Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

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I really hope that idea dies soon. It may have been a requirement in the past to have 1 regen healer and 1 eHP healer for the high end content but that hasn't really been the case for a majority of Stormblood and certainly not for Shadowbringers.
It's very simple, people need to ask themselves the question "do we die from this mechanic, even with full hp, if I don't put shields on the party?" If the answer is no, then shields are unnecessary and if that is the case for every mechanic in an encounter then a shield healer is unnecessary.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Oh, tell me about it.
I try to keep myself relatively close to -both- the tank and the boss, which more than likely will put myself relatively in the middle of 3 or 7 other members.

The thing is, it worries me (or should I say: amuses me) that the likelihood of encountering players that could not grasp the many advantages of sticking relatively close to the boss’ ass is quite staggeringly common, especially if one actively using DF.

And by ‘relatively close’, I’m referring to an area just as wide as the 3 healers’ dome-shaped AoEs such as [Earthly Star], [Collective Unconsciousness], [Asylum] & [Sacred Soil]. At least that’s the general radius which I would expect if they were to implement a ‘melee healer’ (it could be 5y or even as far as 12y akin to DRG’s tether, but I’ll stick to the middle ground, which is 8y)

Of course, if they do not have the luxury of 20y - 30y target healing like our existing healers do, trying to reach those Narnia snipers would be a chore. Ngl, like Dogempire stated. Rescue or let them dig their own lonely grave. Both are very tempting to do—just not a fan of doing it myself.

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I think a lot of it comes down to habits from other games which had their purpose there but not here.
If a boss loved to just drop puddles under you without warning it was best to stay spread and farther away so they don't clog melee range and make navigating through the boss room easier. A priest talent in WoW even increased in healing if you stand farther away.

But many mechanics here are designed in a way that it's best to stay at max melee even if you're not a melee. You have the occasional mechanic in dungeons and raids that needs everyone spread for a moment (like e5s Thunderstorm or e6s HoH) but those are outliers.
Most players don't realise just how much they're putting themselves at a disadvantage by staying far away from the action. Not just because of buffs and heals but many mechanics are harder to dodge if you're standing far away, not easier. Pointblanks are usually just big enough to force tanks and melees to disengage for a moment, making it easy to cover the distance with a single slidecast if you're at max melee while cones and donuts require a lot more movement if you're standing outside.
But a large part of the community still has this weird misconception that melee range is exclusively for melees and tanks and everyone else needs to kindly f*ck off when only very few mechanics require you to move out and give you several in-your-face warnings way ahead of time.

Although I didn't make a habit of standing in Narnia to begin with, it wasn't until I played BLM and got into savage that I really noticed just how much easier everything is not just for healers but for myself aswell if I stand close to the boss.
Even on fairly immobile classes like BLM and WhM it's entirely possible to stay in melee range and still preposition in time before a mechanic goes off. Everyone profits from it. DNC can use Impro/ Curing Waltz, everyone gets the healer bubbles, buffs and raid shields, DRG can tether anyone, PLD can flap the wings and catch everyone.

I wish people wouldn't just play classes to 80 but try to learn from it aswell. You learn so much by actively playing a different role or class.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I really hope that idea dies soon. It may have been a requirement in the past to have 1 regen healer and 1 eHP healer for the high end content but that hasn't really been the case for a majority of Stormblood and certainly not for Shadowbringers.
It's very simple, people need to ask themselves the question "do we die from this mechanic, even with full hp, if I don't put shields on the party?" If the answer is no, then shields are unnecessary and if that is the case for every mechanic in an encounter then a shield healer is unnecessary.

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Even if there is one mechanic that loves to one-shot people (like e7s tethers on casters at entry level gear) you can find ways to work around that. Throw that Heart of Stone/ TBN/ Benison/ CI on that squishy or if it's a BLM, put that MW to good use for once. Maybe shift around some party mitigation. Even tank LB is viable if you still get a melee LB 3 in case you need it for dps. And AST still has Neutral.
But it's easier to just ask your healer to spam GCD shields instead of thinking about what kind of tools the raid as a whole has.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

But it's easier to just ask your healer to spam GCD shields instead of thinking about what kind of tools the raid as a whole has.

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i think its more about raidwide aoes. sure, its easy to just shield 1 person, even back when tbn and benison didnt exist, cuz of stoneskin. but when the entire party needs to mitigate a lot thats when they turn to shields

at least thats how i see it. i honestly dont know why anyone would run nocturnal sect in anything that isn't min ilv savage or ultimate though.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

i think its more about raidwide aoes. sure, its easy to just shield 1 person, even back when tbn and benison didnt exist, cuz of stoneskin. but when the entire party needs to mitigate a lot thats when they turn to shields

at least thats how i see it. i honestly dont know why anyone would run nocturnal sect in anything that isn't min ilv savage or ultimate though.

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Wether it's ST or aoe, it doesn't matter. The raid as a whole has a lot of tools to mitigate incoming damage but forcing the healer to GCD shield aoes instead is easier, so that's how PF and many statics do it. Not every aoe one-shots you at low ilvl without stacking mitigation. It's not rocket science to shift some mitigation from the less dangerous aoes to the more dangerous ones. GCD shields are the easy way out and don't require communication. It's comfy and it has been done for so long that many people don't even try to coordinate anymore because why go through all the hassle of using HoL, Reprisal, Samba, Addle etc. when you can simply put a healer on bubble duty?

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Originally Posted by Aomine1992

Honestly a 4th healer would solve healer issues all together, AST can finally dumped the awful nocturnal sect and focus on its better side diurnal and maybe be able to be balanced properly

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Speak for yourself. I vastly prefer Nocturnal. lol

Honestly, I think the biggest problem IS wanting to balance them. I mean, trying to balance is fine but SE is downright psychotic about it and it does more harm than good. Just design something fun. The meta will always single one out anyway.

@OP: if they give healers something for downtime (not necessarily DPS, such as real card management or fairy guage management in a perfect world), sure!
otherwise it'll be just as soulcrushing to level and use as the other three.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

Wether it's ST or aoe, it doesn't matter. The raid as a whole has a lot of tools to mitigate incoming damage but forcing the healer to GCD shield aoes instead is easier, so that's how PF and many statics do it. Not every aoe one-shots you at low ilvl without stacking mitigation. It's not rocket science to shift some mitigation from the less dangerous aoes to the more dangerous ones. GCD shields are the easy way out and don't require communication. It's comfy and it has been done for so long that many people don't even try to coordinate anymore because why go through all the hassle of using HoL, Reprisal, Samba, Addle etc. when you can simply put a healer on bubble duty?

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This is a terrible mindset caused by nothing other than the "healer adjust" mentality. Succor at most shieldsfor 5-8% of your total HP, shields were nerfed hard in ShB.

A stacked Reprisal / Shield Samba will mitigate more than a succor ever would. And they're easier to do because they are off the GCD where as Succor has to be casted.

If the tanks and DPS are too lazy to use the tools of their toolkit, then take them away and let healers be buffers and debuffers like they should be.

Take Addle away from the casters and give it to healers as a group wide, short CD magic damage reduction: Shell.

Take Feint away from the melee and give it to healers as a group wide, short CD physical damage reduction: Protect.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

If the tanks and DPS are too lazy to use the tools of their toolkit, then take them away and let healers be buffers and debuffers like they should be.

Take Addle away from the casters and give it to healers as a group wide, short CD magic damage reduction: Shell.

Take Feint away from the melee and give it to healers as a group wide, short CD physical damage reduction: Protect.

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and/or give us back virus and disable.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

If the tanks and DPS are too lazy to use the tools of their toolkit, then take them away and let healers be buffers and debuffers like they should be.

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I would kill to have more buffing and debuffing utilities as a healer. While I'm personally just 'fine' with 1 nuke 1 DoT button, having more thing to do related to party's parameters is a huge plus to me.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

This is a terrible mindset caused by nothing other than the "healer adjust" mentality. Succor at most shieldsfor 5-8% of your total HP, shields were nerfed hard in ShB.

A stacked Reprisal / Shield Samba will mitigate more than a succor ever would. And they're easier to do because they are off the GCD where as Succor has to be casted.

If the tanks and DPS are too lazy to use the tools of their toolkit, then take them away and let healers be buffers and debuffers like they should be.

Take Addle away from the casters and give it to healers as a group wide, short CD magic damage reduction: Shell.

Take Feint away from the melee and give it to healers as a group wide, short CD physical damage reduction: Protect.

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Of course it's a terrible mindset. I have never in any way endorsed it.
But look at most PFs and statics and you'll see that this is how it's done. Path of least resistance. Just adding a Succor/ Noct Asp Helios to almost every aoe is easy. And unfortunately most healers are happy to oblige; it's not just others enforcing this mindset, it's also too many healers happily bowing to this demand.
The forum might give a different impression because people here are vocal about wanting to dps, others to use their tools and avoiding GCD heals (escpecially if it's only for safety and comfort) but that's not how most people play it.

And healers already have tools to mitigate damage but you still see GCD shields get used more often. You maybe see 1-2 uses of Temperance, Fey Illumination or CU throughout a fight but a lot more GCD heals. I don't think taking away mitigation from dps will do the trick because it's not just dps or tanks who don't properly utilize mitigation. It's healers aswell.
And tbh I wouldn't want dps to get gutted just because a lot of players ignore these tools. Keep them for the good players, keep that layer they have. It's bad enough that healers lost so much depths.
I'd like to see more mitigation tools on healers (and buffs/ debuffs in general) but I don't realistically expect them to get used all that much even if they're good. ShB healer change attracted a lot of players to healing that look for the easiest way with an already easy and gutted role no matter the content.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

Wether it's ST or aoe, it doesn't matter. The raid as a whole has a lot of tools to mitigate incoming damage but forcing the healer to GCD shield aoes instead is easier, so that's how PF and many statics do it. Not every aoe one-shots you at low ilvl without stacking mitigation. It's not rocket science to shift some mitigation from the less dangerous aoes to the more dangerous ones. GCD shields are the easy way out and don't require communication. It's comfy and it has been done for so long that many people don't even try to coordinate anymore because why go through all the hassle of using HoL, Reprisal, Samba, Addle etc. when you can simply put a healer on bubble duty?

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This just sounds like a lack of communication with your group if you're feeling forced to GCD shield.

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Originally Posted by Mavrias

This just sounds like a lack of communication with your group if you're feeling forced to GCD shield.

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Like Rilifane just said, it's mostly groups being too lazy to coordinate their mitigation so instead they just tell the healers to heal more. This is somewhat understandable in PF groups with complete randoms but in a static it would be a sign to me that they don't really care about their healers.

To be honest, I would tell healers to just ditch that group but unfortunately it's not that easy, people who think like that make up a whole lot of the playerbase.

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Originally Posted by Mavrias

This just sounds like a lack of communication with your group if you're feeling forced to GCD shield.

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Where have I said I'm talking about my own static?
I'm not talking about my own static. But I've done plenty of PF to help people practice, to practice alt classes or once savage unlocked to farm gear and it's almost the same everywhere. Even when you ask for mitigation at specific parts, you'll usually get a "k I'll try" and it works for maybe 1-2 tries and after that, they forget it again.
Just relying on the healer shield-botting is pretty common in PF and even several statics I know. Plus most healers don't go against it either, they just follow along.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Take Addle away from the casters and give it to healers as a group wide, short CD magic damage reduction: Shell.

Take Feint away from the melee and give it to healers as a group wide, short CD physical damage reduction: Protect.

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"We want healers to be more engaging and for Enix to stop gutting them".

Community answer to this issue: Have Enix gut dps instead.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for healers getting a few buffs or debuffs, in addition to making dps more engaging, but why can't we just add tools instead of ripping them from someone else. Also the argument that too many dps don't use them therefore they shouldn't have them makes no sense when the majority of healers are neglecting half their own toolkit. Do we gut oGCD heals and hand them to tanks next?

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

"We want healers to be more engaging and for Enix to stop gutting them".

Community answer to this issue: Have Enix gut dps instead.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for healers getting a few buffs or debuffs, in addition to making dps more engaging, but why can't we just add tools instead of ripping them from someone else. Also the argument that too many dps don't use them therefore they shouldn't have them makes no sense when the majority of healers are neglecting half their own toolkit. Do we gut oGCD heals and hand them to tanks next?

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It's less of a logical statement and more one born from frustration. I suggested the same thing before, not because it would be a great idea but because DPS players make up a majority of the playerbase, so if we dumbed them down to the point that dps start complaining we might actually get some changes done.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

It's less of a logical statement and more one born from frustration. I suggested the same thing before, not because it would be a great idea but because DPS players make up a majority of the playerbase, so if we dumbed them down to the point that dps start complaining we might actually get some changes done.

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If they removed mitigation tools from dps then the vast majority of the player base wouldn't care since very few dps actually bother to mitigate mechanics in the first place.

The only people I can see complaining are physical ranged since they've pretty much been suffering an identity crisis since 5.0 from being gutted of any utility that other dps don't have in some capacity, and SE has for ignored them for the most part while they've been listening to complaints about jobs like Monk and Ninja.

no job should have to be sacrificed for another, Some players here don't recognise this. Stop that line of thought as thats one of the ways shb got into its current job mess

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

If they removed mitigation tools from dps then the vast majority of the player base wouldn't care since very few dps actually bother to mitigate mechanics in the first place.
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Pretty much this. In normal dungeon or Ex content I rarely if EVER see Feint, Addle, Shield Samba, or Tactician used.

"But Deceptus, they're not needed!"

To that I say, Practice like you Play. The only way to develop good habits is to do them, in all aspects of play.

Healer balance? Probably.

Good healer class design? It didn't even survive Shadowbringers.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

It's less of a logical statement and more one born from frustration. I suggested the same thing before, not because it would be a great idea but because DPS players make up a majority of the playerbase, so if we dumbed them down to the point that dps start complaining we might actually get some changes done.

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I can understand frustration, but we have to keep our feedback realistic and sensible or the Devs will simply look to the forums, see a convoluted mess of bad ideas and mixed opinions and decide we have no clue what we want and that it's better they decide for us.

There are too many crazy suggestions, full reworks that could never work with the game engine, requests to rework the entire game structure and wildly conflicting opinions here. We need to be simple, straightforward, and highlight the core issues that can be easily corrected.

Usually, I'm a huge balance fiend. I love things to be balanced, and it's something I think about a lot for a lot of games, but FF14 is a game where I feel like I've shifted to care about balance less. We've seen what militant fixation on balance has done to the healers as of Shadowbringers, and you know what? I don't really care if a 4th healer ends up breaking the balance. What's worse?

Having a meta where some healers are valued above others for endgame content while the ones less favored but still not only able to do the content, but realistically won't be barred from it?
Or refusing to add new content or develop the existing healers in different ways out of fear of breaking that balance?

I'm not saying balance isn't important, because it is, but I can't help but hate the "I don't want a 4th healer until they fix the current healers" argument with a searing rage. 14 has been incredibly good at ensuring all jobs are capable within a decent margin of clearing any content.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Or refusing to add new content or develop the existing healers in different ways out of fear of breaking that balance?

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Sadly, this is where healers are in FFXIV. While other jobs are moving forward, the healer role got reduced to square one.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

I've been wondering this for a while since it has been a topic raised by some of my friend circles in-game and in Discord. Can Healers survive a fourth healer coming into the game next expansion?

Because honestly, let's be real - they've butchered healers to nothing except oGCD Heals and 1 Attack and 1 DoT. I don't know how they'll be able to shoehorn in a 4th Healer given how the dichotomy works either; unless they do something about shielding and fix SCH's issues. It's really tough to even balance healers right now as is.

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I don't think they'll just add the fourth healer.

They'll probably do that and ework some aspects of the healers that we have already, because if they don't, this new healer will be either too good or too bad, given the stability of the trio we have right now.

If they rework AST's stances to do something else, and rebalance some things, they can have 4 different niches of one healer per healing focus, for example:
- Direct heals (WHM or AST)
- HoT heals (WHM or AST or new healer)
- Shields (SCH)
- Damage reduction (AST or new healer)

Class healing focus. Flavor focus
SCH. Shields Debuffs
AST. Hot. Buffs
WHM. Direct heals. Damage
CHM. Dmg reduce. Stuns

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Pretty much this. In normal dungeon or Ex content I rarely if EVER see Feint, Addle, Shield Samba, or Tactician used.

"But Deceptus, they're not needed!"

To that I say, Practice like you Play. The only way to develop good habits is to do them, in all aspects of play.

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Whoops, I dunno why I quoted this. Butter fingers. <.<'

lol

In all seriousness, though, that's the main issue I have with XIV. On one hand the combat is stupidly easy so you develop bad habits like not caring about AoEs or feeling the need to challenging yourself even a little bit as tank so now we must all wall to wall pull or die of boredom and then 'suddenly' the combat does get hard and everything falls apart because you've been conditioned from 1 to 70+ to just ignore everything and DPS (badly, even).

And it's the same with healing. I'm a bit tired of the notion that casual = stupid. So it follows, by that logic, that combat must remain easy to keep the revenue from casuals. I'm a mid-core casual myself but that doesnt mean I poke my nose while playing.

If the next healer turns out to be the same but with different particle effects SE might as well make it limited 'cause to me it certainly is.

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Originally Posted by glamazon

Class healing focus. Flavor focus
SCH. Shields Debuffs
AST. Hot. Buffs
WHM. Direct heals. Damage
CHM. Dmg reduce. Stuns

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Yeah, but that's not working in the current climate, now is it?

Stun doesn't work with bosses and reducing damage can never be a requirement since without a CHM you wouldn't be able to clear.

Everybody would use AST for buffs (=DMG) and WHM for additional damage.

That's the big problem with not allowing class diversity and focusing solely on DPS.

And fight need to be more than Dance Dance Revolution and DPS. The current system is just too simplistic. Even the illusion of choice gets shattered almost instantly in this game.

My Idea for Healer in 6.0:

WHM: I think here is SE going to make a longer DPS Rotation. So the idea for a DPS healer is to see. But pls change something on Fluid Aura. Make it to a pvp spell give the WHM something new with water. A change that fits better with the other healer (2min CDs) is Presence of Mind 150s -> 120s. I think this change would be welcome in the Comunity.

SCH: Is the Pet healer with some Shilds. Some Debuffs and thats it. But the Ätherflow system need a rework. The Ätherflow stacks should only for healing, BUT Energy Drain is like it is a 3s OGCs (that do not use the stacks). I think that could be funny to use. DMG and Mana reg. can balance.

AST: I think the hole Power from SHB to fokus on the Secs was not bad I think the fokus on it. And I belive SE is happy with the stances, because the freedom the player have to heal. Throwing that all over the place wouldn't make sense. Both stances feel their job too well for that. But I think the Cards will change. If it stays that way that the cards reinforce DPS, a support component will definitely be added. Or playing cards seems stressful and boring for many. I know the devs focus on the "draw" and "play out from" cards in SHB. Here I think a change is coming.

New Healer (Timemage/Ether technician aka. Chemist):

I think this healer has no strong heals. I see more that he can stagger inc. dmg that he can negate in the way to heal or make dps. Maybe extend Hots like the old AST. I am curious if we will see more on February 2nd.

However, what is important to me is that we do not see the opinion of the devs on the healers. The whole philosophy of many jobs becomes apparent through us as a comuntity. But for healers these scraps are what Yoshida dares to pull out. I think that would also help us to give feedback if we knew where the developers are going.

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Originally Posted by glamazon

Class healing focus. Flavor focus
SCH. Shields Debuffs
AST. Hot. Buffs
WHM. Direct heals. Damage
CHM. Dmg reduce. Stuns

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Stuns can't be a flavor bonus because they don't work on bosses.

That's why Personally I think they should have a class focus (Regen, Shields) and a Debuff / Buff off focus.

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Originally Posted by glamazon

Class healing focus. Flavor focus
SCH. Shields Debuffs
AST. Hot. Buffs
WHM. Direct heals. Damage
CHM. Dmg reduce. Stuns

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There's a neat idea here, but I'm not sure "stuns" rounds things out.
SCH - debuff the boss so they take more damage
AST - buff the party so they deal more damage
WHM - have higher personal DPS
CHM - ... nothing contributing to party output.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Stuns can't be a flavor bonus because they don't work on bosses.

That's why Personally I think they should have a class focus (Regen, Shields) and a Debuff / Buff off focus.

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Damage Mitigation can be a core part of a healer kit without being manadatory for clears. I think having varying kind of shield effects is really the answer we need. Scholar already has Galvanize and Catalyze Shields which grant more effective hp and Emergency Tactics to turn any shielding into healing. The initial Heal potency could be removed from Succor and Aldo altogether to give them super chunky shields that warrant being placed before damage as their sole purpose would be to block it. Their playstyle could stay grounded in preventing damage with expensive shields or otherwise struggling to heal people to full. WHM in my vision would be incredibly reactive as it is now simply power healing after any damage is taken by the party. Astro could have the stances removed and simply be a weaker shield healer with the benefit of regens triggered by having their smaller shields broken. So Aspected Helios could in theory put a Noct Barrier on the party about a quarter maybe or less the strength of a Scholar; a barrier that can be stacked with Scholar mind you, and once its broken grant the party 15 seconds of Diurnal regen. The Scholar shield would take priority in being eaten allowing the regen to only kick in once all shielding is gone. A fourth healer, lets call it Chemist, could grant shields as well but that dont affect effective hp like Astro and Scholar. This shield could simply reduce damage taken by maybe 10 or 20 percent and then also trigger a bursts heal once its duration expires. This could allow every healer to work together well especially if every healer could heal for the same potency but in their own way both before and after damage. It would still take both healers using a single skill to get the party through the raid wide but it would feel different for each of them. As long as two WHM can heal the party to full there is no imbalance. Tanks should be responsible for keep the party alive with special mitigation through mechanics that can't be raw healed through to keep things balanced and WHM always viable.

Maybe we don't need every single job to be perfectly balanced with each other, maybe if the devs just focus on having all jobs be just viable in savage content instead of prioritizing what the meta-slaves think, then we could stop worrying about how the healer balance could "survive" a new & fun class being added.

Sacrilege i know, but look at how much trying to achieve a perfect balance has destroyed job identity, all 4 of the tank classes play exactly the same except for GNB which is only slightly different since it doesn't have a "fell cleave spam" phase.
Emnity has been trivialized.
Stance swapping has been cut.
Mp/Tp has been cut.
Resistance debuffs have been cut.
Ranged dps were turned into casters at one point.
And healers have had their kits butchered beyond belief.

I'm not saying trying to achieve some semblance of balance is bad, 2.0 warrior for example was a trainwreck and desperately needed change, but that's what i mean when i say the devs should just focus on jobs being viable enough to raid, and not worry over whether having a certain job will allow us to clear a raid a few seconds faster than another job.

Fun should always be the biggest priority, and having all classes be the same + never adding new jobs = incredibly unfun.

I think there are two main options, being either have two groups of two similar healers and balance these like that, or have the four healers given access to both shielding and regens.

While in theory I prefer the second option, I kind of doubt they would succeed in making four healers feel unique if they go that way (in my opinion, that's what we have since 5.X, all healers kind of do the same thing, healing wise).
And if I can go further, I'd rather have them fix healing itself before anything. Because strict "shield vs regen" is not a great idea, given how shields are unnecessary most of the time, while regens are always strong.

Now I don't think balance is the issue. In the strict sense, healers are balanced healing wise. Adding a fourth healer that would be a copy of the others would be very frustrating.

The whole purpose of a Healer, is TO BE unbalanced. It is a Specialist role with the main Focus of providing healing and utility/support while dishing out damage/using debuffs on the side when things are going smooth. Balancing a Healer would mean turning it into Red Mage minus the Melee abilities, for that Job, is the embodiment of Balance, a Jack of all trades, but master of none.

As i mentioned before on another thread already, Squeenix will just copypaste their WHM formula on any Healer that's being added and call it a day, in the most likely scenario.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

As i mentioned before on another thread already, Squeenix will just copypaste their WHM formula on any Healer that's being added and call it a day, in the most likely scenario.

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The pessimistic outlook, which I unfortunately share for now, would be exactly that.
A 4th healer wouldn't destroy the balance in this scenario because it would be designed like all the current ones. 1 DoT, 1 dps spell that you spam, maybe a nuke, the usual single target and party GCD heals, a boatload of strong oGCDs, mostly direct or regen healing, most likely some shields to make up for WHM's lack of it and some gimmick mechanic that has barely any impact to make it easy to balance.

Honestly? I think it could be fine with a 4th. But really depends on how they approach things. Me personally? I don't think they know how to handle healing jobs.

My fear is that a 4th healer won't have much in the way of anything unique or exciting in favour of balance.

The dichotomy we used to have back in 2.0 no longer exists and I think it'd be a fool's errand to try to maintain it...as much as I loved it. I don't think adding a new healer would impact things as much as adding AST did as healing jobs are more rounded these days. Back in 2.0 it didn't matter if healing jobs weren't well-rounded because you could make SCH and WHM complement each other and nobody would complain about a SCH/WHM meta. IMO a SCH/WHM was great back then, we felt like we offered different benefits. In fact, I think them NOT being well-rounded made for the experience and is why their relationship worked.

AST I feel like was designed to try and fit into both niches, whilst at the same time making SCH more rounded and WHM lose its niche. The end result was terrible balance, because they designed a job to fit the dichotomy whilst also breaking the dichotomy and I think it has been a job of playing catch up since...and also made SCH OP.

I think it's going to require them to reassess how each healer job fit their identities. I think the mentality of "big heals healer" and "shield healer" are long gone and we need to adjust to uniqueness within roles that don't necessarily have a benefit over each other.

I think instead they should be well rounded BUT feel appropriate to their identities:
WHM would need to feel powerful.
SCH would need to feel tactical
AST would need to feel technical
New Healer would need to achieve whatever feel they're going for.

WHM, SCH and AST already have the tools and groundwork to achieve them.

I'm surprised there's still any talk about separating into "shield healer" and "direct healer". There is currently no such thing as a shield healer. Noct or SCH both have HoT's and strong direct heals with their shields simply being an additional part of a versatile toolkit. WHM is the only healer with an incomplete toolkit.

I definitely can't see them adding another WHM. Shields are generally recommended for Savage prog and most groups need them for e12s. While this is currently fine since the other two compensate for WHM, a 4th healer with a similar toolkit wouldn't be viable with WHM in higher Savage. You'd need a healer with shields and this would result in something similar to the "MT/OT" divide they steered well away from with tanks. While Enix generally discourage doubles of one class, they've been careful to avoid having any combination of 2 different classes within a role simply not work in some content. So it's most likely the 4th healer will have a diverse well-rounded heal kit.

The best way to differentiate between the healers is probably in their style of gameplay. Buff, debuffs, AST's cards, pets, utility, DoT's, high APM weave, maintenance buffs, complexity, comfiness and so on. We've got a good base for that, but unfortunately they've steered away from it a bit in their goal of accessibility. But they could easily build on it again. I've always been against a class identity of gaping holes in your toolkit or clunkiness though.

Well at this point Healing class should just be aesthetic meaning that, you should just pick which one you like the best. I think AST is the only one who is a little different because it focuses on both healing and Mitigation and also buffs the party. They could add another Healing class that heals and buffs the party up to balance the other two healers we current have.

Or, they could base it on a more supportive class that focuses more on support.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

. You'd need a healer with shields and this would result in something similar to the "MT/OT" divide they steered well away from with tanks. While Enix generally discourage doubles of one class, they've been careful to avoid having any combination of 2 different classes within a role simply not work in some content. So it's most likely the 4th healer will have a diverse well-rounded heal kit.

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That's a really interesting way of framing the issue.
I dropped SCH and picked up AST explicitly so I could heal with my WHM friend or my SCH friend without our kits awkwardly fighting, so I really hope the 4th healer really shatters whats left of their dichotomy.

The simple truth is: a 4th healer is going to step on toes. There is already a heal powerhouse, there is already a shield powerhouse, and there is already a healer that can sufficiently compliment either of the first two, with a card/buff gimmick to supplement what it lacks in healing.

As much as I accept that Squeenix is pretty much backed into a corner to produce another heal job, I would honestly prefer that it devoted those resources into making the current three heal jobs more enjoyable, with a more sophisticated DPS kit and each with its own unique tricks for healing.