Blue Mage: Are you kidding me!?

[Duskane]

i dont think anything else could even work as a limited job

like unless beast master and puppeteer become glorified squadrons/trusts the job (monster/puppers play different roles)
but it seems like a concept that really only """"""works""""" with Blue mage

[lulunami]

BLU is disappointing for those players that wanted to main it. If you just want to play BLU casually, it is okay. Time to load up FFV if you want to play a real BLU mage.

PUP and BST are probably going to be copy-pastes of this BLU limited job in my opinion.

[TheHeavenAbyss]

i dont think anything else could even work as a limited job

like unless beast master and puppeteer become glorified squadrons/trusts the job (monster/puppers play different roles)
but it seems like a concept that really only """"""works""""" with Blue mage

Well, Beastmaster could probably work as a limited job, in that they would have some mob based pet collecting system, like blue mage collects spells. Blue mage sees skills and copies them. Beastmaster would probably defeat monsters and obtain them as pets or something. Not that I would want to see Beastmaster as LJ, but I think that would be the idea behind it.

[Rosenoire]

At this point, we shouldn't expect them to change into a real job at all. I'm just hoping limited jobs don't become the norm and they just toss unique jobs into limited jobs section. But the fact that they did this to an iconic BLU job and not Red Mage or Summoner? It's just an strange call.

I don't know if I'm in the minority in this case but I'm just really fearful of future jobs being placed into that section. I'm more nervous than excited about them adding new jobs at this pount.

Red Mage and Summoner are examples of classic--iconic, even!--Final Fantasy jobs that were changed drastically when they were implemented in other games. Red Mage is strictly caster DPS, with a couple of actual White Mage abilities from other games like Cure and Raise--Stone and Aero are typically Black Mage abilities, but they're WHM here because every job is expected to do damage. The only support skills RDM has as Mana Shift and Embolden, the latter of which doesn't buff other casters. Summoners can't call on the traditional long list of Final Fantasy summons because it would be insanely overpowered, and because the focus of the game is on our character killing those summons. The result is the egi system, where we summon a very weak version of one of three primals--or two, since Titan is utterly useless in a party with a tank. At level 70, Ifrit and Garuda are primarily useful for Devotion and for summoning demi-Bahamut.

And despite those being two of my favorite FF classes, I'm fine with that, because there's no way to implement them exactly as they were in single-player games for an MMO. I don't see a way to make RDM a true white mage and black mage combination with damage, healing, and support abilities in a game that has no space for a true support role. Would you be okay with BLU being a DPS caster that learns spells from job quests, or is learning them from monsters in the world integral to the identity of the class?

[TheHeavenAbyss]

snip

I agree with you regarding Summoner (although I think the variety of egis issue could be solved with just the glamour system. You could glamour, for example, Ifrit into Ravana. Nothing else would change except attack animations and maybe names. That way people could just use their favorite summons instead of focusing on the "ideal" ones), but I think Red Mage was well made, considering how FFXIV works. Red Mages use black magic, white magic and swords. RDM in FFXIV uses black magic and white magic (not only has Veraise and Vercure, in FFXIV Stone and Aero are white magic spells, so Verstone and Veraero count as white magic), and also has some melee attacks in its burst phase.

But the point still stands with Summoner alone anyway. And the fact that White Mage has Stone and Aero (that have been traditionally black or blue magic) to have other ways to attack. In offline FFs with more defined classes most classes are really basic (a Dragoon usually just attacks normally or jumps). That doesn't matter, because the party composition is the player's toolkit, and each class a tool to serve a different purpose. In FFXIV, while there are parties that have to work together, each class has to have some depth because that's all a single player controls. That class is their toolkit. That's why classes can't be absolutely faithful to their original counterparts, otherwise most would be made to simply spam one or two skills. That's the same with Blue Mage. It could be fun to use this skill or another in some situations, but most of the time in boss fights it would come down to using Mighty Guard to support the party, White Wind to heal (when White Mage needed some help) and some damage dealing skill to attack. That's perfectly within the capabilities of a regular class in this game, the rest is a matter of devs being creative.

I still think, if we wanted to be lazy-devs-friendly, the best way to do Blue Mage would be to simply make him learning monster skills with the job quests (and if really needed to have the collecting aspect, make a selection of collected skills that would be unusable in DF). Apparently all the traditional skills don't have to be there anyway (we still don't have Goblin Punch, Matra Magic and others, and have a lot of skills original to FFXIV). But I understand people crave new type of content. Well, I'm not bored of doing dungeons, raids, trials and MSQ with regular jobs, it's what I play this game for, so implementing Blue Mage as a regular job with none of this spell collecting (with that reserved to job quests) would work for me, at least much better than what we have. But that's just my personal taste.

[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.

[Mortex]

I mean don’t get me wrong I may would take some time to make balance blu wise for raiding. I mean the easy way for that so you can’t use some abilities on bosses. I have a stun as a tank doesn’t mean it works on bosses. Then you see how he would perform dmg wise and endgame content and change the cd for some abilities only for specific content so they can include the job for up to date raid content and maybe pvp even. It is possible it just takes time to adjust the job

[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...)