Let's talk Scholar: Changes, Class fantasy and Abilities

[NobleWinter]

I have a question/comment about class fantasy / lore.
SCH had bio (and other removed dots) thanks to ACN, but that's no longer the case.

Seeing how Nimian civilisation ended due to a disease, how does that make sense to have these lines of spells ?
I mean, sure, they studied it to find a cure but that was already the end ; their whole point before that was startegy and heal.

It's important to make a clear distinction between what we learn as an Arcanist thru the Guild in Limsa and what we gain from the Scholar soulstone. The "Disease" spells are from the Arcanist training we undergo. Scholar used to have an Esuna clone spell called Leeches that did the same thing. It showed how the Nymian Scholar's devised their own way to deal with plaque and affliction. Our Characters are using a mixture of Arcanist and Scholar spells for maximum effectiveness.

[Calysto]

The Bio spells are essentially the reverse of this happening; the target’s aether is manipulated in a way that causes its gradual breakdown.

Wasn't the lasts quests saying that was actually what they were missing ? (aetherial unbalance causing them to transform)

It's important to make a clear distinction between what we learn as an Arcanist thru the Guild in Limsa and what we gain from the Scholar soulstone. The "Disease" spells are from the Arcanist training we undergo. Scholar used to have an Esuna clone spell called Leeches that did the same thing. It showed how the Nymian Scholar's devised their own way to deal with plaque and affliction. Our Characters are using a mixture of Arcanist and Scholar spells for maximum effectiveness.

That's the point of my post, since ACN got retcon'ed, with SMN change does it still makes sense for SCH to have it ? at least under a name that seems to clash with the lore.
For that reason ruins are understandable since it still come from ACN (it becoming broil is another thing that doesn't make much sense to me. Who think broiling is a scholar thing ?)

[RinaShinomiya]

Wasn't the lasts quests saying that was actually what they were missing ? (aetherial unbalance causing them to transform)



That's the point of my post, since ACN got retcon'ed, with SMN change does it still makes sense for SCH to have it ? at least under a name that seems to clash with the lore.
For that reason ruins are understandable since it still come from ACN (it becoming broil is another thing that doesn't make much sense to me. Who think broiling is a scholar thing ?)

Broiling is a scholar thing because current SCH class fantasy is a nerd redditor with a fairy. I'm not messing around with you.

embroil - VERB
involve (someone) deeply in an argument, conflict, or difficult situation.

Scholars are literally arguing with enemies which causes damage. They are defeating people with facts and logic. In the German translation, which is more based off of JP terminology than the English one, Broil II receives "Heated" adjective in its name, Broil III gets "Destroying" and Broil IV gets "Brutal".

Also Art of War is just a book SCH picked up in a library.

[Calysto]

The more you know
I guess the next evolution is "Roast" then

[Connor]

Wasn't the lasts quests saying that was actually what they were missing ? (aetherial unbalance causing them to transform)

If you’re referring to people becoming monsters in Endwalker then not exactly. That aetherial imbalance was an intentional result of the sundering, and one of the only reasons we were able to put up a fight against Meteion. They meant that was the aether of people on Hydaelyn simply isn’t as strong as it was for the Amaurotine. Their creation magics were possible because of the vast amounts of aether they had. But because normal humans on Hydaelyn don’t have the same amount of aether, Meteion’s song had to take a different approach to see them destroyed. Post-sundering though, all remaining living beings had their aether ‘sundered’ to prevent a repeat of what happened on the Final Days and give the world hope by allowing people to interact with Dynamis. To compensate, Meteion’s approach changes from transforming the creations, to transforming the physical body.

The transformations you see in Shadowbringers and Endwalker are basically aetherial corruption of a specific and overpowering form. For example, the Sin Eaters were the result of a person’s body becoming so full of light aether that their aether became warped and twisted (hence form changes). With Meteion however, rather than warp or twist the target’s aether, her intention was to simply ‘delete’ it; as in, causing the target’s aether to vanish from existence, likely to ensure that it would be an absolute death. A side of effect of the vanishing aether, coupled with the emotional distress people were during Endwalker, resulted in them being unable to maintain their physical forms in the face of Meteion’s song, thus becoming the horrific and monsters we see.

So essentially, if you think of ‘Bio’ as magic acid that gradually turns the target’s aether into mush, things like unintentional transformation from aetherial imbalance or destruction are akin to a ‘magical cancer’ where the disease is so severe that it attacks the thing that gives that body physical form (if that makes any sense lol). So whilst Bio sees aether break down in such a way to cause harm to another, the principles behind transformations is more about fundamentally changing the aether inside a person (e.g with light or complete removal) as opposed to simply being the result of a breakdown of aether. You aren’t as much ‘destroying’ a target’s aether with Bio as much as simply breaking it down until the target is no longer able to function. But the target wouldn’t simply cease to exist or disappear once the spell had its run course; not physically anyway

As for Broil as previous poster said it’s a play on words. Broil meaning both ‘to cook’ and ‘to engage in heated argument’. I can’t speak for other languages, but I know the JP translations of spell names end up being fairly different from their localisation. Using Broil as an example, the translation is, or was, ‘Extreme Demon Flame Method’ lol. Sacred Soil was something like, ‘Circular Defensive Formation’ lol. I think the idea for the JP spell naming was to have them named practically based on function as opposed to being more poetic or philosophical. Adloquium is literally called Inspire in JP, which is literally what Adloquium means in Latin lol. Unfortunately that’s somewhat lost in translation because the localisers decided to go for the holy priestly theme with ‘Sacred’ Soil and ‘Lustrate’ (to give off intense light), thought they then decided to go for the ‘practical naming’ theme for future skills (i.e Emergency and Deployment Tactics, Broil is literally named after what you’re doing to cast the spell, Expedient is fairly self explanatory when you consider the name.

One thing about that though, it honestly gives me conniptions that the ability is called Expedient and not Expedience, Expedite or Expedition. Nouns are for naming things not adjectives lol

[Calysto]

If you’re referring to people becoming monsters in Endwalker then not exactly.

I was refering to the 80 quest where thanks to our experience in the first and light inbalance (and sin eater transformation), we were able to help them figure a cure to Mach disease/curse.
so yes, apocalypse's transformation is another thing, but Mach's is aether inbalance/manipulation.
I guess Bio could be about messing aether with no notion of elemental balance ; but that would still be close to their affliction. Seems weird they lacked informations about elements being scholars in the "magi's era"

From what i seen, SCH naming conventions depends on localization a lot ; with many treatises/stratagems being lost in english.

[RinaShinomiya]

For more Scholar trivia from the German translation (Gotta pass qeue time somehow):
Deployment Tactics is called Dislocation. Dislocation is a term used in the medicine field for dislocated organs/bones (stuff being in wrong spots of the body). I guess the idea is that the Shield is dislocated and we spread it to the proper spots (whoever is in range) or the other way around.
Emergency Tactics is called Apotropaion (Apotropaic magic) which is "old greek for a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye". No need to really make any comparisons this one is self explanatory.
Yes in the german translation (and i assume the japanese one too) SCH has only 2 tactician related skills, Art of War and Chain Stratagem (called Critical Strategy).
Here is a fun one, Biolosys is called Causae et curae which is latin and roughly translates to "About causes and cures of Sicknesses" Yes it's another Book SCH found in the crystarium library, or rather 6 books that together form 1 volume. The funny thing is that the same author also wrote a book called "Physica". The only thing missing is actually meeting a character called Hildegard of Bingen. This might give flavor to why SCH player come up with a cure in the level 80 Job quest. I really wish we had flavor text like BLU spells do.

[Connor]

I was refering to the 80 quest where thanks to our experience in the first and light inbalance (and sin eater transformation), we were able to help them figure a cure to Mach disease/curse.
so yes, apocalypse's transformation is another thing, but Mach's is aether inbalance/manipulation.
I guess Bio could be about messing aether with no notion of elemental balance ; but that would still be close to their affliction. Seems weird they lacked informations about elements being scholars in the "magi's era"

From what i seen, SCH naming conventions depends on localization a lot ; with many treatises/stratagems being lost in english.

Yeah, though the principles behind how the Mhach transformed the Nymians was the same principle behind people’s transformations on the First. I think the logic for that quest was basically ‘we’ve seen that too much of any one kind of aether turns you into a thing, so maybe the Tonberries just need less of whatever aether was stuffed into them’.

When it comes to stuff like Bio, it’s more about changing the aether that’s already there, whilst with the transformations, it’s about adding new aether that shouldn’t be there (at least in the case of Sin Eaters and Tonberries). So while there are similarities, I think the different functions are why Scholars didn’t all turn around and say ‘why are we using the same stuff as our enemies’ lol.

As to the reason why they ended up with two spells that were so similar and yet so different is also likely due to the way they manipulated the aether. The way it’s done can have as much effect on the end result; channeling aether from the land around you can result in both unimaginable powers over life or catastrophic powers of destruction (White and Black Mage). Where Scholars used geometric formula and written text to manipulate aether, the Mhach I believe drew aether from the land itself as the precursors to Black Mages.

And as we know from what happened afterwards, drawing that aether results in massively powerful magic - far more powerful than could be created using any normal. But eventually the land will run dry of aether, so the elementals yeet everyone into oblivion with a great flood so the planet doesn’t hit a ‘worst-case scenario’.

I guess theoretically what Mhach inflicted on the Nymians could be described as like a ‘Super-Ultra-Bio’ that caused such severe aether corruption (purely a guess but I’d imagine towards darkness since it generally represents atrophy with light representing stagnation) it physically mutated the inhabitants, something only made possible by drawing vast amounts of aether from the land.

And yeah in general there is fairly little to go on in terms of Scholar lore, since Nym no longer exists and it’s citizens are all stab-happy monsters. Especially in terms of, why their spells took the forms that they did. The only thing that’s really explored in detail is the fairy.

[Connor]

snip

Yeah, flavour text like with BLU spells would be amazing, even if it was just brief. It’d be nice to know more about all the abilities we use, like why they ended up doing what they do, or how they were developed, etc.

Probably a more commonly known fact but the name of the level 90 book ‘Epeolatry’, translates specifically to ‘worship of words’ in Greek (they really went all in with the Ancient Greek this expansion lol).

Naturally, it’s less about religious/faith based worship (though having mass for the word of the day would be interesting lol) and more about accepting the power our words can have, which is more literal for Scholars than anyone else. Essentially, we’re running around with a book that’s about loving books, full of words that describe how great words are lol.

[Calysto]

Probably a more commonly known fact but the name of the level 90 book ‘Epeolatry’, translates specifically to ‘worship of words’ in Greek (they really went all in with the Ancient Greek this expansion lol).

Naturally, it’s less about religious/faith based worship (though having mass for the word of the day would be interesting lol) and more about accepting the power our words can have, which is more literal for Scholars than anyone else. Essentially, we’re running around with a book that’s about loving books, full of words that describe how great words are lo

Damned ; I had a "sch rework" idea a few month back around a mudra-like system of combining words to replace AF.
I still think that'd be cool (and convoluted, but whatever).