New Magical DPS Job Idea - Geomancer

FFXIV Concept: Geomancer
Role: Magical DPS / Starting Level: 30
Weapon: Bells


FFXIV is an amazing game – and as a fan of the series, it’s hard not to have a job you want to see added to the game. For me, the job I look most forward to in FFXIV is Geomancer. In Stormblood, the Astrologian quest hinted at Geomancers – while it is possible that Geomancer end up as a healer due to being “similar” in the questline, I believe Geomancers are more established in the series as a damage dealer.

In almost all iterations in the series, Geomancer derives power based off the ground they are standing on. I think it is extremely important for Geomancer to maintain this same concept in XIV and designed my concept around that. I chose the 3 most common elements in Geomancy – Water, Earth and Wind and went with the idea of placing fields of power, known as Geofields, which they derive the power to use Geomancy from. So their “Geomancy” actions will change based off which Geofield they stand in.

The next important part of the concept was to ensure that there was a reason for each element to exist and something besides Geofields to make the class unique. The primary way I accomplished the uniqueness was to:
• Make all Geomancy off-global, but giving them castable spells with their Bells that take less than 2.5s to cast giving them a fluid rotation without missing globals.
• Making water geomancy necessary in single target, but specializing in single/some AoE.
• Making earth geomancy exclusively best for AoE.
• Making wind geomancy single target only, but again, requiring rotation between water/wind for maximum dps.

• Their rotation looks different between the elements:

o Wind/Earth: Channel, Geo1, Gate, Geo2, Passage, Geo3
o Water: Channel, Reply, Geo1, Geo2, Channel, Reply, Geo1, Geo3

• This rotation is assisted with their job gauge, that shows wind/earth operating under a 3 tier lock system and water operating under a different “flowing” system.

https://rpgmaker.net/media/content/u...ncer_Gauge.png

I have made the concept a PDF document. It took a while for me to come up with a concept that I felt did Geomancer justice. I know it is quite a bit to read, but I would love some feedback on the class and to hear your thoughts!

GEOMANCER CONCEPT PDF

Sorry to rain on the parade, but Geomancer is already STRONGLY hinted at as healer in the 60-70 AST questline.

Did you even read the first two sentences of what the guy said?

On topic, I like the concept, seems like it would flow pretty well.

Tbh from that quest what I gathered is that geomancer is very similar to Conjurers from eorzea, that said if they want to add geomancer they'll find a way regardless

Would like to remind ppl that we don't even know how big the planet is and there's the new world (the one the mamool'ja come from and the native american dress comes) that we really know nothing about hence geomancy from kugane could be akin to astrology of sharlayn and ishgard

Well, at least I got some responses. Thank you Prismatic for reading the concept and what I wrote. I don't think SE really did anything to definitively say that GEO has to be a healer, but just based off traditional Final Fantasy, GEO feels more like a DPS. I'll probably spend some time putting the concept in just straight up text, since I feel like people won't click on the PDF link, but oh well.

But if GEO makes in FFXIV, I'll play it no matter the role. Just personally, I want it to be a DPS and I really hope it incorporates the need to stand on certain ground like my concept did.

I like the concept as well - I really do : 3

Always up for elemental based chars or at least cls' which are related to any kind of elements and/or area manipulation. Definitely would give it a try jupp. : D

The funny thing is, every single aspect of the Conjurer+White Mage lore/storyline/abilities is basically a Geomancer.
If you wanted to make the change full, you'd just have to change some ability names. Not even what they do or what they look like, literally just the names.
Like Holy is now 'Pressure Wave' which acts exactly the same except it does 'wind aspected damage' which really doesn't mean a hill of beans anyways.

I think the only way we'd see a Geomancer job would be if they do a 'secondary job crystal' for Conjurer (like the summoner-scholar split), and it doesn't appear that entire system is something the devs want to expand on. Still it strikes me as unlikely that they'd give up the possibility of a future need for the job crystal system.

EDIT: Which is not to say that this isnt a pretty cool design mind you. I can clearly see you put a lot of work into it!

@Tzain, this is why I believe geomancer will be a dps. It's too close from whm esthetically speaking. (a bit like tome mage and astro)
However we know they won't do the crystal thing. Y. P said he's done with that, I would actually except scholar to simply be untied from smn at some point. Just starting at lv 30 with arc lv 30 requirement.

I would much prefer if Geomancer is introduced it would be dps as i want Dancer as healer :(
I like your ideas OP

I'd prefer to see Geomancer as a Tank, since that works with their protective nature hinted at in Stormblood, but is able to separate them from another healer. I made a tank idea and I'm debating in sharing it, for reasons....

While I can't go over your idea in it's entirety right now, I can tell you formatted everything in a cohesive easy to understand manor. My one suggestion right now would be to adjust the boxes a bit so the description isn't squished. And make use of bold or italics to highlight combo and additional effects. I look forward to reviewing this later.

Okay I've had a chance to review your idea and i do like it. I wont say I completely understand it mostly because some things that i think work together get lost in the text, which is why i suggested the adjustment of the boxes and the bolding/italicizing of some things. From what I can gather you appear to be doing a combination of Astral Fire/Umbral Ice, Greased Lightning, and Sen. basically you build up one power to 3(i think 3) like the astral/umbral cycle and it boosts your power the more you have, this is done by your bell spells as you called them. you then cycle through the elements you have given them so that they can maintain that power you have gained, similar to Greased Lightning, then once each element reaches their peak you can release the "stored energy" as a powerful attack of that element, similar to the Sens. This is my interpretation, but please correct me if I am wrong.

If I am right I like the notion and I feel it works, by limiting Geomancers to just those 3 elements like their inspiration, Feng Shui, it makes the cycle a little easier to work with then using all 6 elements. However, from what I see it appears the linking of the 3 systems is a bit weak. I'm not sure if it is because it is "weak" or if because the descriptions make it appear that way. That being said what i could suggest is to try and format it a bit more, you've already done a good job, but look at the new job guides for inspiration. Also I would suggest 2 things for ability and trait names, look to past Geomancer and Elementalist abilities for name inspirations, and try and use alternative words for what you mean, to give the skill a more mystical feel; like instead of Reply try Antiphon, or Huifu if you wanna try to give them the eastern feel. I used google translate don't take that word literally.

But all in all I like the Idea, nice work.

I always see this concept floating around the internet, and it's still to this day one of the best thought out concepts I have seen for a class.

I would love to see Geo put in the game like this. OP this is really well done.

I’d love this! I really hope SE notices the demand for GEO, this game would really benefit from it after WHMs departure from their elemental magic.

Personally I would like to see a magic dps that revolves around the element wheel and GEO would fit that wish. It would be the first magic dps job with a combo like system in play (Wind > Fire > Ice > Light attack) (Lightning > Earth > Water > Dark Attack). You could even add a trance phase that would change normal spells to something more powerful like Quake, Tornado, Flood, Blaze, Frost, Burst along with Ultima for light and Meteor for dark.

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Originally Posted by Cled-cat

I’d love this! I really hope SE notices the demand for GEO, this game would really benefit from it after WHMs departure from their elemental magic.

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Fingers crossed! It's been hinted at/talked about for so long. Would love to see my favorite FF staple come into the fold again. Let us have the Umbral elements for damage *clap emoji*

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Personally I would like to see a magic dps that revolves around the element wheel and GEO would fit that wish. It would be the first magic dps job with a combo like system in play (Wind > Fire > Ice > Light attack) (Lightning > Earth > Water > Dark Attack). You could even add a trance phase that would change normal spells to something more powerful like Quake, Tornado, Flood, Blaze, Frost, Burst along with Ultima for light and Meteor for dark.

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Quake, Tornado, Flood... My dream

Yes, Geomancer would be nice as a DPS.

Holy necromancy, Batman

Quarantine and search function are a dangerous combination.

First of all I envision Geomancer as a magical Dancer (dps with good support) so I think you nailed the role.

This is really cool, and it looks like you put a lot of work into it, major props! I only skimmed through everything because I'm kind of dumb so don't bother forgiving me if I missed something, buuuut I'm gonna criticize it anyway :D

"After most hard-casted spells is an ogcd" - That sounds a lot like Red Mage. Maybe not the same but possibly too similar? Something I don't think any job uses yet are channeled spells, could be cool? And possibly a nice counterpart to having many instants.

My first impression without knowing too much of what's going on is it might be over-complicated - not an insult I mean hey I'm a SMN main this is just the impression I get. It's very difficult to say for sure without playing it but for example: The gates look... irritating. Why not just get right to casting the fun stuff? Aspect seems kind of unnecessary, like just another thing you have to do before you can do what you want to do. Having to not only place a field and stand in it but also build up power before using some abilities is not only yet another limitation but encourages the player to stay in one element which doesn't sound as fun as swapping elements semi-frequently. Affinity also seems somewhat unnecessary; not bad it just seems tacked on to add a little extra something for the sake of having a little extra something whether or not it needs it. All of these things together could be messy, unfun, and/or punishing.

Questions about the fields: Can you (and should you) have more than one at a time? How long do they last? Do they take a gcd to place? How big are they? (I'm assuming not that big?) Can you place all of them at once? Are they meant to be used in a fixed rotation?

Here's my take so far: You have to be in fields to use your good spells, that creates a positional requirement that could very easily get fucked up in a boss encounter and would just be a pain in the ass when in the open world or sprinting through dungeons unless they are very very easy to place. Any time you have to use one ability that does nothing (or very little) on its own in order to do something actually good, feelsbadman. Just thinking about being out leveling and placing fields at every single mob before attacking it. Having more limitations on top of that sounds like more trouble than it's worth. That's just the impression I'm getting from reading this stuff, I'm not 100% certain how it'd play out.

That said, some ideas:

Fields could be massive so they're more of a buff than a spot to stand in, which is kinda lame, or you could have an ogcd that places all of them closely around you on a very short cd (if any) which I think would be ideal - quality of life and all that - or placing all at once could be a cooldown while placing one at a time is ogcd with no cd, so you have more freedom of placement but that's button bloaty. I would be wary of passive buffs lest everyone want to stay in the same field all the time. Could/should teleporting to fields be a thing?

Personally I like the idea of having all your fields down and moving between them as needed, rather than recasting each one every time. Just to incorporate another unique element to the job - if you want to do this you have to go somewhere rather than use a certain ability, and you always have all your options open only a few steps away. Movement abilities and instants would be important with this, maybe even an immunity so you don't get pushed out of your fields as often by mechanics.

Blowing up fields for support is sweet, however removing them might be unnecessarily punishing and I don't think allies should need to be in them for two reasons: First good luck getting pugs to cooperate, second it puts more stuff on their screens (clutter) they should care about without always knowing what it is; just the Geodude should be fine. You could collapse that effect down to one button that changes depending which field you're in similar to the other abilities, a simple cd with perhaps a couple charges should be enough.

Instead of Aspect being fixed you could have it affect another element at random (with a generous duration to use). Geos have always been extremely random so some rng in this iteration would fit and you'd have to use your noggin a bit more which is fun (for some). Or you could get the same effect as a proc from filler spells so you neeever know where you're going next. If moving between fields is common then the power resource might be better as universal rather than per element so it'd be useable faster and more flexibly, but then you'd lose the flavor of powering up each element.

Using cones, lines, and other ground areas is brilliant. More of that! Maybe. Maybe not. Too much could be a pain. It's cool and thematic though, I like it.

I'm not sure about each field being much better or worse at certain things like aoe... just because these fields are the entire basis of the job and it'd be boring to stick with the same one all the time, and you already have morphing spells so why not more options? Geos have typically been beasts for aoe if I remember right. Also if you're cycling through all the elements on a boss, wouldn't you just always skip earth? Reminds me of SMN egis where it's like "hey cool look at these options" but then "syke you're only using this lol".

You know this reminds me of the GW2 Elementalist. Hm... what if you also had lingering effects from fields that bled into others? And combining certain elements could unlock special abilities, kind of like Mudra? Just a thought.

Sorry if this is rambly and chaotic, I've been going back to your job description repeatedly and answered some of my own questions, I'm just typing as I'm thinking and editing as needed. Looks like a fun job, not as complicated as I first thought. Still don't like a fixed field rotation so much, or some being useless at times, that's probably my biggest gripe though it does make sense. If certain fields should be terrible at certain things I wonder if more elements would be a good idea, for example 2 aoe and 2 single target for a little more spice. I've been looking at this thing all night and I still don't know wtf is up with Reply. Eh whatever I'm done, GG m8 nice job (pun not intended).

I'm not sure if this was mentioned before but during glamor runs of the Swallows Compass and the AST SB quests I noticed that the Geomancers seem to use Earth, Wind and Water attacks and spells, AKA the elements that were phased out of WHM, so it does seem like the gorundwork was being laid out earlier than most of us thought (unless this has been brought up before in which case I apologize for regurgitating more info and the groundwork has been laid out as early as most did expect)

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

I'm not sure if this was mentioned before but during glamor runs of the Swallows Compass and the AST SB quests I noticed that the Geomancers seem to use Earth, Wind and Water attacks and spells, AKA the elements that were phased out of WHM, so it does seem like the gorundwork was being laid out earlier than most of us thought (unless this has been brought up before in which case I apologize for regurgitating more info and the groundwork has been laid out as early as most did expect)

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It’s my personal hope that that is the case. Unless they really just planned to phase out 2 whole elements from being castable for all further content and life of the game.

The issue I’ve had with new jobs as they are irritatingly simple. Which is a plague on the game right now. I do like the overall concept and the starting level at 30 made me giggle. As of right now I’m crossing my fingers that we don’t start at freaking 70. My friend was quit the game because we wanted to start out as GNB but he had to; Beat the game, Beat the Post game, Start Heavenward, and Reach it’s climax before he can start it.

Digressing abit but jobs shouldn’t start so dam late. 50 was a good point 30 was fine for me with MCH and AST. I get people are lazy and don’t wanna play the game and want the job to be 80 off the bat, also some valid claims like Lore and job quests and making weapons for dungeons drops which I assume played some role. Imagine the variety GNB and DNC would’ve had if they started just 10 levels under. Anyways I’m down ignore the rant lol

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Originally Posted by Jirah

The issue I’ve had with new jobs as they are irritatingly simple. Which is a plague on the game right now. I do like the overall concept and the starting level at 30 made me giggle. As of right now I’m crossing my fingers that we don’t start at freaking 70. My friend was quit the game because we wanted to start out as GNB but he had to; Beat the game, Beat the Post game, Start Heavenward, and Reach it’s climax before he can start it.

Digressing abit but jobs shouldn’t start so dam late. 50 was a good point 30 was fine for me with MCH and AST. I get people are lazy and don’t wanna play the game and want the job to be 80 off the bat, also some valid claims like Lore and job quests and making weapons for dungeons drops which I assume played some role. Imagine the variety GNB and DNC would’ve had if they started just 10 levels under. Anyways I’m down ignore the rant lol

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I think the late start was a matter of convenience, both for the devs (less quest to make/code in, less weapons to make, etc) and players (Consider this, there are now 80 levels at the moment, and BLU did establish that Jobs can start at 1). Convenience might be atteh core of recent game design ATM considering other things like the new Relics, Trusts and of course, Jump Potions, so I can see new jobs starting 20 levels behind the cap as per usual unless its a limited Job in which case, that number is instead the level cap.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

The issue I’ve had with new jobs as they are irritatingly simple. Which is a plague on the game right now. I do like the overall concept and the starting level at 30 made me giggle. As of right now I’m crossing my fingers that we don’t start at freaking 70. My friend was quit the game because we wanted to start out as GNB but he had to; Beat the game, Beat the Post game, Start Heavenward, and Reach it’s climax before he can start it.

Digressing abit but jobs shouldn’t start so dam late. 50 was a good point 30 was fine for me with MCH and AST. I get people are lazy and don’t wanna play the game and want the job to be 80 off the bat, also some valid claims like Lore and job quests and making weapons for dungeons drops which I assume played some role. Imagine the variety GNB and DNC would’ve had if they started just 10 levels under. Anyways I’m down ignore the rant lol

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I would personally love to start up new classes from an early level. It's the same gripe I have with boosted jobs in the game, all of a sudden you have someone new to the class at a higher level doing stuff with people who (possibly) have at least some practice at what they are doing.

Though I am also a sucker for immersion and would love to get more time on a class and see how it all comes together.

Starting them out higher is definitely a convenience thing for players and an assets thing for devs. Less class quests, weapons, etc they have to make and put in the game.

Ok, so do you have to swap Geofields to cast a different geomancy spell? Let's suppose I put a Water Geofield on the ground and then I want to cast a Wind spell, do I have to nullifie the Water Geofield to put on the ground a Wind Geofield? And if I'm not on a Geofield, can I do some neutral spell? I suppose I will have to leave the Geofield if I don't want to be hit by some attacks. But I like the idea of the Geofields! But I'm not sure about the Bells! Lol!

Not sure about the bells?! Insert crying emoji.

The bells are the BEST part of Geomancer!

I think I'd like it it started from Level 1 but with a boosted Growth Rate like BLU mages. Granted, it'd take less than a day to get them up to Level Cap.

After reading the lorebook there is no way this class could be anything but a caster.

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Originally Posted by BasicBlake

After reading the lorebook there is no way this class could be anything but a caster.

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What are you referring to?

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Originally Posted by BasicBlake

After reading the lorebook there is no way this class could be anything but a caster.

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I mean, the Swallows Compass dungeon shows how barriers are involved with Geomancy, so it could just as easily be a healer.

The lore can be twisted for Geomancer to be a Shield Healer easily or switch between them like Astro. Honestly, its whatever the devs want it to be.

It's all just aether in the end. :D

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Originally Posted by Cled-cat

I mean, the Swallows Compass dungeon shows how barriers are involved with Geomancy, so it could just as easily be a healer.

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The barriers were to keep Garleans out. I would expect the Geomancer coded monsters to heal in there if they were supposed to be healers honestly.