Just saw the Merits Geomancer will get. I'm very let down.

[Quetzacoatl]

As much as I wanted to see Geomancer succeed as a new mage job that doesn't get fallen by the wayside in future updates, I feel the merits the job is being given will be sure to let that happen. It's very disheartening to me that the issue of its enhancing prowess was generally avoided, in ways I have previously explained in the previous thread I created.

As a further examination into how Geomancer today is often utilized, let’s look at some of the advantages and disadvantages to having a Geomancer in groups, using Voidwatch as an example:


Advantages:

• Geocolure spells will keep NMs enfeebled or Party Members buffed if NM is kept in one spot
• Irresistible Enfeebling effects from Geomancy, unless naturally resistant
• Decent Mage Party Support with enhancements to Magic Attack, INT & application of Refresh+Regen
• For the future: Regain is highly useful, especially when stacked with Tactician’s Roll from Corsair
• Ability to deal additional damage through Elemental Magic

Disadvantages:

• Bard and Corsair are often preferred for groups with Melee Damage Dealers
• Indicolure spells are limited by the range between Damage Dealers and the Geomancer
• Having a Bard, Corsair and Geomancer in one party for support, and White Mage for healing, limits space for Damage Dealers

Were these elements in balance i addressed ignored for any given reason? And I feel like Square Enix's plans on Geomancer obtaining its own Regain spells have been scrapped, and they even stated it last year at VanaFest 2012 (screenshot taken from their Live Stream):

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b244/FenreyVarnFFXI/GeomancerRegaincanIhaveitalready_zps962c2b98.jpg

What is your thought process, Square-Enix? Where do you see Geomancer in the future, and what plans do you have for it? I honestly believe as soon as the playerbase finds a way to exclude Geomancer from events, it will be too late. I will still have this job on hand because I truly like its concept, but I doubt I'll be seeing it in action when Geo-Frailty, Geo-Torpor will simply not be enough.

[Merton9999]

Yikes, those are as boring as possible. I was personally hoping for merits that made the job more useful for low-man situations. Indi-spells castable on party members, etc. Instead, HP and MP recovery for group 2, along with some elemental magic casting time reduction option only under Collimated Fervor? Yuck.

What bothers me most is that these are just fixes to some problems people have complained about that should have been fixed with adjustments rather than wasting merits on them. High MP costs? - add a merit ability to return some MP... ugh.

I like the geomancy casting time reduction and enfeebling magic coming, but these merits and the party-shout-group requirement for the first (and possibly only) artifact set have eliminated the excitement I still had for the job.

[Mavrick]

• Job Trait: Cure Recant
Adds an HP recovery effect to Full Circle.
Additional merits restore up to 5% additional HP.

Seems useless. I'd rather increase the duration of effect granted by Lupon for party members in range and then destroy it. IE cast Geo-Fury > use ability > party member's attack bonus duration is increased to 180 seconds(depending on merits) and Lupon is destroyed. Would not work with geo's enfeebling effects as that may be kind of broken when stacked with SP and Blaze of Glory. An ability like this seems more in line with what Bards and Cor got... Devs won't change it now though so pretty useless to argue about it.

[Karah]

The same discussion I found in the RUN thread, "You actually thought they would get the merits right after seeing how the job was made" *lol*.

[Kimarironso]

Sorry I might be a little blind, but where can I find the Merits for Geo? :O

[Karah]

Mocchi: Geomancer Merits

Hello!

This post is to inform you about the merits for Geomancer.

The current plan is to introduce the following items as "Group 1" and "Group 2" merits.

Regarding the exact values, since adjustments are ongoing, there is a possibility that they may change prior to implementation.

Additionally, as long as we do not run into any major problems, these will be implemented on the test server update which will take place on Friday, June 14.

Geomancer Merits

Group 1
Full Circle Effect
Restores up to 5% additional MP per merit.
Ecliptic Attrition Recast
Recast is reduced by 10 seconds per merit.
Also reduces the recast time of Lasting Emanation.
Life Cycle Recast
Recast is reduced by 10 seconds per merit.
Blaze of Glory Recast
Recast is reduced by 20 seconds per merit.
Dematerialize Recast
Recast is reduced by 20 seconds per merit.

Group 2
Job Trait: Cure Recant
Adds an HP recovery effect to Full Circle.
Additional merits restore up to 5% additional HP.
Job Trait: Prime Zeal
Enhances Collimated Fervor with an elemental magic casting time reduction effect.
Additional merits reduce casting time by 10%.
Job Ability: Mend Halation
Recast Time: 5 minutes
The Luopan will vanish and restore HP to party members within the area of effect.
Additional merits increase HP recovery by 5% per merit.
Job Ability: Radial Arcana
Recast Time: 5 minutes
The Luopan will vanish and restore MP to party members within the area of effect.
Additional merits increase MP recovery by 3% per merit.


Translated by: Slycer

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/112776-Dev-Tracker-Findings-Posts-%28NO-DISCUSSION%29?p=5761470&viewfull=1#post5761470

[Delvish]

Yea, these are pretty terribad. As is, these seem like they will be merits to fill for the sake of filling merits. My opinion:

5/5 Ecliptic Attrition recast, either Full Circle Effect or Blaze of Glory recast
5/5 Prime Zeal, Radial Arcana

[Leatherman]

Sorry I might be a little blind, but where can I find the Merits for Geo? :O

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/34430

@Kimarironso

[Mavrick]

From my initial findings on the test server:

Radial Arcana 1/5: Recovers 114 MP.
Radial Arcana 2/5: Recovers 156 MP.
Radial Arcana 3/5: Recovers 199 MP.
Radial Arcana 4/5: Recovers 242 MP.
Radial Arcana 5/5: Recovers 285 MP.

Mending Halation 1/5: Recovers 427 HP.
Mending Halation 2/5: Recovers 498 HP.
Mending Halation 3/5: Recovers 570 HP.
Mending Halation 4/5: Recovers 641 HP.
Mending Halation 5/5: Recovers 712 HP.

- Not affected by Geo/Bell skill, or Lupon's HP at time of use.
- Amount of HP/MP recovered remains the same regardless of type of Lupon used.
- Range of effect seems to be 10.0 yalms centered around lupon.
- Does not affect NPC Fellow

Curative Recantation
You recover HP when using Full Circle. The amount of HP recovered by this trait seems to be based on a number of variables.

1. Amount of MP used to cast the Lupon (Conserve MP will lower amount of HP recovered if it triggered while casting the lupon).

2. Amount of HP Lupon has remaining (percentage) when Full Circle is activated. For example, if the max HP you could recover is 300 and your Lupon is at 50% HP, you'd only recover 150 hp.

The amount of HP restored does not seem to match the values indicated in the upgrade text. Merit text says each merit will increase amount of HP recovered by 5%, but it seems to be way higher than that or perhaps there are more variables at work.

In any event these are the values I got when casting Geo-Acumen (182 mp) and activating Full Circle when Lupon is at 98% HP. (/JA delay prevents me from activating while lupon is at 100% HP).

Conserve MP did not trigger for any of these tests.

Curative Recantation 1/5: HP Recovered: 216
Curative Recantation 2/5: HP Recovered: 343
Curative Recantation 3/5: HP Recovered: 471
Curative Recantation 4/5: HP Recovered: 598
Curative Recantation 5/5: HP Recovered: 726

Just for fun, I wanted to see how much HP was recovered by Geo-Fade at 374 MP.
Recovered 1484 HP with 5/5 merits.

[Karbuncle]

I don't play GEO, But why not give an Ability that Doubles the Potency of a Lupon/Sphere, but half or 1/3rd's the Duration? Make it a ~10 minute timer or so and it'd be nice for ZERGS or a short period of extra potency which is always nice.

Idk, Just tossing ideas

[Babekeke]

The amount of HP restored does not seem to match the values indicated in the upgrade text. Merit text says each merit will increase amount of HP recovered by 5%, but it seems to be way higher than that or perhaps there are more variables at work.

In any event these are the values I got when casting Geo-Acumen (182 mp) and activating Full Circle when Lupon is at 98% HP. (/JA delay prevents me from activating while lupon is at 100% HP).

Conserve MP did not trigger for any of these tests.

Curative Recantation 1/5: HP Recovered: 216
Curative Recantation 2/5: HP Recovered: 343
Curative Recantation 3/5: HP Recovered: 471
Curative Recantation 4/5: HP Recovered: 598
Curative Recantation 5/5: HP Recovered: 726

Just for fun, I wanted to see how much HP was recovered by Geo-Fade at 374 MP.
Recovered 1484 HP with 5/5 merits.

Additional merits boosted the amount recovered by 127.5 each time, which begs the question, does the luopan have 2550HP? thus boosting the amount recovered by 5% could actually refer to the Luopan's HP?

[Camate]

Greetings,

I have some responses for feedback we have been seeing thus far regarding geomancer merits.


Life Cycle Recast
We will be changing this so that each merit level reduces the recast time by 20 seconds.


Blaze of Glory / Ecliptic Attrition
We understand that many of you would like to be able to have these effects active for an even longer time. However, we do not have plans to make it so you can maintain these effects forever, similar to how it is not possible for bards to have Marcato on forever.

We'd like you to consider how to keep your luopan alive and when to ramp up the luopan's potency in order to achieve a longer effect.


Full Circle
We've been seeing a lot of mixed feedback about the effects of Full Circle, both stating that the boons from meriting this are large, while others state it is not that much.

We would like you all to decide to whether to maintain or get rid of your luopans based on the situation you find yourself in. For example, at the beginning of battles when you have a lot of MP, you can use abilities that increase the potency of luopans, and when you feel that your MP is getting low, you can use abilities that focus on keeping your luopan alive.


Also, starting with the artifact equipment that will be added in the next version update as well as other new equipment that will be added moving forward, these will have both geomancy and handbell skill enhancements which will push the potency of geomancy even higher.

[bigdave]

where is the new bells at

[Zhronne]

similar to how it is not possible for bards to have Marcato on forever.
Bards with the correct Song Lasting Time+ gear can actually keep Marcato on forever, as long as they use it in combination with Troubadour/Nightingale.

[Calamity]

My own personal thought is, I'd like to see Dematerialize duration instead of recast.

[Siviard]

The only thing I see being remotely useful is going 5/5 Full Circle merits to increase MP returns.

Maybe the merit that basically sacrifies our Luopan to heal a party could be useful in an emergency situation? I'm grasping at straws here.....

***Ninja Edit*** - I do like the fact that the GEO AF will have stats that will enhance our Geomancy and Handbell skills. Even though I put in 8/8 merits in both Geomancy and Handbell (I'm capped @ 389), it didn't seem to make much difference in terms of spell potency. Perhaps there will be other stats on the GEO AF set that will "Augment" our spells giving them a noticeable boost in potency? One can only hope.

[Yinnyth]

Bards with the correct Song Lasting Time+ gear can actually keep Marcato on forever, as long as they use it in combination with Troubadour/Nightingale.

Not completely true. With 99 carnwenhan (50% duration), 99 gjallarhorn (40% duration), marduk's shalwar+1 (10% duration), Aoidos' matinee (10% duration), AF3 body (10% duration) and provided you are singing march, minuet, madrigal, or scherzo and have the proper piece of AF3 gear to enhance it (10% duration), you'll get a duration bonus of 130%. Base duration of songs is 2 minutes. 2*2.3*2=9.2 minutes. It would need to last 10 minutes to last until the recast of marcato is back up, and it would need to last an extra 10 seconds after marcato is up if you were going to keep it on "forever" (re-apply the song before it wears off).

And even then, some damned eft would dispel it.

[Garota]

Okay, seriously, this was your opportunity to give Indi spells a merit ability that would be the equivalent of Lasting Emanation/Ecliptic Attrition and Blaze of Glory. All the current Job Abilities that GEO has center around Black Magic Spells and Luopan effects. Personally I would have loved to have seen abilities that concentrate on GEO's Indis.

My idea for these abilities would reflect maximum merits.

Indi Emanation
5 Min Recast, Shares recast with Indi Attrition.
Doubles the duration of your next Indi spell.


Indi Attrition
5 Min Recast, Shares recast with Indi Emanation.
Enhances the effects of your next Indi spell by 25%. Duration of spell will be reduced. (The same as a Luopan with Ecliptic Attrition. Cannot extend duration in similar manner as using Life Cycle.)


Indi Glory
10 Min Recast
Increases the effects of your next Indi spell by 50%. Consumes half of your MP, conserve MP will not procure.


So yeah, this is just a simple idea that in my opinion wouldn't necessarily break or overpower the job at all. I personally would like to be able to cast a Blaze of Glory/Ecliptic Attrition/Geo-Malaise on a mob as well as Indi Glory/Indi Attrition/Indi-Acumen to dish out some better damage for a short amount of time. Perhaps I could even run around for a longer while with an Indi Emanation/Indi-Refresh without needing to recast it once it wears off right away. What do you guys think?