Idea for a new job - Time Mage (TIM)

Based off the Time Mage from Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy Tactics.

This would be a Magical Ranged DPS that casts Time Magic, and has a scepter as their main arm.

They would cast spells such as Stop, Slow and Haste to support allies or debuff enemies, and use spells such as Gravity to damage opponents.

Oh cool so they're a job that %-buffs have less of an effect on, but which work better with higher raw damage jobs?

The what now ?

I would have to see more of what the job could actually do before placing judgement on the idea. (´･ᴗ･`)

I think dot as their main damage spell
Spell that accelerates/slows/instantly tick all the dot damage with a dmg bonus would make it more “workable” in XIV combat system?

How would it be distinctly different from Astrologian, and how would it work within XIV's design? You didn't really go into enough detail.

Stop would be difficult to implement unless it was just a brief stun like Leg Sweep is for melee.

Also, Astrologian already has Gravity.

This happens every expansion. Some one comes up with a cool what if for a job and everyone proceeds to dump on it. Just because it's unlikely to come out because of astro and what not doesn't mean it's not cool for people to share the idea. Certain aspects could be worked into an entirely different new job and it's fun to have brainstorming post like this in a sea of doomer posts about black mage or kaiten

I mean to be fair, with the extremely low need for healing in modern FFXIV, I'd be all for cutting 5-6 healing tools from each healer and adding 5-6 utility (and maybe damage, but mostly utility, not a DPS job) instead. And doing damage "indirectly" via casting GCD-based but very short haste-spells onto friendly players would fit with the Astro theme and be a neat way to actually have busy GCDs without always just spamming a single nuke.

Haste from someone other than yourself can mess things up for some jobs. In particular, casters become less mobile when they have haste because their instant casts don't last as long, and they might not be able to plan their movements from run to run if they have to account for sometimes-haste.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Also, Astrologian already has Gravity.

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Scholar also used to have Miasma II as their AOE equivalent to Holy & Gravity, now it is Art of War (II) and any hint of Miasma, outside of NPCs, has been removed from all jobs.

They could absolutely just replace Gravity (II) with another AOE fitting within the job's design (Astrology and stars) and move Gravity (II) elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Haste from someone other than yourself can mess things up for some jobs. In particular, casters become less mobile when they have haste because their instant casts don't last as long, and they might not be able to plan their movements from run to run if they have to account for sometimes-haste.

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That'd be the cool part. It'd also be destroying the shackles of the 120s burst window.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

That'd be the cool part. It'd also be destroying the shackles of the 120s burst window.

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I'd take anything to break that 120s CD alignment. Combat design being mainly restricted to multiples of 30s (60s, 120s) is so grating and is ALSO one of various reasons why speed stats saw an awful decline in performance over Crit/DH/Det. All this "quality of life" simplification and cooldown alignment so we no longer feel bad if certain cooldowns didn't naturally align really just made things boring.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Haste from someone other than yourself can mess things up for some jobs. In particular, casters become less mobile when they have haste because their instant casts don't last as long, and they might not be able to plan their movements from run to run if they have to account for sometimes-haste.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

That'd be the cool part.

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"BLM had to drop a cast because TIM's haste shortened their Triplecast by 0.6s and they couldn't dodge the AoE without clipping their GCD" would not only be uncool but also it would defeat the purpose of hasting the BLM in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

"BLM had to drop a cast because TIM's haste shortened their Triplecast by 0.6s and they couldn't dodge the AoE without clipping their GCD" would not only be uncool but also it would defeat the purpose of hasting the BLM in the first place.

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BLM tears would just feed a new caster as an extra bonus.

(also haste does not shorten buff durations, I think you're confusing effects).

Its a nice idea, but unfortunately as long as we have the 120 sec burst window and everything associated with it ( buff allignment, optimal rotation,..etc.) i dont think having a buff that temporarily changes the gcd timer will be great.

The only version i can see working for "Haste" currently is to have it affect movment speed and auto attack speed only.

the sad part is we already have it but it is a healer instead

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Originally Posted by Carighan

(also haste does not shorten buff durations, I think you're confusing effects).

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What they mean is that shortening the GCD timer means instantcasts have a shorter window of opportunity for movement. That's why there is a divide between low speed and high speed builds, even if high speed potentially performs better.

If your GCD is 2.5s, your instant cast will give you 2.5s of movement. If you have a GCD of 2.2s, your instant cast will give you 2.2s of movement. This also applies for the slidecast window with 2s base cast times becoming shorter.

No way, it should be called TME or TMG not TIM.

Time Mage is AST, or at least served as it's basis (with a bit of Chemist thrown in as I recall).

Also, given SE are now adding entirelly new Jobs based on the abilities and signature weapons of individual FF characters from past games (GNB being based on Squall from FFVIII, VPR based on Zidane from FFIX etc), this is even less likely to ever occur, if ever. (Personally, I'd say to just rename AST as Time Mage and be done with it, but.... that's never going to happen either.).

This makes me wonder whether, given how negatively AST players reacted to the new all-supportive cards to solve the damage-vs-support card imbalance, the opposite would work better, all cards are about dealing damage, and that kinda becomes their "enhanced" damage kit to try focus healers more on dealing damage given how there's never much to heal for the 20+ healing buttons healers have.

In this case I could see the same 3/3 alternating cycle, one cycle the cards are self-buffs and nukes and debuffs used on enemies, the other they're buffs used on other players that enhance attacks, but they kinda "fake" a flat value. They last until X amount of potency of damage has been caused. (which is a type of buff/selfbuff FFXIV would do well to bring in, in general - we have so many balance woes caused by stacked interactions of percentage affects, both X-damage-enhanced and Y-PPMs would be good alternative buff types)

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Originally Posted by Carighan

AST

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Speaking of AST, here's a real life example of how haste was bad for BLM in the past when AST could haste:

Once upon a time, BLM MP restoration during ice phase was per 3s tick rather than per spell. When AST was first introduced, the Arrow card was a haste buff. At the time, BLM AoE was something like

Fire3 Fire2 Flare [(EtherHQ/Manafont) Flare] Transpose

and MP would refill enough during the next Fire3 slow cast to continue. However, if you gave the BLM an Arrow, they would almost always finish casting Fire3 before the server tick, ending up in AF3 with not enough MP to cast any fire spells at all, ruining their flow and requiring them to waste time switching back to ice again. A BLM who was paying really close attention might have realized they were hasted and deliberately paused for just a second so that they could get enough MP, or maybe even status-offed the Arrow, but jobs shouldn't have to think that hard about making changes to their basic rotation just because there's sometimes a party member who can haste and throw off that rotation.

Anyway, this specific example is no longer relevant because of the way Astral Fire and Umbral Ice were reworked in DT and because BLM AoE changes since HW; but as I said in an earlier post haste will reduce the mobility of casters that get a fixed number of instant casts per minute, by making their GCD timers shorter, which could affect them negatively during a savage run where they expect to know exactly how much time they have to dodge each thing in the fight script and they expect those timings to be consistent between attempts.

It's funny that you call that a downside, btw. When to me it's one of those things:

* Bad server coding (why doesn't haste increase the MP regen tick speed?!)
* Good. There ought to be tons of buff effects you get from all kinds of sources that utterly mess with any static type of rotation, because static rotations are incredibly mind-numbingly boring. And all damage jobs in this game have them, which is why they are so incredibly boring to play.

But yeah, single sources of haste would not work out. Add more. Maybe Gunbreakers apply 4s of Haste to a random nearby party member when Brutal Shell breaks? Maybe Dark Knights reduce the damage output of everyone in their puddle by 10% but in return they heal for 100% of all damage they deal? Maybe Dancers DP steadily increases and decreases an unreliable haste buff as the time ticks away on it and it gets reapplied.

Basically, more buffs that affect less targets, last shorter, and have stronger and more varied effects. This naturally also breaks the static rotation mold and the forced 120s burst sync curse.

The next job should be a Physical Ranged, not a caster.

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Originally Posted by NightHour

The next job should be a Physical Ranged, not a caster.

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with how physical ranged are I wish they just don't add anything until everything is fixed

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Originally Posted by Misutoraru

I think dot as their main damage spell
Spell that accelerates/slows/instantly tick all the dot damage with a dmg bonus would make it more “workable” in XIV combat system?

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I like this concept.

One single dot that can manipulated differently with time-based spells. You want faster ticks, or slow ticks through 2x the length. If procs are generated via this dot, there can be granularity in haste/slow applications.

Maybe Haste can be applied to the time mage themselves, making faster casts that hit for less, for movement.

Spells known by Time Mages in the FF franchise:
- Haste
- Slow
- Stop
- Gravity (though that's already AST territory)
- Comet
- Levitate
- Quick
- Teleport
- Old