Is It Even Possible To Have A New Healer Job?

[Claire_Pendragon]

Thanks! The classes of Warhammer Online sound like they were fun!

Now, looking at the current situation, we have everything covered as far as healing goes. We have HoTs, single heals, AoE heals, damage mitigation, and buffs. Any new healer would be redundant on a lot of fronts. In addition, if the new healer is too good, players will be less inclined to play the current three. But, if the new healer wasn't good enough, then the question of why the new healer was added in the first place comes up.

Certainly, a big issue is that our boss fights don't allow a lot of variety in healers; but, as you pointed out, that may be a blessing. It's far easier to balance a few jobs than it is many.

I'm inclined to believe unless there is a complete overhaul of FFXIV's dungeons, and our existing healing jobs, there can be no additional healers added.

We dont technically have a HoT healer, we have healers with 'some" regens.
WHM being the closest, as they can stack medica2, and regen.
(Though their mechanics arent really built on HoTs)

Saying "we have it covered" is like saying DPS having Second Wind has healing covered.

But i do agree we need some adjustments to prior jobs, who borrow mechanics, in order to fill their own mechanics out, so that those mechanics can get a playstyle in and of itself.

[VanilleFang]

I don't really understand the appeal of a "HoT Healer". It's literally the same thing as burst healing except it takes longer.

Having HoTs is good to help alleviate the need to burst heal, but having only (or mostly) HoTs just makes healing someone to full HP take longer. It doesn't really save the caster any time... it just make them have to keep an eye on more icons.

[uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu]

Aye!
Lastly and perhaps most distinctly, the Warrior Priest/Disciple. This was a melee class with very very basic raw healing spells, instead of being MP limited, your melee abilities generated charges for your proper heals with an emphasis on party wide abilities to allow you to focus on your meleeing. Whilst it wasn't perfect, I still think that this job was one of the best and most original healer concepts in any MMO to this date. It's a huge huge shame that SE didn't base RDM on it IMHO!

I can see this as.. VerMedica(!) ..level extension past 70, works like VerFlare or VerHoly.

[Alien_Gamer]

Adding a new healer won't up the amount of people healing after the first few weeks.

The OP has nothing to do with increasing the number of people healing, just about the variety of healing jobs.

They definitely "will" implement more healer jobs, but they will probably fall into the line of:"White Mage with Gimmick X" or "Scholar with Gimmick Y".

I'm not sure what you're getting at here because if you strip away everything to their core parts this describes every class. War is a tank with Gimmick Berserk, Pld is a tank with Gimmick Shield, Drk is a tank with Gimmick HP stealing. DRG is a DPS with a Gimmick Jump, Nin is a DPS with a Gimmick Stealth, Rdm is a DPS with a Gimmick heal, etc.

The issue isn't if they have a gimmick or an original idea but if they are interesting to play once their built. Just as DPS all do essentially the same thing with a different coat of paint, they can make more healers with slightly different mechanics and play styles that are interesting to play.

[Alien_Gamer]

Here's a few possible concepts for additional healers.

Dancer - A melee healer that focuses on mitigation
Melee attacks inflict status debuffs on a mob such as blind and silence. Melee attacks grant a stackable buff to the dancer that increases evasion. Dancer heals through a few stacking regens and instant cast short length powerful shields. (mitigates 50-90% damage for 3-6 seconds). The idea is to stop damage and regen the small stuff interleved with melee attacks.

Aetherial Manipulator - A ranged healer
When a person is injured that injury causes disruption in their aether, conversely by manipulating their aether you can force the body to mend its wounds or transfer energy elsewhere. The Aetherial maniplator heals people by tethering to them and encouraging the recipients aether to heal or channeling their own aether into the person restoring their vitality. The Aetherial manipulator can them heal themselves by tethering to the mob and siphoning off their aether.

[insert clever name here] - another ranged healer
This healer would focus on healing through various buffs on allies and debuffs on enemies. The healer could place a buff on a tank that enables them to self heal for the next 3 attacks at a potency based off the healer's mnd stat and/or potency of the attack. Or a buff that would activate when the target is hit by another buff and regens them both (healer buffs tank, DRG uses battle litany, both tank and DRG get a regen for the duration of battle litany). Debuffs placed on mobs could do PB AOE heals to melee when the mob is hit for a certain amount of damage and scales based on damage. The healer would focus less on direct healing like WHM and more on enabling the party to heal itself

battle healer - a melee healer focusing on personal dps
This healer attacks things, healing is just a byproduct. One DPS combo will create short range low power aoe heals, a second DPS combo will do long range mid power heals that are targeted by LOS (person directly in front of the healer gets healed up to 25 range). OGCD heals would be instant single target high power heals. Let healers learn the joy of positionals and AOE dodging when they heal

Ok, so these aren't great and lack anything close to resembling balance, integration or polish but they're a core idea for other types of healers. I'm sure with more thought people could come up with as many healers as there are DPS.

[Ayer2015]

You can pull ideas from other games regarding how healing can be accomplished differently. Healing via dps skills (like a WoW disc priest, or the archmage from warhammer), rolling HoTs, something around auras, healing via personal HP expenditure, ect... There are many things SE can do.

Personally I like the idea of a TP based melee-range healer.

[Cyrocco]

The issue with creating new healer jobs lies in the fact that everyone prefers a unique playstyle from other jobs, instead of just reskins of another jobs skills. In terms of practicability, we have the major types covered. Each concept presented usually has some kind of problem when considering the way the game currently plays.

HoT healers would need a way to burn the remaining ticks for their HoT in order to be viable, since there are many raids where players are brought to a low amount of health, and a finishing mechanic is cast a few moment later, leading to a wipe if players aren't healed to certain values, a "heal check," this just makes their HoTs normal heals, or if we avoid the route, we put a larger amount of stress on the co-healer.

Sacrificial healers simply won't be played, or they won't be invited into content. For a Sacrificial healers concept to work, they would have to have issues healing themselves, or else sacrificing their own HP would have no meaningful effect on playstyle, they'd also have to have healing returns greater than that of the other healers, in order to make the job more viable in more than just "concept." Additional risk requires additional reward.

The other healer type I've seen mentioned a lot is the melee healer, and I can't imagine the issues I'd have healing up a team if my range was decided by where the boss is, and what section of my rotation I'm in. Furthermore, we saw how the healerbase reacted when Red Mages VerCure/VerRaise were released. This type of healer would have to have weak potencies in order for players to accept it, and massive range to compensate for when DPS split in order to adjust for certain mechanics, they'd also only be able to heal while in melee range? Sounds like a problem when the boss deals a huge amount of damage and is about to hit the entire party hard.

[NorthernLadMSP]

I think there is, but it’s either going to be a SCH clone or something properly fresh (to ffxiv at least). Warhammer Online is a good example of how diverse healers can be.

Unfortunately, in this game we can't have diversity. People cry relentlessly anytime there is something special about another job that their main doesn't have. Case in point - RDM. They have a self heal so SMNs has to be buffed to be the same and BLM needs one. RDM and SMN can raise so we see multiple threads crying for a BLM raise.

I'm all for diverse jobs in this game, but with the whiny player base we have, it's not going to happen.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Unfortunately, in this game we can't have diversity. People cry relentlessly anytime there is something special about another job that their main doesn't have. Case in point - RDM. They have a self heal so SMNs has to be buffed to be the same and BLM needs one. RDM and SMN can raise so we see multiple threads crying for a BLM raise.

I'm all for diverse jobs in this game, but with the whiny player base we have, it's not going to happen.

This example isnt very accurate, since the highest DPS of the 3 is SMN, and the highest utility is arguably SMN, but sometimes argued RDM.

BLM is middle ground DPS, and the lowest in utility.
So it offers nothing that SMN doesnt offer.

The other issue is that SMN was the "RDM" in 2.0-3.0 due to terrible deign implementations. SMN shouldnt have been what it was. SMN is an AoE burst job in FFs, not a rez machine with DoTs/sustain single target DPS.
Then SB comes out, and SMN becomes more bursty, and better AoE, but still wants to be the rez machine it was in 2.0-3.0.
It also did less DPS than BLM, and offered no utility over RDM to make up for its "lesser" status.

The problem is that the jobs DIDNT have anything over eachother.

If BLM had ANYTHING over the other 2, it wouldnt complain as much.
If SMN had anything over BLM/RDM in 4.0, it wouldnt have complained either.

RDM should be more utility focus, less DPS focus.
BLM should be DPS focused, less utility focus.
SMN should be in the middle. more utility than BLM, and more DPS than RDM
_but less DPS than BLM, and less utility than RDM.
(Or have the same function in dps/utility as one of those 2, but change up what kind of utility it offers. You cant really change up what kind of straight damage u can do, other than melee/ranged/aoe. The rest falls under utility more than dps)

The situation with DRK right now is the same issue. DRKs would always complain, but they would complain a LOT less if they had ANYTHING over WAR and or PLD.
Before PLD was the best tank.
But WAR and DRK werer so close, that the difference in DPS a WAR offers, wasnt a big deal, since DRK at 'least" has utility in TBN, even if its not a very good trade off.

But once WAR got defensive utility, what did DRK offer over WAR? nothing.
PLD and WAR have the better mitigation, threat, DPS, and utility.

(Technically DRK does have better sustained AoE, which practically applies to no real situation, as WARs higher burst AoE is more effective in all AoE situations.)

[Sebazy]

I'm inclined to believe unless there is a complete overhaul of FFXIV's dungeons, and our existing healing jobs, there can be no additional healers added.

I think they can add a new healer, the issue they have is that it really needs to fit into one of the two pigeonholes we have currently. How it gets there is fair game really, IMHO SE do have room to put in either a disc priest or melee style healer to compete better with the SCH slot.

I'm all for diverse jobs in this game, but with the whiny player base we have, it's not going to happen.

Depressingly true about the whiny player base, but that's really an online game thing in general, FFXIV isn't alone there. The devs just need to know when to listen to us and when to ignore us. Yoshida's got a reasonably decent track record so far if you ask me <3