[Tanks/Healers]: Are you disappointed there is no new job in 4.0?

[Ultimatecalibur]

Healers and tanks shouldn't be that fundamentally difficult to balance compared to dps. Other games manage it fine. WoW has like 6 healing specs and 6 tanking specs. If balancing is that hard, there is an issue with the meta.

Balancing tanks and healers is currently tricky because they inadvertently designed the first two jobs in these roles is such a way that adding additional jobs in a balanced manner is not really possible unless they rebalance things.

They were designed such that A+B > A+A or B+B with A>B in various aspects. This is fine when there is only 2 jobs in a role, but troublesome when C is added. You want A+B=A+C=B+C>A+A, B+B or C+C, but we ended up with A+C>A+B>B+C>A+A, B+B or C+C. They need to get it so that A+B=A+C=B+C before they add D.

[Paladinleeds]

Don't mind myself. I play my Paladin and my Scholar and they will be the first 2 I take to 70. I'm happy there isn't as I remember there often being long tank queue times when trying to level my PLD in Heavensward launch (DPS was often the adventurer in need of all things).

[Ama_Hamada]

Right now I do not want a new healer/ tank. They can't even balance the 3 we got currently. On top of the excuse of SCH sharing with SMN makes it harder to balance SCH with the other healers.
WHM is the "power" healer
SCH is more burst healer with some limited support
AST is more support with less healing options

I am not sure how they can even put a 4th healer in properly to make it is own while keeping balance.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

I'm not disappointed. I main WHM and had no intent of changing that even if a new healer was added. I'm hopeful that WHM gets a little love. But just a little. I like the simplicity of play that is the White Mage. Would I like a few improvements? Maybe one new ability that mitigates damage or buffs the party rather than just more ways to restore hp? Sure, that sounds great. But I don't wanna be constantly micromanaging cards like AST or dpsing more than healing and micromanaging aetherflow like SCH.

[Belhi]

To see it from another perspective... 3tanks and 3healer classes is, already, one could say, alot. If you think about it. Adding another tank and another healer? So you have what, 4 tanks and 4 healer types? No. 3 is already 1 more than what id call to be the norm in your average rpg! Having 3 tanks/healers is already enough to work with in this game believe me. That is enough to go about, of course they need to mix them up, so they each have a unique thing about them. It is perfect that they now add 2 dps. Overall that is nice balance. Now they need to make support roles more viable, and not just a gimp dps. And more... uniqueness to each job? So they each have something to bring.

I doubt they would rework the existing 'support' dps to be full support since that would upset a lot of existing BRD and MCH players. Just look how much WM angered BRD players. Permanently nerfing their dps would cause even more rage. There is also the question of how they implement a support job. Does that mean adding a extra slot to all content for a support job to queue for? That is a massive amount of work since it means going back and rebalancing every group instance in the entire game. Also how does the support role work? Does that mean we take all the utility skills off the other classes?

Also the argument 'we don't need more tanks and healers' can apply to every role in the game. We don't really need more dps either. You add jobs as much because its something that adds variety as much as an need. Do we really need SAM or RDM? Does the current meta not work without them? No we don't. That isn't why they are getting added.

Balancing tanks and healers is currently tricky because they inadvertently designed the first two jobs in these roles is such a way that adding additional jobs in a balanced manner is not really possible unless they rebalance things.

They were designed such that A+B > A+A or B+B with A>B in various aspects. This is fine when there is only 2 jobs in a role, but troublesome when C is added. You want A+B=A+C=B+C>A+A, B+B or C+C, but we ended up with A+C>A+B>B+C>A+A, B+B or C+C. They need to get it so that A+B=A+C=B+C before they add D.

My concern is what happens if they don't fix this. They have made promises but unless they can alter the meta to accommodate more variety it is going to end up being an argument to never add another healer or tank and I am not yet convinced they understand the issues with their design. The fact that they don't understand why healer dps has become an ingrained part of the meta is an example of that. Right of the bat they made healer spells to powerful and as a result healers end up with a large amount of down time. If they wanted healers to dps less all they would need to do is create mechanics which meant they had to heal more.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The problem with this is it can get dull playing the same class continuously. Frankly at this stage I am seriously thinking of taking a break from AST and WHM simply because I have played both so much they feel dull now. Maybe the level change and new abilities will change that but its still not the same has having something new to play.

Healers and tanks shouldn't be that fundamentally difficult to balance compared to dps. Other games manage it fine. WoW has like 6 healing specs and 6 tanking specs. If balancing is that hard, there is an issue with the meta.

Far as I recall, WoW's classes are not balanced and they've had several issues trying to remedy that. Didn't one class get nerfed into the ground and cause a huge blow back not too long ago? Keep in mind, balancing is not simply making each class/job strong enough relative to its counterparts but equally appealing and unique. If they merely slap some extra damage and a magic cooldown on Paladin, it's basically a near copy of Dark Knight. So what's the point of having two jobs?

[Belhi]

Far as I recall, WoW's classes are not balanced and they've had several issues trying to remedy that. Didn't one class get nerfed into the ground and cause a huge blow back not too long ago? Keep in mind, balancing is not simply making each class/job strong enough relative to its counterparts but equally appealing and unique. If they merely slap some extra damage and a magic cooldown on Paladin, it's basically a near copy of Dark Knight. So what's the point of having two jobs?

I haven't played since WoD but while I had plenty of issues with WoD and the alterations to some of the specs, balance wasn't one of those issues. FF14 has a kind of weird meta. To ridged maybe? For example, fundamentally the difference between MT and OT was using a couple of different abilities. You didn't really have stance dancing much. Your skill set when you were in front of the boss was pretty similar to when you were behind it. Its just your classes were mechanically different. Likewise, the healer meta wasn't as strict save for Disc Priests but I heard they weakened their shields and altered how atonement healing worked to make it far more proactive.

Of course the other thing is in most situations in WoW, unless you substantially over geared the content, healers would spend the bulk of their time actually healing rather than dpsing. If a healer didn't dps in a dungeon that wouldn't be considered lazy because he or she would have spent most of their time healing. Mechanically healing in FF14 is actually pretty simple but I think that is in part just due to the fact they made healing spells so powerful. I can bring a group from almost dead to almost full health in a couple of GCDs as a WHM. Of course nerfing healing spells now would be very unpopular so I don't really know what they can do to alter that.

[Ririta]

Far as I recall, WoW's classes are not balanced and they've had several issues trying to remedy that. Didn't one class get nerfed into the ground and cause a huge blow back not too long ago? Keep in mind, balancing is not simply making each class/job strong enough relative to its counterparts but equally appealing and unique. If they merely slap some extra damage and a magic cooldown on Paladin, it's basically a near copy of Dark Knight. So what's the point of having two jobs?

The problem with WoD was the pruning, making some classes lose their unique edge.

It's a similar thing as what happened to white mage. Removing your usefulness = doomed to fail the instant that somebody else is both useful and strong.

We wouldn't have this problem right now if Square Enix had some foresight. They've been nerfing white mages and buffing scholar since 2.1 and 3.0 went even further, and then Yoshida complains that arcanist was too hard to balance -.- yeah man, when you keep buffing scholars while nerfing white mages of course it will be hard to balance.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I haven't played since WoD but while I had plenty of issues with WoD and the alterations to some of the specs, balance wasn't one of those issues. FF14 has a kind of weird meta. To ridged maybe? For example, fundamentally the difference between MT and OT was using a couple of different abilities. You didn't really have stance dancing much. Your skill set when you were in front of the boss was pretty similar to when you were behind it. Its just your classes were mechanically different. Likewise, the healer meta wasn't as strict save for Disc Priests but I heard they weakened their shields and altered how atonement healing worked to make it far more proactive.

Of course the other thing is in most situations in WoW, unless you substantially over geared the content, healers would spend the bulk of their time actually healing rather than dpsing. If a healer didn't dps in a dungeon that wouldn't be considered lazy because he or she would have spent most of their time healing. Mechanically healing in FF14 is actually pretty simple but I think that is in part just due to the fact they made healing spells so powerful. I can bring a group from almost dead to almost full health in a couple of GCDs as a WHM. Of course nerfing healing spells now would be very unpopular so I don't really know what they can do to alter that.

To be fair, people choose to play that way. MT/OT is sub-optimal if we're getting technical. You should be swapping more often so the Warrior isn't sitting on Vengeance. Admittedly, XIV doesn't do a great job encouraging frequent tank swaps but it's still better to designating one person to a specific role. The same mentality applies with healing. If you have the White Mage/Astro near solo content, it'll result is less raid damage than had the Scholar shared those responsibility.

I do agree though, healing potency is absurd in this game. While I do actually like allowing healers to DPS, it's reached a point where you'll spend more time with Cleric on than off since stuff simply doesn't hit hard enough to warrant the extremely generous healing potency. It's hard to say whether nerfing would be unpopular. Plenty may actually appreciate it since they won't be harassed to DPS more. If the devs do not attempt to remedy the meta somehow, people's demands are only going to get worse.