Dear SE, I am a Healer

[Ayer2015]

I have little confidence in their balance changes and fully expect another huge eruption in May over them. For now, SE will not be getting any of my money unless I am pleasantly surprised in May. I have held off pre-ordering Shadowbringers and I'm very glad I did. Had there been a new healer annoucement in Dancer, I would have pre-ordered then and there hoping they would continue to work on the balance in 5.0. But... yeah. All of what Yoshida has said regarding healers has put my confidence levels and excitement levels for the expansion at 0. Not that they were very high after Stormblood either.

I haven't per-ordered either surprisingly.... which I usually have done the first chance available. I think what is obvious at this point is that there is a significant gap between the NA/EU community and the dev team.

[Ayer2015]

Why are you taking job roles as "sides"?

"We, the healers" or "We, the tanks" evolving into "The tanks got a new job, and we didn't!"... what?

If you love healing, then you'll have 10 new levels with new skills and a combat system revamp, so the 3 existing healers will feel as new healers, just like the rest of jobs will feel new. If you played since 1.0 like me, you should know by now.


I don't get this new construct of "taking sides". In the end it only brings problems and fake entitlement.

If you cant understand why healers would not be down about not getting a new job, you clearly cant view a situation objectively. Tanks and healers were annoyed in 4.0 as well. Now its been another 2 years and we are being told; 'we haven't been able to balance the existing jobs over the past 4 years, so wait another 2.... but no promises one will come then either....'

[OcieKo]

astrologian is clearly the one that needs changing if we're going to have three standout different healers. As an astrologian main it's kind of a terrifying prospect but the move that needs to be made.

Same, and I suspected AST was going to take the brunt of changes to make room for healer 4, even to the point of losing sects and either becoming pure Diurnal or pure Nocturnal, or both AST and H4 getting new healing styles altogether. So eventually the setups would've been like WHM/AST, WHM/SCH, SCH/H4, AST/H4. If they wanted to stick to just regens and barriers make say AST/SCH compete over Barrier healer slot, and WHM and H4 compete over Regen healer slot (or flip AST/H4), or heck give 4 a heck of a lot of support and make it hard to play AST/H4. Sure having AST mostly reworked would make it a rough transition, but for the long term health AST is the one that needs to change.

If you cant understand why healers would not be down about not getting a new job, you clearly cant view a situation objectively. Tanks and healers were annoyed in 4.0 as well. Now its been another 2 years and we are being told; 'we haven't been able to balance the existing jobs over the past 4 years, so wait another 2.... but no promises one will come then either....'

Don't forget for this round of "in order to balance the role" for Tanks they added another job, and for healers they said wait 2 more...

[ChocoFeru]

If you cant understand why healers would not be down about not getting a new job, you clearly cant view a situation objectively. Tanks and healers were annoyed in 4.0 as well. Now its been another 2 years and we are being told; 'we haven't been able to balance the existing jobs over the past 4 years, so wait another 2.... but no promises one will come then either....'

I can understand it at some point, but I can't understand why people is taking it so personal and so exaggeratedly.

Why do we NEED a new job anyways? We will get a lot of changes on every single job and it will feel different to play with. A new healer would be just placebo, with new shiny effects and gear, that's all.

I mean, it's cool to see new jobs, and we'll eventually get a new healer, but what's all about this rush? Do you really NEED a new healer RIGHT NOW to fulfill this supposed "emptiness"?

[Risvertasashi]

I mean, it's cool to see new jobs, and we'll eventually get a new healer, but what's all about this rush? Do you really NEED a new healer RIGHT NOW to fulfill this supposed "emptiness"?

Nothing is really NEEDED. We could have only paladin and warrior for tanks. It would be easy to balance them then, too, one for MT the other for OT. We could have been running with only those 2 since ARR, no dark knight and no gunbreaker and encounters would play out just fine.

Ditto for DPS. Ninja, Machinist, Samurai, Red Mage - and now Dancer - They're all unnecessary additions. We could play the game just fine without them.

So given that they're all not NEEDED, why do you think SE added them?
If you can answer that question, you'll understand why people want a new healer too. And 6 years is a pretty long content drought for anything.

[Misutoraru]

I can understand it at some point, but I can't understand why people is taking it so personal and so exaggeratedly.

Why do we NEED a new job anyways? We will get a lot of changes on every single job and it will feel different to play with. A new healer would be just placebo, with new shiny effects and gear, that's all.

I mean, it's cool to see new jobs, and we'll eventually get a new healer, but what's all about this rush? Do you really NEED a new healer RIGHT NOW to fulfill this supposed "emptiness"?

I am all in favour of giving all 3 current heal role unique identity over another copy and paste
I lose all my motivation to level up my WHM after AST and SCH
The emptiness come from lack of identity rather than lack of new job
Of coz I would be happier if identity crisis fix with 4th heal role all together. However if I have to choose, I will always pick they fix current heal role, they get BRD and MCN fixed in 4.0(sort of). They could get all three heal fix, just need to prioritise their resources

[OcieKo]

Nothing is really NEEDED.

Along those lines 1.0 had more than what we needed in Gladiator/Paladin, Marauder/Warrior, Pugilist/Monk, Lancer/Dragoon, Archer/Bard, Thaumaturge/Black Mage, and Conjuror/White Mage.

And given the lack of time investment needed to play a new job along with being able to do them all on one char, the crux of needed new jobs is enhanced. Games where you have to start from scratch benefit from not needing new jobs from the sheer time investment required of a player to even bother trying one. WoW has added 3, one of which starts at lvl 1. Everquest 1 only added 2 or 3 over its lifetime. Everquest 2 only added 1 or 2. Guild Wars 2 I think 1 so far. On the other hand games with more freedom in class choice added a lot more like Rift has added about 15 or so since release, Guild Wars 1 added 4, and FFXI added 11 (rofl thats just ironically funny). FFXIV is very much on the minimal time investment to change your character side of things, so adding in fresh experiences/play-styles/identities becomes more important.

[Reiryuu]

Do you really NEED a new healer RIGHT NOW to fulfill this supposed "emptiness"?

It's quite simple, really. There are 10 kids in a room. You have cookies. You give 7 kids cookies and 3 don't get any cookies. Did they do something wrong? No. It's reasonable for these three kids to look at each other and the cookie giver and ask... where's our cookie? That was pretty much tanks and healers last expansion. So the expectation was the DPS got their cookies last expansion, this expansion it's our turn to get cookies. Well, tanks got their cookie and healers didn't. Furthermore, SE's excuse for not giving healers their cookie last time was the same as they're giving this time around. Now, do this enough times and you've got some rather unruly kids on your hands. But this doesn't really apply just to kids. We're paying customers too. Why should we have to expect less than others? Would the DPS and tanks scream to hell in back if in 6.0 they released 2 healing jobs or just 1 healing job and no others? Probably. Probably more for the former rather than the latter, the community might accept that one. But still, hopefully that gives you an idea.

That and ever since 3.X, really healing balance has been half-hearted and bandaid fixes anyway. They have never really seemed to try to get it right because they ignored the obvious and glaring problem which they are only just now getting around to acknowledging despite the community pointing it out to them for years.

[OcieKo]

It's quite simple, really. There are 10 kids in a room. You have cookies. You give 7 kids cookies and 3 don't get any cookies. Did they do something wrong? No. It's reasonable for these three kids to look at each other and the cookie giver and ask... where's our cookie?

Love the Kids & Cookies analogy! Liked!

[Clover_Blake]

I main healer and I'm very okay with not having a new healer class. I've always found WHM fun, I don't know why I should stop now-- especially when WHM is going to have new skills and gameplay that are yet to be discovered.

Just another opinion from a fellow healer!


PS: Yoshida has explained that there were just 2 ranged DPS. Now there'll be 3. I find it fair.