it would be nice if leveling was less exploitable

[Jijifli]

[IMG]1: "Designed for solo play" does not mean "you should only solo" or "you can solo everything". If we were to apply this to standard classes the image would say "designed for group play" but we all know this doesn't mean you should only ever play in groups if you're playing a standard class.

The end-game content for blu is The Masked Carnivale, which is solo content. This is the solo play blu is designed for. The end-game content for standard classes are raids, which is the group content they're designed for.

Just because something is designed with a specific task in mind does not mean that's the only thing it can or should do.

Classes that come out that are normal do not tell us they're "designed for group content," which showed BLU was meant to be different. And of course we didn't say "You SHOULD only solo" because that's not the point. For a class "Designed for solo play" I'd expect it to get its piece on its own.

I'm keeping the carnival opinion out since I actually haven't done that part of the content. It wouldn't be a fair opinion as I'd only be able to work off of word of mouth. However, I will focus on the "designed with a specific task in mind" part of this. Yes, it can work off of more than its original intended design, and it probably should, but focusing again on, "Designed for solo play," part. It does not feel like, to me, it did a good job being designed for solo play. For something to do more than it can originally do, it should be good at doing at what it originally did. Imagine if WAR did more dps, but couldn't keep threat anymore, at all, for whatever reason. Would you call it a tank anymore? It's still classified as a tank, doing, let's just say for funsies, a BLM's damage output, but it's not doing the job of a tank very well.

That's how I feel here. It's a class meant for solo play that isn't doing that solo play very well, outside of ONE piece of content.

2: "Not suited for parties" does not mean "you should only solo" or "you should only play with other blu players". It means that while blu is classed as a dps, it does not fit into the trinity system the standard classes are designed for.

Blu is a jack of all trades but master of none. It has a lot of utility and high damage potential, but past the point of cheesing out 1k needles, a standard dps class does more reliable damage. It has one strong heal but it can't compete with a healer's varied toolkit and it has no res. It can tank but it's not as durable or efficient at aggro building as a real tank.

Which my statement is also pointed out here. For a class that, in the picture, states it's designed around solo play, it's not very good at doing that outside of carnival and the gimmick spells.

On top of the above, blu does not learn abilities by lvling up which means the effectiveness of one blu player to another can wildly vary. If you have a lvl 50 standard class in lvl 50 group content, you know that the player has access to the necessary abilities to complete it. Not the case with blu. Having a blu in the party can mean having to carry a dead weight, or having a very useful team mate.

Actually, you can't KNOW either way. I've had plenty of cases of players who were lacking their skills. In fact, I even ended up in a 60 dungeon on an alt with BLM forgetting to do any of my HW quests, removing almost half of my damage output. The difference is that, while I'm able to just do a quest for a skill, I have to go farm nightmare in Garuda EX because it's apparently more common than this spell.

When a mount I never even knew was a thing, and have most of the other ponies anyways, is more likely to drop than obtaining a spell that, outside of carnival, is worse than Ifrit's version anyways, there's a flaw in design of how common this spell is.

Also:




Both these images, also from the producer's letter on revealing BLU, show the BLU in Shiva and Garuda. In Shiva case, having the spell sure, but in both cases, ALONE. I wonder where people got the idea we could solo these?