New Healer Request Next Expansion

[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.

[MVX21]

Chemist would certainly make a cool healer and would make sense, they could even give it a heavy assault weapon like in ffX-2 however I feel like they've been trying to be a bit... different with the jobs and might see it as too obvious a choice. I'd be happy with it myself but I wouldn't be surprised if they went a different direction, they already set up geomancer as existing in the world and being a healer but again I feel like it might be too blatant. Going back to FFT roots I could see them trying to mix it up and tossing in Calculator or Oracle as a healer. Oracle in particular I feel would make an interesting class regardless of what roll it was. No matter where they go it's a long way off and we may as well strap in for the ride.

[Almostward]

This 100 times over. SE can't handle the 3 healers they have now, why would we want a 4th one?

Agreed. They did chop jobs on two of the jobs making them shadows of their former selves with way to many problems, and Whm still has issues.

If the devs cant fix healers after 4 years of promises then I dont want a fourth healer. I want fun and fixed healers.

[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.

[Archwizard]

I honestly want them to fix the current the healers before they add a fourth into the mix.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Just look at tanks this expansion. The devs decided to add GNB as a fourth tank so they could have an even balance of "preferred offtanks" versus "preferred maintanks" -- and then that launched a rework so every tank could have a hand in either position, partly so you aren't screwed by random queues and partly so nobody feels relegated to one position.

Introducing a fourth healer could similarly lead to a re-examination of the role, just as a rework to the healers we have could create a natural opening for a fourth.

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.

[...]

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.

Exactly! And that's why I've been pretty disappointed with a lot of the suggestions people have been making for new healers.

Time Mage? We have AST, and the reason we don't have Haste is because who else actually wants it? The only job that ever wanted the Arrow was BLM, that's WHY they made every card The Balance. They still have Gravity and Lightspeed, just reskin Repose as "Stop" for them and half the TIM requests would die overnight.
Geomancer? We have WHM, and to be honest I'd much rather see GEO as a DPS with all the Earth/Wind/Water skills WHM will never have now that it's a Holy specialist.
Plague Doctor? It's like you people weren't paying attention to the SCH storyline. And they literally spread disease to fight.
Same thing with Green Mage, SCH is sort of nebulously defined and could easily just be an affliction-specific healer, on top of Green Mage having been created mostly just as a repository for de/buffs they couldn't figure out where else to put.

I think the only suggestion I've heard that could actually be unique from the existing healers is Chemist/Salve Maker... And that has its own problems!

• Problem the first: The devs already tried it! The fact they could never balance the Mix ability is exactly why they scrapped it to give us AST instead.
• Even if they COULD get Mix to work, everyone just wants it to be friggin' NIN Mudras all over again. Really fudging the definition of "unique" there.
• Ignoring that we already have Alchemist as a crafting job, I'm not terribly excited for the 'unique potential' of a bandaid-and-potion spec healer. If you tell me "extra action button" I will direct you to run Rathalos a few times (or look up the history of WoW's "Lightwell") and see how the layman understands the responsibility of self-healing.
• And frankly, I just think it would be so boring? From an aesthetic standpoint all of the Chemists in FF have looked like any General Goods Vendor you can find in Thanalan, and every other skill would be just pulling another potion bottle out of your behind and lobbing it across the room (or firing it out of whatever substitute gun they come up with). From a gameplay standpoint I haven't heard anyone propose anything BUT Mix to support their position, which as we've established, wasn't functional.

I have to constantly wonder whether the people ASKING for a Chemist actually are interested in PLAYING it, or just want to see another "classic" job represented in raids.

... Which is why I propose adding the Necromancer. Something completely unconventional and out of left field so the devs really have a chance to show their creativity with the job, both in terms of skills and aesthetic. Something that doesn't step on other healers' toes or rip from their skilltree in a way that makes you ask "wait why doesn't WHM have Sacred Soil and SCH have Asylum?"

[Jehrek]

Am I the only one who foresees that if we get a chemist, the Mix ability will be a reskin of the AST Seals/Divination?

You have 6 ingredients in your bag, action draws one out. You want it, action puts it in the pot; you don't like it, action redraws a new ingredient. Once you get three ingredients in the pot, Mix and apply.

[EpicOverlord85]

This 100 times over. SE can't handle the 3 healers they have now, why would we want a 4th one?

Which really makes me sad. Skill wise looking at my Scholar honestly makes me feel a bit depressed. It was bad enough that they got rid of our Dots and replaced them with Art of War, but what they did to Selene is just not ok.

[EpicOverlord85]

The devs are well aware of the demand, we were told as such. And they also expressed why there was no healer this expansion, given that the ranged DPS slot had less options than healer. Given this, it is reasonable to assume that next expansion we will most likely get a healer and a caster (though how cool would it be if we got a healer, physical ranged, and BLU upgraded to raid level). If I were to choose these jobs, the healer would definitely be CHM, and I would have to say GEO for the caster.

As for your statement about fixing the healers. You are well aware that the healers needed to be broken in order to be fixed right? It might feel bad right now, but the devs needed to fundamentally shift the direction of healers in order to balance them together. Adding a fourth healer won't harm this, and in 6.0 the healers will be altered based on their new direction and enhanced based on identity. The tanks saw this with the addition of GNB and are the most balanced they have ever been.

I’m sure they are well aware of it, but they’ve done nothing so far to alleviate it. If anything they made it worse by gutting the tool lots of the already existing healers (WHM dodged that a bit). In the past I would have assumed the same thing, but with their tracked record so far I’m not going to get my hopes up until they fix the mess they already have at their feet.

Shift the direction of the healers? What is this new direction you’re referring too? Homogenizing the classes? As it stands Scholar and Astro have lost a lot of their identities and any further homogenization is just going to make it worse. It’s also worth noting that sure the tanks are balanced currently, but they’ve all lost much of what made them unique in the past (especially DRK and WAR, they are almost carbon copies of each other now).

[EpicOverlord85]

What a coincidence, I get just enough time to tell people that it's not as bad as people make it out to be.

What a coincidence, I get enough time tell express my frustrations towards the new homogenized class designs.

[Ulelu]

Yes, I'm aware next expansion is 2 years out. But I have no idea when they make plans for new jobs so now is as good as any.

I've seen it spoken about for a few years now but I would love a Chemist healer. I thought the Scholar would fill that more tactical feeling role but it now feels more like a Fairy based healer than a shield/buff/debuff healer.

I'd like it if the Chemist felt like a potion/gadget themed job with some form of tie-in with Alchemy crafting. I know the potions, elemental resistances, and status potions, got removed for lack of use and such. But without them I feel like Alchemy is really missing something vital.

Even if people didn't use them it was nice to have. And I liked being able to stock up on and use pots like in other FF games. Status potions made overworld mob fighting more interesting too. Bringing them back for hunt monsters would be really cool and maybe help with the bitting issue with them? And elemental resistances made primal hunting fun for crafted gear usage. If those comeback, maybe limited it to crafted gear so it's a little edge trial runners can use if they care to invest in crafted stuff. I've always liked the defense oriented side of crafting rather than the more damage focused concerns of most people.

If Chemist could help bring potions and features like these back that'd be great. Even if only they could use them.

Again, I know that a knew healer is wanted by many. However, I personally cannot seem to get over the fact that we'll be falling into the trap that both AST and SCH have, and AST in particular.

I absolutely love little gimmicky things such as this, which the OP has went over in terms of creating potions and mixing ingredients and the like and how fun this could be, but from another perspective doesn't this fall into the AST line of 'doing so much but achieving so little'? Especially in comparison to the likes of WHM.

What use would elemental resistances really make if it fills a damage type that is almost never lethal in any regard that can just be LUL-healed by both SCH and WHM? You'd be working for a resistance that would barely have an impact on the content we have, which is in itself an argument that many a thread has went over prior to this, since the fundamental healing and mitigation requirements need to be changed on a base level for something like this to have an impact.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love a new healer of any kind, but 6.0 would need to be a crazy expansion to be this optimistic imho, they'd need to both change all the healers to be fun whilst maintaining a semblance of balance, and then also revamp the fundamentals of healing entirely.

Perhaps I'm over-blowing it, and this isn't actually a big ask, but my optimism has been drained recently in regards to this whole issue.