[REQUEST] Give Limited Jobs Evolved Forms!

[ForsakenRoe]

okay would be a healer?
would be a tank?
would be a dps?
how will it be chosen?
why 66% of the blu enjoyers have to be invalidated bc it was decided on role X not Y or Z?

It's a Caster, it uses Caster gear. In this hypothetical, it'd be a Caster as Evolved mode, and 'Caster, but you can force it to 'act' as a different role with Aetherial Mimicry, and choosing a loadout of spells to support that pseudo-role' in Reborn, just like how it currently works

For the record, I had thought, years ago before the 'Limited Jobs' idea was even mentioned, that if they did a BLU it'd make sense to have it be a Tank. Getting hit to learn spells sounds like something a Tank would be suited to. So any 'invalidation' was done back in 4.56 when it first released

[Chasingstars]

Spitballing blue evolved actions:

White Wind (but on like 2 min cooldown)
Exuviation (no changes)
Diamondback (same mp cost, but at like 90 second cooldown)
Loom (remove the cast time, otherwise the same)
Sonic Boom (at most needs a potency increase if it doesn't have maim and mend)
Water Cannon (potency increase for similar reason as sonic boom)
Nightbloom (Fine as is)
Mortal Flame (Fine and how low potency dots should probably evolve)
Breath of Magic (Maybe should have a 60 second cooldown for its 60 second dot duration)
Boost (Charge-based system)
Off-Guard (Fine as is)
Moon Flute (With the current damage and speed buff values, fine as is with the pacified. But if lower values instead, reduce time spent pacified.)
Aetherial Mimicry (Temporarily draws upon the aether of a nearby party member, or self if only one alive or solo, doing so grants a stack, up to 3, that improves one of its other abilities when that ability is used. When one of those other abilities is used it consumes a stack of aetherial mimicry)
Limit Action = Endless Needles (basically just upgraded thousand needles)

Essentially a support mage like red, but with its own variety of damage and utility. Could be there more? Sure, and it'd probably be part of the morphing buttons.

[Aidorouge]

Blue Mage currently not participate in:

• Duty Roulette for PvE (Trials, Any Dungeons, Normal Raids, Alliance Raids, Mentor)
• PvP (Frontlines, Rival Wings, and Crystalline Conflict)
• Field Operations (Eureka, Bozja, and Occult Crescent)
• Deep Dungeons (Palace, Heaven, Orthos, Pilgrim)
• Main Story Quests (First-time completion and NG+)

What Blue Mage can do and is known for:

• Blue Parties (Dungeons, Trials, Normal Raids of varying difficulties)
• Treasure Dungeons (Soloable)
• Soloing a good number of Dungeons/Trials/Normal Raids
• Fates
• Masked Carnival

Oh and let me not forget to mention the umbrella incident with blue mage where the new weapon for the job couldn't even be obtained from Another Aloalo criterion dungeon. And since beastmaster ate all of blue mage's resources for Dawntrail, we can't even do the criterion dungeons this expansion when we normally would have if it weren't for Beastmaster.

And I am going to be real, its not wanting it to be butchered, its wanting an alternate version of blue mage to engage with the rest of the content. After all, blue mage came out on January 15th 2019. By the time we get evercold that is going to be Eight Full Years. That this is the request to expand its availbaility of content has been a thing since it was originally ARR-only. And now, in 7.56, we are going back to ARR with another limited job with what little content that it will be able to do with other players or solo.

Like no really, think about it. When that new tank and physical ranged come out in 8.0? They are both going to have a larger amount of content they can do because they are not limited.

But there's 21 (soon to be 23) other jobs you can do all of that first-listed stuff with, why is it absolutely positively necessary to make it doable with BLU and BST when they literally will not play any differently from the other 4 casters and 6 melee that already exist?

And that was also my point, BLU already got screwed over due to budget constraints, and I don't want it getting screwed even more because Square-Enix dumpsters its limited form just to accommodate a standard/evolved one (because they absolutely would). I would be losing a job and content to play while gaining nothing in return, because I don't really find any of the current casters (or their standard content) all that engaging.

It would be a different story if standard BLU came along with limited versions of those other 23 jobs, because then everyone gets expanded content that fits what they want to do with the job, but instead they threw all their time and effort into reborn & evolved which just feels redundant when we COULD have had a PF-compliant BLU & BST along with limited versions of the other 23.

[ForsakenRoe]

But there's 21 (soon to be 23) other jobs you can do all of that first-listed stuff with, why is it absolutely positively necessary to make it doable with BLU and BST when they literally will not play any differently from the other 4 casters and 6 melee that already exist?

And that was also my point, BLU already got screwed over due to budget constraints, and I don't want it getting screwed even more because Square-Enix dumpsters its limited form just to accommodate a standard/evolved one (because they absolutely would). I would be losing a job and content to play while gaining nothing in return, because I don't really find any of the current casters (or their standard content) all that engaging.

It would be a different story if standard BLU came along with limited versions of those other 23 jobs, because then everyone gets expanded content that fits what they want to do with the job, but instead they threw all their time and effort into reborn & evolved which just feels redundant when we COULD have had a PF-compliant BLU & BST along with limited versions of the other 23.

Isn't the point that Evolved will allow them to make the Casters play MORE different from one another?

Isn't the point of OP that Reborn will function as the 'current Limited mode' for those who like that, while allowing for others to enjoy a different way to enjoy BLU via Evolved?

You say you'd be losing a job/content, but I'd disagree with that assessment, because you'd have Reborn BLU as 'the gameplay and systems and content that it has today, right now'

[Aidorouge]

Isn't the point that Evolved will allow them to make the Casters play MORE different from one another?

Isn't the point of OP that Reborn will function as the 'current Limited mode' for those who like that, while allowing for others to enjoy a different way to enjoy BLU via Evolved?

You say you'd be losing a job/content, but I'd disagree with that assessment, because you'd have Reborn BLU as 'the gameplay and systems and content that it has today, right now'

That's assuming evolved works the way we assume versus what it actually ends up as, where to me it just sounds like more of the same "simple jobs/difficult fights" design we've had for ages.

There's also the issue of how long they bother to keep reborn jobs around, and I'd rather limited BLU didn't join them on the chopping block and something like the proposed evolved kit Chasingstars posted became the only option.

And it's not even like Square-Enix "promised" a BLU update in Evercold, they only told us "we'll try again" so it already feels like its exclusive content is endangered between a new limited job and them juggling 40+ reborn and evolved jobs.

[Chasingstars]

That's assuming evolved works the way we assume versus what it actually ends up as, where to me it just sounds like more of the same "simple jobs/difficult fights" design we've had for ages.

There's also the issue of how long they bother to keep reborn jobs around, and I'd rather limited BLU didn't join them on the chopping block and something like the proposed evolved kit Chasingstars posted became the only option.

And it's not even like Square-Enix "promised" a BLU update in Evercold, they only told us "we'll try again" so it already feels like its exclusive content is endangered between a new limited job and them juggling 40+ reborn and evolved jobs.

Key point, you'd still have the reborn version of blue mage anyway, even if it never got evolved. Just like how dragoon would now have two versions. And that we already know that the reborn vs evolved version share some similarities but they are difference. Like how Bard reborn vs evolved function differently in terms of their songs while coexisting, that a mage's ballad for reborn is not like a mage's ballad for evolved. And the thing is, blue mage would still have the opportunity to grow as its reborn version as its already far different compared to any other job because of spell collection and the assignment of spells equipped.

Evolved is just the hybrid version of pve and pvp versions of jobs as so far shown with some new stuff included. Which as I mentioned before, blue mage never got a pvp version. Like for ninja for example, it will have its reborn, its evolved, and its pvp versions with different potencies and different abilities. Which is three versions. And the pvp one already exists, meaning technically on the high end there would be 65 jobs and their abilities to remember.

EDIT: Honestly all this talk reminds me of the tabletop game Pathfinder 1st edition. Where Summoner was really strong, and so when given its unchained version, it was actually more reasonable compared to its "unchained" version while every other class that got an unchained version had potentially better stuff compared to their "chained" counterparts. So with blue it goes from limited to "non-limited" but being more limited in its spell capacity.

[Rongway]

With the announcement of Action Skins, it should be easy enough to design a non-limited blue mage job that has a complete and balanced action set, and still give players the freedom of blue maging how they like by allowing them to set learned spells as action skins of those actions. Same with BST.

[ty_taurus]

The one major thing that would need to be adjusted would be they'd either need to retroactively add proper stats to canes, or set a base level for Evolved Blue Mage as if it were a newer job and ensure all canes from that level onward have stats on them. I really don't get why they made canes have no stats in the first place tbh.

[Chasingstars]

The one major thing that would need to be adjusted would be they'd either need to retroactively add proper stats to canes, or set a base level for Evolved Blue Mage as if it were a newer job and ensure all canes from that level onward have stats on them. I really don't get why they made canes have no stats in the first place tbh.

Because the canes are basically counting coups. Since the magic comes from a native american inspired culture, certain native groups in the real world have a thing called a counting coup aka a decoerative stick. The canes do about 1 damage on an auto attack because the point of the counting coup was you would touch an enemy with it as a sort of power move over your enemy showing you could, in that moment, have used something more lethal instead. Materia slots are meant to be like notches, and how you got notches was for not getting injured during successful raids, such as how you get the perfect blue title and achievement for not getting injured by azulmagia.

[Anarnee]

I would love this. I love BLU as it is, but would love to take it into queues from time to time or even be able to main it! Taking it into dungeons and PVP etc would be great. If they could find a way to give us evolved versions of the jobs that could actually queue for content while keeping the Reborn modes the fun and unique puzzle content, this would make me very happy.