Problem with BLU solutions

[Mibgestalt]

1. Rebalance it/water it down

A lot of people would hate this. The current blue mage is exactly like blue mage. If that gets changed people would complain like they did with Dark Knight and Red Mage.

No, the current Blue Mage is closely like the FFXI iteration of Blue Mage, except it can't take part in the MMO part. Your argument falls flat on the very first sentence by attempting to say your personal opinion of what Blue Mage is is the defacto. There is no CONSISTENT identity for Blue Mage across all games that is being met by this design. We're learning by seeing like in VI, doing the aesthetics of V and T:A, with the customization of XI. Why not learn skills through items? Why not learn skills through eating enemies and using a fork? Why DON'T we have to take it to the face to learn it, the most consistent method across all games. Why aren't we using a scimitar, the most consistent weapon across all games? Those are all Blue Mage too. BLU has never learned skills from summons, of all things, so it's not EXACTLY Blue Mage. The part of it that is universally loved, learning monster skills in a way that isn't just standard job quests, could ABSOLUTELY be implemented without the loss of access to the rest of the game it will be implemented in, FFXIV.

2. Give Blue Mage two versions. One balanced for solo play, and one for group play.
Nah. Not only would it be too much work, it wouldn't be pracitcal. Where would you learn how to use group blue mage? You wouldn't have the same rotation. Hell, at this point we don't even know if blue mage has a rotation at all? With different traits and abilities it will be like a different job you never played. You can't fight raids with a job you can't use. Or at the very least you shouldn't.

"Where would you learn how to use group Blue Mage?" Dude... the same place you learn how to use group ANY job. Nothing in the game teaches you how to use the best rotation or how to properly play any of the jobs in the game. It's a glaring flaw in this game, and pointing it out as a reason to limit BLU is just disingenuous.

3.Just let it raid as it is now.

First thing first. I don't recall it ever being said, that Blue Mage can't raid. It can't use matchmaking and will have cap of 50 in 4.5. But it was never said that once it climbs to the same level cap as the other jobs, it won't be able to enter raids with premade parties.
Got that? Okay. Let us assume that it can't enter raids, because it is totally not balanced for that. Unbalanced can mean two things. Either it is too effective or too ineffective. In the former case, nobody would let it fight. It would just be a chain of votekicks till serios buffs come and it becomes OP. In the latter case it would be a necessity and other DPS jobs won't see play. In either case it would destroy the raiding meta.

Which is people's main complaint. You're arguing that it can't work in raids because it's the way they've designed it to be. Duh, literally everyone on the forum, regardless of side has acknowledged it.

4. Make the other jobs broken as well.

No one has really argued for this seriously, because, get this, it's an MMORPG named FFXIV that we are all playing. How this game works has been established. How they implement classes has been established. Things SHOULD be adjusted because of the genre and game, if you don't like that maybe you don't like FFXIV.

I'm not going to write up an entire class idea for you. Other people have done it. Something like raising the level cap, and balancing Blue Mage as a melee magic caster DPS for end-game raiding while keeping the rest of their design would work. White Wind is an OGCD heal, Mighty Guard is a raid or tank defense buff, L5 Death is a button you can press on a 10-minute GCD that kills a normal mob instantly, even in dungeons, or does high potency damage based on remaining HP of the enemy. 1,000 needles can trait up to 10,000 or 100,000 needles, or you can "count" it up like many Cactuar do in this game. There are solutions. Acting like there aren't shows a startling lack of faith in the devs and a weird inability to adjust new ideas to existing systems. A trait you should be using a lot in real life.