Geomancer vs Blue Mage

[Yasuhiro]

Like you said, in older FF titles, I mostly respected the job for its abilities like White Wind / Big Guard and non-standard elemental attacks, or AoE ability -- Trine was rather strong in FFVII.

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Not to go too off topic but Final Fantasy VII had some really awesome Blue Magic abilities yes, learning Beta early from the snake and using it to nuke literally anything was amazing, because it was a mushroom cloud when casting it and the Pandora's Box spell I think it was called that you get late game, great ability.

FFXIV loves its fanservice, right? I'll take Blue Mage if it had some FFVII spells to learn along the way, very underrated abilities. Because most only remember Blue Magic from V or XI. (Mostly talking about game exclusive abilities not shared ones =p)

[Cidel]

Geomancer does seem more plausible than a Blue mage at this point, but I love both jobs.

The reason why I think Geomancer is more likely is just because there's more freedom for the devs to mold it into something they want. I know quite a bit of people see Geomancer in the way the Tactics series has utilized them (terrain and weather nukes), but recently in XI and Final Fantasy Explorers they've played-up their ability to set fields and other ground-based effects for either buffs or debuffs and focus a lot more on divination and feng shui aspects of Geomancers. Of course, since there is no pure-support role, they would need to be careful on how reliant they are on buffs and debuffs should they go that route.

The way the game is now, Blue mage could turn out incredibly boring without shaking up the status quo.

[Kazrah]

While that is true, 4.0 has been said it will shake things up. Also unless RDM is a melee DD or a tank (trinity) a rapier on a caster.. is askin to a whip on a tank. (Fencer/duelist could keep the rapier as a DD/evasion parry tank just sayin)

Rapier makes perfect sense for a spellcaster. Flick of of a fencing foil, and off goes a spell. In that regard, it's no different than a simple magic wand, and when you think about it, rapiers weren't really designed for pitched battles anyway. They were meant more for aesthetics and games for nobles rather than being tools of actual warfare. No one on a battlefield ever died from a rapier. Bigger swords, axes, knives, and spears; but not rapiers.

Back to the main topic, yes to a bell for Geomancer, but not sure about dual sabers for Blue Mage since dual-wielding has traditionally been the Ninja thing.

[Jonnycbad]

BLU specialized in Scimitars in like 2 game/

FF5= Swords, rods
FF6= Staves
FF8= Whips
FF9=Forks
FF10=Spears
FF11=Swords,clubs,staves,

[dinnertime]

I wouldn't count special characters like in FF6, FF8, FF9, and FF10.
In FF5 and FF11 any character could be a Blue Mage.

[MiniPrinny]

BLU specialized in Scimitars in like 2 game/

Same could be said about WAR with axes, BRD with bows, SMN and SCH with books, and DRK with greatswords. The point is, Yoshida has been creating iconic weapons for the Jobs. Next time we see a Final Fantasy game with a Job system, we may see most of the Jobs shown with their now iconic arms rather than just whatever the artist felt like.

[Rubieus]

No one on a battlefield ever died from a rapier.

Last time I checked, no one ever died from a book or a twig either but we still have ACN and CNJ running around. As I said before, make the class and all its mechanics, then find a suitable weapon that fits. Not the other way around. A caster RDM is not the classic FF Redmage, and since the trinity exists, RDM is 2/3 caster which puts it as either a caster DD or caster healer. Giving it a rapier would only muddle it. As other more melee focused jobs could actually use a rapier as their wpn of choice. I'd like to see RDM as a class that could be all 3 but it wont happen, can't happen unless they have 3 RDM job stones. each one granting a whole set of skills based on the trinity. Can't swap them out in dungeons for obvious reasons.

Blue Mages doesn't need scimitars/sabers/curved swords there has been plenty of instances where they had custom weapons based on the character. Which is my point.

[Kikoten]

I think BLU could work in this game if the approach a bit different, like, say, instead of trying to force it to be like how it was in earlier games, make it into something new while keeping the Blue Mage flavor that fits in FFXIV. My idea for this is making the BLU a job that can shapeshift into unique monsters--perhaps monsters we've never seen--while learning its abilities from fighting enemies. The BLU wouldn't necessarily have to mimic the enemy's ability, but rather learn their own abilities for their transformations by engaging in battle with specific monsters.

[Hayward]

Since XIV's re-release, I have yet to figure out a credible way BLU can be introduced given the lack of lore so far (the idea of Raubahn is about as close as we can get, and that's a shot in the dark). The number of abilities the job can learn and how many can be used at once is also an issue as it could become more powerful than any DPS job we have at present. Team Yoshi would have a devil of a time developing this job in time for the next expansion, therefore I cannot see the job being released anytime soon.

Geomancer, however, is not nearly as difficult as some people might fear. Far from being a healer job, I see it more as a caster that can potentially mitigate elemental damage and amplify elemental magic through auras gained from exploring certain areas/dungeons (Think Sastasha or The Whorleater for Water, The Navel or Cutter's Cry for Earth, etc.). Lore for the job could easily fit into a storyline since we don't know all that much about Gyr Abania to begin with aside from what we know about Ala Mhigo.

[ckc22]

I'd love to see Blu in as a DoM tank.

I think that with a bit of creativity (both on the part of the developer and players) they could make the class feel like a blue mage even in our current system.

Make the job quests focused on learning skills from mobs - done.

I don't get people who need everything to be so literal. Probably same type of people who don't understand that Astrologian is Time mage and keep asking for that...