So...About Blue Mage

[ReiMakoto]

Cause that's where the direction is with Blue Mage, it isn't ever going to be normal. These skills were all designed for party and raiding content.

The beauty and difficulty of doing them on blue mage is because the game sees a party of them as all red DPS, and that means any mechanic that was once role-aligned is randomized. Like any party member could get the O4S earthshakers, versus the healers only with a normal comp. Or you can get any gavel mechanic in A8S. This also opens up interpretation of what skills could be best slotted for the instance.

There is different play style because each of the raids you do bring different skills, as you don't take the exact same skills in each one. Like who wants to be the 'DPS tank' to take a swap, buster they need Frog Legs, not everyone does Or one of the DPS mimics has another heal skill in-case the healer gets involved in a mechanic. You need someone with the fish in A8S, or if you go in using Eureka best-in-slot gear you probably need one of the HP raising skills to survive certain mechanics.

Taking different skills =/= having a different playstyle. All of these skills do not change blu's playstlye, you still burst at your 1/2 min window and filler inbetween, all these skills are doing are adding a situational button, it's like saying having your lost actions (not essences) in bozja changes your playstyle, they don't, they are just momentary diversions from your fundamental kit, which we have mentioned before in the case of BLU has all the workings of a normal job. Like thats literally it though as well, blu is essentially a caster dps that has access to "lost actions/essenses" as part of their kit, give ANY job access to their lost actions from bozja and they'd be able to do what blu does, instant kills and all, they even have thier own version of diamondback and BETTER versions of skills like white wind/frog legs. It boggles the mind how people can't see that BLU's rotation currently is anything other than just another caster rotation with lost actions spiced in, and if we were to give that rotation to people as a normal job nobody loses anything.

[Azuri]

Taking different skills =/= having a different playstyle. All of these skills do not change blu's playstlye, you still burst at your 1/2 min window and filler inbetween, all these skills are doing are adding a situational button, it's like saying having your lost actions (not essences) in bozja changes your playstyle, they don't, they are just momentary diversions from your fundamental kit, which we have mentioned before in the case of BLU has all the workings of a normal job. Like thats literally it though as well, blu is essentially a caster dps that has access to "lost actions/essenses" as part of their kit, give ANY job access to their lost actions from bozja and they'd be able to do what blu does, instant kills and all, they even have thier own version of diamondback and BETTER versions of skills like white wind/frog legs. It boggles the mind how people can't see that BLU's rotation currently is anything other than just another caster rotation with lost actions spiced in, and if we were to give that rotation to people as a normal job nobody loses anything.

It's almost a normal caster rotation. But there is a glaring issue - Moon Flute. That mechanic simply has to go otherwise BLU will become the old SAM on steroids, feeding every raid buff with ungodly burst numbers.

[Deveryn]

There are some interesting ideas about what could be, but not enough thought about the time it will actually take to make something happen. BLU is a side job and it's fine as it is. It's also very OP in its capabilities. For this reason, it's perma-banned from things like Ultimates and Eureka / Bozja.

Conversion to a non-limited status is moot when you have 19 classes to choose from.

[Blueyes]

There are some interesting ideas about what could be, but not enough thought about the time it will actually take to make something happen. BLU is a side job and it's fine as it is. It's also very OP in its capabilities. For this reason, it's perma-banned from things like Ultimates and Eureka / Bozja.

Conversion to a non-limited status is moot when you have 19 classes to choose from.

Oh I have taken the time investment into account. Given that SE's original plan was to release multiple limited jobs, my suggestion was to take the development time that would go into the next Limited Job and instead spend it on turning Blue Mage into the full job that it should be. This should have no impact on the regularly scheduled program of releasing two jobs with each expansion. They've shown us that they can give us "two and a half" jobs over an expansion cycle. In the future, they can give us two normal jobs as per usual, plus the "remaining half" of Blue Mage so that it may participate in regular duties alongside every other job.

And no, converted Blue Mage to a non-limited status is not moot. Blue Mage is one of the most iconic and beloved jobs of the Final Fantasy franchise. Some are fine with its limited status, but there are many who see it as a total disservice to the job and its fans.

[SeverianLyonesse]

Oh I have taken the time investment into account. Given that SE's original plan was to release multiple limited jobs, my suggestion was to take the development time that would go into the next Limited Job and instead spend it on turning Blue Mage into the full job that it should be. This should have no impact on the regularly scheduled program of releasing two jobs with each expansion. They've shown us that they can give us "two and a half" jobs over an expansion cycle. In the future, they can give us two normal jobs as per usual, plus the "remaining half" of Blue Mage so that it may participate in regular duties alongside every other job.

And no, converted Blue Mage to a non-limited status is not moot. Blue Mage is one of the most iconic and beloved jobs of the Final Fantasy franchise. Some are fine with its limited status, but there are many who see it as a total disservice to the job and its fans.

At this point, non-limited PVE job design has become so genericized and toothless, I would not want that to happen to BLU.

Instead, I would prefer the opposite. Make BLU non-limited *as-is* and bring up every other job to be equally as broken and distinct. Use the PVP designs as a foundation and build out from there.

Screw balance. The evolution of FFXIV has been a gradual heat death as everything approaches absolute zero in the service of "balance". I don't want to play a balanced game, no matter how "challenging," if the individual job fantasies aren't engaging and fun.

[Deveryn]

Oh I have taken the time investment into account. Given that SE's original plan was to release multiple limited jobs, my suggestion was to take the development time that would go into the next Limited Job and instead spend it on turning Blue Mage into the full job that it should be. This should have no impact on the regularly scheduled program of releasing two jobs with each expansion. They've shown us that they can give us "two and a half" jobs over an expansion cycle. In the future, they can give us two normal jobs as per usual, plus the "remaining half" of Blue Mage so that it may participate in regular duties alongside every other job.

And no, converted Blue Mage to a non-limited status is not moot. Blue Mage is one of the most iconic and beloved jobs of the Final Fantasy franchise. Some are fine with its limited status, but there are many who see it as a total disservice to the job and its fans.

My perspective is fresh on the whole blue mage thing. I understand there's a history, but this is not those games. It's gonna be different. Blue mage is its own way to play and it should be left as such. There's only so much to be done within the confines of this game and its system.

If they start to make it more like other jobs so it can play more with them, it will lose what flavor it has. Even the idea of simply allowing them into roulette as they are forces everyone into the DPS role. Then they have to have a basic kit for whatever might come up. We certainly don't want to have to wait for them to tidy up their spells when they pop into roulette content.

I can't say that I'm interested in the idea of more limited jobs. What would even be different about them? They would likely be limited in the same way as BLU, but just have a slightly different flavor. It hardly seems worth the effort.

[Auryan]

I can't say that I'm interested in the idea of more limited jobs. What would even be different about them? They would likely be limited in the same way as BLU, but just have a slightly different flavor. It hardly seems worth the effort.

BLU's gimmick is about collecting spells and other limited jobs can have a similar niche as well. Take Beastmaster for example: it's entire thing can be about charming and raising pets. Fight alongside a Mandragora and after a while it learns Photosynthesis or Leaf Dagger or w/e. Puppetmaster can be all about collecting parts for your mammet that unlocks different abilities and traits for a slew of different scenarios and synergies. It's pretty vague on what the Master actually does and would probably borrow a lot from the XI iterations, but you get the idea.

[Deveryn]

BLU's gimmick is about collecting spells and other limited jobs can have a similar niche as well. Take Beastmaster for example: it's entire thing can be about charming and raising pets. Fight alongside a Mandragora and after a while it learns Photosynthesis or Leaf Dagger or w/e. Puppetmaster can be all about collecting parts for your mammet that unlocks different abilities and traits for a slew of different scenarios and synergies. It's pretty vague on what the Master actually does and would probably borrow a lot from the XI iterations, but you get the idea.

Pet AI has a long history of being buggy in MMOs. Summoner had its share from problems with the egis. Bahamut would even just sit there and not hit anything. EW finally saw summoner pets essentially take on a more decorative role performing a bare minimum of attacks in a general area. Beast master seems like something that will remain in the realm of NPC capabilities.

Puppet master could potentially work. I think they could do some kind of marionette / mount situation where we have control over a puppet, but we would likely have more turrets. I think rather than being limited, it should actually be something like Arcanist, where it can branch off into at least 2 different roles.

[Syln]

Blue mage only purpose is to farm allied seals :3

More seriously sometime i wish they just change it to something more constructed with 3 archetypes (dps,heal,tank), each coming with its separate set of spell that you have to learn and balanced to do content with other jobs.

[Deveryn]

Blue mage only purpose is to farm allied seals :3

Centurio seals should've been added for the stormblood cap update.