[Dev Team] -Thank you for Blue Mage...however

[Ramesses]

*Puts on his Blue Mage Adventuring Theme Music “I’m Blue” by Eiffel 65*

First of all, it goes without saying that the Dev team must be heartily congratulated for all their incredibly hard work in implementing this job and creating an entertaining yet fascinating new style of the Blue Mage job class. It is never easy to developing a new class and balancing is always an on-going yet delicate factor in ensuring that the dynamics of the job goes smoothly.

I shall be very frank and direct: Blue Mage is fun, it is unique, it is almost addictive and yet it strangely disappoints on one critical aspect. I had intentionally waited for at least two weeks before giving an honest review because I wanted to eliminate potential spoilers or be influenced by the few players who tested out the job for only one weekend and proceeded to give scathing reports. At the very bare minimum, the Dev Team deserve a healthy amount of praise for pushing forth their concept for this job and it is our duty as players to also develop a list of healthy constructive criticism.


The Lore:
I particularly loved the story and found it engaging because it adhered itself seamlessly into the existing weave of Eorzea and Hydaelyn’s FFXIV universe. Martyn’s character development was solid, swift, didn’t linger or get unnecessarily over extended and he is genuinely very likable. Most importantly, he has grit and I really like that – he’s effectively made his way onto my NPC favourites list. The addition of real world issues like exploitation of resources was a brilliant touch and one that I deeply respected.

Caedda being introduced was an excellent way for the story to underline the “why” in the plot and I hope that he will continue to be a focal lens through which we can see more of the Whalaque tribe. One point to note however is that I would have loved to hear more about Royse backstory and history; especially how she gravitated into the Coliseum business in the first place… there is an opportunity for the Dev Team writers to develop an interesting tale there.


Gameplay dynamics and mechanics:
The job is undeniably fun and can be highly efficient when using AoEs to deal with trash mobs or group of mobs. Where elements of the blue spells starts to get dicey is when we go up against NMs and need that extra damage ability – this may be something the Dev team might want to examine as they create the next set of spells for levels 50 to 60 and between 60 to 70. The elemental selection of the jobs brings thought provoking strategies to the forefront and I enjoy being able to prepare skills from my spell book based on my upcoming missions.

But we players need to be able to have at least that one solid spell that can deliver serious damage to high level Notorious Monsters... and it does not need to have an annoying two or three minutes cooldown like the primal skills nor does it need to take a bleeding week to cast like 1000 needles... (yep, please fix this-- I have to admit that I find the lengthy cast times quite irritating).


Accumulation of spells:
I was able to obtain my first fifteen spells (approximately) almost immediately after only a single battle and have screenshots, videos etc to support this... I was actually very baffled at how very quickly I was getting my first spells, almost as if the Dev Team designed my accumulation of spells to be this way... (perhaps I'm overthinking it but thank you all the same). However the spells from the six Primals were unnecessarily punishing and emphasized the aleatory of the outrageous RNG. As for the dungeons, they were almost as bad but in some instances, I was fortunate to have friends or other players who generously ran a few rounds for us on their level 70 jobs. What I did however find very fun was being able to run some dungeons that I had not seen in years. Yes, that was fun... and it made me appreciate those dungeons again.

This of course is where I find a critical contradiction of what the definition of “limited” job was disclosed to us… therein my question to the Devs: what really constitutes solo play?
Why must I still dredge through dungeons and even leves in order to obtain certain spells? Why?

• And why didn’t we have the opportunity to obtain a reraise spell? Or is this something we can expect when we attain levels in future updates? Please consider this.
• Plus, would it not be very beneficial if our weapons actually had stats (specifically accuracy stats so I can stop missing the mobs) and ... I dunno... did something rather than being a fancy walking stick?
• Finally, will we eventually get spells that will allow us to self-skill chain for extra damage? I remember having some great combinations doing self skills chains with my level 99 Blue Mage in FFXI... and this might be the solution for compensating BLU's lack of a sincerely all-powerful spell.

The Masked Carnival:
This in itself is a brilliant method of maintaining engagement with the job and I really admire the juxapositioning of the old-school FFIV to FFVI style for the characters and arena map. The available rewards are also great because it offers us a clear cut method of testing out our skills, accumulating a decent amount of seals while also maintaining a solid amount of engagement with the job for several weeks to come. Definitely please keep up this aspect of gameplay.


Expectations and Aspirations of the job for the future:
I like the job, still do and I admire the fact that it has its foundations fully embedded in the Final Fantasy tradition of how Blue Mage spells are obtained. My humble suggestion is continue being fearless in making it into its own job with its own strengths and trademark here in FFXIV. If the Dev team’s long term decision is to make it a truly solo job then pursue this path aggressively so that all your hard work up to this point can be truly appreciated.

Overall score and satisfaction rating:
Solid 7/10, just shy of being an 8/10 due to the unnecessary difficulty in obtaining certain spells, lengthy cast times + cooldowns, and the enforcement of a "group" dynamic in attaining certain spells; plus, the fact that it does not fully encapsulate the notion of a "solo" job.

Nonetheless, sincere thank you once again for implementing this truly dynamic job... please keep tweaking and pouring your phenomenal energy into making it even better.

[Laphael]

Very good and accurate feedback. I fully agree with you on almost all points.
I think we will get reraise at lvl 60. That one last dungeon-boss is standing up 3 times, but thats only my hope XD.

They probably should have released the next 10 lvls up to 60 before shb. 50 feels really low.

Overall i had much fun with blue mage. Especially running content with 4x or 8x blu is really good.

[Mito123]

Blu should be able to be free and be a job which people can main. Not a minigame Bs. Also blue can't do anything solo anyway and it's weak so I'm highly disappointed and Dev needs to step up and did their shit. If people are enjoying it that's fine please enjoy it but I found it very disappointing towards end game. Blue mage has so much potential and yet everything is limited. It's like a nerd being forced to be in dance class when clearly he needs to be in college. I would be fine if it was a different job original to ffxiv they wanted to experiment but they used blue mage, a job everyone wanted to experiment. That's so fucked up. Plus they acting like it's hard to balance, it's hard to make blue fit into Ffxiv, no it's not that just don't have imagination. It could easily fit in with how it's implemented at the moment.

[Huntrss]

1, Blue Mages are Solo because of the The Masked Carnival. Only reason
2, The Reason we can't do Duty Finder is We are over Powered... Hold on a Sec why is the Blue mage running through the Dungeon .. please Don't .. The Blue mage use his Death (blow up) or Final Sting only issue is it only killed him and we all Wiped. kicked the Blue mage from dungeon. yes fake death would be better then both. plus are Heal is too powerful.
3, we are so weak.

[Ramesses]

Very good and accurate feedback. I fully agree with you on almost all points.
I think we will get reraise at lvl 60. That one last dungeon-boss is standing up 3 times, but thats only my hope XD.

They probably should have released the next 10 lvls up to 60 before shb. 50 feels really low.

Overall i had much fun with blue mage. Especially running content with 4x or 8x blu is really good.

Thank you Laphael... and yes, l likewise had some solid fun running 4-man BLU parties