How Blue Mage Could Exist in FFXIV

[Bright-Flower]

Which would mean we would see 2 new dps jobs this expansion. Which is unfair to the tank and healer population

A. the job could be reworked as a tank or healer.
B. The other job could be a tank or healer.

[LineageRazor]

If Blue Mage ends up having virtually no connection to Blue Mages from past games, then why even have it? Better to have an entirely original class and identity.

How much connection does the job need to qualify? To me, if its a job that's able to use enemy abilities without transforming into a monster (that'd be the Morpher job), that's all you need to qualify as a Blue Mage. Others may feel differently, and that's fine. They will be the ones complaining on the forums while I'm in the game enjoying the job. XD

Which would mean we would see 2 new dps jobs this expansion. Which is unfair to the tank and healer population

DRK was traditionally a DPS job, and it wound up as a tank in this game. The same could happen to BLU. There's actually been other threads that discussed the topic of how BLU might work as a tanking job.

As noted just above, BLU could also be a healer. I think there's less folks enthusiastic about that option, however!

[Starcake28]

GG

How much connection does the job need to qualify? To me, if its a job that's able to use enemy abilities without transforming into a monster (that'd be the Morpher job), that's all you need to qualify as a Blue Mage. Others may feel differently, and that's fine. They will be the ones complaining on the forums while I'm in the game enjoying the job. XD



DRK was traditionally a DPS job, and it wound up as a tank in this game. The same could happen to BLU. There's actually been other threads that discussed the topic of how BLU might work as a tanking job.

As noted just above, BLU could also be a healer. I think there's less folks enthusiastic about that option, however!

Blue is not going to be tank i'm 100% Sure on tht because mana dps other part is because blue mage spells cast time some of thm r like blm also thy don't want mages as tanks if u have played FF11 u would know tht drk was a tank but players switch it to dps and made ninja a tank whn it wasn't really a tank also tht game battle system almost. every class can tank but some ppl to stupid to see tht. the tanks in FF11 Was DRK 'WAR 'PLD' Runefener

[Vahlnir]

GG

Blue is not going to be tank i'm 100% Sure on tht because mana dps other part is because blue mage spells cast time some of thm r like blm also thy don't want mages as tanks if u have played FF11 u would know tht drk was a tank but players switch it to dps and made ninja a tank whn it wasn't really a tank also tht game battle system almost. every class can tank but some ppl to stupid to see tht. the tanks in FF11 Was DRK 'WAR 'PLD' Runefener

Just because it worked like this in another game, it doesn't mean it will here. They've shown this to be true repeatedly. It could be a tank, dps or a healer. Heck, it could be a DoL or DoH job for all we know.

[Kikoten]

While I would like to see a Blue Mage, I wouldn't mind seeing a FFXIV exclusive job. Maybe something like... Warlock? Has that been done in any other FF games?

[SilverObi]

GG

Blue is not going to be tank i'm 100% Sure on tht because mana dps other part is because blue mage spells cast time some of thm r like blm also thy don't want mages as tanks if u have played FF11 u would know tht drk was a tank but players switch it to dps and made ninja a tank whn it wasn't really a tank also tht game battle system almost. every class can tank but some ppl to stupid to see tht. the tanks in FF11 Was DRK 'WAR 'PLD' Runefener

Well I mean yeah technically any job could function as a tank in some limited sense based on gear and subjob... but you did NOT want drk tanking outside of very particular circumstances or past a certain level range. Especially since many of its abilities actively made it more vulnerable to damage or consumed its own HP for offensive power. Ninja was envisioned as a DD/enfeebler with mitigation but was turned into a tank by the playerbase, that much is true. But the go-to tanks up until 2012 were PLD WAR NIN. That's why it came as such a shock to many XI players when DRK was added to XIV as a tank, because it ran so opposite to how it was used and developed in XI.

That being said, BLU could function as an INT-based tank if the devs made it that way. I haven't played much of Tactics but in XI blue mage could easily function as a pseudo-PLD with the right spells and traits set. That's even more true in modern XI. I'd prefer to see BLU as a dps here but I won't kick it out of bed if turns out to be a tank like DRK.

While I would like to see a Blue Mage, I wouldn't mind seeing a FFXIV exclusive job. Maybe something like... Warlock? Has that been done in any other FF games?

Red Mage has been referred to as warlock in some games, in fact the red mage artifact armor in XI was called Warlock's Attire (however there was already a level 50 set named Warlock's so they skipped it and used the XI Relic gear name Duelist). And if you aren't just cracking a joke, yes many MMOs have a class named Warlock. If you mean something similar to say WoW's Warlock, wasn't SMN similar to a certain spec tree from WoW? At least that's what I've heard people say.

[Vahlnir]

Well I mean yeah technically any job could function as a tank in some limited sense based on gear and subjob... but you did NOT want drk tanking outside of very particular circumstances or past a certain level range. Especially since many of its abilities actively made it more vulnerable to damage or consumed its own HP for offensive power. Ninja was envisioned as a DD/enfeebler with mitigation but was turned into a tank by the playerbase, that much is true. But the go-to tanks up until 2012 were PLD WAR NIN. That's why it came as such a shock to many XI players when DRK was added to XIV as a tank, because it ran so opposite to how it was used and developed in XI.

That being said, BLU could function as an INT-based tank if the devs made it that way. I haven't played much of Tactics but in XI blue mage could easily function as a pseudo-PLD with the right spells and traits set. That's even more true in modern XI. I'd prefer to see BLU as a dps here but I won't kick it out of bed if turns out to be a tank like DRK.

A BLU tank would certainly be a first for this game with the whole "mage tank" thing. Idk, I just have a hunch that it'll be a tank. Can't really explain it, that's just what my gut is telling me.

[Kikoten]

stuff about Warlock

Nah, I wasn't joking. I see Warlocks in this game somewhat similar to WoW's warlock, only in the sense of practicing dark magics, which I think would be Void Magic in this game. Rather than relying on summons like the SMN or WoW's warlock, the Warlock I imagined for FFXIV would have been more of a shadow wielder who slings void magic as wickedly as a Black Mage wields fire and ice. They could "summon" things, not as pets, but as spell effects. Like if there were a "Voidal Reap" spell, a dimensional portal could open near the enemy, and a giant evil claw could reach out and slash your target.

I could also see a dark magic user functioning like the Theurgist from Dark Age of Camelot, where they could create "dolls" that lock-on to enemies and proceed to attack them for 10 or 15 seconds before vanishing.

[Kazrah]

I love how this thread I made TWO YEARS AGO is once again back from the dead. Maybe I should do a more updated concept for it just from how much attention it still seems to get, but I suppose for the thread's birthday, I'll offer a more detailed insight into the original concept I posted here and my thoughts on it nowadays.

So when I made that Blue Mage concept, I did it with two understood truths gained from looking at all the Blue Mages in the Final Fantasy series. The first was that the majority of Blue Mages did NOT have to learn spells by getting hit by the spell; a restriction only kept to FFV and other Final Fantasy games not in the series (at least the FFTA games), while most Blue Mages in the Final Fantasy series either used an ability (FFIX, FFX) or simply see the ability (FFVI and even FFXI) to acquire a Blue Magic spell. The second was that throughout all Final Fantasy games, Blue Mage was never a tank-like job, instead being anywhere between a slightly tougher spellcaster (FFVI, maybe FFIX) to about on par to any other melee (FFX, FFTA/2) with the sole exception being FFXI, where roles were notably more fluid and other jobs not considered to be "tanky" could fit that role as well.

As for "learning" spells, I already knew that the in-combat method traditional to the job simply wouldn't work in this game. That was why it felt more logical to display spells being learned through a cutscene: showing the monster using the attack, then the character having bluish freeze-frame moments showing an understanding of how the ability worked and ending with the character mimicking the ability to display that they had successfully learned the spell. The cutscene approach was intended as the compromise between the in-combat method and having it generically learn spells like any other job, keeping as much to the identity generally associated to Blue Mage while maintaining it within the boundaries of how jobs work in this game. The same could be said of Dark Knight and the whole theme revolving around self-harm to bolster damage was instead shifted to a more logical approach within XIV by making the masochistic element being damage taken by tanking and then having abilities like Blood Price provide more damage by giving them MP for their lost health to be used on more spells and weaponskills empowered by Dark Arts while tanking.

Could Blue Mage exist in 5.0 and beyond? Possibly, although that would require a new concept to factor in the mechanical changes from Stormblood. I think the best answer comes from looking not necessarily at any job as a whole, but rather seeing it as a set of thematic and mechanical elements that can be altered and interchanged to fit the demands of the game. Although we may not see Blue Mage as a full-blown job in the game's future, we'll more likely see a job come by that will have people squinting and going "wait a minute, this looks like that other job", and I wouldn't consider that a bad thing since it would show that devs did at some point consider the premise of my original post.

Would Blue Mage happen in 5.0? I doubt it, but I'd still want to keep an eye on the next tanking job. It might look like that other job.

[Bright-Flower]

GG

Blue is not going to be tank i'm 100% Sure on tht because mana dps other part is because blue mage spells cast time some of thm r like blm also thy don't want mages as tanks if u have played FF11 u would know tht drk was a tank but players switch it to dps and made ninja a tank whn it wasn't really a tank also tht game battle system almost. every class can tank but some ppl to stupid to see tht. the tanks in FF11 Was DRK 'WAR 'PLD' Runefener

Remember, all jobs go through changes. A theoretical blue mage tank could have a good deal of instant cast spells. They wouldn't necessarily have to hard cast a lot. Every job goes through changes.

I don't necessarily expect blu to be a tank, but SE certainly can make alterations to the job in order to fit it into that mold if they want to. As others have pointed out DRK was not ever traditionally a tank either, in fact its usual gimmick is sacrificing HP to deal damage. Yet SE made it a tank. SE made summoner into a pet class. SE made red mage a full dps instead of a hybrid.