Part Lore, Part Gameplay Question: Why Sage & not Green Mage? Balancing the 4th slot

As far as FF lore, the Sage was often the ultimate DPS upgrade for your mage class. Both good healing and good damage magic, but the focus was damage. And it was healing magic, rather than shields.

On the other hand, the Green Mage is all about barriers and buffs and (lesser) heals. I have always loved how FF has Black, White, Red & Blue Mages. It is natural that I want to see Green added to the mix!

There are 3 healers currently and 3 types of heals: direct heals, shields & regen. But Sage would add a 4th healer.

How about AST, WHM & SAG(?) each have 1 specialty that they do consistently and do well?

Then have Scholar be something extraordinary. High risk, high skill, high reward. SCH could do all 3 things and do them better than the specialists! But they could only do them on a limited basis and there would be significant cooldowns. It would absolutely be about tactical decisions made on-the-fly. No way for SCH to spam an ability if things go tits up. Either Scholars will be godly or instant-death, depending on who is using them. Also, the SCH pet would now be directly controllable again and Eos and Selene would be quite different in abilities.

I have dreams but I think this one would be tons of fun!

Sage is an old Job from FFIII and IV, and given the other FFIV references shown with EW's teaser trailer, it's clear this is what Yoshi was aiming for by having it as the new healer. Green Mage on the other hand, is pretty much unique to the Ivalice games and essentially just takes buffing spells from Black, White and Time Magic anyway, so is thematically redundant.

And as far as barrier spells go, we've actually lost long-term barriers, ala Protect, in favour os momentary buffs so Green Mage is even more superflorous I'm sorry to say.

The "Sage" we are getting doesnt look like it'll be anything like any other Sage in FF history.
It seems like they just wanted a Sharlayan themed healer.
If they had added Green Mage I imagine, like with this version of Sage, it would still have the flying nodes and little connecting it to the class it's "based on" beyond the name.

Oh boy, a "Scholar should be the best healer" thread. Lemme settle in with some snacks.

I think I might have liked green mage better myself. (It's worth noting that this is my first FF game, though.) Just because with the way sage looks in the video, it seems like we're going to end up with both the shield healers having a high-tech theme and both the regen healers having a low-tech theme. I'd have rather played a low-tech-themed shield healer.

I wouldn't like high-stakes scholar, though. Having a job that's built to be as stressful as possible to create excitement doesn't appeal to me.

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Originally Posted by Wawachume

it seems like we're going to end up with both the shield healers having a high-tech theme

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I don't follow...
In what way is SCH "high-tech?"
Smacking someone with a book is about as low tech as I can imagine.

I mean the spell animations siddenly got an Allagan theme in Shadowbringers. Particularly broil and biolysis.

The animations for Adlo and Succor were always more "digital" in nature in comparison to the flowery brush strokes of WHM in terms of visuals. Chain Strategem and Biolysis really push the Matrix Digital vibe. It seems that Scholar is an awkward mixture of nerdy book reading strategists, fantastical fairy companion, and futuristic tech savy. Im always a little confused by just what the design inspiration is. Fey Blessing is very cute with a robust burst of butterflies while Indomitability is very lean on animation with clean lines and little fan fare. You never really know what you're going to get with Scholar abilities besides lots of green for the healing bits.

Aldo and succor don't seem as bad to me---they basically just have a bunch of hexagons, and hexagons are common in nature. If I squint I can view those animations as part of the old "biological" theme of arcanists, which is like...midway between high and low tech, I guess.

Green Mage is already part of SCH's identity, just like AST involves Time Mage.

I'll take it.

I'd just like more green-mage-like animations.

Maybe sage will steal the techy parts of scholar's aesthetic like dancer stole from bard?

I never considered the tech aspect. Yes, some jobs are high fantasy and others are more tech mage.

As far as Scholar, I think that something being the "best" would be balanced out by having most players unable to use it to its full potential. The problems with SCH began when they decided to start dumbing it down while still keeping it powerful. At that point, there was no reason to use anything else.

The high barrier (ha-ha) to entry would be the balance needed. We should look at jobs based on how well the majority of players would use them, rather than seeing the top 1% and consider that to represent the job as a whole.

Speaking of Green Mage and Ivalice, I do miss Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (^_^)

And how would SuperScholar fare in, say, dungeon content? If it's so inaccessible that it's hard to clear easy instances with it, newbies who stumble into it are going to rage.

I'm not a fan of kneecapping a job's (or three!) potential skill ceiling and designating it the "newbie" choice. Though I'll admit I've never heard this particular angle on Scholars wanting to be OP again before.

That is a fair assessment. But one of the biggest complaints is already that multiple healer jobs are too dull and/or easy. Why not have an expert-level job and a more newbie-friendly job?

It is not possible to please both camps with the same job. We end up pleasing nobody. With 4 healer jobs, you can have some jobs for newbies to enjoy and other jobs for high-skill & experienced players to enjoy.

I am looking for ways to not have the healers be clones of each other. If people have better suggestions, we can go with that instead! We already have AST as a thinly-veiled WHM with cards. If SAG becomes a better SCH without a pet, I don't know that we have really added anything with the 4th slot.

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Originally Posted by NYCLouisGamer

That is a fair assessment. But one of the biggest complaints is already that multiple healer jobs are too dull and/or easy. Why not have an expert-level job and a more newbie-friendly job?

It is not possible to please both camps with the same job. We end up pleasing nobody. With 4 healer jobs, you can have some jobs for newbies to enjoy and other jobs for high-skill & experienced players to enjoy.

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There shouldn't BE a 'newbie friendly' job once someone gets to content by lv 70+. No player is a newbie anymore with 50 to 80 levels worth of experience and doing content that expects them to be a veteran who went through multiple battles already. They may not be as good as the top tier healers, but they at least know how to use their core kit to get through the fight. There is a certain expectation people will have by the time a player reach endgame, and that expectation is how you know most people don't consider them as a complete newbie anymore that needs to be handheld through content.

The only time a job should feel 'newbie friendly' is at the low levels of the game, from Lv 1 to 50 since that's the period where a player learns how to use their kit at the fundamental level. All jobs should be made fun and have varying levels of unique complexity, but making a maxed out job be more simplistic for [anyone to play to be just as good] is the same as saying the ones who want to level it up for the mount and then complain they aren't doing as well as the others when they don't put in the effort to learn the job's toolkit. Just because a Black Mage who can't keep Enochian up can't do as much damage as a Black Mage who can, it doesn't mean Black Mage should be changed to have Enochian be traited so all bad Black Mages play at the same level as a Good Black Mage.

No job should have that kind of feeling, or else you'd be left with what MNK is currently reduced to today.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

There shouldn't BE a 'newbie friendly' job once someone gets to content by lv 70+.

No job should have that kind of feeling, or else you'd be left with what MNK is currently reduced to today.

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You both explained the problem with monk and why current expansion content should not be newbie-friendly.

/thread

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Originally Posted by NYCLouisGamer

That is a fair assessment. But one of the biggest complaints is already that multiple healer jobs are too dull and/or easy. Why not have an expert-level job and a more newbie-friendly job?

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Ah. So 3.4 Heavensward and Stormblood. WHM was just an inferior AST in almost every single way during that time. As someone who likes the WHM aesthetic, I can say from personal experience that I eventually got bored of being told to "switch to AST if you want to get stronger" because "WHM is easy and weak on purpose and should stay that way for new healers".

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Originally Posted by ItMe

The "Sage" we are getting doesnt look like it'll be anything like any other Sage in FF history.
It seems like they just wanted a Sharlayan themed healer.
If they had added Green Mage I imagine, like with this version of Sage, it would still have the flying nodes and little connecting it to the class it's "based on" beyond the name.

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My thoughts exactly.

I really dislike the name Sage, though, simply because it just doesn't fit a lot of the presented aesthetic. Sage to me screams old wizard like the sages Tellah (ff4) or Strago (ff6).

The only thing in common is literally just the name. I wish they actually came up with an unique job name, like they did with Gunbreaker.

I also feel like the name doesn't fit the look of the class.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

It seems like they just wanted a Sharlayan themed healer.

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Ironically we already have a heavily Sharlayan-linked healing class. To the point that I'm expecting we'll re-encounter a certain villain if we go there.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Ironically we already have a heavily Sharlayan-linked healing class. To the point that I'm expecting we'll re-encounter a certain villain if we go there.

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I know, right? It's kinda confusing lol.
And I am hoping to meet them > : )

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Ironically we already have a heavily Sharlayan-linked healing class. To the point that I'm expecting we'll re-encounter a certain villain if we go there.

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Now I'm wondering whether he still has the ability to manipulate time.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Green Mage is already part of SCH's identity, just like AST involves Time Mage.

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Green Mage isn't a part of SCH. They added the healing properties of SMN to the already existing properties of the SCH job. If you look at past SCHs in the series most of them function like a RDM but with more emphasis on magic. The only "new" aspect XIV added is the pet. Otherwise the SCH job has always been good at offensive and defensive magic and finding enemy weaknesses (Libra/Chain Stratagem).

DRK used to be a DPS in previous Final Fantasies, they're a tank in FFXIV.

Sage had dps elements before, they're a healer in FFXIV.

Not that hard to understand.

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Originally Posted by Eloah

Green Mage isn't a part of SCH. They added the healing properties of SMN to the already existing properties of the SCH job. If you look at past SCHs in the series most of them function like a RDM but with more emphasis on magic. The only "new" aspect XIV added is the pet. Otherwise the SCH job has always been good at offensive and defensive magic and finding enemy weaknesses (Libra/Chain Stratagem).

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That's Green Magic. It's the same thing.
Green Magic has only existed in one game, and in that iteration, it took status magic from White/Black/Time. It consolidated all of the status magic. Green Mage = Status Mage.
That's what SCH does, it uses status magic to debuff enemies and support the party, with some healing magic thrown in from it's III iteration. That's why the previous versions of it had things like leeches, silent dusk and fey caress. That's why it had two DoTs. It was a status focused job, that revolved around preventing and curing (and causing) sickness, as opposed to WHM's more direct form of 'healing wounds'. Not to mention the colour scheme.
It's also part Orator as well, with many skills deriving their names from battle cries that imbue their enhancements by raising the moral of the party or instilling fear into the enemy.

Just as AST is a combination of Gambler, Astrologer and Time Mage, SCH is a combination of Scholar, Green Mage and Orator.

Also SMN doesn't typically have healing properties... you're thinking about certain games where the female deuteragonist is a combination of Summoner and White Mage aren't you?
Or do you just mean the classic healing summons Faerie and Seraph? In which case... obviously.

Arcanist as a class is essentially a combination of Summoner and Green Mage. Summon magic plus Status magic. SMN itself takes this to the next level by doubling down on offensive summons and minimal party support, while SCH takes the few healing summons and throws in more status magic using the aesthetics and themes of Scholar and Orator. But at the core, it's status magic, which is Green magic.

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Originally Posted by Wawachume

Now I'm wondering whether he still has the ability to manipulate time.

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He still has it in the AST quests, so yes.

Honestly it makes more sense now that players don't have access to time-manipulation skills. It's advanced magic and a sign of how powerful he is compared to us, and the other characters seem amazed at the sheer thought of it. It doesn't work so well when we've been casting Time Dilation or whatever it was for several levels by that point.

Just from a name perspective, we have white mage, black mage, red mage, blue mage. Lots of "color" mages already. It could have confused people not familiar with traditional FF jobs. And green mage sure wouldn't have hyped me as much as sage.

I'm just gonna be that guy and put it this way. It's a Sage instead of a Green Mage because Sage just sounds cool.

You're a wise and enlightened individual (one of the main definitions of Sage outside of FF games) who's so wise and enlightened you literally wield Smart Rocks (essentially what the Latin and/or Greek roots for "Nouliths" means) as your weapon of choice. And you're such a wise and enlightened dude that you can shoot lasers and create barriers with your Smart Rocks.

i'd take green mage if its main form of damage is hitting things with a big club

White, black, red and blue mage have more solidified identities where as green mage seems to have forged one by taking stuff normally associated with other jobs. In addition, it simply hasn't been in many games, partly for this reason.

Honestly I think we have enough colored mages in the game as is, I like Sage as a name a lot more even if it's not 100% like previous incarnations of the job.