Geomancer

[BasicBlake]

I mean.
Elements are fairly arbitrary in 14. Aesthetics are arbitrary by definition.

Prior to 14 the only consistency with magic was "Black Mage gets Fire, Ice, and Lightning, White Mage gets Holy and Cure." There are as many entries with Aero and Stone classed as Black Magic as there are classed as White Magic, and since they're all just "Magic" damage to a healer (most classes in general, really, aside from BLM and BLU, since only those two treat elements as mechanical differences) the actual choice of elements available to the healer is purely cosmetic.

Meanwhile, there is a logical fallacy in assuming that just because something was "taken away" from one job, it'll go to another job. It could be gone simply because the devs don't want anyone to have it, or at least don't care enough to keep it.

You’re treating whole elements like slashing damage or piercing damage. Or hell even the ability Time Dilation. Stuff like that, sure, I can see taken out because it was causing issues, etc. But to say it’s logical fallacy is a bit condescending to presume that three major elements are taken away (In a game where elements and their aspects Aether is kind of the whole backstory of a game IE: the calamities) when they were a major identity to one class and the major identity of another slowly being implemented into the story.

[SeikishiYuuki]

That whole thing aside. My point was if they're taking Wind Water and Earth of WHM, for Geomancer it makes more sense given its lore and history to be the DPS role and the new healer to be something else. Sure Geo could be a new healer, so could Chemist, Time Mage, Green Mage, or Shaman. With Geo it just seems to make the least sense given everything we know about the job from within the game and previous iterations.

[BasicBlake]

There really aren't any other healer options that aren't White Magic related other than Chemist. And of those White Magic related jobs they're either White Mage+ or mixed with Black Magic, neither of which really makes it a "better" healer option than Geomancer. What is better or worse is ultimately subjective, and at least for me I wouldn't consider Chemist as a Healer better than Geomancer.

And none of what I'm proposing is taking the same animations, simply the aesthetics. White Mages changes make sense in this light. Otherwise it just seems somewhat arbitrary.

I feel like what he could be saying is, wouldn’t that feel lazy? Let’s take Aero/Stone away from White Mage and give it to the other magic user that has comparisons to conjurer. So now you have NEW Stone/Aero healer alongside OLD Stone/Aero healer. True you could change the aesthetics of it, but at the end of the day that would end up White Mage 1 and White Mage 2, I feel like Yoshi wouldn’t even waste the developers time on that. At least switch the roles!

[Archwizard]

-snip-

I said they're arbitrary in 14, and I explicitly mentioned BLM as one of the exceptions. In previous entries the distinction of elements allowed you to exploit elemental weaknesses in the opponent, which do not exist in 14 (since ARR anyway); BLM had to be rewritten such that the elements themselves had a practical distinction via the AF/UI Phases, because it is a damage job and control of those elements is intrinsic to its identity.
However, healers generally don't complicate their rotations with such considerations; they get a DoT, an AoE, and a filler attack. Judging by spells like Combust and Art of War, filling the gap seems more important than the aesthetic.

If I must identify it, I would say it's a Hasty Generalization (or possibly Slothful Induction? It's a bit hazy between the two) to say that "They removed X from Y, therefore they plan to add X to Z." Similarly, taking an event and ascribing a purpose without evidence is the definition of a Causal Fallacy, not to mention an attempt at mind-reading.
The argument that I must be using logical fallacies as a stand-in because you did not recognize said statement as one ("I don't see it, so it must not be true") would also be an example of Personal Incredulity Fallacy, since you asked.

I'm not trying to say they "don't want anyone to have wind/earth/water magic" -- and indeed, SMN and RDM have wind and earth, NIN has water, and CNJ hasn't actually lost earth or wind. Generally that is my standard response to arguments like "They took time manipulation away from AST, therefore they're adding Time Mage," and I recognize that you used the same form of reasoning here. The emphasis was to remind these forums in general that no, one doesn't mean the other.
With regards to WHM specifically, you'll note that my statement ended with "or they don't care enough to keep it," because as I said before, elements have no distinction to a healer anyway so there is no practical reason to preserve them.

If I were to argue a "reason" to swap to Holy, then something else worth considering is that the JPN side of the game also uses the suffixed naming convention of spells from newer games, "-ra" and "-ga". There's already no consistent suffix for the fourth spell in a series ("-za" and "-ja" have both been used), and adding a fifth rank of a spell (to a healer, no less, when even BLM caps out at 4) is unheard of since that convention was introduced.
Not to mention it would be visually boring to mindlessly throw rocks for the fourth expansion in a row and an underwhelming use of "Quake".
But again, that would be an exercise in mind-reading and ascribing a cause to an event.

(Oh, and telling others to provide an alternative reason to disprove you edges on Burden of Proof, while we're at it.)

[SeikishiYuuki]

I feel like what he could be saying is, wouldn’t that feel lazy? Let’s take Aero/Stone away from White Mage and give it to the other magic user that has comparisons to conjurer. So now you have NEW Stone/Aero healer alongside OLD Stone/Aero healer. True you could change the aesthetics of it, but at the end of the day that would end up White Mage 1 and White Mage 2, I feel like Yoshi wouldn’t even waste the developers time on that. At least switch the roles!

Yea I think it's definitely hard to create a new healer with a strong identity, since WHM has been the core of things healing related forever. You could say though the removal of the elements lends to either side, a new healer using those elements or a Geomancer dps with them. But coupled with what has become fairly expansive lore or caster Geomancers it just looks more and more like the aim is give us a Caster DPS Geo and a new stand alone healer. Though Yoshi could always curve ball us and give the other or neither.

[Archwizard]

Yea I think it's definitely hard to create a new healer with a strong identity, since WHM has been the core of things healing related forever. You could say though the removal of the elements lends to either side, a new healer using those elements or a Geomancer dps with them. But coupled with what has become fairly expansive lore or caster Geomancers it just looks more and more like the aim is give us a Caster DPS Geo and a new stand alone healer. Though Yoshi could always curve ball us and give the other or neither.

If GEO were to be released, I think there's some strong mechanical potential for GEO to be introduced as a DPS job, since at least as a DPS (much like with BLM) there's reason to distinguish between its elemental spells -- such as having phases in its rotation -- and there would be no complaints about putting Quake, Tornado or Flood in the hands of a caster.
Meanwhile, there's historically little backing for GEO as a healer across the series, at best having support potential alongside a plethora of damage effects. If I remember correctly, Kyohuko only ever casts Qi of Earth and Qi of Wind to attack, and I didn't see any heals from him (... though being that it was a healer questline, it would have been redundant if they gave you an NPC follower just to heal you, wouldn't it?). Sure, he enchants barriers around the city, but that's along the lines of the quest text saying that a BLM can rewrite people's memories, make golems, or polymorph an entire city -- not evidence of their actual capabilities as a combat class. (Plus it would be, what, placing a number of static GTAoE barriers and heals like Asylum and Sacred Soil? ... anything actually new and useful against a boss?)

As far as what the next healer would be, I'd be happy to see them get creative with a new job. As long as its healing model isn't another clone of WHM or SCH.

[BasicBlake]

If GEO were to be released, I think there's some strong mechanical potential for GEO to be introduced as a DPS job, since at least as a DPS (much like with BLM) there's reason to distinguish between its elemental spells -- such as having phases in its rotation -- and there would be no complaints about putting Quake, Tornado or Flood in the hands of a caster.
Meanwhile, there's historically little backing for GEO as a healer across the series, at best having support potential alongside a plethora of damage effects. If I remember correctly, Kyohuko only ever casts Qi of Earth and Qi of Wind to attack, and I didn't see any heals from him (... though being that it was a healer questline, it would have been redundant if they gave you an NPC follower just to heal you, wouldn't it?). Sure, he enchants barriers around the city, but that's along the lines of the quest text saying that a BLM can rewrite people's memories, make golems, or polymorph an entire city -- not evidence of their actual capabilities as a combat class. (Plus it would be, what, placing a number of static GTAoE barriers and heals like Asylum and Sacred Soil? ... anything actually new and useful against a boss?)

As far as what the next healer would be, I'd be happy to see them get creative with a new job. As long as its healing model isn't another clone of WHM or SCH.

If you let Kyokohu get low enough he will use Qi of Water, a heal. But at the end of the day it’s all just placeholder animations anyway. And it was stated earlier that even people such as Yugiri get a heal in certain story quests just to keep it moving.

[MirronTulaxia]

Snip.

1. Sure, any number of jobs could be a healer. I feel like it's more sensible for the change if it's specifically a healer, but I'm not going to say absolutely it has to be. In terms of what is "sensible" or not I feel like people place a bit too much focus on how sensible it is when most of the time jobs are just DPS. Those examples, outside of Chemist (I'm not sure what Shaman is, there are a couple things I can think of it being but in one case it's definitely not a healer and in the other case it's not called Shaman) are still mostly DPS or Support after all, that's how jobs outside of MMOs work.

Snip.

1. Whether it feels lazy or not is really a matter of how they implement it to me. My ideas for Geomancer, for instance, would involve static AoE terrain where you get different spells depending on what terrain you're in that you created. If people call that the same as White Mage that says more about them than it does about the concept.

2. Honestly I think people are focusing really specifically on Aero/Stone when it doesn't have to be those specifically and more the themes they represent.

Snip.

1. I wouldn't say they're arbitrary in XIV, because again, as I said, there is a reason for why White Mage has the elements it has. Specifically to contrast Black Mage. You might not agree with how meaningful it is, but it isn't arbitrary.

2. Having elemental weaknesses in other games doesn't make it any more or less arbitrary in other games really.

3. Combust and Art of War fit the aesthetic of their respective jobs still.

4. You... kind of do have to identify a logical fallacy rather than just throwing out a blanket catch all in an attempt to shut things down. And none of what I said is a hasty generalization. I didn't say "all X is Y based off of one instance" or some such. Slothful Induction is also known as an appeal to coincidence, if anything that would be your stance. Causal Fallacy is specifically if I am claiming the wrong cause for something (and at no point have I claimed absolutely what is happening). I'm not saying X is happening because of Y, but am saying if X is happening because of Y, here is why that would make sense and why that does not. Lastly I'm not incredulous at all, but given the way you're tossing out logical fallacies and the way in which you're using them it certainly seems likely.

5. Using a standard response to an argument that isn't being made isn't exactly a good policy. That you misread what my argument is only shows in how you used that argument.

6. One doesn't mean the other, but again, they don't do things for no reason.

7. Honestly I find your explanation pretty weak given how Holy is used. Holy isn't exactly the most impressive of spells, so Quake or what have you wouldn't be crazy. In terms of suffixes they could just make up one as well.

8. Whether we know the cause or not there is a cause behind any event really.

9. It really doesn't edge on Burden of Proof because at no point have I said you must do it, I simply asked for any theories. If you can't provide any theories then your argument inevitably falls apart to me, but that's a problem for you to solve not something I insist from you.

Unrelated point to this all, can I say how much I hate the limited posts per day bit? I'd like to reply to everyone individually but the limited posts mean I can't really talk much if I do that.

[Jirah]

I wanna say it’s because it’s by default the only job remaining that makes since and it’s not one-note like Chemist or Time Mage or aren’t pet jobs like Beastmaster or Necromancer

[SeikishiYuuki]

I think is not really sensible to have Geo be a healer given so much evidence points to DPS, not impossible just improbable. The Shamans I'm referring to are the healers of Azim steppe, they're know to employ a number of healer coded abilities like blessing and divination as well as being able to animate their golems. They unfortunately said they can't do a terrain or zone control effect this was actually originally planned, once for ACN "distaff" and I believe again considered for Geo and they determined that won't work for how FFXIV works, not impossible cause things change but improbable.

A lot of jobs get DPS coded unfortunately because a lot of jobs are DPS, and at some point yea you're gonna have to blur the line and make some of them tanks and healers, but Geo has so much Lore in and out of game pointing it away from healer that if it came in as a healer it'd almost be like "what was the point of all that then?"