Some love for Blue Mage

[Factoree]

I don’t understand why people think BLU being “limited” is the only way it could thrive. Any number of suggestions have been made as to how a full version of BLU could be developed without screwing up balance or taking insane amounts of dev time. The color mages are a staple of FF jobs and BLU has traditionally been extremely popular (polling on reddit for a while now has suggested that Dancer and Blue Mage were the two most anticipated jobs before the supposed job leaks).

Reducing it down to “just another caster” is as absurd as saying “oh, if they implement Gunblade and it can reach level 80 it will just be yet another cookie-cutter Disciple of War”.

There isn’t a great reason why Learning needs to be segregated from having a real endgame spell set. The best argument i can find against it is that it might be annoying for Blue Mages to go have to learn spells every time they level up to stay competitive... but even then, if you are playing as a Blue Mage, you (should) know what you’re in for and be ready for it! Especially if the learning is not tied to luck or random chance (as far as I can tell, learning blue magic by chance was exclusive to FFXI), nobody can complain that they have to fight an enemy once to learn its spell.

If BLU had a solo experience that was actually fun, I might consider that it doesn’t need to be a full job. Frankly, it’s not all that fun. Even when it’s possible to solo something as BLU, it doesn’t really have any mechanics for me to manage or things I need to think about (like almost every other Job), so it just feels like meaningless button mashing to me.

Whereas if it were un-limited, I could have fun playing BLU alongside my friends in the same new and exciting content every other Job gets to play.

[Miziliti]

Reducing it down to “just another caster” is as absurd as saying “oh, if they implement Gunblade and it can reach level 80 it will just be yet another cookie-cutter Disciple of War”.

Exactly this. One of the most stupid argument from people against BLU being a regular job is that BLU would become another BLM LOL!

No job is as bland as BLM juggling betweent fire, ice, and thunder only. SMN is already different enough. Just look at RDM, it has faster casting spells that can be instantly cast after every other spell and a melee combo. None of the caster jobs care remotely identical to each other. Let BLU become a regular job has zero chance with it being a BLM copy at all.

[Kabooa]

No job is as bland as BLM juggling betweent fire, ice, and thunder only..

You !@#kkin' wot, mate?

[ReiMakoto]

I mean they were already onto something to make blu feel unique as a caster with some of its moves. Give BLU a bunch of 1 second cast time gcds, then a bunch of 1 second cast time ogcd weapon skills like off guard is, so then you have a constantly quick casting mage, already different to the rest of the casters and not "Cookie Cutter" before you even add the flavour.

[Saefinn]

Exactly this. One of the most stupid argument from people against BLU being a regular job is that BLU would become another BLM LOL!

No job is as bland as BLM juggling betweent fire, ice, and thunder only. SMN is already different enough. Just look at RDM, it has faster casting spells that can be instantly cast after every other spell and a melee combo. None of the caster jobs care remotely identical to each other. Let BLU become a regular job has zero chance with it being a BLM copy at all.

Not quite, Leylines, teleport to leylines, variations of fire/blizzard, flare, triple cast, sharpcast, convert, foul, enochian (or BLM Greased Lightning as I call it). Though I might agree it's not that interesting most of the way to 50, I didn't start enjoying it until around level 40. Whilst RDM wins with speed and mobilities, BLM wins with power, especially AoE power, whilst RDM's is respectable (especially at a lower level - low level RDM is pretty OP more so than BLU), but Scatter feels weak in comparison to BLM's sustainable AoE's (and it is behind BLM in terms of DPS too, but RDM has more utility). So I agree they are all different, but not sure I agree with your reasoning as to why BLM is 'bland'. Though I don't mean to imply you have to like it.