Did the devs lie to us? Either actually make BLU OP, or unlock it

[KaivaC]

To be fair, the kind of OP Yoshi-P was talking about is more the "I can immediately kill the boss with this single skill" aspect, not necessarily that BLU is the king of parsers.
But that fell flat the second they did what we all knew they'd do and put invuls to those effects on any enemy worth anything, including things as flimsy as overworld B ranks

Indeed. I imagine that this wouldn't even be as much of a problem as it is now if you could feasibly fight solo with properly adjusted potencies. 100-130 is just far too low - even in the Masked Carnivale. They dropped the ball hard on this one, and the sad is that BLU itself is an interesting job. But the way that it's implemented is just underwhelming in almost every aspect, even as it's limited self.

[Daralii]

Bluemage would be overpowered if it get a approximate weapon like the other Jobs at this level. Bothers me to walk around with a iLvl 130 weapon with 1 attack damage like the starter weapon.

They have a higher int coefficient to try and compensate, but they lowballed it. It definitely needs to be increased just so that its filler spells aren't so horrifically weak.

[BillyKaplan]

I imagine that this wouldn't even be as much of a problem as it is now if you could feasibly fight solo with properly adjusted potencies.

The problem isn't just the damage potencies - BLU's survivability isn't up to par with what it should be, either. Sure, it has a lot of niche skills most other dps don't have and White Wind can top it off easily, but it needs to survive a hit in order to use it. Mighty Guard really ups BLU's defense but you're still working with a caster's health pool. And that's besides Mighty Guard mutilating your damage if you use it, part of why 1000 was as good as it was for so long - it's flat damage, not potency based, Mighty Guard doesn't tickle it.
But good luck getting Shiva's skill solo when you're absolutely not going to survive her shared damage sword buster.

[MagiusNecros]

The problem isn't just the damage potencies - BLU's survivability isn't up to par with what it should be, either. Sure, it has a lot of niche skills most other dps don't have and White Wind can top it off easily, but it needs to survive a hit in order to use it. Mighty Guard really ups BLU's defense but you're still working with a caster's health pool. And that's besides Mighty Guard mutilating your damage if you use it, part of why 1000 was as good as it was for so long - it's flat damage, not potency based, Mighty Guard doesn't tickle it.
But good luck getting Shiva's skill solo when you're absolutely not going to survive her shared damage sword buster.

Mighty Guard needs it's numbers switched. 40% damage outgoing damage reduced and 70% damage reduction. Instead of the 70/40 ratio they are running.

If they really are all for making BLU a Solo job.

[BillyKaplan]

If they really are all for making BLU a Solo job.

It would make sense, even for its own niche content, especially if it's still supposed to get spells from stuff like Extreme Primals (and without the design including "being carried by max levels"). Still not sure how much it would do against stuff like Shiva's sword buster, which is why I'm hoping more that they'll move those skills away from those instances, or to be precise, offer us alternative, solo friendly ways, to getting the Primal skills. Then whoever wants to have people carry them, they still can, but now there'll be an alternative that's true to what they declared about BLU, without breaking either job or content too much (something they obviously don't want to do, or they'd have done it already)

[Seraphor]

While BLU definitely needs some balancing tweaks, and increased potencies is at the top of that list, the job isn't OP because of potencies, it's OP because of mechanics and gimmicks.
An OP healing spell, vast damage and defense buffs that are no competition for the other jobs, and a bucket-load of enemy exclusive debuffs that are not available to any other jobs specifically due to balance.
They'd never give a regular DOW/M the ability to paralyze, or petrify.

It's potencies actually aren't that horrendous compared to other level 50 DOW/Ms that are geared to that level (ilvl 90 or so), considering it gets a 50% Maim and Mend compared to other jobs 30%, and it has the ability to increase it's own potencies by 50% and decrease enemy defence by 80%! This effectively translates a 130 potency magic attack into something more comparable to effective 350 potency, which is on par with an AF Fire I.

There's definitely room to grow, it should be able to match a regular dps spell as a general attack, rather than only reaching it with all burst modifiers in place, so yeah the potencies are a bit lackluster, but it's not horrendous and I hope the job will get these sort of tweaks down the road.
It could also do with about a 50% HP buff too.

[Seraphor]

Mighty Guard needs it's numbers switched. 40% damage outgoing damage reduced and 70% damage reduction. Instead of the 70/40 ratio they are running.

If they really are all for making BLU a Solo job.

I think that would be too OP, you'd never need to drop it.
I'd rather 50/50 to be honest.

[Kallera]

I agree, this was a poorly designed, deceptive experience that I believe was intentional from the devs until they say otherwise.


BLU looked bad on paper, the fact that it is even worse than that is sad. They will constantly be nothing more than window dressing in a unsynced party and is too weak to handle dungeons in any sort of solo capacity. The learning system is also highly suspect, as the low drop rate from primals is simply unnescesary.

[BillyKaplan]

They'd never give a regular DOW/M the ability to paralyze, or petrify.

But at the end if boils down to CC, which other classes have. Several classes have bind, or sleep. Not as strong, I agree, but then again none of these works on bosses and hunt marks, so it's all the same at the end of the day.

considering it gets a 50% Maim and Mend compared to other jobs 30%

Other jobs get that bonus from their weapon damage, which BLU doesn't have - and that is exactly why BLU has such a high level Maim & Mend.

but it's not horrendous and I hope the job will get these sort of tweaks down the road.

I wonder if they'll bother. Because this entire debate about potencies is born out of the paradox in which Masked Carnivale's BLU is forced to engage with content outside of it.

[Seraphor]

I wonder if they'll bother. Because this entire debate about potencies is born out of the paradox in which Masked Carnivale's BLU is forced to engage with content outside of it.

Very good point. Increasing potencies by too much would mean they'd need to buff the entire set of Masked Carnival encounters...
That could be a lot of work.
Or it could be a simply level adjustment, who knows.
Or maybe they'll wait until they expand the Masked Carnival to level 60, making the original level 50 challenges redundant and not worth fixing.