Magitech Healing Class

How awesome would that be?!

The problem with a new healing class isn't the base concept, there are lots of those. The problem is making it significantly different mechanically. A magitech dps would be easier to pull off than a healer.

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Originally Posted by Lunali

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Well not necessarily. Although not specifically Magitech, the concept of a healer that uses magic bullets to heal allies and other positive effects has been used in quite a few RPGs (see end) not just FF. It would take a little work to ensure it didn't overlap with other healers too much, but with some actions it's bound to happen regardless.

I would definitely enjoy having a healer that can do physical (elemental ranged) damage from a distance with imbuned bullets and also pop shots and AOEs on allies for plenty of the good stuff. Healing flamethrower anyone? :)

(Best example of top of my head was a character called Pepper Spray in Evolution on the Dreamcast. She had an attachment for her gun to give it healing/buffing effects)

i can see a TP using healing class. while idea sounds fun, i think it will be very challenging to balance

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Well not necessarily.

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Unfortunately: Yes, necessarily.

For DPS, it is largely irrelevant how they do their damage, so long as the average total contribution is identical. Big bursts with long downtimes, small and sustained, dots, pets, direct or via buffs... it doesn't matter much if the end result is the same. The differences tend to become bigger in fights where things jump around a lot and the burst jobs don't really pay the downtime price for their big bursts, because the boss is invulnerable in those anyway, putting more sustained jobs who are designed to catch up with the burst in those phases at a disadvantage. But that's encounter specific and usually a wash.

For healers on the other hand, it is not irrelevant when the heal comes, because if it doesn't come at the right time in the right amount, people die. When the damage of bosses is low but steady and healing relatively weak, that's not that important - You can make a wildfire-esque healer work, where the health bars of the party would slooowly drop bit by bit during the minute downtime because the healer can't keep up and then get all the way back to full in the burst. Or, have a healing job that can simply keep up with the damage via HoTs or another via a variety of direct heals etc etc. You're still a bit more limited since buffing other people's healing is, uh... somewhat pointless outside of a raid, as you'll be the only one healing, but there's a lot more you can do.

That is a completely different paradigm for healing however. In this game, damage is huge and spiky, you cannot make up for shortcomings at point X later, because people are already dead by then. Moreover, healing is exceptionally strong in this game and the time actually spent healing thus comparatively low, which also limits what you can do with internal healing mechanics. And on the flipside, since you have that healing gimmick you need to take care of, DPS design can't be too complex on them either.

The devs have designed themselves into a bit of a corner there and I'd expect any new healing job to be either extremely homogenized, or dysfunctional in various ways until homogenized.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

That is a completely different paradigm for healing however. In this game, damage is huge and spiky, you cannot make up for shortcomings at point X later, because people are already dead by then. Moreover, healing is exceptionally strong in this game and the time actually spent healing thus comparatively low, which also limits what you can do with internal healing mechanics. And on the flipside, since you have that healing gimmick you need to take care of, DPS design can't be too complex on them either.

The devs have designed themselves into a bit of a corner there and I'd expect any new healing job to be either extremely homogenized, or dysfunctional in various ways until homogenized.

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This. I'd much rather seem then fix this problem than make another class that does the same thing only with a different coat of pant. They're pretty limited on what they can do right now because burst healing is so powerful.

Of course, we learned from WoW that once you get this kind of healing power creep, undoing it is painful and will frustrate a lot of players. So the path of least resistence is a healer that looks different but mechanically really isn't.

A magitech healer would be pretty cool, assuming it isn't "WHM, only with a gunblade."

Why is everyone so gloom and doom in here? :B
The OP was just saying he thinks a Magitek Healer would be cool, not trying to revamp the whole healer dichotomy.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

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I'm still sticking with "not necessarily" because at the end of the day a new healer job cannot be avoided and one is highly likely to be introduced with the next expac. SE isn't going to put players through yet another long waiting time to do content because of having yet more DPS, not to mention the general consensus is players want a new healer. AST was pretty broken at first but was slowly fixed through patches but then many other jobs have had situations like this as well so let's not point the finger at certain roles hmm.

But hey, shoot down ideas that are brought up for a bit of fun, that's completely fine.

I thought Geomancers were going to be the next big thing or has nothing actually been confirmed for that yet? It's kind of strange they got so much stage time in the astrologian story quest. I was pretty sure it was inevitable they would be the next healer released since they are tied so heavily to Kugane.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

I thought Geomancers were going to be the next big thing or has nothing actually been confirmed for that yet? It's kind of strange they got so much stage time in the astrologian story quest. I was pretty sure it was inevitable they would be the next healer released since they are tied so heavily to Kugane.

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Nothing's been confirmed. Geomancer has been telegraphed pretty strongly, as you saw in that quest line. So that's what people expect.

I mean, I like a Magitech healer more than Geomancer. That would be really different. Geomancer bears a very striking resemblance to White Mage, what with the wind (Aero) and stone (Stone) and water (Fluid Aura, possibly the heals) and power coming from the earth (the Twelveswood Elementals). It makes me wonder how they plan to distinguish them aside from "this one is from Gridania and that one is from Kugane".

Maybe they plan to turn White Mages into Priests, which would explain the otherwise very thematically out of place Plenary Indulgence.

Yeah White Mages did take a rather drastic turn toward the Catholic Church and it bothers me quite a bit. I wish they stayed in line with the Conjurer theme because it doesn't make much sense.

They would need to slightly rework healing to make it less powerful and make fight dps less spiky.

This design makes many heal design not very good (hot for instance)
Just imagine wow resto druid in ff14. It'd be pretty bad because you rarely have time to top people over the course of a hot. Most fight revolve around you topping people between 2 burst.
Shin Ryu and os1 are good example.

Another good way would also be to substantially increase boss damage on tank. As some people have pointed out, healer in this game spend few time healing compared to other mmo.

You simply don't need to spam heal your tank.
A hot and a few heal every 10~15sec is usually enough

This designakes new job concept hard to implement.

With a magitech syringe launcher! Shoot party members in the @** to heal them with different healing solutions. Rapid fire for AoE heals


*goes to the corner* :3

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

I thought Geomancers were going to be the next big thing or has nothing actually been confirmed for that yet? It's kind of strange they got so much stage time in the astrologian story quest. I was pretty sure it was inevitable they would be the next healer released since they are tied so heavily to Kugane.

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I've heard the argument made that Geomancers are just Orthard's version of Conjurers. Similar to how Ishgard had Chirurgeons.

I'm still hoping for dancer as a healing class, since that would be an interesting way to add in a TP healer with some fantastic animations. Hopefully we visit Thavnair in the next expansion (since it seems like we may be moving westward), and we already have an emote called "Thavnairian Dance".

Just my two cents, but a magitek healer would be cool! Or... How about a magitek tank?

I think there is plenty of room for a new healer, I mean World of Warcraft has 6 specs that feel pretty different to each other so I have faith that FFXIV's team can come up with a new one ;)

Looking at the list of jobs from past FFs maybe a Calculator/Arithmetician (from FF:T) would make sense as a Magitek healer?

I always figured we'd get a magitek-based job in whatever role with whatever expansion may take us into Garlemald proper. Seems like a good place to introduce something like Chemist.

oh ye it would be really cool

Wouldn't Geomancer make sense as a DPS?

For the magitek healer I think there was a Chemist job idea thread before if I'm not mistaken. Maybe the Chemist job uses magitek to create healing or buff potions?

I like the idea of a magitek healer. I don't know how viable it is but maybe one way they could do this is by having them chain healing abilities together for stronger heals when you need it. Kind of in the same way melee dps chain combos together except if you don.t need the stronger heals you just don't complete the combo.

I would love to see a Mathematician Healer. Someone who can use various calculations to adjust how damage is dealt and and how health is distributed to the party. This is a rough idea:

General Description:
Uses an Abacus to calculate the cost to benefit ratio of his parties actions. With victory in sight there is no business transaction above or below their morality to employ.

Abilities:
"Sales Tax"
Deal unaspected Damage with a potency of 100 to a single target.

"Income Tax"
Deal Damage over time with a Potency of 50 for 30 seconds to a single target.

"Property Tax"
Deal Damage to target and all enemies within a 5 yalm target area with a potency of 75.

"Market Crash"
Inflict all enemies within 10 yalms with Slow dealing unaspected damage with a potency of 25 over time for 15 seconds.

"Cash Advance"
Heal target with cure potency of 350

"Daily Wages"
Heal target with cure potency of 600

"Salary"
Heal a single target progressively over time with a cure potency of 50. If the target has full HP each tick will be converted into a damage nullifying barrier instead but only one Salary Barrier may be active at once. This effect can be stacked with any other barrier creating effect but only one Salary may be earned by any Target.

"Supply and Demand"
Restore Health to all allies within 20 yalms with a Cure Potency of 250. Any health restored over an allies maximum HP will be converted into a damage nullifying barrier. Cannot be Stacked with Galvanize or Nocturnal Sect Barriers.

"Calculated Risk" (Ability 30 Sec Recast)
Order a party member to put their life on the line for victory reducing their HP by 10% for each of their next 3 attacks. These attacks cannot be dodged, parried, or blocked and will do 20% more damage. Cannot be removed by Pay Cut.

"Diminishing Returns"
Bind a single enemy to a contract that replenishes 10% of all damage suffered to the party as HP for 18 seconds. Each additional party member reduces the amount of HP returned by 1% to a minimum of 1 percent. (This will be the main healing component of the skill set. A battle driven regen that gets weaker as the party increases in size.)

"Median Income" (Ability 15 Sec Recast)
Average the entire parties HP by percentage. (Useful after a Tank Buster to quickly replenish the Tanks health at a small cost to the rest of the party. If the entire party has similar levels of HP this ability will have little to no effect. This skill is somewhat odd but the main component of the Mathematicians healing. It ensures that healing spells like Medica II or Whispering Dawn get their full potential funneled to the weakest members of the party allowing everyone to get more benefit from the HoTs uptime.)

"Pay Cut"
Remove all beneficial status effects you have cast on a single party member and increase their Direct Hit Rate by 10% for each effect removed for 20 seconds. Target must have at least one beneficial effect for Pay Cut to activate.

"Risky Business"
Reduce your own HP by 50% in order to double cast any spell at half the cost for the next 12 seconds.


As a savvy battle-hardened mercenary they are the complete opposite of a White Mage constantly siphoning HP from allies for the greater good. The skills definitely don't make a full or balanced set but it would be fun to play something along those lines especially since it would fit perfectly with all the over healing this game has to offer.