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

[TeraTyrantShadic]

Then you may as well say it should be a normal job. Like I have said countless times in previous posts, Limited Job is a system and if we move Blue Mage over to the Normal Job nothing will be lost. Limited Job is a system that is like the Normal Job system but with restrictions, to let it queue in DF you may as well make it a normal job and balance it.

Yes, there are preconceptions of Blue Mage but the key thing about what makes a Blue Mage is that they learn spells from monsters and have a wide variety of it. There is nothing whatsoever of it being an overpowered job, there is however saying the job is versatile in any given situation. So if they omitted or nerf some of the spells (Like throughout 5-11 FFs they did it and rarely anyone complains about that), let it have the ability to change its role at a certain level (Preferably at 60/70), make it a normal job. Then we got ourselves a Normal Job Blue Mage, cause at the end of the day Limited Job provides nothing and gives nothing. Blue Mage provides something and give us filler content (Which dies in 1/2 weeks).

It is like Fisher and Ocean Fishing, got all the achievement and fishes in ocean fishing? Then wait for the new patch for it to update (Which is happening in 5.4) except it is like 1 per expansion. Blue Mage has gotten two updates this expansion, which I understand in SB they only had enough patch for one update, but the fact of the matter is that they did two updates for this expansion which means something big might be coming for Blue Mage, and it may be in 6.0. I'll say it before and I'll say it again it can work as a normal job, the simplified answer is that they need to focus on giving it a job gauge and from there balancing Blue Mage will be a lot easier (Possibly). If in 5.4 they are saying they are planning something big, then I can assume they are planning on making it a normal job in 6.0 while 5.4 is the make it or break it point for them to experiment with Blue Mage right now. Level 70/Stormblood expansion is when Job Gauges was first introduced into FFXIV, so finger crossed they bring in a Job Gauge for them cause then it can finally become a normal job in 6.0.

[Shougun]

Both Angel Whisper and Fire Angon are nerfed Auryan, neither need squinting to see that (Angel Whisper being the worst raise in the game and the worst Angel Whisper in the FF series). Similarly many status effect spells have lower chances and had more enemies made immune (I never got to ignore petrify as much as my enemies), yet you still spam on targets that do work (both balanced and boring mechanics combined - what a win . . .). Some of our buffs are not quite as like the monster counterpart. Brush with death was also a nerf but I wasn't even thinking of that.

If the point was true blue original spells they didn't do that. They balanced job for group play, after saying they didn't want to balance the job for group play.

It's true some balance could make more interesting combos, but I would argue their current design hardly successfully facilitated that (with the trinity forced there is little in the way of builds and a lot of useless spells and mechanics and in general low quality mechanics if you don't collect many party exclusive spells). If they were to balance but wanted it to be crazy for the full wildness of blue and most exciting game play while not worrying about any party issues then they failed, it still relies on party and the combinations are relatively tame so they can put it into their PF. If they were to balance it for party content then they then removed it from party content.. so they could offer majority useless spells and many spells that could work in DF balanced (bad breath would be fine), then again I would say they messed up. If they were going to make of exclusive party finder content I would say their communication failed and they chose the wrong design base (another limited job would have been smoother). I believe they were doing the last one, PF exclusive- manipulating true blue whenever it messes with their PF goal.

Your comment on accessibility is hard to take seriously as well since pretty much every major blue suggestion I've seen would make blue easier to pick up and available for more content. Current blue is the least accessible with entire core mechanics forced to the whim of the servers PF. Having to do a simple quest isn't inaccessible. Having to pray a group of people will be available to get a core spell on a job that has limited purpose and they have no reason to help you if they already have or don't want to do that content- that's inaccessible. Solo quests being considered inaccessible. . In comparison to forced PF on limited desire content. .? . . Most inaccessible blue is the one we have now.

[ItMe]

If in 5.4 they are saying they are planning something big, then I can assume they are planning on making it a normal job in 6.0

Assumptions are a good way to court disappointment.
Speculating on this is fine, but I'd caution against getting my hopes up, especially when they've given us no indication they have any interest in making it a full job.

[Ravenblade1979]

Didnt they also mention in passing they could make it a regular job but would need to do alot of tweaks to the class to balance it for content.

[ItMe]

That's very interesting. Thay could be huge.
Can you give us a source for that?

[Auryan]

-snip-

What? So BLU is only BLU if it's 1:1 with all of the series' spells? You can see why I didn't assume that was what you meant since my comment assumed you were being reasonable. BLU exists within XIV and isn't here to blow things apart. I don't know why a lot of people here gravitate to the idea that BLU should either be God-mode or a "normal" job.

Depends on what they meant by group play. Seeing as 4.5 BLU encouraged people to get spells together (at least the non-primal ones) and that is clearly group oriented. Perhaps they meant in the context of balanced, end-game like current Savage and Ultimate. They certainly wouldn't want BLU messing the delicate balance there. That is also backed up by them saying BLU's cap wouldn't match with the current expansion.

My comment about accessibility was in context of standard jobs. Standard jobs are designed to be as welcoming and easy to pick up by anybody. BLU isn't one, it's a limited job. They want as many people to pick it up, play it and collect spells/complete the achievements, but treat it as side content that it is.

[MaraD_]

The example you used as RDM by way of SMN/SCH isn't just a question of flavor, it's a much more impactful gameplay decision that requires a lot of balance. RDM having Vercure that nods to its supportive roots in the series is different than having a separate job crystal that is a full-on healer.

I know it would require that amount of balance/effort, but they already did that with SMN/SCH. I also meant RDM in place of them. As in, we pretend SCH/SMN were never made, but RDM was released with 2.0 as the "healer/caster job". All effort into making a shield healer and DoT caster, were instead put into how to make a dual cast Vercure healer, and a dual Cast Ver"nuke" caster.
Honestly take the current DPS RDM for the caster, and then pretty much remove some of the kit for the Healer version, while slapping on your emergency heals. Lastly, what seems to be the most obvious additional feature, is to add a "trait" to lower MP cost on heals. (5.0 healer builds were made more simplistic, so this type of RDM would never be allowed to exist)
If they werent trying to balance SMN/SCH, they would put all that same effort into RDMs black/white builds instead. (And SCH/SMN wouldnt have to be tied to the same class, allowing for those 2 jobs to be closer to their original flavors w/o causing issues with the base class they share)

Also "Good enough" is literally every single job in the game. There is no job in the game that carries over 100% of prior elements, that add to its historical flavor.
Every single healer who remembers casting raise on undead, at least tried to see if they could cast raise on undead. And every single one of them thought "This probably wont work... but imma try anyways!"
Not a single person said "They ruined the fantasy of being a WHM!"

This applies to BLU. Getting actions that enemies use, w/e the method may be, is the core "good enough" feature. If you want to be more accurate to FF5, you make them melee casters who have to get hit by the spell, and have a 100% chance of learning it. For some people, this would be "even closer" to what they consider "true bluemage".
At no point, does any sane person say "Its just not bluemage, unless I can instant ko every boss in the game". Just as being a WHM with holy magic is "good enough" and being able to instant KO undead isnt what most people consider "Its not WHM unless it can instant KO every undead boss"

Lastly, the MOST jack of all trades role in the game (both offensive and defensive) in Stormblood, and prior, were tanks. Tanks could have potent self heals, potent AoE and reasonable single target nukes, along with potent/effective control/buffs/debuffs. So I disagree with the idea that jack of all trades cant be in the game, unless youre idea of jack of all trades has to be able to be healer, tank, melee dps, ranged dps, and caster dps. (which is a whole different argument to make, since old FFs werent designed to function that same way, nor BLUs)

[Shougun]

What? So BLU is only BLU if it's 1:1 with all of the series' spells? You can see why I didn't assume that was what you meant since my comment assumed you were being reasonable. BLU exists within XIV and isn't here to blow things apart. I don't know why a lot of people here gravitate to the idea that BLU should either be God-mode or a "normal" job.

Depends on what they meant by group play. Seeing as 4.5 BLU encouraged people to get spells together (at least the non-primal ones) and that is clearly group oriented. Perhaps they meant in the context of balanced, end-game like current Savage and Ultimate. They certainly wouldn't want BLU messing the delicate balance there. That is also backed up by them saying BLU's cap wouldn't match with the current expansion.

My comment about accessibility was in context of standard jobs. Standard jobs are designed to be as welcoming and easy to pick up by anybody. BLU isn't one, it's a limited job. They want as many people to pick it up, play it and collect spells/complete the achievements, but treat it as side content that it is.

You say they did what they did so they can make it original to the monster spells and then when they don't and I call out on it. You can see how I don't think you're reasonable either.


Either the reason was for true blue, or it wasn't. You claim it was because original spells, and I said they didn't do that in a number of situations. The reason to make it PF exclusive side content, sure (I've always claimed this was their actual goal, even if they said other things that seemed contrary) but for true blue is only partially there when it's convient. It's not a good fall back because they disregard it when it is inconvient and then use it as an excuse when it is. Feels dishonest.


Also fire angon isn't a reference to another game, it's to this game. Ours is a simple potency aoe, the monster's is far more interesting.

To put it another way:

Why isn't BLU in the DF? "because we wanted to make it true blue, with the original classic spells! We need to disregard balance to do this" (basically what SE said, and you're backing up)
Why are these spells not classic to their identity and or the game itself? "because we wanted to balance the job for party content so it would make sense and not be too OP" (basically what SE has done, and you said "so what if it's not the original from a classic" or "they did that change so it wouldn't be so spammy").
Okay so if you're willing to balance the job for party content why can't we have blue in DF? "Because we want the classic blue mage spells and they can't be balanced"
Why don't we have them as the classics are then? "because of balance"

Can't have the job due to balance so we'll make the job and balance it. Freaking glorious lol.

..... My responses to this that are polite are limited. Especially as many of Blue Mage's spells are absolutely balance able, all of the primal spells, all of the aoe potency colors, bad breath, and the strange ones like doom are a few tweaks away from being already balanced (since they work on almost no bosses anyways, give it an HG cooldown with some sort of damage up debuff on bosses, now you can use it on one trash for like the whole dungeon or you can use it on a boss and that's hardly trying to think, but no somehow "hardly works on bosses, and the things it does work on you'll probably have to cast it 10 times in a row cause that's cool for some reason" is better).

Or we get "it's not true blue if it doesn't have a kit", when that's only one game in the series of blue mages. Or it's not true blue if it doesn't have a huge list of spells, when every nearly single job in this game that was with blue had an equally long skill list OR longer.

Ultimately my point on this isn't that it has to be DF or god blue, but that the current blue has been sold and designed poorly, delivered with inaccurate and usually incorrect information, and that the design itself is not that good either. If it was limited fine it should be better designed, and if it would be normal then awesome because I'd have liked that.

Inaccurate information like what Razard was referencing SE said why they did what they did (he's not incorrect they said why they did it, just saying what they did and then what they did right after is wrong). "We did this so it didn't have issues with party content". Well obviously they forced the job into party content. Also funny to note is PF is always the more organized party content. DF is where you get loads of people who missed their job quests or don't even have jobs. If there was any place to have a mess of a job it would honestly be DF exclusive not PF (as that's how DF works anyways, with people coming in with broken gear and more). In pf they have stronger issues of not having x y z spell, unlike DF where someone not doing something right is a regular Tuesday. That said I wouldn't suggest to design blue like that, easy enough to make all jobs do their job quests. With blue mage leveling faster they can spend that extra time on getting their spells instead. But even if you argued that people should go incomplete if they want the place to that would be done is DF lol. PF will expect more from you.



Every reason for blue mage that they've given and I've read from you or others is then immediately countered by the design of the job itself. The only thing that holds true without logical issue is "we made it this way because we wanted blue mage to be PF exclusive and side content" anything else is a flimsy excuse that's not even followed through. Blue mage has to have a kit, lies, blue mage spells like bad breath cant work in DF (it's basically holy from white mage), lies, blue mage was made to be true and has all the classics and will have original spells (to this or other games, both are untrue), lies, etc, etc.

Blue mage was made to be side content and designed primarily for PF exclusive progression - truth. I agree, but I also think that was a misuse of blue mage and something could have fit better there (like magitek operator / gears / gundam like content). Even if it had to be of exclusive limited side content, I still think they could have done much better.

As for what I'd like to see, just to be clear since I occasionally diverge from the standard 'make it normal' (though I'd be happy if that came true) and am more "this wasn't well made and your reasons are horribly inconsistent":

A) Limited blue is made with disregard of any and all party content - and is now honestly and actually designed primarily for solo play, it is looked at from the ground up to ensure that the progression and mechanical fun is present from start to finish. The kit concept is massively emphasized with new mechanics interworking between multiple spells, no spell is purposefully made to be useless and each one should ideally feel exciting to get on it's own and when considered in a group of spells (this sometimes being hard to achieve but the goal for every spell). A lot of influence is made from games like Diablo 3 or Hades (games that have achieved this concept). The job would be used primarily for players to farm and enjoy old content they would be unable to do otherwise (because it's dead, you'd naturally be prevented from doing content too recent). There may be mechanics that make PF still fun like willingly nerfing your powerlevel to gain extra bonus items or something, but it would not be considered something you had or should need to do for any other reason than you had wanted to (job does not rely on the concept in the slightest). The purpose for blue mage is primarily designed to be solo content to help facilitate the progression of old content and allow players a casual way to progress things that are old, while also giving players a wildly diverse and exciting list of skills generated from the monsters of this and other games. A thoughtfully packed and consistently rewarding system where each new spell may generate a new way to approach your build or a new build.

B) Limited is left alone (no or few changes made to limited); however, normal job is also added. Normal job will help the limited side in a number of it's deficiencies, like if you can't get certain skills for limited you can do it via DF. Limited will help DF blue by getting some skills that might be hard to get otherwise. Together both help each other out, limited maintains being mostly a PF/side thing- limited blue mage is stated as much. "limited is to be a side content, used in PF, and facilitate the growth of blue mage DF".

C) A + B, limited is changed to be primarily solo focused, making progression DF blue exceptionally reasonable and one of the most easily accessible jobs in the game. THE accessible job.

In all three, or even an option I'd not want, they should re-present and ensure that it represents their design philosophy of blue mage because currently it's swiss cheese in terms of logic that they presented (if you consider it only as a side content, then it's not certainly, but they said way more than just it's side content).

outside of Blue-

- Make some other entirely new concept for PF exclusive ideas, like magitek operator. With the different type of progression it'll be more reasonable to come in late, and yet primarily be driven by party play. It's new and weird concept allowing it to avoid standard build concepts but also not be expected to be a normal job.
- May also consider something like archelogy as a limited job, non-combat non-crafting/gathering focused job, perhaps partnered with chocobo hot and cold content.

[Auryan]

-gish gallop in written form-

I haven't suggested any of that. I don't appreciate people putting words in my mouth. Not once have I said that the spells should be a direct copy of the enemies learned from. And for a very obvious reason: it'd be impractical. Using your Fire Angon example. The spell is a boss mechanic that spawns adds that pulsates fire damage. Can you imagine that in a group setting where they're littered all over the place?
I'd be ridiculous to assume all of the spells would have literal game breaking properties, so I'm not going down that rabbit hole. Feel free if you want to.

And I'm so not interested in your theory crafting. But good on ya.

[Shougun]

I haven't suggested any of that. I don't appreciate people putting words in my mouth. Not once have I said that the spells should be a direct copy of the enemies learned from. And for a very obvious reason: it'd be impractical. Using your Fire Angon example. The spell is a boss mechanic that spawns adds that pulsates fire damage. Can you imagine that in a group setting where they're littered all over the place?
I'd be ridiculous to assume all of the spells would have literal game breaking properties, so I'm not going down that rabbit hole. Feel free if you want to.

And I'm so not interested in your theory crafting. But good on ya.

Nice (Edit: read next page, leaving for history, but next page adds some nice context)

"It's for true blue!" Followed by "I'm not interested in having spells that directly do what the monster's spells do due to balance".


Incredible. Now I understand true blue is a meaningless word when you use it. If you use it to refer to kit building then you'd still be meaningless since that's just one game and is hardly a core aspect of 'true' blue.


Doesn't need the spell the monster uses, cause that be game breaking you say. Hilarious, same logic people use to want DF blue but then you cry true blue.


Gish gallop is here but is not from me. You've no logical consistency. Learning spells could've been done through solo play, DF, and quests, and by your own words they don't have to be direct monster equivalence if it concerns balance (and will still be 'trueee' blue). Even if you thought it impossible for a blue mage to learn skills you'd still have a DF blue that meets the blue 'magic' logic you've just given me (even if modified they're still blue magic spells). Though I call bull on that it is impossible to have a learning spell DF job (given that they level fast, so that extra time can be spent learning).


You've just used the logic DF players have used, that the spell doesn't have to be exactly alike to be blue magic. Only thing left is you dont think DF blue can learn spells and others do, if they made a DF blue that learned spells despite your lack of ingenuity then it's 'true blue' by the flimsy, and relatively meaningless, word I now know you use.