White-Mage - Geomancy Gauge

[Rilifane]

It's crazy how that one throwaway line in an AST quest completely blinded people to the actual point that was being made. As said above, the only similarity is pulling from "the stars" and "the star" (the one we're on). While you can make the argument that WHM is elemental based, I feel like it's a really far stretch to say the WHM could not have GEO incorporated into at all, especially when the whole point of new class quests is that you're learning something new. While I personally just want to see GEO in the game period, I would gladly take it as an evolution of WHM rather than have nothing at all.

In a perfect world though, GEO would be it's own healer and WHM would be straight-up Ishgardian clerics and ditch the tree hugger gimmick.

Yes please. Bit tired of comforting trees because they broke a branch or something.
And WHM already has so much cleric-themed stuff (Bene, Holy aka epilepsy aoe, Protect, Divine Benison, Asylum, "Confession" stacks, Cleric Stance etc) that the whole tree hugger thing feels more like a leftover from CNJ that was kept because they didn't dare to change the class theme after going from CNJ to WHM. The first class set was even named "Cleric's XY", not to mention the whole "strong will/ mind influencing" thing that's frequently part of the WHM story and is typical for clerics.

And the similarities between GEO and CNJ are undeniable, so I'd love to see it as a possible route after hitting 30. CNJ already draws from the land, GEO basically takes it one step further and draws deeper from the star below your feet with the addition of a more destructive element.
I think the main difference between CNJ and GEO is HOW they gain their knowledge. CNJ has to pat trees and be nice to the elementals because they don't dole out the knowledge to just anyone but once you acquired it, you can build it up and extend it via GEO route. CNJ is fairly balanced between offensive and defensive abilities (lore-wise), so WHM would be the more defensive/ healing-focused route while GEO would be the more offensive-focused route.
I see no reason to not have GEO as a seperate class just because we have AST.

[Seraphor]

Yeah sure, let's just delete a whole mechanic the team spend time working on and replace it completely with something more suited for a Black Mage.

I cant't believe they spent much time at all working on the Lily system. it's barely consequential at all and works counter to basic healing practice.
The most work that went into it was in designing the gauge graphic. It was only tagged on as an afterthought because "every job has to have a gauge."

[miraidensetsu]

In a perfect world though, GEO would be it's own healer and WHM would be straight-up Ishgardian clerics and ditch the tree hugger gimmick.

In a perfect world, White Mages action names would lose its religious conotation (for example, Benediction is now Full-Cure, Divine Benison is now Shell, Plenary Indulgence is now Aethereal Recovery, Confession stacks is now Aether Nodes, Holy continues how it is, just being the counterpart of BLM's Foul) and end up that Priest bullshit once for all.

All ishgardian priest were Paladins. Their shields carry their house crest, which is very important in an aristocratic society like Ishgard's. Replacing Paladins for White Mages just for the sake of having a priest-y healer would make more damage to the lore than just renaming all actions that makes reference to religion to a neutral names because S-E will have to change the Heavensward lore, all the White Mage class quests, a good chunk of Gridania lore, every bit of the war of the magi (being a priest, WHM wouldn't be in the frontline) and so on.

That may sound easy, but I'm speaking about remake bosses (Thordan should be remade to be a WHM, not a PLD), including model, balance, etc., redo entire quest lines, redo NPCs (for example, if WHM is no longer a tree-hugger, Kan-E-Senna should be from another discipline, what impact will make S-E redo even the cinematics where she appears), review dungeons etc. Just for the sake of having a White Priest in the place of a White Mage. By the lore, WHM should be more a Shaman than a Cleric.

[Reivya]

In a perfect world, White Mages action names would lose its religious conotation (for example, Benediction is now Full-Cure, Divine Benison is now Shell, Plenary Indulgence is now Aethereal Recovery, Confession stacks is now Aether Nodes, Holy continues how it is, just being the counterpart of BLM's Foul) and end up that Priest bullshit once for all.

Echoing this, but I'm mostly just tired of the priest theme that popped up out of nowhere why? Because 'WHM were priesty in other games'? I liked CNJ's theme. It's one of the major reasons I would love GEO to added to the game.

[lordcruxis]

I think in general a fair few people are over whm just being cnj+ and would like to see more of the divine magic that the amdapori used

[GrumbleBeard]

All ishgardian priest were Paladins. Their shields carry their house crest, which is very important in an aristocratic society like Ishgard's. Replacing Paladins for White Mages just for the sake of having a priest-y healer would make more damage to the lore than just renaming all actions that makes reference to religion to a neutral names because S-E will have to change the Heavensward lore, all the White Mage class quests, a good chunk of Gridania lore, every bit of the war of the magi (being a priest, WHM wouldn't be in the frontline) and so on.

Yeah man, that's why I used a hypothetical situation in which white mages were never tree huggers. Everything about Ishgardians having to be paladins could have easily been changed if WHM was built up as a cleric to start. As far as fighting on the front lines, I specifically recall caving in heads and smiting evil as a holy cleric. They would fit in perfectly with Ishgard's theocracy.

[Awha]

Yeah sure, let's just delete a whole mechanic the team spend time working on and replace it completely with something more suited for a Black Mage.

To be fair whm gauge is a joke and is only of use if you play WHM sub optimally. So yeah, said get rid of it and also the 68 trait while they are at it.

[Irenia]

I find it amusing that there are complaints about WHM being priest-y when CNJ are pretty much the priests of Gridanian society; being the ones who exist between the common folk and the supernatural.

The flavor of their priestiness is suspect, I agree though.

[miraidensetsu]

I find it amusing that there are complaints about WHM being priest-y when CNJ are pretty much the priests of Gridanian society; being the ones who exist between the common folk and the supernatural.

The flavor of their priestiness is suspect, I agree though.

If compared to D&D classes, Conjurers and White Mages is more like druids or shamans than clerics.

Druids are priests devoted to protect the nature. They have a strong link with nature itself (or the elementals, in WHM's case), being able to fuse itself with it. Druids normally worship nature gods, not the christian one. The padjals lore shows well how White Mage is close to druids. White Mages is also close to shamans, who is mages that can speak with nature spirits and control elemental forces. Shamans worship nature gods as well, not the christian one.

For me, White Mage is a mix between Druid and Shaman, without a single cleric element into it.

What some players wants is to force a cleric theme (aka, the classic healer priest, think on RO's priest/high priest/arch bishop) into white mage, using some actions names as a argument.