Will Beastmaster appear in any Endwalker content patches?

[aveyond-dreams]

Again, could be said of literally any other aspect of the game with exactly equal weight and merit, by which I mean it's still a petty and non-constructive comment. I shouldn't be too shocked to find the high-end raiders in here complaining about how BLU won't enter their lane have similar sentiments about, say, the Ishgard Restoration -- or how they respond to casual players with similar thoughts about Ultimate raids. Just 'cuz it's not made for you doesn't mean nobody wants it or that the devs are wasting their time making it.

Ishgard restoration helped me and many others get into crafting and gathering in record numbers and served as a source for some of the more coveted glamours and mounts this expansion. It is impossible to walk around any major city without running into someone who has not participated in or benefited in some way from the rewards of that content. By all accounts it was a success.

Ultimate and savage raids also provide huge amounts of rewards in the form of glamours, mounts, with varying time investments depending on what fight you're doing. The best thing about these raids is that you can go in as any job and get the things you like. A lot of people do these raids when they are current and once the new expansion drops we will be preoccupied with doing the latest tier of raids.

Then you have midcore content, like Bozja/relics, Extremes, and so on. You could also add deep dungeon into this mix if we had one this expansion, along with the time investment many of us make to level multiple jobs using a variety of methods, which we then proceed to use in new content like raids/msq/Bozja/etc.

So why then would I want a limited job that can *only* do old content I already cleared and gotten the rewards from already? Why should the aesthetic of a naturey beast hunter be co-opted by people who want to turn it into pokemon? Blue mage cannot even do new game plus. It might be good at fates but then they decided to lock out of Eureka of all places. The decisions made for this job are baffling at best and the last thing we need is to take away another classic job with an even more popular aesthetic missing in this game (that is not fulfilled by Bard with all its thematic confusion) and turn it into a pokemon minigame.

7.0 will almost surely have a new scouting job and a ranged/caster. I would much rather them focus on making a full fledged Tamer/Hunter/Ranger that uses hatchets or a crossbow with maybe 1 or 2 pets that work similarly to Bahamut and Phoenix and some single abilities that summon a pet as an animation to do an attack similar to Reaper's avatar. That is the kind of job even the WoL could take on in a trailer and build massive hype for a new expansion. Limited beastmaster though? That *dampens* hype and would probably elicit groans from the audience just like in the infamous 2019 fanfest when failing to read the room got a whole new definition.

It's clear to most of us looking in from the outside that limited jobs have a very limited future ahead of them, and in a game where there is a lot of content competing for our attention, the last thing we want to do is years old content we already beat countless times-especially during the content drought we suffered during the lull between 5.2 and 5.3. A job that is only relevant during moogle events (unless you already have the rewards or get the currency passively doing other things) isn't a job, it's worth less than a free to play gacha limited time summon. We already lost one fan-favorite job, we do not need to lose another. If they want to keep these mini-games as "extra" content-fine-but balance the actual jobs so we can use them in the latest content that we are literally paying for too.



*This* is not a meme job, it is a serious job with an aesthetic that many people enjoy and would gladly make the compromise of less pets than in Octopath in order for the ability to do content with other people. I can totally see female Hrothgar being the postergirl for this. You will never convince the vast majority of people that a standard fantasy trope-the party's "Hunter" is so quirky and special that it can't play with others in content that isn't over 2 years old, if not older.

[Archwizard]

It's clear to most of us looking in from the outside that limited jobs have a very limited future ahead of them, and in a game where there is a lot of content competing for our attention, the last thing we want to do is years old content we already beat countless times-especially during the content drought we suffered during the lull between 5.2 and 5.3.

During content droughts there's nothing for us to do but revisit old content. BLU actually generates some interest in revisiting, which is beneficial to new players and veterans alike -- and gives the devs a buffer so they don't have to rush to put out half-baked content just to beat a drought.

That's the lovely thing: LJ content is optional. It hurts nobody in its existence. If you think you have too much on your plate without it, you don't have to more on. And if you decide you have nothing to do because the game is in a drought, it must mean there isn't too much content "competing for your attention," is there.

7.0 will almost surely have a new scouting job and a ranged/caster. I would much rather them focus on making a full fledged Tamer/Hunter/Ranger that uses hatchets or a crossbow with maybe 1 or 2 pets that work similarly to Bahamut and Phoenix and some single abilities that summon a pet as an animation to do an attack similar to Reaper's avatar.

And if they think that's a plausible avenue to take and manage to follow through, I will certainly not begrudge them for not making a Limited Job. They want a new pet job? They think BST is the best fit? They think it will be different enough from SMN to be worth adding? Awesome, I'm happy for you, hell I'll try it myself.

I'm simply pointing out that Limited Jobs are an avenue for them to continue to represent such jobs in the circumstances that they did not believe they could do so in a full capacity that is unique from an existing job or balanced for current content. Which is why extremely lofty ideals of BST and PUP often come up in these discussions.

There seems to be this disconnect, that the argument for BST is "We need a new, obligatory Limited Job ergo let's sacrifice the concept of a Beastmaster to our new god of cruel and ironic comedy."
In reality the sentiment is "I'd love to see BST, but I feel its potential as a tamer of enemy monsters would be stifled as a full job adhering to current content balance, and that it's a missed opportunity to have it start at level 70+ with a full menagerie of pets over having you at least quest to tame them. So if they're still making a Limited Job... put BST on the list."

Now, if they flip that script instead and make some Pokemon-esque minigame a prerequisite to unlocking BST -- so that you feel you tamed and trained your pets and you have earned their respect to use them on the field of battle -- and it was a full job with a unique and functional pet-focused playstyle, that could satisfy both teams, wouldn't you agree?
Or do you even care, as long as it's not a Limited Job.

If they want to keep these mini-games as "extra" content-fine-but balance the actual jobs so we can use them in the latest content that we are literally paying for too.

And when did Limited Jobs ever provide an obstacle to that?

[jon041065]

Now, if they flip that script instead and make some Pokemon-esque minigame a prerequisite to unlocking BST -- so that you feel you tamed and trained your pets and you have earned their respect to use them on the field of battle -- and it was a full job with a unique and functional pet-focused playstyle, that could satisfy both teams, wouldn't you agree?
Or do you even care, as long as it's not a Limited Job.

I know that there are some on my side of this debate that are straight up against limited jobs being in the game period but this would be acceptable to me and many I've seen that are also hoping for a middle ground to be reached. Have completion of the masked carnivale up to a point be required to unlock the job version of blu and keep the side content that is blue mage in the game as is. The idea I had back when blu was updated to level 60 was to establish a legit blue mage guild and have new members that were formerly a tank, caster, and healer. Short little story lines for both that at the end award you a job stone for blu to function as that role. I don't know the story of 61-70 blu and if that makes this idea not possible.

[Archwizard]

If they want to keep these mini-games as "extra" content-fine-but balance the actual jobs so we can use them in the latest content that we are literally paying for too.

And when did Limited Jobs ever provide an obstacle to that?

Ah, having re-read this statement, I now assume "actual jobs" means the Limited Jobs themselves, not a term meant to distinguish non-Limited from Limited Jobs.

... So wait, continuing with BLU as the existing case study, you want the job whose main appeal is that a team of them can essentially spam Limit Break on-command to be able to enter World First races, just so people can say "I did it on my BLU" without it being seen as a crutch?
By means of removing all of the gimmicks, kit flexibility, and firepower (including the aforementioned LB spam) that actually makes them special, but without actually suggesting any sort of replacement playstyle for them? Hell, after already complaining about all of the gimmicks AND the filler spell options they have?

Tell me, what's the difference between bringing your imagined version of a "balanced BLU" and, say, a BLM to a prog group?
Or between a "balanced BLU" and a new caster, like Geomancer, Time Mage, or something entirely original to 14?

Genuinely curious, since you still haven't suggested how a job like "balanced BLU" would actually play -- how to replace its core playstyle after gutting everything from the current iteration and demanding essentially a new job in its place -- but somehow have the tautological impression that it already is fundamentally different by virtue of... what? The name alone?
So here's your chance to prove your point. If the people who were once pining for BLU to even be represented are now so thoroughly disgusted by how the Limited Job version turned out that they would prefer to have never seen it at all, then please, do show me any material on what would hypothetically have replaced it if not for Limited Jobs.

Anything.

[aveyond-dreams]

So here's your chance to prove your point. If the people who were once pining for BLU to even be represented are now so thoroughly disgusted by how the Limited Job version turned out that they would prefer to have never seen it at all, then please, do show me any material on what would hypothetically have replaced it if not for Limited Jobs.

Anything.

No meme spells. A set of spells with a rotation for aoe and single target. I don't care if the ability to tank or heal as blue is lost or maintained, those role spells can stay as flavor or something. The job is now able to level with and do current content with others after learning the core spells of its rotation and is no longer limited to ancient fights everyone has already done a hundred times.

The end.

Designing the intricacies of job abilities and potencies is not my job, it's the dev team's. I absolutely would not have wanted Blue Mage added to this game at all if it meant that it could *only* be a limited job. I would have preferred literally anything else. It's their job to get creative and fix this situation, not mine.

[Archwizard]

Designing the intricacies of job abilities and potencies is not my job, it's the dev team's. I absolutely would not have wanted Blue Mage added to this game at all if it meant that it could *only* be a limited job. I would have preferred literally anything else. It's their job to get creative and fix this situation, not mine.

See that's the problem, right.

To me, there's no difference between what you're suggesting, and someone wearing a Blue Mage glamour over any other caster.

It's like this right:
Black Mage is defined by being the Wizard Classic, the full offensive damage caster. You cannot have a Black Mage who, say, heals people or summons pets. It could have damage buffs, but that isn't the bare minimum.
Red Mage is defined by combining Black Magic, White Magic and swordplay. You cannot have a Red Mage without all three of those elements. It could have Dualcast, but a Red Mage isn't defined by having it.
Summoner is defined by the ability to summon eidolons from across the series like Bahamut and Phoenix to fight for them. That's a thing about its playstyle that is fundamentally unique to it. It just got off a multi-expansion train of pointing out that the Egis were glorified DoTs (terrible ones, I might add) and lacking the actual connection to summoning meant it was a Summoner in name only. EW is where we're hearing in droves "This is what SMN always should have been."

Time Mage? Well it's the master of space and time. It doesn't really matter exactly what it does, as long as it controls time in some capacity, like through DoTs and buffs.
Geomancer? It just needs elemental effects and some connection to the battlefield, even if that's as simple as putting down GTAoEs like Salted Earth, or standing in buff fields like Ley Lines.

What is the fundamental "Blue Mage"? The user of enemy skills -- but if it learns them from leveling instead of from enemies, and we compress them down to Current Content Balanced level so the effects are neutered or entirely different, then all of those would be enemy skills in name only. To repeat an example, White Wind just being a reskin on Medica and so on. You could get the same effect by just taking Black Mage, reskinning all of its skills for flavor, and swapping a couple here and there for utility -- but would you call that a Blue Mage?
So how would they define Blue Mage in spite of that?

I'm not talking about potencies or what buffs it juggles, I'm asking what about any hypothetical future job would make you say "this is quintessentially a Blue Mage -- not a Black, Red, Green, White or Time Mage. This is what Blue Mage should have been."

Because without that clear idea, without actionable feedback, we're just going to be caught in an infinite loop of "It wasn't what I wanted, start over." "Okay, well what did you want?" "That's your job to figure out."

Also, again, many of us are not asking for the side content that is current blu to be removed or stopped receiving updates. We just want to have blue mage the job available to play the game with as you can any of the other combat jobs.

You can't do that with the current iteration though without scrapping most of the existing spells. Anything tied to a CC effect on an enemy (which is most of those filler spells), anything with Instant Death potential, anything that significantly hampers you or allies in some way, anything more powerful than what a dedicated tank or healer has access to (ie Diamondback or White Wind).

By the end of it all you'd be left with... what, 3-4 redundant filler spells, Pom Cure, Angel Whisper, Song of Torment and a handful of Primal cooldowns?

And having reviewed your link, I would ask you to put such concepts under the same microscope I invited aveyond to consider: would being given a job like that make you say "this is quintessentially a Blue Mage", regardless of what name was slapped on it?
Or is the only important thing here just seeing a job named Blue Mage with the same cap as everyone else?

[Auryan]

You can't do that with the current iteration though without scrapping most of the existing spells. Anything tied to a CC effect on an enemy (which is most of those filler spells), anything with Instant Death potential, anything that significantly hampers you or allies in some way, anything more powerful than what a dedicated tank or healer has access to (ie Diamondback or White Wind).

By the end of it all you'd be left with... what, 3-4 redundant filler spells, Pom Cure, Angel Whisper, Song of Torment and a handful of Primal cooldowns?

Exactly. Limited BLU is interesting because of it's customization, wide array of weird and gimmicky spells and lack of overall balance. To add BLU to the standard heap, you'll have to gut everything that is remotely interesting. Maybe jon, aveyond and Shurrikhan are fine with that because throughout this entire conversation it's all about just getting the job to max level above anything else. I have a feeling they won't like this basic-beach BLU though.

[Archwizard]

I have a feeling they won't like this basic-beach BLU though.

Honestly it wouldn't shock me if they capped such a version for the achievement and then never touched it again, retreating back to old favorites.

[aveyond-dreams]

Maybe jon, aveyond and Shurrikhan are fine with that because throughout this entire conversation it's all about just getting the job to max level above anything else. I have a feeling they won't like this basic-beach BLU though.

If Blue Mage were a normal job with a standard rotation during Shadowbringers:

I would have dedicated the time to levelling it through roulettes/Bozja by playing with other people in actual content as opposed to just letting a max level player kill things for me in the overworld.

I would have specifically grinded out the remaining caster sets from the NieR raids in order to create Velvet Room glams for the class based off the Persona series.

I would have sunk the time into getting its relic weapon from Bozja like I did for a number of my jobs.

I would have dropped the $$$ to potentially boost the class on my alts depending how well the job fits each character.

I would have likely cycled through it and my other casters while running dungeons/raids that specifically drop caster gear in order to grind for glamours.

I likely would have done some new game plus for Blue Mage especially the 5.1-.3 patches.

I also probably would have done a few extremes as it if I liked the weapon from the fight for the job.

Instead this expansion I used Blue Mage in: literally nothing, because I got all my moogle event rewards by doing regular activities with other jobs in previous expansions or passively while doing content with the other full jobs. The game does not stop once you hit max level on a job, for a lot of players that's when the real fun and challenges begin. I do not care where or how the normal group mode spells are learned-whether through a job story quest battle or overworld mobs that are within access to all. The job as it is now is full of an absurd number of roadblocks on a path that at best only leads to rewards a lot of people already own, with its unique rewards being lackluster and underwhelming in comparison.

Honestly it wouldn't shock me if they capped such a version for the achievement and then never touched it again, retreating back to old favorites.

The only reason I'm bothering to share my thoughts on the job at all is because I want to be able to play it, along with the other jobs I levelled and played regularly during this expansion. I just don't want to be limited to a carnival with 1000 copies of the same spell or having to wait 10 hours in party finder to get the spells locked behind dungeons, and for some reason, ex fights. I still vividly remember seeing people post about how they had cleared the Shiva ex fight over 100 times and still never saw the spell drop. And now that they nerfed the spell rng, no one does these fights as blue mage anymore beyond its 2 week window of activity when each patch is released.

What would limited beast master even get as a "unique" reward? The supposed teddy bear fashion item Yoship teased in a live letter months ago? Allied seals? A new umbrella? It makes the tentacle monster mob mount model that's been in the game since 2010 look just as good as the Ultimate Kamuy by comparison. Please spend my sub and mog station money on literally anything else at that point.

[Shurrikhan]

Exactly. Limited BLU is interesting because of it's customization, wide array of weird and gimmicky spells and lack of overall balance. To add BLU to the standard heap, you'll have to gut everything that is remotely interesting. Maybe jon, aveyond and Shurrikhan are fine with that because throughout this entire conversation it's all about just getting the job to max level above anything else.

Umm, no. I can't speak for Jon and Aveyond -- as I suspect our views differ significantly, such as in that I do not want to see a BLU as merely another Magical Ranged DPS -- but for me it is certainly not merely about getting the job to max level.

It is instead about making its uniqueness actually carry over to its combat and playflow, rather than being mostly constrained to its acquisition gimmicks or the 'glory' of overpowered but nonetheless basic heal casts. Ultimately, if the meme spells were replaced with actual synergies (an no, dmg mod stacking is not sufficient) and BLU actually therefore capable of engaging playflows, yeah, I'd like to actually be able to still play that then-engaging job in current and even matchmade content, but that's secondary to it first being a well-built job, none of which need sacrifice its oversized kit or its systems of acquisition.

I have a feeling they won't like this basic-beach BLU though.

I wouldn't enjoy a "basic-beach" BLU, but, AGAIN, unique systems of acquisition and deck-building do NOT demand that a job be locked out of current content, and allowing BLU to do current content does NOT demand it be released only in "basic-beach" form. The requirement is the (quite considerable) effort of creating a job with an several-fold ability count -- no more, no less. Such in turn, though, requires that BLU is actually treated as a job, and not merely a guise for side-content or a revitalizing system for doing past expansion's dungeons and trials.

You can have the oversized toolkit and still have interesting spells; it's only from having both, together, that you have any interesting deck-building. That deliberate deck-building, not merely the "gotta catch acquire them all (but really only the top 28 spells you'd every really use anyways)", imo, should have been the point of the job. But alas, it's not a job in which additional time has been spent to un-limit it relative to most; it is instead, quite differently, a gimmick first and a job only as a means of that gimmick's application.