A thought on a DPS-Healer Job "Battle Nurse"

Of course all of this is only my own speculation.
Something I have thought of my own and think it would
be interesting to have such a class.
I would be happy about some feedback about what you think.
Maybe if you have also some ideas how this job could become even
better. Also if you have a better name for it just tell me.
I just used the good old Valkyrie(Battle Maiden) as refference.

Battle Nurse

What Classes does it come from?
Archer 30 / White Mage 15

What is it's Role?
A DPS Healing Class.
With his lvl 30 Skill, "Frendly Fire" it will slowly heal a single target or the whole group.

What are it's job skills?
Level 30 "Friendly Fire"
Frendly Fire is a buff that the Character puts on himself.
It will reduce his damage by 40%, but make his attacks heal the whole group for 200%
of the damage done.

Level 35 "Chosen Friend"
This will be a buff that you can give one of your patry members.
It will have no time restriction and no costs, but will have a cooldown like cleric stance.
It will channel all of the damage heals you do, onto this one character,
thus changing the group heal into an channelled tank heal.

Level 40 "Healing Mix"
This will be the "big heal" of the Job.
It will heal 450, AGI potency, but will use TP as source(80).
It will also place a 100 potency HoT on the player for 21 seconds.

Level 45 "Panacea"
This will be the Esuna with a TP cost of 40 TP.

Level 50 "Shielding Arrow"
This will be a "Shield" this job will have.
It will reflect the next 20% of damage the target recieves with no TP/MP costs but with
a 2 minute cooldown.
So it will not only be a little stone skin, it will also damage the enemy and give a little heal as bonus.

What are his cross class skills?
He would be able to use the Lancer and White Mage skills.
White Mage since it is his "secondary" class and Lancer since he need the TP regeneration.
He should have protect, for 4 man partys, stoneskin and raise from white mage.
From lancer Invigorate and Blood for Blood.

This Job would be a low DPS Class, I hope lower than the tanks, that will heal in the same time.
His normal attacks should heal the tank most of the time, he should be able to heal most of the
dungeons with his damage(Amudapor,Pharos...) and will only need his other skills for the bosses.
I think you could make a good combinations with either white mage or scholar, the White Mage
and scholar would make the "big" heals and top the Tank or some one that got a big hit.
And you would make some really big constant healing onto the tank or the party with your damage.
Thus helping doing some damage while at the same time keeping the tank constantly on a high level.

This job would probably be really difficult to balance and either be overpowered or underpowered.
But I think a damage healer would be something REALLY interesting to play since you would be doing both.
Heal and Damage.

This kinda sounds like chloromancer from rift.

But, this job would need something to reduce the threat. Damage plus healing would cause too much threat generation.

I'm also not sure about the level 50 shield, since there is still protection and stoneskin they would get from con, maybe make the level 50 ability healing mix, but call it healing arrow, and level 40 ability be it's own tp regen ability (shouldn't have to be forced to get it from lancer to keep it as a viable healer)

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Originally Posted by Hiroradius

This kinda sounds like chloromancer from rift.

But, this job would need something to reduce the threat. Damage plus healing would cause too much threat generation.

I'm also not sure about the level 50 shield, since there is still protection and stoneskin they would get from con, maybe make the level 50 ability healing mix, but call it healing arrow, and level 40 ability be it's own tp regen ability (shouldn't have to be forced to get it from lancer to keep it as a viable healer)

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You are right with the shield, there are already a few.
The thought about a own TP regenartion is really good and could remove the lancer requirement which would fit much better.
The problem would be the leveling of the char till 40, since you have absolutly no way to regenerate any TP in that time.
But making the skill for 35 would mean you have no really heal for the tank.
I will look a little into it and edit the first post acordingly.

Being able to effectively heal while simultaneously being able to put out non-trivial amounts of damage is either overpowered or worthless, depending upon implementation. If they're supposed to be able to compete with standard healers, they're overpowered because they're throwing out damage while doing all of the healing that another healer would be able to do which means that the other healers are basically redundant (why bring the other healers when they're not going to be doing damage). If their healing is reduced to make up for their damage capabilities, then they're worthless (in groups that aren't specifically made to accommodate them) because we're dealing with a trinity game: the damage that a tank or a healer deals isn't a major factor in determining their usefulness because that's not what they're brought into groups for.

The closest that you could get to this type of design without being broken would be providing a very limited subset of attacks (i.e. not your entire attack string; likely just a single attack) that converts some proportion of its damage into a single target heal (converting damage into an AoE heal is ridonculously strong unless there is some substantial degree of value dilution based upon number of targets) that provides roughly as much as a SCH in Cleric Stance throwing out DoTs while Eos is healing, which is the closest ARR approximation of what you're suggesting (it's still better since you've got stronger control over it, but that's a comparatively small advantage).

The first implementation of such a set up that I ever saw was Disc Priest from WoW in Cataclysm, where Smite bounced a heal for the damage dealt to the most damaged ally within 10y of the target. It worked because Smitespam healing was only a low grade maintenance heal. Any time that you actually had to behave like a healer, you wouldn't be Smitespamming for the exact reason I outlined above: if you're a healer that can throw out damage in addition to the normal level of healing, you're providing more to the group than any other healer.

The problem with doing something like this in ARR is that there is a comparatively limited number of abilities that you can provide through a job. Unless this capability were built around a job specifically intended to gain this capability later (e.g. built off of something like WHM instead of ACN where all of the healing abilities you need are local to your class instead of having to be gained through your job), you'd be losing out on something that you need in order to get a comparatively low value utility.

Just look at what ACN gets in the conversion into SCH: you don't just get the 5 abilities from the job because your pets are completely converted as well, which frontloads your healing functionality within the job because you're getting Embrace and Whispering Dawn along with Adloq. The relatively severe limitation on job abilities is the main problem with adding a healing job to a current DPS or tank job: there aren't enough slots to provide the full healer toolkit and, even if you do attempt to do so, you end up screwing over the class at the entry levels because they don't have even the most barebones healer toolkit.

The closest implementation for something like this that I could imagine would be something like a base class using a mace that gets a job reminiscent of some kind of warpriest, wherein the *class* is built and balanced with that capability in mind (and, honestly, I could see it being something interesting like the combo bonus of a t2/t3 combo for a DoW healer job such that it's bouncing a straight up heal instead of a heal based upon damage dealt so that you're not screwed over by enemies using damage reduction effects).

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Being able to effectively heal while simultaneously being able to put out non-trivial amounts of damage is either overpowered or worthless, depending upon implementation. If they're supposed to be able to compete with standard healers, they're overpowered because they're throwing out damage while doing all of the healing that another healer would be able to do which means that the other healers are basically redundant (why bring the other healers when they're not going to be doing damage). If their healing is reduced to make up for their damage capabilities, then they're worthless (in groups that aren't specifically made to accommodate them) because we're dealing with a trinity game: the damage that a tank or a healer deals isn't a major factor in determining their usefulness because that's not what they're brought into groups for.

The closest that you could get to this type of design without being broken would be providing a very limited subset of attacks (i.e. not your entire attack string; likely just a single attack) that converts some proportion of its damage into a single target heal (converting damage into an AoE heal is ridonculously strong unless there is some substantial degree of value dilution based upon number of targets) that provides roughly as much as a SCH in Cleric Stance throwing out DoTs while Eos is healing, which is the closest ARR approximation of what you're suggesting (it's still better since you've got stronger control over it, but that's a comparatively small advantage).

The first implementation of such a set up that I ever saw was Disc Priest from WoW in Cataclysm, where Smite bounced a heal for the damage dealt to the most damaged ally within 10y of the target. It worked because Smitespam healing was only a low grade maintenance heal. Any time that you actually had to behave like a healer, you wouldn't be Smitespamming for the exact reason I outlined above: if you're a healer that can throw out damage in addition to the normal level of healing, you're providing more to the group than any other healer.

The problem with doing something like this in ARR is that there is a comparatively limited number of abilities that you can provide through a job. Unless this capability were built around a job specifically intended to gain this capability later (e.g. built off of something like WHM instead of ACN where all of the healing abilities you need are local to your class instead of having to be gained through your job), you'd be losing out on something that you need in order to get a comparatively low value utility.

Just look at what ACN gets in the conversion into SCH: you don't just get the 5 abilities from the job because your pets are completely converted as well, which frontloads your healing functionality within the job because you're getting Embrace and Whispering Dawn along with Adloq. The relatively severe limitation on job abilities is the main problem with adding a healing job to a current DPS or tank job: there aren't enough slots to provide the full healer toolkit and, even if you do attempt to do so, you end up screwing over the class at the entry levels because they don't have even the most barebones healer toolkit.

The closest implementation for something like this that I could imagine would be something like a base class using a mace that gets a job reminiscent of some kind of warpriest, wherein the *class* is built and balanced with that capability in mind (and, honestly, I could see it being something interesting like the combo bonus of a t2/t3 combo for a DoW healer job such that it's bouncing a straight up heal instead of a heal based upon damage dealt so that you're not screwed over by enemies using damage reduction effects).

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I think there was also the shadow priest in WoW that made a heal for the team while he made damage.
I don't remember if it was some good healing or not though.

I know that there are a lot of difficult things to watch out at this kind of job.
He would probably not as good in healing as Sch/Whm but on the other hand dish out a little bit of damage.
Maybe you couldn't go to Bahamut 5 with him, but help people on 1-4 with it.
It would definitly be a murder fun to play this kind of character.

I also thought that the Party heal would only be a little bit of the potency of the Single Heals.
Maybe a quarter or half of it.
I think especially for Content like Amudapor and these kind of Dungeons it would be cool to have a little DD that
doesn't need to heal for most of the content.

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Originally Posted by Niltaru

I think there was also the shadow priest in WoW that made a heal for the team while he made damage.
I don't remember if it was some good healing or not though.

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It was only up for a limited time and was a small heal. Eventually it got tweaked into just being an mp restoration thing, iirc. Even then, when it *was* a heal, Shadow Priest was never a healing spec; it was always a DPS spec that could provide a small about of extra healing, like Enh/Elem Shamans with Healing Stream totem. The healing was never the primary function, which is what you're suggesting here.

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He would probably not as good in healing as Sch/Whm but on the other hand dish out a little bit of damage.

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Which is why it's never going to get implemented. Healers need to the have the same fundamental level of healing functionality, just like all DPS need to deal roughly the same damage, and all tanks need to be similarly survivable. What you're suggesting is similar to the idea that WAR was supposed to be squishier than PLD because it dealt more damage (which was prevalent in 2.0) which actually meant that it was a job that no one ever wanted to bring. ARR uses the trinity, which means that classes have to be specialized; if you're not as good at your specialization as the other classes in your role, even if you're designed to make it up in other ways, it's not going to see play outside of farm content wherein class selection means pretty much nothing anyways. All classes should be viable for *all* content, not just stuff that they readily outgear; it's the exact reason why WAR got all of the tweaks it did in 2.1 because it was a tank that was only good in overgeared 4 man farm content.

Kit throwing some truth bombs up in this thread..

Mistweaver monk in WoW worked pretty well. That spec radiated healing from dealing melee damage and it worked quite well, at least through the lower levels I played it. It certainly could heal well enough, while dealing average damage. If you really needed to get healing out though, or if melee was out of your reach for part of the encounter, it was also capable of swapping to a more traditional casting healer play style, seamlessly.Unfortunately here, it would need to be based on one of the existing dps classes, and the current job system giving you 5 skills likely wouldn't be enough to give it the level of versatility it would require. Right now without a dedicated support role in groups, it's falling somewhere between damage dealer and healer, and there isn't really a place for that as it stands currently. It would likely need to be built from the ground up as a base class to see it's implementation. Not that I don't like the idea, mistweaver in WoW and chloromancer in RIFT were a lot of fun to play for me and I enjoyed the concept. But XIV is so not ready for something like this. Not yet anyway.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

because we're dealing with a trinity game: the damage that a tank or a healer deals isn't a major factor in determining their usefulness because that's not what they're brought into groups for.

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about sums it up. this kinda of "class" works in a classless game like secret world, but not so much in a standard mmo.

This sounds exactly like Rift's Chloromancer. I do have some suggestions though:

Friendly Fire should become a stance that converts the user's DEX (there is no AGI stat) into MND. This way the damage they do from their attacks would be nerfed by much more than 40% to even out to be about the same as a WHM tossing up Aeros or a SCH tossing up Bios. The healing done by their attacks with this stance active would scale on their MND. This would also make Cure/Physick a viable cross-class skill and reliable heal for when your TP is low or there are no monsters to target.

Chosen Friend would then be just a buff to put on someone else that redirects all healing done by your attacks to them.

Healing Mix with the change to Friendly Fire would use MND now. TP should be fine as a resource and perhaps increase its cost, amount healed and recast times (like a panic heal). Also consider making this an AoE heal as the job would have a severe lack of one should there be no enemy present (such as Titan's phase switches).

Instead of a shield I'd suggest something similar to the Chloromancer's spores where you place an enfeeble on the enemy and anyone attacking it has a chance to be healed. That or give them a chance at a damage mitigation.

Doing the above would place less strain on your TP overall. Regularly DPSing with BRD I generally have absolutely no problem with TP. You may want to consider dropping Panacea for an enmity dump but with the change of converting DEX to MND you shouldn't have too much trouble with that as your actual damage will be low. The main problem I'm seeing here also is the lack of an in-battle raise. Perhaps give them CNJ/ACN as cross-class instead of LNC. As said TP won't be too burdensome and then you could cross-class ACN's Resurrection for emergencies (as well as Eye for an Eye and Virus).

I personally love the Chloromancer in Rift and certainly see it as a viable option here. I can't think of a better name than Battle Nurse right now though. Jobs are all iconic names from the franchise so try to change it to something like that. Personally I think this sort of a healer would be awesome for Dancer to become but I much prefer the idea of healing from afar with arrows than up close.

Edit: Perhaps Spiritmaster, Animist or Trickster. The only one involved in healing is Spiritmaster but the others have only a presence in 2 other games as well so could follow just like the SCH did this time as they don't have a strong identity. I'd vote for Spiritmaster and rename some of the abilities: Friendly Fire > Adaptation, Chosen Friend > Stillness, Healing Mix > Holy One, Shielding Arrow > Enigma. Panacea would be fine as is I suppose. Sorry though no intention of hijacking, just love theorycrafting (and Bravely Default)!

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Originally Posted by cearka

about sums it up. this kinda of "class" works in a classless game like secret world, but not so much in a standard mmo.

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Well, there is a class following this same concept in RIFT and WoW. Those are about as standard as they come. Which isn't to say it would work here in XIV, but I must disagree with you on the fact that it doesn't work in "standard mmos."

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Originally Posted by HoneyBiscuit

Well, there is a class following this same concept in RIFT and WoW. Those are about as standard as they come. Which isn't to say it would work here in XIV, but I must disagree with you on the fact that it doesn't work in "standard mmos."

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Except that it's not the same as what the OP is suggesting. Healing via your attacks works as a low grade maintenance healing set up, but the OP wants it to be the fundamental mechanic that the class's healing functionality is built around. It would work fine if there was a single attack that began bouncing a comparatively weak heal to someone else because that's basically what a SCH in Cleric Stance is managing (Eos heals while SCH throws DoTs), but converting *all* of your attacks into healing, especially with an AoE heal as the "baseline", isn't a workable design.

The issue isn't so much that the OP wants to have some "attack that heals allies" functionality so much as the OP wants that to be the foundation of a healing job so that it can be applied as a template to ARC. It would work perfectly fine for a healer class specifically built around it, but it wouldn't work as a job to add to an existing DPS because, since jobs only have 5 abilities to provide, it would have to be a major mechanic, which just isn't workable.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

The issue isn't so much that the OP wants to have some "attack that heals allies" functionality so much as the OP wants that to be the foundation of a healing job so that it can be applied as a template to ARC. It would work perfectly fine for a healer class specifically built around it, but it wouldn't work as a job to add to an existing DPS because, since jobs only have 5 abilities to provide, it would have to be a major mechanic, which just isn't workable.

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I'm not disagreeing with you. In fact the quoted text above is about what I said on page one. I was simply disagreeing with the statement of this concept overall (that being a healer throwing out heals based off of the damage they are dealing) being just plain unworkable in a standard mmo. That's all. I did say I didn't think it would work here in XIV, in the very text you quoted too. :)