If it’s between Dancer and Chemist for 5.0 which should be our next healer?

[Vorlonshadow]

Ast lore states that geomancer will most like be the next healer.

[Tridus]

Ast lore states that geomancer will most like be the next healer.

Lore also states that Geomancer is effectively "White Mage, but Eastern". That's about as interesting as plain toast. Unless they plan on continuing WHM's conversion into "Priest" to make room for all the earthy spells that GEO would need. It'd make more sense as a DPS really, as there would be room for it without being too close to something we already have.

Salt for who? You don't even say who I have salt for, yet you want to come at me? Okay. First of all, I like how you jump on the bandwagon of people who want to bite my head off for stating my opinion and the facts of how Dancer is how it wouldn't be good as a main healer, yet you tell me to relax? For voicing my opinion or objection? You must new to debates missy. This is a opinion based thread with people who have their own bias about these kinds of jobs and I'm doing what the thread is intended for, stating my opinion, while also using facts to state why it shouldn't be a healer. If it causes a small debate, then it's fine, it was more civil than more threads I see like this on this board.


Next time, instead of jumping on the bandwagon to gang up on someone for voicing an opinion or debating an opinion, how about you either come up with a better counter punch or mind your own business?

Clearly the next healer needs to be Salt Mage, and this guy needs to be the guildmaster.

[NewAgeDoom]

Though I initially stated bias toward Chemist for the obvious TF2 Medic fashion, why not both? We have too few healer and tank classes as is, and we just got 2 DPS classes.

[Erudito]

If we had to choose between one or the other, I would want Chemist for healer. Break the cycle of magical healers, add in something different.
Let dancer join bard as support DPS.
Move Machinist away from support DPS role and have it be the match for ninja; the tricky jobs ideally.
And, finally, a magical tank. Dark Knight tried to incorporate magic but its still a dude or dudette swinging a huge sword that just so happens to be infused with void-like magic. Almost, but no dice.

[Brightshadow]

While I have no intention of letting myself get dragged in to what's happening right now, I'd like to point out Dark Knight in all of this. A good number of the people in this community insisted on thinking that Dark Knight would be a DPS job. The moment DRK got revealed as a Tank instead, a good number of the people felt "spat on" that the job would dare to be anything other than a DPS. In a similar vein, before Red Mage even got announced for this game, I'd hear people say that there would be no way Red Mage would work out in FFXIV's combat system, with them saying things like "It's just a White Mage/Black Mage wannabe"... among other things. Yet, here we are, with RDM in as a DPS unit with a notable Cure spell of its own and has it's own melee 3-step combo, and DRK as a Tank that focuses more on MP management instead of HP management when it comes to attacking targets.

To get to the point I'm trying to make here... if a job like DRK can jump into this game as a Tank instead of a DPS... why not have Dancer as a Healer? Especially considering that the DPS job role department already got all the love thanks to Stormblood. *Waves to RDM and SAM*

This'll be my only post on this matter.

As for the thread itself, I already voted for Dancer as the next healer. Why? Well, not only do I want the next healer to be a physical job, but I want it to be a job that really shakes up the current healer job formula the game has going right now. A healer that fights at melee range to dish out DPS would be a good start. I don't mind the idea of Chemist coming in as a Healer unit too, but I'd rather see Dancer first.

...

5.0 info can't come soon enough. And we're only approaching patch 4.3.

I 100% agree, and I commented on this in a job concept I made for Dancer. If White Mage wasn't in the game I guarantee that there would be people clamoring for it to be a DPS, not all jobs can be a DPS and the Dancer is a great candidate for our next healer thanks to their evolution in the series. In the newer entries they have gotten more support dances like curing waltz and they have always been a supporter/debuffer in the series. Since BRD is a DPS I see the best logical role for DNC to be a healer because why would you have both entertainers of the series as DPS if we already have one that fulfills that purpose. I also agree that we need the healer formula shaken up and DNC would function great as a melee healer, sure there will be some fights where it's not optimal but they should have the basic toolkit to fulfill the job. And chemist is also a logical choice for a future healer but they wouldn't shake up the forumla like a DNC would so 100% DNC should be next, then perhaps it should be either CHM or GEO, heck or a original healer but we already got one in heavenward.

[Sylvain]

Chemist hands down

For a few reasons.


First, the game is a bit too centric around dps, Y.P knows it and doesn't especially enjoy seeing healer talking about dps non stops. I mean, I can't recall a single other game designer having to remind players that healers first and foremost role is to heal and that raids are not balanced around their dps contribution. Therefor, adding the dancer (in the classical sense most people see it, as a healer who heal by dpsing) sounds counter productive.

I also see quite a few issues with the job itself, if the job needs to dps to heal, then it would either do extremely low dmg while healing and no heal while damaging OR doing rather low of both. But anyone expecting the job to heal by doing good dps clearly isn't aware of where Y.P stands on the matter.

Second problem is during transition. FF14 bosses have A LOT of transition and moments where you just can't hit anything (and these are usually the hard moment of a fight), if the Dancer can't use some of its skill during transition, then it becomes a liability and would underperform compaired to other healers. Ultimately, it could bring all the dps we want, if it becomes too innefective by missing skill during transition, movement or whenever they can't be in melee then people wouldn't play it. A dead party does 0 dps


Regarding the Chemist, I think there's a lot of room for very interesting and original mechanics.
I mean, they could virtually do anything. (For some reason I'm thinking about Decard Cain potion mechanic in HotS right now)
They could mix stuff (a bit like mudras), well, plenty of things could be done and I'm sure they could be much more creative than with the Dancer.

[Kabooa]

You can have heals that aren't based on dealing damage, you know.

[MoroMurasaki]

You can have heals that aren't based on dealing damage, you know.

I don't see how - if 1/4 healers can't deal appreciable damage it will be left out of any endgame content.

If I'm misunderstanding this please let me know, just don't see how else to take it.

[Shurrikhan]

You can have heals that aren't based on dealing damage, you know.

EDIT: My mistake; I wasn't aware that the post I quoted above was meant purely towards the ideas for a Dancer toolkit: e.g. Dancers don't have to heal ONLY through hitting enemies.

Please dismiss the rest, as it assume that "heals" referred to "healers", not the actual actions.

Ignoring the obvious hyperbole of being "based" on damage, rather than being allowed consistent usefulness by having access to decently significant damage skills to weave in, and substituting it with that reality...

You can't. Not really. Not if the fight is won through damage dealt -- as every XIV encounter is, by XIV's own raid design choices -- and their throughput is capped (e.g. because of limited damage taken by the tanks or raid) to the effect of forcing considerable downtime. It's not just non-competitive; it's also likely to spend far more often being dull for no reason other than to drive a principle in a ill-fitting damage-intake environment.

While I'd agree with you on a technical level if you're referring purely to direct damage-dealing, I'd probably avoid such a healer like the plague even if it were meta unless it could provide similarly accessible uncapped actions to weave in between or among core healing actions and a decision point at/by which you could potentially save a raid better by applying a finishing blow to an enemy rather than healing through one last AoE just before the key mob dies. I don't like being without things to do, and I enjoy having a visible, appreciable impact from my uptime. And I despise idle time, with only the very minor exception -- and stretched thin at that -- of where resource costs make that delay feel like an active decision, made sparsely but importantly.

Sure, I wouldn't mind spending a free GCD accelerating, moving, or empowering allies rather than throwing stones (though less so if said stones then empowered my shields, which in turn refunded greater mana, which in turn leaves me with stronger blanket AoEs, which in turn deposits more latent energy usable for my AoE attacks, which in turn offer greater caster speeds for a brief time and count, etc., etc.). But I'm not remotely okay with being limited to healing as my only source of contribution when that leaves so much downtime. And I don't much want a raid environment that forces spam healing, either, or really would make full use of maximally GCD-efficient (or even mana-efficient) heals for the entirety of a fight.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

All I have to say is, making a DPS heavy healer in the game can't work so long as WHM has no raid utility outside of high personal DPS. If Dancer was made to be a healer that heal as they attack, it's going to kill WHM as there's nothing else they can bring to a raid.

I know this is perhaps killing the hype, but we need to take things like this into consideration.
WHMs identity is high numbers both healing and DPS wise, and that's already shaky at best because SCH does more DPS than them in long fights.