New Healer Request Next Expansion

[Hatstand]

I don't have a link but Yoshi P expressly answered this question. Back in ARR we had two kinds of healer, a pure healer (main healer) and shield healer (support). When AST came along, it could pretty much fill both those roles with a gimmick attached. What the dev team found is that the shield healer/pure healer design doesn't work and they could not find a way to add a new healer while this design philosophy existed. Ergo, in 5.0 they broke down the healers so that the "support healer" didn't exist anymore and each job had it's own gimmicks (SCH has pets and now directly influences the pet more, and has seraph, AST has cards, and WHM has Lilies),

They gave SCH an identity as the fairy healer by reducing one of their fairies to a skin and gave them more direct influence of the fairy by removing the ability to manually direct embrace, and reducing the impact of positioning since she’s now immortal. Riiiight.

Also, while the lilies are a nice mechanic, I wouldn’t say they add an extra dimension of play like the fairy or the cards.

I’ve read the interview. I’ve heard their reasoning. I just think it’s incredibly bad reasoning.

so now, when they add a new healer, it can simply use both support and large heals and have a gimmick of its own.

So... they stripped support away from AST so they could give it to a new healer? What’s the point of getting a new healer if instead of adding something new to the healers as a whole we’re just getting the same healers distributed over more jobs? I feel the same about them removing the time mage aspects to AST, and will be annoyed if time mage is the next healer for that reason.

That said, I think it’s more likely that they stripped away AST’s support to give it to DNC, or to make things easier to balance.

One thing they did also (albeit poorly) is remove damage as an identity from SCH specifically. They did this with tanks as well, and it makes the healers more balanced overall.

But for what end? We need balance so that people can play the jobs they want without disadvantaging their team. This reasoning kind of falls apart if people don’t want to play the job. Which is why MCH got a complete rebuild. And why AST needs one, if they’re dead set against reverting their changes. And does that mean that we won’t get a new healer next xpac because they need to spend time on AST? Sooner or later the devs need to bite the bullet and admit that healers need some love, and fix the existing problems WHILE adding a new healer.

As for DRK being a magical tank, I was just picking the closest, because I don’t see why dps should have 3 categories while all the other roles have only one, if categories are going to end up influencing the number of each role we have.

Edit: it doesn’t help that the interviewee starts out by misrepresenting healer complaints. He says people are complaining about going 6 years without a new healer, but that they’re misrepresenting the situation because there was a new healer in HW 4 years ago. What those comments are pointing out is that by the time we get a new healer in 2 years at the least it will have been 6 years without a new healer.

Either the interviewee hasn’t paid enough attention to healer complaints to realise that or he’s deliberately trying to paint complaining healers in a hysterical light so he can brush off our complaints more easily. I think the former is more likely, but either invalidates him from responding to healer complaints because either he doesn’t understand our complaints or he’s actively trying not to address them. And boy is that depressing.

[Seku]

But for what end? We need balance so that people can play the jobs they want without disadvantaging their team.

As for DRK being a magical tank, I was just picking the closest, because I don’t see why dps should have 3 categories while all the other roles have only one, if categories are going to end up influencing the number of each role we have.

Not sure what the balance issue with healers are at the moment. But I get the feeling that despite any balancing that SE tries to do, the community will push towards a favorite among the classes. Which will cause the complaints for something else. This is always the case when there is a choice.

As for Dark Knight not being a magical tank, it kinda is. It uses MP for a tank busters and Damage. Not sure what else you'd want other than for a tank to be in cloth gear, and have a cast bar. Which they probably will never do the first (putting a tank in cloth gear), which is probably why DRK got made into a tank anyhow.

What tanks really need is a tank that doesn't use a sword.

[Ryoutoshi]

I was thinking a Hammer Tank would be fun a few days ago. Maybe more focused on AoE CC like stun, slow and damage down.

I feel like FFXIV as a whole should really leverage their status usage more. FF has a lot of support spells and debuffs that could surely be used to effect on classes or jobs for variety.

[Side-Eye]

So... they stripped support away from AST so they could give it to a new healer? What’s the point of getting a new healer if instead of adding something new to the healers as a whole we’re just getting the same healers distributed over more jobs? I feel the same about them removing the time mage aspects to AST, and will be annoyed if time mage is the next healer for that reason.

That said, I think it’s more likely that they stripped away AST’s support to give it to DNC, or to make things easier to balance.

Very well put. I hope (beyond reasonable expectations) that at least one of the devs is reading over here.