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 LET'S TALK: Krile Baldesion and 7.0

Warning! I will be discussing MSQ spoilers up to patch 6.5 as well as spoilers for Eureka. Read at your own discretion.

With Tokyo Fanfest only 4 days away as of writing this, there is a lot of hype especially surrounding Krile Baldesion due to her hinted importance in Dawntrail. It's almost guaranteed that Krile will be the poster girl of the new FFXIV casting job so there is a lot of speculation about what that new job will be. I will be discussing the possibilities as well what they will mean for patch 6.55 and Dawntrail.

This is going to be a long one, so feel free to skip through each job! As well as that, images may look small so do click on them on mobile/ right click on desktop to see them in full.

 

Green mage

Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. With the release of patch 6.5, it is heavily implied that the new casting job will be green mage.

 I'm going to back up and talk about 6.4 before diving into this. After the 'Aetherfont' dungeon, Thancred and Urianger discuss a client who seeks Archons for assistance on a situation. Not much else is divulged but it can be suggested that our other archon friends will be joining them.

This may be related to Tural's contest for the throne, but not much can be made from the cutscene alone. We do know for a fact that the scions will be in Tural as seen in the trailers and synopsis for 7.0, so it very well could be.

While not confirmed to be, it's implied that the letter that Krile also recieves in patch 6.4 is related to this. However, this letter is not opened until the start of patch 6.5. 

As an extra punch in the gut, you could find Krile in the Baldesion annex looking over the letter but getting interrupted by Ojika. There's also a chance to see G'raha Tia upon entering, seemingly randomized between the two each time you entered the annex. Upon the arrival of patch 6.5, you can no longer find either there.

So finally onto patch 6.5, after completing the main patch story you are greeted by a cutscene of Krile standing in the annex and finally opening the letter. It is an old letter addressed to Krile's now-deceased grandfather, Galuf Baldesion.

 The letter is unfortunately far too aged and mostly illegible, but discusses a commission to investigate the golden city in Tural. Krile finds this unusual as no one has mentioned such a commission nor ever seen records about it. The final thing that she discovers is an earring in the shape of a 3-leaf clover. Krile is left bewildered by this letter and wonders if her grandfather went to Tural many years ago.

Due to the age of the letter, I am lead to believe that perhaps this letter is unrelated to Thancred and Urianger's aforementioned client but perhaps both are still related to Tural. Krile is an archon (though, we don't know where her tattoo is. I still wonder..) so maybe she recieved 2 letters.

Something I somewhat believe is that this letter simply never reached Galuf and considering that he has been dead for a while, we can't just ask him. It would be difficult to confirm due to the passing of most of the Students, but perhaps there are archives in Galuf's office in the headquarters. I doubt that this would be the solution because reaching the Baldesion HQ requires the completion of Eureka Hydatos. Despite that, I am hopeful for special dialogue in 7.0 depending on your progress in Eureka since there already is some in Endwalker relating to Ejika. (We miss you Ejika)

 The 3-leaf clover is a symbol heavily associated with Final Fantasy's Green Mage job, mainly appearing in FF: Tactics titles as a Viera-exclusive job. This leaves many to believe that Erenville may have a part to play in the new casting job as he is shown to be a significant character in 7.0, as well as his repeatedly mentioned "homecoming".

 

 Green mage is characterized by its buffing skills such as "Protect", "Shell", "Leap" and debuffing skills such as "Blind", "Oil", "Silence". They use hammers and maces, which would be welcome weapon types for a casting job.

It's hard for me to imagine how this could be implemented into XIV. Of course, they don't have to do an exact replica of how it works in Tactics, but the job would likely be a support job similar to red mage or dancer. It would also be in-character for Krile, as she is more of a supporter than a fighter. 

It's currently not confirmed if Tural or the surrounding areas have a significant Viera population but with Erenville's "homecoming", it's suggested that his Viera tribe may originate there. Erenville may or may not be related to the job, but I feel somewhat confident that the green mage mentor would be a Viera (we need more Viera NPCs!)

Personally, I am on board with green mage, but I secretly hope the earring is a red herring. It also relates to the ninja turtle shirt that Yoshi-P wore at LA fanfest because 'green' mages can cast 'shell' (Green Shell.. Turtles..) 

I do worry how Krile would look with a green mage outfit. She is well overdue for a redesign because she has retained the same design since her introduction in Heavensward, but I fear that her iconic cat ears and yellow coat will disappear. To be fair, her main colour scheme is yellow and blue, and what do those colours make when mixed?

I made some ideas for what I think a green mage job could look like. 

 

 Pictomancer

This is probably my least favourite speculated job just because of how out of character it would be for Krile to pick up an artist job. However, it's not out of the question entirely.

The reason why people speculate Pictomancer is due to Yoshi-P's hint T-shirt from LA fanfest featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The ninja turtles are all named after famous artists so the natural conclusion would be that the new job is Pictomancer.

The true meaning of the shirt is yet to be known.. but it could very well be as bullshit as the Samurai hint being a Spider-Man T-shirt because Spider-Man's director is "Sam Raimi".. which could look like "samurai" at a quick glance.

Pictomancer is a job that has appeared in FF6 and is the job of Relm Arrowny. It seems this job is unique to her and is characterized by having her drawings come to life. Relm has a passion for art, so you'd expect Alphinaud to have this kind of job which honestly annoys me to see because he literally just got a job in Endwalker!! They'd never just give him a job with a lot of meaning to his family and then make him throw it away on his next adventure.

Rant aside, I could see Pictomancer being justified similarly to Tataru's attempt at being a summoner in that Krile initially would struggle a lot with it. It would be cool to see Krile becoming more confident with the job, but I just think it's unlikely because I think they would rather give a job that relates more to Krile directly. I do also like the idea of Krile trying harder to become an active fighter since there's already plenty healer scions.

Something already in-game that is reminiscent of pictomancy is Sigmascape V2.0 which features an arena with portraits and a duty action using your Chocobo Brush to paint on blank canvases to get resistance buffs. This fight is a reference to FF6 as Chadarnook is an enemy Relm faces and the chocobo brush mechanic is also directly taken from Relm. I don't think this means much in the long run since the Omega raid series is full of FF references.

I drew my own interpretation of a pictomancer Krile when the theory first circulated. It strays from Relm's design and took more inspiration from Braverly Default II's pictomancer. I am not a character designer to be honest.. I just wanted to keep the cat ears.

Illusionist

This is where my job speculation becomes nonsensical and more based around what I want personally for Krile. And before anyone thinks it: I know illusionist and conjurer are considered the same!!!

Illusionist is aso known as conjurer and evoker in the FF games. I am going to focus on the FF tactics iterations of illusionist. Illusionist is a job for humes (hyurs) and nu mou. In tactics, they are favored for their ability use illusion magic to target all enemies on the battlefield, but of course every job in XIV has AOEs. This aspect could be implemented like summoner's 'Slipstream' or ninja's 'Doton' as a placed DoT.

As well as that, illusionist spells include elemental-based skills such as "Prominence" (Sun), "Star Cross" (stars), "Stardust" (meteors) and existing mage elements like "Freezeblink" (blizzard) and "Deluge" (waterfall). I really like the variation of spells they have and would create a distinct aesthetic for a new casting job. Illusionist weapons are rods, but there are already 2 rod jobs so I think they could adapt hammers or maces. 

What I like about Illusionist is their aesthetic and unique skills. Illusionist could be an extention to XIV's conjurer due to it's elemental nature too. I think it fits Krile because it feels closer to her established proficiency in conjury, I just don't know how it could relate to the ninja turtles. It's a bit of a stretch, but TMNT was published by "Mirage Studios" from 1984-2014.

I think that illusionists could be a type of conjury with more of a focus on combat from Tural and Krile could bond with Tural illusionists and eventually pick up the job herself. I don't know who the job mentor could be, perhaps a hyur. Nu mou are a race that, so far, are exclusive to the First but perhaps we might meet the Source equivalents.

I drew my own idea for a Krile illusionist. I based it mostly on the hume version of illusionist. Again, I wanted to keep her cat ears somehow but I was a bit stuck on how, so I left some considered variations.

 

Honorable mentions

These are possibilities I've considered but think are too unlikely or haven't looked into much. I also don't want to work on this post much more LOL.

Seer/Devout: An upgraded version of white mage featured in FFTA2. The only reason I consider it is because of it's cat ears being just like Krile's. I just think it's unlikely because I think it's too similar to white mage, but it could relate to Krile having the Echo and loyalty to Hydaelyn (though, I think that makes less sense now that we are past the era of Hydaelyn).

Puppetmaster: Puppetmasters use mammets in combat and are featured in FF11. There are other iterations but I am going to focus on the FF11 version. Considering that the alliance raid series in Dawntrail will be based on 11, it's not out of the question for more 11 references. I think it's unlikely due to its similarity to machinists and monk, as puppetmasters use hand-to-hand combat and machinists already use automatons in battle.

 

Puppetmasters are also mentioned in Eureka in the "By Numbers" NM. The boss is an out-of-control puppet that has been abandonned by its master.

I also think puppetmaster could be adapted similarly to Lulu from FF10. There are already FF10 references in the Pelupelu, so a Lulu reference would be welcome. While Lulu's job is classified as black mage, the way she uses plushes to attack is very cute and I could see Krile doing the same. The weapon designs could be different plushies like Lulu's.

That's all! I have been so excited for Tokyo fanfest for so long and there are only a few days left. I am sure I will be happy with whatever Krile is given (or not). We never know, it could be another XIV original like sage or viper. I will be sure to make a sequel to this blog post with further analysis regarding Krile's new job and what it means for Dawntrail.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment or message me on what you think!