BLU clone spells

[Cabalabob]

It really bugs me that they made the primal spells for BLU basically clones of eachother with different elements so they are basically useless outside the carnival.

Why couldn’t they have done something to just slightly differentiate these spells? For example, make half of the spells a version that’s better for tanking, like makes leviathans counter attacks ignore the damage penalty from mighty guard, give mountain buster increased enmity so it’s better for tanking while shock is better for dpsing, make feather rain a spell so it’s effected by bristle and make eruption heal you for the damage dealt.

It feels like I’m wasting my time, and with how rare these spells are that is a lot of time, just to get something I’ll never use outside of one niche piece of content.

[Kalise]

Yeah... In my thread I made recently I tried to differentiate the primal skills somewhat so that they would all be useful at some point.

The TL;DR version is simply:

Feather Rain being a DoT with 60s uptime so you basically alternate Feather Rain and Eruption outside when a target won't last for 60s then you just Eruption. Also, with Feather Rain dealing more damage than Eruption to make actually trying to keep the DoT up worthwhile.

Mountain Buster becoming a true AoE skill without the damage falloff. While Static Strike gets higher single target damage but weaker AoE (Outside small numbers of targets, like 1-3ish)

Glass Dance becoming a skill with damage that actually makes sense for a 90s CD skill while Veil of the Whorl I made into a magical vulnerability version of Ifrit-Egi's shield so it's essentially a party Mag damage up skill which would potentially compete with Glass Dance depending on party composition and encounter mechanics.

[Hasrat]

You call it niche content, but that's all BLU ever was to begin with. It's basically designed with the carnival in mind. BLU is the carnival. There was never any need to differentiate to that degree because the carnival is all it ever needed to be designed around.

[RadicalPesto]

The only purpose the Primal spells have (aside from extending the life of this shallow content) is to make you feel bad for not having them because aside from the 5 star spells Blue Mage has no other off-gcds besides Off-Guard and Peculiar Light (which have castbars for some ungodly reason). They have neat animations but they're otherwise the equivalent of having to farm ponies to be able to use Fleche and Contre Sixte on RDM.

[Palladiamors]

The only purpose the Primal spells have (aside from extending the life of this shallow content) is to make you feel bad for not having them because aside from the 5 star spells Blue Mage has no other off-gcds besides Off-Guard and Peculiar Light (which have castbars for some ungodly reason). They have neat animations but they're otherwise the equivalent of having to farm ponies to be able to use Fleche and Contre Sixte on RDM.

Worse. The Primal Spells are the blue mages only burst damage and their only real form of single target damage. Without Contre Sixte and Fleche Red Mages at least still have some sustained damage. Blue mages without primals are just sitting there spamming whichever flavor 130 potency spell they prefer and keeping up debuffs.

[QT_Melon]

On a side note. There was a discussion on how it was really annoying to use Blue Mage as a tank because it had not good single target emnity grabber.

Spells like "Sticky Tongue" really should have been the Unleash/Shield Lob/Unmend of their kit for grabbing aggro. It would probably make a Blue Mage Tank the most amusing tank in game bar none.

[wereotter]

So the thing I realized (thanks to one of the fights in the Masked Carnival) is that there are ever so slight, but very important, differences between some skills that appear identical, and I do mean beyond the bonuses some skills get if the target is suffering form a specific ailment. Drill Cannon and Water Cannon come to mind. Drill Cannon does have a couple benefts over Water Cannon, but in most cases, you're looking at a ranged attack with 120 potency. However, Water Cannon is coded as magical damage and Drill Cannon is coded as physical damage. I've noticed this to be true with other spells. Mountain Buster is physical, Glass Dance is magical for example.

It doesn't have much impact right now, but it does have the potential for party content to be pretty big if they job is ever considered at a later date for that type of retooling. You could do something like use Drill Cannon if a monk in your party uses Brotherhood or a Red Mage uses Embolden, but if you have a summoner who has used Contagion, you'll want to use Water Cannon instead.

[Kabooa]

So the thing I realized (thanks to one of the fights in the Masked Carnival) is that there are ever so slight, but very important, differences between some skills that appear identical, and I do mean beyond the bonuses some skills get if the target is suffering form a specific ailment. Drill Cannon and Water Cannon come to mind. Drill Cannon does have a couple benefts over Water Cannon, but in most cases, you're looking at a ranged attack with 120 potency. However, Water Cannon is coded as magical damage and Drill Cannon is coded as physical damage. I've noticed this to be true with other spells. Mountain Buster is physical, Glass Dance is magical for example.

It doesn't have much impact right now, but it does have the potential for party content to be pretty big if they job is ever considered at a later date for that type of retooling. You could do something like use Drill Cannon if a monk in your party uses Brotherhood or a Red Mage uses Embolden, but if you have a summoner who has used Contagion, you'll want to use Water Cannon instead.

But you would use neither because Glower.

[Dyvid]

Ah, BLU is useless outside the Carnival.... Someone had to say it.

[wereotter]

But you would use neither because Glower.

You missed the point. I was using those two as a comparison as they're two I know off the top of my head. And Glower is not the end all, be all spell for blue mages considering how many other spells also have 130 potency but again also have the variance of physical vs magical damage. Also if you want to beat some of the masked carnival content, then you kind of have to know more about the spells since using the wrong ones will kill you and cause you to fail.