(06-19-2017, 01:12 PM)Valic Wrote:(06-19-2017, 07:16 AM)Valence Wrote:So what of the black/white mages that took up rapiers to behold this new discipline? Does that mean their soul stones just turned or did they just pick up the technique and discipline to be a red mage based off their sheer practices in magic?(06-17-2017, 09:13 PM)Valic Wrote: I also wonder if you "need" the soul stone to perform red magic or understand it. Or is it possible you can just pick up the method on your own and the soul stone is just basically a cheat sheet of how to use spells and etc?
You generally require a soulstone to correctly use a job skillset. You can try without though, and depending on the job, it can end up with more or less catastrophic or awkward results (cf Black Mages).
I'm sure you could eventually pick up the art on your own, but keep in mind it would be like creating a full martial art in itself by yourself, and that kind of things takes many practitionners and centuries. Soulstones are repositories of memories and skills. A mentor can help you learn a new job. A soulstone can do that and at the same time impregnate you by the know how, if your understanding and base level is sufficient that is.
They had to start from scratch to create a whole new art, red magic, with their knowledge of black and white magic. It probably took them many generations to elaborate and perfect the art, while slowly filling soulstones at the same time.
If you want a point of comparison, the only modern job is machinist. All their members (Skysteel mostly) are more or less brand new machinists, and the art is still in its infancy. The soulstones exist, but they are here only for a specific purpose, which is linking the persona with the aetherotransformer and act as a catalyst.
It is hard to say if those soulstones will also start to record their owner's personas and experiences, and while machinists are very rational/scientific people, maybe they won't really care about it. Otherwise though, there is nothing to my knowledge indicating that those soulstones are any different from other jobs, so I don't see why they would not start recording the same way other job's soulstones do.
In any case, as shown in the MCH quests, they are still inventing new things and new arts, like the turrets which are revolutionary and the latest gimmick made by Stephanivien, and just after the Gauss Barrel that he creates specifically for the WoL in the same fashion.
This opposed for example to jobs like Bard or Summoners, where the WoL and the NPC trainers spend their time actually hunting and rediscovering lost knowledge and technics.
Balmung:Â Suen Shyu
