Lorewise, are Time Mages viable? [Discussion]

[Anonymoose]

Thank you! That's mostly welcome help. But... Why do they do that, after all? ;-;

It's a holdover from the early days of the re-launch. Why they never re-evaluated its purpose, I'll never know.

But I might as well toss in my two cents on the OP, right?

When it comes to vague theoreticals like this, I have to keep myself in check, though. I'll end up going on a six-page diatribe that basically amounts of the meeting minutes of a battle team brainstorming session that never came to fruition.

That said, time magic already exists via both Allag and Sharlayan (at least), so a mage that utilizes such magicks as the cornerstone of its traditions is of course theoretically possible. When I try to imagine what it might be like, I, too, skew towards healer.

Thematically, if you slow an enemy, it attacks allies less often. If you haste allies, the enemy dies with fewer chances to attack. Both of these result in fewer enemy actions per encounter, and thus less damage taken. Even solo, the former allows you more opportunity for defense, the latter more opportunity for offense. A simple theme to build on, but a stable one.

Manipulation of over-time effects, stop (bind or stun), gravity (slow or weight), reflect barriers, entropy damage, "black hole" temporal effects. I could see it all theoretically working.

But at the end of the day I try not to think of classes and jobs beyond them being balanced button mashing within a given role, hoping that they'll combine aesthetics and lore to make something I find enjoyable. The little nuances of rhythm, flow, timing, positioning I don't do well contemplating in advance; I tend to learn-by-doing in that respect, lol.

[Claymore65]

It's been a while, but I believe the Astrologian is already using Time Magic to reverse damage. During one of the quests, I distinctly remember a Knight complaining about your healing magic, since it didn't leave a scar. Unfortunately, I feel like it might be really hard to make a significant distinction between a Time Mage healer and the Astrolgian.

[Risvertasashi]

When I try to imagine what it might be like, I, too, skew towards healer.

Like... Astrologian? xP

It's been a while, but I believe the Astrologian is already using Time Magic to reverse damage. During one of the quests, I distinctly remember a Knight complaining about your healing magic, since it didn't leave a scar. Unfortunately, I feel like it might be really hard to make a significant distinction between a Time Mage healer and the Astrolgian.

Astro can even haste allies and has various other time-themed abilities. So I have to agree with you, I really doubt we'll see something distinct from what we have.

[Rocl]

The good Astrologians only deal with the Dragon Star anyways.

[Eloah]

Stuff

Okay a lot to dissect here, phew... First, and I apologize as I mean no disrespect, but Astro is the "Time Mage" of FFXIV. While not a common job it has appeared in the series a total of 3 times: Tactics, FFXIV, and Bravely Default: End Layer. In both Tactics and BD, they are considered support jobs that buff allies(BD) or debuff them(TAC). Both of those games also have a Job system that allows for players to combine abilities; they also both have defined Time Mages. FFXIV's AST however, are a combo, in a way, since they are buffers(cards), have debuff skills(Disable, Stella, and possibly their DoTs), and Their abilities are rooted in Time and Space(Healing Spells, Gravity, Time Dilation, etc)

Next I want to explain how/why the spells are aligned as they are at the moment. When FFXIV launched they tried to create brand new "Jobs" among them Conjurer and Thaumaturge. Each distinctive in its own way, CNJ with all elemental spells, and THM with new Astral and Umbral spells. Well 1.0 started to bomb, and in a quick fix they re-purposed each "Job", and CNJ became WHM and THM became BLM. Now when they were fixing the skills for these jobs, they had to give them each offensive spells. Traditionally Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder have always been BLM spells, but Water, Aero, and Stone, have been classified as, Black, White, Time, Blue. So giving the new WHM those spells made sense.

The other thing I wanted to mention was how you seemed to categorize the magic from FFXIV. The best way I could explain this is to look at FFVI. Each spell in VI had a dot next to it, Black, White, and Gray; the best way to categorize them is Black meant offensive, White was defensive, and Gray was other, as in it could not really be classified. Only in a few games are magic spells split into certain distinctions, eg. Black, White, Red, Blue, Green, Time, Arcane, Yellow... is there a Yellow Mage, lol. Anyway, FF games have always shuffled their spells around; and although some have been consistent, others have been more fluid, moving where they are needed in the current game. Some games don't even have classifications, like FFVIII.

Red: There is no Red Magic, Red Mage is just the classification of someone who can use Black and White magic; within the context of that game.
White: Usually the healing magics are considered White, but in games where a White Mage needs to be able to attack with its own spells, they were given some, usually Aero, Stone, or Water. Now while I cannot state as to why they gave them these 3 spells, my guess would be that it has to do with the 4 traditional elements: Fire; male-aggressive, Earth; female-aggressive, Wind; male-passive, Water; female-passive. WHMs are usually depicted as girls, and Water and Earth are female elements, Wind, though male, is passive, and White Magic could be viewed as "passive" to Blacks "aggressive".
Black: Anything offensive could be considered Black Magic, and all 6 of the "main" elements have been Black Magic. Even their "big" spell Ultima was a White Magic spell when it debuted.
Time: Time Magics usually dealt with some aspect of time, but similar to WHMs, they needed some form of offense. They sometimes have Quake(Stone) or Aero. And their common Gravity and Meteor/Comet spells have been Black Magics before.
Green: Green Magic is fairly new, and is usually only seen in the Ivalice games. It is classified as status magic, buffs and debuffs, but all of their spells have been either White or Black from the start.
Arcane: Arcane Magicis another newer magic and similar to Green mostly found in Ivalice as well; though the term can be used for other kinds as well. Their spells tend to be Black or Time in most games.
Blue: Blue Magic has always been Enemy Skills, but what skills they are can change. They've had Aero and Water spells, and some variation of Black or White Magic spells with LV1-5 before it, like Lv5 death.
Plus there have been other kinds, Summon, Spirit, Dark, Ninjutsu, and more might come in the future. Basically, think of it like our tomes, SE is just giving us a fancy new name for the same thing

Plus the best way I could describe the magic of FFXIV, isn't White, Black, Nymian, Allagan, etc its Astral and Umbral. Anything offensive would be aligned to the Astral aspect of that "spell" active, forceful, unstable. And anything defensive is aligned to the Umbral aspect, reactive, calm, stable.

Addendum: I wanna add this as I noticed something upon my review. Apparently WHM hasn't really been associated with Water until FFXIV. If I was thinking of anything prior, I might of been projecting the concept of Water as a "cleansing" device for the myriad WHM's that cleanse various debuffs. But regardless of prior entries, WHM's are associated with Water as of FFXIV.

Figured it was just something taken as granted in the hypothetical, lol. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've seen similar discussions on Thief in spite of Ninja (though at least in that case there's a class to branch).

True but in some games, Ninja does upgrade from a Thief, this just happens to be one of them.

[Wyldkat99]

One minor nitpick from me: Reflect first appeared in FFIV

[ADVSS]

One minor nitpick from me: Reflect first appeared in FFIV

yup it was called WALL. Tjere was a WALL in the english nes FF1 as well, but i dont think it reflected magic.

and I agree the gigi thing made me wonder, but ive pretty much come to the conclusion that astro was meant to be the time mage we'll get... theres only a few spells time mages had that astro dont, things like age(would inflict weakness on enemies), reset/warp(restarts the battle completely),from the arcane pool 'reverse' makes perfect sense for a time magic spell if ever implemented. Ast has sort of a skill that heals you more the lower your health is, its sort of a less cheesy way to do it.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

While not a common job it has appeared in the series a total of 3 times: Tactics, FFXVI, and Bravely Default:

Wow you must be a real life time mage

usually Aero, Stone, or Water. Now while I cannot state as to why they gave them these 3 spells,

Well my guess is they draw aether from their surroundings i.e trees which tap into the planets aether. Trees need oxygen(Aero) stone(earth) and water to survive, also a tree is shown for their icon :P

[ADVSS]

Wow you must be a real life time mage

LOL caught that half an hour ago, and was wondering if nobody else noticed