Suggestions for potential Time Mage and Beast Master jobs

[Cocolito]

Just my ideas on how these two jobs can be added into the game. I loved the Time Mage in FF Tactics and Beast Master was always cool in FFXI, and I would love to see these two brought into the game.
We have already seen (Spoiler) use a type of magic that can be considered Time Magic. The "Break" spell used froze enemies in place. They also used gravity magic (levitate) which has always been part of Time Magic, so there already is president for it.
I can see Time Mage fitting in as either a DPS/Support caster. Many of their spells work as support for the party with only few damaging spells, so it can also be argued that they can be a Healer caster, healing wounds by reversing time to a point before being injured.

Now, Beast Master would be an tricky job to enter into the game. While precedent has already been set that this is a thing already in the games canon, implementing it would be interesting. Making it a Pet style job would be the obvious choice, but the devs have had trouble balancing that in the past, seeing as the Summoner job had changed so many times already that it 'Pet' isn't even a combatant anymore. But if they can find a way, I think making it a DPS Pet job would be the most logical way to go about it, just give the pet the similar AI as your Chocobo companion in battle...but different.
Another way to go about it is to make the Beast Master skills use the Pet as the attack.

Here's the Hot Take part of this post, I wouldn't want them to be unlocked only at high levels, such as Reaper and Sage.
I understand why many veteran players would want them unlocked near end game content levels, but I feel this hurts newer player experience and a stronger connection a player can have with the job. An personnel example I have would be Samurai. I have a friend who LOVES Samurai and would have loved to begin playing the game as one, but when I told him he would have to wait till level 50 and complete most of the ARR content, he noped out out right away. Some players just want to go through their MSQ journey as a specific job and not have to wait till way later in the game to do it.
But I wouldn't want the Veteran players to feel like they're being ignored again, so I have a compromise.

Similar to how Arcanist unlocked both Summoner and Scholar, keeping both of their levels together so when leveling one, the other also went up, I think the same thing should be done here with these two jobs. Time Mage could be used off of the Thaumaturge crystal. So any veteran Black Mages can quickly have a high level Time Mage right away, while newer players can go on their MSQ journey as one.
As for the Beast Master, being a job in FFXI that used a one handed weapon and shield, I can see this working off of the Gladiator job crystal. I always found it odd how a Gladiator would be become a holy knight with no other options. Beast Master seems like a good fit, just swap the sword for a 1-handed Ax.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

@Time Mage: Love it. Though too many will riot over the idea that Time Mage becomes a thing because most will stick to the belief that Astrologian and Time Mage are mutually exclusive, due to:
- Time Mage elements previously existing on Astrologian (primarily extending buffs)
- Gravity still being on the job, though it could be replaced at anytime (SCHs moved from Miasma II to Art of War)
- some jiffy lore reasons to why "Astro is basically Time Mage", don't ask me man.

Personally - tear down any and all time aspects of AST and create Time Mage once and for all, if only to see ASTs scream in agony.

@Beast Master: The level for new jobs corresponds to new expansion levelcap -20Lv since Stormblood. It wouldn't make sense to break this pattern now. Regarding combat, I don't think it is a necessity to pass on the pet aspects, though I think the current SMN way to integrate pets into attacks directly is an interesting way to go.

Regarding your friend + SAM: SAM is unlockable after doing Ultima weapon, not ARR as a whole. You scared him for no reason.

[AriaValkyrie]

I've actually been working on making a Time Mage job concept lately!

While it's true that a lot of stuff Time Mage would have is also present on Astro, it's certainly not impossible to imagine them both existing in the same setting. For example, they did add lore for Geomancy being quite similar to Astro where they both draw power from the stars, and while we haven't exactly gotten anything more from that part of the lore, it's an existing type of thread we can compare this to.

Time Mage itself certainly could draw from the stars, much like Geomancer and Astro, or possibly the space between them, in a more direct sense than the other two. It is a known thing that Gravity does exert an effect on how quickly time flows. Basically the less gravity there is, the faster time flows, and the stronger it is the slower, especially when it comes to things like Black Holes.

Sharing certain concepts with Astro, however, really would only part of the story. I've been imagining Time Mages specifically like a keeper of time, where the majority of magics deal with altering the present flow of time and dealing with anyone attempting to abuse Time Magics.

Its possible, too, that Time Mage/s have had dealings with Astros in the study of the stars, possibly even originating from an Astrologian who became the first Time Mage. Could even do this in existing lore, being someone who taught certain Time Magics like Time Dilation and Gravity, with Time Dilation leaving the skillset due to this Astro maybe being branded a heretic, or someone discovering the dangers of dabbling in Time Magic and putting an end to it. There is precedence for Time Magic being called heretical in a certain story line, so it's not out of the question.

I have also been toying with giving them something akin to a flail or meteor hammer as a weapon, since I like the idea of a pendulum type of idle stance for a job based on the concept of time.

I'll be posting the job concept for it eventually so i can show what i was thinking for actions themselves, but I have been enjoying thinking of them as a sister job to Astro, flavor-wise.

[T-Owl]

I've actually been working on making a Time Mage job concept lately!

While it's true that a lot of stuff Time Mage would have is also present on Astro, it's certainly not impossible to imagine them both existing in the same setting. For example, they did add lore for Geomancy being quite similar to Astro where they both draw power from the stars, and while we haven't exactly gotten anything more from that part of the lore, it's an existing type of thread we can compare this to.

Time Mage itself certainly could draw from the stars, much like Geomancer and Astro, or possibly the space between them, in a more direct sense than the other two. It is a known thing that Gravity does exert an effect on how quickly time flows. Basically the less gravity there is, the faster time flows, and the stronger it is the slower, especially when it comes to things like Black Holes.

Sharing certain concepts with Astro, however, really would only part of the story. I've been imagining Time Mages specifically like a keeper of time, where the majority of magics deal with altering the present flow of time and dealing with anyone attempting to abuse Time Magics.

Its possible, too, that Time Mage/s have had dealings with Astros in the study of the stars, possibly even originating from an Astrologian who became the first Time Mage. Could even do this in existing lore, being someone who taught certain Time Magics like Time Dilation and Gravity, with Time Dilation leaving the skillset due to this Astro maybe being branded a heretic, or someone discovering the dangers of dabbling in Time Magic and putting an end to it. There is precedence for Time Magic being called heretical in a certain story line, so it's not out of the question.

I have also been toying with giving them something akin to a flail or meteor hammer as a weapon, since I like the idea of a pendulum type of idle stance for a job based on the concept of time.

I'll be posting the job concept for it eventually so i can show what i was thinking for actions themselves, but I have been enjoying thinking of them as a sister job to Astro, flavor-wise.

I think Time Mage probably could work without taking anything in terms of aesthetics and spells from AST by borrowing heavily from Ultimecia and the way she fights in Dissidia, as she would be the FF character that is most heavily associated with Time.

[AriaValkyrie]

without taking anything in terms of aesthetics and spells from AST

Less directly taking direct spells or aesthetics from Ast and more just similar origins. Time Mage itself would be a separate entity. The only thing i think they would share at the moment is Gravity, which I've made a couple varieties of so far in the creation of actions, though with a more purple look to it like Gravity in other FFs than the starry-gray one Ast has.
I am looking at Ultamecia too for inspiration.

Back to the original post I forgot to talk about in my post:

I wouldn't want them to be unlocked only at high levels, such as Reaper and Sage (and branching jobs)

I can appreciate this to an extent, and while it would be neat to have more varieties of branching jobs like that, but IIRC they don't want to do that with jobs anymore since they do paint themselves into a corner with smn/sch. It also means making a lot more job quests for any jobs that do get shared, since they'll have a whole lot more levels of filler quests to do. Presumably also with skill unlocks.

For Time mage specifically, sticking it on Thaumaturge could be interesting, but the Thaumaturge's field of study's a bit different from what Time Mage would be. Could work out a way to make it work but it would be strange to say the least. Might be better jobs to branch from Thaumaturge, since the problem is that it would get tied into the aspect of needing the starting spells from Thaum as a basis for the job.

Maybe an Elementalist instead, though...

As for Beast master, branching off of Gladiator could make some semblance more sense. Possibly have there be a crossover over to Gridania for the bulk of the job quests. I can dig the concept though.
I did have a thought to make one similar to how Summoner works, with summoning/calling a creature and having their attacks change based on said creature, though more melee based, and having the beasts in question being more on a timer, like Esteem and the Automaton Queen, possibly also with a finisher like Pile Bunker/Crowned Collider to finish each beast's "phase".
I think having Beast Master unlocked early would make the most sense for job quests, since their skill unlocks could easily be to hunt and capture beasts/monsters and adding them to their general rotation

From a gameplay standpoint i think adding a branching level between a tank and a dps would be cool to get people who wouldn't normally tank the ability to try it out, or vise versa. That is, of course, if they'd go for more split jobs, that is, which I do somewhat doubt

[MonsutaMan]

BST (if implemented correctly) would be enough for me to finish the game....I will tell you that much.

BST was awesome in XI, and past FF games. BST is so OP @lower lvls in XI, you could defeat IT-VT monsters in under 10 seconds solo if you have full Ready charges....maybe even faster.

Knowing that they do not want to do conventional classes, Time Mage and Beastmaster could be way left field. TM could literally slow monsters movements by like, x5 times while BST would be a Shepard.......Meh......

[Seraphor]

I think Time Mage probably could work without taking anything in terms of aesthetics and spells from AST by borrowing heavily from Ultimecia and the way she fights in Dissidia, as she would be the FF character that is most heavily associated with Time.

Time Mage without Gravity isn't Time Mage as far as I'm concerned.
AST is our Time Mage.