Geomancer

[Elexia]

Not to mention going by cardinal direction is very lame and not exactly useful in quicker combat like what XIV has.

Ironic, considering Melee currently (especially DRG) has to position properly in battles to combo, therefore a positional (technical) mage would fit perfectly in XIV.

[Duelle]

Ironic, considering Melee currently (especially DRG) has to position properly in battles to combo, therefore a positional (technical) mage would fit perfectly in XIV.

Which is very different from facing a specific direction when casting stuff. That sort of thing doesn't play well with having to move around to avoid things, which I hope we continue to get more of as the game grows and ages. I may concede if the developers are planning to add strafing, but even then I'd have a hard time seeing it be useful. It just sounds like a horrible gimmick.

[Rane]

Ironic, considering Melee currently (especially DRG) has to position properly in battles to combo, therefore a positional (technical) mage would fit perfectly in XIV.

I play Dragoon in XIV, and I actually really like the positional aspects of the combo system. (I also think they will work much better if the servers become more responsive in 2.0.)

With that said, I can think of two reasons why a positional mage might not be fun to play.

1) As a ranged class, the arc that you have to move in to change positions is much larger. Circling a mob would take a much longer time, and if the mob changes directions a lot, you wouldn't be able to keep up.

2) Casting spells takes a lot longer than triggering a weaponskill. Again, if the mob changes direction as you casting bar fills, you're out of luck.

I'm not arguing that Geomancer won't be fun, as we know way too little about the job at this point to know one way or the other. I'm sure there are a lot of creative things they could do with it. However, there are some design hurdles that would need to be overcome in order to make a positional mage fun to play.