Blue mage is a waste of potential, change my mind.

[Payotz]

Also also while im talking numbers, if you take off dps mimicry and dont use the self destruct attacks, blus output is actually fairly balanced for a level 60 dps, and I wouldnt mind using an expansion of the rotation it has as a full job

Sure but it's not just dps output where BLU shines, it's the utility.
Second Wind, Diamond back, Offguard, Gobskin, Peculiar Light and even the ability to essentially "switch roles" alongside being able to keep dps up will replace ranged physicals as it stands.

If BLU turned into a viable lvl 80 job as it is now, then ranged physical as a role will be phased out immediately, like what happened on ShB launch with double blackmage.
The only way you can balance BLU is by taking out the utility, and turning it into a normal caster, which I say "please no".

[ReiMakoto]

Sure but it's not just dps output where BLU shines, it's the utility.
Second Wind, Diamond back, Offguard, Gobskin, Peculiar Light and even the ability to essentially "switch roles" alongside being able to keep dps up will replace ranged physicals as it stands.

If BLU turned into a viable lvl 80 job as it is now, then ranged physical as a role will be phased out immediately, like what happened on ShB launch with double blackmage.
The only way you can balance BLU is by taking out the utility, and turning it into a normal caster, which I say "please no".

Off Guard is just Trick and shares a recast with pec light so with 1 blu in the party wouldnt cause stacking issues. White Wind has been balanced before in other final fantasy games, and as it stands would be quite situational in a current raid environment. There would be little reason to cast gob skin if blu was a dps in the party as it is essentially just a succor and you have a healer for that and the effects dont stack. Diamond Back would be incredibly situational to use in a raid environment unless you were trying to run a solo tank strat, which presents its own quirks and issues. Also you make these declaritive statements about the ranged role being phased out, that would certainly not be the case, like what happened at the start of ShB they would be tuned in such a way they they could not outweigh the 1% dps buff for party diversity/ the limit break penalty, thats just a matter of tuning the numbers, you can't out utility a raid boss in ffxiv due to enrages.

[Payotz]

So your suggestion to a problem is make an entire job built around that problem. . . ? That concerns me...

It's a solution, yes. I don't agree with Square on a lot of things, and I hated the initial BLU implementation at lvl 50, but as it stands now with BLU mage dungeon log and the 100% drop rate of spells on synced content.
It's a fun job that's well implemented to solve a problem. I say that's a success in that front.

Different colors is hardly something I'd call flavor. But let's say it was just for flavor, if that was the case the job could easily condense the flavor spells into a card system and be DF-able and use loads of spells.

I agree, but balance issues still remain. It's gonna be a lot more RNG heavy than DNC, and the reliability of having Moon Flute only pop up in a 1/80 chance is terrible design.
BLU would suck as a final job if it has to contend with crit AND utility RNG. It would literally be an even worse version of Balance Fishing pre pull back in HW.

No it's not fine, because they said the job had to be limited because they wanted to give real spells. The point isn't doing old content hard style, the point was they prevented it from being in content due to balance so then they could balance it anyways.

At this point I think we both have very different desires for the job. You want a god mode job that can essentially Missile raid bosses to death, I want a job I can play synced content with.
I'm not gonna argue with this point.

What you said is hardly true. All the other jobs use their whole kit, or at least if you were playing optimally they would. Some unique exceptions to like a cover ability which has a very narrow use. Also at level 30 you would be spamming one skill still, and if for soem reason you didn't have the good skill at that level you'd be spamming like three spells. Which is a whole combo of a normal job, ah yes, the 1 2 3 combo the pinnacle of other job's mechanical gameplay (/s).

Yeah, and their whole kit is lacking compared to a BLU spellbook.
At least BLU Healer you have an opener aside from Glare - Glare - Glare - Glare - Glare.

The level 50 to 50 comparison is absolutely a good comparison, a level 50 job has more mechanical gameplay than a level 50 blue mage that hasn't done PF content. A level 50 job that hasn't done it's job quest STILL has more mechanical gameplay value than blue mage that hasn't done PF. A PF kitted blue is mechanically similar to a regular job (though the power level is obviously different).

That's obviously not true at all.
Are you having fun throwing just throwing Shurikens with one Mudra?
Are you having fun with a Warrior who's essentially a Marauder with no InnerBeast?
I'd argue that Overworld BLU might be the same amount of fun as a job quest less class, but saying that the job quest less class is more fun is obviously not true, and is hyperbolic.

DPS blue is less mechanically interesting than a normal job, healer blue is only so well touted because the normal healers had their damage rotations gutted- if they hadn;t of done that healer blue would also be less valued than a regular healer. Tank blue is just pure bad, agreed.
I'll give you healer blue but only because what they did in ShB made a lot of healers feel it's too simple / boring, and blue mage here has all of it's damage spells still. It, as many healers argue, shouldn't be this way. Though I personally think one healer being simple is good for players who need/want the simple life, yet for the rest there should either be changes or a new job that meets that desire.

DPS BLU being less mechanically interesting is something I'm leaning towards to but the very fact that BLU has 3 playstyles is a big plus for me essentially makes the job as whole a lot more mechanically interesting for me.

Hard disagree, that the game needed this blue. Agree that it's a grind.

It's subjective. I won't argue with you at this point. I already said that the game needs something to do, so that's there.

Also hard disagree, even though the jobs are trimmed they have all their buff windows, ogcd, interworking combo/utility kit, the normal jobs are STILL more mechnically interesting than a full kitted blue. You've got a buff window in blue, ooo... that's been in the regular jobs since like level 20.

A single job that can function both as a healer, a tank and a dps combined is a lot more interseting than a WHM spamming Glare or the MNK having the same gameplay from ARR to ShB.
Yeah man let's just press this button the moment it's on cooldown.

Oh yeah man let's just press Delirium so I can press Fell Cleave DRK edition.
Oh yeah man let's just press Requiescat so I can press Fell Cleave _long range_ edition.
Oh yeah man let's just click Inner Release so I can press Fell Cleave Original edition.

I do somewhat agree on DPS BLU, but on the job as a whole, nah. It functions a lot better than synced down jobs.

First I never asked to gut the healers so I don't know what cute sort of protest you're trying to do there but it doesn't apply to me. If anything you'd be opposite of wrong since not only do I want blue to have more complicated mechanics but I also spent time to suggest a damage based healer.

Second obviously the kit would have to change if it became DF-able.. so I'm not going to even comment on what it can do. Although there are many options on how to do that change, some even leaving alone the limited side, like having a set of skills that have a balanced "df" variant, though that's hardly the only option.

I know you didn't said to gut healers, but if the people who "balanced healers" are the ones who's in charge of "balancing BLU for DF content", then honestly I wouldn't want to play BLU again.
If BLU's gonna be gutted to fit the mold of a "DF-able job" then I vote against it.

If BLU's gonna be "DF-able" with its current kit, then I'll also vote against it.

Off Guard is just Trick and shares a recast with pec light so with 1 blu in the party wouldnt cause stacking issues.

It's another Trick Attack with no "LB generation" disadvantages. Of course that's gonna be good.

White Wind has been balanced before in other final fantasy games, and as it stands would be quite situational in a current raid environment.

Which will gut the skill. I'm not up for that stuff.

There would be little reason to cast gob skin if blu was a dps in the party as it is essentially just a succor and you have a healer for that and the effects dont stack

Extra mitigation in a double regen comp will not be turned down by any party.

Diamond Back would be incredibly situational to use in a raid environment unless you were trying to run a solo tank strat, which presents its own quirks and issues.

Diamond back is an extra immunity for the party. That's really big for prog especially.

Also you make these declaritive statements about the ranged role being phased out, that would certainly not be the case, like what happened at the start of ShB they would be tuned in such a way they they could not outweigh the 1% dps buff for party diversity/ the limit break penalty, thats just a matter of tuning the numbers, you can't out utility a raid boss in ffxiv due to enrages.

Sure Farms and Clears would probably not gonna be affected as severely as Prog parties are, but it's perfectly reasonable to consider current BLU broken in terms of what utility it gives out, especially during Prog.

And BLU would literally need to be gutted DPS wise to account for its utility OR BLU will need to have its Utility gutted in order to be DF-able; something I don't agree with.

One thing I could be in favor of is to have the job not generate LB at all for the party, but that's really debatable in implementation.

Off topic: I'm going to go ahead and come back to this conversation later. I'm slacking too much at work.

[ReiMakoto]

Snip

No ones asking for limited jobs to be removed here fyi, so a dungeonable version would not be "gutted" as much as balanced whist the limit aspect remains for those who enjoy that.

Yes another trick wouldnt be a problem, buff stacking has existed as long as the game has

Again with "gutting". Im of the fairly controversial take of white wind would not be broken in raids (provided they put in something to account for health snapshotting) because it would almost always be more beneficial to have another healer cover the damage outside of niche settings, however I dont think a more balanced white wind would be "gutting" it either, pld and rdm and war all have access to fairly potent heals too.

Double Regen comp isn't used for prog often, and if its farm then you wouldnt make a dps waste gcds on shielding for the healers when one could just play noct

Diamondback isnt an immunity, and actually wouldnt work on a lot of the tank busters that happen these days, like stone crusher ect due to them dealing literally millions of damage if you dont swap/immunity, and unless youre wasting further gcds on froglegs and such there are very few mechanics that can be invulned without taking aggro that can't also be done with a shielded mnk if you're so determined.

Personally im fine with blu being the lowest dps in the game if it meant i could raid on it, but utility tax needn't be that harsh, you also seem to have a very loose definition of "gutted", a lot of blu's stuff could work well in a slightly nerfed setting, which wouldnt take away from the jobs identity just by the nature of them being nerfed, and if you wanted the un nerfed versions just play limited content, again we are not advocating for the removal of that.

[Payotz]

No ones asking for limited jobs to be removed here fyi, so a dungeonable version would not be "gutted" as much as balanced whist the limit aspect remains for those who enjoy that.

That's actually a great idea. If there's two versions of BLU, the current BLU and a balanced BLU, and both versions of the job are actually well supported, then I'm up for that.
But with SE's track record, I doubt that both will actually get the same amount of support, and eventually the current BLU or the dungeon BLU will be cut out of the game.

. Im of the fairly controversial take of white wind would not be broken in raids (provided they put in something to account for health snapshotting) because it would almost always be more beneficial to have another healer cover the damage outside of niche settings, however I dont think a more balanced white wind would be "gutting" it either, pld and rdm and war all have access to fairly potent heals too.

By gutting White Wind, I'm thinking it would turn into a Curing Waltz which you can't really spam anymore, or turn it into something that's so inconsequential like Phoenix regen.
I don't have much trust in SE that they're not gonna just turn its potency to something dumb like 80 pot, and make it a fluff skill.

And I fully believe that if they're gonna gut White Wind, they're gonna change every single BLU utility spell into something else entirely:

D.back into a Shade Shift, Manaward type of ability.
Gobskin as a 180 second 10% mitigation.
Moon flute into Raging Strikes.
BadBreath into an AoE DoT that shares a cooldown with Song of Torment
and possibly more...

or be cut because it won't be balanced or it has nothing to do with DPS BLU:

Aetherial Mimicry
Lvl 5 Death
Doom
Revenge Blast
Self Destruct
Final Sting
Launcher
Missile
4- tonze Weight
Mighty Guard
Tail Screw
Pom Cure
Exuviation (this would honestly be pretty useful for TEA tbh)
Condensed Libra (because there's no more elemental types)
Devour
Cactguard

and possibly more...


This is pretty much the main reason why I don't want BLU to be reworked into a "DF-able job", they'll literally have no choice but to rework the job to fit the mold into something else,
and I don't trust the dev team to NOT cut 50-70% of the spells just for the job to fit the DF mold and getting rid of the other two roles available to the job.

BLU's fun as it is now. I'd rather have them expand on current BLU and keep its variety rather than have it neutered into the Caster version of DNC.

[ReiMakoto]

Snip

I literally don't think white wind would need to be gutted (except maybe an mp cost increase), it would be such a situational heal in savage that 90% of the time there would be a more efficient way to heal the party/spend rescources, as when the party needs healing, blu wont have enough health to make the heal worth it over a healer covering the damage.

DBacks usage case would be situational enough with such a large dps cost that again maybe with a mana cost increase it wouldnt be busted

I already explained why gobskin is fine, it doesnt stack with ast/sch shields, so would only be useful in untraditional comps and is a dps loss

Moon flute already works into blus rotation as it is it does need changing IF they cut the self destruct skills (which are the only skills i think should be cut)

Bad breath already has a dps cost for what it provides (damage down) at an extreme end Id say give a cd or damage reduction (maybe)

Onto the rest of the list-
Aetherial Mimicry- Only makes sense for limited content and the dps mimicry buff is actually just arbitrarily over powered as hell
Lvl 5 Death- Reduce the kill percentage to 25% chance instead of 90%, it already has a 5 min cd and only works on trash/adds, killing 1/4 enemies in trash is powerful but not broken
Revenge Blast- Would never see use outside of extreme niches of parse runs the healers arn't going to leave you specifically on low enough health to use it well
Doom/Missle ect. I actually dont think these are problem skills at all 90% of the the time it only works on trash, and the 10% of the times its either adds that have a 10s lifespan, or rarely minibosses. To "balance" it add a line that for "powerful foes" chance of hitting is halved, statistically that means it would on average take as long to kill the boss with doom as it would to just kill it normally.
Already Spoke about doom/self destruct
4 Tonze Weight- Isn't overpowered, like at all, its actually pretty bad so i dont see the issue
Mighty Guard- There is almost no situation where you would want a blu tank over a regular tank, MG is the equivalent of old titan egi, and we all saw how much use that got.
Pom Cure- Ver Cure/ clemency say hi, we know how much they're used
Exuviate- Selenes AOE cleanse was removed from the game because it was so situational it never got used, just cos it would get milage in TEA doesnt mean it would be good
Condensed Libra- This skill is actually terrible, If only 1 person will benefit from it its a dps loss, and in the context of BLU raiding its a very tiny dps increase for the main tank (in the realms of 300-500 potency every 30s)
Devour- Skill isnt broken, no idea why you would cut it
Cactguard- Would never be used, wasting a gcd for mitigation the tank doesnt need

50-70% of blus skills are repeats/ useless skills anyway so they are already "cut" in the sense that theyres no reason you should use it, I'll add one more spell to your list however: Rams Voice would have to have the freeze duration nerfed to WHM holy levels, which I don't see as an issue personally as having a dps version of whm holy would be sick.

[Shougun]

That's actually a great idea. If there's two versions of BLU, the current BLU and a balanced BLU, and both versions of the job are actually well supported, then I'm up for that.
But with SE's track record, I doubt that both will actually get the same amount of support, and eventually the current BLU or the dungeon BLU will be cut out of the game.

This is what quite a few of us have leaned to pretty quickly on, which is funny because I imagine few to none of us talked to each other but a lot of ideas became like lightning rods.

Though I do want to add, there are a lot of potential variants- just certain concepts poke through more than others. With an often point being almost none of the people who want more from blue are looking for less, in that sense that people are not trying to destroy things they're trying to add.

It's a solution, yes. I don't agree with Square on a lot of things, and I hated the initial BLU implementation at lvl 50, but as it stands now with BLU mage dungeon log and the 100% drop rate of spells on synced content.
It's a fun job that's well implemented to solve a problem. I say that's a success in that front.



I agree, but balance issues still remain. It's gonna be a lot more RNG heavy than DNC, and the reliability of having Moon Flute only pop up in a 1/80 chance is terrible design.
BLU would suck as a final job if it has to contend with crit AND utility RNG. It would literally be an even worse version of Balance Fishing pre pull back in HW.



At this point I think we both have very different desires for the job. You want a god mode job that can essentially Missile raid bosses to death, I want a job I can play synced content with.
I'm not gonna argue with this point.



Yeah, and their whole kit is lacking compared to a BLU spellbook.
At least BLU Healer you have an opener aside from Glare - Glare - Glare - Glare - Glare.



That's obviously not true at all.
Are you having fun throwing just throwing Shurikens with one Mudra?
Are you having fun with a Warrior who's essentially a Marauder with no InnerBeast?
I'd argue that Overworld BLU might be the same amount of fun as a job quest less class, but saying that the job quest less class is more fun is obviously not true, and is hyperbolic.



DPS BLU being less mechanically interesting is something I'm leaning towards to but the very fact that BLU has 3 playstyles is a big plus for me essentially makes the job as whole a lot more mechanically interesting for me.



It's subjective. I won't argue with you at this point. I already said that the game needs something to do, so that's there.



A single job that can function both as a healer, a tank and a dps combined is a lot more interseting than a WHM spamming Glare or the MNK having the same gameplay from ARR to ShB.
Yeah man let's just press this button the moment it's on cooldown.

Oh yeah man let's just press Delirium so I can press Fell Cleave DRK edition.
Oh yeah man let's just press Requiescat so I can press Fell Cleave _long range_ edition.
Oh yeah man let's just click Inner Release so I can press Fell Cleave Original edition.

I do somewhat agree on DPS BLU, but on the job as a whole, nah. It functions a lot better than synced down jobs.



I know you didn't said to gut healers, but if the people who "balanced healers" are the ones who's in charge of "balancing BLU for DF content", then honestly I wouldn't want to play BLU again.
If BLU's gonna be gutted to fit the mold of a "DF-able job" then I vote against it.

If BLU's gonna be "DF-able" with its current kit, then I'll also vote against it.


It's another Trick Attack with no "LB generation" disadvantages. Of course that's gonna be good.


Which will gut the skill. I'm not up for that stuff.


Extra mitigation in a double regen comp will not be turned down by any party.



Diamond back is an extra immunity for the party. That's really big for prog especially.



Sure Farms and Clears would probably not gonna be affected as severely as Prog parties are, but it's perfectly reasonable to consider current BLU broken in terms of what utility it gives out, especially during Prog.

And BLU would literally need to be gutted DPS wise to account for its utility OR BLU will need to have its Utility gutted in order to be DF-able; something I don't agree with.

One thing I could be in favor of is to have the job not generate LB at all for the party, but that's really debatable in implementation.

Off topic: I'm going to go ahead and come back to this conversation later. I'm slacking too much at work.

Very clear in some ways we just have an entirely different world view so I'll try not to line by line reply as we could just be butting heads forever but I can perhaps cover something that seems like you might not have heard from some of us "..what did you do to blue... why.." people lol.

For example you mention mudra one spamming but to me that example misses that NIN has an entire other part of their kit.

Yes they have 1 spell at lower levels on Mudra but they still have their combos and buffs and such. If you tally all their 1 2 3, mudra, ogcd, utility, buffs, their kit is far more than just one spell- at level 30, meanwhile for the vast majority of players BLU, if playing optimally, is going to be 1 to 3 spells tops. The peak of BLU (that is not SYNCED to level 30, but is actually level 30) is going to be at best a 1 2 3 combo, which is far less than any regular job in terms of mechanical interest. Now of course you can say "but blue can sync back to 30 with their WHOLE KIT" and so if you do that with just solo spells it's still pretty much worse than regular ninja at 30 in terms of mechanical variety of value; however, with PF exclusive skills you would certainly get a very comparable selection of activities, but my retort to that is imagine a level 60 NIN (to make it equal to blue) going back with it's whole kit to 30- this would put it back on par with blue.

Blue gets points for like "oh at least it's more fun than healer" because of flaws in the core game, how about healers, or at least one healer, is made to be more interesting when you don't need to cure? Rather than blue being cool for something that seems like it just shows why healers have problems. Let's solve that. Or you mention the problem like kit of a level 80 ninja synced down to 30 is kinda boring and at least a level 60 blue down to 30 gets their whole bar, what if we found a way to make lower level content more exciting again? One of the things I thought might work is syncing down your abilities, so you lose no skills, and of course you'll have a slight power gain but because the skills have a potency sync on them it'll be at least a bit balanced (say for example the curve is like income tax where at certain brackets it'll be balanced down multiple times, so an 800 potency spell is still strong but hits for like 375, meanwhile the strongest skill native to that level bracket is like 300). Heck they could detect if there are synced down players like that and increase loot but also give the bosses a slight hp boost, because old content is already pretty cake- if you die fine you get echo lol.

Although these comments are also made in the light that quite a few of us, Rei and myself included at least, would think both limited and normal would be great. I've seen some people call it unlimited although I'm preference to advanced as it throws back to tactics and FFXI, with that aspect that they're a bit off and have different requirements. On a more personal note I would have even been fine with god solo blue, with preference to a normal blue.. but.. at least I'd have valued god solo, but that's just a personal level. The reason why I'd value it (god blue, even if it was 'just' limited) is because then I could readily solo any old content that cannot be normally solo'd due to mechanics that are not designed for one person, blue getting spells that just flip off those mechanics- allowing me to farm things that are pretty much dead without having to rely on groups that hardly ever form- that would have been value (also potentially doing it in a bigger smoother style, since you'd get the more ridiculous spell options like vacuuming in people for a big combo). However tying blue mage to content that hardly ever forms, so I can hardly ever form my blue mage, in a way that I'd have to wait/and do it slower and worse than if I had just unsynced it. . . no value, to me on a personal level (does what I could already do worse than I already can, and as mentioned if they wanted to do that sort of content I strongly believe they could have done it better and they didn't even have to use blue like for example using magitek content instead). Clearly a subjective thing though.

Ideally both over just one lol. So an order of preference being like: Normal + God Blue, Normal + Limited blue like we have, Normal, God Blue, anything else (I mean limited current blue provides no value, to me,- so it doesn't make the list in a list of desire, personally, and has cost a content I would have really liked to enjoy). Of course not everything has to be made for one person, like I've no interest in Ultimate but I think it's neat that it exists, the difference of course that while ultimate may delay content I'd prefer it doesn't really cost opportunity of content while blue mage is directly a loss because blue mage itself was the interest and now it's made disinterestingly. Subjective statement of course, but to show the difference from say people getting content that doesn't really fit a desired play style but whatever because many play the game, to content you had really wanted to enjoy and just don't- different experience, different setting, one is fine because you can just wait for your 'turn' and natural the other just feels like bummer, like dreams dashed on rocks. Made worse because I think even if they had to dash a dream they could have dashed it better with more panache and interesting content yet even then even they didn't 'have to' use blue mage they could have designed a different content (like custom magitek battle mechs), to make what they were going for.

As for your line about me wanting blue mage to spam missile with god like capacity, yes and no. Mostly no but also.. yes to the god part. "What the ...thal are you talking about?" lol, if you've not played Diablo 3 then I guess my example might have not been as obvious, but personally I felt limited blue would have been far more interesting designed as a series of abilities and general mechanics that play off of each other in a modular format, with some additional interlacing mechanics, such that you are actively from level 1 to level 80 building and rebuilding new and unique kits. Yes I want missile to be OP, in the limited format, but no I PERSONALLY (this is obviously where some blue players might disagree) don't think you should be spamming one spell non-stop. I think one spam spell is just bad design. So for example I might either put a unique charge mechanic to missile or add it to a overarching mechanical system that the blue mage builds to use. Both of which I've given a spin for ideas. (So yes a godly solo job would have been valued, no I didn't want to be it a one spell wonder as that sounds boring).

For example in one I used Fire Angon, a spell that tosses a spear at location dealing damage in an aoe and leaving the spear at location to then burst fire at interval which makes a stack debuff (a pretty cool skill the monster uses, obviously not what we learn). I imagined the skill for our blue mage being one that when you cast fire spells the fire spear erupted, meaning players for this spell would think about building fire element (and other spells would be uniquely designed to not be, ideally, 1 and spam). Further to get that element the boss had of tossing multiple spears your spear would have 1 charge that it would refresh once used on a cooldown; however, you could build more spears by using other spells (I left this part vague because there's lots of concepts, but I suggested things like not the element fire, or ancient blue magic (ancient blue magic being the OP stuff I wanted to be ' O P ' but not spammable because that's kind of boring)). So here you could toss down four fire spears, rain fire in all manners, like flamethrower having multiple ticks each causing an eruption, just ifrit incarnate- but you'd have to build for that AND that would not be the only interaction, there would be loads of intertwining modular concepts making each new spell to blue mage's kit be like gaining a new legendary card in your trading card game (another way I describe what I felt blue mage should have built with in mind, legendary diablo 3 affix, legendary trading card game aspects).

So yes I think solo limited should have been god like but only because you made insane combos from your spells, and not because you spammed doom. The later is honestly in my opinion kind of lame, and true currently for a lot of the leveling experience to blue, and even true in some of the PF content as well (missile spam, etc). Although of course after getting many PF exclusive spells you'll have a much closer to a normal (albeit a little bit looser on balanced) job, yet I feel what a loss it is for it being limited- why I'm not building crazy wombo combos if it has to be limited and why is it mostly linear progression? Obviously I just find the whole thing rather frustrating, lol.

I also, while personally not caring to enjoy old content hard again, wanted to think of a way to ensure god solo blue could be done that way if people so wished by allowing blue mages to use a sort of self difficulty system. Where if they used this magical chain concept (I thought in general blue mage stone should be double sides, limited being unchained, normal being fully chained) that you could gain special benefits to the dungeon at the cost of your power. So for example you could go with four other blue mages in old content everyone synced down with half their power, but unique kits that interweave with each other like you imagine from D3 legendary affixes or a complex card deck, and because of this sacrifice in power they get like double items on chests and 20% shift to rarer items (items that have a lower chance to drop become more likely and those common become less). Other options too of course like special item rewards at the end you can spend at a token shop.

Anyway just want to make sure you know that quite a few "what have you done to blue?" people are not entirely into killing the limited part, and especially myself wants blue to be more complex and thoughtful than "now that I've got 200 aoe potency all my 130 aoe potency spells are trash". This spell clearly replaces that spell is an experience I find a bit sad for it being limited, and I'd had thought it better if people were racking their brain in making game changing decisions that make them rethink and rebuild because of a new spell (and not because the carnival demands x y z and you'll fail without exactly those exact spells).

For limited I'd love it that as many spells as possible make you think "hang on, can I redesign my entire kit off of this? can I play an entirely different way? I've been using fire elemental build with cores of fire angon with ifrit enhancements for a while, but I just found out that with the pressure build up from water cannon with the extended pressure potential of whirl and the relationship of judgement bolt and water bubbles that I can.. oh my.. oh my, NEW BUILD". As currently yes you'll want to try a new spell when you get it, the novelty of using a monster spell, but hardly does it ever make a new build except for two occasions either 1) you need THAT BUILD for carnival because that's the gimmick or 2) it's clearly superior so you replace that old stuff because it's now useless. To add I also liked in FFXI you could make passives with certain combos (not forced on but made available, and can be socketed in place) and I think you could have loads of fun with that here, even wild stuff (in limited format) like gaining the undead or lich passive that makes you heal from certain damage spells and take damage from certain heal spells. Just because, and because who knows what madness you'll be able to come up with.

And to add for the Diablo 3 example if the trading card legendary example didn't help, in that game say for example you've this skill to jump around, nice movement skill, then you've another cool aoe damage stun spell, suddenly you get this piece of armor that lets you jump three times, then another that casts your aoe spell at your feet for free, then another item that gives you energy when you cast your aoe spell, then you get armor that gives you health when you spend, and.. and.. and... then.. you can see how mechanics that were fun by themselves suddenly become an entirely different new type of fun. The game begging you to break it, but then it's ready to be broken- so like here you need to break it so you could solo savage bosses at equal level, but you could if built your kits right (and it wouldn't take 30 minutes either, a reasonably farmable amount of time, once you get your kit right for the content). This is how I wanted blue mage to be god, as I said certainly not by spamming on skill- as I do think they should exist but they also should be some sort of reward / built in mechanically to other systems. Like you build up your ancient magic meter for your finale move (keeping to carnival theme), which could be like doom at 100% chance when you're in your limited form (but this build up would take longer than just trash between two bosses, so you couldn't just doom every single boss in every single dungeon one after another pressing 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1).

Also to note blue wouldn't be allowed to do current content in limited format (basically anything that isn't the expansion you're currently on, so if you own ShB you could limited anything previous of ShB once you enter or maybe even finish ShB). And again to note the balanced (chained, DF-side) would share some mechanical through put so it isn't like night and day two entirely different jobs with only a vague theme similar BUT the DF side would have a balanced and extremely tightly made gameplay loop to make it both compelling and fair- and you could even include some of the ancient magic like doom (so a spell that might be both limited and unlimited, chained and unchained), like here it could kill any trash monster at 50% hp or less or deal 800 potency and add doomed debuff that increases blue mage damage for the next x seconds (long cooldown, the 50% part never applying to boss fights, even boss trash). While it carries the similar spirit of doom obviously, everyone agrees, that a lot of spells can't be just like their monster counterpart in balanced content- but honestly this could be said about a lot of job spells in single player FF rpgs too (like where is my reflect on white mage? lol). So it should be expected for that to happen for all jobs, blue is no exception to that rule "but but they have to be exactly like the monster spells else it's not blue!" someone might say- well you tell me what SE did to fire angon and angel whisper then lol cause they're not like their classics so clearly that's not even true.