The next caster

[LauraAdalena]

funny enough, after looking at the jobs briefly, FF is very limited on the jobs it has in terms of mages/casters. What few casters we do get are very iconic to the series or very obscure. Geomancer is very obscure but also has the least to work with. All Geomancy in FF is limited to random spells.

Time Mage is most likely, imo, making it more of a support caster but I highly doubt it given how anal they got on release with Dancer. I still think it's got a chance with the bard buffs. Especially since if they do Geomancer it's going to be most likely a healer given White Mage is straying away from throwing rocks.

In fact, I have a theory of what might happen if we get these:

We're going to Sharlayan and Time Mage and we'll learn Geomancy from Kugane (maybe?) This is just an idea and a theory.

[Kazrah]

Geomancer is possible, but kinda hoping they base it around either magnetism or geomantic symbols.

Time Mage is more likely now that Astrologian got stripped of nearly all its time-themed stuff, and Bravely Second proved that both can exist in the same game.

Oracle was a job Yoshi brought up in at least two interviews as a job intended to be an "eastern-themed spellcaster" and the third job to be released with Stormblood that got scrapped for time. If there are still resources in place for it, then it's still doable.

A caster I'm personally hoping for is something along the lines of a Psychic or at least something that, on a surface level, doesn't look like the more traditional spellcasters we've seen so far.

[Raixa]

Personally want to see Green Mage.. Just want to see how SE expand the lore FF14 style.

[ReiMakoto]

Mainly gonna say this:

Just because AST has a few Time Mage esque elements remaining like Gravity (Time Dilation and Arrow "Haste" being removed) and parts of the Lore of Sharlayan Astrology indicating time-related elements, does NOT mean that Time Mage is not an option anymore.

For all we know they might rip out Gravity and replace it with another name + animation (Art of War after removal of Miasma II says hello) just to give it to another job (like blood bath going from WAR to melees).

TL;DR - Time Mage is still possible, stop saying "AST is basically Time Mage"

A very simple work around for this is just to call time mages gravity magic demi instead. Having it cast hastes, demi and comet would differentiate it enough from ast in terms of gameplay, the lore wise make them another allagan school of magic (we know already gigi/vivi from hildebrand is an allagan time mage, plus i always head canoned Xande from CT is a time mage as he uses Quake Gravity and Comet, all of which being time magic from various games, expanding on this time mage could use a floating scepter as their weapon.)

[SaberMaxwell]

Mechanically speaking a caster is a DPS that has to turret in a game that encourages movement mechanics. To combat mechanics, each caster has a unique set of abilities to allow them to move to safety:
BLM has rotational instant casts and teleports
RDM has dualcast
SMN has trances / will have egi assaults

A fourth caster would desire a unique way to engage with this core mechanic of casters unique to it. If one were to go Time Mage for example, self applied haste might be too close to Lightspeed or Triplecast, but it is indeed one way to go about it. Perhaps a reverse Lightspeed; the gcd will do double damage at no cast time, but have double GCD. This comes close to treading on Dualcast, but it's another possibility.

[Hysterior]

I like the Psychic aesthetics from FFX-2 and it could work as a caster, would love to levitate

[ReiMakoto]

Mechanically speaking a caster is a DPS that has to turret in a game that encourages movement mechanics. To combat mechanics, each caster has a unique set of abilities to allow them to move to safety:
BLM has rotational instant casts and teleports
RDM has dualcast
SMN has trances / will have egi assaults

A fourth caster would desire a unique way to engage with this core mechanic of casters unique to it. If one were to go Time Mage for example, self applied haste might be too close to Lightspeed or Triplecast, but it is indeed one way to go about it. Perhaps a reverse Lightspeed; the gcd will do double damage at no cast time, but have double GCD. This comes close to treading on Dualcast, but it's another possibility.

To try and think of classic time mage, warping around with a shukuchi style ability would fit time mage well, considering in games like FFT they could literally teleport everywhere instead of walking, combine that with a ruin 2 esque ability and give the teleport a short cd and there you have instant movement, you could even give it a rewind esq ability. If you want to increase skill ceiling a bit you could even add a "Time Loop" style mechanic for their movement, where you activate the buff and it will store a copy of spells cast during its duration, then when you need to move you can activate a stance that makes a copy of you "from the past" stay and cast the set of spells until you next take an action or it reaches the end of its sequence.

Self Applied haste doesnt need to act like triple or light speed either, it could be the GL4 of casters, reduced gcd and cast time and not instant casts

[Cidel]

They should just rework BLU as the new caster imo.

This please.

Also Geomancer as a healer. It even was given a "eastern-themed spellcaster" aesthetic in XIV's setting. It oozes Onmyodo and symbolism is stylized feng shui.

[Mansion]

The way the game brushed on certain FF flavoured job could also be a way to redefine pre-existing jobs while allowing others.

For instance, the mention of Geomancers in AST 60-70 quests kind of concludes that Geomancy is the Othard version of CNJ/AST, relying on elements of the Star to read fate whatever.
But ShB brought WHM closer to traditional White magic (with Light / Sacred spells) than the FFXIV white magic (Air, Stone, Water). In that sense, they could rework White Mage in pure Sacred magic, and leave some room out of Conjurer to introduce a proper Elemental Mage that would be Geomancer.

They could push AST further in the Time Mage as levels go by.

Introduce more Spellblade into RDM to avoid redundant / gimmicky jobs.

And they could make Blue Mage a full job with a proper mandatory set of spells forming a rotation, and keep the current iteration of Blue magic for its Carnivale or whatever.

[SaberMaxwell]

To try and think of classic time mage, warping around with a shukuchi style ability would fit time mage well, considering in games like FFT they could literally teleport everywhere instead of walking, combine that with a ruin 2 esque ability and give the teleport a short cd and there you have instant movement, you could even give it a rewind esq ability. If you want to increase skill ceiling a bit you could even add a "Time Loop" style mechanic for their movement, where you activate the buff and it will store a copy of spells cast during its duration, then when you need to move you can activate a stance that makes a copy of you "from the past" stay and cast the set of spells until you next take an action or it reaches the end of its sequence.

Self Applied haste doesnt need to act like triple or light speed either, it could be the GL4 of casters, reduced gcd and cast time and not instant casts

Ooh, a caster greased lightning is a novel concept! It would enforce ABC in a very neat way, I like it. These are great ways to have a Time Mage interact with (what I at least) consider core caster mechanics.