Black Mage Raise Ability

[Ceallach]

My point is that verraise has almost trivialised something that was catastrophic before stormblood. Combining a PLD and a RDM in a party is insane because of the sheer amount of healing utility that they both bring, and IMO that has completely changed the landscape of progression.

But have you considered the cost of that? If either of them casts too much of Verraise, Vercure and/or Clemency, you wouldn't do enough damage to score a victory in time.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

...

There are 3 examples of SMN being heavily linked to White Magic and/or Raising, 2 of which are in IX which doesn't use a traditional job system and Yuna in X which again doesn't use a traditional job system. 3 is not many. All other variations of SMN without individual game gimmicks allowing Raise do not have Raise as a default. Summoning Phoenix doesn't count since it's not White Magic. You can't use lore for or against this argument either way as each game is its own self contained universe and previous entries should be considered little more than guideposts and general framework than anything concrete, and in this self contained universe, the devs have decided that the unique experience of each job is a design priority, having Red Mage be adept at both White and Black magic is part of that.

On the matter of people asking for RDMs over the other two casters I've seen this very little, going off of party finder for my data center anyway, and usually the ones that do are trap parties hoping a Red Mage is enough to carry them, pointless elitists who follow the meta because that's how X or Y world first group did it (these people usually think they're on the same level and can just pick it up and do the instance because they have meta composition), or both. Anecdotal evidence is a bad metric either way, the only one who will be able to see the entire picture is SE since they most likely have numbers for the entire population, notice they didn't touch Verraise at all yet despite having several opportunities to do so. Our limited perspectives are pointless here.

[Ceallach]

You can't use lore for or against this argument either way...

Of the five famous summoners in the series, four were also white mages and one was also a black mage (we left out Karaha-Baruha from FINAL FANTASY XI). The fact only one of them came from a game with a job system is irrelevant; this is what the characters were. So actually, yes we can. It doesn't matter if FINAL FANTASY XIV is its own universe (and every FINAL FANTASY is). That "general framework" is what shapes the design of the jobs in addition to the fact this game is an MMO. The summoner as it currently is in FINAL FANTASY XIV is a clunky mess, but conceptually it's really not much different from the summoner in FINAL FANTASY XI, calling on an esper in FINAL FANTASY XII or summoning an aeon in FINAL FANTASY X. FINAL FANTASY III's evoker could sometimes summon Ifrit to heal. FINAL FANTASY V's summoner had several defensive capabilities, including a raising effect. The summoner in FINAL FANTASY Tactics had two summons, a moogle and a faerie, to heal allies and a golem to add to defenses. The summoner in FINAL FANTASY Tactics Advance had to master white mage and elementalist abilities first, and was capable of summoning Kirin for an HP regen and Phoenix for revival. FINAL FANTASY Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift kept Kirin and Phoenix as summons.

No one can ever rationally say that summoners are offensive mages only. But black mages are, and therefore any utility they do get should reflect that. Perhaps next time you'll do a bit more research.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

No. You can't

My reasoning for why we "shouldn't" use lore (probably a better word for it) was not the number of famous Summoner/White Mages. I don't know if you're counting Rydia since she gives up White Magic although the fact that she gives it up seems to lean that Summoning and White Magic (and furthermore Raising) are completely unrelated. The job system is completely relevant when we're comparing games with and without it, for example 14 which has a strict job system, and no subjob capabilities. Summoners are not inherently great at raising since Summoning is more often than not in the series independent from White Magic, which is the case in 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13 and 14 and to some extent 4 since, again, Rydia gives up White Magic but retains Summoning. The only examples where Summoners are inherently White Magic experts are 9 and 10. That's 2 examples to 9-10, again even if you try to apply lore from different games to 14, the idea still falls flat. Again, summon Phoenix doesn't count since that's Summoning, not White Magic.

I didn't say Summoners were only offensive in any context, they simply aren't going to be as good at raising as Red Mages, excluding Phoenix (which is the raising effect you mentioned from V), which isn't usable in this game and therefore not applicable.

Perhaps next time you won't cherry pick

[Neela]

No one can ever rationally say that summoners are offensive mages only. But black mages are, and therefore any utility they do get should reflect that.

+1

its not just about heal & res... lorewise summoners also got a huge kit of support skills or summons with support effects like reflect or reraise (f.e. carbuncle) - they are indeed used to white/light magic even if most of them arent based on a job system or whm cls in there own games. : o

[Opus]

Maybe like a BLM-raised player would be in Walking Dead (DRK) status with 1 HP for 10s.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

+1

its not just about heal & res... lorewise summoners also got a huge kit of support skills or summons with support effects like reflect or reraise (f.e. carbuncle) - they are indeed used to white/light magic even if most of them arent based on a job system or whm cls in there own games. : o

Huge is a fairly vast overstatement, there's a smattering of support summons is more accurate.

[Lambdafish]

Huge is a fairly vast overstatement, there's a smattering of support summons is more accurate.

"Summoners use special magic that allows them to call forth summoned monsters. Summons usually cost more MP than the average spell, but are much more powerful. In some games, summoners also have the ability to cast either Black Magic or White Magic as well as to summon, thus making them more versatile." - http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Summoner_(job)

As for support summons themselves, we have (from FFVI alone):

Carbuncle (reflect on party)
Kirin (regen on party)
Phantom (invisible on party)
Unicorn (removes many debuffs)
Golem (blocks attacks)
Zona Seeker (shell on party)
Seraph (heals party)
Fenrir (grant "image" status)
Lakshmi (restores HP)
Phoenix (revives players)

Which I think is a bit more than a "smattering" (These are just the support summons that buff the player, there are more still that debuff the enemy without dealing damage such as Siren, Catoblepas, Cait Sith etc.)

[AxiomPITCH]

Can I just chime in and say that if Black Mage receives a resurrection ability, I'll never touch the current caster jobs again.

And on the historical implications of past job combinations, why does it even matter in the context of XIV? The game is separate from all of the others. Instead of RDM and SMN getting more interesting and engaging mechanics, they just shoehorn support abilities into kits because of past lore. Then again I'm not sure if I should even be complaining about it, it's not like this game hasn't been raw unclean fanservice in every possible way since day 1 of 2.2.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

"Summoners use special magic that allows them to call forth summoned monsters. Summons usually cost more MP than the average spell, but are much more powerful. In some games, summoners also have the ability to cast either Black Magic or White Magic as well as to summon, thus making them more versatile."
...Which I think is a bit more than a "smattering" (These are just the support summons that buff the player, there are more still that debuff the enemy without dealing damage such as Siren, Catoblepas, Cait Sith etc.)

For your bolded quote, once you examine the actual evidence of Summoners innately using White or Black Magic, again 3 games with to 9 or so without and let me direct your attention to the beginning of that sentence "In some games" which as I just told you and went through and examined above is 3. I didn't mention the debuff ones since the summons XIV SMN already has do have debuffs attached and again has no bearing on how skilled at White Magic and/or Raising they would be. If we want to actually go off of former in game mechanics, SMN wouldn't be skilled in the slightest at White Magic since their pre requisite sub class was Thaumaturge.

Interesting that you would qualify that list "From VI alone" which is a misleading statement once you compare the number of support summons only from that game to the amount of support summons in the other games, the pool is small and one game is hardly enough to justify Summoners being a support machine. Not to mention summoning anything was available to any character in VI as well as any type of magic.