Beastmaster - Limited Job - Melee/Ranged/Gatherer Hybrid

[Bright-Flower]

I don't have a link, but remember Yoshi going in depth during an interview on how BLU came to be. He mentioned how the job went through different drafts and versions, but ultimately these were scrapped in favor of a different route.

It's possible some of these were absorbed into current BLU. I doubt any of the earlier drafts resulted in much, but who knows.

I recall there being a leak around the time pre 4.4 I think, that seemed like it was too accurate to be entirely coincidental, but still off enough that it seemed to have either outdated information, or indirect information where they had to make some guesses.

It said crystal tower would be a big part of 5.0 opening a portal, which was half right. It said gunblader (tentative name) tank and dancer healer. Blue mage melee support dps.

Called something similar to ronso. Minfilia coming back.

Adam and eve as end boss of Omega.

It could have all been lucky guesses, but a lot of it feels like the leaker had access to prior itterations of stuff that was all changed before the final version, getting too close on multiple areas to be coincidence. IF the leaks were real, that might suggest they had different itterations on many things including blue mage as a full job and dancer as a healer before they settled on the final versions of things.

[Claire_Pendragon]

IF the leaks were real

They said a LOT more than just that. including letting players know the MSQ would allow you to (spoilers) play as alphy, way in advance, and was leaking way before this patch too.

SB was meant to have Tank, DPS, and Healer, like HW. They were running out of time after SAM, and had little time to finish RDM, much less BLU. Based on how EVERY DPS job in the game has a primary gimmick/gauge thats a timer ticking down, RDM would be the 1st DPS to play more like a healer, than a DPS. Which suggests RDM was intended to be the healer, before they said F it, and made it DPS to get it out in time for SB. BLU was originally the tank, but made into a melee DPS/utility, to try and get it out in a patch. (It had no real healing ability, and had a tank stance. its heal is based on dmg it took, which is further proof it was intended to be the tank of the 3 before SB release, and redesign to utility melee DPS.)
What's not said by the leaker, is at some point they decided to make tanks/healers over simplified. Which most likely is why DNC became a DPS. (Wonder why the dancing mechanic has a burst effect as it ends, rather than just a strong buff? if it were a healer, and had to stop acting for a few seconds, this would be a good way to refund the lost time, with a potent aoe heal/dps. wonder why the quest line involves healing? wonder why the animations come off very "heal"ish? wonder why DNC is ranged? (obviously cant have a melee healer, the SOLE reason ppl asked for DNC healer in the 1st place lol..)etc.) this leads into the next bit (speculation)
BLU had a melee weapon as a melee DPS (and originally tank) what was that weapon? What happened to all those animations he said were finished? (one of the hardest parts of making BLU, and what he said was taking so long. it wasnt spell animations, those were mostly done before the change to caster) they repurposed them into a new job. *cough* GNB *cough* (theres more to support this, but wont go into the detail.)
now obviously as yoshida says an employee suggested the idea of limited BLU to him, but the detail he left out is... obviously they suggested this to him, to not waste some of the work they already made. this is most likely why they thought a limited job was worth trying. and why they gave half truths in the reveal. they were trying to hide what happened to the job, and why it was made limited. but also thought it was better than not having BLU at all.

[Shougun]

now obviously as yoshida says an employee suggested the idea of limited BLU to him, but the detail he left out is... obviously they suggested this to him, to not waste some of the work they already made. this is most likely why they thought a limited job was worth trying. and why they gave half truths in the reveal. they were trying to hide what happened to the job, and why it was made limited. but also thought it was better than not having BLU at all.

To add some historical context, in the ARR beta (long time ago), Yoshida had made comment that blue mage he was thinking would be a mini-game like side content where you hunt down a large collection of spells via a book of spells, and so for a very long time Blue Mage was being viewed as a job that wouldn't be a normal job. The word limited job, iirc, was not used but the description lines up fairly well to what was said long ago. Similar time they also determined that for Fisher.