So... that spiderman shirt... (new job tease)

[RukiaFae]

Might help to toss out suggestions. Hots/Direct Heals/Shields are all fairly classic and staple forms of healing in MMOs or RPGs in general. Beyond that you also have the, 'Heal from dealing damage,' style but that tends to be difficult to balance. Either its too weak or too strong.

Sorry I suck at coming up with ideas. Especially since this is my first MMO. I just feel like you only have two ways to heal and that's it. AST almost broke the mold but they basically made it a combination of SCH and WHM. They could have added healing cards or give more unique actions like synastry. I guess, yes shields and HoTs are the basic ways to heal but I wish they could spice it up more instead of repeat copies.

[Shougun]

Sorry I suck at coming up with ideas. Especially since this is my first MMO. I just feel like you only have two ways to heal and that's it. AST almost broke the mold but they basically made it a combination of SCH and WHM. They could have added healing cards or give more unique actions like synastry. I guess, yes shields and HoTs are the basic ways to heal but I wish they could spice it up more instead of repeat copies.

Problem is all the other ways are kind of hard to balance, and when I mean kind of I mean its already a pain to balance normal stuff so these weird ideas would be like "OP" or "Kick on sight".

Heal via damage as Vexander brought up is one, but it'd of course have to be a multiplier of your damage into healing otherwise you'd deal way too much damage compared to other healers and heal at the same time. And if you heals lack then your main purpose is lacking, aka no one wants you.. lol. I feel this one is a more likely to be a viable different vision. You could if concerned about balance build it into their MP management more like a Auriel (damage translates into energy resources which is used for healing).

Life siphon / sharing healers have existed but I imagine they'd be a serious pia to balance in PvP. Basically they share their own health and have less MP management because they're managing their health into others. Could use some reserves (stacking buffs) mechanics to bring the hp down a bit realistically and add a few mechanics to juggle.. but again these type of healers generally have excellent self health generating tools because their healing method is via their own life.. thus PvP could become an issue (other healers are already fairly hard to kill (w/o CC at least) so maybe the difference isn't that bad but it could be awful). Some sort of cultist, bloodmancer, necro thing.

Another thing they could try is play around more with the delivery options, like bouncing, pulsating, and etc:
Bouncing: Hits a target, and then nearby targets in order for lesser amounts. Think chain lightning and all those good rpg classics. Forking rather than bouncing could be too.
Pulsating: Imagine helios/Medica except instead of once it goes off multiple times for a lesser value each time but a higher total potency, could even pick a pusling target instead of off yourself
Ray: Sort of in line with siphon idea above except that its just specifically a ray that heals the target while the ray is active
Battery/Building: Fill up a battery that you can release at a later date, for the built up amount (method of building can be healing, damage, damage taken, time)
On Hit: Not like above idea where it powers your heals this one is more like the target gets a buff that when they hit something they get healed, also could use the enemy being hit heals the attacker
Object/Localized: Like the turret on MCH, except for healing and could utilize other deliveries within it (like pulsating/bouncing). Like a node that reduces a single nearby player's damage, after X seconds heals the party for a formula of that damage reduced. Or a crystal font that pulsates when the target is attacked healing nearby allies (besides the target). Simpler stuff is fine too, a ray that heals the lowest nearby player, a healing aura, an MP battery that mages can stand by to drain into themselves. Pretty open.

Ofc we already have DoT, Shield HP, Single Target, and AoE, and these are not bad options and could be incorporated into the less used versions as well.

You could probably whip out a really fancy geomancer creating healing structures and all these weird special effects, but it'd still be a pain to balance lol. If it gets too geometrical you might expect that the Job has a higher reward (meaning if you're really good at placements you could reach a higher skill ceiling). Or if they're really big it might make the ideas less novel but I guess easier to balance.

When I say pia I'm not saying "never will happen" just that anything truly different is going to take a real careful eye, like more than a regular job's attention to detail. Balancing direct heals and basic dots is a bit easier. So.. I'm not trying to shut anything down . I agree it'd be cool to see something different

[Blueyes]

People tend to forget that the 2016 Moonfire Faire provided hints towards the jobs we would be seeing in Stormblood. It is the prime reason why I still believe we will be getting three jobs over the course of the 4.0 patch cycle.

The Moonfire Faire event introduced us to three ranger characters, each of which expressing a signature pose while donning outfits colored in red, black, and yellow respectively. The pose of each ranger should be closely examined while taking into consideration the color that each wears.

I will provide my own interpretation of these poses, beginning with the red ranger. Even before Red Mage was announced, I looked at how the red ranger poses with an outstretched open palm. In my eyes, the pose was a symbolic representation of a spell caster. Combine that information with the fact that he wears red and it becomes easy to see that the red ranger was hinting at Red Mage.

Next we have the black ranger. Once again, it is important to examine the pose. What I found to be particularly interesting was the way the arms were positioned in such a way that they formed a long straight line with each hand coming to flat point. In my eyes, the pose was a symbolic representation of a two-handed bladed weapon. It does not take any stretch of the imagination to draw a connection between the black ranger and Samurai.

Last we have the yellow ranger. I consider this to be the most interesting because it does not require deciphering what the pose could represent in the same manner as the other two rangers. In fact, the pose of the yellow ranger could be the least obscure of the three. Put simply, the pose is identical to one used by Dancer in FFXI. I will add reference images within the spoiler tag.

Now I can understand how someone could look at this and say that I'm reading into it too much. However, we must remember that it was stated that the event provided clues. Based on the limited information that we have, I believe this is the most logical conclusion that could be drawn. (If we were getting Blue Mage it would make sense for one of the rangers to be wearing blue... Just saying.) It would also likely mean one job for each role which fits in line with what they did for Heavensward. And while it is true that, of the three, Dancer has the least amount of supporting evidence, it is still more than Astrologian ever saw prior to its announcement.

I would like to talk a bit more about Dancer because I believe this is the perfect opportunity to introduce the job. There are many players who enjoy Astrologian, but the development team received backlash from the way the job was designed to merely mimic the styles of White Mage and Scholar. Yes, there were cards, but that was just a tacked-on mechanic independent from its healing.

Now let’s stop and wonder, what is one job from the Final Fantasy series that can heal that would also provide players with a considerably different experience than what is offered by any of the current healers? I think the best candidate to satisfy that desire is Dancer. Or at least, Dancer in FFXI was by far the most unique in the way it functioned. And while no, it likely won’t function the same way in FFXIV, it does set a precedent for player expectation. If Dancer is not available at the start of Stormblood (but confirmed to be released in a later patch) I would take that as a sign that they are taking extra time to ensure they are able to meet those player expectations.

[GMERC]

Posing Ranger Black is wearing that color to represent The Immortal Flames, actually.

[Shippuu]

I was meaning to say that they trolled in general about what was coming. Not that they necessarily put fake files in the game. They intentionally toss out red herrings for everyone to chase, to keep the speculation hype train rolling. Yoshida, himself, trolled that the shirts meant nothing, when in fact they did (for HW). I learned early on (with FFXI) that they love to throw out random information for us to chase. They've had more fun with it on this game, however.

Please do share what specific red herrings they tossed out leading up to Heavensward job reveals. Because all you've got are the shirts, none of which were red herrings, merely hints towards new jobs. None of them hinted things that weren't ultimately true or deceiving, simply just vague hijts/references.

So yeah, source where they deceived us specifically with information towards new jobs that was intentionally misleading.

[Khalithar]

None of them hinted things that weren't ultimately true or deceiving, simply just vague hijts/references.

The fact that he was wearing a Scarlet Witch shirt was completely the opposite of vague.

[Lewtskie]

I was meaning to say that they trolled in general about what was coming. Not that they necessarily put fake files in the game. They intentionally toss out red herrings for everyone to chase, to keep the speculation hype train rolling. Yoshida, himself, trolled that the shirts meant nothing, when in fact they did (for HW). I learned early on (with FFXI) that they love to throw out random information for us to chase. They've had more fun with it on this game, however.

I've come to understand that while Yoshi likes to JOKE with the playerbase, he >personally< has never aimed to mislead anyone. If anything is found or "not found" in the data files, it would be wholly on the devs/programmers. Also, He had no involvement with FFXI, what they did has no relation to anything he does now.

He loves the players, and wants them to speculate and theorycraft, but he has never just thrown out random information to screw with us.

The fact that he was wearing a Scarlet Witch shirt was completely the opposite of vague.

I think the one that was ultimately vague was the 007 shirt. Even after the gun pose he did, I don't think anyone could have imagined us getting Machinist specifically. And I'm just imagining how simple and blunt the Spiderman shirt really is and how stupid some of us are gonna feel when he pieces it all together.

[Khalithar]

And I'm just imagining how simple and blunt the Spiderman shirt really is and how stupid some of us are gonna feel when he pieces it all together.

February 18th can't come fast enough! Then we can finally put it to rest.

[Remus]

Not much point asking for it to be Tank/DPS now it's all decided. All you can say now is I hope SAM will be DPS/Tank. I personally hope SAM is a DPS and i'm sure the majority want it to be a DPS. Even though this won't have a impact on the role selection when the guy himself Yoshi-p sees SAM as a DPS it says a lot. I honestly believe they should delay a new healer job. They took so long just to balance AST(a whole expansion...) and it wouldn't surprise me they don't make another healer this expansion because of that purely so they could think on it more.

[Lambdafish]

The fact that he was wearing a Scarlet Witch shirt was completely the opposite of vague.

Trust me, I still saw people trying to propose dancer from scarlet witch...