Where will GEO end up?

Been working on leveling GEO, and with looking at its gear and spells on top of the playing experience, I have to wonder where it is going to end up.

Its buffs, debuffs and nuke-ra spells push it to the front lines to get the most from them, but with being limited to mage gear staying up close will be problematic at best against enemies with aoe or hate reset attacks. GEO does get the WHM hammers and a B? club rating which would of made melee more of an option, if it had the gear to support it.

With the mage gear and elemental spells would think could stand back and nuke, but with only getting up to tier 4 nukes, and no native Magic Attack Bonus traits, the nuking option does not look promising. I remember seeing something detailing out the different effects of Cardinal Chant, but been unable to re-find it, and recall one direction being MAB. From having leveled SCH, I know how important those MAB traits are to nuking, so unless Cardinal Chant provides plenty of MAB when facing the right way, nuking may go by the wayside unless the nuke-ra spells are fairly potent as well, but that places back up front as a squishy mage.

So then it gets into the realm of playing like Bard. Which due to the radius of its buffs and the limit of one indi and one geo spell leads to problems as well. Have to choose between mob debuffs, front line buffs, or back line buffs and with only two being able to be up means have to choose carefully. Have no problem with that until look at Bard, and the good ones keep up two debuffs on the mob, two front line buffs, and two backline buffs, and does not need to stay close to the mob for its debuffs and front line buffs.

GEO's abilities push it to the front lines, but its gear and squishy-ness push it to the back lines. Does it have the tools naturally to be able to be an effective nuker? If it doesn't have the tools to effectively nuke, will it get gear options to make melee range more feasible? As currently its place is going to be decided more by Cardinal Chant's effects and potencey, and how useful the nuke-ra spells will be. Otherwise its going to be likely relegated to subbing WHM or RDM to help heal and haste groups.

So where will GEO end up? There is lots of promise to the job, but it seems to be pushed in a few directions while not appearing to have the tools needed to go in those directions.

Looking at the job on paper: Geomancer has no buff to affect attack rate nor any kind of buff at all that provides any benefit in situations where attack and accuracy are capped. Geomancer can not switch parties to buff a whole alliance. Geomancer has to keep both itself and its Luopan alive to maintain two frontline buffs.

Unless something very unexpected makes the job useful, or efficiency isn't a concern, Geomancer's current place will probably be in the moghouse changing jobs.

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Originally Posted by SpankWustler

Looking at the job on paper: Geomancer has no buff to affect attack rate nor any kind of buff at all that provides any benefit in situations where attack and accuracy are capped. Geomancer can not switch parties to buff a whole alliance. Geomancer has to keep both itself and its Luopan alive to maintain two frontline buffs.

Unless something very unexpected makes the job useful, or efficiency isn't a concern, Geomancer's current place will probably be in the moghouse changing jobs.

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And a 100k deathwarp job @ level 1 since the other 21 jobs are 99! (100k being the price stupid people paid for petrified logs the day the expansion dropped).

LOL yup not to mention it will cost you a nice 8 million gils when you buy all the scrolls from the NPC. I mean really if the goal is to make a job that is boosting the party, then they should give geomancer a minimum of 4 spells that it can cast to the party, even if it has to be split front and back end jobs. Right now it is so underwhelmingly bad. Regen aura is not as good as Scholar Regen V AOE + Perpetuance. Nuking is not so great compared to Blm. Magic defense does not hold a candle to WHM.... They do have some debuff spells to the enemy that could be useful - the same similar spells that Blue has. Those spells should have been given to RDM..... Geomancer - need a few updates to be actually useful. I would not even bother doing it, I am stopping mine at 41. Runefencer is where the money is at. They should just kill this job and give the spells to RDM, which is a job that should debuff and buff the party.

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

LOL yup not to mention it will cost you a nice 8 million gils when you buy all the scrolls from the NPC. I mean really if the goal is to make a job that is boosting the party, then they should give geomancer a minimum of 4 spells that it can cast to the party, even if it has to be split front and back end jobs. Right now it is so underwhelmingly bad. Regen aura is not as good as Scholar Regen V AOE + Perpetuance. Nuking is not so great compared to Blm. Magic defense does not hold a candle to WHM.... They do have some debuff spells to the enemy that could be useful - the same similar spells that Blue has. Those spells should have been given to RDM..... Geomancer - need a few updates to be actually useful. I would not even bother doing it, I am stopping mine at 41. Runefencer is where the money is at. They should just kill this job and give the spells to RDM, which is a job that should debuff and buff the party.

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Its almost like the people who made the job dont actually play the game, which would really explain a lot of the poorly thought out designed elements to it.

It took them a good one year or more to actually fix Scholar if I recall correctly. The same goes with campaign battle, and Walk of Echoes. ToAU is the one expansion with the least amount of problems. They had to tweak besieged mostly. If we want them to tweak the job, then we should compile a list of how it could have been better :)

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

LOL yup not to mention it will cost you a nice 8 million gils when you buy all the scrolls from the NPC. I mean really if the goal is to make a job that is boosting the party, then they should give geomancer a minimum of 4 spells that it can cast to the party, even if it has to be split front and back end jobs. Right now it is so underwhelmingly bad. Regen aura is not as good as Scholar Regen V AOE + Perpetuance. Nuking is not so great compared to Blm. Magic defense does not hold a candle to WHM.... They do have some debuff spells to the enemy that could be useful - the same similar spells that Blue has. Those spells should have been given to RDM..... Geomancer - need a few updates to be actually useful. I would not even bother doing it, I am stopping mine at 41. Runefencer is where the money is at. They should just kill this job and give the spells to RDM, which is a job that should debuff and buff the party.

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You likely haven't finished skilling GEO yet, so you don't know its full potential. I doubt anyone has gotten all of GEO's spells yet and skilled its spells to cap yet. Just be patient and see what it is capable of at its full potential.

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

It took them a good one year or more to actually fix Scholar if I recall correctly. The same goes with campaign battle, and Walk of Echoes. ToAU is the one expansion with the least amount of problems. They had to tweak besieged mostly. If we want them to tweak the job, then we should compile a list of how it could have been better :)

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Difference between SCH and GEO is that SCH actually had a better defined role starting out.

Biggest issue SCH had when it was released was until it started getting its helix spells in the 50's it had nothing to really set it apart from the existing mages. SCH was clearly a mage from the start, just did not have anything to really set it apart til later in levels.

GEO is all over the place currently. Gets non-aoe nukes at the same rate as RDM, so that doesn't lend to being a nuker much. Its buffs are auras with a rather small range, and when compare to other buffing jobs like Bard and COR it lags behind them in numbers and buff versatility. When look at the melee side, while it has some potential with clubs that gets lost due to current gear choices being pretty much pure mage and only being a B? rating for clubs.

Honestly, I think the best path might be to buff the melee side of GEO a bit by upping the Club skill to an A, and opening up some of the lighter armors for it. That would help keep it up near the mob where the majority of a normal party would be, while still leaving it the option to be useful on the backline for mobs you don't want a lot of people around. Otherwise /RDM and /WHM will be about the only options for subjobs for it just because of Cures and Haste.

We really can't judge the new jobs after such a small amount of time since they were made available.
GEO doesn't have merits or artifact, relic and empyrean gear sets. Some of these things could have a huge impact on how the job plays.
We should also consider the possibility of an overhaul like the one SCH received after it's debut. I remember unlocking SCH and leveling it to 40 before the patch came. The difference was tremendous. One ability alone, Sublimation, changed the job completely.

I wouldn't dismiss GEO so quickly if I were you. Not until a respectable amount of time has passed.

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Originally Posted by Imakun

I wouldn't dismiss GEO so quickly if I were you. Not until a respectable amount of time has passed.

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And when is a good amount of time? A year? two years? 5 years? PUP got their fixed in 2011, over 5 years after it was introduced in 2006. Sure we can say they are understaffed... but SE need to seriously use the cash we have been given them to reinvest in this game. Honestly we can just ignore this expansion at least till Sept or Dec, when it has a good amount of decent contents, and more adjustments are being made. Why are we still paying to be a beta tester? Oh and they need to make extra print of the Xbox editions.... or make it downloadable via Xbox Live service.

most people will probably hate on this idea, but in alot of ways geo seems more likely to be a mage party buffing job than a melee one as is its refresh climbs pretty fast with skill and it has matt and macc buffs as well as int not to mention an ability (blaze of glory) that increases the pets buff(tho cuts its hp in half), tho for the melee side they have ana blity that makes there pet undamageable. atm i know this is meh but after the magic changes who knows 4 blms a sch and a geo could become a battle field set piece again.

The main problem GEO has is that BRD and COR can pop in a party, buff, and gtfo, GEO has to stay in that party at all times for them to get the effects, taking up space.

After seeing more and more numbers for Geomancer's enhancements, with real "gems" such as an attack buff that looks like it will cap in the neighborhood of 15% and +STR, DEX, Etc. spells that appear to cap lower than the similar line from my White Mage, it's looking more and more like any value Geomancer has will come from its enfeebling effects.

The enfeebling effects would bypass Geomancer's weakness of being stuck in one party in an alliance setting, and ~15% Defense Down on an enemy is generally far better than +~15% Attack. Against weaker enemies, just walking around as a cloud of Defense Down miasma would also be much easier than casting Dia II on every single thing.

Of course, it could always turn out that these effects have even lower potency than the enhancing abilities or unexpectedly low accuracy. As of right now, I don't think anyone has tested the enfeebling Geomancy at all, so anything is possible.

If Geomancer's enfeebling effects are extremely accurate and mirror its enhancing effects, the job may be better than it seemed at first glance. Still, for a job so young and so likely to be under the magnifying glass for adjustments, I think it's important to note the myriad weaknesses of Geomancer's enhancing side.

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Originally Posted by Imakun

We really can't judge the new jobs after such a small amount of time since they were made available.
GEO doesn't have merits or artifact, relic and empyrean gear sets. Some of these things could have a huge impact on how the job plays.
We should also consider the possibility of an overhaul like the one SCH received after it's debut. I remember unlocking SCH and leveling it to 40 before the patch came. The difference was tremendous. One ability alone, Sublimation, changed the job completely.

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This is very, very true. The Geomancer of right now isn't going to be the Geomancer of next year.

However, it's important to note what sucks about Geomancer right now so it can be fixed to create the Geomancer of next year.

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

And when is a good amount of time? A year? two years? 5 years? PUP got their fixed in 2011, over 5 years after it was introduced in 2006. Sure we can say they are understaffed... but SE need to seriously use the cash we have been given them to reinvest in this game. Honestly we can just ignore this expansion at least till Sept or Dec, when it has a good amount of decent contents, and more adjustments are being made. Why are we still paying to be a beta tester? Oh and they need to make extra print of the Xbox editions.... or make it downloadable via Xbox Live service.

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Hopefully less than that. Something like 6 months top.
SCH received its patch pretty quick (considering SE's standards). I think it wasn't even a month after its release, I can't remember.

PUP was on an entire different level because
a) it's a pet job and SE doesn't care about pet jobs
b) it's too complicated even for them, they won't even tell us what some attachments do because I'm sure they have no clue
c) it's a pet job
d) ToAU came with a new mindset for the playerbase, or at least people started using their brain more coincidentally with its release and no one in their right mind would have wasted a pt spot for a PUP when it was in that state
e) loljob stigma (see d)
f) it's a pet job

Geomancer's got potential, considering how its debuffs are unresistable (unless the mob is flat out immune to it) and stackable with other forms of debuffs.
What it needs is to be brought onto the same field with other jobs (aka with merits and JSE gear), some fine-tuning and additional tools to control/protect the Luopan and finally more investigation on its skill and how they work.

XI's playerbase is not a very open minded one anymore, I can see that. But hey, my main job is still Summoner. What can I say.

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

And when is a good amount of time? A year? two years? 5 years? PUP got their fixed in 2011, over 5 years after it was introduced in 2006. Sure we can say they are understaffed... but SE need to seriously use the cash we have been given them to reinvest in this game. Honestly we can just ignore this expansion at least till Sept or Dec, when it has a good amount of decent contents, and more adjustments are being made. Why are we still paying to be a beta tester? Oh and they need to make extra print of the Xbox editions.... or make it downloadable via Xbox Live service.

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Sadly they are understaffed and the joke of a game that is another MMO by them ::cough::casualtothemaxFF14::cough:: gets way more people than that garbage deserves (its gonna crash and burn in like 6 months and im honestly glad)

SE give your actually sucessful MMO some better support.

Yes and people right now are paying $30-40 to be a beta tester for SoA. Which is basically how SE works when it comes to expansion. We can safely forget that it ever exist for a year or two when they finally finish with the actual expansion. It's sad to see that they are still have not learn much of anything, even though they are fully capable of creating a fully finished package (the 6 add ons are a prove to this). They are really putting all their effort on 14 and sorely neglecting 11 which actually has paying customers.

Outside of immunity, GEO debuffs seem unresistable. (Was able to land on 99 players as level 65 geomancer with 4 combined skill).

The buffs cannot be dispelled at all (Odin2 says hi!)
Similarly, the debuffs cannot be erased!

They also all seem to have unique buff slots (although paralyze is suspect, GEO isn't that high). You can inflict something with both Slow and Geo or Indi-Slow at the same time.

The real questions will be:

1.) How potent is Indi-Frailty?
2.) Does it add or multiply with current sources of defense down?
3.) How will future updates improve the durability of the Luopan?

(GEO itself should be durable enough- like other mages - it can basically simultaneously cap PDT and MDT as it stands with a few slots open for +5 refresh).

Shhhh, don't post any good or great findings here. Remember the Embrava adjustment? If it is indeed good - whatever strategy you come up with, keep it a secret and post somewhere else.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

The main problem GEO has is that BRD and COR can pop in a party, buff, and gtfo, GEO has to stay in that party at all times for them to get the effects, taking up space.

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Geo can cast that buff on it's fetter and haul ass to the back. Also screw the buffs, take a long hard look at the debuffs. Geo just got debuffs that nobody else can reliable use and their nearly unresistable. Defense Down, Magic Defense Down, Magic Evasion Down, stuff like that. Run up front, drop the fetter run back and cast the Geo version onto the fetter. Then cast an Indi-buff version onto yourself, especially if your in a BLM party.

You don't even need to run up if you're using a Geocolure spell. I haven't played it yet but I've had a party member cast a Geo spell on me and the luopan was where I was standing.

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Originally Posted by saevel

Also screw the buffs, take a long hard look at the debuffs.

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This is Geomancer in a nutshell. Geomancer is not good at a lot of things right now, but Geomancer is VERY good at putting a 13% Defense Down effect that can sometimes go up to ~15-25% with certain job abilities.

Being that the job isn't good at much else, I'm not sure where Geomancer would fit in a small groups or even six-man parties as a mage who can't heal that well and isn't Bard. I could definitely see a Geomancer sitting in an alliance's "Misc. Non-Melee (and One Sad Thief)" party while laying down Geo-Frailty Luopans anywhere that melee have to eat Pizza, though.

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Originally Posted by SpankWustler

I could definitely see a Geomancer sitting in an alliance's "Misc. Non-Melee (and One Sad Thief)" party while laying down Geo-Frailty Luopans anywhere that melee have to eat Pizza, though.

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LOL you nailed it, right now the job is a misc.non-melee but not exactly a mage or a buffer type. Maybe the job will prove quite useful at something on SoA events. Assuming the team actually test this job and not just creating it in vacuum, which right now, it seems like they did not bother doing any testing on all the updates on March 27.

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

Shhhh, don't post any good or great findings here. Remember the Embrava adjustment? If it is indeed good - whatever strategy you come up with, keep it a secret and post somewhere else.

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brb, finding posts where Perfect Defense tactics were in discussion

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Originally Posted by Quetzacoatl

brb, finding posts where Perfect Defense tactics were in discussion

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Thats simple, go look at the ADL thread over in Battle Content, right here. Its still a load of lol but it does exist, same as the Chocobo Blinker thread popped up shortly before its nerf, and the NNI threads are all over those need not be mentioned.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

Thats simple, go look at the ADL thread over in Battle Content, right here. Its still a load of lol but it does exist, same as the Chocobo Blinker thread popped up shortly before its nerf, and the NNI threads are all over those need not be mentioned.

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I meant to be smartass in saying that, but thanks lol

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Originally Posted by Quetzacoatl

I meant to be smartass in saying that, but thanks lol

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:x
BlahblahImmaderp

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

LOL you nailed it, right now the job is a misc.non-melee but not exactly a mage or a buffer type. Maybe the job will prove quite useful at something on SoA events. Assuming the team actually test this job and not just creating it in vacuum, which right now, it seems like they did not bother doing any testing on all the updates on March 27.

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Their definitely have elemental damage down, they just bring so much more to a group of casters. Drop Magic Defense / Evasion down near the NM then run back and do a magic buff (accuracy, attack or refresh) for the BLMs and SCHs. Then just start your own nukes as /RDM. Geo gets Tier IV nukes, MAB II from /RDM and access to all the nice nuking gear. Absolutely no reason they can't be chain nuking with the best of them, especially after SE introduces the elemental magic cast/recast update.

So I guess they will put in the mage or misc non DD group in big alliance events, but not really a job you will bring on smaller events since SCH, WHM, BRD, COR, and RDM is a lot more useful than GEO. Does not seem that useful for Abysea farm, not sure for Dynamis, unless there is a glitch that lets them proc magic all the time.... And if this job indeed is more useful than Sch or Rdm, and has a few tricks up its sleeve perhaps no need to post it here lol. In case it become too apparent that it is great - we don't need another adjustment similar to how to adjust Embrava.

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

the mage or misc non DD group

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Currently, this is the same party, which is why it would generally benefit from Indi-Refresh. I just find the term "mage party" weird when its more accurately "the guys just here to Stun" or "the guys just here to Proc" with a few unfortunate one-handed melee thrown in for utility in 95% of current content. Geomancer would fit in well as the "the guy just here to provide Defense Down".

The Development Bros taking a view on magic damage that players might have if Marches didn't exist could be one reason Geomancer is a bit of a letdown other than its enfeebling effects. The job's Elemental Magic is obviously meant to provide another side to Geomancer beyond throwing out auras given all the unique spells and abilities it has to enhance the stuff.

I'm enjoying the job so far, and am intrigued about some of the enfeebling effect potency. The defense down stacking with other sources of defense down is nice, but I'm more excited about what the magic defense down one does for mages, especially with other changes to magic damage coming.

As far as potency and utility, I'll wait for the AF and other adjustments before going crazy. Although, with the current development team I'm not so sure they'll come as fast as the first crop of excellent SCH adjustments did :(

One thing I will point out now though is the sore lack of self-preservation elements. I believe GEO is the only mage now with no native sleep. Of course I can get a decent SS, Blink and Aquaveil from several subs, at least as good as I'm used to on BLM/?. At the moment, however, sleeping an aggro mob requires /SCH for the dark arts that bumps enfeebling up to a place that can land sleep. /SCH certainly has other benefits but I hate being tied to it for that one utility, then miss out on all the benefits /RDM brings, especially the FC on geomancy that /SCH arts can't give.

It wouldn't be the first time I felt stapled to one subjob, of course, but I hope GEO is given some form of sleep. I can see why running around with an unresistable sleep aura might concern the balance guys. There are other approaches, however. I simple native enfeebling skill would allow for /RDM and /BLM sleeps to land. Or SE could add a new sleep spell, usable by multiple jobs including GEO, that is part of the dark magic category.

Maybe they can get Indi-Petrify that stoned those mobs for a good 60 seconds or more with gears and JA lol. They do get Gravity spells. Though how good it is, compared to scholar gravitiga + bindga strategy of yesteryears.

The Indi-Gravity helped a lot when trying to train agro mobs to a zone line. I was able to outrun almost everything with only 8% move speed.

GEO and RUN both have places -- just not ones that can be defined without merits/relic/empy and only a week into the expansion content.

Give it a few months and both jobs will find their use.

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Originally Posted by Horadrim

GEO and RUN both have places -- just not ones that can be defined without merits/relic/empy and only a week into the expansion content.

Give it a few months and both jobs will find their use.

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they knew people where going to get the jobs to cap in a very short time and analyze the hell out of them within days, yet we should wait months before we get something a simple as AF or knowing what role (and if they are even effective enough to take up a spot). So all these high level geo/run should just let the job collect dust because SE does a piss poor job at knowing their own game and what the community does when new ones come and not letting these new jobs have much to work for (AF, merits, on no relics..ect) that crap should have been sorted out when they made them, not be slowly patched in down the line.

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Originally Posted by leorez

they knew people where going to get the jobs to cap in a very short time and analyze the hell out of them within days, yet we should wait months before we get something a simple as AF or knowing what role (and if they are even effective enough to take up a spot). So all these high level geo/run should just let the job collect dust because SE does a piss poor job at knowing their own game and what the community does when new ones come and not letting these new jobs have much to work for (AF, merits, on no relics..ect) that crap should have been sorted out when they made them, not be slowly patched in down the line.

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Which would you rather.

A: SE releases the jobs, and releases them with their AF, Relic, and Emp gear all released at the same time, but the player base disagrees with their use, such as with NIN where it was originally a ranged DD and is now a tank/light DD. Due to this choice, RUN and GEO have 3 sets of JSE gear that do not fit the players use of them, and are left without real useful AF/Relic/Emp gear.

B: SE releases the jobs, and holds back their AF, Relic, and Emp gear so they can see how the player base goes about using the job. Upon watching and seeing how things turn out, they then determine the stats for the JSE sets for each job, and then implement them with those stats. Due to this choice, RUN and GEO have 3 sets of JSE gear which fit how the average player plays the job, and thus most if not all people can get use out of these sets.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

Which would you rather.

A: SE releases the jobs, and releases them with their AF, Relic, and Emp gear all released at the same time, but the player base disagrees with their use, such as with NIN where it was originally a ranged DD and is now a tank/light DD. Due to this choice, RUN and GEO have 3 sets of JSE gear that do not fit the players use of them, and are left without real useful AF/Relic/Emp gear.

B: SE releases the jobs, and holds back their AF, Relic, and Emp gear so they can see how the player base goes about using the job. Upon watching and seeing how things turn out, they then determine the stats for the JSE sets for each job, and then implement them with those stats. Due to this choice, RUN and GEO have 3 sets of JSE gear which fit how the average player plays the job, and thus most if not all people can get use out of these sets.

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the problem with that in general is that they should know what the players will do with stuff by now, clearly how geo was set up means they intend it to go one way, which is this weird mage/buffer who needs to be up close. Given this to people who have played the game, this would have been put into question pretty damn fast.

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Originally Posted by leorez

the problem with that in general is that they should know what the players will do with stuff by now, clearly how geo was set up means they intend it to go one way, which is this weird mage/buffer who needs to be up close. Given this to people who have played the game, this would have been put into question pretty damn fast.

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Yes well a spell for a job with decent EVA which let you completely negate a few attacks should have clued them in that it would be used to take hits, rather than deal damage from a ranged position. In the same expansion they put SAM in with basically the same kind of idea in mind, where it was to be a tank using Seigan and Third Eye to tank, and instead ended up being an extremely popular heavy DD. The point is that they are not always to good with finding out what players will do with the actual jobs, some people thought RUN would end up being just a defensive DD, in all honesty, I have not paid any attention to what people are doing with the job, so it very well could be going that way. SE seemed to think it was going to be another PLD, just for magic not melee, but we players know if we want a guy to stand around and get hit, nothing rivals a PLD.

SE has a tendency to leave gear as it is, I can not think of very many changes they make to gear except recently with the changes to the DMG on the new weapons. Besides that, they seem to put stats on an item and leave them there, you would have to upgrade the item to change them, so if they added AF/+1, Relic/+1/+2, & Emp/+1/+2 then we would have probably been stuck with those stats, and if they were made poorly, then we would have had to deal with it. Basically, I rather them take their time and have less of a chance of screwing things up, than to speed it up and screw things up worse, which seems to be how many people are looking at this expansion currently, that they put it out without paying attention, and now its not as good as it should be.