Magic Classes/Jobs for the Aetherically challenged

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Originally Posted by SannaR

A good job for someone who's not as aetherical inclined would probably be Machinist. As the box they carry on their hips draws in the aether needed to use their tools. Conjury would be a good one as unlike thaumaturgy it gets most of its aether again from the surrounding environment.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

If we instead turn to the Disciple of War jobs, we've got the ones that have already been mentioned: Machinist, Gunbreaker, Ninja, and Reaper are all either invented for people who can't manipulate aether, or are used to a pretty decent level by someone who can't.

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Machinists' lunchboxes convert the user's aether, not the ambient aether, so they would be unsuited for anyone who cannot manipulate aether. You could still use a gun, but you wouldn't be able to use any of the special abilities and wouldn't be an actual Machinist. Ninja uses mudras that use aether. Without them, you're just a rogue. The only job stone I could see anyone aetherically challenged being able to use is Reaper's unless you're a Gunbreaker with your own Ryne who can charge cartridges for you.

That said, I see no reason why the DoW classes would be beyond such a person. All of DoM is completely off the table though. If it were possible for Thancred or the Garleans to pull in aether from their surroundings, you'd think it would've been a thing already.

Ameliance herself says this in the recent deliveries questline:

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Originally Posted by Ameliance Leveilleur

Magic is the power to convert one's aether into tangible phenomena.

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Now this is just my conjecture, but it leaves me to believe that for the historical magical classes like BLM and WHM who were said to suck up ambient aether from their surroundings, a bit of seed aether from yourself and an understanding of aetherial manipulation is still required to perform spells. Otherwise environmentally unfriendly Garlean mages would have been going around sucking the life out of things to perform spellcraft, which would've been pretty cool though.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

It's been an EXTREMELY long time since I've played the Thaumaturge questline, but I believe it's ambiguous whether Cocobusi has no aether manipulation capabilities or just extremely reduced, just that it's enough to knock thaumaturgy off the table anyway. If it's the former, every single magic job is completely unviable just on a base level; it's just not possible, end of story. If it's the latter... I actually think they're still all off the table, because the main reason Red Mage is aetherically economical is because it uses internal aether rather than external... but internal aether is the central problem for Cocobusi anyway. If it's so bad he can't even use an externally-based magic style like thaumaturgy, he can't use ANY of them. He can't just be a 'part-time' Red Mage or something, that'd be like suggesting that Arenvald become a 'part-time' walker.

If we instead turn to the Disciple of War jobs, we've got the ones that have already been mentioned: Machinist, Gunbreaker, Ninja, and Reaper are all either invented for people who can't manipulate aether, or are used to a pretty decent level by someone who can't.

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Minor point is that Thaumaturgy doesn't use external aether. Black magic does, and so does Conjury as well as White Magic.