BLU clone spells

It really bugs me that they made the primal spells for BLU basically clones of eachother with different elements so they are basically useless outside the carnival.

Why couldn’t they have done something to just slightly differentiate these spells? For example, make half of the spells a version that’s better for tanking, like makes leviathans counter attacks ignore the damage penalty from mighty guard, give mountain buster increased enmity so it’s better for tanking while shock is better for dpsing, make feather rain a spell so it’s effected by bristle and make eruption heal you for the damage dealt.

It feels like I’m wasting my time, and with how rare these spells are that is a lot of time, just to get something I’ll never use outside of one niche piece of content.

Yeah... In my thread I made recently I tried to differentiate the primal skills somewhat so that they would all be useful at some point.

The TL;DR version is simply:

Feather Rain being a DoT with 60s uptime so you basically alternate Feather Rain and Eruption outside when a target won't last for 60s then you just Eruption. Also, with Feather Rain dealing more damage than Eruption to make actually trying to keep the DoT up worthwhile.

Mountain Buster becoming a true AoE skill without the damage falloff. While Static Strike gets higher single target damage but weaker AoE (Outside small numbers of targets, like 1-3ish)

Glass Dance becoming a skill with damage that actually makes sense for a 90s CD skill while Veil of the Whorl I made into a magical vulnerability version of Ifrit-Egi's shield so it's essentially a party Mag damage up skill which would potentially compete with Glass Dance depending on party composition and encounter mechanics.

You call it niche content, but that's all BLU ever was to begin with. It's basically designed with the carnival in mind. BLU is the carnival. There was never any need to differentiate to that degree because the carnival is all it ever needed to be designed around.

The only purpose the Primal spells have (aside from extending the life of this shallow content) is to make you feel bad for not having them because aside from the 5 star spells Blue Mage has no other off-gcds besides Off-Guard and Peculiar Light (which have castbars for some ungodly reason). They have neat animations but they're otherwise the equivalent of having to farm ponies to be able to use Fleche and Contre Sixte on RDM.

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Originally Posted by RadicalPesto

The only purpose the Primal spells have (aside from extending the life of this shallow content) is to make you feel bad for not having them because aside from the 5 star spells Blue Mage has no other off-gcds besides Off-Guard and Peculiar Light (which have castbars for some ungodly reason). They have neat animations but they're otherwise the equivalent of having to farm ponies to be able to use Fleche and Contre Sixte on RDM.

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Worse. The Primal Spells are the blue mages only burst damage and their only real form of single target damage. Without Contre Sixte and Fleche Red Mages at least still have some sustained damage. Blue mages without primals are just sitting there spamming whichever flavor 130 potency spell they prefer and keeping up debuffs.

On a side note. There was a discussion on how it was really annoying to use Blue Mage as a tank because it had not good single target emnity grabber.

Spells like "Sticky Tongue" really should have been the Unleash/Shield Lob/Unmend of their kit for grabbing aggro. It would probably make a Blue Mage Tank the most amusing tank in game bar none.

So the thing I realized (thanks to one of the fights in the Masked Carnival) is that there are ever so slight, but very important, differences between some skills that appear identical, and I do mean beyond the bonuses some skills get if the target is suffering form a specific ailment. Drill Cannon and Water Cannon come to mind. Drill Cannon does have a couple benefts over Water Cannon, but in most cases, you're looking at a ranged attack with 120 potency. However, Water Cannon is coded as magical damage and Drill Cannon is coded as physical damage. I've noticed this to be true with other spells. Mountain Buster is physical, Glass Dance is magical for example.

It doesn't have much impact right now, but it does have the potential for party content to be pretty big if they job is ever considered at a later date for that type of retooling. You could do something like use Drill Cannon if a monk in your party uses Brotherhood or a Red Mage uses Embolden, but if you have a summoner who has used Contagion, you'll want to use Water Cannon instead.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

So the thing I realized (thanks to one of the fights in the Masked Carnival) is that there are ever so slight, but very important, differences between some skills that appear identical, and I do mean beyond the bonuses some skills get if the target is suffering form a specific ailment. Drill Cannon and Water Cannon come to mind. Drill Cannon does have a couple benefts over Water Cannon, but in most cases, you're looking at a ranged attack with 120 potency. However, Water Cannon is coded as magical damage and Drill Cannon is coded as physical damage. I've noticed this to be true with other spells. Mountain Buster is physical, Glass Dance is magical for example.

It doesn't have much impact right now, but it does have the potential for party content to be pretty big if they job is ever considered at a later date for that type of retooling. You could do something like use Drill Cannon if a monk in your party uses Brotherhood or a Red Mage uses Embolden, but if you have a summoner who has used Contagion, you'll want to use Water Cannon instead.

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But you would use neither because Glower.

Ah, BLU is useless outside the Carnival.... Someone had to say it.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

But you would use neither because Glower.

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You missed the point. I was using those two as a comparison as they're two I know off the top of my head. And Glower is not the end all, be all spell for blue mages considering how many other spells also have 130 potency but again also have the variance of physical vs magical damage. Also if you want to beat some of the masked carnival content, then you kind of have to know more about the spells since using the wrong ones will kill you and cause you to fail.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

You missed the point. I was using those two as a comparison as they're two I know off the top of my head. And Glower is not the end all, be all spell for blue mages considering how many other spells also have 130 potency but again also have the variance of physical vs magical damage. Also if you want to beat some of the masked carnival content, then you kind of have to know more about the spells since using the wrong ones will kill you and cause you to fail.

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I think you're the one who missed the point. You wouldn't use Drill Cannon over RamsGlowercracker because the 5% from Brotherhood is less than the roughly 8% more damage that the 130 potencies provide. You'll also never use Water Cannon because Glower has enough range to be safe and of course that 10 more potency. OUTSIDE of the Carnival, there are only a few reasons to use different abilities. Rams Dragon for trash mobs, Petri-Cannon if your fighting things on a level of 5, but both of those go away when you're fighting bosses or immune mobs and you're stuck in a simplified monk-like state, where you burn your cooldowns and then spam one or two other abilities until your cooldowns come back.

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Originally Posted by Palladiamors

I think you're the one who missed the point. You wouldn't use Drill Cannon over RamsGlowercracker because the 5% from Brotherhood is less than the roughly 8% more damage that the 130 potencies provide. You'll also never use Water Cannon because Glower has enough range to be safe and of course that 10 more potency. OUTSIDE of the Carnival, there are only a few reasons to use different abilities. Rams Dragon for trash mobs, Petri-Cannon if your fighting things on a level of 5, but both of those go away when you're fighting bosses or immune mobs and you're stuck in a simplified monk-like state, where you burn your cooldowns and then spam one or two other abilities until your cooldowns come back.

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I believe he was just using examples.

Replace Drill Cannon with [Random 130 Potency Physical Damage Spell] and Water Cannon with [Random 130 Potency Magical Damage Spell] in his original comment.

Basically, he was talking about how it was kind of cool that BLU can capitalize off of both Physical and Magical damage boosts from allies.

However, this is all rendered moot by the fact that BLU's own spell, Peculiar Light only boosts magical damage, so you wouldn't ever use a physical damage spell outside of Masked Carnivale.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

I believe he was just using examples.

Replace Drill Cannon with [Random 130 Potency Physical Damage Spell] and Water Cannon with [Random 130 Potency Magical Damage Spell] in his original comment.

Basically, he was talking about how it was kind of cool that BLU can capitalize off of both Physical and Magical damage boosts from allies.

However, this is all rendered moot by the fact that BLU's own spell, Peculiar Light only boosts magical damage, so you wouldn't ever use a physical damage spell outside of Masked Carnivale.

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I was going to say Mountain Buster but again, Peculiar Light. Brotherhood has a 90 second cooldown so you could eke out an additional 5% every third cast but that seems pretty excessive for such a minor boost.

Embolden is right out, at 120 seconds its always going to be up when Peculiar Light is.

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

On a side note. There was a discussion on how it was really annoying to use Blue Mage as a tank because it had not good single target emnity grabber.

Spells like "Sticky Tongue" really should have been the Unleash/Shield Lob/Unmend of their kit for grabbing aggro. It would probably make a Blue Mage Tank the most amusing tank in game bar none.

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Main issue there is that BLU has a cast time for every fucking skill. So it'll be a slow aggro pulling tank and then at that point you'll be spamming "The Look" instead of Glower.

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Originally Posted by Palladiamors

I was going to say Mountain Buster but again, Peculiar Light. Brotherhood has a 90 second cooldown so you could eke out an additional 5% every third cast but that seems pretty excessive for such a minor boost.

Embolden is right out, at 120 seconds its always going to be up when Peculiar Light is.

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Well, Mountain Buster is rendered moot by Static Strike, which is magical and the same potency and reuse as MB.

So basically, you'd never even put MB on your bar and instead just Static Strike which would line up with every Peculiar.

Like, at best, you'd only care if Glass Dance had a physical damage alternative. Due to the 90s CD it would line up with Brotherhood but not every Peculiar.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Well, Mountain Buster is rendered moot by Static Strike, which is magical and the same potency and reuse as MB.

So basically, you'd never even put MB on your bar and instead just Static Strike which would line up with every Peculiar.

Like, at best, you'd only care if Glass Dance had a physical damage alternative. Due to the 90s CD it would line up with Brotherhood but not every Peculiar.

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Ah, right, sixty seconds not thirty. Then yeah, no reason to take Mountain Buster over Shock Strike at all.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

I believe he was just using examples.

Replace Drill Cannon with [Random 130 Potency Physical Damage Spell] and Water Cannon with [Random 130 Potency Magical Damage Spell] in his original comment.

Basically, he was talking about how it was kind of cool that BLU can capitalize off of both Physical and Magical damage boosts from allies.

However, this is all rendered moot by the fact that BLU's own spell, Peculiar Light only boosts magical damage, so you wouldn't ever use a physical damage spell outside of Masked Carnivale.

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Exactly.

Also theorizing in party content you might (if the job were ever made legit) customize your spell selection based on party comp. You might bring both physical and magical versions of spells, in fact you might even use Drill Cannon (the move I started with) if you're partied up with a dragoon since the piercing debuff will add 10% to its damage making it a more powerful spell than Glower despite having a lower base potency.

The blue mage toolkit right now is surprisingly complex and would be a really interesting job for raid content if it were allowed, but sadly most of these interactions are rendered pointless since they made it a solitary job.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Exactly.

Also theorizing in party content you might (if the job were ever made legit) customize your spell selection based on party comp. You might bring both physical and magical versions of spells, in fact you might even use Drill Cannon (the move I started with) if you're partied up with a dragoon since the piercing debuff will add 10% to its damage making it a more powerful spell than Glower despite having a lower base potency.

The blue mage toolkit right now is surprisingly complex and would be a really interesting job for raid content if it were allowed, but sadly most of these interactions are rendered pointless since they made it a solitary job.

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Piercing is 5%.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Piercing is 5%.

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Then replace dragoon with ninja/warrior/samurai and drill cannon with sharpened knife.

Ultimately my point is that there are differences between the spells and the spells could be so interesting to change around based on party comp, but it fails because you really can't do much in parties.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Then replace dragoon with ninja/warrior/samurai and drill cannon with sharpened knife.

Ultimately my point is that there are differences between the spells and the spells could be so interesting to change around based on party comp, but it fails because you really can't do much in parties.

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Sharpened Knife is a melee range cast spell. Not only is this a heavy inconvenience to use, but being in melee exposes you to more danger than being at ranged. Melee are balanced around this by having few if any animation locks, let alone cast time actions. The moment you lose one sharpened knife cast due to a movement constraint, you lost the whole 2 potency bonus you got instead of using Glower, let alone if there is more than one target.

I agree that they have failed to follow up on interesting spell interactions, but I disagree on the basis. There are currently no worthwhile spell combos aside from one, if you can call it that, that can be used on bosses who are immune to CC effects (Which is most of them), and the spell combos that do work are clunky, require low chance spells to land first, or simply are less effective than just spamming Glower.

For a job they can safely test mechanics on free from any sort of worry about upsetting the Balance discord, they have done nothing with Blue Mage, and that is the biggest sin I can point to on it.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Sharpened Knife is a melee range cast spell. Not only is this a heavy inconvenience to use, but being in melee exposes you to more danger than being at ranged. Melee are balanced around this by having few if any animation locks, let alone cast time actions. The moment you lose one sharpened knife cast due to a movement constraint, you lost the whole 2 potency bonus you got instead of using Glower, let alone if there is more than one target.

I agree that they have failed to follow up on interesting spell interactions, but I disagree on the basis. There are currently no worthwhile spell combos aside from one, if you can call it that, that can be used on bosses who are immune to CC effects (Which is most of them), and the spell combos that do work are clunky, require low chance spells to land first, or simply are less effective than just spamming Glower.

For a job they can safely test mechanics on free from any sort of worry about upsetting the Balance discord, they have done nothing with Blue Mage, and that is the biggest sin I can point to on it.

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I give up with you. Spam glower isn’t the most effective and is probably the most boring way to play this job. But that aside, it’s also not my point.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

I give up with you. Spam glower isn’t the most effective and is probably the most boring way to play this job. But that aside, it’s also not my point.

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As the class currently stands, Glower Spam is the most effective filler.

It has good range, it hits multiple targets, it's 130 potency and it's magical so benefits from Peculiar Light.

Trying to swap to a physical skill, currently means trading off to a 120 potency skill (Drill Cannon or Sharpened Knife), your ability to capitalize on Peculiar Light (Also, Contagion if a SMN is using it) as well as the range if using Sharpened Knife.

With the upside being able to capitalize on DRG's 5% Piercing debuff, WAR/NIN/SAM's 10% Slashing debuff or MNK/RDM 5% physical buffs.

Though, this is limited in how useful it is.

Since, a vast majority of BLU's potency comes from the way that their potency is amp'd in 2 different ways. First, is the 50% boost they get from Maim and Mend V second is the 50% boost of this already boosted potency by the Off-Guard debuff.

So, it's not 120 Potency vs 130 Potency. It's actually (120*1.5)*1.5 Potency vs (130*1.5)*1.5 Potency. Which is 270 vs 292.5.

Meaning that they just stack with Off-Guard and merely serve as a total of 55%/60% damage increase then you'd end up with 279 Potency for Drill Cannon and 288 Potency for Sharpened Knife. Both are inferior to Glower.

Basically, while there exists the theory of some interesting applications, the actuality is that because of the horrible balance decisions, in addition the BLU's access to Peculiar Light, it's just not worth it to do anything except spam whichever flavour of 130 Potency Magic skill as your filler.