Melee Shield Healer Idea

I'd like to play a melee oriented healer (where all of my skills are melee range except for a couple of single target heals), but what makes it distinct from the other healers is that where most of the skills are do some amount of damage but then have a secondary effect (maybe determined by stance?) that's a DoT, HoT, Shield, or a buff/debuff.

Maybe call it a templar as it's mechanically similar to a paladin?

Seems like it could possibly be interesting, especially since it's going to want to stay in melee range and that fits in well with the GOTTAGOFAST instance meta we seem to have.

Thoughts?

Would your skills also be primarily instant cast?
Cuz a cleric like this would have to be pretty mobile.

Closest thing I can think of that's remotely like that is WoW's Mistweaver Monk (Melee dps healer) and to an extent Disciple Priest (Dps converts to healing / shields)

The first issue I'd see is the loss of Healing you'd get when a boss does a mechanic that requires you to move out of melee range which would intterupt your healing flow. Healers right now can sit comfortably in a safe area and fling heals / shields without that issue.

The second issue is most ideas you could use to justify melee healing / shielding you could do at range with no real reason as to why not. I go to Mistweaver Monks who had a whole mechanic based on melee dpsing to heal, but then in raiding content you'd see them in the back channeling their ranged heal and jade serpent statue.

The Disciple Priest is close to what you are describing save with less mechanics. They have single target heals they can throw out that grant a player a buff. All players with said buff get healed for percentages of damage dealt that the priest does. That's the basic explaination anyways.

I ultimately feel FFXIV healing is so set in ranged healing that a melee healer would suffer tremendously comparatively to their counterparts.

Don't you find it jarring how Arcanist is the only one that has a branching option? I seriously believe they should go back and separate the class and jobs at 30, the solution is easy.

Now on topic, wouldn't it be great if Pugilist could go White Monk or as you mentioned Gladiator into Templar/Cleric.

It just feels so incomplete.

Nearly all difficult fights are designed with healers treated as ranged casters. There's a lot of design precedence to roll back there.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Would your skills also be primarily instant cast?
Cuz a cleric like this would have to be pretty mobile.

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Oh definitely. It'd have to treat SpS as SS for this to work.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Nearly all difficult fights are designed with healers treated as ranged casters. There's a lot of design precedence to roll back there.

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When I'm balled up with the rest of the party on the boss's butt most of the time... I think it could work. Just give the class like 1 AoE heal and a single target heal that they can use when they are forced into ranged so they can still heal and they'd be fine.

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Originally Posted by Aluja89

Don't you find it jarring how Arcanist is the only one that has a branching option? I seriously believe they should go back and separate the class and jobs at 30, the solution is easy.

Now on topic, wouldn't it be great if Pugilist could go White Monk or as you mentioned Gladiator into Templar/Cleric.

It just feels so incomplete.

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The Devs have stated that the split class idea was a huge mistake that they have 0 intention of returning to and have held that mentality since moving from ARR into HW, and as someone who's first job back in 2013 was Arcanist and who played SMN and SCH, I totally agree that there's just no reason to do that.

Attaching SMN to this poison mage and to SCH was a detriment to SMN thematically and mechanically throughout the years, and even now it struggles to deliver on the job fantasy of the final fantasy summoner. Moreover, you're not actually saving any amount of work by connecting the classes. Even if they wanted to add something like a White Monk, a Templar, or Cleric, they would just have the job be completely independent rather than stapling it to an existing job for no real reason.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The Devs have stated that the split class idea was a huge mistake that they have 0 intention of returning to and have held that mentality since moving from ARR into HW, and as someone who's first job back in 2013 was Arcanist and who played SMN and SCH, I totally agree that there's just no reason to do that.

Attaching SMN to this poison mage and to SCH was a detriment to SMN thematically and mechanically throughout the years, and even now it struggles to deliver on the job fantasy of the final fantasy summoner. Moreover, you're not actually saving any amount of work by connecting the classes. Even if they wanted to add something like a White Monk, a Templar, or Cleric, they would just have the job be completely independent rather than stapling it to an existing job for no real reason.

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IMO SE should disconnect the SMN (and arcanist) from SCH and turn SCH into a job you unlock with it's own XP bar once you have Arcanist to 30. It may suck for all future SCHs to have to level it separate from SMN, but IMO that's the best thing SE can do for both jobs.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The Devs have stated that the split class idea was a huge mistake that they have 0 intention of returning to and have held that mentality since moving from ARR into HW, and as someone who's first job back in 2013 was Arcanist and who played SMN and SCH, I totally agree that there's just no reason to do that.

Attaching SMN to this poison mage and to SCH was a detriment to SMN thematically and mechanically throughout the years, and even now it struggles to deliver on the job fantasy of the final fantasy summoner. Moreover, you're not actually saving any amount of work by connecting the classes. Even if they wanted to add something like a White Monk, a Templar, or Cleric, they would just have the job be completely independent rather than stapling it to an existing job for no real reason.

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No, their mistake was having the branching job go off the same class. I'm suggesting they lock the classes to 30 and make the jobs branch off fresh without any attachment.

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Originally Posted by Aluja89

No, their mistake was having the branching job go off the same class. I'm suggesting they lock the classes to 30 and make the jobs branch off fresh without any attachment.

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I still fail to see what that accomplishes that just having the job start from new can't.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I still fail to see what that accomplishes that just having the job start from new can't.

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What?

Oh you're a fanboy, moving on.

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Originally Posted by Aluja89

What?

Oh you're a fanboy, moving on.

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lol what? What does that even mean? I think that might be the worst attempt at an insult I think I've ever seen on the internet. A fanboy of what?

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

lol what? What does that even mean? I think that might be the worst attempt at an insult I think I've ever seen on the internet. A fanboy of what?

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That wasn't an insult? Your initial response was of you hanging onto the words of a developer, that's usually a sign.

So then explain how adding more options for new players that could skew them into roles other than DPS is something you fail to see.

Also, like I said. It feels incomplete. So much for "Yoshida's life work".

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Originally Posted by Aluja89

That wasn't an insult? Your initial response was of you hanging onto the words of a developer, that's usually a sign.

So then explain how adding more options for new players that could skew them into roles other than DPS is something you fail to see.

Also, like I said. It feels incomplete. So much for "Yoshida's life work".

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My initial response was not "hanging onto the words of a developer" as to say that the developer's word is law and thou shalt not defy it. It was literally just a statement on where the developers stand. There are many cases where the dev team is not transparent about certain things, but their stance on branching jobs is by far one of the most bluntly stated.

The second part of my initial post was sharing my own experience leveling Summoner and Scholar in 2.0 and stating how that decision was a disaster for summoner's job identity that has had such a deep and lasting impact that, 8 years later, has still yet to be fully resolved. I was there 8 years ago. I saw it in action. I played it, and unless you had another account back then, your join date suggests that you were not.

And also, that last bit is incredibly rude, unnecessary. There's a line between critiquing someone's work and being tactless. I don't give a shit if you like the game or not. You should have the decency to respect someone else's years of hard work and dedicated passion as a game designer. When it comes to game design, hindsight is 20/20. It's exponentially easier to look at something that's already been made and point out its flaws than to make it from scratch, something you wouldn't know about.

well its pretty clear the game has advanced enough to where they could do another split job since pretty much only thing SCH has left from Arcanist now is the Res also with them both being pet jobs with loads of issues already didn't help.

so they could do it but i doubt it.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

My initial response was not "hanging onto the words of a developer" as to say that the developer's word is law and thou shalt not defy it. It was literally just a statement on where the developers stand. There are many cases where the dev team is not transparent about certain things, but their stance on branching jobs is by far one of the most bluntly stated.

The second part of my initial post was sharing my own experience leveling Summoner and Scholar in 2.0 and stating how that decision was a disaster for summoner's job identity that has had such a deep and lasting impact that, 8 years later, has still yet to be fully resolved. I was there 8 years ago. I saw it in action. I played it, and unless you had another account back then, your join date suggests that you were not.

And also, that last bit is incredibly rude, unnecessary. There's a line between critiquing someone's work and being tactless. I don't give a shit if you like the game or not. You should have the decency to respect someone else's years of hard work and dedicated passion as a game designer. When it comes to game design, hindsight is 20/20. It's exponentially easier to look at something that's already been made and point out its flaws than to make it from scratch, something you wouldn't know about.

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Actually, I've been here since 1.0 Closed beta. My first account just stopped working when I went on vacation for a week right after 2.0 launched, account works now but my character is gone. Support wasn't helpful, stopped caring.
https://gyazo.com/05f2a5431c1aa6d3485ecb8f49487d25

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Oh please, the man just copied WoW like so many others. I'm not going to deny the hard work that went into it but let's not make him some sort of messiah a lot make him out to be.

And please don't question my love for the game, I'm only hard on it because I care.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

I'd like to play a melee oriented healer (where all of my skills are melee range except for a couple of single target heals), but what makes it distinct from the other healers is that where most of the skills are do some amount of damage but then have a secondary effect (maybe determined by stance?) that's a DoT, HoT, Shield, or a buff/debuff.

Maybe call it a templar as it's mechanically similar to a paladin?

Seems like it could possibly be interesting, especially since it's going to want to stay in melee range and that fits in well with the GOTTAGOFAST instance meta we seem to have.

Thoughts?

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Love the thought of melee healer if they could make it work. Played a disciple of khaine in war and love it. The Disciple in vanguard was a lot oF fun too. Assuming it would use current gear sets it would be a melee magic class. Would add some thematic diversity to the game.

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Originally Posted by Aluja89

Actually, I've been here since 1.0 Closed beta. My first account just stopped working when I went on vacation for a week right after 2.0 launched, account works now but my character is gone. Support wasn't helpful, stopped caring.
https://gyazo.com/05f2a5431c1aa6d3485ecb8f49487d25

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Oh please, the man just copied WoW like so many others. I'm not going to deny the hard work that went into it but let's not make him some sort of messiah a lot make him out to be.

And please don't question my love for the game, I'm only hard on it because I care.

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It's not about being a messiah, it's just about being respectful. There are plenty of reasons to critique things, and I think wanting all classes to be available earlier is a valid critique. And it's true that often the hardest critiques come from the people who love something the most. Like I said, there's a line between critique and blatant rudeness. There's nothing wrong with standing on the side of saying 'I think branching jobs could be done better and done right'.

However, instead of saying "Well, actually, if we could revisit that system while changing X, Y, and Z, we could have a new job that new players could also experience," but you didn't do that. Your IMMMEDIATE response was "Ugh, you're just a fanboy. You're just regurgitating what the devs say" "Obviously anyone with eyes and a brain would see why it would work that way." "I think it's incomplete; so much for the man's 'life's work'." Do you not see how that's not criticism? It's just being a dick.

I'm done responding to this bad attitude though. It's not fair to the topic creator.

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Originally Posted by Feidam

Love the thought of melee healer if they could make it work. Played a disciple of khaine in war and love it. The Disciple in vanguard was a lot oF fun too. Assuming it would use current gear sets it would be a melee magic class. Would add some thematic diversity to the game.

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I mean, RDM has set the precedence for having melee skills within a magical class and everything just works - which means it's possible to throw the class into the same stat pool as the healer gear. Thematically, it would make the most sense to stick them either in the tank gear or the DRG gear as that generally tends to be plate and mail type armor.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

I mean, RDM has set the precedence for having melee skills within a magical class and everything just works - which means it's possible to throw the class into the same stat pool as the healer gear. Thematically, it would make the most sense to stick them either in the tank gear or the DRG gear as that generally tends to be plate and mail type armor.

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They’d have to change how the base stats functions for a specific class which I don’t see them doing. However have a melee mage or two might help the casters get morE gear designs that would fit the redmage. I mean they are not exactly robed magic users.

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Originally Posted by Feidam

They’d have to change how the base stats functions for a specific class which I don’t see them doing. However have a melee mage or two might help the casters get morE gear designs that would fit the redmage. I mean they are not exactly robed magic users.

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Given https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/redmage/ please explain how most of the actions of this theoretical job would be different from how Riposte, Corps-a-corps, Zwerchhau, Displacement, Redoublement, and Reprise work in RDM.

Also WHM has already set precedent with Assize that a skill can do both healing and damage at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Given https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/redmage/ please explain how most of the actions of this theoretical job would be different from how Riposte, Corps-a-corps, Zwerchhau, Displacement, Redoublement, and Reprise work in RDM.

Also WHM has already set precedent with Assize that a skill can do both healing and damage at the same time.

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You are right. I forgot they already fixed that. As as for whm I would love to see them take the assize theme and turn that into the whm identity. Dps/heals combo skills beyond just assize. Though that could be OP.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

I'd like to play a melee oriented healer (where all of my skills are melee range except for a couple of single target heals), but what makes it distinct from the other healers is that where most of the skills are do some amount of damage but then have a secondary effect (maybe determined by stance?) that's a DoT, HoT, Shield, or a buff/debuff.

Maybe call it a templar as it's mechanically similar to a paladin?

Seems like it could possibly be interesting, especially since it's going to want to stay in melee range and that fits in well with the GOTTAGOFAST instance meta we seem to have.

Thoughts?

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Yeah melee healer. I would also a ranged tank

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

I'd like to play a melee oriented healer (where all of my skills are melee range except for a couple of single target heals), but what makes it distinct from the other healers is that where most of the skills are do some amount of damage but then have a secondary effect (maybe determined by stance?) that's a DoT, HoT, Shield, or a buff/debuff.

Maybe call it a templar as it's mechanically similar to a paladin?

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As long as it isn't intending to be Just-Another-WHM-Plus-Minor-Gimmick, sure, I could get behind a Brigitte/Holy Paladin melee-range healer.

There are some obvious concerns there, though, such as dependence on at least the option of a 3-Ranged DPS comp in many a fight, since it'd be taking up a melee spot.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Nearly all difficult fights are designed with healers treated as ranged casters. There's a lot of design precedence to roll back there.

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As above, it'd really just be a matter of giving this healer 2 or 3 consecutive GCDs of solid melee-downtime (ranged abilities) functionality per 45s or so. In what few fights require more than that, you just take an extra ranged dps over a melee one to compensate. Anything hard enough that you can't just suck it up and wait out a global or three of true downtime while doing assigned ranged mechanics is pretty much going to require premades anyways.

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Originally Posted by Feidam

They’d have to change how the base stats functions for a specific class which I don’t see them doing.

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No, they really wouldn't.

I'm striking you with melee slashes. Guess what stat they use? Yep, intelligence. (RDM)

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I still fail to see what that accomplishes that just having the job start from new can't.

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Facilitated player access to roles/capacities while following desired themes and, more importantly, less job theme occlusion.

Want a Marksman job? Sorry, we've already got Machinist, even though it has increasingly little to do with gun usage.

Want a Ranger job? No can do... already have our bow-wielding job.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Facilitated player access to roles/capacities while following desired themes and, more importantly, less job theme occlusion.

Want a Marksman job? Sorry, we've already got Machinist, even though it has increasingly little to do with gun usage.

Want a Ranger job? No can do... already have our bow-wielding job.

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That was always my concern too.. It seems that people always wants something or the contrary of something, while we could sometimes have both.
I mean, a friend of mine really would love a bow job but HATES BRD, and he knows that he will never get it because it would step on Bard toes (even with using another weapon like a crossbow), even people here on the forum aknowledge that the 2 Jobs "would be too similar".

Same thing for:
Gunner- there Is already MCH (also, lol since it is more a gadgeteer, this also is a general opinion)
A paladin healer version- there Is already PLD
A time mage - AST has already some time magic flavor
Geomancer- WHM under level 70 already uses its elements

As already stated in MANY other posts across the years, Ranger could UNLOCK (or split) from archer at level 30, Geomancer (dps) from conjurer at level 30 and so on.
The different between this and NEW JOBS would be that they would share some skills and playstyle.
I know that it would never happens, because "SE SAID SO" (Even if it would not be the first time that SE, or Yoshi says something just to throw it in the garbage later, like the fact that personal houses would have never been demolished for example), what i find infuriating is the mindset that this and other things would be fisically impossible for SE to do..

Another idea that somebody trhowed on the forum, was something on the line of "jobs reskins", again in the example of bard, you could create 2 skins that plays exactly the same but with different animations, one musically themed and one arrows themed.

All of these above would not substitute the developments of "really new" jobs, but could go on par with it. Creating more "personalization options" across the board, so in the end we would have, instead of 18 jobs, dunno.., 36 jobs.. and 18 different playstyles..

--"bUT dUUUUUDE, wHy WAste developERs TiME and money THat could go on OThERR STuff?"
--"Dunno?? Maybe it would be fun? It would attract a lot of more people into the game? It would increase appeal to other Final fantasy fans or even other gamers that still dont have theyr dream job in the game?"

The fact that the ACN/SCH/SUM stuff is so demonized, even from SE itself, is mindblowing to me. I am around since 2.0 and i always found really FUN that SCH and SUM shared some mechanics, like the dot spread stuff, STILL retaining in my opinion theyr job identities. People throw around the "The class split is difficult to balance" flag. But is it really the truth? Is it really THAT difficult to balance the first 30 levels (or more ) of skills sharing?

Another fitting exemple is MCH: a person here in the forum once said that "corsair class" (of wich we still have some remnants underground the Marauder guild in limsa), would have no sense since you could just count the first 30 levels of MCH as "corsair". I went and look at the JOB and he was right: The first 30 level skills of MCH are all (or almost all cant remember right now) gun based skills, WHILE AFTER 30 are all gadget things. Why could we not "split" (use another verb if you dont like this) mch at level 30 and create another class that has the same first 30 levels foundation and build with more gun skills, creating a real Gunner?

In my opinion (ad i dont think you can change my mind on this), sharing base classes, or create classes reskin would:

-Create A LOT more jobs with less general work involved;
-Create "parental" relationships on different jobs. This imho would be fun on the lore and job mechanical side.

I repeat, just in case i was not clear: i am not saying that you'll never have to do new tipes of gameplays (like it is now when you add a new job), i am saying that you could ALSO once in a while add a BRANCH job or a resking job, when said job would be too much tematically similar to another already existing.

When i see how this ideas just get attacked ISTANT with no mercy makes me think that nowadays people just lacks imaginative ways to do things and resolve problems, or to think outside roles and boxes (boohhhh a meleee healer, call the police!!!!).

Edit: text limit and grammar

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Originally Posted by Garten

Another fitting exemple is MCH: a person here in the forum once said that "corsair class" (of wich we still have some remnants underground the Marauder guild in limsa), would have no sense since you could just count the first 30 levels of MCH as "corsair". I went and look at the JOB and he was right: The first 30 level skills of MCH are all (or almost all cant remember right now) gun based skills, WHILE AFTER 30 are all gadget things. Why could we not "split" (use another verb if you dont like this) mch at level 30 and create another class that has the same first 30 levels foundation and build with more gun skills, creating a real Gunner?

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Machinist is a bit of a stretch since it's an expansion job but you could look at the current Monk and it has quite a few mitigation tools, it was obvious that it was supposed to branch into a tank.

I just thought it might be an easy way for the devs to appease every role come expansion if their limit is just 2 jobs with one being a branch.

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Originally Posted by Aluja89

Machinist is a bit of a stretch since it's an expansion job but you could look at the current Monk and it has quite a few mitigation tools, it was obvious that it was supposed to branch into a tank.

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Well... yes and no.

At the time of the original jobs, each had significantly more versatility (though Monk, as something of a trademark, had a bit more than most), and no two jobs held quite the same role-niche. Warrior and Paladin were both tanks, certainly, but in some cases diametrically opposed. Gladiator, and thus Paladin, had significant tools for threat-transfer, dealing with tankbusters, etc., while Marauder was more about snap threat itself, building to consistently high HP, and some self-sustain. The original (1.x) Monk played a bit of a supportive melee role, between being able to snap-tank temporarily even as a dps, support party healing, or kite mobs. Lancer/Dragoon, meanwhile, was something of a half-tank or strike-leader, with both saboteur skills that could adjust the pacing of enemy attacks by sapping their (generative, or builder/spender, at the time) TP and raid-healing through Life Surge being a Bloodbath style debuff that'd apply to all raid attacks against the given target. Thaumaturge was more Oracle than Black Mage, with significant debuffing and HP-transfer, opposite the elemental Conjurer. Etc., etc.

Back then the goal wasn't to have each job potentially branch into multiple roles as for roles to be very much secondary to jobs, which were each their own thing.