Did the devs explicitly mention that BLU can't raid?

[Iscah]

Given their insistence that this is a new job type and not an adjustment period, I think this is a dangerous hope for people to cling to. I'm not saying they can't - I'm the WoL (until they flip my goth switch in 6 mo) so I encourage hope as a matter of course - but that sort of "clearly what they said isn't what they mean and THIS is what they mean" has already caused a lot of people a lot of heartache. Sure, they've gone back on their stated purpose before, but to plan for that as a matter of course, well...

It might change, but so far they've actively said it won't. People should certainly ask for changes if they want them but expecting them as a matter of course is, imho, a recipe for disaster.

It's not a "hope I'm clinging to", it's just an observation. It's a weird independent system that needs to be set up and operates outside of the rest of the game, but it still seems strange to have its own designated level cap forevermore instead of planning to eventually bring it in line with the other classes. For the sake of neatness if nothing else.

It just seems equally logical that the slow start might be because they have to set things up along the way.

Then again, if they're serious about not letting blue mages into Alphascape because they might successfully cast Lv5 Death on the bosses... who knows?

(Maybe future bosses will be immune. Or maybe they'll just all have prime-number levels or something.)

[DracotheDragon]

i have the feeling that once blue hits level 80 the High-end duty finder will be completely unusable to them to lock them out of end-game raids

[UnstablePersonality]

I imagine any new PotD that comes out in 5.0 will be designed with BLU in mind. The reason it can't do current PotD is because the two systems are incompatible (because PotD is based around skills gained at certain levels).

This could be retroactive as well, but I wouldn't expect it until new 5.0 content comes out

Who is to say the skills you get from enemies won't be leveled locked still? (Hell they already technically are because Shiva, I doubt you can enter Shiva in any form below 50)

[JaydeDancer]

This may have been stated already, so I apologize if I am repeating what someone else said.

I was at fanfest and I was present for the Keynote and the Letter from the Producer: Live! events. They never said BLU can't raid. BLUs can participate in parties, and they can gain abilities from mobs while in parties. However, when 4.5 comes out, they are going to be capped at 50, for the time being. So they can participate in any raids where the level cap is 50, but over time they will raise the level cap on BLU.

Basically, they implemented this as soon as they could, and so, instead of getting a fully finished job class, we are getting the beginnings of a job class. For now. Once they finish working out the details of how the job will function at 60 and 70, I'm sure they will increase the level cap.

Blue Mage can still raid, it just might be limited in what abilities it can use while in the raid. As Yoshi-P said, having a BLU in a raid and allowing it to use Level 5 Death on a level 70 Ultima would be ridiculously over-powered. BLUs will not be allowed to one-shot bosses, lol.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Also ask yourself, why didn't they just wait until the expansion? New jobs are used to sell expansions, so why are they adding BLU in 4.5 with no expansion requirement? The answer would be the same as why they added custom deliveries in 3.5, to test the waters with a new experimental feature to expand upon it in the expansion.

Because they've consistently seen the largest drop of subs between this point and the expansion. 4.5 onwards has been a massive dry period since they have very little content to offer over an extended patch cycle. Blue Mage is simply there to help mitigate that loss, though unless the updates come fast, I suspect most people will be done with it in a week or so. As for Custom Deliveries, they did precisely the same thing: releasing Zhloe in 3.55a. It turned out to be nothing more than a glorified turn in system that saw no changes whatsoever throughout Stormblood. Ironically, one could argue Custom Deliveries replaced Beast Tribes in Stormblood given only the Namazu had any real relevance due to the lack of a relic outside Eureka.

There isn't a hidden meaning here nor is this a beta test. It's simply SE trying to keep people subscribed over the next seven months when outside of Blue Mage, all they have to offer is a 24 Man, an EX Primal and Eureka for long term content.

[Shadowshinra]

Because they've consistently seen the largest drop of subs between this point and the expansion. 4.5 onwards has been a massive dry period since they have very little content to offer over an extended patch cycle. Blue Mage is simply there to help mitigate that loss, though unless the updates come fast, I suspect most people will be done with it in a week or so. As for Custom Deliveries, they did precisely the same thing: releasing Zhloe in 3.55a. It turned out to be nothing more than a glorified turn in system that saw no changes whatsoever throughout Stormblood. Ironically, one could argue Custom Deliveries replaced Beast Tribes in Stormblood given only the Namazu had any real relevance due to the lack of a relic outside Eureka.

There isn't a hidden meaning here nor is this a beta test. It's simply SE trying to keep people subscribed over the next seven months when outside of Blue Mage, all they have to offer is a 24 Man, an EX Primal and Eureka for long term content.

Precisely, there's probably a reason why Mr Atma was on the design team for BLU and that's because of the RNG factor of learning spells, something that wasn't apart of classic BLU, you either learned the spell or you died to it. By making it RNG and having them in the 1-50 zones is to cover two things. 1 to keep people subbed during the fall off period aka Padding content and 2. To have people in the 1-50 zones. Something SE get a lot of flack for by new players who think the game is dead because there is no one around in said zones.

[Radacci]

Keep in mind that they brought up a specific scenario of the Blue Mage casting Lv5 Death on a raid boss being a reason why they couldn't implement it as a normal job.

that's lame excuse, since most raid bosses are immune to most status effects anyway.
but maybe the purpose of BLU is for people to easily do outdated content, like farming BCoB, EX primals, and such.
myself i didn't bother farming EX mounts and such before, but now i can solo EX primals with my warrior, so maybe BLU will just be an easier/faster method of doing stuff like that.
Or it will be an easier way for new people to quickly go through all that content for story purpose and what-not - which is nice, except for people who have been waiting for years for BLU main.

i have the feeling that once blue hits level 80 the High-end duty finder will be completely unusable to them to lock them out of end-game raids

they will be lv 80, when expansion 7.0 comes, and everyone else is lv 100

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

Man, imagine trying to do the Crystal Tower Raids as Blue Mage.

I hope you know 23 other people that want to do it.

[alimdia]

that's lame excuse, since most raid bosses are immune to most status effects anyway.

Level 5 death is instant death, doom would be a status effect.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

Level 5 death is instant death, doom would be a status effect.

Well, to be fair, we have Phoenix Downs in this game and can't instant kill zombies with them. I'm sure they could come up with a way to prevent the usage of that spell in an instance.

Or just, y'know, omit Level 5 Death from BLU's skillset.