How Blue Mage Could Exist in FFXIV

[Astarotha]

the thing that made ram full dps is not necessarily the lack of 45 healing type spells but the way elements are in the game, they actually fit the stated niche of ram being a mix of white and black magic really well because blams and whams are seperated in this world not by attack or healing but wind/earth/water/astral magic vs fire/ice/lit/umbral, and what does ram have? veraero/verstone/verholy and verfire/verthunder/verflare with full astral/umbral being part of their jolt/scatter and vercure/verrez. drk yeah doesnt specifically snacrifice hp but since mp is internal aether in a way they are sacrificing themselves constantly through dark arts, the feel is there, if not explicitly ported over word for word mechanically EXACTLY as it appears in x game. smn yeah wasnt a pet class till like 10 and even then its always buff topaz instead of wow hunter but i lurv my smn and emerald

but most of this is moot because at this point theyve either made the class or they havent, im really hoping though they show some love to the nonmeta explorers who would enjoy seeking out spell glams for their blum, fighting all the old enemies and bosses in the game for the chance to successfully learn white wind or goblin paunch! while learning all the actual necessary stuff through the standard 14 levelling system, and im hopeful because the people who make this game for us like the explorers and lorehounds enough that you can get interesting dialogue thats completely missable if you dont talk to this guy across the room inbetween doing the objective and actually turning in the quest

[LineageRazor]

Blue is not going to be tank i'm 100% Sure on tht because mana dps other part is because blue mage spells cast time some of thm r like blm also thy don't want mages as tanks if u have played FF11 u would know tht drk was a tank but players switch it to dps and made ninja a tank whn it wasn't really a tank also tht game battle system almost. every class can tank but some ppl to stupid to see tht. the tanks in FF11 Was DRK 'WAR 'PLD' Runefener

DRK was not one of the tanking jobs in FFXI. It had no ability to mitigate damage or to secure enmity unless it took PLD, WAR, or NIN as a subjob - and ANY job could do that. On the contrary, abilities like Souleater and Last Resort REDUCED DRK's ability to tank, in favor of dealing big damage (well, assuming they had enough accuracy to even hit the enemy). In fact, BLU in XI has MORE tanking potential than DRK has. Load up spells that give extra Vitality, then equip Actinic Burst (for Flash enmity) and Occultation (for Shadows). Voila, instant tank!

Basically, XI is a very different game than XIV. You cannot look to that game as an example of what a job in this game will be like. In fact, NONE of the jobs common to both games play much alike. Does BLM in this game feel similar to BLM in that? Not really; XI didn't have the crazy Astra/Umbral cycle XIV's BLM has. Did XI's MNK worry about maintaining stacks of greased lightning? Nope; it was basically punch punch punch, with a rare weaponskill or job ability tossed in.

Just because BLU played a certain way in XI does not mean that it will play the same way in XIV. In fact it will probably be very different. Will it be so different, that it will be a tank? Maybe, maybe not. But it could be.

[Bright-Flower]

the thing that made ram full dps is not necessarily the lack of 45 healing type spells but the way elements are in the game, they actually fit the stated niche of ram being a mix of white and black magic really well because blams and whams are seperated in this world not by attack or healing but wind/earth/water/astral magic vs fire/ice/lit/umbral, and what does ram have? veraero/verstone/verholy and verfire/verthunder/verflare with full astral/umbral being part of their jolt/scatter and vercure/verrez. drk yeah doesnt specifically snacrifice hp but since mp is internal aether in a way they are sacrificing themselves constantly through dark arts, the feel is there, if not explicitly ported over word for word mechanically EXACTLY as it appears in x game. smn yeah wasnt a pet class till like 10 and even then its always buff topaz instead of wow hunter but i lurv my smn and emerald

but most of this is moot because at this point theyve either made the class or they havent, im really hoping though they show some love to the nonmeta explorers who would enjoy seeking out spell glams for their blum, fighting all the old enemies and bosses in the game for the chance to successfully learn white wind or goblin paunch! while learning all the actual necessary stuff through the standard 14 levelling system, and im hopeful because the people who make this game for us like the explorers and lorehounds enough that you can get interesting dialogue thats completely missable if you dont talk to this guy across the room inbetween doing the objective and actually turning in the quest

I think equating 'using mp' to sacrificing life is a bit of a stretch. Paladins can drain their mp using clemency or holy spirit spamming that drains their MP too. Unless something in the quests gives a bit more lore to it. Just about every job uses aether, even if they don't use the game mechanic of MP in their abilities.

[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...

[Kazrah]

I expect Blue Mage to be a, well.. Mage...

Here's the weird thing about Blue Mage: other than Stragos in VI being sorta considered one, Blue Mages typically never fit that stereotypical "mage" archetype, always having what spells they learned accompanying whatever martial ability they had.

One idea I had been tossing around when I made my original concept was to have something along the lines of Dark Simulacrum from the Death Knight class in World of Warcraft, where it was just an applied debuff that made the next spell cast by the target to be available for the caster to use once for themselves. The biggest issue was in trying to figure out how many limits there would be to the ability in regard to what spells could be utilized by the caster, as you wouldn't want a player to inherit a one-shot mechanic from a boss or something, yet you don't want the cooldown so watered down that there's no real point putting it on your bars. Blizzard I think saw this dilemma too, which is why they removed Dark Simulacrum from Death Knights and later remade it as a pvp-only cooldown for one specialization.

Ultimately, Blue Mage wouldn't be able to feel like one in XIV outside of cutscenes because the game simply doesn't function like that. Same goes with other mechanics brought up, like the "counter tank" that would fall far too weak when assuming an OT role or the "learning shield", which would openly promote bad gameplay. Even just pulling enemy effects from fights for player use beyond whatever the content you'd be doing already provides would require far too many resources since the server would have to remember every single one of those for everyone playing the job.

I feel like Blue Mage and Summoner are jobs that are just beyond the scope of this development team...

This I do agree with (mostly), which is why I'm more convinced that we won't see Blue Mage as a job so much as a job that will integrate some of the aspects of Blue Mage cherry-picked for a job more suitable to this game. They more or less did this with Astrologian inheriting a number of aspects from the traditional Time Mage, so I'd expect this would be as good as it gets.

As for Summoner, I'm not sure it's beyond the scope of the devs so much as just being in a dire need of an overhaul that the team likely doesn't have time or enough resources for.

[Bright-Flower]

Well it sort of depends.

I think anyone that's actually been labeled a 'blue mage' was a mage.

Kimari and Quina (or w/e his name was from IX) had the blue mage MECHANIC of of learning enemy abilities. But were they ever called blue mages? I think you'd be hard pressed to take either approach, a lance wielding melee dps or tank or whatever Quina was, and spinning them into a blue mage job. I think you'd be hard pressed to use them for inspiration.

While every job goes through changes in gameplay I think they'll want to stick to the 'blue mage' aesthetic. Whether that means being a casting dps, a tank, a melee support dps, or w/e, I'd honestly be surprirsed if they strayed too far.

[Nalien]

The more I think about it, the more sure I am that if there's any spell learning mechanic, it'll be tied to a skill like Lancet. Easiest way to work it into the game, hit a Malboro with it and learn Bad Breath, no need to actually get hit by the skill. Can very easily see it being the gauge related skill for the Job, slap in a few Blue Magic actions that can be adjusted like this (usual stuff, single target, aoe, mitigation, etc.) and have them cost Blue Gauge to cast and you've got a fairly satisfying system I think. It would purely be cosmetic though, but it's not like they need to do much when the animations are all there already... Would just be a case of "This attacks animation can be X, Y, or Z, depending on what kind of enemy you last used Lancet on", which would at least keep the feel of the Job right, IMO.

[Zeldert-Castiel]

I always though that BLU is a tank class...

Other than that, I may have some ideas for the skills. They could get those by killing enemies from their job quests.

[LineageRazor]

Kimari and Quina (or w/e his name was from IX) had the blue mage MECHANIC of of learning enemy abilities. But were they ever called blue mages?

This is a fair point! Quina, I believe, was officially referred to as a Gourmand, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that Gourmand is a different job that happens to be able to use Blue Magic (referred to in-game as Blu Mag). Gourmand also has the Devour ability, which makes a reappearance in FFVIII as a GF skill bearers of Eden can (comically) use.

Khimari was not called a Blue Mage, but with the exception of Yuna the Summoner, NONE of the characters had job names, in spite of the fact that Lulu was clearly a Black Mage, Auron very much resembled a Samurai, Rikku could be classified as an Engineer, and so on. In fact, Khimari had several Dragoon traits as well, such as having Spear as a weapon and being able to Jump (though, Jump was one of his "Ronso Rage" Overdrive abilities, a category which includes all of his learned monster abilities). So he could be thought of as a Dragoon who could use Blue Magic, or a Blue Mage who can wield spears and jump.

I don't believe that FFVIII ever gave jobs to their characters, and Quistis is therefore never explicitly referred to as a Blue Mage - but at least in her case, her Limit Break was actually called Blue Magic.

Regardless of whether they were explicitly Blue Mages, fans of the job type tend to enjoy the above characters just the same, as they like to collect all the different spells. I would guess that's a big reason why a lot of the Blue Mage enthusiasts in this thread chafe at the idea of Blue Mage in FFXIV. The level of hand-holding and refusal to allow players to be excluded from content for building their character "wrong" means that the likelihood of a learning mechanic that requires a player to go out and collect spells is slim. Like all jobs, the Blue Mage job in FFXIV would very likely have a character acquire every ability as a matter of course just by progressing through their job quests. There goes the collect-them-all charm!

They COULD change things up, since Blue Mage is a special case - but this is one point Yoshi P was clear on, that he was afraid a Blue Mage player would be excluded from content because they had not acquired particular spells.

[Bright-Flower]

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Yeah, those characters are certainly blue mages in spirit if not title. And I know they have fans. But considering FF XIV is really unlikely to have an actual 'go out into the world and learn spells from monsters' mechanic and the job would probably only resemble blue mage in spell names/aesthetics etc, my guess is that they'll stick pretty close to the classic blue mage look and theme, and I don't think they're going to say make it a magitek tank job like some people have suggested. But only time will tell for sure of course. If they made FF XVI or XVII as a more sandboxy MMO maybe a classic blue mage would be a great addition, in FF XIV I think the best they can aim for is to capture the aesthetic and classic spell list.

I always though that BLU is a tank class...

Other than that, I may have some ideas for the skills. They could get those by killing enemies from their job quests.

To the best of my knowledge it's never really been a 'tank' class. In SOME games you have to get hit from a spell to learn it but that's one and done. I wouldn't consider a job a tank unless it A. has an ability to draw hits towards it or to take hits for party members like Cover in the old turn based games, and B. is sturdy enough to not get rekt doing so. I wouldn't consider classic 'turn hp into damage' dark knight to be a tank for example.