DarkswordDX wrote:
Thaumaturgy is harnessing your own, personal aether to create a spell. They have to bounce between astral and umbral phases to let their internal store of aether replenish, since if you run out, you die. Black magic taps into the Void itself to both increase the amount of aether you have access to, as well as how easy it is to replenish, but might cost you your soul if the void gobbles you up or you lose control of it.
Thaumaturgy has the darkest "feel" of any of the arts. But I saw something in it that was quite special. They seem to be by far the most individualistic & "on their own side" (rather than their City State's) of all the Disciplines, and when I make my characters I think individual contributions. I was very surprised at how much I liked BLM's story as well, the whole closing portals to the Void reminded me of another MMO I really like called Rift.
The whole "Astral/Umbral shift" and "drawing from the Void" seems to make Thauamturgy and Black Magic in FFXIV *very* different from Black Magic in other FF universes, where it's more or less treated as simply elemental magic. As far as Void corruption goes though, is Black Magic "corrupting" in the same way as Fel Magic from WoW?
In terms of ideals, my character very likely would have been initially drawn to Gridania and Conjury for the peace and beauty of the forest, but by the time she defeated Ifrit, she would have come to feel that Gridania had failed to live up to its reputation as a peaceful city, and lacked the tolerance of outsiders that the other two Guilds had - thus, she would no longer have any desire to serve Gridania.
DarkswordDX wrote:
Arcanima uses a similar principle to conjury. It uses the aether from the world around you, but rather than consuming it to cast a spell, it shapes into a physical thing that does the work for the acanist. A virus to cause Virus, a barrier shape for E4E, toxic microbes for the DOT spells, and of course, glowy critters for our pets. A Summoner has absorbed some of a Primals aether by being present when one was killed, and mixes that into the regular aether they form their pet from - giving us the Egis. Making physical shapes from aether is implied to be much more complicated than simply willing a spell into existence, and is accomplished by the use of math and geometry instead of innate magical ability.
The thing about "math-based" Arcane magics in general is, I have always felt that having to make calculations to create your every spell would be nothing but a liability in the heat of battle (Is that part of the reason why they're so dependent on having a Carbuncle to fight in their place?). Judging by the fact that there are far fewer Arcanist NPCs than the other Disciplines, I don't think I'm alone in my thoughts here.
It isn't really clear why the Forseer lost her ability to cast when her book got thrown into the sea. Are the patterns contained on the pages in magical ink or something?
Edited, Aug 8th 2014 1:30pm by JFrombaugh