Lorewise, are Time Mages viable? [Discussion]

[Risvertasashi]

Figured it was just something taken as granted in the hypothetical, lol. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've seen similar discussions on Thief in spite of Ninja (though at least in that case there's a class to branch).

Yeah, and conjecture isn't so bad, I just don't see it as practical as "Astrologians manipulate the future, Time Mages would be more about rolling back"... it's just not much of a distinction as has been mentioned. And in the end it would still need a cure equivalent, a medica equivalent, probably cure 2/regen equivalents, and so on.

FWIW, OP, ideas like this were put forward before Astrologian existed... but I don't think SE will do anything really weird with spells, or introduce another class so similar. Lorewise, viable? Probably. Pragmatically, just unlikely. My 2 gil.

[Rocl]

The good Astrologians only deal with the Dragon Star anyways.

[Eloah]

Stuff

Okay a lot to dissect here, phew... First, and I apologize as I mean no disrespect, but Astro is the "Time Mage" of FFXIV. While not a common job it has appeared in the series a total of 3 times: Tactics, FFXIV, and Bravely Default: End Layer. In both Tactics and BD, they are considered support jobs that buff allies(BD) or debuff them(TAC). Both of those games also have a Job system that allows for players to combine abilities; they also both have defined Time Mages. FFXIV's AST however, are a combo, in a way, since they are buffers(cards), have debuff skills(Disable, Stella, and possibly their DoTs), and Their abilities are rooted in Time and Space(Healing Spells, Gravity, Time Dilation, etc)

Next I want to explain how/why the spells are aligned as they are at the moment. When FFXIV launched they tried to create brand new "Jobs" among them Conjurer and Thaumaturge. Each distinctive in its own way, CNJ with all elemental spells, and THM with new Astral and Umbral spells. Well 1.0 started to bomb, and in a quick fix they re-purposed each "Job", and CNJ became WHM and THM became BLM. Now when they were fixing the skills for these jobs, they had to give them each offensive spells. Traditionally Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder have always been BLM spells, but Water, Aero, and Stone, have been classified as, Black, White, Time, Blue. So giving the new WHM those spells made sense.

The other thing I wanted to mention was how you seemed to categorize the magic from FFXIV. The best way I could explain this is to look at FFVI. Each spell in VI had a dot next to it, Black, White, and Gray; the best way to categorize them is Black meant offensive, White was defensive, and Gray was other, as in it could not really be classified. Only in a few games are magic spells split into certain distinctions, eg. Black, White, Red, Blue, Green, Time, Arcane, Yellow... is there a Yellow Mage, lol. Anyway, FF games have always shuffled their spells around; and although some have been consistent, others have been more fluid, moving where they are needed in the current game. Some games don't even have classifications, like FFVIII.

Red: There is no Red Magic, Red Mage is just the classification of someone who can use Black and White magic; within the context of that game.
White: Usually the healing magics are considered White, but in games where a White Mage needs to be able to attack with its own spells, they were given some, usually Aero, Stone, or Water. Now while I cannot state as to why they gave them these 3 spells, my guess would be that it has to do with the 4 traditional elements: Fire; male-aggressive, Earth; female-aggressive, Wind; male-passive, Water; female-passive. WHMs are usually depicted as girls, and Water and Earth are female elements, Wind, though male, is passive, and White Magic could be viewed as "passive" to Blacks "aggressive".
Black: Anything offensive could be considered Black Magic, and all 6 of the "main" elements have been Black Magic. Even their "big" spell Ultima was a White Magic spell when it debuted.
Time: Time Magics usually dealt with some aspect of time, but similar to WHMs, they needed some form of offense. They sometimes have Quake(Stone) or Aero. And their common Gravity and Meteor/Comet spells have been Black Magics before.
Green: Green Magic is fairly new, and is usually only seen in the Ivalice games. It is classified as status magic, buffs and debuffs, but all of their spells have been either White or Black from the start.
Arcane: Arcane Magicis another newer magic and similar to Green mostly found in Ivalice as well; though the term can be used for other kinds as well. Their spells tend to be Black or Time in most games.
Blue: Blue Magic has always been Enemy Skills, but what skills they are can change. They've had Aero and Water spells, and some variation of Black or White Magic spells with LV1-5 before it, like Lv5 death.
Plus there have been other kinds, Summon, Spirit, Dark, Ninjutsu, and more might come in the future. Basically, think of it like our tomes, SE is just giving us a fancy new name for the same thing

Plus the best way I could describe the magic of FFXIV, isn't White, Black, Nymian, Allagan, etc its Astral and Umbral. Anything offensive would be aligned to the Astral aspect of that "spell" active, forceful, unstable. And anything defensive is aligned to the Umbral aspect, reactive, calm, stable.

Addendum: I wanna add this as I noticed something upon my review. Apparently WHM hasn't really been associated with Water until FFXIV. If I was thinking of anything prior, I might of been projecting the concept of Water as a "cleansing" device for the myriad WHM's that cleanse various debuffs. But regardless of prior entries, WHM's are associated with Water as of FFXIV.

Figured it was just something taken as granted in the hypothetical, lol. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've seen similar discussions on Thief in spite of Ninja (though at least in that case there's a class to branch).

True but in some games, Ninja does upgrade from a Thief, this just happens to be one of them.

[Wyldkat99]

One minor nitpick from me: Reflect first appeared in FFIV

[ADVSS]

One minor nitpick from me: Reflect first appeared in FFIV

yup it was called WALL. Tjere was a WALL in the english nes FF1 as well, but i dont think it reflected magic.

and I agree the gigi thing made me wonder, but ive pretty much come to the conclusion that astro was meant to be the time mage we'll get... theres only a few spells time mages had that astro dont, things like age(would inflict weakness on enemies), reset/warp(restarts the battle completely),from the arcane pool 'reverse' makes perfect sense for a time magic spell if ever implemented. Ast has sort of a skill that heals you more the lower your health is, its sort of a less cheesy way to do it.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

While not a common job it has appeared in the series a total of 3 times: Tactics, FFXVI, and Bravely Default:

Wow you must be a real life time mage

usually Aero, Stone, or Water. Now while I cannot state as to why they gave them these 3 spells,

Well my guess is they draw aether from their surroundings i.e trees which tap into the planets aether. Trees need oxygen(Aero) stone(earth) and water to survive, also a tree is shown for their icon :P

[ADVSS]

Wow you must be a real life time mage

LOL caught that half an hour ago, and was wondering if nobody else noticed

[Shurrikhan]

I wonder how we'd actually explain the system of magic, though, even if its origins may be readily assigned... (Not that any caster thus far has really had much going for it in that regard; our mana in - mana out traditional elemental evoker comes out of... "miracle-making"?) How, in Eorzean terms, would you be able to explain controlling the flow of time, be that generally, around allies, and/or around enemies, and unless that explanation leaves no obvious loopholes or pointers for better usage, how would we "debunk" (likely in Library HM arbitrary text style) those to explain why the gameplay is thus limited?

Figured it was just something taken as granted in the hypothetical, lol. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've seen similar discussions on Thief in spite of Ninja (though at least in that case there's a class to branch).

Yeah, the variance possible is pretty close. Theoretically, one could have had Rogue split into any of Ninja, Assassin, and/or Thief, simply by bringing current elements not really fleshed out (e.g. poisons, Mug/Steal) and assigning their more significant forms to each job.
...It's almost a prime example for the idea of "open" jobs, or jobs as packaged thematic trait/skill "advanced" paths, mutually exclusive options at first but maybe allowing a bit of cross-over by level 70 or so, in addition to drawing on themes from other classes, especially if staying merely a "Rogue" [opting out of advanced paths in favor of taking more external themes (packaged skills and traits)].

In this case, if one could stack debuff effectiveness (in a tapering proportionate sense), you could have a much more direct control of temporal spells, likely even having them take up the majority of all spells cast without being overpowered, and/or grant direct damaging effects through temporal casts (spending resources generated on, say, Spacial Rift to the main target heavily and nearby enemies by a lesser amount).

[Eloah]

Wow you must be a real life time mage

Yeah i noticed that I fixed it, but my mistake will be forever etched. in. time, lol

Well my guess is they draw aether from their surroundings i.e trees which tap into the planets aether. Trees need oxygen(Aero) stone(earth) and water to survive, also a tree is shown for their icon :P

You seem to be talking about these spells specifically in FFXIV, but I was talking about them throughout the series.

[Shadotterdan]

I've pondered this as well, and while Meteor, the BLM lb3 is black magic, I'd like to point out that Meteor, the spell used to call down Dalamud was more likely space/time magic. Additionally, while many of his abilities (and use of a staff for melee) paint Xande as a traditional Monk class (haven't done the FFXIV monk so I don't know if they apply to the ffxiv version) his use of the comet and meteor circle I always felt were time magic similar in use to a crossclass skill. While time manipulation magic isn't shown by them, space manipulation seems very much to be an Allagan thing.