How is BLU New and Innovative?

[jon041065]

Define 'monster skills'; i.e. outside of the name, and potentially how you learn them, how do they differ from regular job abilities? For example, what would 'Bad Breath' (balanced for a standard version of Blue Mage) do that regular old Poison (i.e. Bio / Miasma) doesn't?

Define 'the flavor that is BLU'; i.e. what could a standardised Blue Mage do that other jobs can't? What experience would a standardised Blue Mage provide that other jobs don't?

Or do you mean that you don't care if Blue Mage is OP / broken and potentially turns 'capped content' into a complete joke? (As a true version of Bad Breath, Lv5 Death, etc. would)

1. There are variations for learning blue magic in past FF games but I'm fine with the FF5 method they have chosen. Monster skills would yes be some reskinned abilities we already have but also some combinations of them that we don't and some things that no job has.

2. Bad Breath could be a DoT along with the damage taken debuff like trick attack. Yes, it would be some homogenization but I don't see how you make the meta more fluid without doing that a bit or straight up pulling things we've had for years. Another way to work in bad breath for group content would for it to apply the fire, water, poison, miasma, and bleeding DoTs. First example still gives the fantasy of your enemy being weaker and the other gives the fantasy of applying a lot of status ailments to a satisfactory level in my eyes.

3&4. Be able to use enemy abilites. I don't think it has to be something crazy beyond that. A lot of us that have been asking for blu for years understood that there would be some compromising to get blu within the trinity system and were fine with that. The devs have done a good job for the most part with getting classic FF jobs to work. If the iteration wasn't received well, then they have patches and expacs to make changes based on feedback like they have made smn better.

5. Keep the shenanigans to the Carnival and other side content and then a balanced game elsewhere. That's a good middle of the road approach that would appeal to far more players than the current proposal does.