A concerned Blue Mage, concerned about..certain..Blue Mage spells. improvement ideas.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

my choice of topic... Blue Mage. In particular, Blue Mage spells. It makes me sad that many Blue Mages refer to certain Blue Mage spells as "trash" and "useless", and more sad that this attitude toward these certain spells is valid, as certain spells do.. quite lack.

I did create a thread for and post this in a different place, but.. that was my day one in the forums, I had no idea what I was doing, and after I saw a lot of other Blue Mage threads around here, I did decide to post this here, instead... >.>;
If it were a option, I would have also deleted the other thread, to "move it" over here... =w=;

the topic that I will address here, is my personal ideas on how some of these spells that are referred to as "trash" and/or "useless" spells, could be improved, to make them better, at least enough so that my fellow Blue Mage will no longer think of them as "trash" or "useless"; if not.. to my hope, perhaps even improve them just enough, for my fellow Blue Mages to consider them as "useful", be it in casual or easy activities, or even in more difficult and challenging activities.
I hope that some how, to all of you, developers of FFXIV, these words find their way, and at least get a bit of notice and consideration; even if in the end, naught becomes of it.

alright, introduction aside... here are my ideas on how to improve these 18 spells that are referred to as "trash" and/or "useless", including a few oGCD spells referred to as completely inferior to the other oGCD spell that they share a recast timer with, and also 4 spells that I simply would love to see improved.

Spell number 1, #3 in the Spell Book: Aqua Breath. the issue with this spell is that it is far too weak, compared to alternative options, but not quite like other spells, if taken into consideration that Spell Speed and DoTs is the best DPS of Blue Mages, Aqua Breath at least has potential, since its main damage lays in inflicting the water-element "Dropsy" DoT.
My idea for Aqua Breath is to improve its potency a little, enough that Blue Mages will consider this spell and its DoT as "worth using".
In actual numbers, my suggestion is to increase Aqua Breath's base potency from 140 to 150, and buff Aqua Breath's Dropsy DoT from potency 20 for 12 seconds, to potency 50 for 18 seconds. As a alternative, Aqua Breath's base potency could be reduced from 140 to 130, and Aqua Breath's Dropsy DoT buffed from potency 20 for 12 seconds, to potency 50 for 21 seconds; or even leave the base potency at 140, and just increase the "Dropsy" DoT from potency 20 for 12 seconds, to potency 30 for 30 seconds.
for a balance, double the MP cost of Aqua Breath from 200, to 400.

Spell number 2, #4 in the Spell Book: Flying Frenzy. The issue with this spell is that although it could be a valid movement spell, its potency is too low for most to consider it as "worth it", and many Blue Mages instead choose the Spell J-kick.
my idea is to raise the potency of Flying Frenzy high enough to be considered as "worth using". In actual numbers, my suggestion is to increase the base potency from 150, up to 210. for a balance, raise the MP cost of Flying Frenzy to 300.

Spell number 3, #7 in the Spell Book: Loom. This spell has two glaring issues, as a spell that only has the use of movement...
a cast-time and the need to designate a location. My idea is to make Loom more use-friendly...
My suggestion, and also some-what of a request, is for Loom to be made instant-cast and to change it into a "dash", similar to Dancer's En Avant.
as a balance, increase the MP cost of Loom to 500, and change its recast to 10 seconds.

Spell number 4, #17 in the Spell Book: Blood Drain. This spell is not a bad one, but I would love to see Blood Drain improved, and made more useful than it already is. My suggestion for Blood Drain is to grant the spell a additional effect of HP restoration, as I think that it would be great if Blood Drain restores both HP and MP.
my two ideas are to either go with a fun and weird effect of Blood Drain restoring a set HP%, my suggestion being 5% of Max HP, or it could be a generic Cure potency, that makes it similar to the self-healing that Tanks have from Brutal Shell, SoulEater, and Storm's Path.

Spell Number 5, #22 in the Spell Book: Transfusion. For being a self-KO spell, this spell has a underwhelming effect and is considered very.. very.. "useless", in the Blue Mage community. My idea for Transfusion is to make its effect "worth" self-KOing over.
My suggestion is to make the Transfusion sacrifice a powerful effect, keeping its full HP and MP restore effect, but adding to that effect.
my idea is to add that it grants the target a powerful buff, that lasts for 2 minutes, increases damage dealt by 20%, reduces damage taken by 25%, increases HP restored by healing effects and healing Spells by 15%, increases movement speed by 30%, and slightly increases natural HP and MP regeneration.

Spell number 6, #28 in the Spell Book: Bad Breath. This is not a bad spell, but as I did mention prior with Aqua Breath, so too would I like to see Bad Breath's "Poison" DoT improved. My idea is for the improvement of the "poison" DoT.
while my suggestion is to increase the DoT potency from 20 to either 50 or 75, making it a DoT that will be strong enough to be "worth using", even though still no where near the strength of the "Bleed" DoT...

Spell number 7, #31 in the Spell Book: Sticky Tongue. I know that this spell already got buffed before, but.. it did not work. It failed. The difference ended up being for the most part not all that good, so this spell is still considered "trash" in the Blue Mage community. My idea is for further improvement of Sticky Tongue...
while my suggestion, is to please give Sticky Tongue a actual potency, like a potency of 50 or 100, higher than that if necessary, and increase the strength of its bonus enmity generation effect, and please.. keep increasing these.. until Sticky Tongue can generate enough enmity to properly function as a Blue Mage tank's long-range attention-puller.

Spell number 8, #32 in the Spell Book: Toad Oil. The issue with this spell is that after the Blue Mage community extensively tested it, it was discovered that Toad Oil's effect is literally just too weak. it only works in A Realm Reborn, does not work on magic for some reason, only properly works in open-world and dungeons, barely works in Trials, and does not work in raids; due to the current way that the Evasion and Accuracy statistics function.
I do not have a clear idea how to improve this problem, but please.. I at least voice the suggestion to increase Toad Oil's Evasion buff from 20% to 30%,
so that it works better in A Realm Reborn, will hopefully work in A Realm Reborn Raids, and perhaps even work in HeavensWard a little bit. Toad Oil needs improvement, and at least a bit of a buff.

Spell number 9, #37 in the Spell Book: Ink Jet. The issue with this spell is that its potency is too low, compared to other spells similar to it. In the Blue Mage community, a GCD spell is usually regarded as "Trash", if its potency is under 220, with Sonic Boom as the exception, since potency 220 had become the base of Blue mages' GCD actions.
My suggestion is to increase Ink Jet's potency from 200 to 220, so that it can compare to and be on par with the many other GCD spells that are potency 220.

Spell Number 10, #38 in the Spell Book: Fire Angon. same issue with Ink Jet.. the only issue with this, but unlike Ink Jet, spell that has good wasted potential, is that its potency is only a slight bit lower than its competitors, Sonic Boom and Sharpened Knife.
My suggestion is to increase its potency from 200 to 210, so that it is on par with and equal to Sonic Boom, and so that the Blue Mage community will then come to consider Fire Angon as "worth using".
On a side note, if Fire Angon is increased to potency 210, it would cause a problem for Sonic Boom, because Condensed Libra would tip favor in Fire Angon's direction, and cause a imbalance. To resolve this, and encourage balance, if Fire Angon's potency is increased to 210, either reduce its range by 5y, or increase its MP cost from 200 to 300, if not both.

Spell number 11, #41 in the Spell Book: Mind Blast. This spell does not necessarily need a buff, but as a GCD weave spell, it loses out to the other GCD weave spells, Fire Angon, Sharpened Knife, and Sonic Boom. My suggestion is to increase Mind Blast's potency from 200 to 220, so that it can match other GCD spells, be only a little worse than Fire Angon and Sonic Boom, and match no-buffs naked Sharpened Knife.

Spell Number 12, #45: Eruption. please, please.. my acquaintances in Discord Server "The Blue Academy", truly.. please forgive me for daring to bring up and re-open this rusty can of rotting worms, but I must. X'D we spent blood, sweat, tears, arguments, and even fights, and a lot of TheoryCrafting, to argue "Eruption vs Feather Rain" to death and like a court case, until we were all blue in the face, exasperated, and done with it, until the bitter end when Feather Rain was proven "simply superior".
Because of this, I make the suggestion to increase Eruption's potency from 300 to 310. In this event, Eruption and Feather Rain shall once and for all be equal!, and the choice of either or being simply based off of build; with Eruption dealing higher damage with a non-Spell Speed build, and Feather Rain dealing higher damage with a Spell Speed build.

Spell number 13, #46 in the Spell Book: Mountain Buster. same issue with Eruption, Mountain Buster is accused of being inferior to its competitor, Shock Strike, but the reason this time lays only in the range... I have a idea to improve Mountain Buster, but it would likely not cause balance, and just flip the scale to Shock Strike's ruin, unless Shock Strike is also improved... any way.
my suggestion for Mountain Buster, is to make it more like the real Mountain Buster, and add a additional effect to the Mountain Buster spell, that makes it inflict a stack-able(up to 8 stacks) "Earth Vulnerability" to all targets that it hits. this vulnerability will be +5% damage taken from earth-aspected damage for 5 seconds, per stack, up to a maximum of 30% for 40 seconds.
also increase the MP cost of Mountain Buster from 400 to 500, I suppose.

Spell number 14, #47 in the Spell Book: Shock Strike. As I typed earlier, I worry that although Mountain Buster needs a improvement, to be equal to Shock Strike, my idea would cause Mountain Buster to power creep up on Shock Strike, so here is my idea for also improving Shock Strike.
My suggestion is to add a reference to Lord Ramugh's Extreme mechanics, to the Shock Strike spell. Lord Ramugh's lightning attacks do additional damage to targets standing in water, so Shock Strike could have a additional bonus that increases its potency when cast on a target, or targets, that are afflicted with the "Dropsy" DoT.
also increase the MP cost of Shock Strike from 400 to 500, I suppose.

Spells number 13 and 14, balance concern: Mountain Buster, within reason alternative? / more or less the same as before, but I had a thought. I have no idea how good the "Earth Vulnerability" would make Mountain Buster, and how much bonus damage Shock Strike would need to balance it out, so how about reducing Mountain Buster's base potency to either 350 or 300, and then Balancing Shock Strike's Dropsy DoT combo bonus with the "Earth Vulnerability" effect's combo potential.

Spell number 15, #49 in the Spell Book: Veil of The Whorl. This poor spell gets most regarded as a "trash" spell in the Blue Mage community, and its competitor Glass Dance is vaunted as "simply superior". if the issues with Veil of The Whorl were addressed even a little, it could be a fairly good Blue Mage Tank spell... My idea for improvement?
my two suggestions are to either make Veil of The Whorl a unique counter, with its counter potency scaling to how much damage a attack hits for, which would give it the edge in certain situations, to out-do Glass Dance, or to.. at the least, please.. give Veil of The Whorl some much needed love and a buff. My suggestion is to increase counter potency from potency 50 to potency 75.. but at the least, grant it a buff to its counter to be as good as Warriors' Vengeance.
while, if you.. the devs, would rather not hand out a buffed counter to a full party of Blue Mages, then please.. just limit it to a Aetherial Mimicry: Tank buff. I would love for Veil of The Whorl to be a Spell that Blue Mage tanks can use and benefit from, more than using Glass Dance.. but, that will only happen if Veil of The whorl is improved.

Spell number 16, #56 in the Spell Book: Chirp. This spell is regarded as "useless" just because it only inflicts the Sleep status ailment, while its competitor Acorn Bomb, has the higher range and inflicts the same Status Ailment. My idea for Chirp is to change it into a fairly good Blue Mage Tank spell.
my suggestion is to give Chirp a Aetherial Mimicry: Tank effect, that will add a additional effect to the Spell's base inflicting Sleep effect, with the additional effect being that of B-rank Squonk's(a Paissa) Chirp, which is to also inflict a 15 second duration 15% generic damage-down debuff. this would stack with Bad Breath's unique damage-down debuff "Virulent", and improve Chirp into a Tank spell as valuable as Bad Breath.

Spells number 17 and 18, #65 and #66 in the Spell Book: Black Knight's Tour and White Knight's Tour. these two look good... at first. but they are actually a little lacking, due to in any case where their debuff and Status Ailment can not be inflicted, they lose out to any other potency 220 GCD spell, and the Blue Mage community then condemns them as "trash" spells.
My suggestion is to increase the base potency of both spells from 200 to 220, and increase their additional effect potencies from 400 to 440, so that they can compete with other potency 220 GCD spells, and their combo not be a "potency loss".
with this buff, though.. their combo could gain a lead over other spells in Dungeon activities, so for balance, I would suggest also increasing the MP cost of both spells from 300 to 500.

Spell number 19, #70 in the Spell Book: CactGuard, RIP. this poor spell has always been regarded as a "useless" and "trash" spell by the Blue Mage community, which is sort of fair, and no Blue Mage ever "realistically" uses CactGuard, since its effect is too weak and its use is restricted... please, please.. devs, give poor CactGuard some much needed love. X'3 Cactguard much needs a generous improvement, up to being on par with Raw Intuition and Heart of Stone, please.. if you would.
My suggestions are fourfold. #1 please, at least remove its biggest issue.. make it possible to cast on self. This alone would be a notice-able improvement that CactGuard needs. #2 increase its base effect from 5% for 6 seconds, to 10% for 6 seconds. #3 increase its Aetherial Mimicry: Tank boost from 15% for 6 seconds, to 20% for 10 seconds. This buff combined with a cast-on-self buff will make it, in the eyes of the entire Blue Mage community, a spell that is no longer "trash" and "useless", and "actually worth using".
and #4, a personal idea that I would love to see done with CactGuard. make it the first ever spell to have two different Aetherial Mimicry bonuses. I would love it if CactGuard had a Aetherial Mimicry: Healer bonus that completely changes its effect. My suggestion is "Additional Effect: CactGuard instead creates a barrier around self or the target that absorbs damage equivalent to a heal of 400 potency, when you are under the effect of Aetherial Mimicry: Healer. Duration: 30s. Effect can not be stacked with Scholar's Galvanize or Astrologian's Nocturnal Field."
for Blue Mage Healers, this would make CactGuard a barrier spell like GobSkin, but CactGuard would be single-target instead, and stronger than GobSkin,
to make up for it.
in the case that these ideas of mine would make CactGuard "too good", then for the sake of argument, and for balance, also double the MP cost of CactGuard from 200 to 400, give the Aetherial Mimicry: Tank effect a recast time of 30 seconds, the same recast time as Chelonian Gate and The Rose of Destruction, and give the Aetherial Mimicry: Healer effect a recast time of 15 seconds.
CactGuard has way too much wasted potential, I sincerely hope that CactGuard can be improved, as it has the potential to made "relevant" and "useful",
in the perspective of the Blue Mage community...

Spell number 20, #76 in the Spell Book: Condensed Libra. I think and suggest that Condensed Libra needs a fail-safe. Some thing like the Blue Mage can not apply any one of the three Libra-type again, for the next 10 seconds after its application, which would make to fish for a certain one only as bad as up to a maximum fails of two, while also not have a negative side-effect on re-application, since the debuffs have a 30 second duration.

This would fix the main issue of the spell, while also not take away the unique nuance of the spell's identity.
While, if "it is not worth it to use it" is a issue, then what if along with the fail-safe, Condensed Libra is also made stronger? For example, increase the damage dealt increase effect from 5%, up to 7%. I am not certain how to theory-craft that myself, but I am certain that if Condensed Libra has a fail-safe to reduce type-fish fails, and is a little more strong than what it is now, there would be a break point where it becomes a damage-gain and no longer a issue...

Spell number 21, #90 in the Spell Book: The Rose of Destruction. As with Blood Drain and Bad Breath, there is no real issue with this spell, and my only peeve with The Rose of Destruction is how the spell falls a little short of being a valid combo with Bristle.
I would love to see The Rose of Destruction improved, while my suggestion is for The Rose of Destruction's potency to be increased from 400 to either 440 or 450, which would improve it enough to be a valid combo, instead of a trap and a damage loss, if buffed with Bristle...
if this buff seems too generous, then for a balance, also increase its MP cost from 300 to 400.

Spell number 22, #102 in the Spell Book: Both Ends. This spell has the same issue as some other recast-time sharing spells. Both Ends is for the most part regarded as a spell never "worth using", because its competitor "NightBloom" is regarded as "simply superior", while at a instant potency of 600 versus a potency of 1900 over one minute, NightBloom fairly is, to my sorrow, for the most part superior to Both Ends.
My suggestion to sort-of alleviate this problem, is to give Both Ends a strong improvement: either greatly increase its potency up to close to NightBloom's, or change Both Ends to be similar to Triple Trident and Matra Magic, a multi-hit attack. this could be done in three different ways, is what I decided after some thinking...
increase Both Ends' potency to either 850 or 900, and make it a twofold attack, leave Both Ends' potency at 600 and make it a threefold attack, or reduce Both Ends' potency from 600 to 450, and make it a fourfold attack.
Both Ends needs a competitive chance against NightBloom, or else it will never be used by Blue Mages, and always ignored, like some other unfortunate spells that need improvement.


alas.. to bring this to a close, a few more paragraphs. ;Pc
If you read this far, without skipping any of the entries, my reader.. then you have my gratitude. while, to any and all of my fellow Blue Mages, if you have any thoughts or opinions on these 21 ideas for improvement, or ideas of your own, for the same spells.. or other spells.. that also could do with improvement, then please.. do feel free to post and share in the comments.
Either way, it is my sincere hope that the devs will some day take notice of this post of mine, and at least take into consideration what I would like to believe are fair and within reason ideas, for improvement of these misfortunate spells.
...Except for Mountain Buster and Shock Strike, those two were not so within reason... =w=; I am just not certain how to improve Mountain Buster in a way to give it a competitive chance against Shock Strike…

Lastly.. to be honest, my main ideal for Blue Mage is for the Subclass to have what the other 17 never will, in-class diversity. but pipe-dreams aside,
at the least, I just would love to see some of our "worst" spells made better, with no regard to relevant or irrelevant.
I love Blue Mage more than any other Subclass, and I just want to see what I perceive as its bad parts being improved.

Some of my ideas are indeed "irrelevant" changes to "irrelevant" spells, with the main point of sharing my idea of the improvement.. just being that it could be done, and I would like the improvement, despite being for the most part "irrelevant".

While my other minor annoyance is the lack of balance, in a few places. I want Blue Mage to make its players feel like they have choices, and that they can use "what they want", or "what they like", instead of there being "simply superior" spells that would make other players turn on the player for using the "worse" or "inferior" spell, instead of using the "better" or "best" spells.

And this is why some of my ideas are a way to "balance" the oGCDs that share recast-time, so that players have a "choice", rather than.. pick the "better" spell and pretend like the "worse" spell does not exist.

As for the last of my ideas, the wild ideas of how to make a "useless" spell "useful", such as with Aqua Breath, CactGuard, Both Ends, and Veil of The Whorl, is because I hate this fact of "some spells are close to useless, so never use them, except for in super niche edge-cases."

[Zeich]

Not all of these spells are nearly as bad as you say, and have variable uses depending on the situation.

Blood Drain is almost essential in some savage fights for tanks and occasionally healers, given just how demanding damage can be and a heavy leaning on quick heals / Diamondback uses.

Bad Breath, again, is an essential mitigation against some of the larger tank busters or AoEs - Alexander's 2x Mega Holy in A12S, for example, can be tolerated with Gobskin+full health but boy do you need to heal quickly through the back-to-back major damage, and Bad Breath eases the healing burden notably.

Shock Strike is already pretty great at only a 60s cooldown and fairly high potency. I don't think it needs improvements.

Black/White Knight's Tour used to be the go-to for many dungeon runs that didn't end in X5 or X0. A solid linear AoE to murder packs of mobs quickly. Ultravibration made that moot, admittedly, but when you can just power through adds much more quickly because of instant death, it does save a lot of run time.

Cactguard is again, another fantastic mitigation, this time for your off-tank to use in order to reduce a chunk of tank buster damage on our squishy, low-HP tanks. Even if they're coming as a non-tank role because you don't need an OT, it's still an extra bit of mitigation for when you're trying to lean a bit more on Chelonian Gate/Dragon Force for defenses as opposed to burning MP on Diamondback. This one is a bit more niche, but boy has it helped in things like T13 where Bahamut is just slapping you with tank busters and instant autos rather rapidly.

Rose of Destruction is fine as it is, and it competing with Chelonian means nothing if you're not a tank.

While I get your goal here, remember that BLU is a job with more than 100 abilities and only 20 slots to fill in. There will always be "superior" or "better" spells, and then those that are more niche. Communities will always, 100% gravitate towards the best setups for the situation, and the only way to make "every ability applicable" would be to make them all relatively identical, at which point all you're doing is reskinning the same ability over and over.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Blood Drain is almost essential in some savage fights for tanks and occasionally healers, given just how demanding damage can be and a heavy leaning on quick heals / Diamondback uses.

Bad Breath, again, is an essential mitigation against some of the larger tank busters or AoEs - Alexander's 2x Mega Holy in A12S, for example, can be tolerated with Gobskin+full health but boy do you need to heal quickly through the back-to-back major damage, and Bad Breath eases the healing burden notably.

I did say that neither of those are bad spells... at the start, I mention "and also 3 spells that I simply would love to see improved.", where Blood Drain and Bad Breath are 2 of those 3 spells. It is more of a selfish interest in improvement, than a necessary change.

Shock Strike is already pretty great at only a 60s cooldown and fairly high potency. I don't think it needs improvements.

As I said in the entries, I only put in a entry for Shock Strike, because of my interest to improve Mountain Buster, but my desire is to make a balance between these two, as many Blue Mages consider Mountain Buster to be "Inferior", while as I also said in the entries, I do not want to break the balance the other way, and no Blue Mage use Shock Strike just because Mountain Buster became "superior".

Cactguard is again, another fantastic mitigation, this time for your off-tank to use in order to reduce a chunk of tank buster damage on our squishy, low-HP tanks. Even if they're coming as a non-tank role because you don't need an OT, it's still an extra bit of mitigation for when you're trying to lean a bit more on Chelonian Gate/Dragon Force for defenses as opposed to burning MP on Diamondback. This one is a bit more niche, but boy has it helped in things like T13 where Bahamut is just slapping you with tank busters and instant autos rather rapidly.

I hope that you are not serious, as that non-Tank mimicry 5% damage reduction is worse than even Monk's mitigation, and you yourself just mentioned the spell slots issue right after. Some people do argue that the Tank mimicry 15% damage reduction is worth it, but two Blue Mage tanks is also usually disapproved of in the Blue Mage community.
I do not exaggerate when I say that spell needs improvement, as CactGuard really does need to change, even if only a minor improvement.

Rose of Destruction is fine as it is, and it competing with Chelonian means nothing if you're not a tank.

That was not the point of that entry... I was just sharing a selfish idea of a improvement that I would like to see, as I would like for The Rose of Destruction to be even better, while the mention of Chelonian Gate was just to point out that my idea would not break the balance, as those two have a solid DPS/Tank split... I will fix the entry to better express what my point and thoughts are.

While I get your goal here, remember that BLU is a job with more than 100 abilities and only 20 slots to fill in. There will always be "superior" or "better" spells, and then those that are more niche. Communities will always, 100% gravitate towards the best setups for the situation, and the only way to make "every ability applicable" would be to make them all relatively identical, at which point all you're doing is reskinning the same ability over and over.

...Did you actually read through what all I said, or only skim through and miss most of it. I did say "Some of my ideas are indeed "irrelevant" changes to "irrelevant" spells, with the main point of sharing my idea of the improvement.. just being that it could be done, and I would like the improvement, despite being for the most part "irrelevant"."

The main purpose of my post was to share ideas that I have had, while to invite other Blue Mage to share their own ideas. Criticism is fine, and can even be use-full for to improve my ideas, but I feel more like you are just blowing off some of my ideas as invalid, rather than to offer constructive criticism, nor do you offer any ideas of your own.
And no-where in my post did I say aught that would denote "the only way to make "every ability applicable" would be to make them all relatively identical, at which point all you're doing is reskinning the same ability over and over.", as no one in their correct mind would want a thing as disgusting as that, so I am a little sad that was your conclusion.
all that I said was "I just would love to see some of our "worst" spells made better, with no regard to relevant or irrelevant." I never said to do the complete opposite of one of the parts of Blue Mage, that I like the most about Blue Mage, being in-class diversity... all of the spells all the same would make it the absolute worst subclass of all subclasses.

but that aside, I will also acknowledge your opinions, as I did invite any whom to share their opinions, so I apologize if my response comes to offend.
My intent was just to share some of my own ideas, relevant or not relevant, and I would like to see other Blue Mages share their own ideas, relevant or not relevant.

[Cabalabob]

A lot to unpack there but to put it simply, most of your suggestions will either not change the situational nature of the spell or change it to be a mandatory spell for certain builds.

Your aqua breath change for example will turn aqua breath into another song of torment with half the duration and to that I say no thanks, keeping song of torment up full time is annoying enough and you want to add a second one that we have to upkeep twice as much? Did you ever play BRD or SMN in ARR when their DoTs had different durations? It made them a rotational nightmare, not to mention you’d have to bristle both spells each time so you’d need to be 1 GCD ahead at all times.

Flying frenzy loses out to J-kick because J-kick is oGCD and instant cast while frenzy is GCD and has a cast time, you could make it 220 potency and it won’t change that. Frenzy is a lower level spell that’s meant to be replaced by J-kick when you get it, there’s nothing wrong with that.

I agree that a lot of old BLU spells could use a rework or an update based on how BLU has evolved, but having read through your suggestions the only one I can fully get on board with is loom.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Your aqua breath change for example will turn aqua breath into another song of torment with half the duration and to that I say no thanks, keeping song of torment up full time is annoying enough and you want to add a second one that we have to upkeep twice as much? Did you ever play BRD or SMN in ARR when their DoTs had different durations? It made them a rotational nightmare, not to mention you’d have to bristle both spells each time so you’d need to be 1 GCD ahead at all times.

If DoT duration is the only issue, I can just re-calculate my rebalance, to shift it to 30 second duration. I will update the entry with a new alternative...

I agree that a lot of old BLU spells could use a rework or an update based on how BLU has evolved, but having read through your suggestions the only one I can fully get on board with is loom.

A better question is why Loom was not as I suggest in the first place. >.>;
If you pay close attention to Flame Sergeant Dalvag, Baalzephon, Dantalion, and Phantom Knight, the moment when they use Loom, and you examine the Loom animation; there is no delay at all, they immediately phase to your position... There is no sign of a cast delay, as they cast Loom immediately, and there is no sign of a designate location delay, they immediately phase to your position.
Loom by all within reason evaluation, should be either similar to Dancer's En Avant, or Black Mage's Aetherial Manipulation, but to target a enemy instead of a ally.

[Raikai]

I completely agree with Loom. Heck, even if they kept the target function, would still be as good as NIN's.

But I think you forgot 3 spells on that list, they being Dragon Force, Diamondback and Chelonian Gate.

Those are the tankbuster mitigators, yet they have a glaring flaw, that is a 2.3s cast time. Unless you're perfect on time with when the boss will cast the big hit, for some of their abilities, is really stressful to press them on time, beause that cast time is nearly the cast time of some tankbusters themselves. Also, they are not oGCDs... this means, that if you got your GCD rolling, you'll hae even further delay in pressing the button.

They are really unreliable because they are being applied to situations that the tankbusters were designed with the fact that the mitigators of the other tanks are abilities with no cast time and off global cooldown. I'm not sure if this was an intentional design, but sadly is what keeps me of trying to tank hard blue mage content. I've made it before, but the stress of dealing with unreliable tools is not worth.

[Cabalabob]

If DoT duration is the only issue, I can just re-calculate my rebalance, to shift it to 30 second duration. I will update the entry with a new alternative...

It’s more that you’re just adding another song of torment into the mix, it will be mandatory due to the high damage and will just be another DoT we have to manage. At best the total potency shouldn’t exceed 300 or even 250. Enough to be useful but not enough to be bristled. But the key issue is that if it’s more than 220 potency it will be mandatory in dps builds, if it’s 220 potency then it will be useless because it’s the same potency as a filler spell but can’t be spammed. While the latter isn’t ideal it’s better than having another spell you HAVE to use.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

But I think you forgot 3 spells on that list, they being Dragon Force, Diamondback and Chelonian Gate.

my list is just focused on the 18 spells that I most see regarded as "useless" and "trash" spells, in the Blue Mage community... I could change my original post to "all spells that could do with or need improvement", but my focus was more on "what I think are our "worst" spells, that need improvement the most."

that said, I do also agree with you. The damage reduction spells do not necessarily need to be oGCD, per se, but could be, and being at least instant-cast, would make them more of ease to use... The way that they are now, you more or less just need to cast them pre-emptively, before you actually need them, which necessitates to learn a fight well enough to know that a attack that you either want or need to mitigate, is about to come at you, before it comes at you... Blue Mage Tank has a high skill roof, and its skill floor is less on the low side.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

It’s more that you’re just adding another song of torment into the mix, it will be mandatory due to the high damage and will just be another DoT we have to manage. At best the total potency shouldn’t exceed 300 or even 250. Enough to be useful but not enough to be bristled. But the key issue is that if it’s more than 220 potency it will be mandatory in dps builds, if it’s 220 potency then it will be useless because it’s the same potency as a filler spell but can’t be spammed. While the latter isn’t ideal it’s better than having another spell you HAVE to use.

A fair argument, and I see your point. You are correct, but I will still disagree, as it is a matter of play-style preference... I see Blue Mage with more DoTs as more fun, as I like to play around with DoTs and work around the challenge of maintaining them, if there are several. I would like it if Blue Mage also had "Electrocuted", "Burns", "Sludge", a proper "WindBurn", a proper "Poison", and even less well known DoTs like "Flesh Wound"; while I was quite disappointed that NightBloom is just Song of Torment upgraded, instead of a new DoT...
before you argue, I will add... Imagine if there was more than one "correct" way to play Blue Mage. So what if we have a meta of "Best Spells"? we may eventually have more than 24 "Best Spells", and then meta or not, it will not be possible to use "all of" the best meta spells... I would like to see Blue Mage have in-class diversity, complete different ways to play Blue Mage, with none of these various viable play-styles being a "wrong" one.

if a person does not like DoT management, then just do not play the DoT blue Mage style, or use Blue Mage DoTs, and play a different valid style of Blue Mage, for a example... albeit that Blue Mage has yet to reach the point where we have too many spells, to have a single viable meta... But I hope that it happens, and that Blue Mage becomes in-class diverse.

[Cabalabob]

A fair argument, and I see your point. You are correct, but I will still disagree, as it is a matter of play-style preference... I see Blue Mage with more DoTs as more fun, as I like to play around with DoTs and work around the challenge of maintaining them, if there are several. I would like it if Blue Mage also had "Electrocuted", "Burns", "Sludge", a proper "WindBurn", a proper "Poison", and even less well known DoTs like "Flesh Wound"; while I was quite disappointed that NightBloom is just Song of Torment upgraded, instead of a new DoT...
before you argue, I will add... Imagine if there was more than one "correct" way to play Blue Mage. So what if we have a meta of "Best Spells"? we may eventually have more than 24 "Best Spells", and then meta or not, it will not be possible to use "all of" the best meta spells... I would like to see Blue Mage have in-class diversity, complete different ways to play Blue Mage, with none of these various viable play-styles being a "wrong" one.

if a person does not like DoT management, then just do not play the DoT blue Mage style, or use Blue Mage DoTs, and play a different valid style of Blue Mage, for a example... albeit that Blue Mage has yet to reach the point where we have too many spells, to have a single viable meta... But I hope that it happens, and that Blue Mage becomes in-class diverse.

I can see what you’re going for and I had a similar idea back when BLU first arrived that we should have each element give a debuff that increases elemental weakness for another elemental spell (casting aqua breath would give a thunder resistance down so you cast high voltage which would give an Earth resistance down so you cast earthshaker and so on) so you could either equip a lot of damage spells to cycle elements or equip less damage spells for increased utility (mitigation/healing spells). It would just require a total rework of how all damage BLU spells work and at this point with all the new spells we have it might be too late for that.