What BLU got this Patch

[TheMightyMollusk]

The canes don't have damage stats so you can go back and poke low-level enemies without killing them in case you missed a spell.

[Flay_wind]

I am talking about said canes actually having appropriate level/ILvl INT and what not on them.

[Mansion]

The canes don't have damage stats so you can go back and poke low-level enemies without killing them in case you missed a spell.

That's not a reason at all. You can Sardine Slap anything (or even auto attack), draw out your weapon and patiently wait. And most of low level mobs spells kinda appear in higher level versions of these (Bomb Toss, Scorpion tail thing)

Anyway, I gave it a go yesterday and with FC and Rest bonus, I made it quite quickly from 50 to 58 I think. I had some fun looking for spells with two people I found and this made me get good XP. So I'm not really in a position to talk about level capped BLU in 5.1 but in theory it does not change from 50 capped, right? You get a bunch of Masked Carnivale, "incentive" to get on group content for spells/achievements and... that's it?
Even without burning through the content (as I see some people already have 80 spells and all), that's no improvement on the previous BLU at all. That's more of the same thing with a questionably different packaging. For me it is still uninspired, not interesting gameplay, a wasted opportunity for something more solid (limited or not), and likely to be put down in a few days weeks until the next addition (if I bother this time).

Looking at the spells I'm... disappointed. It (again) boils down to same potencies AoE or Crowd Control that won't work on instanced content, with a few good additions (I like Whistle for instance, or the interaction between Dropsy and the Ice Cone thingy).

All in all, BLU is still not proving to be that overpowered so that they had to make it limited.
Does it feel like a legacy Blue Mage? Yes. But that's a shame it had to be restricted to its own gameplay when I'm pretty sure most players would have prefered a watered down but traditional job. Or maybe no BLU at all.

[Tabbs]

Got to level 60, working on getting all the spells. Almost there. Wanted to get stuff done before saying anything, but my opinion is largely the same as 4.5 BLU. It has it's high points, but I'd still much rather it be an actual job. The highlight of this BLU patch is definitely the ability to pick a role and the role-based spells that go with them. On the downside: everything else. It's more of the same. More strange 220 aoe spells, more carnivale, and a PF interface and blu log that don't add much in the way of playable content. Like others have said, why did we need to wait for this to decide if BLU was any good?

Ideally, we'll see it become a full, unlimited job eventually. If thats absolutely not an option? Please, please actually make it a single-player job. Make it as broken as it needs to be in order to restrict it from group content altogether. Make it max level and let it do all the content in the game so people can actually use it for things besides a mini-game.

My absolute biggest gripe is that I can't participate in story content as BLU in a strong, story-driven game. Classes and jobs are meant to be a conduit for experiencing a game's story and world. Is collecting spells a fundamental aspect of BLU? Yeah! But never the primary aspect. In any other FF game w/ a blue mage, you collect spells to help you achieve a greater goal. To save the day and live the story. In FFXIV, you collect spells just for the sake of it. It's fun for a while, but sad that it can't be taken further.

[KageTokage]

I feel like the tank mimicry needs to also give a HP increase of like...30% minimum.

They only have negligibly lower defense then a proper tank, but having 20% more passive mitigation in exchange for 10K+ less HP is not nearly enough to make up for it.

Even at full HP I'm nearly dying from tank busters in normal Alexander raids which feels a little wrong when I'm in full 270 gear.

[Jkap_Goat]

I'm enjoying blue mage alot, it's so much!

[ReiMakoto]

I'm enjoying blue mage alot, it's so much!

Good for you man, want to explain whats fun about it?

[Destati]

There's a millenial joke to make here, but it's 4 AM and my brain's still back in bed.

It's 5 AM and I'm just going to knock down this low-hanging fruit:

Ok, Boomer.

[Alleo]

Ironically one of the reasons they didnt want to put it in the DF was they didn't want people rocking up not knowing necessary spells, now theyve "made" hard content and they are the ones putting prohibitively stupid requirements on essential spells

Blue is full of conflicting messages from the Devs:

-Its a solo job that is not good for group play vs. most of its skills are locked behind group content and the new "content" for it is also now purely for groups
- it has to be solo and cant join normal runs because its too overpowered vs. skills are mostly weak and a lot of the OP ones cant be used against a lot of mobs anyway..
- People would be going into content without the necessary skills and would get hate for that vs. lets create a log that needs 8 blue mages who also need certain skills to even do it.
-Blue should all be about collecting spells from monsters, that is his identity vs. getting skills from totems and needing to do quests..

Its a mess imo.

[ReiMakoto]

Blue is full of conflicting messages from the Devs:

-Its a solo job that is not good for group play vs. most of its skills are logged behind group content and the new "content" for it is also now purely for groups
- it has to be solo and cant join normal runs because its too overpowered vs. skills are mostly weak and a lot of the OP ones cant be used against a lot of mobs anyway..
- People would be going into content without the necessary skills and would get hate for that vs. lets create a log that needs 8 blue mages who also need certain skills to even do it..(and even the carneval needs certain skills to survive certain stuff)
-Blue should all be about collecting spells from monsters, that is his identity vs. getting skills from totems and needing to do quests..

Its a mess imo.

Talking about contradictions. BLU was meant to be OP, yet the mount is locked behind something the devs are considering a massive challenge... Beating all the old final raid bosses, something that normal classes did, yet beating them all on the OP class is harder... okay.