SMN Disease based spells

[Sovi]

SMN spells are, for the most part, based on diseases. It has been a long time since I went through the story, Can any one direct me to information on why SMNs have this theme for the spells?
Best I can come up with on my own would be...
Summoning Egi requires manipulating biological matter, a skill that lends itself to damage spells that mimic or have the same effect as diseases?
Would this explanation fit game lore?

[Anonymoose]

The first thing that it is important to remember is that there is (game-mechanically) a false limitation on the spells you know. The names of magicks attached to certain effects and the repertoires held by specific disciplines change greatly over time - and yours are limited for game balance. There's no reason a Black Mage can't know Stoneskin, for instance. Y'shtola would be thought of in today's terms as a conjurer, yet she knows several spells outside of its purview, even one that's taught specifically to astrologians - because she's from Sharlayan.

The second important thing is that the spells you're mentioning aren't summoner-based, they're arcanist-based. Remember how few actually come from the job menu? These are the spells taught to present-day Lominsan arcanists based on what manuals survive from past users of arcanima-like magicks (especially from Nym and the isles of the south) and the zeitgeist of contemporary research.

As an example of how deep-seated this is, realize that egi behave identically to Carbuncle. Only the names and animations are different. Garuda-egi behaves almost identically to the wind-based Emerald Carbuncle because, while you may have resurrected the arts of Allag, its still heavily rooted in what you already know. You're basically re-inventing some of the sacred geometry usually used to give form to the latent power of gems to instead conjure forth the taint of Garuda upon your own aether.

In Limsa Lominsa, as it was in Nym, the aim of the game is strategy - have a practiced plan ready to engage any situation. Every arcanist should have a playbook - a lexicon of all geometrical patterns used in aforementioned plans (an... omni-lex, if you will). You'll even see Lominsan arcanists sometimes combining the strategy and math to calculate the odds of success in employing a specific stratagem.

To gain an upper hand in combat, the arcanist (armed with a book and requiring time to pen out their geometry) needs to enfeeble stronger, more agile opponents coming at them with physical weapons. A good way to do that is to make them ill - to conjure forth maladies that slow them down, blunt their healing, sap their strength, and leave them wasting away.

As a modern-day summoner, you just come with a background in contemporary Lominsan arcanima. The job skills merely teach you how to put more oomph in it and how to infuse your aetherial constructs with primal essences (until you get to 50, where you start learning some of the specifically Allagan themes, which you focus on the ultra-powerful, recently-deceased Bahamut - whose tainted aether is already just... everywhere). However, you're still a fusion of past and present.

[myahele]

Yeah, the disease spells really are just "left over" from the ACN base and I never got the impression that Allagan specialized in that. If anything, the disease-based spells are more in line with how Nymian scholars used their abilities?

Additionally, prior to the 5th Astral Era, the umbral era (age of frost?) was said to have been a place full of disease/plague. I hypothesize that proto-scholars (since they traveled to heal people) replicated those same disease into their offensive spells.

[Jonnycbad]

Same holds true for DRG. You're half Gridanian Lancer and half Ishgardian DRG. When you do the 52+ quests, the NPC asks you to train her and her cadre of Dragoons. Her reasoning is that she observes how you are able to fight not just Dragons but other types of creatures from your adventures and that our combat skills are 'unusual'--probably eluding to the foreign techniques we use from Gridania's Lancer's Guild. This gives you a distinct edge, vs pure Ishgardian DRGs who are trained *only* to combat Dravanians

[Sovi]

Snip.

Is it weird that I kinda daydreamed about Lala Chia Pet version of you that would sit on my desk and answer my questions when I water it.
I would be so good to Chia-you, I would get you one of those sunlight lamps and everything.

[Anonymoose]

<Chia-Moose>

I bet between the BTN / ALC guilds and the Ironworks, we could whip up a chia-moose that houses a Loremonger linkpearl. It could grow desert plants from the top of its mortarboard and have antlers carved of genuine coeurlregina horn.

[Jonnycbad]

Also the reason is

WHM is Earth, Water, Light, Wind based magic.
BLM is Fire, Lightning based magic.
ACN/SCH/SMN spells are non-elemental, as referenced by when you cast Ruin/Broil/Miasma/etc there is a rainbow-aura being channeled into you rather than a colored energy like with Stoneskin or Fire spells. Disease based spells sound like something that would not be associated with an element I guess--thought in past FF games, Bio was associated with Dark element (but sometimes non-elemental or poison-elemental). Come to think of it...are there ANY Dark based spells players can cast?

[Annana]

are there ANY Dark based spells players can cast?

Sleep and Repose use a distinctly dark casting aura.

[Jonnycbad]

Does DRK get any 'spells'? PLD's Clemency is a non-elemental.

[Darkstride]

I don't know that Arcanist spells are actually "diseases". Correct me if there is lore that says otherwise.

I think they are more like magical afflictions (like a curse or a hex, as opposed to a physical poison). The energy is manipulated in a way that it burrows directly into the host and eats away at them.