Are Blue Mages worth using in any game?

Are Blue Mages worth using in any game?
I like the idea of it, but the skills you can learn seem so uncommon that it feels like a waste of time to have the ability equipped.

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especially not in MMOs

11 was a mistake

You pretty much posted the one game where they were pretty useful, provided you knew what monster skills to be on the lookout for.

Mighty Guard and White Wind are always worth looking out for.

Most of the skills are utterly useless

But some are so fucking outstanding that it is worth it. Mighty Guard and White Wind are two skills to always keep an eye on.

Blue Magic is pretty much op in most FF games that have it.

Quina is awesome.
The blue magic materia from FF7 is pretty good too.

E. Skill is pretty much essential in the battle area.

FFTA, damage mp is broken

In FFV yeah.

As said Mighty Guard and White Wind are great skills. The aero skills are useful for enemies weak to wind and aqua rake with water. 1000 needles is useful early in the game. Missile and death claw can be pretty useful early as well. Level 5 death is perfect for grinding in Bal castle basement and level 3 flare works on more enemies than you'd think and a lot of the time instantly kills them.

He wasn't a Blue Mage but whatever the fuck Gau was was useful as hell in FF6. Cat Scratch can pretty much carry you through the WoB.

1000 needles is also good for fuckers with super high defense like Skull Eaters.
Also, Chemists can fuck with enemy levels to make even more exploitable to Level 3 Flare.

Also, related to FF5, rod breaking for Aga-tier spells should have never left the fucking series.
Fuck those shitty ass Tier-1 spells that other games have.

I never use Gau because I hate berserkers.

You have no idea the power of blu magic.

Yeah they can be pretty good except FFX. Why in heavens name did they think that making a blue mage who rarely use blue magic was a good idea is beyond me.

I remember vampires being pretty good in bravely default.

I know your post is dumb but I am responding anyway. Screw you 11 blue mages are the coolest and most versatile. They just require you to actual build your skill and spell sets.

Blue Mages ended up being some of the best jobs in nearly every game they appeared.

The problem is that there were generally only a few good spells, and so you had the choice of using a few terrible choices or spamming the one good skill for every fight. I remember playing FF7 and just abusing the fuck out of that missile skill you learned early on, since it was far better than any other magic you knew.

FF5 is was great. FF6 is was poor because you couldn't doublecast with it, but you still had stuff like Aqua Wave to deal uncommon elemental damage. FF7 was great because it was one materia. FF8 was poor because it required a lot of work on only the one character. FFTA it was great.

>FF5
>Blue Mage is awesome and useful as fuck
>Bravely Default
>Vampire is one of the last classes you get in the game, meaning you have to backtrack a lot to unlock all the spells.
>Bravely Second
>Nekomancer needs consumable items to cast blue magic

God dammit Square, get your shit right

Blue Mages basically ruined Skillchains for everybody. It was hard enough getting a party coordinated enough to use them properly, but then you have one guy just doing his own thing and pitching a fit if anybody else touches his chain.

Easily abused when playing with a guide, average when playing the usual way.

The vampire class in Bravely Default was great.

>FF5
Most likely the most broken class in the game. Tons of useful spells both damaging and support
>FF6
Two different characters Gau which learns skills from jumping on enemies and Strago which is your typical Blue Mage. Gau is really useful (learning Level 2 spells while most characters didn't even have 1) but about the last third isn't all that great. Never really used Strago but I think he has nice abilities if I remember right.
>FF7
Broken as fuck and easily the best spells in the game.
>FF8
100% useless.
>Needed to learn from drops when fighting isn't really encouraged in FF8
>Limit when there are better limits
>If you do the junction right you will do better damage than the fucking limit
>FF9
Quina is nice but having to try to bring an enemy down to 1/4 was annoying. But Quina only really got a couple of nice spells but nothing spectacular.
>FF10
Even more useless than FF8 somehow.
>Need to use a Limit
>Poor damaging
>Not enough enemies casting spells so Mighty Guard is almost completely wasted
>Will always be a secondary class to someone else

>Blue Magic as Limit Breaks
>most spells aren't even that good
The fuck were they thinking?

I'd say the biggest problem with blue magic is that you'd basically have to look at a guide or use spend a lot of time experimenting with enemies to find where some of the best skills are since some of them come from rare enemies or enemies that will rarely use the skill. Sometimes you'll even need to take control of the enemy with beastmaster.

>FF8 was poor because it required a lot of work on only the one character

Degenerator was OP as fuck and you could learn it fairly early on from what I remember. Couple that with the easily exploitable Limit Break system and Quistis became a fucking beast.

>Jack of All Trades
>in a game where you pretty much always have access to your specialists in any battle
The fuck were they thinking?

It's nice with a New Game+ if you are someone like me and didn't care about backtracking. Sadly most people quit around chapter 5 because of how badly the story fucked you over.
>Near the end of chapter 5
>About 35 hours in
>Thinking the game was pretty good and thinking I most likely missed a ton of things since the game looks like its going to end
>Most likely will be doing the NG+ to complete everything
>Chapter 5 happens and feel like the game completely stopped and all enjoyment was lost
It's amazing how badly Bravely Default went from my Game of the Year to complete shit in one hour.

Is there even an RPG where "jack of all trades" isn't useless?

The only thing I could think of were Mixed Sweepers in competitive Pokemon, and that's just because pokemon battles are 1 pokemon vs 1 pokemon, party based JRPGs tend not to be that

Enemy skill is the only magic worth using at all in FF7. you can get Matra as soon as you leave Midgar and when you do you've effectively broken the game in half till at least Gold Saucer

He's not even Jack of All Trades. Since he isn't everything. Just a really poor version of whatever class you put him in. Which most likely will be Rikku for the early stealing.

I tend to just do Added Effect to either my weapon or armor for the different element. And hardly ever cast a spell.

I picked up FFVII recently and the instant I left Midgar I got into a mech encounter and learned Matra Missile. Felt good that I actually got use out of it. Now I just use other skills on it. Sometimes fun using Frog Song on heavy hitting standard enemies.

>RPG where "jack of all trades" isn't useless
Does the FFV Freelancer count?

Just wait until you can survive a hit from the giant snake monster in the swamp.

Learning Beta the first time you encounter the Zolom is like getting Fire 2.5 way before you can even get Fire 2.

This. It's surprisingly pretty good. At least in the early game you can wreak shit with it.

Freelancer is useless before you've mastered a few jobs. After it's the best.

Nah. You usually end up learning some elemental or status effect move and late bosses end up being immune to that shit, making blue mages all but useless.

>Aqua Rake in FF5

You tell me.

Big Guard
White Wind
Matra Magic
Beta

disc one is a joke

Generally moreso when your party limit is limited beyond the number of useful roles. Like if you've got physical attacker, tank, healer, buffer, debuffer, thief, and magical attacker all separated out enough and there's not enough space to take them all, a competent Jack can at least cover a few of them. Particularly if there's multi-party shenanigans.

Problem being that there's a lot of design where the specialists can cover a subrole well enough, or everyone can technically be a Jack, or you just have enough party access that there's no real room for them to function in their role.

Obviously, though that's more on the resources, because his default space lets him do anything (if not as well). So everything about him is half-assed, even being middle-of-the-road.

It's always really powerful or really shit.

If the developers aren't careful with the abilities you can learn, they might let you get access to some overpowered moves.

If they are careful, they just need up being alternate mages, but more hassle to use since you have to go out of your way to learn abilities other classes get more easily.

You should look up FF5 bosses. You can use tons of weird status stuff to them and fuck their shit.
>Atomos is not immune to Sleep, so putting him to sleep and attacking him with spells can be a solution. Atomos won't stay asleep for long due to his Heavy status, but two Mystic Knights ready to use Sleep Spellblade works well. For an even cheaper strategy, one can cast Dark Spark on him once, then Level 5 Death.

Seriously FF5 is fucking awesome with it's Blue Magic.

With the right set up, you can learn Beta the first time you fight it. You just need to be sure and get the Elemental materia in the Shinra Tower so the you can halve fire damage.

youtube.com/watch?v=9N_lJ29qCi0

Bravely Default and Second. The names are changed to Vampire and Catmancer, but they're literally the same thing.

Disclaimer: My knowledge of Blue Mage implementation in FF games is pretty much limited to FFTA

I think that the concept is wasted on the traditional turn-based RPGs, but is nevertheless a cool idea with a lot of potential.

I think that if Blue Mages are expected to draw their skills from the entire pool of enemy abilities (that the developers deign to be copyable), then you will inevitably end up with "here are the correct/best spells, ignore everything else unless you're building for some specific challenge".

Instead, I think Blue Mages would be far more interesting if they had to adapt on the fly in each encounter, taking the skills from one monster to defeat or counter another monster in the pack. I think that could be really cool in a traditional MMO setting. For example, taking a certain ability from a boss could let you mitigate a big attack or do extra damage if used at the correct moment.

Give them some standard skills to define their role, then let them role flex with temporarily acquired skills. This would let them act similarly to Red Mages who sacrifice raw throughput for flexibility, but in an even more dynamic sense.

This is probably all dumb, I just saw the idea in my head and wanted to write it down.

That and be luckily he doesn't knock out the party member with the E. Skill.

I was going to point at Quistis as well, but even in FF8 you could use Limit Breaks more than once.

I don't think you even need to beat the snake to learn it. As long as you can survive its attack, you will learn the skill. You can just let it smack one party member away, and as long as the other two survive the first hit, they will have Beta memorized even if they get killed off.

Hi there, I can solo the entire game using two skills

What would you say is most intuitive and best way for a Blue Mage to learn skills?

Square didn't make bravely, dumbfuck.

FFV and IX both have pretty damn broken blue magic. The rest are either useless, or there are more useful skills in their respective games.

What non-FF games have Blue Mages anyway? Do any ever at all?

As the concept of taking enemy abilities, Mega Man and Kirby off the top of my head.

Nope. The conditions for learning an E. Skill are to survive a hit from it and then survive the battle. That's pretty trivial with the Zolom though, as once you learn it, the Zolom won't have enough HP to survive being hit by it.

Every character is honestly better than her in every fucking way.

Strago has some shoddy abilities for the most part save for a small few, even for a blue mage (go look at his actual list, it's generally shit, and I mean SHIT). However, I feel like he has one of the better learning methods in the series.
>just has to see it, doesn't even have to be hit by it
>I am PROBABLY wrong about the following, but I think he doesn't even need to survive the fight, but I think you do have to win it i.e. can't just run away after seeing it and then have it in your list
>curiously, he can be boned over by shit like blindness and sleep, IIRC, which is a bit TECHNOLOGY but also potentially a bit annoying

The one that makes the most since is the FF6 way. As long as Strago sees the attack (i.e. the enemy uses it while Strago is not blinded) he learns it.

Has a fit on what? Colibris?
Blue Mages were mainly sitting in the distance and using Canonball with SA (or TA to maintain aggro on Paladin)
There was only a very brief time the Cannonball glitch existed where you could MB burst it with Light SC

Which PSX FF should I play first? I've only played 3. 5, and most of 6.

>What would you say is most intuitive and best way for a Blue Mage to learn skills?
By casting auto-revive on yourself.

Card Mod and Cure?

7 was a starting point for most and is always a good choice.

V=get hit by spell
VI=Strago must see spells
VII=get hit by spell
VIII=Quistis must consume item to learn spell
IX=Quina must weaken and eat enemy to learn spell
X=Kimahri must use the Lancet Overdrive to learn spells
X-2=Gun Mage must be hit by spells
XI=BLU must kill the enemy to learn spell
FFTA, A2=Blue Mage must get hit by spell
BD=Vampire must be hit by spell

SE seems to love "get hit by spell," but Strago just being on the field is the easiest method

I could have swore I've seen this sort of system used in a game before, but I can't remember what.

It was functionally the only way you could be inconvenienced by Blind in the original (before they fixed it in Advance).

Wild Arms 2, the vampire chick you get on disc 2 has a blue magic ability

Shadow Hearts 2, Anastasia has a camera and you have to "capture" the enemy skills

Think Kimahri is the best. Since you are not waiting for the attack to happen. And sometimes they love doing that thing where they don't do the attack unless under a certain condition.

Lancet wasn't an overdrive, you chuckleruckamus.
Hell, I felt like that was one of the better ways to learn spells since you also recovered some HP and MP.
Granted, it was FF10, so the amount you recovered was pretty much a drop in a bucket, but if the percentage recovered and damage dealt were adjusted to be even just a bit better, it'd be great in games where the upper HP and MP limits aren't 99999/99999.
Agreed on Strago's method being easy as fuck though. No muss, no fuss. You don't even have to worry about undead fucking you over by draining with Lancet.

FFXI's version of Blue Magic has its own Monster Relation system where one monster's type is more effective against the other and less effective against another, kind of like an elemental wheel. However, with a lot of the other systems the game has, it's largely ignored because Blue Mages just set the spells they need to unlock the traits they want like DUAL WIELD and TRIPLE ATTACK with some support spells mixed in like Mighty Guard.

>To learn beneficial Blue Magic you must first control or confuse the enemy so that the attack can finally hit you
Fucking hate that shit.

>Is there even an RPG where "jack of all trades" isn't useless?
Red Mages in FFI. I'm struggling to think of other examples in class-based RPGs.

>Strago has some shoddy abilities for the most part save for a small few, even for a blue mage
This was thanks to Gem Box not applying to Blue Magic, you being unable to Quick + Blue Magic with Gem Box, and with it being so incredibly easy to hit the 9999 cap with absolutely everything. Sure, 1000 Needles was good at killing Cactars, but past that there isn't much difference between hitting everything with 9999 water damage and hitting them with 9999 ice damage. Ultima was generally faster and stronger than Grand Train, as well.

Plus, not being able to use Blue Magic in the Cultists' Tower is fairly disappointing.

>Lancet wasn't an overdrive

Right. Lancet was an anytime move, but you could only use the blue magic spells with an Overdrive. Which was fucking dumb.

Okay, just double checking, since I know FF6/FF3(U) has a shitload of bugs (as well as exploits) in the original releases, but I don't know nearly all of them. Hell, some of them are so incredibly minor, I probably saw them, but didn't even notice them at the time.

That's only because Magic stat was bugged so Black Mages weren't that great.

To be fair, if an enemy skill is a buff why would it ever use it on an you in normal circumstances?

It occurs to me that it could, if fleshed out, work as a stand-alone concept for a game. I wouldn't be surprised if something like that has been done before.

I was thinking of some kind of rock-paper-scissors facet to my idea as part of the real-time reacting to what enemies are doing. I think that your example highlights why it would probably be more interesting if blue mages had some set skills and then could augment that with temporary ones, instead of building up a set or library over time.

Even worse was that outside of White Wind there wasn't any Blue Magic that was actually useful.

Except Red Mages are objectively better than White/Black mages because of that bug. They do literally the same shit but have more HP and better equipment options.

>B-But I can't cast Flare/Holy!
Magic sucks balls in FF1 anyway. Haste and Temper, on non-bugged versions, is the way to go all the time.

>Plus, not being able to use Blue Magic in the Cultists' Tower is fairly disappointing.
Fucking really? Holy shit, Square. Way to blow it.
>but you could only use the blue magic spells with an Overdrive. Which was fucking dumb.
Yeah, I know. And fucking agreed.
Even worse was so many of them were lame little things too.

So why not have Blue Mages get the draw ability from FF8? They can stock up to a certain amount of spells from a monster, then they can also "para-cast" it by casting from the monster's spell slots.

Sure there'd be some level of going back to earlier enemies to regain spells, but it can be streamlined by having one draw max out your stock. Maybe the "empty" spells can still be used, but at half effectiveness?

Despite being the worst implementation of Blue Magic itself, Kimahri's lancet is the best possible way to learn Blue Magic spells. Second is Strago just having to see the ability. Quina's is worst, despite his Blue Magic spells being pretty powerful in that game.

Even in the non-bugged versions, you can get items that can cast flare and holy anyways.
Well, on the GBA/PSP/3DS versions at least.
I don't think you can on the PS1 and WSC versions.

Problem with blue magic is that it's a PAIN to know what does what or what monsters yet to kill and so on.
It's just too much work when everything the game does is give you a stolen spell's name with nothing explained. No advantages, no effects, no power - nothing. You end up wandering aimlessly around.

Based on the ones you played, you'd probably like IX best.

>>>Nekomancer needs consumable items to cast blue magic
That's the thing you have a problem with? You can grind those items by leaving the game in auto and x4 speed vs some mooks.

The real issue with Catmancer was how they fucking removed all the good skills Vampire had. They completely gutted it.

Still, Catmancer/Ninja Tiz was my MVP through the whole game. Saved my ass more times than I can count.

Thanks, I now have a better way to farm abp in world 1. Never thought of doing that for some reason.

I played FF V after IX and when I saw those monsters in the earth temple using white wind I felt like a fucking genius for using control to learn the skill, so I love that, as long as is obvious and/or explained in the game which skills you can do that with.

My nigga, Satori is broken as fuck and super fun to use too.

I recently played through PS1 FF1 with Fi/Th/RM/BM, and my Red Mage was my second most useful character for the entire game after the fighter. Didn't miss having a white mage at all, and if I did it again I'd probably trade the BM for another RM.

I say Quistis was the worse. Since the game mechanics goes against getting into battles. So you never really want to farm for items. So you hardly will ever get her to get items. Quina was annoying just because getting enemies down without killing them was a pain in the neck but still doable.

As been said FF1 in general doesn't really do well with Mages. Their high level spell like Holy and Flare is only alright. What they are really there for is for buffs like Haste which give it to a Fighter or Monk can help one shot Chaos.

Knight/Knight/Red Mage/Red Mage is the objectively best part.

There's not enough equipment for a third Knight to be useful. lol Thief. W/B suck because RM does everything they can but better and even the spellcasting items can replace their general utility.

Monk is the only one that can be argued about to replace one Red Mage.

On the other hand, Quistis is the only character that can break the damage limit. Shame that Renzo/Duel/Shot were too good for being multi-hitters.

Enemy Skill Materia is absolutely the single most useful materia in FF7.

Actually best combo is Knight/Knight/Knight/Knight. Since magic enemies are fairly rare and for the most part you just blast through dungeons without a thought and kill everything in sight. And pretty much most of your gear will be from dungeons and you really never need to buy much unless you just happen to have enough and just do a hand me down.

Oh, for sure. I mostly posted that to counter the idea that it's only because of the bugged magic stat that RMs are godly. I actually really love the idea that mages are support to make your burly dude more burly, rather than DPS machines of their own. I wish more RPGs would do that.

>lol Thief
Yeah, I was coming from the GBA/PSP version where the ninja is pretty useful. Next time I play I'll probably go Fighter/Monk/RM/RM