The Complete Evolution of Blue Mages 

Thank you all so much for joining us on our latest exploration into how concepts have evolved within the Final Fantasy franchise! It was definitely different from the other videos we've done, but it was still thoroughly interesting to dive into the specific nuances of what the job is and how it was carried though. We hope you enjoyed it

I always viewed their mask not as a superhero, but as a thief. A magic thief that steals/learns what the enemy does.

In FFT, even though there isn't any Blue Mage, the Ultima spell can only be learned by letting the enemies (who know the spell) cast it on Ramza or Alma. Same with Zodiark summon with the Summoner job class.

Strago's magic is explained in FFVI. He's descended from the mage knights, who were given magic by the Espers. They passed on their knowledge genetically and so their descendants can be blue mages.

Awesome to see that screenshot from FFXI. The player, Cyndaquil, was in my LS! Old school Cerberus server!

Blue Mage for life!

49 blue mage spells are in FFXIV but the devs have 80 more spells planned to be added in the future.

Imagine if FFXVI went to the Job System again.

The masks are not meant to be reminiscent of superheroes, but to be reminiscent of the stock character type of the "Gentleman thief" (as do the rest of the elements of their design) in particular you can see similitudes with the character of El Zorro, from the idea of "Stealing" the enemies abilities to the proeficiency in combat with various weapons and swords, and of course, the use of the mask to cover their identity. Just a piece of useless info from my part, great video btw!

Don't you just love having bad breath even though most of the enemies are immune to status effects

Ah, the Blue Mage. The class for intelligent masochists. I have never died more with any other class than with Blu.

Here's an idea I haven't seen done, Evolution/history of airships. They've had a ton of designs and incarnations! Plus it's highly tied to Cid, can't go wrong there. Or the role of dragons (not Bahamut) in the series. Ricard (technically wyvern) and Rydia could summon one, FFT allowed you to recruit them and Reis was a dragoneer, one guarded the black materia in FF7, and other games used them as high tier enemies. There's a few research projects to keep you busy.

*Blue Mage Checklist* Healing ✔ Damage ✔ Buffs ✔ Debuffs ✔ Status effects ✔ LV? Spells ✔

Blue mages are so underrated. And it’s actually my favorite class/job ever. I love the challenge of having to face many different enemies and actually using their skills back at them when the time comes :D

Quina is my favourite blue mage, the whole eating the monster was so unique and so fitting for it. Quina was also quite mysterious....that is what I loved most about FF9, that your team consisted of several different characters of very different races.

"Magic is change, right? When you cast a spell, you are forcing your will onto the way of things. White Magic tends to introduce order into a system while Black Magic tends to encourage decay. So a thousand years ago, some chucklehead gets the bright idea that if casting magic changes the external world, there ought to be corresponding changes to one's self. A spell's ability to bring change into the world would be incorporated by one's very being. A Blue Mage wouldn't be burned by a fireball. Its potential for change would instead become a part of him. More than that. It basically grants instant spell cognition as well as immunity to their effects. You'd have a mage who could never be attacked without becoming more powerful. It's a crock." "Do you know how I knew he wasn't doing Blue Magic? There have been seven documented attempts at actual Blue Magic. Each one met with failure that culminated in an explosion, including the time they finally started using useless non-fatal spells that don't explode.Magic isn't free. There's always a cost. Of course a legend about unlimited free power would start to circulate. Chemists dreamed of turning lead into gold. Same thing. If there was a way to get magic for free, do you really think I'd have spent so much time sacrificing children to my dark gods? For spells, I mean. Obviously there'd still be sacrifices. A hobby's a hobby." Best (wrong) explanation of Blue Magic from Black Mage in 8 Bit Theatre.

Kimahri is my favorite. I like that he's a mashup between Dragoon and Blue Mage.

I really, really love the Blue Mage. The idea of learning monster-techniques is so unique. It´s just kinda sad that the Blue Mage in XIV is 1) so reliant on spamming 1000 needles - Yeah sure, every class has moves that are stronger than the rest, but 1000 needles is kinda getting boring to use - and 2) a limited job. I qould love to use my Blue Mage in the normal, high level raids adjusting my spell list depending on my group. But besides that, they did a great job at portaying the class. Far better than, for example, Kimahri (I liked his character, but gameplay wise... well, not my cup of tea)

Blue Mage is such an obvious job to make. "We just made all these cool skills for monster. I wish I could use them to."

Bro! If you do this kind of video for ALL FF Job classes you will BLOW UP! ! I would like to see Sage/Alchemist next please! Subbed!

Quina was such a fun character! I loved him/her. Wish they had more character development, though.

Actually, Strago is called Blue Mage in FF6 in the original Japanese script. And "Lore" was a alternative translation decision due to the command slot being only able to accomodate 5 text characters.

My favorite version of blue magic was Quina from FF IX. The blue magic in that game was rather useful, and it gave you abilities you couldn't get from the regular magic in that game. Also, it wasn't terribly hard to get. The enemy didn't have to use the spell in question in order for you to get it. You only had to eat the enemy.

FFXIV Blue Mage: 1000 Needles everywhere!

My first experience with Blue Mage was in Tactics A2; I loved the appearance/design and getting my enemies abilities was always exciting.

Way back when I was a big FF fan, Blue Mages were one of my favorite classes. (That my favorite color is blue probably had something to do with it, as did that FF5 masked hero costume). So watching this video has reminded me how much I like their concept: the ability to replicate monster abilities the Blue Mage has experienced. The most pressing idea on my mind is figuring out how to replicate this idea in my current favorite RPG: Dungeons and Dragons (5e). It's difficult, because unless I wanted to craft a whole new Class (not gonna happen), I'd need to either make it a subclass to an existing one, or else add it as an option a character could pursue. The two main "theories" that FF seemed to run with, depending on the game, was "Blue Magic as Emulative Sorcery" and "Blue Magic as Personal Monstrosity". The former, I think, could be done in DnD by making subclasses for spellcasters; my current thought being Wizard or Bard (with the Bard channeling a Blue Mage's flamboyant style and ability to emulate many different forms of magic). The latter, meanwhile, might work as a Barbarian subclass (going into Rage gives them the ability to use abilities possessed by monsters encountered), or perhaps as a process whereby consuming or killing monsters gives any character potential boons (as well as banes). The big issue, of course, is figuring out how to balance monster abilities to a PC, as most such abilities are built around the particular monster of a certain Challenge Rating. It could be done, sure, but it would probably require examining each monster power individually. It's...a daunting prospect, and one I don't relish, even if the idea is tempting. Another idea I consider is that of an organization within a DnD world - the "Blue Mages" - who run around in blue masks and matching uniforms, hunting and studying monsters. Their intention being to understand how they work, and through observation, dissection, and even consumption try to channel their powers. Each Blue Mage having their own ideas, and methods of approaching it. A Wizard might craft new spells based on observation. A Bard may create songs and artwork that capture the essence of monsters, then bring those effects to life through their performative magic. An alchemist takes samples of monster bodies, and refines them into potions and tinctures that give the body new abilities. Even gourmets, who consume monster flesh, and eking out small effects over time (troll flesh giving temporary health regeneration, mind flayer flesh for minor psionics, a beholder eye soup to enhance vision, etc). A lively bunch of people who seek power, self-improvement, and understanding from monsters.

PLEASE do Mystic Knight with their amazing Spellblade/En- magic next!

Quina is the most OP Blue Mage.

EVEN BEFORE I WATCH THIS VIDEO THIS IS MY FAVORITE JOB CLASS THANK YOU COVERING BLUE MAGES

In FFV I always mastered Blue Mage first because it didn't take much AP (Only 4 levels, highest was 250 AP) and it meant when you switched to Bare for some of the tougher midgame encounters your MP didn't get totally gutted (oh, and you had passive Learning in Bare too). They actually had something like the third highest Magic Power too. Great, great job.

Always an odd class but an interesting idea, I think limiting them to solo play in FFXIV is pretty disappointing given how great they look

Just to note: Gogo cannot directly mimic enemy attacks in FF6 using their unique Mimic ability, only those of the party members. However, if the party member such as Relm, Strago, or Gau uses an enemy skill, Gogo can mimic that, and Gogo can also be loaded out with Sketch, Control, Lore, and Rage in order to use enemy skills like Relm, Strago, and Gau independently of their party members.

So the Vampire and Catmancer of Bravely Default and Second are bluemage variants?

OMG! Rimuru Tempest is a blue mage, now i understand, now all the gates are open...

Love the videos but can you stop using the visuals for ff6 mobile. It hurts.

17:38 Holy shit, Blue mage is metal as hell.

My favorite version of Blue Mage is the FFXI version, but there's a small error in your coverage here. You didn't just have to kill the mob to learn the skill you were farming, the monster had at least *attempt* to use the skill in battle, THEN you could kill it. It didn't have to hit you directly and could even do no damage and be resisted completely but the monster had to at least ready it. The problem is every mob in FFXI has a variable skill set and the skills they use are almost always completely random. This meant that you usually had to beat on a monster with a very underpowered weapon to feed it TP and wait for it to use the spell you're hunting. There was also the fact that it was actually HARDER to learn spells from weaker enemies. Basically anything you could solo, decreased your chances of learning the spell, so BLU's could spend an hour or more farming a single spell. Now as the complete masochist that I am (hey, I played FFXI for 12 years), of course I LOVED the hunt for spells. I found the difficulty make the reward more substantial. But besides finding the spell hunting fun, BLU was just a powerhouse with its ability to solo-skillchain. And in Abyssea it was just broken. And yes, the job has one of the best quest lines in the game with probably the coolest-looking artifact armor in the game.

This was really good. I hope you do more of these. If you care about suggestions, I'll fit right back into the theme of jobs that started with FFV and just put out there that the Time Mage has always been my jam. Probably because IV was my first Final Fantasy, where they made a really big deal out of the Meteor spell, and Time Mages can just...do that. But a lot of what they do has been utilized by the more common Black and White magic schools, and Time magic even got a nice resurgence from FFXII.

My favourite iteration is from FFXI. The mechanic of treating the abilities you acquire like a second equipment list is very interesting. And allows you to tool your Blue Mage to your play style without being OVERLY broken (even though they were Highly powerful in this iteration)

I doubt Strago would have suffered the same fate, afterall he only needed to see the skill, no consuming or even direct killing necessary and as we saw from Gau simply understanding the monsters seems to be enough to utilize their skills in FF6. Same kind of goes for the enemy skill materia or the classic blue mages. It may absorb the ability by getting hit by it, but nothing ever said that the enemy's soul was necessary especially in 5 where you could straight up die and still have learned the ability. And even if that's true in 7 the materia is doing the dirty work, not the person using it.

Kimari from ffx is my favorite blue mage as he was my first introduction to the class. Plus he uses a spear any job thay use a spear jumps to the top for me. Its why i love the dragoon so.much.

Hmm, I kinda like the idea of being able to eat a monster and learn skills. That sounds like something I see in many fantasy/isekai type manga.

I subscribed after I saw the homage to Bravely default and second 💖

If you made a video about every FF class...we would greatly appreciate it :) Can't wait to see more!

Going through FF9, and I love Quina both as a character and in combat. Blue Magic stings hard, and I love using it when I can. Heck, I’d probably be a Blue Mage if asked what class I’d be.

i love the blue mage, it's my favorite class in all of final fantasy. the final fantasy d20 system does a great job of bringing this class to life and i really enjoy the version we got in 14. i wish we could get a main character who was a blue mage.

It should be made aware that Blue Mages did end up becoming the top physical damage dealing job in FFXI. After the level cap was raised to 99 and a lot of new monster spells were added, specific spells set granted some incredible passive buffs. Like store tp, attack, haste, etc. On top of that, some of those set abilities themselves were buffs that boosted damage and haste too. And Blu's Mighty Guard here not only boosted defensive stats but also granted attack speed as well. All that coupled with the ilvl 99 gear, there were a lot of multi-hit weapons suddenly made available for each class (occasionally attacks twice-three times etc). So basically, all by themselves Blue Mages in FFXI were able to cap haste, with high store tp, high attack bonus, and while using multi-hit weapons. On top of a 5-hit weapon skill that can skill chain on itself. You would skill chain off your own tp skill non-stop putting out obscene amounts of damage, making other physical damage dealers irrelevant. It has been maybe a year since I played FFXI retail so I'm not sure if they ever made an attempt to balance that.

Argh, seeing this makes me miss playing FFXI so much. That Blue Mage unlock quest was my favorite of the lot, even if I barely played the job itself.

11 still my favorite blue mage!!!

You guys should definitely make more of these! A Dragoon video would be awesome!

My fun theory on other practitioners of magic is that they harness and invoke the powers of the various summons in the world. Like if you cast Firaga, you draw power from Ifirit.

So on FFXI you had to see the skill or be in exp range to learn it not just kill the monster since it had to use the skill first

If your gonna do another job evolution video do one on my favorite job the geomancer

FF11’s version of the job will always be my favorite one due to its lore actually being throughly explored, funnily enough FF14’s version is the one I hate the most

Red mage job class exploration next plz?

Gau seems a form of Blue Mage, but Relm fits more of the job class of a hunter, basically capturing the enemy's appearance with her sketches.

Really enjoyed this video, BLU has been a fav of mine for a long time. One thing - @ 16:30 This makes it sound like you only had to kill the enemy in FFXI for a chance to learn the spell. The mob still had to use it the ability before you killed it.

I dunno if I would say that Aht Urghan is "desert" inspired (ie based on more of an Egypt or Arabia aesthetic) as much as it is Persian in style... there is quite a lot of non-desert area in Persia/modern day Iran (and Aht Urghan) plus the immortals are an organization ripped straight from zoroastrian Persian history

I want to point out that in FF10, it's actually explicitly mentioned that a Ronso using Lancet can learn enemy skills (as in many of the early sections, various gameplay mechanics are explained by character during fights), something that other characters cannot do even with the Lancet skill.

I think ff11s blu was my favorite. They had a kick ass back story and learning their spells was free yet took work. They also took you to ALL those places people stopped going to. Some of said places looked amazing. Unless they changed it after I quit, I remember you had to wait for the monster to use the ability then kill it. The % of learning was bullshit. I might get a spell in 10 mins and another might take me 3 hours -.-I was happy they were bringing back blu in ff14 but i was upset it was a solo job.

My favorite is in Final Fantasy VII. Sure it was a pain to get Beta early or to not miss out on some Enemy Skills or to have to get it on all 4 materias. But I'm a completionist so I just love it. I love using White Wind, Big Guard, Beta, Aqualung, Trine, and Magic Breath. I also love using Death Sentence on Tifa so her Powersoul weapon can become really powerful

As much as I loved using Quistis, Shockwave Pulsar had the most awful method of acquisition of any ability in any Final Fantasy game. Either an interminable, insufferable, unintuitive grind of monumental proportions, orrrrr buying a single function peripheral that wasn't even available in all regions. Blegh.

Sooo strago basically had a sharingan

"... absorbs the essence of their foes." Does this mean that the Dovakiin was a Blue Mage?

Probably the most unique thing blue mages can do is self-destruct by learning from bombs lol.

Always my favorite class, FFXI BLU for life.

FFXIV explains all schools of magic, blue included.

I'd like to see an evolution of the red mage. That class has always interested me.

Another bit to FFXI blue mage- when equipping blue magic different combinations of spells would give you added Job Traits - passive buffs to your character. Everything from auto-refresh for +MP/sec which helps dmg output significantly, to Triple Attack because a lot of Blue Mage damage came from their sword play- and even dual wield - which made equipping Red Mage very viable to keep en-spell damage up on your multi-hitting blades as well as all the powerful abilities and spells red mage sub had to offer. I think FFXI did a Fantastic representation of blue mage... as an avid ffxiv player, I'm happy we can now experience it in Eorzea, but as the first "Limited Job" I'm concerned what direction they are taking this... (Limited Job - as it is held back at level 50 cap rather than the current 70 cap, and you can't use it in the duty finder for dungeons/raids/etc) ^^; Hopefully all it means is that they were eager to share their work on blue mage with the players, but it isn't fully scaled and ready to enter the fray with the other jobs! :P Or maybe its going to be strong enough to solo story mission content instances for newer players who have a Long way to go with the story to 'catch up' and can spend a very frustrated long time with the duty finder because of it.

Just found this channel. Gonna marathon tons of your vids while playing XIV haha

My favorite incarnation of Blue Mage would be Quistis from Final Fantasy 8, though Quina from Final Fantasy 9 is a close 2nd.

My favorite class! Great vid.

Nice video, just wanted to add that in FFIV TAY (PSP) the character Harley was originally planned to have the blue mage skill set according to the source code of the game. It was coded in, but the programmers never finished it, therefore the character Harley is considered the worst character in the game and by a large margin despite her having one of the best character development in the game, as is evident combat-wise she is incomplete compare to rest of the cast. ex. She has large amount of MP & M.atk, good mage equipment selection but has no magic? yet... Blue Magic is in her code.

Final Fantasy XI Online Is, For Myself; The Best Version, For The Blue Mage Class.

CatMancer was my top class in Bravely Second. I went around the world and talked to each cat.

I never really liked blue mages because I was too lazy to go around and collect all of their skills. They are interesting though

i LOVE blue mage and blue magic its very different than normal magic plus able to use monsters unique ability with really good animations i actually like quina the most however the effects of blue magic goes to ffx2 (with different weapon which is unique for a caster class plus never played any FF after X2 😅) all in all this is my favourite job in FF suggestion for next job evo is the scholar

I love blue mage in ffxiv, though I wish it wasn't a restricted class, I can understand why, my first entrance into the masked carnival saw me rush a group of enemies and kill them in a 4 skill combo

A) Another brilliant video. As always, I greatly enjoyed my time with your content. **Spoiler warning for FF6** B) You asked the question towards the end whether it is possible Strago could have possibly shared the fate of the Blue Mages in FFXI. That the souls of the beasts the Blue Mages consumed could have had the chance to turn him into an inhuman monster after the end of the game. It is possible that this was something that COULD have happened to Strago given time, I think the end of the game saved him from that plausible fate. At the end of Final Fantasy VI, the existence of magic is ended by the destruction of Kefka and the Warring Triad. It is likely that whatever magical energy or souls Strago absorbed from the game's foes faded with the rest of the magical energies. Meaning Strago was spared from the struggle of the Blue Mages in FF11. Just my opinion, though!

I actually didn't thought about Super Heroes when I first saw the class, first thing it reminded me of instead was Phantom Thief like the one from Detective Conan, Persona 5 and Maplestory had. Cane, Cape, Mask, Blue, and stealing enemy moves all reminded me of Phantom Thief. Saw both Black, White and blue color theme before, but black and white is already taken so that leaves only Blue which result in Blue Mage? Coincidence with the blue color theme? Maybe, lol 😂 AWESOME video by the way, lol 😂

BLU is the most fun class to play in 14, but if you are hard pressed to find people to skill up in dungeons it can be really tedious, however they level up to 70 extremely fast, i would recommend any new BLU's to find homies to play with before starting this journey.

speaking from someone who played a blue mage in final fantasy XI it wasn't you just simply killed the monster and learned the ability, far from it. you first had to hunt it down, start the fight, try not to kill the monster during the fight. every monster had abilities that it used that were akin to weapon skills to players, the best description I can give of weapon skills are as such, you have a meter of sorts that fills to 100% when it does you can perform different attacks based on what weapon you were using, kind of like Final Fantasy 7 limit breaks. most likely the monster only got 2 chances per encounter to use the ability the player was looking for, once when it used it's 100% weapon skill and when it was near death it had a last-ditch attack basically giving it a 100% weapon skill boost to try and defeat you before it died. the chance to learn it was very low. I believe 10% or less in most cases. I've gone on expeditions with other blue mages trying to fill out my magic list and have taken hours if not days just to get 1 spell. was it worth it? yes. Blue mages if set up well were some of the highest damage dealing players in the game hands down, mind you though they were glass cannons. the limiting factor being Magic Points. but when the level cap jumped to 99 it all changed. if you had a blue mage with a red mage sub job, they could blast down mobs until their MP ran dry, then use the red mage ability "Convert" which converted their HP into MP, cure themselves to Max and keep blasting. it was pretty awesome to watch.

I REALLY hope the Blue Mage returns to the main Final Fantasy games with FFXVI. Undoubtedly my favorite job class in the whole FFuniverse.

I remembered Blue Mage being broken in FF5. A handful of bosses weren't immune to Death Claw or moves that just trivialized them, so they shined especially in the early to midgame.

This is good. Here's hoping it gets added in, in ff14. That masked carnival minigame sucks tho. I hope they remove that.

Final Fantasy 11's Blue mage was the most powerful version from the franchise, 14's version is weak in comparison.

Quina is the key to all of this, s/he's a funnier character than we've had before.

Ah yes one of the most powerful blue mage abilities is that off the copying off certain monster abilities I mean it's definitely worth it to learn stone breath and cheese most encounters

Blue mage ffxi is best blue mage ever

I'm still curious how Tactics was a spin-off, when some of the later games, including those of the MMO genre, have had notable locations and characters brought from it.

"But without further ado..." Was followed by more ado.

What is the song in the background?

One of my favorite jobs in FF5 for sure.

Why did this show Auron at the beginning?

I'd specifically love to see an Evolution video about the summoner class. I feel like they've changed so drastically throughout the course of the series. Love y'alls videos!

blue mage and geomancer are probably the most unique classes in the series

18:26 so that's why those mind flayers were called wizards in FF1.

Blue magic is my favorite class! Quina being my favorite iteration

Final Fantasy V and XI are the best iterations of the Blue Mage. V in part for introducing the job, but also letting you learn the abilities while having another job with Learn. XI just for being a very fun implementation of the job in an MMO setting and giving us actual lore on the origins of the art. XIV's shaping up to be a very good iteration as well, although the limited nature of XIV's Blue Mage at present makes it less interesting, even if still very fun to mess around with on your own.

I think my favorite iteration of the Blue Mage was probably in Tactics Advance. I remember my endgame party consisting of a couple of Assassins, a Blue Mage, a Summoner, and probably a couple of other classes, and I would just WRECK people. It was also the first time that I realized how important support classes were, since I was a young'un at the time and focused mostly on just doing as much damage as I could without worrying about status ailments or buffs.