Geomancer

[BasicBlake]

-snip-

1. But it does change everything. They had expectations for classes based on other games, because there was nothing in 14 to get expectations off of. We do for Geomancer. If there weren't already story for them as casters no one would be here arguing with you for 13 pages.

2. While I agree that lore can be changed, that is a lot of wasted resources to put them in story wise as caster, make them a healer, and then change the lore to healer lore.

3. Yugiri gets a heal in solo duties, Summoner has Physic, Red Mage has Vercure. Gaius has a heal in the duty where you play as Estinien. So with your train of thought all of those should be healers as well. Also does time move differently than anyone else? Why don't the Geomancer monsters in Swallow's Compass/HoH heal? Basing things on placeholder animations is always going to be a bad time, because Alisae straight up pulled her red mage rapier out of her book and then used GLADIATOR animations in the duty, but we don't really see any Red Mage tanks around because of it.

[Archwizard]

We write it off because it makes zero design sense to have two similar Jobs in the same role. And SE supports our theory just by their history of Job additions. Look at the list of what we have now and most would agree none of them have any thematic overlap.

Arguably there's some thematic overlap for specific jobs (like, say, Gunbreaker and Machinist's use of technology, Dark Knight and Warrior's use of their inner rage, or Dancer and Bard's support through entertainment), but significant enough difference in their mechanics and/or role that they each carve their niche.

By contrast though, Geomancer simply drawing energy from the land would be exactly the same as a Conjurer within the healing role and would have difficulty manifesting in ways we haven't seen among existing healers -- but would be unique in a role like caster DPS.

Dark Knight? Samurai? Gunbreaker? I mean, you can throw a dart at the board of jobs and chances are a noticeable amount of people called the job as something other than what we got.

... And I would argue most of whom were pegged as one of two roles, and were often denied others that fell outside their niche.
To use your example, jobs like Dark Knight, Samurai and Gunblade (before Gunbreaker was established) were always going to be argued as either melee DPS or tank -- because any new job introduced is always going to lean towards either damage or support. The only jobs that are iconically a single fixed role within the holy trinity are White Mage, Black Mage, and Paladin, who were quite obviously the first ones put on the plate.

But I would also point out that even by dint of your own argument, if Geomancer were to be added, we're as likely to see it be literally any other role including one that doesn't exist yet as we are to see it be a healer -- essentially throwing up your hands and saying "well screw it, why not make it anything then" -- which makes the discussion point non-constructive within the topic, if not even self-defeating as an actual point.

[MirronTulaxia]

Snip.

1. Sure? I didn't say that every job could be any role. My point, this entire time, has been that Geomancer could fit Healer as a role and it wouldn't be strange. Most jobs can be multiple roles.

2. Funnily because of Agrias and Beatrix I could see Paladin outside of Tank. It wouldn't be likely, but Melee DPS wouldn't shock me.

3. Outside of the ones you listed Red Mage and Dancer both had a lot of flexibility beyond just two.

4. I'm not sure what you get about my argument that equals "Geomancer would be Ranged DPS". Even Melee DPS and Tank are rather tricky to justify (I could make a case for Melee DPS, but Tank, regardless of any other things, isn't plausible as Geo is a DoM thing). But really what rules out Geomancer for any other role, at least within the context of what I'm talking about which is next expansions jobs, is that the only roles that are at 3 are Ranged, Caster, and Healer. So Tank and Melee aren't even on the table, and Ranged I can't see any real justification for it based off of past jobs.

5. Not sure I've said a new role is possible either. Based off of how they do things I don't see it being realistic at all. If they wanted to do that there have been pretty ample chances with past jobs to mess around with that and they didn't.

Edit: Since it seems like you don't understand the points I'm making I'll reiterate them.

1. Lore in this game has zero bearing on what they'll do with a job. The lore team has said that they build lore around what the developer team does. This isn't even getting into how valid the lore interpretation of "they're only casters" is, but at the end of the day it's pointless to treat lore as terribly important.

2. "Job fantasy" is inherently subjective, and where people see a job as being too similar others do not. Trying to predict how the development team specifically sees the issue is especially difficult to really grasp, and there isn't enough to go off of because the job that it's most similar to according to people on this board is Conjurer, which White Mage has changed from in this expansion. There isn't really any sort of counter examples to draw on to really say how those changes impact how "similar" Geomancer is.

3. In terms of role possibility Geomancer has more than enough to justify Healer as an option. Hypothetically they could fit any job into any role regardless of past versions. Dancer certainly shows that, if nothing else. As you pointed out that's basically just killing the discussion though, so instead I opt for looking at past games and seeing what Geomancers have access to.

Note that none of this is saying "Geomancers will explicitly be a Healer based off of past games" or some such. My stance has always been, consistently, "Geomancers could be a Healer and it wouldn't be unusual". Nothing more than that. To even suggest it might not be a Caster though seems to be a radical thought though given this multipage discourse on the matter. But I don't think that stance is unreasonable myself.

[Archwizard]

-snip-

First off, I want to say that your bullet points are hard to follow because you assign them arbitrarily. I had two paragraphs, with four sentences total, and you put out five bullet points. No idea how you separate them.
(Edit: And then you added 3 more bullet points and restarted your numbering scheme. If you're arguing that I don't understand what you're saying, perhaps it's because your argument is hard to follow, and you should consider working on your legibility.)

3. I said "most", dear.

4. Then you missed the point of the first paragraph, that yes, any new job will always be argued as at least one of two roles (because of exactly the point you make in the first bullet), but most cases (including Geomancer) won't go too far beyond that. The second paragraph was pointing out that your essential argument, 'it wouldn't be the first time we'd seen a job added in a role it had never fit before,' could have been applied in such broad strokes as to make any discussion moot, especially when you use Dancer as an "example" (point 3) without really discussing why you even brought it up if you're just going to call it an exception anyway.

5. You used BLU as an example of a role (Limited Jobs) which was outside of the realm of ongoing discussion. I would also point out that HW created a new role (Physical Ranged DPS) to fit the Machinist, and one of the arguments you did point out was people trying to assign RDM as a melee DPS (often as a contrasting "Magical Melee DPS" role) before its release.

[MirronTulaxia]

1. The point, that you seemed to miss, is that Geomancers being Healers does not somehow mean they can't be competent fighters. And it wasn't a one sided war of aggression, especially as Scholars, another Healer group, were part of it too. Unless you're arguing that it was just Black Mages against the world then clearly there was some degree of back and forth, regardless of how it started.

2. As far as NPCs working in different roles unless they're specifically a named race they don't tend to behave like a job anyways. So unless it's an X race Y class affair they aren't lining up.

3. Kyokuho says why. The knowledge died with his grandfather. Whatever Geomancy is, Kyukuho is only operating with a fraction of it. All the other Geomancers we see for the most part are charlatans too. Really this answers any possible changes too, because again, what Kyokuho does isn't the full job of Geomancy.

4. None of what I've said is Devil's Advocate. I'm not even saying you're saying they're the same, I'm saying I don't see them as similar. Or at least any more so than any other DoM job.

[BasicBlake]

It’s been two years but this is an almost exact word for word copy paste of every thread on Dancer before they were shown.
“Dancer has never been a healer why would they do it now?” Vs “Devs can do whatever they want”.

Though the devs have stayed pretty true to all class roles and class fantasy or every class put into the game. But hey I guess they could always start with 6.0!

[MirronTulaxia]

It’s been two years but this is an almost exact word for word copy paste of every thread on Dancer before they were shown.
“Dancer has never been a healer why would they do it now?” Vs “Devs can do whatever they want”.

Though the devs have stayed pretty true to all class roles and class fantasy or every class put into the game. But hey I guess they could always start with 6.0!

Class fantasy is subjective, and in terms of roles I could go through most jobs in this game and poke holes at their roles. As far as Dancers being healers Penelo in Revenant Wings is one.

And you have yet to acknowledge the very clear and obvious Conjurers not doing healing. The point being made is not "Geomancers will be a healer" but instead is "nothing says that Geomancers absolutely will be a Caster". I would say they could be either. It's only if you tried to say they'll be a tank or some such that I'd find it doubtful. I'm not sure why "they could be a healer" is such a heretical subject.

[BasicBlake]

Class fantasy is subjective, and in terms of roles I could go through most jobs in this game and poke holes at their roles. As far as Dancers being healers Penelo in Revenant Wings is one.

And you have yet to acknowledge the very clear and obvious Conjurers not doing healing. The point being made is not "Geomancers will be a healer" but instead is "nothing says that Geomancers absolutely will be a Caster". I would say they could be either. It's only if you tried to say they'll be a tank or some such that I'd find it doubtful. I'm not sure why "they could be a healer" is such a heretical subject.

What conjurers are not healing? I wasn’t aware I was avoiding anything I apologize! Stop being vague and alluding to stuff. Obviously if I am not aware of what conjurers are not able to heal I would have said something so out with it, don’t just accuse someone of avoiding something when you haven’t actually given in information.

While I agree class fantasy is subjective to you, most final fantasy classes have fit a very particular fantasy for 20 years. So we have a game where Dancer was mixed with white mage for Penelo and another game where dancer was mixed with geomancer. And umpteen games where dancer is just dancer. What classes in 14 (outside the obvious bard) would you say 14 has done wrongly or strayed away from the overall job/fantasy? Also looking over the wiki for the game, Penelo is the closest I would say to a healing role but in context of the game, that is still a support slot we do not have in 14. So yes over the span on the 20+ years Final Fantasy has been around, there are bound to be outliers. But overall the dancer class has been a support dps.

I feel like you pick and choose what you gleen from posts by others. When we said conjurer was said to be similar in the lore book you took that as us thinking the classes were identical. And when we say, “yeah I can see that, but I still feel it would be too similar for that role” you take it as us saying that it is 100% set in stone. Going back multiple pages multiple people have said “Yes we see where you are
Coming from but we think that is lazy on the side of designers so we don’t think so”.

[SeikishiYuuki]

Class fantasy is subjective, and in terms of roles I could go through most jobs in this game and poke holes at their roles. As far as Dancers being healers Penelo in Revenant Wings is one.

And you have yet to acknowledge the very clear and obvious Conjurers not doing healing. The point being made is not "Geomancers will be a healer" but instead is "nothing says that Geomancers absolutely will be a Caster". I would say they could be either. It's only if you tried to say they'll be a tank or some such that I'd find it doubtful. I'm not sure why "they could be a healer" is such a heretical subject.

Penelo interesting is in fact a White Mage - Dancer hybrid her healing abilities come from her White Magick so not really Healer Dancer. Since none of the Dancer abilities heal iirc.

[BasicBlake]

Penelo interesting is in fact a White Mage - Dancer hybrid her healing abilities come from her White Magick so not really Healer Dancer. Since none of the Dancer abilities heal iirc.

She's new Mog. Plus it's a game where you can make most of your characters do whatever you want. I could have gone Dancer/White Mage in XI but there is no way I was going to be a healer.

So once again, I get you're playing Devils Advocate Mirron, but Penelo being able to dance wasn't going to make dancer a healer in FFXIV.