Blue Magic - do the spells truly need to be learned manually?

[Fevelle]

I'm ok with just skills remembering old games. There is so much to be done with either a Healer or DPS Blue Mage! Mighty Guard, White Wind, Expose, Life Drain, Transfusion... The possibilities are really high in number, it all comes to how "game balance" will prevent something new and well done.

[Limecat]

Yeah, they'd have to put them in as job quest rewards. Most of the classic and XI BLU spells aren't present in the game anyway on the existing mobs. It's unfortunate from a flavor aspect, since I did always like hunting for blue spells, but unless they're willing to add a wildly different skill setup to the game that's pretty much how it'll have to go.

[Rhaja]

Blue mage can do two things; Monster attacks and auto-attacks.

It would be a bit much if every skill learned was a monster skill, solely because a lot of them would have to be reinvented in order for that to work. So, we can easily split it up between unique monster skills, and "auto-attack" skills. The auto-attack skills could be learned naturally by leveling up, where as the monster skills can be learned from quest via hunting a monster, or defending something. So you have your standard 1-2-3 that would be whip skills, you have your CD's, and then you have abilities where you cough up bad-breath, explode, drop spikes on someone, or straight up goblin punch a b-word.

Having a good balance between Whip and Monster skills is the only way I can see it working and keeping the feel of blue mage within the confines of FFXIV. But with this set up it can easily fit into the role of DPS or Tank. Really, blue mage is going to be easier to implement and appease people with than Red Mage; a class that literally doesn't wholly belong in a trinity unless it can be any role. This can also allow SE to do something unique with the current melee set up; make it specialize in AOE rather than Single target. Make the monster spells cost mana, and add real management to them unlike DRK which ends up feeling more like a struggle. Put insta-cast on some, and a cast time on others. The cast time might be a bit jarring, but it also gives a native TP regen which allows it to instead pull abilities from ARC and THM, which also gives it access to swiftcast a sure cast; two abilities that a melee caster would need and find great use for.

Just my two cents.

[tymora]

Have job quests open up "spell and ability slots" that you can equip mob traits and abilities in.
Lvl 1 Ability - Learn = When active, learn the next ability targeted mob uses/or hit by...if desired. Chance should be 100%.

At lvl 60, there should perhaps be about 20 spells and 10 trait slots open.
A separate menu should be available to choose which spells and slots to "socket" at any time.

-> This way, Blue Mage can be a versatile and flexible job depending on what is in play. The abilities learned can also taken from the mobs as in previous games.
-> Combos can be done entirely via mob abilities.

[Exodus-E]

I'm ok with just skills remembering old games. There is so much to be done with either a Healer or DPS Blue Mage! Mighty Guard, White Wind, Expose, Life Drain, Transfusion... The possibilities are really high in number, it all comes to how "game balance" will prevent something new and well done.

Personally, I think it'd make more sense if Blue Mage was a Caster DPS with options.
For the "healing" part, though:

- White Wind could be a percentage-based healing spell (like what Lustrate used to be pre-Heavensward).
- Magic Hammer basically being their version of ACN/SMN/SCH's Energy Drain (but for MP only).
- Angel Whisper could be a raise spell.

Sadly, Mighty Guard is already used as a Lv.2 Limit Break for Tanks (not to mention that the current "Protect" works like a Protect + Shell, effectively making it redundant).

Still, and as you said, the possibilities are really high, so we'll just have to see what they come up with.

[Psycofang]

Yeah, I'm like 99% sure that, if Blue Mage makes it into the game, its blue magic spells will be learned via scripted class . Tests. There's really no other way they can do it, considering how cookie cutter they've set up their job and ability system. Any deviation from that would stick out like a sore thumb. I'm not even saying it like that to talk smack; that's just how it is.

And thats what I fear about this game and the fate if blue mage. streamlining it kills the identity of the job and basically becomes just another get x level here x scripted skill please look forward to our non deviated 6-9 button rotation with some SUPER UNIQUE BLUE MAGE FLAVORED OFF GLOBALS.

This class is going to murdered harder than scholar did.

[HakuroDK]

I would much rather see a kind of "Gun Mage" from FFX-2 than a Blue Mage and I'll tell you why.

In FFX-2, Gun Mages had access to Blue Magic, but they also had access to a variety of other skills, namely with exploiting weaknesses in enemies. If we could get a bunch of Blue Magic to be learned through Job Quests and otherwise have weaponskills for everything else (kind of like how Rogue/Ninja is set up), that could work really well here.

[ChazNatlo]

Don't know about the rest of the games, but in V and VII I used Blue magic/Enemy skill primarily as an off heal/buff class that had options to lay down the damage. Most of the attacks are increasingly useless in the games, supplanted by better ones. The heals and buffs are always useful.

I'd make Blue a Healer, but I'm aware that this is mostly due to my own experience with the class.

Also: Berets, Capes and Masks, all the way.

[Averax]

With the way Soul Crystals work..

"Upon the surface of this multi-aspected crystal are carved the myriad deeds of <X Job> from eras past."

It could be implied that we learn out base abilities from the soul crystal without having to kill 20-30 different monsters. Then to unlock further abilities we go on Monster Hunter esq. quests.

They could also just re-invent blue mages from what we know into something new.

[ChazNatlo]

So, um... idea to split between the two options.

Remember how the Summoner gained a new Job skill and it's older class skill changed it's design and effect slightly, and how the earlier Class quests always had you kill some open world monster before you got to the meat of the quest? Mix these two things.

You go to your Job master, and they tell you to go fight X monsters, then they'll send you off to fight the one that you'll learn the new Job ability from. Once you're done, you'll learn the new job skill, and skills XYZ change to monster based variants of those skills. At fifteen class skills not learned from quests ((Based off Gladiator, numbers may be different for other classes)) and five Job quests from levels 30 to 50, shifting three skills each would cover them all, minus the 15 and 30 abilities.