Blue Mage: Are you kidding me!?

[Rosenoire]

Personally, I agree that implementing BLU as a regular job would be fine, but I'm also neutral on the job. I'm seeing many people who love the job who seem to want to preserve all of the unique elements of the job and have it be treated like a regular job, and I just don't see how that would work.

[Kalise]

Personally, I agree that implementing BLU as a regular job would be fine, but I'm also neutral on the job. I'm seeing many people who love the job who seem to want to preserve all of the unique elements of the job and have it be treated like a regular job, and I just don't see how that would work.

Well... It all depends on how they decide to distribute the skills as well as their ideas behind where they feel that BLU should progress to.

Like, as it currently stands to maximize your ability as BLU (If you consider BLU to be a DPS rather than a Tank) you need the following skills:

Bad Breath (Not necessary for DPS, but it provides some utility for the party from the damage down)
Eruption
Feather Rain
Glass Dance
Mountain Buster/Shock Strike (They share reuse timers and do exactly the same thing, so either one works)
Off-Guard
Peculiar Light
Song of Torment
The Dragon's Voice (Only useful for trash that can get the Deep Freeze debuff)
The Ram's Voice
White Wind (Not necessary for DPS, but useful for utility)

That's 11 skills total. The other 38(7 if you count whichever skill you don't use from Mountain Buster/Shock Strike) are either useless fluff like Bristle, Blood Drain or the RNG skills or are copy/paste versions of the main nuke with very slight downsides (I.e. The Ram's Voice is only superior to Flame Thrower, Glower, Plaincracker and The Look because if a target can receive the Deep Freeze debuff then you can combo into The Dragon's Voice for bonus damage. If a target cannot receive the Deep Freeze debuff, then the aforementioned skills are interchangeable)

So, it would be those 11 skills that they would need to make accessible to all BLU's in order for them to be "Complete" and able to be maximally effective at their role.

2 of them already directly come from class quests (Off-Guard and White Wind)
2 of them are easy to obtain from the overworld (Bad Breath and Peculiar Light)

It's merely the other 7 that are issues because of needing Dungeons/Trials.

However, if there were alternatives that were interchangeable with those 7 (Much like with The Ram's Voice vs targets immune to Deep Freeze) which were easier to obtain and/or given to you directly as you leveled up then you would effectively be a "Normal" job in so much as you'd level up and acquire the core skills either through job quests directly, or through spending a bit of time killing a few things in the overworld (Which would mean that the job would and should still hold its "Limited" title to emphasise that you won't just have skills pop into your spellbook upon leveling)

Meanwhile, you'd still retain the mechanics of going around and learning new spells, some of which you may be able to essentially "Glamour" onto your core skills due to doing the same thing others being fluff that you can play around with and maybe get some use out of (For example, I use Acorn Blast a ton to cheese out farming mobs 10 levels higher than me with 1000 Needles. Put them to sleep and then cast Needles until it lands. Put them back to sleep, Needles spam until it hits. Put them back to sleep, hope the next Needles lands. Maybe someone would find a situation where they're about to wipe on a boss that's at 1% life and they can use Final Sting to finish it off. Or maybe someone can use Transfusion to save the parties Healer and then get raised after etc.)

With the only remaining thing being to put into place balance changes to certain skills to prevent them from being too strong. Such as making White Wind less potent (Such as being potency based heal instead of using your current life. Or maybe putting a cooldown on it worthy of its strength), making Mighty Guard less potent so there's less potential for it to maybe be abused. Then finally adjusting 1000 Needles so it wouldn't be usable in sub-30 duties (Maybe put a minimum level on it that is at least level 30 if not like 40+ and of course move the mob you learn it from to a more suitable location. Also, making sure to put in a suitable replacement skill for making leveling 1-40ish not complete and total butt due to excessively low Potency on BLU skills...)

After that is done, you have yourself a completely functional "Normal" Blue Mage. At least 1-50. 50+ would be determined on the direction SE decide to go with new skills and utility to give BLU as core and fluff spells, but the essence will be the same, put the skills that would be "Necessary" to function at peak performance in easy to farm overworld/direct from class quests locations, while adding a bunch of fluff and interchangeable skills to learn throughout the world and duties.

[ReiMakoto]

Here's a list I posted in another thread earlier, I would take this check mark system to be allowed into the DF in a heartbeat:
1.Water Cannon
2.Bristle
3.Song of Torment
4. Any of the 130 potency aoe's (Would be filtered out of low level dungeons as the first 130 you get is cutters cry with rams voice)
5. Off Gauard
6. 30s Primal Skill
7. 60s Primal Skill
8. 90s Primal Skill
9. A 1 Second Cast time damage skill (Fire Agnon or Sharpened Knife or Flying Frenzy come to mind)
10. Peculiar Light
11. Blood Drain
12. 110/100 potency aoe(For pre cutters cry and below, e.g bomb toss, mind blast)

Building like this, you could have a requirement list at all levels to be allowed in the DF, not just at level 50.

[Kalise]

2.Bristle

Wut?

Why Bristle?

Bristle is pointless, because spending a GCD to deal 150% damage on your next GCD is objectively inferior to spending 2 GCD's dealing 100% damage.

(Unless of course it affects Primal skills in which case Mountain Buster/Static Strike with their 310 potency means that Bristle is a 155 potency GCD which is, sadly, superior to every option BLU has for filling their GCD's due to 130 being the highest damaging GCD skill...)

[ReiMakoto]

Wut?

Why Bristle?

Bristle is pointless, because spending a GCD to deal 150% damage on your next GCD is objectively inferior to spending 2 GCD's dealing 100% damage.

(Unless of course it affects Primal skills in which case Mountain Buster/Static Strike with their 310 potency means that Bristle is a 155 potency GCD which is, sadly, superior to every option BLU has for filling their GCD's due to 130 being the highest damaging GCD skill...)

Because Bristle plus song of torment is a dps gain over casting 2 130 potency skills, song of torment is 300 potency, so buffing it with bristle makes it 450 potency across the dot duration, hence a dps gain.

Edit for more detail in case some people need it spelled out: casting 2 130 gcds= 260 potency, casting a 130 potency gcd then song of torment (300 pot)= 430 potency. Casting Bristle then song of torment= 450 potency, 20 potency gained, which adds up to more because of BLU buff windows (Peculiar light+ Off Guard)

Edit 2 because I guess I'm a bristle Evangelist: Downtime exists in nearly all fights, in that downtime, you can cast bristle, thats just free damage.

[Kabooa]

Because Bristle plus song of torment is a dps gain over casting 2 130 potency skills, song of torment is 300 potency, so buffing it with bristle makes it 450 potency across the dot duration, hence a dps gain.

Edit for more detail in case some people need it spelled out: casting 2 130 gcds= 260 potency, casting a 130 potency gcd then song of torment (300 pot)= 430 potency. Casting Bristle then song of torment= 450 potency, 20 potency gained, which adds up to more because of BLU buff windows (Peculiar light+ Off Guard)

Edit 2 because I guess I'm a bristle Evangelist: Downtime exists in nearly all fights, in that downtime, you can cast bristle, thats just free damage.

Bristle is also the only spell you can cast to use an OGCD without clipping while losing no potency compared to another 130 cast.