Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[HyperiusUltima]

I've been wondering this for a while since it has been a topic raised by some of my friend circles in-game and in Discord. Can Healers survive a fourth healer coming into the game next expansion?

Because honestly, let's be real - they've butchered healers to nothing except oGCD Heals and 1 Attack and 1 DoT. I don't know how they'll be able to shoehorn in a 4th Healer given how the dichotomy works either; unless they do something about shielding and fix SCH's issues. It's really tough to even balance healers right now as is.

[Jaelommiss]

The biggest obstacle to a fourth healer is how shields vs hots defines heal comps. As long as shields do not stack, two healers that use shields cannot play well together.

If a new healer relies on shields then it cannot be used alongside SCH. If it does not then it cannot be used alongside WHM. The easiest option to implement is to allow it to toggle stances like AST, however that infringes on a portion of AST's identity.

A second solution would be to allow all shields to stack. The majority of healing checks in this game are in fact mitigation checks. Everyone needs a certain EHP, or they die. Allowing at-will shielding to stack either eliminates this as a challenge or forces double shield comps.

A third option is to remove all at-will EHP increasing abilities and instead make them finite CDs. All healers would need comparable amounts of EHP increasing tools so ensure that all compositions are equally viable. This would require massive reworks to current healer kits but is the only way to truly dismantle current healer constraints.

A fourth possibility involves redefining damage curves in this game. Current healing design operates around infrequent spikes that can kill characters in a single hit. If sufficiently mitigated then everyone lives and can be topped off effortlessly. This could be adjusted to align more closely to other games by making damage more abundant, less spiky, and making healing a finite resource. This could be accomplished by making offensive spells free and placing large MP requirements on healing spells (MP limited healing), making all healing spells have limited charges and cooldowns (time limited healing), or requiring offensive actions be taken to build charges and resources for healing actions (performance limited healing). None of these would be easy to implement. Either past content is reworks to accommodate such a design, or all healer kits change dramatically at level 81 to match the new content.


As much as I would like to see it, I do not expect that healers will be differentiated by their offensive tools in the future.

[MintnHoney]

I suppose we might have a scenario where the new healer would end up being the darling of the role, where all the complaints and missing attributes for the other jobs are placed, making a "ultimate" healing job of sorts. Then, for the next several patches, every other healer will simply see potency buffs to their healing to compensate for the lack of everything that the new healer has, as if that would fix everything.

On the other, more pessimistic hand, considering the current expansion and the very few (and, therefore, very specific) comments they've provided regarding the healer role, I don't think we'll have to worry about whether or not a new healer would ruin balance, because we seem to be teetering on a path where each healer will just be the same stencil drawing with different glitter glued over the lines to make them feel special and different.

[Deceptus]

Honestly a 4th healer would solve a myriad of healer problems.

1) It could force AST to have to pick a sect and remove the other so they no longer have access to both shields and regens. This has been the major cause for imbalance since AST was implemented.

2) It would provide balance to the healers. 2 shield based and 2 regen based, just like they tried to do with tanks. 2 MTs, 2 OTs (I know they failed at that).

[Dogempire]

I think a 4th healer could be balanced, only issue is that in order to balance adding a 4th healer, there needs to be competent healer designers who are in touch with current healer needs and know how to expand on what we currently have without detracting from what the currently existing healers have to offer.

So in other words, no.

[MPNZ]

Like, most of the problem with healers in the terms of balance is the difficulty the devs have just balancing their "in-between" classes which always seems to make them either brokenly OP or extremely weak

[Enla]

Like, most of the problem with healers in the terms of balance is the difficulty the devs have just balancing their "in-between" classes which always seems to make them either brokenly OP or extremely weak

This, healer balance wouldn't be as much of a problem if AST hadn't thrown a monkey wrench into the entire equation back in HW. I'm not slamming the class by any means, it's truly grown into it's own over the years, but it's existence unfortunately predicates a level of imbalance that is hard to fully handle. Either the other two are two powerful, or it's too powerful and one of the others suffer. The devs really seem incapable of balancing the three equally and like Deceptus I really think we're getting to the point they need to force the class to pick a sect if they want to have a snowball's chance in hell of ever balancing the healer problem in a meaningful way.

[Risvertasashi]

Much like tanks, I think balance will improve with a 4th healer.

Now that's not to say 6.0 might not be a bit rough (that is, if the new expac does bring a new healer), but in the long run...

[A_moth_called_rose]

What exactly is wrong with healer balance currently that a 4th job would potentially address though? It's not like any of them are incapable of doing content even at the highest levels

[Risvertasashi]

It's not like any of them are incapable of doing content even at the highest levels

If this is your standard of "balance", there has never been a problem with healers.

Or tanks.

Or DPS.

All job adjustments are entirely unnecessary.