Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[Gemina]

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

...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...

I was thinking the same thing initially when I read the OP. All the healers have HPS and damage mitigation tools. Even WHM has Benison on a short CD and Temperance. Though I believe Yoshi himself recognized that a shielding healer and HPS healer were present, this was before ShB and the homogenization that took place.

The false dichotomy is surrounded on the community thinking HPS is its own class of healer when it really isn't. All the healers have phenomenal HPS capability. The only thing present is that one of two healers will have the primary responsibility of damage mitigation. SCH will always have this by default, and WHM never will. However, I find that even this is unnecessary, and it forces the AST to choose a sect based on which healer is in the party, or the opposite sect if grouped with another AST. The only time it is really their choice is in 4-man.

Really what it comes down to are shields not stacking, but the healing kits are set up now where even if there are two SCHs, two ASTs in Noct, a Noct AST and a SCH, etc. it's not the end of the world at all. It's the meta and one player per job comps that continue to enforce SCH and WHM into their branched healer roles. The truth I perceive is that all the healers are currently responsible for both mitigation and HPS tools during an encounter, and they have multiple means to do so without stepping on each other's toes.

[Seraphor]

Healer balance might require a fourth healer. Much like tanks, who are all now viable in both the MT and OT position.

The Regen/Shield dichotomy has to go, which will require jobs to have unique ways of applying both regens and shields.

[Curisu]

Maybe a 4th healer will be something new.
Like a flat HP healer without regens or shields.
Instead he is applying short time dmg reduction and heal increases on the group.
So you can still play all combinations of healer without changing the shield/hots problem.

[Rilifane]

At this point it seems more like the community idea of how healers function and should be balanced is the biggest obstacle.
The community seems deadset on wanting a comp with one "shield healer" and one "regen healer" and having a 50/50 split for shield and regen healers so the 4th healer must either be flexible like AST or ASTs stances need to get scratched - and all for this misconception that you always need on of each when in reality, Diurnal is the prefered stance outside of early prog regardless of your co heal and Neutral gets rarely, if ever, used during a fight and mostly during transitions.
WhM/ SCH comps mainly utilize direct heals and regens while shields (even the one from Seraph because of mandatory two weaves) rarely get used.
For AST/ SCH, Diurnal is prefered not because they wouldn't be able to happily spam their GCD shields but because Diurnal offers much higher raw healing and is more valuable outside early prog. Some speedrun niche cases work with SCH/ Noct, but that's highly optimized gameplay and GCD shields have nothing to do with it.
AST/ WhM is Diurnal again for AST even though PF loves to enforce the rule to go Noct with a WhM although it generally makes things harder for both healers because you're missing out on a lot of free healing for no good reason.

What's more important when it comes to healer balance is the rhythm each healer has and the opportunity cost tied to their heals.
If one healer has high opportunity cost, it doesn't matter that their direct heals, shields or regens are strong - they will rarely get used to aim for better combined dps. The healer with the lowest opportunity cost and/ or more flexibility generally does most of the heavy lifting and the other healer has more freedom in planning their forced dps loss around times when they suffer least from it, like timing Raptures and Ruin IIs with forced movement that goes beyond what slidecasting and prepositioning would cover.
Sacred Soils is one of the strongest skill that never gets used unless absolutely neccessary because a weak free heal is better than a costly strong heal when both would suffice to survive.


There are a myriad of ways to design interesting heal skills (delayed, grows stronger/ weaker with time, consumable, stackable buffs to consume, grows stronger/ weaker with distance, jumping heals, small radius, stationary, multi-target small radius, copied healing etc.) that function well with every healer.
If the 4th healer functions well with the other 3 in the way that it doesn't "punish" some by forcing constant dps loss from both healers (like SCH/ WhM currently still does to some extend) and thus making it undesirable, it doesn't matter if they lean more towards shields, regens or good old direct healing.
Balance would definitely survive it but I'm starting to think part of the community will blow a fuse should we have "too many" healers of one type.

[S-C-R-Y-E]

I think the game could easily handle another healer if you just change how the healer works.

Personally, I'd like to see some sort of melee healer that utilizes that off hand weapon slot for something. Give them high mobility with short range or immediate area heals that forces them to be close to the person they want to heal. Alternatively, they could share the damage they inflict as a form of vampiric or indirect healing that operates separately from the normal rules of regeneration. They could then utilize screens or persistent area spells on the back line that only heals players as they dodge boss mechanics similar to how skills like Collective Unconscious work now. It would be a healer that emphasizes positioning and control of the battlefield through the use of persistent area spells rather than your traditional direct healing type of healer.

I dont know if the concept would work, but most of a healers heals are directed towards the tank anyways so limiting their most powerful heals to short range shouldn't matter too much primarily if they are a melee healer.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I think the game could easily handle another healer if you just change how the healer works.

Personally, I'd like to see some sort of melee healer that utilizes that off hand weapon slot for something. Give them high mobility with short range or immediate area heals that forces them to be close to the person they want to heal. Alternatively, they could share the damage they inflict as a form of vampiric or indirect healing that operates separately from the normal rules of regeneration. They could then utilize screens or persistent area spells on the back line that only heals players as they dodge boss mechanics similar to how skills like Collective Unconscious work now. It would be a healer that emphasizes positioning and control of the battlefield through the use of persistent area spells rather than your traditional direct healing type of healer.

I dont know if the concept would work, but most of a healers heals are directed towards the tank anyways so limiting their most powerful heals to short range shouldn't matter too much primarily if they are a melee healer.

Melee healer sounds nice until I remind myself that ranged DPS firing from Narnia exist.

[Dogempire]

Melee healer sounds nice until I remind myself that ranged DPS firing from Narnia exist.

That's when you rescue them so you can heal them, or just let them die, or both

[Aomine1992]

Honestly a 4th healer would solve healer issues all together, AST can finally dumped the awful nocturnal sect and focus on its better side diurnal and maybe be able to be balanced properly.

SCH still needs a re work honestly but that’s something they can do along side a new shield healer but no more toggle healers plz

[Deceptus]

Melee healer sounds nice until I remind myself that ranged DPS firing from Narnia exist.

Isn't every healer supposed to be on the bosses ass with the melee anyway .

At least that's where I park myself.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Isn't every healer supposed to be on the bosses ass with the melee anyway .

At least that's where I park myself.

Oh, tell me about it.
I try to keep myself relatively close to -both- the tank and the boss, which more than likely will put myself relatively in the middle of 3 or 7 other members.

The thing is, it worries me (or should I say: amuses me) that the likelihood of encountering players that could not grasp the many advantages of sticking relatively close to the boss’ ass is quite staggeringly common, especially if one actively using DF.

And by ‘relatively close’, I’m referring to an area just as wide as the 3 healers’ dome-shaped AoEs such as [Earthly Star], [Collective Unconsciousness], [Asylum] & [Sacred Soil]. At least that’s the general radius which I would expect if they were to implement a ‘melee healer’ (it could be 5y or even as far as 12y akin to DRG’s tether, but I’ll stick to the middle ground, which is 8y)

Of course, if they do not have the luxury of 20y - 30y target healing like our existing healers do, trying to reach those Narnia snipers would be a chore. Ngl, like Dogempire stated. Rescue or let them dig their own lonely grave. Both are very tempting to do—just not a fan of doing it myself.