- Location
- Netherlands
He needs a cubic meter of steel to forge a single sword? I see this WoL is playing a Dark Knight!
It'd be ironic if, in FFXIV, it's the Garlean Empire who actually uses metric.
An Echo of Defiance (or: Dragon’s Dragoon) (Worm/Final Fantasy)
- Thread starter Roarian
- Start date
- Crossover
He needs a cubic meter of steel to forge a single sword? I see this WoL is playing a Dark Knight!
It'd be ironic if, in FFXIV, it's the Garlean Empire who actually uses metric.
Khona Moshr
Pink Flamingo Cabal Healer(they/them)
- Location
- Alabama
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Well the Derplander does become a Dark Knight in the SHB trailer.
Well they are the industrialized Nation out of everyone on Hydaelyn and have master the art of Standardization so it'll make sense.
Twei
I have a face!
- Location
- the land where they write things
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I see I'm not the only one who read this as 'love triangle' and was very confused.
Speaking of someone Colin is already dating, if Dragon doesn't show up somehow I.... okay, admittedly, I have no idea how she'd show up, but still
thefluffyone
Big Ego for Something so Small, eh?
- Location
- Earth
Speaking of someone Colin is already dating, if Dragon doesn't show up somehow I.... okay, admittedly, I have no idea how she'd show up, but still
Something something Omega something something Interdimensional Rift.
Or Greg. Greg could work.
If Colin can put up with...everything else that comes with Greg.
dracklor
Beyond the Frontier
- Location
- Texas
Meh if best primal can snatch Colin, she can snatch and embody Tess as well.
Tiypo
Forever Phone Posting
If she doesn't show up, I can only see Colin one day jumping the Crystal Tower back to Earth Bet to rescue hisI see I'm not the only one who read this as 'love triangle' and was very confused.
Speaking of someone Colin is already dating, if Dragon doesn't show up somehow I.... okay, admittedly, I have no idea how she'd show up, but still
NephyrisX
Luck is my dump stat. And the dice shows.
- Location
- Singapore
I guess being connected to Hydaelyn technically counts as being 'Mastered'?
Also, Colin doesn't have to worry about Summoners any time soon. Outside of that batshit crazy Summoner from the pre-50 Summoner quests, they're exceedingly rare from being what's essentially a lost art.
Speaking of Aether, everyone's technically a Wizard by Myrddin's standards because virtually everything uses Aether, from cooking to crafting to Conjuring to even 'martial' occupations like Marauders and Gladiators. Without aether, they've to resort to being totally reliant on magitek which is basically Tinkertech-lite except it won't backfire on anything that isn't its creator.
Also, Colin doesn't have to worry about Summoners any time soon. Outside of that batshit crazy Summoner from the pre-50 Summoner quests, they're exceedingly rare from being what's essentially a lost art.
Speaking of Aether, everyone's technically a Wizard by Myrddin's standards because virtually everything uses Aether, from cooking to crafting to Conjuring to even 'martial' occupations like Marauders and Gladiators. Without aether, they've to resort to being totally reliant on magitek which is basically Tinkertech-lite except it won't backfire on anything that isn't its creator.
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dracklor
Beyond the Frontier
- Location
- Texas
Summoners are rare yes, as are Black Mages. However, Arcanists are just as common as Thaumaturges, and in fact run the customs office at the Limsa Lominsa port.
Tiypo
Forever Phone Posting
Earth Bet person: *looks at Arcanist w/ Carbuncle* OMG Master abilities!
Arcanist: Floof! Floof! Floofity floof!
NephyrisX
Luck is my dump stat. And the dice shows.
- Location
- Singapore
Arcanists are actually rarer since you don't actually see many book users outside of the Limsa Customs Office, even in-game. It probably helps that the Arcanist guild is more discriminating towards who gets accepted since being an Arcanist requires a fairly specific mindset (highly inquisitive, analytical, etc) as compared to the Thamaturge guild where they virtually accept anyone that can swing a rod.
Edit: There's also the implication that Thamaturgy can be, or is easier to be self-taught or have trainers outside of the ones in Ul'Dah, given that said bandits occupy virtually every part of Eorzea.
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dracklor
Beyond the Frontier
- Location
- Texas
Still they are common enough to run an office, and considering that a certain Lala secretary became one there standards aren't that high (she may be awesome with money, but she really never should have been given access to carbuncles, like ever...) .
NephyrisX
Luck is my dump stat. And the dice shows.
- Location
- Singapore
She actually failed the *very first* test, so she didn't become an Arcanist. At best, she tried using the Carbuncle in a Stormblood quest chain and ended up becoming a hindrance. Badly.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hydaelyn's influence on Echo-blessed empowers them, and protects them from Primals Branding them. That's a form of power-granting Mastering, I suppose. (Sidenote, Master as a classification is really weird in how it can also mean that you have power over minions, but no actual mind-influencing powers.)
IIRC, when he first meets the player, Ifrit tries to Brand them, but upon realizing it didn't work, he jumps to the conclusion that you have been claimed by someone else.
...And he's not wrong. Hydaelyn is essentially a Primal, meaning that the Echo might just be her form of Branding people. Only... since she was brought into existence to counter Zodiark, the first Primal, she doesn't actually want to mind-control her blessed. And unlike other Primals, she is the world, meaning she doesn't need or want to be worshipped and fed aether.
She just tells the Echo-blessed: Hear, Feel, Think. She is Mastering you, in a sense, but with free will, contradictory as that is. She is telling you to go out there and see the world for yourself, to make up your own mind about everything, to make your own choices.
At worst, Hydaelyn's influence on the player might compel them to be the kind of person that offers to help people anywhere they meet, which might be why a lot of people comment on how the Warrior of Light practically never says no to people who request things of them. Even then, that might just be a general MMO joke about how the player can do every single quest in the world compulsively.
She just tells the Echo-blessed: Hear, Feel, Think. She is Mastering you, in a sense, but with free will, contradictory as that is. She is telling you to go out there and see the world for yourself, to make up your own mind about everything, to make your own choices.
At worst, Hydaelyn's influence on the player might compel them to be the kind of person that offers to help people anywhere they meet, which might be why a lot of people comment on how the Warrior of Light practically never says no to people who request things of them. Even then, that might just be a general MMO joke about how the player can do every single quest in the world compulsively.
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ThatGazzer
Minds Eye Bind
- Location
- PNW
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Comes from the class system being more for telling you what kind of tactics work best, which for Masters boil down to "be far away and maybe shoot them with something" with the something you're shooting being anything from a sniper to a drone strike with a tac-nuke depending on the rating.
doesn't matter if they affect people or control a lot of stuff, the tactics remain the same.
Khona Moshr
Pink Flamingo Cabal Healer(they/them)
- Location
- Alabama
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yeah all the summoners we've met outside of that guy are one's that the player taught
which is why Garlemald was
orced to use black rose and start a calamity to defeat the Alliance in the bad timeline
dracklor
Beyond the Frontier
- Location
- Texas
I suppose I kind of consider any book wielder that summons carbies to be an Arcanist (or a SMN that dislikes the Egi look), now that I think about it how many Arcanists are there?
You have the guild master that is always away, the cute pirate bait girl, the girl that runs the customs office, the twins before Alisaea class changed (she was using a grimoire in the Coil cutscenes), that one Miqo'te girl that keeps having her carby wander off in Revenant's Toll, and I suppose the girl from the Anima questline with the giant diamond carbuncle?
Was there anyone else?
thefluffyone
Big Ego for Something so Small, eh?
- Location
- Earth
I think there's a carbuncle in the Gold Saucer as well? The guy kept muttering about 'no pets allowed' and being smug that he showed them up.
Tiypo
Forever Phone Posting
This is the epitome of what I imagine the vast majority of Arcanist's mindsets to be like. They're the worlds proudest owners of an immortal ass kicking sparkle floofer and want you to know it.
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How are you going to deal with base classes as opposed to Jobs? In-game they're pretty much a direct upgrade over the base classes, but generally things are more complicated than that if you're writing the world as if it were real.
For example, the Paladin is a direct upgrade of the Gladiator, but in-universe the only real difference between them is that one is a knightly order and the other isn't. There's no reason a Gladiator couldn't become just as dangerous as a Paladin; potentially even using the same techniques, or something analogous to them.
Likewise, the first major difference between the Summoner, Scholar, and Arcanist, is their summons. And while I doubt anybody would argue that the Summoner egis are more powerful than a common carbuncle, or that a fairy has more utility, the rest of their magic doesn't seem to share that same distinction. It's just a matter of those advanced spells being lost and needing to be rediscovered. And in a living world I highly doubt that we've truly seen everything the Arcanist guild has to offer in the first place, meaning they may be studying or developing spells at that same level, just in a different direction, that we never get to see.
And it can't be that hard to make those high level techniques. After ARR, every job you get is something you can just jump into, rather than needing to upgrade from a class. Including the jobs that are completely new to the current era, like Red Mages or Mechanists, or jobs you have minimal support or supervision in like Astrologen and Samurai.
And I know Job classes cheat by storing memories of their past practitioners in the job crystals, but there's no reason the class guilds couldn't start stocking up on those to distribute to their most advanced members, either. Heck, the Mechanist people outright state the crystal is empty and you'll be mostly on your own for developing new techniques.
So, I guess here we get to an actual question. In this story, are the Eorzean class guilds really that far behind everyone else? In game terms, they'd be maxing out their potential at a mere level 30 or so?
For example, the Paladin is a direct upgrade of the Gladiator, but in-universe the only real difference between them is that one is a knightly order and the other isn't. There's no reason a Gladiator couldn't become just as dangerous as a Paladin; potentially even using the same techniques, or something analogous to them.
Likewise, the first major difference between the Summoner, Scholar, and Arcanist, is their summons. And while I doubt anybody would argue that the Summoner egis are more powerful than a common carbuncle, or that a fairy has more utility, the rest of their magic doesn't seem to share that same distinction. It's just a matter of those advanced spells being lost and needing to be rediscovered. And in a living world I highly doubt that we've truly seen everything the Arcanist guild has to offer in the first place, meaning they may be studying or developing spells at that same level, just in a different direction, that we never get to see.
And it can't be that hard to make those high level techniques. After ARR, every job you get is something you can just jump into, rather than needing to upgrade from a class. Including the jobs that are completely new to the current era, like Red Mages or Mechanists, or jobs you have minimal support or supervision in like Astrologen and Samurai.
And I know Job classes cheat by storing memories of their past practitioners in the job crystals, but there's no reason the class guilds couldn't start stocking up on those to distribute to their most advanced members, either. Heck, the Mechanist people outright state the crystal is empty and you'll be mostly on your own for developing new techniques.
So, I guess here we get to an actual question. In this story, are the Eorzean class guilds really that far behind everyone else? In game terms, they'd be maxing out their potential at a mere level 30 or so?
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- Location
- Netherlands
I think it doesn't really make sense to transplant such specific game mechanics like level or pure power to a story - honestly, it's already fairly iffy in the game as it is. For example, I'm continuously weirded out that everything in MMO expansions is universally more powerful than the base game's content, which essentially means that random wiggling houseplant mobs on the side of the new continent's road are already 5 levels higher than the multi-stage high-tier raid boss of yesteryear, and you'll have an easier job soloing giant dragons than take down a random salamander that's ten levels higher. It also makes your previous accomplishments look rather unimpressive in retrospect, since a nobody from Shadowbringers could have soloed the entirety of ARR with one arm tied behind their back.
Specifically regarding your question, then, I'm sticking to a more relative scale of power and difficulty, and avoiding any specifics wrt leveling mechanics beyond maybe the rough order in which a given class might learn their various tricks. I can worry about the aforementioned expansion malarkey if/when I get far enough into the storyline for that to matter, I reckon. In any case, I'm not pigeonholing Colin himself into a particular class - he represents a paradigm unto himself, I think. He may moonlight as another class/job at some point or another, though, much like the WoL does. Gotta love Dragoons, right?
NephyrisX
Luck is my dump stat. And the dice shows.
- Location
- Singapore
The answer is simple; the Warrior of Light is simply that powerful.
Typical Eorzeans only has a limited well of Aether to draw from, meaning that they can only really devote themselves to a few classes. Any more, and they run the risk of overexerting their pool of Aether, and that could lead to severe exhaustion or even death. It's why, even with aetheryte crystals present in significant settlements, Eorzea cannot mass-transport units because using aetheryte crystals is massively taxing to the body and requires at least several days of rest before its safe to use it again.
The WoL, on the other hand, has been acknowledged time and time again in the story to possess stupid amounts of aether. It's why the WoL is currently the one of the very few people in Eorzea to freely use aetheryte crystals without needing to rest, andconsequently why he/she is able to master every single job/class available without signs of Aether fatigue. The WoL is a very special case in this regard and his/her mastery of everything should be regarded as the exception rather than the norm. Notice how, outside of PCs, there's virtually no NPC that uses skills from more than two jobs? Exactly.
Basically, us freely getting into and switching jobs on the fly is something only the WoL is capable of and is the exception to the rule.
Okay, well I penned that last question as a game mechanic to make things more clear, so I guess this is partially my own fault.
I wasn't really talking about the power levels themselves, but more the skills and techniques that allow you to better make use of that ever growing power. Weather there were Arcanists or Conjurers who could realistically go toe-to-toe with an Astrologer, Scholar or White Mage in a heal-off.
In game, ignoring power levels entirely or their equation to game levels, the class guilds just do not have the more complex skills and techniques to keep up. This makes sense for White or Black magic because they were specifically banned, apparently being a unique kind of magic unto themselves, but magic is so versatile that continued development of conjuration and thaumaurgy should see similar results regardless using different techniques. But does that actually happen?
What I'm asking is, do the guilds have more advanced techniques, all to themselves, that we just never see in-game? Something that, translating this back into game mechanics, would see us past the level 30 cutoff? a level of skill a Gladiator could achieve to best a Paladin of roughly equal ability?
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- Location
- Netherlands
I'm of two minds on this. On one hand it'd make sense for there to be more disciplines than we see - perhaps there's more split paths we just never see like the Scholar/Summoner division. Alternatively maybe a non-Job class could have its own variety of spells that are similar in power if not in specifics to fill out the curve, but the player just never gets to access those. The game is not necessarily a total reflection of lore, it's an abstraction.
On the other hand, I don't really mind the existence of guilds and groups that are just... not as capable as others, not as potent in a combat encounter. There's nothing fundamentally broken with a world in which a school of gladiator combat can never reach the same vaunted heights of prowess as a semi-divine knighthood in terms of sheer ability. It's obviously due to the game structure that all the 'weaker' classes end up being starting ones that the player upgrades out of, but I'm not in principle opposed to having gradations of power instead of some generic level of ability that literally everyone can reach regardless of the nature of their skills.
Tiypo
Forever Phone Posting
Don't forget the existence of Job crystals, those probably act as a focus to allow a persons Aether to be amplified and directed towards the job. Classes straight up don't have those, so to me it makes sense that anyone could learn them. But jobs are literally a commodity, so they actually have to be selective on who they hand out the crystals to, least they go to someone incapable or untrustworthy.
So I'm starting this, are we going full AU here for Defiant? Because I'm about 90% sure he was a posthuman amalgamation of flesh, augmentations and metal by the end of Worm, not just a guy in power armor. Granted that would be a plot in of itself, so if you don't want to deal with it as long as he's in character otherwise I guess it doesn't really matter.