Blue mage love

[Azuri]

Yall say that until they actually decide to make BLU an actual job by stripping it down so it fits in the 2 minute bust window.

BLU is the absolute form of 2 minute burst window though. It literally bursts so hard for 15 seconds every 2 minutes that it does nothing the following 15 seconds.

[Yeastyloins]

BLU is the absolute form of 2 minute burst window though. It literally bursts so hard for 15 seconds every 2 minutes that it does nothing the following 15 seconds.

So imagine that only happening every 2 minutes for 15 seconds then you do nothing for the next minute and 45 seconds. Welcome to Endwalker

[AluneTempest]

BLU is the absolute form of 2 minute burst window though. It literally bursts so hard for 15 seconds every 2 minutes that it does nothing the following 15 seconds.

Yeah, but after your initial burst you have a dot with 75 potency that lasts for 60s with 120s recast time.
a 30, 60, 90s oGCD
a 30, 60, 90, 120s GCD

You can burst whatever you want after the initial one because not all of your skills have a 120/60s CD and you dont need to wait for your party to use their buffs because if you dont burst at the same time of them, you lose a LOT of dps.

Im speaking about a BLU with a DPS build, if you bring a Healer/Tank build, the rotation will be very different, particularly Tank.

[Curisu]

BLU is great as a limited job, SE should just widen it's play field.

Like, make it possible for him to join potd and hoh.
Of course only in fixed group and with disabled/changed solo achievement.

Let BLU go into Ultimates with of course disabled rewards for all participants when one BLU is in a group.
Maybe even the restrictions that you only can enter with BLU when everyone cleared it before.
And maybe even hidden achievements when a full BLU group is able to clear a Ultimate.

Even Eureka should be nice content for BLU.
As long they are only allowed to use these logo's actions that all role's can use. This should balance his DMG in Paris/Hydatos/BA.
BA is already a joke and was cleared by only 10 player (9 could be possible too), so BLU would not break it.

[Llynethil]

I just wish you could turn in stickerbooks as BLU just for the xp boost, I don't get why that isn't a possibility?

[MonsutaMan]

The moment I had to level another class, so I can gain access to other leveling areas because BLU cannot complete the main scenario was the final straw for me......

Limited jobs should NOT EVER be a thing.........

The restrictions are asinine. The most flawed job system in any MMO I can remember since the late 90s.......

[VictorSpoils]

It really is dead right now. Going on two years since the last content update with no news in sight.

[Arkdra]

It really is dead right now. Going on two years since the last content update with no news in sight.

They've said more blu levels are coming fairly recently so it's not no news, just nothing specific sadly.

[Raikai]

Agree a lot with the OP.

My caveat with BLU comes not with the idea or implementation of the job's mechanics, but atually on how it has its 'endgame' treated.

Basically, because of the structure, you need to rely on Party Finder to run content with the job, and outside of the patch when BLU receives an update (once every expansion), it's barren of people, because everyone that enjoys the job already has everything from the update.

The other day, a weekend during busy hours, it took me nearly 1 hour to fill in for the dungeon Log objective. It's already a lot, I can't even imagine trying to form a party for 8 or 24 man objectives. To me, the problem is not that "BLU is behind everyone else 1/2 xpacs", because in all honesty is fun to run old content sync'd with a job that doesn't have its actions gutted because of sync'ing to a lower level tier.

I ran some theories in my head on how to make this a little better:

1) The most straightfoward of the ideas: let BLU players complete log objectives alone, because currently we can't as the log objective only register with a full party. The job already have the tool necessary to undertake this challenge and it is the spell Basic Instinct, implemented at the last update. It's odd that this isn't a thing already, given that's exactly the purpose of that spell.

2) Add Deep Dungeons to the job, with its own scoreboard and separate solo achievement (so it wouldn't trivialize the challenge with other jobs).

3) Add a queueable PVP mode for BLU. They toyed with the idea of a Battle Royale arena which sounded really interesting. I hope they're considering it for the next update, because having that kind of repeatable content that adds to the pvp series ranks can make the job feel a bit more inclusive.

4) Move the BLU update to the 1st half of the expansion. That part of the 2 year cycle is objectively more empty of things to do, mainly because most of the 'time sinks' (Deep Dungeon, Explorable Zone, Relic Grind, etc) are usually implemented midway through. By movintg the update here, they not just balance the content drought, but they also add another interesting venue of farming the most up-to-date materia (with weekly log objectives), even though Hunts still being the optimal way of doing so. Bonus to that if they create an unique Blue Mage currency.

5) Let we complete story related content with the job. Even though most of the people probably have the story completed so far, it would be fun to do story unlocks and whatnot with the job, or even run back with new game+. Is not like the solo duty instances are challenging at all in any job anyway given you can set it to easy more. I would even say that could be a nice idea letting BLU use the Duty Support system.


As of how the gameplay is, I'm pretty satisfied, with some points to be considered:

a) While on Tanking Mimicry, the tankbuster mitigators need to be instant cast. They are terrible to use with a cast time, given most of the tankbusters were designed with them being instant and ogcd.

b) Moonflute's "backlash" design. The action primarily is quite interesting because it adds a layer of burst complexity, but spending a whole 15 seconds without being able to do anythingbut run is not a good gameplay mechanic. An interesting concept I've seen before was if the "Waning Nocturne" effect turned you into a monster with a specific set of underpowered actions during those 15 seconds.

c) More on the technical side, but the Mimicries should change your job icon's color to indicate the role you're using with the party finder registry.

[Gserpent]

BLU is great as a limited job, SE should just widen it's play field.

Like, make it possible for him to join potd and hoh.
Of course only in fixed group and with disabled/changed solo achievement.

Let BLU go into Ultimates with of course disabled rewards for all participants when one BLU is in a group.
Maybe even the restrictions that you only can enter with BLU when everyone cleared it before.
And maybe even hidden achievements when a full BLU group is able to clear a Ultimate.

Even Eureka should be nice content for BLU.
As long they are only allowed to use these logo's actions that all role's can use. This should balance his DMG in Paris/Hydatos/BA.
BA is already a joke and was cleared by only 10 player (9 could be possible too), so BLU would not break it.

Yeah, Square-Enix is seriously under-utilizing BLU/limited jobs. Limited jobs is your ticket to solving people complaining about homogenization - introduce classes who don't give a single tin turd about balance, holy trinity, etc and just bend the game into fifteen different shapes. And it's okay, because they're designed to play in their own little section of the field. Beastmaster (pokemon in *my* FFXIV??) would be hugely popular, I think. Especially if they created a "pet battle" mode where you can challenge NPCs and other players, like triple triad.

But right now, they definitely need to expand the field, as you said. Let BLU into all deep dungeons, with their own achievements (group may only contain BLU, and any group with BLU in it doesn't qualify for the normal achievements) and scoring/ranking. Let BLU into Eureka and Bozja, since "proper balance" in those areas is irrelevant these days (not that balance was ever a focus in them to begin with, they are intentionally designed to let players do nutty things from the outset.) Add "BLUWU", since UWU is probably the ultimate that BLU is most likely to be able to handle (especially depending on new spells in lvl 80 update.) Add achievements for soloing content while level synced.

There's so much they *could* be doing with BLU, and the limited jobs concept in general. Especially given how wildly popular Blue Mage has been in Final Fantasy. Even moreso if we end up visiting the "new world" in 7.x, which is where Blue Magic comes from.