Geomancer

[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.

[AnotherPerson]

omitted for character limit

It's probably because at the beginning in which Geomancers were introduced to the storyline, it was hinted at how similar their professions are. AST's nocturnal barrier magicks mixing perfectly with the barrier of a different discipline also reinforced this concept that they are compatible in discipline and probably close to the same origin - which is why Kyokuho plans on returning to learn AST after he settles the mess in Kugane to continue to supplement his understanding of the stars with his Geomancy.

His grandfather was mentioned that he was refreshing the barrier up often if I recall correctly as he had to have been in the area to do so if he was not using the forbidden technique to constantly maintain the barrier. Barrier magic or healing both fall under the healer category to be honest. That's what Scholars/Astrologians do - create shields.

Technically speaking, they already reworked DRK to be more similar to Warrior for the sake of balance and got rid of Dark Arts spam entirely so I can't say for certain. DRK's gauge works the same way as a Warrior's gauge. You can see the complaints in the tank forums about how gameplay for tanks there.

Two elemental healers isn't a problem as long as their kits and gameplay are unique. The main thing is that their lore and their gameplay can be differentiated from each other. WHM communes with elementals to use the power of nature. Their heals are powerful and constant, and have plenty of regens and oGCD heals.
Geomancers access the elements directly but have it more heavily aligned to whatever the land is like. This can be directly shown through gameplay by making Geomancers' skills change on a gauge and gain an effect based on the lean of the current elements. Gameplay wise it'll be entirely different because Geomancers will be heavily dependent on their gauge to function and this causes a variety / lack of constant effects. Their ability to heal/support the party will naturally be different.

Of course, this is just the example I'm using. It'll ultimately depend on SE and how they implement the job itself, if they do plan on adding Geomancer. I play healer often enough to consider myself a main, and something like this would at least seem appealing if the gameplay is different. Unlike conjury, the Geo storyline won't be involved with elementals to use their power, but probably more aligned to the understanding of the land itself and more towards Astrologians' way of studying the stars and divining its secrets. In that aspect, the storyline will definitely be different. I expect a larger part of the story will involve Feng Shui instead seeing how big Feng Shui is in Eastern culture and Geomancy/Taoism. It's essentially a different approach to the same elements with different underlying concepts to focus on.

[MirronTulaxia]

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.

I mean, again, this is all personal opinion on how similar they are. I don't see them as the same job. That you do to me says you're just boiling down a job to the elements and that's it. The aesthetics and everything else is very different.

Again, as for NPCs they almost never are healers. Look at Lakshmi. She's basically the healer summon and she barely does any healing. And that's a summon that should be extremely focused on it. That even she only has a couple moments where she does it right at the beginning really speaks volumes about how rare healing is for enemies. The exception, again, is when the enemy is basically a beast tribe or otherwise meant to emulate specific jobs. Given that there isn't even a Geomancer job currently to emulate there isn't much that can be done with that.

Edit: Actually, I have a very good counter to the "healers must heal" bit. The Knights of the Round. Two of their number are Conjurers. From what I can tell they don't do any healing. We know what their jobs are after all. If Healers are supposed to heal then why don't they?

[Seraphor]

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.

In the BLM job quests, other BLM's primarily use their skills to summon voidsent.
The BLM job as far as the player is concerned is nothing about voidsent, while Thaumaturgy is about funeral rites.
If BLM was more like it was depicted in the job quests, it would be too similar to Summoner.
So the fact that Geomancers in the job quest of a different job entirely has a barrier skill doesn't mean all that much.
Meanwhile there's an entire questline, with a dungeon, a trial, and reference to MSQ characters, in which Geomancers are elemental spell casters and summoners. All players will have seen this, while only those who leveled AST will see the 'healer' potential.
In either case, both of these were put into the game before they ever decided what, if anything, Geomancer would be as an actual job.
And in either case 'job fantasy' is not the same thing as job quest lore. You can't make a cookie cutter copy of WHM as a job as say "the job quests show that it has completely different roots"

There will never be a 'rotational healer'. They are simplifying healing.
The next healer will have a DoT, a single target DPS spell, an AoE DPS spell, and maybe one special DPS spell, unless it has significant buffs like AST.
90% of their healing kit will be standardised, and they'll have a couple of signature moves.
Their gauge will be healing based, not dps based.
So as a Healer, a Geomancer would have a DoT that is wind/earth/water based, a single target DPS spell that is wind/earth/water based... get the picture?

They are trying to find a healer that is different.
Every call for a new healer has come with the message of "please not just another WHM clone"
Healers are already mechanically similar enough that healers all complain about it, are they really going to add one that is similar in lore as well?

Previous comments from Yoshi P included that he wants to make an eastern caster DPS, specifically an Onmyoji that is based around statuses.
Onmyoji is essentially the Japanese equivalent of Feng Shui.
I believe the in game lore likens Geomancy/Onmyoji to Conjury/Thaumaturgy, in that Geomancers are wind/earth/water based, while Onmyoji are practitioners of blood magic.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this idea went around and they refitted this into having Hingan Geomancy/Onmyoji as Conjury/Thaumaturgy respectively, while making Yanxian Geomancy more offensive based, an amalgamation of Geomancy and Onmyoji, and the basis of our new Caster DPS, Geomancer. Similarly to how Ishgardian Astrology is nothing like Sharlayan Astrology.

[BasicBlake]

character limit

This right here. Making Geomancer a healer extremely limits what the class is capable of in terms of play because of how healers work in this game. I don't want my favorite class in the series boiled down to a single target spell, an dot spell, and an aoe damage spell. Especially something like Geomancer, it would be such a waste.

Yoshi P and the team take job identity very seriously, and that is why they take such strides to make sure every class in the game feels unique. I don't know if you guys played for the Heavensward launch but the backlash on Astrologian was huge. They got a new healer that you basically got to choose a white mage or a scholar stance. I do not think they will make the mistake again of having healer be even remotely close thematically, regardless of how it plays. This is why I think they are going to go the route of Battle Medic/chemist that the garleans use, the leader of the Bozja resistance is even one if you go through all of his dialogue options.

Out of all the story quests, dungeons etc, they aren't going to base how a class is played off of 4-5 short quests in a healer's job quests, those would be the easiest to change opposed to books and dungeons.

Geomancer and Onymuji started off very separate lore wise and thematically but as the game progresses they have gotten very muddy on what separates the two other than Yanxian vs Hingashi, Cnj vs Thm, Geomancers having an affinity for barriers while Onymuji practice divination, and Onymuji have been outlawed in Hingashi due to the practicing of illegal blood magic. So most of the Ast quests from a lore perspective you are dealing with a group of Onmyuji/Geo mixes.

I remember reading somewhere about how there is also mainland vs Hingashi Geomancy as well, akin to how we have Sharlayan vs Ishgardian Astrologians. So while Kyokohu's great grandfather and himself are both Hingan Geomancer's, Kyo's great grandfather was known for meeting with a group of mainland ones regularly. It would explain Kyokohu's "Qi" line of spells vs the mainland "Malediction" versions.

I do believe that Gostetsu will be returning at some point with whatever form of Geomancer/Ony mix and we will be taking up new school of magic with him. With how close he is to Hien (and the Doman royalty usually being strong Geomancers), and how close the Samurai, Shinobi and Geomancers were used and deployed together in Doma. It's also not a far stretch considering Ganen was a Samurai and Geomancer, and is never depicted without his katana and his bell.

As for Mirron, okay perfect, conjurers heal in things usually, in dungeons specially while enemies. Swallow's Compass came out a good year after the Ast quests were released, they could have easily made the monsters get a heal. So maybe they decided that was the direction they wanted to go /shrug

[AnotherPerson]

In the BLM job quests, other BLM's primarily use their skills to summon voidsent.
The BLM job as far as the player is concerned is nothing about voidsent, while Thaumaturgy is about funeral rites.
If BLM was more like it was depicted in the job quests, it would be too similar to Summoner.
So the fact that Geomancers in the job quest of a different job entirely has a barrier skill doesn't mean all that much.
Meanwhile there's an entire questline, with a dungeon, a trial, and reference to MSQ characters, in which Geomancers are elemental spell casters and summoners. All players will have seen this, while only those who leveled AST will see the 'healer' potential.
In either case, both of these were put into the game before they ever decided what, if anything, Geomancer would be as an actual job.
And in either case 'job fantasy' is not the same thing as job quest lore. You can't make a cookie cutter copy of WHM as a job as say "the job quests show that it has completely different roots"

There will never be a 'rotational healer'. They are simplifying healing.
The next healer will have a DoT, a single target DPS spell, an AoE DPS spell, and maybe one special DPS spell, unless it has significant buffs like AST.
90% of their healing kit will be standardised, and they'll have a couple of signature moves.
Their gauge will be healing based, not dps based.
So as a Healer, a Geomancer would have a DoT that is wind/earth/water based, a single target DPS spell that is wind/earth/water based... get the picture?

They are trying to find a healer that is different.
Every call for a new healer has come with the message of "please not just another WHM clone"
Healers are already mechanically similar enough that healers all complain about it, are they really going to add one that is similar in lore as well?

Previous comments from Yoshi P included that he wants to make an eastern caster DPS, specifically an Onmyoji that is based around statuses.
Onmyoji is essentially the Japanese equivalent of Feng Shui.
I believe the in game lore likens Geomancy/Onmyoji to Conjury/Thaumaturgy, in that Geomancers are wind/earth/water based, while Onmyoji are practitioners of blood magic.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this idea went around and they refitted this into having Hingan Geomancy/Onmyoji as Conjury/Thaumaturgy respectively, while making Yanxian Geomancy more offensive based, an amalgamation of Geomancy and Onmyoji, and the basis of our new Caster DPS, Geomancer. Similarly to how Ishgardian Astrology is nothing like Sharlayan Astrology.

BLM's gameplay is completely different from a Summoner's gameplay though. That simply supports the idea that even if both of them are summoners, their method and execution are drastically different where one enhances their skills while the other calls them out to fight. Both of them are casters and still feel aesthetically different. That can work for WHM and GEO. Both uses elemental magic to a certain degree, but the execution is drastically different - one starts going into light aspected aether for heals and the lily gauge and the other focuses on a rotational gauge with shields.


Barriers ... don't seem like a problem? The whole storyline involved with GEO was how to strengthen the barrier and continually keep it going. A barrier skill doesn't mean much, but it sets up the foundations on how Kyokuho plans on proceeding his advancement without a full inheritance of the previous Geomancers. As a result, since WHM isn't focused on barriers, they can make Geomancers give barriers and mitigation fields rather than powerful heals and regens on a rotation.

The amount of healer complaints also points out that it's no longer fun to because they simplified healers and their DPS rotation. There's a huge list of complaints in the healer forums and more in the japanese forums. Considering how there's always a drought for healers in the duty finder, I doubt they wouldn't make changes in 6.0 to healer toolkits since SCH wants their DoTs back and ASTs want their card effect variety back. Otherwise, people would probably just quit entirely since healer complaints are no longer being heard and used just as an excuse to progress storyline as healer gameplay has less engagement besides pressing an oGCD heal every once in a while. Healers are already getting the short end of the stick as a -role- and are quite honestly sick of it so I wouldn't be surprised if they went in the other direction instead of simplifying healers in 6.0 because that clearly did not work, or else there wouldn't be a healer drought. A rotational DPS gauge that supports barriers and DPS seems like the right approach for a new spin on things - similar to how SCH can choose to ED or spend aetherflow actions on healing. I really would not be surprised if they made one healer a buff healer (AST) and another more DPS-like, then gave the other jobs their DPS rotations back. If anything, if they did add a new healer with the current paradigm, I'm sure SE will see more complaints on healer forums than before... and I'd wholeheartedly would want a Geomancer DPS at that point myself.

With how similar Geomancer and Onmyojis are, I wouldn't write off Geomancers not being healers or caster DPS. Instead, it could be where Geomancers with the proper inheritance become Onmyojis - the caster DPS - and the ones that follow Kyokuho and his school of thought ends up as a healer with a focus on barriers. Imo that would be the ideal situation. You get both jobs but because they took different focuses, their roles and skills ended up being different entirely.

At any rate, I just wouldn't write off Geomancers not being healers yet, but honestly it's up in the air for whatever this job becomes, if it gets added.

[SeikishiYuuki]

I lean to agree with about 90% of this, Healers are in a terrible place but not so pronounced as tanks were in 4.0. Currently yea healer kits are very simplified but that has a lot more to do with the way damage occurs in content. The way content handles damage no there's generally not a need to constantly be healing and so a lot of our time is filled with spamming our one trick DPS button and keeping a dot up. Old AST card system will almost certainly never return, we could get slightly more variety in t he cards but due to balancing issues and their goal to prevent strong metas from forming its not likely. I digress, you could make Geo a Healer that has a different execution of the same or similar elements to WHM, but why would you when you have options for a more unique healer and can place Geo to function in a unique DPS position, like the Dancer of Casters DPS. That's not to say it can't be a healer it is more like if you have 2 job options for a new healer and have one that is 20% similar to WHM and 5% similar to WHM, then go with the 5% unless you feasible can't. I'd be completely Fine getting Geomancer DPS and an Onmyuji healer that'd be cool for sure, though I still want Chemist/Medic more.

Side Note: I know 0 Astro who want old cards back, I'll admit sometimes the current card set is less interesting but it is substantially better mechanically.

[AnotherPerson]

Side Note: I know 0 Astro who want old cards back, I'll admit sometimes the current card set is less interesting but it is substantially better mechanically.

You might want to check the "A summary of healer issues thread, some posts around the Has anyone quit healing thread, or just scroll around in the healer forums to the other pages. It's strewn all over the place, and the first post in the "summary of healer issues" has the AST card variety mentioned. Yeah, it's better mechanically currently, but it says a lot when the card system is substantially better in terms of efficiency / usage than before, but less people play it than before and more people turn away from the job itself.

It's also partly why healers as a whole started quitting in droves as a healer - gameplay became too bland.

[SeikishiYuuki]

You might want to check the "A summary of healer issues thread, some posts around the Has anyone quit healing thread, or just scroll around in the healer forums to the other pages. It's strewn all over the place, and the first post in the "summary of healer issues" has the AST card variety mentioned. Yeah, it's better mechanically currently, but it says a lot when the card system is substantially better in terms of efficiency / usage than before, but less people play it than before and more people turn away from the job itself.

It's also partly why healers as a whole started quitting in droves as a healer - gameplay became too bland.

Oh no, I fully agree with Healers right now are not as fun to play our kits as Astro's are incredibly powerful and active but healing in content is almost entirely soloable so one of you ends up just spamming Glare. I don't think card variety is going to help its more likely that healing as a whole within the system needs to change in 6.0