Necromancer for 5.0 - Do we want it?

It is clear that the devs have reduced the amount of jobs we get per expansion cycle, and we can safely assume that we will get a tank and healer next expansion considering we got two dps this time around.

Taking into consideration that the devs start developing their next jobs around the x.2 patch period, I think this is a ripe time to make clear what we would like to see.


Why Necromancer?
I personally would like to see this as the next healer job as I believe it would provide a great opportunity to blow in a breeze of fresh air into the current line of healers we have now. We have the 'pure healer' that is White Mage, we have the 'tactical' healer that is Scholar, and we have the 'support' healer that is Astrologian - however, all of them are similar in their themes in the sense that they're generally passive in their abilities. Sure, the other healers may be 'powerful' in their respects, but how about a healer that's more aggressive and arrogant in both their aesthetics and abilities? A dark lord that drains the souls from their enemies to mend the wounds of their allies, then proceeds to desecrate their graves to amass more power? I think that could potentially be a very fun class to play.

Of course, these are just my own thoughts. If this sounds like a great idea for the next healer job in FFXIV, show your support by leaving a like. If you disagree, or have certain ideas for Necromancer for SE to see, discuss them and I will add them into this post.

First thought is: healer that heals by DPSing will be the only healer people become willing to play with. If you weaken their healing compared to the others then they wont be viable in raids/savage but will still be the go to for all other content. I just can't see a way to balance this. It sounds more like a RDM in a different light to me.

A Necromancer class also wont work for the game from a story standpoing (yes I know not everyone cares about this but alot of other people do me included) because a Necromancer is seen as evil and the Warrior of Light would never condone such a practice.

Necromancer? How would even tie into the story? While DRK did turn does to darkness it semi make sense. For Necromancer however seems more of a void type of class. ( Reach palace of the dead 100 for details. ) No thanks maybe if they added a void type of expansion. Then maybe. Personally I would like to play a type of evil role, unfortunately this would be the wrong game to implement it in :/....unless they made some type of split story line one for forces of good and one for the forces of evil. Not likely, I do wish there is some type of MMO like that. Besides WoW that was just awful.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Healers that heal through DPS sound like a good idea but they are next to impossible to balance. It makes me think back to City of Heroes where the two "best" healing powers was Dark Miasma (I think that's what it was called). The primary, spammable heal on most powers with a strong heal/support focus were a small AoE burst. Empathy (the staple heal everything power), for example, had its AoE originate from the caster. Dark Miasma had the AoE originate from the target enemy. So while they could not heal outside combat, in combat they were very strong because not only did the AoE heal but it also dealt damage.

Do we want it? No we don't.

A healer that has to do damage to heal never really works out well, it ends up being too complex for anyone to manage properly. If we had anything like that, it'd probably be a niche buff that temporarily converts X% of damage dealt into healing for the group.

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Originally Posted by Joladis

A Necromancer class also wont work for the game from a story standpoing (yes I know not everyone cares about this but alot of other people do me included) because a Necromancer is seen as evil and the Warrior of Light would never condone such a practice.

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They could make it work in a lore friendly sense if they wanted to, Blizzard did it with Diablo's Necromancer.

I would love it. It is totally my type of thing. I agree that it fits very little in the game's setting based on lore, necromancy being very shunned upon. But, without going into detail to avoid spoilers, the level 61-70 questline for alchemist delves a bit into the act of bringing the dead back to life. It was also mentioned at various times (without being specifically story-related) that the alchemist master has considered the "forbidden arts".

I don't think it's completely impossible to make it work.

Sure, lets try getting four healers balanced when three seems to be impossible.

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Originally Posted by Cyrocco

Sure, lets try getting four healers balance when three seems to be impossible.

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If you keep throwing things into a dumpster fire, eventually it will get smothered and go out.

In initial stages SCH was designed to be a healer that could perform DPS as its design structure stressed ways of mitigating damage in order to afford you time to switch to Cleric stance to at least get up a round of dots. You shielded and maybe fairy buffed a regen and then spent 10-15 seconds getting DoTs on, then lustrated the tank if needed and went from there. However they've made it abundantly clear with the two expansions that they aren't pursuing this mentality any longer. Obviously any healer class designed around doing damage to heal would either have to do very negligible damage, or be very bad at healing, because otherwise it would be a guaranteed raid spot and completely trivialize the other healer classes in higher end content. Teams typically want the best classes for the encounter, and DPS is a big, big part of encounters.

What do I want to see in a new healer? One with original features that doesn't just unoriginally copy the core set of WHM like the AST did, and a reversion of the trend that is currently making all healers as similar to one another as possible.

I agree that Necromancer has it's issues but I do think we need a counter to AST. Balancing 4 healers could potentially be easier because the devs could take the easy way out and balance them to be played together in pairs like WHM and SCH before 3.0.

Is that a Necromancer? I don't know.

From the perspective of a healer jaded by time spent on these forums and in PF the idea of being a little more darksided appeals to me on a base level.

I want the avility to rez someone who died to something I explained to them then control their movement briefly and walk them off the edge of something. MP put to good use.

/saltyhealerissalty

More than lore reasons, what's the precedent? None of that really sounds like anything I'd be familiar with from the Final Fantasy franchise.

I'd rather see the classic "hit your allies to heal them" weapons. Would never actually work in the game, but at least that's a throwback to old niche mechanics.

I don't want it, it better not take the place of our beloved chemist or dancer. They are more iconic to the series than necromancer.

Necromancer who??

Rather have Dancer or Puppetmaster, preferably Pup.

They can make the pet do the heals, I don't care.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

More than lore reasons, what's the precedent? None of that really sounds like anything I'd be familiar with from the Final Fantasy franchise.

I'd rather see the classic "hit your allies to heal them" weapons. Would never actually work in the game, but at least that's a throwback to old niche mechanics.

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There is not much of a precedent, but it's been used before. Wikia Link

And of course, there has been characters, mainly foes, that delved into that sort of thing, both in FF14 and others. Nybeth from Tactics Ogre/FF14's Palace of the Dead is, obviously, a strong example.

Given how much this game pulls from say, FFIII for example, wouldn't it be more likely that further jobs are pulled from the more popular games? If they tried to release every job in Tactics they'd never run out of expansions. Honestly, I just want to see Geomancers Bell in XIV.

Time Mage can become a good healer ! He can rewind time to make you recover or rez. He is also able to fit in the lore.

I am still waiting for close combat Healer, like BLU with a sword and White Wind.

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Originally Posted by Coffey91

I am still waiting for close combat Healer, like BLU with a sword and White Wind.

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RDM would like to say hi.

necromancer can work in a mmo as a dps job.

But, I don't wanna see any new DPS in this game for a LOOOOOOOOONNG time.

DPS based heals always end up gimping either the DPS or the heals by a lot, or both of them some. In the end, the DPS based healer ends up being solidly below average. The way it would work, almost guaranteed, would be take an average of the existing healer classes' average heal and DPS spell, figure that casting both efficiently would require 2 casts, so that amount healed and dmg done would get halved, and that would be the average heal/dmg per cast of the DPS based healer. Basically, gimp. No big heals or DPS bombs when needed, because for balance, both had to be watered down given the design of the job.

A necromancer makes way more sense as pure DPS with lifetaps and small bonus heals that just add some support to the main healer. Basically, evil version of Summoner with some lifetaps. But oh wait, SE and the FF franchise doesn't do evil heroes, so this discussion is moot.

Why would anyone pick Necromancer over Chemist for the next healer in this world.

Not as a healer, no. As a self sustaining dps? Absolutely. Then I can finally get out of healing and back to selfish self sustain as I did in WoW. To those saying Necro isn't viable btw, it is present in 5 http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Necromancer_(job)

There isn't anything inherently wrong about raising the dead anyway. Especially if it's other players as they deserve to be used as chairs.

I vote for this. Or even just a cleric class.

I've been playing Divinity and their cleric is awesome in teh fact it can heal itself from blood pooled (Hydromancy healing combined with Necromancy) around it and such. I enjoy it a ton.

Maybe when the amount of jobs run out. It just doesn't feel Final Fantasy enough. I'd rather see Blue Mage, Dancer/Idol, Chemist, Geomancer, Gunblade user, Oracle, Beast Master, and Time Mage first. Anything that's well established in the series.

NECROMANCER <3 Yes plz !!! I love the lore behind that class. It can also be a tank with Skeleton and Zombie pets that help him dps more :D:D:D:D:D

In terms of things that would make more sense I am so on board with Chemist it isn't even funny. I want a melee healer with quick skills instead of cast times. Dancer is also quite appealing and I agree that both hold more appeal than Necromancer.

Well in the case that we did come up with a Necromancer class I could see:

- Blood weapon: A party skill that allows teammates to regain health by inflicting damage. (Of course the health recovered would be a pretty low percentage, but would serve more for mitigation for Necro to get heals out.)
- Zombification: A skill that would make a teammate completely invuln. to damage but would cause damage if they were healed. (Most likely for tankbusters and the like or for giving teammates the chance to get out of dodge.)

- Minions: Probably the main source of damage, would be used mainly to sacrifice and grant hp to a party member. Devs would have to make them abysmally weak tho just to ensure they are used properly.
- Enemy Zombification: A cd that would allow the Necro to crank out some dps by making their heals hurt.
- Area heal: Most likely pretty weak but would spread a weak DoT to enemies, or better yet a slight slow debuff.

As far as mechanics I could definitely see a blood gauge (sorry DRK) that builds slowly with the amount of DoT damage done that releases a burst heal based on the amount built up.

Lots of potential, of course it would take some time to balance but healers aren't really meant to do to much damage anyway so you could literally just sequester them to DoT's, a burst window based around zombification, some weak minions and you've got the potential.

if there was a healer that healed by dpsing it would be dancer which is kinda how it worked in XI
next healer will be green mage with its undo spells or dance

I would definitely main a NEC.