Does anyone else think BLU feels improved from 4.5?

Sure I still have some gripes with it, but overall it doesn't feel as gimped as it did previously. I tried Cruise Chaser and Alexander with a PF party and there were no real hiccups beyond one wipe on the former due to messing up on mechanics. Compared to doing Garuda EX back in 4.5 and seeing the MT struggling to keep aggro with Mighty Guard, this feels like a breath of fresh air.

Even if we might wish for improvement beyond what's there, I hope other people are enjoying it somewhat!

I mean, could hardly be worse could it?

Feels about the same to me.

Mimicry has definitely improved the job's gameplay imo.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Mimicry has definitely improved the job's gameplay imo.

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Debatable. DPS stance does not impact how you play whatsoever, it's just more numbers. Pretend to be a healer is decent and pretend to be a tank is passable, but that's more or less it.

They really need to remove the cast times on some parts of its kit, particularly the defensive abilities and other forms of utility. I think everything other then their rez that has a cooldown should be instacast for starters, since it just makes the class feel needlessly clunky.

Mimcry hasn't really improved how the class plays, either; just made it more passable at subbing in for a proper tank/healer.

BLU tanking is awkward as heck as your personal mitigation is non-existent outside of Diamondback, your taunt requires melee range (And has a cast time...), and you're still so squishy due to lack of HP that you often need to be getting heal/shield/Cactguard spammed to not die even in content that you're somewhat overgeared for. Bosses like Nael and Lamebrix who have instant cast tank busters they weave between their normal attacks will just melt you if you aren't getting topped off constantly. I think it needs to have a HP boost attached to it along with modifying more abilities to function as defensive cooldowns such as Veil of the Whorl.

BLU healing feels a bit better but is still awkward due to the fact that Pom Cure, Gobskin, and Exuviation are almost useless as healing/mitigation if you don't have healer mimicry active. Making it so the potency is the same but the MP cost is much higher without healer mimicry would make them more interesting as normal BLUs have basically no reason to use any of those over White Wind for healing. Presently, you also don't really have a way to get your health back up to a safe level in an emergency like RDM does with Vercure because when near death White Wind isn't going to heal for beans (And you end up with that little HP rather often in harder content)

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Originally Posted by Flay_wind

Debatable. DPS stance does not impact how you play whatsoever, it's just more numbers. Pretend to be a healer is decent and pretend to be a tank is passable, but that's more or less it.

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Of course DPS stance doesn't impact how you play since the job is a base DPS lol. Mimicry Tank and Mimicry Healer are the change ups to how the job plays. The added DH and Crit Chance are nice to add some spice to specializing in damage, though.

Most importantly though is the group dynamics that are a bit more possible thanks to Mimicry as well as the expansion of healing and mitigation spells. Going as a full group of 8 you can have people Mimicry specialize to be 2t/2h/4d. This with the incentives to go as a full BLU party have led to an interesting few days so far of full BLU party content.

All of this, in my opinion, is a definite improvement. If you disagree, that's fine, this thread is querying if people have noticed something better about BLU, and my proposal is Mimicry is a big factor in that.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Of course DPS stance doesn't impact how you play since the job is a base DPS lol. Mimicry Tank and Mimicry Healer are the change ups to how the job plays. The added DH and Crit Chance are nice to add some spice to specializing in damage, though.

Most importantly though is the group dynamics that are a bit more possible thanks to Mimicry as well as the expansion of healing and mitigation spells. Going as a full group of 8 you can have people Mimicry specialize to be 2t/2h/4d. This with the incentives to go as a full BLU party have led to an interesting few days so far of full BLU party content.

All of this, in my opinion, is a definite improvement. If you disagree, that's fine, this thread is querying if people have noticed something better about BLU, and my proposal is Mimicry is a big factor in that.

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I think Mimicry is a BIT of an improvement, but there's an issue with the spell itself. Why not make it a stance change? That way changes can be made on the fly.
Healer is fine to me but Tank definitely needs something.

I'm new to the spell. Having only gotten it last night, but I did have a chance to tank and boy did I suck. Had nothing to do with BLU I just haven't gotten used to the skills, but it definitely feels smoother now compared to lvl 50 cap and relying so much on the look and mighty guard. I plan on trying it out more when I get back from work.

I mostly just love the idea and flavor of the spell.
Some weirdo (Martyn) in blue randomly immitating bystanders for kicks. That in itself makes me smile.

Healing and Tanking are awkward in savage content. Even with tank mimicry and Mighty Guard up, Blue Mage takes significant damage from autos such that the healer basically needs to be using Pom Cure every single GCD. You basically have no real tank cooldowns on BLU other than Diamondback, which is virtually required for almost all tank busters (unless you stack Gobskin, Devour, and Bad Breath). They should add a defensive cooldown property to Veil of the Whorl to make it like Vengeance, and add a few more defensive cooldowns as well, including one that permanently buffs Physical Defense/Magic Defense. Even though Mighty Guard+Tank Mimicry grant a high amount of mitigation, the base damage BLU takes is high because of the pathetically low base defense they have as a DoM in caster gear. I think they also need to add a Regen skill.

The biggest flaw of tanking on BLU in savage is tank swapping. It requires the use of Frog Legs which is an AoE provoke with a decent range (8y) and it doesn't have bonus enmity attached to it like a real Provoke either. It makes fights with multiple targets a real pain in the ass.

BLU feels much better at lvl 60. I love lvl 5 Death, Surpanakha, J-Kick, Mimicry and the new healing spells.
Doing the BLU log was really fun.
The spell learning from 50-60 was sooo much better then the 50 ones. Thank god no more ex spells and 100% drop synched.

(Just a little sad about the Morbol mount since i never will get that)

I think some of the more creative spells added is the right direction but I still think the core construct of the job means that I think it's less engaging than normal jobs, which is a bit sad since as a side piece they've less rules they could be following. Yet they seem to attempt to be vaguely following rules for the sake of no echo savage PF content, which I know some are happy for but I honestly am disappointed that's the direction limited blue is going. Makes me want to play the job even less, as it may be a value to some but opposite value to me since I didn't want to do that anyways, would have rather gone in OP and solo content not normally supposed to be done that way.

I still feel like the class should be been designed with a concept of glue, perhaps a more free form one since it's not following basic rules, but like other jobs there is this linking concept that makes form out of chaos (makes the kit have shape) - making a more interesting rotation. In other words I feel if blue mage doesn't need to follow the rules it should be more fun to play and yet it feels slower less put together than my core jobs. As they add more interesting spells it'll get better I imagine and as people have to get specific spells for it to feel good that way, which I think isn't great since it means it'll be broken pieces until you get a lot of help (or ride patch day until it dies off). Especially with the design direction it's going, as opposed to solo-god-king type design where you could fix yourself. More importantly I'm not playing with a time machine to feel / experience that way down the line kit .. lol. Personally have been thinking of a sort of deck building mechanics that would allow for variation in rotation, some on the fly decision making, and a Coup d'état moment at the end (although I've read a lot of ideas that I thought would be cool).

So I guess a bit better but in terms of happy, satisfied, impressed, other words like that.. I'd still say not really. Especially as it, imo (again I know some are fine with the PF no echo concept), there is a two steps back with the smaller step forward.

I think this blu update was a step in the right direction for them making it a real job eventually. Before they revealed how limited the job was I was hoping it would be an omniclass that could queue as any role.If they’d just do some balancing and make certain skills required for queuing as the role I feel like it could work

Having the spell drop rate be 100% makes an enormous amount of difference ... at least this week.
By 2020, the odds of finding 3 other BLUs (or Hydaelyn help you, 7) still looking for the spells are going to approach zero.

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Originally Posted by Jennah

Having the spell drop rate be 100% makes an enormous amount of difference ... at least this week.
By 2020, the odds of finding 3 other BLUs (or Hydaelyn help you, 7) still looking for the spells are going to approach zero.

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For the spells you just need to do it synched. So you at least don´t need other BLUs for that.

It improved a lot.
I can't imagine the monster it will be at high levels.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Even though Mighty Guard+Tank Mimicry grant a high amount of mitigation, the base damage BLU takes is high because of the pathetically low base defense they have as a DoM in caster gear. I think they also need to add a Regen skill.

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They actually take less damage then a proper tank as their defense stat is only marginally lower with tank mimcry and they get 40% passive reduction vs. 20%. It's mostly the lack of HP and defensive cooldowns that's an issue.

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Originally Posted by Laphael

For the spells you just need to do it synched. So you at least don´t need other BLUs for that.

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I think their point would still stand though. Not referring to the 100% mechanic which I think is good, actually something I had suggested when Blue was first released, but on the point that the job is going to age poorly like it did before.

This week there are a lot of people doing blue content, this makes the parties not take forever. Later, like last time, it's going to be a lot slower.. Like trying to get certain pvp achievements out of it's flavor of the month season. Not impossible sure, but when you as a fresh blue mage need x y z s t f q e p t m to start to feel like a real job (as blue mage is designed this is the case) and yet no one wants to join even one of those multiple contents you need to do.. it's going to be ...wonderful. Perhaps if you're lucky and find someone(s) who takes pity on/charity for you, otherwise good luck.

Reminds me of when I had to shout for hours in old mmorpgs, I hated it. . lol. Even in FFXIV I remember I shouted for three days for about two hours each day till I finally got a group to do the Ifrit MSQ back in 1.0... which was so easy that he was dead before I finished the intro cutscene (people literally joined out of pity . . . >.<).

I think the best time for any good vibes is now for blue, so the best feelings SE is going to get is right now- I hope they know that when they're polling for feedback that it's going to be harder to enjoy later.

Wouldn't know not touching it again till they make it a normal job and not a limited one.

It's an improvement, but not much was needed for that.

The one thing I think is lacking is the actual GCD usage, feels so much like a healer for debuff-resistant bosses like in the 24-man raids.
Keep up Song of Torment(dot) and either Sharpened Knife in melee range or Sonic Boom if forced at range or movement. Else just fire the many oGCDs as they line up with off-guard(and in 24 man it's constantly on).

Having an actual rotation of spells would be nice instead of just spamming the same 2-3 GCD spells for damage.

Gave it another try this patch, plot twist: playing healer as a BLU is way more fun and engaging than playing a "real" healer job.
So yes, it kind of improved for me but in a weird/wrong way.

Aetherial Mimicry (Healer) + Pom Cure is a godsend for Carnivale runs.

It's gotten way, way better. Which just makes me more upset it can't do real content.

I enjoyed it before, it feels way better now, if they keep improving it like this each time I'll be happy.

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Originally Posted by Imakun

Gave it another try this patch, plot twist: playing healer as a BLU is way more fun and engaging than playing a "real" healer job.
So yes, it kind of improved for me but in a weird/wrong way.

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BLU healing is only fun in easier content IMO, mostly because you can scarcely afford to do anything but heal in coil or Alexander Savage when an auto + instant tank buster can potentially kill the MT if they aren't topped off.

That's more of an issue with how squishy BLU tanks are due to lack of HP/mitigation, though.

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Originally Posted by Imakun

Gave it another try this patch, plot twist: playing healer as a BLU is way more fun and engaging than playing a "real" healer job.
So yes, it kind of improved for me but in a weird/wrong way.

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Feels weird but nice having to actually, y'know, heal instead of spending 90% of the time dpsing. Even if we only really do because Blu tanks feel like tissue paper.

The only thing I miss as a healer BLU is insta cast ogcd heals like Tetragrammaton... With blu tanks being really squishy, you simply can't afford to - not - have your gcd ready for a Pom Cure. On that note, they really need to get more defensives.

The Carnivale at least felt leagues better with Healer Mimicry + Pom Cure. Before, you could maybe recover from one mistake period, due to the way White Wind sucked all your HP and wouldn't do anything if you were already low; now, you can actually heal yourself! Go figure.

... so of course, there's fight #29 ...