Pipe Dreams: Expanding the healer pool

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Originally Posted by fusional

if other healing classes are *just* healers, and whm is the superior healing class overall, yes- nobody will invite the other classes.

on the other hand, if other healing classes can still heal but have their abilities scaled back just a touch in comparison to whm, but are given secondary utility functions (similar to bard) then you can be sure groups will find a reason to bring one along for the ride. ex: haste buff

people need to stop and think for a second what this game will be like in 24 man raids if new classes aren't added, and if we aren't given reasons to diversify which classes we bring.

we'll have 3-4 paladins, 4-5 white mages, 1-2 bards and then 14-15 black mages or dragoons. which sounds absolutely awful. who could be bothered to raid in a scenario like that?

24 man content is coming, and class diversity *will be necessary* to keep it from being repetitive and generic.

adding more classes will be absolutely necessary for the health of raiding in FFXIV long-term, but balancing will be tricky and they need to be extremely careful about making classes too similar to each other. identity is an absolute must. but there also needs to be reason to bring classes that aren't always as good as others situationally.

and as i've said- that would come from secondary functions (utility) and battle design (needing certain classes for certain roles/functions in the battle)

don't get it twisted, don't oversimplify and don't say "everything should be equal in all situations so nobody gets butthurt"- it just leads to a boring game which lacks difficulty and depth

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This...all of this. <3

To those against different types of healers/hybrid healers:
It's totally okay for jobs to outshine other jobs on some content. As long as the same jobs/classes are not always shunned and as long as the content is clear-able with a variety of setups. Keep in mind, that the 'optimal party setup' the community comes up with and 'clear-able' party setup are not always the same thing. But if every job always had the same usefulness, the game would get boring fast....real fast.

While White Mage is designed to be the Big Party Main-Healer, that still leaves a LOT of room for other types of healers. A DD role that Heals or buffs with TP/ A ranged attacker that can enfeeble/buff while DDing. Just for 2 examples.

But we can't have a dynamic game with WHM being the ONLY healer. Not only that, we don't even have enough White Mages in the game currently to support 24-man content across more than maybe 3-4 ls's per server (and that's being generous). By this, I mean people who actually play White Mage as a main and/or enjoy the role.

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Originally Posted by Niqote

Actually one thing I must praise 1.0 for is that all the DDs if geared and played well were pretty much as effective as the others when it came to actual Damage

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nooooot quite. there were large differences in DPS ceilings based on the situation. monk crushed dragoon on MM and Chimera, dragoon crushed monk on ifrit EX, darnus hard and princess. black mage was the mainstay, and was pretty strong on everything (plus extraordinarily easy to play)

that said, when classes have their own unique identities there should always be situations where they outperform others, as long as the others have a chance to shine in other areas as well. but the main drawback we saw in 1.0 is that when people figured out what was optimal for a particular situation, they'd just stack that class.

there are two ways to deal with this:

1. raid buffs, as i mentioned before. when a class gives a certain buff to the raid, you now have a reason to bring at least one of that class for that buff so the entire raid benefits. (ie: +2% melee accuracy, +2% magic damage, +4% crit rate, +2 regen/refresh, that sort of thing)

2. battle design. if war is the aoe tank and paladin is the boss tank, you'd need some kind of add-spawning mechanic for the warrior to offtank while the paladin handles the big fella. if monk does the best single target damage they stay on the boss while dragoon helps aoe down the adds. black mage can be necessary for sleepga to help the warriors pick up adds before they beat up healers. obviously you're going to want bard buffs, and their aoe makes them even more attractive.

as long as new classes/jobs are added with this in mind, and content is designed in such a way that either through a primary or secondary function (and/or raid buff) always makes them necessary for a raid, everyone will be happy and developers will have more freedom to create more dynamic battles.

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Originally Posted by Niqote

Thing is... WHM is a healer and a healer only.

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this is sounding awfully similar to the "paladin onry!" cries of another thread. and it's equally silly. white mage is the primary healer in the FF universe and would never be replaced. just as paladin is the strongest tanking class by far (or WAS at the end of 1.0), in spite of warrior being useful still in some situations- the same principle would apply to white mage in 24 man content with other healers. you'd still want 2-3 whm, but also 1-2 of the other healing class.

because white mage would handle the bulk of primary/normative healing situations, but there would be certain things the other healing class/es would do slightly better in spite of having lower overall numbers on the healing meters.

another good example would be that white mage is a target-based healer. a secondary healer could be area-based, like putting a circle on the ground which could provide a regen effect as long as people stand in it. or a boost to physical or magical defense, lessening necessary effective healing from the white mage.

in dynamic battles with any movement-based factors, you couldn't possibly stack the area-based healer because mobs and players move around too much, forcing you to still rely on white mage for the bulk of your healing.

this is just *one small* example of how multiple healing classes work in a raid context.

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Originally Posted by Niqote

Who else in the FF universe is healer ONLY?

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who else in the FF universe was introduced in the era of MMORPGs? saying "well it was always like so and so back in the classic turn-based jRPGs" is a bit silly considering MMOs work nothing like that.

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Originally Posted by Niqote

So who else could take the same role? Eventually we will get more heal capable classes, so that if you only have 2/4 WHMs in a 24 man raid you can just sub in 2 DNCs and a SMN to help out... but no one will heal as well as a WHM in a Final fantasy universe ^_^

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in this we agree- if multiple healing classes exist and devs are doing their jobs correctly, it should work out roughly like that.

When it comes to healing and keeping the party alive WHM should be at the center stage. For other classes, I think its important that they keep their identity even if they have the ability to heal.

I remember when THM had Sacrifice. It was amazing and I hope SE reintroduce Sacrifice again. Preferably for Necromancer.

sacrifice (or something like it) could work out great as the main single-target heal for a second healing class. let it heal for an amount similar to cure1 (or perhaps even slightly less) with a short HoT at the end, at the cost of both HP and MP from the caster. let the HoT stack with regen. this would make them undesirable as main healers, but would give them a vital function in helping to patch up the raid and help soften blows on the main tank

edit: you could also make it so that the spell has an aoe version which takes a % of the caster's HP for each target it hits, making it a powerful but dangerous raid healing tool. :)

Use Priest and introduce new job, Shaman to FF universe. Priest may sound generic, but it was original class name for White Mage in FF tactics. Or for more creative things, use a class that utilize card as medium of healing, and you can call it Oracle

EDIT: actually shaman is one of job in ff 4 heroes of light
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/S...es_of_Light%29

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Originally Posted by Jocko

I've never understood, why does this have to be the case? What's wrong with classes excelling (by design) in certain types of content over other classes?

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You mean aside from people's favorite classes getting excluded from content by the community for being below ideal?

The emphasis of design should be on the role fulfilled. If there is a discrepancy it should not be massive to the point you have to switch classes to be acceptable. Not everyone likes being forced to switch jobs because some just identify more with certain jobs than others. FFXI did enough to urinate on player choice, and I'm hoping FFXIV does not go down that route.

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Originally Posted by fusional

on the other hand, if other healing classes can still heal but have their abilities scaled back just a touch in comparison to whm, but are given secondary utility functions (similar to bard) then you can be sure groups will find a reason to bring one along for the ride. ex: haste buff

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While wasting a party slot. Even then, that's until parties figure out how to go about with another DPS in that slot and bypass the weaker <insert role> with "utility".

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and for the record- equalizing healing ability in MoP was one of the worst design choices blizzard ever made. it used to be that you needed paladins to tank heal, disc priests to offtank heal (and bubble raid), then a mix of resto shamans, resto druids and holy priests to raid heal (you brought all three to make sure your raid got their respective buffs)

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The mistake was not equalizing healing ability. It was the deletion and fusing of several class buffs. The pogrom against class buffs and debuffs did way more damage than equalizing healing ability. I loved WotLK, but I also remember being a DPS paladin having to rely on cleanse macros in 10-man raids that had resto druids as healers because they could not remove diseases. I didn't mind, but I know from a design perspective that can create some problems (not taking Blizzard's hard on for nerfing paladins into account).

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Originally Posted by HarukoD

What about a chemist? This is something I've brought up before, and in no way was my idea. But imagine this, you're a musketeer or something (some core class with a pistol) and your job becomes chemist. To heal a party you throw a potion up in the air and shoot it, heals rain down. There's a lot more to this idea, but it's not worth going into here. But this job could be both a healer and an enfeebler. Throw some acid at a mob, defence down etc etc.

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My idea for chemist was your regular shoot ability could be used on allies to heal them for a small amount of HP and give you a buff that increases the potency of your other healing abilities (this gives you a buff you have to keep up in order to heal at max potential, and the regular shoot would also help patch people up without costing you resources). The stuff with cast times would be potions that you throw at your targetted party member and heal them. Some CC built in like chemicals you throw at a mob to snare them or root them to the ground. That sort of thing.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

but you are not a bard your an archer with some songs and I hate you

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She is a bard. And she hates you too. >.>

They really need Dancers back......it was the only fabulous job I could prance around in....

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Originally Posted by fusional

in theory, chemist would be an excellent option

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Don't forget Devout(spelling) from FF 3 which was awesome.

A little off-topic, but related.

To encourage playing other jobs (when there are 16 rather than 8), how about putting pre-requisites of certain jobs for dungeon content, eg you can only challenge Tam-Tara with BLM, WHM, SMN & CHM.

Because players can and are already encouraged to level multiple jobs (and levelling is reasonably quick), I can't see it preventing access to content significantly, and I feel that it would present a kind of puzzle as to how to successfully complete the dungeon in time.

This would encourage use of non-standard jobs and perhaps make it more agreeable to play them in open-world content.

I think it'd be a mistake to make a bunch of other healing classes that heal as WELL as White Mage, while also having a utility beyond just the healing. We've all stated that White Mage does one thing: it heals. The last thing it needs is Chemist walking up into its territory and smacking it down off the hill, because Chemist heals just AS WELL, but Chemist also debuffs the mob. Balance is going to be a very key component to any new jobs that get added.

I think to reach that balance, you have to look at synergy. The classes need to cooperate to be stronger together, where they'd be weaker without one another. For example: Chemist comes out as a class. It has healing abilities, but these healing abilities don't quite reach the playing field of the White Mage. What the Chemist does have, however, are great buffs and debuffs. Chemist could use an Area of Effect potion that will amplify the next Curaga delivered, which only the White Mage can do, or a buff potion that will allow the next target buff (like Regen) to last a certain % longer. They're not the same jobs (and Chemist could do it all by itself, albeit a little less effectively), but they're designed to amplify each other. Imagine the Chemist popping a potion that allows it to absorb Regen up to a certain %, with that extra % of HP then transferring to another party member on the next target potion used.

This synergy can be applied to any class archetype. Damage Dealer, for instance. Maybe Samurai comes out with a plethora of armor debuffs (or an armor debuff is the natural effect of its weapon skill combo) that allow the Monk's next attacks to be more effective, or act as a guaranteed critical for the Dragoon. Dragoon has its lance for armor piercing, but the other DD classes could always benefit with some extra help in that regard.

Postulation is really as far as we can go at this point. We don't know the content, the situations, or the other variables we're going to be faced with. I just think that we don't need different options in terms of "I want to take a Chemist healer today", but options in terms of getting the most out of the classes offered. In the end, the community is ALWAYS going to do what it wants. It's going to demand that its way is right and that everyone else follow along, like it did with Ninja, Red Mage, and Summoner (to name a few) in FFXI. SE can prevent this by making each class benefit the other, without taking some of X job's toys and giving them to Z.