NEW HEALER FOR 5.0

[Nyxn607]

Why should they make a new healer when they have a hard enough time balancing the 3 we have? Not to mention you could literally remove the WHM lily system and the job wouldn't change. Astro's have 2 useless cards (Spire and Arrow) while the cards RNG being meh at best. Getting 6 boles in a row is a joke. Finish balancing and fine tuning the current healers before adding a new one.

On a side not, Dancer as a ranged dps is odd, but it is a physical DPS which we only have 2 before while we had 3 of Melee and Magic Ranged. A new ranged DPS makes sense so long as it is physical.

[Ameela]

Why should they make a new healer when they have a hard enough time balancing the 3 we have? Not to mention you could literally remove the WHM lily system and the job wouldn't change. Finish balancing and fixing the current healers before adding a new one.

On a side not, Dancer as a ranged dps is odd, but it is a physical DPS which we only have 2 before while we had 3 of Melee and Magic Ranged. A new ranged DPS makes sense so long as it is physical.

Why do we have a new tank then? They haven't fixed DRK.
Why did we get a new melee DPS and caster in SB? MNK and BLM were still bad then.
Why are we getting a new ranged DPS? MCH is still arguably the worst job in the game.

[Nyxn607]

Why do we have a new tank then? They haven't fixed DRK.
Why did we get a new melee DPS and caster in SB? MNK and BLM were still bad then.
Why are we getting a new ranged DPS? MCH is still arguably the worst job in the game.

The tanks are more balanced than the healers. I would also presume it is easier to balance tanks over healers due to the impact they have on a run.
We got 2 new dps in SB due to everyone and their siblings wanting to play dps. If more people would play tank/healer it might have been different.
MCH is a decent job, it just relies way to much on 1 or 2 skills that are hard to use due to latency issues. MCH definitely needs a re-haul.

I would not be surprised to see a new healer announced half way through ShB, but they need to fine-tune AST and WHM first. I feel that Scholar is a decent spot as is.

[Saefinn]

I think a new ranged DPS was needed, though they still need to fix Machinist.

They also need to fix how healers are balanced. However, as a healer main, I'd like to see a new healer and was hoping Dancer would be it, because it would be a good and interesting healer concept. If Geomancer is announced as a healer role, I'd still be down for that. But at the moment we've not really had anything new/different for a long time in terms of playing healers and Astrologian wasn't even -that- new, although it had things to build its identity such as the card buffs but on a healing level, it's a hybrid of Scholar and White Mage. So as a healer it didn't add anything new, it just helped blur the lines on the healers. Which we've seen happen in further adjustments. For example: White Mage got Assize, Scholar got Indominability and Astrologian got Earthly Star, they are all more-or-less the same spell but each with their own flavours.

I realise balancing healers is a big challenge. But I loved in in 2.0 where Scholar and White Mage had clear differences between them in how they worked mechanically as healers and thus complemented each other well in a party. I remember my Titan EX runs as a Scholar with a white mage co-healer, we'd coordinate with the White Mage focusing the big AoE heals and with my keeping the tank up and shielded. Nowadays White Mage's "big heal" identity is lost because both Scholar and Astrologian do not struggle for "big heals" - for AST, that's regardless of their stance. So the healier White Mage has no advantage over a Scholar or Astrologian. I've lost interest mostly as a healer, I was mostly a DPS in Stormblood, Red Mage managed to grip me more than keep me healing. Now I've just leveled Dark Knight and am re-learning how to tank again.

So my request as a healer main is, make meaningful changes to existing healers for 5.0, although I am a Scholar main, I think White Mage is in need of love as their identity as "the healiest of healers" only worked before Scholar got healier and Astrologian was added. And a new job would be nice, especially as it could help with rebalancing the healers too, for example Astrologian could get changes so it feels like like a WHM/SCH hybrid to heal, maybe with less of a need to fill their shoes, which I think was the attitude in 3.0, where AST needed to fit in both a Scholar and a White Mage spot in a party.

[Teraluna]

The issue with where AST fits in was there from its introduction due to copy pasting whm abilities. Since then it’s been an ongoing task to separate it.

[Ceasaria]

On a side not, Dancer as a ranged dps is odd, but it is a physical DPS which we only have 2 before while we had 3 of Melee and Magic Ranged. A new ranged DPS makes sense so long as it is physical.

Where are my physical, ranged and melee Healers ?

[Saefinn]

The issue with where AST fits in was there from its introduction due to copy pasting whm abilities. Since then it’s been an ongoing task to separate it.

I think it made some sense in 3.0, at least I could understand their reasoning, where prior to AST, SCH and WHM worked almost in perfect harmony of each other and AST had to find its way into the relationship, but I think the decision to make it a hybrid was what ended up dooming things in the long run. Plus I think the added effect is that it just felt like AST stepped on WHM's and SCH's toes a bit rather than feeling like a third healer to complement the other two.

Hence I was kinda hoping for a new healer, because how they do a new healer could help balance things with a 2 and 2 approach.

Maybe two healers that favour buffs to help keep parties from taking damage with heals to top them off and two healers that are about power of heals.

So instead of 3 healers competing for balance, it's two healers competing for balance for each side, each with their own flavours. In 2.0 I heard the term "proactive" and "reactive" healers used to describe SCH & WHM (and what I used when I wrote my now incredibly out dated SCH guide) and I really liked those terms. I think it's those terms that helped define how 2.0 healing worked and why SCH and WHM complimented each other so well. Keeping an even number of healers I think could be a way of balancing that approach. And as a SCH I don't mind taking nerfs if it means bringing that back, because I loved it as a SCH in 2.0.

[BroodingFicus]

The issue with where AST fits in was there from its introduction due to copy pasting whm abilities. Since then it’s been an ongoing task to separate it.

Yeah probably their biggest mistake in the healer role was adding AST the way they did as the first new healer. It borrowed too much from the other jobs and got stuck in a position where if it didn't do their job as well as they can, it wouldn't see use, but if it did it too well, it would make one or both of the other jobs disposable thanks to the buffs it can offer. WHM sorta bore the brunt of that ever since.

Personally, seeing as they're reusing the 'to work on balance' shtick again this expansion as the reason for no new healer, I can't say I have a lot of faith or trust in their ability to follow through. What real balance has been achieved since the start of Stormblood? We're pretty much in the same boat we were in when it all started. They still can't figure out how to make the healers have any real identity, how to make WHM feel special and viable next to its counter parts etc. I mean WHM is still sitting on a disposable lily system that might as well not exist. I want to be optimistic. I want to believe that they'll just blow us out of the water with amazing cast animations and new abilities that don't feel like carbon copies with a cheap veneer of particle effects to make them seem like they're different, that we'll see each role have a valid place and feel fun and engaging, that systems and moves that are redundant or useless will be reworked or tossed for better things. I want to believe a lot of things but this all feels like deja vu at this point and I find its more pragmatic to assume nothing is going to change and Ill probably just get another stone spell with a stolen cast animation and vaguely different mine craft rocks.

[Belhi]

I think one of the problems SE has with healer balancing is less about the Jobs themselves and more about how healing works in FF14. The power and reach of heals in FF14 limits the mechanics and gameplay that can be applied to healing and as such it creates a very ridged meta with little room for variety. Their options really are to scale back the strength of healing so they can make bosses less bursty and thus allow for more options for healing mechanics or to focus on moving healers more to support and have their healing and support elements synergise. Case in point, WHM would feel a lot better if their was some synergising between their healing abilities and their dps abilities so they interact.

If they don't address the core healing mechanics which are making balancing of jobs difficult, we will be in the exact same place in two years time with them still trying to figure out how to balance healing.

[Shinzo]

im glad Dancer is a DPS (more to play for me) but i wished they would make a singer/Performer like in FFX-2 as a Healer that would be nice