Blue mage is a waste of potential, change my mind.

[JunseiKei]

And therein lies the crux of the matter, doesn't it? Because it all boils down to a matter of design and decision making on the side of the devs. Because they could've made it that broken - but didn't.
They did smart things, like keep status resistances on a lot of the bosses and even some overworld enemies. Tail Screw doesn't work on dungeon end-bosses and not even on B ranks (fully resisted, thank the heavens). But the flip side of it is that BLU by definition will never be the broken, dangerous entity they advertised it as being because that sort of thing isn't only game breaking, it's also only too easy to grief. Imagine an S rank spawning and gets two shotted because someone Tail Screwed it to 1 hp, and followed up with a Flying Sardine. Breaking the ToS? Sadly, no. Pissing off an entire server's hunting community? Definitely. So SE were smart enough to not let us do that.
But then if Tail Screw doesn't work, what else in my kit is supposed to be useful instead? All these 150 max potency attacks? Oh no wait my bad, some of them do more if there's a status ailment - which these enemies are immune to. WELP.

And it kind of makes sense to me because BLU lives in the overworld. It levels there, it does its quests there, it does get a lot, if not too many, of its skills out there. So BLU had to be reigned in in the overworld.
But as soon as the devs did that they basically admitted every reason they ever gave to locking BLU was a half hearted excuse because these very limitations are what they said they didn't want to impose on the class, but then they went and did it anyway.

It would be fine to make it so dungeon bosses were affected by skills like Missile and Tail Screw, keeping the flag for not working on open world bosses (FATEs and hunts alike). Unfortunately, they didn't do that. Especially if it's never going to be doing current content - I see no reason to bar this. To be honest, I'm completely amazed Bad Breath works on every monster I've encountered, bosses included. That was the skill that I thought would end up being entirely worthless and not even apply the poison.

No, BLU does not need to live in the open world. The fact that most of its skills come from dungeons/trials and Masked Carnivale itself is an instance leads me to believe that it levels in the open world, but exists in instances like all of the other jobs in regards to content.

[ReiMakoto]

I really hope someone can just tell me blue mage is actually viable. Unfortunately, I do not think that can be true.

Oh im of full belief it is viable in this incarnation. As everyone has pointed out its dps is very low, however as a support mage having low dps is the tradoff, its the same logic they applied to rdm before buffing it, but with more justification this time. 60s magic trick attack on steroids (peculiar light) alone would probably make up the rdps from its low pdps, bad breath is an on demand mega reprisal for a small dps loss, and white wind could again have intersting ultility as a dps loss.

[HyoMinPark]

I was reserving judgment on BLU until I had leveled it and played it for a while. Now that I’m level 50, I have to say that, aside from derping around with friends in the overworld and in duties, BLU is definitely not the “broken job” that it was advertised to be.

I realize that it’s level 50, so perhaps I’m comparing its personal damage too much to the numbers I see at level 60 or level 70, but even with full i130 and messing around with melded i115 accessories (because what else am I going to do with the tier IIIs my airships continue to bring me all proud-like), I still don’t feel that powerful. I honestly find it ridiculous that BLU’s best solo skill up until level 40 or so is 1,000 Needles, to be frank. Why can’t their other skills also have a bit more viability? Maybe they would hit harder if they allowed BLU weapons to have actual stats and magic damage on them (I find it silly that they don’t at least have some magic damage and/or stats on them, even if it’s just INT).

I don’t know. I just don’t feel strong; I don’t feel OP or broken—I feel more broken on my level 70 BRD.

A friend and I were duoing (as BLUs) Keeper of the Lake this evening to attempt to get Flame Thrower from the first boss (as opposed to doing all of Brayflox HM), and it took us at least 10 mins to get there, and even longer to actually kill the boss. I was hoping that, since BLU was advertised as a solo job that could not be in regular duties and parties due to being OP and broken, that we would be able to kill the boss faster than what it actually took. It provided a nice challenge, but considering we were trying to get a tier 4 spell, we just didn’t have the time to spend ~20 mins each run trying to get it (as opposed to the >5 it took when one of us went on a level 70 job instead—call us impatient if you will; perhaps we are).

I also disagree with the idea of so many skills being locked behind duties and extreme trials. Don’t get me wrong: I had fun doing the six BLU T1 with my static randomly one night after raid. But the idea of BLU being a solo job that gets half of its toolkit (and some of the better skills, mind you) from dungeons and trials that they can’t successfully solo (or that they can’t successfully solo without it taking HUGE amounts of time) annoys me. It’s far more efficient to have 1 level 70 and 1 BLU doing the Ex trials (as I did tonight with Titan and Shiva with a friend) than it would be to have a party of BLUs, I imagine. I wish I could enjoy doing things at a slower pace—perhaps that was the design intention—but I simply do not have the time now that classes are in session again.


Idk. It was fun side content to do with my friends when we just want to be silly, but I’m feeling particularly underwhelmed by it otherwise. It may have potential when it hits level 60, level 70, and eventually beyond that. I just hope the developers give it that potential, instead of making it underwhelming each time.

At least the AF gear looks cool. I am in love with my BLU glam~.



Edit: to somewhat echo purgatori, I would have loved to have BLU be a stupidly broken job that you could take solo into old content and just completely break it. That would have been amusing for me - take BLU into T13 and completely solo and break Bahamut. I guess kind of the way you can at 70, but with a level 50 job that uses enemy skills against the enemy. That would have been fun.

I'm hoping in the future there may be some potential for that. As well as some additions to the toolkit, such as a Raise. And an Esuna. Please.

[Teraluna]

There's little/no excitement with the dungeon spells.
You look in lfp, join a split group whether it's 4/4 2/2
Run the thing fairly mindlessly over and over waiting for the relevant spell cast
Kill it
Repeat if this terrible rng crap that seems to be infesting the game more every patch hasn't 'blessed' you.

There's no skill involved, no tactics, just enter - see if rng went your way - exit - enter - see if rng went your way - exit - enter........................................

[purgatori]

Some people like the job, so it clearly does not represent "wasted potential" in a universal sense. However, it definitely doesn't live up to the potential that I (and this is admittedly a very personal take that was formed based on limited information available prior to the job landing) envisaged for the job. I thought that it would be an overpowered job with a strong solo focus that encouraged greater exploration of and interaction with the open world, and rewarded players by allowing them to power through old content that they might have missed or would just like to break for giggles---e.g., Coils, EX trials, etc.

But while I've heard that there is some potential for breakage there, and that the Masked Carnival is enjoyable... BLU seems even less suited to solo-focused players like myself. At least with a regular job you have Duty Finder to fall back on, and that will facilitate the completion of the vast majority of the content in the game. BLU, on the other hand, seems to be a job expressly for people with a healthy supply of good friends in the game; friends willing to carry them through an obscene number of clears for multiple trials, dungeons, etc. That's not a situation I find myself in, and I don't think it's something I'd enjoy even if I was (never did like pony farming, for e.g.).

So yeah, I'm very disappointed. I keep hoping that SE will throw a bit more love in the direction of solo players---and no, I won't grant that because this is an MMO we just need to shut up and accept the necessity of grouping instead of enjoying our game for the story, economy, lore, and feeling a part of a world inhabited by other agents whom we occasionally might like to team up with---but this always seems to fall through. Squadrons never amounted to much, BLU is a fizzler (for us), you won't get far in Eureka without a group, and now I fear that the Trust system is also going to be a let-down. And considering that I was intuiting a more solo-friendly direction for Shadowbringers with the announcement of BLU and Trusts, and that this is what brought me back to the game after a long hiatus... My optimism is definitely flagging.

[Ilan]

I really hope someone can just tell me blue mage is actually viable. Unfortunately, I do not think that can be true.

Its viable for SE if it can keep people paying their sub longer. Otherwhise its not.

[Shurrikhan]

Sorry, I can't even devil's advocate that one.

[Seraphor]

BLU definitely falls short in several aspects, potencies, learn rates and clearly not being a solo job. And in fact I wouldnt be surprised if these things were changed.

However there's one thing people keep daying that's bugging me.

"What's the point in all these gimmicky status effects if they don't work on everything?"

That is precisely the point of the status effects, they don't work on everything, so you have to experiment and work out which ones do work and where. That's one of the things BLU does right.
Now if the potencies and learn rates were better, and some spell mechanics like having some more instant cast cooldowns, I'd say the job was pretty much a success.

[Seraphor]

It would be fine to make it so dungeon bosses were affected by skills like Missile and Tail Screw, keeping the flag for not working on open world bosses (FATEs and hunts alike). Unfortunately, they didn't do that. Especially if it's never going to be doing current content - I see no reason to bar this. To be honest, I'm completely amazed Bad Breath works on every monster I've encountered, bosses included. That was the skill that I thought would end up being entirely worthless and not even apply the poison.

No, BLU does not need to live in the open world. The fact that most of its skills come from dungeons/trials and Masked Carnivale itself is an instance leads me to believe that it levels in the open world, but exists in instances like all of the other jobs in regards to content.

Bad breath only works on everything because it inflicts so many minor statuses.
Many enemies are in fact immune to some or event most of them, but things like silence are usually fair game as so many other jobs rely on it, while poison is a must, because most jobs have sone kind if DoT and it'd be ridiculous if you had enemies imune to say Thunder and gimped BLM.

[Teraluna]

And once people work the effects out? 4 x meta builds online, and that's it.
There's no magic awesomeness here, just rng spell learning that's come straight from a Cryptic type free to play game.
If they are going to introduce a new class - then do it properly. Level 70, able to participate and complement with standard groups. This is an mmo remember, not single class online.
All the have here is a painfully stretched skill acquisition mechanic, designed purely to try and extend people's playing time with a class 20 levels below anything else out there.