Astral/Umbral???

[Rydin]

While I understand what they were aiming for, which was having all classes having an equal amount of abilities, I do miss the diversity that mages had in the past. We lost so many amazing spells, Drain, Aspir, Absorb-Spells, countless debuffs (I understand some debuffs come attached to nukes now, but it's still not the same =\). The one thing that really bothers me more then the loss of Astral and Umbral spells is the fact that we lost water based nukes, it just feels like we have a hole in the elemental wheel, especially considering we still have things like Water Brand.. and the new Choker that has Water Magic Potency +20/25.

I keep telling myself these changes must fit very well into the big picture... Just no one else gets to see more than 10% of the big picture

They'll likely return, but on new classes. Having all the elements and debuffs on only two mage classes left no room for new mage classes.

I do very much agree with this... I am very anxious to see how it plays out...
There are 8 general mage rolls
1. heal 2. buff/enhance 3. Enfeeble 4. Elemental Nuke 5. Astral Nuke 6. Umbral Nuke 7. DoTs 8. Summoner
I was hoping to see each class generalize in 2 of these... and then get 2 jobs per class... that each branch off and specialize in one of the 2
So 4 total mage classes, 8 total mage jobs
But then Yoshi kind of did a hacksaw job on the classes
He still might add a second job per class.. but any second job that is added to Thaum that is NOT an elemental Nuking class will feel awkward because that's pretty much all thaums do. Thaum doesn't even have the possibility of a job other than BLM

WOW does indeed have that. I'm going catch a lot of hell for this, but Blizzard has always been way more creative with spells and skills in their games than SE has.

That is both the gift and the curse of Final Fantasy... the beauty and the beast.
One of the familiar elements is the spell list. Many spells are reused throughout the series. In fact, Magic is one of the biggest recurring themes. So a brand new game or franchise has more room to branch out with the magic... most people in FF expect to see Flare, Meteor, Aero, Ice, Fire, etc...
There are some variables... Comet in some games as a low level meteor... Thunder/lightning/bolt (although they are arguably just a different name for the same thing)
And these Astral and Umbral categories represented a chance for something fresh... hence the purpose of this thread

Well in the beginning of XIV, Umbral (essentially dark-based) and Astral (light-based) spells were pretty much all Thaumaturge had (the whole "power over life and death" thing). When they shuffled abilities, CNJ passed three elements to THM, and astral/umbral spells basically disappeared from the game. :< I miss them, and would like to see them back. ^^

Thats the biggest issue....
I am not stuck in the past... and I understand Yoshi has his vision. Maybe its a cultural thing in terms of how we approach problems....
But the mage classes (Which indeed needed an overhaul) could have kept their basic ideas the same
CNJ could get Cure and Cura, and tiers 1 and 2 of the elements (i.e. Fire and Fira but no Firaga or Flare), Then CNJ could get both BLM and WHM as job choices
THM needed to be trimmed (Thaum didn't need heals or TP weaponskills).. but not so much. Thaum could have been the YING YANG of this game... something Final fantasy has never seen before. An Astral/Umbral Mage.....
And the 2 jobs could have gone to 1 Astral and 1 Umbral.
The Astral Mage job could have Astral nukes.. and since there aren't that many Astral Nukes to choose from, also have elements of time mage. Time mage was originally called "time/space mage" anyway
The Umbral Mage job could combine the small amount of possible Umbral spells with DoTs
Then you'd have a lot more variety and less class stacking... because there are now 3 mages that can do different types of damage

I'm not very sure what the OP has against Astral and Umbral elements? I mean, it's not like our elemental relationship is centered around the Astral/Umbral relationship, unless I misunderstand things.

Astral and Umbral are like our seventh and eighth elements, though they're combinations of elements. I think it's a pretty interesting and unique concept, and i'd sincerely like to see it worked on a bit more and used a little bit more often.

Thats my point... I thought that was clear... I'm saying the Astral/Umbral was an innovative idea and yet the game seems to have veered away from them. I was just wondering would they return and in what capacity