hasnt finally arrived FF14... and BLU is one of the first "Limited" Jobs ... we cant say any relatable until this new system of this game is live.
I think, BLU is a great chance to give this original Final Fantasy feeling back, almost all jobs are kinda similiar and BLU can make up some new points in this game, also its the first of this type of gameplay; we dont know how this will evolve in patches.
After this short shock moment im super excited and currious how it feels to play this job and what yoshida has prepared for us to have a unique mmorpg experience which is made in style of FF and make this MMORPG different from other MMORPG titels on the marked !

Edited: I played BlueMage in almost all titels and i was hungry for this Job come up in this game , dont get me wrong.
But i trust in the Dev to give us a good time with BLU in FF14

I'm gonna say let's wait and see. It sounds like the trade-off is "no duty finder", if it allows us to use party finder or team up with friends and still do actual content, then whilst not ideal, it's a compromise. If they plan on doing this with future jobs, it may well be the plan on giving this system attention. Hopefully this early release prior to Shadowbringers will end up giving the SE the feedback they need going forward and perhaps make adjustments for release, though that's 'hopefully' not anything based on SE's track record.

I was disappointed at first, but I am seeing how it -could- work, but whether it does or doesn't is going to depend on SE's delivery. I am going to judge once I get my hands on it and then maybe I'll join the people complaining or say "hang on, this is not as bad as you guys think". I think too much focus is on the 'solo', it seems to be designed for solo play, yet is permissable in groups. For me the extent of which is the deal breaker, removing the duty finder for BLU is not the end of the world for me even if largely inconvenient, because I expect we'll see more Party Finder groups made by Blue Mages and I generally do stuff with friends.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

I'm gonna say let's wait and see. It sounds like the trade-off is "no duty finder", if it allows us to use party finder or team up with friends and still do actual content, then whilst not ideal, it's a compromise. If they plan on doing this with future jobs, it may well be the plan on giving this system attention. Hopefully this early release prior to Shadowbringers will end up giving the SE the feedback they need going forward and perhaps make adjustments for release, though that's 'hopefully' not anything based on SE's track record.

I was disappointed at first, but I am seeing how it -could- work, but whether it does or doesn't is going to depend on SE's delivery. I am going to judge once I get my hands on it and then maybe I'll join the people complaining or say "hang on, this is not as bad as you guys think". I think too much focus is on the 'solo', it seems to be designed for solo play, yet is permissable in groups. For me the extent of which is the deal breaker, removing the duty finder for BLU is not the end of the world for me even if largely inconvenient, because I expect we'll see more Party Finder groups made by Blue Mages and I generally do stuff with friends.

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The thing is, it's not necessarily how they do the content - it's the fact that they condemned Blue Mage to it. They basically took Blue Mage, which many people, including myself, have wanted for a very long time, and relegated it to side content.

The Carnivale and the like could all be pretty fun as solo content in general, but the various actions that you'd need to succeed in it could have very well just been in a Logos-like way instead of relegating one of the most desired and potentially interesting Jobs in the game and putting it in completely irrelevant content exclusively.

And yeah, there's the "compromise" of being able to use it in Party Finder, but that compromise shouldn't have to exist to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Glaceon10

And yeah, there's the "compromise" of being able to use it in Party Finder, but that compromise shouldn't have to exist to begin with.

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tbh better to begin with, as it ruins at the start for all other ppl which has to play with a BLU without there wish for.
I think it is much more worse to have a BLU which dont feel like a real BLU and no one said side content we all dont know how this carnivale will take place in the endcontent world ... maybe its just a another way to archive the endcontent ... maybe its a shining star for all DoL and DoH only ppl which have problems with random groups...

Time will see, be patience i bet yoshida is a good Dev and has the numbers of this game well analiced.
We will get well made content unusual /inovative but well made content.

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Originally Posted by Lyden

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They easily could have made this side content in a similar way to Performances on BRD, accessible via a job-exclusive tab, while maintaining a baseline kit to be awarded as the player levels up. Forcing it into old ARR content does it no favors at all. And the way it sounds it's going to be perpetually locked behind a lower level cap relative to whatever the current expansion is. If it doesn't get that change the backlash is going to be huge.

There was a poll floating around on reddit (Source Here) that basically asked if people would rather not have this at all just so they could play the job in regular duties. It has 10x as many votes as the SMN lockout poll I have in my sig yet the ratio is very similar. People want to be able to play this job in current content with other players. The backlash is warranted.

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Originally Posted by Glaceon10

The thing is, it's not necessarily how they do the content - it's the fact that they condemned Blue Mage to it. They basically took Blue Mage, which many people, including myself, have wanted for a very long time, and relegated it to side content.

The Carnivale and the like could all be pretty fun as solo content in general, but the various actions that you'd need to succeed in it could have very well just been in a Logos-like way instead of relegating one of the most desired and potentially interesting Jobs in the game and putting it in completely irrelevant content exclusively.

And yeah, there's the "compromise" of being able to use it in Party Finder, but that compromise shouldn't have to exist to begin with.

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Well I am not entirely sure it will be just side content, hence my "depends on SE delivery" because if they allow BLU to reach level 80 and they are restricted to not use the duty finder, BLU could be used on content. At the moment we're not clear on exactly how it will work with group content following the announcement you can do premades.

As for the compromise. There would have to be a compromise somewhere, compromises they've done historically have been in how the job plays to balance it and to match it with FFXIV's existing systems, like RDM, which they did intelligently I felt, but I get Blue Mage would be harder to do in this respect. Whether this is the right compromise, I feel remains to be seen, but I think regardless of the compromise they choose, SE was going to get a backlash regardless of their choice.

In anticipation of BLU I did my own theory crafting as to how BLU could work with FFXIV's current system without sacrificing much of how Blue Mage is. If I end up hating it, I may provide it as feedback, although I doubt it'd mean anything, but hey, doesn't hurt.

I feel like yoshi and the design team were in a lose lose situation here. He said several times before he was hesitant with blue mage cause how blue mage traditionally is and how skills are learn in ffxiv. But people in the fourms kept demanding it. So if he had done it to match the current way we learn skills on level up im sure people would be up in arms because its bluemage in name only and not by design.

They done this to keep the jobs indentity as remembered by its fans and as they explained it had to be limited or people who played blue mage that didn't have the 'top attack moves' would get harrased. I mean come on we still have debates about healer dps for christs sake. Then the fact blue mage skills would be to much to take into account for raid boss's and such. Example they gave was death 5 in theory being able to insta kill the ultimate boss's by theory.; The only way around that would be to make the raid/dungeon/trail boss's immune to most of blue mage's skills so why would you take a blue mage then or limit them to fun side content.

Before people say 'oh people won't get kicked from parties for blue mage.' I sure you can find prime examples of healer dps arguments. FFlogs drama and people being barred for being sam or black mage from pfs due to not giving utility...our community is not saintly when it comes to party composition...

Sorry if your disappointed, but i gt the feeling people wouldn't of been happy no matter how Bluemage was designed. I just wish they hadn't spent so long on it...i wanted to see new race...

I apologize before hand. I'm currently typing this on my phone from work. I just need to say that I've played every blue mage. I've dealt with all of their ways to learn magic. Stargos lore, Quistis items, Kimahri's Lancet, enemy skill materia, Quina eating everything. But that has NEVER been the selling point for me.

Sure, it's fun. Sure it's different. I don't care. I was fine with the idea of having set abilities if it meant getting to play my favorite class in my favorite mmo. I like just using monster abilities. I want to que for all the content and have fun with others without being stuck to old content, party finder, and not being able to raid.

Now I get to feel my heart ache everyone I see someone playing this side quest off a job. I hope they change their minds but I'm tired of hoping. That is all.

Sorry in advance if words are not perfect, had surgery on my arm less then 11 days ago so typing 1 handed.

So honestly it feels like no matter what people will complain. BLU was originally said what 2-3 years ago that they didnt see how they could implement it and people were upset. They find a way to implement it, it looks cool, and people still complain. SO I watched the whole thing yesterday what I took from it was you cant do pvp (this, for me personally, isnt a deal breaker) and you cant use duty finder, but you CAN do that content with a premade (party finder, ls, fc, friends), so how is that a bad thing? We will be limited to lvl 50 for a bit then they will increase the level cap. Also lets not forgot blu is in the game now, this presents an opportunity for it to be altered in the future if they decide to, I am kinda excited about this limited job thing, having a few jobs that are "Solo Oriented" is cool, heck yeah give me bst, pup, blu, it adds more layers of stuff to do that frankly the game was lacking compared to others titles.

it wont even have a relic at all either...

First and foremost Blue Mage is not the disaster most people seem to fear it is.

It is most importantly a genius marketing decision, and I am prepared to defend this. Yes, blue mage has been one of the most highly requested jobs in this game. It had to be released. One of the more highly requested features of this game has been more content that can be solo’ed as well as content that is different so people aren’t relegated to either high end raiding or relic grinds.

In return square gives us... blue mage. A job starting at level one with a level cap of 50, and a grind that can mostly be done alone for enemy skills, with a party for others. And the Masked Carnivale as a way to showcase and learn and enjoy. Yes, it is sad that we can’t use blue mage how we would like as a fully implemented and balanced job for end game content. The lvl 5 death argument is a weak one at best, but it also has validity. Lvl 5 death is not the only skill that could easily break an end game raid or dungeon or trial, mighty guard itself is a dangerous skill to have in that kind of content.

As is white wind, or any number of skills, bad breath is another good example. They have made the promise to continue to develop content for the blue mage, and given that with the trust system, the world visit system, and blue mage they seem to be focused on making this game a bit more solo player friendly this sort of concept makes sense as a way to appeal to a much broader audience and grow the game in a really special way. It’s a smart decision to use such an iconic job for this content because those ff fans who have not started 14 but love blue mage can be coaxed into this game because it is now offering a traditional blue mage in its own content. Making it a 2.0 job is also smart because it allows people to try the content fall in love with the game and branch out to the other features.

I would have been fine with a broken BLU to play in raids since the job itself has so much utility with spells like Mighty Guard. Although BLU is a job that would likely remove this enforced meta (by the dev team and players) of 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 damage dealers.


If the dev team chose to balance jobs by giving every job something overpowered and broken instead of making everyone be able to do the same thing, BLU would have been fine. Instead we talk about balance (especially in regards to damage per second) compared to implementing fun and interesting game-play systems.

Honestly, why can't we just have the best of both worlds? BLU could learn skills like blu does elsewhere, while restricting skills from being used in raiding and group content so much so that it allows only one set of skills to be used in raids.
It's to the lore, there's a clear class to play, nobody is restricted and the only people who suffer are those who don't want to fight for skills and would rather just level up.

I resubbed recently after hearing of upcoming class rumors, was excited about the initial blue mage reveal, and decided it would be best to unsub when I saw how it was being implemented. I always figured in order to make it work for this game they would just make majority of it's abilities learned in job quests with unique encounters. I do not think keeping it completely true to it's past iterations was as important as making it work in actual content for a majority of the fan base. The explanations as to why they had to implement it this way just seemed very weak. Hoping the dancer rumor is true and they don't do something so troll with that one.

((Copy and pasted from my Reddit post))
With how apparent the majority dislike the entire premise of limited jobs and the mishandling of BLU, it got me thinking on the why it ended up like this.
It's clear the biggest reason it's a limited job is because they absolutely did not want to sacrifice the class fantasy of what they imagined a BLU to be.
But at the same time, why not both?

People keep saying "It's not doable! The only way for BLU to be in, is only if it's separate and solo if we want to preserve the core identity.
But it is! It's very doable!
Why not have unique quests that say "Find x in y" and have it be an actual duty every time for moves? The common response is "That'd be a lot of work" but it's less work than what this job currently is.
Or better yet, maybe incorporate the idea of 'learning abilities from monsters' into the gameplay. What about a set of learn stacks that you gain more of from enemies near you performing unique skills? Every skill cast earns you a stack on top of your own generated stacks from time or combos?

The class fantasy would be perfectly preserved while making sure people can actually play it in content.
I find it lazy and short sighted to tell people that it has to be this way and is, in fact, the ONLY way. That's both on the developers and players. If things can be better, why not? Why NOT make everyone happy?

Found this post on reddit that pretty much summed up my feelings.

"Opinion: FFXIVs Blue Mage is Fantastic, but not in FFXIV

As a long time blue mage fan, from back in FFV even to the more obscure version like gun mage in X2, I truly do love this iteration of blue mage. The team did a faithful job of creating an experience that pulls from the jobs varied skillset and unique qualities. I mean it's the aesthetic of V and Tactics Advanced, combined with the customization of XI, learning by seeing like Strago in VI. I would be ecstatic to see this in any Final Fantasy game. And therein lies the problem.

Announcing the newest DLC for the latest entry in Square-Enix's prolific RPG series, FFXV: The Masked Carnival! Join Prince Noctis as he follows the path of the mysterious Blue King, a forgotten ruler who used not royal weaponry, but the skills of fiends themselves to fell his enemies. Discover, hunt, and master dozens of unique classic Final Fantasy monster abilities and use them to sow destruction on the battlefield. Combine them in countless combinations and utilize your cunning and creativity to overcome challenges not seen before. Finally, use your newfound powers to overcome the trials of the mysterious Masked Carnival, where your skills with the Blue will be tested to their utmost in challenges specifically designed for them.

That sounds just as good, right? Like hell yeah, I'll jump right back into FFXV for that.

But it's not in FFXV, it's in FFXIV. We all love the game. Enough to be here talking about it at least. FFXIV, which offers an experience unique to the rest of the series, primarily through its genre. A game whose high point and most developed content are dungeon diving with 4 other intrepid adventurers, facing down primal with 7 other brave heroes in battles of spectacle that are unmatched in anything else in the genre, where you and 23 other adventurers engage in challenges that should be impossible alone. It has a wonderful story that is punctuated and capstoned by these experiences. For me, the adrenaline when barely clearing A3S seconds from the final cascade was a great memory. But that won't be possible as Blue Mage. And that sucks. We finally got Blue Mage in Final Fantasy XIV, but we didn't get Blue Mage IN Final Fantasy XIV. We got it attached.

People will argue it couldn't be implemented in this game, but that's not really true. Summoner barely resembles its classic incarnation, and Samurais central moon, blizzard, flower mechanics have more in common with Romancing Saga than the classic heavily armored gil tossing shogun of Final Fantasy. They're still, in my eyes, fun and faithful renditions of the the class. Blue mage could have been the same.

At the end of the day I'll still play Blue mage, and I'm sure it will be fun. Really fun. But when raid time comes around and I have to change to a different job I feel less of a connection with, when I stand in front of the next larger than life raid boss and wonder what awaits me, when we finally do that final assault on the citadel of Garlemald and the story comes to a climax, it'll be bittersweet. I think I'll be thinking the same thing I am now. It wasn't worth the cost of losing the experience of FFXIV as a Blue Mage. Because we can't get that opportunity anywhere else."

I understand it's most likely too far into production to do any major changes to BLU at this time, resources spent and all that, I like the concept of BLU but I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth from the Limit Job system, is this going to be a new thing for future jobs like Beastmaster, Puppetmaster because they don't fit the group synergy "meta" we got going in XIV?

I do not understand why they couldn't simply made BLU learn monster actions from job quests, "1000 Needles" would've been your standard AoE with x potency like any other AoE action. They talked about how Level 5 Death would be too overpowered, why not make it into one of those skills that you can activate under 20% HP etc.

I feel they tried to stay too faithful if that makes sense, when they could give it the most popular monster actions for it to learn through job quests and just balance potency of those action like any other job and make it a caster type anyway.

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Originally Posted by YakushiHinata

I do not understand why they couldn't simply made BLU learn monster actions from job quests, "1000 Needles" would've been your standard AoE with x potency like any other AoE action. They talked about how Level 5 Death would be too overpowered, why not make it into one of those skills that you can activate under 20% HP etc.

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Because than, it's a Caster DD like Black Mage and Red Mage with the name Blue Mage, nothing more, and they want it to be like the classic Blue Mage from the old Games, battle Monsters and try to find out if you can learn skills from them.

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Originally Posted by Valor_C

Because than, it's a Caster DD like Black Mage and Red Mage with the name Blue Mage, nothing more, and they want it to be like the classic Blue Mage from the old Games, battle Monsters and try to find out if you can learn skills from them.

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By this logic, there should never be any new jobs in the standard formula, as they would only be like other jobs that currently exist.
"We wanted DNC, but to preserve it's identity it HAD to be a minigame"
"Well why not make it fit into 14's combat systems?"
"Then it'd be the same as any old healer!"
Or the gunblade class, what if it's not a tank or dps, what if it's only used in a single instance around garlemald.
Wouldn't that stink?
Well it's apparently better than the alternative, as it would only be "another" tank or "another" melee dps.

To imply that Square is incapable of making another caster play different, like they did with RDM, is disingenuous.

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Originally Posted by Flatopia

To imply that Square is incapable of making another caster play different, like they did with RDM, is disingenuous.

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I'd genuinely like to hear how you'd make a blue mage caster that didn't feel like a one-button wonder.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

I'd genuinely like to hear how you'd make a blue mage caster that didn't feel like a one-button wonder.

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Maybe incorporate the idea of 'learning abilities from monsters' into the gameplay. What about a set of learn stacks that you gain more of from enemies near you performing unique skills? Every skill cast earns you a stack on top of your own generated stacks from time or combos with spells?
Maybe make them the most OGCD focused of the spellcasters
Or maybe have a focus on having plenty of instant cast spells alongside the hard cast spells. Things like that.

Personally, I would prefer incorporating the mechanic of learning into the core gameplay like that, making them feel flavorful and useful and fun to play.

Yet, hilariously. Because of one idea they introduced and tried to innovate with and used as a great marketing idea to expand and bring more people into this world so they can give us even MORE content. Half the community has already passed judgement on so no matter what your experience will be diminished because you have already decreed this "isn't a real job".. "oh I can't use it in raid or end game so there's no point in it."... "fake job." when you could just say.. "Hey I'm nervous about what they are doing with this "limited system" and how they are implementing blue mage.. but the dev team has treated us pretty well so I guess I can give it the old college try and keep an open mind and see if i'll enjoy it at all." rather than throwing a temper tantrum and demanding them to go with this "end game friendly, meta blue mage" you all are clamoring for.

This is a knee jerk reaction at best, if you truly take a step back and try to see it from the dev teams point of view.. We are gaining a whole lot more than we are losing with blue mage being implemented this way. Yes we lost yet another Caster DPS.. which oh wait with the deletion of TP is going to already be crowded in raid groups now because.. OH right.. Bard and machinist are now in direct competition with casters for the ranged slots.. 5 ranged jobs.. 2 ranged slots.. machinist is getting reworked and TP being removed means Foe's requiem is going to change which will shake up the bard meta.

Blue Mage may not be what everyone was expecting or hoping for, but i'll give the dev team the credit they deserve and keep an open mind about this "limited job" system and enjoy playing a traditional blue mage as a nice change of pace from the tome grind, raiding, and relic grind. a new and innovative piece of content meant for everyone to enjoy. If they could get over their pessimism and just enjoy the game for being a GAME.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

I'd genuinely like to hear how you'd make a blue mage caster that didn't feel like a one-button wonder.

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Challenge accepted

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

I'd genuinely like to hear how you'd make a blue mage caster that didn't feel like a one-button wonder.

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To begin with, I don't think that Blue Mage should have been a caster. A lot of Blue Mage's "spells" are primarily the Blue Mage channelling something physical, and really, I think that it's best imagined as a Job as a melee DPS or Tank. Also keep in mind that these aren't all concepts that are meant to go together under one general Job concept, but are mostly separate concepts of parts of the Job.

Some random concepts that I've come up with:

Ifrit's Searing Wind as an on-boss debuff. The debuff would increase damage dealt on the target while also exploding for AOE damage at the end.

As a DPS, Blue Mage could have a reoccurring gimmick throughout its rotation based on its HP - using Self-Destruct as a damage-dealing cooldown like Fleche, but also placing the Blue Mage at 1 HP. The Blue Mage could combo this with ???? (let's imagine it as a reverse Assassinate, only usable when the user's HP is below around 70%, with a short cooldown) and then following that up with a Vampire that has the same cooldown timer as Self-Destruct. ???? acting like this would also create a similar, but different mechanic to Samurai's Third Eye - part of the skill of Blue Mage would be actively paying attention to outgoing damage and using ???? while you still can. There'd also be skill in knowing when to delay your Self-Destructs into Vampires for free ???? so that you don't kill yourself.

Death Claw as the execute, like Assassinate.

Missile as the Job's ranged attack, whether that be a Tomahawk equivalent or more of a Piercing Talon equivalent. An interesting idea is that it could have a faster global cooldown attached to it, which would make Blue Mage have a better ranged option than other Jobs - paying tribute to its mage aspect - and also being pretty fun with it just spamming missiles when needed for uptime.

Level 100 Death as the melee Limit Break 3 - not actually inflicting Death, of course, but in any situation when a Limit Break gets used, this is about the effect. Having a Grim Reaper show up for it, with the scythe's slash being when the damage strikes the boss.

Goblin Punch as the basic combo starter. Its combo branches could all be various Blue Magic spells from games prior or various actions used by enemies in this game - Magic Hammer being a great example of a solid combo finisher.

White Wind and Mighty Guard could easily be party utilities that Blue Mage would carry, akin to Monk's Mantra, though support abilities that are more generally useful than, say, Red Mage's Raises. White Wind in particular would have to have a pretty notable cooldown if it really was based on your HP (it could basically delete a lot of Raid-wides), but Mighty Guard could just be a "decrease damage taken" buff like Passage of Arms that doesn't require you to stand in any perpetual AOE, which would be pretty sick.

From a comment I made on YouTube.

"Blue mage is my favorite class and all I have to say to the people who think this is okay as a concept or fun: why couldn't we have both? I want to raid, que for dungeons, do main story, and be a help to my link shell as my favorite class. You want to pretend this is pokemon stadium with the carnival. Why couldn't we have both? Why does my enjoyment of my favorite job in all of final fantasy need to be made into side content only?

I was fine with the idea that I'd need to compromise abilities and lore to play what I love. Guess we should switch summoner, red mage, dark knight, scholar, and astrologian to limited jobs. Last I checked summoner didn't cast dots and have tiny summons, red mage had more white magic, dark knight wasn't a tank and powered up abilities sacrificing health, no ancient magic for scholar. Well let's fix that and make them all solo. Because obviously it's the only way they'll work."

I actually don't mind. I love casters in FFXIV (and RPGs in general), and I "forced" myself to believe BLU could fit in FFXIV, with each spell being learnt through a job quest and that's it.
But reading comments here and there, and thinking about it overall, it would have been lazy design to create a rotation for a caster and then paste monsters abilities to give the whole thing a Blue Mage flavour.
That job quietly underlines the problems of overall job balances, roles in FFXIV and how everything is restricted to this. So I won't mind additional side-content based on FF legacy like this Blue Mage (and maybe it's a testing ground for other jobs), and then have real FFXIV jobs with their own identity and ability to fit the game's system. If it's too grindy and uninteresting for me, then I won't do it. And I'll mourn my hope for a BLU regular job. But I won't be angry at the devs for trying to add something new, in a moment where the game is likely to be dead.

Let's hope BLU reaches lvl 80 by 5.2 or something like this, with all that time to get a better grasp on how players use it, and what could fit as a "real" job or not.

I was worried about what "Limited Job" would mean. I hoped it didn't mean solo-based job. Well, it is. I have a REAAAAAAAAALLY bad feeling about it. I hope I am wrong. I hope it actually will be fun.

I'm reserving final judgement for when we actually get to play with it. BLU raises many questions:

1) What are the rewards of playing BLU? That will say a lot about the job's experience. We don't know yet what the Masked Carnivale will reward. Can you imagine if it's stuff like a XP boosting potion, to help level other regular jobs? I could see that as a huge incentive. Maybe unique glamours, minions and mounts? Heck, maybe even actual DoW/M content-relevant items. The key to make this feature interesting is if the developers keep consistently updating it with new enemies and rewards.

2) It was hinted the level cap would increase later. How long is later? Level 80 at 5.0? And even if BLU is locked out of duty roulette by then, what it means to be in a regular light or full party? Will BLU, in the futue, ever be able to be in the same content-relevant level with the other jobs?

3) It would be really hard to make this iteration of BLU work in pve? I honestly don't know if they will ever intend on this in the future, and I don't have a clue how... But the example of Lv5 Death spell they gave in the live letter is terrible. We all know this spell almost never worked in any boss in the whole FF franchise. Plus, a LOT of BLU's repertoire was straightforward useless agains bosses. In every old FF title that a Blue Mage was available, we had just a handful of spells that we actually used repeatedly. The rest of the list were basically for bragging rights and completionists.


In short, I'm not terribly mad on how they plan to implement BLU, as long as it's a relevant content through the whole timeline of the game.

How many people playing this game are grouped with people 24/7 while logged on? The only time I'm ever in a group these days is when I'm doing my roulette's with random people. Whether you are the same as that, or someone who does play mostly with people - there will be times you are on your own. You could AFK in your local town, or you could level your Blue Mage. Think of it like Command Missions - except you're not carting NPC's through older content but solo'ing it on a class actually designed to do so, absorbing creature skills and building up your power that way rather than another "spam duty finder to max level" class.

I get why people are annoyed, yes, even though I've never played any FF game with Blue Mages - but I'd only understand the venom more if that was the only new thing/class. Chances are we're getting another one (playable normally) and a new race to boot, nevermind the other new things. If the extent of your excitement stems solely on getting one 'normal' class you like from an older game, I feel people aren't holding on to much in the present. It is also not fair to hold all other classes as a contrary example to BLU's design - yes, most of the baseline roster aren't copies of their previous forms either, yet they were still made as the foundation of the trinity that would form the basis for the MMORPG. BLU is coming years after SE realized they are not under-threat like they were with old-FFXIV (it's seemingly here to stay). Sure, they could butcher it to make it less like its previous iterations and have it played 'normally', but given time the critique would swap from "Why is this class treated like a solo-feature?" to "Why is BLU nothing like a Blue Mage?"

You can't keep everyone happy.

On that note, I suggest the same thing I do every single patch, expansion, change, tweak and update --- wait and see for yourself. There's nothing to be gained beforehand other than to raise your own blood-pressure, and SE certainly won't care for feedback bourne of pure ranty frustration.

This isn't about other classes. People who say "why are you mad? Other jobs are coming out" are focused on the wrong thing. Yes. New jobs are coming. I will probably try them all. I want to main blue in real content. What does other jobs have to do with me being able to do that? Nothing.

1. This iteration of Blue Mage is great design. The fact that it could be transposed as a DLC into any Final Fantasy game when it's in FFXIV is a huge problem though. By putting this design in FFXIV, it comes at a cost. The cost being the Massively Multiplayer part of MMORPG. That's a huge downside unique to this situation, when it could be implemented anywhere else at no expense to gameplay opportunities.

2. I don't really understand the people saying "Do you really want Blue Mage to just be a copy of OTHER jobs?". It seems like you think there's literally no design space left for caster, or even ANY of the roles. Should Square just not introduce any new full jobs because you think that A. There's no way they can be anything but copies or B. You have no faith in the devs to introduce a new unique full job? I really can't fathom how you make this argument and then think ANY new class would be acceptable in the future.

3. Arguing that BLU somehow can't work in FFXIV because of FFXIV's systems, is again, absurd. Literally every job has had major sweeping changes to its core identity and kit to be able to fit into FFXIV. By this logic, FFXIV should never have another full class, because there's no way they could be true enough to their identity in other games while being added effectively to FFXIV. Seriously, FFXIV is the game. That is the core that design is based around. The jobs SHOULD be designed to fit into it and its core gameplay and content, even at the expense of the job's identity, as has been done with EVERY JOB BEFORE IT.

EDIT: I'll be clear here and say I'd be extremely happy if they just clarified and said "this is a test run for a unique new system that we want to see how players use and interact with before allowing it to influence the rest of the game". Hell, I'd be ecstatic because it would be hinting that not only are they going to continue with big experimentation and let it interact the rest of the game eventually, they are doing it responsibly with caution towards disrupting what the current game is. The implication now is that all future unique, experimental content will be segregated from the central experience of FFXIV, even at the expense of beloved classic classes, which is, in my opinion, not worth it.

I would have honestly preferred blue mage as a normal job that had the monster spell aspect folded into its lore and job quests. But, I can see why they would be hesitant to do a middle of the road.


If it was a normal job and you had to go out and learn all your spells, it would lead to issues. People holding parties back or getting vote kicked for not having all of the spells they should. Or limiting the spells you can learn to a set rotation like other jobs have so that blue mage doesn't break the game.

I think a middle of the road aspect would be too messy, but they could have done what they did for red mage, summoner etc and reworked the job form what it normally does, to fitting into the FFXIV trinity mold.

I would have preferred that honestly but I'm curious to see how the solo duty works and what variety of spells they can get. It may function as a bit of fun side content at least.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mibgestalt

1. This iteration of Blue Mage is great design. The fact that it could be transposed as a DLC into any Final Fantasy game when it's in FFXIV is a huge problem though. By putting this design in FFXIV, it comes at a cost. The cost being the Massively Multiplayer part of MMORPG. That's a huge downside unique to this situation, when it could be implemented anywhere else at no expense to gameplay opportunities.

2. I don't really understand the people saying "Do you really want Blue Mage to just be a copy of OTHER jobs?". It seems like you think there's literally no design space left for caster, or even ANY of the roles. Should Square just not introduce any new full jobs because you think that A. There's no way they can be anything but copies or B. You have no faith in the devs to introduce a new unique full job? I really can't fathom how you make this argument and then think ANY new class would be acceptable in the future.

3. Arguing that BLU somehow can't work in FFXIV because of FFXIV's systems, is again, absurd. Literally every job has had major sweeping changes to its core identity and kit to be able to fit into FFXIV. By this logic, FFXIV should never have another full class, because there's no way they could be true enough to their identity in other games while being added effectively to FFXIV. Seriously, FFXIV is the game. That is the core that design is based around. The jobs SHOULD be designed to fit into it and its core gameplay and content, even at the expense of the job's identity, as has been done with EVERY JOB BEFORE IT.

EDIT: I'll be clear here and say I'd be extremely happy if they just clarified and said "this is a test run for a unique new system that we want to see how players use and interact with before allowing it to influence the rest of the game". Hell, I'd be ecstatic because it would be hinting that not only are they going to continue with big experimentation and let it interact the rest of the game eventually, they are doing it responsibly with caution towards disrupting what the current game is. The implication now is that all future unique, experimental content will be segregated from the central experience of FFXIV, even at the expense of beloved classic classes, which is, in my opinion, not worth it.

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For point 2 specifically, I don't think the game needs a FOURTH CASTING DPS right now. Sure they could make blue mage as a traditional job, but if we were going to get another dps in 4.5/5.0 as a regular job I'd much rather get something besides another caster. We just got red mage in 4.0 afterall and we have three caster dps to deal with.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mibgestalt

3. Arguing that BLU somehow can't work in FFXIV because of FFXIV's systems, is again, absurd. Literally every job has had major sweeping changes to its core identity and kit to be able to fit into FFXIV. By this logic, FFXIV should never have another full class, because there's no way they could be true enough to their identity in other games while being added effectively to FFXIV. Seriously, FFXIV is the game. That is the core that design is based around. The jobs SHOULD be designed to fit into it and its core gameplay and content, even at the expense of the job's identity, as has been done with EVERY JOB BEFORE IT.

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Want to really support this.

on FFXIV, there is nothing else that healing skill, damage skill (and buffs/debuffs for this) and mitigation skills. No crowd controll is usefull, nearly never have any use from interrupt/silence spells. One of the game with the less use of interrupt/CC (if not the top1...)

Also, in ARR there was the idea to get "support job". Brad was shown this way... why not continuing this way? Blue mage would be a wonderfull support class. Because on other FF, bluemage is not a healer, nor a damage dealer, or a tank, it is a man able to help on any side... on MMORPG we call it support...

Sure people (not only BLU fans) would LOVE getting a support class, with not a lot damages (really low) but a really wonderfull use in raid...