Thread: Blue mage at patch 4.5

Originally Posted by Blueyes

Blue Mage being equally capable as a DPS, tank, or healer seems to be a common misconception. While yes, Blue Mage is known to posses powerful mitigation or healing through spells such as Mighty Guard and White Wind, often times, those two spells were all that Blue Mage had for support utility. Across several games, it's normal to see approximately 80% of their spells as offensive in nature, whether it be through direct damage or negative status effects.

SE knows this. There is a reason why it's been officially classified as a Magical Ranged DPS. And when DPS jobs can have support utility like Mantra and Troubadour, I wouldn't consider it remotely game breaking for Blue Mage to have spells like Mighty Guard and White Wind while being classified as a DPS job. I also wouldn't consider it to be a disservice to the identity of Blue Mage if it can't tank or heal as well as it can deal damage. The only case where Blue Mage was truly that diverse has been in FFXI.

The representation of Blue Mage in FFXI was a deviation from the norm. But in its defense, it could also be called an expansion of what came before. And it's quite clear that FFXIV is borrowing heavily from the FFXI representation. However, when you consider what it means to be a full-fledged tank or healer, and consider that Blue Mage has been designed as a solo job, is it even being created with those capabilities in mind? If Blue Mage were being designed to be the most flexible party job, it would be a different story, but it's designed to clear content on its own.

Being equally capable of dealing damage, tanking, and healing isn't something that is required of Blue Mage in FFXIV. At its core, Blue Mage has a consistent focus on DPS, and while it will possess mitigation and healing spells, those spells may primarily exist for its own benefit when it's being designed as a solo job.

It did not matter what role Blue was in older FF because that did not involve other real players and there was not a "Role" in the sense that in most FF you could have every character possess heals, defensive buffs, and damage skills.

Well what game can you borrow from besides it's online sister mmo which is an FF multiplayer game?

1. They can strip Blue of tanking or healing stuff to make it a DPS.
2. They could strip high DPS and healing stuff to make it a tank.
3. They can strip tanking stuff and high DPS stuff to make it a healer.
4. They can trash the Carnival system and make you learn skills via the open world.
5. They can trash learning skills from open world enemies and learn it by leveling and quests.

It's their mmo, they could do whatever they want. If Beastmaster gets introduced later they can omit the ability to tame beasts and just learn it via leveling and quests. They omitted many summons from Summoner for the sake of balance and the strict trinity. They omitted the need to defeat the little summons we have, in order to earn them. We summon chicken nuggets versus the colossal divines the series is known for due to being a multiplayer game. They omitted skillchains, elemental wheels, and other things. So yeah, they can do whatever they please.

And I would be fine either way regardless of what I prefer. Because I realize whatever happens, it happens because this game is it's own mmo.

If blue mage is meant to be played solo, I'd love for it to not have glamour restrictions. The tired old excuse of confusing other players would not apply, if the content is meant to be played solo. I've got plenty of bard gear that I'd love to add to my red/blue mage wardrobe.