Simple Solution to BLU

[ShiloEET]

Why not give BLU mage it's own spot in a group. Meaning that the BLU mage story quest is relating to acquiring technique from opponents. The class themselves though would fit into a group like this.

PLD
PLD
SCHOLAR
BLU
BARD
BARD
BARD
BARD

However he can also fit into a group as
PLD
PLD
WHM
WHM
BLU
BRD
BRD
BRD

WHat i mean here is that the BLU mage has taken the position of dps, but he can still continue to heal or do damage.

So if he needs to do damage some of his abilities are locked out for the fight.

So as dps

His heals are blacked out and Vice Versa as a healer.

Edit: so he joins group as Healer or DPS. However he is not 2 classes. his abilities are simply limited as healer or vice versa.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

That'd be pretty nightmarish in the UI and the design behind it. Why have a bunch of abilities available to you if they are going to get locked out anyway? And having BLU as its own class spot? You'd just made the queue times even longer by requiring parties to have a 4th role.

[ShiloEET]

That'd be pretty nightmarish in the UI and the design behind it. Why have a bunch of abilities available to you if they are going to get locked out anyway? And having BLU as its own class spot? You'd just made the queue times even longer by requiring parties to have a 4th role.

Not quite his own spot. As in that each group needs a BLU mage. What i was saying was that if he could be both a healer and a DPS. He should already be able to be both healer and DPS at the same time. However in the end he could also just be a Healer class that has the ability to DPS. Really anything that varies. The thing i see with BLU mage is that his ability to collect an enemies ability should simply be a part of the story, not the gameplay.
Really though i think he should be a healer that can do DPS.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

If BLU can DPS and heal at once, wouldn't that cause people to demand every BLU be a DPS/Healer? How would this affect the regular healing classes? How will the BLU job handle two roles at once? How will the abilities compliment each other? Will the gear for BLU be able to fulfill hybrid roles? These are things that have to be addressed before anything can get a head start.

[ShiloEET]

If BLU can DPS and heal at once, wouldn't that cause people to demand every BLU be a DPS/Healer?

The way i see your comment is that sometimes when things like this happen in an MMORPG is that when a new class is strong it's true that everyone wants to play. However at the same time for the blue mage to make sense logically he has to be progressive. So things like doing damage to the boss to heal the raid. Or attacking the boss to cast a continuous heal is what i think makes sense. Much like Death Knight from WoW.

However i think there are ways of letting a BLU mage do DPS or heal without adding a talent tree or giving him more than one Job stone. The blu mage could be trained as a healer. But if he chooses to go the dark route he can begin to move towards that. Good blu mage might be suppressing his ability to absorb magic by being a healer. Or a darker character may embrace his ability to absorb magic so he can become more powerful.

[Darkstride]

I'm also not sure why people seem to insist that BLU needs to be a hybrid capable of all roles. There seems to be this notion that Blue Mage was always this way......it has always been able to cast multiple kinds of spells, but it has never been able to excel at a multitude of roles. It is a DPS at it's core with backup support and off-heals. The structure of FFXIV would need it to be more focused. Make it a DPS, have its learned abilities primarily a mix of melee physical abilities and ranged spells. Then give it a few heal/support skills. That is hybrid enough without conflicting with FFXIV's structure. It doesn't need to be able to tank and heal just because it is a Blue Mage.

I think that multiple Soul Crystals to allow for varying versions of Blue Mage is excessive and un-necessary. I would rather have a single Blue Mage with unique abilities that allow it to stand on its own without needing to try and fill every role "just because" it's a BLU.

[ShiloEET]

It is a DPS at it's core with backup support and off-heals. The structure of FFXIV would need it to be more focused. Make it a DPS, have its learned abilities primarily a mix of melee physical abilities and ranged spells. Then give it a few heal/support skills. That is hybrid enough without conflicting with FFXIV's structure. It doesn't need to be able to tank and heal just because it is a Blue Mage.

I think that multiple Soul Crystals to allow for varying versions of Blue Mage is excessive and un-necessary. I would rather have a single Blue Mage with unique abilities that allow it to stand on its own without needing to try and fill every role "just because" it's a BLU.

This is true. Paladin can heal, but he is not quite a healer. Perhaps this is possible with BLU.

[odintius]

The only way I see Blue mage to be implemented into a system like we currently have is have a set amount of abilities like any other job class currently. These are let's call it a Rage skill in a natural state when you first unlock the job were if you are hit/seen a spell enough times or whatever is deemed learnable by SE you earn that spell and is place inside Rage skill book. Once learned you unlock that natural state ability to be able to attach spells/abilities from the Rage skill book, if you want to learn any new spells though you will have to put the spell/ability back into its Rage/Neutral state by unattaching the spell/ability selected and repeat the process since well it is blue mage after all.

Certain abilities obviously will be locked to increase blue mage spells abilities etc., but the others would use the Rage system to attach spells learned from your foes or what deemed learnable. What the actual blue job entails is up for debate for me personally though would like hybrid dps/support role not so much in healing role, but maybe help increase the output of healer % of healing spells for example. Well this my personal opinion on how maybe the job could be introduced into the game and I understand this is a simplified version and more depth would be involved into a system like this thought it would be interesting at least in concept lol.

[Toodles]

Gear/stats would easily be solved with traits.

Let's say you wear MNK gear...

BLU (dps) - normal
BLU (heal) - str convert to mind
BLU (tank) - no conversion necessary, give them a tanking stance.

Heck even healer could use a stance to make the conversion.

See? Simple.

Side note: as before, they're not gonna make it a 3-in-1 hybrid! It'd either be all powerful (a "practical requirement" in groups) or required to be too watered down in each role... SE won't do it, I assure you. As least, not under the current class/job system.

[Amused]

I really don't like the idea of more than one soul crystal per job.