Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[AnotherPerson]

It's possible but it also depends on how the HP curve continues to go up relative to our healing kit and how fight encounters respond to it. If you're referring to the shield/regen dichotomy, then it's very possible to add in a 4th healer. I think mitigations have to be just as viable as shields for this to happen - which isn't impossible as long as the HP difference continues to rise and shields don't get too strong to enable stacking. After all, White Mage isn't really a regen healer as much anymore but a raw HP healer with the introduction of Afflatus Misery, SCH is mainly a regen/few shields/mitigation healer, and AST is the one with stackable regens/shields but no real mitigation besides Collective Unconscious under Nocturnal Sect.

[Risvertasashi]

If you're referring to the shield/regen dichotomy

This isn't a dichotomy anyways, which just kind of shows how little the community tends to know about balancing healers to begin with.

Scholar has some great regens, including the most powerful single target regen in the game. AST is a regen powerhouse even in Noct stance now, which is part of why it's finally competitive with scholar, and in diurnal stance it gets more regens than white mage.

But we're also as close to balanced with healers than we've ever been. Think about that for a moment - and how little it has to do with shields and regens and this dichotomy so many seem to think exists...

[Crushnight]

4th healer has to be the most simple and easy to pick up and learn healer. HAS TO. Why? Because it would start at lv70. SE would have to account for brand new players and players never touching the healer role before picking it up.

This means the 4th healer will have a boring incredibly simple gameplay style(for veterans who have played healers at all) for the 1st 10 levels. Once lv80 and above they may ramp up what it can do like they did with Gunbreaker(this really wasn't at all more complex than other tanks) or they could keep it the same path current healers are going down, which the devs have shown no signs of dropping the detrimental pure healing mentality (if it was a different designed game this wouldn't be so bad, but this is FFXIV and it is very bad to have this mentality).

4th healer won't break balance with current design, it can't or the developers are even more incompetent with designing healers, but how many of us truly want current design to stay as it is. No idea as a healer community we are so divided it is impossible to get an accurate picture.

6.0 regardless will be the devs putting their foot down on healer design, be it a reverse course or a continuation, healers will leave the role, hope the devs pick the choice they want that'll keep the most as possible.

If we get a healer for 6.0 their intro video will tell us everything about their design, if we see 1 nuke, 1 aoe and 1 DoT current design stays, if we see a slightly more damage focus(multiple DoTs, resources going to hitting the dummy enemy etc), older design has a chance.

[Heilstos]

I think the "healer balance problem" will be opened up a little with the 4th healer. Because when you see it at the tank, there is no longer this which tank stands out which.

The astrologer is not the problem. This has the task of adapting to the task accordingly. Just about the HW-AST was to nip the best wishes in the bud! The mallet Mage (WHM) apparently does its job well and is played with pleasure. Many players did not like the fact that the scholar became an active healer, although this one rather raises the question of the use of energy drain. I'm not opening the barrel here, so please write another thread on it.

I would appreciate a healer who works less with shields or hots. This should rather stagger the damage from the tank or temporarily the whole group and be able to negate this damage but not be so strong in healing. Or that he transfers the percentage of damage to himself and then counteracts this damage with healing and damage spells. Here, for example, the time mage asks. So the newcomer can ask for a new form that works in coexistence with all three existing healer types. And I hope that's the goal the devs want to achieve

[Mortex]

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.

Christ you don’t have to murder them like this. But what you say is sadly true

[Marxam]

Of course its going to be balanced. One dot, one aoe, one single-target and a job gimmick so low in raid potency it makes no difference outside of ultimate speed kill optimization. Jokes aside (though this is probably going to be true), SCH and AST are in a unique position where the faeries and sects can act the same way. Eos can provide HoTs and Selene can add shields with Seraph acting like Neutral Sect. Though this would assume the faeries are reworked to their SB form and expanded on rather than the glamour faerie we have now.

[IDontPetLalas]

4th healer has to be the most simple and easy to pick up and learn healer. HAS TO. Why? Because it would start at lv70. SE would have to account for brand new players and players never touching the healer role before picking it up.

This means the 4th healer will have a boring incredibly simple gameplay style(for veterans who have played healers at all) for the 1st 10 levels. Once lv80 and above they may ramp up what it can do like they did with Gunbreaker(this really wasn't at all more complex than other tanks) or they could keep it the same path current healers are going down, which the devs have shown no signs of dropping the detrimental pure healing mentality (if it was a different designed game this wouldn't be so bad, but this is FFXIV and it is very bad to have this mentality).

4th healer won't break balance with current design, it can't or the developers are even more incompetent with designing healers, but how many of us truly want current design to stay as it is. No idea as a healer community we are so divided it is impossible to get an accurate picture.

6.0 regardless will be the devs putting their foot down on healer design, be it a reverse course or a continuation, healers will leave the role, hope the devs pick the choice they want that'll keep the most as possible.

If we get a healer for 6.0 their intro video will tell us everything about their design, if we see 1 nuke, 1 aoe and 1 DoT current design stays, if we see a slightly more damage focus(multiple DoTs, resources going to hitting the dummy enemy etc), older design has a chance.

Given that none of the current healers are incredibly complex, making any new healer more simple doesn't sound at all attractive. If that new healer did in fact start at level 70, then a brand new player wouldn't even be able to select it due to lack of MSQ progression, unless of course they purchased a jump. I don't see that as being a valid reason for over-simplifying a job.

IF a fourth healer gets added it would make more sense to add one that synergizes with the current healers, and at the same time that would be an opportunity to revisit the current healers.

[Liam_Harper]

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.

Not entirely true. Noct AST for example can actually be used with SCH just fine if needed. AspHelios/Benefic are the only heals to conflict with Galvanize and you really wouldn't need both healers spamming their GCD heal. Noct and SCH also both have ample burst heal and regens. You bring Diurnal anyway because it's more heal power, but the idea that you can't use Noct is a misunderstanding from the community, similar to how many people still think you have to play Noct with WHM when it really only matters in the hardest content.

Neither Noct or SCH are "shield healers". They're simply healers with access to shields, but also plenty of other toolkit. WHM is the odd one out here and the only healer straight-up missing an option in the toolkit.

If the new healer "relied" on shields (currently no healer does) it would be something new and would function fine with all the current healers. SCH wouldn't need to Succor and would like it, putting their better tools to use.

The only potential issue would be giving us another gimped WHM-type healer with a fantasy of having a hole in the toolkit. Then it wouldn't function with WHM at higher Savage.

4th healer has to be the most simple and easy to pick up and learn healer. HAS TO. Why? Because it would start at lv70. SE would have to account for brand new players and players never touching the healer role before picking it up.

Interestingly GNB was the 4th tank this expansion and is probably the least easy to pick up and learn due to higher apm. WAR is the simple tank. Sure, getting a fresh GNB learning to tank in Sirensong sucks, but that didn't stop Enix from releasing it.

[BlueMageQuina]

This is just my two cents...

But I think the fact that this is even a question is the same shortsightedness that brought us BLU. BLU “can’t be balanced for content” NOT because another caster couldn’t inherently be balanced, but only because of the spells that the devs wanted to give it. If you give a caster a potential AOE Benediction (White Wind) of course it will outheal healers. If you give it a spammable tank immunity as long as it has the MP (Diamondback), of course it can align itself with tanks. If you give a caster spells that have majorly elemental and status affinities, of course it won’t work well in current content with the other 17ish classes who have been far removed from elements and status ailments over the past few expansions.

This is the same issue we encounter when we speak about any other role, but especially about a new healer since this is always the excuse we are given: “it can’t be balanced.” Yes, a new healer can’t be balanced and won’t work if we continue talking about designing it the wrong way. For example: we don’t need another shield healer or another HOT healer. We have 2 of both already because of AST. The new healer can and should have an entirely new healing niche. Many new niches have already been discussed ad nauseam on the forums already; life stealing healers, chemist healers, healers that store overhealing for later, maybe a debuffing healer for damage mitigations, etc.

The second reason we must rethink a new healer requiring a new niche has already been mentioned as well; shields don’t stack and therefore another shield healer limits which party compositions can be efficient and limits healer synergy.

Balancing a new healer, as theorized my mind, has always been possible. I just don’t think we will ever get anywhere basing a new design first and foremost on what we already have.

[ItMe]

Bard is currently designed as an in-between MCH (dps focused) and DNC (support focused). Dark was originally designed as an in-between PLD (def, mitigation) and WAR (dps, regen) with magic def cooldowns instead of Physical Def. And, the only thing like different from now is that everything currently plays almost exactly the same as the other jobs for tanks and healers whereas RNGDPS ended up changing entirely after 3.0 and mostly MCH after 4.0. And, AST is an in-between of WHM (HoT) and SCH (sheild). To totally reiterate, the main issue with doing this is that the in-between jobs just end up becoming way too powerful, or super weak, which is basically AST whole existence every expansion.

This is wonderful info and I had no idea.
Thanks for the reply.