BLU (Tank Concept) Lore of the Azure

[PatronasCharm]

I was talking to my friend yesterday, regarding the discussion about complexity and MEC; he said that the new Stormblood patch that it received simplified it significantly, and is nothing like how it was in HW.

I haven't personally tried it, but I'll give it a go someday. Not exactly into ranged DPS XD

Other than that, I did some tweaks to the Concept, and added the Correlation Bolster that is given after rotations and added a new example of a rotation. Thanks again yall! See you in game

[PatronasCharm]

Hey final fantasy XIV community! Finally updated this concept, this one took me a bit longer than my previous ones due to its somewhat complexity lol.

I will be adding pictures of the icon / job concept etc. but let me know what you think!

List of changes will be added later this evening.

[Mikey_R]

After wrapping my head around this, the first thing I want to say is, Magic Hammer OP. 450 potency, no combo requirements on the GCD. Just spamming that would probably be the most damaging thing you can do, granted, it probably would cost a fair amount of MP, but it restores 50% of the damage dealt, which means, the better gear you have, the more MP you restore, which means the more you can spam it. This is probably why MP restoration isn't tied to damage dealt/received, but a fixed amount on level, just so it's easier to balance.

Mighty Guard and Forbode, basically Paladin's Sentinel and Bulwark, but stronger, so I assume you would want the Blue Mage to be a defensive, which would mean weaker attacks overall, however, at a glance that doesn't seem to be the case and it seems it would be quite strong. I haven't done any calcs to say one way or the other though, so I might be mistaken.

Your 'tank invulnerability' (using it loosely) aka Hallowed Ground/Living Dead/Holmgang equivalent, Angel Whisper, seems really really powerful. 4 minute cooldown for an instant raise AND 1000 potency heal on everyone (in range), rough numbers, that's somewhere between 15-20% of a tanks max HP. Compare that to living dead, where, if you die and activate walking dead you need the equivalent of 100% of your HP to be restored so that you don't die. and that is on a 5 minute cooldown. It is a really powerful ability for such a short cooldown with no obvious side effects.

Next, your rotation, by the way you have laid it out, I assume it is all one long combo string (if not, it needs to be made clearer IMO which bits combo and which ones are the start of a new combo, just for ease of reading), if it is a long combo string, that is long, if not, I have obviously misinterpreted, however, your only attack that increases enmity for single target looks to be the learned Blue Magic spell, which is 8th in your GCD rotation. That is way too late to have an enmity building tool, plus, it's too weak on its own and you will find yourself having to rely on it quite frequently, or even, if something goes wrong and your Co tank dies, you have no way to effectively gain some snap aggro.

Now, I just want to tear apart this rage combo (Note, I will add indicators where I THINK combos begin and end, this also ignores Magic Hammer, which still out damages everything but the finisher combo) :

[Clautraphlare > Goblin Punch > Upward, Downard Break] > [Shadow Claw > Hexa Strike] > [Quasar > Geriskogul > Drakensfiend] > {Fire Breath (Finisher)}

Converting to Potency:
[150 > 160 > 200] > [380 > 320] > [330 > 400 > 610] >{220}

Calc Averages across combos (Potency per GCD, Finisher counted as oGCD):
[170] > [355] > [447] {520 every 2 mins}

Now, to break this down, First, Shadow Claw, at 380 potency, it's a combo starter, yet, you can replace your first 5 GCDs with it and be better off. However, even better, since the last comb is the strongest, you could just spam that. If you need to do that whole long combo string to get the stacks, then, you get your 4 and you keep them. There is no point spending them as you will get more benefit holding onto them than if you used them, which means you can do the long combo 4 times, get the 4 stacks and then revert to the strongest combo, massively increasing your damage in the process. The problem here is that, you have no reason to use other combos. If you look at every other melee DPS/Tank, you will find every single combo has a reason to be used. However, you seem to have several combos that want to be the damage combo, when, that just doesn't work.

I have to stop though, because the more I dig, the more issues I see. I do research into one thing, other things come out. I started with the basics, is there anything that seems OP, I then moved into defensive cooldowns, being a tank, that is obviously important, which leads into tank invul, based on that I can compare to current tanks, see where you want it to fit in the defensive/dps side, then make comparisons on potency, and find more things that are stronger than others/make other things obsolete. I mentioned it in the 5.0 realistic job thread, but I do enjoy tearing ideas apart and I also mentioned I would prefer a general outline of rotation and what each combo does (if it has one) but don't necessarily include potencies (One last bit, if the rage combo is one long combo, the potency per GCD is 349, which means spamming Shadow Claw is your highest potency per GCD, not counting Magic Hammer, plus it has the benefit of healing).

[LeoLupinos]

Yeah, with regards to complexity, just look at how many people main machinist and you'll have your answer.

I don't think MCH is complex. Personaly, I don't main him because the animations are lack lusters.

[Duskane]

Job: Blue Mage

Class: Tank

Weapon: Hammer / Shield

youve won me here Tank and a blunt weapon somthing this game lacks

Yeah, with regards to complexity, just look at how many people main machinist and you'll have your answer.

I wouldn't call MCH complex its just so different from the other classes and it being so different drives other people away from it

[PatronasCharm]

After wrapping my head around this, the first thing I want to say is, Magic Hammer OP. 450 potency, no combo requirements on the GCD. Just spamming that would probably be the most damaging thing you can do, granted, it probably would cost a fair amount of MP, but it restores 50% of the damage dealt, which means, the better gear you have, the more MP you restore, which means the more you can spam it. This is probably why MP restoration isn't tied to damage dealt/received, but a fixed amount on level, just so it's easier to balance.

Mighty Guard and Forbode, basically Paladin's Sentinel and Bulwark, but stronger, so I assume you would want the Blue Mage to be a defensive, which would mean weaker attacks overall, however, at a glance that doesn't seem to be the case and it seems it would be quite strong. I haven't done any calcs to say one way or the other though, so I might be mistaken.

Your 'tank invulnerability' (using it loosely) aka Hallowed Ground/Living Dead/Holmgang equivalent, Angel Whisper, seems really really powerful. 4 minute cooldown for an instant raise AND 1000 potency heal on everyone (in range), rough numbers, that's somewhere between 15-20% of a tanks max HP. Compare that to living dead, where, if you die and activate walking dead you need the equivalent of 100% of your HP to be restored so that you don't die. and that is on a 5 minute cooldown. It is a really powerful ability for such a short cooldown with no obvious side effects.

Next, your rotation, by the way you have laid it out, I assume it is all one long combo string (if not, it needs to be made clearer IMO which bits combo and which ones are the start of a new combo, just for ease of reading), if it is a long combo string, that is long, if not, I have obviously misinterpreted, however, your only attack that increases enmity for single target looks to be the learned Blue Magic spell, which is 8th in your GCD rotation. That is way too late to have an enmity building tool, plus, it's too weak on its own and you will find yourself having to rely on it quite frequently, or even, if something goes wrong and your Co tank dies, you have no way to effectively gain some snap aggro.

Now, I just want to tear apart this rage combo (Note, I will add indicators where I THINK combos begin and end, this also ignores Magic Hammer, which still out damages everything but the finisher combo) :

[Clautraphlare > Goblin Punch > Upward, Downard Break] > [Shadow Claw > Hexa Strike] > [Quasar > Geriskogul > Drakensfiend] > {Fire Breath (Finisher)}

Converting to Potency:
[150 > 160 > 200] > [380 > 320] > [330 > 400 > 610] >{220}

Calc Averages across combos (Potency per GCD, Finisher counted as oGCD):
[170] > [355] > [447] {520 every 2 mins}

Now, to break this down, First, Shadow Claw, at 380 potency, it's a combo starter, yet, you can replace your first 5 GCDs with it and be better off. However, even better, since the last comb is the strongest, you could just spam that. If you need to do that whole long combo string to get the stacks, then, you get your 4 and you keep them. There is no point spending them as you will get more benefit holding onto them than if you used them, which means you can do the long combo 4 times, get the 4 stacks and then revert to the strongest combo, massively increasing your damage in the process. The problem here is that, you have no reason to use other combos. If you look at every other melee DPS/Tank, you will find every single combo has a reason to be used. However, you seem to have several combos that want to be the damage combo, when, that just doesn't work.

I have to stop though, because the more I dig, the more issues I see. I do research into one thing, other things come out. I started with the basics, is there anything that seems OP, I then moved into defensive cooldowns, being a tank, that is obviously important, which leads into tank invul, based on that I can compare to current tanks, see where you want it to fit in the defensive/dps side, then make comparisons on potency, and find more things that are stronger than others/make other things obsolete. I mentioned it in the 5.0 realistic job thread, but I do enjoy tearing ideas apart and I also mentioned I would prefer a general outline of rotation and what each combo does (if it has one) but don't necessarily include potencies (One last bit, if the rage combo is one long combo, the potency per GCD is 349, which means spamming Shadow Claw is your highest potency per GCD, not counting Magic Hammer, plus it has the benefit of healing).

So potencies are just sort of place holders; I’ll reiterate the combos later, due to lack of time at the moment, but each combo is tied to a stance; ive weaved the the BLU spells in between the Weapon Skills.

The effects the Blue spells do are only available when they’re in a combo. So there a normal potency next to the spell and a combo potency: the combo grants the additional effect of let’s say hp drain. So if you spam Shadow Claw it will be reduced potency with no HP drain. (Yes maybe 50% is a bit overkill!) I’ll adjust it.

The main perspective I’m trying to show is the more combos the player does the better the effects from the stance. Therefore rewarding you for keeping the rotation active. If you weave the wrong spell / or have to utilize an off cooldown spell it’ll break the chain therefore losing the stance bonus.

So the goal is to complete the 4 rotations “Guard-Off.” or you can risk to mess up the rotation and lose the buff

The only exception are the other 2 spells: 1,000 needles and white wind, both share a cooldown; something I didn’t emphasize. But they are quite powerful so they may get a longer GDC.

Enmity is in quite a few spells, abilities, and weapon skills; I’ll bold it on the additional effects.

Fixed Angel Whisper

Also, I stand to be corrected... I messed up when writing the rotation! I fixed the rotation to make more sense; I didn't have a 3rd rotation for Rage.

So now, the Blue Mage can get a total of 25% MP back from "Serenity" Combo and 25% HP back from "Rage" Combo. (I may have it backwards... I might shift to where the HP is given during the "Tank" rotation, and MP given to "Attack" rotation... ahahaha my fail.

But thank you so much for the feedback! I’ll be sure to adjust certain things and explain the combos more clearly!

This feedback is so well appreciated, btw; look at my Chronosguard, it changed significantly thanks to community feedback =D

[Kazrah]

So I'll go through it as if it was the ORMOA setup I work with:

For the Origin, the Garlean setup isn't too bad and more or less covers the bases for story components. The biggest hurdle would be the whole "Garleans can't naturally manipulate aether" thing that bars most of them from being spellcasters, and what ones Garlemald does have are typically from lands they took.

For the Role, I've always been on the fence when it comes to Blue Mage as a tank simply because despite looking like it'd have to be a tank, not only has it never historically been a tank, but less than half of all Blue Mages in the series learned spells specifically by getting hit (most of them just had to see the ability to learn it regardless of whoever got hit). I've warmed up to it slightly over the years, but I'm still convinced that devs would rule out the Blue Mage of XI simply because almost anything in that game could tank if you built it correctly.

With the Mechanics, you really shouldn't want anything more complex than Dark Knight in terms of tanking just because of the fact that tanks usually have a lot more to worry about than just their damage rotation. I'd also recommend leveling at least one tank (preferably all three) to max level in order to get a better understanding of what a tank in FFXIV should have.

On Outfitting, the hammer is an interesting touch, and surprisingly not that much of a stretch given past Blue Mages. However, between the use of such a hammer and the whole Garlean theme, this Blue Mage doesn't seem like it'd be that much different from most ideas for the Judge job you mentioned in the lore. Also, if it's going to use a shield, it does require a different way of taking advantage of it than Paladin does, but its current state doesn't seem to take advantage of blocking at all. In fact, it's a Blue Mage; maybe that tome could make a barrier for a shield instead of having to use an actual one. The sabers would probably fit more with the visual themes the job has had before, but so would a saber or cutlass and a tome for a visual offhand.

When it comes to Abilities, I mostly agree with Mikey in that a lot of things seem either overinflated, overly complicated by tank standards, or just outright overpowered. Angel Whisper would make more sense as something like a 15 second buff that upon death resets the caster's HP to 25% of max with a 3 minute cooldown, maybe longer. If you wanted a group heal, White Wind could be something like a 400 potency AoE heal with a 1 minute cooldown (putting it in line with Equilibrium). There's some other stuff too, but this all goes back to needing to level tanks further to get a better perspective.

The overall TL;DR: It's kinda interesting, but best to keep leveling your tanks before doing more adjustments. Don't rely on your tank friend, since however knowledgeable they might be, they're still not going to be able to give you anywhere near as much insight as you actually leveling your tanks to max and doing some higher-end group content with them.

[hynaku4494]

I have seen what looks like a blue mage in ffxiv as last boss to a dungeon. Think may been temple of the fist. Boss to it used attacks learned from monsters.

[PatronasCharm]

So I'll go through it as if it was the ORMOA setup I work with:

For the Origin, the Garlean setup isn't too bad and more or less covers the bases for story components. The biggest hurdle would be the whole "Garleans can't naturally manipulate aether" thing that bars most of them from being spellcasters, and what ones Garlemald does have are typically from lands they took.

For the Role, I've always been on the fence when it comes to Blue Mage as a tank simply because despite looking like it'd have to be a tank, not only has it never historically been a tank, but less than half of all Blue Mages in the series learned spells specifically by getting hit (most of them just had to see the ability to learn it regardless of whoever got hit). I've warmed up to it slightly over the years, but I'm still convinced that devs would rule out the Blue Mage of XI simply because almost anything in that game could tank if you built it correctly.

With the Mechanics, you really shouldn't want anything more complex than Dark Knight in terms of tanking just because of the fact that tanks usually have a lot more to worry about than just their damage rotation. I'd also recommend leveling at least one tank (preferably all three) to max level in order to get a better understanding of what a tank in FFXIV should have.

On Outfitting, the hammer is an interesting touch, and surprisingly not that much of a stretch given past Blue Mages. However, between the use of such a hammer and the whole Garlean theme, this Blue Mage doesn't seem like it'd be that much different from most ideas for the Judge job you mentioned in the lore. Also, if it's going to use a shield, it does require a different way of taking advantage of it than Paladin does, but its current state doesn't seem to take advantage of blocking at all. In fact, it's a Blue Mage; maybe that tome could make a barrier for a shield instead of having to use an actual one. The sabers would probably fit more with the visual themes the job has had before, but so would a saber or cutlass and a tome for a visual offhand.

When it comes to Abilities, I mostly agree with Mikey in that a lot of things seem either overinflated, overly complicated by tank standards, or just outright overpowered. Angel Whisper would make more sense as something like a 15 second buff that upon death resets the caster's HP to 25% of max with a 3 minute cooldown, maybe longer. If you wanted a group heal, White Wind could be something like a 400 potency AoE heal with a 1 minute cooldown (putting it in line with Equilibrium). There's some other stuff too, but this all goes back to needing to level tanks further to get a better perspective.

The overall TL;DR: It's kinda interesting, but best to keep leveling your tanks before doing more adjustments. Don't rely on your tank friend, since however knowledgeable they might be, they're still not going to be able to give you anywhere near as much insight as you actually leveling your tanks to max and doing some higher-end group content with them.

Thanks for the feedback as always Kazrah, I did a few tweaks here and there with what you and Mikey mentioned; I also simplified the rotation a bit and added numbers as to when they appear in the actual rotation.

I was playing with DRK before my last break and I'll pick it up where I left off; my PLD is 55 I believe, and I'll be sure to play around with them a bit more after I finish the story scenario.

Changed the shield to a "mana shield," because it really wouldn't be much different it acting like an aetherial shield, rather than a physical one he holds.

Changed the ability "Forebode," to Manachanneling, that increases Mana Shield activation rate by a %.

Removed the Cure granted by angel whisper to something along the lines as you described.

So when it comes from "Learning" an enemy ability, to me, for something like FFXIV would feel like so much of a stretch. Even though most enemies use combos on us players like we do on them, AKA: Helldive, or some other random ability.

Would the dev. team go to that stretch to add an enemy ability from each enemy? I am not sure; maybe the coding might be a nightmare, even though in FFXI they made it look so easy... get hit by the ability, learn the ability (maybe)

I changed Learning to be in-tune with the Correlation Tome, so its learned ability goes off whatever stance the Blue Mage is in.

[PatronasCharm]

Next, your rotation, by the way you have laid it out, I assume it is all one long combo string (if not, it needs to be made clearer IMO which bits combo and which ones are the start of a new combo, just for ease of reading), if it is a long combo string, that is long, if not, I have obviously misinterpreted, however, your only attack that increases enmity for single target looks to be the learned Blue Magic spell, which is 8th in your GCD rotation. That is way too late to have an enmity building tool, plus, it's too weak on its own and you will find yourself having to rely on it quite frequently, or even, if something goes wrong and your Co tank dies, you have no way to effectively gain some snap aggro.

Okay, so I simplified the rotation; after picking Paladin back up for a bit, to play with it, I realized, that the Combo spread was OVERLY too long and very complicated; so instead, I did a Weapon Skill combo phase that leads to a Blue Magic Spell: SO : 1, 2, 3, (Blue Magic)

That also means now that there's 4 phases of Combos, with the 1, 2, 3, (Blue Magic) rotation; to get the Correlation Tome completely synchronized with the Stances: (Blue / Rage / Serenity)

Of course, Blue Stance (Default) is the quickest to Synchronize, since it can utilize any combo of spells. While the other two require only certain spells.

Again, had to play the one of the jobs to visualize it lol; I do apologize if it seemed overinflated.

Here's the new Combo Examples I edited in the my main post:

*NOTE The 3rd Weapon Skill and Blue Magic Spell changes per cycle

Phase #1

Clautraphlare >> Upward, Downward break >> Hexa Strike >> [Poison / Shadow Claw]

Phase #2

Clautraphlare >> Upward, Downward break >> Stardivider >> Quasar / Laser Eye

Phase #3

Clautraphlare >> Upward, Downward break >> Geriskogul >> Magic Hammer / Lifebreak

Final Phase #4 (Full Synchronization)

Clautraphlare >> Upward, Downward break >>Drakensfiendl >> Synchronization Finisher [Stone Breath (Serenity) / Fire Breath (Rage) / Bad Breath (Blue)

-

So now the combo has been broken down into 4 basic rotations; the Enmity Generators will come from the 2nd Weapon Skill and the Blue Magic Spell; of course, you can weave, a Hammer Toss in-between, or a 1,000 Needles / White Wind.