After playing 1.20 I have finally set my opinion about this. Beware, wall of text!! I just wrote down whatever came to my mind. Please keep in mind that this is entirely personal, ok? It's just my own humble opinion.
And to make that obvious, I LIKE the patch in general and I like FF14. Nevertheless the following issue really saddens me.


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Mechanically CNJ is playable very well, I do agree but now I really understand SE even less.
CNJ is the "typical healer" class? But I do great damage - more than before (and I like that). I was afraid that with two elements left I could only face a little amount of monsters but each monster seems to be allergic towards either stone or wind. So basically the elements do not really have much of an influence anymore, it seems to me.

Before 1.20 I used to find out what elements to use and what not and this was really interesting to me because it made SENSE to have elemental spells. It made CNJ fun because you had to find out the enemies' weakness before (didn't take too long but was still required).

Same with THM now. Even if one element doesn't help you can nuke the mob with one of the two others.
Of course this is better for training because you can face any mob. But at the same time the elements do not really play a role anymore - they are just names with little parametical differences. (Please tell me if I'm wrong on higher levels! But I really tried out many mobs and always made this experience.)
The whole elemental system seems to be rather a facade to me now and this makes me sad.

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To be honest I don't even know why I should train THM because CNJ does nice damage as well, has the heals but seems to have a better MP pool (especially because THMs skills for saving mp only work once per skill and have a cooldown of 1 1/2 mins - this is really awful, especially because CNJs offensive magic enhancing skill stays the whole time and the old CNJ skill for consuming half of the needed MP but being tied to one spot also lasted longer).


I really miss the old concepts because they were content concepts; they were part of the story I played. I like it a lot that I can do nice damage, don't get me wrong and I also like that there are less skills but to me the "feeling" of CNJ and THM is lost; they even feel pretty similar now in handling.

You might ask "why bother, mage is mage".

Personally I play an RPG for the sake of identification, for tactics etc. If I wanted just something to put damage on a foe why would I care about the diversity of classes? Hitting the mob with a simple strong weapon would do damage as well...Being CNJ and THM was not the same for me, just like being gladiator and maroder is not the same. Playing a MMORPG DOES mean being part of an Role Playing Game. I "felt" as if I was a part of the world, of Gridania, an elemental spiritual or what not but now this story is an empty shell to me.

I einjoyed being either a "witch" between life and death/light and darkness or an elemental mage that is connected to nature, listens to it, protects it and uses its powers.

I attended bothe mages' guilds and to me their new set up just doesn't fit into what they seem to represent in the ingame world.
Why emphasizing that CNJs are the "messagers" of nature when THM can handle as much natural power (or practically even more) than CNJs?
And THMs seem to be somehow wise as well, not in the elemental/nature-like way but rather in a philosophical way regarding death and life/after life, earthly possessions and so on. It sounds very astral and mystical to me so the powers of light and darkness fit perfectly imo but the random elements just don't match with it in my personal opinion. It seems so...out of place for "arcanists" to use nature if they are actually connected with the core role of life and death, light and darkness.


I heard that an arcanist is planned to be implemented, but why not keeping the old THM (and the CNJ) then?
Just to have more classes in numbers?
I would rather welcome other magical concepts like red mage, blue mage, beast master. Those are magicians too but they have their own special expertised fiels that are their characteristics. Like CNJ and THM used to have to me but like I said in terms of handling they feel even more similar than they did before.


I really really don't mind the CNJ to be the rather defensive class but seriously, now it is even less defensive than before 1.20 (strong damage skills, buff to enhance offensive magic, aoes).
So if CNJ is meant to be strong, too why not leaving the elements other to him and enhancing his healing with a job like it will be with any other class while THM has (strong) light and shadow spells, and maybe different hexes that enhance their damage (like very strong skills to weaken magical defense, light/shadow DoTs, skills like "dream eater" (strong but only usable if the target sleeps - got that from pokemon, lol)) or what so ever?

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I have the feeling that this is less and less FF14, which I bought. Of course we are going to get a new game because there need to be so many things fixed but why does SE take its characteristical and in my humble opinion GOOD parts about it out to replace them instead of omptimizing those and using their potential (Ul'dah's and Gridania's lores are tied to the mages - they seem to be somewhat important for both cities).

I really hope that FF14 stays FF14 but with revamped "set up". Now I have fear that they are really making "FF15" - a game similar to FF11 (and 14) and yet different in its core.
Like I said this view is very personal, I understand if others don't share it. But I hope so much that SE does not drop the good parts of FF14 because there ARE so many good parts that could be amazing if they were pulled up the right way.