Can Blue magic be incorperated in this game?

[Morningstar1337]

I was wondering if a straight up Blue mage class would work or if it can't be implemented as for the same reasons as Red Mage.

Currently the Blue Mage's shtick is Blue Magic, something that allows then to use enemy skills, however because of this they would propbably exceed other class in the skills they can learn, use and equip. Also because the skills range from healing (White wind) to DPS (1000 needles) it would break the trinity a little (Of course if no tanking blue magic is introduced it could work as a medic counterpart to Warrior, which was probably meant as a DPS-Tank hybrid). Though the skills would probably be in the crossclass system

On the other hand if it winds up being a Job to say, Gunner or musketteer, Blue Magic would likely be out of the question but the concept would still persist by having the character kill monsters with a certain ability (Like a quest with 1000 needles as the reward requiring you to kill cacutars.)

[Nghthawk]

I'm 100% positive that if/when they add Blue Mage to the game it will have the same set of restrictions that 11 does where you only get some many points (or w/e they use) to add traits and such. Yeah in 11 they have a shit ton of spells, god knows I have all of them, but we are restricted in the amount we can have set and ready for use.

[Mcshiggs]

It could work, it just can't be what is has been in other games, unless they get rid of the set up they have going where one class or job can't have more abilities than any other. The amount of skills you would get would end up being limited, and you can tell they are hesitant to add in more skills because everything has to be balanced basically around controller hotbars. They have said something about possibly looking into reworking the armory system, so if they do this, it will open up a lot of opportunities I think to add in some really cool stuff, but as it stands now they have their hands tied with what they can and can't do.

[Morningstar1337]

I'm 100% positive that if/when they add Blue Mage to the game it will have the same set of restrictions that 11 does where you only get some many points (or w/e they use) to add traits and such. Yeah in 11 they have a shit ton of spells, god knows I have all of them, but we are restricted in the amount we can have set and ready for use.

An alternate (maybe, I don't have any experience with 11) would be to seperate the blue magic skills by role and then have have a skill limit based on the role of job (Thought for that to work; there'd need to be 3 jobs. Maybe Blue Mage, Vampire and Musketeer?) with access to 1 or 2 from other roles.

[Zunde]

"Why are you not moving out of the Aoe!"

"Shut up i'm trying to learn a new skill!"

[Grey_Cain]

There are many ways it can be done:

1.) Blue Mage Classic ignores the current ability list patterns and just learns abilities whenever, and has an unlimited number of possible abilities. It just keeps adding new abilities to the list, and they can all be used at any time.

2.) Blue Mage XI gets a new blank slot instead of an ability that it can fill with one of the monster abilities that it's learned. Abilities are learned permanently, but only a limited number can be set. As a Class, this version can set up to 17 abilities. As a Job, it can only set 5 at a time.

3.) Blue Mage Riot (because this version would cause players to riot) learns abilities temporarily and has a limited window to use the ability before it's lost. Blue Magic would be a counter-attack like Haymaker or Shield Swipe, but using the enemy's own ability back against it.

4.) Blue Mage Suck learns a specific few iconic Blue Mage spells, learns them by levels like anyone else, and can't learn new spells until the level cap is raised. It's passable as a Class. It would be the worst Job.

[Ryans]

The amount of skills you would get would end up being limited, and you can tell they are hesitant to add in more skills because everything has to be balanced basically around controller hotbars.

This was true in 1.0, but the 2.0 UI rarely has to change from the first cross hotbar with the addition of the double trigger cross hotbar. I'd say the gamepad UI is more compact than the keyboard UI at the moment. Using the gamepad UI as an excuse for the limitations on creativity in class skills isn't going to work anymore.

And why couldn't RDM work in ARR? There is no reason there couldn't be an elemental fencer class. Redmage may be famous for having access to the elements of whitemage and blackmage, but that doesn't mean they need to share the spell list. There are plenty of other spells that fall into the spectrum of white and black magic that WHM and BLM don't have.

[Ryans]

I'm 100% positive that if/when they add Blue Mage to the game it will have the same set of restrictions that 11 does where you only get some many points (or w/e they use) to add traits and such. Yeah in 11 they have a shit ton of spells, god knows I have all of them, but we are restricted in the amount we can have set and ready for use.

How are you 100% positive that they wouldn't follow the same model they have in place for all the other jobs in ARR? I could see bluemage going out and learning a skill from a monster during it's job quests and that's that. All bluemages would be identical and learn the same 5 monster abilities. There is nothing in the rule book saying that you need an arsenal of 50 monster abilities to be called a bluemage. It would suck all the life out of it and destroy the essence of BLU, but it would still be a bluemage.

[Jynx]

If they did it wouldn't be very good considering how uninspired monster attacks are in this game usually.

[Duelle]

3.) Blue Mage Riot (because this version would cause players to riot) learns abilities temporarily and has a limited window to use the ability before it's lost. Blue Magic would be a counter-attack like Haymaker or Shield Swipe, but using the enemy's own ability back against it.

Why would abilities be temporary? I see them getting a bunch of spells per "tier" of blue magic with shared cooldowns. That would open up possibilities for spells while also allowing BLU to be somewhat versatile. Blue Magic is too much to build a class around, so you'd have to have it branch of a melee or mage class with blue magic beings its own thing.