What classes/jobs would an average Garlean be capable of performing? [spoilers]

[MikkoAkure]

I would call Ninja Tier 3.5. The reason is in the Ninja Questline we fight against Garlean Ninjas that use Abilities that mimic the Ninja Mudra Abilities like Katon.

The Garlean ninjas I remember - called Imperial Shadows/Nightshadows, are Elezen and Hyur, not the actual true-blood Garlean race with the third eye and lack of aether manipulation. Elezen, Hyur, Roegadyn, and even Miqo’te appear in the Garlean army and they make use of them for being able to manipulate aether.

I don’t remember anything about full Garleans mimicking ninjutsu (though it could’ve happened and I forgot) and most of a ninja’s job is spycraft and subterfuge which I think a full-blooded Garlean would do really poorly at. While that was still technically Lucia’s job, she was easily figured out on her first spy mission. Every other Garlean secret agent we meet is Elezen or Hyur.


One thing I wonder, is if half-Garleans who have the third eye like Severa can manipulate aether or if any amount of non-Garlean blood allows them to do so. I’m suspicious about whether or not the Garlean race is fully “true-blooded”.

At least in our world, there’s no one who is 100% anything and human history is all about people migrating around and mixing with different populations. We even did the Neanderthals and Denisovans in that way. Garleans aren’t that different from Hyur and a bunch of them even have Midlander bodies. They’re practically identical to Hyur so I don’t think anyone would be too put off from consensually having babies with them and we see that in Jenomis’ family.

[Asari5]

its important to differentiate between classes and jobs.

there are some strong npcs who only uses classes, like raubahn or some of the guildmasters.

also ingame npcs arent as strongly bound to the job system. zenos isnt a full fletched samurai in terms of the 'job samurai' as we know it. nobody ever called him samurai ingame. he compensates his lack of magic through pure strength.

[Zadood]

Garlean in general might not able to conjure or weave Aether, they still can use Dynamis as the power source or use technology to weave Aether.

Jobs that use very little of Dynamis and Aether,
Reaper

Jobs that mainly use Dynamis as main source of power, and with some Aether usage.
Dark Knight
Warrior
Bard
Dancer

Jobs that have a balanced usage of both Dynamis and Aether
Dragoon
Samurai
Monk
Paladin
Astrologian
White Mage
Red Mage

Job that mainly use Aether as main source of power, and only use Dynamis in form of Limit Break
Gunbreaker
Black Mage
Summoner
Scholar
Sage
Machinist
Ninja

Garlean should able to became Warrior, Bard, and Dancer due it's a more Dynamis oriented Class

However, GNB, Sage and Machinist despite being an aether heavy job, these job are also more technology focused, thus it can circumvented with artificial tools such as Aether Cartridges

Lore wise, DRK don't really use Aether , only does gameplay wise as edge/flood of shadow cost MP to use. Therefore, a Garlean shouldn't have any no trouble becoming a DRK so long the said Garlean is not a psychopath.

Summoner too despite being an Aether heavy job as well, but Ultima Weapon has perfectly demonstrated how to harness Primal power without needing to summon one, as all Garlean need to do is condense the Ultima Weapon's Primal Summoning Technology into a codex.

[MikkoAkure]

Garlean in general might not able to conjure or weave Aether, they still can use Dynamis as the power source or use technology to weave Aether.

I don't think any of the jobs are using dynamis regularly, let alone for the limit break. I was under the impression that was a one-time thing while we were inside of a realm filled with dynamis instead of aether. While dynamis might trigger a limit break even though the lore around it seems a little hazy, the lore books describe the actual limit break itself as being formed of aether. You need to remember that even the Ancients were able to limit break despite not being able to interact with dynamis.

Lore wise, DRK don't really use Aether , only does gameplay wise as edge/flood of shadow cost MP to use.

The lore books describe DRK, BRD, and DNC as using aether for their abilities.


The lore books doubles-down on dynamis being a comparatively weak force so outside the main story of Endwalker or in one specific zone I don't think it will have much relevancy.

[kaynide]

I would just throw out that quote by Arthur C Clark:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

They would never be able to do things exactly as we do them, but with enough tech, i would wager they could do a version of every class.

They might have tinctures, explosives, or mechanized exoskeletons to assist in things, but they could certainly “look the look”.

[Zaniel]

They sort of imply that almost everything in FF14 is aether based, I mean an apple is solidified aether, its everything including all powers (other than dynamis).

I assumed that "not able to use aether" didn't just mean can't form it but also can't direct it so no machinists. I really only see Gunbreaker as being viable, maybe Samurai and Warrior with a very liberal non-aetheric interpretation of their abilities and even then Kenki sounds too much like a facet of aether to me.

[Raraka]

A Garlean Bard class with a Magitek boombox would be amazing.

That sounds honestly like an amazing job idea, give them a guitar too!.

I feel like many of the jobs could have their Garlean Magitek toolkit to compensate for the lack of aether, such as garlean Gunblades, the Gunshields we have seen for a paladin-type class, Pets for "summoning" as we have seen Pagaga and Lyon, and so on.

A Garlean summoner could be a mix between SMN+MCH, calling forth magitek drones and automatons to do their skills.

A Garlean Scholar could be more as the job fantasy describes, using math and formulas rather than aether and the fairy.

A Garlean Archer could use a crossbow with augmented bolts and traps instead of the harp-bows.

A Garlean Warrior could ditch the light armor for a heavy duty power suit (imagine warhammer or fallout)

And so many cool concepts you can come up with by mixing in magitek as something we could have access to, with the lack or existance of aether regardless

[Sacae]

We do have some in-lore evidence of Garleans using magic under special circumstances, btw. In one of the Tales from the Storm, Zenos manages to use magic by implanting crystals in his wrists. It hurts him a lot, though.

Something could probably be done with that.

[WantlessYoYo]

We do have some in-lore evidence of Garleans using magic under special circumstances, btw. In one of the Tales from the Storm, Zenos manages to use magic by implanting crystals in his wrists. It hurts him a lot, though.

Something could probably be done with that.

Zenos is an special experiment gone "good"

On the other side you have the ones that went bad, really really bad, on Castrum Alabania



If you see close, you can see the Garlean thingy on the middle of the head

Now of course for the sake of convenience you could just say same as Zenos it went good but damn the consequences are something