Chronomancer (Time Mage)

[Sylvain]

Chronomancer (Time Mage)
Before starting it must be known that some values such as the starting level, spell potency or effects are just figurative and should be taken with a grain of salt. Also remember that the most important point of this thread is to give a glimpse of what could be done to make the time mage a job making sense lore wise with the according gameplay. (Playing with time)


Lore
The quest is acquired in the new main city. Like the Dark Knight, the job is taught by a scholar from Sharlayan (assuming the next city isn't already Sharlayan) willing to teach us the forbidden art of chronomancy from his homeland. He explains to us that Time Magic appeared after the land of Sharlayan had developed the art to read the stars. After some time Astrologians with their mastery of controlling fate became able, to some extent, to alter the flow of time. Some Astrologians were very interested in this property and decided to go further down this path becoming very potent at controlling the flow of time.

The talent of the former Time Mages were welcomed as a pair with the divine prediction of the astrologian. With both, the Sharlayan Empire became very confident in their capability to face any struggle. However as time passed some weird things started happening. A group of skilled time mages started using their talent for evil schemes. It started slowly, some events happened for some people, and not for others. Many people started having a weird feeling of déjà vue concerning important matters. Some events were unexplainable and astrologians started losing their capacity to read the future and the fate of people.

As it worsened, there were reports of people dead and alive at the same time. People that seemed to have never existed while they should have. It is at this moment that the authority of Sharlayan declared Time Magic illegal as it was too dangerous to let anyone fool with the flow of time. Predicting the future is one thing. Changing the past is another. What if the worst enemy of your nation was never born? Studying the Allagan empire military technology would be progressive for your country. This is the power of the forbidden art of chronomancy.

Sharlayan fought fire with fire and used their own Time Mages to track and kill all the malevolent heretics and put a stop to this madness. Time paradox, dead bodies of living people, zone of never ending loops of events were common. A whole city became a host of numerous time disasters, the zone had to be put in quarantining through a massive Time Stop bubble. (New dungeon)

When the dark faction was finally slain, the authority of Sharlayan ordered the time mages to modify the past and prevent this art from ever arising. As for now, nobody knows what time magic is. Some scholars have heard of the story but most people think it is a simple fairy tale. Or a warning.
Have these events truly happened? Most people would tell you're there's no way to know.

How could we know that an event that hasn't happened, has happened?
The scholar mentioned earlier is the one to tell you all these events that have transpired in the Sharlayan Empire and he ends his story with these parting words should you wish to continue on your quest to be a Time Mage.

“But here I am. Who am I? It is not important for now, but you, warrior of light, I believe you have the strength and wisdom to use this magic. Are you interested in mastering a forbidden art of a no longer existing past?”


Jobs Weapon
The Time Mage job uses the same weapon as the Astrologian and have the same level for this reason:
However the visual cards are replaced by aether or sand flowing in a circle around the weapon as they don't use cards.

- Astrologians already use some Time and space related skills. Thus making them some kind of half time mage. It would be hard to make the time mage totally separated from the astro as the latter have access to Gravity for instance.

- Scholar and Summoner already prove that it is possible lore wise and game wise to have multiple jobs based on the same core class. While in this case there is no "Core class". TMM and AST can be considered as the sides of the same coin. Manipulating time and space, one to perceive the future, one to alter the past.

- As the game will advance through expansion, it will be imo, harder for the devs to add unique jobs that are not linked with any other jobs as many jobs are related to already existing jobs (ex: Red Mage, Templar, Technomancer, samurai etc) therefore, my guess is that at some point (probably next xpac or the one after) we will start seeing more Summoner Arcanist dual job. Creating some kind of dual specs. The Time Mage would simply be the DPS spec of the Ast as the Summoner is the DPS spec of the scholar (or vice versa)

Jobs role
The Time Mage is a DPS job having strong support skills putting them on par with Bard and Gunner. They will not bring as much DPS as "true dps" like monk, dragoon, summoner or black mage. But will properly contribute to the party with their time buff and useful cooldown during the learning curve. Slow world can bring high dps boost during safe phase or DPS check, hasten world can help hard transitions.

Gameplay
Upon reading the skill, you must have noticed the very high number of cooldowns available and most notably, Rewind.

The Chronomancer rotation revolves around rewind. Every 20sec the chronomancer will reduce all his cooldowns by 10sec. While the obvious effect of making high damage spell more available to cast, a good chunk of the dps will come from a good management of Malefic 3 and Lagged strike cooldowns. Malefic 3 damage is high. However every cast increases its cooldown by 2sec. Which means you must track the cooldown of Malefic3 and Rewind in order to cast it as many time as possible. A quick calculation shows that it is possible to cast Malefic III 4 times when Rewinds cooldown ends. However the timing is very short. The chronomancer being all about timing, celerity will be a great stat to stack. Lagged strike is a bit special as it only hit when the cooldown is over requiring you to use it properly (it won't work if the target is dead already). Meaning that a proper management of Rewind, Return, Hasten/Slow world, and time loop and twin paradox will be crucial to make this spell hit as many time as possible. The numerous cooldown forces the chronomancer to remember which spell was cast when in order to maximise his dps. Spells like Déjà vue can have great power on some boss having weak phases.

The chronomancer is all about timing and cooldown management.

Utility wide, the chronomancer shall offer good DPS utility to a group with Haste, Hasten/Slow World and defensive tool with Stop and Time Field. Slow world and hasten world offer great flexibility depending of what is needed. Slow world is the field that will boost your raid by the best amount and grant the best resource per potency making them a good mana saver for healer. However it is not without consequence as anyone within the field will get their gameplay radically slowed.

Cross Jobs actions
Both time mage and astrologian share few common spells.
Malefic 1 and 2
Combust 1 and 2 (classical dps dot)
Gravity - Main AoE
Time Dilatation - Speed of Light
Ascend - same as astro
Lumnineferous Aeather

Offensive Spells

Rewind: Reduce the remaining cooldown of your spells by 10sec. 15sec CD
Malefic 3 - Inflict damage with a potency of 250 and increases Malefic III cooldown by 2sec for 30sec. stacks up to 10 times
Comet - through traits
Slow - Applies slow (40%) for 30sec
End of time: One of the three possible end of time happens on your target after 5sec.
Big Rip - Damage the target with 600 potency.
Big Chill - Damage all surrounding target with 300 potency and root them for 10sec
Big Crunch - Damage the target with 300 potency. Combust 1 and combust II remaining damage are instantly dealt consuming them in the process. Casting rewind before end of time triggers cancel the spell and reduce the cooldown to 15sec. 120sec CD

Black Hole: Pulls all weak foes within the black hole increasing their damage taken by 10% and deal damage for 4sec. Potency (50 per tick). 120sec CD
Lagged strike: Strick your enemy... later. The target is damaged when lagged strike cooldown ends. 300 potency. Only one strict can be active at time. 60sec CD

Cooldown (DPS and Defensive)
Return: The chronomancer fade over 2sec in the past returning the chronomancer to the position and state it was 10sec before. The return affect health, mana, cooldown and proc. Return fails if the chronomancer die before the effect takes place.
Note that skill having a cooldown of 180sec or higher are not affected. 180 min CD
Déjà vue: For the next 10sec, spells having a cooldown inferior to 10sec will have a copy pending in time that will be cast at the original target at once a short time after the effect ends. 90sec CD
Teleport: Teleport 10 yalms in front of you. inst. 45sec CD
Twin paradox: Summon a copy of your past you doing the exact same action at the same target(s) that you were doing 30sec before. 180sec
Supporting spell
Sprint - Increase the movement speed of allies around you by 50% for 5sec. 1min CD
Haste - Increase yours and the targets Attack and Casting speed by 20% for 15sec 90sec CD
Stop - 1.5sec cast Stop the target in time for 30 sec preventing it from attacking and receiving damage. Recasting Stop removes stop. Casting it on self or an ally induce a 30sec cooldown instead. 60sec CD (4sec duration on ally)

Slow World -Creates a field around the chronomancer doubling the casting time of all spells and global cooldown of instant attack. Increasing their potency by an amount of 150 %. Ally and enemy within the field are affected by slow until they leave it. Cooldown recharge 100% slower (needs 2sec for 1sec CD). Last for 15sec. 180sec CD shared cooldown with hasten world.
Hasten World: Creates a field around the chronomancer reducing the casting time and global cooldown of all spells by 50%. Cooldown recharge 100% faster and PT regeneration is increased by 200% (every 1sec reduce CD by 2sec). Allies within the field are in sprint mode until they leave it. Last for 15sec. 180sec CD shared cooldown with slow world

Time Ward - Place a time ward on the target for 5min. Any hit that would bring the target to 0hp is nullified. The target is then affected by Stop. Only one target can be affected by Time Ward at a time. Does not work under certain boss mechanics. 5min CD.

Traits
Falling Star - Your Malefic1 has 15% chance to turn your Malefic 2 into a comet increasing its potency to 300
Slowing Shield - Upon taking physical damage, apply slow to the target.
Slowga - Gravity now applies Slow
Re-ether - Rewind also replenish you with the amount of mana spent during the last 10sec.
Time and Space - Rewind and Lagged strike cooldown are reduced by celerity
Cheat death : You foresee your own death but decide to trick death. Any action that should normally kill you is nullified and stop is cast on you. Consume any current active time ward.

[Nurvus]

Zilean crossed the spacetime continuum and arrived at Eorzea?
It might work with some adjustments.
It could be Chronomancer -> Time Mage, to follow the others (Thaumaturge -> Black Mage; Conjurer -> White Mage).

[liljramos88]

Love the idea the lore is great

[Vesmus]

This concept in general is awesome. I wouldn't be opposed to it being a healer as well