SMN Disease based spells

[TinyRedLeaf]

WHM is Earth, Water, Light, Wind based magic.
BLM is Fire, Lightning based magic.
ACN/SCH/SMN spells are non-elemental

Here's a little bit of relevant trivia:

Going by the franchise's conventions, elemental attack spells are typically known as "black magic", while healing and protection spells usually come under "white magic". Magic stolen from enemies are classed as "blue magic". "Red magic", when it exists as a separate class, is a combination of black and white magic.

And then we have "green magic", which existed as a separate class of magic in Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (which featured a "green mage", as a viera-only job). Green magic comprised enfeebling (Blind, Silence, Sleep) and damage-over-time (Poison, Toxify) spells, as well as the protection magic (Protect, Shield) that typically belongs under white magic in other FF games.

My point is that there is a precedent in Final Fantasy for a specific class of DoT and support magic that is unique to the franchise. So, there's no actual need to compare arcanist magic with the warlock spells of World of Warcraft (but, of course, players will usually continue to do so, because the two job/classes are very similar in terms of gameplay and mechanics).

In short, black, white, blue, red and green magicks are indeed a thing in Final Fantasy. That's the full Magic the Gathering colour wheel. It would be interesting to come up with card concepts from FF lore.

[myahele]

It's interesting and ironic how it was the Southern Seas Lalafell that helped with the Toberry disease and yet Arcanima is traced back to these Southern Seas Isles. perhaps that's where the remaining Nyms fled to?

[Calypsx]

Going to be that awful poster but based on my personal bias after reading about the lore of Nym they have those spells because Arcanist makes more sense going into Scholar. Diseases fit Scholar lore wise since they are researching cures for the plagues that were used during the war so they also know how to use such diseases as a weapon. However since Summoner is kind of tacked on to Arcanist it kind of just got dragged along with it. It's also might be one of the small reasons we wont see another class that can split into two jobs ever again.

Think of it like being an Arcanist who knows a few summoner spells.

[Anonymoose]

It's also might be one of the small reasons we wont see another class that can split into two jobs ever again.

I dunno if I would go that far.

As far as I can tell, Square Enix is just focused creating as many enemy models and base systems as possible - as fast as they can - while money is flowing. So far, they've done base classes, jobs from base classes, jobs that split from base classes, and jobs that require no classes. When the game's youth transitions into its "golden age", we'll have knowledge of quite a few ways to do things and quite a few types of content, and as there's less funding to go around and they're forced to start recycling content, they'll have a massive repertoire to choose from. I bet we'll see more branching jobs someday - just probably not while they have the development freedom they have now.

[tymora]

I get this feeling the "tonberry disease" is probably an SCH experiment gone awry.

[FeliAiko]

Tri-Disaster (and maybe Ruin III) are the only spells that don't fit to me as far as the SMN theme... but for obvious reasons it couldn't be an Arcanist ability. Other than that I think they explained the link from Arcanist to SMN well enough in-game. Your ability to summon creatures already, plus exposure to Primal essence (the key point) gave the Sharlayan scholars a framework towards reviving a lost art.

[myahele]

It's also interesting to note that ACN/SMN seem to use multi-elements in some of their spells:

Rouse


Tri-Bind


From what I can see it's fire, wind and ice or water

[IrisBlanchimont]

Also, remember that a lot of Lominsian magic is based on Nymian magic, and Nymian mages, scholars like the very educated Lominisan arcanists, used magic-science to heal. It makes sense that the same sacred geometry can be used to inflict as well, and that is how the more combat-oriented Arcanist uses the same principles of the Scholar. The Summoner, on the other hand, inspires another portion of Lominsian sacred geometry. It's that the tool the arcanist uses fits so well with the Summoner, and not something inherent to the summoner.

At least, that's been my view of it.

[Sushikins]

Ruin III always reminded me more of Megaflare visually, compared to the black orb of the Ruin/II spell, which at least fits the Bahamut theme of the new SMN abilities. But I do agree that Ruin III and Tri-disaster feel a bit out of place among the SMN spells (along with Fester), as they're based on your Arcanist abilities rather than summoning abilities.

[TinyRedLeaf]

It makes sense that the same sacred geometry can be used to inflict as well.

This is just my personal view on the subject, and it's not strictly canonical. One of the key attractions of the arcanist class for me has always been the "dual" nature of its abilities.

As you said, the arcanists of Limsa Lominsa are more akin to scientists and mathematicians (which is why it's not really correct to describe their role as "sacred"; that would be a more apt description for the thaumaturges of Ul'dah or the conjurers of Gridania ).

And the key point about science is that it's inherently neutral. It's just a tool. It can be used to harm just as easily as it can be used to heal. In this sense, it's very similar to alchemy, which can be used to create both medicines and poisons.

Others in this thread have pointed to the elemental nature of both conjury and thaumaturgy. Arcanima, in contrast, is non-elemental, because it's all about using arcane geometry to manipulate the aether within bodies and objects. If you like, you could think of it as arcane "physics". Unlike conjury or thaumaturgy, which deal primarily with ephemeral forces, arcanima is all about dealing with actual physical objects.

So, a formula that causes aether to knit together bodily wounds could easily be reversed to tear apart flesh and bone. (Think, for example, of real-life thermodynamics: the application of heat causes objects to expand, but the removal of heat causes the reverse).

Such manipulation of aether lies at the very heart of arcanima. An arcanist is someone who applies magic to both maim or mend, and the jobs that branch from this vocation — summoner and scholar — are in effect, two sides of the same coin.

In principle, this is very different from thaumaturgy, which evolved from funeral rites for breaking down corpses for burial (ie, it's inherently about destruction), and conjury, which is about borrowing the power of elementals to preserve natural harmony.