Quote Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia View Post
The elements were split between them. Now they aren't. White Mages don't typically have a rigid 1:1 opposition with Black Mages in terms of elements. They use Holy/Light, while Black Mages tend to use Fire/Ice/Lightning. Letting another job take up the three elements White Mages were using, especially when they're likely to be more important thematically, isn't a big deal.

As far as how it impacts the lore, it really doesn't. White Mages way back when in the War of the Magi are different from White Mages now, and especially different from White Mage WoL. Nothing wrong with him moving away from those roots. It's not like Black Mages are going around dealing with Voidsent after all.

With regards to how arbitrary it is, if they're adding a job to better focus on those themes then it really isn't. While I personally feel they could have had White Mage and Geomancer both as healers others disagree.
Whilst they are different now to what they were in the War of the Magi, White Mage now derives from Conjurer, which is also based around those elements. I just don't see it plausibly dropping those elements as it grows more powerful when it has always been a combination of those elements and light-aspected magic, which has worked great and is something that I and WHM's I know also liked about it. But why change it up now?

And it doesn't stop the potential for a Geomancer, I'd think Geomancer would probably better suit a support magic DPS rather than a healer, personally. But the game already has them in lore and is perfectly plausible to bring them in.