Geomancer?

[mechabomber]

Does anyone have any ideas of how a geomancer class might work in FFXI?

[Keftenk]

it would probably be as strong as a Red Mage in offensive, and its spells probably wouldnt be any different then mage classes. i mean, they will have their own unique spells and what not, but you would enter a area, say that nice Snow covered land area and then depending on your level when you select to cast a elemental spell it will give you options...of course this could be completley wrong, just a guess...meh...ah well...away i go...

[Gobo]

It would be kinda funny to see them attack monsters with their bells that they use as weapons.:spin:

[Keftenk]

...they just dont use bells as weapons (smack)...i most commonly made them use Axes...

[Coinspinner]

Longish, speculative rant. Avert your eyes!

If Square-Enix were considering adding Geomancer as a class, which do you think they'd choose, FFV's green, bell ringin', Salvation Army Santa model, or FFT's magical, sword slingin' hippie? Pics below.

http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/job02.shtml#geomancer

If it's the first, then the job is basically a caster with no MP use and a unique, yet probably worthless weapon class. The latter is basically a Red Mage, sans spells or MP, with an axe and some weak damage + status spells. I favor the first, seeing as there's enough fighters as it is.

My idea for geomancy goes like this. You select Geomancy, and for the next three minutes or so, enemie(s) will be hit with random, usually weak attacks (or status attacks) while you continue to fight. The attacks are entirely dependent on what there is around you, snowballs ina a snowfield, thorny branch missles in a jungle, bursts of steam near a volcano etc. New attacks would appear with higher levels. Because of that, I'm guessing they won't add much to ones effectiveness... until a rare and nasty attack results, making the mages envious of you or something.

Past that, I don't think Geomancer can work unless this game has terrain effects and the like. Being able to walk on lava and pass unhindered through fast-moving rivers is half of that job's abilities. If this game has that kind of stuff already in it, then great.

What else could they have innately? Elemental resistance? Seems a bit overpowered, especialy in light of the summon battles. Perhaps extreme elemental resistance could be their Super Job Ability instead.

High luck? Real geomancy, AKA Feng Shui IIRC, seems to be mostly about increasing one's own luck by channeling earth energy via clever furniture placement (or something).

Which leads me to ponder some other possible (if not plausible) abilities for Geomancers.

Change Weather Condition
Change the weather to whatever's available in that zone. It'd be usefull for wannabe Summoners I guess. The REAL point to this is to annoy people with constantly changing atmospheric conditions. Imagine, a group of Geomancers who can't agree on what the day should be like.

Geomancer A: "Snow, I say! A snowday!"
Geomancer B: "Rain, you fool, today calls for rain!"
Paladin C: "I could do with a bit o' sunshine myself..."
A&B: "You fool!"

...and so on, eventually forcing a GM to intervene. Of course, this situation only amuses me because I'm not actually playing the game yet.

Earth Power & Find Ley Line
Ten minutes with Google taught me (<- sarcastic emphasis) that Feng Shui revolves around the search for and identification of "ley lines" or "dragon lines", energy currents in the earth. What if these existed in FFXI? With Find Ley Line you could determine your proximity to one of these power points, and Earth Power (a passive ability) would raise your luck when fighting near one. I forget if there's a luck stat, so if not it would just get you a lot of critical hits and evasions.

Prosperity
Filling your mog house with carefully arranged furniture increases the amount of money you collect from monsters. It's a case of money begetting more money!

Misfortune
Angry at someone? Use this to rearrange the contents of their Mog House!

I'll appreciate anyone's take on my mad ramblings.

[Nameless]

Change Weather Condition

No point to that, it would only be used to bother people. Maybe use different elements in different areas: Fire in ice areas, Ice in fire areas.
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Earth Power & Find Ley Line

Since when did Gemancer get so Karate like?
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Prosperity

Over powered, THF can already get a lot of money, which makes the THF kind of useless.
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Misfortune

Stupid......
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I liked the second outfit more though on the female type, the males can were the santa outfit.

[Nico Silius]

Geomancers would have attack and defense values between that of a BM and RM. They would have a very small amount of MP as well, and axes would be their main weapon.

I would treat geomancy like a ranged attack (kind of, at least). There would be no casting time, but there WOULD be an amount of time that passed before the attack hit. The spells would be fairly weak and would have a chance of a status effect based on the terrain .

I would also give them a class of spells that, for a period of time (2-3 minutes?), would change a fairly large section of ground into a different element type. This would cost some MP, limiting the geomancers power to an extent. You could change grass to dirt, or lava to snow, ect. This way geomancers will have a varied attack type, but still balance them (changing the element of the ground would take some time, and be treated like a normal spell, meaning if you are hit the spell fizzles).

Anyway, I think this solves one of the biggest problems with making the geomancer class (which is, of course, the fact that for most of the time they would be using grass element attacks only.)

And for an added twist, you could make certain terrain damage and effects vary with the weather. Snowing? Snow terrain and slow are more effective, while lava and instant death are weaker. Raining? Water and Grass terrain do more damage, but dirt and lava are weaker. Not a cloud in the sky? Lava, dirt, and rock are stonger, while snow and water are weaker. Ect, et al.

Further, as a geomancer leveled they could have a small area of effect added to a spell. Fighting lots of enemys in the water? Now you can hit 2 or 3 of them in a single blow.

Anyway, I believe this would make geomancer a viable class. Like anything else it would need balancing work, but it's at least a stable starting point.

[Lone Dragon]

I see it as a job that has better than average Int and Chr, slightly better than average Str, and average Vit, Dex, Agi, and Mnd.

It could use spells or skills to use the power of the ground type that they're on (maybe even have an ability that changes the ground type) and boost, lower, or change elemental resists.

It would have the highest skill in 1H Axe, a mid to high skill in 1H swords, and a lower skill than swords for grappling.

Counter with geomancy doesn't sound bad either, maybe make a wall that forms spikes when attacked or create an aura then attack with energy.

[Coinspinner]

Well, most of that last part was supposed to be stupid.

Change Weather Condition

No point to that, it would only be used to bother people. Maybe use different elements in different areas: Fire in ice areas, Ice in fire areas.

Yeah. After I posted, I suddenly remembered Mog and his ability to sometimes change the terrain to meet the needs of his dance. If it only covered a small area it could be used as you say.

Earth Power & Find Ley Line

Since when did Gemancer get so Karate like?

There's no Final Fantasy precedent for these, but I was justtrying to brainstorm ideas for possible abilities they might have. I don't know what you mean about Karate though, there's no martial arts involved here. It's just something I haphazardly borrowed from Feng Shui, and if I'm not mistaken, Geomancer is always called "Feng Shui User" in the original jap versions of the games.

Prosperity

Over powered, THF can already get a lot of money, which makes the THF kind of useless.
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Misfortune

Stupid......

No, THF still has it's massive damage capabilities and item hunting abilities. Besides, you'd need to invest in a lot of furniture before seeing any effect, and it would take quite some time before you saw a profit. Both of them were jokes meant to play off people's perception of Feng Shui as some crazy new age style of interior design. Wasn't funny, so I'll shut up about it now.:dead:

I liked the second outfit more though on the female type, the males can were the santa outfit.

Well, you'd only see them wearing that if it were AF armor, and I don't think any other job has a different set for each gender.

[Coinspinner]

Re: Geomancer?

Voice from the past...

Et cetera.

Squarenix is releasing a GEO class. Fer realz yo!

Ahahahahaha... I might have to see about restoring my character so I can play it, along with the other 1/3 of the server that isn't playing Blue Mage.

Edit: Damn, I posted that earlier stuff before NA launch... Well, what little we know about the new job is similar to what has run through my mind since actually playing this game. Free spells based on day or weather phenomena, "all-weather" spells that cost MP. Neato.