JUST FOR DISCUSSION: How would YOU make BLU a normal job with rotation

[Bright-Flower]

I mean I can get preferring a system where you choose from a set of abilities depending on the circumstances, but that game isn't FFXIV. Not in the main content anyway. In a game designed for that it could be great.

Having ONE job designed like that in a game designed around having roations (or at the very least, a semi rotation with lots of procs like dancer has. ) and applying those rotations to boss fights with different mechanics flying at you, I feel wouldn't really mesh well.

Something like WoW's talent system might work, where you have your core abilities and can choose from a list of abilities that augment the rotation to change things up or to play to the mechanics of different encounters. But having one special snowflake job that can do any role or can completely change up its abiltiies between duties rather than a rotation designed to flow and have synergy with its abilities, would just not fit IMO. In another game with a different overarching design sure, but not in FFXIV.

[linay]

I mean I can get preferring a system where you choose from a set of abilities depending on the circumstances, but that game isn't FFXIV. Not in the main content anyway. In a game designed for that it could be great.

Having ONE job designed like that in a game designed around having roations (or at the very least, a semi rotation with lots of procs like dancer has. ) and applying those rotations to boss fights with different mechanics flying at you, I feel wouldn't really mesh well.

Something like WoW's talent system might work, where you have your core abilities and can choose from a list of abilities that augment the rotation to change things up or to play to the mechanics of different encounters. But having one special snowflake job that can do any role or can completely change up its abiltiies between duties rather than a rotation designed to flow and have synergy with its abilities, would just not fit IMO. In another game with a different overarching design sure, but not in FFXIV.

FFXIV sort of has that. It's called changing your job. But people don't want to be forced to level another job to do different duties, so every job has to be able to do every main content. That's why many people don't like the concept of Limited Job, at least as it exists now, as they want to be able to main BLU (not to mention not being able to just queue for a duty).

[StriderShinryu]

I suppose that instead of having a standard skill progression, you could unlock slots that would be filled by the player with skills they have learned. Your skill rotation could essentially be similar to other classes in that you'd have a 1-2-3 chain or two, a few OGCDs, a few panic buttons or big DPS buttons, etc. but exactly what skills those were would be chosen by the player. Each learned skill would have an associated classification and each slot would have a classification(s) that could be slotted into it so that you couldn't just put your most powerful skills in your basic 1-2-3 chain. Each slot might also have an attached bonus that would impact the skill slotted into it as well to encourage mixing and matching depending on content or player preference (say slotting an attack into your 3 chain slot would give it a potency boost or make it an AoE, or putting something into your OGCD slot #1 would make it a DoT).

This should largely marry the learn skills nature of the BLU while still mostly keeping it viable in the system we have currently. The only real issue would be that there would be definitively BiS skill/slot choices but that's not really a large departure from the rest of the game given that even the most basic rotations for every class are pretty much set in stone anyway.

[ReiMakoto]

But to answer the question I'd have 3 specs, all revolving around blus unique mechanic of rapid casting with ogcds with cast times

Elemental DPS spec:
Uses ogcds to apply various elemental debuffs, which are then exploited with spells to make elemental chains to do damage

Physical Tank spec:
Uses skills like bristle and whistle which are gcds that buff damage, to combo into large single hits, applies a phsyical vuln too

Invert Healer Spec:
Has a core set of moves such as song of torment and abyssal transfixion and bad breath, then can use invert to turn damage skills into healing skills, think like old cleric stance but it literally flips the purpose of the skill.

[DumdogsWorld]

To be fair, BLU was designed from the start to be like fighting using a collection of parlor tricks. As such, it's not exactly fit to be a full-fledged job.

To make it work you need to, in a sense, make it two jobs in one. Give it a normal DPS caster rotation and learned abilities, and then shove the creature spells into a separate menu for solo use, like bard performance.

[SenorPatty]

For me, I'd make BLU healer. Having this role would make its skill usage more flexible, imo. Blu would be sort of "jack of all trades, master of none" type of healer, making use of quirky dps and healing spells that leaves people scratching their heads at whether or not if they're effective.

On the dps side of things, BLU "revives" the discarded weapon debuffs(blunt, piercing, etc) into most of its Primal based spells, though its debuffs potencies and durations would not be significant enough to warrant BLU being an "absolute" must in any kind of content. Other dps spells have very strange and head-scratching effects. For example, after using the sardine throw skill, blu will also boost the tank's ranged attack by another 5 yalms. For another example of "smh" quirkiness, BLU can use the self destruct skill to dmg all of its party member's health by 50% (and leave its own hp by 1). Doing so buffs party members with "Friendly Fire Ire", increasing their physical and magical stats for a time but renders BLU unable to use it again until its out of combat, either through death or making use of a spell that puts it out of combat. There are many other quirky spells as such but that will be for the player to figure out.

BLU's healing is also gimmicky. It has a "give and take" channeling spell where it can drain its own health very slowly to supply one party member with hp or very quickly to heal multiple allies. When it reaches its HP danger threshold from the channel healing , BLU can activate Mighty Guard, which will nullify dmg for a very, very short period to of time but restore its own hp. Conversely, if BLU feels safe enough forego its own health, it can activate Dragon Force, which will boost the atk, def and speed of a selected party member for a very short period of time but inflict them with a debuff that prevents the party member to receive Dragon Force for a long period of time. BLU essentially gambles with either its own life force or other party members but rewards with making the right gamble.

Finally, what would set BLU apart from similarly shared ressurection spells is that it possesses two of them. One is the regular rez spell, the other being an Auto-Raise for BLU.

That's how I would, very broadly, envision BLU healer.

[Shougun]

I've written a bit on Blue before but I've been tossing around an idea so I guess I'll go for it here lol. With general goal of getting blue mage in DF, getting blue mage a rotation so it's not "pick your best deeps spell and press it over and over with occasional buff / ogcd".

Starting off I'd add dual stone job, stone flips to switch forms. When the stone flips it alternates from wrapped in aether chains and not. Chained form works in DF, unchained form works in all expansion previous content (last patch of an expansion might unlock this in advance of the next expansion) and unchained cannot use DF / other automatic queue tools (but could squadron / trust / chests that aren't current tier / non-current tier solo deep dungeons).

Quick lore would be the unchained form releases blue mist a sort of toxic, intoxicating, mist (go FF mist here lol, like FFIX / FFXII) and when casting raw spells you can hurt those around you and honestly you'll hurt yourself but through lore you've somewhat of a higher resistance than even most skilled users of the magic (meaning it's bad but you're the best person to be using it if anyone). So by chaining yourself you stop second hand misting people (smoke) lol. Part of why you can't go unchained in new content might be that your control over the intoxication and poisonous effects of the blue mist is your knowledge of an area's ambient and monster energy- so you can go in careful (chained) but it takes time to be able to safely(ISH) go in unchained (so you've a lore reason on restrictions lol).

This concept I think helps a lot and naturally as well, as you'd be able to easily maintain gear sets for both turns of the stone as well as UI / skill layout. It would also easily show pertinent info like your DF-able blue mage level vs it's unlocked level.

To make blue mage very casual friendly I think the unlocked variant of blue mage should have it's stats largely based off the number of spells it knows, such that non-blue mage player mains can rock blue mage as a side content without having to gear it. This doesn't mean unlock variant would start OP but if you learned every single spell the job had to offer you'd be able to solo very effectively for your level of content. This means if you didn't want to collect them all you'd probably want friends help or just learn spells through your chained variant, but for the patient and collectors blue mage would be your means of solo'ing old content that "just can't be solo'd" normally. (Key word on old). And of course the chained version of blue has to gear up like one would expect.

For gameplay there would be a mix of rotation and proc based changes to the job such that unchained and chained don't feel like they've no relationship what so ever, but also so the DF version can be both balanced and have compelling gameplay (no 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 + buffs). I would probably think of something based on skills being organized by monster groupings, perhaps narrowing them down to a sort of elemental wheel (but based on monster groups instead, rather than elements), then also adding ancient/forbidden magics. The ancient tier would be the pinnacle spell of the rotation, like most jobs have ("mah big spell big deeps", so like "doom" could be one). A general comment that I also think most of the skills should be cast faster (maybe 1.5 instead of 2.5), blue mage being a fairly snappy yet still casting experience- minus perhaps some of the big damage spells.

The chained side would have it's own variant of spells like PvP, for balance reasons. The unchained variant would have original monster strength spells, and more of them.

Like most jobs have two sets of combos 1 2 3 and 4 5 6, blue mage would have container spells that were based on monster groupings. For the chained side the debuffs on each container skill would be changed a bit for balance reasons (unchained would keep them as monsters determined), and the debuffs of non-forbidden skills will not work on bosses for balance and consistency reasons but can mess with trash packs for flavor (like you could give a pack 5 seconds of paralyze or 2 seconds of petrify, for a while you can really help reduce the damage a pack inflicts- and part of this rotation mechanic might mean a good blue mage picking skills that appear which effects not yet become resisted over just hitting buttons for damage). Forbidden skills in chained format can have debuffs but they will be balanced in accordance so things aren't wonky/inconsistent (so a debuff might increase damage taken or reduce damage output, rather than do some other thing it used to do). In a very lame way you might say they're different flavors of a similar ice cream, chocolate with nuts, with mints, with banana, but they're are a sort of chocolate- this is for balance reasons...... (can't let blue mage 100% stunlock all trash packs and many bosses lol). Keeping in mind unchained debuffs will remain potent, and I'd encourage perhaps a skill or combo that even reduces the immunities of bosses (perhaps not specifically always removing death resistance but ensuring less failed attempts and less "no point to use this skill" moments like if a boss ignores an effect it might take extra damage instead).

For unchained you could modify your own dice rolls sort of speak and add / remove skills (as well they'd be likely stronger since they're full monster strength and full debuff effects); however, some skills in the unchained version would require a certain number of other skills to be equipped. For example if you wanted to put bad breath into container skill 5 (whatever that monster group is called.. lol) you'd need 4 other skills (which lowers your control over what is drawn, but of course when bad breath is drawn that's epic- requirements change based on skills, so maybe ultima is like "need at least 4 skills in each monster group" or even some skills might be spell specific in requirement "needs fish toss to equip"). If you just wanted the group 2 to only have water cannon (say group two is amphibious monster group or something) you could because water cannon is a basic spell and requires no dilution of the container skill (meaning you'd only ever cast water cannon when the monster wheel called upon that group.. but.. you probably don't want to do that lol).

As you cast spells, the wheel would turn, somewhat control-able via QoL spells added as you level, and as you follow the wheel it would create general path lines that shift occasionally. This doesn't have to be narrow either the wheel could summon two different monster groups and you get to pick one. So one cycle around the wheel could look like 1 4 5 and another be 4 4 2. Of course there would be oGCD.

Would need to play around to make sure things are logically flowing, but a thought might be your first spell starts the wheel's directive (aoe/single target) - then after the monster groups only roll what matches that directive BUT occasionally will roll two choices with one path being opposite of your directive but with a big buff (meaning you might have started single target but then get a huge damage buff on aoe, or start aoe but get a massive damage single target spell). One of the QoL abilities can be to ensure / queue DoTs monster skills, for balance reasons your DoT might be labeled something specific so in DF you can't add 50000 dots (but in unchained the dot queue qol skill can behave more freely). If the job has directive shifting like that, which I think could be fun, might be important to highlight differently or show in some easily readable way that one of the options has shifted/morphed.

As you finish a cycle, or two, you produce blue mist which can be used to charge a forbidden spell. Your big bang boom spells. So like you might be able to cast doom. Of course the DF variant of doom will be balanced such that say it can kill any monster below 200% your own max health else will apply doom debuff which causes the monster to take 50% bonus damage from you up to 1500 potency debuff lasting 20 seconds. (when unchained doom will kill any monster, any monster immune to doom will take a stacking permanent debuff of 20% bonus damage). Certain stages of the rotation can also have other effects too of course, like in other jobs you do 1 2 3 1 2 3 reapply buff via 4 5 6 or whatever and go back to 1 2 3. So keep that in mind too, that beyond building for the big damage there can be other interactions like generically a buff but could also do things like take other spells off cooldown or charge up debuff tools.

There would be support skills with semi-similar mechanics (with care that they've some consistency), like different styles of heal or minor quirks that change. Unchained of course throws balance out the window.

Unchained besides being able to customize their monster group rolls can also slot a few new groups of spells that have their own rules and concepts (isn't limited to the same number of spells as it's chained variant, can have a few more), and replace some pre-existing oGCD spells as well. Like Blue Mage's DoT QoL controlling spell might be replace-able with a monster variant that's more powerful and does some new specific mechanic. Level 5 Death might be one of this slot-able spaces where every time a monster dies that's a multiple of 5 the skill gain 50% charge (so two mobs = ready to cast, doesn't come off cooldown via any other means), casting on a boss, if successful, will set the skill on cooldown for the rest of the dungeon and doesn't gain charge via boss summons (boss adds).

I'd also like to see unchained have interactions with other spells in ways that makes players want to build kits like a trading card game, I mean honestly the way the job is designed with randomness and a hand of cards that shift.. it sort of is ready for that- but as an example: You pull Fire Angon which when unchained acts far more like the original monster spell, meaning certain spells you cast afterwards will trigger fire explosions when you do specific other actions (like casting other fire spells). Which means as your cards rotate you'd pick more of your fire spells, it'd also mean you might build your deck more fire based, or you might use one of your support slots for a blue mage skill that greatly increases fire spells being drawn for a short time. So take that thought but then keep doing it, so each time SE adds new spells you'd get players theory crafting new ways to build their blue mage decks. Suddenly they add Veil of the Whorl (leviathan skill) that grows larger (potency increase) as you cast more water spells gaining new effects (removes debuffs and heals on each tick) and the duration increases as you cast wind spells, and you've decided to rebuild your whole deck to the master of the maelstrom. . until the next new meta changing "card" is added. Thinking like Diablo legendary affix madness, where it isn't intended to be quite "balanced" but just pure fun as the chaos of things begin to interact, where spell 1 and 2 slammed into 3 which causes an unintended effect to 4 and back to 1 and omg what is happening to my screen.

Of course not all Blue Mage spells would be set into these groups for DF, for balance and time consuming reasons- but quite a few would (some spells would be for your unchained variant only, although as SE adds levels / balanced the DF variant they can take from this pool which is nice). These DF approved spells would be gilded (gold border) in the spell book. For control over Blue Mage joining a group in DF with lacking skills the chained form of blue mage's level would be based on what gilded skills they've learned. Because the base (6 ish) groups's debuffs only really apply to trash you don't need to know all the possible gilded spells, but there would be prevention mechanics and easy to read means to know which skills you need to know to be certain levels. Perhaps to easily represent this there would be a sort of hunting log that'd show how many of each group of spells you need to be X level. So you might read "oh I got to go learn bad breath or I can't be level 50 to do the MSQ of ARR, okay- easy enough~!". Similar concept applied to any other container spell, like a support group spell ('oh I need to learn at least white wind before I can be level 42!').

So ideally now you've a job that has a varying rotation, branching paths and choices even, uses many monster spells, has influence over it's rotation (even though it's not "that" wild), can use true to form monster skills, has high powered moments with skills that are more closely to their OP forms (forbidden tiers), isn't impossible to balance, allows players to solo dead content that they want to enjoy (like rather than SE having to redesign old content, just give them unchained blue mage and they'll go experience Nael Deus Darnus themselves), greatly encourages collecting and building of kits, and is hopefully fun in both forms.

[Awha]

Even pure RNG is still a rotation; bard comes close to that. A rotationless job system would require no synergy between abilities as well as no limitation in ability usage. Even putting a resource, like a cooldown or MP, can tempt you to use another ability, and you've got a rotation as soon as you use two or more abilities in combat.

The tab targeting game that comes close to not having a rotation for me is playing SWTOR in story mode where you can be at max level and just spam literally one offensive ability for many fights while your companion keeps you alive.

TOR classes do have rotations just so happens that story missions are so easy especially with compians you can be semi afk and still clear the mission.

Would not say that is a lack of rotation per se

[linay]

TOR classes do have rotations just so happens that story missions are so easy especially with compians you can be semi afk and still clear the mission.

Would not say that is a lack of rotation per se

I get that. Hence why I only say they come the closest in that scenario out of the games that I've played.

Anyways, since it seems I never responded to the original topic of the thread: I'd like BLU be a standard FFXIV caster DPS that learns special abilities from enemies in job quests while having a standard set of abilities automatically learned via leveling.

[Awha]

I get that. Hence why I only say they come the closest in that scenario out of the games that I've played.

Sorry what I was trying to say playing a job by hitting one skill is something any job can do in any game, just so happens in tor it was made easier due to companions, and the way story missions are scaled. One could even do it in this game if they so desired.

I personally would not change anything about BLU, I would just make it so they can take part in DF, and if you happen to run into a BLU with joke skills then the party should simply vote to remove them.