I posted this on a thread over in general, but it was kind of a weird place to put it, so I wanted to repost this here:

After having played FF7 Rebirth, something that's danced around my head for a while was once again trying to take inspiration from Aerith for how white mage could be, since both FFXIV's white mage and Aerith are white mages associated with nature, and it gave me some interesting questions that I'd like some opinions on. What are your thoughts on a mechanic like this as white mage's standard attack spell instead of Glare?

Dia - When pressed, deals single target damage with a potency of 220. When held for 2 seconds, becomes Tempest. If the hold is canceled, Dia is cast when the hold is released.

Tempest - Deals AOE damage around your target four times with a potency of 40 per hit, then deals single target damage to your target with a potency of 100.

It's sort of like an optional cast time. If you complete the cast, you get the slightly stronger spell and AOE damage out of it. Dia would also have a new, more simple animation of firing a small magic bolt at your opponent. This also merges your standard single target attack with your standard AOE attack. Holy III then remains as an AOE with a stun, but also grants you a Fleeting Familiar, which adds an extra 20 potency attack on the nearest enemy to all your spell casts and lasts 30 seconds.

I have other ideas based on this concept as well, such as how Stone, Aero, and Water play into this, but what are your thoughts on an action like this, where you can hold down the button rather than press it to cast something different, but casts the "on press" spell if you release prematurely, either to move or by accident.