New Healer Job Suggestion: Necromancer

[Shurrikhan]

Aero III, Assize, Lord of Crowns, Earthly Star, Energy Siphon, Shadow Flare.
Nothing says a healer can't have extra damage skills in its pocket, particularly ones that add extra resources that can contribute to healing. The point of Death is to give the NCM a thematic CD to fill their Soul Gauge -- which is named because it is only filled by draining souls.

Besides, BLUs already have Doom. And Tail Screw, and Missile. Death's a classic Black Magic, not Blue.
If a BLM isn't getting a Death spell (and at the going rate it doesn't even have Burst yet), a NCM should.

Sure, but... BLU isn't a job.

(Agreed on all other points, including the general idea.)

I like to think of it as grabbing the soul of a recent death as it rises out of the body before it passes into the Lifestream and forcefully shunting it back in, as opposed to just straight-up animating a rotting corpse.
I mean, if the entire skillset being developed here is based around channeling other souls anyway, it's a logical development.

In that case, wouldn't a term with slightly less macabre connotations work better?

I don't have a problem with either one personally, but it's been a weirdly frequent point of concern.

I mean... Necromancer.
Macabre is kinda the point.

I only mentioned it because your explanation of the process seemed far from macabre in itself (merely returning, albeit forcefully, a soul that would otherwise , while that has been a turn off for a few separate posters now.

You're right, though: if we limit it to a mononym, it's hard to think of another good fit. Return would be the most obvious, but... I fear for how many people would decline a return mid-fight, after having thought they just declined it (if in dungeons)...
Respirit? Inspirit? Animus? Souljoin? Soulfuse? Enfuse? (The latter three sound more like ways by which to buff a summoned revenant, but, hell, if not every Raise ability need be identical... that could actually be pretty cool...)

Hmm... is "Reunion" too loaded with connotations in FF? I mean, it is both a rejoining of body and soul, and of the fallen with their living allies.

Oof. I don't know. I like it, but I don't know how distracting other would find it. It feels more Thaumaturge (lit: miracle-maker) than Necromancer, though.

Repossession seems a really good fit, albeit a little more mundane. Explains the process exactly, fits NCM, and doesn't give off any obvious connotation of being raised from the... well- and pungently dead.

Before I came up with the NCM, I have toyed around before with the idea of giving BLM a necromancy-based raise that puts the target in an undead state, preventing weakness but also preventing them from receiving healing for a duration. I retooled that idea for the Undying skill here, of course.
But, if we unbalance the Raise skills too much then it could lead to one job or other being preferred for it -- just look at RDM. That being said, I did include a trait for NCM to raise just a teensy bit easier, at a higher cost to themselves.

It's a pretty lucrative, albeit daunting, area of discussion, imo. When we first heard that we were getting Astrologian but had as of yet only gotten the skill names, some tooltips, and the flavor text about Theoretical Bodies/Masses for Combust, I was actually hoping Ascendance would provide a different take on Raise, with Raise itself and Resurrection changing slightly to match. I had no idea what they'd do with it, perhaps infusing the person with energy from one of the theoretical masses via Diurnal Sect (+AB) or Combust or even the cards or... heck, Stella or Gravity, but I wanted to see something new that wouldn't make it simply "whoever refreshes Swiftcast first".

I wouldn't mind if, rhythmically, one job was better suited to raise an ally at one moment and then the other was some 30 seconds later, just by the nature of their native kits. You can have intentional rhythmic imbalances to be paced between healers rather than just a flat ever-present "this healer is better at X". That pacing already appears in Swiftcast itself to some extent, and I'd rather see that kind of variation be visible within native kits, rather than solely through a Role Action.

Of course, I'm probably in the minority here. It seems there are plenty of others who'd rather scrap what kit diversity remains in favor of homogenized "(direct) balance"...