19 January, 2007

Back to Blue Mage. ^^

I've gone through a lot of different jobs over the past two weeks for one reason or another- as someone said to me, "Every time I search for you, you're on a different job."

Thinking back, that's quite true- in the last two weeks, I've xp'ed as a BLM, WHM, RDM, THF, WAR, RNG, SMN and BLU- practically every job I have except NIN.

In that, I came to a few decisions- I sold my Ranger gear after plugging things with arrows just lost its appeal, and Summoner, as pretty as it is, still doesn't excite me in terms of actually playing it, so my Evoker's AF goes back onto a mannequin for now.

What has captured my latest interest (as you might be able to tell), is Blue Mage.

I'm not exactly sure what it is that intrigues me so. Maybe it's trying to realise Maiev's idea of how a Blue Mage should work. Personally, I like what Maiev's written up, so I decided to give it a shot, hence why I started leveling THF up on the side as well.

Part of it is because it's a nice mix between mage and melee, something to fill in my "melee" slot, yet be "mage-y" enough to suit my playstyle. Part of it's because of the solo appeal, when I don't feel like blowing things up with my Black Mage. Part of it's because it still feels that there is a lot about Blue Mage that people haven't really ingrained yet, which is quite probably the main reason why.

See, despite my being around since ToAU's launch, I still have no idea what to do with a BLU in my party. Sure, I've partied with a few before, but the ones I have partied with failed to really impress upon me that "this is what the job can offer." Maiev's guide showing how BLU can go DD, to the point where he outparses most "traditional" DD jobs is a direction that I could take, and it would help to at least give the community a better idea of what a BLU can do, because frankly speaking, I'm still very much clueless.

I remember when ToAU was about to come out and SE revealed the BLU mechanics, it held promise of being the most versatile class so far. The good news is that the promise of versatility at least, so far, is true. BLUs can fill in practically any position in a party, from healer, to DD to tank. However, this versatility also bites it in the back, as most BLUs don't seem to really push themselves, leaving me with a party member that makes me think, "well, now what do I do with this guy?"

Admittedly, partying with Madmartigan back on my NIN when I was doing a Campsitarus run did open my eyes to some of what a BLU can offer- in particular, BLU/WAR is a very nice complement to a NIN, being able to either off-tank with Cocoon, or aiding with Utsusemi: Ichi by stunning the mob via Head Butt.

Last, but not least, the name of the job is "Blue Mage." After having completed the "mage trinity," SE just had to go make a fourth "mage" job for me to level. How typical. :P

In any case, since I've upgraded to the new blogger, I've seen slowly taking advantage of the categorization feature via labels that say, Wordpress offers their users. In doing so, I've noticed that my posts regarding my other jobs are few and far in between, so I've decided to try and change that with BLU.

Yep, I'll go in detail what I did as a Blue Mage, and hopefully, everybody will gain a better understanding of what the job can do. I'm of course, open to ideas and opinions of other BLUs and non-BLUs alike! ^^

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