Blue mage shouldnt be "Limited"

[ForteNightshade]

White wind at full health yes, but anywhere below 50%, not worth it. its cost is too great to use often. Diamond backs cost is 3000 MP and lasts 10 seconds(No mp recover when active). It only reduces your damage taken by 90%. Now insta kill mechanics cannot be dodged or ignored. With that in mind all of the tanks CD's are better that diamond back for those reasons. I mean gunbreaker is invincible for 10 seconds AND can move freely. Quite the difference there. Diamond back does NOT allow you to skip mechanics unless you are over geared (Just as other jobs could) Now Aetherial Mimicry (Mimics a targets role: DPS gets 20% crit chance, healer adds additional effects to some healing skills, tank adds some damage reduction) is a solid point but blue mage cannot out heal or out tank a normal healer or tank (Just as most casters can dos and heal.) Diamond back is not spammable(3000 cost with no MP recovery when active), mighty guard, cactguard and even aetherial mimicry cannot make up for an actual tank class since tanks get significantly more health and have more tank skills. Ive seen it all too much where a member in a blue farming group had to swap to an ACTUAL healer or tank (Synced) because blue cannot do what those roles do best. Also what is stopping a blue mage as entering a dungeon as a tank or healer? well as a DPS class, why would you queue as a tank? You dont get a fast queue, and you dont do the job that well and if they did queue as such then that is just as bad as healers or tanks queueing and saying "I am DPSing." (Happens often)

I want to put some things into perspective for you because your assessments grossly underestimate how utterly broken Blue Mage would be in regular content.

A Caster at level 80 with 50% HP will still heal for substantially more than any actual healer is capable of. 90% damage reduction is more than tank LB3. This effectively makes it the equivalent of a tank invulnerability. So yes, it does allow you to skip mechanics because their damage is made laughable. To emphasis this point, there is literally nothing E12S can do to damage a Blue Mage tank/heal combo. She simply doesn't deal remotely enough damage or have any mechanics that would be threatening. A full Blue Mage would be laughably overpowered to the point of rendering every other job complete obsolete.

[Hank_Hotspur]

I think the more important part of keeping Blue Mages similar to how they were in previous FF games was to make them actually usable in the main game rather than a side thing. While earning spells from enemies has been a staple, no way would the job become beloved if you couldn't use it in dungeons or story quests from FFV on. Right now, FFXIV Blue Mage is more like the Gold Saucer, Triple Triad, Tetra Master, Blitzball, or any of the other side content from a normal FF game rather than a job: it's something you do as a side distraction before getting back to the meat and potatoes main game offers.

We've come to understand that MMO conventions mean things from regular FF games must be altered. I love Red Mages in the other games as a jack of all trades, but they wouldn't fit into the role paradigms of this game, so it was changed. I like Red Mage in FFXIV very much, making it a caster with a melee combo and some token white magic utility spells was a very pragmatic adaptation. So why is it that every other job is subjected to some form of alteration to fit the MMO gameplay but it would just be too unreasonable for Blue Mages to undergo the same?

[ItMe]

I would say story, current expansion and dungeons are important since its over a third if not half of the game.

The story is important, yes.
What job you watch cutscenes as... I feel that's less so.

Dungeons are important, and BLU not only has access to dungeons but also a unique ways to interact with them. Yay.

The current expansion is lovely, and BLU will have access to it's content soon enough. Being able to use BLU in content while it's current would be nice, but meh. YMMV. Some care some don't.

Again, they said:

your not really actually going (or rather you cant) actually use it for anything important.

(Which they appear to have edited out of their post)
And I guess we just define "important" differently.

[P0W3RK1D]

The story is important, yes.
What job you watch cutscenes as... I feel that's less so.

Your argument is strawman-city dude.
You dont just play in cutscenes, (some of which are epic btw) , but you also have action segments where you atucally PLAY YOUR CHARACTER.

Dungeons are important, and BLU not only has access to dungeons but also a unique ways to interact with them. Yay.

of course we can enter dungeons, EVERYONE can, but Blue mages are the only ones who are forced to premake their parties instead of using duty finder (not to mention were currently 10 lvs under everyone else, so we cant even do current dngs). And what do you mean by "unique ways to interact with them?" what unique ways?

The current expansion is lovely, and BLU will have access to it's content soon enough. Being able to use BLU in content while it's current would be nice, but meh. YMMV. Some care some don't.

As a JOB blue mages should be able to do CURRENT content. Who wants to content that is 10-20 levels UNDER what everyone else have? they would have no use for the gear, the magic of doing it for the first time (often through the storyline) would be depleated, while everyone is rerunning trials, going through side-stories, and doing late-game events like maps, fates and others you would be effectivley locked out of the content, and if not directly hard-locked youd would would be under leveled, under geared and useless.
You dont seem to care about BLU much, but I know there are a lot of people who do care, and would like to actually do something relevant with the job.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I think the more important part of keeping Blue Mages similar to how they were in previous FF games was to make them actually usable in the main game rather than a side thing.

The Blue Mage has always been a "side thing." In every game in which Blue Magic has appeared almost all of it has been backtracking for bonus gimmick content job rather than an on content job. The primary way to learn most Blue Magic spells in the majority of games is to go back to earlier areas, often after you have gained access to the "Control" command, and deduce how to get them to use their Blue Magics.

While earning spells from enemies has been a staple, no way would the job become beloved if you couldn't use it in dungeons or story quests from FFV on.

I doubt that. The collecting spells was something you did before completing the Disc-One, Disc-Two, Very Definite, and/or Bonus Dungeons not while you were progressing through the game. Heck, FFV added an additional version of Blue Mage (Necromancer) gained only after completing the Bonus Dungeon and beating the Super Boss. FFVI required that one of it's three Blue Mages (Gau) return to a specific over world area after you completed content in order to collect his variation of Blue Magic (Rages).

You dont seem to care about BLU much, but I know there are a lot of people who do care, and would like to actually do something relevant with the job.

Blue Mage has always been about warping standard gameplay and going back through irrelevant content to break it harder.

[P0W3RK1D]

Blue Mage has always been about warping standard gameplay and going back through irrelevant content to break it harder.

But even then Blue Mages could still play and fight on the same level and content as every other class, the devs didnt put in a content or level lock, keeping you from venturing in the overworld with the blue mage in your party, and blue mage could still fight and progress on the same level as everyone else.

[Raikai]

I think the more important part of keeping Blue Mages similar to how they were in previous FF games was to make them actually usable in the main game rather than a side thing. While earning spells from enemies has been a staple, no way would the job become beloved if you couldn't use it in dungeons or story quests from FFV on. Right now, FFXIV Blue Mage is more like the Gold Saucer, Triple Triad, Tetra Master, Blitzball, or any of the other side content from a normal FF game rather than a job: it's something you do as a side distraction before getting back to the meat and potatoes main game offers.

We've come to understand that MMO conventions mean things from regular FF games must be altered. I love Red Mages in the other games as a jack of all trades, but they wouldn't fit into the role paradigms of this game, so it was changed. I like Red Mage in FFXIV very much, making it a caster with a melee combo and some token white magic utility spells was a very pragmatic adaptation. So why is it that every other job is subjected to some form of alteration to fit the MMO gameplay but it would just be too unreasonable for Blue Mages to undergo the same?

I think it is possible. For example, if you give Blue Mages different roles (tank, melee, healer, caster), you'd still have enough spells slots to fill the whole, or nearly the whole, spellbook as it is now... And role unlock would be tied into certain spell unlocks. And the spells would be properly balanced around the role and the "1 hit KO" spells cooldown and enemy invulnerability already make them extremely niche anyway. There are ways to implement the flavor of spell collectability with it being a regular job.

I'd be all for this, but sadly they went into an easier route and made what it is now.. The damage is already done, and I honestly don't see they re-creating the job from zero to implement such a thing, because that would be like creating a new job.

Said that, I do enjoy Blu for what it is today, but the limitations behind the limited job defnitely need more love, because there are a lot of potential there and so much more that could've been given.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

If BLU was going to be made a full job, it would not behave like it does now. You will learn your spells through job quests and via level up (the job quests acting like, oh, you see this enemy use this ability, you learn it). It would be stuck as a caster DPS and so you would lose alot of utility, such as pom cure, gobskin, white wind, diamond back etc. It would have a rotation you can build to optimise damage, which will be dictated by the spells you learn from level up/job quests etc.

The problem is, you have two choices. You either make it a full job, in which case, you lose all the versatility the job has and make it just like any other caster with a rotation

Losing the utility for it to become a real job would be a blessing. All Blue Mage is right now is a laughable joke. Spend the first week of the Blue Mage patch leveling it and learning the spells and then never touch it until there's another Blue Mage patch that is completed within the first week.

I do not find "Lol, I can spam missile and deathdoomwhitewindallmyhealthback" at all enjoyable or even funny. Blue Mage is, at least for the first 5 days until there is nothing left to do on it but laugh at the "job" for existing, more enjoyable when it acts like a real DPS with a real rotation.

This is Final Fantasy 14 a FF game where Red Mage is, in it's current iteration, primarily a caster and has far more offensive magic than it does healing magic. Blue Mage could absolutely become a real job and keep the "using monster actions" identity. White Wind could just become some AoE healing cooldown, it doesn't have to be a flat healing spell or ability. Doom could easily just become a cooldown that acts like MCH's Wildfire or it could become something like Ninja's Trick Attack. Most of the castable dps spells Blue Mage learns right now are spells with the same potency but different shapes and different colors.

You could easily keep Blue Mage's "customization", if it even has any now with some extremely powerful primal cooldowns being almost mandatory for savage raiding with blue, as well as certain actions like Aetherial Mimicry (you may as well not even play Blue Mage if you don't have Aetherial Mimicry) and healing actions like Pom Cure, by having a predetermined spell and ability list learned through leveling and job quests, you already learn some spells you've never seen a monster use through whalaqee totems. The customization would then come from attaining max level, you'd be able to learn spells from an assortment of monsters that aren't needed but are just different shapes and colors. Ifrit's Eruption would be learned at lvl 20 through a job quest and can be swapped out for Garuda's Feather rain when you reach lvl 50 and learn it yourself, they both do the same damage anyway just different looks. Same with Shock Strike and Mountain Buster, same potency different looks.

[ItMe]

Your argument is strawman-city dude.

I will never cease to be amazed by how often people on this forum love to pretend they know what this means.

You think going through the story as your job is important.
I think going through the story is important, and the job you do it as is a very minor and hardly relevant detail.

what do you mean by "unique ways to interact with them?" what unique ways?

You learn spells? You have a whole system that no other job has?
BLU is, as Ultimatecalibur said, "about warping standard gameplay and going back through irrelevant content to break it harder."

Who wants to content that is 10-20 levels UNDER what everyone else have?

I regularly do content from previous expacs. I have not exhausted all that the game has to offer, and even if I had some may find that BLU being a novel way to revisit old content has value in and of itself.

[Keramory]

Honestly I'm okay with nerfing Blu to what it needs to be, to be a real class and participate with everything else. Got it to 60 in a day which was cool (and a little messed up) and then it was just spell grind. And that's all you really do. Make Blu parties to spell grind. That and blow through alliance duties for relic. Which if anything is another reason to nerf blu anyways. People near demanding blu only alliances to get through them quicker to farm. That goes against Yoshi's dev policy of trying to limit job demands for content anyways.

That and everyone expected a caster for the newest dps job and surprised (maybe a little upset) it's going to a melee slot. Make Blu a proper caster in regular content and bam, win.