Geomancer

[SeikishiYuuki]

I mean if we are discussing evidence nothing says it's absolutely going to be a Caster, which was my point. People were calling Red Mage as a tank, as a healer, as a new role, none of that happened. Blue Mage being Limited was completely out of nowhere. Dancer was pegged as a healer, melee, or tank, we got ranged. 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. None of this is to say it absolutely will be a healer, but that people are too quick to write it off for reasons that are ultimately tied to their own feelings on what is and isn't valid for it.

Geomancer has been almost added twice now both times it was being designed as a caster dps, sure nothing is an absolute but there a lot of strong evidence for DPS and very little for healer.

[MirronTulaxia]

Snip.

1. Whether they had stories or not doesn't change that people had expectations about how those jobs would work.

2. Lore, as I keep saying, is ultimately pointless because the design team isn't beholden to lore at all.

3. To you we are on year three. All I see is they are mages. Of the one legitimate canon Geomancer ally they have all of three abilities, one of them being a healing spell. I wouldn't call it conclusive.

4. I see the same things you see. Same "evidence". But to you what you call "conclusive" I say is still lacking.

Snip.

1. You write it off because you are beholden to your opinions of what is and is not similar to a job without looking at it from a less biased standpoint.

2. I agree. None of them have thematic overlap. Geomancer has none with White Mage either though.

3. There isn't much to gain to you. You keep pushing your opinion of what is and isn't valid for Geomancer based off of your own feelings on the matter.

4. Using datamined info from 1.0 is really flawed. Are Conjurers still DPS specialists with six elements while Thaumaturges are light/dark healers? Do Arcanists use trap staves (or whatever they wound up being called)? Do we have Shephards? Musketeers? No. None of that is accurate. 1.0 was ages ago. The game has changed from then. Conjurers have changed from then. White Mages changed just this expansion.

5. Because neither White Mage or Geomancer serve the same purpose. If the only thing that saves Geomancer from being the same as White Mage is a different role then it shouldn't be added. Plain and simple. If Geomancer is that shallow, which is what you are ultimately saying, that it can't stand on its own legs, then it isn't fitting to be added. I have a higher opinion of Geomancer than you.

Snip.

1. Feel free to provide evidence. The only time I recall another Caster DPS being discussed was a Mystic/Onmyouji, not a Geomancer. If you can't cite where they said "we planned on adding Geomancer as a Caster" specifically then this isn't a valid point. Though even then they've discussed adding jobs in the past in different ways that didn't pan out, but I honestly haven't found specifically Geomancer being mentioned. I dug into this for another forum and what I found was Mystic.

[GucciSan]

Geomancer has none with White Mage either though.

It does though. It absolutely does. They both use nature magic because nature is part of their core theme. They would both use that nature magic to heal. Connection to the elements is important to both of them. They both tune to their respective elemental deities for their power to work and grow stronger.

You keep pushing your opinion of what is and isn't valid for Geomancer based off of your own feelings on the matter.

There’s nothing subjective about those similarities. Those are all objective statements I can make about both of them. Whether or not someone can justify its inclusion based on those similarities is opinion, yes, but no one can deny that they are very similar. My opinion is based on the factual evidence I can observe about both.

If the only thing that saves Geomancer from being the same as White Mage is a different role then it shouldn't be added. Plain and simple. If Geomancer is that shallow, which is what you are ultimately saying, that it can't stand on its own legs, then it isn't fitting to be added. I have a higher opinion of Geomancer than you.

It would work better as a DPS is my point. We already have the “Nature Healer”. We really don’t need two. The game could use a “Nature Caster” though; that’s a niche we haven’t hit yet. SMN and SCH are the same thing but they’re in different roles and it works better that way and that’s already a good precedent for GEO and WHM.

Reiteration of my earlier question: What would GEO bring to the table? What is the Class Fantasy that a player could achieve with GEO that no other Healer offers?

[BasicBlake]

It does though. It absolutely does. They both use nature magic because nature is part of their core theme. They would both use that nature magic to heal. Connection to the elements is important to both of them. They both tune to their respective elemental deities for their power to work and grow stronger.



There’s nothing subjective about those similarities. Those are all objective statements I can make about both of them. Whether or not someone can justify it’s inclusion based on those similarities is opinion, yes, but no one can deny that they are very similar. My opinion is based on the factual evidence I can observe about both.



It would work better as a DPS is my point. We already have the “Nature Healer”. We really don’t need two. The game could use a “Nature Caster” though; that’s a niche we haven’t hit yet. SMN and SCH are the same thing but they’re in different roles and it works better that way and that’s already a good precedent for GEO and WHM.

Reiteration of my earlier question: What would GEO bring to the table? What is the Class Fantasy that a player could achieve with GEO that no other Healer offers?

Also Mirron is basing the role on Kyokohu’s animations in the astrologian quests. And Qi of Wind, Water and Stone share the exact animations with Aero, Cure Stone.

You can’t claim that AND say the don’t overlap thematically in the same post.
Also yes I know they are placeholder.

[Morningstar1337]

It does though. It absolutely does. They both use nature magic because nature is part of their core theme. They would both use that nature magic to heal. Connection to the elements is important to both of them. They both tune to their respective elemental deities for their power to work and grow stronger.

There’s nothing subjective about those similarities. Those are all objective statements I can make about both of them. Whether or not someone can justify its inclusion based on those similarities is opinion, yes, but no one can deny that they are very similar. My opinion is based on the factual evidence I can observe about both.

I think the issue here isn't whether the facts you listed are objected (they are) but whether it is enough to make them feel too similar to WHM as a healer (that's the actual subjective part)

My own take is that is a heal a lone does not a healer make as evidence by PLD, SMN and RDM, so it could have a Cure clone or even an Asylum clone and still be a DPS class. Conversely it is still distinct as a healer especially if it either starts at say 70 which is close to where WHM spells lose their aspects, or executes the elements differently (say in the form of terrains rather than attacks). Either option is both possible and probable.

[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.

[MirronTulaxia]

Snip.

1. To you. To me it doesn't. Again, you're pushing a subjective argument.

2. The themes Geomancer has and the themes White Mage has are not the same thing. To me the difference is like that of a Druid to a Shaman. Your opinion is it's all just "nature" and thus there isn't any difference.

3. Your earlier question is moot because, again, I don't see them as the same thing. To me the "class fantasy" is different even if both of them are healers because I don't lump them all together the way you do. That you consider the only difference between Scholar and Summoner in terms of "class fantasy" is because of their role says all that it needs to on the matter. I already said even if they were both the same role I wouldn't consider them the same. Your opinion is different, that doesn't make it fact. Two people can observe the same thing and come to different conclusions.

Snip.

1. It really doesn't because nothing about the lore really has built them up as Casters specifically. You keep citing "well they conquered stuff" and so on, or cite enemy NPCs, but White Mages waged a war that brought about a calamity, so it's not like being a Healer somehow means you can't fight. Enemy NPCs, likewise, don't really play as pure healers.

2. Is it? None of the resources are removed. What I'm talking about is addition not revision.

3. And Healers get a couple damage spells. He has all of three spells, it's not like you can make an argument for what role he is based off of that. The rest is just really making the case that past depictions are kind of meaningless, which includes all of the Geomancer NPCs and such you keep trying to cite. If Alisae can use Paladin moves and Red Mage doesn't look like that then none of the current Geomancers matter in terms of what the job will be depicted as.

4. I'm well aware they're placeholders. But you're not really understanding the main point I'm making, which is that nothing is conclusive at this juncture as to what the job will play like. You're tying together two unrelated points and trying to argue they're the same thing. "Geomancers aren't the same thing as White Mages" and "Geomancers use Conjurer moves as placeholders" aren't mutually exclusive.

[BasicBlake]

-snip-

1. I never said "they" conquered anything. Ganen, the first king of Doma did. Him being the first prominent Geomancer who created the Swallow's Compass and learned from the Tengu. The WHM of old didn't conquer anything, they fended off the invasion of the Mhachi (or however you spell it), their casting come from being granted the ability to use the elements around them from the elementals of the Twelveswood (who were not interested in conquering other territories). Did they overuse certain amounts of aether and tip the scales, yes, but they weren't looking to take over anything.

As for my mentioning of anything else npc or otherwise, can you name a single class in the game that performs differently from their role while in dungeons? I can wait but you wont be able to. They could easily have slapped on a heal ability to the Geomancers in Swallow's Compass/HoH if they wanted them to heal.

2. No one is arguing healers getting damaging abilities, if Kyokohu was a healer he would have healed the barrier itself as well as Kinko and you wouldn't have been needed as an Astrologian. You argue that we can't tell what role they can be based off what we have been shown, then you have even less backing for what you want the class to be. Because at the end of this, you want it to be a healer so that is how you are going to perceive it, because you definitely aren't going to base it off what we have.

3. No I 100% know where you are coming from and what your point it. I just don't tend to agree with playing devil's advocate just to argue. And once again, no one here is saying they are the same thing. You really just read "Geomancers and Conjurer are similar" and just go right to typing "You guys say they are the same thing". We are saying they are similar, the game says they are similar and the lorebook says they are similar, so we are saying it would be redundant to have them in the same role. They are using conjurer placeholder abilities because we only have the ONE set of animations for Aero, Stone and Cure. The Sai Taisui have their own for Maledection of Wind, Stone and Water.

[AnotherPerson]

if Kyokohu was a healer he would have healed the barrier itself as well as Kinko and you wouldn't have been needed as an Astrologian. You argue that we can't tell what role they can be based off what we have been shown, then you have even less backing for what you want the class to be. Because at the end of this, you want it to be a healer so that is how you are going to perceive it, because you definitely aren't going to base it off what we have.

Actually, Kyokohu does have the ability to mend the barrier as a Geomancer as it was stated his Great Grandfather kept the barrier going, but his abilities as a Geomancer was just lacking as he never was fully trained in the arts of Geomancy. That's why he turned to Astrology to supplement his understanding of a way to figure out a way to mend the barrier permanently. On later accounts of the AST storyline, it is discovered Geomancers have the ability to make a permanent barrier but it requires a forbidden technique with blood to do so.

*insert Blood for the Blood Lily joke here*

But yeah, In Foxfire Quest, it's shown that Kyokohu can heal others along with Leveva (provided you don't actually heal and spam Gravity to kill mobs first). So Geomancers are a healer class with some dps skills. He just couldn't take the Kinko on himself and heal at the same time. Really, he didn't even think of healing the kinko because he wasn't galaxy brain like Leveva. AST's kit of healing is supposed to cause a soothing and beneficial effect to the soul which is why Leveva proposed the idea to hurt and heal the kinko.

Geomancers are definitely a healer job storyline wise, and to rip that out entirely from the story would mean to change AST's level 60-70 quest lore. Though SE's been moving WHM away from the elements and making that more of a conjurer thing from what I've seen so it's possible Geomancers will replace conjurers as the Nature Healers and WHM will be the light aspected healers with Holy, Dia, Glare, Afflatus Misery, and whatever else they get in 6.0 that is more light-themed.


From a lore standpoint Geomancers will be using the elements directly versus Conjurers who commune from the elementals to activate their spells. There's still plenty of ways to make a geomancer kit unique in the sense that they use the elements to provide mitigations and shields rather than rely on regens and powerful healing like WHM. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if Geomancers became more of a rotational-variant healer where they get a special gauge based on the elements they are currently attuned to (using one element will deplete that resource more and then their skills will lean towards the other two elements instead). Utilizing one element heavily will empower something more than another and affect the power of the land, compared to conjurers whose spells don't change as they draw power from elementals. Just some food for thought. I kinda like this idea so I'm going to throw this up on the forums.

[BasicBlake]

removed for character limit

Then why wasn't Ganen a healer, why isn't Seiryu a healer, why aren't the tengu healers? why don't the Geomancer spirits in both dungeons cast heal? One heal does not a healer make. With that line of thinking Red Mages are healers, Yugiri would have ended up a healer, Gauis would be a healer, Summoner would be a healer. I see where you are coming from, but his Qi of Water doesn't solidify it as a healer. We don't know how Kyokohu's great grandfather was keeping the barrier up, we really don't know if it was barrier magic or healing. But where at storywise outside of Qi of Water does it say they heal?

As far as I am aware every lore character that is a certain Final Fantasy class in this game operates as the rest of the classes. The conjurers heal, the marauders axe, the gladiators tank, the thaumaturges cast. We don't have a bunch of Paladin healers despite them having a heal, etc.

While white mage is moving away from the elemental aspects from the looks of it, there are still conjurers in the game and roulettes, and everything below level 72 IF they made geomancer healer, you would be seeing two elemental healers around, that doesn't seem redundant or lazy to you? And trust me I am aware of the fact that they can make classes do whatever they want. But we current have two classes in the game that are Wind, Water and Stone "masters", why put them in the same slot? Having two classes who's main focus is the same three elements (granted one is only from 1-72 currently, but that is SEVENTY TWO levels)... they step on eachother's class fantasy too much to heal alongside eachother.

You guys are literally saying “Hey I know we have had a Wind, Water and Stone healer for almost 11 years now. How about..... another one....? I know we haven’t gotten a healer since AST. But what if.... we got another nature themed healer after waiting this long”

I know I’m not a healer main, but waiting 2+ expansions for another healer to get something that even is remotely similar to something to the point where the lore book compares them to far eastern conjurers... I would feel so cheated.