Quote Originally Posted by Fyce View Post
Which is why they decided to try and keep the iconic aspect of BLU. But that required it being put aside from the current roster, and it getting dedicated content, because FFXIV doesn't work with elemental weaknesses and all that stuff BLU is mostly about.
Wha- no, no it's not. Blue Mage is literally, and only ever has been, about learning skills from enemies and then using it back at them. Every time Blue Mage has shown up, it has been slightly different (or radically, in the case of Enemy Skill materia) than its previous incarnations. Sometimes it requires using an item to learn the skill, sometimes you need to kill the enemy, sometimes you need to eat the enemy, sometimes you need to be hit with the skill... but the one constant is that you learn skills, then use them. FFXIV is going with the see-it-kill-it approach, which is fine, that fits the mold.

But FFXIV Blue Mage isn't even really Blue Mage. Were BLUs ever super duper flexible godtier OP characters that couldn't be used in the rest of the game? No. They never have been. (Yes in 11 they were pretty damn strong, but they weren't so strong the devs barred them from current content.) This is a change in design from what Blue Mage has been to something radically different for FFXIV. If anything this version of Blue Mage has *less* in common with every other version outside of that one time the job became an item.