GamerEscape

There has been much talk of Conjurers as the de-facto White Mages of FFXIV. And for good reason. A Conjurer’s array of healing and status curing abilities make them naturals in the role of healer .. a traditional duty of the White Mage.

But there is another traditional aspect of White Mages … that of an agent of absolute divine retribution. And it so happens that Thaumaturges have the largest selection of divine (aka Astral) abilities of any class.

Unfortunately, that is currently a grand total of four (Banish, Banish II, Dia, Dia II).

What the Thaumaturge class needs are additional Astral abilities.

Luckily, we do not have to go too far back in the Final Fantasy series to find several abilities that are perfect additions to a Thaumaturge’s repertoire. I suggest the following additional abilities to truly make Thaumaturge worthy of their White Mage heritage.

Divine Seal – Increases the magical potency of the next spell cast.

This is the astral version of Dark Seal. But instead of increasing magic accuracy, it increases the magic potency of the next spell cast … be it curing or damage dealing.

Enlighten – Adds astral damage to target player’s attacks and increases enmity generated by those attacks.

This is the FFXIV version of FFXI’s “Enlight” … with an enmity boost. As fitting with a weapon imbued with the power of divine justice, Enlighten makes it very hard for the enemy to ignore the wielder. It would have a sister spell called “Enshadow” (to be featured in the upcoming “Darker Than Black Mage” article) that would have opposite effects.

Flash – Temporarily blinds enemies with a burst of astral energy, reducing their physical accuracy, and increasing enmity. The effect can stack up to 3 times.

This is the astral version of Blind. But instead of using umbral energy, it uses astral. The Blind spell would need to be modified to reduce enmity and include the stacking effect. With both the stacking effects from Blind and Flash, enmity would become much easier to control in the game.

Holy – Deals significant astral damage to enemies in the area of effect.

This is the divine spell of legend, brought to Eorzea to bring great justice and furious righteous retribution to the enemies of light. Like the ancient elemental spells (Flare, Burst, etc), it would have a longer casting time due to its much higher damage multipliers.

The addition of these abilities to Thaumaturge will help FFXIV in several ways.

1. It helps balance out the number of Astral and Umbral abilities available to players.
2. It provides more options for players to control enmity, especially in party play.
3. It contributes to future character development expansion … be it Job Specialization or Advanced Jobs.
4. It helps reinforce the story narrative of Thaumaturges as “Miracle Workers”, in addition to their current narrative as the brooding death priests of Eorzea.

And finally, none of these abilities are overpowered and they can be easily added to the game without extensive content creation. It would be a small investment, but it would have a significant payoff, for both developers and players.

So what do you think?
Would you try “The Other White Mage”?
Who knows?? Maybe you’ll like it …