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

[Seraphor]

So much this.
Even if people want to ignore the focus the Necro gets or how unique her situation is compared to the other 2 (wanna make up w/e reason you want for her getting a full blown dramatic monolog and minion compared to the other 2 bosses getting 3 generic lines be my guess, fact of the matter is that she's the only one outta the 3 who doesn't have a parallel job we can play. They coulda made a waifu Gunner, they chose this) what I find important is looking at all the pieces of the puzzle.

I think we're getting a 4th full caster, that the whole story behind this expac lore dumping the aether of body/ mind/ soul and Aliesa training with "A researcher of the power of souls" who dresses up like this when fighting point to a job that has something to do with souls. The twins being hinted at getting new jobs soon and Aliesa's arc leading her to continue her studies/ training and try to treat others on the source makes me think it's going to develop into it's own job.

And anything that focuses on those themes would basically be necro adjacent. Thematically I feel like there's the most room for a dark themed caster. That's not to say that Gaia can't be a hint at a Time Mage with dark purple themes and a goth-like look but I could easily see a "Soul Mage" or w/e you wanna go with working.

Berserker -> Warrior
Thief -> Ninja
Necromancer -> ?

Summoner someone might say but I hardly got those vibes

The reason SMN doesn't fit, is because it's not SMN.

WHM, her parallel is WHM.
She has a staff/cane, and Edda the OG necromancer in the story was a WHM.
Necromancy was a corruption of White Magic after all, finding its home in Gelmorra and the Palace of the Dead.
The WHM job quests in HW deals with raising the dead, and how this can be corrupted.
Nybeth, the lich necromancer on floor 100, also wields a staff/cane, and came from another world after failing to resurrect his own love interest.

All in all, every single WoL in Heroes Gauntlet is a representative of an alternate job, from one of our existing jobs, so I don't think any of them, even Necro, are meant as any kind of hint or set up for future jobs. It would be weird, if they're presented now as a set up for a future job, and then we end up playing that job.
You'd be battling that Necromancer boss... as a Necromancer... it would just be a weird clash of ideas.
If anything, the three bosses are likely meant to show the implementation on these often requested jobs, because they don't intend to ever actually make them real jobs.


Anything 'Soul Mage' related would be covered by Arcanist.
SMN creates aetherial simulacrums to fight with and SCH is literally giving agency or 'a soul' to it's aetherial simulacrums, or rather using one with it's own soul.

BLM is our 'Dark Mage'. It's entire job quest line is about summoning Voidsent. It's signature moves, Foul, Xenoglossy, Despair, are dark-related.
Our 'dark mage' enemies, the Ascians, capitalise on Fire, Ice and Lightning magic.


The 'thematic space' or room left for casters should include Geomancy (earth, wind and water spells) or Time Magic (would need to steal Gravity from AST though).
There's plenty of Groundwork for Geomancy via the Four Lords quest line, so not much more to say on that.
Time Mage could be built upon Gaia, and could sort of provide more of a dark slant to it if that's what you want, but it's not that overt.
The other alternative is an Omnyoji, the Geomancy counterpart that deals with status magic and blood magic. That could fulfil the Geomancy slot as well as ticking the 'dark mage' box. It would probably mean stripping SMN of some of it's DoTs though.

[Shougun]

The reason SMN doesn't fit, is because it's not SMN.

WHM, her parallel is WHM.
She has a staff/cane, and Edda the OG necromancer in the story was a WHM.
Necromancy was a corruption of White Magic after all, finding its home in Gelmorra and the Palace of the Dead.
The WHM job quests in HW deals with raising the dead, and how this can be corrupted.
Nybeth, the lich necromancer on floor 100, also wields a staff/cane, and came from another world after failing to resurrect his own love interest.

All in all, every single WoL in Heroes Gauntlet is a representative of an alternate job, from one of our existing jobs, so I don't think any of them, even Necro, are meant as any kind of hint or set up for future jobs. It would be weird, if they're presented now as a set up for a future job, and then we end up playing that job.
You'd be battling that Necromancer boss... as a Necromancer... it would just be a weird clash of ideas.

For the first part ah yeah, thanks for reminding me lore wise I do feel white mage isn't a bad comparison- it would be a bit weird in the sense that gameplay wise the other two jobs have a sort of similarity (vague but there) while necro is 180 but you could argue that's because when white mage goes wrong it goes soooo wrong lol.

But also just the 80th repeat (not because I need to repeat to you , just want it clear I'm not fixing the potential existence of a concept to the dungeon as if it's the only lifeline), I don't think to hint at a dark necro-adjacent job requires the dungeon since we've got the soul mage dude. May argue any potential is tenuous at best but eeeeehhhyy we've done more with less lol.

Also on the last statement I see where you were going but I think you might not feel that if you consider you can fight the boss as a Ninja and a Warrior. You might respond yeah but you don't fight the boss as a "Berserker" or a "Thief" and I'd just add that a) I wasn't suggestion the necro inspired job (whether very much or just a bit) would be called necromancer, and b) we do have a few bosses already that we fight that have jobs that are 'basically' ours so it's not quite the first time this happened. Besides what we fight in that dungeon is supposed to be the heroes of other shards right? So even further I don't think it's as big as a problem as you initially thought it to be, especially if you simply don't call the necro-adjacent job (whether hyper adjacent or cousin) a necromancer. Can call it that on another shard for goofs, but to make the imagery of that job doesn't demand the name as well- like if you called it a Reaper and people then see trailers of the job and they'd see it and go "yo that's a necromancer" (which isn't the most creative job name for FF but whatever I wasn't trying lol, better name suggested ).

Anything 'Soul Mage' related would be covered by Arcanist.
SMN creates aetherial simulacrums to fight with and SCH is literally giving agency or 'a soul' to it's aetherial simulacrums, or rather using one with it's own soul.

Pretty sure the game said summoning is creation magic, and I don't think it said anywhere that creation magic is what that soul mage is doing. Of course schools of magic often have some overlap, like you might say red with black mage, or dark knight with black mage, but for this I think it's fair to say Arcanist is primarily a creation magic driven job with some internalization of soul magic (to attune to a summon). Meanwhile a soul mage would not really have much internalization as it would be used externally.

Further onto that I would compare soul magic and creation magic to white magic and black magic with one external and one more internal. Soul magic working with what exists without and creation magic dealing with what is within. Sure you can certainly argue there is a touch of soul magic in the attunement process of arcanist but terms of the functional magic you use to blow stuff up with I'm fairly certain we could argue it was pure creation magic. This leaves /a lot/ of space for you to then develop a school of soul magic.

Especially important you don't want soul magic to be from within because if soul magic is purely creation magic then I think Y'sholta is in for a bumpy road in the future lol. I see someone pulling a Matrix 3 Mr. Smith if that's the case XD.

BLM is our 'Dark Mage'. It's entire job quest line is about summoning Voidsent. It's signature moves, Foul, Xenoglossy, Despair, are dark-related.
Our 'dark mage' enemies, the Ascians, capitalise on Fire, Ice and Lightning magic.

Eh I feel Black Mage is pretty sanitary, at least since the whole lala on a ceiling stuff from very early on lol. Besides in this case it wouldn't be 'dark' (elemental), at least exclusively, and technically more so than black mage, since it'd also be soul magic. Say like Dark Knight levels of dark magic, which in comparison to black mage makes black mage 'not that dark'. Some purple crystals and stuff, maybe a funny looking fire, but black mage still largely elemental, meanwhile dark knight has some truly dark magic like abilities. So there is totally room for a 'dark' mage, and especially if you've not pigeonholed yourself into a single element lol.

Like in the dark healer thread I made I was discussing otherworldly magic (think lovecraft), blood, and soul. So 'dark' isn't simply the dark element, but because we're in the FF world of course if I say dark it is probably assumed I'm speaking strictly the dark element lol so that'd be my fault. So yes Black Mage has some dark elements, but they also have lightning, fire, and ice, which I do hope they keep, so any 'dark' mage would focus way more on the dark vibe like Dark Knight did and that may or may not include the dark element to do so.

So I don't think we've a proper 'dark' mage (this not meaning just the element of dark, but could include that). Black Mage feels pretty standard wizard (not said as an insult, but just it feels very much the 'RPG wizard'), even the later spells don't even feel that dark (except maybe Despair, and honestly mostly just in name- one whole skill takes a theme? I hope that's not how we do lol, I'm saying dark as in a concept of 'baaad' like Dark Knight not dark like elemental powers, it's colored purple sure but compared to something like Stalwart Soul makes Foul look like jolly good Christmas and not 'dark'). To me the field for 'dark mage' is very wide open (although as mentioned before I'd like a 'dark' transformation based job which would obviously depart even further from any sort of black mage comparison).

Although to counter myself a bit as well technically it could be a soul mage and also not feel very dark lol. I say dark theme because the soul mage looked like a dragon priest from Skyrim almost, which is a bit dark / evil / brooding, but the concept of soul magic is not required to be that. Soul magic can be painted any color I would suppose, just using the mage's combat form as a reference to brooding / dark - and if you paint it dark it does then happen to sound a bit like the general description of what a necromancer does (commune / interact with the souls / dead).

The 'thematic space' or room left for casters should include Geomancy (earth, wind and water spells) or Time Magic (would need to steal Gravity from AST though).
There's plenty of Groundwork for Geomancy via the Four Lords quest line, so not much more to say on that.
Time Mage could be built upon Gaia, and could sort of provide more of a dark slant to it if that's what you want, but it's not that overt.
The other alternative is an Omnyoji, the Geomancy counterpart that deals with status magic and blood magic. That could fulfil the Geomancy slot as well as ticking the 'dark mage' box. It would probably mean stripping SMN of some of it's DoTs though.

I agree on all that (the mage space includes, but is not limited to what you listed), although I would say there are a few who disagreed based on the lore . Personally that White Mage lost elements pretty much entirely means to me that we've this gaping hole for some awesome elemental earth, wind, and water spells, especially if it's an attack job so we get our Tornado, Quake, and Flood spells. Although for the sake of argument I would like to point at red mage as well to suggest that we don't have to lose the imagery from one job to share it a little with another. Which also goes back to your point on a dark mage and my rebuttal that we don't /have/ to concern too much so long as the new job does it interestingly and new (but that the job doesn't have to be strictly dark element either), of course you might say "Gemoancer would add a lot more than some new dark element spells we can just toss to black mage, sure we can share but I feel the value is better with "x"" buuut just saying in a technical sense overlap is not a forbidden concept (even though I wouldn't suggest to go out of your way to overlap that much, any dark element spell a 'dark mage' (theme not element) shouldn't look like a black mage spell, and ideally should play different as well so it's far beyond just the visual- so a 'dark mage' would overlap more with dark knight than a black mage to be honest and naturally of course be a mage rather than a melee tank).

Do you think time mage has to have gravity? I kind of think no, but I'm also not a huge time mage fan so it's not like I've too much bias in that discussion (not huge fan doesn't mean I dislike it, just that the imagery being very close to a specific style not as important to me as it might be for a fan of the job). You could steal it as you said though, I could see keeping the visual of AST's gravity the similar with some slight star like additional touches and just calling it blazar, black hole, nova, neutron star, solar collapse, or some other star related thing and then giving Time Mage gravity lol (could go further of course, I was just thinking the easy / cheap route).

A Japanese inspired dark magic-esq job could be really neat, would be awesome to get a bunch of quests that amount to little encapsulated stories like if you imagine Mushi-shi and Ginko but with a twist of darkness. The eastern version of being Sam and Dean from Supernatural lol. That would be some fun quests, I'd love to solve some supernatural mystery cases like that, reminds of some of the best quests in the Witcher game series (imo). (I am aware the two shows I referenced are not the only ones to do that, just the first two to come to mind , next up might be stuff like Natsume's Book of Friends or something). A nice contrast of the creepy and scarey (not always but sometimes) and a calm job, like a scene where you're waiting for the spirit and it appears in the dark corner upside down slowly dropping down towards you, makes mad dash at you, all the while you sip that sweet tea, and then it lands right into your trap where you begin to free the spirit (and part of your power could be capturing evil spirits and helping the release their dark energies in more constructive ways, like you using up their negativity while keeping them company, giving them catharsis as you journey around).

[MomomiMomi]

Let's not forget that Astrologian still has time magic we don't have access to in the form of Celestial Stasis.

My speculation on Glare: we needed a new spell because in JP we already had Stone, Stonera, Stonega, and Stoneja. They don't want to create a tier V spell. No other caster has reached this point, but they will be next expansion. Expect more new spells.

[Mhaeric]

Let's not forget that Astrologian still has time magic we don't have access to in the form of Celestial Stasis.

My speculation on Glare: we needed a new spell because in JP we already had Stone, Stonera, Stonega, and Stoneja. They don't want to create a tier V spell. No other caster has reached this point, but they will be next expansion. Expect more new spells.

BLM reached it with Despair which effectively is Fire V, not that this changes your point in any way.

[Shougun]

Let's not forget that Astrologian still has time magic we don't have access to in the form of Celestial Stasis.

My speculation on Glare: we needed a new spell because in JP we already had Stone, Stonera, Stonega, and Stoneja. They don't want to create a tier V spell. No other caster has reached this point, but they will be next expansion. Expect more new spells.

I doubt White Mages will be going back to their elements in the next expansion, aside from water which I think is technically present in cure magic (so 'not' that one lol). We could wager some gil on it, if the GMs dont mind.. and you're not mega rich lol. A few mil sure, triple digit mil and you're going to make me broke soon .

As for Celestial Stasis I am aware the wording makes it sound like time magic but given the context that spell came from Astrologer in FFT as a unique job where they had no time magic, and the only context was they were an astrologist, and that our astrologist lost all of it's other time magic spells I am therefore inclined to say it doesn't have to be in time mage's territory. Not that I can't see the argument that has to do with time magic (it says 'stasis' which sounds awfully time like lol), but I could also argue it doesn't, as they figuratively stop the stars, from moving (like spinning/movement on the axis), but not literally 'pause them in time' (the sun still boils, the stars still churn internally, they just stop moving on their paths- like planet's aligning doesn't mean they've stopped in time), and the fates that they read are held by this act (which is their power focus, the stars, doesn't need to relate to time to pause the movement of which you've some dominion over).

More importantly though such a small overlap has not proven to prevent other jobs, as you see Red Mage or you might draw comparisons to the two mages and tanks who have a bit of magical overlap (of element). So if the worst you have to contend with is an ultimate that sounds like stopping the stars, doesn't seem like we've too much problem. Honestly I think the real challenge with time mage is making sure it feels like you're playing with time but also that you've not entirely broke the game because of it lol. Could easily be the new mandatory class depending on what elements it's provided. Of course you could be more visual and mechanically it doesn't have much in the way of time cool mechanics but that feels a like a missed opportunity then (so not saying it's impossible but at least when I think of it really cursory like that I wonder what you'd do that would be fair and balanced but also very cool time like magic).

Personally I already start thinking about putting the job into the ranged physical group in terms of balance (like dancer) such that it has a number of support skills and the damage while not awful isn't like a black mage or samurai, this buffer of damage allowing them some extra neat mechanics for group utility without breaking the balance so much. Though I'm not saying ranged physical due to the weapon type, only in thoughts of how those jobs are generally balanced (lower damage, but often offer something else like higher utility).

[tyranical69]

How about working on Blue Mage before working or thinking about these 3 classes.

[DarkeaterMidir]

Nothing would make me happier then getting a necromancer

[MomomiMomi]

I doubt White Mages will be going back to their elements in the next expansion, aside from water which I think is technically present in cure magic (so 'not' that one lol). We could wager some gil on it, if the GMs dont mind.. and you're not mega rich lol. A few mil sure, triple digit mil and you're going to make me broke soon .

As for Celestial Stasis I am aware the wording makes it sound like time magic but given the context that spell came from Astrologer in FFT as a unique job where they had no time magic, and the only context was they were an astrologist, and that our astrologist lost all of it's other time magic spells I am therefore inclined to say it doesn't have to be in time mage's territory. Not that I can't see the argument that has to do with time magic (it says 'stasis' which sounds awfully time like lol), but I could also argue it doesn't, as they figuratively stop the stars, from moving (like spinning/movement on the axis), but not literally 'pause them in time' (the sun still boils, the stars still churn internally, they just stop moving on their paths- like planet's aligning doesn't mean they've stopped in time), and the fates that they read are held by this act (which is their power focus, the stars, doesn't need to relate to time to pause the movement of which you've some dominion over).

I wasn't saying WHM is going back to its elements. I meant that the only reason they didn't get Stone V is because of naming issues in Japanese, and not because they wanted to give those elements to something else.

And I believe Celestial Stasis is time magic because it inflicts Temporal Displacement, which is something Alexander does to us with its control over time.

Note that I'm not saying they can't give us Geomancer. I just don't think WHM getting Glare is any indication of it.

And I don't think we'll get Time Mage just because it's potentially a problematic job.
i.e., they want to avoid Haste as much as possible.

[Seraphor]

I wasn't saying WHM is going back to its elements. I meant that the only reason they didn't get Stone V is because of naming issues in Japanese, and not because they wanted to give those elements to something else.

And I believe Celestial Stasis is time magic because it inflicts Temporal Displacement, which is something Alexander does to us with its control over time.

Note that I'm not saying they can't give us Geomancer. I just don't think WHM getting Glare is any indication of it.

And I don't think we'll get Time Mage just because it's potentially a problematic job.
i.e., they want to avoid Haste as much as possible.

I don't think WHM having it's elements is in any way a hurdle for Geomancer as a magical dps. They'd be seperate roles.

Likewise if AST gave Time Mage Gravity, it could probably keep its Celestial Stasis, because agsin, different roles.

No different to SMN/SCH. Same job, different roles.
Celestial Stasis is the OG Astrologer skill anyway, and Tactics still had Time Mage as a distinct job.

I do feel GEO is more likely thsn TIM though. Stripping Gravity from AST, while not impossible, is a sort of retcon, that they may not want to do.
There's also a lot more they could do with Geomancer, while Time Mage would have several tiers of Gravity, a situational Slow debuff, a bunch of DoTs maybe, and a personal Haste buff... and then what?

[Shougun]

I wasn't saying WHM is going back to its elements. I meant that the only reason they didn't get Stone V is because of naming issues in Japanese, and not because they wanted to give those elements to something else.

And I believe Celestial Stasis is time magic because it inflicts Temporal Displacement, which is something Alexander does to us with its control over time.

Note that I'm not saying they can't give us Geomancer. I just don't think WHM getting Glare is any indication of it.

And I don't think we'll get Time Mage just because it's potentially a problematic job.
i.e., they want to avoid Haste as much as possible.

OoooOooooo. I read "expect more/new spells" to read as the elements would be coming back. If you simply meant to explain why they went holy then sure maybe. I could imagine a few reasons why they were removed, like for Geomancer's room (which isn't required, like red mage didn't require it), or because Paladin has been going holy magic and they wanted to draw some parallels to White Mage, but it could be a name tier issue too, maybe it's all of the above lol.

On Celestial Stasis, which I've never used or personally seen used in game lol, doesn't it just heal everyone like all the other healer spells?

If you're talking about Alexander's spell it's called Temporal Stasis, which inflicts Temporal Displacement (Alexander's stasis is named after time, and his buff also after time- his isn't called Celestial).

I do agree that haste can be a huge pain in the rear to balance, but it feels pretty cool too lol. I was thinking they might get away with some more utility if they made the job have lower damage like dancer, but it's still something difficult to balance (not that I would say impossible). Of course you can strip out the cool features and then it becomes very easy to balance (time theme I mean) but... then it's not as cool as people would hope.

For buffs that are an issue I tend to suggest hard limits, like boss takes extra damage up to 1,000 potency. This avoids any sort of issue with scale-ability, technically the upper limit of the spell is known. So for haste you might think of things like a stack mechanic where you can make another player's spells faster (one at a time), and by meeting certain circumstances (time or whatever) you gain more stacks of haste. Then you could cast like haste 5 times on your black mage to stack 5 fast casts on them basically. Each spell consumes the haste. Each GCD for non-mage jobs similar deal with perhaps it also adds an auto attack or something. Because you've given them dancer damage you can give them some more support room, and because it works in stacks its far more balance-able. Edit, didn't think about buff windows, you could have that it accelerates the buff windows too (as if time passed using the instant action) but it would desync you from your allies buff windows . . . . that's bad lol. You could i suppose have it be an echo rather than a haste buff, like you can haste yourself (easy to balance) but you echo other players, such that you duplicate their action up to X potency- that'd certainly be far more manageable.

Might have slow work on normal monsters just as one would expect (pretty cool and potent, we've sort of this already in varying ways) and then for bosses it comes with reduced damage the boss deals like some of the tank skills (reprisal).

Another way to do this though is that the time mage only deals with time on themselves and the monster, in which case it becomes quite easy to balance (if it hastes itself in a unique way that's fine because the whole job would be designed around it, like how black mage is designed with triple cast and red mage with dual). It's only when you start doing group haste buffs that balance can become: "did you bring time mage? good! no? fail!".

I don't think WHM having it's elements is in any way a hurdle for Geomancer as a magical dps. They'd be seperate roles.

Likewise if AST gave Time Mage Gravity, it could probably keep its Celestial Stasis, because agsin, different roles.

No different to SMN/SCH. Same job, different roles.
Celestial Stasis is the OG Astrologer skill anyway, and Tactics still had Time Mage as a distinct job.

I do feel GEO is more likely thsn TIM though. Stripping Gravity from AST, while not impossible, is a sort of retcon, that they may not want to do.
There's also a lot more they could do with Geomancer, while Time Mage would have several tiers of Gravity, a situational Slow debuff, a bunch of DoTs maybe, and a personal Haste buff... and then what?

I want time mage now just so I can ask people if they've seen TIM. "Dude, where is the Tim?" "We don't have a Tim- who made this group". "Tim will save us!". etc... :3