How is BLU New and Innovative?

[BubblyBoar]

Define 'monster skills'; i.e. outside of the name, and potentially how you learn them, how do they differ from regular job abilities? For example, what would 'Bad Breath' (balanced for a standard version of Blue Mage) do that regular old Poison (i.e. Bio / Miasma) doesn't?

Define 'the flavor that is BLU'; i.e. what could a standardised Blue Mage do that other jobs can't? What experience would a standardised Blue Mage provide that other jobs don't?

Or do you mean that you don't care if Blue Mage is OP / broken and potentially turns 'capped content' into a complete joke? (As a true version of Bad Breath, Lv5 Death, etc. would)

Monster skills are just that, spells monsters have that we don't. They don't have to be EXACT carbon copies. In many games, they weren't. Mobs and bosses always had immunities to certain status effects and debuffs. Bad Breath never applied every debuff all the time as mobs did to s because we didn't have those immunities unless we have some gear that took care of it. Frost Breast is a conal AoE. Why would a BLU getting Forst Breath not just be a conal AoE? 1000 Needles is a radial AoE that does 1000 dmg. I don't even get what you are getting at besides the fact that you want BLU skills to be EXACTLY like the monster skill they come from without a single change at all in them. Which very few BLU skills even do.

[SDaemon]

In what FF game does a death spell one-shot boss enemies?

EDIT: Or any game, for that matter? And I mean a DEATH spell, ONE-SHOTTING a BOSS.

Name one?

Depends on if you consider death like abilities such as Selphie's "The End", Cait Sith's "Game Over" and Vanille's "Death" as Death spells.

Otherwise, Setzer's Joker's Death is a well known example.

The superboss Adamantoise in FFXV is also kill-able with Nocti's death spell using the ring.

[Acidblood]

Monster skills are just that, spells monsters have that we don't. They don't have to be EXACT carbon copies. In many games, they weren't. Mobs and bosses always had immunities to certain status effects and debuffs. Bad Breath never applied every debuff all the time as mobs did to s because we didn't have those immunities unless we have some gear that took care of it. Frost Breast is a conal AoE. Why would a BLU getting Forst Breath not just be a conal AoE? 1000 Needles is a radial AoE that does 1000 dmg. I don't even get what you are getting at besides the fact that you want BLU skills to be EXACTLY like the monster skill they come from without a single change at all in them. Which very few BLU skills even do.

What I am getting at is that in FFXIV there are relatively few things you, as a Player, can actually do to an Enemy, and even less to a Boss. Player to Player interaction is also quite limited, and beyond healing, quite weak (all for 'balance' reasons). Add in the restrictions of group roles, i.e. a DPS must be able to do a minimum level of DPS and thus cannot have too much utility (lest they be OP / mandatory), a sprinkling of balance, and your options for designing a 'raid-ready' Blue Mage aren't many... yes you can rename the skills, mixed up the button order and add some made-up gimmick, but ultimately is that really 'Blue Mage'? Or just another caster DPS with the name 'Blue Mage'?

Which is fine (for you) if all you want is a job called 'Blue Mage', however I've also seen it thrown around a fair bit that designing a 'full job' version of Blue Mage would be 'easy', or that the limitations should simply be removed... OK then, do it; design a Blue Mage that fits into FFXIV, still feels like a Blue Mage, and is balanced enough for raid, it's 'easy' right? Or, not so much... which is why I was asking for details, because saying 'Monster skills are just that' or ‘the flavour that is BLU’ as if it's somehow entirely self-evident says absolutely nothing.

Also, in the spirit of the thread, I was raising the question (paraphrase), 'well, what have we actually lost by having this version of Blue Mage; just a generic caster DPS? Or is there something more that I'm missing? Some awesome idea (new / innovative) for a raid-ready Blue Mage that would add more to the game than the version of Blue Mage we are getting come 4.5?'

[Lufir]

I mean. When I think of new Content I think of Deep Dungeon, Diadem and Eureka. You're still killing monster in each just with a new twist.

When I hear people say they want to break the cookie cutter mold, I think they mean they want something to do other than dungeons, primals, 24 man and 8 man raids. I think they mean they want more end game things to do besides Ex Primals and Savage Raiding.

Blue Mage just seems to be doing the same thing we've been doing except now you HAVE to do it to get your skills. I guess I'm just a little lost on the subject? lol. Not hard to do with me tho.

You compared learning job skills from a monster to Atma farming, but Diadem was new and innovative? Diadem was basically the open world inside an instance. There were fates, gathering, hunts lol. As much as I enjoyed Diadem's short lifespan, it's definitely not as innovative as Blue Mage.

[Nariel]

yes you can rename the skills, mixed up the button order and add some made-up gimmick, but ultimately is that really 'Blue Mage'? Or just another caster DPS with the name 'Blue Mage'?

If he learnd his skill from a monster he is a blue mage, blue magic is just this, magic learned from monster and nothing else. Warrior is just a paladin with an axe if you strip him out of all his substance.

Quite sure a "generic mage" with a the name blue mage on him wouldn't have cause that much of a fuss.

[alimdia]

In what FF game does a death spell one-shot boss enemies?

EDIT: Or any game, for that matter? And I mean a DEATH spell, ONE-SHOTTING a BOSS.

Name one?

EDIT x2: I'll spare you the effort of figuring out the answer to my rhetorical question. It doesn't happen. Why would it start in this game? You're staring a simple fix in the face.

Here's for you:

Some of the skills may break the balance of the game.
For example, if you raid as Blue Mage, you might be asked to bring certain skills and learn them if you're missing them.
Yoshida would kick you if you're missing certain skills!
So for these reasons, that's why Blue Mage is more solo-focused.
Blue Magic Level 5 Death would be... a little bit broken.
Do they consider giving bosses invulnerability to things like Level 5 death? Do they consider restricting their access to content? That'd kill the fun of the job.
It was difficult to implement Blue Mage... until now.

They don't plan to limit level 5 death, they consider it would kill the fun of the job.

[Zojha]

They don't plan to limit level 5 death, they consider it would kill the fun of the job.

Well, they did restrict their access to content instead - which they also consider it would kill the fun of the job.

Awkward thought process, really. But it sums up the current outrage about BLU rather nicely.

[Kikoten]

Here's for you:



They don't plan to limit level 5 death, they consider it would kill the fun of the job.

Remember Misery's End? That could be Level 5 Death. Fixed.

Remember PvP? Certain skills could be main unavailable for duties and raids. Fixed.

EDIT: What if BLU had their own Limit Break? Level X Death (5? 10? 15? does the bloody number even matter?)

Does BLU even need to learn Level 5 Death?

[Mibgestalt]

Remember Misery's End? That could be Level 5 Death. Fixed.

Remember PvP? Certain skills could be main unavailable for duties and raids. Fixed.

EDIT: What if BLU had their own Limit Break? Level X Death (5? 10? 15? does the bloody number even matter?)

Does BLU even need to learn Level 5 Death?

People always forget PVP. Even though a skill like Magic Hammer would have absolutely no use in its traditional form outside of PVP in this game.

Removing Level 5 Death would kill the fun of Blue Mage about as much as removing Death and Break did from Black Mage. Which is to say no one gave a crap.

Could still work anyway if they just limited it to open-world non-hunts, and trash mobs in dungeons and stuck it on a 7m CD. It'd still be the same "fun button" to hit to kill one of those giant Sandworms in the Burn instantly, not gamebreaking, and Blue wouldn't have to be locked out of the parts of the game massive amounts of dev time goes towards. Heck, Vanille's Death spell just deals damage when it doesn't work so... precedence is there.

[Kikoten]

People always forget PVP. Even though a skill like Magic Hammer would have absolutely no use in its traditional form outside of PVP in this game.

Removing Level 5 Death would kill the fun of Blue Mage about as much as removing Death and Break did from Black Mage. Which is to say no one gave a crap.

Could still work anyway if they just limited it to open-world non-hunts, and trash mobs in dungeons and stuck it on a 7m CD. It'd still be the same "fun button" to hit to kill one of those giant Sandworms in the Burn instantly, not gamebreaking, and Blue wouldn't have to be locked out of the parts of the game massive amounts of dev time goes towards. Heck, Vanille's Death spell just deals damage when it doesn't work so... precedence is there.

I'll concede, I, myself, would absolutely love to have a menacing Death spell as a BLU. But I would hate to see a class I've wanted to play for a long time barred from content because of spells like that. They can be balanced.

EDIT: I'm betting a lot of people didn't watch the stream. Yoshi himself said that BLU is being tested until Shadowbringers' release. "Limited" is a limited status. End of story.