On warriors/paladins and magic

[Misasae]

Hi all. I started roleplaying in ff14 recently after a swap over from WoW, and I have to say I'm loving it. However, after creating a paladin class, I'm struggling to find lore about how they function in a literal sense. The main question I'm wondering is, are warriors/paladins a melee class through and through, using only their strength and skill to fight, or is there an element of some magic, either conscious or unconscious, going on that allows them to perform the feats they can. From the in-game animations it would seem they are empowering their attacks with magic, yet that may simply be the flashy visual style of the game. Yet with the kinds of things our characters end up fighting, it seems like their must be something more than mere strength of arms letting them take on these powerful monsters, perhaps enchanted weapons and armour even?

 

To sum up, if anyone can enlighten me if warriors/paladins are somehow magical or simply stronger than most, I'd appreciate it.

[Skae]

I don't think we ever get a precise and detailed explanation about how all the class/job abilities actually work - most likely because the developers have never bothered about that.

 

I do think it is clear that for a number of class/job abilities some kind of aether manipulation must be used - so many of them cannot be explained simply by sheer physical ability.

 

But don't think too hard about this - it is one of those things were there likely isn't much lore behind it, and instead the abilities work the way they do because some game developer thought it would be cool.

[Gerel Kha]

All of the Disciples of War classes/jobs utilize Aether to an extent to augment their capabilities, though in differing ways. Do Warriors and Paladins likely have a greater physical presence? I'd say that's pretty certain. But, Aether is what pushes them past normal standard and into "I can take that demigod's fist to the face."

 

Aether is also the defining factor in -how- they act as protective wards. Different mindsets and goals equal varying "origins" and methods in which their magick manifests. It's why Warriors and Paladins aren't the same.

[Misasae]

Thank you both for the reply. I like the idea that it's a little vague on how it all works, gives a bit of wiggle room for creativity without going with outright headcannon or anything. Certainly a welcome changeup from WoW where I needed to trawl through wikis to find specific citations for everything and such lol.

[Valence]

In short, yes. Stated directly from the lorebook, a simple skill like Flash used by gladiators is about concentrating aether in the tip of their blade and unleashing it to blind every enemy around, for example.

 

Then of course, when you start entering into all the skills for paladin that use MP like, Clemency and Holy Spirit and whatnot, it's hard not to see them as magic spells... which they are.

 

To extend a bit on that with other generalities:

 

- Monks are all about opening chakras in their bodies, channeling aether through their limbs and allowing them to perform superhuman feats or aetherial blasts from their fists. Mantra is also pure burst of harmonious aether.

 

- Dragoons use aether to jump and perform various abilities. Azure dragoons like Estinien and the WoL also learned to use the blood of the dragon from the Eye to unleash a whole new set of attacks.

 

- Ninja execute mudra signs to create powerful ninjutsu effects, simplified and fast simplifications of otherwise long winded incantations with pentagrams and circles, which are basically another way to cast magic. Ninjutsu is about summoning spells and curses, instead of aetherial contrusts like carbuncles/faeries/egi basically.

 

- Archers and bards can infused their arrows with wind aspected aether. I suspect their powerful songs to be related to aether as well but that's hard to tell.

 

- Warriors and dark knights for examples are both driven by pure essences (inner beast and the abyss) that they can find within them, one primal animal, the other inner darkness. Those directly feed on their inner aether. Unleash for example, is directly fed on the dark knight rage and pain and manifested through aether.

 

- Machinists turn their own body aether reserves as energy feeding their aetherotransformer that converts it into levin aspected aether to power their whole arsenal. Machinists are almost like mages really, except they use artificial contraptions that cast for them instead of various traditional casting techniques.

 

- And then, Limit Breaks themselves really.