How to expand Blue Mage: Exclusive Exploration Zone and Deep Dungeon

This has been on my mind for a time and the best way to stop thinking about it is to put my thoughts into words. TL;DR at the end.

1st Part: The New World – Blue to the Rescue

With the end of the world averted, eyes have turned to new business avenues. And the New World, a land with vast reserves of Ceruleum, is now being targeted by companies who wish to mine the natural resource “for the betterment of mankind”. But this invasion has upset the once balanced lives of local fauna and flora, which now does not distinguish between natives and invaders. As a disciple of Blue Magic, and intrigued by this exquisite land, the Warrior of Light answers the call to defend those who only want to live in peace.

How to Unlock: Clear the Masked Carnival Stage “Dirty Rotten Azulmagia” and Finish the MSQ Endwalker.

The idea of the exploration zone is to use systems already in game to fully make Blue Mage stand out by its versatility:

1- Eureka Elemental Damage: All BLU spells have an aspect to it. By using it in the exploration zone, the game would not need an Elemental Wheel but rather more slots to allocate spells or more preset slots to quickly change you repertoire. Non-limited jobs would be a bad choice to use (but still a choice) as their actions have no element or attribute (piercing, slash, blunt) to it, dealing way less damage than BLU in this instance.

2- Eureka Mutations and Adaptations: monsters changing due to the use of repetitive spell elements and weather changes, dropping different items and forcing players to actually pay attention to what spells they are using.

3- Bozja Field Actions: in case BLU level cap is never raised, devs could implement spells from 71-90 as actions you acquire by trading totems with defeated monsters/ cleared FATEs drops – NORMAL drops, not rare ones. This way, Blue Mages could have access to even more spells without having to change the hotbar setup. Some examples that come to mind are:
- Quintuplecast (from Seat of Sacrifice Ex)
- Divination Rune (from Dancing Plague)
- God Ray (From Crown of Immaculate)
- Heavenly Cyclone (from the SS Rank Forgiven Rebellion)

The idea is that the action would not necessarily be something that BLU could learn, just actions from content that BLU has no access at the moment but could still use in its exclusive content.

4- Weather Changing Map: currently, this does not exist in-game. Its the players actions, or their level in case of an exploration zone, that change (open/ close) paths in a dungeon. The idea here is that different weather would change the access to different parts of the map or add a new mechanic or buff/debuff. For instance, Blizzard would freeze lakes, rivers and any players standing still for more than 10 secs whereas thunderstorm would create random AOEs on the whole map.

Continued in the next post.

5- Weather Changing efficacy of Spells: as with the idea above, different weather would affect different spells. Heatwave would increase all fire-related spells in 50% (both from players and enemies) while reducing all water and ice-related spells in 50%. As it would affect dealing with specific weaknesses and strengths, teamplay would be highly encouraged.

6- Emergency Quests: something from old Diadem, it was a unique alliance raid; but here they would be FATEs that, upon completion, affects all players in the current map if completed or failed for a set period of time. If no one accepts it, it would still count as a failure. Some examples of results:
- Success: Flying unlocked | Failure: Mounts locked;
- Success: Totem Material Exchange reduced by ½ | Failure: Totem Material Exchange Locked;
- Success: stats increased by 15% | Failure: stats reduced by 15%

2nd Part: The Whalaqee Sanctuary

Away from all settlements, the Whalaqee Sanctuary awes visitors – intruders and protectors alike – with its sheer majesty. A natural wonder, as if carved in and through a vast canyon, it houses a quantity of Ceruleum that dwarfs many mines combined. But now the place teems with never-before seen activity, its guardians awakening to counter any and all they consider a threat. It is up to the Eorzean Blue Mages to quell the wrath of these unknown protectors of the land.

An Alliance Raid instance inside the New World map, much like Castrum Lacus Litore or Dalriada in Bozja. The greatest difference is that it would use the Variant system to introduce at least 3 different paths, each one with their particular objectives and enemies, to be done by a full party. Like with the current Variant Dungeon, the path chosen would be determined by the majority of players once in the instance.

To be finished in the next post

3rd Part: The Ceruleum Abyss

At the heart of the Whalaqee Sanctuary lies a crystalline whirlpool, untouched by civilization. Respectfully, you start going away, done with your duty here… only for a voice to call you as your companions are long gone. The surface of the water sparkles and your adventurer side takes a fast interest to it. What mystery has been hidden away on this corner of the world?

The Deep Dungeon, accessible after the player beats the Sanctuary raid – or, if really daring, after have been to all 3 paths of the Sanctuary raid – to be done in Light Parties or Solo. The differences from the other DD would be the use of:

1- Bozja Action Holder: in this Deep Dungeon, you don’t find pomanders. All the preparation has to be done outside and, once in, there is no way to replenish your resources. The Action Holder would function in the same way as the original, limiting how much you can take with you. That would make the farming in the map mandatory if anyone wants to brave the DD;
2- NPC Summoning: directly from the upcoming Eureka Orthros, the only item players would be able to find are Magicite to summon allies who, of course, are from the BLU MSQ:
- Martin: unlocked by default. Uses Hydropull and Self-Destruct. Players are not affected by the Hydropull BUT CAN suffer damage from the Self-Destruct;
- Azulmagia: unlocked by achieving the title “Perfect Blue”. Uses a set rotation of Magical Damage spells;
- Siegfried: unlocked by achieving the title “Champion of the Blue”. Uses a set rotation of Physical Damage spells;
- Gogo: unlocked by achieving the title “Of The Truest Blue”. Gogo will use his signature Mimic after the player 5 times, unleashing powerful actions according to what was used before.

While it seems excessive to have 3 NPCs locked behind very good gameplay, the idea is to have the playerbase put more effort in their Blue Mage. So no Savage clears, because they have its won rewards for doing them, but Masked Carnival should get a bit more love.

TL;DR: those are my ideas to make BLU have some solid content that can endure for some time and bring a bit more diversity if it remains a limited class.

Nah, I'd rather see it become a full job please. No more wasted resources on limited jobs.

Don't get me wrong, I love Blue Mage, but at this point I'd rather just see it overhauled into his own kit for PVE while also having the "Carnival" mode be what we currently have. Keep spell collecting but also require a certain amount of spells required before you can "properly" queue for group content. Pre-made groups would not need to meet the requirements. Bump it's level up as well. I just love how Blue feels but hate that it's so far behind at this point. At least push it to 80 :(

I think they could do a lot more with less, but it'll be interesting to see what they do with the New World during 7.0.

If they wanted to expand the limited job system, we could've had beastmaster by now and much more BLU content that's not just sold savage tiers. But I don't even get why the system exists anyway and I'd much rather have more exploration, deep dungeon or whatever else content for my normal DoW/DoM jobs. It's arguably time to retire limited jobs entirely.

And/Or make a full Job like it's suppose to be.

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Originally Posted by Jybril

And/Or make a full Job like it's suppose to be.

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I might be showing my unfamiliarity with the series as a whole but isnt a big selling point of blue mage as a concept how overpowered it can get by employing rare spells? I feel like you cant get that and also have it fit as normally balanced job.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

I might be showing my unfamiliarity with the series as a whole but isnt a big selling point of blue mage as a concept how overpowered it can get by employing rare spells? I feel like you cant get that and also have it fit as normally balanced job.

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While the game isn't the pinnacle of balance by any stretch, FF11 has proven you can absolutely make BLU work as a full job with access to all the same content as other jobs, while including its signature "learn abilities from monsters" shtick,

Frankly, i'd take a more limited toolkit that's usable in the regular game over the current iteration because at least half or more of the BLU Kit is currently the same thing with slightly different effects and animations, and is effectively filler, or used in one blue carnival fight then ignored in favour of a single set of abilities basically everyone uses for general purpose gameplay,

Hell, collection aspect could still exist with spells replacing others, same effect, different looks/aesthetic etc

at bare minimum, i want to run deep dungeons as BLU, even if it doesn't give me titles or achieves, just for the fun of it.

Blue Mage is one of the better side content this game has, there should be more limited Jobs instead of basic 2 minute meme Jobs. Limited just needs their level cap and roulette restrictions lifted outside of newest Savage and Ultimate.

Roulette restrictions are not going anywhere because Blue Mage does not fit into existing roles. Level cap restriction is not going anywhere until there is stuff to actually get past level 70. Plus, they already promised to have an update to Blue Mage at some point in the future (probably in 6.4, pushing its level cap to 80 is my bet).

A promise worth about as much as Egi glamours and we know how that turned out. Years of them scratching their heads doing nothing only to eventually realize there was no way forward with things as they were. Such is the case for limited jobs now.

I'm not sure this is possible, though it is an interesting idea. I would note, though, that some other Jobs DO have elemental spells. For example, the Stone and Aero lines of spells on WHM deal Earth and Wind damage, respectively. NIN has Fire (Hellfrog, Katon, Goka Mekkyaku), Lightning (Forked Raiju, Fleeting Raiju, Raiton), Water (Suiton), Ice (Hyoton, Hyosho Ranryu), Earth (Hollow Nozuchi - not sure about Doton; it just says "damage with a potency", but Hollow says "additional Earth" damage), AND Wind (Phantom Kamaitachi) damage types. RDM has Lightning, Wind, (both single target and AOE), Fire, and Earth (single target only) damage types, and Verflare also deals Fire type damage and is AOE. DRG has at least one Fire damage attack (maybe more, but I don't really DRG). BLM deals a variety of Ice, Fire, and Thunder damage types. SMN deals Fire, Wind, and Earth damage types.

I dunno, I think the idea is interesting. Blue Carnival does this some already, so expanding on that would be neat. I remember wondering in Eureka why we couldn't exploit elemental weaknesses with our spell elements, though I guess that would be hard for anyone other than maybe BLM to do, and even not really them because the Ice spell potencies are so much lower than Fire, even if the enemy was weak to it. RDM is the only one that really has equal potencies of different elements, but the way dualcast and Mana work, it's not as doable, either.

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BLU can't work as a full Job unless it's turned into a bland reskin of BLM or RDM, and no one who actually likes BLU or the idea of BLU wants that. Besides, a lot of people like BLU as it is and would hate being robbed of that, kinda like how people who liked Old SMN don't all hate New SMN, they hate that New SMN caused them to lose Old SMN.

And FF11 can't be used as a basis because FF11's combat system isn't NEARLY as rigid as FFXIV's is. Even the mere EXISTENCE of Sub-Jobs proves that.

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Originally Posted by DezereDawn

While the game isn't the pinnacle of balance by any stretch, FF11 has proven you can absolutely make BLU work as a full job with access to all the same content as other jobs, while including its signature "learn abilities from monsters" shtick,

Frankly, i'd take a more limited toolkit that's usable in the regular game over the current iteration because at least half or more of the BLU Kit is currently the same thing with slightly different effects and animations, and is effectively filler, or used in one blue carnival fight then ignored in favour of a single set of abilities basically everyone uses for general purpose gameplay,

Hell, collection aspect could still exist with spells replacing others, same effect, different looks/aesthetic etc

at bare minimum, i want to run deep dungeons as BLU, even if it doesn't give me titles or achieves, just for the fun of it.

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It's not just "learn abilities from monsters," but the relative power of those abilities. Never at any point in BLU's existence in FFXIV has it ever been suggested or intended to be a "full" job. The entire purpose of it being limited is the freedom to go nuts with its power. It's side content here. Some people enjoy Gold Saucer events. Some people enjoy jumping puzzles and the Sightseeing Log. Some people enjoy grinding FATEs to get the max-level zone rewards. Some people enjoy BLU. To make it a "full" job would require nerfing it into the ground in a way that would destroy the very purpose behind it. It's okay if it's not something any of us personally enjoy; other people do. Please stop trying to take away from them.

Turning BLU into a "full job" as it is now would not work, there's only so many spells it has currently that would be reasonable to even keep, and most of the ones that could be kept would probably have to see their potency adjusted.

But what we have that don't have any extra effects not generally meant for players to access...

Water Cannon
Flamethrower
Flying Frenzy
Loom
Song of Torment
Plaincracker
Flying Sardine
Fire Angon
Alpine Draft
Electrogenesis
Pom Cure
Sonic Boom
Angel Whisper
Feculent Flood
Blaze

And maybe one or two of the various Primal skills for a heavy hitting CD, which include...
Eruption
Mountain Buster
Shock Strike
Quesar
J-Kick
Phantom Flurry

And lastly, as a defensive option, I suppose Diamondback as it exists now could technically work...

You build your fancy "full job blue mage" from that selection, and consider if you would play it over Black Mage or Red Mage.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

Turning BLU into a "full job" as it is now would not work, there's only so many spells it has currently that would be reasonable to even keep, and most of the ones that could be kept would probably have to see their potency adjusted.

But what we have that don't have any extra effects not generally meant for players to access...

Water Cannon
Flamethrower
Flying Frenzy
Loom
Song of Torment
Plaincracker
Flying Sardine
Fire Angon
Alpine Draft
Electrogenesis
Pom Cure
Sonic Boom
Angel Whisper
Feculent Flood
Blaze

And maybe one or two of the various Primal skills for a heavy hitting CD, which include...
Eruption
Mountain Buster
Shock Strike
Quesar
J-Kick
Phantom Flurry

And lastly, as a defensive option, I suppose Diamondback as it exists now could technically work...

You build your fancy "full job blue mage" from that selection, and consider if you would play it over Black Mage or Red Mage.

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If they were to make it fit with the other jobs, you would have a template similar to the other mages, where you have your targeted single and AOE spells and one melee range spell. Maybe it could get the SMN treatment and have element phases to maintain some of its variety. J Kick to gap close, maybe Loom to move around a little more freely. Maybe Bad Breath is their debuff, but it's on a longer cooldown.

I find appealing the idea of a Field Exploration instance with Carnival elements. However, rather than having field action, it would be more appropiate if there was an array of instance related items that worked along BLU toolkit (for example, tokens to draw Mimicry buffs from). The exploration part would merge well with a class that is intended to be played to explore other content. You could even open more venues for spell learning (and, obviouslty, new spells). My only issue with the idea is the limiting factor that the Blue Mage poses on the content, as it gates one kind of content behind a different kind of content that doesn't necessarily align in term of interest (people might be interested on FE instance but abhor Blue Mage and viceversa)

A Deep Dungeon for BLU doesn't really ring with me, on the other hand.

However, the take some people here share on making BLU a real class is completely terrible. The only appeal BLU has is literally being able to customize your spell list. It doesn't have any kind of gameplay loop standarized classes do and trying to bake Blue Mages into a normal class will leave a chimera that will be dead on arrival at the cost of killing a content that at least appealed to some people. Might as well ask for a new class altogether instead of deleting content just because. You don't like the limited class? Don't play that kind of content. Easy as that. This is the same kind of egotistical train of thought that also ask Bozja-like content to stop coming just because forum dweller didn't ask and SE clearly has to tailor content to their specific tastes and no one else's. Stop trying to take away content from others who actually like that content.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

It's not just "learn abilities from monsters," but the relative power of those abilities. Never at any point in BLU's existence in FFXIV has it ever been suggested or intended to be a "full" job. The entire purpose of it being limited is the freedom to go nuts with its power. It's side content here. Some people enjoy Gold Saucer events. Some people enjoy jumping puzzles and the Sightseeing Log. Some people enjoy grinding FATEs to get the max-level zone rewards. Some people enjoy BLU. To make it a "full" job would require nerfing it into the ground in a way that would destroy the very purpose behind it. It's okay if it's not something any of us personally enjoy; other people do. Please stop trying to take away from them.

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Long as the game dwindles it's main content cadence repeatedly over time, i'm not a huge fan of side content getting huge swathes of dev time, and as it stands, that's exactly what's happened since Stormblood. and Blue mage does take a huge amount of dev time for very little gain, if it was usable in more than Blue carnival and not just straight up worse at soloing most things due to it's lower max level (those stats do a hell of a lot more than gimmicky abilities do) i'd maybe consider it worth it's existence right now, as it stands, it's a waste, a complete and utter waste for a game that already seems to struggle to keep up with itself from 6 years ago, and that's a shame.


Edit: And to anyone saying "you just want Blue to be a generic job!" no, i'd rather the devs actually break out of this stale, stagnant, frankly boring 2 minute half baked job meta and bring RPG elements back into this MMORPG instead of continually sanding off every rough edge until the game is so smooth you can't even press against it without sliding off, it's frankly embarrassing how we've lost any semblence of customization in an rpg outside of looks, and people still cheer that on. i want Every job to be more interesting, not to cull blue to their level. complete opposite.

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Originally Posted by DezereDawn

Long as the game dwindles it's main content cadence repeatedly over time, i'm not a huge fan of side content getting huge swathes of dev time, and as it stands, that's exactly what's happened since Stormblood. and Blue mage does take a huge amount of dev time for very little gain, if it was usable in more than Blue carnival and not just straight up worse at soloing most things due to it's lower max level (those stats do a hell of a lot more than gimmicky abilities do) i'd maybe consider it worth it's existence right now, as it stands, it's a waste, a complete and utter waste for a game that already seems to struggle to keep up with itself from 6 years ago, and that's a shame.


Edit: And to anyone saying "you just want Blue to be a generic job!" no, i'd rather the devs actually break out of this stale, stagnant, frankly boring 2 minute half baked job meta and bring RPG elements back into this MMORPG instead of continually sanding off every rough edge until the game is so smooth you can't even press against it without sliding off, it's frankly embarrassing how we've lost any semblence of customization in an rpg outside of looks, and people still cheer that on. i want Every job to be more interesting, not to cull blue to their level. complete opposite.

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I'm hopeful that they've actually been able to do a bit more this time around. Let's not forget they had two updates for it during ShB. With the catch-up out of the way and the mimics in good condition, that should allow them to do more during each expansion.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Nah, I'd rather see it become a full job please. No more wasted resources on limited jobs.

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this!!! blu has lots and lots of potential plus is probably the most fun

The worst thing that could happen to BLU is to make it fall in line with the other jobs in the game.