What Weapon Should A Blue Mage Use?

[CrystalRainbow]

I personally don't want to see BLUEMAGE in FFXIV I don't think it would fit correctly with the idea of the core of what BLUE MAGE is. Sure they have completely reworked some of the jobs but at there core they all week there main trait. BLUE main trait would be limited with there a summoner with only 3 summons.

There would be no learning mechanitic from mobs. And Ability list would be so limited it wouldn't be worth it. LOOK at FFXI 100+ abilties but you can only use X amount at a time. And inturn ENDGAME becomes do you have these 20 abilities. NO GO AWAY.
BLUEMAGE at it's core don't work in MMOs vs stand alone games because in stand alone games you get to play the way you want to more vs what is the best way to play.

[LineageRazor]

While I'm not fond of gunblades, I have to agree that the Main Scenario seems to be pointing toward Garlemand as being the setting for the next expansion, and given the popularity of the weapon it's not hard to imagine it will wind up in the hands of one of the new jobs. I could totally see BLU being the new Gunblade user. A big question in my mind, however, is how would the BLU use it? Would the BLU be a caster job, and only occasionally move in for melee (like RDM)? Or will it be closer in style to a melee job, staying up front full-time, and mixing in monster attacks with melee swings? And in the latter case, how would the "gun" part of the gunblade work into it?

Scimitar is another strong possiblity, and also one I'd rather avoid since we have plenty of sword-wielding jobs as it is. (Plus, PLD/GLD already has several scimitars in its arsenal.)

So, if those are two things I'd rather not see, what would I LIKE to see? I think I'd prefer BLU to be a melee-type job rather than a ranged caster. I wouldn't mind it getting a weapon never used by BLU before (just as SMN got books - a weapon they've not had before, to my knowledge). Perhaps they could be a quarterstaff fighter.

I personally don't want to see BLUEMAGE in FFXIV I don't think it would fit correctly with the idea of the core of what BLUE MAGE is. Sure they have completely reworked some of the jobs but at there core they all week there main trait. BLUE main trait would be limited with there a summoner with only 3 summons.

There would be no learning mechanitic from mobs. And Ability list would be so limited it wouldn't be worth it. LOOK at FFXI 100+ abilties but you can only use X amount at a time. And inturn ENDGAME becomes do you have these 20 abilities. NO GO AWAY.
BLUEMAGE at it's core don't work in MMOs vs stand alone games because in stand alone games you get to play the way you want to more vs what is the best way to play.

Different individuals have different ideas about what constitutes the core of Blue Mage. The example you gave, FFXI's take on the job, is VERY different from pretty much every other Blue Mage in the series. No other Blue Mage had hundreds of abilities, and there's no good reason for them to. No other BLU in the franchise featured only a CHANCE to learn the spell if you executed the learning process properly. FFXI BLU might be a job that you loved, but as you said yourself, it would be impossible to implement that way in FFXIV. Does that mean that it's pointless to implement BLU at all? Of course not. It will change to fit FFXIV, just like every other job has changed to fit FFXIV.

Would learning spells be impossible? It depends on what you insist constitutes learning. If you're going to insist that they only way learning should be implemented is by fighting random monsters until they use the ability, that is your opinion - and it flies in the face of some other Blue Mages in the franchise, such as Quistis (who consumed items to learn the magic, and never had to fight the monsters herself) or Khimari and Quina (who did have to fight the mobs, but never needed them to use the ability). There's no single way that learning blue magic MUST be implemented.

As for the concern of BLUs being locked out of content for not learning the correct spells, why not have them learn the spells during job quests? That way, a BLU would be no worse off than any other job would that neglected their job quests. The job quest could be something simple like, "Find a Marlboro, and pester it until you see it use Bad Breath," or if you want to get fancy, "The Amal'ja are summoning Ifrit! Put the primal down - and see if you can learn anything from it in the process." (Revisit Ifrit (Hard) in the duty finder to learn Vulcan Burst.)

There are VERY few traits that are common to ALL Blue Mages across the series. Some of them don't even wear blue (Quistis, Quina, Strago - well, I guess Strago's pants have some blue in them...)! Really, as long as you have a class that uses monster abilities without turning into a monster to do so, you've got a Blue Mage. If that's the only core of a Blue Mage, FFXIV has a lot of room to work with!

[kikix12]

A big question in my mind, however, is how would the BLU use it? Would the BLU be a caster job, and only occasionally move in for melee (like RDM)? Or will it be closer in style to a melee job, staying up front full-time, and mixing in monster attacks with melee swings? And in the latter case, how would the "gun" part of the gunblade work into it?

The gunblade would work exactly like it did in all the other FF titles. Like a sword with a gun whose trigger is pushed on hit while in melee.

In this games mechanics, that would mean that the basic combo would be blade combo, the gun skills would be melee-range abilities and there would be one global cooldown ranged attack using the gun (every melee class have a 15 yalm attack as far as I can think, this would be gunblades). The blue magic would probably be a mix of cooldowns and gauge-abilities. Maybe a combo finisher.

i know im gonna get a ton of backlash for this, but honestly i kinda wish the 5.0 classes would start from 30 again

I kinda wish they would start from lvl1...I mean, currently the first several dozen levels go rather fast thanks to the bonus experience from having a high class. They can just increase that bonus severely if they think that starting at 1 would make it take too long to get into the action with the new classes.

Putting them at lvl1 however would not only give all that story to flesh out the classes, but make them available as starters for those that have the expansion. There is actually zero reason why it needs to be locked behind anything at all.

[LineageRazor]

The gunblade would work exactly like it did in all the other FF titles. Like a sword with a gun whose trigger is pushed on hit while in melee.

I think the Gunblade is used that way in exactly one FF game, and that's VIII. In XIII, Lightning backflips away before using the gun portion of her blade, and as for Garleans in XIV, they also fire bullets at range. I checked the Final Fantasy Wikia for other instances of gunblades, but other appearances either don't use the gun part at all or don't use the blade part at all.

As Mica pointed out, the whole concept of the Gunblade would be impractical in real life, but I suppose the rule of cool wins out here - just like with Whip Swords, another cool and extremely impractical weapon. Ooh, maybe BLU should have a Whip Sword!

I kinda wish they would start from lvl1...I mean, currently the first several dozen levels go rather fast thanks to the bonus experience from having a high class. They can just increase that bonus severely if they think that starting at 1 would make it take too long to get into the action with the new classes.

I do agree with this. I was disappointed when I learned that DRK, AST, and MCH were going to start at level 30, with no base class. That said, I do understand why the devs did it that way. Development for Heavensward was apparently a hellish time crunch, with the devs working themselves to the bone to cram in all of the new promised content. The new jobs were quite likely the most difficult of the new content, and would have been even moreso if they had to do a full set of class quests on top of the job quests. It was an easy corner to cut. It also set a precedent for future jobs, which is why RDM and SAM started at 50 (even though, to my knowledge, Stormblood development wasn't nearly the nightmare Heavensward was).

Additionally, they likely suspected that players would balk at having to start these new jobs from level one, considering that in addition to what it already took to level to 50, they'd have the trip to 60 (almost as long, thanks to the exp inflation) on top of that.

So, with those twin incentives (player impatience and ease of development), I seriously doubt things will change going forward. Any jobs we get in the next expansion will start at level 60. On the plus side, SE seems to have learned from Heavensward NOT to lock the new jobs behind expansion zones, so it is unlikely that players will need to play through three games' worth of content just to play as BLU!

[kikix12]

So, with those twin incentives (player impatience and ease of development), I seriously doubt things will change going forward. Any jobs we get in the next expansion will start at level 60. On the plus side, SE seems to have learned from Heavensward NOT to lock the new jobs behind expansion zones, so it is unlikely that players will need to play through three games' worth of content just to play as BLU!

Those players will still need to progress through the A Realm Reborn most likely.And it is the biggest slog in the whole game, really. The early levels aren't bad, but by the time you have to deal with Leviathan and such, the story quests go downhill fast in both quality and variety. As if that wasn't enough, if they will start as lvl60...Heavensward to boot as well.

And that's a very short-sighted point of view. I'm not saying that they should make separate classes. They want to remove the class/job system. But they should still start from 1. Eventually we'll have a horde of jobs with very little content to them, unlocked far into the characters progress, that you will have no time to play any but the last few pieces of content with. And you will need to do a lot of grind for them.

It's "good progression" from the point of view of a current player...but what about the new players? Ask yourself this. Few years from now if you came across this game and read about all these cool jobs, then realize that you can't play most of them until possibly months into the game...would you be interested? Not to mention, it directly counters the intention behind removal of cross-class skill. They were removed to prevent the need to level unwanted classes to have the skills "needed", even though those skills were at mid levels. But now we'll have classes that will have you play unwanted classes to even be able to play them at all, effectively aside.

It is just horrible design. What is done is done and shouldn't be changed...but new classes/jobs/whatever should be made from scratch available at character creation provided the player have the expansion unlocked. As I said, the experience bonus from having a high-level class is a significant increase in speed of leveling them. Just extending those bonuses to ALL experience gained, including from roulette bonuses, levequests etc would allow the leveling to be very fast. And if not...add more bonuses. We're talking about someone that have a high-level class already, not making it easier for rookies that are just learning how to play the game. They don't need to go through that slog without any of the quests that help (and no, side-quests, even if they are available still, don't help seeing as they are less efficient than just about anything else in the game).

[Edax]

I think the Gunblade is used that way in exactly one FF game, and that's VIII. In XIII, Lightning backflips away before using the gun portion of her blade, and as for Garleans in XIV, they also fire bullets at range. I checked the Final Fantasy Wikia for other instances of gunblades, but other appearances either don't use the gun part at all or don't use the blade part at all.

As Mica pointed out, the whole concept of the Gunblade would be impractical in real life, but I suppose the rule of cool wins out here - just like with Whip Swords, another cool and extremely impractical weapon. Ooh, maybe BLU should have a Whip Sword!



I do agree with this. I was disappointed when I learned that DRK, AST, and MCH were going to start at level 30, with no base class. That said, I do understand why the devs did it that way. Development for Heavensward was apparently a hellish time crunch, with the devs working themselves to the bone to cram in all of the new promised content. The new jobs were quite likely the most difficult of the new content, and would have been even moreso if they had to do a full set of class quests on top of the job quests. It was an easy corner to cut. It also set a precedent for future jobs, which is why RDM and SAM started at 50 (even though, to my knowledge, Stormblood development wasn't nearly the nightmare Heavensward was).

Additionally, they likely suspected that players would balk at having to start these new jobs from level one, considering that in addition to what it already took to level to 50, they'd have the trip to 60 (almost as long, thanks to the exp inflation) on top of that.

So, with those twin incentives (player impatience and ease of development), I seriously doubt things will change going forward. Any jobs we get in the next expansion will start at level 60. On the plus side, SE seems to have learned from Heavensward NOT to lock the new jobs behind expansion zones, so it is unlikely that players will need to play through three games' worth of content just to play as BLU!

I think it would make more sense that in the expansion that goes into Garlean, we get an Imperial to teach us the job with the gunblade. I think Lightning was a Commando? Not really suitable for a blue mage lore wise.