Astro over whm ? I think not

[loreleidiangelo]

Ehh... It's a double edged sword to be honest.

Since, done poorly you end up with stale meta that is just based on DPS. Meanwhile with niches and weaknesses, AT BEST you'd have to level up all the classes of a role and keep swapping between them based on the encounter (Which would be equally boring in terms of people would find the "Meta" for each specific encounter)

But done right, making it so that all classes can participate in all content allows them to put in the core skills required in order to perform in all content, but then expand on each class with unique mechanics and utility.

One of the issues is that expanding on classes with unique mechanics and utility didn't happen equally. AST is just using its baseline utility that it had upon its inception. Meanwhile SCH has gotten great utility skills in HW and SB (Though, the power of Deployment Tactics comes down to healing power being whack so your massive shields get spread in an AoE to create mechanic cheesing bubbles) and WHM has been left behind with no interesting mechanics nor any noteworthy utility (The best thing they have for them is great sustained healing. But when everyone's healing a billion with just oGCD's it matters not...)

Similar thing with Tanks. WAR has amazing skills from HW and SB, heck, their entire DPS stance and skills come from HW as well as Inner Release probably the best DPS skill among any tank (In addition to Fell Cleave). PLD has gotten a bunch of utility skills, which all are meaningless because who cares when healers just heal/shield for a billion and it's DRK that's stuck with not having received much at all (Except for a lacklustre rework...), like TBN is nice but it's no Inner Release...

With more equalized distribution of cool mechanics and skills, there's a better chance of people being able to utilize any of the classes within a role, if they're all able to participate in all content with core skills but then get additional utility that makes them have different priority based on encounters or party compositions (Such as how DRG is more favoured when there's a BRD/MCH to benefit from the piercing debuff) then you get all the benefits of the "Niche and Weaknesses" style of balancing without having to FORCE certain comps.

I think that what you're hoping for is a pipe dream, tbh. If DNC is the next healer I can predict its kit to the letter minus its job gauge gimmick and "utility". That's not fun. It will have a 400 potency basic heal, a 300 potency AOE heal, a 600 potency bigger ST heal that costs more mana, a 600ish potency ST "oh crap" button, a 200 potency AOE damage spell, a regen or shield ST and AOE spell, some variable number of DoTs, a ST filler nuke around 250-300 potency (to account for SBr healer DPS scaling), a 500 potency oGCD AOE "oh crap" button, an AOE regen or damage reduction ground target bubble, etc.

If you don't design healers to be different from one another every one of them will have this same copycat kit and to me, that's incredibly dull. "Niches" dont mean, "useless everywhere else" - ARR SCH still HAD AOE healing, it just wasn't their specialty. Now though? They just rotate ETactics Succor or Indom every 15 seconds with Whispering Dawn filler and outside of brute force crap like Almagest/Heartless Archangel it's no different from having a WHM in the group, just more GCD efficient with better rDPS so thus just...better.

I get what you're saying - if Indom didn't heal for half of everyone's healthbars having a spammable AOE heal like Medica/Helios/Cure III would have more value. But IMO it still wouldn't change the fact that WHM and AST feel really same-y once you strip AST's card gimmick away, and that even though SCH feels more unique than those two it still has a lot of similar moves, and that tells me that the dev team feels painted into a corner when it comes to healer design. There's no room in this game for a cleave heal specialist (2-target healing), or a single-target channeling healer, or a pure HoT-based healer, because those things wouldn't fit nicely in the prepackaged box of healing spells SE allots for healers every expansion.

[Kalise]

I think that what you're hoping for is a pipe dream, tbh. If DNC is the next healer I can predict its kit to the letter minus its job gauge gimmick and "utility". That's not fun.

Yeah, but these kinds of times are when they have a better chance of trying to open up the classes a bit more.

Opening up more varied DPS rotations that still equate to similar DPS as DoT + single Nuke spam.

Altering the core heals to have more variety, whilst still retaining some level of basic functionality.

Not to mention, adjusting their utility and job gauges to be more impactful on their gameplay (Like for example BLM/RDM/SAM/SMN)

There's no room in this game for a cleave heal specialist (2-target healing), or a single-target channeling healer, or a pure HoT-based healer, because those things wouldn't fit nicely in the prepackaged box of healing spells SE allots for healers every expansion.

Well, there would be. If healing potency wasn't jacked up so that the typical end-game healer is spamming DPS the majority of the time.

A cleave healer could work, as they already have precedent with AST and Synastry. It just requires 2 targets to be taking damage frequently in a way that isn't covered by lelAoE skills.

Single-target channelled healer could work. It just requires Tanks to be taking constant, considerable damage. After which, just give them barebones AoE healing and voila you've made a viable ST channel focused healer, but that can still do dungeons and trials without feeling gimped when AoE damage happens.

HoT based healer would be super simple. You just give them a standard ST heal to use for spot healing and at low levels and then give 'em a bunch of HoTs and HoT synergy (Such as making their standard basic ST heal into the more powerful higher potency version if the target has X and Y HoT on them)

It is quite possible to create distinct playstyles within a role even with their core capabilities being shared. The fact that they have not done so with Tanks/Healers doesn't mean it's impossible, it just means that they haven't done it and then scaling has made it all a lot worse by allowing massive healing throughput to further homogenize already fairly bland roles by negating many things that could potentially serve to differentiate them, leaving only 1-2 really good skills being the major difference between them.

[Sebazy]

A cleave healer could work, as they already have precedent with AST and Synastry. It just requires 2 targets to be taking damage frequently in a way that isn't covered by lelAoE skills.

Single-target channelled healer could work. It just requires Tanks to be taking constant, considerable damage. After which, just give them barebones AoE healing and voila you've made a viable ST channel focused healer, but that can still do dungeons and trials without feeling gimped when AoE damage happens.

The thing is, we've kind of been there and it didn't work. Not even close. These kind of abilities are far too dependant on the content actually making any real use of it which it often doesn't.

A great example of this would be the original version of WHM's PI.

The version from the Media Preview build was generated by Cure I/II instead of Medicas. The potency per confession stack was significantly higher, the duration was longer and the cooldown was in the order of 15 seconds. However, it wasn't a 100% chance to generate a proc.

Needless to say, for the Fausts, Kaliyas or adds like A12S' General's Might/Time. This would have been a pretty solid ability, potentially much more so than Synastry if we ever saw another boss like T7/Kaliya.

Except we didn't. The preview PI was a complete and utter dumpster fire and I 100% ended up eating my moderate optimism for it.

It's a fair thing to say that it is indeed pretty simple to create widely varied forms of gameplay, WoW and Warhammer Online are excellent demonstrations of this. However I honestly think that SE simply don't have the required talent to do so within their job design team. It's been painfully obvious for several years now that they simply don't have anyone there who understands high end healer gameplay, either within FFXIV itself or other MMOs. Not to mention that the format of their highest end raids and the job/character system as a whole shines a fiercely unforgiving light on any faults their class designs have.

I do think there's room to fit a melee style healer in and I've preached as much for the longest time. But I totally agree with Lore's view that it's core kit is almost guaranteed to be a cut and paste in the same manner that AST was.

[Gemina]

I do think there's room to fit a melee style healer in and I've preached as much for the longest time. But I totally agree with Lore's view that it's core kit is almost guaranteed to be a cut and paste in the same manner that AST was.

While I also agree with this, it's important that she also pointed out that SCH feels different despite still having a similar core kit. SCH doesn't feel like a WHM with a fairy; like at all. The reason why is because many of the similar skills such as their regen, ogcd heals, and bubble are gated behind their fairy and aetherflow mechanic. So it isn't necessarily bad that healers have access to the same core kit, but they have to mix up how they go about acquiring the resources to use them. If AST had to access regens, shields, etc. through their cards, then it would feel different than WHM. But the RNG factor of them won't allow for this, so the result is a WHM with cards.

DNC only needs a different resource in which to access their core kit that isn't RNG to avoid the same thing that happened with AST. Obviously, they will still use MP as all healers do for some of their core kit, but they will need a separate resource to access their more powerful abilities, and regen/shields if they get them. Plus a job gauge. And that's just to make it viable through 70 content. We don't know what 70-80 is bringing yet.

[NocturniaUzuki]

Personally, I'd also love to see a melee healer. Something with high mobility. Melee large/burst heals, with AoE regens or some such. Obviously as many have said, DNC fits this bill. Especially if you make the regens and such come from "dances" that continue for awhile.