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[BillyKaplan]

Because they put a strange emphasis on "powerful spells cost more MP" so maybe you'd have to take that into account in your "rotation".

I believe it was in the last Live Letter that they specifically addressed this. They said that because BLU spells cost so much, you'd have to devise a rotation in order to keep casting. I imagine that involves a stage where your dps tanks because you use skills that drain MP or are on a long cooldown while your MP builds again.
Which makes me laugh because that's literally BLM's playstyle. So with BLU being a limited job, we ended up getting exactly what all those doom-and-gloom sayers were saying, where it would be a BLM palette-swap.

Granted, we'll see for sure in a week, but given what was datamined and what they said in the LL, that's what it looks like to me right now

[ReiMakoto]

Do we know the MP cost and the casting time of those spells ? Because they put a strange emphasis on "powerful spells cost more MP" so maybe you'd have to take that into account in your "rotation". Right now, no mage really cares about the MP cost to decide what sell to use because they roughly cost the same, or the MP difference is negligible compared to the potency/GCD.

With BLU, maybe you'd use the "Fish Slap" to keeping some DPS while waiting for Lucid Dream to be up. Or, more powerful spells can have much longer cast times, making them difficult to use in a situation where you have t dodge frequently. It would be an interesting setup to have some weaker spells be more mp efficient even if they have a weaker potency/second ratio.

They have an MP drain skill with more potency than the fish, so It would probably be that, still doesnt take away from the fact many of these skills are functionally identical to each other. The general rotation i can think of is using off gaurd and bristle to buff Song of Torment, then just filler until its time to reapply Song

[Reynhart]

I believe it was in the last Live Letter that they specifically addressed this. They said that because BLU spells cost so much, you'd have to devise a rotation in order to keep casting.

Which means that you likely won't have a "rinse and repeat ad nauseum" rotation like you have with other casters.

I wouldn't say this is really BLM playstyle considering only a couple GCD in Umbral is enough to refill all your MP bar. Strangely enough, it would be closer to PLD where you have a distinct phase of spending MPs and a distinct phase of refilling them, both tied to two 1-minute CDs...but it's still a very loose comparison.

They have an MP drain skill with more potency than the fish, so It would probably be that, still doesnt take away from the fact many of these skills are functionally identical to each other.

Sure, some skills are specifically designed with elemental weaknesses in mind. But, in past games, several damage spells were also technically identical outside of their element.

[ReiMakoto]

Which means that you likely won't have a "rinse and repeat ad nauseum" rotation like you have with other casters.

You realise repeating is the definition of a rotation? Even in a priority system rotation, you would have to rotate through skills in an optimal way, aka repeating, If you've not seen the datamine already I highly suggest you look at it, because unless the mana costs and cast times are really whack, it does indeed look like a "Repeat ad Naseum" skillset.

[Reynhart]

You realise repeating is the definition of a rotation? Even in a priority system rotation, you would have to rotate through skills in an optimal way, aka repeating

Yes, but there's a big difference between predicting all your GCD and oGCD and deciding the 2-3 next GCD based on a random proc which can itself give another random proc, which makes, by definition the rotation not set in stone...

If you take PLD, for example. On a dummy, you'll always end with the exact same optimal rotation...with your FoF phase, you Requiescat phase, rinse and repeat. With BRD or MCH, depending on your different procs, the end result won't exactly be the same every time and it's not because you messed up your rotation.

[ReiMakoto]

Yes, but there's a big difference between predicting all your GCD and oGCD and deciding the 2-3 next GCD based on a random proc which can itself give another random proc, which makes, by definition the rotation not set in stone...

If you take PLD, for example. On a dummy, you'll always end with the exact same optimal rotation...with your FoF phase, you Requiescat phase, rinse and repeat. With BRD or MCH, depending on your different procs, the end result won't exactly be the same every time and it's not because you messed up your rotation.

So, BLU doesn't have random proc's so thats thrown out right away unless you count doom or the petrify or tail screw, which we'll have to see how they work, but I'm not convinced they're worth the cast, especially doom. Machinists rotation is baiscally set in stone with the exception of the occasional slug or clean procs in the part of your rotation that does the least damage anyway. Bard has the aforementioned priority based rotation, where you are still cycling through a set rotation, just with added proc potential. By this token as well, red mage is on the same level as brd and mch.

Edit: A priority based rotation is still a rotation, as there will be optimal times and situations that you account for and do a set thing, also to quote a brd in my FC; "Of course it has a set rotation.
Very minor compared to others. But the songs are a rotation."

[Laphael]

Edit: A priority based rotation is still a rotation, as there will be optimal times and situations that you account for and do a set thing, also to quote a brd in my FC; "Of course it has a set rotation.
Very minor compared to others. But the songs are a rotation."

If there is nothing left to argue about BLU, just argue about the definition of rotation. LoL

[Elerus]

Edit: A priority based rotation is still a rotation, as there will be optimal times and situations that you account for and do a set thing, also to quote a brd in my FC; "Of course it has a set rotation.
Very minor compared to others. But the songs are a rotation."

Agreed, also I'm willing to bet there will be a rotation for the Masked Carnival. Blue Mage isn't even out yet and the dataminers have every single spell, what it does, and how to get it already figured out (there's even a full guide for it already on Reddit). We even have the full Blue Mage questline, story, and rewards.

But, realistically, I don't think there is a way for Square to get away from having a rotation. In a combat system like FFXIVs with a hard Global Cooldown on most abilities there is a limit to the amount of actions you can perform in a given moment - and that limit is usually really low (as in 1 with a oGCD sprinkled in occasionally). Even if you were to have a hypothetical class with a thousand totally random abilities with the above framework there would still be a rotation. It might be situational and slightly variable depending on the fight but given the above framework you must choose a single action per instance. In that regard it's no different from say tanking: do you use your agro combo or your damage combo? Does your party need you to pop a group utility spell or can you try and sneak in more damage? That's not Blue Mage's fault, and its' really not SE fault - it's simply the nature of combat in a game like this. The only way off the top of my head to circumvent it would be to totally redesign the combat system from a mechanical standpoint but now we're out in fantasy land and talking about redoing huge fundamental parts of the game.

[BubblyBoar]

That seems to be what some people actually want here though.

[Firesped]

my thoughts on this is that SE currently locked the job because it is only partially ready. BLU takes a massive amount of time to convert the massive amount of monster data in the game to create learnable abilities for them all. By limiting it and then slowly advancing the job, they can take the time to do it right and not break something. My guess is Beastmaster will be the next limited job due to the same reason. they have to convert monster data and that just takes time to do. Once BLU is caught up, they can add it to be playable in all the other content. But who knows exactly how fast SE is planning to advance BLU. they only told us they will advance the level cap with each patch release. But does it get 10 levels each time or 5? at 10 levels, it would take 3 patch cycles to get caught up. Meaning at 5.2 it would be level 70.