Masked Carnival

Will preface this with the disclaimer that I am an older gamer, does anyone else feel for a limited job the acts that are required to progress the story are too hard, now i am not saying to make them all easy but at least dial down the ones needed to progress the blue mage story.I dont do any of the harder content like savages but would at least like to complete class stories.

Not especially? The only one you're required to do are Azulmagia and Siegfried, and the former felt more difficult than the latter. It helps that Azulmagia was basically soft nerfed due to iLevel creep making him easier to kill than before.

Now, if we're talking about hard duties, how about the duty with Typhon and the bomb or the double Living Liquids?

Both fights needed for the story rely a lot on learning the fight. Since there are achievements for fininshing all 3 acts without taking damage (among other things) everything can be avoided. While the fights can be passed on your first try, usually there's a lot of things that could kill you, so you gradually learn how each act work. Also each boss changes attack patterns in the first 2 acts significantly and then combines them both in the third on top of some other attacks.
Overall as solo trials go, these are among of my favouirites.
Not 29, tho. Definitely not 29.

29 got a lot easier for me when I learned that the two hands in act 2 behaved differently. One takes priority, and for several runs, I kept burning down the wrong one. After that, it's still a bit long and tedious, but it no longer seemed incredibly difficult.

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Originally Posted by OogaShaka

Will preface this with the disclaimer that I am an older gamer, does anyone else feel for a limited job the acts that are required to progress the story are too hard, now i am not saying to make them all easy but at least dial down the ones needed to progress the blue mage story.I dont do any of the harder content like savages but would at least like to complete class stories.

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Well a lot of them are puzzles so I think how easy a person may find them could be dependent on whether they are good at that sort of thing or not.

Also some are far easier with certain abilities in your arsenal. A few are legitimately impossible unless you have certain abilities. Perhaps your issue lies here?

Azulmagia was the most difficult solo fight I've done thus far, even knowing exactly how to do it courtesy of Mrhappy. That did surprise me because I would have expected to have the most trouble with a higher level msq duty, not a random job quest. Sometimes for whatever reason a certain encounter is just hard for me though (level 50 whm comes to mind) and I haven't tried Siegfried yet. I'm a little scared to, actually.

The level of execution needed for some of the BLU fights does feel a bit closer to what you'd encounter in extreme trials or even easier savage fights, so I can see why some people have trouble.

The Carnivale isn't a fight, it's a dance. You have to figure out the mechanics and the gimmicks, after which you're just matching the steps. Your biggest threat at that point is latency.

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Originally Posted by SugarPuff

Azulmagia was the most difficult solo fight I've done thus far, even knowing exactly how to do it courtesy of Mrhappy. That did surprise me because I would have expected to have the most trouble with a higher level msq duty, not a random job quest. Sometimes for whatever reason a certain encounter is just hard for me though (level 50 whm comes to mind) and I haven't tried Siegfried yet. I'm a little scared to, actually.

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Siegfried is a lot easier, but he has a few attacks you might die on the first time you see them. The ice cubes with the huge radius and invisible AOEs spring to mind.

Really, though, if you're on Healer stance with Aetherial Mimicry and have Gobskin + Exuviation, you should be fine.

The whole point behind it being a limited job is giving it content that doesn't quite follow the same balance rules as the rest of the game. All the blue mage content, and especially masked carnival, are about taking your wide array of niche spells and figuring out which ones work best for the situation. It's a puzzle basically.

Oh? I didn't know BLU got at least some love. Think I'll try it then. Last I heard about it you could exploit pretty much all fights with a handful abilities. Did that change?

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

Oh? I didn't know BLU got at least some love. Think I'll try it then. Last I heard about it you could exploit pretty much all fights with a handful abilities. Did that change?

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Only select fights absolutely demand that you have certain skills due to having instakill mechanics that cannot be prevented/avoided without them.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

Oh? I didn't know BLU got at least some love. Think I'll try it then. Last I heard about it you could exploit pretty much all fights with a handful abilities. Did that change?

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The suicide spells got nerfed heavily during 5.0 so that you could only use 1 every 10 minutes and most of the enemies in the new fights are tough enough that they cannot be 1 shot with Bristle/Whistle+Moon Flute+Off Guard+Final Sting.

The more spells you have unlocked, the better understanding of BLU dps you have, and the more you know a Carnivale fight, the easier they all get. Azulmagia is daunting to first time BLU but a relative cakewalk once you are more practiced with the job. My top recommendation is trying to get as many spells as you can beforehand and getting geared properly as well.

A physical dps spell like Sharpened Knife or Abyssal Transfixion, a good elemental dps spell like any of the 220 potency ones, and bristle + Song of Torment every 30s and you should be good to go spell wise. All you need after that is fight knowledge and the spell Loom for one particular mechanic. The more primal spells you have to weave the easier it gets but they aren't necessary for a first time clear.