And in that role.. blue mage does to the other casters what bard has done to machinist. I do appreciate your response and your point of view. My point wasn't to say that the casters are all the exact same, just that they boil down to the same basic formula. Adding another job into that formula no matter how you add variety to the play style does nothing to innovate and branch forward. I'm not looking to start yet another thread about what blue mage could be what it should be.. It is what it is and we don't exactly know what that is until we play it. This is just my quick opinion of the blue mage argument at a glance as an intro to it.