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(10-08-2014, 02:38 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: You stop having a point once the roe is also trained. If on a scale of 1-10 a lalafell start at 10, and after practice can channel aether to get to 150, what happens when a roe who started at 40 channels the same aether?Like I said, physical strength becomes irrelevant once enough aether comes into play. The Roe's advantage becomes a non-factor after a certain point. If he trains up his control over aether overrides his own physical abilities.
It's also established not everyone can "channel" aether, nor is it established that aether is what makes heroes heroic.
I've had no trouble getting invested in plenty, but I tend to limit my exposure to super saiyan potatoes, too.
Aether is literally everything. Everything living has aether, is made up partly of aether, and interacts with aether. That's canon. When someone dies, their aether (also called "soul energy") moves into the aetherial realm. That's canon. When a Ascian is "defeated", they take an aetherial form and move into the space between worlds. That's canon. Our bodies are partly aether taken physical form (obviously, otherwise we wouldn't be able to use the aethernet or teleport at all). The difference between us and primals is that, while primals require direct sustenance in the form of aether crystals and vanish upon death, we maintain our primordial forms through the consumption of food, which, again, all contain and are partially made up of aether (and this is why your food gives you buffs - the more you know!).
Let's go back to the monk quest. In it, you learn that fighting on the fields of ancient battlegrounds will allow the latent aether left behind from those battles to enter you and expand your own native reserves. Hence, the opening of the seven chakras.
Interestingly, it's noted that too much aether can drive a person sick or mad if they are not trained to deal with it (which is pretty much exactly what happens to the other monk in the quest, at least until you beat it out of him).
But okay, that's just monks. What about other jobs?
Casters are self-explanatory. Black mages pull aether from the environment, arcanists use math (specifically geometry) to shape aether, white mages use succor (which is... really kind of poorly explained) but otherwise do the same thing as black mages on a lesser (much lesser) scale.
The "inner beast" of the Warrior job is a metaphor for a heightened state of aether control. The aura that surrounds the player at 5 stacks of wrath is highly reminiscent of the chi aura in DBZ (heh, sorry).
Bard songs are not just nice music, but are actually aetherically charged to provide benefits to those who hear them (or to do the opposite to enemies, in the case of Foe's Requiem). Naturally, this requires some expenditure on the bard's part. (I don't really know how to explain the difference between MP and TP though - someone else will have to do that.)
Paladins I shouldn't even need to explain - they're freakin' magic swordsmen.
Dragoons? Come the fuck on, their superhuman feats absolutely REQUIRE the manipulation of aether to be accomplished! You will not be able to justify their abilities with physical strength alone, that's just nonsense. Just like monks, dragoons exemplify the kinds of feats possible through skilled manipulation of one's personal aether, feats that are literally impossible for someone to pull off in the real world.
Now, mind you, I will not say that things on the level of super saiyans are a possibility - obviously that's incredibly silly given what we've been shown in the game and in the cinematics. However, I will say that aether is a thing, it is ubiquitous, and ignoring its existence is even more silly than someone just saying they shrug off hits because reasons. It's an incredibly big part of the lore, a huge swathe of the game world is literally made up of it, and that's something we should really accept as part and parcel of playing in Eorzea.