Final Fantasy XIV: Healers Reborn - Rebuilding the Healers

Hello All,

So it's no secret by now that a lot of us are feeling skeptical of the changes to Healers coming in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers. While some of the changes seem very good, such as the changes to the White Mages lilies, many other changes threaten to strip away aspects the healers that many would argue is a major part of their identity.

I myself feel torn as well. While I see a lot of potential in some changes, the overall homogenization of their healing and DPS tools is worrying. So naturally, I did what any other rational human being would do: Sit down and redesign each healer from the ground up in a heated passion project.

So obviously this is a little extreme, but I actually had a lot of fun thinking about how I might redesign these roles if I was in charge, and I wanted to share these ideas with the rest of the community, hence this project: Final Fantasy XIV: Healers Reborn.

Below are links to some google docs that showcase a completely rebuilt skill set for each healer. When designing these new concepts, I had two major goals in mind:

Goal #1: Redefine Healer Identity
In an effort to combat homogenization, I wanted to strip away a lot of the tools each healer had that splashed over into other healer territory, such as White Mage's Divine Benison, and further enhance the healing role they already had. Rather than try and make them all the same, I wanted each healer to take the concept they were good at and run even farther with it.

Goal #2: Make Healer DPS more enjoyable, while making sure it stays optional
The healer DPS argument is one as old as time at this point. With that in mind, I want to reiterate that the game is designed inherently for healer DPS to be optional. But just because it's optional doesn't mean it should be as boring and monotonous as spamming one spell over and over again with 1 damage over time spell to manage in between. This would also make solo content and leveling a lot more engaging for healers as well.

With those goals in mind, these are the designs I came up with:

*EDIT* These have been updated to version 1.1 with some new changes to help fix former issues.

White Mage

Scholar

Astrologian


If you notice a lack of terrain spells and healing over time spells, it's actually because I also want to design a concept for Geomancer, a healer who emphasizes healing over time and terrain effects. That's taking a lot more work right now though, so I'd love to add that to this post as a concept for the future at a later date.

Lastly, I want to just say that I am, of course, not perfect in the slightest, and I imagine there are probably areas in these designs that could use some work. I hope that we can have some great conversations about these designs, and that comments from the rest of this healer community can inspire improvements to any areas where these healer ideas are lacking. Numbers especially are easy to fix.

I hope these concepts would help breath life back into the fantasy of these healing roles.

I read through your WHM rework and they are really cool! I love how it keeps the elements wind, water, and earth, and really expands upon plants and nature overall.

You should keep in mind you want to make healer disparity down not up. With your current design, again it just makes 1 of healer is not wanted. This will make it hard to balance later. (Which is the healer situation right now)

The other suggestions, always make it simple. Unnecessary complexity is never good. (In fact it becomes trap in your design). For example not good design and too complex, 2 lily and peach blossom for activating a skill, then lvl 80 no need lily for 20s, but then you need peach blossom to do the skill. This is what I mean you make a skill unnecessary complex (thus it becomes trap in your design).

In addition, if I were you, I would limit to total 4 things which I need to track (excluding party HP). In addition, you should also gives background how the fight will be designed with these healers (not the strong point of each healers, but the fight concept as this will help you in designing healer).

PS: keep in mind in the number of button. I suggest maximum 16 buttons.

i'm honestly used to healer dps being boring but what i think would fix a lot of it is just small things

make misery apply a debuff similar to trick attack or chain stratagem. WHM now has some level of party utility and considering the spell is called misery it seems lore-fitting

replace art of war with a targeted aoe that includes the bane effect. Or even just add "inflicts bio" to it... Make the highest costing healer aoe be worth it?

astro is tougher. I feel like... go back to old system but change it so it's 2 cards do crit, 2 cards do direct hit, 2 cards do haste.
card manipulation was genuinely fun for me at least, take out the often useless ones and one people think is OP
Every card is always useful to varying degress to every job.
At the very least the crappy "brotherhood with twice the cooldown and no additional effect that you also have to jump through hoops to even use" skill needs to just die in a fire. I'd take royal road over it any day

your write-ups are a bit long for me to go through completely but seems like your hearts in the right place

Imo concerning the SCH :

- summon Eos : your healing spells are better than without her and your dps skills are weaker
- summon Selene : your dps skills are better than without her but your healing skills are weaker
- none fairy : your healing/dps skills are medium

Both of them can be controlled like right now and have their own skills
Summoning them would be instant like the summoner will be at 5.0 it could rep a sort of stance and it could add a rythm

We would have all the skills we have right now and some new ones.

It's a summary idea but this is the kind of SCH i would like.

Unfortunatly, everyone has his own expectations and we all know that SE will do what they want so keep dreaming lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Celenia

You should keep in mind you want to make healer disparity down not up. With your current design, again it just makes 1 of healer is not wanted. This will make it hard to balance later. (Which is the healer situation right now)

The other suggestions, always make it simple. Unnecessary complexity is never good. (In fact it becomes trap in your design). For example not good design and too complex, 2 lily and peach blossom for activating a skill, then lvl 80 no need lily for 20s, but then you need peach blossom to do the skill. This is what I mean you make a skill unnecessary complex (thus it becomes trap in your design).

In addition, if I were you, I would limit to total 4 things which I need to track (excluding party HP). In addition, you should also gives background how the fight will be designed with these healers (not the strong point of each healers, but the fight concept as this will help you in designing healer).

PS: keep in mind in the number of button. I suggest maximum 16 buttons.

---

Do you think simplifying the Peach Blossoms for White Mage so that instead of gradually growing in power and consuming them anytime Efflorescent heals are cast, you just get the max value once your blossom is in full bloom would fix some of what you're talking about? Like the Blood Lily, you're only using it once it's fully nourished?

I like OP's idea for making healing interesting at least. I realize for many this is a faus pas within the community but years ago I played WOW. Now WOW healers had very interesting healing kits, such as bouncing heals that triggered off other heals such as waves of healing so it would trigger often targeting the next player at lowest hp, seed hots when hit with another heal would bloom into an aoe heal, a heal that triggers another heal into another sort of like a healing rotation with sometimes branches, shields that when target player with said shield gets healed it buffs the shield to a cap or adds a regen.

Now I realize atm this is probably too much as it seems to me at least that FF14 is trying to make healing jobs perhaps more simpler or pure healers? I like the direction of this idea, I do not like the identity of classes and what people are used to in others being taken away (I am an Astro main so for me its identity and the taken away remark is for Scholars).

I think what would be beneficial is if we could have the long way path of what is the plans for the healers happen now be available but sadly I feel like we have to wait for another expansion in order to see these changes fleshed out. Until then it appears to just be a case of being scared of change and with good reason for some or many.

All I can do though is play old content to have good memories of what is soon going to be and try my best to give my opinion on what I think was right and wrong with the changes and hope for engaging healer jobs skills and actions that will not just make our healing capabilities more interesting but perhaps with some side flair like Afflatus Misery perhaps? Where our healing will be rewarded with dps?

P.S. I would love that starfall or starstorm ability to be a thing <3

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Do you think simplifying the Peach Blossoms for White Mage so that instead of gradually growing in power and consuming them anytime Efflorescent heals are cast, you just get the max value once your blossom is in full bloom would fix some of what you're talking about? Like the Blood Lily, you're only using it once it's fully nourished?

---

(Will not dealt with number)
1. I would like to abolished peach blossom or lily (not blood lily).
2. As what you write, I will make the skills use full amount of petal peach blossom (5 (I will simplify calling it peach blossom) rather than fragmented to 0 to 5. In addition (if whm keeps peach blossom), make it potentially have 3 stacks.
3. Albeit the concept of whm giving shield when overheal is good, it is unreliable. I rather make changes such that it straight forward giving shield and HP (it still unique as shield of whm is need more proper planning than sch or ast).
4. Make peach blossom can be used for damage (medium size of dmg) thus removing the need of amaryllis. (No need to make 3 kind of damage to be fancy (or utterly complicated thing) just make 1 and it still will works)
5. Every usage of peach blossom will nourish blood lily. Blood lily can be use after 3 stack of peach blossom are used. Blood lily can stack up to 3.
6. Blood lily based ability practically the biggest cd of whm, it has big number and or effect to warrant 30+s build up (and it use it own button)
7. For lvl 80 skills rather than not using lily it change to gives 1 stack of blood lily.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Celenia

(Will not dealt with number)
1. I would like to abolished peach blossom or lily (not blood lily).
2. As what you write, I will make the skills use full amount of petal peach blossom (5 (I will simplify calling it peach blossom) rather than fragmented to 0 to 5. In addition (if whm keeps peach blossom), make it potentially have 3 stacks.
3. Albeit the concept of whm giving shield when overheal is good, it is unreliable. I rather make changes such that it straight forward giving shield and HP (it still unique as shield of whm is need more proper planning than sch or ast).
4. Make peach blossom can be used for damage (medium size of dmg) thus removing the need of amaryllis. (No need to make 3 kind of damage to be fancy (or utterly complicated thing) just make 1 and it still will works)
5. Every usage of peach blossom will nourish blood lily. Blood lily can be use after 3 stack of peach blossom are used. Blood lily can stack up to 3.
6. Blood lily based ability practically the biggest cd of whm, it has big number and or effect to warrant 30+s build up (and it use it own button)
7. For lvl 80 skills rather than not using lily it change to gives 1 stack of blood lily.

---

Sometime soon I'll give the WHM design a little touch up. I do agree with some of your points. The concept of layers to spells was meant to represent blooming your spells like flowers, but I agree that multiple casting can actually get a little messier in practice. So I do like the idea of changing Amaryllis to exploding on the next DPS action.

I like keeping the Peach Blossom at 5 stacks because peach blossoms have 5 petals, and the WHM has a lot of abilities that allow you to charge it pretty fast. If you're using your DPS actions in a certain level of frequency, or at least Banish and Amaryllis, you're getting 3 petals every 30 seconds, so I think 5 keeps it from just being always up.

One of the reasons why I think the Peach Blossom and Lilies can coexist is because Lily generation is entirely automated. That's kinda the problem I have with it right now. It's certainly better than Stormblood lilies, but there's no way to have control over things. Your Afflatus spells in this build actually replace your Cure and Medica spells, so all of that work is done for you, making more of player actions revolve around blooming your Blossom. Even without it though, Efflorescent Cure is the same as Cure II with no boost.

@Nihility mentioned a great idea for Afflatus Misery as well: Giving it a damage received up debuff to help combat the utility of AST and SCH that will always pressure WHM so long as it doesn't have any on its own.

Regardless, I'll think on a few things and make some adjustments sometime soon.

THis is my take on SCH. I do like the fact that you wanted to introduce FFXI scholar spells. My problem is, I think you made SCH too bloated in terms of buttons on focus too much on the DPS aspect.

Healing Skills

Adloquium: Is now GCD and instant cast, no longer heals, rather it applies a flat shield on target equating to the old heal+shield potency. Crits would apply the Gatalyze effect.

Physick: Removed

Embrava: Commands the fairy to heal target with the same potency and cast time Physick had. (Fairy will not cast this on her own, she needs to be directed.)

Succor: 1,5s Cast. No longer heals, it applies a shield to all targets in range with the same equivalent potency of the old heal+shield.

Lustrate, Indomitability and Excogitation remain the same.

Whispering Dawn, Embrace, Consolation, Seraphic Veil and various fariy healing skills remain unchanged.

The idea here is to follow SCH's lore where the healing itself comes from the fairy, leaving the SCH to apply oGCD heals and mitigation.


Utility Skills

Emergency tactics: 15s CD. Turns shielding effects into pure healing- Basically the same as it is now.

Deployment tactics: Same as it is now.

Aetherflow: Renamed to Einblick, or Battlefield Insight (loved the German words for SCH skills in FFXI) Basically remains the same, three charges, 60s cd, gives back 10% mana.

New skill! Libra: 30s CD, Applies a 15 second debuf increasing damage taken by the target by 3%. Costs an Insight point. Grants a charge of Tactical Preparation. Grants 10 Fey Gauge Points.

Chain Stratagem: No longer on a CD, requires 3 charges of Tactical Preparation to be executed. Other wise, remains the same. Grants 30 Fey Gauge Points.

Recitation: Remains unchanged.

Sacred Soil: Remains unchanged.

Dissipation: Remains mostly unchanged. It grants 3 Stacks of Insight and sends your fairy away. No longer increases healing by a flat percent, instead it grants your Adloquium and Succor spells the ability to heal the target by 100% of the shield applied.

Summon Seraph: Is no longer on a CD, it requires 100 Fey Gauge Points to summon, at wich point it will last 20 seconds. Fey Gauge Skills have no cost during that time.

I think SCH's kit doesn't build up to anything it the current state. All other jobs have a mechanic they build up to during the fights, being Blood Lillies, Divination, Polyglot, Phoenix...I wanted to give SCH the Debuffing Healer idenity back while allowing her to build up towards the Seraph ability, which rewards prompt debuffing with a potent healing tool.

Damaging Skills.

Broil III: Remains unchanged.

Biolysis: Remains unchanged.

Art of War: Remains unchanged.

New Trait! Wahrnehmung: Critical hits from damaging spells have a 10% chance of granting a single stack of Battlefield Insight.

I wanted SCH to have a bit more sinergy with its damage, allowing the Scholar to gain charges of Insight, would hopefully alleviate the removal of quickened aetherflow.

um only about the vocal minority are feeling ify and the rest are just hoping on the train for attention. most of us are fine and just gonna wait til EA to play and enjoy

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by guardin

um only about the vocal minority are feeling ify and the rest are just hoping on the train for attention. most of us are fine and just gonna wait til EA to play and enjoy

---

Wherever you go you see most of the people dissapointed with healing changes, youtube, twitter, reddit, this forum, most of the people who played healer there is dissapointed with the changes, I've seen people talking about their dissapointment in eureka with the whole instance agreeing with them, stop lying to youself calling us "vocal minority" and trying to stop any kind of discussion.

Sorry, It's been a while, but I went through with a big update for each of these concepts to fix some of the issues that were coming up, in case anyone wants to check them out.

White Mage: Ended up cutting the blossoms as a mechanic and simplifying the overheal concept with Temperance as well as a few other things to make the concept a lot less meticulous. The big thing here is that Afflatus Misery is now more desire-able and thus makes GCD healing actually something the White Mage can benefit from: A. because power has been diverted away from Glare and into Banish and Conjurer's Amaryllis. Meanwhile Afflatus Misery now additionally applies a small 3% damage up debuff on the initial target to content with the utility of the other healers. Basically, if you don't DPS as a White Mage, you're inferior to Scholar and Astrologian who can improve party DPS without needing to cast any spells themselves. With GCDs rewarding you with this Afflatus Misery, you're no longer punished for using them over Glare.

Total Buttons: 20 + Role Actions

Scholar: I wanted to reinforce the faerie being a part of the kit and one way I wanted to do that was actually making Embrace function completely differently. Now your faerie wont automatically Embrace injured allies. Instead you'll need to deploy your faerie to allies throughout the fight, where she will then follow them and heal them exclusively. The cooldown on her deploy is 1 second, so you can pretty freely swap her between allies as needed, especially if you want to manipulate her positioning for her other abilities. Seraph does not work this way and will work the old way: mainly because this allows her to sling barriers around to everyone on the team.

Total Buttons: 22 + Role Actions

Astrologian: My last version of this build had way too many buttons which I honestly didn't realize. The build was honestly a little over loaded, so I tripped the fat on some things while also making Horoscope a little more unique as a healing tool. Now, it heals people differently depending on their role. Across 20 seconds, your tanks will get healed after taking damage, your DPS will get healed after using weaponskills and spells, and healers will get healed after restoring an ally's HP with a spell. This job still technically has a bit more buttons than I want, but it's honestly just because they have things like "Play" "Undraw" "Redraw" etc... The card abilities do add a bit of bloat, and I'm not all that sure how to handle that right now.

Total Buttons: 27 + Role Actions

As for Making DPS more engaging, I wanted to add a little something that embraced the theme of the job to make each healer have something a little more fun to do while soloing, or when capable of contributing DPS in battles. This of course means diverting power away from their spam spells (Glare/Broil/Malefic) and redirecting it into these new actions. Here's a quick rundown...

White Mage: Fluid Aura is changed to Water, which then is upgraded to Water II and Banish. It's oGCD, 30 second cooldown, and is simply burst damage. Additionally, the Conjurer's Amaryllis is the other offensive spell to use. Every 15 seconds, you can mark an enemy. The next Glare, Dia, or Banish you cast will detonate the effect, and do additional damage. Dia is the first priority, as it applies a second, longer DoT. Banish is next, which deals higher damage than Glare's detonation, but is on the 30 second cooldown, and finally Glare, which is used when Dia isn't needed and Banish is on cooldown.

Scholar: Meltdown was added to replace Art of War as a line AoE to do something a little different. Ruin II also gets upgraded to Kaustra. I decide to go with keeping Biolysis as the only DoT cast by the Scholar, but added Fey Spark, an AoE DoT castable by your faerie. Additionally, there's Attack Stratagem which creates a small, 2-step minigame similar to Dancer's Steps. Broil and Kaustra become two different runes that will do two different spells based on the order you cast them in. Basically, you just want to alternate back and forth between which of these spells you're casting as it guarantees that the next will be a critical hit. This is on a 20 second cooldown.

Astrologian: I kept this one simple as the cards themselves are already fairly engaging as an offensive buff mechanic. In addition to Malefic, Combust, and Gravity, they would now get Starfall. Starfall is a spell that does more damage than Malefic, but only after a certain amount of time has passed. So you can't spam this spell, but you want to make sure you're reapplying it whenever it previous Starfall strikes your opponent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by guardin

um only about the vocal minority are feeling ify and the rest are just hoping on the train for attention. most of us are fine and just gonna wait til EA to play and enjoy

---

I think you have the "vocal minority" reversed here. I'm still curious as to why you continue to speak on what healers think, since you don't seem to play them.

Looking at healers and SE's intention to try and balance them. I'd probably be fine for them to focus DPS less, but of course make them capable enough in a DPS sense. But what does need to be addressed is the homogenisation of healers and what healers do in their downtime.

Given balance is healers can benefit overall DPS and keeping people alive. Healer identity could then really be set in their healing abilities, but this is where healers are already homogenised and the changes don't really address that. It feels each situation is more-or-less handled in the same way but with a different flavour. So they could focus on unique healing mechanics.
They've got the groundwork for it.
SCH is the Shieldiest Healer
WHM is the Healiest Healer
AST is a hybrid of the two.
Whilst Scholar with the changes is still the shieldiest healer and White Mage the healiest healer. I'd argue this doesn't mean a lot when all 3 healers find it almost equally as easy to fill up people's health.

As a SCH I encourage that our pure heals get nerfed. since SCH healing got OP I've gradually found it less and less interesting to heal with. I always felt the mark of a good SCH was one who managed their shields and faerie properly. I've put a full document on my suggestions for SCH here (clicky).

AST needs to still work harder to keep people's health topped up and that the challenge for them is manage their two sects, because their selling point is versatility. So their pure heal tool kit would need to be harder to use versus WHM and their shield tool kit less effective than a SCH, but the mark of a good AST would be in how it manages the two.

I think in terms of healing, there's no harm in having a tiered approach to difficulty. We kinda see it in other roles.

I'd imagine it to be like:
WHM: The RDM of the three, simple to pick up, still fun to play, still useful in raid
AST: The BLM of the three, more to manage than a White Mage, so maybe harder to play as a result, thanks to its versatility
SCH: The SMN of the three. More technical of the three, requires more effort to optimise the healing aspect, where pets could aid in that regard. (like 2.0 SCH)

So what would I do to DPS?
They could keep it as it is in Shadowbringers if they long as long as the above can be met AND my next proposal to make downtime a little more interesting.

Healers are a support role. Give them more support-type things to do in their down time. Balance can then be based around how they benefit the group's overall DPS & little to do with personal DPS.
AST - make more use of cards.
SCH - keep Selene, improve her utility. Replace the DPS moves we lost with debuffs to aid damage reduction.
WHM - Introduce buffs & debuffs to add utility. WHM in other titles have them.

I think that's fair trade & may be easier to balance.

Your ideas are fine OP [edit: your scholar build is fantastic!], but the bitter truth is that there isn't going to be a rebuild for a role that is an afterthought for the battle system team.