Blue Mage might actually be a good thing.

[Bright-Flower]

But then there is SMN... It's the perfect example of how a class went south when it came to its classic approach. It barely remembers anything that oldschool Summoner is.

You can't summon a myriad of deadly entities to lay waste on your enemies other than Bahamut, almost making you a "dragonmage". Though my perspective is that it can be very simple to fix... Rename Dreadwyrm Trance to Aethertrance, and Summon Bahamut to Summon IV (and Enkindle Bahamut to Enkindle II) give a myriad of Demi-glamours to subistitute Bahamut by other big beasts, Like Leviathan, Ramuh, Fenrir, etc... You'd basically keep SMN as it is mechanically.

Yeah, but honestly blue mage would be EASIER than classic sommoner to work in honestly. Just theme the abilities around classic blue mage monster abilities, and tie that lore into the job. Have the job stone teach the WOL basics and have job quests about learning other abilities. They could have fit BLU into FF XIV's job trinity system much more smoothly than SMN which is all about summoning big creatures to devestate your foes, or at times support summons like carbuncle.

[Lyden]

Yeah, but honestly blue mage would be EASIER than classic sommoner to work in honestly. Just theme the abilities around classic blue mage monster abilities, and tie that lore into the job. Have the job stone teach the WOL basics and have job quests about learning other abilities. They could have fit BLU into FF XIV's job trinity system much more smoothly than SMN which is all about summoning big creatures to devestate your foes, or at times support summons like carbuncle.

and than we have a another funny reskinned mage class ... dont like the idea

[Garnix]

To me, the way they are implementing is fine, and sounds fun! So I am really looking forward to play it and unlock all those spells! Especially as a I do not plan to play it in high-end content.
Honestly, there are just two things holding it back in my opinion : no PvP (doesn't make sense), and the "temporary" level cap.



But honestly, with some "minor" tweaking here and there, I think it could probably be as viable as any other job in multiplayer content...

1) Do not allow queuing in roulettes etc. unless the spellbook is full (all skills learned), and you reached MAX level. (this way, you keep the uniqueness of the job of having to level up in the world and learn your skills, and on top of this, you will still need PF to acquire some of the skills like Shiva's)

2) They said you can select 24 skills. They could just use 24 default values when you queue in duty finder, and only treat those 24 skills as part of the job for the multiplayer content.

3) Do not add new skills to those default 24 outside of expansions, otherwise you would enter a balancing nightmare. (for example, if BLU was released in 3.4, do not allow the use of Zurvan's skill in DF before Stormblood's release)

4) After each expansion, you will have to go back to learning your spells before being able to go back in duty finder (also applicable for content you were able to run the week before! Put everybody back in the wild lands at launch! )

5) If using PF, you should still be able to select the skills you want, as being currently implemented --> this would have to be monitored and balanced too. Because people might just destroy every content, which is really odd, because this is exactly what they want to avoid, but at the same time is the only thing that is possible with the current implementation of the job : people will just try to come up with the most OP setup... It will just be restricted due to being level 50...
Without that restriction, blue mages would just destroy all content if they are as OP as implied...
Or maybe they should have strict restrictions. For example, by making it mandatory to use the default 24 skills for recent content, and remove that restriction one or two patches later.

5) Why no PVP???? Every class as a default set of skills that is completely different between PVP and PVE, so...why no PvP for Blue mage???

6) Deep dungeon is not clear. Is Blue mage to allowed to go there at all?
Or not allowed with a duty finder deep dungeon?
I mean, can I solo deep dungeon as OP Blue Mage?
I think this is the only thing that is needed in that content : a class to rival with Red Mage in deep dungeon.

[EusisLandale]

6) Deep dungeon is not clear. Is Blue mage to allowed to go there at all?
Or not allowed with a duty finder deep dungeon?
I mean, can I solo deep dungeon as OP Blue Mage?
I think this is the only thing that is needed in that content : a class to rival with Red Mage in deep dungeon.

Deep Dungeon might reasonably get its restriction lifted. Right now their cap is still 10 levels below the cap in PotD, which would be a good enough reason to lock them out for now.