Thank you for making Blue Mage unique!

[Fyce]

Don't you dare tell me what makes Blue Mage fun for me. This is not it. Never once did I take joy in finally learning Grand Delta as Strago to just kick everyone from the party and go repeatedly use it on level 8 things for giggles. On the flip side I never cared that Degenerator or Bad Breath didn't work on Ultimecia, because I finally earned Shockwave Pulsar and could use that.

Stay true to itself? You're kidding me. This is as far as it gets. You might have your own opinion of Blue Mages, but I have mine too. And mine isn't satisfied with a ghost of a functional job just for the sake of preserving perceived novelty aspects.

Go back and play FFV and use Roulette over and over just to amuse yourself, I'd rather actually have a job capable of using Grand Delta, Nova, Cry in the Night, Aqualung, etc. in important fights alongside the rest of the party. Did you know Aqualung was non-elemental in FFV? I don't think hitting elemental weaknesses is as integral to Blue Mage as you think it is.

FFIV
Bloodfeast - Minor non-elemental damage to one enemy in addition to the Sap status.
Bad Breath - Inflicts multiple status ailments to one enemy.
Constrict - Inflicts Paralyze on one enemy.
Slap - Inflicts either Paralyze or Curse on one enemy.
Blaster - Inflicts either Paralyze or Death on one enemy.
Stone Gaze - Inflicts Gradual Petrify on one enemy.
Stone Touch - Inflicts Gradual Petrify on one enemy.
Hex - Inflicts Pig status on one enemy.
Glare - Inflicts Confuse on one enemy.
Wing Scales - Inflicts Blind on one enemy.
Tongue - Inflicts Sleep on one enemy.
Bile - Poison damage on one enemy.
Gaze - Inflicts either Confuse, Sleep, or Paralyze on one enemy.
Sleeping Gas - Randomly inflicts Sleep on one or all enemies.
Poison Gas - Randomly inflicts minor non-elemental damage and Poison on one or all enemies.
Curse - Randomly inflicts Curse on one or all enemies.
Pollen - Minor non-elemental damage to all enemies in addition to the Sap status.
Flamethrower - Minor Fire-elemental damage to all enemies.
Blaze - Fire-elemental damage to all enemies.
Frost Blast - Ice-elemental damage to all enemies.
Lightning - Thunder-elemental damage to all enemies.
Earthquake - Non-elemental damage to all enemies.
Thermal Rays - Non-elemental damage to all enemies.

23 skills. Only 2 of them are about dealing straight non-elemental damage. The rest are skills with status effects and elemental properties.

FFV
Doom - Kills one enemy after 30 seconds.
Roulette - Kills one random ally or enemy.
Aqua Breath - Deals non-elemental damage to all enemies. Deals 8 times the damage to desert enemies.
Level 5 Death - Kills enemies whose levels are a multiple of 5. Ignores death resistance.
Level 4 Graviga - Casts Graviga on enemies whose levels are a multiple of 4.
Level 2 Old - Inflicts Old on enemies whose levels are a multiple of 2.
Level 3 Flare - Casts Flare on enemies whose levels are a multiple of 3.
Pond's Chorus - Inflicts Toad on one target.
Lilliputian Lyric - Inflicts Mini on one target.
Flash - Inflicts Blind on all enemies.
Time Slip - Inflicts Old and Sleep on one target.
Moon Flute - Inflicts Berserk on all allies.
Death Claw - Reduces a target's HP to single digits and inflicts Paralyze.
Aero - Deals Wind-elemental damage to one or all enemies.
Aera - Deals Wind-elemental damage to one or all enemies.
Aeroga - Deals Wind-elemental damage to one or all enemies.
Flame Thrower - Deals Fire-elemental damage to one enemy.
Goblin Punch - Deals non-elemental damage to one target. If the target's level is same as the caster's level, deals 8 times the damage instead. Ignores row positions and weapons' special effects.
Dark Spark - Halves the target's current level.
Off-Guard - Halves the target's Defense.
Transfusion - Sacrifices the caster and fully restores one target's HP and MP.
Mind Blast - Deals non-elemental damage while inflicts Sap and Paralyze to one target.
Vampire - Absorbs HP from target and restores caster's HP.
Magic Hammer - Halves target's MP.
Mighty Guard - Grants Protect, Shell, Float to the party.
Self-Destruct - Kills caster to deal non-elemental piercing damage to one target equal to user's current HP.
???? - Deals non-elemental piercing damage to one target equal to caster's Maximum HP minus their current HP.
1000 Needles - Deals 1000 damage to one target. Damage cannot be reduced.
White Wind - Restores HP to party equal to caster's current HP.
Missile - Reduce target to 1/4 of its current HP.

31 skills. None of them deal non-elemental damage without some sort of gimmick attached to it (ie Aqua Breath, Goblin Punch and 1000 Needles for example). The rest is ALL about status effect, support, level based, or gimmicky.

FFVI
Doom - Inflicts Doom status on target.
Roulette - Randomly select a single enemy or party member, including caster, and inflict Death on them.
Tsunami - Deals Water-elemental damage to all enemies.
Aqua Breath - Deals Water and Wind-elemental damage on all enemies.
Aero - Deals Wind-elemental damage on all enemies.
1000 Needles - Deals exactly 1000 damage on single target. Ignores defense.
Mighty Guard - Casts Protect and Shell to the party.
Revenge Blast - Deals damage on a single enemy equal to caster's maximum HP minus their current HP.
White Wind - Heals all party members including caster an amount of HP equal to caster's HP.
Lv.5 Death - Inflict Death on all enemies with a level that is a multiple of 5.
Lv.4 Flare - Inflict non-elemental damage on all enemies with a level that is a multiple of 4.
Lv.3 Confuse - Inflict Confuse on all enemies with a level that is a multiple of 3.
Reflect??? - Inflicts Blind, Slow, and Silence on all enemies with Reflect status.
Lv.? Holy - Deals Holy-elemental damage on all enemies with a level that is a multiple of last digit of the party's current gil.
Traveler - Deals damage on target equal to number of steps taken throughout the game divided by thirty-two.
Force Field - Chooses a random element and nullifies all attacks of that element, regardless of user.
Dischord - Halves target's level, reducing its stats. Fails on targets immune to Death.
Bad Breath - Inflicts Blind, Poison, Imp, Confuse, Sleep, and Silence on one target.
Transfusion - Caster is removed from battle, restores a single ally to full HP and MP and cures all status ailments.
Rippler - Target and caster exchange all positive and negative statuses. Fails on targets immune to Imp.
Stone - Deals non-elemental damage and Confuse on one or more targets. Deals eight times as much damage on targets the same level as the caster.
Quasar - Deals non-elemental damage on all enemies. Ignores defense.
Grand Delta - Deals non-elemental damage on all enemies. Ignores defense.
Self-Destruct - Caster kills self and inflicts non-elemental damage equal to their HP on a single enemy.

24 skills. Only 2 of them are about dealing straight non-elemental damage. The rest is similar to FFV with status effect, support, level based, etc.

Do I need to continue? I don't think so. Oh and, you forgot to say, when taking Aqua Breath as an example, that is was a skill that was more effective against "Desert enemies", making it quite close to an actual elemental spell exploiting some weaknesses.

It's fine if you dismiss roughly 95% of Blue Magic just to focus on pure damage, but don't come saying to me that this is what a Blue Mage is all about.
I absolutly don't care if two or three moves are OP damage blasts. The fact is that absolutly everything else isn't.

You don't like Blue Mage. You like high damage spells. Go play Black Mage, they already have that.

[Lambdafish]

You don't like Blue Mage. You like high damage spells. Go play Black Mage, they already have that.

Thank you for summing up my frustration with people's wants for BLU. It's a far more gimmicky job than people give it credit. Hell, in FFVII, it was a gimmick materia in its entirety, and in FFVIII it was a limit break gimmick, rather than a job with identity.

What people seem to want is a job with BLU moves without anything that gives BLU it's classic identity. I know they have done it with other jobs in the past, with BRD being a fancy archer, and DRK not being HP drain, but these jobs have more identity through songs and darkness respectively, BLU doesn't have that.

Like you said, if you want a job that uses high damage magic from BLU, what makes it different from BLM?

[BlitzAceRush]

Thank you for summing up my frustration with people's wants for BLU. It's a far more gimmicky job than people give it credit. Hell, in FFVII, it was a gimmick materia in its entirety, and in FFVIII it was a limit break gimmick, rather than a job with identity.

What people seem to want is a job with BLU moves without anything that gives BLU it's classic identity. I know they have done it with other jobs in the past, with BRD being a fancy archer, and DRK not being HP drain, but these jobs have more identity through songs and darkness respectively, BLU doesn't have that.

Like you said, if you want a job that uses high damage magic from BLU, what makes it different from BLM?

Nothing really, which is part of the problem.

[Duskane]

they could have made it unique and not limit people

[Lusavari]

they could have made it unique and not limit people

It's easy to say something. Try laying on how to concretely do so. Lay out a blue-print with specific details that are balanced.

[Acidblood]

It sounds to me like you're holding onto a hope that Blue Mage is in a live beta and will slowly become a fully fledged job over time. However that isn't how Square has presented the job. In their official statements they've described it as "Not suited for parties" "Designed for Solo Play" and unable to enter content such as PvP, any matchmaking, any roulette, or even deep dungeon and they gave no indication any of that will ever change.

If Blue Mage was simply in beta, with the intent of being slowly integrated into the pantheon of jobs available and we were told as much then I don't think there would be a "delete limited jobs" crowd at all. We'd all be for it. A beta period is worth having fascinating jobs in the game, but that isn't what this is. What this is, is one of our favorite jobs being added to the game as something that both is and isn't a job in the game, half a job with no use in most of the regular content that we enjoy in this game, with absolutely no hope for anything otherwise being offered by the developers.

I don't think Blue Mage is ever going to be a 'normal' job, that much is plain, however they stated multiple times that they will be increasing its level cap over several patches, so call it 'beta' if you like, but Blue Mage certainly isn't going to be sitting still. And it's not like Blue Mage is completely locked out of party content*, you can still use it in pre-made groups if you really want to. Given those 2 facts, I guess I just don’t see why it’s impossible to think that Blue Mage couldn't, at some future time, be able to enter end-game content (especially given the obvious demand; this is an MMO, things can be adjusted).

* Certain content makes sense to restrict Blue Mage from; PvP uses separate skills (and again, not impossible to be added later); PotD/HoH gives you skills as you level (How does this even work for Blue Mage? How would they select their skills? Is it even reasonable to level Blue Mage via PotD and be level 50 in the open world with no skills?).

[Morra]

If the system is fun and not a throwaway then yeah.
But it has a risk of being just a sightseeing log with RNG-based grind which would be a let down to say the least.
Plus there's a lot of people that wanted to main BLU and wouldn't be able to do it. I am fine with BLU being limited just because I haven't had any intention of maining it, but as a side activity it looks interesting to me. But I'd prefer BLU to be a vaid option for people that wanted to BLU.

To be honest, I don't buy the balancing issue to be the reason to not make it a real job. Yes learning 49 and then some skills from monsters is unique and fun and it could still be that, BLU can have it's own side activity just like BRD has perform. No one expects a BRD to use perform in raids. So BLU could use learning to get their skills to use in a solo content just like it's going to, burt also have its regular skill set for group content.

I bet we're going to see a patch called "Unlimited Blue" or some such later down the line, that will make BLU a regular job. Optimist in me says that limits are there to be broken (heh), and they might work on a core skill set for a BLU according to popularity, usefullness, power etc. of skills used by people doing their BLU content.

I do believe that BLU deserves to have both places in the game, both a side activity collecting fun and a place in group content. Might never happen of course.

[SweetPete]

Might I remind everyone of a certain job that got huge backlash before SB was launched? "WHM" When the NDA was lifted for the media tour some streamers went live to bash WHM about Cure and Cure II giving a certain percentage chance to get a lily on their gauge. People we're outraged. They were on reddit and the official forums going off. It got so bad that Square responded with the media tour being months earlier and everything was still in development at that time. They even had to tell us that Cure and Cure II was changed to 100% chance to guarantee a lily. I say this because you people are going off about a job that hasn't even made it's way live yet.

Okay, I get that most people want to main BLU and you can. Yes you are locked out of allot of the content and the level cap is 50. Give SE and the Dev team time to look at the numbers and adjust as needed to open up more possibilities for BLU. Some of you act like you have degrees in gaming development/gaming programming. If you do then great. Go work for Square since you know so much about gaming and show them how it's done. I agree with Yoshi when he says no matter what they do people will always be mad about something. If BLU was introduced as a full fledged group playing job, it would be so watered down it would be ridiculous. BLU mage is not a job that can easily be implemented without ruining the job. That much I agree with. PLL states that BLU will utilize caster gear and caster role actions. Never said it was a caster role. BLU can't fit into the current meta of Tank/Healer/DPS. They can do it all. They also have very OP abilities. Can SE tune these abilities down. Maybe? Would you want badbreath to only put poison maybe defense down on a major boss? Would you want Lv4 Holy, Nova, Aqualung etc to do minimal damage? I like the solo idea. I think it keeps BLU staying true to it's identity and I am definitely going to play it and main it. Will it put me behind on quest and MSQ yes absolutely but again we don't know what SE has planned. They can totally surprise us and BLU can be rdy to go for Shadowbringers, Who knows.

All I am saying is give the job a chance. You can be mad, upset, disappointed, sad and whatever. Just don't take the joy from other people looking forward to this. Calling it a side job, a gold saucer mini-game. It's just sad. You can feel how you feel and these are just our opinions of course. Just don't try to take away other's joy. This post is about positive outlooks about the job and being happy about BLU being implemented. There are so many negative post already. You Negative Nancy's need to go there where you will be more welcomed. Leave us happy folk to relish in the bliss and serenity

[Arrius]

You don't like Blue Mage. You like high damage spells. Go play Black Mage, they already have that.

Also, balancing gimmicky spells in FFXIV outside instanced places wouldn't be possible anyway, since the complexity of the game is very low compared to other titles.

[Duskane]

It's easy to say something. Try laying on how to concretely do so. Lay out a blue-print with specific details that are balanced.

already the idea of picking and choosing what skills you want to play with like role skills while making bosses immune to some skills like Bad breath,Death,doom etc etc already makes its a unique and it wouldn't have res down,trick attack or party wide damage/crit buffs so already Balanced to some extent.
because it really would just take giving it a base combo/spell rotation
and just filling in blanks with blue magic
obviously with a limit so you don't just fill your gauge with offensive primal skills as an example
probably with the better the Blue magic the more it cost to put on your Blue list
So as an example you have 30 blue points all up so lets say a spell like Death (low accuracy only works on basic enemies entirely a gimmick but can be fun)would cost about 20 blue points giving you not much room to work with since a regular or basic spells would cost about 3 points
or you could fill up your gauge with other stuff like Cocoon enhances a party members defense yes there would probably be a most effective set for it but it also doesn't stop people using what they would want to use in case of support.

it didn't even need the whole idea searching for spells it easily could have been implemented in job quest and let it start at level 1 so it does at least feel like a journey
it could have been some random DPS set up and all skills are just named after blue magic
its not a tricky concept to get the grasp of they could have done it but didn't.

You don't like Blue Mage. You like high damage spells. Go play Black Mage, they already have that.

this really is no different from telling someone Dark sucks go play warrior or Black mage is bad at prog go play SMN or RDM