SE, the concept of "Limited Jobs" is a really bad idea, turn back now

[Melichoir]

Blue mage identity is learning spell from monster and making them their, not being an over powered mage. How is that difficult to do compared to learning song by myself after a quest or any other way we learn our skill in job quest ? What kind of mysterious reason force those skill to being far too much powerfull ? Like Yeah bad breath as it is would be OP but why used by a Blue mage it can't be a damage debuff per exemple ? How Mighty guard can't be a simple single or party wide defense boost ? How any other skill can't be balanced like any other ? Because shiva does 7.500 k damage with her skill Blue mage should do the same regardless of his own capacity/strenght ?

The Gimmick for SMN is what? The ability to summon 'pets' and pets have special actions.
The Gimmick for BLM is what? The Hot/Cold system (I know thats a real stripped down version)
The Gimmick of RDM is what? Insta-cast, with some hybrid melee combat.

These three classes have 3 specific gimmicks that affect their playstyle outside of their actual skills. WHen you boil down what raw skills they have, theyre actually a lot more similar. They all have an AoE skill, a few damage dealers, a dot or two. So on so forth. its how these skills are used in a system that differentiate the classes. They all learn skills in a similar enough vein, but how they use them and when is different.

Now, what is the Gimmick of BLU? It is to learn monster skills. Unlike the other classes, the Gimmick for BLU is the means of how skills are acquired. Not the application of them. They may have some little 'minigame' system (resource management or something) involved, but at the end of the day, the goal of BLU is to LEARN exotic skills and then use those exotic skills as they are to accomplish a variety of tasks. This creates the inherent problem. It's not just raw numbers that matter. Its what those monster skills would do.


Bad breath, as an example, would have to be dumbed down A LOT to work in a party environment. It would be a vastly smaller cone of effect, have most to all its debuffs removed, and likely deal minor damage (if at all). It would need this treatment so it woudl fall in line with all the other caster AoE spells. Then you have to consider which skills get gutted or not. If you make to many BLU skills have utility (i.e, make it to flexible), it would become an almost must pick. To few, and you limit the Gimmick of the class, stripping it of its identity. You cant have a wide array of skills either, because that is also powerful. Having more skills than any other class either means the skills are vestigial, or if theyre all viable, youd end up with an overly flexible class. Again, that would make them must picks in a raid environment. This is a big blind spot in points like yours. You assume power is merely a numbers game. X skill does Y damage, therefore it is/isnt powerful. But its not just skill damage, its what skills do, what BLU would have access too, and how that access interacts with all other classes. For example, if BLU could get Trick Attack, that would skew raid balance hard. Double the up time damage windows without impacting the LB bar, on top of providing everything else it might (buffs, heals, CC, you name it.)

If you start limiting what skills BLU can use and do in a party environment, then you end up chipping away at its Gimmick. The class becomes empty. Its just a caster with a few fancy spells that it learned from monsters. It identity and concept get reduced in scope and people then start saying "SE, you sucked at implementing this! This isnt BLU. This is a travesty!" If they add an extra gimmick to compensate, then its no longer BLU, because the Monster learning aspect is just a more complicated way to get skills, and the gimmick then becomes the second thing tacked on.

This is the problem that having it be part of the DF system would end up contributing to. Thats why its hard to balance. They can either give you a game experience of being a Mage who learns magic from monsters, and has to go on some quest or another and must use all the skills he or she learned to win (making the emphasis on learning monster skills), but restrict it so that it cant participate in end game content, OR they gut it, dumb it down, and possibly add a second gimmick, turning it into a shell of what the BLU concept was all so you can take a reskinned thaumaturge to party content. I dont know about others, but I prefer the first.

Snip (sorry its a long post)

Ok, so you pretty much have a reskinned Thamaturge. See above to understand why. Even more so, but youre creating a system that has soft restrictions too. So any skill that isnt useable in a dungeon makes it moot simply because youre defeating the point of the party system, and any skill that cant be used on a boss is also moot, for the same reason. But now you have to remember what skills can be used where. We have that to an extreme limited extent. CC is generally tied to one or two skills at most, and most bosses are invulnerable to it. Your system would require more skills to become moot in boss encounters, and dungeons at large.

Aslo again, consider the power of having a class with to much flexibility. Lastly, you are adding a gimmick ontop of a gimmick. The core identity of BLU is learning skills, not the application of them in rotations. Where RMD, SMN, and BLM all have systems that use their skills in different ways (so the focus is on application within their gimmicks - like summoning Bahamut in SMN's case), BLU does not have such a system inherently. Their set up is "I have a scenario, and Ill use my plethora of skills casted as is to overcome it." Any gimmick system on top of that would either be very basic or would take power from the "Learned Skills" system for the sake of balance, thus mitigating the identity of BLU and making it more of a generic caster that happens to learn skills from monsters rather than an NPC.

[Nariel]

The Gimmick for SMN is what? The ability to summon 'pets' and pets have special actions.
The Gimmick for BLM is what? The Hot/Cold system (I know thats a real stripped down version)
The Gimmick of RDM is what? Insta-cast, with some hybrid melee combat.

So how fighting a monster in a job quest is not learning from a monster ? Don't want to make him learn anything by leveling ? Make short job quest requiring to do "whocare" to learn his abilty, don't even need a instanced fight, just go kill this monster in the overworld/dungeon and be done with it.

How the actual learning process is that incompatible with balancing the said spell for actual content ? They can't have normal potency or effect ? Of course they can't, they are balanced for the mask carnival and nothing else.

Nobody will reject them for missing xxxx spell, many player barely know how to play and still manage to get carried away in any dungeon or normal raid. So many floormop have primal mount its ridiculous. Rejection in savage ? Well looking to do savage without being ready for it is kinda self defeating.

[Vunak]

Snip

In just about every other iteration of BLU it was dumbed down to fit into that games systems. Even in FFXI where you had literal 100s of spells, not a single one of them was instant death or some such (at least when I played it at 75 cap, idk if it is still this way) and it definitely didn't feel or play like the other mages in the game. Thinking in absolutes like this is what caused us to get a "limited" job to begin with. There are numerous different ways to make BLU work in and out of the DF. Level 5 Death is a poor example of a reason as to why BLU can't work as the example SE gave. Level 5 Death wasn't given to BLU in FFXI. Just like Black Mage in FFXIV doesn't have Death the spell a very iconic BLM spell.

As someone mentioned above giving it a Monster Gauge where certain skills add to the gauge and when it hits a certain threshold opens up a big BLU spell of certain affect. I thought something along the lines of XI lore would work with the gauge as well where you have to balance it out on your spell use to not be consumed by the Blue Magic. Your spells get stronger as you get closer to that top end and if you let it go to far, something like the Ninja bunny happens but in BLU flair (or get a massive DPS boost for a few seconds and then a large DPS loss when it wears off) and you have to start over. But keeping that balance allows you to push DPS higher.

[Shougun]

The Gimmick for SMN is what? The ability to summon 'pets' and pets have special actions.
The Gimmick for BLM is what? The Hot/Cold system (I know thats a real stripped down version)
The Gimmick of RDM is what? Insta-cast, with some hybrid melee combat.

These three classes have 3 specific gimmicks that affect their playstyle outside of their actual skills. WHen you boil down what raw skills they have, theyre actually a lot more similar. They all have an AoE skill, a few damage dealers, a dot or two. So on so forth. its how these skills are used in a system that differentiate the classes. They all learn skills in a similar enough vein, but how they use them and when is different.

Now, what is the Gimmick of BLU? It is to learn monster skills. Unlike the other classes, the Gimmick for BLU is the means of how skills are acquired. Not the application of them. They may have some little 'minigame' system (resource management or something) involved, but at the end of the day, the goal of BLU is to LEARN exotic skills and then use those exotic skills as they are to accomplish a variety of tasks. This creates the inherent problem. It's not just raw numbers that matter. Its what those monster skills would do.

Not arguing that learning skill is not part of BLU's gimmick but just curious (in general) what the combat gimmick for BLU will be. I mean to say that imagine it's just monster abilities. Is it what.. 24 oGCD spells? lol, that can't be it. No combos? Rea..ally? There's got to be a system in place, and therefore there is probably a combat gimmick. That or it's very very straight forward job lol. We could make up some combat gimmicks in posts but I imagine it being so close to release there'd be not a huge point unless the system they used isn't exciting (but we don't know yet so.. yeh lol).

So I mean to say you have a piece of the gimmick but I can't imagine that's it, I feel there is very likely some combat gimmick. That or people who like complex / interactive jobs will likely not like BLU. (Obviously we'll have to wait and see)

I'd add though that I don't think the inherent problem you mentioned is unsolvable. There are thousands (probably literally) of monster skills, for SE not to be able to pick out skills from the list of available skills and turn it into a job would be.. talented lol. Not saying it'd be easy though.

Also any skills that are concerned for bosses should probably just have a rule attached to them. Like lets take level 5 death for example: If 5k potency attack would kill the target then the target is killed, otherwise deal 800 potency and do bla - 3 min cooldown. Now it won't be a boss killer but it could be a trash killer, and it's still useful even if it doesn't instant kill. imo Self destruct could avoid boss restrictions by something like being a dragoon ish skill "deals heavy aoe damage, reduce damage received by 35% while reforming for 2 seconds". Bad breath as you said would probably be brought down a bit but it doesn't have to be to the point of being boring/bad, like "inflicts 1 to 3 random status ailments per enemy in a target area" for 15 seconds and put the skill on a consuming system (like greased lighting) or add a long cooldown.

Anyway I don't think skills that are adjusted like above would be boring even if they're not exactly the same. Also i'm personally leaning to / hoping for a set of core skills you have to go learn that SE balances for duty finder/raid, but can be unlocked/buffed in open world content along with other side skills that SE wants to add. Particularly I think that when you equip the wacky unbalanced skills they can come with passive buffs to your character and skills, so that you mix the two together when doing outside content - like say stool pelt a non balanced skill (from gorilla) also adds 10% hp and unlocks bad breath's full potential when equipped - where bad breath was the balanced for duty finder skill. In this way the player gets to unbalance themselves how they see fit for open world/solo, and their core set is still valuable.

The worst part I know is that I'm just saying "give me both, what you (SE) wanted to make and what I hope to be able to do with Blue Mage" lol.. so I know it's a big ask, but even if I enjoy their version of blue mage (sounds like I will) I know I'll always want to be able to take him into other content too (and therefore it'll be a very bitter sweet pleasure). What would really be a bummer though is if I don't like their version and now we'll also never get a viable "main" job either, double whammy lol.

[Melichoir]

So how fighting a monster in a job quest is not learning from a monster ? Don't want to make him learn anything by leveling ? Make short job quest requiring to do "whocare" to learn his abilty, don't even need a instanced fight, just go kill this monster in the overworld/dungeon and be done with it.

How the actual learning process is that incompatible with balancing the said spell for actual content ? They can't have normal potency or effect ? Of course they can't, they are balanced for the mask carnival and nothing else.

Nobody will reject them for missing xxxx spell, many player barely know how to play and still manage to get carried away in any dungeon or normal raid. So many floormop have primal mount its ridiculous. Rejection in savage ? Well looking to do savage without being ready for it is kinda self defeating.

Again, the core concept of BLU isnt the use of skills within a rotation. Its the fact you can LEARN monster skills.

So you go on a job quest and get the "Summon Bahamut" skill. Well, you cant just "Summon bahamut" You actually have to use your Aetherflows to charge your gauge and use Dreadwyrm trance twice (if Im not mistaken) and then once you meat conditions, you can use the skill. This system is set up and built around a system. The system has limitations built into it, exploits built into it, and pros and cons. Its balance is determined by how that system works and how the skills you get interact with it. This system differentiates its playstyle from BLM and RDM.

BLU doesnt have this, because BLU is based on learning Monster skills themselves and directly applying them in combat. Therer is no "System" per say, other than "Go out and learn as many skills as you can to complete your objectives." Instead of mastering a system, you are mastering skill usage and judgement. This difference becomes the issue. The gimmick isnt a system (learning optimal rotations, when you can use what, etc etc), its how you gain your skills and who you apply it to. Dreadwyrm trance works on all bosses. Bad breath Wouldnt, UNLESS they make BLU be the exception (which would give it a huge power advantage over all other classes), or they gut the skill by a large margin. If they do the latter, you end up with a class that is casting weakened version of skills monsters had (breaking the illusion, Id call it) and trying to compete with other classes that have more interesting game play mechanics.

In just about every other iteration of BLU it was dumbed down to fit into that games systems. Even in FFXI where you had literal 100s of spells, not a single one of them was instant death or some such (at least when I played it at 75 cap, idk if it is still this way) and it definitely didn't feel or play like the other mages in the game. Thinking in absolutes like this is what caused us to get a "limited" job to begin with. There are numerous different ways to make BLU work in and out of the DF. Level 5 Death is a poor example of a reason as to why BLU can't work as the example SE gave. Level 5 Death wasn't given to BLU in FFXI. Just like Black Mage in FFXIV doesn't have Death the spell a very iconic BLM spell.

As someone mentioned above giving it a Monster Gauge where certain skills add to the gauge and when it hits a certain threshold opens up a big BLU spell of certain affect. I thought something along the lines of XI lore would work with the gauge as well where you have to balance it out on your spell use to not be consumed by the Blue Magic. Your spells get stronger as you get closer to that top end and if you let it go to far, something like the Ninja bunny happens but in BLU flair (or get a massive DPS boost for a few seconds and then a large DPS loss when it wears off) and you have to start over. But keeping that balance allows you to push DPS higher.

Youre kinda proving my point: BLU was never functional from a concept lvl in MMOs due to its power issues. They had to dumb it down. And no, thinking how I am is weighing TWO possible outcomes. Dumbing down a concept just so you can have it in end game prog (which from my perspective is just a reskinned thamaturge - instead of casting fire, you cast 1k needles. congrats, you did the same thing except now its visually different and doesnt require consideration to class mechanics), or you can create a separate and unique experience that lives up more to the core concept but at the cost of End Game Prog.

[Vunak]

Youre kinda proving my point: BLU was never functional from a concept lvl in MMOs due to its power issues. They had to dumb it down. And no, thinking how I am is weighing TWO possible outcomes. Dumbing down a concept just so you can have it in end game prog (which from my perspective is just a reskinned thamaturge - instead of casting fire, you cast 1k needles. congrats, you did the same thing except now its visually different and doesnt require consideration to class mechanics), or you can create a separate and unique experience that lives up more to the core concept but at the cost of End Game Prog.

Not really. I gave an example of how to make it different and there is a plethora of other theads completely dedicated to it. Dumbing it down is a bad way of saying it. It was played down mechanically in every FF, just like BLM was played down and just like SMN and all the other jobs were. BLM doesnt go around casting Death on every mob and one shotting it. SMN has their summons played down otherwise they would one shot every mob and boss with one Bahamut cast. THF or NIN doesn't use assassinate and one shot the mobs they are fighting etc.

[whiskeybravo]

Holy crap you need to set the Kool-Aid down.

The Gimmick for SMN is what? The ability to summon 'pets' and pets have special actions.
The Gimmick for BLM is what? The Hot/Cold system (I know thats a real stripped down version)
The Gimmick of RDM is what? Insta-cast, with some hybrid melee combat.

These three classes have 3 specific gimmicks that affect their playstyle outside of their actual skills. WHen you boil down what raw skills they have, theyre actually a lot more similar. They all have an AoE skill, a few damage dealers, a dot or two. So on so forth. its how these skills are used in a system that differentiate the classes. They all learn skills in a similar enough vein, but how they use them and when is different.

Alright, if we're boiling things down, every Job has buttons. Some are generic, some are unique, some are OP, some are useless. But every job has them, and at any given moment one ability is better to use than another, that's how we arrive at "rotations". There is nothing within this formula that BLU doesn't fit.

Now, what is the Gimmick of BLU? It is to learn monster skills. Unlike the other classes, the Gimmick for BLU is the means of how skills are acquired. Not the application of them. They may have some little 'minigame' system (resource management or something) involved, but at the end of the day, the goal of BLU is to LEARN exotic skills and then use those exotic skills as they are to accomplish a variety of tasks. This creates the inherent problem. It's not just raw numbers that matter. Its what those monster skills would do.

Agreed. Again nothing here that defies what a full-battle content BLU should be able to accomplish. They learn skills in a different manner than other jobs, and they have unique skills that no other job can perform.

Bad breath, as an example, would have to be dumbed down A LOT to work in a party environment. It would be a vastly smaller cone of effect, have most to all its debuffs removed, and likely deal minor damage (if at all). It would need this treatment so it woudl fall in line with all the other caster AoE spells. Then you have to consider which skills get gutted or not. If you make to many BLU skills have utility (i.e, make it to flexible), it would become an almost must pick. To few, and you limit the Gimmick of the class, stripping it of its identity. You cant have a wide array of skills either, because that is also powerful. Having more skills than any other class either means the skills are vestigial, or if theyre all viable, youd end up with an overly flexible class. Again, that would make them must picks in a raid environment. This is a big blind spot in points like yours. You assume power is merely a numbers game. X skill does Y damage, therefore it is/isnt powerful. But its not just skill damage, its what skills do, what BLU would have access too, and how that access interacts with all other classes. For example, if BLU could get Trick Attack, that would skew raid balance hard. Double the up time damage windows without impacting the LB bar, on top of providing everything else it might (buffs, heals, CC, you name it.)

Bad Breath, it always sucks to get hit by it because of the incredible amount of debuffs you'd have to cleanse. But how do these debuffs work in FFXIV? Not every mob is vulernable to them, certainly in other FF games there have been monsters that can resist certain debuffs, so there's nothing new here that can't be dealt with in the context of FFXIV. Bad breath could be a standard conal AOE with various debuffs, but it doesn't follow that every single mob has to be vulnerable to every single debuff it could inflict. In the event BLU got a vulnerability similar to Trick Attack then I'd imagine their damage would be on the lower end of the spectrum since that's at least one thing SE can fairly reasonably balance (at least recently). Keep in mind MCH has a similar, all-around vulnerability but it's different enough to not make NIN/MCH a "mandatory" setup.

If you start limiting what skills BLU can use and do in a party environment, then you end up chipping away at its Gimmick. The class becomes empty. Its just a caster with a few fancy spells that it learned from monsters. It identity and concept get reduced in scope and people then start saying "SE, you sucked at implementing this! This isnt BLU. This is a travesty!" If they add an extra gimmick to compensate, then its no longer BLU, because the Monster learning aspect is just a more complicated way to get skills, and the gimmick then becomes the second thing tacked on.

I thought you said the Gimmick was learning monster skills? How does limiting party actions affect their Gimmick of acquiring new skills via learning them from monsters? Many jobs now are limited to what skills they can use in "party environment" right now, so it's OK for them to be limited but not BLU? Wait, isn't BLU the limited job?

The rest of that conjecture is basically proving the point for us. People complain about jobs all day long around here, nothing has changed now except the color.

This is the problem that having it be part of the DF system would end up contributing to. Thats why its hard to balance. They can either give you a game experience of being a Mage who learns magic from monsters, and has to go on some quest or another and must use all the skills he or she learned to win (making the emphasis on learning monster skills), but restrict it so that it cant participate in end game content, OR they gut it, dumb it down, and possibly add a second gimmick, turning it into a shell of what the BLU concept was all so you can take a reskinned thaumaturge to party content. I dont know about others, but I prefer the first.

I'm still lost on this idea that BLU was some super-powerful job that's impossible to balance against others. It never has been. I'm sorry for all the people who've been waiting 7-8 years for them to release BLU only to have it be a Hildibrand side-quest.

[Nariel]

Again, the core concept of BLU isnt the use of skills within a rotation

Oh and you came with this fact from where exactly ? I'm kinda sure the first game to ever introduce BLU and many after him didn't have any rotation gameplay for any other job too. Rotation is a MMO thing, BLU isn't define by having a rotation but by the fact he use blue magic and how he get it nothing else.

BLM in FFI isn't about astra/ombral, BRD isn't about DoT and for the love of me RED mage isn't about alternating between white/black magic for spiritual balance.

FFXI didn't define Blue mage, FFXI have an iteration of Blue mage, a recurrent and well known job in the Final Fantasy license.

[Melichoir]

Not arguing that learning skill is not part of BLU's gimmick but just curious (in general) what the combat gimmick for BLU will be. I mean to say that imagine it's just monster abilities. Is it what.. 24 oGCD spells? lol, that can't be it. No combos? Rea..ally? There's got to be a system in place, and therefore there is probably a combat gimmick. That or it's very very straight forward job lol. We could make up some combat gimmicks in posts but I imagine it being so close to release there'd be not a huge point unless the system they used isn't exciting (but we don't know yet so.. yeh lol).

So I mean to say you have a piece of the gimmick but I can't imagine that's it.

This is something we dont know yet. This is also why getting upset about the limited system is semi foolish atm. Theres not enough Info. My speculation is based solely on the core concepts provided by current classes, as well as what is the gimmick of BLU that we have been given. This is why Im saying Balancing it would be incredibly hard. There is PROBABLY some system beyond "Just learn monster skills", but, it is more likely that it is pragmatically designed in a way that the focus isnt on a rotation or priority system, but rather gameplay will revolve around how you use the skills you learn to overcome challenges. Think of a action adventure game. As you learn more skills and combos, this gives you a greater variety of tools to defeat harder and harder bosses. So instead of learning a rotation or someting there of, you might learn how to use skills in conjunction to take care of a challenge. Boss spawns a room full of adds, pop a skil that sucks them into one spot, then immediately bad breath them to snare/stun/cc them, then hit them with 1kn. Things that would require a party to accomplish, you would be able to do so long as you have the skills and cleverness to do it.

That seems like a pragmatic system they would build. But thats my speculation.

I'd add though that I don't think the inherent problem you mentioned is unsolvable. There are thousands (probably literally) of monster skills, for SE not to be able to pick out skills from the list of available skills and turn it into a job would be.. talented lol. Not saying it'd be easy though.

Also any skills that are concerned for bosses should probably just have a rule attached to them. Like lets take level 5 death for example: If 5k potency attack would kill the target then the target is killed, otherwise deal 800 potency and do bla - 3 min cooldown. Now it won't be a boss killer but it could be a trash killer, and it's still useful even if it doesn't instant kill. imo Self destruct could avoid boss restrictions by something like being a dragoon ish skill "deals heavy aoe damage, reduce damage received by 35% while reforming for 2 seconds". Bad breath as you said would probably be brought down a bit but it doesn't have to be to the point of being boring/bad, like "inflicts 1 to 3 random status ailments per enemy in a target area" for 15 seconds and put the skill on a consuming system (like greased lighting) or add a long cooldown.

Im sure the problem could be solved, but the solutions migth be worse than the problem. For example, to make it work without any dumbing down, that might mean re balancing the game around BLU. But the problem with creating restrictions is youre now creating a complicated list of what works when. Dreadwyrm trance works on every boss except in specific and deliberate phases (i.e: Boss becomes invulnerable during a phase event) If every single one of the BLU's skills has caveats on when and where they can be used, thats going to create a lot of issues balance wise and player learning -wise. The issue with the suggestion like bad breath simply boils down to CC is powerful in of itself, and no class has an AoE high damage multiple CC ability. And lets say it can put multiple CCs at the cost of damage. You still have to consider what other abilities BLU would have that would hvae utility. To many and the class becomes inherently OP to anything susceptible to CC, and if you give enemies CC resistance, that negatively impacts all the other classes with 2 or 3 CC at most as well as needing you to mitigate damage on other BLU skills with CC to compensate for so much CC on one class. This is the balance issue with Monster Skills. If all BLU did was learn a reskinned version of Physic, or Fire I, it becomes moot and uninteresting unless you add a system to the class. If thats the case, then you take away from the core idea of BLU, where learning monster skills is just a harder way for you to get your fire 1 equivilant. You can gussy that up in Lore, but the average player is gonna eventually say "Wait a minute...."

Anyway I don't think skills that are adjusted like above would be boring even if they're not exactly the same. Also i'm personally leaning to / hoping for a set of core skills you have to go learn that SE balances for duty finder/raid, but can be unlocked/buffed in open world content along with other side skills that SE wants to add. Particularly I think that when you equip the wacky unbalanced skills they can come with passive buffs to your character and skills, so that you mix the two together when doing outside content - like say stool pelt a non balanced skill (from gorilla) also adds 10% hp and unlocks bad breath's full potential when equipped - where bad breath was the balanced for duty finder skill. In this way the player gets to unbalance themselves how they see fit for open world/solo, and their core set is still valuable. The worst part I know is that I'm just saying "give me both, what you (SE) wanted to make and what I hope to be able to do with Blue Mage" lol.. so I know it's a big ask, but even if I enjoy their version of blue mage (sounds like I will) I know I'll always want to be able to take him into other content too (and therefore it'll be a very bitter sweet pleasure).

The things suggested would make it ideal for solo play. Which is what they want to give you. But for them to operate in party play they become unbalanced. This would require creating rules and exceptions. And lets be frank, you think players are gonna be fine if they can do it in solo play but then get dumb downed versions of their skills in party?

And man youre all getting into this. Its fun.

Oh and you came with this fact from where exactly ? I'm kinda sure the first game to ever introduce BLU and many after him didn't have any rotation gameplay for any other job too. Rotation is a MMO thing, BLU isn't define by having a rotation but by the fact he use blue magic and how he get it nothing else.

BLM in FFI isn't about astra/ombral, BRD isn't about DoT and for the love of me RED mage isn't about alternating between white/black magic for spiritual balance.

What is the main identity of BLU that everyone wanted?

To learn skills from Monsters. This means, at the end of hte day, people want to play monster skills. Add a rotation, if you must, but that rotation then means balancing the monster learning skill gimmick, ontop of just balancing monster skills in party play.

Not really. I gave an example of how to make it different and there is a plethora of other theads completely dedicated to it. Dumbing it down is a bad way of saying it. It was played down mechanically in every FF, just like BLM was played down and just like SMN and all the other jobs were. BLM doesnt go around casting Death on every mob and one shotting it. SMN has their summons played down otherwise they would one shot every mob and boss with one Bahamut cast. THF or NIN doesn't use assassinate and one shot the mobs they are fighting etc.

Ill just requote your first statement:

In just about every other iteration of BLU it was dumbed down to fit into that games systems.

You said that they had to dumb down the skills to fit the system. Ive been saying that, and been saying that in Doing So, it denegrates the core idea of BLU - Something people I do not believe would like based on the points Ive made.

Holy crap you need to set the Kool-Aid down.

Ill have to give your post a response given time, but Ive already written a lot for this post. But just one quick sticking point:

I'm still lost on this idea that BLU was some super-powerful job that's impossible to balance against others. It never has been. I'm sorry for all the people who've been waiting 7-8 years for them to release BLU only to have it be a Hildibrand side-quest.

This part leads me to believe youre not thinking about Balance of a class in relationship to itself and content, but other classes. And maybe I shouldnt have said Hildebrand earlier, cause now theres people are treating the class as if its a snarky little plot driven sidequest you do, and not the actual fact its a new class with mechanics and separate content dedicated to it, and you are still able to do content, you just cant do it in DF, and might have to wait a bit of time before you get to certain things because balance is a thing.

But man, this is way to TLDR at this point.

[Elerus]

Oh and you came with this fact from where exactly ? I'm kinda sure the first game to ever introduce BLU and many after him didn't have any rotation gameplay for any other job too. Rotation is a MMO thing, BLU isn't define by having a rotation but by the fact he use blue magic and how he get it nothing else.

BLM in FFI isn't about astra/ombral, BRD isn't about DoT and for the love of me RED mage isn't about alternating between white/black magic for spiritual balance.

FFXI didn't define Blue mage, FFXI have an iteration of Blue mage, a recurrent and well known job in the Final Fantasy license.

Thank you, thank you.

I mean my "rotation" on Strago was spamming this spell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgknPVl4YJA

Meh, I was young and it looked cool.

That dude should really phoenix down Clyde.