New Magical DPS Job Idea - Geomancer

[BasicBlake]

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.

[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.

[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.

[BasicBlake]

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.

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*

[BasicBlake]

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.

Quake, Tornado, Flood... My dream

[EtherRose]

Yes, Geomancer would be nice as a DPS.

[Leidiriv]

Holy necromancy, Batman

[BasicBlake]

Quarantine and search function are a dangerous combination.

[Tulzscha]

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

"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).

[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)