What if the new expansion doesn't a healer or a tank

I wanted to get people's opinions on how they would feel if the new expansion doesn't have either a healer or a tank. They talked about not doing two jobs again so we will most likely only get two jobs. We know that SE loves DPS because that is a popular role. Also after seeing Geomancy they could easily make this a DPS job. So I feel like I could add in another DPS. With this in mind how would feel if we only received two jobs and it was just healer/dps or tank/dps combo?

I can't see them leaving one out because the other group would be extremely mad, because that would make two expansions without a new job. I also don't see them giving a new dps. I personally would be extremely disappointment if we don't get a healer/ tank.

Its very interesting. Although they said the numbers didnt rise in healer in tank population, I think the contrary was the numbers didnt rise as high as they would like. I was a SMN main all through 2.x until DRK was announced and went PLD towards the end of 2.x just for the class and ended up being a tank ever since.

They could only add dps job and I would be fine with that, especially considering the tank and healer balance that has happened since the start of 3.0

But they do owe tank and healer players a new job. I think many people would be angry and upset if they released 2 dps jobs in the next expansion.

I can say it seemed like the numbers did rise for a short period of time for the number of active healers/tanks shortly after HW hit. Likewise, I think that the number of DPS slightly rose for a time with SB only have 2 new DPS classes. In the end, I don't think it makes as large an impact as they expect since the people will always gravitate towards what has/can/will keep their interest/is most enjoyable to them. Even if they add 50 new tanks tomorrow, I don't think it will be as large an impact as would be needed after the initial "OMG! NEW CLASS TO TRY AND MAX OUT!" subsides.

As for how I would feel, I would just feel like I have more to learn than what I currently do need to learn, so it would keep me invested in the game.

I would really like more tanks and healers. DPS is great, but honestly I feel like we're getting over-saturated with those types of jobs. Giving more tanks and healers would give people more options to try if they're not interested in the current offerings.

Why did they think numbers would rise? Did the playerbase get bigger? It's pretty big, but it's not like people are flocking to this game that would inflate the numbers. Most people who would play as a healer or tank are already doing so with the jobs we have. Since they have loot lockouts you can only realistically gear one job at a time, so you have to make a choice. More people choose DPS as a general rule.

In fact, I don't play healer anymore because of the ridiculous DPS expectations. I leveled white mage because personally I like the class fantasy, but as far as queuing up with it? Maybe if there's a leveling healer bonus or I feel like AFK in raid roulette. That's about it. If I'm going to DPS I'm going to do it on Monk.

If they don't, what will happen is early on there will be a flood of people playing the new DPS job, longer queues, and then it'll go back to the status quo.

If they do, there will be wild balance problems and people will be told not to play X tank and Y healer.

I'm fine with the tanks and healers we have now. There's only so many ways they can make holding aggro and healing your team interesting. The truth is, the people who aren't playing those classes now, likely won't because of a different flavor of tanking or healing being made available. People who don't like to tank or heal just aren't going to do it.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

If they do, there will be wild balance problems and people will be told not to play X tank and Y healer.

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I'd rather just them focus on the 3 we got of both tanks and heals and really experiment/expand on them. rather than playing catch up balance. Its already silly with just 3 of each rn.

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Originally Posted by LittleChickenNugget

I'm fine with the tanks and healers we have now. There's only so many ways they can make holding aggro and healing your team interesting. The truth is, the people who aren't playing those classes now, likely won't because of a different flavor of tanking or healing being made available. People who don't like to tank or heal just aren't going to do it.

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It's not about recruiting people to play a role they don't already play, it's about giving those of us who already do more options.

SE designed themselves into a corner with the healer jobs so I don't think they'll be able to introduce a truly compelling new job in that space without sweeping changes to the combat system. I could see a new tank though- you're right in that there are only so many ways to hold aggro, but the flavor in how you do it matters. The flow and theme of the job are the most important ways to differentiate IMO. Healers have no flows, no combos, and play whack-a-mole with super powerful restorative spells due to the fundamental design of combat, so they are tricky to differentiate outside of SFX/VFX in this game. Tanks have more options available as they play more like DPS do with combos and OGCDs to weave in.

I will lose interest altogether if I see no new healer job in 5.0, but I can see them doing DPS/Tank at least.

I do understand why they held off on another healer and tank in Stormblood. Coming into it, Astro and Dark Knight were in an ok place but they'd been seemingly struggling to find a spot for them that didn't leave them feeling under powered or over superior to the existing jobs. I mean they're still really struggling to find that balance with the Dark Knight to this day so releasing two dps gave them the time to tweak the other roles. That said, I'd be rather miffed if they were left out again in the following expansion. Is adding more tanks and healers going to add to the pool of people who play them? For a time maybe, but really its going toward maintaining the people who already exist.

For example, I have been a White Mage since near the beginning of the game and even in HW I would still run content for the first time on that Job. However after that I leveled a new character as an Astro and would rotate between them here and there to break up the monotony of the grind. I never much cared for Scholar so I stayed away from it. It was having multiple options that kept me logging in daily to do the roulette and the like but it also kept me in the role of healer which meant I wasn't adding to bloated dps queues. Now in Stormblood, I still started out strong as a White Mage but once I was done with the MSQ and had done all the dungeons etc at the end game that I planned to, I found I gradually got tired of running it over and over on that one class and I'd lost interest in Astro. So what did I do? I leveled a Red Mage. Then a Black Mage. Now I probably spend about 50% of my game time healing and 50% as DPS. In fact I'm pretty sure my Black Mage is at the same item level or higher than my White Mage. I hadn't actually healed anything for close to a month before the new 24 man raid dropped and I did my first run through. I'd imagine I'm not the only one who has branched out to quell the boredom which only makes getting in as DPS harder.

Now one could argue that rather than adding new healers or tanks they could rework old ones and add new things but there is only so much you can do without alienating the people who already love a Job and just tagging on new moves here and there doesn't really make up for the lack of an entire new job to explore. Every job gets new moves each expansion and speaking personally, I don't consider the lily mechanic as ground breaking enough to be considered a 'rework'. Far from it. I'm not saying it'll be easy. Healers especially. I think it was too early on in the games life to add a job that was a hybrid of two existing ones and I think they'll struggle to come up with an original idea that is both distinct and viable but they'll have had a lot of time to do it by the next expansion and I think most people expect them to deliver. Would it stop me from playing FFXIV? No. But it would certainly lead to me spending more time on my other classes.

The long story short is that adding new tanks and healers isn't about pulling in new people. The people that enjoy that role are already playing it. Adding new ones is 'maintenance' on the existing population to keep them from being seduced away by the lure of DPS jobs, slowly decreasing the pool of available healers and tanks. It isn't about adding. Its about maintaining the status quo.

Honestly after the debacle that was 3.0 AST and then 4.0 SCH before community backlash forced the class back into a decent spot, I'm more than a little leery of them designing another healer. They have a hell of a time keeping balance between the three they currently have. If they were able to get some fresh eyes on the situation I'd very much be open to the potential of a new healer class, but I'm not entirely sure I want 5.0 to mark the dawn of yet /another/ healer needing extensive reworks - new or otherwise.

I feel that we have more options to level up a DPS job, so, no additional Tank or Healer is really necessary.

There is only two things related to new jobs in the next expansion that would seriously piss me off. One is not giving us DNC, and the other would be making DNC a dps if they do.

I think there is a strong possibility that a new tank will not come with 5.0

I main healers and I'd be ok with only having dps jobs.

The balance for healers, while not perfect, is honestly pretty good. Logs show a fairly even usage of all healers (with some preference for WHM over AST at the beginning of a patch cycle, and some preference for AST over WHM at the end of a patch cycle, but overall it's about even for the whole cycle). I don't know if I'd feel confident having another healer thrown in to mess up that balance.

As far as queues go, it doesn't matter much. Sure at the beginning of the new expansion, while people are trying out the new jobs, the dps queues will be horrible. But once the people who normally play healer/tank finish leveling them, a lot of them will go back. Similarly, if they did add a new healer/tank, some of the people who normally play dps will probably queue as them, helping queues at first, but they'll go back to their dps jobs later on. Often the whole healer/tank/dps thing has less to do with the jobs available and more to do with the personality of the player over how they like to contribute to their party. So people usually (not always, but usually) end up going back to the same role once they're done trying new ones out.

While balancing the dps is also important, having more spots in a party available for damage dealers means they have a bit more leeway on how much imbalance can exist before a job is disadvantaged, so I'd rather they stick to that.

As a healer main who also likes to tank on occasion, I would love another healer and tank so I can have more unique ways to do what I love most in the game :)

I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a new tank at all. Healer balance is in shambles. It was decent for a while, but the recent AST buffs once again threw things off.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a new tank at all. Healer balance is in shambles. It was decent for a while, but the recent AST buffs once again threw things off.

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This technically started a little before. The community backlash on SCH 4.0 led to Square overbuffing SCH. But it was relatively OK, because AST is not competitive with SCH, leaving WHM as a viable alternative for the other healer slot. But anyone that's been paying attention to the logs... knows SCH has been broken for a while.

For every expansion that doesn't have healer/tanks that's 2 more years that the people who main those roles don't get new things to play with.

Do that long enough, and those players will start to feel shafted, some may even up and leave.

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Originally Posted by TaranTatsuuchi

For every expansion that doesn't have healer/tanks that's 2 more years that the people who main those roles don't get new things to play with.

Do that long enough, and those players will start to feel shafted, some may even up and leave.

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Perhaps. But there are just as many people, especially those that raid, that just dread the chaos that will definitely ensue with a new healer.

If anything, they need to redesign AST first. If another healer is brought into the game, AST can not remain a copy of WHM and SCH. Unless of course, AST copies the new healer as well, which would be ridiculous.
AST can only exist as is so long as WHM and SCH are the only other healers in the game, since AST is balanced around the strength of those two healers specifically from the ground up.

No healer/tank in new expansion?


Then fine, not only do they give themselves a little more breathing room, but probably made some fans happy that one of their favorite (classic) jobs wasn't shoehorned into being a dedicated healer/tank.



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New healer/tank in new expansion?

Here, let me simulate the threads that would flood the forums :

-RIP WHM
-(new tank) is superior to DRK in every way
-Why would you take anything other than SCH and (new healer) for trials/raids?
-(new healer) has high DPS and decent heals. It killed WHM.
-(new tank/healer) should have been DPS.
-Angry WHM here.
-(new healer) has a useful job gauge, what about WHM?
-(new tank/healer) is too mandatory for content. Nerf please.
-I just unsubbed today
-I want to play (new healer), but my static is making me play AST.
-"AST, AST, AST! Why does she get all the attention!?" SE: "WHM, this isn't about you." "IT NEVER IS!!" *storms off*




Honestly though, their balancing act is going to be interesting to watch no matter what roles new jobs are allocated to.

I would be disappointed because I want more healer and tank jobs around as an option.

I'm not sure I would be surprised though, especially since they couldn't even figure out how to make a third type of healer in the game as it is.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a new tank at all. Healer balance is in shambles. It was decent for a while, but the recent AST buffs once again threw things off.

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It's thoughts like this that make healer/tank balance so hard to hear feedback from.

I dunno what it is, but people will just never be satisfied unless healers and tanks are somehow 100% perfectly even. The difference between a WHM and AST is not big.

Pretty sure they said no Geomancy but I could be wrong/misremembering. I definitely think we could use more tanks/healer variety and no more DPS until we get some tanks/healers. We have like 20 DPS classes only 3 healer/tank classes...

In the long term unless the new tank or healer jobs add something very dynamically different to pull players off being DPS the population ratios of roles will not change outside of the first maybe month or so. The issue with SB was at launch they only added 2 DPS jobs. An extremely large chunk of the playerbase wanted to play and try out the new jobs. This included players that occupied the tank and healer role normally. result the balance shifted further and we saw all the stuff they did to try and get players to at least queue roulettes on non dps roles >.>

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Originally Posted by MOZZYSTAR

Pretty sure they said no Geomancy but I could be wrong/misremembering. I definitely think we could use more tanks/healer variety and no more DPS until we get some tanks/healers. We have like 20 DPS classes only 3 healer/tank classes...

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Spoiler warning:

But it was namedropped this patch. So I wouldn't rule it out entirely. Probably they just mean, not FFXI style. Kind of like how RDM was changed for FF14, or blue mage would have to be changed for FF14.

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

It's thoughts like this that make healer/tank balance so hard to hear feedback from.

I dunno what it is, but people will just never be satisfied unless healers and tanks are somehow 100% perfectly even. The difference between a WHM and AST is not big.

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AST and SCH now DPS for as much as WHM and can heal content as easily as whm.

However SCH offers around 600 raid DPS and AST 600 or more depending on RNG. These are not small differences. Not to say they're as dramatic as, say, 3.4 But this is definitely something that needs to be looked at.

I think they could get away with not adding any more classes next expansion if we get something like two new races instead. From a combat balance point of view, it's almost no work for the devs. And if one of those races is viera...well I'm sure most of you have seen how enormous the viera support thread is by now.

They should make a healer and a tank job. It's not fair if only one role gets new things every expansion and others have to play the same jobs for 5+ years. There are ways to make the new jobs different but balanced with existing jobs no matter the role since what matter most in this game is are rdps and party utility.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Spoiler warning:

But it was namedropped this patch. So I wouldn't rule it out entirely. Probably they just mean, not FFXI style. Kind of like how RDM was changed for FF14, or blue mage would have to be changed for FF14.

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Geomancy was already the focus of the Stormblood AST questline, so it's well established as a class that exists in the world of the game - it just seems to be a cross between conjury (water/earth/wind and healing) and astromancy (thematically 'drawing on earth's power' and able to cast shields and wards). The question is whether it's distinct enough, gameplay wise, to be worthwhile as a playable class.

It pisses me off whenever someone use balance as an excuse why there shouldn't be new job in certain role.
There were no new healer or tank in 4.0 because the team said they wanted to spend time balancing the existing one.
Was balance achieved? No (that being said, they are still a lot more balanced than they were in HW, at a cost), people still cry when one tank does 15 dps less than other despite tank dps hardly mattering between enrage/non-enrage run (yes, including Ultimate), they still cry about how tanks bringing a succor every 2 minutes is gamebreaking (despite most of them having no business caring about it)
But of course let's add more DPS because DPS balance doesn't matter.
Oh wait, range players are still crying about Disembowel (or lack thereof), Ninja still gets free pass into every composition, countless threads about how unbalanced selfish DPS are, casters crying about 2 ranges speedrun meta(that, again, most people have no business caring about), and RDM in general.
But sure, tanks and healers are the only problematic roles.
Get real, people.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

It pisses me off whenever someone use balance as an excuse why there shouldn't be new job in certain role.

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Playing a grossly underpowered job, especially in a role like healing, is not fun.
There's only 3 of us too, so if one feels too weak, you don't have many other options like with DPS.
I just feel like they should fix what they currently have instead of putting a new one in just for the heck of it.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

Playing a grossly underpowered job, especially in a role like healing, is not fun.
There's only 3 of us too, so if one feels too weak, you don't have many other options like with DPS.
I just feel like they should fix what they currently have instead of putting a new one in just for the heck of it.

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Grossly underpowered, yet it has 700% clear rate for current hardest content in the game compared to AST.

I'd like a new tank.

As a tank player, I get three options. I wouldn't complain for a fourth. It'd be refreshing, really.

Balance won't ever be perfect, and I'd much rather play a class that feels different in its own way that being told "no" because perfect balance hasn't been achieved.

Variety is the spice of life and such.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that SE should hold off on releasing jobs until they figure out how to fix and/or balance current ones. For example, if we head into the heart of the Garlean Empire next expansion, that would be the perfect opportunity for a Machinist revamp into something that isn't "like Bard, but clunkier".

Its not a question of balance, its a question of options and expanding the experience of each role, if we are always with the excuses of player population or Game balance then all the jobs already released was a mistake And se should stay with the original roster.
Dps have 9 dps slip on 3 types of dps, healers and tanks Who represent the 50%, well right now less have only 6 Jobs 3 on each role, Next expansión should be healer and tank to be 8 Jobs 4 each against 9 dps.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

AST and SCH now DPS for as much as WHM and can heal content as easily as whm.

However SCH offers around 600 raid DPS and AST 600 or more depending on RNG. These are not small differences. Not to say they're as dramatic as, say, 3.4 But this is definitely something that needs to be looked at.

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If you were to total AST'S personal dps+raid dps it would only total about 250 more AT MOST. The lower in skill you get, and there's no shame in not being a 99% raider, the lower this gap becomes. Not to mention that requires godlike balance luck. The difference between DRG and NIN, the two best dps jobs at the moment, is more than that.

I don't really mind if they don't add a new healer/tank class. I like that currently as a healer, you can pretty much go as whatever you want and you will be accepted. Any combination (except doubling up) is considered really effective because of how the healers are balanced. I'm just worried if they add a new one that some healer class will get left out and people won't want that class to join them. Probably the same with tanks. Which is really bad because that could potentially put a large number of healers/tanks who ONLY like one class of the ones available out of playing until the meta shifts.

That said, if they add a new tank/healer, I'd be interested to see how it plays and how the balance is kept.

But more than jobs...I'm just hoping they don't add anymore SKILLS. Around 25 buttons is more than enough to be pressing and keeping track of, if they keep adding more I don't know if I can continue playing well. @___@;

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Originally Posted by Mikki

But more than jobs...I'm just hoping they don't add anymore SKILLS. Around 25 buttons is more than enough to be pressing and keeping track of, if they keep adding more I don't know if I can continue playing well. @___@;

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Me too. I wondered about starting a topic on that the other day, actually. There are some classes I feel like I "got" at Lv50 - they felt complete and I could play them well at that level - but as I get higher up there are just so many extra things to keep a watch on and remember to press at irregular intervals.

I don't think using balance is a fair reason for tanks and healers to not have new jobs. That's actually kind of slap in the face to people who enjoy those roles. "Hey you guys don't need any new jobs because they are harder to balance, but we are going to keep giving DPS more jobs even though they are not balanced". People who play these roles deserve new things too and I don't think it's fair for them to be left out for two expansions.

The problem with balance for healers and tanks is because there are three jobs fighting for two slots. This makes the third one out feel more underpowered than it really is. You don't see this as much with DPS because you have more options to choose from. I feel like you would have less balance issue if they increased the options because you wouldn't automatically have a third man out.

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Originally Posted by MOZZYSTAR

Pretty sure they said no Geomancy but I could be wrong/misremembering. I definitely think we could use more tanks/healer variety and no more DPS until we get some tanks/healers. We have like 20 DPS classes only 3 healer/tank classes...

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I get the hyperbole, but there are only 9 DPS classes. However, let's break something down quickly, because there's something unique to DPS that tanks and healers don't share: sub-roles. These are roles that the game itself splits DPS into. There are caster DPS, ranged DPS (for the purposes of this post I'll call them snipers to differentiate them from casters), and melee DPS. Somebody who likes melee DPS won't necessarily like ranged DPS, so adding MCH in Heavensward did nothing for them, even though a DPS was added for instance.

With that in mind, let's look at all of the roles, we have:
3 Tanks
3 Healers
4 Melee DPS
3 Caster DPS
2 Sniper DPS

Laid out like this, you have just as much flavor to pick from if you wanted to be a healer or a caster (bonus points because SCH/SMN level together). You have less flavor to pick from if you wanted to play a ranged DPS instead of a tank. You have more flavor than anything to pick from if you wanted to go melee.

Of course, you can ask why tanking or healing has no sub-roles like DPS do. Honestly, that's a very good question, but if we look at it from the perspective this game seems to give us, I would posit that's because in FFXIV, tanks and healers are themselves sub-roles of DPS. Hear me out, and mind I speak only within the confines of FFXIV and the paradigms it has set up for itself.

Melee are DPS with specializations of higher natural damage, but with the necessity of being in range of the boss and working around mechanics to remain in range of attack.

Caster DPS are DPS with specialization of high natural damage, with the necessity that they have to remain still while casting, their challenge being finding safe places to stand while mechanics are going off where they can plant down and do damage.

Sniper DPS are DPS with specialization of support; they do less damage than Casters and Melee, but in return they have virtually unrestrained mobility and the ability to support the party through damage buffs and resource management skills.

Tanks are DPS with specialization of aggro manipulation and damage mitigation. In return for doing less damage, they keep the boss off of their squishier counterparts and have less complex rotations.

Healers are DPS with specialization of, well, healing. In return for their ability to restore their party's HP, they do less damage, however have arguably the simplest rotations in the game (though these are also intentional so the healer can perform its primary role of healing).

I can see them working toward getting every role up to 4 choices in the future expansions.