Blue Magic in FFT

[awall]

Don't get your hopes up. It doesn't exist. There's no "super secret" blue mage class, there's no hidden character who learns monster skills, nothing. You can get monsters in your party, but that's it.

It is theoretically possible to hack a Blue Mage into the game via a gameshark. If anybody's interested, I could go over how to do that. I don't have the gameshark to do that, and even if I did, I'm not sure I would; it'd take a helluva lotta work and I'm sure there'd be a lot of kinks that'd have to get worked out.

Also, there's the issue that a Blue Mage would either be incredibly good or incredibly bad. I'm not sure how many people pay attention to monsters' stats, but you'll notice that they typically have ridiculously high MA; the reason for this is to balance out the fact that damage formulae for monster magic are laughably bad! We're talking stuff like... well, Thunder Soul (Skeleton) does MA * 2 damage, Mimic Titan (Sacred) does MA * 3, etc. To compare, Fire does MA * 14 * faith_multipliers which, assuming the caster and target both have 60 faith (which is fairly crappy... mages should typcially have around 70 faith) is about MA * 5. Fire 2, Fire 3, and Fire 4 do MA * 18, MA * 24, and MA * 32 damage (times a faith multiplier) respectively. The short version of this is that beyond the very beginning of the game, black magic will do significantly more damage than monster skills. To compensate for this, you could jack Blue Mages' MA up to what monsters have, but then that leaves potential for abuse; a Blue Mage who equipped Black Magic as a secondary would cause absolutely obscene amounts of damage with his Fire spells and never use Blue Magic at all.

Having said that, I'm now going to throw it all out the window and pretend there was a Blue Mage class. Pretend that the class existed and somehow had their stats set so that Blue Magic was reasonably powered compared to other jobs. What skills would you give to a Blue Mage? Remember to think about a few things:
1) Blue Magic is free (it has to be, because monsters have almost no MP) and requires no charge time.
2) In order to learn a monster skill, the Blue Mage needs to get hit by it. Since monsters are smart enough not to target beneficial abilities at your characters, you can only learn beneficial abilities that have an area of effect (the ability isn't targeted at your Blue Mage, but he can get hit by it anyway).
3) Demons are not monsters. This means that Dark Holy, Lifebreak, Ultima, and Nanoflare, are Dark Magic and not Blue Magic. Sorry. (Giga Flare, Hurricane, and Ultimaguest, however, are in the Behemoth Skillset so they could be learned).
4) Also, some of these attacks may be really hard to learn, because you need somebody with Monster Skill to be standing next to a monster to allow it to use certain attacks against your blue mage.

Anyway, without further ado... here are the 10 abilities I would give a Blue Mage:

-Choco Cure - (Heal MA * 3 HP.) Yes, it sucks. Yes, it's hard to learn, because you either have to charm a chocobo or make it desperate enough to use Choco Cure despite you standing it the area of effect. However, it's the only healing monster skill in the game, so I feel Blue Mages should be able to learn it.
-Goblin Punch - (Do maxHP - currHP damage.) Interesting damage formula and a traditional FF blue mage skill.
-Selfdestruct - (Do maxHP - currHP damage, area of effect). MASSIVE area of effect damage and another traditional blue mage skill. Actually, it's just like Goblin Punch, but with area of effect.
-Drain Touch - (Drain target_maxHP / 3 HP.) Drains 1/3 of the target's HP!!! That's better than the Oracle's Life Drain! Use it on Velius and watch him cry as you eat over 500 HP.
-Choco Meteor - (Do MA * 4 damage.) Not wonderful damage, but 100% accurate and long range. Sorta like Geomancy, minus the status or area of effect.
-Cat Kick - (Do PA * random(1..8) damage, 50% chance of knockback.) Simply because knockback is fun.
-Mindblast - (MA + 35% chance of causing Beserk or Confusion.) Anybody who this has happened to knows how good it is. I think you can still learn a monster skill even if you're confused or berserked.
-Wave Around - (Do about PA * PA / 2 damage to anybody next to you.) Simple, easy to learn area of effect attack.
-Giga Flare - (Do MA * 7 damage to an absolutely ridiculous area of effect.) Okay, this attack would be good even if Blue Mages didn't have turbocharged MA. Do you know what this hits? 4 panel range and 3 panel area of effect. This is positively brutal. In theory, it's hard to learn because you can only get it from a Monster-skilled Behemoth; however, if you take a blue mage with you to the Velius fight, one of the Archaeodemons will cast it at some point.
-Triple Flame - (Do a whole truckload of damage... three times!) This is your reward for taking a blue mage to the final dungeon. Learn it off one of Balk's Hydras and then massacre Altima with it. Sure, it's overpowered... but that late in the game you already have Orlandu, Reis, Chantage, Deep Dungeon equipment, Calculators, etc.... adding one more overpowered attack won't change that much.

So, what do you think a Blue Mage would have in FFT?

[Omega]

I dunno, I mean I can open my strat guide and list abilities to you, but you really could use any of them. They could adjust the starting MA of the Blue Mage or change the modifiers for damage when you use the spells to make them more level on the playing field of abilities. Also, the game is not smart enough to avoid casting things on you to which you'd learn, like you stated. Many times an enemy has casted a spell and I've been the target or within area of effect and you can learn it. So that just isn't true.

Not that I think it matters but I'd give these:

Choco Cure - heal
Choco Esuna - remove bad status
Pooh - sleep
Flame Attack - flame breath
Hurricane - wind elemental
Protect Spirit - protect ability
Gather Power - better than accumulate ability
Mimic Titan - area of effect earth elemental damage
Bad Bracelet - mass status attack
Odd Soundwave - removal of all status, area of effect

[awall]

Originally Posted by Cobain

Also, the game is not smart enough to avoid casting things on you to which you'd learn, like you stated. Many times an enemy has casted a spell and I've been the target or within area of effect and you can learn it. So that just isn't true.

Originally Posted by awall

2) In order to learn a monster skill, the Blue Mage needs to get hit by it. Since monsters are smart enough not to target beneficial abilities at your characters, you can only learn beneficial abilities that have an area of effect (the ability isn't targeted at your Blue Mage, but he can get hit by it anyway).

I didn't say that you'll never be within the area of effect; I said you'll never be the target of a beneficial ability (unless the monster is charmed). There are relatively few beneficial targetted monster abilities, but there are a handful (Lick, for example), and the AI will never use them on you.

Also, the AI is usually smart enough to step away from your characters before using abilities like Choco Cure. The only time it will hit you with them is if it is cornered and/or if it is trying to heal one if its allies and the only way it can stand next to the ally also involves standing next to your characters.

Originally Posted by Cobain

Gather Power - better than accumulate ability

Always targets the caster, no area of effect. There is literally no way to get this to hit anybody except the caster; even if the AI tried, it couldn't cast this on you. This was one of the first things I thought of as a cool thing to give a blue mage, but alas, there is no way to learn it.

[Omega]

Originally Posted by awall

I didn't say that you'll never be within the area of effect; I said you'll never be the target of a beneficial ability (unless the monster is charmed). There are relatively few beneficial targetted monster abilities, but there are a handful (Lick, for example), and the AI will never use them on you.

That is true about things like Lick, there is no way the pc would use it on you unless charmed. But remember Zodiac learning FAQ on gamefaqs, you can't intentionally charm your summoner to use Zodiac on you to learn it. It doesn't work that way, the enemy has to charm you, to use it on you. The charming party can't learn the abilities, therefore you can't learn Lick from charming a Morbol. You need a control ability of some sort like Manipulate Materia from FF VII, but that isn't in the game.

Originally Posted by awall

Also, the AI is usually smart enough to step away from your characters before using abilities like Choco Cure. The only time it will hit you with them is if it is cornered and/or if it is trying to heal one if its allies and the only way it can stand next to the ally also involves standing next to your characters.

You said it yourself, the AI would move to a spot where it can't help you, but if its healing that usually means you have the advantage and are in close proximity for the benefits of the ability. Therefore it wouldn't be hard to learn Choco Cure at all for example. I got hit by it many times.

Originally Posted by awall

Always targets the caster, no area of effect. There is literally no way to get this to hit anybody except the caster; even if the AI tried, it couldn't cast this on you. This was one of the first things I thought of as a cool thing to give a blue mage, but alas, there is no way to learn it.

Good point, well if a Blue Mage was in the game they might have considered redisigning the ability to be a one panel horizontal target ability.

[Karel]

I suppose for the prize of a whole new class.. they made it possible to allow the monsters themselves to join.

Reis is the only one who has any monster skills.

I didn't think they needed anything extra.. if you have a Gameshark for the PS.. then you can explore every class possible and have a bit more fun.

[awall]

Originally Posted by Karel

I suppose for the prize of a whole new class.. they made it possible to allow the monsters themselves to join.

True, I did really enjoy that feature. I guess FFT goes with the pokemon approach to enemy skills; you don't acquire the skill by itself, you acquire the monster with it. This sorta works, but I think Blue Magic would have also been nice. I believe that would have given the monster skills much more usability. Catching and fighting with monsters is nice, but compared to humans, monsters aren't really worth it unless you're doing a Ramza + 4 monsters challenge (or unless you wait until the end of the game and then sic Tiamats and Dark Behemoths at your foes).

They did kind of add a form of blue magic in...but only in that you learn Zodiac and Ultima from getting hit with it.

Imagine if you could learn those blasted sword skills...you fight more than enough sword knights in the game.

Think of it: You'll get at least Blastar, Shellbust, and Icewolf from Dycedarg; you'll get Dark/Night sword from Gaf; whatever you won't get from Dyce you get from Meliadoul; you'll get Lightning Stab or Holy Sword from Weigraf; and you'll get some blood-sucking abilities from Mr. Marquis (though his skills aren't technically sword skills.)

Maybe the cheapest ability in the game, but then so is Orlandu. Imagine TWO of him (since Ramza is the only one who would really be able to do so and survive, by most counts).

[Rosc]

OH yeah, I remember seeing a FAQ on GameFAQs where the guy who wrote it would make custom classes. You could send him the sprite, class name, and skillset name, along with up to 10 abiltiies, and he would give you a gmaeshark code to make that class.

Hmm... BM skills. Hard to say. I'd have to restudy the whole list of em to see what would fit best. It really depends on ho broken I want it to be.

And heck, what would be suitable as support, movement, and reaction abilties? What's left out there to be used?

[awall]

Originally Posted by Rosc

And heck, what would be suitable as support, movement, and reaction abilties? What's left out there to be used?

Ooh... I totally forgot about RSM abilities. Unfortunately, there just aren't any unused RSM abilities in the game (well, aside from NoCharge - which is absolutely broken - and SilentWalk and Reflect - which don't do anything), so you'd either have to leave these empty or take them away from another class.

Off the top of my head, I'd imagine that it would make sense to take the following abilities off the classes that they originally come from and give them to BlueMage.
- Reaction:
<none>
- Support:
Monster Skill
Train
-Movement:
Move Underwater - Sure it's crappy, but it's a M-ability that's innate to a handful of monsters (PiscoDemons) so somebody should be able to learn it.

Alternatively, if I could make some RSM up...
- Reaction:
Return Skill - Activates Brave% of the time when you get hit by an enemy skill. You use the skill back against whoever hit you with it.
- Support:
Learning - Allows you to learn Blue Magic even if you're not a BlueMage.
Movement:
Sure Footing - Makes your character immune to knockback. Again, this is completely useless, but some NPCs have immunity to knockback innately (i.e. Zalmo the second time you fight him) so it'd be nice if you could get it on one of your own characters. Besides, it'd help you learn Cat Kick ... but seriously, this dog shouldn't cost more than 50 JP or so.