Blue Mage from Lancer - Kimahri Style

[Nahara]

In a recent talk with some friends of mine on new jobs, one of them mentioned this idea that really got me thinking about how viable it would be.

I honestly don't know as much about prior blue mages and blue magic as I'd like to know, and the abilities they'd have access to in XIV even less so, so I decided to bring the idea here and see if people had any ideas of how this could work.

Just from my own musings, I would think that BLU could be a viable supportive damage dealer in a similar vein to the BRD. Lancer supplies all your main damage-dealing abilities and the five abilities you get from your class quests could be used to give the player access to debuffing things like Charged Whisker and Bad Breath. I would think they'd also get some party buffs, but I honestly don't recall any enemies using buffing abilities aside from the beastmen casting things like the en-spells (which would be something more in the realm of Red Mages).

[Altijacek]

I would think it would stem from thaumaturge or Conjurer or another magic class. I imagine it as a damage dealer but i believe that it could even tank if given another mage class in an expansion. I would imagine its five abilities to be something like this (drastic change from how blue Mage works in other FFs, to accommodate gameplay here):

30. Learn--directs enemy target's next attack towards self. Damage taken is reduced by 30% or HP received is increased by thirty; buff effects increase by thirty percent and debuff effects are decreased by 30%. For ten seconds after this is activated, learn becomes Enemy Skill, and does the attack the enemy did on caster towards next target. There could be a blue magic log gained from the blue Mage hunting log, and the level fifty quest can be finding and using the five forbidden blue magics or such. You can never reuse one at will; it must always be the one you just were affected with. Learn is on a 60 second cooldown. MP cost varies.

[Altijacek]

35. Magic Hammer--reduce enemy MP and TP with an attack of 180 potency; transfer MP to ally with lowest MP and TP to ally with lowest TP. Stuns, silences, or paralyzes an enemy based on various factors (being in unbral ice, astral fire, or none if job came from thaumaturge, for example--since you suggesting it stem from lancer, then it can be after any of the thrusts) 30 second cooldown. MP 560 at level 50.
40. White Wind--heal everyone within 15 yalms by amount equal to half of current HP. 120 second cooldown. MP 980 at level fifty.
45. Mantra Charger--for 15 seconds attacks/spells cost double MP for double damage (might need more balancing on this one). 240 second cooldown.
50. Seeker of Change--places a DoT on all enemies within 10 yalms with initial damage of 60 potency and then tick potency of 20 for 18 seconds. If critical tick, you learn that enemy's ability instantly and your other three cooldowns are reset. Depletes MP and TP by half, however, and 150 second cooldown.

[SmackyHuggins]

I like all the things Altijacek said and I would play that job.

[Duelle]

Just from my own musings, I would think that BLU could be a viable supportive damage dealer in a similar vein to the BRD. Lancer supplies all your main damage-dealing abilities and the five abilities you get from your class quests could be used to give the player access to debuffing things like Charged Whisker and Bad Breath. I would think they'd also get some party buffs, but I honestly don't recall any enemies using buffing abilities aside from the beastmen casting things like the en-spells.

The main problem with Blue Mages is that their chief mechanic (learning spells from monsters) wouldn't work well given ARR's ability limits. While Kimahri is my second favorite rendition of Blue Mage (Strago being my fav), you're not going to be able to capture much of the essense of the job with 5 job abilities.

That said:

30 Lancet: Delivers an attack with 75 potency. Grants the chance to learn abilities from enemies.
35 Spell set A
----Frenetic Flurry: Single-target blunt damage
----Frost Breath: Frontal-cone Ice damage
----Bombination: AoE lightning damage + Slow
----Wing Cutter: Frontal-cone wind damage + Knockback
40 Spell set B
----Blood Drain: Single-target drain
----King's Will: Self-damage buff
----Charged Whisker: AoE Paralyze
----Sand Cyclone: Earth-based damage over time
45 Spell set C (I'm gonna make some stuff up here)
----Bad Breath: random status ailment
----White Wind: AoE HoT
----Magic Hammer: Interrupts spellcasting and deals minor damage
----Zephyr Mantle: Negate the next 3 attacks aimed at you
50 The Beast Within: Removes the cooldown from all blue magic spells. 12-second duration.

Notes:
- This is just something I put together over the span of 30 minutes.
- Spell sets could work one of two ways. Like stances or similar to how summoner blood pacts worked in FFXI with a shared cooldown.
- If we went via stances, if you activate "Spell set A", you get a hotbar with the 4 listed spells available, each with their own cooldowns. In this case, switching spell sets would put a cooldown between them (something like 10 seconds) to prevent too much set-twisting and spam.
-If you went by the old FFXI SMN system, if you use a spell from set A, it puts all spell from that set on a cooldown. This would limit you to using spells when you need them while surpassing XI's SMN's issue of having nothing to fall back on between bloodpact timers.
- The Beast Within would be a major DPS cooldown for BLU, seeing that it would bypass the cooldown limitation, limiting BLU only to the GCD.
- I'll admit this is VERY unlikely to happen seeing that you'd need to get a menu-within-a-menu or an extra hotbar.

[Anova]

Hmm, I do like the innovation present in the first Learn ability. While it will take some tweaking to balance it, by using pre-existing monster abilities, a lot of the work is already removed.

Magic hammer is only useful for pvp. The main reason is that monsters do not utilize a mp/tp system like players. Instead, they function similarly to pets, with set cooldowns and ai regulating their actions. They have no mp or tp to drain and force them to stop using skills. Rather, a silence, pacify, or stun debuff is more likely to be useful in both pvp and pve.

White wind seems pretty useful and perfectly in line with the original skill. The exact value might be tweaked though.

Mantra Charger seems really powerful although it might be countered by the long cd. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite fit bluemage for me, which is a more physical mage who uses magic to buff themselves or deal specialized attacks. I am not certain if I would prefer an escape mechanism like most dps have instead.

Seeker of Change does a lot and is a powerful capstone, but it seems rather disjointed in its concept. It seems like it just does two or three abilities in one, with the goal of dps. I would almost just ask it to immediately refresh the cd on Learn so you can chain monster combos together.

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There's a lot of things to focus on for Bluemage. They are a jack of all trades character, and I doubt Kimahri's ability to branch early in 3 paths was lost to many players. He was a character you could adopt a specialized or generalized playstyle as you wished. It is with this in mind that I propose a tank bluemage based on buffs.

At level 30, the lancer already has a considerable arsenal of tank-like abilities. They have a buff that increases parry by 80% (after trait bonus), a ranged pull, and a stun on a 20sec cd (after trait bonus). While not as good as a paladin, they are roughly on par with marauders. The only failing is a lack of enmity-generating skills.

L30: Sandstorm - an AoE attack centered on the Bluemage that deals magic damage and applies a stacking buff to the tank that adds enmity to all their attacks for a moderate duration (12 to 15 seconds). 10 second CD

L35: Mighty Guard - A single target attack that applies a stacking mitigation buff to parried attacks for a moderate duration (12 to 15 seconds). 10 second CD. Stacks up to 3 times.

L40: Magic Hammer - A single target attack that applies a 4 second silence and pacify on the target. 20 second cd. Does not trigger global cooldown.

L45: White Wind - Applies a stacking buff that increases the efficiency of heals used in the next 10 to 12 second. 10 second CD. Stacks up to 3 times.

L50: Dragon Force - A skill that consumes the buffs applied by Sandstorm, Mighty Guard, and White Wind for a more powerful but short-lived effect. 60 second CD.
When used with sandstorm, generates a large burst of hate. At 3 stacks, it is essentially an area-wide provoke. Lower stacks are proportionately less powerful (33% and 66% enmity).
When used with Mighty Guard, grants a proportional mitigation to physical and magical damage for a short duration. 10% at 1 stack, 30% at 3 stacks.
When used with White Wind, grants a hp and healing boost for a short duration. 10% at 1 stack, 30% at 3 stacks.

Given how the buffs and cds are designed, players should only be able to maintain 1 or 2 max stacks of a specific buff at any time. This gives the tank a lot of versatility in how it approaches different mobs. it doesn't have the raw versatility and spellcasting of the original class, but I find it difficult to fit that class in to a specific job under the current system. This way, Learning remains a piece of the Lore, but is not an integral class mechanic. I myself have some reservations about it, but it makes the most sense to me for how a blue mage usually uses their spells and physical abilities in the FF series. The numbers are of course ball-park estimates.

[Shurrikhan]

My worry with this is still how the Lancer main abilities would entwine with the class's. I like the idea of taking damage with Blood for Blood up to increase the ability damage (doubly) when you deal it back as a learned ability, etc, and being able to Life Surge something with potentially unique crit characteristics (like Adloqium's double shield strength on crit), but any other part of Blue Mage feels like it could be done just as well from CNJ or even GLD.

The only alternative to the spell-sets that I can see is to have something more reactive to enemy characteristics, and simply break the different moves into categories that *should* fit well with the range of Lancer abilities. It may seem more Kimahri/Wildling style than classic BLU, but it should still be fun. These categories can include internal buffs that are fed by bleeding or otherwise manipulating the enemies who give them, lasting as a long-duration but consumed-with-use resource, Lancer ability adaptations or presiding mechanics that adjust attack tactics, and maybe one separate saved ability, for example. Basically, you store abilities in both your weapon and yourself, according to the ability's type (weapon skill, magic damage, other, etc).

Let's say you kill a Hippogryph and steal its Shriek spell. You could then release the Shriek spell via any of your offensive non-physical abilities, such as Internal Release. You could kill a Wyvern and absorb Poison Tail (as an actual melee attack) into your Full Thrust. (With any great luck and budget, changing its animation too.) You could kill a Raptor and move its Fire/Frost/Lightning Breath into Vorpal Thrust. A modified Final Sting into Disembowel, etc. Iron Justice into Leg Sweep. Absorb Thunder III into a Chaos Thrust or Lancet, and Fire II into a Rain of Thorns. The stronger the ability, the longer its recharge time, or else the fewer uses before depletion. Probably a limited number of total transformations possible at a time.

Similarly you could take and induce modes (to be renamed) into enemies, such as causing enemies to go Berserk, increasing AA but reducing special damage, or perhaps Harden, reducing damage dealt and damage taken, and feed off the beneficial parts of those modes (attack speed buffs or attack power; armor/damage-taken reduction) while they also make larger differences for yourself. A mode called Ravage for instance might allow you to double-apply Phlebotomize. Another, Gust, for example, could grant movement speed bonuses and increase attack range (with an attached charge) on True Thrust and Lancet, while each attack enemies make cause them to take bonus wind and unaspected magic damage (the bonus damage you deal will also always be wind [or unaspected]).

I don't know; something like that. The idea would be for it to be a manipulative support-dps class with some snap-tanking ability that will occasionally even cause the tank or party to take more damage through its manipulations in exchange for its increased dps and utility.

[Altijacek]

I like the tank idea, just nitpicking but mighty guard is in the game as tank limit break. And yeah the tanking thing could work with lancer, if the job crystal grants enmity to the full thrust combo, piercing talon, and doom spike. With my original idea I just don't like that it could make blue Mage potentially useless in certain fights, where mobs or bosses would either not have anything to teach or teach something useless. This would be very difficult to balance out and consider. Also, magic hammer in that case would deal low damage and return it as MP or TP and still have its stun/silence/paralyze function.

[DarkStar]

I can see a lot of people want to turn Blue Mage into a tank of some sort. Honestly, I don't agree with that chain of thought. It should be more of a support-DPS in my opinion.

Level 30: Learn - When used, deals 250 potency damage and then replaces Learn with an ability appropriate for the skill's target (IE Bad Breath from Malboros, Wing Cutter from Buzzards, etc). This ability has its own stats and cooldown, and is usable for one minute (Or perhaps longer, depending on the average cooldown of Learned abilities). If there is still some cooldown time left when the learned ability expires, Learn cannot be used until the cooldown expires. Learn's own cooldown is the same as the amount of time provided for using Learned abilities.

Level 35: Chain Lore - The Blue Mage and any allies within 10 yalms gain a buff to combo attack potency for a short duration. Medium-long Cooldown.

Level 40: Burst Lore - The target gains a debuff that causes it to take 5-10% more damage from physical attacks for a short duration. Medium-long cooldown.Level 45: Lancet - 100 Potency. Additional effect: Increases Critical Hit rate by 10%. Combo action: Heavy Thrust. Combo Potency: 240.

Level 45: Lancet - 100 Potency. Additional Effect: Increases Critical Hit rate by 10%. Combo Action: Heavy Thrust; Combo Potency: 240.

Level 50: Azure Lore - Learn's cooldown (Or the cooldown of it's current replacement ability) is ended and the next use of Learn (or it's replacement ability) has the potency of its damage and any additional effects increased by 50%. Very long cooldown (Like, 5 minutes at the shortest).

-Potentially the Blue Mage would gain a buff called "Learn" after using the ability that could be clicked off if they just want to use Learn for its spike damage, but doing so causes it to go on cooldown for however much time was left to use the learned ability.

-Burst Lore could instead increase all damage taken, but it would be a smaller increase.

-All Learned abilities draw from Strength for damage dealt, regardless of the damage type used.

[Kurumi69666]

This is just a personal preference as a Final Fantasy fanatic and BLU being my favorite job, under GEO of course. The only way to ever bring BLU into the game would be to make it pretty much exactly the same as it was in any other. That being said, it would need a complete separate skill list full of skills that MUST be learned via killing and getting attacked by each skill without dying. The best way to implement this would be to 1) Make only a certain amount of skills available to be selected at any given time, similar to FFXI. 2) Make it to where certain skills cannot be used in the same skill set as specific others to prevent the class from becoming too over powered. remember, the BLU is a high melee dps class OR a burst Magic/supportive class. it has never been a true tank, nor do i think it should be.