Healer Unhappiness exists on the Jap Healing Forums as well.

[Gemina]

I believe they did come out and say we would get a new healer in 6.0. After the "dnc is a dps" storm.

I can't find anything. If anyone would like to provide a source, thanks in advance.

[EaMett]

I can't find anything. If anyone would like to provide a source, thanks in advance.

I remember more than just this (via third party interviews) but for the time being the quote is :

Prior to the Tokyo Fan Festival, many of you anticipated that we would be announcing the addition of a new healer job. I suspect this was encouraged by the fact that we had just revealed gunbreaker, a new tank job.

When we debuted dancer as a physical ranged DPS job, there were many who welcomed the news, but others who wondered why no new healer had been added.

After internal discussion about how to balance the game as a whole, we determined that we should not add a new healer with this expansion. There were three key factors which informed this decision.

1. Only Two New Jobs Could Be Added with Shadowbringers
The release of a new expansion is invariably accompanied by the raising of the level cap, which means that in addition to adding new jobs, we need to add new actions for existing jobs, as well as review and rebalance current actions. With the exception of the blue mage limited job, there are fifteen jobs—seventeen with the addition of gunbreaker and dancer. While the development team and I myself deliberated prioritizing the addition of new jobs, after considering our update release schedule, we concluded that two new jobs was our limit. Therefore, we had to pick certain roles over others.
2. Only Two Physical Ranged DPS Jobs Are Currently Implemented
As of Stormblood, there are three tank, three healer, four melee DPS, three magical ranged DPS, and two physical ranged DPS jobs. We believe that there is value in adding another physical ranged DPS to improve the balance of available roles, and so we decided to use one of our two new jobs to fill this need.
3.The Present Balance Between Tanks and Healers
Since we currently have four melee DPS jobs, we decided to hold off on developing another and instead added a new tank.

Tanks in FFXIV are often utilized in either a main tank or off-tank role. However, we currently have an odd number of tank jobs, and we felt it that it would be easier to balance them moving forward if we had an even number of tanks, which is why we went with gunbreaker in the end.

Moreover, ever since we added astrologian with Heavensward, we have had considerable difficulty in balancing it along with white mage and scholar. Rather than exacerbate a complex situation by adding a fourth healer to the mix, we decided to instead prioritize balancing the three existing healer jobs at this time.

That said, we understand that there is a strong desire for an additional healer, and so we will bear this in mind when designing new jobs in the future.

Emphasis is mine. It's not a clear declaration but it's already way more than they've given anyone before any expansion. Especially considering the "hard to balance" excuse has been used on two expansions already now, doubt they think they could get away with it a third time.


https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...vE#post4975024

[Ceasaria]

"Tanks in FFXIV are often utilized in either a main tank or off-tank role. However, we currently have an odd number of tank jobs, and we felt it that it would be easier to balance them moving forward if we had an even number of tanks, which is why we went with gunbreaker in the end.

Moreover, ever since we added astrologian with Heavensward, we have had considerable difficulty in balancing it along with white mage and scholar. Rather than exacerbate a complex situation by adding a fourth healer to the mix, we decided to instead prioritize balancing the three existing healer jobs at this time."

I'am still amazed to read this.
We had 3 tanks and 3 healers, odd numbers in each of this role.
It was hard to balance for both (more for healers), but the solution for tank is to add one more job, but not for healer ?
I think it's maybe the biggest contradiction/non-sens SE have done to justify one of their design choice.

[Mesarthim]

The fact that AST needed a page long list of buffs when savage first dropped tells me all I need to know about the "effort" they put in.

[Crushnight]

"Tanks in FFXIV are often utilized in either a main tank or off-tank role. However, we currently have an odd number of tank jobs, and we felt it that it would be easier to balance them moving forward if we had an even number of tanks, which is why we went with gunbreaker in the end.

Moreover, ever since we added astrologian with Heavensward, we have had considerable difficulty in balancing it along with white mage and scholar. Rather than exacerbate a complex situation by adding a fourth healer to the mix, we decided to instead prioritize balancing the three existing healer jobs at this time."

I'am still amazed to read this.
We had 3 tanks and 3 healers, odd numbers in each of this role.
It was hard to balance for both (more for healers), but the solution for tank is to add one more job, but not for healer ?
I think it's maybe the biggest contradiction/non-sens SE have done to justify one of their design choice.

Don't forget that they also felt sch let the other healer they are paired with do all the healing so they can dps, sch was the one doing the most healing out of all 3 healers regardless.

The Devs just have a massive disconnect from their healing community, they design everything around their perceived vision of healers without actually looking at how healers are played, if they did they would have realised by now that content design is directly at odds to their healer vision.

[Mortex]

The fact that AST needed a page long list of buffs when savage first dropped tells me all I need to know about the "effort" they put in.

It’s more or less that they are afraid that astro pushes whm out of bounds in savage too fast. They had some bad memories from StB

[Mortex]

I mean that astro/whm Problem is already here expect astro sucks too play and feels bad but it’s the healer job with the most things too do. It does contradict itself and sch having the best dmg reducing abilities and the fairy that does decent downtime healing were whm and astro are forced too heal. The next healer needs to be a shield healer and astro need too be only Regen

[Maltothoris]

Don't forget that they also felt sch let the other healer they are paired with do all the healing so they can dps, sch was the one doing the most healing out of all 3 healers regardless.

The Devs just have a massive disconnect from their healing community, they design everything around their perceived vision of healers without actually looking at how healers are played, if they did they would have realised by now that content design is directly at odds to their healer vision.

The thing that gets me is that that did happen..............................................................................all the way back during the first half of heavensward. THere was a notion about there being a main healer and an off healer during Gordias and the first half of Midas. However, groups realized it was better to split the burden of healing cause you got more dps out of two healers instead of one with a priority system for healings like Whispering Dawn>Collective>Indom>Aspected Helios for example back then.

This is just a huge disconnect that right that really showed to me they have little idea about how to implement healing.

It’s more or less that they are afraid that astro pushes whm out of bounds in savage too fast. They had some bad memories from StB

I say if anything it makes them rememer heavensward more. There wasn't a single major patch without buffs to astro until 3.5 cause they buffed the heck out of in 3.4 with the 20 percent balance.

[Gemina]

snip..

Yup, I am aware of this statement. I usually pay really close attention when it comes to anything concerning healers, which is why when the poster I quoted said we were getting a fourth like it was a fact, I had to question it. I still implore to keep expectations low. Until SE officially states we're getting a fourth healer, I would not assume anything. It really doesn't matter how long it's been.

[Raiya]

There are tons of this kind of messages on JP forums since 5.0 but SE doesn't care apparently.

They might not care or they're just to embarrassed to say anything right now because they failed to reform healing to the expectations of the player-base and are working away at fixing this again.

Personally I think they just need to take the approach they took to tanking to make healing better again, give back the aoe DoT's for WHM and SCH and balance out between abilities that protect and buff and those that damage. WHM should have burst heals and damage as well as getting rid of fluid aura and replacing it with Water as an aoe target spell, SCH shields, miasma II back and a good aoe heal which it initially lacked and AST continous HoT's/Dot's with the cards buffing like before but make them aoe and each having a different effect that either buff's allies (Haste/Damage/Critical) and debuffs (Slow/Def down/atk down) , if they add a 4th healer like Geo it should be a blood healer that damages while employing magics that drain opponents health to heal those damaging them. that would give all 4 variety.