Arcanist Lore

[finiteHP]

I'd prefer to think of him as a summoner and am praying to the Twelve that he serves as our "mentor" for the job in question.

That would be great!

[Felis]

From 1.0:

Dodoroba - "Not a day goes by without at least one vessel attempting to smuggle in some sort of contraband, whether it be illegal herbs, outlawed weapons, or forbidden tomes. It is the duty of the custom-house not only to locate and confiscate those items, but to see to their proper disposal as well. Once the internal assessors have completed their inspection and identified an item as hazardous, the rest is left up to my team to clean up the mess."

Haldberk - "Welcome to Mealvaan's Gate. Hundreds of ships arrive at our docks every year, and to prevent the unlawful import of hazardous materials, we inspect all cargo, crew, and passengers before granting them entry into our fine city. If you arrived via a sea route, then you will have already met one of our upstanding assessors.
Our biggest problem at the moment happens to be accomodating all the frightened smallfolk seeking passage from Eorzea to...well, anywhere."

P'tahjha - "We are always searching for new employees, though we only accept those who exhibit a natural grasp of the arcane arts--a skill essential to the efficient examination of the many ships that frequent Limsa Lominsa.
Though it takes many years of training to become a master arcanist, those who are recognized as possessing the Gift will be accepted into our ranks and trained by the finest mages in Eorzea. Upon completion of the training, the adepts will be accepted into our ranks, and given a position within the custom-house."

From the P'tahjha dialogue you can see it was planned from the beginning to make arcanist playable. Only it came some things in the way, like a re-boot.

[Akujin]

I wonder, in that case, if Arcanist will employ Libra as a skill. Being that examining the contents of cargo with magic is their area of expertise. It would suit them, using Libra to identify and distinguish something through magic.

If so, I wonder how that would work in game, if a screen would pop up on your UI to only yourself giving a sneak peak into the vitals of the mob in question, or if every party member would get that same pop up so everyone knows what their looking at.

[Catapult]

I wonder, in that case, if Arcanist will employ Libra as a skill. Being that examining the contents of cargo with magic is their area of expertise. It would suit them, using Libra to identify and distinguish something through magic.

If so, I wonder how that would work in game, if a screen would pop up on your UI to only yourself giving a sneak peak into the vitals of the mob in question, or if every party member would get that same pop up so everyone knows what their looking at.

It is plausible that Arcanist could have access to a buff called libra that reveals extra information about the enemy to the caster in question, much like in FFXII.

[Skies]

They don't actually USE Libra as a magic to inspect, they actually use their Carbuncles as sniffing dogs. If you make your way down Maelvaan's Gate you can even see (interrupt, to his great distress) one Arcanist being tested on exactly that task, as well as three others struggling to get the hang of controlling their pets.

Also so you know, which is a thing that comes up in the ALC questline, the arcanist books are important because of the diagrams in them, they're the source of the Arcanist magic. And it can't be ANY book, it needs to be written in magical ink, hence why it's made by alchemists.