Black mages. . . .

[alkhemyXIII]

No, there is no agreement on this, but rather you keep seeing the same 'blm sucks I need other classes skills then it won't suck' opinion from the same handful of people whenever this topic comes up. And frankly, until the people pushing for this realize that having more spells, ANY type of spells, doesn't inherently make Blm more fun, this topic will never get anywhere. Ask for changes in HOW the spells and skills you do have work...stop asking for skills and spells the game developers have already decided don't belong to you.

A Black Mage asking to to gain the ability to cast Stone taking away the ability from CNJ/WHM is no different than a PLD demanding they get to use Steel Cyclone instead of Warrior....this game doesn't work that way...how other games work is irrelevant.

Thank you, Kinsey... Just... Thank you...!

[Xeia]

A Black Mage asking to to gain the ability to cast Stone taking away the ability from CNJ/WHM is no different than a PLD demanding they get to use Steel Cyclone instead of Warrior....this game doesn't work that way...how other games work is irrelevant.

The way other games work isn't completely irrelevant. I get that there are a bunch of people who really just want FFXI-2, and that's silly. But there are also people who want to pretend this isn't a part of the Final Fantasy series and that's equally silly. It's not surprising to have people playing a Final Fantasy game asking for one of the iconic jobs to function as it traditionally does -- and I'm talking about WHM, not BLM.

I'm not asking for stone/aero as a Black Mage, I'm asking for white magic spells instead as a White Mage. Honestly I'd be happier if those spells were just removed than given to White Mage, though I do think they fit nicely in the game (on BLM, or even Blue or Red Mage if those get added later). Your example is sort of random. This is in no way similar to one random class asking for a random ability from another random class to be transferred to them. Steel cyclone is a high damaging move that makes sense for WAR, and not for PLD. Stone is a high damage elemental spell which takes advantage of specific elemental weaknesses in certain targets. That makes sense for a BLM.

But forget that for a moment. Let's focus on what a White Mage should be doing. In a party doing a levequest with any type of insect enemy (which was a lot of them at lower levels, in 1.0 anyway), then your primary magic damage dealer is not a BLM but a WHM. This does not make sense or fit the class. As a WHM I want to be able to focus on healing, on buffing, on a select few enfeebles, and only when the circumstances call for it, on holy damage as well. Not sharing the nuking responsibility with BLM. And if people want to still use it as a CNJ there's nothing stopping them from equipping it.

Plus, remember how CNJ and THM started. Both had healing spells, and all of the elemental spells (including the traditional BLM spells) were part of the CNJ class. When jobs were implemented the spells were moved around. THM was stripped of its healing abilities to translate better into a BLM and CNJ was stripped of only half its elemental spells. I assume it was because CNJ had no other damaging spells and adding new abilities wasn't something they wanted to invest time in at that juncture (and they didn't want to leave it with no ability to do damage whatsoever).

So, in short, this isn't "black mages asking for a white mage ability." This is players of both classes asking for the conversion of CNJ to a proper white mage, which was STARTED when jobs were implemented, to be finished. And if those spells find their way to BLM as a result, that's only an added bonus.

Edit: And the argument that "this game doesn't work that way" isn't very helpful. This game doesn't work in any way that it doesn't work in. It's a useless tautology. By that logic, no suggestions made to improving the game are relevant. Also by that logic, should they move the other elemental attacks to BLM you'll be just as content because it will then be just "the way this game works."