Sophia, Ixali, Thunder and Aero

[Morningstar1337]

I;m not sure, but I feel like there might had been an oversight. Usually when certain enemies use spells they tend to have the name of One spell but the animation of another (ex. Voidsent have Void Fire II which has Flare's animation and Void Blizzard II with Freeze's animation, though this is not always the case) And the Ixali bosses of Xelphatol have their verison of Aero II and III with different animations, effects and most importantly names...

However Sophia has attacks named Aero II, Thunder II and Thunder III, despite being visualy and mechanic different from the player version of these spells (the former has Aero III's animation in additon to being point blank and having knockback, the middle is a cleave and the latter is a donut shape AoE, not to mention that none of them have DoT components)

I want to know if them sharing the exact same names with Thunders II and II and Aero II is intentional (and if I made mistake about Sophia's Aero II for soemthing else please let me know)

[Teiren]

I should pay attention next time, but I'm almost completely sure Sophia is casting Aero III, not Aero II, and it does indeed look like WHM's Aero III despite functioning differently. I agree it's a little bit strange for all three spells to have the same names as player spells but function completely different. I guess the idea is that players' minds will more easily read them if it's a spell name they already know, but I think that's really silly. Of course, it's too late to change now, but in the future I think they should give spells like Sophia's their own names unless it directly resembles a player spell like Aero III here does.

On the other hand, Sophia's Thunder III is much more spectacular and huger than her Thunder II, so it does give that similar sense of progression in spell power.

Meanwhile, I'm STILL mad about this II, III, IV stuff replacing -ra, -ga, -ja. In early ARR, Succubi used to cast Void Fira, and they actually went back and changed that to Void Fire and Void Fire II. A book in The Great Gubal Library (Hard) even pokes fun at such complaints for crying out loud...but I'm not really that mad, and I can take a joke. I'm just very disappointed in the decision and disagree with the reasoning used.

[Raiya]

Might as well add my 2 cents but in some dungeons theres mobs in pharos for example that cast Banish or Banish III. I always wondered why is it called banish III when theres no banish II?

[Lambdafish]

Of course, it's too late to change now, but in the future I think they should give spells like Sophia's their own names unless it directly resembles a player spell like Aero III here does.

I actually think that it was intention. In 3.4 we got a lot of interesting skill names, with a lot of skills being derived from player skills (As well as Summon commands). It is interesting that Sophia got direct skills (as opposed to Ixali Aero in Xephatol), but I don't think that is a bad thing. My explanation for this stems from an analysis of Lost City of Amdapor (HM) where we saw the last two bosses use variations of the WHM toolkit, showing off what devastating powers these skills USED to have, and how they have evolved over time. It is possible that back when the warring triad were active, this is how Thunder and Aero worked (at least in Merecydia), and over time have evolved into the skills we know today.

If it wasn't intention it can definitely be changed. Remember the last boss of Labyrinth of the Ancients - ARCHON?

[Teiren]

Yeah, it doesn't bother me, but it is remarkable how different it is from Sephirot and all those Hebrew names, that's for sure, except for Cintamani. Now I wonder if the Japanese Sephirot ability names are really basic and bland, and then for Sophia the localizers decided to keep it like that for Sophia because her Thunder II & III and Aero III spells are more familiar than Sephirot's abilities in general. However, I didn't consider that theory of how spells would have evolved until now. That actually makes sense, as if it's very likely more than just a theory. It feels like that's backed up in lore somewhere.

To the last point: Indeed, I even remember reading Koji's post explaining why they had to change it to Phlegethon when Syrcus Tower was being prepared. So while it's technically never too late to change the names of things, I was thinking that it would trip up players doing the Extreme version of the fight where you have to look at the name of what she's casting.