Likes and Dislikes of Blue Mage

Before 5.1 I wanted Blue Mage to be a real job since its one of my favorite jobs in FF but had Problems with it in 14 aside a couple aspects. What I liked about it before the patch were these.

Likes

Going around on the overworld to find spells was fun.
Some of the spells were cool.

Dislikes
Once you got all the overworld spells it was just boring to level.
A lot of the skills sucked
The carnival wasn't great and frustrating.
Element system in carnival sucks.
Trying to learn spells before wasn't 100% if you were synced so you had scenarios like me spending 6-8 hours trying to get ramuh skill.

By the end of it I was fed up and was mad that BLU ended up like this. However with 5.15 these feelings have changed.

Grouping up with other BLU in content for the BLU log and learning new skills is really fun. With Aetherial Mimicry the BLU can establish roles like tanking and healing and that helps a ton. The new skills are good and there some cool ones introduced things like Avail and Launcher. I don't like how the Morbol mount is a reward for clearing T5 T9 and T13 as well as A4S A8S and A12S. The morbol for all that doesn't feel that much worth and it should've been carnival and maybe something like a Brute Justice mount for the savages. The best change for BLU is making the learn rate 100% when synced and that cuts down on the grind and overall makes the experience better. Now for likes and dislikes.

Likes
Its still fun to go around on the overworld and learning skills
Group Content with BLU is really fun and is easily one of the best parts
More interesting spells make builds more important
The augment system helps a lot and makes roles for the BLU better
The increase in damage helps with one of the issues with BLU
Learn rates being 100% when synced cut down the grind

Dislikes

The carnival still sucks
The morbol mount being locked behind the savages sucks
The augment system needs more work
Tanking needs more skills that get augmented
Final sting and Self-Destruct being a 10 minute cooldown sucks
It still sucks to level up once you get all your skills from the overworld.

I think BLU has improved a lot and if they continue to work on it like this I believe it would be a great side thing to do. Letting BLU choose roles for content and having content to do that wasn't the carnival was a great change from what was before. I know people still want it to be a solo job but I think this direction is way better.

So what do you guys like and dislike about Blue Mage?

Likes:
Feels much more engaging to play.
BLU Log makes learning any group spell much more tolerable, especially coupled with the 100% learn chance.
Healing as a BLU is much more enjoyable now.

Dislikes:
5 Minute Rez
BLU Tank is still lacking, especially in terms of mitigation. Cast times on the few mitigation tools they do have also doesn't help.
Too much of the same copy/paste spells with different affinities.

Likes
- Much more engaging and fun to play.
- The new Healer options make the Carnivale a lot more tolerable.
- Obtaining new spells is quick/easy and requires no Extreme Trials.
- More spells where you get to destroy monsters with ICBMs.
- Compared to 4.5, dealing with dungeon trash is quick and painless now, making runs a lot faster.

Dislikes
- Still no Limit Break. (Seriously, where is my Grand Delta LB3?)
- Too many recolored spells (220 potency that decreases in damage the more enemies are in it).
- Masked Carnivale is still "Bring this one particular spell or you instantly die.", with no way to intuit what you need a good deal of the time until you get killed.
- Stage 29 of the Masked Carnivale.
- Raise spell is gated behind completion of all of the Masked Carnivale stages.
- Raise spell has a five minute long cooldown.
- Angel Whisper is the same as every other Raise only with more drawbacks rather than a Full Life spell that warrants the harsh limitations.
- There's no way to assign roles to BLU PF parties, leading to instances where you can never see if anyone has brought a Tank or Aetherial Mimicry until it's too late.
- Tanks have no defensive cooldowns or Shield Lob variant. The Look also has a cast time, making it even slower for them to establish enmity if there's an add phase like Garuda EX's Suparna and Chirada.

Likes

-Defined dps Rotation
-They have more necessary tools to sub in other role
-Healer BLU is an interesting inversion of normal healer, gcd heals with ogcd damage

Dislikes
-With how defined the rotation is, theres no reason to not have an unlocked blu using a slightly expanded on version of this rotation
-Tank BLU is miserable
-Mimicry is really jank
-Its still a limited job

Likes
Access to more off-global spells allows for more fluid and mobile gameplay.
It still hearkens to what it felt like to play back in the days of ARR and HW without the tribulations of them.
Blue Mage log offers more incentive to do content as a Blue Mage while (mostly) eliminating the issue of RNG.
Mimicry for roles improves group gameplay and keeps it from being absolute chaos.
The job still provides an idea of how it would feel if FFXIV had a public test server, giving players mechanics we'd otherwise never get the chance to implement.

Dislikes (and possible solutions)
Mimicry would feel better as either a cycle option or just have individual command buttons for it (with the tank one being baked into Mighty Guard).
Allow a ranged spell like Sticky Tongue to be instant-cast and generate increased enmity (which would solve the lack of a ranged quick-grab tank spell).
There is no "git gud" response as to why Angel Whisper is a five-minute cooldown.
Masked Carnivale still feels like an overall waste of resources.
Lack of a duty roulette exclusive to Limited Jobs (which would also allow more acceptance for future Limited Jobs).
People whining about it being a Limited Job when they have no idea of how devs can utilize data drawn from us playing with what is effectively a skeleton that could lead to better jobs in the future.

It only took me 30 min in helping my fiance out to level him from 50 to 60 in Azys Lla. Getting 120k+ EXP on the best part of a chain (Without exp resting bonus) is crazy. The EXP gain isn't anything bad.

The carnivale still feels like hell personally. So many times I knock something back only for it to GO THE WRONG WAY.

Likes:
Some of the new spells are what I thought a real job version of blu would get
Fun getting to play more group content as blu


Dislikes:
Still limited despite it feeling so close to being a real job at lvl 50 and even more so now

Likes:
- The new update made it so it's not boring to play.
- It no longer does potato DPS.
- A few of the new skills are a mix of aesthetically really cool, and mechanically fun, such as J Kick and Ravana's skill.

Dislikes:
- Masked Carnivale is still garbage, which saddens me greatly
- I hope you like 220 potency AoEs of varying shapes and meaningless elements/status effects!
- Aetherial Mimicry is a cool idea, but it's just a joke:
- Tank Mimicry is basically worthless, and a useless meme.
- That DPS Mimicry exists and on top of that is just a substat buff.
- The spells that are supposed to make Blue Mage into other roles are just all pretty awful and worthless if you're not in the corresponding Mimicry stance. Tank Blu suffers the most from this, since Cactguard provides no benefit to the caster themselves, but gains more reduction for the other person in tank stance and....that's it.
- Frog Legs makes me :(, I can't imagine trying to do an "all BLU" Bismark EX
- Angel Whisper
- Remember that time they used Level 5 Death to explain why it needed to be a limited job? Yeah, neither do they, apparently.
- The fact that it's still a limited job and 2 expansions behind and it's almost a year after it was released.
- The fact that is does indeed play much better, but will still never be a real job despite not having anything at all about it that warrants being limited at this point.

Like- how versatile Blue mage is, enjoying the carnival challenges, learning spells in the world and dungeons.

Dislike- spells don't set after you save the set actions and load another set ( for example loading set 2 from set 1)

You have to manually reput you missing actions

Likes: Glamour & fun spell animations.
Dislikes: Requires PF/statics for unlocking some spells. No deep dungeons or squadrons.

Likes
- Revival of some older content
- A party of BLU makes for some very fun runs
- A new challenge with that of getting the Morbol mount.
- The mimicry spell is really nice.

Dislikes
- No POTD - absolute wasted potential. BLU solo POTD could have been such a fun thing to try.
- BLU joining BLU only parties and having next to no skills. There needs to be some gate or check - since this was one of reasons it couldn't be a "full job" - why is it OK in BLU only content?
- However fun it is right now, it's going to be very short lived and niche content once those who want the mount / all the skills / complete log are done.
- The Mimicry spell needs some buffs on more spells for tanking.

Tanking/healing as BLU honestly is not that fun when the MT needs to be getting babysat by one or both healers as well as the OT to not die in harder content while they don't have Diamondback active, plus actually triggering the skill when it's needed is a hassle because of the cast time.

The lack of a HP cushion to fall back on for spikes of damage is really rough for them, as is lacking a regen of some sort to help smooth out incoming damage. You're pretty much forced to spam Pom Cure constantly because something like a auto attack crit followed by a instant tank buster (Which nearly every raid boss required for the BLU mount achievement has) will delete a BLU even if they have every bit of non-Diamondback mirigation active if they aren't topped off (And possibly even if they are).

Tanking mimicry should both boost HP to a degree and make defensive/tanking actions instacast, while healers just need more options in general.

Mimicry just makes a mockery of blu imo

Hey let’s run this dng as a all blu party that’s going to be fun.
Sure
Ok you go tank and you go healer
Wait! What? I thought we were going all blue? We have 4 people with aoe heals and single target heals why designate one a tank and healer?
Because content needs a tank and healer duh
Well hop me out and I’ll go paladin then since all blu is pointless if you still need a tank and healer.

Also why let non log players join people doing log runs. We had an issue in baelsars last night where someone got spell from 2nd boss then said thanks and left, unaware the other two needed a clear (I also don’t have log and was about to leave till I seen them two get stroppy and explain) seems a flaw that as well as rewarding soellls mid dungeon

Likes:
- Learning spells
- Customisable loadout and set up
- Tanking and healing feel engaging
- Healer BLU feels more engaging than main healer jobs. I'm a former healer main disillusioned by the healer jobs in the game ATM. Blue Mage addresses 2 of the biggest issues, too much downtime and too little to do in said downtime.
- Running blue mage parties is fun
- The ability to apply status effects and enfeeble foes, rather than just pure DPS focus and zerg things. This helps with survivability if anything
- The Blue Mage log, this encourage people to use the PF to find parties and to do them synced. I hated how much stuff was undersized before because for all the complaints about lack of content, it's right there staring us in the face in the form of old content
- I like that it has the potential for revitalising old content.
- That they've put more incentives, though I'll reference in dislikes because I don't think it has gone far enough.
- Levelling is easy, the content doesn't really pick up until 60, so it makes it easy for people to jump start in, hunting spells will get you levels.

Dislikes
- Some DPSing as Blue Mage doesn't always flow so well, I think a few extra oGCD's might alleviate this enough as some stuff already are useful to use in as part of a combo, based on their use.
- No DF options available. I feel a Limited Job roulette would be good, I feel in order to queue you need to use Aetherial Mimicry to get your role and to have a minimum skill set mapped to go in. You can't be a healer without Pom Cure, Exuviation and White Wind, for example. Maybe 2 roulettes, one specifically for Limited Jobs and one that allows Limited Jobs and non-limited jobs. The latter could give on-content tomestones if you have a level 80 job levelled.
- No way to declare your role in PF. We establish who does what after people have joined and people could easily turn around and say "I don't have enough spells to tank or to heal, I've got enough to DPS", which is not completely crazy in a party dedicated to learning spells.
- Rewards I think will not be enough to promote longevity of the Limited Job role and I expect it will die down as soon as people start shelving it. Allied Seals and Poetics are something that can get capped easily. Adding more rewards in future or adding additional types of currency might give more incentive and longevity.
- A lot of stuff is similar in what they do outside of Masked Carnivale. I wonder how achievable adding elements and damage types to existing content would be that only works with Blue Mage skills. But it'd differentiate say, Flamethrower and Northerlies, for example. Or me using a physical attack or a magical one.
- I can maybe see an argument for 1 oGCD heal, nothing more.

Suggestion (aside from what I put in Dislike already)

There are some who feel that Blue Mage should make for entertaining solo play as it was what was indicated Blue Mage was for. I remember it being vague, solo job but can do group content was the message given in the live letter they introduce Blue Mage in, which was contradictory back then. And it looked like a Blue Mage was soloing Shiva.

My argument here has been: if you want to face roll content, you've got the unsynced option. Plus, certain fights & mechanics /rely/ on groups to progress. I feel Martyn and The Wandering Minstrel should hook up to make Blue Mage adjusted versions of existing fights to be listed in the Masked Carnivale. So you get the experience of the proper fight without being restricted by group-specific mechanics. Plus it's a Blue Mage soloing fights.

I'd also like a version of Blue Mage that's allowed in normal content. But in order to acquire this version you need to have specific skill requirements and you sacrifice the ability to use some of BLU's more game breaking skills and limit the number of skills available at certain levels. Because in terms of actual damage and potency, Blue Mage isn't so OP.

Dislikes them adding 10 minute debuff to final sting and self destruct. Why don't they just remove them who's going to use a skill that got wait 10 minutes for debuff to leave. Right there is reason I will never use or touch blue mage again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hynaku

Dislikes them adding 10 minute debuff to final sting and self destruct. Why don't they just remove them who's going to use a skill that got wait 10 minutes for debuff to leave. Right there is reason I will never use or touch blue mage again.

---

I agree maybe still having a debuff...though as one who loves trolling their friends I'd prefer not...but 10 minutes is excessive. Maybe 3 minutes.

Likes
1.) Nothing?

Dislikes
1.) Still feels like trash tier side content

Likes
-Learning spells
-Group content in a full BLU party is fun and enjoyable
-Quick to level
-Heavily engaging when trying to tank or heal parties
-Aetherical Mimicry and the spells it effects are a good building block to more defined spells in the future
-Some truly amazing and fun things to see when they work, such as Level 5 Death, Missile, and all the status effect spells

Dislikes
-DPS is still spamming 1 spell while weaving oGCD primal spells
-Lack of defensive cooldowns makes tanking painful
-Most spells are AoE damage with little differences between them
-Debuff for using Self Destruct and Final Sting is too long, should be shortened to around 5 minutes or so.
-Revival spell locked behind doing all of the Masked Carnival, has a 5 minute cooldown

Likes
• BLU spells (animations; not actually learning them)

Dislikes
• Leveling a class to run 4-year-old content.

Helluuuu Blue!

My Likes:
-Collecting the spells
-Customizable role and kit via aetherial mimicry and spell selection

My Dislikes:
-Spells locked behind non-soloable content
-Class quests locked behind Carnivale
-Inability to do queued content
-Lower level cap

Likes:

• Using some big spells for a while, like 1k needles was a stand out moment until it got boring to spam / weak.
• Some of the combos can be fun for a while, until similar vibes creep up again.

Dislikes:

• The direction the job began. Which includes things like that the job was limited in the first place when I had wanted to main it. Or that there was a clear design for party content on a job that couldn't use (imo) that best form of partying (DF, I may use PF but I honestly will do it as a last resort only- reminds me of shouting for groups and that's not an enjoyable memory).
• The direction the job is going, although in terms of lesser 'evils' (dislikes) I dislike the newer version less but I still dislike it as I feel the job's value to me is limited and that it is limited for a limited value makes it a worse pill to swallow (not game quitting levels, but it's not a enjoyable train of thought). I can imagine some people will like this direction as they refine it so I don't want to say it's pure terrible, but I will say I don't enjoy the core concepts and direction it's promoting (I don't like having to ride hype weeks to feel complete (as some people have done, and feel good about that), waiting hours for symbiotic teamwork, or begging for free help/charity).
• Communication about this job, which has been both contradictory and limited.

Obviously I largely dislike the job as a whole, and while I've had enjoyable moments (the massive dragon's voice while leveling my chocobo, both of which got nerfed a bit lol) those moments still pale in comparison to the loss I feel in both the DF and limited department.

Not to take 'loss' as some sort of "I lost a loved one" drama, I'm annoyed at the direction taken and I'm comfortable sharing that opinion (obviously lol), but I'm also not frothing at the mouth (imo, ;)), nor losing sleep, and don't think someone has to be fired.

In terms of disappointment/wants with DF that should be obvious, as I'd play it like I play other jobs (and may have main-ed / secondary'd it), and in terms of limited in the sense that a 'no echo another way to play old savage content' / 'run content 100 times or pf sync only options to feel complete' has no value to me as I'd have not wanted to do that in the first place (but I would have valued a job that allowed me to solo and readily put to farm content I'd have not been able to easily farm/complete solo normally). Also on limited I feel blue mage could have been built in a way that encouraged more builds and interactions, encourage collecting and value of even just normal spells, while still having some sort of structure, and even being DF-able (and easily balance-able)... which I know my idea wont be universally accepted but one I hope to share in a few days or so.

Like:
Having monster spells and a legit rotation
Being able to play the job
Finding and gather spells with a reasonable learn %


Dislike:
Limited job
Tank and Healer roles tacked on. It's fine as a DPS
SE's unwillingness to make it a real job
People still not understanding why people dislike BLU

Likes:
All the cool stuff you can learn.
Nearly 100% learning rate when going synced.
Snazzy outfit.
Grouping with other BLUs is actually fun.
Healer BLU is a lot more fun to play than an actual healer.

Dislikes:
Aside from Diamonback Tank BLU not having any personal mitigation and overall being rather squishy.
Low hit rates on death spells. LVL 5 Death should be 100%, unless enemy is immune.
As a follow-up to the above, no clear indication if the enemy is immune to death spells to begin with.
No clear indication in party finder if a BLU has mimicry on. Ideally it could show which mimicry it is.
Actually Carnivale in general and gating Angel Whisper behind completing the entirety of it (currently).
Edit: No new level 60 AF set.

Likes
-Its side content to do as leisure
-some cool spells
-Blu looks great in blue & white augmented shire gear.
-Some Blu only parties are fun

Dislikes
-alot of underwhelming moves. Some just have another name but basically do the same thing.
-primal spells sharing a cooldown & re-cast times. Thats bogus.
-BLU was meant for SOLO CONTENT but cant use Blu in PotD or even squadrons...which is 100% solo content. Several squadron dungeons have spells that BLU needed to learn. SE is missing the boat with content. Some of the mobs in PotD have some great looking spells that Blu could learn like DARK BLIZZARD.
-Masked Carnivale is just boring & underwhelming to me. On lesson 9. No rush to get through it...not evening for the log book.
-alot of AOE magic spell, give more single magic spell.
-potency on these spells need to BE raised & why are ALL the spells...LEVEL 1.
-great spells overlooked. Ramuh Shock Strike is ok, but his JUDGEMENT BOLT is awesome.
-Lastly & this really bothers me. Give the damn wand STATS. Its a weapon. SE stop refering it AS glamour. Wand transform to Ramuh's wand when using shocking strike.

Likes:
- The customization potential in building a moveset.
- Not having to worry about a set rotation; you can pretty much do what you like and go HAM.
- The 100% learn rate with synced content.
- Having reason to go back out into zones from older expansions to learn new moves.

Dislikes:
- Still Limited Job, but I've come to terms with it at this point. Sort of.
- BLU still feels weak and nerfed to the ground despite being touted as an "overpowered job".
- Angel Whisper, with its 5-minute cooldown despite working the exact same way as any other raise (and the fact that it's locked behind the completion of the Masked Carnivale, besides). Why is this? So BLUs don't go around blowing themselves up during raids and reviving each other? Well that isn't exactly possible, thanks to a certain debuff...
- Brush With Death. The "No Fun Allowed" debuff.
- Primal moves sharing cooldowns, especially since it gives little indication of which moves share them.
- Limited to 24 moves, which is going to feel more difficult to work with as new moves are added.
- Not as many moves are learned in the Open World in proportion to those learned in instances as I would like. ("Solo Class")
- The Morbol mount being locked behind such horrendous requirements. To this day Nael is still tricky to beat even unsynced, and they expect Blue Mages to do that and all the other savage raids synced and without the Echo?! I'm sorry, but that's downright psychopathic.
- The Masked Carnivale. Sure, some of the fights were fun and interesting, but most have had to be the most frustrating fights I have ever had to engage in since I started playing this game. It hardly felt gratifying to finally get all the rewards for completing it at the end, just a crummy sense of relief.

Dislikes : That stupid freaking level 25 fight in which btw you must clear in order for the class quests or whatever to unlock.
That fight, the boss is such a cheap cheating a-hole, lol


Other then that i actually enjoy blu

Likes - Versatile gameplay.
BLU parties are fun.
New approaches for dungeons.

Dislikes - THE GOD DAMNED MASKED CARNIVAL! - There is no worse content in this game except for PVP. The carnival is anti-fun incarnate and whoever designed it should be fired! Been throwing myself at #29 for 4 hours now and I'm ready to declare it unwinnable. I've watched videos. I've augmented my gear. I've read guides. I've done this thing over 100 times and I CAN'T FREAKING CLEAR IT!!!

Also Lack of duty queue, pointless level cap, that's all been remarked upon. I just really wanted to stress how much the carnival has ruined one of my favorite final fantasy classes...

I've only gotten to level 37 on my alt and I don't think I've unlocked that masked carnival yet but so far my impressions are...
Like
• Collecting spell
• Spell book/log
• Being able to choose which spells I have on my hotbar (honestly, I like this so much that I'd be fine if they stopped weeding out skills for regular classes and basically let us customise how we choose to play our class)
• Being able to pretty much solo open world content...with my chocobo
But that's the same with all other classes


Dislike
• There are a lot of repeating, useless, almost flavour text spells... that either result in a stun of some sort or sleeping effect (no class needs that many stuns, SE)
• 1000 needles takes an insanely long time to cast without swiftcast
• 1000 needles is "OP" before level 28 or something, then it effectly gets weaker and weaker... despite being dependent on it atm
(I think I'm supposed to transition to Ram's voice(?) now??? But it's big and awkward and maybe I'm just bad at BLU, lol)
• I need to run dungeons and trials with OTHER people to get skills when it's supposed to be a solo class
• And yet I can't enroll in DF to help out with that issue
• It's a limited class
• It's pretty weak and doesn't have much going for it despite being "too OP to DF"