If a new healer is added would there need to be a full rework?

[Ordoric]

If there is a new healer added in 5.0, How do you think changes would it effect current balance of ast, whm and sch, & how would you like to see the balance restored?

[ChameleonMS]

It will change nothing significant. Healers mains will try it out, and some will change. The same thing that happened with Heavensward.
SE will have the balanced incorrect at the start, then buff/nerf all the healers as needed to bring them inline by 5.2 or so.

[Sylvain]

I don't think it would change much unless they go for a concept that is currently non viable for healers.


For instance, FF14 healing mostly revolves around healing powerful AoE burst. Boss overall don't do any significant on tank beside their tank burster (this is why 2 healers can dps 80% of a fight unlike in WoW where the tank needs a devoted healer to spam him otherwise he'd die within 4-5sec)
Therefor, any form of healer not able to quickly top a whole raid wouldn't work

A common request was to make a healer highly focusing on HoTs.(A bit like the Resto Druid from WoW), however this wouldn't work in the current game because there are very few raids where you take constant low damage. You only take high spikes, and for that HoTs aren't all that great (unless the spikes have a long down time but this is very often not the case in FF14.

Another concept would be to have a healer strong at mitigatin on a single target, a bit like a "MT healer" like the Paladin used to be in WoW for quite some time. Yet again, tank don't take all that much damaage (spare the bursts) and every healer can top a tank in a few CD.

However, these spike mechanics makes shields in FF14 very valuable as, especially in early progression, players hp tend to go from 100 to 0 rather quickly. There are very few fight where you'll see the party slowly dying.

In otherwords, with the current healing model of FF14, (where healer are grossly OP, try find another game where a healer can top a raid by spamming 2-3 AoE) There are things that can be done and some that can't.


So regarding specifically your question, what would need to be changed. Nothing or everything depending on what they want to implement.

If they wan't to implement the "restodruid", then we'd need a rework on boss mechanics and overall healing efficiency so that topping off player takes more effort than a few CD. (having healer without unlimited mana could also be an option to go for efficiency)

If they go for something more standard of FF14 (beside some unique job quirks), nothing really needs to be changed.

Your healer would simply need to have
A spammable AoE heal
2 ranks of one target heal
1-2 quick emergency heals

Then everything else is fluff. They could have shields or hots or both (like the AST) or none.

There's plenty of things they could do that wouldn't require any change to the current healing model.

However, imo the game would benefit from having weaker AoE heals and more damage on tanks. In otherwords, healer are a bit too strong in FF14. (but that's just my opinion)




After reading your question again I guess you meant the balance between how each healer are used.
I'd say as long as they don't make a copycat of one the 3 healers, nothing wrong can happen
In otherwords, as long as they don't make another RAW/PURE healer (WHM), a buffer (AST) or a Tactician (SCH with the most / strongest ogcd) they can go for anything.

There's currently no healer that can debuff so that could be one way to go.

[Poptartzilla]

I don\\'t think it would change much unless they go for a concept that is currently non viable for healers.

*Claps* yes, very well said,

[Ordoric]

I am very curious as to how a ffxi sch style healer could operate where they are more HoT and buff centric. Giving whm a should heal ala stoneskin effect. Then allowing last to step in as a support healer.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Sylvain pretty much covered everything, but yes in general the healers are too broad in what they can do.
We already see that AST is a lazily done mix of the two previous healers. They can't pull another AST on us, and eventually I think AST is going to need a complete makeover once a 4th healer is added.

[MartaDemireux]

It's typically optimal to have one HoT/raw healing based healer and one shield based healer in a party. So basically a WHM and a SCH with AST as a wildcard to fill in for either. A new healer shouldn't step on AST's toes but should instead be an equivalent of either WHM or SCH (likely SCH due to its prime position currently). But there are other ways to think of HoTs/raw healing and shields so their toes aren't stepped on, even ways where they could pair just as nicely.

1: Max HP based healer - Reduces amount or odds of your partner's HoTs overhealing, provides a soft equivalent of a shield. Think Thrill of Battle but potency based instead of percent.
2: Shielding/HoT converting healer - Many ways to work around this one. Shields could turn into HoT when exhausted or overwritten by AST/SCH. HoT could be converted to shields on command. One or the other could be converted into a buff. Etc.
3: HoT based healer - Active HoTs could be consumed for raw healing with the potency depending on how long they have left (akin to Embolden decay). Overhealing with an HoT could apply a buff that increases a facet of DPS (DET/CRT/DRH/Haste) that increases per each tick of overheal (a reverse Embolden).
4: DPS based healer - DPS could directly convert to healing on a party member you have a buff placed on in lieu of HoTs (Google Chloromancer).

Another thing to remember is that WHM has a shield and SCH has an HoT. This means that any style of healer added could have a minor version or facet of an existing healer as well.

With my above examples, any of them would pair well with a SCH or WHM and therefor AST as well. Of course they'd have to be fine tuned to not be overpowered (AST+#4 could be overpowered for example without proper balancing) but there are many possibilities out there for healing. As Sylvain said, as long as they have a base heal, a stronger version of it and a standard AoE heal and a Raise, the rest is totally open for imagination.

[Aomine1992]

Well they compacted so much on some healers like WHM to me is the sum of two possible healers it should have been more focused on light and green magic, with the other side of CNJ being a geomancer using earth, air and water based spells but that's just my opinion...

AST to me is the sum of what it should be and parts of a time mage..

They could do dancer and have a tp based healer to shake things up a bit every other role has classes that use both besides healer....but agreed no more lazy carbon copy that AST was

[Arnyekok]

How about a reflection healer? Works like a shield healer but you mark a target and the amount you "shield" for is reflected back at your mark.

Could also implement a reflection gauge bit like the faerie gauge some some job mechanic, such single target heal, aoe heal, and single/aoe dps skills that all scale with the gauge.

[Shurrikhan]

Not necessarily, though regardless I fear for the range of creative design available if a major rework isn't in the books for down the line.