Is FFXIV hinting Berserker, Necromancer, and Chemist next expansion?

[reivaxe]

She's not so unique compared to the other two.

Her dialogue in the way she speaks to us is also similar in the way Edda tried to speak with us; it's to highlight the fact that she's gone insane in the pursuit of the power that she wanted, but she actually recognizes it but knows it's too late for her to do anything about it.

You're contradicting yourself.
The other 2 don't do or say anything nor do they get a minion. So by nature of the fact that she does get a minion and she does talk in away that would suggest an internal struggle I'd say that's being treated differently than the other 2.

Also .... nooooo, I wouldn't call her a case of "Necromancer ->Smn" at all. Even Edda, who you point to as an other example of Necromancer, was a conjurer before she went down that path. There is no example of a job in the game that deals with things in a manner like Necro would at all so there is not 1:1 connection to anything in the game as of rn for her ... unlike the other 2.

Like I said "Personally I find the lore dump of different types of Aether in this expac as well as Alisaie's arc regarding this topic to be criminal understated and underrated. The "Necromancer -> something else" is just a cherry ontop to me.". If that "something else" is a Witch Doctor/ Sage/ Soul Mage/ Shaman/ Aetherologist/ Esper or w/e job that plays with elements that could cross over with Necromancer to fill a darker and more spiritual role than the other mages then that would make sense to me.

Hell, even Beq Lugg looks like a creepy dark mage/ plague doctor horror thing when they fight. So if out right Necromancer is "too far" or a nope (Like Thief and Berserker) then we can get something that's parallel to that just like Rouge and War to the others.

So that's how I see it as a hint. But that's just me ... I look at all the things.
Number of DPS of each role pointing to a 4th full Caster being more likely than a 4th Ranged so soon after Dancer. (could be wrong but I do doubt they would do 2 ranged DPS in a row)
Signs that the twins will be the next to get job development in the story (1 being a caster and the other a healer)
Alisaie's whole arc with the Soul/ Mind/ Body aether lore dump and her desire to continue learning and applying what she learns on the source to help people like Ga bu.
Beq Lugg's teachings and fighting aesthetics as well as there not being a comparable job for the Necromancer from this dungeon.
The lack of a mage that hits on the darker, spiritual aesthetics.
My feeling that the devs want to focus up Smn's identity on summons and away from dots, leaving room for a dot mage proper.

I look at all this and think "Prob not necromancer but could def be something that like it that hits on those themes and aesthetics".

[Lersayil]

snip

Again, all decent ideas, but when I look at them, Necromancer isn't the word that comes to mind. Soul Mage, Blood Mage, Astral Mage, Psychic, Witch, that one buddhist sorcerer dealing with talismans and zombies that's name eludes me currently, etc. The word Necromancer is extremely well defined and most people have a very specific thing in mind when they say it. They could veer away from the stereotype, but then they'd have another "not my Summoner" situation on their hands. I'm not against the ideas you bring up, but then lets just not call them Necromancer.

snip

Slightly off topic, but I'm actually surprised to see someone of the other camp, I thought you only existed in fairy tales. Most if not all people I knew were praying vehemently for Gunbreaker to actually use a "proper" (by FF8 standards) gunblade instead of the cheap bayonet mounted pistols Garleans have. I would go as far as to say I didn't even knew people existed who liked them...

[Shougun]

Well as for a healer, there is that spell Reverse from FF12 as well as the whole "arcane" magic school, i think "Bubble" was in it as well(could be wrong its been ages since i played that game) but that would be an interesting element of healing that sorta does the same as shielding and mega healing, but in a different way, so alright ill dig if we're going to try a necro-type healer. Could focus on Umbral aspect of aether. So im guessing we would be eliminating the horde fights for me gimmick in place of something more accessible and managable. What would be their main schtick though? No job specific ability, or yes one?

I had made a dark healer thread in the past with a few gimmicks as suggestions (didn't need all of them at once, just tossing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if SE wanted any to stick lol).

Some concepts in that thread were:

Gray Health:

Probably the most difficult, but like bloodborne and other action games you'd have a system where the healer could regenerate more health from players that were recently damaged by specific spells. This would add a whole new train of thought based on the situation, if you were going to be preventive, reactive, and or touch up. There would be mechanics that improve this gray health so you'd not simply be like "yeah they took damage I use this gray health spell" in some ways you'd have to prep this yourself. But it would become part of the healer thought process to set yourself up for effective healing.

Might think of gray health as an inverse shield.

Curses:

Need to make sure these are on cooldowns or something for balance but in effect you'd attack the boss with a shield that prevents them from doing X damage. Often these cureses coming with other damage mechanics. Like you might debuff them with a 1000 potency shield, and then it deals a dot, if you use your offensive attack spell (like flay or something) then it'll increase the duration and potency of the curse.

Naturally some curses would just be debuffs, rather than the white mage who has an epic aoe stun the reaper / necro bro would make monsters infectuall in other longer lasting but less imeediately obviously powerful means (not huge balls of stun like white mage).

Offensive focus:

Some of your spells could be used on both monster and ally, allowing for a smoother transition between targets, but also there would be more attack related spells than a standard healer and mechanics that revolve a bit more than usual on ensuring you're being offensive (not entire reliance on it because your job could easily become OP or trash tier depending on the situation and player skill lol). Offensive skills also working into the gray health and curse concepts. Like I had imagined a chain whip with a scythe tip, and a lantern / bell on the other end (I've learned that there is an LoL champion with this weapon, so you can actually see what it looks like here). When you target your ally you'd whip the bell / lantern towards them causing an explosion of recovery magic (dark theme'd naturally), while of course the enemy would be the blade side. So you could 'flay' your allies and enemies, just different ends of the same attack move. Not all spells would work like this of course, encouraging different decisions based on your resources, situation, and cooldowns.

This went as far as including an offensive pet as well, rather than the fairy who automatically heals (this one would attack). I had thought one would be a cute slime that grows as you meet mechanics and fight (such that it becomes a sort of monstrous classic DND slime that has bits of armor and such in it), the other a small mist cloud (also cute ish) but grows into a terrible large red shadow clawing nightmare of a cloud that blankets the ground and deals AoE damage. Both of these pets having debuffs, one focusing on single the other multi- and both could be consumed for enhanced effects. Like having your slime imbue an ally for enhanced strength and single target heals, or the cloud evaporating and doing a similar but lesser strength effect in an area.

Auras:

For balance there would be a max number of players affected but where you stood would become important as you give off auras of energy that perform different tasks, one might enhance your gray health power, another damage, etc. Making positioning more important. Some ally related other enemy. It was important to me that the aura had an active to, such that selecting it would make it your aura and then pressing it again would have an additional effect. That or some space saving mechanic was designed such that you don't have a bunch of one time touch buttons taking up valuable button space. 'Just' an aura wasn't the goal.

RoA:

Regen on action, instead of on tick it would relate to specific actions- which may have it heal at different rates than a normal regen. Like there was a skill called eldritch hum that would create a deep thumping nose (inspired by what scared the Ascians lol), and each thump would return some of your resources and trigger the RoA. While you also might have an attack that is multi-fold and each attack would trigger RoA, so you might have like 4 ticks in a second, an then 1/2 a tick every normal cycle thereafter. Unlike a regen it would be a bit more skill related, allowing you to accelerate it and slow it down based on certain choices. They could last based on duration or number of ticks total.

There were other goofy thoughts, like ultimate was terrormorphasis which transformed the healer into a large old god like (demonish form, lovecraft) that allowed the healer to cast two spells at once and move at the same time (still a cast bar) while also turning a few of their skills into further corrupted formats. Or another was turning into a wraith like state for reduce damage, or sort of possessing the target enemy gaining a much further cast range, each cast causes damage to the monster and doesn't cost you resources, and your camera pans out even further. Guided Passage which would act as a baby invuln skill, where it could parse the damage out over time rather than immediately giving someone a few more moments to respond than otherwise.

It was a project for fun and the main purpose of making something dark and also addressing a frequent concern I saw since ShB that healers needed more to do (hence it has many offensive abilities, blood mechanic related to them, offensive pet, more aggressive play style, and a whole new tree of healing type that includes pre and post thought and positional awareness).

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ecromancer-Etc

While I do agree with you, I do feel there's a rather large difference between the light build up and a job, one we didn't even know was going to be harmful until we were a few wardens in, the other would be us willingly engaging in an activity.
Otherwise I agree but that's also the rub, I'm one of those people that really like Gunbreaker, but is it really a Gunblade job? Yes but also no, no one had any idea that would be what they'd get when they asked, something that has nothing in common with any Gunblade user previous in 14.

Another example of this would be Blue Mage, did it make it in? Yes but not in any form I think anyone was expecting, which is fine if all you cared about was it getting in.

Necro has tones of other things it could do and still be a Necro, but in the confines of 14 so far Necros all do the same thing which seems pretty off limits to the WoL/D, it's more at odds than Gunbreaker because at least that has the weapon, the iconic bit, in 14 Necros are defined by what they do, not use in 14 so it's a bit harder if all the abilities they've so far in lore used are off limits.

Oh yeah absolutely, that is why I think you'd have to make the story in such a way that the player doesn't go "hey you know what would be great? If I go dabble in void magic! LUL!!!!" haha. I know I've wrote a lot so it's easy to start skimming lol, but this is why I mention FFXI's blue mage. In that game you have to break your soul in order to be able to use blue magic, part of this is invariably every blue mage will end up being a mind flayer (monster). Now the game doesn't ask you if you're cool with that, instead you agree to meet up with this guy, drink some weird stuff, and then get basically kidnapped and science projected on.

So yeah I wouldn't suggest the game is so straight forward to be like "dangerous magic, you want?", I'd suggest something happens to where you're thrust into the situation (like the light build up). As simple as falling into condense void aether and having to Cloud (FFVII) rebuild your mind, with the struggles of having to put yourself together while you're forever attuned to the void. Now the quest doesn't demand you finish it, but you're given the option- do you practice this burden so you are within control of yourself or do you bury it deep and pray it'll never be a problem in the future? Simply by doing this you've give the WoL a way to get into a dark situation without actually having to willingly sign up with the devil.

Fair points on GNB and BLU, I clearly didn't like BLU lol. Salt blue mines over here :3.. <3.

As the last point is why I agree it would certainly be easier to give players all the vibes and even potentially the gameplay they're looking for, especially if you let players explain what they wanted (some of what people want that is dark isn't something that is "raise the dead humans master, yissssss, zombie slave Scions dance for me my puppets" lol). Does everything but be called a Necromancer, even if it literally fits the definition of a Necromancer, maybe someone is sad still but you can do a lot of work within that area of "everything but the name". I agree there are potential pitfalls and struggles using the name, and it's fair to point those out (like with GNB or BLU), just that pitfall doesn't mean banishment :P. Also why I personally hope for a fresh job that's dark theme'd- some new void mage or something, perhaps they inspire themselves from FFXVI's new content.

Again, all decent ideas, but when I look at them, Necromancer isn't the word that comes to mind. Soul Mage, Blood Mage, Astral Mage, Psychic, Witch, that one buddhist sorcerer dealing with talismans and zombies that's name eludes me currently, etc. The word Necromancer is extremely well defined and most people have a very specific thing in mind when they say it. They could veer away from the stereotype, but then they'd have another "not my Summoner" situation on their hands. I'm not against the ideas you bring up, but then lets just not call them Necromancer.

That's fair. If I made the job I wouldn't call it necromancer, although I'd certainly admit inspiration from and maybe even slap a shard that called it that just as a hat nod lol. To me the easiest solution to those who want it, at least the vibe and or gameplay, would be to make something like it and not call it Necromancer. Which is to say if someone says they want it and you immediately say "no" before finding out the name wasn't the important part but that they wanted a cursed mage concept and then you go "oh.. well damn okay" lol. Although we both agree that 'technically' all those jobs you listed could also be called a necromancer, not in the popculture vision (which does often include raising the potentially innocent dead human to be an unwilling slave and bad juju body desecration stuff like that), but in the general wiki / google defines manner (communing with the dead, etc)?

I think I've got as many people as I might get saying "that no / exceptionally unlikely, but that other thing you said maybe.. maybe we could do that". :P. My main goal here at least. I remember people shutting me down (SMN particularly but a few other ideas too), even more matter of fact style than I've seen here (most people here said unlikely to be fair), though I've seen firmer no's on the desire for a cursed mage in other threads, and I was pretty frustrated that no one tried to work with me, usually aggressively counter in fact, back when I was working to treat the lore well but also expand a concept like SMN. I did feel vindicated of course once SE basically did what I thought might be plausible (again not trying to take credit, could have easily happened without them ever hearing a word I uttered)- but then I see people still talk the same way and I'm like "Really guys.. lets try to give it some breathing room, you barely looked at it" lol. Some of them being the same people as before way back then XD. So occasionally I go out of my way dilute the firmness and certainty of statements so people who want to dream have room to do so.

A lot of words for not something that is my main desire but eh I like people fantasizing, it's fun to read people's pipe dreams and even more fun when sometimes they come true and you can all point at each other like "did that just happen, HYPEeeeEE" lol. I can recall many posts from long ago that said a Ronso like race was impossible and a waste of time to ask / hope for (and many pointing to lore why it was impossible). .

Feels nice to have it be my avatar now .

Maybe sometimes I should note though that I don't think in terms of days, weeks, or months, often I think a request /might/ see return in years- so when I think "hey if we nudge this that way and this this way, we can actually have that" and think of it as a thing over the years / at expansion points when lore moves the fastest, I hardly expect or think of changes happening in moments so short. Can't just rip the car around and not expect it to do a barrel roll, but you can turn it over time if you need to go somewhere- that's how cars work lol.

[MartaDemireux]

I see the dungeon jobs as being jobs from other shards we havent and wont visit and thus unable to learn. If we can't have Thief because of morality then we definitely cant have Necromancer...

Chemist/Apothecary is a strong hint though as the NPC is on a shard we have visited.

[BlitzAceRush]

Snip.

I agree the idea shouldn't be off the table I just feel a job clearly inspired by Necromancer is more likely and gives alot more freedom as opposed to Necromancer as 14 has depicted them

[BlitzAceRush]

Again, all decent ideas, but when I look at them, Necromancer isn't the word that comes to mind. Soul Mage, Blood Mage, Astral Mage, Psychic, Witch, that one buddhist sorcerer dealing with talismans and zombies that's name eludes me currently, etc. The word Necromancer is extremely well defined and most people have a very specific thing in mind when they say it. They could veer away from the stereotype, but then they'd have another "not my Summoner" situation on their hands. I'm not against the ideas you bring up, but then lets just not call them Necromancer.



Slightly off topic, but I'm actually surprised to see someone of the other camp, I thought you only existed in fairy tales. Most if not all people I knew were praying vehemently for Gunbreaker to actually use a "proper" (by FF8 standards) gunblade instead of the cheap bayonet mounted pistols Garleans have. I would go as far as to say I didn't even knew people existed who liked them...

I think there's a slight misunderstanding, I'm saying I'm happy with what we got, not that the Garleans like Hydros, Gaius and Varis with his gunlance didn't show us some cool abilities I'd have been fine with too

[JisKing98]

Necromancer as a melee healer! You use a scythe to deal dmg and build a meter that you can use to have your undead minion do aoe and dot heals or use it to summon undead minions to attack or shield allies. Your big ability is to summon either a giant undead to fight for you for a bit like mch/drk or summon undead minions(and/or) shadow versions of your allies that mimic your allies abilities.

[Zol_blade]

Chemist = Healer, Necromancer/Time Mage = Caster.

[GucciSan]

You're contradicting yourself.
The other 2 don't do or say anything nor do they get a minion. So by nature of the fact that she does get a minion and she does talk in away that would suggest an internal struggle I'd say that's being treated differently than the other 2 etc...

If you're talking about what she says during the fight, there's no real contradiction; the other two bosses also have dialogue.




It's all generic boss banter between the 3 of them. There's really nothing special about her compared to the other two. And again even if there's no Job we have that's 1:1 comparable to her's, she's not the first necromancer we've fought and her brand of it is exactly the same as we've seen before; if they really were trying to hint at anything with her the Gauntlet was literally the perfect time to show a version of it that was different from what we know because it's magic from a different Shard. But it wasn't. And as for the minion SE figured that she would be popular based on her design; seeing that people starting cranking out fanart of her even before the patch dropped they were right on the money. Some of your theories are pretty sound but when it comes to the boss herself there's nothing about her that alludes toward anything.

If people are starved for a dark themed caster, Black Mage has always kind of been it, but people overlook it because it casts mostly Fire spells and doesn't have a traditionally evil aesthetic or 'aura' going on with it. It's like how AST is Time Mage, but the aesthetics are subtle and it doesn't beat you over the head with it.

This is the description from the official Job guide and it is dripping with edge:

"In days long past, there existed an occult and arcane art known as black magic—a potent magic of pure destructive force born forth by a sorceress of unparalleled power. Those who learned to wield this instrument of ruin came to be called black mages, out of both fear and respect for their gift. Yet great power served to corrupt the judgment of mortal man, and so he unknowingly set out upon the path of ruin.
Adventurers who take the black will become agents of devastation, capable of annihilating those who oppose them through little more than the force of their will."

BLM has always been about sheer destructive chaos with their magic and they're often called "the Dark Arts", a lot of their lore is centered around the Void itself and death, etc.

[reivaxe]

If you're talking about what she says during the fight, there's no real contradiction; the other two bosses also have dialogue.

No, I'm talking about her chat box stuff along with the trust convo in that fight.

What they say is the generic boss noise, neither of those 2 are made to sound like they have any agency beyond being summoned to kill something. Plus they don't get a minion nor were they used to promote the dng. You might want to clap back with "Well cheesecake!" and I'd say "They coulda made a cheesecake Thief or berserker and an old men Necro". They gave her special attention 1 way or another, simple as that.

She clearly stands out and was meant to .... and tbh it's kinda an obtuse convo to have with ME as I 1- don't think "necromancer" will be a job title and 2- Only see this as one of many things making me think some mage dealing with spiritual stuff is coming.

And again even if there's no Job we have that's 1:1 comparable to her's, she's not the first necromancer we've fought and her brand of it is exactly the same as we've seen before; if they really were trying to hint at anything with her the Gauntlet was literally the perfect time to show a version of it that was different from what we know because it's magic from a different Shard.

Why would a Dng with bosses from jobs that similar-to-but-not the ones we can play suddenly make a Necro that's "player friendly"? If we didn't get thief and instead got Rouge for w/e reason you want to go with and if we got War instead of Berserker for w/e reason then why would they make change necros? If anything I'd think they would want to remind people why they WONT do necro and have the hint be "well, there's nothing like it in the game unlike the other 2 so maybe there's something like it coming".

And I love how you're going from trying to say Smn is some how the necro-like job to saying Blm is somehow a "dark, gloomy job" job with any kinda connection to necro aesthetics or fantasy/ play style and would serve as food for those looking for Necro like aesthetics. Not sure if there's a point to going on with this.