Blue Mage: A Job Reborn.

[AceofRains]

I apologize for making ANOTHER Blue Mage thread, but I promise, it’s not to gripe.

Blue Mage: A Job Reborn

Preface:
Blue Mage is a limited job because it is fundamentally incomplete and the developers probably were unclear how certain mechanics of the job could be abused. At the moment, the inability to queue the duty finder makes hunting spells excessively inconvenient. You could simply be learning spells with every job at the normal leveling pace. Additionally, some spells, such as primal spells feel like a hopeless grind with no end in sight. And most of all, players don’t seem to understand the identity of the job. Players don’t use proper rotations, and some spells are naturally outshined in rotation. Many other skills don’t have use at all. We want to define the situational use of Blue Mage’s skills in a Party setting, while doing solo progression, killing trash, and of course Masked Carnivale content. At level 50, every skill should have a place in Blue Mage’s rotation. Past level 50, Blue Mage needs new abilities that take the place of old weaker ones but keep the same identity. It will also need more ability slots, and need new “cheese” spells like Frog Song. We also want to identify a way to bring Blue Mage into the PVP realm, by giving it iconic abilities and an ability to steal actions from other jobs. Blue Mage’s identity among the “Ranged Magic DPS” is a utility mage. Red Mage is more of Resurrection and Heal Mage, Black Mage is all Damage, and Summoner is something of a flex Mage. Blue Mage should focus on keeping up debuffs and raid utility while, while applying its strong magic. It’s unconventional defensive spells also make it a strong survivor in fights, and be one of the last standing. If this is the case, Transfusion can be used to resurrect a more important ally- in some cases, this can save a raid. It is my hope that we can see Blue Mage tuned to level 80 early on in the Shadow Bringers expansion. I think a big concern is the fact that some spells may be gated behind content that has not yet been created in the main expansion. This is okay. Because Blue Mage’s unique nature and large versatile spell book, it isn’t such a big deal to have new spells come out during certain patches. Blue Mage, is so close to being a great class, and the more I toy with it, the I enjoy the vision of it’s future.

What does Blue Mage do?
Nuking:
In an ideal party, the Blue Mage stays at range, using it’s self buffs and damaging spells in a rotation. Like any other jobs, it’s important to realize when it’s time to focus a single target or when it’s time to AoE.

Debuff:
One of the most important functions of Blue Mage is having access to almost every kind of disable and debuff. Many jobs apply their own debuffs, like Paladin’s flash. Doesn’t that make Blue Mage’s role pointless? No. First off, no other job in the game has access to the paralysis debuff. Bad Breath, one of the most iconic moves in the history of the job applies almost every debuff. However, this spell only applies it at half the duration of a more condensed spell like Ink Jet, or 4-Tonze Weight.

Slow 20%/30seconds - Sticky Thread*
Heavy 40%/30seconds - 4tonze Weight
Blind/30Seconds - Ink Jet
Paralysis/30Seconds - Mind Blast
Poison/30Seconds - Toxic Breath*
Damage Down/30Seconds - Yowl*
Silence/Instant Cast - Flying Sardine

Bad Breath, again does all of the above, but at half the duration, or with cast time. While this can be good, especially when soloing, it’s something that a good Blue Mage would manage in a party, especially if they play at range. Additionally, a second and third cast of Bad Breath will make those durations cut in half. If there is a Paladin in your group, you may not want that a Blind or a Damage Down because it’s already built into his rotation. But if there’s a Warrior or Dark Knight, Ink Jet becomes a better choice.

Survival:
Blue Mage has access to Spells like Mighty Guard, White Wind, and Diamond Back. Among the most pivotal of spells is Transfusion. Having the ability to be one of the last teammates standing allows Blue Mage to use Transfusion, which can bring back to life possibly a Healer, Red Mage, or Summoner. Alternatively, much like like Summoner’s Titan, Blue Mage can temporarily hold enmity until a tank is raised. “The Look” is a spell that generates enmity. However the best use of this spell is to help keep enmity off your Chocobo companion during solo play.

Blue Mage Limit Break:
Ultima
Seeing as the upcoming Hrothgar are also known as the Ronso, a tribe of which many are Blue Mages, it’s fitting to make their LB3 Ultima, because it is the Spell in the middle of Khimari’s versatile sphere grid. Additionally, as a throwback Tactics, Ramza was able to learn Ultima by being hit by the spell. Ultima is powerful and shouldn’t be a basic action- it should be a Limit Break.

Blue Mage’s Job Gauge: Libra Gauge
Every job has been given a job guage. In some respects, you can look at BLU’s spell book as a job guage, however what I’m going to propose is an extension. I call it the “Libra Gauge”. This allows you to select an unlearned spell in the book. Every time you fight an enemy who uses this spell, it gains progress. If you have not learned the spell after so many attempts, it will be learned after the Gauge fills. This should help mitigate the grind of certain spells, without making them instantly gratified. Additionally, the Libra Gauge allows you to view the resistances of the enemy you’re currently targeting. It will also show you how long until a debuff is no longer being resisted. This will help Blue Mages better manage their debuff rotations. The Libra Gauge also has PVP applications, allowing you to designate an enemy job to learn from, and then temporarily steal their ability.

The Duty Finder
Blue Mages need access to the duty finder. One of the biggest setbacks on the job is the inability to organically learn abilities while you explore dungeons via duty finder. One of the reasons Blue Mage is unable to queue duty finder is because their spell book is the one thing that is unlimited about the job. There are two stipulations needed to make BLU work in the duty finder. The first step is to put restrictions on content whereas you MUST know certain spells to queue. This gives them some kind of level gate. The second is to allow access to spells at the LOWEST monster level they can learn. For instance, Ifrit’s “Explosion” is learnable off of a level 20 Ifrit. Ergo, a Blue Mage can use this no earlier than level 20 in the duty finder while synced (or also in the case of syncing FATEs). If we have to worry about cheese abilities, the simple solution is to make dungeon mobs immune to them.

Action Adjustments:
1. Water Cannon: Increase to 140 Potency to discourage Glower spam.
2. Flamethrower: Change to continuous damage over time just like Machinist. Implement 15 second cooldown. Set to 100 potency every second for 4 seconds or until interrupted. This allows Plaincracker to have a unique identity while Flamethrower is on cooldown.
3. Loom: Instant Cast, 5 second cooldown. Increase mana cost. Having any cast time defeats the purpose of using this spell. Increase mana cost to discourage overuse.
4. Final Sting: May need to lower potency to discourage dungeon cheese. Death is a setback on clear time and increases repair upkeep, we want to encourage it to maybe be your last attack to kill a boss if you aren’t the one using the limit break.
5. White Wind: 20 second Cooldown. White Wind spam is potentially the most unbalanced thing about Blue Mage. White Wind needs to be balanced around the need to use cross role “Drain” to bolster it’s use potential. If you’re playing Blue Mage right, even in the Masked Carnival, you should only need to once periodically cast it at half heath.
6. Self-Destruct: May need lower potency. Same concept as Final Sting, but also a good thing to use if your party is wiping on a dungeon pull that went wrong to take some enemies down with you.
7. Transfusion: Should revive an ally without weakness. Trading your life for another is a big sacrifice and should provide an equal reward. Because BLU is not seen in current content, this spell doesn’t even get to be used because there’s no one to use it on. Healers will out live BLU at unsynced 50/70.
8. Diamond Back: 20 second cooldown. Diamond Back can’t protect you from vulnerability debuffs, but we still want to make it an ability to use wisely.
9. Moon Flute: 30 Second Cooldown. Waning Crescent should only lock out damaging spells. White Wind, Diamond Back, Blood Drain, and other non-Damage spells should still be available. You can start applying Bristle, or Off-Guard for your next rotation. There’s nothing worse than looking stupid because you’re doing nothing for 15 seconds.

In a party I should have... (Dungeon, Raid):
Water Cannon
Aqua Breath
Flying Frenzy
Loom
Song of Torment
Final Sting
Glower
Bristle
White Wind
Blood Drain
Off-Guard
Transfusion
Flying Sardine
Ink Jet
Diamond Back
Mighty Guard
The Rams Voice
The Dragon’s Voice
Fire Agnon
Moon Flute
Peculiar Light
Eruption
Shock Strike
Glass Dance

Solo, I should have... (MSQ, Progression)
Water Cannon
Flamethrower
Aqua Breath
High Voltage
Song of Torment
Plaincracker
Bristle
White Wind
Sharpened Knife
Ice Spikes
Bomb Toss
Off Guard
Faze
The Look
Bad Breath
Diamond Back
Mighty Guard
Ink Jet
Moon Flute
Mind Blast
Peculiar Light
Feather Rain
Mountain Buster
Veil of the Whorl

Things I should use on low level trash for fun:
Drill Cannons
Level 5 Petrify
Missile
1000 Needles
Tail Screw
Doom

Things with highly situational use:
Acorn Bomb
4-tonze weight
Sticky Tongue
Snort

A proposed PVP kit:
I don’t feel the need to go into detail, but this is a general feel for what Blue Mage can do in PvP.

Magic Hammer
Water Cannon
4-tonze Weight
Glower
Aqua Breath
White Wind
Scan
PvP Learning:
Hallowed Ground - Paladin
Holmgang - Warrior
The Blackest Night - Dark Knight
Assize - White Mage
Chain Stratagem - Scholar
Light Speed - Astrologian
The Forbidden Chakra - Monk
Jump - Dragoon
Bavacakra - Ninja
Tenka Goken - Samurai
Troubadour - Bard
Flamethrower - Machinist
Flare - Black Mage
Summon Bahamut - Summoner
Verholy - Red Mage


Spells to expect 51-60 (Heavensward)
(Lv. 50) Yowl - Gaelicat (Cone Damage Down)
(Lv. 51) Whistle - Dahlmel (Physical Damage Up)
(Lv. 53) Rose of Hate - Ravana (Instant cast linear AoE)
(Lv. 54) Toxic Breath - Moss Dragon (Cone Poison)
(Lv. 56) Leaf Dagger - Korrigan (Single Target Damage)
(Lv. 57) Atmospheric Disruption - Bismarck (Self health shield and nearby Damage over time.)
(Lv. 58) Sticky Thread - Crawler (Cone Slow)
(Lv. 59) Death Ray - Page 64 (Linear AoE)
(Lv. 60) Frog Song - The Antitower (Continued Frog Status)
(MC) Dragon Force - Whalaquee Totem (Ally only defense boost)


Spells to expect 61-70 (Stormblood)
(Lv. 60) Terror Touch - Gelid Bhoot (Increase Damage during paralysis)
(Lv. 63) Shuck - Amikiri (Concussion: Blunt DoT)
(Lv. 64) Stormsplitter - Susano (Single Target vulnerability.)
Sandblast - Antlion (Cone Accuracy Down)
(Lv. 65) Howl - Lupin (Haste)
(Lv. 65) Filoplumes - Eastern Avians (Cone Increase Damage on Wind Burn)
(Lv. 65) Eye of the Fierce - Yol (Gaze Confusion)
(Lv. 67) Stastrom - Lakshmi (Raid Heal And Damage Mutually exclusive with Rasen Kaikyo)
(Lv. 68) Ultravibration - Kongamato (Self AoE, Damage increase against Blind.)
Scalding Breath (Burn DoT)
(MC) Angel Whisper - Whalaquee Totem (Reraise)

*Skills are just an estimation based on over-world enemies and bosses I researched.

Conclusion:

Blue Mage is only a stone’s throw away from being a viable and complete job. I’m so glad it was implemented into this game. It won’t take but some common sense tweaks to make it a job that can play amongst all others. My hope is that it can be brought up to speed early on in Shawdowbringers. The key points to focus on are ability rotation and unique identity, trimming utility skills, encouraging proper debuff timing, and bringing the job into to proper world.

[Veritas-Ancora]

...and bringing the job into to proper world.

I appreciate BLU because it's fun. It's a lot of fun.
It allows us to play spells that offer solo content so I can focus on my own performance.

With that said, I like the content as it is.

I don't like how folks continually pressure the devs into content that my FC has a lot of fun playing.
Every week, we go into BLU skill dungeons or trials and play together.

That's fun to me, and I don't want this lost to people demanding more resources wasted on yet another DPS.

We don't need another magic DPS. Each of the jobs are balanced. Allow one to be balanced just for solo play.

[ReiMakoto]

I appreciate BLU because it's fun. It's a lot of fun.
It allows us to play spells that offer solo content so I can focus on my own performance.

With that said, I like the content as it is.

I don't like how folks continually pressure the devs into content that my FC has a lot of fun playing.
Every week, we go into BLU skill dungeons or trials and play together.

That's fun to me, and I don't want this lost to people demanding more resources wasted on yet another DPS.

We don't need another magic DPS. Each of the jobs are balanced. Allow one to be balanced just for solo play.

My one question to you is: Why not both?

Current BLU is basically a balanced level 50 job, so if that trend continues, why not have a limited BLU and a Duty BLU. Also resources arn't wasted if they are put towards something people want (and they do want it, see the other BLU threads)

[AceofRains]

Is that all you got from this? That you and your group can’t horse around on content originally designed for solo play?

I’ve been playing solo since 1.0. I love this game allows me that flexibility, but this job is unplayable as it is.