
Originally Posted by
EllieShadeflare
Well, it might help to talk about Job history because "Blue Mage being a tank" is simultaneously a good point but also one with mixed context.
Red Mage in its history was always capable of decent melee capabilities, often having the ability to wield swords and wearing decent armour. However, they've never had ENOUGH of a focus on melee beyond perhaps FFXI, but even then another job did its role of "magic melee fighter" (Rune Fencer) to a better degree. Red Mage has generally just been a Jack of All Trades, Master of None, with its major emphasis being decently armoured, decently deadly with magic and decently good at healing. Its ability to melee was always an afterthought. As a result, its ability to use a sword isn't entirely forgotten, nor is its healing but neither are entirely major parts of the Red Mage identity.
Blue Mage, however... is weird, even among mages. Its "magic" are enemy skills, and throughout its history, Blue Mage has often had to take said spells to the face to learn them. In the case of FFXIV, it'd make sense for them to be a tank, due to their history of having to be struck and even FFV, their origin game and codifier, had them wielding shields and relatively durable through HP. Heck, some of the most notable Blue Magic spells include the support spell Mighty Guard (which is currently a Limit Break for tanks, I might add), the self heal Vampire, Strago's Rippler that exchanges status effects with enemies, Auto-Life, and even more in FFXI. It wouldn't be that hard to tool Blue Mage into a tank using their identity of "get hit get magic".