Let's not be too hard on SE about BLU and in general.

[NessaWyvern]

The thing is, it's locked at lvl 50. Why play BLU in the lvl 50 overworld when your lvl 70 characters can kill everything in one or two hits. Why go lvl 50 BLU in PF duties when most people unsync them in. BLU may be fun to play and collect abilities on, but once you have, it's almost useless. That's my gripe with it.

[Reynhart]

The thing is, it's locked at lvl 50. Why play BLU in the lvl 50 overworld when your lvl 70 characters can kill everything in one or two hits. Why go lvl 50 BLU in PF duties when most people unsync them in. BLU may be fun to play and collect abilities on, but once you have, it's almost useless. That's my gripe with it.

Why level another job when you already have your main lvl 70 and can do every content with it ? Because it's fun to play something different for a while, especially right before a new expansion, a time period where new content is the most scarce.

Is it too hard to ask for a BLU I could main?

No, it's not. But I'm not sure people would really be pleased to see BLU twisted and gimped to fit it. Especially since we still don't know for how long BLU will have a reduced level cap. For all we know it could be bumped to 80 at 5.0, because the new content could be designed to be BLU-proof from the get-go. As I said elsewhere, if the level cap of the game was 30. SCH would be totally broken and I'd understand removing it from matchmaking.

[DeaconMoore]

No, it's not. But I'm not sure people would really be pleased to see BLU twisted and gimped to fit it. Especially since we still don't know for how long BLU will have a reduced level cap. For all we know it could be bumped to 80 at 5.0, because the new content could be designed to be BLU-proof from the get-go. As I said elsewhere, if the level cap of the game was 30. SCH would be totally broken and I'd understand removing it from matchmaking.

...

Ok...

Here's the thing, why on earth would a game designer purposefully design a class that is broken? Now, don't get me wrong, I know it's easy to do that, I've done it myself, but you don't just stop there when designing. You look at your monster, take a step back, and tweak it so it's not broken while maintaining the feel you want it to have. Seriously, take a look at even Black Mages. They managed to present them as a class and yet where are all their instant death spells? Those spells appear in other FF games starting with the first one, so why not here? Hmm, probably because they're too OP and defeat the feel and nature of a MMO style game they were putting the class in.

This is an MMO not a single player game. All classes should be able to play together at will. No class should be banned from content because it's OP/broken. It should be designed to be playable in all the content.

Unless they're going to change direction on what they've shown I really doubt BLU will be level 80 and allowed in all content in 5.0; it'll be 6.0+ before we see level 80 BLU given what's been said thus far.

BLU as is isn't even a class, it's really just a mini-game. How's that not twisting and gimping it?

[Reynhart]

Here's the thing, why on earth would a game designer purposefully design a class that is broken?

Blue Mage, Enemy Skill, Lore or whatever the name is, in every game you have freely access to the skills it was always broken. And, like Yoshi-P said, it's part of what make Blue Mage fun.

Seriously, take a look at even Black Mages. They managed to present them as a class and yet where are all their instant death spells?

Sure, they removed one or two instant death spells. It doesn't fundamentaly change the class (Especially since Death is usually a very high level spell, and we're still "only" lvl 70). How many staple Blue Magic would you have to remove to make BLU fit into a single spot in the holy trinity, and at that point, would it still really be worthy of the Blue Mage title ?

In most games, Summoner is basically a flashier and more powerful Black Mage (And when its not, it frequently plays as a solo job when it summons something), so they had two options :

• Make it flashier and more powerful Black Mage...but then, what's the point of Black Mage ?
• Make it something else so that both jobs are totally different, even if it means ignoring the SMN archetype.

They did the second, and people are still upset by it, even though SMN is a fairly strong job in the game. They did the same choice for DRK, that has really not much ties in its previous incarnations. They did the same for RDM, probably because a "master of none" has no place in an MMO. So, this time, they said "No ! We need to stick to what Blue Mage is, even if it means changing the rules".

All classes should be able to play together at will. No class should be banned from content because it's OP/broken.

Blame the playerbase. In every BLU thread, you had people saying that they would glagly kick someone who didn't make the effort to learn every skill there is, whatever the difficulty or the randomness behind. There, now, you can't kick a BLU.

Unless they're going to change direction on what they've shown I really doubt BLU will be level 80 and allowed in all content in 5.0; it'll be 6.0+ before we see level 80 BLU given what's been said thus far.

They didn't say anything about how BLU will be treated in the future. The level 50 cap is not there by accident, it's because it's the level cap for the base game. If they only wanted BLU not breaking current content, it would be released with lvl 60 cap. And since SB came with HW, we can assume that SH will come with both SB and HW, so if you go beyond lvl50, then you can go up to 80 for the same price. And, again, SH content can de designed with BLU in mind, to limit how much the job will be broken.

BLU as is isn't even a class, it's really just a mini-game. How's that not twisting and gimping it?

In a game where the main complain is the lack of new content and following the same formula, this is new content. And for that alone, it's fare more interesting for me than simply another job that you'll drag in the same old type of content with the exact same turn of events and the exact same rewards.