How Blue Mage Could Exist in FFXIV

[Nalien]

I expect Blue Mage to be a, well.. Mage... But I'd prefer it be a counter based tank, perhaps with a Runic (FFVI) style skill for absorbing incoming attacks to build a Blue magic gauge to throw out enemy skills.

That said, you can still give it a similar skill as a caster, something like Vercure but actually mechanically important. You cast a shield on your tank, tank eats Bad Breath to the face, you can now cast Bad Breath, for example. Heck even just a skill with a fixed potency/effect that varies animation based on the last enemy skill you saw/get hit by would do wonders to make Blue Mage feel like Blue Mage.

I doubt we'll see any such mechanic though, more likely the job will just have a selection of Blue Magic skills, learned via questing, that it can access somehow. Blue Mage in lore, not in gameplay. I'd like something akin to XIs Blue Mage but that simply isn't going to be viable with the strict role trinity XIV has... Still, they could maybe adapt the additional actions to function like classic Blue Magic, would make it more interesting to level up the job than others which just get access to additionals automatically... I'll keep my expectations low though... I feel like Blue Mage and Summoner are jobs that are just beyond the scope of this development team... Honestly I feel like the two are better suited as Deep Dungeon mechanics... Move Pomanders from chests to enemy drops and they're basically Blue Magic (just adjust the names/animations), Heaven-on-High already has superior summoning to Summoner, too... I really think a Deep Dungeon where you become a Blue Mage, regardless of your current job (although FFX fans are obligated to only go Dragoon, Lancet being another skill like Runic that could be adapted to let Blue Mage learn skills, I guess), would be a more satisfying way of implementing the "job", but I guess at this point we'll just have to see what SE shows us next...