Blue Mages and the lack of ready-to-play activities

[Raikai]

Disclaimer - This is not about the actual implementation of the job mechanics

The problem:
Blue Mages need something easier/practical to get into. Something more "pret-à-porter" (ready to play, in this case). You simply can't just log in, change into BLU and dive right away towards action like you can with every other job, because almost everything meaningful to do requires waiting behind a barren Party Finder. This actually makes me worried if BST is ending up having the same fate, of only being a popular content pick during the update months.

Today I've been waiting almost the whole day in the party finder for Pagl'than without a single soul interested. When somebody finally joined, they did help by advertising the party on a Blue Mage discord server, and still had nobody interested. We just gave up.

I say almost everything, because there is the Masked Carnivale's weekly objectives. However, unless you really need Allied Seals, those fights are simply not fun to reclear because they're the very essence of 'puzzle'.

The possible solutions:
a) Let us complete BLU log objectives /SOLO/. Currently a criteria of credit is having a full party of Blue Mages. We do have this neat spell called Basic Instinct that buffs the player while solo, so this would overcome the problem of not having people available to set up a party. In fact, even with this buff on, the content is still way harder to the soloing player, which already makes for a nice challenge.

b) Allow Blue Mages to access other optional content for a solo mode like Deep Dungeons and Field Operations, for example. This probably needs work to adjust the job, but the idea of being locked with spellbooks exclusive to those duties seems good enough for a balancing effort.

c) Reconsider the "BLU battle royale PVP" idea. Or simply port BLU to the normal PVP roster. After all, every job gets changed to be there, there's no technical reason why BLU couldn't. This would mean more ready-to-go content for the job.

d) Make a BLU roulette, by detecting who has the active Aetherial Mimicry to fill in a role. Adding Heliometry/Mathematics tomestones to the reward completion would be a great prize.

TLDR: Blue Mages, despite the job mechanics, need more readily available activities that isn't the Masked Carnivale.

[Aco505]

Agreed. I personally would prefer limited jobs to become full jobs while keeping their limited mode as an extra side content. Not having proper content to do, even less so now that the mogtome doesn't even require BLU grinding to get rewards, makes those jobs too restrictive.

[Raikai]

Agreed. I personally would prefer limited jobs to become full jobs while keeping their limited mode as an extra side content. Not having proper content to do, even less so now that the mogtome doesn't even require BLU grinding to get rewards, makes those jobs too restrictive.

Yeah, I'm just going to the premise that limited jobs are always going to be a thing. As much as I'd love for them to just be normal jobs, I think this sailed ship won't really return, so might as well ask for a better structure for it.

[Nero-Voidstails]

if we allow blue to be in everything theye will be no reason to play any DPS well anything other then blue

[Aco505]

if we allow blue to be in everything theye will be no reason to play any DPS well anything other then blue

The standard BLU damage rotation already plays essentially as any other job minus the instakills and stuff like Diamondback.

They can simply make BLU into a normal job with the ability to choose the vfx or glam your spells and then keep the additional whacky effects for its limited mode. Essentially, a similar concept to what ForsakenRoe proposed here.

The bigger "loss" would be that the normal mode BLU would be categorized as a DPS and so wouldn't tank or heal (although it could still get some utility to reference having those roles in the limited mode).

[Nero-Voidstails]

what I mean is blue damage is way better then any other job even if you don't know what you are doing so sorry but what they should do is a section for dailies but for blue mage

[Raikai]

what I mean is blue damage is way better then any other job even if you don't know what you are doing so sorry but what they should do is a section for dailies but for blue mage

Which we have something like that. There - are - weekly objectives to clear with the job, doing both dungeons and raids.

The problem is that the job's structure won't allow players to get into those easily unless we're at the update patch time, and that's the goal of the OP: a plea to put more substance into the available activities to the job, regarding its current limited state.

I don't think they'll really go back on the limited job idea. It's a ship that sailed long ago already, so might as well make the best of what it is.

[BedtimeBear]

I hope BST unlike BLU is more SOLO orientated/viable as well as those group activities. The group activities of BLU put me off. I wanted it to be like something I can quietly just do SOLO.

[Chasingstars]

Blue Mage should have two versions.

A carnival version where its got all this super powerful damage.

And a normal version that is more balanced so players can do content like a normal job would.

After all, blue is like having a bunch of lost actions or logos and that while you can do normal outdoor fates outside eureka/bozja, you can't do much else with a job from it.

[Nero-Voidstails]

Blue Mage should have two versions.

A carnival version where its got all this super powerful damage.

And a normal version that is more balanced so players can do content like a normal job would.

After all, blue is like having a bunch of lost actions or logos and that while you can do normal outdoor fates outside eureka/bozja, you can't do much else with a job from it.

I do rather they fix normal job first instead of making blue a probably worst BLM/smn