Could Blue Mage do more in the future?

[lionheart13456765]

With Blue mage announced to get a level increase and new spells for 6.45 after two years, I’d like to ask why it’s still as strictly limited as it is? When it first came out limiting it was a good idea but currently it seems like it has the blueprints (pun intended) to be a single target debuff caster in mainstream content thanks to Condensed Libra, like how Dancer is a single target ranged buffer with Standard Step.

Could the Masked Carnivale be made into an area like the Wolves’ Den (only like a backstage prep area)? It could be accessible by an NPC in the location the current Carnival NPC, who already won’t talk to people who aren’t blue mage a sort of filter and the NPCs specific to Blue Mage would be there, Martyn, the Mamool-ja who sell things, the current Carnivale NPC and a new NCP who allows players to sign up for duties 10 levels below current and savage content with their Blue magic hot bars (Which would be like the Den’s PVP hot bars, the regular hot bars get swapped out for them while in the area and only actions for that content can be put on them, the current spellbook actions).

This way the crazy spells that make it impossible to balance like the brush with death, instant death/flat damage and tanking/healing specific (White wind, Mighty Guard, etc) spells are limited like intended and a set of balanced actions and traits for outside the Carnivale is available allowing blues to do the content they currently miss out on.
It wouldn’t be the first time a class had its own content, Bards have their instruments, or the first area to be blocked off from all but one category, the Lalafell houses in Tomra. It also feels like the job doesn’t need the action part of the actions and traits tab page as I imagine the vast majority of people set their skills to the hot bar from the Blue Spellbook menu since they are already in it to select them anyway. Some Blue spells are learned from the Whalaqee totems so we already don’t learn everything from monsters and if we need to for a specific reason couldn’t it be told why using a Blue Mage story quest.

Since the main problem is balancing the more problematic spells is it possible that the job could be refined like this instead?

[DrWho2010]

blu will never be a real boy.

[Cabalabob]

There are a lot of issues with BLU being a regular job and you should probably set your expectations to “it will never happen”.

First off, BLU doesn’t have any innate abilities, it learns absolutely everything from monsters. Imagine a BLU joining your DF run having learned NO SPELLS. Are there ways around this? Yes. Would they require significant work on SE part? Yes. Will they put in that work? Probably not.

Second, BLU is actually really weak. Sure it can do crazy stuff but that’s because it has so much utility like white wind and diamondback. Take those away and what’s left? A really mediocre dps. Like 1k dps behind a BLM of the same level kind of mediocre.

And most importantly, it would just be really boring… BLU has no job mechanics or interesting attacks. You’d have 1 dps spell that you spam, a DoT and some oGCDs. Basically a healer without the healing.

There are more issues with it but those are the main 3 that come to my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I wish BLU could have been a regular job and I’d love them to prove me wrong, but at this stage in its development? I really can’t see it ever happening.

[ty_taurus]

There are a lot of issues with BLU being a regular job and you should probably set your expectations to “it will never happen”.

First off, BLU doesn’t have any innate abilities, it learns absolutely everything from monsters. Imagine a BLU joining your DF run having learned NO SPELLS. Are there ways around this? Yes. Would they require significant work on SE part? Yes. Will they put in that work? Probably not.

Second, BLU is actually really weak. Sure it can do crazy stuff but that’s because it has so much utility like white wind and diamondback. Take those away and what’s left? A really mediocre dps. Like 1k dps behind a BLM of the same level kind of mediocre.

And most importantly, it would just be really boring… BLU has no job mechanics or interesting attacks. You’d have 1 dps spell that you spam, a DoT and some oGCDs. Basically a healer without the healing.

There are more issues with it but those are the main 3 that come to my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I wish BLU could have been a regular job and I’d love them to prove me wrong, but at this stage in its development? I really can’t see it ever happening.

These are all issues that could be resolved by having "Unlimited BLU" unlocked by collecting all current blue magic, or a specific selection of blue magic. Or perhaps, you just need to reach a certain level. Unlimited BLU would have a preset selection of actions with altered effects that create a balanced caster DPS next to the other three and would be treated as a separate entity to limited BLU. You cannot customize their moveset, essentially. Will this happen? I wouldn't hold my breath. But my point is that there is nothing that says any attempt at making BLU playable in regular content alongside every other job requires utilizing the spellbook.

Nothing is impossible in game design. The only limitation is the designer's creativity (and money).

[fulminating]

Second, BLU is actually really weak. Sure it can do crazy stuff but that’s because it has so much utility like white wind and diamondback. Take those away and what’s left? A really mediocre dps. Like 1k dps behind a BLM of the same level kind of mediocre.

I’m going to have to ask you to elaborate on this, the opener outdamages basically everything 10 levels higher than it. Whenever doing 50/60/70/75 fates I regularly get aggro if the tank dies. To my knowledge it’s the highest damage job at 50,60 and I think 70, although summoner might have changed that last one.

[Cabalabob]

I’m going to have to ask you to elaborate on this, the opener outdamages basically everything 10 levels higher than it. Whenever doing 50/60/70/75 fates I regularly get aggro if the tank dies. To my knowledge it’s the highest damage job at 50,60 and I think 70, although summoner might have changed that last one.

BLUs opener is powerful because it has a lot of oGCDs and gimmick spells that it can unload in a short timeframe, it has high burst potential but after that you’re just spamming a 220 potency attack for the next 60 seconds so it drops off rapidly.

Then you have to consider that when BLU learns a spell right now it gets it at level 1, that will not be the case in an unlimited version and then there’s the fact it wouldn’t be able to use certain spells in an unlimited version, such as aetherial mimicry. So it will lose a lot of the spells that make that happen in an unlimited version, especially at lower levels.

What are we realistically looking at a BLU having in an unlimited version? Water cannon for single target (would need to be rebalanced), blood drain for low mp, a generic AoE spell, sharpened knife/fire angon for a movement option, bristle + song of torment as the closest thing BLU has to a realistic combo, 2-3 primal oGCDs (replaced by later ones at higher levels?) and perhaps a few long CD GCDs like rose of destruction and a few heavily rebalanced spells like white wind as a weak heal and off guard on a 2 min CD for utility. It’s not going to reach nearly the same numbers as it does now and the numbers it reaches now are not that great.

[ForsakenRoe]

First off, BLU doesn’t have any innate abilities, it learns absolutely everything from monsters. Imagine a BLU joining your DF run having learned NO SPELLS. Are there ways around this? Yes. Would they require significant work on SE part? Yes. Will they put in that work? Probably not.

Second, BLU is actually really weak. Sure it can do crazy stuff but that’s because it has so much utility like white wind and diamondback. Take those away and what’s left? A really mediocre dps. Like 1k dps behind a BLM of the same level kind of mediocre.

And most importantly, it would just be really boring… BLU has no job mechanics or interesting attacks. You’d have 1 dps spell that you spam, a DoT and some oGCDs. Basically a healer without the healing.

There are ways to implement a BLU that is not limited, while still respecting the 'identity' of BLU. For example, this solves problem 1, that of 'what if someone join and not learn any skill???' Also, you can have people joining your stuff as base classes. Like, I could go grief and sign up for Mt Gulg as a GLD and be missing most of my defensives. Or a CNJ and have to rely on just Cure2 and Medica. It's not exactly a strong defense

2: It's actually really strong. Yes most of it's damage is concentrated into a burst window, but that means downtimes favor it moreso than any other class. Doesn't include the possibility that stuff could be buffed/nerfed to accomodate it's un-limiting. In fact, I know a guy who did a lot of BLU theorycrafting, who says that 70 BLU is actually insanely well balanced vs the DPS checks of the SB raids, and the only two skills that are 'problematic' balancewise are Aetherial Mimicry (just have it consider you to always be DPS Mimic, balance around that) and I believe Basic Instinct. Personally though I'd just take an extra few hours to go through and redo the potencies to suit an actual rotation/gameplay loop that isn't 'spam this 220p filler'

3: That's why I suggested a 'job mechanic', making it so you have more than 'one dps spell that you spam, a dot and some ogcds'. You also shouldn't be so reductive. At it's core, BRD is also 'a dps spell (Burst Shot), a DOT (Iron Jaws refreshing), and some OGCDs (the other crap).

The problem is that SE does not want to implement said ideas, be it because of dev time, 'it doesn't match our vision of what we want BLU to be', or they have some info we don't that says that the current design is actually the best thing since sliced bread and we're just too stupid to understand how genius it is to have a job in the game that cannot do the endgame content or story

[fulminating]

or they have some info we don't that says that the current design is actually the best thing since sliced bread and we're just too stupid to understand how genius it is to have a job in the game that cannot do the endgame content or story

You say that, but having a solitary egg in a different basket has at least allowed one job to remain fun

[Rufalus]

They could overcome any Blu quirks if they really wanted to. When players get their job stone, also give a special totem that teaches all the moves it needs for DF matching content, make it reclaimable from npc for people who already did that quest, lock out its enemy-taught moves from that kind of party matching content. They just need to decide to do it and design its rotation and design more weapons and design a pvp rotation too. So basically almost as resource-heavy as making a new job.

[Cabalabob]

They could overcome any Blu quirks if they really wanted to.

‘Wanted to’ is the operative phrase. Yes they absolutely could make BLU a regular job if they WANTED TO. But they don’t want to, hence why it’s limited in the first place. They don’t want to put in that extra work. People like to say “oh it would be easy to make it unlimited, all they have to do is this, this, this and this, oh and rework this, oh and balance this, oh and…” and it just keeps going until you realise, ok maybe this is a lot of work and that’s why the devs won’t do it.