Next BLU update, please increase the number of active action slots.

Currently Blue Mage has 24 slots to assign active actions to. With the number of actions BLU has at lv 70 it is manageable, if a bit annoying, to change sets as needed. However I fear that when Blue Mage updates to lv 80 and learns new spells, this will get exacerbated and I think it will get to the point where the 24 slots arent going to be enough to comfortably put the new actions.

I personally think a good number would be 36 active action slots, since thats how many slots two sets of controller hotbars can accomodate. I understand that perhaps 36 actions could be too much, so adding a way smaller number would also help a lot. Even an increase as small as 4 to the number of active action slots would be greatly appreciated and would make things a lot more comfortable. :D

Thank you for reading.

Or at least more loadouts, that'd be nice too.

I'd say no to more loadouts. Basically, 24 class skills is where classes can start to feel overbloated. Or rather, 30 buttons between class and role + sprint. Which, in EW, will be exactly 30 if the loadout size does not change. There's a number of reasons for this but the general gist is going above 30 can make a class start to feel really bad just due to the sheer size of the hotbars you need to handle the class. And a big part of the reason why GNB/PLD/SAM/BLM can feel pretty bad. Yes, BLM. The only reason they don't feel bloated is because more than 10% of their kit is currently literally useless.

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Originally Posted by Taranok

I'd say no to more loadouts. Basically, 24 class skills is where classes can start to feel overbloated. Or rather, 30 buttons between class and role + sprint. Which, in EW, will be exactly 30 if the loadout size does not change. There's a number of reasons for this but the general gist is going above 30 can make a class start to feel really bad just due to the sheer size of the hotbars you need to handle the class. And a big part of the reason why GNB/PLD/SAM/BLM can feel pretty bad. Yes, BLM. The only reason they don't feel bloated is because more than 10% of their kit is currently literally useless.

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you can simply choose not to slot more actions if you feel overwhelmed with too many. blue mage isnt like other jobs because it has optional spells, and a lof of those spells are situational.
Moreover If AST, PLD, SCH, GNB etc can accomodate more than 24 actions its reasonable to at least have maybe 4 more slots to reach a similar amount of actions to those jobs.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

you can simply choose not to slot more actions if you feel overwhelmed with too many. blue mage isnt like other jobs because it has optional spells, and a lof of those spells are situational.
Moreover If AST, PLD, SCH, GNB etc can accomodate more than 24 actions its reasonable to at least have maybe 4 more slots to reach a similar amount of actions to those jobs.

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Alright, I'll just casually remove buttons I need on a class and play very suboptimally. What kind of advice is this? No, seriously. And just because some classes are bloated too much doesn't mean that's reasonable justification to bloat any and every class.

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Originally Posted by Taranok

Alright, I'll just casually remove buttons I need on a class and play very suboptimally.

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You can play blue mage optimally with 24 skills, no? Any extra skills are not needed if thats the case.

BLU isnt like other jobs because you choose what spells you bring, so it literally isnt like removing actions from your hotbar in other jobs from that alone. If i want to be flexible and add situational skills like bad breath or missile it wouldnt affect how you already play it, and you don´t need to be even remotely optimal in blue mage content anyways.

Bloated is also subjective. I dont think any of the jobs you listed are bloated.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

BLU isnt like other jobs because you choose what spells you bring, so it literally isnt like removing actions from your hotbar in other jobs from that alone.

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You're meant to select the spells you need, and leave the ones you're not actually going to use at home. Put 32 on your bar if you must, but if you think you need all 32 of those spells at the same time, you are overgeneralizing your spells and need to prune them for the current activity.

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Bloated is also subjective. I dont think any of the jobs you listed are bloated.

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PLD, GNB, and BLM have the most buttons out of any red or blue job, with a lot of combinable, redundant, or useless buttons. These jobs are getting some button consolidations in EW, for good reason.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

You can play blue mage optimally with 24 skills, no? Any extra skills are not needed if thats the case.

BLU isnt like other jobs because you choose what spells you bring, so it literally isnt like removing actions from your hotbar in other jobs from that alone. If i want to be flexible and add situational skills like bad breath or missile it wouldnt affect how you already play it, and you don´t need to be even remotely optimal in blue mage content anyways.

Bloated is also subjective. I dont think any of the jobs you listed are bloated.

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Your advice is tantamount to telling me that it's okay to run BLM with the ARR rotation. No enochian, no fire 4, no blizzard 4, no despair. Just fire 1 spam. Because you're specifically advocating for using fewer buttons than the class is designed explicitly to have and fundamentally altering the rotation.

That is a particularly extreme example, but it is fundamentally what you're saying. +8 buttons is a lot of buttons for a class designed around its cooldown burst, and pretending they don't exist would seriously harm you when the class would theoretically be designed around having these +4/8/whatever buttons.

Also, it's not subjective when classes were complained about for having button bloat back in HW, and the major offenders were in the 30 button range. Every last one. I am recalling a memory all the way back from 2015-2017 HW and saying: "We're in this territory again going into EW." And your request of more buttons (or at least, advocacy for it) would intentionally put BLU into this territory.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

You're meant to select the spells you need, and leave the ones you're not actually going to use at home. Put 32 on your bar if you must, but if you think you need all 32 of those spells at the same time, you are overgeneralizing your spells and need to prune them for the current activity.


PLD, GNB, and BLM have the most buttons out of any red or blue job, with a lot of combinable, redundant, or useless buttons. These jobs are getting some button consolidations in EW, for good reason.

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SAM is also getting extra strength bloat. They're doing the dev's favorite passtime of taking an AoE/single target hybrid skill that has significant opportunity cost, and creating a dedicated AoE/dedicated ST version for those spells. Most of the bloat in the game can be chalked up to abilities like Foul/Xenoglossy, where in SB it was just Foul by itself, but then they decided to add Xenoglossy and add an extra button for absolutely no reason. An argument could be made because Foul wasn't instant cast, but they're removing that quirk anyways, so that argument is evaporating in smoke. Foul could have been made instant cast and its baseline potency upgraded and it would fundamentally sit in the same spot in the rotation for AoE and single target without adding an extra button to clutter a rotation that deals with barely 5% of your rotational needs (if you basically participate in the end-game of savage, alliances, or extremes, at all).

RPR looks like it also has a candidate dead skill. Soul Sow/Harvest Moon. Where you only acquire it by specifically casting a buff, like Monk chakras or the original design of Shoha. I look forward to the class having that fixed by 6.1 because no one likes skills like this where the majority of the time, you press it once, maybe twice, thrice if you're lucky (E6N/S). It's sad because the class designers literally made this exact mistake with Samurai 2 years ago.

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Originally Posted by Taranok

Your advice is tantamount to telling me that it's okay to run BLM with the ARR rotation. No enochian, no fire 4, no blizzard 4, no despair. Just fire 1 spam. Because you're specifically advocating for using fewer buttons than the class is designed explicitly to have and fundamentally altering the rotation.

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No im not. blue mage could have 100 action slots to put on your hotbar and youd still only use around 24-30 spells because a lot of them are redundant or extremely situational. If BLU had 30 action slots and you only needed 25 to do optimal dps you can get by not slotting the last 5. its nothing like intentionally dropping key parts of your kit in other jobs.

if you wanted to use the BLM example, its more like not putting blizzard 2 and scathe on your hotbar. when was the last time you used those skills?

I agree with and also feel that Blue Mage needs more spell spots than just 24. I would go for either 28 or 32, though. 36 seems like a bit much...

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Originally Posted by QooEr

No im not. blue mage could have 100 action slots to put on your hotbar and youd still only use around 24-30 spells because a lot of them are redundant or extremely situational. If BLU had 30 action slots and you only needed 25 to do optimal dps you can get by not slotting the last 5. its nothing like intentionally dropping key parts of your kit in other jobs.

if you wanted to use the BLM example, its more like not putting blizzard 2 and scathe on your hotbar. when was the last time you used those skills?

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Mentor rouletting into the level 15 guildhest, B2 is very useful there. Also if I get thrown into Sastasha, Copperbell, or Tam-Tara or any other sub-freeze dungeon and the tank pulls at least 4 mobs to make it worth casting over a blizzard 1. It's not that uncommon for it to be a DPS gain, it's just also awkward and annoying to use.

And I still keep Scathe on my hotbar because it's useful for ARR content where it was designed to be an at-will fire 1 replace, well before the devs keep forgetting to upgrade it for the modern rotation.

Going back to your own point, if the class has that many redundant and useless skills, then there's no reason to even need to increase it over 24 to begin with. Or, better yet, the devs should just lock what abilities could go in what slot so that you're forced to use different styles of skills, such as 3 defensive skills, 12 DPS skills, 5 healing skills, or some other arbitrary delineation and subtype. Going above 24 serves no direct purpose, and arbitrarily saying "Just don't use more if they add more," is really, really bad advice.

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Originally Posted by Taranok

Or, better yet, the devs should just lock what abilities could go in what slot so that you're forced to use different styles of skills, such as 3 defensive skills, 12 DPS skills, 5 healing skills, or some other arbitrary delineation and subtype.

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Tangent: this is the only way blue mage could ever be converted to a real job and still be a blue mage. Have slots assigned to specific types of actions, unlock slots as you level up, and require all slots up to a duty's minimum level be filled appropriately to enter.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Tangent: this is the only way blue mage could ever be converted to a real job and still be a blue mage. Have slots assigned to specific types of actions, unlock slots as you level up, and require all slots up to a duty's minimum level be filled appropriately to enter.

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I mean, as QooEr keeps bringing up, a lot of BLU skills are literally redundant skills. Such as Glass Dance and Leviathan where you'd never use one because it does no damage, but share cooldowns, or Quasar vs J-Kick, where they do the same damage but one is a movement skill. The entire rotation is basically designed around blowing as many cooldowns as you can during moon flute, and short of certain critical skills breaking the game a bit if brought into high levels (Diamondback primarily), the class would actually be an interesting addition into the end-game if the devs had some way to force it into a specific role (probably DPS). I heard one static member describe it as, basically, a Ret Paladin from WoW in principle. Another static member described it as: "If they keep adding new skills, I'll actually need to make choices on which DPS actions I bring." Which shows that 24 is actually a good number to keep it at, if nothing else.

It's mostly missing an LB3 (SoS when?) and would seriously need some way to limit its more overpowered skills in end-game (Doom, Death, Missiles, Diamondback, EXPLOSION, etc) to really make it fair.

Personally I think Libra needs a more generic vulnerability replacement effect so that we can shave 2 buttons and actually have some room for utility actions on DPS. Being able to hybridize is also one of the few aspects of the job I liked pre-70. The other problems with the job mostly stem from lacking spots on the tank and healer side of things. I think a minor defensive cooldown that could be used on allies and get a boost based on your role would add a lot. Adding some kind of MP management tool other than Blood Drain would also be helpful on tanks in particular. I'd also prefer it if we got instant-cast melee-only single target filler as alternatives to the current caster suite to round it out a bit. It doesn't need much more than that unless they're gonna do something to replace Moon Flute.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

Personally I think Libra needs a more generic vulnerability replacement effect so that we can shave 2 buttons and actually have some room for utility actions on DPS. Being able to hybridize is also one of the few aspects of the job I liked pre-70.

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Condensed Libra just needs a fail-safe. Some thing like the Blue Mage can not apply any one of the three Libra-type again, for the next 10 seconds after its application, which would make to fish for a certain one only as bad as up to a maximum fails of two, while also not have a negative side-effect on re-application, since the debuffs have a 30 second duration.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

I think a minor defensive cooldown that could be used on allies and get a boost based on your role would add a lot.

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You could just join the rest of us Blue Mages, that this concerns, on the demands for CactGuard improvement BandWagon. CactGuard could be very good, if the Dev Team would just do some thing with it, as it needs a fix, improvement, or even a full rework... Here is my own CactGuard re-design idea, from one of my threads:

My suggestions are fourfold. #1 / at least remove a big issue.. make it possible to cast on self. This alone would be a notice-able improvement that CactGuard needs. #2 / increase its base effect from 5% for 6 seconds, to 10% for 6 seconds. #3 increase its Aetherial Mimicry: Tank boost from 15% for 6 seconds, to 20% for 10 seconds.
and #4, a personal idea that I would love to see done with CactGuard. make it the first ever spell to have two different Aetherial Mimicry bonuses. I would love it if CactGuard had a Aetherial Mimicry: Healer bonus that completely changes its effect. My suggestion is "Additional Effect: CactGuard instead creates a barrier around self or the target that absorbs damage equivalent to a heal of 400 potency, when you are under the effect of Aetherial Mimicry: Healer. Duration: 30s. Effect can not be stacked with Scholar's Galvanize or Astrologian's Nocturnal Field."

for Blue Mage Healers, this would make CactGuard a barrier spell like GobSkin, but CactGuard would be single-target instead, and stronger than GobSkin,
to make up for it.
in the case that these ideas of mine would make CactGuard "too good", then for the sake of argument, and for balance, also double the MP cost of CactGuard from 200 to 400, give the Aetherial Mimicry: Tank effect a recast time of 30 seconds, the same recast time as Chelonian Gate and The Rose of Destruction, and give the Aetherial Mimicry: Healer effect a recast time of 15 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

Adding some kind of MP management tool other than Blood Drain would also be helpful on tanks in particular.

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We already have Lucid Dreaming and Magic Hammer, but I can comprehend what you mean... Would you rather suggest another spam-able spell, similar to Blood Drain, or a Spell with a CD, that could be similar to either Magic Hammer or Lucid Dreaming? either would work, for a purpose of MP restoration. alternative suggestion, could also just make Blood Drain and Magic Hammer restore more MP than what they already do.

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Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

Condensed Libra just needs a fail-safe. Some thing like the Blue Mage can not apply any one of the three Libra-type again, for the next 10 seconds after its application, which would make to fish for a certain one only as bad as up to a maximum fails of two, while also not have a negative side-effect on re-application, since the debuffs have a 30 second duration.

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The effect is only barely worth casting once, ideally by a tank. The overall intention here is to open up hotbar space rather than continue the same microgame that kind of stops working in later conten. It is worth noting whatever replaces it would have to be notably weaker to account for applying to all of their effective raid burst though. Like AST card rework level weaker. If that means both have to be used at specific times then that would be the worst case scenario.

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Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

You could just join the rest of us Blue Mages, that this concerns, on the demands for CactGuard improvement BandWagon. CactGuard could be very good, if the Dev Team would just do some thing with it, as it needs a fix, improvement, or even a full rework...

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I think a more accurate way to put it might be sustain than defensive. Think Second Wind for DPS, Aurora for tanks, and Tetragrammaton for healers. Cactguard does feel bad but I would keep its changes to the tanks only if able.

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Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

We already have Lucid Dreaming and Magic Hammer, but I can comprehend what you mean... Would you rather suggest another spam-able spell, similar to Blood Drain, or a Spell with a CD, that could be similar to either Magic Hammer or Lucid Dreaming? either would work, for a purpose of MP restoration. alternative suggestion, could also just make Blood Drain and Magic Hammer restore more MP than what they already do.

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It could be a way to buff Cactguard to be honest. Gain MP when your target is struck during its duration. It’s not ideal but it works as a decent secondary effect.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

The effect is only barely worth casting once, ideally by a tank. The overall intention here is to open up hotbar space rather than continue the same microgame that kind of stops working in later content.

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Hmn... If "it is not worth it to use it" is a issue, then what if along with the fail-safe, Condensed Libra is also made stronger? For example, increase the damage dealt increase effect from 5%, up to 7%. I am not certain how to theory-craft that myself, but I am certain that if Condensed Libra has a fail-safe to reduce type-fish fails, and is a little more strong than what it is now, there would be a break point where it becomes a damage-gain and no longer a issue...
I would rather that the spell receive a fix, than for its unique quirk to receive removal and we gain a simplistic replacement that would be more of a bore, to me.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

I think a more accurate way to put it might be sustain than defensive. Think Second Wind for DPS, Aurora for tanks, and Tetragrammaton for healers.

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Oh, that is what you meant. I would love for Blue Mage Tanks to have a spell like that... either A self-heal spell similar to Brutal Shell, Storm's Path, and SoulEater, or a stronger self-heal spell with some sort of cost, limitation, or CD, along the lines of things like Abyssal Drain, Nascent Flash, or Thrill of Battle. I would like to play Blue Mage Tank even more, if we had some sort of self-heal like the other tanks, that is not Angel Snack, as the CD is too large, White Wind, as the cost is too large, and can be cast more often than Devour...

Potentially unpopular opinion, but I think leaving the number where it's at forces you to get more creative and strategic with your selections; there ultimately will be more spells that you consider fun to use than ones that can be currently set to your hotbars, but I think that making the cap notably higher would be less interesting and potentially more overpowered than not. Other people having concerns is still definitely valid though.

Also, as a controller player who already has all sixteen WXMB buttons visible and accessible at all times, I would really like to not need additional tabs when most of my spell timers are already visible at all times without having to frequently switch tabs, but that's a subjective concern that I'm aware isn't necessarily felt by some other players.

I thought that having 24 slots was also part of the whole setup because you had to make a decision in which utilities you would bring other than your rotational actions.