I don't want the devs to give up on Chemist

[Cidel]

For the 'chemist' angle I never got why people thought that was hinting at a job, especially when we were wrapping things up on the first and new jobs aren't likely to be tied to the First going forward.

People here like to latch on to the smallest of details and make leaps of logic to guess the next jobs coming in the upcoming expansions.

I remember people seeing Lyse in her red Ala mighan dress in SB's cinematic trailer and were entirely convinced "Dancer Confirmed! Look!! Dancer! Next Melee DPS!!!" I think someone here did the HW's Manderville quest and took the crude drawing of the mammet in blue and was like "Blue mage!" (ironically, we did get Blue mage, but they were right for the wrong reasons and at a much later date). Astrologian loses "time-based" abilities and people see that as a potential for opening up a spot for Timemage. Whitemage phases-out earth and wind in their spell kit and some people see that as a potential opening for Geomancer. So naturally, near the end of ShB, people see an NPC talking about a field medic on the battlefield healing with conventional medicine and immediately start saying its really a hint to Chemist; but to be fair, that's one of the least absurd leaps of logic in terms of new job speculation around here.

[Fland]

Given my previous point about some of the Chemist concept going to MCH, MCH used to have Gauss barrel which functionally turned it into a caster, but thematically it wasn't. I feel like something like this would be their work around of keeping it within theme without breaking anything mechanical. But yeah they would still need to justify MP use, but non-casters still use it.

Back then MCH and BRD has "casting" yeah, tho that doesn't make them "casters". It's akin more to "charging" I guess.
Some DoW jobs like PLD and DRK utilize MP, but the tank battle system does not revolve around MP like the DoM jobs do.

Let's say we go into A4S, there's MP purge mechanic there. PLD and DRK can still perform their basic function without their MP, but healers and casters almost could not and have to time their MP regen CDs.
Imagine if we have a healer that is barely affected by this mechanic at that time, it'd be unfair to them no?

Then we have all of those logos, lost actions and essences in Eureka and Bozja. The healer ones are made specifically for healer stat. For example, DoM always have more magical defense than physical defense, so the Essence of Veteran for healers have more buff to their physical defense than magical ones. Then we have Lost Burst that increases magic damage taken by enemy. If we have a non-magical healer then those essence and action will work differently for them.

All these things need to be adjusted if they were to add a non-magical DoW healer like people want Chemist to be.

[kaynide]

I don't think it was as Meta as that, just them having fun making alternate sorts of WOLs from other shards to have us fight, things that werne't one to one to in game jobs.

I mean, there was a time when the players asked "Please make Atmas easier to find! (as in easier to obtain) and the Devs said "Sure OK! We'll make them easier to find!" (and made the atmas different colors so they were "easier to locate in your inventory")

[Lyth]

I think that they wanted to introduce a job that would offer a competitive alternative to SCH's near perpetual raid slot in most groups. That's the underlying point behind the new 'pure'/'shield' healer subroles. Chemist probably would be better suited for a ground effect based regen healer that let you 'Mix' overlapping effects, but WHM/AST already have their own rivalry going on for the remaining healer slot. I would have preferred a chemist style healer as well (and would hope that it's their next healer design), but this is probably healthier for the game at the moment.

This is what they did with BRD's raid slot as well. Create a subrole around it, then introduce alternatives. Variety is important, and sometimes you just have to dislodge the reigning champ from a guaranteed locked slot.

[Kozh]

People here like to latch on to the smallest of details and make leaps of logic to guess the next jobs coming in the upcoming expansions.

Who says it's going to be the First job? I don't think anyone is stupid enough to want that.

I disagree that it's a leaps of logic. We knew a new healer is coming, then in msq emwe got an npc who specifically wants to be the WoL, but by healing people with potion. If they just want to hint in new healer, why specify the potion? If anything, by the recent interview they did intend to make chemist, but have problem with it and turn it into sage. Most probably that's why sage took a long time to develop (unlike reaper which took three months to developed from start to the current build).

As for the "it should be DoM job", I don't really see a problem? Just make them do casting for their skills. If brd can be bow mage I'm sure chemist can too. Just say that they're imbuing the portions with aether before chucking it. Mixing potions? Do it a la TCJ or healer steps, and it would result in three charges of potions (like aetherflow). Magic is just flavor animation anyway.

I love sage, but I don't want them to give up on chemist either.

[MorionQ]

With SE going the direction of healers being split into multiple categories like DPS are, I think Chemist, at least regarding how most of us expect it to play, would likely make a third category of healers that aren’t mages. With TP scrapped, the devs would need an entirely new resource for chemists to tap into for their skills, and balancing that with the mages who have have the same pool of resources would be a nightmare.

One thing, however, is Astrologian essentially gave us Geomancer without actually giving us Geomancer. With Sage looking to be “science healer,” I wouldn’t put it past the devs to shoehorn some Chemist stuff in the abilities and story of Sage.

[Saefinn]

Back then MCH and BRD has "casting" yeah, tho that doesn't make them "casters". It's akin more to "charging" I guess.
Some DoW jobs like PLD and DRK utilize MP, but the tank battle system does not revolve around MP like the DoM jobs do.

Let's say we go into A4S, there's MP purge mechanic there. PLD and DRK can still perform their basic function without their MP, but healers and casters almost could not and have to time their MP regen CDs.
Imagine if we have a healer that is barely affected by this mechanic at that time, it'd be unfair to them no?

Then we have all of those logos, lost actions and essences in Eureka and Bozja. The healer ones are made specifically for healer stat. For example, DoM always have more magical defense than physical defense, so the Essence of Veteran for healers have more buff to their physical defense than magical ones. Then we have Lost Burst that increases magic damage taken by enemy. If we have a non-magical healer then those essence and action will work differently for them.

All these things need to be adjusted if they were to add a non-magical DoW healer like people want Chemist to be.

Yeah, I don't think there's any way they could keep it balanced by removing any MP aspect, they'd have to technically be casters, but the flavour and lore explanation/background could be what sets it apart here.

In a way, Sage looks like it able to fulfill a technological aesthetic whilst technically being magical.

[Kahnom]

Throwing a potion to your party memeber’s face looks like hurting them more than healing them to me.

[PangTong]

I was a little surprised to hear that they dropped Chemist/Apothecary because they couldn't nail down a weapon or theme for it.

Here you go: Magic Cannon that converts your body's aether into healing energy, and you can put alchemical ingredients in it to enhance the effect. Done.

Makes sense for a mage, works with the theme of a medicine-user, and it's already supported by existing lore (the machinist lunchbox converts your own aether into electricity to power your robots, plus there's the aether bazooka that gatherers use in Diadem).

It sounds to me like they didn't even try and basically just ended up getting distracted by the idea for Sage once they thought of the idea of flying weapons you control with your mind. Sadly I kind of doubt they'll ever add another healer and even if they do, it's many many years away now.

[Radacci]

I disagree that it's a leaps of logic. We knew a new healer is coming, then in msq emwe got an npc who specifically wants to be the WoL, but by healing people with potion. If they just want to hint in new healer, why specify the potion?

I love sage, but I don't want them to give up on chemist either.

In that setting pretty much everyone want to become the WoL/D, to rebuild their ruined world, saying she wants to be such doesn't really mean anything special in that context. Also every shop has potions, alchemist can make them. It doesn't really sound interesting to just toss potions at ppl, when i already have some in my inventory. Are Chemists supposed to toss out infinite supply of Mega Elixirs, and fast cast phoenix down, to res ppl?
Why would they be able to do that for free, when alchemist need materials to manually Craft them?

I was a little surprised to hear that they dropped Chemist/Apothecary because they couldn't nail down a weapon or theme for it.

Here you go: Magic Cannon that converts your body's aether into healing energy, and you can put alchemical ingredients in it to enhance the effect. Done.

ppl want it to NOT be a magic healer though.