Alright, I Did It. [Blue mage Review]

[Mortex]

Honestly, I believe the only reason why there are spells with such an abysmal learn rate is to slow down progression. If Blue Mage had access to all content, they could scrap the RNG entirely because there's actual content for it to do after collecting all of its spells. But since there is so little for Blue Mage to do, SE has intentionally given spells a low chance of being learned purely for the sake of keeping Blue Mage occupied when there's nothing else to do.

We did over 80 Garuda runs to learn feather rain. After 5 normals runs I did go on my 70 job to burst thought that rng fest. Took still over 3 hours

[Astarotha]

to most of the people saying it takes way too long to learn a skill i point you to my experience with blu in 11, where it took (and i shit you not) 18 HOURS to learn sandspin, a completely useless level 0 blu spell, the fact that mobs actually USE their skills in this game fairly frequently or are part of their phase scripts makes this so much better to learn things

[Kabooa]

to most of the people saying it takes way too long to learn a skill i point you to my experience with blu in 11, where it took (and i shit you not) 18 HOURS to learn sandspin, a completely useless level 0 blu spell, the fact that mobs actually USE their skills in this game fairly frequently or are part of their phase scripts makes this so much better to learn things

Yes, and FF11 is literally the game that has aged the poorest. :P

[KageTokage]

Once fully kitted out, BLU is honestly not that unorthodox as a caster DPS outside of its utility/support moves that run the line from almost useless to hilariously overpowered.

The instakill/HP reduction effects are already limited due to several things being immune to them, while stuff like White Wind and Bad Breath could be balanced out by giving them cooldowns.

[TarynH]

Adding my review to this in an attempt to keep it a uniformed review thread.

For the most part, I like BLU. I like it so much, that I want to see it be re-imagined into a fully functional job.

Points of interest:
1. The job is fun to play in the most basic sense. It feels like a FFXIV job. However, it lacks any form of structure or uniqueness to the job (other than learning spells).

2. I would like to see more spell combos added to it. It needs a rotation to make it interesting. For instance, Water Cannon could have had 2 followup spells to complete a basic combo for low level. BLU could actually become a very fun spell combo job.

3. Make those spell combos interchangeable. In other words; give the option for Water Cannon to be replaced by something like Goblin Punch later. It won't change the function of having a combo, but rather add variety to the look of spells for the individual playing.

4a. The damage aspects of the job are too gimmicky. Most of them are spam-until-it-hits spells that do set damage. However, most of them are fully resisted on anything that matters.

4b. If you are going to balance BLU as an actual job, it is perfectly acceptable to have spells like Tail Screw do scaled damage. FFXI's BLU did this in a way where the job could be played normally. 1-shot spells do not hold my interest as much as having a viable job I can play for content. Besides, you have already made those types of spells be fully resisted on anything that matters.

5. Let us level up. There is no reason for the job to be capped at level 50. Let us level to 70 (80 at 5.0) so we can actually pick up spells on our own in older content. I'm not even asking for more spells to be added at this time. But at the moment, the 50 cap is only holding us back from being able to acquire spells solo. (I'm also not asking for us to play 51-70 content at this time.)

6. Add learning %+ to the weapon. Since it has no stats currently, this would be a good stat to add for it. Another stat could be increasing overall damage of spells.

7. The spells are weak. Even if BLU was being used as a full job at this moment, the spells are absolutely too weak for it to compete.

8. I don't see people kicking BLU from content because it doesn't have X-spell. In fact, you've made most of those spells absolutely worthless in content as it is. I see it more as BLU getting kicked from content because it simply can't do any damage. This can be addressed by giving BLU a basic skill set to do content with. One that is scaled and balanced. All of that other fluff can be used in the Masked Carnivale.

As it stands right now, BLU is just as you described it; side content. It's pointless right now. Even the end content for it is pointless. Learning spells to learn more spells? Why? I like the job enough to want to see it NOT be pointless. I would love playing this job in the newest raid. And I see no reason how it could "ruin the content," because atm BLU can't even ruin an Ifrit in hard mode. None of the "content ruining" spells work on him.

[Saefinn]

I decided I'd give a few days of playing before I'd give my feedback on the job.

The job appeals to my 'job fantasy' of BLU, I am a lover of BLU across FF's and is my best geared and best levelled/skilled job on FFXI. I like the idea that they've broken the FFXIV job mould to bring something that can satisfy the job fantasy. Love the concept, love the story, love the lore.

I think SE were smart. They've added two jobs that are jack of all trades that people have strong opinions about, a risky move where there's people not happy about it regardless of what they do. RDM got the FFXIV job treatment, it flows really well and works well with the game's mechanics, but cannot be a jack of all trades because of how the game works. In BLU, however, they've gone the other way.
I get this may work to the disappointment of Blue Mage fans who wanted a FFXIV version of it. Beyond that, both sides got something.

It seems limited ATM, but if people wanted content to do once completing MC, put up some PF for old content synced, could be fun. But I think there's potential for this and think there are things SE might need to do to make this work in future updates, I have suggestions that aren't going to be game breaking.

• Limited Job Roulettes - Level 50, Trials, Raid/EX - give Mendacity/Genesis/other tomes. It gives an alternative option to the tomestone grind (if for balance sake, let them share a timer with their non-limited equivalent, so if you've done Trials roulette, you don't get the reward for Limited Job Trials). It also makes content for BLU/Other Limited Jobs in the future more accessible (to accommodate that people tend to DF rather than PF). Also it helps revitalise old content.
• A 'non-limited' version of the job. If you look at the potencies and accuracies of BLU's toolkit, in terms of DPS they're not that special. You'd only need to disable anything game breaking (1000 needles at a certain level, Doom, Missile etc.) - maybe allow them to be a tank as their DPS would be low with the current potencies and the fact they only have 1 healing spell. We don't have a mage tank yet and they have the tools available for it. Whilst I get we have high potency spells, but they're not that sustainable, Level 5 Petrify -> Drill Cannons gives 420 and Ram's Voice (with deep freeze) -> Dragon's Voice gives 310, they require the enemy doesn't resist or in the case of petrify that it hits (it only takes 2 misses and the enemy resists it after that) - so the higher potency stuff is not sustained. Versus RDM with their 270/310 Ver spells that can be dual cast. The 420 of Fleche and so on. All skills 50 & below for RDM. They do this, they could also do limited job versions of other stuff like SMN.
• Drop the idea of them being a 'solo' job. We have to group together to get our spells and we're not that superior at soloing stuff.
• Allow Masked Carnivale to give Mendacity - allied seals and poetics are a bit niche.

[Seraphor]

"Allow carnivale to give Mendacity."

The problem here is thinking of BLU as a SB job, its not, it's ARR content.
Once they increase the cap and update the Masked Carnivale, which they've confirmed they are doing, it will likely drop the currency relevant for that level.

By the time it catches up, Mendacity will be redundant like Lores and Esoterics.

[Saefinn]

"Allow carnivale to give Mendacity."

The problem here is thinking of BLU as a SB job, its not, it's ARR content.
Once they increase the cap and update the Masked Carnivale, which they've confirmed they are doing, it will likely drop the currency relevant for that level.

By the time it catches up, Mendacity will be redundant like Lores and Esoterics.

The logic behind my thinking is to give rewards that are useful to those who are level 70 doing level 70 stuff, rather than have Limited Jobs rely on nostalgia as a reason to pursue it, when it could have a use as alternative endgame content to break up some of the monotony of tomestone grinding and helps keep the job relevent whilst still being behind in levels & content.

[NobleWinter]

I really wish all the spells had a Tier associated with them for combo purposes. In application, any Tier 1 Spell would cause the combo effect of any Tier 2 Spell. This combo effect could be increased potency or any number of things really but in my perfect world it would cause the spell to have an instant cast without any change to the recast time. Tier 2 spells could also combo into Tier 3 spells which in turn combo back into Tier 1 spells for an endless loop. This would encourage more varied spell usage and add a level of depth that is sorely lacking from the gameplay. If comboing spells correctly made them all Insant Cast it would make Blue Mage have incredible mobility which seems to fit the idea of a mage that learns enemy attacks. They should be capable of dodging the attack and inspect it from every angle. This hyper mobility from good spell choices peculiar for a mage could become a key part of their identity in FFXIV and be possible explanation for the lower potency in the bulk of their kit. Lorewise it could follow that the natural world has an endless rythym that both Monsters and Blue Mages align to.

[Bigsby]

I think the best way, although I don't know how easy it would be to implement since I'm not a game designer, to fix blu's dmg is to make all spells magic dmg and just benefit from blanket dmg buffs like trick attack and magic dmg buffs the spells that have specified dmg types beyond just being magic benefit from piercinf slashing blunt dmg buff respectively and just add magic dmg and intelligence to the blu af weapon and make future weapons for blu thru its lvl ranges in the future. Adding stats to the lvl 1 weapon wouldn't matter too much because if they did do this it probably won't be until shadow bringers, but they could just make it op for a lvl 1 weapon for new blus in 5.xx. I think that's all that needs to happen to make blu useful, and they could put it in older sb and lower df stuff to study how to balance it and hopefully unlimit the job in 6.xx.


Although if they did ever fully unlimit blu it may lose ifs opness in certain scenarios that it has now, but they absolutely need to add stats and dmg to the weapon