Quote Originally Posted by Kalise View Post
A cleave healer could work, as they already have precedent with AST and Synastry. It just requires 2 targets to be taking damage frequently in a way that isn't covered by lelAoE skills.

Single-target channelled healer could work. It just requires Tanks to be taking constant, considerable damage. After which, just give them barebones AoE healing and voila you've made a viable ST channel focused healer, but that can still do dungeons and trials without feeling gimped when AoE damage happens.
The thing is, we've kind of been there and it didn't work. Not even close. These kind of abilities are far too dependant on the content actually making any real use of it which it often doesn't.

A great example of this would be the original version of WHM's PI.

The version from the Media Preview build was generated by Cure I/II instead of Medicas. The potency per confession stack was significantly higher, the duration was longer and the cooldown was in the order of 15 seconds. However, it wasn't a 100% chance to generate a proc.

Needless to say, for the Fausts, Kaliyas or adds like A12S' General's Might/Time. This would have been a pretty solid ability, potentially much more so than Synastry if we ever saw another boss like T7/Kaliya.

Except we didn't. The preview PI was a complete and utter dumpster fire and I 100% ended up eating my moderate optimism for it.

It's a fair thing to say that it is indeed pretty simple to create widely varied forms of gameplay, WoW and Warhammer Online are excellent demonstrations of this. However I honestly think that SE simply don't have the required talent to do so within their job design team. It's been painfully obvious for several years now that they simply don't have anyone there who understands high end healer gameplay, either within FFXIV itself or other MMOs. Not to mention that the format of their highest end raids and the job/character system as a whole shines a fiercely unforgiving light on any faults their class designs have.

I do think there's room to fit a melee style healer in and I've preached as much for the longest time. But I totally agree with Lore's view that it's core kit is almost guaranteed to be a cut and paste in the same manner that AST was.