SE, the concept of "Limited Jobs" is a really bad idea, turn back now

[Reinha]

If the devs realise the job being overpowered in these areas warrants a nerf, and that such nerfs are evidently possible, regardless of the need to maintain the job's concept, then why not balance it so it can be properly integrated into the rest of the game? That way, Blue Mage players will be able to enjoy the rest of the game's content playing the job they like and the job can be properly balanced, as the devs evidently have the intention of doing regardless of its limited status being removed. The argument that the job is unbalance without improperly infringing on its core concept doesn't hold up when the devs are still patching it to be less op.

Well said. Either nerf it or keep it separate from the rest of the game, but doing both is so devoid of logic I don't even know what the point of the job is.

Noting that there is potential for "Blue Mage-only PVP content," he [Yoshida] explains that using "powerful blue magic" is what makes the class so interesting, and given that it "breaks the balance of the game," it wouldn't be feasible to allow raid participation (he clarifies there are "no plans" for that). He also explains that certain abilities (like Level 5 Death) would have to be removed entirely.

Jfc. So they can make fate bosses immune to this stuff but for raid bosses the only solution is to delete the skill? What?

[ADVSS]

Well said. Either nerf it or keep it separate from the rest of the game, but doing both is so devoid of logic I don't even know what the point of the job is.


Jfc. So they can make fate bosses immune to this stuff but for raid bosses the only solution is to delete the skill? What?

It isnt even FATE bosses, almost everything is immune to missile, in the Carnival Even. Tailscrew seems to have 1% success rate and a total waste, forget Death or Doom or Petrify, none of those abilities are reliable most of the time, and exploder/final sting give a 10 minute debuff timer...Add to that most spells have a 200 to 220 potency and i see nothing really broken or overpowered with the job at all besides "gasp" status debuffs, that barely work past level 50....That being said, for them to actively nerf the abilities does make very little sense in the long run, because regardless of what they say about it, they are actively balancing it as if it was a real job. So I have to agree, that having it 20 levels back is kind of silly, let alone restricting it to its own DF/PF that doesnt allow solo sign ups, is a little cheap I know a long time ago i requested at least be able to do the 50 relic quest and give it like...2 attack power(understandably i have no idea how the damage is really calculated for BLU but im guessing a 1 to 5 point jump would reflect a significant power boost that would match a BLM at that level). I dont really see why for a solo content limited job, that we couldnt at least get a semi powerful weapon for that ilevel and level range since most of the relic quests pre 70 are basically solo content.

[Raikai]

I think BLU could work for both kinds of content tbh with the same number of spells.

1) The "OP" spells like Doom wouldn't work on bosses to begin with
2) They just had to create a job resource system to match the others
4) It would be the first 3 in 1 job, when you could apply for a different role based on your aetherial mimicry (also make it easier to change)
5) In order to unlock a certain role in the group finder, you'd have to get a specific list of spells
6) Since Blue Magic has so many identical spells (same potency) it would also be the 1st job to allow you to customize your combat visuals

[TeraTyrantShadic]

Blue Mage can work in both content, but not only do they have to balance the kit to fit in the normal game. They have to balance Masked carnival and to be honest there is multiple solutions for masked carnival and you really don't need Level 5 Death, Tail screw or any of these OP spells to even clear it. Hell I don't even rely on it and I got my Perfect Run on stage 25 and stage 30 without them mainly cause they don't work. But its that many will think SE will remove the exclusive content related to Blue Mage. I'll go through each of these content and explain to you why they will not remove it.

Dungeons
It's part of the game even before Blue Mage or Limited Job was a thing. Removing either of em will not affect dungeons thus it will not affect Blue Mage because it is still content needed for normal jobs and duty finder roulette.

Raids/Bosses
Always has been here even before Blue Mage or Limited Job. Again if you remove Blue Mage or Limited Job nothing will happen they are safe. Fun fact these fights were not optimized for a full Blue Mage Party. Try A12S, guarantee after Alex's tank buster his auto will kill you. Sometimes it wont but it is random depending on how fast your DPS is. A8S Brute Justice you all given yourselves roles, but here is the kicker it isn't a Color (Normal) Role, but a Atherial mimicry role. Meaning when Brute Justice does its Verdict and Final Judgement mechanic (Final Phase) the debuffs will be given out randomly because everyone is classified as DPS role. Thankfully if you fail the first round, the second round you'll get the same debuff meaning you'll know it when it comes the second time. However it still shows the fight wasn't adjust for Limited Job or Blue Mage at all. Hence you'll lose nothing of value, because none of these trials and raids were adjusted for Blue Mage or any other Limited Job.

Achievements and Rewards
The rewards? You can earn them with alliance seals, basically through weekly and daily ARR hunts if you don't include Masked Carnival, Weekly Masked Carnival Objectives, Blue Mage Log, Weekly Blue Mage Log objectives. If Blue Mage and Limited Job were to be removed the items that aren't related to Blue Mage or Limited Job will be moved to the Allied Seals turn in NPC while items related to Blue Mage or Limited Job will be removed entirely from the game itself. Same applies to achievements it'll be gone, if you remove Blue Mage.

Masked Carnival
This exclusive content I can understand why some don't want to lose it. Yes it is a nice side puzzle content with nice rewards, but let me tell you something... you won't lose it. Mainly cause it is a solo instance meaning you only just need to adjust it if Blue Mage becomes a normal job. You just need to adjust the ideal time of the stages and stats of each mob in each stages to fit the new Blue Mage Kit (Which can still be the same that being able to customize your spell), which means that it doesn't affect anything overall. A solo instance can be like your story instance, I mean now we have Normal, Easy and Very Easy mode for these Job (2.0 - 4.0)/Role (5.0) Story and Main Story quests after you fail once. So Masked Carnival will not be removed however it'll be adjusted.

Blue Mage Stays, Limited Job System Goes
As I have stated countless of times...

Blue Mage Content ≠ Limited Job System

If you just make it a normal job, everything will still be there because Blue Mage Log, Achievements, Blue Mage Alliance seals reward and Spells are reliant on 100% on the base game, not limited job. You may think Masked Carnival is reliant on Limited Job, but actually it isn't. It requires you to be a Blue Mage and the NPC says it so "Celestium Attendant: The Masked Carnivale─the series of arena events specifically for the demonstration of blue magic─is, unsurprisingly, only open to practitioners of said discipline. But you knew that already, did you not?". If it were Limited Job it would stated it be vague about it. Even if we have Puppetmaster as a Limited Job (I hope to god not), then it would not specifically mention Blue Magic at all. In other words, Limited Job is not even related to Masked Carnival and the content itself is not even related to Limited Job. To be very clear...

Masked Carnival ≠ Limited Job System

It doesn't need the limited job system, it can easily applied to it even when Blue Mage is a normal job and you would still have this precious side content that you love. Masked Carnival is an idea worth investing into, but it has 0 relation to Limited Job System. Stop trying to say it is, it is not related in any way what so ever. Even if Blue Mage was a Normal Job, It is in no way related to the Normal Job system, rather to the Job itself. You know like ocean fishing, where only FSH can participate in it and not BTN or MIN. IT IS BASICALLY THAT, MASKED CARNIVAL IS THE EQUIVALENT OF OCEAN FISHING in a sense that it is exclusive to one job/class.

I get it it will be a balancing nightmare, but think this through. Yes they have to balance it to fit the normal game, but really you just need to swap the balancing priorities over. Normal Game play > Masked Carnival this is because Masked Carnival was designed to be like a puzzle and I know some only have 1 solution, but there are a few out there that could be solved in more than 1 way. Not just that but it is a SOLO instance meaning it's not going to affect anything but Blue Mage, so if Blue Mage has a normal kit (which would be with spell customization) and is to be balanced to fit into the game as a normal job. All they have to do is tweak the fight in Masked Carnival to be able to fit the new Blue Mage which isn't that hard. However there was such an incident back in Heavensward, remember A1-4S? Remember many quitted during that time? Remember they made a patch to quickly fix the savage to make it more easier for many? It ain't the same with Masked Carnival cause you really don't have to rush it and thus the priority of it will be very low compared to raid content.

Limited Job System, A waste of money and time
What has this system ever do? Restrictions to almost all content requiring you to queue with random party members, and capping you at a specific level. If Limited Job wasn't there and Blue Mage applied normally you'll still have everything just balanced in a way to fit the whole game and not just one part of it. So I'll say it again, it doesn't provide anything. The fact that people say it provides creativity? Just drop it, it doesn't. This is mainly because it still has to apply itself to some of the content not controlled by queue times like FATEs and Hunts. Not just that but the rules of overworld content has already been applied to many final bosses of the dungeons and raid bosses. Spell book isn't a creative idea, it is one of the core aspects of a Blue Mage to be able to swap or pick and choose spells and abilities. Another Core aspect is the Learning trait, it is not a Blue Mage if it cannot learn monster abilities and use them. Not just that but where is the job gauge? We don't have it cause we only got them in Stormblood expansion meaning Blue Mage right now is in 3.0 phase.

So, I'll make a prediction if they release it at a level 70 cap and there is no job gauge then it just proves my point as it only ever promotes lazy, half-done ideas to put it out there just to please and silence the masses. If they release it at level 70 with a job gauge, then it opens up the question of why didn't you bring it in normally as a normal job in the first place? Granted, we can assume there some financial problems during its Level 50 release considering they have to release Eureka, Omega Savage and Blue Mage all in 4.5 patch. Gonna assume Omega Savage mainly took most of the budget compared to Eureka and Blue Mage or maybe both Eureka and Omega took most of it. Who knows. But back on point its a lose lose situation for them. So if they wanna keep a positive review they would rather just not work on it at all, but they have and really after they added the new stuff it still doesn't justify it to it being a Limited Job rather it just says we are working on Blue Mage. So Blue Mage is worked on but not Limited Job. which again goes to show it is a waste of money and time on this system as a whole, bring it normally and be done with it. Hell they have time for a Monk Rework but not a Blue Mage Rework? I mean I get it because it ain't a new expansion and all that and remembering how ninja was introduced back in ARR like in the middle of raid it disrupted the raiding scene, I get it. But that just means next expansion is has to be a Normal Job that can participate in all content normally (Story Quests & instances, Deep Dungeon, Squadron, Trusts and New Game +) and has the same level cap as the other jobs.

To summarize, everything Blue Mage isn't Limited Job related, when you look as it is it may seem so. But imagine it in a scenario where it is a normal job or it has a second Limited Job. Believe me both of those scenarios I will just say you don't even need the Limited Job system and it is not related to Blue Mage's Exclusive content whatsoever. It just proves it is a trash system and it isn't worth investing in it and even if you make it able to participate it Normally and cap at the same level cap as the normal jobs. It is the same as Normal Job system if you do that. So stop trying to justify that Limited Job is the end all solution for Blue Mage, it isn't. You can still have Blue Mage as it is but balanced as a Normal Job and you still can have the ability to switch spells.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

It isnt even FATE bosses, almost everything is immune to missile, in the Carnival Even. Tailscrew seems to have 1% success rate and a total waste, forget Death or Doom or Petrify, none of those abilities are reliable most of the time, and exploder/final sting give a 10 minute debuff timer...Add to that most spells have a 200 to 220 potency and i see nothing really broken or overpowered with the job at all besides "gasp" status debuffs, that barely work past level 50....That being said, for them to actively nerf the abilities does make very little sense in the long run, because regardless of what they say about it, they are actively balancing it as if it was a real job. So I have to agree, that having it 20 levels back is kind of silly, let alone restricting it to its own DF/PF that doesnt allow solo sign ups, is a little cheap I know a long time ago i requested at least be able to do the 50 relic quest and give it like...2 attack power(understandably i have no idea how the damage is really calculated for BLU but im guessing a 1 to 5 point jump would reflect a significant power boost that would match a BLM at that level). I dont really see why for a solo content limited job, that we couldnt at least get a semi powerful weapon for that ilevel and level range since most of the relic quests pre 70 are basically solo content.

I dunno. I'd say Blue Mage is fairly powerful considering how they can consistently skip over entire portions of a boss fight. That said, it does feel like there are a lot of limitations in place, and I can understand how that can feel disappointing. I recall personally never using Doom again after I had to cast it about eight times on an enemy 30+ levels lower than me before it went off successfully, when I could've killed it in that same amount of time in a quarter as many casts.

[TeraTyrantShadic]

I dunno. I'd say Blue Mage is fairly powerful considering how they can consistently skip over entire portions of a boss fight. That said, it does feel like there are a lot of limitations in place, and I can understand how that can feel disappointing. I recall personally never using Doom again after I had to cast it about eight times on an enemy 30+ levels lower than me before it went off successfully, when I could've killed it in that same amount of time in a quarter as many casts.

If you're talking about a an All Blue Mage Party composition I can understand as they can easily skip large portions of Bahamut mechanics, but sometimes with Alexander. However in a normal composition things will still be the same and maybe if the team members are good, they can skip a phase.

[JiSH]

It also sets a dangerous precedent where great job concepts might get shoved into the Limited category, a category that nobody wanted. What about Puppetmaster? Beastmaster? Dancer? Suddenly we don't know if we'll ever get a working FFXIV version of interesting jobs from previous games. If you want to have unique leveling experience and skill acquiring mechanics, that sounds like a great idea, but please make sure all the jobs can be used in regular battle content.

Limited Jobs are a terrible concept. Please, reconsider. I'm saying this now so that we don't have another disaster like the current White Mage Lily system, a problem that was called out before Stormblood launch but has remained an issue with no solutions throughout the whole expansion.

This. With the Limited Jobs concept it really sets out that there might be another Limited Jobs in the future, Blue Mage being a limited job is already bad enough for all the Blue Mages fans out there, personally i don't want my favorite jobs to be a limited one, i want to be able to play them with my other friends in Raids, which i my go to content in the game.

I just hope they change, or even just delete the system overall, if we can have a "normal job" Blue Mage, we can also have Puppetmaster and Beastmaster, i really just hope they don't make Corsair into a limited job lol

[omeganova45]

I haven't even finished doing Blue Mage but I just gave up at level 15 because I really don't want to invest time in something that not only I can't play with normally but also the developers going out of their way making most of the spells I saw on the wiki that you get them from Dungeons, Trials and Raids and I because I couldn't even queue it normally in Duty Finder I really can't be bothered investing time into not only a broken system but also forcing me to try and only kill mobs to quickly level. It is just slow and I doubt I even want to play it now if the only way of leveling is through killing mobs. I really like the idea the process of leveling it is a pain and hearing people leveling it through with a friend just means it is flawed. Please SE make it a normal job.

[Allegor]

I haven't even finished doing Blue Mage but I just gave up at level 15 because I really don't want to invest time in something that not only I can't play with normally but also the developers going out of their way making most of the spells I saw on the wiki that you get them from Dungeons, Trials and Raids and I because I couldn't even queue it normally in Duty Finder I really can't be bothered investing time into not only a broken system but also forcing me to try and only kill mobs to quickly level. It is just slow and I doubt I even want to play it now if the only way of leveling is through killing mobs. I really like the idea the process of leveling it is a pain and hearing people leveling it through with a friend just means it is flawed. Please SE make it a normal job.

That's the BLU paradox - it's a solo oriented, "OP" job that can't actually do jack **** by itself.

[omeganova45]

That's the BLU paradox - it's a solo oriented, "OP" job that can't actually do jack **** by itself.

So then they should just made it available in normal content then, because at this point why should I invest in something that is not going to give me anything of value in the long term? I heard the rewards are using the alliance seal and considering I have been doing my hunts weekly (Mainly the B ranks) I could have just easily spent my alliances seals on the rewards without participating in this Masked Carnival or Blue Mage content at all, though I have to unlock at 60 don't I?