Removing elemental nukes from WHM

[Alaltus]

Who says it needs to be balanced in the way you describe? the game won't implode if stone doesn't hit for 999. But i'll give it a go anyway even if this is a bit beyound just changing Black Mage and White Mage. I may as well put down the sort of thing i would like to see from the class/job system. I still want to see what SE will come out with in beta yet however.

In this example the classes in question can switch between the two jobs or vice versa, depending on how you want to look at it. The lore i'm going with here is that conjurer is the school of magic residing over the elements of nature and thaumaturge is the school of magic residing over the elements of destruction. White mage is a path to entreat aid from the elementals by soothing and calming them(Or something like that). Black mage is the path of angering them and using their wrath against your foes.

Note: i'm not listing every single spell a class/job would/could have just throwing down the relevant ones to describe the idea.

Conjurer - Stone/ra, Aero/ra, Water/ra, Cure, Stoneskin, Blink, Aqua Veil, Barstone, Baraero, Barwater.

Thaumaturge - Fire/ra, Blizzard/ra, Thunder/ra, Cure, Blaze Spikes*, Ice Spikes*, Shock Spikes*, Barfire, Barblizzard, Barthunder.

(*just an example but bear in mind they could work very differently from before.)

White Mage

White Mage provides the rest of the cure line, ailment removal line, divine spells etc etc but at the cost of their offensive elemental spells (possibly a Sacrifice line instead of Cure in the case of Thaumaturge?)

Conjurer ~ White Mage - Cure/ra/ga, Stoneskin, Blink, Aqua Veil, Barstonera*, Baraera*, Barwatera*.

Thaumaturge ~ White Mage - Cure/ra/ga, Blaze Spikes, Ice Spikes, Shock Spikes, Barfira*, Barblizzara*, Barthundara*.

(*Single target barspells upgrade to aoe ra spells upon switching)

A white mage thaumaturge would differentiate itself from a white mage conjurer by what elements it used to aid the party. So while a conjurer white mage would have stoneskin, blink and aqua veil as an example. Thaumaturge would have a completely different set of elemental enhancing spells. You could do the same with Bar spells making one kind of white mage prevalent over the other, depending on the content. Though restricting barspells specifically may not be desireable and not a must.

Black Mage

Black Mage provides the ancient magic corresponding to the elements weilded by the equipped class. Certain utility based debuff spells, dark spells etc etc but at the cost of Cure and their elemental enhancement spells.

Conjurer ~ Black Mage - Stone/ra, Aero/ra, Water/ra, Quake, Tornado, Flood

Thaumaturge ~ Black Mage - Fire/ra, Blizzard/ra, Thunder/ra, Flare, Freeze, Burst,

With Black mage it works much the same way, focusing on the classes strengths for the role. Black mage conjurer would specialise in earth, wind, water damage output. Learning quake, tornado and flood instead of flare etc. I'm not talking about implementing these spells in the same utility mess as they were in 1.0 but in their raw damage dealing form.

All of the combinations would be relatively the same just differ in what elements they focus on to get the job done. This limits black mage's ability to produce optimal output in some content whilst also allowing them more access to the elements (provided they lv Conjurer). This limits white mage's dd power whilst allowing for more benefits from multiple white mage within a party/group as well as increases the possible pool of white mages in game. As for what abilities and such each class would have and lend to their jobs roles i'll leave that up to your imagination. =P

TLDR: White mage and black mage could benefit from being more open to other magic disciplines rather than being tied down to a single class.