Blue Mage: Are you kidding me!?

[Fyce]

Unbalanced doesn't always mean overpowered.
Something underpowered is also unbalanced.

[Ceallach]

A basic understanding of game design and balance.

That's exactly why blue mage is a Limited Job.

To be honest, I think that says more about how impactful healers are than anything about RDM's power. What with the whole trying to minimize time spend actually using heals and maximize time spent DPSing on Healers meaning that a DPS with a single heal skill has potential to actually overshadow actual healers if they received additional support for that side of their job...

I'm honestly not a fan of healers trying to push their DPS to start with. When you have the time and MP, sure, but it's not primarily your job as a healer to do damage. It's your job to keep everyone alive.

In THEORY they can do anything. In practice, it's quite possible for them to not actually be adequate at tanking/healing in actual content. It's all dependant on the potency of their skills and the balancing done.

Like, it's quite possible for them to have a "Tanking" stance that allows them to be hardier while soloing and then use crafted gear all melded for VIT/DET but that's still a far cry from having the higher defence tank gear, innate stats on tank gear, tank only stats such as Tenacity and the plethora of CD's needed to negate all the Tankbusters which are the only meaningful damage on bosses.

Same for healing. They might have heals, such as a RDM. But again, they might not have the same throughput, resource management and utility of an actual healer to make it viable.

This will be something we find out when we get to play them (But also, it's something that can be talked about now, in the sense that it is something that the balance team could choose to do in order to allow BLU to be a normal job but without becoming a "OP" meta job that dominates every other class)

Considering you mention that we don't have the job yet, I don't think you get to say whether blue mage works well or not as a given role. Traditionally throughout the series, they tend to be DPS and support (similar to red mage actually), but we'll see.

Utility that other classes bring? The fact that maybe they wouldn't be better at every role compared to every other classes?

Because blue mage can do anything, I would expect them to have some utility. And then it becomes a question of which utility you'd rather have (e.g., summoner's Aetherpact/Devotion versus red mage's Verraise/Dualcast). Also, blue mage could be better than any job at any role. It was in FINAL FANTASY XI.

Again, this is entirely dependant on IF the balance team wanted to actually try and balance them to actually viably compete in all 3 roles. Rather than balance them to compete in a single role and just have solo utility that takes the form of the other 2 roles.

And again, this is why blue mage is a Limited Job. So they can properly balance it for later and/or keep it lower than the typical level cap to keep it casual content. Forcing blue mage to stick to a single role robs it of its identity.

Add in spells that could easily be given restrictions and has already been mentioned by SE to not work on final bosses in dungeons and you make the class OP...

Great argument. Very compelling.

Not like they can't literally just prevent the use of obviously OP spells like Level 5 Death in duties. As well as other spells having lowered Potency during duties so they can still be strong but not OP outside of fulfilling the fantasy of using OP monster spells in the overworld (Maybe you also limit their potency vs Elite Hunt marks so people don't just run around one shotting A/S ranks)

Less sarcasm and more sense, if you please.

To be fair, I didn't know SE said Level 5 Death wouldn't work on bosses. Can you cite that? But besides that, having potency of spells lowered during certain duties is probably not something that would happen. That's more something to be implemented on the enemy's side as a "resistance to blue magic" kind of deal.

This wouldn't even be a problem. Since, 1) Not everyone is a hyper competitive raider who is super strict on meta only. 2) Classes can be rebalanced. If BLU is underperforming, they can get buffed at a later date so they are more acceptable in raiding environments.

I'll agree with point #2 here. However, as far as I've personally seen, you are either a casual player or you worship the meta and the ground it walks on. I have not once met someone who regularly clears Savage and/or Ultimate raids on a job like black mage, dark knight, or whatever else. This fits in with other games and their competitive environments that I'm familiar with as well. It's written that people are like sheep, and I tend to agree with that statement, as sad as it can be.

Except Blue Mage, apparently.

And now you're just being a jerk.

Hahahahaha, I like that comment. Especially, when you're being very narrow minded about how BLU implementation MUST be either extremely OP being able to perform all 3 roles equally if not better than all other classes AND have their OP abilities have to work on every target in the entire game no exceptions, OR they have to be anaemic in their power (Which is somehow and issue that requires they be hard limited in the content they can actually access... If just not being meta is grounds for that, why did WHM and MCH just get buffs to tide them over for 5.0 reshuffles instead of being banned from accessing raids?)

In fact, most of the arguments for limiting BLU stem from narrow mindedness. Either from the people who are giving the arguments, or the very notion of the argument itself.

Well, considering the devs themselves made similar arguments to what I've said on this thread, you are, in effect, calling the devs narrow-minded.

In essence, the things I've noted are:

1) "People would complain that they have to do extra things when they main BLU instead of just rushing MSQ > Raids!"

Which is suggesting that the majority of players in the game are so narrow minded, that they are incapable of comprehending a new job that has a different progression systems. Thus the job needs to be limited so... People can't main it?

It would be simple enough to clearly label the job as something different and when doing the quest to unlock the job, having a warning pop up that essentially tells you that the job is different and its progression system is more time consuming than other jobs because of that.

Which they did.

2) "BLU's would be ostracized for not having spells X, Y, Z in group content!"

Which is suggesting that there can't be anything in place to push BLU players towards picking up what people would consider "Core" spells. Whilst still retaining the feel and gameplay that is unique to BLU in terms of learning enemy spells.

Not only that, but it's not a particularly common occurrence to ostracize people for not USING skills on already existing classes. Like one of the things mentioned is that BLM gets an AoE spell at level 18. But how many level 18 BLM actually use it when it costs so much and that level tanks don't often pull half the dungeon at a time to make AoE damage worthwhile? (Especially when melee classes don't get their AoE's until level ~40 and healers don't get their AoE damage skills until level ~50)

Really? In my experience, people will more often than not be cruel for the sake of being cruel. But then, I've been through a World Transfer and a total of eight free companies, and I don't have a whole lot of patience for idiocy.

3) "They have OP spells!"

Implying that such SPELLS can't be limited, in lieu of the ENTIRE JOB. Like, why is it so easy to accept the ENTIRE JOB being limited in its use, but so hard to think that maybe, just maybe, you could limit the problem spells?

It's not unheard of for an MMO to give classes fluff spells that are only useful in overworld content/solo rather than being staple in Dungeons/Raids. In fact, this is the case for many Tanks as is, with their Enmity combo and Tank stance being relegated to disuse for much of their time...

"But won't it feel awkward when you step into a dungeon and half your skills aren't usable!" is a retort to such limitation.

But, this is dependant on BLU being given such a large volume of directly OP skills to learn. Ones that, can't just be tuned down in potency during duties by their very nature (I.e. Level 5 Death). If there isn't so many OP spells, then you won't have to lose much when you enter a duty.

Also, again, it's based off the idea that the playerbase is so narrow minded that they would get upset that they can't just enter a raid and Level 5 Death all the bosses...

I mean, the player base pretty much is that narrow-minded. Earlier in this thread, I pointed out something that Ethys pointed out once before: the players asked for blue mage, the devs said it would not be implemented in the same way as other jobs, the players kept asking, now we have it, and people complain instead of cheer. You got what you asked for, and you think you somehow have room to complain about how it's a Limited Job and you can't use it in Alphascape when YOU ASKED FOR IT EVEN AFTER BEING WARNED.

And you claim I'm narrow-minded? This is supposedly the best MMO community in any given game of its genre, and I cannot say I'm very impressed.

4) "They can be any role!"

Again, it comes from the narrow mindedness that there can't be actual balance done on the class.

Is RDM a healer because it has Vercure and Verraise?

Is SMN a Tank because it has Titan-Egi?

Are DRK, PLD and WAR DPS classes because they have Blood Weapon, Sword Oath and Deliverance respectively?

Or are they just tools within their kit that give an essence of another role but the jobs are balanced to the point where they are still only good for a single role?

It's not impossible for BLU to be balanced where it has Tank/Healer skills, but still only fulfils a DPS role outside of solo or outdated content because of the strength of said skills.

Did you ever stop to think that this is why blue mage is a Limited Job? If it can't be balanced to match up with the other jobs, and/or it would lose its identity to such balancing, then it should stay a Limited Job. If it can be balanced to stay even with the other jobs, then the fact it's starting as a Limited Job will provide SE with the necessary data to make sure it's balanced. Maybe blue mage will be a Limited Job forever, and maybe it won't, but for right now, it is fine as it is.

So yeah, the crux of at least my view point, is that, because people en masse are supposedly unwilling to accept the idea of a new job that has some different mechanical functions as a way of adding in a new dynamic to playing the game and thus would just complain endlessly if BLU was able to access all content in any way, shape or form.

That BLU and by extension, any future "Limited Jobs" that may be implemented as additional jobs with different dynamics to mix things up and add a little spice to those omnijob players (Or to attract people who just like to play with those little quirks), need to be segregated from the majority of the game and pretty much just secluded to their own little mini-game (That there's no guarantee will actually receive updates over time...).

Which, is frankly, BS.

There exists many different avenues to mitigate all of the various "Potential" issues (Since, well... We haven't got the job yet, how do we know that everyone will be complaining about having to go learn their new skills while "Everyone else is rushing through the MSQ"? How do we know that BLU's will be ostracized from group content because of not having spell X, Y or Z?)

Heck, there's even the option of releasing BLU as a normal job, able to do all content with the various different things implemented to mitigate the main issues that come to many people's minds and then if, for some reason, it becomes impossible to balance the uniqueness of the job vs how everyone is complaining about them, THEN they could make the decision to limit the job out of certain content.

But releasing it with the express purpose of not being able to do content, just feels disappointing. It feels as though they didn't really try to make BLU work and instead they're just using it as a cash grab.

In addition, to that precedent they're setting for any future jobs that might be cool or have interesting gameplay changes but because of fear of people complaining (Hint: People always complain. It doesn't matter what you do.) they'll just be relegated to mini-games instead of actually pushing the boundaries and making space for both traditional and non-traditional gameplay jobs.

Having more varied gameplay within jobs not only provides a different change of pace for veterans who might get a bit burned out on grinding DF to level up all their jobs, but also opens up more room for new players to find the game appealing if they enjoy the quirks of a particular non-traditional job.

Most of this I addressed above. I do not believe the devs are afraid of complaints. I just wish those complaints came from people and/or a place that wasn't so damned hypocritical. I have faith in the devs, and I believe they're doing their jobs well. I saw how terrifying a blue mage with proper gear and spells could be in FINAL FANTASY XI, and those players never needed to level another job. Of course, the jobs weren't balanced at all in that game like they are in this one, and chances are the devs just don't want a repeat of that kind of environment in this game. People already discriminate against each other based on the meta party composition, and the devs are probably trying to not exacerbate that.

[Tabbs]

Hey! I generally do not speak on the forums here, and rarely come around here to even look. I first activated my forum account yesterday with the sole purpose of making sure my voice was heard about Blue Mage. I see there's a lot of discussion going on about it, but I'm not looking to get involved, just to share my thoughts regarding the matter.

I'm looking forward to playing next Tuesday. I am! I might even make some fanart of BLU while I wait, since I've been playing more than drawing lately. I think the aesthetics of the job are cool, and collecting abilities sounds fun, mostly. However, as much as I am looking forward to BLU, I really think I'd rather have it be a full job experience.

I can't say I understand the reasons by the dev. team's decisions here. As an artist looking to get into the games industry one day, I understand some things can be difficult to implement. I get that the issue was trying to avoid butchering the "fantasy ideal" of the job. However, I'm fairly certain a balance could have been struck. Abilities through job quests, but then make those quests scavengers hunts. It's not like the spell book doesn't already do that anyways.

I don't like how they wanted to keep the class fantasy here, but did not do this for most other jobs. I appreciate what they did with the other jobs, honestly. They each have quirks and lore that make them fit in Eorzea. I can't say I love the fantasy idea of the classic Red Mage, but XIV's RDM does it in a way that I enjoy (both aesthetics and mechanics). It feels Eorzean. BLU seems to be an outlier trying desperately to avoid fitting in, and I don't know why. I guess the whole concept was to make it feel as classic as possible, but from what I keep hearing, a lot of the really potent spells won't harm bosses that much.

But the biggest thing for me, as someone who self-classifies as a solo player, is the fact that the only thing I can "solo" is looking for abilities. I can't do MSQ, and I'm worried about the longevity of party finder for BLUs trying to do anything besides ability hunt. I was really looking forward to enjoying the MSQ as a Blue Mage, and it's really disappointing to me that I'm unable to do that.

Sorry for the length of this post. I'm sure a lot of this has been discussed already, but I just wanted to add my own thoughts to the pile in hopes it might help see changes or additions to BLU. I get things are sort of said and done in terms of development, but maybe one day it'll be an actual "solo" job and not just side content.

[Kalise]

Considering you mention that we don't have the job yet, I don't think you get to say whether blue mage works well or not as a given role. Traditionally throughout the series, they tend to be DPS and support (similar to red mage actually), but we'll see.

I never once stated whether BLU works well or not in a given role.

I merely stated that it's ability to work in a given role hinges entirely on what the balance team decides to do with the classes skills and stats.

Because blue mage can do anything, I would expect them to have some utility. And then it becomes a question of which utility you'd rather have (e.g., summoner's Aetherpact/Devotion versus red mage's Verraise/Dualcast). Also, blue mage could be better than any job at any role. It was in FINAL FANTASY XI.

Just because BLU was better than other jobs in a completely different game, doesn't not necessarily mean it has to be in this one. Again, it's all dependent on what the balance team decide to do.

Same with utility, just because a class has flexible skills, doesn't mean that they necessarily have utility that means much in a group environment. NIN has flexibility with what Ninjutsu they can use, it doesn't mean they bring the same utility as a DRG whom brings a boost to Piercing damage which benefits BRD and MCH for example.

And again, this is why blue mage is a Limited Job. So they can properly balance it for later and/or keep it lower than the typical level cap to keep it casual content. Forcing blue mage to stick to a single role robs it of its identity.

"Forcing blue mage to stick to a single role robs it of its identity"

Didn't you JUST say "Traditionally throughout the series, they tend to be DPS and support (similar to red mage actually)"?

That doesn't strike me as robbing them of their identity if they are stuck to being a DPS and support similar to RDM...

As far as "Balancing it for later", when they give statements like:

In order to prevent the need to "worry about all these problems and obstacles (note: Like how will it work in a party? Will this be too strong? We can't have over 25 actions because of hotbars, which means less variety)", we narrowed down our concept to "it's fun to play". The dev team responded with "In that case, i can go all out"

Its an indication that they don't mean to ever turn this job into one that can be a normal one. Which is one of my major qualms that they're not even trying with BLU they're just going straight to the "Lets just think of all the crazy OP skills and give them to BLU because it's just a funny mini-game not an actual job to use"

If they'd mentioned at any point they were wanting to look at getting the implementation down and get some balance done with the end goal of maybe transitioning into a fully fledged actual job, then my and I dare say, many others issues would not be so prevalent.

However, they speak as if they have no intentions of ever making BLU more than just a Gold Saucer "Gotta catch 'em all" mini-game where you go collect OP spells so you can... Try and put together an all BLU raid of Coils for the lulz?

To be fair, I didn't know SE said Level 5 Death wouldn't work on bosses. Can you cite that?

There are cases where instant death debuffs work on some bosses (he said it in a way that implies the 1st or 2nd boss of that content).

Mentioned in the reddit interview with Yoshida https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...shida_summary/

But besides that, having potency of spells lowered during certain duties is probably not something that would happen. That's more something to be implemented on the enemy's side as a "resistance to blue magic" kind of deal.

Reduced potency has clarity though. Knowing how hard your spells will hit during a particular duty is more important than "Thematically justifying" why they hit for less than usual (I.e. "Resistance to blue magic"). If you had a spell that stated X potency but was actually hitting for Y potency, how would you know if you should prioritize it over your spell that states Z potency and hits for Z potency?

Well, considering the devs themselves made similar arguments to what I've said on this thread, you are, in effect, calling the devs narrow-minded.

In this case, yes.

To which, they are in fact being narrow minded.

Backed up with statements such as:

If we were to implement BLU as a normal job, there would be restrictions like "I can't raid until i learn all my new moves" or "I can't go to dungeons because i haven't learned those AoEs". You might think "I'm fine with that" at first, but you have to do that for every expansion. Everyone else is farming while you are learning to get to the startline, and it ends up being just annoying. Then what happens? The world fist teams won't use BLU.

Implying that people will NEED to grab "These AoEs" to do dungeons. Or that there are some necessary new moves that need to be learned. Bearing in mind, the same article also states Each blue magic has a different probability to learn meaning that it's very possible that they make the "Core" spells easier to learn so you have to spend less time trying to learn them.

For example, BLMs learn fire II at level 18, but BLUs end up not having an AoE action and have to go to learn it. Let's say you do go and learn it after farming the mobs, but if it deals the same damage as BLM, that's just extra work for nothing and troublesome.

This is also saying that they can't do something interesting with the level 18 AoE for BLU that isn't just damage, that BLM actually uses Fire II at level 18 (They usually don't because it costs so much mana and they have pretty garbage mana management until level 40 when they get Blizzard III), that people won't like going and learning their spell just because it's something fun to do.

Our conclusion was, we may as well make it into solo content that you can enjoy on your own, and that way, FFXIV can have jobs that leap over bounderies and have a wider range of game play and we should run through with it.

Again, implying that instead of actually trying to solve issues and balance so the job can be an actual job that has a fun and unique way of learning and utilizing skills, that they would rather just slap it into a mini-game.

Also note the hypocrisy between Yoshida calling BLU "Solo content that you can enjoy on your own" but yet "you can form a party to go learn magic from dungeons and primals." this quote suggests that you'll need to find people to party with so you can learn spells from dungeons and primals. Unless they're secretly planning a way to allow BLU to solo all level 50 and below content, including Titan (Whom is notably unsoloable because his Gaol will cause the fight to reset when you're hit with it)...

Really? In my experience, people will more often than not be cruel for the sake of being cruel. But then, I've been through a World Transfer and a total of eight free companies, and I don't have a whole lot of patience for idiocy.

I've honestly not met anyone in game that has been malicious at all. I've encountered only 1 person who showed any toxic behaviour at all.

Any time I party with one of the aforementioned people who don't use skills I only see people try and help them and give them advice rather than be cruel and toxic.

Also, again, they have the means to mitigate the "Not having 'core' skills" thing, by having the job quests tell you to go learn them and then having their chance to learn be increased over other skills so you have to spend less time learning them.

But this requires them to not be narrow minded and actually think about solutions to problems, rather than go "Oh no, that could be a problem. Welp, better just delete the class now"

the players asked for blue mage, the devs said it would not be implemented in the same way as other jobs

The thing is, that kind of statement is so incredibly vague to the point of being no indication whatsoever about anything.

Literally, just having it as a job where you go learn skills instead of getting them automatically upon leveling (Or receiving them directly from quests a la Heavensward) would be considered "Not implemented in the same way as other jobs"

Heck, the classes in HW/SB can be considered "Not implemented in the same way as other jobs" because they start at level 30/50 and are independent of a base class.

Nowhere in that vague statement is "If we do implement them, they'll just be a mini-game" implied.

the players kept asking, now we have it, and people complain instead of cheer. You got what you asked for, and you think you somehow have room to complain about how it's a Limited Job and you can't use it in Alphascape when YOU ASKED FOR IT EVEN AFTER BEING WARNED.

Yes, there's room for complaints. No where in the "Warning" was the indication that this job (Also, future "Limited Jobs") would be just a shitty mini-game rather than an actual job that can actually be played to the actual max level and actually participate in ALL of the game's content.

Like, talk about how narrow minded the devs are when they're faced with an opportunity to break the mould and try and do something different for a change and then they're so scared of having to actually commit to it that they need to isolate it and keep it away from the "Standard" jobs because it's different and people might not like that...

Many people have commented that SE are too afraid to try something new and this is an embodiment of that. Sure, you might claim "Well, this is different so you can shut up!" but it's different in a vacuum. It's not part of the main game, it's essentially if they added a new Gold Saucer attraction and that's somehow proof of them "Doing something different with jobs". Because while BLU uses the "Job" system and shows up on the "Job" page in your character sheet, all it is, is a glorified Gold Saucer attraction.

Doing something new, would be taking the risk and making BLU a fully fledged job, with all its quirks and "Hurdles" intact. Giving it the chance to be played within the game proper, so people can decide whether the gimmicks are too annoying so they stop playing the class (To which, if the popularity is too low then they could make it just solo content) or if people actually don't mind or in fact LIKE them and still play it.

They chose to play it safe. With the idea to also play it safe with all future jobs that might have potential to actually dispel the notion that SE are just too afraid to do anything new and so will never innovate their job system.

[Cidel]

Also note the hypocrisy between Yoshida calling BLU "Solo content that you can enjoy on your own" but yet "you can form a party to go learn magic from dungeons and primals." this quote suggests that you'll need to find people to party with so you can learn spells from dungeons and primals. Unless they're secretly planning a way to allow BLU to solo all level 50 and below content, including Titan (Whom is notably unsoloable because his Gaol will cause the fight to reset when you're hit with it)...

This is probably the biggest headscratcher for me with their presentation of BLU. From the sounds and looks of it, about half or more of BLU's learned spells come from primals, trials and dungeon bosses. And unless BLU ends up somehow being so ridiculously powerful that it can clear dungeons, trials and primals on its own at the relevant level, you are basically going to have to put-together/find a party to take you through these dungeons and fights- and that says nothing about however many times you might have to repeat a dungeon/fight pending the level of RNG in learning some of these spells.

I'd actually love to be wrong and find out on Tuesday that BLU soloing dungeons, trials and primals is incredibly viable; as touted as "designed for solo play" and "not suited for parties" means partying-up to learn non-open world spells as incredibly optional. Because right now the job looks like it might have to possibly rely on getting into parties just to fill out its spell list, which seemingly goes against the whole premise of excluding the job from being matched through the Duty Finder.

[KageTokage]

The only skills on BLU that look like they'd have the potential to be busted in standard content are:

Instakills/HP reduction effects (Which wouldn't work on trials or raids due to ?? bosses being vaguely considered higher level then you),

White Wind (This could allow for ridiculous amounts of pinch healing if the healers just toss the BLU a few OGCDs after an AoE).

Bad Breath (Assuming the damage debuff works on everything)

Eerie Light (It's basically a way better version of Garuda-egi's magic vulnerability debuff).


Everything else has fairly reasonable effects and I don't think the insane potency on Self-destruct/Final Sting would ever be worth a weakness debuff unless it's at the very end of an encounter.

[ReiMakoto]

The only skills on BLU that look like they'd have the potential to be busted in standard content are:

Instakills/HP reduction effects (Which wouldn't work on trials or raids due to ?? bosses being vaguely considered higher level then you),

White Wind (This could allow for ridiculous amounts of pinch healing if the healers just toss the BLU a few OGCDs after an AoE).

Bad Breath (Assuming the damage debuff works on everything)

Eerie Light (It's basically a way better version of Garuda-egi's magic vulnerability debuff).


Everything else has fairly reasonable effects and I don't think the insane potency on Self-destruct/Final Sting would ever be worth a weakness debuff unless it's at the very end of an encounter.

I agree with you entirely on this, and the thing is, balancing these skills wouldnt have been too hard.
Give white wind a fixed potency or make a half of BLUs current health heal.
Make Bad Breath have a CD as well as being the big dps loss it already is.
Reduce the power of eerie light.
Hell Id even reduce the potencies of the kamikaze skills so they are truly last chance/phase pushing skills.
Then the random chance skills, just make them not work on bosses or have absurdly low proc rates, you know like how they worked in all the other final fantasy games.

[Fyce]

Everything else has fairly reasonable effects and I don't think the insane potency on Self-destruct/Final Sting would ever be worth a weakness debuff unless it's at the very end of an encounter.

It's not because the rest have "reasonable effects" that it's balanced.
The very absence of a rotation is enough not to fit in the design space of the normal jobs.

Also note the hypocrisy between Yoshida calling BLU "Solo content that you can enjoy on your own" but yet "you can form a party to go learn magic from dungeons and primals."

"Designed for solo play" doesn't mean "exclusively played in solo". It doesn't even exclude the possibility of needing some group play.
You can learn a lot of spells in solo, and the Carnival is done in solo. This is the majority of what Limited BLU has to offer.

Again, "you can enjoy BLU on your own" doesn't mean "you can do everything solo".

-snip- "Core skills" -snip-

Blue Mage doesn't have "core skills" or even a "core rotation".
You are still pushing that argument without giving any details as to how it would need to be done exactly. What are these core skills? Where to learn them? How to learn them? How many there are? How are they tied to the "limited" part? What happens when more skills are released? These -and even more- are all questions you have to answer if you want your solution to be used as a proper argument. If you don't, then I can as easily say "it won't work", without having to explain why. The best you did was to take Fire II as a single example and said "they could've done something". That's no way near enough, and you haven't shown any kind of authority or knowledge on the matter that would allow us to trust your solution without detailed explanations.

No where in the "Warning" was the indication that this job (Also, future "Limited Jobs") would be just a shitty mini-game rather than an actual job that can actually be played to the actual max level and actually participate in ALL of the game's content.

When someone tells you that "honestly I don't think that it really fits MMORPG party settings", "I think it would work solo", "I'm concerned when it comes to playing in a party players", "we wouldn't be able to balance the system so it wouldn't revolve around procuring your abilities", "this wouldn't be practical enough to fit in an MMORPG party setting", you don't see that as a red flag? You really think that it means they'd not have to do something completly different? You think that these quotes are equally weighted as your examples of "post ARR jobs being 'different' because they don't start at level 1"?
I don't know how anyone wouldn't picture a very different kind of job after reading this. If you didn't understand that -even if there are countless posts of people who did understand it and explained it-, then I'm afraid that you only have yourself to blame.

[Deceptus]

This is probably the biggest headscratcher for me with their presentation of BLU. From the sounds and looks of it, about half or more of BLU's learned spells come from primals, trials and dungeon bosses. And unless BLU ends up somehow being so ridiculously powerful that it can clear dungeons, trials and primals on its own at the relevant level, you are basically going to have to put-together/find a party to take you through these dungeons and fights- and that says nothing about however many times you might have to repeat a dungeon/fight pending the level of RNG in learning some of these spells.

I'd actually love to be wrong and find out on Tuesday that BLU soloing dungeons, trials and primals is incredibly viable; as touted as "designed for solo play" and "not suited for parties" means partying-up to learn non-open world spells as incredibly optional. Because right now the job looks like it might have to possibly rely on getting into parties just to fill out its spell list, which seemingly goes against the whole premise of excluding the job from being matched through the Duty Finder.

This is basically my current argument against BLU as a "limited job".

[Kabooa]

That's exactly why blue mage is a Limited Job.
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No, it's a limited job because it was the lazy way out. At no point does Blue Mage become more interesting for lacking a path into the primary game loop.

Nothing about Blue Mage's progression changes (World leveling and skill hunting) by tuning the skills to fit into current end-game content.