Originally Posted by
Sylve
A better way to handle it would be to use your "Two echelons" separate standard skills learned every couple of levels and traits and use the logic that you learned the skill/trait while leveling up to the point you unlocked it. A Hunting Log might be a reasonable way to give it that flavor.
The "Higher echelon" you mention would be the Job Skills learned very 5 levels, with the quest being very much BLU traditional learning.
That was my intention. Spells learned from leveling would be lesser Blue Magic, while the quested spells would be high Blue Magic. Here's a concept I've been putting together. Mind you that it is very much a work in progress and I feel is a bit messy and incomplete.
Blue Mage
Concept: A caster that uses monster skills to deal damage.
Mechanics
a) Magic: Blue Mages have two different levels of spells. The first is known as "lesser" Blue Magic, which are abilities learned from common monsters. The second is "higher" Blue Magic, which are abilities learned from very powerful creatures (marlboros, dragons, behemoths and so on).
Lesser Blue Magic is stand-alone, and makes for the bulk of the normal abilities you learn while leveling. What makes lesser Blue Magic different is that some spells react to each other in such a way that one can make the next more powerful. In order to do this, the BLU must use them in the appropriate order determined by the correlation between monster families.
High Blue Magic is affected by Azure Lore and a resource called Lore. Units of Lore can only be generated while Azure Lore is active.
In addition to Blue Magic, BLUs have three innate skills. Magic Missile, Magic Arrow and Magic Hammer.
b) Learning spells: Spells are learned naturally, as with other mage jobs. The key difference is that BLU's spells start off weaker and with much longer cooldowns (15 seconds on all spells that would normally have a 2.5 second cooldown). To unlock the full power of the spell, the BLU must find and kill the creatures the spell is derived from.
The lore explanation for this is that a Blue Mage starts off with a conceptual version of the spell, derived entirely from observing monsters. By absorbing the aether from beasts upon death, the BLU learns the "natural" part of the spell; that is, the actual application of the spell by the relevant beast and the "feel" of the spell.
To simulate this, lesser blue magic requires you to kill three monsters connected to a spell to unlock its full potential. For example, you learn Neck Rip at lv18, but it deals 20 potency damage and has a 15 second cooldown. To unlock Neck Rip's full power, you'd need to find and kill three wolves (like the ones outside Moraby Drydocks).
This rule does not apply to quested monster magic, since it's high Blue Magic and the quests would ideally involve the monster you will learn the skill from.
Weapon: Jeweled Gauntlet (in before Infinity Gauntlet jokes)
Abilities
01 Magic Arrow - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100. Instant cast.
02 Draw Out - Tap into the target's life essence, making them more vulnerable to your direct attacks for 30 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
04 Power Attack (Bettle) - Deals blunt damage with a potency of 120.
06 Screwdriver (Pugil) - Deals water aspected damage with a potency of X.
08 Acid Mist (Ochu) - Release a toxic mist, poisoning targets in an area of effect. DoT potency: 30. 24 second duration.
10 Magic Missile - Deals damage with a potency of 100 to target and enemies nearby. If the target is affected by any damage over time effects from your Blue Magic, magic Missile will explode an additional time per DoT effect active dealing unaspected damage with a potency of 50 per explosion. 9 second cooldown.
12 Hammer Beak (Ziz) - Deals blunt damage with a potency of 100. Additional effect: Reduces Blunt resistance for 30 seconds.
15 Lancet - Channeled attack. Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 50. Restores MP over 9 seconds. Effect ends if you move or perform a different action.
18 Neck Rip (Wolf) - Delivers piercing damage with a potency of 180. Additional effect: Bleed for 18 seconds.
22 Dream Flower (Mandragora) - Places enemies within 5 yalms to sleep for 10 seconds.
26 Wing Cutter (Vulture) - Deals wind aspected damage with a potency of X in a cone before you.
30 Magic Hammer - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 250. Restores MP based on damage dealt. 45 second cooldon.
34 Chain Affinity - Grants two stacks of Chain Affinity. Increases spell speed by 25% per stack. Each stack is consumed when a spell is cast.
38 Eerie Light (Eft) - Reduces the magic resistance of enemies in range by 5% for 10 seconds.
42 Detonator (Bomb) - Deals fire aspected damage with a potency of X to enemies in range.
46 King's Will (Dullahan) - Raises damage dealt by target party member for 15 seconds. 3 minute cooldown.
50 Thousand Needles (Cactuar) - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of X.
Traits
08 Enhanced Intelligence
28 Prolongation - Using Magic Arrow on a target under the effect of Draw Out extends the duration by 20 seconds. Subsequent extensions are half as effective.
48 Lengthened Chain - Activating Chain Affinity now grants three stacks of Chain Affinity.
Quested Abilities
30 Azure Lore - Allows the acquirement of Lore while using lesser Blue Magic. Effect persists until you reach 0 units of Lore. 60 second cooldown.
---Lore - Gain an understanding of the power of monsters. Allows the use of higher Blue Magic. Maximum of three stacks.
35 *Bad Breath (Marlboro) - Inflicts Paralyze, Poison, Blind and Slow on enemies standing in a cone. Duration: 10 seconds.
40 *Bubonic Cloud (Dragon) - Places a pulsating orb that deals lightning aspected damage with a potency of 50 to enemies in range for 18 seconds.
45 *Exhaust (Magitek Colossus) - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 80. Additional effect: Knock back.
50 *Grand Delta (Hidon) - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 300.
52 Burst Affinity - Reduces the potency of the next single-target Blue Magic spell by 40% but allows it to affect enemies near the target. 90 second cooldown.
54 *Death Sentence (Wyrm) - Deals physical damage with a potency of 500.
56 *White Wind (Enkidu) - Restores own HP and those of nearby allies. Cure potency (self): 350. Cure potency (allies): 150.
58 *Thunderbolt (Behemoth) - Deals lightning aspected damage with a potency of 250. Additional Effect: Stun for 3 seconds.
60 Unbridled Wisdom - Grants you four stacks of lore. 5 minute cooldown.
Limit Break (caster) - Shockwave Pulsar
PvP Skills
Moldy Phlegm (Gobbue) - Deals water aspected damage with a potency of 80. Additional effect: Decreases HP recovery from healing magic by 20% for 20 seconds.
Notes
- Unlike Blizzard IV's relationship with Enochian, Magic Arrow does not refresh Draw Out duration. Instead, it extends said duration by 20 seconds on first use. If used a second time the extension will be 10 seconds. If used after that the extension will be 5 seconds, and if used after that the extension is 2.5 seconds.
- Draw Out is designed so that it runs out and has to be reapplied, creating variances in DPS over the course of a long fight.
- Quested spells marked with an asterisk consume stacks of Lore.
- The weapon choice may come off as odd, but it sort of goes along the idea I had of Blue Mages storing monster essences inside gems on their person (an extension of the idea behind a lich's phylactery).
- The gauntlet would be invisible unless the BLU is in combat, at which point it would phase in and cover their right hand. Casting animations would have the BLU drawing power from their gauntlet to use monster abilities. Once the BLU goes out of combat, the gauntlet would become invisible again.
- Despite having been a melee attack in FFX, Lancet is long range like the other BLU spells. It would sort of look like Scorpion's "get over here!" hook thing but without pulling the enemy to them, and instead draining aether to restore their own MP. Keep in mind that this is a channeled attack, so while the BLU does recover large amounts of MP, it cannot do anything while the attack is active.
- Yes, this is supposed to look like a mage that is dependent on a version of combos to do what they do.
- Azure Lore is half stance, half persistent buff. The idea is that clicking on it gives you one unit of Lore to use for high Blue Magic. You could consume that one unit and lose the effect of Azure Lore, leaving you to wait 60 seconds until you use it again. As such, you're encouraged to keep the buff up at all times to ensure you have lore Units to use for high Blue Magic by measuring how often you consume Lore. This would be BLU's pacing mechanism.
- Unbridled Knowledge is intended to bypass the limit you have on using of Lore.
Open Topics
1) Monster correlation?: FFXIV does not have an official source for monster correlations. The Raimdelle Codes covers monster types and classifications, but little else. The correlations I am using are derived in part from FFXI's monster correlations combined with some stuff from the Raimdelle Codex.
Plants => Beasts => Scalekin => Vilekin => Plants (repeat)
Cloudkin => Wavekin => Vilekin => Plants => Cloudkin (repeat)
Cloudkin => Vilekin => Plants => Cloudkin (repeat)
2) Where are the traits?: The reason I have given BLU very few traits is because the bulk of its gameplay is intended to be unlocking the full power of each lesser Blue Magic spell as they are learned, and the special effects normally covered by traits in this case are triggered by using skills in proper order. For example, Hammer Beak has the additional effect of reducing Blunt Resistance, but the effect can only proc if used in proper order (according to monster correlation, Vilekin => Scalekin, so to get the bonus the BLU would have to use Power Attack and then Hammer Beak). This may be negotiable if someone can come up with a better system.
3) Lore as a resource: The way I wanted to see Lore be implemented is as a resource that fills up as you use abilities. It's not like Wrath stacks (directly generated by abilities) or Aetherflow stacks (limited when generated with the cooldown on Aetherflow as a pacing mechanism), and instead is more like the Limit Break bar.
The idea is that using abilities fills this mini-LB bar to get you one unit of Lore. Using certain abilities depending on the situation would gain you more. Ticks from your DoTs would also contribute, as well as using lesser Blue Magic in proper order (AKA taking advantage of monster correlations). Higher Blue Magic would consume one unit of Lore per use. Upon use, all other high Blue Magic spells are placed on a cooldown (6 seconds?).
An idea I had was that the really powerful BLU spells (Grand Delta and Thunderbolt) would consume all Lore units, knocking you out of Azure Lore in echange for damage/utility.
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Suggestions, corrections, comments and so on are welcome.
PS: Yes, this BLU is basically a caster DPS, so it would join the ranks of BLM and SMN. You can blame it on Strago Magus being the first Blue Mage I ever saw.
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