Would Discipline Priest Mechanics work in FFXIV?

[Duelle]

Really it just means they wouldn't be able to attack, wouldn't the heals still be ranged?

Yes and no. Melee healers usually work around building the healing resource via melee and then spending it on heals. Additionally, their attacks would usually do splash healing (read: heals the attacker and those nearby for a portion of the damage dealt).

@OP: I'm guessing you're talking about the new Disc Priest seen in Legion. To give the FFXIV players a working example, let's take AST and treat it like a Disc Priest.

Say that AST had a mechanic where Aspected Benefic applies a heal every time you deal damage. So AST would focus on keeping Aspected Benefic up on party members, and as long as the effect is active, those party members get a heal applied to them every time you cast Malefic. That's generally Disc Priests in a nutshell.

As to whether it would work here or not, the tricky part is healer damage output. It certainly offers a different playstyle, but I fear it would become "required" because of how bent on maximizing raid DPS people are in this game. Hell, Legion's Disc Priest also carries this risk, though it would be less noticeable because you have 5 other healing specs and 20-man raids mean you already have multiple healers in-group.

[Voltyblast]

As to whether it would work here or not, the tricky part is healer damage output. It certainly offers a different playstyle, but I fear it would become "required" because of how bent on maximizing raid DPS people are in this game.

And honestly that's a major issue with this game. Infact all we have to look is at the 3 new jobs we've got: instead of actually try something original they copied the pre-existing jobs in fear that their diversity wouldn't be effective, and being effective in dps and heal is basically all that this games want: anything less is unwanted.

AST is the best example here: their stances are literal copies of SCH and WHM skills and I really REALLY fear this might be a trend in the future because, instead of making a new interesting combat for them they simply copied pieces of the existing healers. Despite having the card Mechanics - which I really like - their skill sets is a literal copy of the pre-existing healers, and if they were an original healer - like a discipline priest for example - they might be ignored totally because "not effective as WHM or SCH".

So while I hope for new diverse jobs, with the current "mentality" that the game demands I can't see this happening that easily...I mean even MCH and DRK are copies of other jobs with really minor differences!

[Duelle]

Infact all we have to look is at the 3 new jobs we've got: instead of actually try something original they copied the pre-existing jobs in fear that their diversity wouldn't be effective, and being effective in dps and heal is basically all that this games want: anything less is unwanted.

It's not as clear cut as you think it may be. Part of the issue is that there's nothing in the way of new/unique resources to help build up gameplay for the new jobs. The job that has the closest thing to a resource is MCH with ammo, except even that behaves like a stacked damage buff that gets consumed when you use abilities. This may be because of UI limitations (like the hell the devs supposedly went through to let us see the TP of our party members), or perhaps one of those "this is Final Fantasy so all classes have to work off TP and MP only!" things.

AST is the best example here: their stances are literal copies of SCH and WHM skills and I really REALLY fear this might be a trend in the future because, instead of making a new interesting combat for them they simply copied pieces of the existing healers. Despite having the card Mechanics - which I really like - their skill sets is a literal copy of the pre-existing healers, and if they were an original healer - like a discipline priest for example - they might be ignored totally because "not effective as WHM or SCH".

There's a couple of things you're not taking into account. First that they've invested so much into the WHM+SCH combo that it's probably difficult for the devs to work in extra healing that provides different gameplay without getting outpaced by either or. That's largely why AST was designed to be a partner to one or the other (going Diurnal when partnered with SCH, going Nocturnal when partnered with WHM). I'll be the first one to tell you it's a very flimsy excuse, but having just leveled WHM and SCH to 60 and currently leveling AST, I'm starting to see how this all fits together. It's still not good design and sure as hell should not have happened, but that's the way things are right now.

[Voltyblast]

Snip

If they invested WHM+SCH combo so much that's difficult to work new ways of healing, then this means it would be nearly impossible to make new healers in the future because they would eventually be copies of the first 2: anything else that is not similar will be ignored...and this is not a good thing.

But I'm the first one to say that the main culprit is the game itself and the mentality it asks of "meta": in most mmorpgs I played every class is viable with maybe one or two exceptions, but I really had a hard time seeing one class being preferred overall and the reason was that each class had a unique method of play that had more or less utility in certain fights: some classes were better kiters, some had better aoe, some had better single target damage, etc. But overall they were all useful in their own way.

The way the game demands for a specific "meta" in terms of jobs, to the point that all future jobs could be copies of pre-existing ones, could lead us to more copy cat jobs in the future. And if future jobs will be locked behind expansion like HW did, why would I want to level it when the original 10 are basically the same (and probably more balanced than the new ones, who could be underpowered)?

I'm curious of what they're gonna do but if the next jobs are copies of pre-existing ones again, I'll just stick with what I already know: it's not that they're that different anyway.

[Duelle]

If they invested WHM+SCH combo so much that's difficult to work new ways of healing, then this means it would be nearly impossible to make new healers in the future because they would eventually be copies of the first 2: anything else that is not similar will be ignored...and this is not a good thing.

It's not so much whether it's similar design-wise, but whether the results in-group are similar.

At least as I've seen it argued, a big part of the problem is that SCH is very damn powerful. Heal shields are supposedly invaluable in raids given how they're currently designed. This creates a problem where WHM is easily replaced so long as the alternatives have similar healing throughput. None of the other healing approaches would come close to damage prevention from crit Adlos (there was that one comic where Sephirot basically surrendered without a fight to a raid only because they had a SCH), and I say that as someone who has seen other healing designs over the years.

There's also the issue of the game engine's design. HoT focus is really hard here because overhealing generates aggro, so as much as I want a resto druid analogue in this game, you're not going to see a proper adaptation because it'd make initial pulls a nightmare to the tank. Things like smart-heals are elitist fodder (much to my dismay) and push classes designed around it to the niche of raid healing (something FFXIV doesn't support because raid healers shine in large raids, which as already established the game lacks).

But I'm the first one to say that the main culprit is the game itself and the mentality it asks of "meta": in most mmorpgs I played every class is viable with maybe one or two exceptions, but I really had a hard time seeing one class being preferred overall and the reason was that each class had a unique method of play that had more or less utility in certain fights: some classes were better kiters, some had better aoe, some had better single target damage, etc. But overall they were all useful in their own way.

The thing is that most MMOs support large raids in some way. For example, WoW's raiding allowed for small discrepancies between healers because in a 40/25-man raid you needed tank healers and raid healers, with tuning allowing for either to efficiently heal in 5-man dungeons. Thus no one is really affected because a healer can heal both major facets of content.

[Voltyblast]

Snip

Not to diminish your post or anything, since that you've brought up quite a lot of good points, the thing could be easily fixed in one way: make the game varied, change stuff, make each expansion unique and I'm sure that's something everyone wants but the game doesn't seem to want to (isn't 4.0 going to be exact same afterall?)

Let me explain: when a new class is usually implemented into a game - or anything really, like heroes in mobas or new classes in fps, etc - the game itself changes because the new class brings some new elements to the table, changing the "meta" so to speak. AST for examples has the card mechanic - which is why I like the class - but it's not really a big "meta changer" and feels more like a gimmick rather than an actual mechanic. On top of that the Spear card doesn't work retroactively, making it nearly impossible to use it without coordination. So why not giving them something more? For example, they could work like WoW Shamans in healing (Chain healing and Aoe etc) [Yes yes, WoW worst game ever, yadda yadda, i don't care]: they would be different, bring new skills to the table, and be effective anyway while being different. But why not in FFXIV? Because the game isn't changed according to the new classes, the new classes are instead being changed to accomodate an old system/meta. Unless they actually start to work on making the game more varied, we will constantly get more and more copycat jobs, more similar stats, more "of the same". AST DRK and MCH are three good examples, with NIN being very close (Ninjutsu saves them as it actually is a mechanic and has different skills and buffs)

So to quote myself in this case again:

In my opinion, yes but not with the current [...] system we use

And the reason for this is

Because the game isn't changed according to the new classes, the new classes are instead being changed to accomodate an old system/meta

And until the system doesn't get some rework or anything, any possible original jobs such as hybrids, true supports and similar will never happen. They'll just be changed to be similar to previous jobs that we currently have.

PS: about the HoT mechanic, once again, it's something that the game should fix: in other mmos HoT based heals are possible and flawless, with aggro not being a big issue UNLESS you purposedly overaggro (It's pretty common to me seeing HoTs being put on the MT while pulling afterall...just not in this game). In other words, if HoTs are huge aggro magnets, they should lower the aggro generation from said spells all together. That's not too complicated to do and other games seems to do this fairly well. Why can't FFXIV?

PPS: aren't larger raids harder to balance anyway? If smaller ones are easier, this shouldn't even be an issue. And if not, then we should have larger scaled raids to begin with. I'm honestly curious about this because I hear it both ways. Make up your mind people! xD

[Duelle]

when a new class is usually implemented into a game - or anything really, like heroes in mobas or new classes in fps, etc - the game itself changes because the new class brings some new elements to the table, changing the "meta" so to speak.

My guess is the devs are trying to avoid invoking the buff-nerf rollercoaster too much, and the "safest" way to do this is by basing your designs on ones that already exist. I don't agree with that mentality, since the focus of a design should be within parameters rather than using specific designs as a base.

AST for examples has the card mechanic - which is why I like the class - but it's not really a big "meta changer" and feels more like a gimmick rather than an actual mechanic.

In fairness, the cards are a gimmick. From the perspective of a console FF, I'm sure Draw Card would be AST's special command if it had been a class in FFIII or FFV.

So why not giving them something more? For example, they could work like WoW Shamans in healing (Chain healing and Aoe etc), they would be different, bring new skills to the table, and be effective anyway while being different.

So what you're saying is that you want emphasis on what makes the gameplay of each additional class different from the others, right? This is something I can get behind, as I've found myself wishing DRK would have had access to Dark Arts stuff earlier in the leveling process, not to mention AST and MCH getting cards/sects and turrets at lv30.

But why not in FFXIV? Because the game isn't changed according to the new classes, the new classes are instead being changed to accommodate an old system/meta. Unless they actually start to work on making the game more varied, we will constantly get more and more copycat jobs, more similar stats, more "of the same". AST DRK and MCH are three good examples, with NIN being very close (Ninjutsu saves them as it actually is a mechanic and has different skills and buffs)

Part of this can largely be blamed on the fact that our max tier content is 8-man raids. This takes us back to the point I made about the WHM+SCH combo being the main thing SE invested in when it comes to healer design. Since you've already mentioned WoW, healers there were not designed to be paired up, and instead are built with their own styles of healing and a common denominator (the ability to remove all debuffs and rez people).

Of course, none of the healers in WoW were designed around something as powerful as damage-negating barriers. Power Word: Shield and Earth Shield were the closest things we had, though both had limitations by way of cooldown timers, target limits or debuffs that prevented the effect from being stacked and constantly reapplied.

about the HoT mechanic, once again, it's something that the game should fix: in other mmos HoT based heals are possible and flawless, with aggro not being a big issue UNLESS you purposedly overaggro (It's pretty common to me seeing HoTs being put on the MT while pulling afterall...just not in this game). In other words, if HoTs are huge aggro magnets, they should lower the aggro generation from said spells all together. That's not too complicated to do and other games seems to do this fairly well. Why can't FFXIV?

I actually mentioned this in discussions about healers both in beta and after ARR launch. The response was something to the effect of "trololol u need skill 2 play a heeler in ffxiv". Because wanting to preemptively mitigate tank damage by applying a HoT on a tank before the pull is the true sign of a scrub according to the people playing this game.

aren't larger raids harder to balance anyway? If smaller ones are easier, this shouldn't even be an issue. And if not, then we should have larger scaled raids to begin with. I'm honestly curious about this because I hear it both ways. Make up your mind people! xD

Speaking for myself, I support bigger raids because it gives the opportunity to bring more people due to need of bodies. And when the content is forgiving enough, you can bring new people without fear of wiping all night.

During my raiding days, the 10-man groups were the sort of cream of the crop of the guild, and our 25-man runs were comprised of those elite players and the other members of the guild (plus a couple of randoms form other guilds if we were low on people that week). One of our members (who was in one of the 10-man groups) would even bring along his elderly mom (who played a decent mage) to our raids, and despite the fact that she wasn't geared for cutting edge raiding could hold her own because she could follow directions and the content was not ridiculously overbearing in normal mode as opposed to what we see in Savage raids.

[FoxyAreku]

@OP: I'm guessing you're talking about the new Disc Priest seen in Legion.

More pandaria and before, but it's the same thing as far as I'm aware.

Haven't touched WoW in years.

If a melee healer has ranged heals, then it's not really a melee healer.

Not really?

There aren't actually healers that have to go around chasing after DPS to heal them with every move they have, are there? Because that sounds horrid.