Summoner and BLM differences

Yes, it's me again.

I've already talked about my character Miranda, how she initially chose Gridania and Conjury for the beauty of the forest and peacefulness, but her universe keeps letting her down as she is easily taken advantage of and has been badly treated in the past. In a Nutshell, she is friendly and peace loving like Terra, but bitter and disillusioned underneath like Celes.

I was thinking about how she could keep her CNJ skills, but have a more offense oriented job as well. After all, I think there's more than a few reasons to believe the Padjal are not as nice as they seem, plus it takes a very rare person to believe that Eorzeans are bastards and still care about being a healer for them. =D

But now I'm curious as to what differences, if any, a SMN and a BLM would typically have as far as personality and mannerisms?

The BLM story reminds me a lot of Rift, another game I like - weilding magic from the Void, but using that power to seal portals to it, much like the Elemental Planes in Rift. But the thing is, It's kind of implied in the BLM storyline that the further you wander down the path of the Black, the more your personality will shift towards being mean and evil. Is this true? Or are they referring more to your bond with the Gem, and a lot of BLMs being evil comes from the fact that naturally evil people often want a quicker path to power?

SMN story has the Dark Summoner, but for the most part they seem to be sort of "rebellious scientists" whose methods might be questionable to the city states, but they have sworn to use their techniques against the Primals and never to give in to their tempering.

Well, it's a bit hard to judge given the fact both Jobs in Eorzea are virtually extinct, especially SMN, so whatever personality traits might have been standard for practitioners of those jobs in ages past probably is no longer relevant.

One thing though about SMN - although it's unclear about Tristan, given the fact he was being manipulated by the Ascians, as far as the player is concerned they are not tempered because they can't be - they have the Echo after all and it's a major plot point of the game that the player is completely immune to Primal influence (ala tempering), making them uniquely suited to bending the Primals to their own will (or at least a portion of their power).

Tristan unfortunately was so consumed by revenge it virtually destroyed him (especially wielding the very powers he hated so much), but again it was unclear whether or not he was tempered himself.

As to Black Mage, I didn't see it implied that it causes you to become mean and evil. It was a cautionary tale of hubris. Black magic is power, power begets hubris. The type of person who seeks power for the sake of seeking power tends to be prone to hubris, overstep their limits, and turn their friends into a fiendish hellbeast that they can barely even contain, much less defeat.

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Originally Posted by gornotck

As to Black Mage, I didn't see it implied that it causes you to become mean and evil. It was a cautionary tale of hubris. Black magic is power, power begets hubris. The type of person who seeks power for the sake of seeking power tends to be prone to hubris, overstep their limits, and turn their friends into a fiendish hellbeast that they can barely even contain, much less defeat.

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Not to mention they deal with dark fiends all the time. Whose power lies in seduction and corruption as much as it does in destruction.

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Originally Posted by gornotck

As to Black Mage, I didn't see it implied that it causes you to become mean and evil. It was a cautionary tale of hubris. Black magic is power, power begets hubris. The type of person who seeks power for the sake of seeking power tends to be prone to hubris, overstep their limits, and turn their friends into a fiendish hellbeast that they can barely even contain, much less defeat.

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The quote I'm referring to is:

Ququruka: "You may have taken the black, but time is needed before the black takes you - before it permeates mind and body, and colors every fiber of your being dark as pitch."

That doesn't imply any evil or mean spiritedness, really. Ququruka is saying that you may have become a black mage, but that it will take time to master being a black mage. His closing comment is along the lines of 'Do not fear the power to destroy. Master it and destroy what would destroy you.'

Greetings fellow RPer (or at least someone who thinks like one)! I'm going to give you a bit of an rp perspective. I actually play a thaumaturge myself (poor little Sigurd) who is a voidsent researcher. While in game, he's a BLM, personal storyline, he's just a THM who's way too obsessed with the void and refining his own skills. He actually recently crossed over into SCH-type play, but as he can't quite figure out this ancient Nymian tome he found while raiding a cavern, he's just kind of a SCH without a fairy. But I digress.

I'll give you an interesting fact I've played into Sigurd's personality. He's been having the void whispering in his ear for years. It's slowly driving him crazy as he becomes more wrapped in his research into the void and the events of RP unfold before him. He loses people, he gets stressed out, he's a typical young adult with post-traumatic stress caused by the Calamity. The usual. I'm terrible to him.

Now Sigurd is far from evil. He's Thanalanian (Is that a word? It is now), so he's got his share of shady going on, but he's certainly not evil by any definition, even though he's slowly being consumed by the void. He's just unfortunate. In fact, if you go through the entirety of the BLM storyline, you'll find out exactly what the void is trying to do. It seems more that it would make you sad and possibly self-destructive. He's had moments of severe self-doubt and loathing to a point where he's nearly thrown himself off a bridge, but that passes as he snaps to his senses.

As for your scenario, since both thm and acn can cross into cnj, here's a thought for you and how I decided what classes I'd cross over into Sigurd's skillset.

1. Arcanism is a magic based off math. You can see it very clearly with the scholar spells that this is math-based. (You can see it in Tri-disaster with SMN too). If your character is good with math, it might be a good option, though you need to feasibly come up with a way to explain why he has a summoning book / gem / whathaveyou. If your character cannot count, this is probably not the skill for you.

2. thaumaturgy is based on black magicks, which is basically aether-bending. It is linked to the void but you don't necessarily have to make it absolutely so. Thaumaturges also seem to be incredibly devout to Nald'thal (holds true for BLM too).

Neither is actually good or bad, just with any magicks or DoW classes in the game. It's all about mastery and what you choose to do with the power that makes you who you are in the game.

I'm pretty sure a soul crystal or main arm does not dictate the wielder's personality. Isn't curiosity a good enough reason?

I can't really speak for how you choose to roleplay Miranda, but I'll try to explain how I've integrated the thaumaturge and archer aspects of my summoner's storyline.

When Merlwyb appointed Lyland as her envoy to Gridania and Ul'dah, he took the opportunity to learn more about the other schools of magic in Eorzea. From the conjurers, he learnt more about the art of healing and protection. But, more importantly, he met Sylphie Sweetwind, and wondered why she couldn't be allowed to strengthen her own reserves of aether and avoid endangering her life whenever she heals with magic.

It's not immediately apparent, but among the three schools of magic, arcanists are very likely the best at managing their internal flow of aether. This is represented by the arcanist's aetherflow ability, which not just replenishes his aether, but also sets up a "reservoir" of aether that can be released in a burst of magical power.

Lyland pondered this question when he next visited Ul'dah and studied thaumaturgy. He found that the thaumaturges had no apparent problem drawing from their own reserves of aether, unlike Sylphie, but they do seem to often run the risk of running dry on aether when they are most in need of it. The thaumaturges seemed to get around this through alchemy (ie, mana potions), but Lyland later discovered that judicious use of astral and umbral cycles of spells would help manage the problem quite effectively.

So, it came down eventually to a matter of dogma. The conjurers were consciously aware that they using a borrowed power, ie, the power of the elements, to work their magic, and were therefore tradition-bound to follow the rules of their agreement with the elementals.

Lyland did consider putting this to Sylphie, but he decided eventually to leave it alone. It was not his place, as a foreigner, to comment on local culture. He chose instead to support Sylphie as best he could as a fellow conjurer, and things worked out in their own ways in the end.

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As for archery, it's much more straightforward. Lyland picked up miqo'te archery from the U tribe of the Forgotten Springs. He sympathised with U'kahzuna's plight, and was quite happy that she managed to learn a new way to hunt in the end, with bow and arrow instead of claws. In support, he picked up the skill along with her, and developed it further in Gridania (where he was aghast to find so much antagonism towards his style of archery... but that's another story).


So, to be sure, Lyland was never quite bothered by any ideological differences between thaumaturgy and arcanima. To him, both schools are more similar than different, especially from the perspective of how they utilise internal reserves of aether. If anything, though, Lyland found much in common between summoning and conjury, as both schools have a heavy reliance on elemental magic.

The key difference, though, is that summoning relies heavily on personal aether reserves to draw forth the egi, which are in turn contained and controlled through arcane geometry. Lyland would later realise that he would have to apply everything he knew about aetheric manipulation, from thaumaturgy and arcanima, to succeed as a summoner.

And that's the way the story rolled with Lyland. I hope it gives you some inspiration for handling Miranda's story.

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

I can't really speak for how you choose to roleplay Miranda

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Okay well, first off, let me apologize for not being able to leave well enough alone. I know I can be pretty stubborn sometimes and I apologize if I'm being annoying.

Eikidoh has a VERY good point about the Jobs, that I must admit I kind of overlooked in my Scholar vs Bard thread. The advantage of the two Arcanist Jobs is that you are virtually the only one of their kind in the present day world, besides Tristan of course. So for purposes of the story, it doesn't really matter what traits the ancient Nymian Scholars or the Ancient Allagan Summoners had.

By that definition, if I say Miranda couldn't be a Scholar just because they were militant in the past, then being a BLM or a WHM would have to be disqualified as well, seeing as how it's heavily implied that most past WHMs and BLMs were very much fanatical warmongers, which is how the aether ran out and the arts became forbidden.

I also only recently did the WHM quests up to level 45 on Miranda, so I know for a fact that WHMs today aren't always peaceful and friendly.

But yeah, one other thing I apologize for not making clearer: Miranda's bitterness stems mostly from her strong belief that "tough love" and arrogance do more harm than good, and seeing as how the city states have a knack for displaying both attitudes, she has ended up becoming disillusioned and independent minded. Pretty much, what she's against is fighting out of hubris, not fighting in general.

No worries, it's not a bother. I'd just like to point out that role-playing is just something I do on the side while playing the game. I don't really take it all that seriously. It's just more fun to imagine my character as a real person with real motivations.

And as an old-school table-top RPG gamer, I'm not averse to waving away any part of the "canonical" story that doesn't quite make sense to me.

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

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Okay, so now that I've argued to death Miranda's background, it's time I told you about the real dilemma I am facing.

For gameplay purposes, I intend to level all three classes to 50. For RPing purposes, right now I am most leaning towards Summoner as being the Job that most "fits" Miranda. Unfortnately, IMO Summoner is only 1/2 a Job, given that most if not all Summoners from previous FFs were also some other Job (Yuna and Garnet were combination WHM/SMN, while Rydia was also a BLM). And even if Scholar doesn't HAVE to be a warmonger per se as many others have pointed out, my problem is that Miranda probably would not be interested in becoming one - she is ultimately allied with the Scions, and not the Maelstrom, so for her to remain an adventurer would pretty much defeat the purpose of becoming a Scholar, since their arcane geometries were designed around providing protection and giving direction to Marauder units.

So as far as I'm concerned I have 3 options:

1. Canon Archmage: From what I can see and others have said, lorewise it is very difficult, if not impossible, for a single adventurer to canonically level all three DoM classes to 50. My justification would be that the Echo granted Miranda mastery over magic to a higher extent than other adventuers, and the Soul Crystals allow her to switch between them at will, but I still think this is kind of pushing Mary Sue territory.

2. SMN/BLM hybrid: Both of these Jobs share the same cross-class abilities and Limit Break, and the BLM story has a lot of things about it that I like. The beastmen you meet are more accepting of you than the WHM Padjals and pave the way for the other beastmen quests, and the Archer subclass also would fit Miranda's background, if she initially wanted to be an Archer but dropped out due to Silviarre's abusiveness. The irony, of course, would be that the THM guild is located in, and worships the deity of, the city that most blatantly embodies the attitudes Miranda is resentful of.

3. Being only a SMN for now, and getting a secondary job a couple years down the road in an unreleased DoM Job: This is risky, as I've not only exhausted the sidequests to level those first three, but there's no guarantee that Red Mage or Geomancer or whatever they release would, in fact, be fitting.

So, TinyRedLeaf, as an avid roleplayer which one would you most recommend?

I don't see it as very Mary-Sueish to have all three leveled to 50, but that's partly from how I see it. Being level 50 doesn't mean you're the most powerful caster around. It merely means you're very good at its combat applications, to the best that an all-around adventurer can be. Key aspects of this are that you only utilize what has come before you, you're not researching new techniques. You're also relatively untrained in the other aspects such as military strategy or quieting ceremonies. It is the higher ups in your guild that are the true master wizards, so mastering all three is less like being an archmagus with unparalleled mastery of magic, and more akin to a well-traveled explorer who's learned several languages.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it's more than just the soul crystals restricting you from utilizing all three at once. Magic requires more than just the knowledge of how to cast it, you also need the right focus. For a WHM, this is a wooden focus, the more natural the better, for communing with elementals. For a BLM, this is an ornate and expensive focus as befitting the greedy religion of Nald'thal. Finally, for both Arcanist jobs you aren't using the book just to remind yourself. Rather, it's the geometries written in special ink designed for channeling aether that you use, with a book being your medium because it's more handy to carry around than a stick covered with all those designs. With your book in hand, you can only do the most rudimentary conjury and thaumaturgy, the kind that does not require a focus.

One other thing I forgot to mention, is that Miranda is more philosophical in nature than practical. So on second thought, she might find Thaumaturgy or Conjury a more "natural" way of casting spells.

It seems to me like having to make difficult calculations for your every spell would be nothing but a liability in the heat of battle...

I recommend that you pick whichever option seems the most fun when you're playing the game! :p That's not meant to be a flippant answer: It really doesn't make sense to let role-playing restrictions limit the way you play.

I can't really say what would be best for Miranda. All I can say is what I've described earlier: Lyland found a lot of similarities between conjury and summoning, but realised that he needed to rely on thaumaturgic techniques of aetheric manipulation to excel at the revived Allagan art.

Culturally, he's at odds with Ul'dah's vulgar materialism and with Gridania's conservatism. After all, he's a "mage-scientist" at heart, and he places great value on free inquiry into any and all kinds of phenomena (that's how I rationalise his dabbling in thaumaturgy and conjury).

That's the same approach he took to "scholar magic". Bear in mind that, in my personal version of FFXIV's story, Lyland is currently busy with his research into the revived Allagan art of summoning. But, at the same time, he regrets having lagged behind in arcanima. So, the chance to study another ancient form of magic proved a welcome break. And the similarities between Nymian magic and arcanima were an added bonus.

Well, like I said, I play all four Jobs for purposes of gameplay enjoyment and adaptability. Thus, it is a very tough decision as to which one or two are "canon" for Miranda RP wise.

I would say I like Summoner the best in terms of gameplay, but at first glance BLM seems to best fit her theme, especially since Archer would be justified as a subclass as far as Miranda's background story goes.

Then again, Arcanist would be better in terms of having guildmates Miranda could trust outside of the Scions. Decisions, decisions!