Well first off, Happy Holidays to all! Now that I'm finally able to get back into the game again, I figured I kinda had to post my thoughts on the shiny new job we'll be getting in the very imminent patch seeing as how I sorta started this thing.

It seems the Blue Mage we'll be getting for 4.5 is the same vision that Yoshi spelled out whenever he was forced into talking about the job, especially in that it would be more of a solo experience and really go against the standards of how jobs work in the game. Devs had a choice between maintaining the standards for jobs and upholding series tradition, they chose the latter, meaning that the job would have to be barred from being treated like any other job in the game because of not only how fluid it is as far as its skillset can go, but also the overwhelming demand by the players for that XI feel.

When I made my concept all the way back in Heavensward, I wanted Blue Mage to be a workable concept that could be treated like any other job and would work within the necessities of job standards at the time, looking through every Blue Mage in the Final Fantasy series to get an idea of how it could work within the confines of XIV. While there was a concept in the works that was adapted for the job gauges of Stormblood, but there wasn't a whole lot changed. What I didn't expect though was that this thread would go on for TWO YEARS, which has definitely shown me just how passionate people are for this job when to me, it was just another one out of around twenty-five individual job concepts I made at the time. Although it may not have seen like it at times, the whole thread has been a truly enlightening experience for me, so for those who did voice their opinions on this thread, I cannot thank you enough for your thoughts on the matter.

As for my thoughts on the Blue Mage we're getting, I'm still going to play it. I'm curious about things like the origin devs chose for it, how all the spells we'll get will work cohesively, the idea behind using a walking cane as the weapon of choice and especially why the male AF set looks like its design influence was a five-year-old's crayon drawing. While I do have concerns from the job, none of them have anything to do with the job itself or how it works so much as they pertain to the production side of things. I think I'm going to like it for three reasons: 1) it puts more emphasis on open-world content, 2) it gives me something to level that's not Fisher and 3) most importantly, job devs can FINALLY move on and work toward other jobs that are able to work with the game's design and even jobs exclusive to XIV, which is something Yoshi has expressed interest in before.

I'm going to walk away from this thread once and for all. Who knows, maybe I might cook up a new job concept after Shadowbringers comes out.