Job Idea: Green Mage (Caster)

[Mimilu]

Green Mage (GNM)
Buffing Caster
Weapon: Rackets, magical rackets attuned with wind magic to help carry and spread Emerald Seeds
Limit Break: Green Dominion
Inspiration: Green Mages from Tactics A2, Aerith from VII remakes, D&D Druids



ENTIRE JOB IDEA OVERVIEW

TL;DR version

• Nature, Plant, and Wind based buffing caster
• Ya like lacrosse? Ya like gardening?
• Collect seeds from your filler combos and use them to blow up your enemies
• Also earn special mana from your combo spells to fuel party buffs or damaging spells
• No res here but has some mitigation
• Filler combo spells have a cast time of 1.5 seconds, powerful spells have a cast time of 2.5 seconds.

Basic End Game Skill Breakdown
Button Count: 20 (12 spells, 8 abilities)

Gauge: The Emerald Communion Gauge
A bar that shows the amount of Green Mana the user has (up to 100). Makes noise whenever the user reaches 50 or 100 Green Mana.
Seedbed gauge that shows the number of Emerald Seed stacks the user has (max of 3). Makes a noise when the user has 3.
Three gems, each representing Faith of the Green, Bravery of the Green, and Poison of the Green, the respective gem lighting up when its spell is activated.

Single Burst Filler Combo

• Emerald Shot I (420) > Emerald Shot II (460) > Emerald Shot III (500)

AoE Burst Filler Combo

• Emerald Swirl I (145) > Emerald Swirl II (155) > Emerald Swirl III (170)

Emerald Shot/Swirl I Grant Emerald Arm.
Emerald Shot/Swirl II uses up Emerald Arm and Grant Emerald Arm II.
Emerald Shot/Swirl III uses up Emerald Arm II.
Each part of both combos grants the user 10 Green Mana (max of 100) and grants the user an Emerald Seed stack (max of 3 Seeds). They all have a cast time of 1.5 seconds, a 2.5 second recast, and costs 300 MP.
Additionally, Emerald Shot/Swirl III grants the user 1 Emerald Tempest stack (max of 3).

Emerald Seed Skills

• Emerald Bloom: Spell. Damage a selected target and all enemies within 8-yalms of them (80 for the first target, 50% less for all remaining). Additionally, if the user has any Emerald Seed stacks on them, they are used up to increase the damage potency (220 per seed used for the first target, 50% less for all remaining). 2.5 second cast time, 2.5 second recast, and costs 400 MP.
• Emerald Oil: Ability. Uses up all the user’s Emerald Seeds. Increases damage onto a selected target by 2% per seed used for 21 seconds. Instant cast and 60 second recast.

“...of the Green” Spells

• Faith of the Green: Spell. Costs 50 Green Mana. Summons an ethereal tree to a selected area for 24 seconds that increases the Magical Damage of any party member within 50-yalms of it by 10% and Critical Hit Rate by 2%. 2.5 second cast time and 60 second recast.
• Bravery of the Green: Spell. Costs 50 Green Mana. Summons an ethereal sunflower to a selected area for 24 seconds that Increases the Physical Damage of any party member within 50-yalms of it by 10% and the Direct Hit Rate and Direct Hit Damage by 5%. 2.5 second cast time and 120 second recast.
• Poison of the Green: Spell. Costs 30 Green Mana. Summons an ethereal mushroom to a selected area for 24 seconds that damages all enemies within 30-yalms (75) of it and decreases damage they deal by 5%. 2.5 second cast time and 2.5 second recast.
• Ardor of the Green: Spell. Costs 30 Green Mana. Damages a selected target and all enemies within 8-yalms of them (500 for the first, 50% less for the remaining). Instant cast time and 2.5 second recast.
• Wrath of the Green: Spell. Costs 50 Green Mana. Damages a selected target and all enemies within 8-yalms (800 for the first target, 60% less for all remaining). Additionally, grants the user 3 Emerald Seed stacks and increases the potency of the user’s next 3 Emerald Shot/Swirl spells by 20% and grants them an Embrace of the Green stack (max of 1, 20 second duration). 2.5 second cast time and 120 second recast.
• Focus of the Green: Spell. Grants the user 50 Green Mana. Additionally, grants the user an Embrace of the Green stack (max of 1). 2.5 second cast time, 60 second recast time, and costs 300 MP.

Casters start with 100 Green Mana when they start/restart an instance.
The caster’s Faith of the Green, Bravery of the Green, and Poison of the Green overwrite each other.

Embrace of the Green Skills

• Fleeting Familiar: Ability. Costs 1 Embrace of the Green. Grants the user a Nature Sprite. For the next 7 targeting, damaging spells the user casts, the Sprite will damage that target, damaging all enemies within 8-yalms(200 for the first, 50% less for the remaining). Instant cast time and 2.5 second recast.
• Dell of the Dreamer: Ability. Costs 1 Embrace of the Green and can only be used while Faith of the Green, Bravery of the Green, or Poison of the Green is activated. For the remaining time of the “...of the Green” spell, damage all enemies over time within that spell’s area of effect (100) and increase damage done onto them by 5%. Instant cast time and 120 second cooldown.

Other DPS Skills

• Emerald Tempest: Spell. Cost 3 Emerald Tempest stacks Damage a selected target and all enemies within 5-yalms of them (730, 50% less for the rest). Instant cast.
• Tanglevine: Spell. Damages a target (100) and damages them over 45 seconds (45). Instant cast, 2.5 second recast, and costs 300 MP.
• Stranglethorn: Spell. Damage a selected target and all enemies within 5-yalms of them (50). Additionally, damage all enemies within 5-yalms of the target over 45 seconds (35). Instant cast time, 2.5 second recast, and costs 300 MP.

Other Skills

• Tailwind: Ability, 2 charges. For 15 seconds, increases the user’s movement speed by 20% and reduces their spell cast times to 0. Instant cast time and 60 second cooldown.
• Treant Skin: Ability. Creates a barrier on the user that absorbs equal to 30% of their Max HP (duration 15 seconds). Additionally, reduces damage the user takes by 10% for 15 seconds. Instant cast time and 90 seconds recast.
• Dandelion Puff: Ability. Interrupts a target’s interruptible skill. Instant cast time and 60 second recast.
• Verdant Shell: Ability. Creates a 20-yalm barrier when the caster stood for seconds, decreasing damage dealt to party members standing within by 15%. Instant cast time and 90 second recast time. Turns into Verdant Blossom while the user has the effect up.
• Verdant Blossom: Ability. Bursts the user’s Verdant Shell barrier, healing all party members within (600, scaled on the user’s INT). Instant cast time and 2.5 second recast.
• Mirage Spores: Ability. Place a barrier on a selected party member equal to 30% of their maximum HP (duration of 10 seconds). When the barrier is fully absorbed, damage all enemies within 5-yalms of the affected (300) Instant cast time and 90 second recast time.

Potential Opener
(Starting with 100 Green Mana)

• Pre-pull (-2.5s): Faith/Bravery of the Green (24 second, 50 GM) + Potion (30 seconds)
• Pull (0s): Tanglevine (45 second) > Tailwind (15 seconds)
• 2.5s: Wrath of the Green (0 GM, 3 Seeds, 3 Wrath, 1 Embrace) > Emerald Oil (21 seconds, 0 seeds) + Dell of the Dreamer (0 Embrace)
• 5s: Focus of the Green (50 GM, 1 Embrace) > Fleeting Familiar (7 FF, 0 Embrace)
• 7.5s: Ardor of the Green (20 GM, 6 FF)
• 10 s: Emerald Shot I (30 GM, 2 Wrath, 1 Seeds, 5 FF)
• 12.5s: Emerald Shot II (40 GM, 1 Wrath, 2 Seeds, 4 FF)
• 15s: Emerald Shot III (50 GM, 0 Wrath, 3 Seeds, 1 Tempest, 3 FF) (Tailwind ends)
• 17.5s: Emerald Bloom (0 Seeds, 2 FF)
• 20s: Ardor of the Green (20 GM, 1 FF)
• 22.5s: Refresh Tangevine (should be at 22-23 seconds left) before buffs ends (0 FF)
• (Oil ends 23.5s)
• (Faith/Bravery and Dell ends 24s)
• 25s: Emerald Shot I (30 GM, 1 Seed)
• 27.5s: Emerald Shot II (40 GM, 2 Seed)
• 30s: Emerald Shot III (50 GM, 3 Seed, 2 Tempest) (Potion ends)

For AoE, swap Tanglevine with Stranglethorn (2+ enemies) and Emerald Shot spells for Emerald Swirl spells (3+ enemies).

[Mimilu]

There, posted it all. („ಡωಡ„)
I started working on this one like two weeks ago. It was originally going to be a healer but as soon as I started I decided against it, mainly because I don't really play as a healer anymore but also because I felt like it overlapped too much with other healers (WHM's visuals and AST's buffer identity).
I wanted this to be another cast-heavy caster like BLM and PCT but with more of a focus on buffs.
If you have any thoughts, critiques, suggestions, or concerns, let me know.
As I got to the end, I kind of rushed to finish it, so I probably need it. ꉂ (´∀｀)ʱªʱªʱª

[Astronema]

Great work. I hope we get green mage, idol (songstress),mesmer ( job summons the loving memory endless as minions like a necromancer) as future jobs. Giant Scissors would more of a green mage fit for a weapon maybe.

[Nero-Voidstails]

you all know if they add it they will make it like any other caster in the same year if not the other expension? because we cannot have job identity for to long nah to much work.

I love the idea tho!

[BiddyBatnana]

Sounds perfect to me ♥ Great Idea !

[Khryseis_Astra]

Being that we just got Pictomancer, it’ll probably be ages til we get another caster. But I like your idea and it sounds like it would be fun to play!

[Taranok]

Won't work.

Major flaws:

Further dilutes the game's caster design by focusing on highly mobile gameplay. Uses DoTs in a game that has extremely bad DoT server architecture. Range limitations on buff skills incompatible with modern fight design (impossible to balance.) Extremely easy to mess up resource management on a significant amount of critical skills (skill floor problems.) 'Embrace of the Dream' skills are low use, mutually exclusive. Typically only one real choice leading to stale gameplay. Has no skill/spell speed normalization. Frankly, it's only going to be used on BLMs or the caster themselves because it's purely just skill activations over time, meaning more activations = more damage, especially as it scales primarily on int. Find the fastest attacker, ???, flawed design. Overreliance on enemy debuffs, class will suffer in any fight remotely like BA/DRS.

Minor flaws: Too many party buffs, buffs step on the toes of Bard while still not being near a true rotation cycle, no overcap protection. No, really, one of your skills literally caps your green mana meaning you have exactly 1 spot you can use it in your entire rotation, this type of design sank manafication and is sinking dancer in general right now. Tanglevine->stranglethorn is a weird combo ability, would be better to prune redundant or low-use abilities and separate this.


Overall thoughts: This would be a decent starting idea for a class in a game with much better server design, but would be harmful to FFXIV as it exists now. Also has a strong sense of trying to be both bard and ye olde summoner in style while trying not to fall into SMN's pitfalls, but still flirting with it all the same. Still a more coherent idea than launch picto.

[Mimilu]

Snip.[/B]

Thank you for the feedback. (*´∀`*) ~♥

To go over your points:
• Focusing on highly mobile gameplay? Do you mean Tailwind, Ardor of the Green, and Emerald Tempest? Or maybe because the filler is only 1.5 second long? I was actually worried the 2.5 second cast times on the stronger spells might be too long for the games current design.
• I was worried about the buff ranges but wasn't sure. Maybe I can increase it to 30-yalms like AST? Maybe 50-yalms like BRD? Or make it just flat out affect every party member regardless of distance?
• By "resource management" do you mean the Green Mana? Would allowing people to hold 60 or higher help make management more tolerable? I had originally thought of making it 100 but was actually worried it would make things too easy/boring.
• I can see that about the Embrace of the Green abilities, I made them last minute during the final stretch and was more set on making skills with those names but made them more flash then substance I think. The general idea is that you use Dell of the Dreamer for AoE situations and Fleeting Familiar for single-target.
• This design made me notice quiet a few of my job designs involve placing debuffs/stacks on enemies. I never played DRS, is it the number of debuffs an enemy can hold or is there a mechanic in the fight that makes it impossible for debuffs? I was worried about the enemy's debuff number and though about making Seeds a resource you carry but thought seeds being planted on enemies was more on theme.
• I really didn't want a true rotation for the Green Mana buffs. I wanted the user to be able to have some choice on whether to start with Faith or Bravery depending on the party (granted, I don't think a Magic-heavy party goes with the more melee-centric meta but still, choices).
• Is it the effect of the "...of the Green" spells that step too much on BRD's toes or just because there's three?
• Yeah, I did make Focus of the Green just to facility Wrath in the opener. Maybe I could tone done Focus of the Green and make it so you just start out with max Green Mana when you start an instance?
• For overcapping on Green Mana, maybe I could make Ardor of the Green more spammable? Like get rid of the cooldown but make it so you need a higher amount of Green Mana to use it (in addition to increasing the Green Mana gauge to like 100)?

[Zelda206]

I'd prefer Melee Support GRN; wield a 2H hammer, apply debuffs/buffs, Rescue option a player out of danger and gain a shield for it.

[SieyaM]

doubt we are getting another caster for the next 8 or so years. Painter is the new one since Blue Mage and that was back in Stormblood.