Geomancer (CNJ Job) concept

[Kitru]

I'd make it a healer with some different flavor.

Doubling up on roles within the same job doesn't really work since it's still going to play in almost the exact same way: your GEO would still be using Cure for maintenance healing, Cure II for burst healing, Medica/Medica II/Cure III for the relevant AoE scenarios. About the only thing you're changing is getting rid of regen/benediction and replacing it with some ground effects, which isn't actually going to change much since you're still providing the GEO with a regen (except this time it's AoE). You're also beefing up their damage and healing/support capability (via the ground buffs) so that there would be next to no reason to actually bring a WHM since their healing is basically identical but the GEO brings more of everything else.

Jobs only allow for 5 new abilities to be added and minor changes to the existing abilities, which is why you're not going to see 2 jobs of the same role off of the same class or, as I'm pretty sure you've already discovered, new jobs off of GLA, WHM, or BRD. A job has to play in an noticeably different way for any others in that class, which won't happen without changing role, and it has to have enough abilities relevant to its role to make it interesting to play, which isn't going to happen with WHM because it's got too many healing abilities and too few of anything else.

[Giarc]

which is why you're not going to see 2 jobs of the same role off of the same class

That's basically my point. CNJ can't turn into a DPS or Tank without massive reworks to the base class skills. So if there was going to be a second job from CNJ it would almost have to be a healer. It'd end up being more of a token Job just to make things "even" if all other classes get a second job. I think SE backed themselves into a corner with the way the armoury system functions and it sucks that some interesting Jobs may never be introduced because of it.

[Kitru]

So if there was going to be a second job from CNJ it would almost have to be a healer. It'd end up being more of a token Job just to make things "even" if all other classes get a second job.

Which is why it's almost guaranteed that CNJ isn't going to get a second job. Keep in mind, that it's pretty doubtful that even a majority of classes will get multiple jobs. GLA has too many tank CDs and too few attacks to become a viable DPS that isn't just a single combo spammer, ARC only has ranged attacks and DPS viable CDs so it's not going to get a tank or healer job, THM has Astral Fire and Umbral Ice as a fundamental mechanic that would need to be completely and utterly reworked to such an extent that whatever healer they turned in to would be completely unlike the base class, and CNJ has way too much devoted to healing to ever be anything else.

I honestly believe that multi-job classes are going to be in the minority as opposed to the majority, so I doubt there will ever be a need to give a class an extra job arbitrarily. MRD could feasibly be given a DPS job, and PGL/LNC could be turned into tanks without a massive amount of modifications (mostly converting +dam mechanics like Greased Lightning and Heavy Thrust into mitigation mechanisms, putting high enmity modifiers on attacks, and removing positional requirements to attacks), but, even then, there's some question as to whether they would ever get it (with the 2.1 changes, MRD definitely has more tank CDs than a DPS should have which likely precludes it from ever getting another job).

Even so, if classes with multiple jobs become the majority, I don't really see the devs investing the effort to give another job to a class that's just going to have it do the exact same thing as before. Yoshi has already said that they're only going to include classes that fulfill a vacant niche, and adding another healing job to CNJ doesn't really do anything of the kind.

[RickmanUK]

Hmm.. I Don't Know i Can Envision Conjurer's having a "Secret order" of Geomancer's who are "Nature's Avenger's"... Nature is Kind and nurturing, unyielding and strong. You Piss it off and it will END YOU.

I'd See the first ability they get as a "Stance" that give's them a Stacking Mechanic like Defiance does, that they can trade-in for extra Damage abilities (And Possibly borrow from Monk's Abit, Make it do increased damage on spells as it Stacks) This "Elemental Fury" would also as someone else Stated Convert some Spells into Damaging Versions instead. (Esuna into an Inflict/Bio Spell, Medica into an AoE Poision/Aero, Cure 2 and 3 into Attacks.)

Also rather then Ground Based Target Spells... Have them as Target Based DoT-AoE's. Tornado would Have a Bind Effect on it and do AoE too All in range of it's Primary Target, Quake would Slow/Paralyse all target's in it's Range Etc. Point is The Idea is Workable... Just not in the way Stated by the OP.

[Viviza]

It wouldn't be hard to make a geomancer job.

Summoners and scholars already have different versions of the same spell (summons). Just because a WHM uses all the CNJ spells as-is doesn't mean a GEO can't take a few and switch them to offensive or support. This sort of mental realignment would also play well with the quest to get the job.

Add some sort of interesting mechanic to the DPS rotation and you're off to a good start. Ground or environmental effects would seem appropriate.

[Exstal]

It wouldn't be hard to make a geomancer job.

Summoners and scholars already have different versions of the same spell (summons). Just because a WHM uses all the CNJ spells as-is doesn't mean a GEO can't take a few and switch them to offensive or support. This sort of mental realignment would also play well with the quest to get the job.

Add some sort of interesting mechanic to the DPS rotation and you're off to a good start. Ground or environmental effects would seem appropriate.

It would be good if you went back and read the whole thread instead of clicking the title and hitting "reply".

[Viviza]

It would be good if you went back and read the whole thread instead of clicking the title and hitting "reply".

I can reply to any part of the thread that I want to. There was discussion about how this wouldn't work.

[Kitru]

Summoners and scholars already have different versions of the same spell (summons).

The Summon spells don't change the fundamental effect of the ability. They simply change what is summoned, not what the spell does, which is an entirely different construct from turning Cure into an attack spell. Furthermore, it doesn't change the name of the ability.

Basically, to change the abilities like you want, the devs would basically have to fundamentally change and rename a majority of the class's abilities and traits, at which point they're basically making a new class altogether and not just a job. If they're going to do all the work of making a new class, they might as well *actually make a new class* rather than do all of that work for a single job.

That's the fundamental reason we're not going to see any new job for THM, ARC, GLA, or CNJ: too many of their abilities are solely focused upon their existing role. It completely preempts any new jobs. Even MRD, LNC, and PGL, which *could* get new jobs (PGL and MNK could get tanks; MRD could get DPS) are doubtful because they're not built with multiple jobs in mind like ACN. If anything, it's most likely that any other double job classes are going to be new classes entirely, built with those 2 roles in mind (which also makes sense because you don't suddenly want a horde of 50 DRGs who have only DPSed suddenly becoming 50 tanks without any practice).

[Viviza]

The summon spells DO change the fundamentals. Pets are at the core of the arcanist, and they work differently for each job. Summoners simply follow the arcanist with attack and tanking pets, much like how white mages take all the conjurer abilities as is. But scholars make a departure with core abilities (again, the summons) remapped towards healing.

Conjurers could easily follow the same pattern, but reversed from how arcanists did it. A DPS offshoot like geomancer just needs to swap a couple of the more potent heals away into something else much like how arcanists had their single best DPS tool (the pet) changed. Summoners work perfectly fine with low level healing abilities intact. A geomancer with a similar kit isn't going to break anything.

I'm not saying that they WILL do these things, but they could, and it wouldn't be a radical departure from what's already there.

[Kitru]

The summon spells DO change the fundamentals.

No, the summon spells still summon stuff. The *summons* are different (radically different in the case of SCH), but the spells themselves still do the same basic thing: summon a pet. This isn't the same as changing Cure into an attack. Cure restores hp; it would be a radical departure (re: a full rewrite of the ability rather than changing one aspect of it) for it to suddenly become an attack. That's the point. The devs have said that they can change aspects of abilities with job changes (re: removing high enmity mods from GLA attack if it got DRK as a DPS job, change what's summoned for a given summon spell), but they haven't said anything about replacing an ability with an entirely new one (and, keep in mind, Cure and Cure 2 both have traits attached, so it would be completely replacing those traits as well).