Blue Mage: Mage? Melee? Hybrid?

[Jennestia]

I think it's need to be less annoying than the ffxi version. Standing backwards while a mob beats the crap out of you seemed a little less fun.

A skill like lancet would be more interesting, make it like a drop rate or something. Then they could release gear for BLU that is like 'Increases lancet success rate by 15%' or something like that.

Heh main thing about this lancet has evolved into more of a dragoon ability. FFV, VII, and XI's blue mage systems were good (what you speak of the 'backtanking' was only if you were fighting enemies well below you that didn't survive long enough to use their abilities, which is generally the level 1-20 spell set, 30-90 mobs are almost always using the learnable spell.)

FFVIII's was through item consumption, FFIX's was through 'eat', so they could always bring back an item based system given the serverside nature of this game's interface.