Will Beastmaster appear in any Endwalker content patches?

[Shurrikhan]

So, why don't I think BLU would work at max level? After all, the thing I use it most for is pretty close to regular content! Well, logistical limitations and knowing the playerbase, mostly.

I wasn't kidding with the Sastasha question before. If BLU is suddenly allowed to go into Duty Finder, what would be the result? Let me spin some predictions:

Of these, only your second prediction seems reasonable. A lower ability pool into which to assign skills (your Active Ability slots increasing with level and, of course, greying out additions past their level threshold when level-synced) would generally be the fairest way to handle lower-level content. This would not necessarily, however, require rapid revision of one's Active Ability deck at the start of each synced instance, even without the previous proposed pre-made (or, say, "last used") decks for the specific instance.

Such merely requires removing or toning down the contribution of vertical progression over the skills' acquisition levels when in lower-level content -- i.e., undo the factor that, through tuning, quickly make so many skills defunct even when the effect's type is still fitting. At that point, you include first within a given deck (or, your spell selection) whichever skills to which you least wish to lose access. Being able to make such a choice would still be enviable, but its results would not be overpowered, allowing one to continue to use the first n skills of their max level set even when synced down. (Though, one may wish to instead take advantage of the opportunity to use skills that have since grown inferior by way of tuning.)

Of course, I'd argue for that reason that some of the most codependent skills should be revised, but I'd have made that same suggestion regardless of BLU's being granted access to all content. Take Aetherial Mimicry, for instance. Rather than it massively increasing the potency (not just effect, but initial potency) of heals (say, Pom Cure's from 100 to 500 -- or, in effect, 600), I'd raise the base skill potency and instead have it decrease mana costs, since you might then have reason to use something like Pom Cure without having to first spend a slot on Aetherial Manipulation. (I'd also remove the DPS effect from Aetherial Manipulation, with the Tank and Healer effects instead sacrificing some portion of offensive throughput until toggled back off, as to make the skill a true investment in situational value rather than a mere obligatory slot.)

Players can hardly stand having single digit deviations in rDPS between jobs, or powerful unique utility like Verraise (it's weighing down RDM DPS!) or NIN's old enmity kit (overcentralizing!).

Let's not conflate these issues. NIN Enmity skills was removed only when and because Enmity management was removed as a mechanic. It was pruned only once made defunct. Verraise, meanwhile, would appear to have cost RDM next to nothing, historically; rather, it simply entered both Stormblood and Shadowbringers undertuned before leaving those respective expansions neck-and-neck with BLM and SMN for rDPS barely over a percent behind SMN despite being considered the easier, more reliable, and more utility-packed job. Today, it leads over SMN and all physical Physical Ranged, for instance despite Verraise.

scaled up to max level, [BLU is] by far the most powerful and versatile DPS in the game.

How much of that power is consequent to how the abilities' work, though, rather than their tuning? BLU's heals, for instance, are tremendous mana-hogs, thereby curtailed in the same way as Verraise; all that maintains their value is that a BLU-Medica has so much more potency than a regular Medica, etc. Tune it a bit less absurdly or really tax that use, and you're fine. Arguably, Rez-capable casters jobs should probably follow suit in having situational spending options alternative to rezzes, as to still be capable of utility value without someone having already died.

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I'll go further, though. BLU's kit presently sucks without enemy weaknesses, and simply applying weaknesses across a given piece of content, while fun, could annoy some.

What you do instead then is offload a large portion of the impact those mechanics from the mobs' characteristics to the BLU's own mechanics. Saturate a target --> Lightning crit chance is increased and certain Ice spells can reduplicate a portion of the previous Water spell's potency. Etc., etc.

Such would allow for elemental kits to have relevance beyond whatever overlap they may have with "pick the top dozen potencies" (from which --apart from perhaps Cold Fog, Surpanakha, and Tingle being taken only for Triple-- they were largely pushed out in favor of unaspected and physical damage).

That leaves just skills like

• level-sensitive spells like Level 5 Petrify, which ought to simply be generalized with chance increasing via primers (gameplay and setup replacing simple mob-based lockouts),
• RNG BS spells like Death and Missile, which frankly shouldn't be a thing regardless (but could certainly fit as skills which are undertuned until the enemy is under X% health, and overtuned thereafter, still making it useful for %HP mob enrages in side-content without simply being able to reroll the fight until sufficiently lucky),
• skills that have incommensurately low opportunity cost in snap usage, like Diamondback (which probably ought to simply lock you into that state for a bit longer or cause damage loss for the remainder of the normal duration after being broken early),
• Typal Vulnerability debuffs like that of the Libras, which should instead affect the casting BLU only, as a buff,
• and perhaps rDPS-intensive skills like Off-Guard which can only ever be obligatory in 8-man and 24-man content or not worth taking in light party content, and should probably therefore instead become a physical/non-physical damage bonus toggle in pairing with Peculiar Light (2 buttons in one) or the like as to be more evenly competitive with other skills regardless of the content one does.

For none of those things would the suggested revisions detract from the identity of BLU unless that identity is literally just to have very wonky relative balance (the strength of one skill choice, despite being presented as if equal, being very different from another). On the contrary, it could greatly improve the available depths of its rotation and freedoms of skill choice precisely by giving it that increased balance that would ready it for full access to content. Put quite simply, the majority of the work is just replacing lazy design, where present, with actual internal balance.