Is It Even Possible To Have A New Healer Job?

[Kacho_Nacho]

I disagree. I mean no disrespect but you sound like you've already decided that the answer is no and you're just looking at things to support that point of view.

*snippers*

No disrespect taken, Cynehild.

In truth, I'm on the fence. I'm just taking the opposing view to promote more discussion on the issue.

The history of this game has already disproven your points. New healers can be made. New healers will be made. New healers will be viable in everything.

*nods*

True. But, hasn't the introduction of astrologians been a bit of a rollercoaster? They were too weak for a long time then buffed to the point where they were too powerful. Many healers were urged to switch to the job at the beginning of SB.

Now, honestly look at the current situation. Do you see any glaring holes? I don't. (honest)

That's a good thing!

But...

It puts the devs in a difficult position. They have painted themselves into a corner where there would have to be a lot of work done on the game overall to accommodate a new healer. Given that the number of players playing healers did not increase with the introduction of astrologians, would it be worth the effort?

[Alien_Gamer]

You're talking about two separate problems here. There's the first problem of what the new job concepts should be which includes things like job specific mechanics, job skills and playstyle, the second problem is numbers and balance. Numbers and balance are irrelevant to this kind of discussion though; when you create the job you throw some numbers in there (perhaps whm potencies as a default) then tweak it until its balance with other jobs. SE isn't the best at balance but they keep things well enough in line that nothing is unplayable.

Your main topic though is about the first problem; new healers that play differently and have different job specific mechanics than the existing ones. And simply put there is no shortage for options there. As an example take all the DPS jobs in the game and convert their damage into heals. You have 9 healing jobs each with different job specific mechanics, different skills, different playstyles and similar overlapping abilities; they all have single target heals of various power, AOE heals, special OGCD abilities that heal in different ways, etc. Some are ranged healers, some are melee, some are better with HOTS, some are better with powerful heals and some are better with aoe.

Just because there's no glaring holes in ways to heal it doesn't mean there isn't room for more ways to heal. There are weak heals, strong heals, aoe heals and heal over time, these are your core healing abilities in any job and they are all well covered. Whats not well covered is HOW those things are used.

The number of healers is also irrelevant. if they release a new healer job there will be a brief spike in healers, just like any other job, then it will go back to approximately the same amount. I'd argue that the lack of healers is more due to the role than the specific jobs; many people don't like healing and a new job won't change that.

[Jandor]

Yeah new healing concepts seem pretty possible to me.

Dancer as a 'totem' healer for example, who creates healing, support and damage dances out of various GCD combos then saves them on their job gauge to place as 'backup dancers' when required. That seems pretty conceptually different to any existing healer.

[Alisi]

So, has Square Enix painted themselves into a corner where no new healing classes can be developed?

There are lots of other kinds of healers. You can have healers that heal with the damage they do. You can have layering HoT healers (like 3 or 4 different hots they have to maintain on the party members.) You can do one that has ubber strong solo heals and one that has ubber strong AOE heals (or make them the same class but it is so they have to switch -- kind of like astro but not really.) There's proactive shielding type healing classes. One that use objects to heal (like a mech's robots) or could have, say, ubber strong CDs and/or the ability to shift HP/healing between people or take part of the dmg them selves or equalize all the HP in a group.

tldr; there are a ton of different sorts of healers you can have.

[Sylvain]

Just regarding the question of number of healers with the introduction of the new job.
This is true, Y. P said that the vast majority of AST were already healers before HW, same for DRK and tanks.


At the same time, (spare the leveling roulette and the first few weeks of SB), adding two new dps didn't really increase the number of dps. Most RDM and Sam were already dps long before.
I know several players who thought they'd reroll to dps with these jobs, yet they went back to heal/tank within month.

Does that mean because the number of players playing the role doesn't change, those playing the raters roles should be left apart?

I main astro and I don't think they'll ever introduce another job that will make me reroll. (even a dps Time mage, I would just reroll which job I play part time DPS)

I think theres plenty of game play that haven't been explored and I really hope by the end of this game, before the next reboot, they'll introduce at least 2 new tanks and heals. (y.p said they consider making a new 2.0 for when the story will be done. However I do hope they won't scrap all the jobs in the process. It would suck to loose half the possible jobs)

The issue with the lack of heals seems to be more related to the role itself. Many people don't enjoy healing (they feel a lot of responsability perhaps ?)
I don't see what they could do to incfease the number of healers. Even revamping the system would just make a shift, some healers would stop and some dps/tank would start.
Another reason for the shortage is the group size. Perhaps making part 5 man ans raid 10man would help (or create a shortage of dps)

[Renathras]

Given that the number of players playing healers did not increase with the introduction of astrologians, would it be worth the effort?

The answer to this is the answer to the question "Did the number of healers in SB decrease?"

Why?
If healers whet down in SB but did not in HW, the implication is that AST didn't add any new healers, but kept existing healers from abandoning the role (they had a "new toy" to play with). If healers in SB did NOT go down, then the implication is that healer players play or maintain playing healers, regardless of a new healer Job being added. (I will note this is also true with the tank Jobs, if you think about it. SB has data for a good "natural experiment", as it were.)

EDIT: I speels gud! XD

EDIT2:

Another reason for the shortage is the group size. Perhaps making part 5 man ans raid 10man would help (or create a shortage of dps)

Kind of a separate issue, but I see this tossed around a lot and don't understand. The game is designed around a 4 person base party. So unless the game code is changed, it is limited to party sizes of 4, 8, 12(presumably), 16, 20(presumably), and 24. 5 or 10 doesn't make sense in this context. On the OTHER hand, they could up the normal dungeon size to 8, with a party arrangement of 1 tank, 1 healer, and 6 dps (we know they can adjust the role distribution, because we have 1 tank, 2 healer, 5 dps and 2 tank, 2 healer, 4 dps arrangements of 24 man content, and, presumably, this would work on 8 man content as well).

To me, that's a more realistic expectation, and would deal with the problem of too many dps as well, if not better than, going to a 5 man party size, with FAR less game code having to be rewritten (including old dungeons, etc.) Only problem would be if this would create a "dps shortage". But I remember reading somewhere the playerbase was 15-20% tanks, 15-20% healers, and 50-60% dps, so...eh? (If ques got long, some tanks/heals might go dps, but...)

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

At this point, a new healer is going to have to be a non-caster because obviously we have caster covered. I've seen Dancer mentioned as healer. If you look at what Dancer did in FFT, then it could be feasible to have a heal/buff character based on that.

However, what a friend of mine mentioned and I agree, is that the next healer should be Chemist and come on a wave of a consumable item rework. Because restorative items are, on the whole, USELESS WASTES OF INV unless you are running PotD solo or without a healer. (I'm not talking about raid food or buff potions, I'm talking your standard restoratives).

In FFT, Chemists could use a range of weapons, but they could 'throw' items to party members and had potency buffs for those items. How would that work in FF14? Well, imagine an item healer who's item CD is the same speed as a healer's spell. The have a built-in potency buff. Can hold more than one phoenix down. Has a 'Mix' skill that can combine a pre-determined set of items into buffs, debuffs and esuna effects (maybe even mega-phoenix or auto-life--that would be fun). And of course can deliver those items at range. It would certainly be a challenge to make its utility as simple as caster healers but it could work and would certainly make restorative items useful again.

I think at this point, a new Healer is NEEDED if the shortage I keep hearing about is anything to go by. I think making it interesting will make some people switch back or just switch. Period.

[dynus]

I don't know if anyone's seen this, but I found this on Tumblr. It's not 100% perfect, but I think it's an innovative look at adding a fourth healing job without stepping on toes. The person who came up with it really put a lot of thought in it.

Reiterating, it's not mine, I'm currently looking the Tumblr post I found it on.

Check out these moves.

[Kohdo]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...r-%28Healer%29

[gumas]

i think new healer class is doable, instead of thinking how the class is going to work, i think its better to think which healer stereotype is not implanted yet.

so far we have...
- the straightforward healer style
- the pet based healer style
- the "jack of all trades?" healer style

we can put something like...
- melee healer (heal by damaging opponent?)
- elemental healer (aka geomancer) heal has elemental property which buff ally
- tech healer? (heal by using gadget machine stuff instead of magic like turret that give constant aoe heal or drone that stick to 1 ally and heal them)
- time mage as healer? (okay its getting ridiculous) instead of heal, the class actually rewind time back to where damage didn't happen yet, the downside is buff and debuff is also affected so.... high risk high reward style? i dont know, just something i come up with lol

the possibility is there