What if the new expansion doesn't a healer or a tank

[Enla]

Honestly after the debacle that was 3.0 AST and then 4.0 SCH before community backlash forced the class back into a decent spot, I'm more than a little leery of them designing another healer. They have a hell of a time keeping balance between the three they currently have. If they were able to get some fresh eyes on the situation I'd very much be open to the potential of a new healer class, but I'm not entirely sure I want 5.0 to mark the dawn of yet /another/ healer needing extensive reworks - new or otherwise.

[LeoLupinos]

I feel that we have more options to level up a DPS job, so, no additional Tank or Healer is really necessary.

[Gemina]

There is only two things related to new jobs in the next expansion that would seriously piss me off. One is not giving us DNC, and the other would be making DNC a dps if they do.

I think there is a strong possibility that a new tank will not come with 5.0

[Squintina]

I main healers and I'd be ok with only having dps jobs.

The balance for healers, while not perfect, is honestly pretty good. Logs show a fairly even usage of all healers (with some preference for WHM over AST at the beginning of a patch cycle, and some preference for AST over WHM at the end of a patch cycle, but overall it's about even for the whole cycle). I don't know if I'd feel confident having another healer thrown in to mess up that balance.

As far as queues go, it doesn't matter much. Sure at the beginning of the new expansion, while people are trying out the new jobs, the dps queues will be horrible. But once the people who normally play healer/tank finish leveling them, a lot of them will go back. Similarly, if they did add a new healer/tank, some of the people who normally play dps will probably queue as them, helping queues at first, but they'll go back to their dps jobs later on. Often the whole healer/tank/dps thing has less to do with the jobs available and more to do with the personality of the player over how they like to contribute to their party. So people usually (not always, but usually) end up going back to the same role once they're done trying new ones out.

While balancing the dps is also important, having more spots in a party available for damage dealers means they have a bit more leeway on how much imbalance can exist before a job is disadvantaged, so I'd rather they stick to that.

[Wilford111]

As a healer main who also likes to tank on occasion, I would love another healer and tank so I can have more unique ways to do what I love most in the game

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a new tank at all. Healer balance is in shambles. It was decent for a while, but the recent AST buffs once again threw things off.

[Risvertasashi]

I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a new tank at all. Healer balance is in shambles. It was decent for a while, but the recent AST buffs once again threw things off.

This technically started a little before. The community backlash on SCH 4.0 led to Square overbuffing SCH. But it was relatively OK, because AST is not competitive with SCH, leaving WHM as a viable alternative for the other healer slot. But anyone that's been paying attention to the logs... knows SCH has been broken for a while.

[TaranTatsuuchi]

For every expansion that doesn't have healer/tanks that's 2 more years that the people who main those roles don't get new things to play with.

Do that long enough, and those players will start to feel shafted, some may even up and leave.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

For every expansion that doesn't have healer/tanks that's 2 more years that the people who main those roles don't get new things to play with.

Do that long enough, and those players will start to feel shafted, some may even up and leave.

Perhaps. But there are just as many people, especially those that raid, that just dread the chaos that will definitely ensue with a new healer.

If anything, they need to redesign AST first. If another healer is brought into the game, AST can not remain a copy of WHM and SCH. Unless of course, AST copies the new healer as well, which would be ridiculous.
AST can only exist as is so long as WHM and SCH are the only other healers in the game, since AST is balanced around the strength of those two healers specifically from the ground up.

[Cidel]

No healer/tank in new expansion?


Then fine, not only do they give themselves a little more breathing room, but probably made some fans happy that one of their favorite (classic) jobs wasn't shoehorned into being a dedicated healer/tank.



...

New healer/tank in new expansion?

Here, let me simulate the threads that would flood the forums :

-RIP WHM
-(new tank) is superior to DRK in every way
-Why would you take anything other than SCH and (new healer) for trials/raids?
-(new healer) has high DPS and decent heals. It killed WHM.
-(new tank/healer) should have been DPS.
-Angry WHM here.
-(new healer) has a useful job gauge, what about WHM?
-(new tank/healer) is too mandatory for content. Nerf please.
-I just unsubbed today
-I want to play (new healer), but my static is making me play AST.
-"AST, AST, AST! Why does she get all the attention!?" SE: "WHM, this isn't about you." "IT NEVER IS!!" *storms off*




Honestly though, their balancing act is going to be interesting to watch no matter what roles new jobs are allocated to.