Promote Blue Mage to a full job in 6.0

[NoirRen]

No. Just no.

[FallenArisen0990]

As much as I would love this, they would have to rework the job to fit the "Quota" as the other jobs. I would be love BLU to be a full job as well.

[Saidosha]

Just recently started back up and picked up BLU a few days ago.

Like others, I'm perhaps agitated by just how many spells are locked behind dungeons/raids and how you can't just remotely queue. Given I play more late at night, this makes relying on the party finder a difficult option. I've been able to solo Mind Blast from Tam-Tara and did a slow run of Cutter's Cry to try and get the chimera spells, but not getting those with how long it took just to get to the boss at my gear level was pretty groan worthy. I'm also going to have to hope I can find people for Aurum Vale so I can progress the job quest, too. That aside, I'd say I'm probably seeing some of the balance issues others have been hinting at, too. You can't 1000 Needles everything forever, but I've yet to find a decent ST alternative spell in my current kit and the AoEs have been more a factor of fighting 2+ mobs to determine viability over 1k.

From the QOL perspective, it was refreshing to level so quickly. I couldn't cheese like I see some doing with BLM as my only 50, but it was still pleasantly fast compared to trying to grind other jobs through FATEs or dungeons. I don't expect everyone else to get the same treatment, but I do think its suggest a reconsideration of other-job leveling rate. Just bumping FATEs up 30% would be welcome, though average mob killing could benefit from some boosts, too. Or improvements to the Hunt Log, whatever. Yeah, I know it's not so much a BLU problem, but I would say it's spoiled me having taken other jobs toward 30 since coming back.

Overall, I wouldn't complain if they tried to push it more toward the traditional route, but I also wouldn't be averse to a new DF category where you need at least 1 BLU in the party to access, spell learn rate increases per BLU, and it's otherwise uncapped to bored strangers can help and walk away with tomes/EXP/whatever. Expectations of just fleshing out the player's toolkit handled, then we consider more general integrations into the job pool.

[AlphaFox]

Honestly I don't think people would complain if it could become a full job but you had to actively seek X number of role skills. Wanna play BLU Tank, learn 10 / X skills and you can. Label skills to only work for X role and done, open world content and you have no limitation on the skills

[IlSire]

What they did to BLU is horrible and the first real blunder I've seen since ARR.

Leaving it limited doesn't make any sense since the class isn't even strong to begin with and requires other people willing to waste their time helping you to get your spells with very low learning chances (looking at you, primals).
So much for the "Solo" job indeed.

The devs managed to balance jobs which seemed impossible to add into the "trinity" like Red Mage, Bard and soon Dancer, I'm sure they could have made something for Blue Mage aswell.
How about a job gauge which builds "blue magic" when casting weaker spells and then allows to cast more powerful spells after a certain treshold (like primal skills)? How about more interactions between spells doing combos like the chimera ones?

Saying that people would discriminate against Blue Mages because of not having the spells is also another lie since learning is pretty much a fancier way to do your usual job quests, how about gating those behind even more spells to get people to learn "for sure"? Maybe even making mandatory spells learned during a quest, like with Water Cannon?
And don't make me talk about the "Can kill Bosses with Doom!!!" excuse since most things are actually immune to it as it should be... for a regular balanced job you know.
If I, a simple fan, can think of a solution I'm sure skilled devs like the FFXIV ones which made this amazing MMO could have easily come up with something even greater, the sad thing is that it feels like they didn't even try.

Go on and watch the Fanfest reveal, people were screaming for excitement followed by utter silence at the "Limited" part.
That was akin to a giant slap followed by a giant laugh in the face of someone who saw their long awaited desires shattered in an instant.
I really think that Yoshi-P and all the devs, which up until now have always been very close to the community, should reflect on that.

[Laphael]

Nah, just make it more overpowered and let us learn more open world spells and less primals.
Im looking forward to more spells during 5.x.

[Auryan]

I have plenty of other jobs to level to 80 when ShB comes out. Thanks though.
I'd rather BLU remain side content with some additional tweaks and features added to it. More incentives for BLU parties, unique rewards and items, etc etc. It's a job designed to not care about the others, go nuts with it, SE.

[Kalise]

What open world ideas? The week that the open world was alive? Why does a job need to be neutered for engaging open world content to exist?

Also... "Open world ideas"

Acorn Bomb > 1000 Needles > Acorn Bomb > 1000 Needles > Acorn Bomb > 1000 Needles > Acorn Bomb > 1000 Needles

Best open world content ever!

I think they really should have just made 2 blue Mages

Honestly, they can just make BLU work for both aspects without needing to make 2 jobs/2 soul crystals.

It's simply a matter of thinking about a way to implement it.

Since, once you have a way of ensuring a division of the "Imbalanced" aspects of BLU and actual content, then you're free to go absolutely crazy with it. Since you can make as many totally busted spells as you like, without it ever having to be a concern while balancing. As well as being able to limit the pool of spells that need to be balanced against other jobs to a manageable amount.

[MOZZYSTAR]

Sometimes I think they made BLU a limited class because it's the "weakest link," not overpowered. xD Most of the skills are useless, the OP skills are pretty true to the classic FF games in that they rarely ever work (gotta spam that Death, yenno?). Not only that, but some of the more useful ones take forever to cast. "Here, just stand right here for six seconds. My swift and surecast are on CD D8" -cactuar waddles away mid spell- "Damn it, Cactuar!"

[Corue]

There's probably going to be an even bigger outcry this time around, given that they're most likely patching the "kill enemy then swap job" exploit and skills like 1000 Needles have already lost their effectiveness. Leveling it will be even more of a chore and the people who manage to cap it this time around will be subject to the inevitably awful droprates of the new primal skills.