Please make Blue Mage a normal job

[RyuDragnier]

We can only have limited amount of active skills now so adding stronger role specific skills might force blue mage to play with it hence they will behave like normal classes in general. Class gauge for blue mage might be the answer so blue cant keep spamming the overpowered skills and need to do some conditions to fill the gauge like other classes.

The only real "class gauge" I feel would work is if they made the elemental weaknesses thing the actual BLU class mechanic. Meaning extra damage for actually using weaknesses and whatnot in normal dungeon/raid/trial/OW content. Example, using the ice/water spells against Ifrit would 1.5x or 2x the damage, fire wouldn't do anything, earth would do normal damage, etc. That makes all the spells much more valuable and gets players to mix up their kits for content simply because they have to in order to optimize damage.

[Cidel]

The only real "class gauge" I feel would work is if they made the elemental weaknesses thing the actual BLU class mechanic. Meaning extra damage for actually using weaknesses and whatnot in normal dungeon/raid/trial/OW content. Example, using the ice/water spells against Ifrit would 1.5x or 2x the damage, fire wouldn't do anything, earth would do normal damage, etc. That makes all the spells much more valuable and gets players to mix up their kits for content simply because they have to in order to optimize damage.

If we're talking about BLU in a hypothetical "normal job" setting, that will never fly. The devs already mentioned a while ago that there's a reason why elemental weakness isn't a thing in the battle system and it stemmed all the way back to ARR. They don't want to functionally be tied to having options of every element be viable just for the sake of creating some "rock-paper-scissors" situations where players/jobs are better equipped than others for certain encounters. It only exists in the Masked Carnival because I suspect the devs needed to validate having so many spells that essentially have the same potency and virtually do the same thing. I remember how annoying it was when there were enemies only weak to Wind-based spells and the only viable option was Garuda's Feather Storm. Eureka sort-of-but-not-really also did this elemental weakness system, and it came across as contrived and forced. All it really accomplished was to punish people inattentive enough to forget to change elements between different types of enemies/FATE bosses.

Forcing BLUs to enter every encounter with certain spell kits in mind just for the sake of creativity is counterintuitive to how the devs have been balancing the battle system and trial fights and is one of the primary reasons BLU is a limited job to begin with. Because you know there would just be a "must-have" skill list for every fight and players lacking these spells or not knowing the correct weaknesses would create too big of a problem. That's literally why the Carnival exists. So the only person you end up inconveniencing is only yourself.

[Tonkra]

The only real "class gauge" I feel would work is if they made the elemental weaknesses thing the actual BLU class mechanic. .

I made a rough basic concept of a BLU with a specific job gauge in an other new thread (link below)

In my approach i made the gauge some kind of opposite of the red mage. Which means he has an own MP ressource which fills up by engaging the enemies in melee combat (like in FFXI) with combo attacks and uses BLU magic for burst damage. (while rdm is doing the opposite) I also divided the BLU spells into different category and spell types. Then made limitations in how many spells he can equip per spell type to give each BLU a minimum mixture of spell types (single damage, support, weaking spells and AOE spells).

Here i made a concept how to make the BLU a regular job in FFXIV's system:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-(An-Approach)

In this concept he is also limited in how often he can use top tier BLU spells in contrast to more "regular" spells to prevent spamming incredibly strong BLU spells and to become too OP (for example making 1000 needles / White Wind self-heal etc. part of a 30 second rotation)

thanks for your thumbs ups and your opinions on that
Its with nice pictures of skill rotations and it is just an example how the devs could appraoch a BLU concept.

[TeraTyrantShadic]

The only real "class gauge" I feel would work is if they made the elemental weaknesses thing the actual BLU class mechanic. Meaning extra damage for actually using weaknesses and whatnot in normal dungeon/raid/trial/OW content. Example, using the ice/water spells against Ifrit would 1.5x or 2x the damage, fire wouldn't do anything, earth would do normal damage, etc. That makes all the spells much more valuable and gets players to mix up their kits for content simply because they have to in order to optimize damage.

That is what I thought at first, however thinking back in ARR we had a elemental stat and materia, nowadays we don't use it and the stats for elemental resistances was removed. Elemental and Type of Physical damage is not the key thing of Blue Mage, it is just a side identity of it allowing it to use almost any sort of attack. However what we can do is that it can be the gauge for controlling the spells. With Tonkra showing his concept for Blue Mage, I'd say he has the right idea on how to make it into a normal job. As mention by Cidel if we do elemental weakness and resistance, we'll have the HW raiding incident all over again where one class (PLD) will be kicked out of party finder just for being that specific class. Duty Finder instances nowadays have to make it so that every class is viable in the raids and there is no favoritism. People can optimize, however even then people can clear as any jobs they want and are not forced to pick a class.

[Jandor]

The only real "class gauge" I feel would work is if they made the elemental weaknesses thing the actual BLU class mechanic. Meaning extra damage for actually using weaknesses and whatnot in normal dungeon/raid/trial/OW content.

I can't see them going and adding elemental weaknesses to everything, but you could make the elements a gameplay thing for BLU while keeping it self-contained. Have the BLU mage channel one element to the other to increase potency or gain secondary effects.

"The spark of Lightning ignites when it strikes, and thus Fire is born. The heat of Fire renders to ash all that it touches, and thus Earth is born." - Essences and Permutations.

Use of a lightning spell makes you 'Fire ready' and increases the potency of your next fire spell, the fire spell makes you 'Earth ready' and so on and so on, till you're all the way around the elemental wheel.

[Alysella]

The only real "class gauge" I feel would work is if they made the elemental weaknesses thing the actual BLU class mechanic. Meaning extra damage for actually using weaknesses and whatnot in normal dungeon/raid/trial/OW content. Example, using the ice/water spells against Ifrit would 1.5x or 2x the damage, fire wouldn't do anything, earth would do normal damage, etc. That makes all the spells much more valuable and gets players to mix up their kits for content simply because they have to in order to optimize damage.

It will be hard for them to add elemental weakness but they might add elemental rotations and potency procs so that its not just 1 skill spam for dps. The class gauge can be something like elemental requirement Like you can use the high potency skills after you use lightning, fire, ice skills etcetera or something like that

[Bright-Flower]

While it's true a full job version of BLU would need some kind of gauge, the elemental focus probably isn't the best idea for them. BLM already has cycling between fire/ice and lightning as a dot having different elements serve different purposes. And RDM has the whole theme of balancing them via the white/black gauge meters. I feel that if BLU was made into a full job it shouldn't tie its identity to the elements in the same way blm and rdm do.

[JiSH]

While it's true a full job version of BLU would need some kind of gauge, the elemental focus probably isn't the best idea for them. BLM already has cycling between fire/ice and lightning as a dot having different elements serve different purposes. And RDM has the whole theme of balancing them via the white/black gauge meters. I feel that if BLU was made into a full job it shouldn't tie its identity to the elements in the same way blm and rdm do.

i thought so too, i think they would fit a "combo" mage concept if they ever make a change to the BLU for the better.
someone made a concept for a "normal job" BLU, you should check it out if you're interested https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...An-Approach%29

[SamsonBlacke]

Blue Mage is fine the way it is.

[Volsungr]

I can't see them going and adding elemental weaknesses to everything, but you could make the elements a gameplay thing for BLU while keeping it self-contained. Have the BLU mage channel one element to the other to increase potency or gain secondary effects.

"The spark of Lightning ignites when it strikes, and thus Fire is born. The heat of Fire renders to ash all that it touches, and thus Earth is born." - Essences and Permutations.

Use of a lightning spell makes you 'Fire ready' and increases the potency of your next fire spell, the fire spell makes you 'Earth ready' and so on and so on, till you're all the way around the elemental wheel.

this is actually a great suggestion. I would like to actually see blue mage become really interesting because it will feels like monk, but casting. you cast one, you change into another 'form' when in monk terms, and from there you can branch to whichever skills we see fit (aoe/single/dots/buff/debuff). pretty neat considering we don't have combo type caster yet while ranged got theirs in heavensward. will definitely be a breeze of fresh air to the raid scene if it got implemented.