It's a pretty interesting conundrum.
Cuz see, before the Calamity, Conjurers weren't primarily a healer. Yes, they had lots of Cure spells, but they had way more elemental spells of varying powers. Things like Flare, Quake, Tornado. Also some really powerful DoTs with some rather violent names: Choke, Drown, etc, which did a DoT + a status effect + weakened the enemy to that elemental type, making the high level magicks like Freeze even more powerful.
Meanwhile in Thanalan, Thaumaturges had their Astral and Umbral magic shifting but could also heal, raise, regen, etc using their own life force. However, the interesting thing to note on this was that when a Thaumaturge cured, they suffered an HP and an MP cost for the spell. Which tied in very well for THMs using their own lifeforce to cast in lore. So it was essentially what I've seen most games refer to as Blood Magic.
As for why a Thaumaturge or even an Arcanist can cast powerful spells, but it harms a Conjurer to do so for extended periods of time.... I'm not sure, honestly. It could be that their spells are more taxing, or that it is simply not how the magic works, and if you use it that way it's more harmful to you. Thaumaturgy is supposed to draw from your own aether and it took several hundred years and one megalomaniac thaumaturge wanting to bring down a moon to change the way that magic worked into Black Magic. Conversely, Conjury was taught to mankind by moogles. To use and meditate in a very certain way so as to achieve a very specific purpose - communing with the Elementals. Like so many things in the Shroud, the magic seems to follow a very unbending set of rules. So that would be my theory on why it's more harmful to use (improperly). But again just a theory.
With the raise thing, I pretty much fall in line with Warren's thinking. When you get KO'd in game, you're being literally knocked out. When you receive your first raise, you become weakened, struggling to keep going. When you get KO'd again, you become on the Brink of Death and you're seriously just dead weight at that point. In the teleportation lore it basically says if a healer doesn't eventually pick you up from being unconscious, your body will return to the lifestream and be pulled to your personal lodestone, if your body is still strong enough to make the journey. Otherwise, you return to the lifestream and that's it... you're dead.
Also, pretty sure Sylphie doesn't try to raise that Wood Wailer in that one quest (forgets name) but more like she does an epicly massive cure bomb, something akin to what everyone did to Val at the last Grindstone.
EDIT: MOAR EDITING! Also, something interesting to note... is Spell Speed. Check out the 1.0 Cinematic video as well as the End of an Era Calamity video. Watch when the NPCs cure (gla in 1.0 & whm in Calamity) Healing seems to be a constant spells that's happening as it's cast. So it seems like per lore it's a constant drain the longer they hold the cure spell. Versus elemental damaging abilities (used by the cnj in 1.0 vid & blm in Calamity) which seem to have a rediculously long cast time. That BLM in the End of an Era trailer takes like 30 seconds to cast that Fire III. So that may be the secret to how a THM can sustain where a CNJ cannot, since THMs may have a ridiculous amount of cast time to gather and channel their own raw aether versus a CNJ who has to constantly act as a siphon or channel between man and nature the longer they want to keep spell casting. So spike drain versus constant drain.
This made me remember something from the ALC questline. The arcane geometries allow the caster to visualize their spells, but the ink in which the symbols are drawn is what helps the Arcanist actually channel the energies into a spell. The ink is aether conductive (ie metals that conduct aether like silver, gold, electrum). So it's possible that ACN don't actually NEED to use much aether to cast spells because the ink on their books amplifies their energy. Better ink, less exertion casting.
Cuz see, before the Calamity, Conjurers weren't primarily a healer. Yes, they had lots of Cure spells, but they had way more elemental spells of varying powers. Things like Flare, Quake, Tornado. Also some really powerful DoTs with some rather violent names: Choke, Drown, etc, which did a DoT + a status effect + weakened the enemy to that elemental type, making the high level magicks like Freeze even more powerful.
Meanwhile in Thanalan, Thaumaturges had their Astral and Umbral magic shifting but could also heal, raise, regen, etc using their own life force. However, the interesting thing to note on this was that when a Thaumaturge cured, they suffered an HP and an MP cost for the spell. Which tied in very well for THMs using their own lifeforce to cast in lore. So it was essentially what I've seen most games refer to as Blood Magic.
As for why a Thaumaturge or even an Arcanist can cast powerful spells, but it harms a Conjurer to do so for extended periods of time.... I'm not sure, honestly. It could be that their spells are more taxing, or that it is simply not how the magic works, and if you use it that way it's more harmful to you. Thaumaturgy is supposed to draw from your own aether and it took several hundred years and one megalomaniac thaumaturge wanting to bring down a moon to change the way that magic worked into Black Magic. Conversely, Conjury was taught to mankind by moogles. To use and meditate in a very certain way so as to achieve a very specific purpose - communing with the Elementals. Like so many things in the Shroud, the magic seems to follow a very unbending set of rules. So that would be my theory on why it's more harmful to use (improperly). But again just a theory.
With the raise thing, I pretty much fall in line with Warren's thinking. When you get KO'd in game, you're being literally knocked out. When you receive your first raise, you become weakened, struggling to keep going. When you get KO'd again, you become on the Brink of Death and you're seriously just dead weight at that point. In the teleportation lore it basically says if a healer doesn't eventually pick you up from being unconscious, your body will return to the lifestream and be pulled to your personal lodestone, if your body is still strong enough to make the journey. Otherwise, you return to the lifestream and that's it... you're dead.
Also, pretty sure Sylphie doesn't try to raise that Wood Wailer in that one quest (forgets name) but more like she does an epicly massive cure bomb, something akin to what everyone did to Val at the last Grindstone.
EDIT: MOAR EDITING! Also, something interesting to note... is Spell Speed. Check out the 1.0 Cinematic video as well as the End of an Era Calamity video. Watch when the NPCs cure (gla in 1.0 & whm in Calamity) Healing seems to be a constant spells that's happening as it's cast. So it seems like per lore it's a constant drain the longer they hold the cure spell. Versus elemental damaging abilities (used by the cnj in 1.0 vid & blm in Calamity) which seem to have a rediculously long cast time. That BLM in the End of an Era trailer takes like 30 seconds to cast that Fire III. So that may be the secret to how a THM can sustain where a CNJ cannot, since THMs may have a ridiculous amount of cast time to gather and channel their own raw aether versus a CNJ who has to constantly act as a siphon or channel between man and nature the longer they want to keep spell casting. So spike drain versus constant drain.
(03-17-2015, 10:45 AM)Gegenji Wrote: So, unless there's something going on with that Sacred Geometry that's drastically reducing the user's aetheric usage, you'd think casting Resurrection would be just as dangerous on one's reserves as a Raise using one's own energy.
This made me remember something from the ALC questline. The arcane geometries allow the caster to visualize their spells, but the ink in which the symbols are drawn is what helps the Arcanist actually channel the energies into a spell. The ink is aether conductive (ie metals that conduct aether like silver, gold, electrum). So it's possible that ACN don't actually NEED to use much aether to cast spells because the ink on their books amplifies their energy. Better ink, less exertion casting.
![[Image: AntiThalSig.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/179079766/AntiThalSig.png)
~
![[Image: worrying.png]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/worrying.png)