Poll: Should Astral and Umbral(Light and Dark) be their own separate elements?

Right now Astral is made up of 34% Fire, 33% Lightning, and 33% Wind.
(Banish, Dia, and possibly Holy if it's ever available, etc.)

Umbral is made up of 34% Ice, 33% Water, and 33% Earth.
(Scourge, Bio, and Shadowseer, etc.)

In the past FF games, Light and Dark were their own separate elements.

What would you prefer? Should they stay a combination of 3 elements or should they become their own element?

Like this post if you want them to stay as is.

Like this post if you would like them to be seperate elements.

The separate elements looked awesome in XI, maybe I am just stuck in that era but that's just what I love(d) ^^

Yeah I kind of missed them being separate elements. The elemental wheel in FFXIV seems a bit off too.

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Originally Posted by Thaigare

The separate elements looked awesome in XI, maybe I am just stuck in that era but that's just what I love(d) ^^

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how the heck does your gif signature seem to have such a broad palette? o,o

Dark and Light were element based in FFXI. Not saying that's how it has to be, just giving an example on how it worked.

lol another one of these Poll things Hooray! :P

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Originally Posted by Starlord

lol another one of these Poll things Hooray! :P

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I just want to hear peoples opinions about it and probably help the devs decide what's best for the community.

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Originally Posted by Roll

Right now Astral is made up of 34% Fire, 33% Lightning, and 33% Wind.
(Banish, Dia, and possibly Holy if it's ever available, etc.)

Umbral is made up of 34% Ice, 33% Water, and 33% Earth.
(Scourge, Bio, and Shadowseer, etc.)

In the past FF games, Light and Dark were their own separate elements.

What would you prefer? Should they stay a combination of 3 elements or should they become their own element?

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I don't think you have it right.

According to the in-game literature, Astral and Umbral energy exist across all elements, not just the ones you mentioned. When you create a character and choose its birthmonth, you'll notice that each month has a unique pairing of an element and either an Astral or Umbral "polarity" to it.

It's possible the gods are aligned this way as well. Take the two gods of Lightning, for example. Byrgot is a creator god, while Rhalgr is a destruction god. Each element has two gods, and they all seem to have opposing themes based on whether they are aligned with Umbral energy or Astral energy.

In other words, the lore is too richly built up on this concept for it to change drastically by making Umbral and Astral energy mere elements.

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Originally Posted by AmyRae

I don't think you have it right.

According to the in-game literature, Astral and Umbral energy exist across all elements, not just the ones you mentioned. When you create a character and choose its birthmonth, you'll notice that each month has a unique pairing of an element and either an Astral or Umbral "polarity" to it.

It's possible the gods are aligned this way as well. Take the two gods of Lightning, for example. Byrgot is a creator god, while Rhalgr is a destruction god. Each element has two gods, and they all seem to have opposing themes based on whether they are aligned with Umbral energy or Astral energy.

In other words, the lore is too richly built up on this concept for it to change drastically by making Umbral and Astral energy mere elements.

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Yeah you're right. Who knows what they'll change on 2.0 though. I doubt they'll separate them into 2 different elements but eh.

I'd rephrase the question.

"Should Astral and Umbral (light and dark) be their own separate damage types?"

Currently, Astral damage doesn't exist. The Banish spell, despite saying it does Astral damage, actually does an even mix of Fire, Lightning, and Wind.

I don't think that making Astral/Umbral their own damage types reflects the lore any worse than making them mixes of just half the elements.

No, he has it right.

Astral 34% Fire, 33% Lightning, and 33% Wind
Umbral 34% Ice, 33% Water, and 33% Earth

They say there's astral and umbral in everything but it's metaphorical, you know the old "light and darkness in all things, neutrality like nature." While the months, years, eras, etc. do go back and forth, the elements are set. Check the DATs yourself, or check YG since they DAT-mine FOR you.

I'd be pretty sad if they made them their own elements. I think a lot of people just don't understand the concepts. Light and Darkness exist in all things in nature, if they were their own forces, it would be kind of complicated and silly. As much as I'd like to lay eyes on a dark elemental someday (and who's to say we couldn't have umbral elementals that cast ALL 3 SPELLS?!) I really, really like the Astral/Umbral system.

It's not going anywhere, though. It's too deeply ingrained in the lore. The months go back and forth between Astral and Umbral of each element, 6 of each make 12, time and the calendar is based on it, each of the gods is the astral and umbral form of an element...

Hell, look at the elemental wheel: The three astral elements are on top, and the three umbral elements are on bottom.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...entalWheel.jpg

As above, So below.

Even as damage types, they ARE their own types; it's just easy to tell what's weak against which because if it's fire, it's weak against umbral etc.

The main thing I like is that if you stick the Banish or Scourge status effect to a mob, CNJ's elemental blows of that type will hit harder. The mages are kind of a tag team, which is awesome.

I'm staking my flag securely in the "Keep it the way it is." section and hoping people who take the time to understand what they are and how they work will join me.

It's so much more interesting than plain old, "Yep. These are elements, too. Enjoy."

Nice explanation Anony

I like the XIV polarity concept over the XI element concept for dark/umbral and light/astral.

I can appreciate the lore reasons, but I don't really like how elemental affinities/weaknesses seem to be implemented for most monsters. It seems like most monsters fall under the generic "Astral" or "Umbral" categories, which means that you really only need to be concerned about two spell groups in practice when determining a monster's weakness (Banish/Fire/Thunder/Aero vs. Scourge/Blizzard/Water/Stone). I guess they could change that without needing to make Astral and Umbral their own separate elements, though, I guess.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, though, yeah, it feels a little odd to play a FF game with only 6 elements.

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Originally Posted by Keres

I can appreciate the lore reasons, but I don't really like how elemental affinities/weaknesses seem to be implemented for most monsters. It seems like most monsters fall under the generic "Astral" or "Umbral" categories, which means that you really only need to be concerned about two spell groups in practice when determining a monster's weakness (Banish/Fire/Thunder/Aero vs. Scourge/Blizzard/Water/Stone). I guess they could change that without needing to make Astral and Umbral their own separate elements, though, I guess.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, though, yeah, it feels a little odd to play a FF game with only 6 elements.

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Actually, most monsters I've run up against have a single element with a single elemental weakness. And you can tell what element they are by what crystals they drop.

The creation cycle goes something like:
Fire burns to ash and creates earth.
Earth harbors cold and creates ice.
Ice melts and creates water.
Water evaporates and creates wind.
Wind brings storms and create lightning.
Lightning strikes and creates fire

And everything drops its own element of crystal as well as the two elements next to it.

Most "Umbral" monsters are actually Ice (kill it with fire), and "Astral" monsters are actually Lightning (kill it with Earth).

^ This is true as well. Reference the elemental wheel to check it out. The mob's element will drop six shards, and it will drop three of whatever's to the left and right of it. Though you do get three elements, they're not the astral and umbral sets.... unless the mob is Lightning or Ice.

So, if a mob drops six fire shards, you'll get 3 lightning and 3 earth - but the mob will be weak to Umbral magic (including Ice, Earth, and Water) but specifically weakest to Ice. Unless it's a fire-based amalj'aa, which for some dumbass reason takes the most damage from blizzard.

They did it this way so that THM could DD without having elemental magic, its actually means that THM has less resistance than CNJ though.

I don't really care if they change it, its kind of a neat idea although wind > fire is still a bit odd.

I really prefer the familiar traditional Final Fantasy elemental table. The mixed up one in 14 is overly complicated and doesn't make much sense. It doesn't really feel "Final Fantasy" to me.

I also liked (most predominantly) in 11 that the light and darkness elements were considered a higher tier that was difficult to execute or only special monsters were attuned to. It seems like a wasted opportunity to make it merely a category of all the other elements.

It's not exactly a category, since it rightfully 'does' exist in its own right. Certainly, I'm not throwing Lightning, Fire or Wind spells at an enemy everytime I cast Banish, so rightfully, it it separate in its execution, but it 'blends' all of them together.

Simplified, the elemental wheel is made up of three cycles; Umbral VS Astral, triangle cycles, and the natural elemental cycle. The first two are for combat purposes, while the last is more for shard collecting or other aspects.

Umbral VS Astral

Three elements of each branch will be effective against the other three, and vice versa. Fire, lightning and wind of the Astral triangle are effective against water, ice and earth of the Umbral triangle, and vice-versa.

Triangle cycles

Draw triangles for alternate elements, and form a separate weakness for each element.

Fire melts ice, which can block wind, which suffocates fire.
Water erodes earth, which envelops lightning, which boils and turns water into gas.

So that means Fire is weak to Umbral elements as well as Wind.
Lightning is doubly weak to Earth and weak to the other Umbral elements.
Wind is doubly weak to Ice, and weak to the other Umbral elements.
Water is doubly weak to Lightning, and weak to the other Astral elements.
Ice is doubly weak to Fire, and weak to the other Astral elements.
Earth is weak to all Astral elements as well as Water.

Natural order

The formation of the elements is basically the usual elemental weakness Fire-Water, Lightning-Ice, Wind-Earth organised in a circle with each pair on opposite sides. So that will make it so the order will be Fire -> Earth -> Ice -> Water -> Wind -> Lightning -> Fire.

Creatures elementally affiliated with Fire will drop Earth, Fire and Lightning shards.
Creatures elementally affiliated with Earth will drop Ice, Earth and Fire shards.
Creatures elementally affiliated with Ice will drop Water, Ice and Earth shards.
Creatures elementally affiliated with Water will drop Wind, Water and Ice shards.
Creatures elementally affiliated with Wind will drop Lightning, Wind and Water shards.
Creatures elementally affiliated with Lightning will drop Fire, Lightning and Wind shards.

Colour-coded for some people's convenience.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: Argh, just noticed hoe blinding the yellow is. Guess that makes it definitely astral then.