I said I would never come back

[Patchinko]

(Warning: Relatively irrelevant excitement thread incoming.)

I said I would never come back to FFXI...
...until they add the Blue Mage class to this game.

That was over a year ago. I've been playing World of Warcraft since then. Top raid in my faction on my server, best equipped hunter on my side. How could I leave that for this?

But... it's BLUE MAGE! I hear from an old friend who stopped playing about it, and now I just... can't stop thinking about my little Taru casting Meteor. Don't get me wrong, I loved playing RDM (and the headache it gave me buffing/debuffing/healing/magic bursting all at once was so masochistically enjoyable)... but deep down I always wanted to be a BLU!

Damn... I may well have to return to the excruciating grind and overinflated economy of Vana'diel... I wonder if it's gotten any better.

[Jei]

i wonder if meteor will be a blue magic. it feels like a black magic :O

[Reincarnation]

Yea, gotta agree on that.

[LadyPeorth]

Meteor is technically a spell...so Blue probably won't get it. We will however get all those other delicious skills...Square-Enix depending of course.

My enthusiasm for FFXI has been really low as of late...Blue Mage will defintely perk it up...unless they make it absolutely horrible...but Square-Enix wouldn't do that...right?

[Patchinko]

i wonder if meteor will be a blue magic. it feels like a black magic :O

I'll take Shockwave Pulsar. ;)

[Wiseman40]

Well we don't know anything about the limits of the blue mage at this point. I assume that there are some, though. I hate to keep making red mage comparisons but if a blue mage can learn white and black mages through the learn ability it might not be realistic to picture them casting the highest level black magic, but rather what you would expect from a red mage instead.

Then again, in theory all a blue mage would need to do in order to cast meteor is be hit in the face by a big magical meteor...

[Jei]

blue mage never learnt white/black magic in any other FF... they learn monsters' abilities. So far we've seen spider web group slow and fire breathe. Goblin bomb is a popular moves people are expecting too.

[aegina]

i have a feeling we won't be able o learn beastmen abilities. beastmen may be mobs, but the game treats them like a fourth race of people, just on the bad side. i think blue mage abilities will be "animal-only"

[Fliegar]

About Meteor, if anyone got that spell it'd have to be a Time Mage. :P (I'm praying for one!)

[LadyPeorth]

With Beastmen/Arcana skills, it's kinda tricky. There are Beastmen, Arcana, Undead, Demons, Dragons, Aerns, and untameable Beasts. If limited to just things you can tame, that just makes you like a BST that can constantly use Sic. Somehow, I think Square-Enix will allow us to use some of those other moves...but with a cap of some sorts. While some of the moves are downright godly, they all aren't, and just disregarding all the moves because of a few is kinda lame.

[Coinspinner]

blue mage never learnt white/black magic in any other FF... they learn monsters' abilities. So far we've seen spider web group slow and fire breathe. Goblin bomb is a popular moves people are expecting too.

Blue Mage's usually have Aero (and in FFV Aera and Aeroga) which is black magic now. And the Level <#> <Spell> spells which usually include Flare, Demi, and Holy. FFIX had Vanish (indirect magic from FF6, white in FFXI)

I really see no reason they couldn't learn Beastman abilities like some people think. They've never been limited to animals and arcana before.

[framerate]

About Meteor, if anyone got that spell it'd have to be a Time Mage. :P (I'm praying for one!)

It's funny. I've been trying for weeks to come up with a decent way a time mage could be done (without hurting blm/whm's). Technically Time mage would need teleportation, and warp... which whm/blm already have. Haste/slow they already have as well...

I just keep thinking they'd get Warp same as BLM, Teleport Spells same as WHM, haste/slow etc the same as their counterparts... and maybe Haste II, Haste III, Slow II, Slow III... etc...

Another thing I was trying to come up with.. a way to have the time mage to set teleportation "points" around the world and then teleport himself there at any time (but this has some abuse problems..) But it'd be nice for the time mage to be able warp himself around a little easier at higher levels, as long as it's just him.. shouldn't cause too many problems...

Then of course theres meteor...

[Patchinko]

Blue Mage always ended up having an interesting mix of support and attack spells while being a powerful spellcaster in his own right. In various games they've had Lv. ? Death, White Wind, Frog and Fire Breath (looks like that one will be in the game at least, from screens). It's hard to speculate their precise role without some more information, but from what I've seen, I think it's safe to assume they'll be a powerful mix of melee and magic damage. Chances are they'll be able to take a strong part in renkei and magic burst on them as well. If that's the case, the comparison to RDM isn't too far off... maybe half RDM, half DRK with less of an emphasis on enfeebling/enhancing compared to RDM and melee damage compared to DRK.

[Gilge]

the way i think BLU will work is this:

SE will have a list of monster abilities you can learn at a certain level. for example, you can only learn the rabbits ability, dust cloud, a pugils intimidate, and a beetles spoil.

after lvl ten, you can learn those, plus bomb toss, metallic body, and cursed sphere and so on.

If they do it this way, i think it would be wise to have the learnable abilities in the general lvling areas, such as hte dunes or qufim. that way, blue mages dont have to go out of their way to gain at least a few abilities



a second way BLU's learn could work is if you can learn the ability of a monster that rates even match or lower to you. that way, the blue mages don't copy Kirin's abilities or sumthin.

[Khidir]

Has anyone played Castlevania Aria of Sorrow? Soma(main char of the story) is like a blu

He uses souls from fallen fiends to fight like blu(how does this relate you ask?) Blu in the past use an ability to take traits from others. In Castlevania its a bit different.

Soma has to kill a mob numerous/few times to get its soul to come out. The level of the mob and the player affects drop rate if this rule corresponded to blu it would be like

a lv 50 blu with an alliance of 75 trying to get Kirin's soul and by this this wouldn't happen or rarely regardless of TH because of the blu's lv. Se might implement this to keep hi lvs from making blu overpowering at early levels.

When the ability of the mob is gained its the same as loot only rare/ex as the other rule i stated above it keeps blu from getting the big spells at low lvs or maybe keep away nm hunters from nms that drop a rare hi lv scroll that is very useful ie utsusemi and overpriced(no its not from an nm, well except ni but you get my point right?)

I really wish we could craft spells that would be godsend literally

I don't think it will be like you use lancet and you get this ability.