Blue mage at patch 4.5

[Hanayumi]

Yeah im alright with how they're going to go about Blue Mage, think people just are way.... overacting to things. We're still getting 2 actual new full jobs for the expac, blue mage is just an extra thing devs did because so many people kept asking for it, and from the looks of things its going to be pretty damn close to how an FF Blue Mage should work. If they were to make Blue Mage a full on job it would definitely have to lose a lot of its essence as a blue mage to stay balanced with the other jobs and work with the newest content.

[Powercow]

Yeah im alright with how they're going to go about Blue Mage, think people just are way.... overacting to things. We're still getting 2 actual new full jobs for the expac,

3 jobs would have been better, but that's OK. Let's settle for less when we could have had more!

blue mage is just an extra thing devs did because so many people kept asking for it, and from the looks of things its going to be pretty damn close to how an FF Blue Mage should work.

The ONLY identity for blue mage that's been consistent is that it learns abilities from monsters, then uses them on their own. They have never had a full carnival sidestory, and they've never been excluded from participating in the game itself. You can bring Quistis or Quina or Kimarhi with you the whole game.

If they were to make Blue Mage a full on job it would definitely have to lose a lot of its essence as a blue mage to stay balanced with the other jobs and work with the newest content.

It would likely take less work to do that than to do the Carnivale and balancing that. The difference is BLU in relevant content is a better long-term option than being relegated to content that'll last, at most, about 6 months (and only because people will be bored as hell with nothing new coming after 4.5.)

[Hanayumi]

3 jobs would have been better, but that's OK. Let's settle for less when we could have had more!

The ONLY identity for blue mage that's been consistent is that it learns abilities from monsters, then uses them on their own. They have never had a full carnival sidestory, and they've never been excluded from participating in the game itself. You can bring Quistis or Quina or Kimarhi with you the whole game.

It would likely take less work to do that than to do the Carnivale and balancing that. The difference is BLU in relevant content is a better long-term option than being relegated to content that'll last, at most, about 6 months (and only because people will be bored as hell with nothing new coming after 4.5.)

There is a lot.... of work that go into making a full on job, but the main idea is "Balance." Blue Mage would pretty much have to settle down to a role, caster dps, for obvious reasons like stats, gear, required skills for roles. Would also need to progress well with other jobs as it levels, wouldnt be able to obtain all possible skills right from the start, just the usual couple skills every few levels, monsters would pretty much have to be only the open world as you cant really lock out skills in like dungeons or primal fight unless it solo instance... I mean slowly and slowly you start losing out on a real blue mage and instead start getting a regular caster with a blue mage gimmick...

[Fawkes]

We don't know we're getting 2 new full jobs. Dancer's identity is a support job and apparently they care about job identity all of a sudden, but there's no support role, so maybe they'll make it a limited job that just has buffs but can't queue into DF because there's no role slot for it.

[Powercow]

There is a lot.... of work that go into making a full on job, but the main idea is "Balance."

The Carnivale will be balanced as well -- unless you're implying it won't be, in which case it sounds like preeeeeetty dumb content if you can just spam Goblin Punch all the way through. Heck having 49 friggin' skills (seriously why so many? That's ridiculous and impossible to balance around even in solo play) wasn't necessary, make it like 30-ish. You know with 49 they're going to be reeeeeally stretching on what we can get that's cool or that's going to overlap extremely hard.

Blue Mage would pretty much have to settle down to a role, caster dps, for obvious reasons like stats, gear, required skills for roles. Would also need to progress well with other jobs as it levels, wouldnt be able to obtain all possible skills right from the start, just the usual couple skills every few levels,

That's how they're going to work anyway. You're not going to have all 49 at level 1. You literally can't enter the Shiva fight until 50 anyway, so what's so bad about more skills becoming available to learn from monsters as you level?

monsters would pretty much have to be only the open world as you cant really lock out skills in like dungeons or primal fight unless it solo instance... I mean slowly and slowly you start losing out on a real blue mage and instead start getting a regular caster with a blue mage gimmick...

It's quite likely that yes, you wouldn't be able to use the current expansion's boss's abilities. Even if BLU was out now, they most likely couldn't use Ukehi from Susano or Byakko's roar or Omega's Delta Attack... but you know what? Under the current system they can't do these anyway because they literally can't go into that content. Maybe when Shadowbringers comes out and the level cap is raised, BLU could go back and learn those new skills (plus some others, plus some from Shadowbringer's open world) as their 71-80 skills. Then yeah, at 80 no more new skills until the expansion launches unless SE decides to actually break the mold and add some mid-expansion. Heck that wouldn't even be the first time a job has received a new ability in a patch.

Edit - And yeah, I know I said above more is better, but 3 jobs is better for the longevity of the game than 49 skills (and only by level 50!) and is going to be easier to balance. Unless the point of BLU is to be unbalanced, which is really, really dumb.

[Fyce]

3 jobs would have been better, but that's OK. Let's settle for less when we could have had more!

The BLU they introduced doesn't need anyway near the same amount of balance regular jobs do. It uses already existing animations/skills. Being limited to Lv.50 drastically reduce the concerns about how this job would play in up-to-date content. Therefore, the amount of work needed to make BLU as it is now is very likely much less than trying to shoehorn it into the usual mould. This means that there's absolutly no evidence to say that we could've had BLU as a third "regular job" if it wasn't made the way it is today. Besides, implying that getting only 2 jobs instead of 3 is "getting less" is completly putting aside all the content provided for BLU. We are not getting less content. We are getting different content.

The ONLY identity for blue mage that's been consistent is that it learns abilities from monsters, then uses them on their own. They have never had a full carnival sidestory, and they've never been excluded from participating in the game itself. You can bring Quistis or Quina or Kimarhi with you the whole game.

That is an incomplete description of what a Blue Mage is about, and doesn't take into account all of the very weird and situational skills they could use.
Aqua Breath is useful on enemies weak to water. That's why you learned that skill, and why you'd choose to use it. Making it a skill that "deals magic damage" -like every other magic spell in this game ultimatly is (Aka. "Fire" doesn't deal "Fire" damage)- would completly defeat the point of the BLU having an arsenal of situational skills that you have to use correctly.

It would likely take less work to do that than to do the Carnivale and balancing that. The difference is BLU in relevant content is a better long-term option than being relegated to content that'll last, at most, about 6 months (and only because people will be bored as hell with nothing new coming after 4.5.)

See the first paragraph regarding "balance".
As for the content limited in time, FFXIV is absolutly full of it. There's a metric ton of content that people aren't doing today, but that was fun to do when it came out. Besides, they said that they would increase BLU level cap with time, meaning that new content would be regularly added for it. Saying "it'll only last 6 month" out of the blue without any argument/evidence to prove that claim holds no ground.

[Fawkes]

Aqua Breath is useful on enemies weak to water. That's why you learned that skill, and why you'd choose to use it. Making it a skill that "deals magic damage" -like every other magic spell in this game ultimatly is (Aka. "Fire" doesn't deal "Fire" damage)- would completly defeat the point of the BLU having an arsenal of situational skills that you have to use correctly.

That's elemental resistance, and it is not specific to Blue Mage, I would equate it more with Black Mage than anything. SE already decided they didn't care about elemental weakness in this game when they gave us a neutered pyromanic Black Mage. In past FFs casting fire on a fire mob would do less damage or even heal it, but not here. The devs are the ones that threw that system out and designed a game where it doesn't matter. You can't suddenly pretend it's important for Blue Mage only. If they aren't redesigning the entire game to have elemental weaknesses and give Black Mage the full elemental wheel, then that argument is going to fall on deaf ears.

[Fyce]

That's elemental resistance, and it is not specific to Blue Mage, I would equate it more with Black Mage than anything. SE already decided they didn't care about elemental weakness in this game when they gave us a neutered pyromanic Black Mage. In past FFs casting fire on a fire mob would do less damage or even heal it, but not here. The devs are the ones that threw that system out and designed a game where it doesn't matter. You can't suddenly pretend it's important for Blue Mage only. If they aren't redesigning the entire game to have elemental weaknesses and give Black Mage the full elemental wheel, then that argument is going to fall on deaf ears.

You are explaining what I already know, and are completly missing my point.
Besides, as you said, we already have Black Mage that have been stripped from its iconic use of elemental weaknesses. We don't need another one.

Which is why they decided to try and keep the iconic aspect of BLU. But that required it being put aside from the current roster, and it getting dedicated content, because FFXIV doesn't work with elemental weaknesses and all that stuff BLU is mostly about. Just take a look at a wiki list of all Blue Magic that was used in the franchise. Now try to count the number of skills which simply wouldn't work in FFXIV without heavy tweeking.

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So? Look at a wiki list of Black Magic that was used in the franchise. They tweeked plenty. Blue Mage shouldn't get special treatment just so it can end up being a less useable job.

Why not? Who are you to say that every playable job ever should be heavily tweeked to fit the mould? Who are you to kill the creativity of breaking rules and getting outside the usual mainstream content?
We've been asking for new and original content that breaks the usual formula for ages. That's exactly what we got. And now you want to get back into strictly respecting the formula? People never know what they want it seems.

Wha- no, no it's not. Blue Mage is literally, and only ever has been, about learning skills from enemies and then using it back at them.

Oh yeah, let me use Aqua Breath on a Water resistant enemy. Let me use Bad Breath on an enemy immune to status effects. Let me use Death Lv.5 on a level 42 enemy. Let my use Goblin Punch on an enemy not sharing my level. Let me use Magic hammer on an enemy without MP to steal. Let me use Level.? Holy on enemies not having a level which is a multiple of the last digit of how much gil I have...
Blue magic was always about weird situational skills that are very much conditionnal and should be used only in the right situation. All that while managing your MP in order not to burn it by only using the most powerful stuff you have.
Blue magic isn't about having a set rotation and a fixed number of skills. That'd be for a Boring Mage, not a Blue Mage. And we have a bunch of Boring Mages already.

That is what you do with blue magic. "Learning skills from monsters" is only a part of that gameplay. Ignoring the rest is a great disservice to that iconic job with its very special gameplay.
Maybe you would be okay with a butchered Blue Mage and Blue Magic. I wouldn't.

[Fawkes]

Which is why they decided to try and keep the iconic aspect of BLU. But that required it being put aside from the current roster, and it getting dedicated content, because FFXIV doesn't work with elemental weaknesses and all that stuff BLU is mostly about.

It is not iconic to BLU, it is iconic to the Final Fantasy series as a whole, and the developers of this game already chose to ignore it. For them to act like now it has to be there for BLU is spitting in the face of people who wanted it for BLM.

Just take a look at a wiki list of all Blue Magic that was used in the franchise. Now try to count the number of skills which simply wouldn't work in FFXIV without heavy tweeking.

So? Look at a wiki list of Black Magic that was used in the franchise. They tweeked plenty. Blue Mage shouldn't get special treatment just so it can end up being a less useable job.

[Powercow]

Which is why they decided to try and keep the iconic aspect of BLU. But that required it being put aside from the current roster, and it getting dedicated content, because FFXIV doesn't work with elemental weaknesses and all that stuff BLU is mostly about.

Wha- no, no it's not. Blue Mage is literally, and only ever has been, about learning skills from enemies and then using it back at them. Every time Blue Mage has shown up, it has been slightly different (or radically, in the case of Enemy Skill materia) than its previous incarnations. Sometimes it requires using an item to learn the skill, sometimes you need to kill the enemy, sometimes you need to eat the enemy, sometimes you need to be hit with the skill... but the one constant is that you learn skills, then use them. FFXIV is going with the see-it-kill-it approach, which is fine, that fits the mold.

But FFXIV Blue Mage isn't even really Blue Mage. Were BLUs ever super duper flexible godtier OP characters that couldn't be used in the rest of the game? No. They never have been. (Yes in 11 they were pretty damn strong, but they weren't so strong the devs barred them from current content.) This is a change in design from what Blue Mage has been to something radically different for FFXIV. If anything this version of Blue Mage has *less* in common with every other version outside of that one time the job became an item.