The Remaining Healers

I've never seen as an effective class as a group healer. And, LOTRO, in its never-ending crusade to fix what isn't broke, finally "reworked" the class so it became something entirely different (causing thousands of long-time players to quit in disgust). And, now, the minstrel is just a memory.

It's not the "race", or what you call it (after all) it's what it does, and in comparison to that minstrel, no game (including this one) has a realistically decent healer. So.....if I were to get my wish........

(you can even make it that damned big-butted bunny rabbit thingy)

PS This forum is ridiculously restrictive in useful areas and surprisingly liberal in the BS department (insert HUGE graphics)

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Originally Posted by Talraen

By all means, please do research! I highly recommend my own guide site, http://guides.gamercorner.net/ff/. It has all the information you could ever want on a game that I've been obsessed with for years.

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Double-checked, and you're right. Not sure what I was thinking of... maybe Bravely Default or something?

Either way, I'd still like to see Red Mage Tank, but I'll admit that there's no basis for it.

Anyways, actually on topic, I'd definitely like to see a more debilitate-y healer, like Dancer or possibly Chemist. (I'd prefer Chemist anyways because of Tactics References, though they can use concoctions to debilitate enemies, like that are in games already.)

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Originally Posted by AlexanderThorolund

Can someone just explain to me how they are suppose to market Red Mage? I'm one of those that don't think they are going to add Red Mage. Purely because I don't think it's going to draw new people to the game. Especially when the budget for Stormblood has increased dramatically over Heavensward. They are going to add jobs that come across as 'flashy', like the HW jobs.

Red Mage might strike at a fraction of people for nostalgia purposes but the majority of people won't know what Red Mage is and will think it's bornig.

I'm coming at this logically, the marketing potential is what's going to determine 4.0 jobs, not fan desire

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Well, two things. First, many people (including myself) are taking Yoshi-P's Scarlet Witch shirt as confirmation of red mage. Second, I don't think red mages need much marketing: they're stylish (look at that hat!) and they were incredibly popular in the previous FF MMO. But mostly it's the hat.

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Originally Posted by Talraen

Well, two things. First, many people (including myself) are taking Yoshi-P's Scarlet Witch shirt as confirmation of red mage. Second, I don't think red mages need much marketing: they're stylish (look at that hat!) and they were incredibly popular in the previous FF MMO. But mostly it's the hat.

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Can confirm, the hat is awesome, and the Scarlet Witch shirt seems like a pretty good confirmation, especially since Dark Knight and Machinist had similar hints.

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Originally Posted by dejiko_san

RDM has always been a support mage. I can't imagine it as a tank.

I think it's going to be a new healer that can also dps. I would also be totally ok with it being a dps that can help support heal/buff.

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RDM will go the BRD/MCH way, but as a support/melee hybrid instead of support/rang hybrid.
We have already 3 DPS healers

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Originally Posted by Vamelo

PS This forum is ridiculously restrictive in useful areas and surprisingly liberal in the BS department (insert HUGE graphics)

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You can edit your posts past 1000 characters. I almost always end up typing up a post, getting the error, Crtl+A, Ctrl+X, "posting in edit", post it, edit it, and paste in the actual post. My understanding is that mobile doesn't have an edit? Which would prove to be a problem with doing this.

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Originally Posted by AlexanderThorolund

Can someone just explain to me how they are suppose to market Red Mage? I'm one of those that don't think they are going to add Red Mage. Purely because I don't think it's going to draw new people to the game. Especially when the budget for Stormblood has increased dramatically over Heavensward. They are going to add jobs that come across as 'flashy', like the HW jobs.

Red Mage might strike at a fraction of people for nostalgia purposes but the majority of people won't know what Red Mage is and will think it's bornig.

I'm coming at this logically, the marketing potential is what's going to determine 4.0 jobs, not fan desire

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I don't want to flat out disagree with you, but what "marketing" did they do for DRK/MCH/AST? I recall hearing about a Batman and a 007 T-shirt for heavensward, and I recall official announcements for the jobs. At this stage I've heard about a scarlet witch shirt, which screams red mage. Red mage has a history as long as White and Black mage, and at the very least it's been in all the re-releases of classic games. I also really don't think people will think the concept of being able to cast both healing and damaging magic while wielding a sword is boring. Further, a huge bullet point in the re-launch of the flopped 1.0 was to pander to fans more, which is why we have all these classes that aren't classic morph into jobs that are. That's not to say fans will straight up decide what jobs will be next, but it is to say that fan desire will have an appreciable effect.

On topic: I thought Geomancer had more healing effects than it does (basically none) but a number of Mog's dances in FFVI (which were based on the surrounding area) had healing effects. So while I was mistaken about Geomancers healing, I still think they could work as a healer, especially if they allowed them to have multiple ground AOEs going on simultaneously (which probably isn't going to change though).

I'd seriously prefer if they focus on getting their current healers up to par.
Right now SCH and AST are completely too powerful, and WHM is too "strictly healer".
If they added another healer that, yet again, heals as good as a WHM but with more support or dps, WHM is seriously going to die.

I doubt WHM will ever die, mostly because it's the most iconic healer that people default to before they find out they prefer others...

And then there's all those Holy nukes.

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Originally Posted by lyndwyrm

You can edit your posts past 1000 characters. I almost always end up typing up a post, getting the error, Crtl+A, Ctrl+X, "posting in edit", post it, edit it, and paste in the actual post. My understanding is that mobile doesn't have an edit? Which would prove to be a problem with doing this.

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Yes. The mobile version of the forum has no edit button of any kind. Switching to desktop mode to do so tends to cause really unfortunate glitches with posts simply not going through or just vanishing mid-typing.

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Originally Posted by Docent

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White Mage being the "starter" healer doesn't bode well in the long run, however. Personally, I like the job very much, but it's lack of personal character is slowly driving those of us who love White Mages in FF lore away to the other jobs. In short, it can be boring.

As for jobs in FF canon that can be a healer, Dancer and Chemist. Both could also step away from magic healing.

While I can't speak for dancer as I've not used the FFXI version, chemist could have a mechanic of stocking and mixing items to store certain high potency heals (perhaps like monk chakras?) while having some of their basic "cures" be a regular skill. Same process could be used for attacks.

Weapon could be anything. Rikku used a gauntlet, FFT chemists could use daggers or guns, and some others use rods/polearms.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

Weapon could be anything. Rikku used a gauntlet, FFT chemists could use daggers or guns, and some others use rods/polearms.

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FFX-2 alchemists used heavy GUNS and looked like Samus Aran from Metroid. I would love that in this game, but I'm not going to hold my breath :P

The red mage cooks rice cakes and deals damage by throwing a tennis ball against the wall.

Dancer could be a HoT stack healer.
they dance and their hots get stronger.

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Originally Posted by Docent

FFX-2 alchemists used heavy GUNS and looked like Samus Aran from Metroid. I would love that in this game, but I'm not going to hold my breath :P

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I'd actually like to see something similar as well, though I'm very skeptical of a Chemist type character. Maybe. If they don't revolve around actual consumables then it could be pretty awesome.

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Originally Posted by Docent

I doubt WHM will ever die, mostly because it's the most iconic healer that people default to before they find out they prefer others...

And then there's all those Holy nukes.

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They're already dying out honestly. The only reason it's the most played job is because it's your only choice of a healer until level 30, which by then you're already a bit invested I them anyway.

Looking at endgame raiding, it's becoming more and more common to see dual AST or SCH and AST. WHM simply feels like too much of a nerf in raid utility to be worth bringing for nothing but Cure III, which is useless in this tier to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

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Pretty much all this. I won't ever give up WHM (because it's always been my favourite class/job on FF), but it's blatant the difference between WHM and the other two healers. If they gave WHM more utility then maybe it wouldn't feel so much weaker.

If they do introduce a new healing class then I only hope it's not a copy & paste from another healer for half or more of it's skills.

For longer term whm players, Astro wasn't a completely new class - not by any stretch of the imagination. It was a whm with some fluff.
Fluff which then had to be reworked as output wasn't worth the effort of playing it.

They boosted it - rather dramatically in some areas - which only served to show that it was rushed in the first place, as they struggled with the resource required to introduce 3 x classes simultaneously.

Astrologian was originally chemist, reskinned to fit an ishgard theme.
just think of the card skills as mixing ingredients and the skillset becomes pretty easy to imagine.

classes that could be made to work as a healer currently would be sage, shaman, oracle, mediator, dancer(but not really the way people think, the game is too reliant on bursty healing), and red mage(but i see this fitting the role of bard/machinist more as a caster/support)

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Originally Posted by Connor

though this isn't applied to Dark Knight...

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Ahem

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/D...y_III)#Weapons

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/L...ns#Dark_swords

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Deathbringer

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/...20061220230503

Looks very Sword-y to me.

Now back to your scheduled Healer discussion. Carry on.

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Originally Posted by Teraluna

If they do introduce a new healing class then I only hope it's not a copy & paste from another healer for half or more of it's skills.

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Oh seriously this. SERIOUSLY. The reason AST was so hard to balance in the first place was because it shared nearly all of WHMs basic healing toolkit. Because of this, none of their heals could be as strong as a WHMs heals or it would make WHM seem weak.

Apparently they said to hell with it all and did it anyway though, and now we have WHM at the bottom by a large margin. I can only hope they purposely over buffed AST just to get them into the raiding scene for at least one tier, and they have a plan for WHM.

Perhaps it's like Yoshi's alleged plan for Warriors? I seem to recall him saying that when the expansion rolls around, Warrior won't be 'leveled up to the same degree' as the other tanks. Perhaps when the expansion gets here, WHM is gonna grow stronger through the new abilities in comparison to the others?

I feel like chemist is the best choice for a unique identity.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

The reason AST was so hard to balance in the first place was because it shared nearly all of WHMs basic healing toolkit.

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In a way, so does scholar.

Cure - Physick
Cure II - Adlo
Medica - Succor
Regen - Embrace
Tetra - Lustrate
Assize - Indomitability
Raise - Ressurect
Esuna - Leeches
Shroud of Saints - Aetherflow

Lots of skills with similar function and identical purpose. It's an issue with healer design in general. Since the healing role is defined solely by unavoidable damage, the content decides the pace at which that is dealt and as a consequence, every healer needs to be able to respond in the same way. You can't have a pure HoT based healer when a mechanic demands you heal somebody now and not a moment later (like some prey mechanics). You can't have a healer without dispel if a mechanic demands you dispel a debuff. Or a pure single-target healer when there's unavoidable AoE damage.

Tanks suffer from the same thing and if you look at their kits, it's fairly homogenized as well. You'll always find a main aggro skill or combo, a ranged aggro attack, an AoE aggro attack and at least one 30% mitigation cooldown for tankbusters. And a taunt for tank swaps...ideally. That one really shouldn't be optional. Overall, they have a little more freedom with tanks than with healers, but they still have a standard of copy skills established by the game's design.

They designed themselves into a corner there, really.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

FFIII
RDM had 30 Vitality in the original game, increased to 63 on the remake. WHM had 50, increased to 63.

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I will add that in the remake that Red Mage was also able to equip crystal armor.

Pretty sure red mage will be a magical DPS. There aren't adding in new roles and we are sorely hurting for a new magic wielding class.

Really? Only two casting classes since A Realm Reborn? TWO!? If not red mage, something needs to fill the lack of choices in the magical damage dealing role and I'd be utterly dumbfounded if they waited for 5.0 (2019 if the trend continues) to add in another option.

And red mage could easily fill in the role of a melee- close quarters damage role that wields magic and deals magic damage.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

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Well, actually, we have 5 caster Jobs. 2 are DPS, yes, but we also have the 3 healers.

I actually think RDM would be interesting as a Strength based DPS (we only have 2 of these), that also uses support abilities like BRD and MCH. But who knows what will happen at this point?

Honestly, only physick and esuna and can be compared. Everything else is largely unique.
I feel like WHM and SCH were just perfect for eachother. Then they scooted AST in without a real plan and....well here we are.

Whatever they do, I hope they don't ever largely borrow from another jobs toolkit again. It's possible, I mean look at DRK. Completely original and unique.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Really? Only two casting classes since A Realm Reborn? TWO!? If not red mage, something needs to fill the lack of choices in the magical damage dealing role and I'd be utterly dumbfounded if they waited for 5.0 (2019 if the trend continues) to add in another option.

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You know what we have even less of? Magic-wielding tanks.

Hashtag-bringinredmagetanks2k16

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

I actually think RDM would be interesting as a Strength based DPS (we only have 2 of these), that also uses support abilities like BRD and MCH. But who knows what will happen at this point?

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I feel like it would be...odd to have a mage be a STR-based dps. Sure, we could use more, but at least say "oh make it the mystic knight" rather than red mage.

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Originally Posted by ErdrickLoto

I feel like it would be...odd to have a mage be a STR-based dps. Sure, we could use more, but at least say "oh make it the mystic knight" rather than red mage.

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God, Mystic Knight would be so awesome...
But yeah, I knooow. I just think it's weird that we only have 2 Jobs that use STR as their primary stat.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

Then they scooted AST in without a real plan and....well here we are.

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Everything changed when the AST attacked.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Well, actually, we have 5 caster Jobs. 2 are DPS, yes, but we also have the 3 healers.

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A healer queues under support role, not damage. They have the option to deal damage, but short of solo questing, it's absolutely not required (unless world firsts in end game content at week 1).

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Originally Posted by ErdrickLoto

You know what we have even less of? Magic-wielding tanks.

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True that, true that. Still, three tank choices for one role.