Did the devs lie to us? Either actually make BLU OP, or unlock it

[Vahlnir]

BLU is kinda like SMN imo. They don't seem to know what they want to do with it. Hopefully that'll change for both one day. BLU could certainly use a bit of a buff though for group content that spells are locked behind.

[Deceptus]

I said this in another thread, but I guess I'll say it here too. It's painfully obvious to see that the framework for BLU to be a normal job is there. Job Quests requiring you to go learn certain spells in order to progress, needing a party to acquire said spells, because said spells are locked in dungeons with a horrible RNG learning rate. All they would need to do is force BLU to go out and acquire any particular spell every 5-10 lvls (increase the learning rate of said spells of course) and the only excuse ppl would have for not having their tool kit in DF and Raids would be what we have now, players that just didn't care in the first place.

And it wouldn't be hard to get a good spell baseline. They've already got the structure, they just need to add more spells to the learn requirement.

Lvl 10 quest: Learn Blood Drain, Ice Spikes, Bomb Toss, Toad Oil, Sticky Tongue
Lvl 20 quest: Learn Bristle, Final Sting, Acorn Bomb, Self Destruct, Mind Blast (your first AoE)
Lvl 30 quest: Learn Bad Breath, Flying Sardine, Faze, 1000 needles
Lvl 40 quest: Learn Peculiar Light
Lvl 50 quest: Learn Drill Cannons, Glower

There. You now have a decent ability base that can do any dungeon. The only dungeon required is Aurum Vale, and Tam Tara for your first AoE.

This completely negates the argument, "They can't be relied on to know spell X, Y, Z". You force it. If you want to participate in the Masked Carnivale, you learn those spells at a minimum.

What about all the invulnerabilities mobs have? Easily fixable as well. BLU spells are similar to a copy of the mob spell. Just allow the debuff to stick but not do anything. BLU Petrify adds the debuff but doesn't petrify the mobs. You can play with however long the debuff lasts for balancing. If it were me, it's be similar to a buff like Slash Resistance down where it sticks on the mob for a while. That would also help BLU's lowered damage.

Imagine actually having use of Petrify and four or so casts of Drill Cannons. Would that make BLU OP? Yes. Wasn't that the point?

[Alistaire]

actually make the job OP

Well, BLU is OP, just not in the way advertised, and more OP as a tank/healer hybrid. *That* issue would have to be dealt with before removing the "limited" from this job.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Well, BLU is OP, just not in the way advertised, and more OP as a tank/healer hybrid. *That* issue would have to be dealt with before removing the "limited" from this job.

Right. Part of the "job isn't OP" argument is that people seem to think it isn't because it doesn't create giant numbers that put all other DPS jobs with a red icon to shame at their level. Though as DPS there is 1 niche that BLU does seem to do better than other dps jobs at 50 in duties which is AoE clearing trash. This feeling comes about from having numerous AoE options and most of those options not having a damage falloff like the skills/spells other jobs have access to. And skills like Missle are actually quite amazing on the bosses that don't have an immunity to it.

As it stands now I wouldn't mind it being brought in line level cap wise with other jobs. Also wouldn't mind having actual stats on the weapon or materia slots. If they are set on not giving the BLU weapon raw stats then make it choice of boosting specific spells based on type, element affinity, etc. However given how it works now I still wouldn't have it queue-able in DF solo or roulettes. I could see it fitting in fine for use in solo MSQ, diadem, eureka, and squadron missions. Aside from that my only other thoughts are tweaks to some spells such as having sharpened knife be instant cast and my "AF" gear acquired at lv 50 being dyable.

[Saefinn]

I think this thread is a fair point. The invulnerabilities, keeps some of the OP stuff from being well, OP. In terms of potency and DPS, if you compare it to Red Mage at 50, Blue Mage is behind. Heck some of our spells that start to get a higher potency, like our Ram/Dragon combo are buggered by invulnerability and the same for Petrify->Drill Cannons and these are not at all sustainable. Then Red Mage can just dual cast higher potency spells.

They could make a non-limited version of this job if they just increased some of the potencies and blocked/limit the OP stuff for content.

This release I think show there's real potential for a "why not both" scenario, which I think would be the most sensible thing for SE to do. Keep Limited Jobs, just take away the 'OP' spells like 'Missile' to allow for the non-Limited Job version. Then leave them in for limited job content. That way you fix this divide and don't step on the toes of the people enjoying it and also pleasing those who wanted in more content.

[MagiusNecros]

All this Limited Job nonsense just boils down to the fact that BLU is going to be a new job release and they are using the player base as guinea pigs to do the beta testing for free and slowly make changes as they increase lvl cap over the next xpac.

And once they play catch up then they'll mysteriously decide to allow BLU in roulette's/DF while always being a few patches behind.

Disgusting.

I hope they learn from the community but the recurring theme with the devs is to ignore the community and do whatever they damn please.

[Evogolist]

And it wouldn't be hard to get a good spell baseline. They've already got the structure, they just need to add more spells to the learn requirement.

Lvl 10 quest: Learn Blood Drain, Ice Spikes, Bomb Toss, Toad Oil, Sticky Tongue
Lvl 20 quest: Learn Bristle, Final Sting, Acorn Bomb, Self Destruct, Mind Blast (your first AoE)
Lvl 30 quest: Learn Bad Breath, Flying Sardine, Faze, 1000 needles
Lvl 40 quest: Learn Peculiar Light
Lvl 50 quest: Learn Drill Cannons, Glower

There. You now have a decent ability base that can do any dungeon. The only dungeon required is Aurum Vale, and Tam Tara for your first AoE.

This completely negates the argument, "They can't be relied on to know spell X, Y, Z". You force it. If you want to participate in the Masked Carnivale, you learn those spells at a minimum.

What about all the invulnerabilities mobs have? Easily fixable as well. BLU spells are similar to a copy of the mob spell. Just allow the debuff to stick but not do anything. BLU Petrify adds the debuff but doesn't petrify the mobs. You can play with however long the debuff lasts for balancing. If it were me, it's be similar to a buff like Slash Resistance down where it sticks on the mob for a while. That would also help BLU's lowered damage.

Imagine actually having use of Petrify and four or so casts of Drill Cannons. Would that make BLU OP? Yes. Wasn't that the point?

Exactly, and to keep spells such Self Destruct, Final Sting, and White Wind from being OP, put some sort of restrictions on them. For example, while White Wind can cure the caster for the total amount of caster's HP, it's potency of it is halved/decreased when it's used in a party setting. This way Healer type classes such as Whm, Sch, and Ast aren't kicked to the curb for a BLU. With Self destruct and Final Sting, sure they could knock out a decent chunk of dmg on a trash mob, but in boss fights, they wouldn't be the optimal choice of spells to use. Or like in XI, the BLU is given a weakened debuff with HP/MP/DMG being lowered for a few seconds.

There's really so many ways to work around the whole BLU being game breaking and balancing issues, that it's mind boggling that they (the devs) can't seem to figure it out. From my understanding, Yoshi-P is also helping with XI, so I don't see why, if they haven't already, he and the XIV devs can't consult with the XI dev team to find a way to properly balance BLU.

[Evogolist]

All this Limited Job nonsense just boils down to the fact that BLU is going to be a new job release and they are using the player base as guinea pigs to do the beta testing for free and slowly make changes as they increase lvl cap over the next xpac.

And once they play catch up then they'll mysteriously decide to allow BLU in roulette's/DF while always being a few patches behind.

Disgusting.

I hope they learn from the community but the recurring theme with the devs is to ignore the community and do whatever they damn please.

What's sad is that they said during the fan fest live letter, if BLU was successful as a limited job, it may (not saying it will, but that it may) very well open the door of the possibility of more limited jobs with them using Puppermaster and Beastmaster as examples. Umm...no, they can't even properly balance SMN/SCH without screwing up the other since they tied to one another. And the hot fix for the increased experience for Chocobos while playing BLU will be the first attention our Choco companions have gotten since the beginning of 4.0...4.1 perhaps and they're treating it as a bad thing, because it's painfully better to them to make us grind out our choco companions in an non existent Overworld than to just give our chocos some sort of decent exp boost.

If the Overworld offered more than just F.A.T.E.S. and Hunts, and unsynced...premade parties actually offered something instead of penalizing the player for wanting to play a little differently than I don't think too many people would have a problem with how BLU works as it is or even the whole limited job system as it exist now. But when you slap a ton of restrictions on a job and tell the player they can play X limited job, but you just won't be able to enjoy the game like everyone else, it does tend to leave a sour taste in your mouth.

[Kabooa]

Well, BLU is OP, just not in the way advertised, and more OP as a tank/healer hybrid. *That* issue would have to be dealt with before removing the "limited" from this job.

You bring a Blue Mage as a tank, and you're gimping yourself heavily.

They aren't overpowered as tanks. They aren't even serviceable beyond "Doesn't die". A tanking blue mage is just a fancy way of saying "Petrify / Stun bot"

[KaivaC]

What's sad is that they said during the fan fest live letter, if BLU was successful as a limited job, it may (not saying it will, but that it may) very well open the door of the possibility of more limited jobs with them using Puppermaster and Beastmaster as examples. Umm...no, they can't even properly balance SMN/SCH without screwing up the other since they tied to one another. And the hot fix for the increased experience for Chocobos while playing BLU will be the first attention our Choco companions have gotten since the beginning of 4.0...4.1 perhaps and they're treating it as a bad thing, because it's painfully better to them to make us grind out our choco companions in an non existent Overworld than to just give our chocos some sort of decent exp boost.

If the Overworld offered more than just F.A.T.E.S. and Hunts, and unsynced...premade parties actually offered something instead of penalizing the player for wanting to play a little differently than I don't think too many people would have a problem with how BLU works as it is or even the whole limited job system as it exist now. But when you slap a ton of restrictions on a job and tell the player they can play X limited job, but you just won't be able to enjoy the game like everyone else, it does tend to leave a sour taste in your mouth.

Right.

A lot of us were aware that this was essentially a beta. But the devs lowballed the job. And the sad fact is that, based on have they've typically done things in the past, they are going to completely miss what some of our complaints are about and deem it a failure. BLU itself is not a failure. I think a lot of us have recognized that the job has a great deal of potential to become a normal job. The restrictions that were placed on it, as you said, in addition to the hype that the devs had built for it, are making it seem like a failure.