Geomancer? Next caster job? 7.0? Maybe?

As much as I wanted to see Geomancer as a playable job, it seemingly has less of a chance of becoming the next caster job (or a job at all) than Bluemage simply getting made into a real job and its Limited status and spells delegated to side content. And it's not because of "buh-buh-but, Conjurer!" or "ahktually, ith basikuhlee Doman Athhtrologian," but more because I don't think the devs are going to step out of their comfort zone with job gimmicks or design in the way a Geomancer would be expected to function. That and the existence of the Swallow's Compass leads me to believe that it has been delegated to cameo/NPC-only status, not unlike Necromancer, Thief and Berserker.

With how they've slowly but steadily been dumbing-down jobs and gradually removing identity and gimmicks in the name of "balance," (see Scholar, Astrologian, Summoner, etc. not touching Samurai), and the latest DPS job being as deep as a puddle, any theory-crafted new job gimmicks or job gauge ideas seem too "complex" for them to handle. I really think they've hit a plateau and should stop adding jobs just because to the detriment of everything else.

I don't want to derail a thread about Geomancer with Bluemage, but honestly, since it's already in the game, has an icon, shares caster gear with the other 3 and already has animations and battle effects (and merchandise!)- they could/should come-up with a "balanced" ability pool and weapon stats, give it a job gauge that synergizes with its spell usage, and call it the 4th caster with a side-ability of switching to it's "OP" version and losing 10 levels and access to DF, and just stop ham-fisting new jobs to dilute the already-thinning job identities.

I’m not sure what job complexity has to do with Geomancer specifically. They can add whatever gimmick they want as long as it matches the aesthetic.

The thing is that they’re running out of “Final fantasy” jobs. We have all the well known jobs and they’re starting to stretch a little. We have things like gunbreaker and reimagining with a job like Sage.

Caster should be next, but they could go with range DPS as it’s the least popular sub DPS role in the game.

I for one hope it is a new caster. I want Geomancer specifically to even out the elements a little more. We don’t have a job that uses water magic offensively. White mage for aquaveil, but there are plenty of enemies that use water magic. Red mage technically has earth and wind magic, but we don’t have a caster that uses the other half of the elemental wield (black mage obviously uses fire, ice and lightning).

As far as unused jobs we have sorcerer, oracle, time mage, seer, mystic, elementalist, and geomancer.

Time mage could have been really cool, but I think unfortunately astrologian is the closest we’ll get to that.

Most of the other jobs are all really generic within the final fantasy universe.

Geomancer could be our wind, earth, water caster.

I hope our next caster is heavier on the DPS and lower on the utility scale.

They could do something interesting with DoTs, but preferably not poisons, as I find that really boring from an aesthetic point.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

The thing is that they’re running out of “Final fantasy” jobs. We have all the well known jobs and they’re starting to stretch a little. We have things like gunbreaker and reimagining with a job like Sage.

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The only thing that Sage that is reminiscent of other FF Sages is merely the name, because other than that, the job feels like a completely new XIV exclusive one. To the point that I even think the name "Sage" was kind of a bad choice, when they could go with something more akin to the aesthetics, like "Artificer" (heck, I'd love the acronym ART). The name Sage, to me, will always evoke the old seasoned wizard archetype, like Tellah, and not the magic-techno gundam laser aesthetics they have.

But another thing, if we actually scrutinize the jobs throughly, it's funny because the only job that is very faithful to its roots is the Blue Mage. The others always seem to be a reference only superficially; for example, I don't remember the classic FF Red Mage haing Ver-spells or having stuff like magic blades or even fully engaging in specialized melee. I don't remember the classic FF Bard being half-archers.

Of course, it's kinda obvious that in a MMO settings, adaptations must be made. I can't think how boring a DRG would be if they only had Jump and nothing else - that being said, I think there are still a ton of jobs to be added, because they simply can adjust the gimmick to fit in the norm.

I think that the changes to SMN this expansion were introduced to create design space for a DoT based caster next expansion. Given the story focus, I wouldn’t be surprised if they brought in those Void Mages we’ve heard so much about. What I’d like to see is something along the lines of the old Bane and Fester to reward DoT stacking, as well as some space-time magic along the lines of what you see in E2S and E12S with Spell-in-Waiting to set up burst where all your spells activate at once.

I might be wrong, but aren't Black Mages essentially Void Mages in the terms of lore? Seems like it would be too similar to what we already have.

Why not just go full on Time Mage then? It's always been a time and space magic after all, and as mentioned we've seen from boss mechanics how you would go about implementing time elements in a MMO. Time magic is already closely related to the void in the game's lore, whatever ideas you have for void magic could easily be rolled into the additional FF14 Time Mage flavor. All of the jobs have some of that after all.

And no, AST isn't "already the Time Mage" at this point. You might as well say BLM is also Time Mage because leylines is like casting Haste.

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Originally Posted by Tamaerl

I might be wrong, but aren't Black Mages essentially Void Mages in the terms of lore? Seems like it would be too similar to what we already have.

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Not really, the job quests deal a lot with the Void, but black magic itself is about balancing the umbral and astral charges of ambient aether. Reaper is the only job I can think of that actually utilizes the Void.

Lovely thread, it would be intriguing to see Geomancers incarnation in FFXIV. Personally, I've been hoping for Songstress to make an appearance, and to be either DPS or Healer

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

Why not just go full on Time Mage then?...

...And no, AST isn't "already the Time Mage" at this point. You might as well say BLM is also Time Mage because leylines is like casting Haste.

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Actually, both of those points are relevant to why Time mage is probably one of the least likely candidates. Simply put, Time mage has so much of it's identity scattered across basically everything (much like it did in FFXI, no Time mage there), that there's no point carving out a niche for it. Astrologian has Gravity (also known as Demi, a time magic), had a stun/"stop" with their original Celestial Opposition, and was able to "extend" buffs with an ability early on. I guess the devs didn't want either and nixed them. Black Mages also has Meteor as a Limit Break.

On top of that, the devs seem very reluctant to make Haste and Slow (Time Mage staples) regular status buffs and debuffs for several reasons like messing up GCDs (was an issue for AST Arrow buffs for some jobs), bosses/trials just immune to it as a whole, etc. And for what little abilities that do give speed boosts, they are limited and gimmicky at most. If the devs really wanted to make Time mage work, they'd have to change their battle content approach to do so, or it could turn out like Sage and only be a Time mage in-name only. Time mage is so historically ingrained as a support buffing/debuffing job that manipulates turn order for their turn-based games that I see no way for it to shine in XIV outside of "generic caster job with time-magic flair."

What is a generic caster job in a game that only has one proper caster?

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

What is a generic caster job in a game that only has one proper caster?

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It’s a job that does primarily magic damage and may have to wait around a couple of times per minute for their attack to go out. Or the eclectic selection of regular jobs they have, for one reason or another, grouped with blue mage.