Colour Me Blue - Blue Mage

[m3eansean]

This is one of the most boring things about the game. No support, no hybrids.

Intentional design decision. This is a vertical progression, theme-park MMO. People's ideas of BLU are all coming from a sandbox MMO, FFXI. Which are entirely incompatible with each other.

[NightmareBox]

First of all, hello all. I'm new to the forums.

I've seen these past months that FFXIV is adopting a lot of stance-related abilities and traits, and while this may bring a lot more options to the table, we still face the problem that we can't let a class alone act on behalf of more than one role and be good at both of them.

If they make them weaker at each, they're just useless. If they can do both, they're overpowered. However, as I said, stance dancing can still be good enough to let DPS, Healers, or even Tanks to go beyond their initial capabilities. Hell, sometimes it's possible for a SCH to dish out 300+ dps. So we're getting closer to hybridization.

That being said, I think they could just choose one role in specific and work from that. You see, Titan-Egi is "almost" useless during raids, but it's an excellent choice to do FATEs or treasure maps. I believe they could make BLU work by creating a similar kind of hybridization without compromising the roles themselves.

[Xolotl]

Maybe they could do a system similar to ffxi ?

Depending on the spells you choose to "set" for use, your traits would change and give you either a tank, a healer or a dps "status". The limitation would be that you can only change your spells out of Duties ( primals, dungeons, coil etc.) and out of fights ( in open areas or maybe in town only ? )

[SoloWingMetatron]

Maybe they could do a system similar to ffxi ?

Depending on the spells you choose to "set" for use, your traits would change and give you either a tank, a healer or a dps "status". The limitation would be that you can only change your spells out of Duties ( primals, dungeons, coil etc.) and out of fights ( in open areas or maybe in town only ? )

The FFXI BLU system was really good. But the one problem I see at the moment, is attributes (VIT, INT, MND, etc) if BLU could dynamically switch from Tank, Healer, or DPS then their attributes would also need to shift in favour of what ever role they are currently set to. I suppose they could have 3 stances similar to Cleric Stance that shifts the attributes accordingly. But even then what about gear/weapons?

[Jollyy5]

Even if that was possible, I don't think I would want to see a Full group with 5 Blue Mages...

[PotatoWafflez]

Ideally they would expand the soul crystals so that you could toggle between roles also limiting the types of spells you can use and equip for each along with gear set-ups and stat bonuses from the crystal - this is the only way I can see them implementing multiple role jobs other wise it would just be a DPS with some support skills.

In terms of gathering skills I think they are pushing to having you get more skills and traits through quests anyway so that seems like a none issue, unless you really really want to complicate it and have every single mob in the game have a skill you need to steal off them and at that point I wish you well with your blue mage journey because I have no desire to do that what so ever.

[SoloWingMetatron]

In terms of gathering skills I think they are pushing to having you get more skills and traits through quests anyway so that seems like a none issue, unless you really really want to complicate it and have every single mob in the game have a skill you need to steal off them and at that point I wish you well with your blue mage journey because I have no desire to do that what so ever.

Yeah although the idea of unlocking new skills from mobs in the field sounds fun, it does not line up with the general acquisition of skills for the other jobs. I think SE would want to keep the process of unlocking new skills relatively uniform (via a job quest/duty). This is why I think a quest line similar to SMN Austerities quests would be preferable, as the player would still be fighting a monster to obtain the skill.

I feel there is a strong chance we will see BLU implemented in the future, it probably won't be able to shift roles. But the lore of the job is malleable enough that SE can assign BLU any role they wish. So in that regard I'd say it would be easier to implement than other jobs (such as RDM, or SAM) as SE have a lot of leeway with the monster skills they choose to give it.

[Rhaja]

Just had a random thought while reading this. I'm willing to bet RDM and BLU will come out the same time, both able to que for any role, and it'll be this huge thing about it. Like RDM and BLU are from rival nations and it'll be this big "which side are you?!"

maybe the RDM will be some elite from a powerful kingdom, and BLU will be the champions of the oppressed wilds or something...

[SoloWingMetatron]

Just had a random thought while reading this. I'm willing to bet RDM and BLU will come out the same time, both able to que for any role, and it'll be this huge thing about it. Like RDM and BLU are from rival nations and it'll be this big "which side are you?!"

maybe the RDM will be some elite from a powerful kingdom, and BLU will be the champions of the oppressed wilds or something...

That could make for a rather good plot/subplot. Personally I would fly the colours of BLU

Tank, maybe? blu has always at it's core been about finding new monsters and having them beat the snot out of you until you learn their abilities, sounds tankish.. plus Mighty Guard, a blu series staple, is a tank LB.

A tanky mage does sound rather cool. Though as I say there is just as much chance it could fit into any role. BLU has had many staple monster abilities that range from tank skills like Mighty Guard, to a wide range of healing, DPS and DoT based skills. So it really could fit into any role just fine.

Personally I would rather see BLU implemented as either a DPS or healer.

[Stormsoul]

if blu were implemented, it would have to have a uniform set of abilities. yoshi-p has already expressed concerns with how the community would react to a class as variable as blu generally is, since people would demand they had certain abilities learned, etc.

the best way to preserve it's feel would be to have it's job quests involve tackling exotic monsters and thus you learn the ability from them (similar to other jobs and their quests). as for a role... Tank, maybe? blu has always at it's core been about finding new monsters and having them beat the snot out of you until you learn their abilities, sounds tankish.. plus Mighty Guard, a blu series staple, is a tank LB.