I don't understand BLU defenders

[Mibgestalt]

Changing an existing class to be limited and making a new class that is limited is two different things. However I'll amuse you.

For starters, it already happened with Summoner being crippled. If it was a summoner, I'd play it as my main DPS class. As it is, I don't even want to touch it.

Other than that, really want a dancer healer in the game. If it will not be...that depends on what else happens in the expansion. If there will be a different healer in expansion that can do normal content and feel different from the current three healers?! I'll be fine with Dancer being limited. If there will be no usable healer in expansion?! I'll drop the game until the time I'll see that Square Enix starts seeing the problems in this game that I do see.

I'll apologize in advance that I don't have time to go and address every point you listed, but I do appreciate the response. I might be misinterpreting you, but it sounds like from your post, and how you say other classes have been butchered, that you have serious problems with FFXIV's innate systems. I don't think a distaste for how the rest of the game is handled is a good reason to want something being added to that very game to be so incompatible with it.

Your argument about "bland cookie cutter Blue Mage in the next MMO" seems misguided. The issue here is that THIS iteration of Blue Mage that they're introducing could be added as DLC in... let's say FFXV, and would lose literally nothing. Adding it in this way in FFXIV, with their current stance of it not being suited for group content, does come at a cost. It's locked out of content in the game it is in, because of the genre.

No, MMORPG doesn't mean SOLELY multiplayer, but that is why every other job in the game can solo a huge portion of the content. I'm not saying I won't play Blue Mage, I've said multiple times that this is a good implementation, but to me it's not worth being locked out of playing it fully in the game we're actually playing.

I think you're misintepreting a lot of people's "doomsaying" as just people passionate about the game and the job that want to make sure the devs understand they aren't happy with things. As soon as developers were willing to open a dialogue with players, this is just something that was going to come with the territory. Complaining about it doesn't really add anything.

[Shougun]

BLU will be able to do things other classes cannot, short of being overleveled/geared.

Hopefully the rate they uncap blue is fast enough for that to be helpful though.

I mean let's say you can overlevel/gear content that's 3 patches ago (vague speaking here). And Blue Mage can play content that was 5+ patches ago (well at release its.. uh measured in expansions "ago" lol).

It seems to me that you'd get more benefit then from just overlevel/gearing (if perhaps similar rate but you can also do more content as an overleveld/geared character). Only, known at this time, benefit perhaps then being if level 5 death is exactly the cheese they're making it sound like - going into a dungeon and just drop kicking the bosses (could be other benefits of course).

Especially noting that while Blue Mage might be OP it seems like not /that/ OP since SE said you might need to get friends to help get certain skills (small party needed). Maybe the spin Blue adds is that you can solo it, but it's challenging..? (So bad for farming then, but perhaps combat is meant to be a mental puzzle). There could definitely be other things, like it could be quite nice if it was a challenge but Blue Mage had a huge drop rate increase (for cosmetic hunting).

Obviously we need to learn more to be clearer, but I.. I'm not sure that Blue Mage will offer that feature. The ability to solo content better than just taking your top tier class and going in unsynced.

[Derio]

Because people are fearing they wont be able to balance it. So it will be either A: Super overpowered or B: super underpowered.

We remember from ffxi

[Saefinn]

My defense of BLU is that the job sounds cool thus far and whilst the restrictions worry me or make me feel sceptical, I feel it is too early to be hating on the job or losing it because "everything is going to be terrible", as frankly, we don't know that. I can well understand skepticism, especially given SE's track record but it has drawn a considerable amount of complaints without people even giving it a chance first. People have done an awful lot of jumping to conclusions. If anything for people who are worried or disappointed, just wait and see.

We've been asking for something new. We've been asking for Blue Mage. Among those asking for Blue Mage there have been those who have asked for the type of Blue Mage in FFXI, because it was a really good rendition of the job. We've been wanting SE to stop giving us formulaic releases. And so far, it's ticking those boxes. Whether it works out is another matter, but I'll at least give them credit for making a risk in doing something different.

What we do know is that they are using a similar approach to FFXI's Blue Mage. FFXI has been the basis for many jobs, but often adapted to this game's ways. I think it is because it is an MMO implementation of a FF job that managed to do the job pretty good justice. But FFXI kinda help balance in a lower regard and that gave themselves more room for keeping the identity of different jobs and one of the best things about FFXI was its jobs. But even with what balance they tried to keep, Blue Mage was never super OP. But I get once you start putting the same sorts of blue mage principles in this game's job system there becomes a bigger challenge to stop it from being so and to stop it from being unbalanced. The way other FF games did it, its defensive or restorative moves were still useful but in FF titles you didn't have to think in a holy trinity. Whilst you are right a tank or healer in an MMO like this one needs more than than just Mighty Guard and White Wind, which is probably why people think more about XI's Blue Mage, which accounted for that difference. From what I recall they said and what I took from the screenshot, it was Ranged Magic DPS gear and role actions rather than explicitly saying "Ranged Magic DPS", which would have been easier to say and less ambiguous if that is what they meant - so I am not inclined to take that as gospel. But I accept the live letter ran late for me, so my half asleep self could have missed where they stated it explicitly.

As for the tanking/healing potential, we don't know what there will be. We know the list of potential spells/skills will be quite large so there is plenty of room to have them.

[LineageRazor]

The contention point is that SE has said they cant put it into end game content because the class would be to game breaking, unless they gut the class. People are either arguing that they shouldve, or that keeping it as is was better cause its more true to people's desires.

This is only one of the arguments the Devs gave against BLU being unsuitable as a full-fledged job, and like the others it's pure hogwash. BLU has NEVER been "game-breaking", not in ANY of the games it's appeared in. At best, BLU has had a gimmick or two that were UNIQUE, like the ability to deal water damage when other mages were limited to fire, ice, and lightning. Spells that had the potential for game-breakage, like Level 5 Death were stymied by the fact that bosses levels were never multiples of five (except maybe one or two, and gosh weren't you clever for figuring that out, pat yourself on the back, player, if you didn't learn that from a strategy guide!).

No rational individual expects a job to be lifted unaltered from a single-player game into an MMO. It isn't "gutting" the job, it's adapting it to fit, just as ALL of our jobs WITHOUT EXCEPTION have been adapted to fit this game. Some have been changed more than others, but none exactly resembles a prior incarnation exactly. Why is BLU suddenly the job which absolutely must carry over these MMO-unfriendly aspects, and if we don't do it it's not BLU at all?

[Rita1989]

Because people are fearing they wont be able to balance it. So it will be either A: Super overpowered or B: super underpowered.

We remember from ffxi

I mean isn't it SE devs job to plan out new jobs so they are balanced?

This is not FFXI every job in the game so far is balanced enough that it can complete all content.

You could have made the same argument for Red Mage prior to 4.0 but it fits in the game and is balanced fine.

[Aerlana]

but I'll at least give them credit for making a risk in doing something different.

What is different? If adding a new side content is "doing something different" so... I think you consider Pagos and pyros are "something different" because they are sidecontent that are not diadem or even Anemos. new map, new ennemies, new mechainics. . .

Different as way to add job in the game? where did you see a job ? cant use it on most content

i really love the fact that even content not listed their may be block for those characters...

[Krokov]

What are the duties that require matchmaking?

[Burningskull]

I also agree that I don't see how this is "something new." You're still killing monsters, just like the whole game. It's RNG weather you get your spell just like how Atma's worked. And the Masked Carnival isn't any thing new either. It's just an instanced battle against a mob or number of mobs where you... kill monsters. The only thing NEW about this job is that it's the first job to be locked out of things.

[Saefinn]

What is different? If adding a new side content is "doing something different" so... I think you consider Pagos and pyros are "something different" because they are sidecontent that are not diadem or even Anemos. new map, new ennemies, new mechainics. . .

Different as way to add job in the game? where did you see a job ? cant use it on most content

i really love the fact that even content not listed their may be block for those characters...

They were supposed to be something different, as was Diadem back in HW. Anemos descended into fate grinding, which ended up not being that different, something I was salty about because I was hype for it. I couldn't bring my self to the rest of Eureka because I've done enough FATE grinding in my time to be able to comment on the rest. They had good ideas and it -could- have been good. And this is why I understand people's skepticism. It is among my concerns too. But I prefer to wait and see before jumping to conclusions.

And it is different, they're adding a job that doesn't follow the same system as the other jobs and is an introduction of a new job system called "Limited Jobs". Whether it is any good would be a different matter.

I like the concept, the limitations are a concern but not a deal breaker if they pull it off well. If we're looking at Eureka as a baseline, then it's difficult to have faith. In fact Stormblood overall has been pretty "meh" and disappointing from my standpoint. But they can also get things right (I hold high praise for how they implemented Red Mage for example), so I am not going to assume the worst just yet.