Deep dungeon for BLU only

[Eorzean_username]

Speaking personally — as in, I allow for other people enjoying different things, and I'm not going to be angry if you get what you want out of it, but I still feel the need to speak up about what I'd prefer — I think Limited Jobs are a near-complete failure, and I have no desire to see any more of them.

Almost everything about BLU is basically an underwhelming gimmick that could have just been another dust-collecting Gold Saucer minigame like Verminion.

It's commonly argued that "BLU is so OP, though!"... but I don't even really see that. BLU is good at farming Moogle Tomestones and other trivial forcibly-sync'd content... and not much else. I know I'd much rather have an Unsync'd L90 real Job for most farming, than try to use BLU for anything, since BLU is frankly much more work for much less payoff in most situations.

So BLU only feels "OP" in situations where specific gimmick circumstances are contrived to make it so... and even then, it barely feels impressive, and rarely creative. You take a few predictable actions and repeat them over and over... same as any other Job.

I feel like the developers are just fundamentally-confused, and cannot make "Job full of optional actions!" actually interesting in the situations that the game's design actually creates. Again, the only time BLU's massive spellbook of mostly-useless "haha, that's cute" garbage ever becomes interesting, is when a laundry-list of artificial restrictions are invented to justify one of the niche tools actually having a purpose. Most of the time, you don't do anything except follow the same formulaic system as any other Job: take all the highest-DPS actions, maximize their usage, maximize your burst windows... because you're stuck with only 24 of them, and in XIV, more DPS is more useful than almost any other situational nicety. So most of the "wild OP utility" never really does anything productive, nor even appears on your hotbar.


In fact, in the opposite of being "OP", BLU is actually significantly more annoying to do almost anything with.

A sync'd BLU Tank is an execrable experience, with miserable DPS, a miserable "rotation", low mitigation, low HP, and :joy: cast times on its defensive tools, with the "fun" of spamming miserable junk like Blood Drain just to be able to mitigate the next tankbuster. Warrior Tank is actually OP; BLU Tank is pointless masochism.

BLU Healer? It's like being trapped as a Level 20 White Mage... forever. It's not OP, it's boring. Your Esuna is literally inferior, and requires standing on top of people. Even the healing isn't OP. Yeah, you have a few fun gimmicks — like snapshotting a White Wind right before White Hole-style set-to-1 HP mechanics — but by and large, BLU Healer is both less powerful and less interesting than just bringing a real healer.

BLU DPS? Your 24 actions are overloaded with overpowered OGCDs / CD-GCDs that you need for your live-or-die 2 minute burst cycle (haha, hmm, where have I heard this story before...), and the few optional spaces that you have left are rarely going to be occupied by anything interesting. Using defensive tools like Diamondback, or making the regrettable mistake of being KO'd, can actually deny you the MP to do your burst properly, making you basically as useful as a Summoner Carbuncle. Your "rotation" consists of spamming one or two dull spells over and over, until you play Cooldown Xylophone during Moon Flute (and probably resort to Third Party Tools to fit it all in without clipping yourself out of something critically-important).

So quite honestly, BLU DPS is hardly interesting or unique, either — it's just a cruder, clunkier version of every other recycled DPS formula: "fluff around for X seconds, vomit out CDs, repeat". Except your CDs are also weird and hypersensitive, combining all the best parts of MCH Flamethrower and HW WAR Pacification into one awkward package to make you less satisfying and more frustrating than just bringing a real DPS.

The only reason BLU DPS has any claim to notoriety is because its potencies are artificially-inflated. If this rotation and utility system was given to any full Level 90 Job, it would be excoriated as being dull, boring, uncreative, and annoying.


I'm sorry, but honestly, I feel like Blue Mage is one of the clumsiest, most unimpressive implementations that I have ever seen in this game. I think it's a (if you'll pardon the melodrama) completely-disgraceful way to treat a Final Fantasy series iconic Job that is a beloved favorite to multiple generations of FF players, and I frankly don't see how they ever thought this was actually going to be a good idea with long-term value. It gives me zero hope that another Limited Job would be anything better than a glorified Yo-Kai Watch event.

Blue Mage could easily have been implemented as a proper Job — which would make people "just happy", in the same way as being able to raid as Samurai or Red Mage does.

It doesn't need to perfectly-capture some mystical quality that Mr. Yoshida rambles about in interviews — it just needs to be a Mage... that wears Blue AF armor... and uses animations from Monsters.

That's it. That's the Job. You're done. It's fine. People will be happy. Same way Red Mage is only tangentially-related to previous incarnations of Red Mage, but still wears Red AF suits, wields a rapier, and casts Black and White spells... so people are happy.

I also take serious umbrage with the assertion that "Blue Mage is only Blue Mage if it can hunt down OP monster spells and be OP". I think that is a patently-ridiculous claim.

What makes Blue Mage "Blue Mage" is not being OP, any more than figuring out the optimal way to exploit any FF Job was ever said Job's entire identity. The developers didn't deny Dancer the ability to be a real Job just because it couldn't exploit Sword Dance to one-shot bosses... they just figured out a way to make Dancer work in XIV.

What made Blue Mage "Blue Mage" was that it:

• Wore blue clothes
• Stole, copied, or learnt skills from Monsters, rather than leveling-up or spell-scrolls
• Wielded Monster skills in battle, rather than traditional Black/White spells

THAT'S. IT. That's Blue Mage. That's all you needed to do!!


Lordy hells, sorry, I know I'm really popping-off right now, but honestly... even now, Mr. Yoshida's justification for what Blue Mage became in XIV raises my blood pressure a bit. It's not just irrational and illogical, it's borderline disingenuous — especially when you look at other classic Jobs like Samurai (does not one-shot entire groups of mobs, nor kill people by throwing money at them, nor break its katana to shoot ghosts at people), Red Mage (is not literally just the BLM and WHM spell lists glued together, with no further elaboration), Dancer (does not attack by performing randomly-selected dances, nor one-shot bosses by rolling the correct number on its dagger attack, nor function as a "physical healer")... and this list could go on and on.

I will die on the blue-colored hill that it was absolutely possible to capture the "flavor" of BLU, in a Job that worked within the FFXIV gauge-and-rotation combat system. Red Mage did it. Samurai did it. Dancer did it. Machinist did it. Summoner did it. But for Blue Mage, the developers chose not to do it, because Mr. Yoshida (and advisors) apparently decided to use his (their) biased and distorted personal impression of what Blue Mage is, to define the boundaries of what the Job could or could not be for everyone else.

...Yes, I am especially salty about Blue Mage, I know. Blue Mage is my favorite Job in the FF series, I have always played BLU characters in FF games, I did FF5 as 4x BLU the first time through, I always had Gau, Strago, Quistis, Quina, and Kimahri in my parties, and I was waiting for BLU in XIV for a long time. I just like being the Monster Job.

And then finally getting... this... was extremely disappointing, and even now, I'm still pretty frustrated about it.

[RyuDragnier]

DNC was already a job in FFXI, meaning it was already made in a way to where it wasn't so godly OP. BLU, even in FFXI, was either amazing or borderline useless depending on what you were doing. And a lot of players in these very forums gave pushback at the mere mention of BLU being a normal job, and I was one of them. BLU does not fit a normal job role, can never fit one. The "magic" in playing BLU is finding ways to absolutely break the game systems, to revel in its ability to trivialize things. Turning it into a normal job basically defangs BLU of its magic, and at that point it's just caster #5, with nothing that interesting about it because you're just doing combos like other jobs.

[Amenara]

DNC was already a job in FFXI, meaning it was already made in a way to where it wasn't so godly OP. BLU, even in FFXI, was either amazing or borderline useless depending on what you were doing. And a lot of players in these very forums gave pushback at the mere mention of BLU being a normal job, and I was one of them. BLU does not fit a normal job role, can never fit one. The "magic" in playing BLU is finding ways to absolutely break the game systems, to revel in its ability to trivialize things. Turning it into a normal job basically defangs BLU of its magic, and at that point it's just caster #5, with nothing that interesting about it because you're just doing combos like other jobs.

I guess I am the weird one for loving the idea and execution of Blue Mage in FF11. I find it fun that I have to do a lot of content to actually unlock the potential of blue mage and I like the aesthetics of it in the game. Also, most all jobs are amazing or borderline useless in FF11, especially in the old days. Look at where Dragoon was in the 75 level cap era, always useless outside of TOAU merit parties.

I honestly think SE could do some really interesting things with BLU in FF14, letting it be the first job that has a choice in it's role could be pretty cool if executed properly, but I don't think there is any will at SE to make BLU into anything more than a side amusement for a week after the one BLU update patch.

[RyuDragnier]

I guess I am the weird one for loving the idea and execution of Blue Mage in FF11. I find it fun that I have to do a lot of content to actually unlock the potential of blue mage and I like the aesthetics of it in the game. Also, most all jobs are amazing or borderline useless in FF11, especially in the old days. Look at where Dragoon was in the 75 level cap era, always useless outside of TOAU merit parties.

I honestly think SE could do some really interesting things with BLU in FF14, letting it be the first job that has a choice in it's role could be pretty cool if executed properly, but I don't think there is any will at SE to make BLU into anything more than a side amusement for a week after the one BLU update patch.

Oh I loved BLU a lot there too. It's part of why I wish they'd just let BLU into Bozja, DD, and Eureka, and actually let us lock into roles for normal roulettes should we have all the skills they want us to have for the roles. There's a lot of potential and fun we could have with BLU, but the devs seem rather adverse to letting us go crazy with it.

[Amenara]

Oh I loved BLU a lot there too. It's part of why I wish they'd just let BLU into Bozja, DD, and Eureka, and actually let us lock into roles for normal roulettes should we have all the skills they want us to have for the roles. There's a lot of potential and fun we could have with BLU, but the devs seem rather adverse to letting us go crazy with it.

I think the whole "required skills" concern of SE's for the reasoning behind why BLU will never be allowed in normal content is a real cop out. I feel like you can gate different systems behind BLU quests that require you to go learn the appropriate skills, ie job quests that are centered around you learning the spells.

[Midareyukki]

What made Blue Mage "Blue Mage" was that it:

• Wore blue clothes
• Stole, copied, or learnt skills from Monsters, rather than leveling-up or spell-scrolls
• Wielded Monster skills in battle, rather than traditional Black/White spells

THAT'S. IT. That's Blue Mage. That's all you needed to do!!

Even then, what you're describing is the traditional Blue Mage o: Final Fantasy has introduced variants

Because if we go by FF8, you obtained spells via items.
In FF9, you had to eat an enemy with the skill you wanted to learn.
In FF10, you had a specific command you had to use to learn the spell.
And though Brave Exvius takes a spin on the traditional approach, which is one I hoped the devs would implement. The Blue Magic you get is tied to the story progression.

And there's nothing wrong with the story quests being like "Ok, defeat that enemy. See WoL? You learned that thing's magic. Also, here, your crystal stirrs or something, so you have magic someone else learned in the past to help you with your rotation".
You'd get the same thing. You'd skip the Learn mechanic, but personally that's okay. Things don't need to be directly translated, and things don't need to always be gimmicky. And you'd preserve the flavour of the class (one of using enemy skills in combat).

"Oh but their skills would be too broken"
Yeah, well, DRK usually uses their HP to use skills and we don't have that. Now hush. We can be creative for once. :P

[4clubbedace]

But for Blue Mage, the developers chose not to do it, because Mr. Yoshida (and advisors) apparently decided to use his (their) biased and distorted personal impression of what Blue Mage is, to define the boundaries of what the Job could or could not be for everyone else.
.

Blue mage learn their skills from monsters, if this was a 2.0 class you could have each job quest give you 1 spell, at that point its the same as any other caster in the game

the gimmick isnt quite that they "use" monster spells, youre forgetitng the other half where they have to LEARN monster spells from battle

that, and the way 14s content is made (instanced, not the open world style of 11/eureka) would be a balancing nightmare,

so the option was, a unrestrained blu where you can have fun on the side, or a blu thats the same as a normal class that feels divorced from the two tenants of blue

they went with the former

[Ravenblade1979]

Blue mage learn their skills from monsters, if this was a 2.0 class you could have each job quest give you 1 spell, at that point its the same as any other caster in the game

the gimmick isnt quite that they "use" monster spells, youre forgetitng the other half where they have to LEARN monster spells from battle

that, and the way 14s content is made (instanced, not the open world style of 11/eureka) would be a balancing nightmare,

so the option was, a unrestrained blu where you can have fun on the side, or a blu thats the same as a normal class that feels divorced from the two tenants of blue

they went with the former

yeah happen to agree. i think yoshi p even said they would need to make the class normal which would lose the essence of what it is now. i mean if people want another boring dps. i say devs..give it to them and watch them whine their op strats don't have the same effect

[Winterfang]

the gimmick isnt quite that they "use" monster spells, youre forgetitng the other half where they have to LEARN monster spells from battle

Whalaqee Totems would like a word with you.

[Ravenblade1979]

Whalaqee Totems would like a word with you.

the rest of the skill list and the blue mage carnival would love to have a word with you.

btw thats only 11/104 spells you get from the totems and even they have conditions you have to meet..like learning x amount of skills, getting so far in blue mage carnival etc