How a Blue Mage Could Work in FFXIV

[Shippuu]

In an expansion where they tried to lower the skill level needed to perform all jobs, what makes you think designing a job with a drastically higher skill level is reasonable, especially a tank job of which they certainly want such a role to be as accessible as possible.

In essence 50 spells...you do realize not only the ridiculous burden of knowledge this places on the players, but the development and balancing of such a high number of abilities is ridiculous.

[Brightshadow]

It's not really 50 spells it's just additional effects similar to what all the other jobs have, plus how much easier can it be you basically use a combo rotation, and use UL then the appropriate tanking skill out of the 5 We have. The rest is just utility for filler when you aren't tanking.

The stack debuff and other filler skills should be used when off tanking or if the situation allows it, a lot of my skills also share timers like the roar and aqua breath. And the cures.

Tanking rotation:
Mob group?: Eyes on me, metallic skin, cocoon, Eyes on me, zzz for 60s.
Boss?: Goblin Punch, Cocoon, Goblin Punch, Goblin Punch, Goblin Punch.
Shit hit the fan? You can paralyze them, whirl of rage, or go batshit crazy with manticore mode and zzz again.

DPS rotation or downtime rotation:
Spam DPS rotation till you get azure lore
Use unbridled learning
Use either aqua breath,roar, or bad breath
Use magic hammer or frypan on CD
Throw a healing on CD if you want

On writing it looks hard like any other job but on execution it's actually pretty simple, your tank rotation is rather simple, so is the DPS only thing is that while offtanking you will have a bit more to apply like the other DPS. And obviously if your tanking a group you'll use metallic body and mantle to help the healer with perhaps cocoon to increase enmity. But remember it only works for 8 hits without UL so it's more useful for bosses.

[Elfidan]

I'm not hating on your idea bright, I just doubt you'll get traction. Similar to what Shippuu says 50 possibilities is a steep learning curve when people had trouble remember mudra combos. I'm sure BLU will make it in eventually I just don't think it will be nearly as satisfying as previous iterations.

[Blackcanary]

No thank you to BluE Mage being a Tank.

[Dualgunner]

Yes please to BLU being a tank.

That out of the way, between yours and Kaz' I can't decide whose BLU I like more. I'm a bit biased toward your style because I like the idea of a Blue Mage tank a lot, though.

[Shippuu]

It's not really 50 spells it's just additional effects similar to what all the other jobs have,

Except that's not true. Most other jobs only have things like additional enmity tacked on, or damage for positionals. No job comes close to having that many skills that are significantly augmented. At absolute most you could have maybe 5 skills/abilities that have such effects, but every single one is absolutely too many. Especially on a tanking job.

The stack debuff and other filler skills should be used when off tanking or if the situation allows it, a lot of my skills also share timers like the roar and aqua breath. And the cures.

The vast majority of content isn't off tanking though. Basing so much on the small amount of content that actually needs two tanks is bad design simply put. You are also creating a system that encourages the job to be a lock in for the off tank when it needs to be able to perform both sub-roles equally.

Now then, as I have more time, I can break down the other pretty glaring flaws in this.

Itemization:

There is no actual reason to have them use Int as their main stat. They are wearing fending gear and it's ridiculous to then go and add INT to all tank gear for no reason. You don't mention any passive to convert STR into INT meaning you'd have to add INT to all Fending gear. It's more reasonable to just work in that they use their Vitality and Strength to fuel their magic. Dark Knight and Paladin have no problems doing this.


Spellcasting:

Having every ability have a cast time does not work for a tank. Period. With no trait present to enable them to cast while moving it is an incredibly flawed design. Tanks are required to move frequently to dodge mechanics and position enemies. They cannot be anchored or have to wait until a cast is finished for all of their abilities. Especially their enmity generating ones.

You list the following rotation:

Tanking rotation:
Mob group?: Eyes on me, metallic skin, cocoon, Eyes on me, zzz for 60s.

Eyes on me has a whopping 2.5s cast time. Congratulations, everyone but you is tanking on the pull because you had to stand there forever and cast a spell. Tanks need snap aggro, especially on their AoE ones. Eyes on me would need to be instant cast, period.

Metallic Body, a ridiculous 3.5s cast for an ability that doesn't actually mitigate the damage you take. That's 3.5s of you doing nothing by the way, hope no one rips enmity during this huge window. This type of "mitigation" was bad in WoW and it'd be bad here too. Not to mention the augmentation of spreading damage to other party members? What kind of tank makes their allies take damage. The job of a tank is to take the damage for them. Not to mention this the breakdown of it splitting damage depending on players hit means it's worse in light party content, and ultimately would favor or dissuade melee heavy team compositions. Ultimately that move will get people killed for zero reason, not to mention making it more resource intensive for Healers as they now have to use AoE heals instead of a single target heal.

Cocoon also has a ridiculous 3.5s cooldown. Unacceptable for a tank. Not to mention the absurd peak of the mitigation. 80% is ridiculous for something on a 60s cooldown. This would basically make every tank buster in the game trivial. Or be unusable for some if you have to move at any point near the time the tank buster will come out since it has such an atrocious cast time.

Boss?: Goblin Punch, Cocoon, Goblin Punch, Goblin Punch, Goblin Punch.

Goblin Punch, a melee ranged spell with a cast time. This is a terrible move to initiate any fight with. Tanks need some kind of ranged pull ability or gap closer.

Shit hit the fan? You can paralyze them, whirl of rage, or go batshit crazy with manticore mode and zzz again.

This job certainly wouldn't be able to paralyze bosses as you suggest it would with it's augment to Charged Whisker. That is an utterly ridiculously overpowered ability that would make this job a Lock in for both tanks slots in every single piece of content with no substitutes. There's a reason the vast majority of bosses cannot be affected by CC.

Smite of Rage needs to be at 20% HP to use AND has a 2.5s cast time. The amount of times you'd ever be able to use this is insanely low. Not to mention your other mechanics that depend on this tank being at a low HP. That is a flawed design from it's very inception, tanks rarely spend any amount of time at such low thresholds.



Almost every single one of the augments for their spells are ridiculously overpowered, having just one of those on the job would make it vastly preferred over every other tank, let alone the combination of all 25 or so of them. It's too much to think about, as you build your meter there are just simply too many options to consider.

I would go through all of them to point out the broken aspects of them but that would ultimately be a crazy long post so I'll leave it at that for now.

[frankenbeans]

Good lord the types of people/lalafells on these forums. I am excited and hoping for a Blue Mage Tank myself and think it is awesome that someone took the time to conceptualize the class. It doesn't have to be perfect or implemented as is. Anyways keep up the good work and here's hoping that Square recognizes the Potential for a Blue Mage tank in the next expansion.

[Brightshadow]

Good lord the types of people/lalafells on these forums. I am excited and hoping for a Blue Mage Tank myself and think it is awesome that someone took the time to conceptualize the class. It doesn't have to be perfect or implemented as is. Anyways keep up the good work and here's hoping that Square recognizes the Potential for a Blue Mage tank in the next expansion.

That's the only purpose of this thread it's to give them some inspiration I'm not a game developer lol. Heck I barely tank and I wouldn't mind for the job to be a tank.

[Shippuu]

It doesn't have to be perfect or implemented as is.

There's a difference between something that's rough around the edges, and something that's so tremendously flawed as to wonder why it was considered acceptable enough to even consider.

Such as:

12.) Aqua Breath (Spell)
Description: Delivers a water attack with a potency of 120 to all enemies in a cone before you. Additional Effect: Inflicts one stack of Vulnerability Up lowering the enemy defense by 3% (30s), shares a timer with Demoralizing Roar. (15% Max) (Up to a maximum of 5 Vulnerability up stacks) (Generates 7 Soul Essence /w Crit generating 9)
Level: 35
Cast Time: 2.5s / Recast: 15s
Range: 8y (Conal)
Unbridled Learning: Inflicts five stacks of vulnerability up. (Soul -> Ultros)

In what reality is a job that can inflict a permanent 15% vulnerability up acceptable in any way, shape, or form? This job would increase the damage an enemy (or enemies since it's a conal AoE as well) by 15% by it just being there.

[MisterLucie]

Blue mages have historically always been DPS/Support hybrids. They're one of my favorite FF classes and it'd be pretty heartbreaking to finally get it in FFXIV only for its role to be gutted and turned on its head to be a tank instead of a healer or dps.