Will Geomancer Survive?

When considering how the Geomancer animation causes so many players to lag and that the Geomancer animation is simply annoying so many players, can Geomancer find a home in todays FFXI or is it doomed already?

There's a filter coming in the next patch to disable that animation, but the real test of the job will be the efficacy of their buffs / debuffs and the ability to keep their luapons alive.

With a lot of content having heavy AoE or requiring a lot of movement I would imagine that Geos would have MP troubles, or simply be unable to keep their buffs, or themselves, alive.

On top of that, the buffs currently are somewhat lacklustre, though they do have a very nice Defense - buff that effects all the alliance.

I really do love the concept of the job, I think it just needs some tweaking. Whether this comes in the form of having a stay / follow command for your Luopons, or some more potent buffs.

It's nuking ability should may become more potent with the upcoming magic changes, since then T2-T3 will become more efficient.

We saw some massive tweaks to scholar back in the day, and we're already seeing adjustments made to Rune Fencer, so I think in the future we'll see some adjustments to make the job more potent.

In it's current form, I don't see anyone saying "We could really use a Geo for this". It's near impossible to tell how they will play out, as we dont even have merit categorys for them yet.

on/off switch for Indy-spells animation is coming.

Nice

I keep trying to find a spot for it but it's 99 on my rdm/sch mule and just doesn't bring enough to the table to replace my rdm/sch atm. With only 2 buffs large mp cost heck rdm/sch aoe phalanx and stoneskin made taking out revives so much easier.

In current form there's only 1 use I can see for it that brings something of value which would be using the DEF down and ATK Geo/Indi. Even then I see it more of we don't need anything else so sure why not kind of thing.

I'm hoping adjustments/AF/Relic/Emp will change that but right now it's not so impressive. Having them confirm hand bells that buff certain Geo/Indi spells wouldn't be coming (at least in a similar fashion to instruments) sounds great for inventory issues but at the same time has me questioning just how strong GEO will become.

If it helps, the most recent thing that I've seen is that Fend helps quite nicely with magic defense against ***like Fulmination. Neo Salvage Khimaira using Fulmination, I might add.

Geo can already have a nice use in alli events. In lowman, not so much.

On the contrary, it's more useful in lowman situations than in large scale alli ones. GEO is in a much better spot than RUN at the moment, and something like a Reagin spell would make it indispensable.

I dunno, lowman is usually locomotion stuff which really doesn't help with luopans. In an alli 1 geo can at least enhance attack for the entire group, possibly bringing to a more even field 1handers. Wouldn't it?

I think they really should consider adding a return and stay pet commands for luopans, maybe reducing the potency of the buff when the Luopan is mobile.

The only problem I'm seeing at the moment is the lack of crowd control, and usually it's tier 1 sleep using /SCH and addendums. Other than an addition of Enfeebling and some additional -Ra spells (Sleepra, Breakra and Bindra would be really *** cool, and they would fit the job's theme), not sure what else would work in place.

I don't mean to call you out, and I love ya, Quetz, but a role in 6-man Salvage isn't exactly noteworthy.

I dunno, something about this just seems silly...have a log following you around? It just makes more sense as a totem

Everything in the game is pretty silly when you actually think about it. Stay and Return type commands couldn't hurt at all.

I dont disagree with the silliness part, but you can't compare an avatar or pet to a log in terms of stay / return commands

you can hardly consider GEO a pet class

So far I've only used Geomancer in salvage and it works out great. But you can easily use it on other content easy if you are not easily annoyed by releasing your luopan and recasting again constantly. I think it will survive np... it's helpful in it's own ways(If your skill is fully capped) I usually sub /rdm for the fastcast/cure4/dispel/etc and it works out just fine doing 600ish cure 4's.. it's like a mini BRD/BLM/RDM all mixed.

They had to leave room for AF and merits for both GEO and RUN.. after they implement that and the first round of adjustments to the jobs I think it will be judging time.

That wasn't the initial point I was demonstrating anyhow. My point was, something like Fend could work wonders on magic-heavy mobs with annoying TP moves like Fulmination, and we should keep that in consideration. And if Geo/Indi-Fend could make a fight go smoother, that counts in my book.

Fair enough, but the only annoying part about Fulmination is the stun/paralyze, which is negated by other means (i.e. one person standing outside of range with Paralyna i.e. any job with Paralyna, I'd rather bring a THF/WHM than another job at this point). I guess if there was an extra GEO there to use Fend, that'd be nice but, it's not something to waste a slot over. Said GEO would be better off using offensive buffs and then gtfo'ing of range to Paralyna the main healer asap, not *** around with other superfluous buffs.

I'm just not seeing how GEO contributes over other jobs at the moment, unless they're shoved in just because. Adoulin jobs just feel like someone took a *** giant shoehorn to them at this point. There's really not even a decent counterpoint to this either, besides "wah GEO has this small thing that might be a touch better in this specific content".

so how well are the two new jobs doing so far?

In a large alliance situation, DD are likely already buffed enough that it's not useful. With the embrava nerf, you'll need a BRD for your haste.. if your BRD doesn't suck that means you have 2 minuets as well. If you wanted to add more buffs, COR will do more for you than GEO. If you already have BRD and COR, it's pretty unlikely you'll need more attack(which is their strongest point). If you did, it'd still be impractical to keep it in a melee party so they can recieve buffs.. it reduces the amount of melee allowed in party. It could have a place in the mage party keeping up the defense down luopon if you find yourself extremely lacking in attack, but it's not exactly amazing.

For a smaller group situation, it could at least function as a weaker COR. If you can incorporate it's magic damage, it might be the best job for a situation or two, but that's a stretch. As it stands, I see no reason to use it from an efficiency perspective.

think
think run is having more promise as a sub job than a main at least for magic using melee and maybe mnk or thf if not needing self curing.

Yeah, as it stands, it seems to be an irresistible debuffer with support damage from Nukes, as well a decent mage party buffer.

What I would really like to see is GEO being able to have buffs cross over from alliances and parties, and merit abilities such as being able to cast an Indi- Spell on a party/alliance member, and summoning an extra Luopan you don't have to have control over (so that we don't have to worry about it being a "2nd pet"). Those would bring so much to the table without having to sacrifice much.

The problem now is to convince SE to implement this ***, because I'd love to see this job fleshed out more for future opportunities

Some expansion content already has NMs that resist almost every debuff, which geomancer debuffs will work on due to their unresistability. I can see them being used for things like this.

Pretty much this, so far 2 geomancers are needed for delve bosses run tier 1-5. The job is actually not bad at all. It is a mix of black mage, enfeebler, and pet jobs (consider your luopan as passive pets). The job can be a back up healer, status removal, and hasting other people.