A serious suggestion in lieu of punishing all healers.

It's radical, I know... but here it is.

You want a healing job that heals and only heals? Low stress? Low demands? Can wear any healing gear that drops and can participate in most content? Look no further:

Conjurer.

It's simple. Take out the WHM job stone, remove any complex DPS systems that the WHM could have for new players. Give Conjurer only skills when WHM gets skills and replace those skills with the WHM skills when the stone is slotted in again.

Conjurer can already wear all healer gear. It may even be able to use WHM artifact weapons (I'm not logged in to check at the moment). Hell, give the lily system to the conjurer and make a different system for WHMs.

No needing to punish AST/SCH/WHM players for wanting DPS tools or utility/buff spells. No need to suffocate WHM with this idea of needing to have more heals. Make the advanced healing jobs cater to playstyles of the people who want more complex mechanics. Leave conjurer and support it with CONJ-only spells at higher levels for those who are afraid of these things and simply just want to heal. No longer do you need to worry about stressing healers out because now healers who are stressed out by dpsing and buffs have their one go-to job for all things healing.

Conjurer doesn't really have to be subject to the same balance as the other 3 jobs either. More demanding content like savage and that should require more demanding jobs. Hell, I am not stressed by healing, hate the 5.0 changes to just about all the healing jobs and I don't even DO savage content because I just don't like that sort of content and would never do it with people who aren't friends.

So there you go. Instead of neutering all jobs, support the base-class Conjurer to higher levels and use that as your "newbie friendly, low stress, healbot" healer.

I would like to be this cnj, but im going to need 3 fairies [all out at the same time] 10 different regens, 5 burst ogcd heals, and a new clericstance that makes my autoattacks become at a distance, like they were for thm in the beta, so I cant be bothered to touch a button to cast any attack magic ever, please?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ADVSS

I would like to be this cnj, but im going to need 3 fairies [all out at the same time] 10 different regens, 5 burst ogcd heals, and a new clericstance that makes my autoattacks become at a distance, like they were for thm in the beta, so I cant be bothered to touch a button to cast any attack magic ever, please?

---

Lol. Sometimes I wonder if that's actually the kind of feedback SE is listening to.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reiryuu

Lol. Sometimes I wonder if that's actually the kind of feedback SE is listening to.

---

Seems that way to me as well :)

Taking this to the extreme you could just remove WHM.
Balance nightmare over. Shields and HoTs for days. Give them both a fancy Wings cooldown - job done - ty ty.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ilyrian

Taking this to the extreme you could just remove WHM.
Balance nightmare over. Shields and HoTs for days. Give them both a fancy Wings cooldown - job done - ty ty.

---

AST is the copycat. If anything, it should go, plus WHM is one of the most iconic jobs in the franchise, they would be stupid to delete it. However, I think deleting any job at all won't do, they need to pull their heads out of their a**es and make them all unique, not just SCH and then WHM plus WHM with cards.

I actually like TCs idea quite a bit tbh.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ADVSS

I would like to be this cnj, but im going to need 3 fairies [all out at the same time] 10 different regens, 5 burst ogcd heals, and a new clericstance that makes my autoattacks become at a distance, like they were for thm in the beta, so I cant be bothered to touch a button to cast any attack magic ever, please?

---

Now introducing: White Schologian

GCD: Curaja

Fairy GCD: AoE Reraise

oGCD: AoE Enchanced Balance - 15 sec cooldown

original idea do not steal

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yuyuka3

they need to pull their heads out of their a**es and make them all unique

---

In seriousness that's the exact opposite of what they can do.
In a party that can have max 2 healers - two are always going to be favored over the other.
And there are only so many ways to heal - direct healing, HoTs and shields. Shields are always superior to reactionary healing. That's just indisputable.
So they either have to assume that players who heal and participate in high-end content are going to be playing all three jobs or they have to make encounters that assume that shields will be used.
So, they need to either make WHM essential to extreme high damage scenarios that the other two healers couldn't keep up with OR we just resign ourselves to the fact that WHM is the RDM of healing, reliable for progress - subpar on farm.

Did I miss something? Each healer still has DPS skills, sch and ast still have utility skills.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ilyrian

In seriousness that's the exact opposite of what they can do.
In a party that can have max 2 healers - two are always going to be favored over the other.
And there are only so many ways to heal - direct healing, HoTs and shields. Shields are always superior to reactionary healing. That's just indisputable.
So they either have to assume that players who heal and participate in high-end content are going to be playing all three jobs or they have to make encounters that assume that shields will be used.
So, they need to either make WHM essential to extreme high damage scenarios that the other two healers couldn't keep up with OR we just resign ourselves to the fact that WHM is the RDM of healing, reliable for progress - subpar on farm.

---

This reminds me of a good point that was brought up in one of my own forum posts a while back, and it really came to a consensus on how anything that is a unique way of recovering HP isn't an identity, and therefore, not relevant to the current balance issues.

It's much more important for each healer to have valuable tool kits for increasing party effectiveness in some unique way, rather than continue on with the Heal vs Shield vs HoT debate.

It would be much easier to balance the healers if they didn't have an extreme overlap in their healing power, and this is where I've agreed with Yuyuka in several threads at this point, Astrologian doesn't need shields, and the overlap here makes it much harder to make each role feel unique. White Mage only being a "pure" healer just means that everything in its kit can be found elsewhere, because everyone -needs- to be capable of healing through the content.

Give Scholar shields.

Give Astrologian rng buffs.

Give White Mage something.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cyrocco

Now introducing: White Schologian

GCD: Curaja

Fairy GCD: AoE Reraise

oGCD: AoE Enchanced Balance - 15 sec cooldown

original idea do not steal

---

lol that fairy ability, i have a feeling RDM might start posting threads about that fairy lol
Love it though, gonna be my main in 6.0

we can go further

-Let shields stack
-Shields provide passive regen
-chain stratagem changed to increase base dmg instead of crit

Yep would be totally balanced now :rolleyes:

I want to heal so much that I want to heal my enemies too, thank you Square Enix for your recent revelations we should be pure healers, so let me heal the enemy until they are friends with me so I am always doing something.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cyrocco

This reminds me of a good point that was brought up in one of my own forum posts a while back, and it really came to a consensus on how anything that is a unique way of recovering HP isn't an identity, and therefore, not relevant to the current balance issues.

It's much more important for each healer to have valuable tool kits for increasing party effectiveness in some unique way, rather than continue on with the Heal vs Shield vs HoT debate.

It would be much easier to balance the healers if they didn't have an extreme overlap in their healing power, and this is where I've agreed with Yuyuka in several threads at this point, Astrologian doesn't need shields, and the overlap here makes it much harder to make each role feel unique. White Mage only being a "pure" healer just means that everything in its kit can be found elsewhere, because everyone -needs- to be capable of healing through the content.

Give Scholar shields.

Give Astrologian rng buffs.

Give White Mage something.

---

What though - Give WHM what?
Pretty sure SE would have done it by now if anyone whose actual job it is to sit down and do these things had thought of it.
We can't think of it, neither can they. Because there isn't a natural way to balance 3 healers when there are only two ways of healing outside of baseline and Shielding is the strongest and best way to do it.

So it will continue to be Scholar + 1 if they are the only Shielders. Then its WHM + Cards or WHM. And here we are.

Quote:

---

Now introducing: White Schologian

---

I know you weren't being serious but you make an interesting point. Basically all 3 healers are currently WHM baseline - only 2 of them have added extras.

I'm not really sure how this got into what AST WHM or SCH should get or making a joke class. A lot of responses in General Discussion have been using arguments apparently by Yoshi P himself that say healers are stressed out about doing DPS and stressed about keeping buffs up and the changes made to SCH WHM and AST this patch were to address that. If this is true, this is the best and easiest compromise that would require the least amount of development time to not only create a "basic healer" for these people but also separate the WHM SCH and AST jobs as those for people who do want different mechanics and interesting things to do instead of just heal. Each one could then have their own flavor.

The lily system and how they envision it, seems more appropriate for the conjurer class rather than the white mage job. Hence, the suggestion of giving it to the conjurer base class and coming up with something different for WHM. I mean, gauges are activated and deactivated with every other job when you remove your job stone. It should be just as easy to do this for WHM/CNJ. The reason I am suggesting conjurer is:

1) It's already wired as a healing role class. Arcanist is considered DPS.
2) It can already wear all of the healing gear. Arcanist cannot.
3) Conjurer has the most healing-related story if I recall correctly. I don't remember a whole lot of talking about healing in the Arcanist questline, but I could be misremembering. It's been a while.
4) Conjurer and WHM share weapons, thus there's no need to spend assets on developing a new weapon just for conjurer. No need to make lower level weapons for conjurers, etc.

It just makes the most sense to me since so many are upset about the healing changes and actually wanting more complex jobs and more things to do when not healing. But there seems to be a push from some people who only want to heal. So.... why not make this compromise? If Yoshi-P is so hard set on satisfying these people who want to heal and do nothing else, then why not have a basic, easy job for them... perhaps "limited" (God I hate limited job BLU and do not wish for any more limited jobs) in the sense that it wouldn't be able to enter some raids... I'm not going to argue for or against, but perhaps EX primals and Savage Raids wouldn't be available to them, but basic raids, trials and 24 mans etc would be. I don't know. It's just a suggestion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ilyrian

What though - Give WHM what?
Pretty sure SE would have done it by now if anyone whose actual job it is to sit down and do these things had thought of it.
We can't think of it, neither can they. Because there isn't a natural way to balance 3 healers when there are only two ways of healing outside of baseline and Shielding is the strongest and best way to do it.

So it will continue to be Scholar + 1 if they are the only Shielders. Then its WHM + Cards or WHM. And here we are.

---

There have been so many suggestions made in this forum over the years about what to possibly give WHM in terms of group support... Pick one. And please stop acting as if that's not true, because a quick forum search will show you it is. Most of those suggestions are also quite sensible and wouldn't hurt the other healers, either.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cyrocco

It would be much easier to balance the healers if they didn't have an extreme overlap in their healing power, and this is where I've agreed with Yuyuka in several threads at this point, Astrologian doesn't need shields, and the overlap here makes it much harder to make each role feel unique. White Mage only being a "pure" healer just means that everything in its kit can be found elsewhere, because everyone -needs- to be capable of healing through the content.

---

Honestly, SE's interpretation of AST is exactly what brought these balance issues up in the first place. The fact that they could do either, Shield or Regen, as well as buff virtually assured their spot in the raid.

Then the question is, which is weaker, WHM or SCH? The weaker of the two gets replaced. This design failure is 100% on SE and they have no real plan on how to fix it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crushnight

-Let shields stack
-Shields provide passive regen

---

I get that the idea as a whole is a joke, but why can't there be a shield like this? It does a base heal, and a shield, but after a bit of time the shield is slowly drained as a regen effect. It wouldn't be a skill to use all the time, but would have some potential at times.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yuyuka3

There have been so many suggestions made in this forum over the years about what to possibly give WHM in terms of group support... Pick one. And please stop acting as if that's not true, because a quick forum search will show you it is. Most of those suggestions are also quite sensible and wouldn't hurt the other healers, either.

---

You pick one - seeing as it's your argument to prove.
Then we can discuss why it hasn't been implemented.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ilyrian

You pick one - seeing as it's your argument to prove.
Then we can discuss why it hasn't been implemented.

---

Presence of Mind giving a group wide haste when used.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ilyrian

What though - Give WHM what
I know you weren't being serious but you make an interesting point. Basically all 3 healers are currently WHM baseline - only 2 of them have added extras.

---

And coming up with what could make White Mage unique is probably going to be the biggest step in actually balancing the healers. I'd briefly like to refer to another thread:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebazy

Kei Sato, Takashi Kawamoto, Hikaru Tamaki, Tsuyoshi Yokozawa

And last but most certainly not least. FFXIV's battle system design team.

---

As it is now, we have a total of four people who need to work on each Job for each expansion, a big question like "How do we fix an entire role?" is probably very difficult to answer with such a small team, at this point, I feel pressuring SE to increase this roster would lead to a far happier outcome than continuously suggesting healer changes.

--

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reiryuu

If this is true, this is the best and easiest compromise that would require the least amount of development time to not only create a "basic healer" for these people but also separate the WHM SCH and AST jobs as those for people who do want different mechanics and interesting things to do instead of just heal. Each one could then have their own flavor.

---

While I could get behind the idea of making Conjurer a more traditional healer, doing so wouldn't actually fix anything for White Mage, which is likely why people are bringing up the balance between the three healers. If recreating Conjurer puts SCH, AST, and WHM in a state similar to what they are now in Stormblood, Scholar and Astrologian come out very much ahead, given that nothing has really happened to shift White Mage up or down in power, and SCH and AST have been very much brought in line.

--

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

Honestly, SE's interpretation of AST is exactly what brought these balance issues up in the first place. The fact that they could do either, Shield or Regen, as well as buff virtually assured their spot in the raid.
Then the question is, which is weaker, WHM or SCH? The weaker of the two gets replaced. This design failure is 100% on SE and they have no real plan on how to fix it.

---

This is where trimming should have happened first really, Astrologians changes shouldn't have focused on changing and revamping the card system. By leaning so heavily into the Sect system, it makes it -much- harder to detangle what each healer should be. And with the new skills we're left with what- a buffing White Mage that can cast shields? A buffing Scholar that can cast large Regens?

--

Let's be honest everyone, right now Astrologian is playing with everyone elses toys, and isn't sharing its own. Astrologian needs to seperate from the other healers, and White Mage can't just continue to be Astrologian without buffs, and Scholar without shields or a fairy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

Presence of Mind giving a group wide haste when used.

---

Ok. Which is better: damage buff from AST or Haste from WHM?
Numbers will be crunched. I'd say it would be the AST buff.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ilyrian

Ok. Which is better: damage buff from AST or Haste from WHM?
Numbers will be crunched. I'd say it would be the AST buff.

---

That's the thing with numbers, they can be adjusted for balance.

WHM desperately needs some sort of raid utility.

The next discussion would be: Would the damage from Ast and the Haste from WHM be better than the crit from SCH.

Consistent damage is always better than RNG damage

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ilyrian

Ok. Which is better: damage buff from AST or Haste from WHM?
Numbers will be crunched. I'd say it would be the AST buff.

---

And this would be the case, if Astrologian still had access to a Spread Balance and if Divination weren't on a three minute cooldown.

It was very tough to beat Astrologian when you could possibly pull a full minute of +5% raidwide damage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ilyrian

Ok. Which is better: damage buff from AST or Haste from WHM?
Numbers will be crunched. I'd say it would be the AST buff.

---

Yeah, there would be some attempt at balancing it, it is disingenuous to not say that they would try.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

That's the thing with numbers, they can be adjusted for balance.

WHM desperately needs some sort of raid utility.

---

I agree - but in the unlikely event that one of those buffs doesn't emerge just flat out better (and I'm pretty sure it would be the straight damage buff) that only brings WHM up to equal with AST, it doesn't tackle the problem of a fixed place for Scholar in the party makeup.

It would be a start *if* it was balanced but, again, it is very unlikely unless it is exactly the same as AST which would kind of make the argument a bit moot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cyrocco

This is where trimming should have happened first really, Astrologians changes shouldn't have focused on changing and revamping the card system. By leaning so heavily into the Sect system, it makes it -much- harder to detangle what each healer should be. And with the new skills we're left with what- a buffing White Mage that can cast shields? A buffing Scholar that can cast large Regens?

--

Let's be honest everyone, right now Astrologian is playing with everyone elses toys, and isn't sharing its own. Astrologian needs to seperate from the other healers, and White Mage can't just continue to be Astrologian without buffs, and Scholar without shields or a fairy.

---

And this is why SE really gave us a bad excuse about no 4th healer.
They added a 4th tank for better balance, but they can't for healers ?

So they have chosen 3 healers to embrace the pure & shield form (and they failed again because WHM has no shields) instead of doing 2 healers pure and 2 healers shields.
They completely gave up on their initial idea of ARR where their was complementary between pure and shield type healer.

Because we have seen it for years, Nocturnal AST is far from SCH.
Their exist solutions, and it's not evident for Noct AST to exist, but the best move would have been to remove it honestly.

We would have 2 pure healer (WHM, AST) and 2 shield healers (SCH, ??)
It would have been really easy to balance that and keeping fun + identity of these jobs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ilyrian

Taking this to the extreme you could just remove WHM.
Balance nightmare over. Shields and HoTs for days. Give them both a fancy Wings cooldown - job done - ty ty.

---

Get rid of the staple healing job since FF conception lol yeah right xD

Some people just want to heal, how is that controversial? If you want your opinion to be respected, you should respect the opinion of others.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bahati

Some people just want to heal, how is that controversial? If you want your opinion to be respected, you should respect the opinion of others.

---

Because

1) Before ShB you were ignoring a significant portion of your kit (DPS). WHM's especially. Holy is an on demand, zero CD Hallowed Ground that is available every single trash pull that does significant damage.

2) And in doing so you were losing out on mitigation. Dead mobs do no damage. The faster they die, the less overall damage they do.

I can only see a healer who only heals causing problems. This healer is either strong enough to solo heal the raid or is not.
If the healer who only heals is strong enough to keep the raid alive alone then you go with them and replace the other healer with an additional dps.
If not, you go with two healers who can heal and push out damage.
These two mutually exclusive cases either render either this hypothetical healer or all other healers obsolete.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jaelommiss

I can only see a healer who only heals causing problems. This healer is either strong enough to solo heal the raid or is not.
If the healer who only heals is strong enough to keep the raid alive alone then you go with them and replace the other healer with an additional dps.
If not, you go with two healers who can heal and push out damage.
These two mutually exclusive cases either render either this hypothetical healer or all other healers obsolete.

---

This is one reason I was suggesting limiting its access to raids. Especially savage and EXs.