SUGGESTION: Turn Bluemage into a regular job - Limited Job>Advanced Job (An Approach)

[Shougun]

. . .

They had jobs that took damage in single player games, like Paladin with cover. OR jobs that took abuse better (and so were tanky like, like dragoon was sort of if you got hit by a physical attack or you weren't using jump- which means it was more a bruiser than a tank as it wasn't the focus but something it branched into a little bit).

There is absolutely a way to translate a job's general focus from a single player to multiplayer. Otherwise again you'd consider white mage a tank because it could cast stoneskin and that could tank, so eeehy you can make white mage a tank and white mage has always been 'multi-role' (which is incorrect, white mage has had good damage spells, and some good damage reduction spells, but it's clearly a healer).

Blue Mage had some damage reduction spells but it never had tank status (without FFXI), the damage reduction spells also were not on self but applied to the party / target (like vanish or mighty guard). Blue mage reduced damage via buffs, not by soaking it to the face with superior hp pool. And even if you could reduce damage enough so blue felt tanky like then it meant your actual jobs focused more on taking damage would therefore also feel more tanky (mighty guard on Paladin > mighty guard on blue mage).

You keep bringing up FFXI but even with all 280 spells without the sub job system and flexible gear system blue mage was still very obviously a damage dealer with support skills. Only because of those two systems which we do not have, and are not core parts of blue mage, that you could make something like a main heal blue. Otherwise main heal blue was pretty terrible in comparison to a white mage.

We do not have sub job system. We do not have flexible gear. We only have the main job. Main job blue in FFXI with inflexible gear and no sub job would never be a main heal candidate.

As for your gripe about WoW I am cognizant WoW is not FFXIV, it was to show you a job (druid) that is highly versatile but focused on a specific goal is not main in those other goals just because they're abnormally good at them.

Further the example is pretty good since like FFXI blue WoW druid set to a specific set has high variety but is focused on one task. Until you add weird items and sub job can you switch your druid spec, figuratively speaking. I'm not sure where you're having so much trouble seeing the relationship of changing your kit and gear in FFXI to changing your kit and gear in WoW- literally both jobs have to do this to change their roles. You WILL NEVER be a main healer blue if you left your DD gear and DD kit on in blue. You will also never be a main healer in WoW if you've your tank gear and tank spec on. Changing your spec is akin to changing your sub job, changing your gear is akin to .. changing your gear. The comparison is easy and clear, I've no idea where you could have a hiccup in that.

Blue Mage has abnormally good support, JUST like Summoner and Red Mage, that doesn't make those jobs all three roles at once. Only in games that allowed combinations was blue actually another role. At any moment you couldn't do that then blue wasn't. Blue in the single player games is just like a Druid specced to a specific talent tree, decent at all three tasks but only good at one (this makes them main on only one thing, they're not all three roles all at once). In a general sense I'd say Summoner was better at diversity than Blue Mage since Summoner's tend to be far more consistent (it's going to heal well, not it might so long as your blue doesn't get slapped first, etc).

Similarly FFXI was the first time Blue Mage had kit building, because one game made a new concept doesn't make it the core of the job now. If you take blue mage as a whole cross the FF series blue mage isn't about kit building. It's possible they want to change that though, but speaking generally this isn't required and frankly at this moment seems like a great way to lower the quality of gameplay (because DD blue is only vaguely similar to actual jobs at similar levels in terms of quality mechanics, while say tank is massively worse, and healer seems to be of interest simply because they removed the damage skills from our actual healers- else it would be worse too).

The many reasons that made Blue multi role in FFXI is also what made other jobs multi role too, never before that was blue mage truly multi role. It wasn't blue that did that, it was the gear and sub job system. Other jobs got to multi-role at the benefit of that system too. If you took away those two systems in FFXI, that are not related to blue, then blue cannot multi-role anymore. Like how in the single player games blue was supplemental and istuaional healer / defensive support (via buffs, not actual tanking, unlike some jobs that had the big hp pools).

FFXIV is honestly the first version of blue that can actually multi-role on it's own without help from other systems. Which is fine, to the first point I made to you it's not like they can't do that concept, but when asking for normal I find it irrelevant to having a blue experience for it to also be able to multi-role in normal content. Normal blue that was just a offensive support would be just like the blue mages that existed before it (even FFXI, because without sub jobs and diverse gear which we don't have BLU doesn't get to multi-role, he's offensive support). If it happens (three role normal blue), and is actually fun, cool (though with the state of the system currently I am not impressed with what they achieved and so I have my doubts, only DD role blue gets near a normal job in terms of mechanical quality). If it doesn't happen and they make normal only one role (and limited can be how it is or whatever), then also fine.