Melee Shield Healer Idea

I'd like to play a melee oriented healer (where all of my skills are melee range except for a couple of single target heals), but what makes it distinct from the other healers is that where most of the skills are do some amount of damage but then have a secondary effect (maybe determined by stance?) that's a DoT, HoT, Shield, or a buff/debuff.

Maybe call it a templar as it's mechanically similar to a paladin?

Seems like it could possibly be interesting, especially since it's going to want to stay in melee range and that fits in well with the GOTTAGOFAST instance meta we seem to have.

Thoughts?

Would your skills also be primarily instant cast?
Cuz a cleric like this would have to be pretty mobile.

Closest thing I can think of that's remotely like that is WoW's Mistweaver Monk (Melee dps healer) and to an extent Disciple Priest (Dps converts to healing / shields)

The first issue I'd see is the loss of Healing you'd get when a boss does a mechanic that requires you to move out of melee range which would intterupt your healing flow. Healers right now can sit comfortably in a safe area and fling heals / shields without that issue.

The second issue is most ideas you could use to justify melee healing / shielding you could do at range with no real reason as to why not. I go to Mistweaver Monks who had a whole mechanic based on melee dpsing to heal, but then in raiding content you'd see them in the back channeling their ranged heal and jade serpent statue.

The Disciple Priest is close to what you are describing save with less mechanics. They have single target heals they can throw out that grant a player a buff. All players with said buff get healed for percentages of damage dealt that the priest does. That's the basic explaination anyways.

I ultimately feel FFXIV healing is so set in ranged healing that a melee healer would suffer tremendously comparatively to their counterparts.

Don't you find it jarring how Arcanist is the only one that has a branching option? I seriously believe they should go back and separate the class and jobs at 30, the solution is easy.

Now on topic, wouldn't it be great if Pugilist could go White Monk or as you mentioned Gladiator into Templar/Cleric.

It just feels so incomplete.

Nearly all difficult fights are designed with healers treated as ranged casters. There's a lot of design precedence to roll back there.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Would your skills also be primarily instant cast?
Cuz a cleric like this would have to be pretty mobile.

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Oh definitely. It'd have to treat SpS as SS for this to work.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Nearly all difficult fights are designed with healers treated as ranged casters. There's a lot of design precedence to roll back there.

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When I'm balled up with the rest of the party on the boss's butt most of the time... I think it could work. Just give the class like 1 AoE heal and a single target heal that they can use when they are forced into ranged so they can still heal and they'd be fine.

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Originally Posted by Aluja89

Don't you find it jarring how Arcanist is the only one that has a branching option? I seriously believe they should go back and separate the class and jobs at 30, the solution is easy.

Now on topic, wouldn't it be great if Pugilist could go White Monk or as you mentioned Gladiator into Templar/Cleric.

It just feels so incomplete.

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The Devs have stated that the split class idea was a huge mistake that they have 0 intention of returning to and have held that mentality since moving from ARR into HW, and as someone who's first job back in 2013 was Arcanist and who played SMN and SCH, I totally agree that there's just no reason to do that.

Attaching SMN to this poison mage and to SCH was a detriment to SMN thematically and mechanically throughout the years, and even now it struggles to deliver on the job fantasy of the final fantasy summoner. Moreover, you're not actually saving any amount of work by connecting the classes. Even if they wanted to add something like a White Monk, a Templar, or Cleric, they would just have the job be completely independent rather than stapling it to an existing job for no real reason.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The Devs have stated that the split class idea was a huge mistake that they have 0 intention of returning to and have held that mentality since moving from ARR into HW, and as someone who's first job back in 2013 was Arcanist and who played SMN and SCH, I totally agree that there's just no reason to do that.

Attaching SMN to this poison mage and to SCH was a detriment to SMN thematically and mechanically throughout the years, and even now it struggles to deliver on the job fantasy of the final fantasy summoner. Moreover, you're not actually saving any amount of work by connecting the classes. Even if they wanted to add something like a White Monk, a Templar, or Cleric, they would just have the job be completely independent rather than stapling it to an existing job for no real reason.

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IMO SE should disconnect the SMN (and arcanist) from SCH and turn SCH into a job you unlock with it's own XP bar once you have Arcanist to 30. It may suck for all future SCHs to have to level it separate from SMN, but IMO that's the best thing SE can do for both jobs.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The Devs have stated that the split class idea was a huge mistake that they have 0 intention of returning to and have held that mentality since moving from ARR into HW, and as someone who's first job back in 2013 was Arcanist and who played SMN and SCH, I totally agree that there's just no reason to do that.

Attaching SMN to this poison mage and to SCH was a detriment to SMN thematically and mechanically throughout the years, and even now it struggles to deliver on the job fantasy of the final fantasy summoner. Moreover, you're not actually saving any amount of work by connecting the classes. Even if they wanted to add something like a White Monk, a Templar, or Cleric, they would just have the job be completely independent rather than stapling it to an existing job for no real reason.

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No, their mistake was having the branching job go off the same class. I'm suggesting they lock the classes to 30 and make the jobs branch off fresh without any attachment.

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Originally Posted by Aluja89

No, their mistake was having the branching job go off the same class. I'm suggesting they lock the classes to 30 and make the jobs branch off fresh without any attachment.

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I still fail to see what that accomplishes that just having the job start from new can't.