All healers need to have a corresponding (maybe limited) job just like SMN/SCH.

[SamRF]

Going through solo content as healer is disgustingly boring. There's almost 0 engagement. Only benefit may be that you can enjoy the scenery of a new area better when you're busy spamming that 1 button.

SCH & SMN has a pretty awesome 2 for 1 deal imo, since you could perhaps do solo content (going through expansion for example) with SMN and switch to SCH whenever you need to do an instance. Only potential downside would be that you need different gear for the jobs, but this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I was wondering if perhaps the other healers could also benefit from a 2 for 1 deal? Maybe have PLD merge with WHM, AST with... idk dancer? Or have completely new dps/tank jobs (next expansion perhaps) that level together with corresponding healer job. Necromancer with White Mage would be cool, and Time Mage with Astrologian. OR they could perhaps release them as limited jobs just like blue mage (without level cap) which can't be used in instanced content. So you could use the corresponding limited job in solo content and then switch to the main job for instances (of course I'd prefer them not being limited jobs).

Healers arguably need more complex dps rotation in general, but it will likely never be as engaging as tanks and dps, so they are destined to have a lesser experience in solo content.

Other MMO's like WoW have the specialization system as a solution, wherein every healing class also has a dps spec they can switch to while leveling the same class (gear also adjusts itself when switching between specs IIRC, at least when you are leveling). In ESO every class can be built for each role. In FFXIV you can play all jobs on 1 character which is perhaps the superior system according to most. The problem is that you level each job separately (except for SMN/SCH), which is a good thing of course, except for people who want to main healers.

Leveling 2 jobs at the same time while you are for example going through an expansion would probably be awkward. You could I guess go through whole expansion with a dps/tank and then at the end level the healer (you wanted to main), but that will mean that your first experience in some trials and dungeons won't be played by your favorite role.

What do you think? Would the game benefit for having corresponding jobs for all healers? If so, which jobs (ingame or yet to be released)? How should it work?

[Arillyn]

SE has already stated that they wouldn't do another SMN/SCH type job. The reason they even could do that is because they have arcanist as their base class and then you can unlock the job SMN and/or SCH. SE doesn't make classes anymore (that was a holdover from 1.0). They just make jobs, so there wouldn't be anything to split from.

As for my own personal preference, I rather like having jobs be their own and not shared. I got SCH leveled along with my SMN that is true, but I have no interest in it nor do I even know how to play it because I just didn't have to level it up. It was a freebie I got along with SMN.

[MikkoAkure]

Pretty sure Yoshi-P said that combining SMN and SCH was a mistake and they’re never doing it again.

We used to have cleric stance, which swapped your MND and INT stats and allowed healers to DPS, but it led to a meta the devs didn’t like where healers were expected to stance dance and manage the party’s health bars while maximizing DPS.

I used to main healer and partway through I decided that MSQ was a pain, so I just leveled a DPS on the side. Spend a couple days in PotD/HoH and it will be all caught up.

[Rufalus]

idk maybe a stance switch which turns some of their heal buttons into more dps spells. That can be their dps spec. Make it so you can't change stance during combat if they want to lock people into healing for party content. Cure III can become the old Aero III. Stuff like that. Tetragram becomes a dps nuke ability with a cooldown, etc

[Jojoya]

It's not awkward leveling 2 jobs at the same time as long as you're not trying to speed run to level cap. I do it with one of my characters. Instanced content I use WHM (including the solo duties because most of them have greatly reduced DPS requirements for the healer roles) and RDM for everything else. In SB both jobs hit 70 within 5 minutes of each other. This expansion they hit 80 same day a few hours apart. Roulettes, side quests, FATEs and hunt bills all added additional XP to what I was getting from MSQ.

There's no need for 2 for 1 jobs when you can already have multiple jobs at the same time.

Make sure you're using your chocobo companion in the non-instanced content. Its DPS contribution is noticeable once you get it to about rank 8 and only gets better as it continues to gain ranks.

[SamRF]

idk maybe a stance switch which turns some of their heal buttons into more dps spells. That can be their dps spec. Make it so you can't change stance during combat if they want to lock people into healing for party content. Cure III can become the old Aero III. Stuff like that. Tetragram becomes a dps nuke ability with a cooldown, etc

That seems like a pretty good and easy solution tbh

[Zsplash]

SE has already stated that they wouldn't do another SMN/SCH type job. The reason they even could do that is because they have arcanist as their base class and then you can unlock the job SMN and/or SCH. SE doesn't make classes anymore (that was a holdover from 1.0). They just make jobs, so there wouldn't be anything to split from.

As for my own personal preference, I rather like having jobs be their own and not shared. I got SCH leveled along with my SMN that is true, but I have no interest in it nor do I even know how to play it because I just didn't have to level it up. It was a freebie I got along with SMN.

Summoner/Scholar weren't hold overs from 1.0 though, nor was Rogue. It's a mystery why they did ROG after ACN other than that this job started at level 1 and they felt a need to maintain the base class BS because of cross-over skills.

Combining the two wasn't a mistake either to them, they may regret it but it was done very purposefully to be lazy and rush the development process. They'd do it again all things considered because they wanted to release the game more quickly and designing 2 separate classes + class quests + unique skills would have taken more time.

Long story short, classes that split into 2 unique jobs is not happening again it was just a situation where they thought it was the best for their development time to release FFXIV ARR quickly.

edit:

idk maybe a stance switch which turns some of their heal buttons into more dps spells. That can be their dps spec. Make it so you can't change stance during combat if they want to lock people into healing for party content. Cure III can become the old Aero III. Stuff like that. Tetragram becomes a dps nuke ability with a cooldown, etc

They nuked cleric stance for good reason, this game already suffers from major issues with what's expected of a healer. Which is DPS, not so much its healing.... well ok, a healer must not let people die but if you ever look up endgame info on a healer it's all about how to heal in between doing DPS as if it's your main job and healing is your side gig. SCH is a great example as we're expected to only heal using the ogcd heals inbetween DPS casts.

Either way, I only get bored of healer for the same reason as OP but that's because healers have so little else to do in realistic leveling/dungeon/endgame situations.

[Arillyn]

Summoner/Scholar weren't hold overs from 1.0 though, nor was Rogue. It's a mystery why they did ROG after ACN other than that this job started at level 1 and they felt a need to maintain the base class BS because of cross-over skills.

Combining the two wasn't a mistake either to them, they may regret it but it was done very purposefully to be lazy and rush the development process. They'd do it again all things considered because they wanted to release the game more quickly and designing 2 separate classes + class quests + unique skills would have taken more time..

I didn't mean SMN/SCH was a hold over from 1.0, sorry if it sounded like that. I mean the class system was a holdover from 1.0. And that's why they were able to combine SMN & SCH like they did. It was because the class system existed then. And SE did say they thought it was a mistake to do it that way and why they said they wouldn't do it again. It may have been because they were rushing to make 2.0 in only two years time and it was a way to try and get two jobs out of one class, because again they were working with the old class system from 1.0. Personally at the time I didn't mind that they did that, but SE themselves said they would never do it again.

[dinnertime]

Back then, Scholar and Summoner sharing the same class in particular was a mistake because it was a nightmare for them to balance both. It's why each expansion since then, they've been replacing the class skills they shared with job skills that essentially do the same thing.

Anyway, if you want healers to be more engaging in combat, just simply ask for more DPS skills. Healers only have 1 DoT, 1 spell and 1 AoE you spam and it's not fun. That and healers, particularly White Mage, is bloated with healing abilities which it doesn't need plenty of. They should replace that clutter with something for offense.

Just simply adding DPS attacks to spend the blue lilies on would already make White Mage feel better to play.

[wereotter]

Back then, Scholar and Summoner sharing the same class in particular was a mistake because it was a nightmare for them to balance both. It's why each expansion since then, they've been replacing the class skills they shared with job skills that essentially do the same thing.

Anyway, if you want healers to be more engaging in combat, just simply ask for more DPS skills. Healers only have 1 DoT, 1 spell and 1 AoE you spam and it's not fun. That and healers, particularly White Mage, is bloated with healing abilities which it doesn't need plenty of. They should replace that clutter with something for offense.

Just simply adding DPS attacks to spend the blue lilies on would already make White Mage feel better to play.

At this point, there's literally only one class skill that both jobs share. Resurrection.

As of this expansion, they've set up the jobs so that they can completely separate them if they want to, and I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Just make it so once you get any job to level 30, you can go the marauder's guild and unlock scholar as a stand-alone job.