How Demanding Is GEO Vs BRD?

A good brd is usually tough to find, but how about a "good" geo?

I know that some brds think they only have certain, designated roles in a party, while some feel like they're constantly moving and never stopping. It makes me wonder, where do most Geo's fall short to the "good" geo's where gear isn't a factor?

Purely wondering what most deem as mandatory expectations for geo now that the job is picking up steam

Far as I can tell the expectations are.

- Have the Dunna or at the very least Nepote Bell. Showing up to an event without a crucial piece of gear like the Geomancy+ bells, when the latter costs 5k on the Auction House, is absolutely unacceptable.

- Have a PdT/MdT/DT set. Sooner or later you're going to be on the front line, don't become an MP sponge when you do.

- Have a decent Elemental Magic set. This is really easy to do and enables GEO to contribute to magic damage as and when needed.

- Have a decent Enfeebling Magic set. Also get the Twilight Cloak.

- Have all of your Geoclosure spells. Nothing has pissed me off more lately than doing a Wopket run with a pickup GEO only to find that they didn't have Geo-Vex or Geo-Malaise because "I only buff DD".

- USE AQUAVEIL IF YOU ARE ON THE FRONT LINE.


Those are the bare minumum if you ask me, now what makes a GEO stand out?

- Having a solid melee set. No, not kidding here. If you're in the DD party for 'lowbie' content such as Delve V1 and Skirmishes chances are you'll be getting a lot of melee buffs from both yourself and any other sources you have. GEO melee is suprisingly effective and it has access to some rather good melee gear (Ischemia Chasuble, Battlecast Gaiters, Nehushtan etc) that can put out some impressive Realmrazer numbers, especially if you are 5/5 in it. You won't come close to the output of a SAM or anything but it'll still turn a few heads.

- Remember that Indi-Haste and Haste from your RDM sub stack with each other. On that note, if you're with RNG's in an AA fight remember that you can Flurry them. Flurry with Indi-Fury, Geo-Frailty and Indi-Torpor (Entrust) more than makes up for the potential lack of a BRD.

- Knowing when to use Mending Halation. If used at the right time this ability can be a life saver. Is your WHM in the middle of casting Arise mid-fight for some reason and a heavy nuke has just hit? Use it and save your frontline.

- Knowing what spells to use and when, especially with Entrust. Are you facing a mob that likes to full-dispel? Switch to Indi-Haste and Entrust Indi-Fury so DPS does not tank.
Mob likes to spam nukes and has heavily damaging magic attacks? Entrust either Indi-Fend or Indi-Fade onto one of your DD.
Mighty Strikes just go off in Incursion? Recall your Luopan immediately and use Geo-Wilt until it wears off.

- Carry a Cure Potency set. GEO can cap Cure Potency % quite easily but admittely it lacks the Healing Magic Skill of most mages. Still decent to have around for support if your WHM is struggling.

a Good player is hard to find period.

Bad BRD = Bad PLayer.

That's how it works really.

brd is hard to find bad player or not lol, it's just a boring job that people don't want to play or deal with douchery

GEO is on the same level really, unless you Melee.

While the full duties of a GEO or a BRD can be debated, the core of both is to buff/debuff.

I would say GEO is rather more idiot proof than BRD. You Can screw up your songs, and waste JA time on BRD. About the only way to screw up on GEO buffs/debuffs is to blow entrust casting an indi-spell on yourself(I made a gearswap lockout for this), or just plain use the wrong bubbles. But you can change your Indi/Geo spell at any time, with the exception of entrust, at no penalty aside from MP cost. So even if you use the wrong ones, just notice it and recast.

A BRD may have to maintain as many as 3 different sets of songs on various players(support, DD/RNG, PLD, etc). EDIT#2: And then put on elegy, nocturne, and spam finales if needed.

A GEO pops 2~3 nearly instant casting bubbles and done. leaving quite a lot of time for whatever else the GEO can do.

EDIT:Oh, and then there's the BRD's worst nightmare, dispel spam. <,<

So while I'm not really addressing the qualities of a "good GEO", in reply to the thread title I would say BRD is far more demanding a job to play well.(and that's not even getting into gear it... /shudder)

don't know why people think buffer jobs are boring.

Bard, geo and cor, they are all interesting and busy jobs if you play them seriously. lol

And I agree with Martel, there's more room for errors on bard then geo on the bare minimum that is expected of them.

There's less geo then bards. So finding geo is harder.

Bard is fun depending on dd. if dd are good kill nm fast, pull fast so u don't need to sing while nm is still alive and pull quick so I can just sleep the adds instead of me pulling and possibly dying due to 5 adds surrounding laevid and such.

People don't play them seriously. I can almost guarantee a pug Brd won't do anything but sing 2 sets of songs, a pug Geo won't nuke, debuff, cure, or -na, and a pug Cor won't do damage.

Same could be said about a SCH. Went with a PUG SCH yesterday who said, "Oh I never had to stun Cal. Mist before. I only had to focus on Tojil..." /facepalm

Although I know you're speaking from experience, I just have to point out that the vast majority of the time the reason most support jobs only support is because that's what they are expected to do, and nobody holds them accountable when they don't do otherwise.

I normally always have a few sets for each of my support jobs, but far too often I get invited to content as a GEO or COR and I'm told to either not worry about meleeing, or don't shoot, or something like that. I'm basically just invited for the one role my job is known for. Now I usually like to do more than just my job - I'll cure on COR or BRD, nuke and melee on GEO etc, but I think the idea in the player community is that there are only so many 'good players' around; Most would rather invite a 3 song bard to simply sing and pray to god he doesn't fck that simple process up, than expect him to do more than that and potentially fall short of his simple obligation.

I normally don't bother meleeing as BRD, but I noticed in some content, some BRDs do, since they are forced on the front line (Ouryu II comes to mind). I almost always come ready to swing my club on GEO, and shoot on COR, but I think the idea lately has been to only expect players to do what they are invited to do. Anything else in addition is supplemental, but should not impede your true role.

And I agree with everything Lyncath said above.

It's probably worth noting that Geo can solo stun Delve (all 1-5+B on Delve 1 and Hyoscya in Yorcia) as well. Our group doesn't use scholar's anymore, we bring a geo. It's very rare you'll miss a stun and if you do it's very unlikely going to cause any deaths or a wipe.

Going to second this, it can be done.

Lahar is not much of a threat if you have competent DD's who carry DT-% sets and the Shark likewise is not much of a threat as long as people keep taking his Attack Bonus off and keep HP topped up to avoid a 1-shot kill from Tidal Guillotine.

I think GEO is far less demanding than BRD in terms of annoying to make gear. To be fair, I can't imagine anything worse than 99ing an emp weapon. Ghorn is no big deal to make and having the mythic isn't really expected. Of course idris is expensive but I don't see GEO's being shunned for not having it.

The job itself is nice because you can be as involved as you want. When I am playing only my GEO alt I find things to do full time (stun, nuke, enfeeb, etc). On the other hand when I am dual boxing my geo while playing my main, I can swap screens just when I want to change my indi or replace my luopon. Also geo comfortably stuns 128 incursion. I'd imagine it could stun higher levels with no problem as well.

I'll take a 5 song mythic bard over a geo anyday! lawl

i'd trade my 5 song mythic brd for an idris geo anyday

(not an actual offer, i only play my own characters and don't trust recalls, but idris geo is much more useful and much harder to obtain atm)

Your end tag for sarcasm didn't close properly. Now all comments in AH will be sarcastic until you close it properly!

Remember that pug Geo we got? "Why's acc bad?" "...Geo has AF bell" lol. But for reals, for such an easy to get item, there's absolutely no reason not to have it, the difference for the price is ridiculous.

Agree with everything else said. Biggest thing I can add is unlike Brd, Geo has dozens of spells that it needs to know when and how to use. It's not as clear cut as "buff DDs" or anything. There are times and fights where +MEva/-MAcc work best, Indi-Haste + March on Ouryu to make Slow spam less of a bother, +MAcc and/or -MEva for high tier Incursion, or for sleeping something that usually won't sleep mid wipe, etc. Bolster is similar in that with everything being 2x potency, you need to know what's worth stacking and what's not. Bolster Frailty + Fury really does no good unless you're attack starved. Edit: I don't know the exact %s for capped +5 Geomancy, but I'd imagine this isn't far off for that either.

Brd has literally 5, Minuet, Madrigal, Prelude, March, and Ballad. Special mention to Etudes and Carols in specific situations, but meh. Mistakes definitely aren't as costly for Geo as mentioned though.

Another good habit to get into is knowing which Indi/Geo to use. Geo are 2x as expensive, don't last as long as an Indi, including up to near instantly dying (even in -87.5% DT, I've had Gramk in 131 land hits for 700 during Mighty Strikes -.-), however they can be effected by JAs for higher potency. If you don't plan on using JAs on a specific mob/fight, it's logical to Geo the least expensive spell, maintaining better MP efficiency. There's also the knowledge of how debuffs effect enemies. Say you're buffing the front lines with Fury and Frailty and are clearing trash. Other then Incursion (mobs instantly garner aggro on everyone), you'll need to get on the hate list of each and every mob for Frailty to take effect. If time doesn't permit this, you might be better off switching Frailty out for another buff simply because at least it'll be doing something.

In a similar light, although ally content has fallen behind greatly, it's important to remember debuffs help everyone hitting the mob. WoE and WKRs become so much easier when Geo's work together and focus on the debuff aspect, rather than running around with Fury, Acumen, Refresh, etc.

The one thing geo is lacking is the ability to keep refresh on the mages while keeping the buffs and debuffs on DDs and mobs. I think SE "tried" to address this issue with entrust, which doesn't really address the issue at all, unless the fight is short. Cor and Bard have that ability to provide separate buffs to mages. I think geo should be able to do this as well.

Fair point. However, Geomancer can use Radial Arcana with a cheap Luopan to recover a good chunk of MP in one go (450'ish with 5/5 merits and Bagua Sandals) to everyone in the area of effect. Geomancer refresh also stacks with it's spell equivalent.

Between Radial Arcana and if it's needed Entrust Indi-Refresh, it's largely a non-issue unless it's a very MP intensive fight. Another good habit is if you're moving anywhere like in Incursion, Skirmish, or Delve, toss Indi-Refresh up on yourself and run with your mages.

also dont forget have dt and regen sets for geo spells. the moogle add on head and the regen feet. They can make a big difference to how long a ja enhanced lupon can last on that nm.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/45216
Information for the incoming December Version Update. Relevant passages have been cherry-picked.

----------------

The potency of the following weapon skills will be increased.
Hexastrike / Black Halo / Realmrazer

The TP Bonuses for the following weapons will be increased.
Black Halo

Bonuses for the following weapon skills that only applied at initial ranks will now be applied to all ranks.
Hexastrike

The maximum accuracy of one-handed weapons equipped as the main weapon will be increased from 95% to 99%.

----------------

You now have no excuse to not carry a melee and WS set on Geomancer. That's now moved from being "above and beyond" to "mandatory".

Having the experience as a so called 5song RME bard, I can say that GEO has loads more to offer in events like incursion where there are moves that dispel many buffs at once. As a bard dealing with this situation and depending if the song(s) were the extra 3rd/4th song, the initial reaction is to reapply buffs by either having the 3rd/4th song be with harp (non buffed) or dummy then resung with ghorn. Whether the bard runs out of breath from singing nonstop between DD and mages or the mob decides to give everyone extra special treatment with a dispel move (Velkkan Pygmachia) will determine how effective those songs will be in the long run.

Yes, Geo has the ability to add dps on the side and also when out of the normal DD party. Again, same can be said with much of the content posted earlier. The job, assuming expected gear, excels in Incursion and such events. Don't forget Aspir/Aspir II when mp is low,too!

Not even a 5 song Soul Voice NiTro set can compete when you end up having to resing fewer NQ songs on the DDs when one DD loses all song buffs. Nowadays I prefer to attend incursion as geo rather than bard.

#sorrynotsorry

No....just no. The most powerful buff job in this shouldn't be able to do what weaker buff job can do, or else it's too op.

Yea, geo already replaces brd, we don't need it absolutely crushing brd

Dude are you *** high LOL