Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[NobleWinter]

Stuns can't be a flavor bonus because they don't work on bosses.

That's why Personally I think they should have a class focus (Regen, Shields) and a Debuff / Buff off focus.

Damage Mitigation can be a core part of a healer kit without being manadatory for clears. I think having varying kind of shield effects is really the answer we need. Scholar already has Galvanize and Catalyze Shields which grant more effective hp and Emergency Tactics to turn any shielding into healing. The initial Heal potency could be removed from Succor and Aldo altogether to give them super chunky shields that warrant being placed before damage as their sole purpose would be to block it. Their playstyle could stay grounded in preventing damage with expensive shields or otherwise struggling to heal people to full. WHM in my vision would be incredibly reactive as it is now simply power healing after any damage is taken by the party. Astro could have the stances removed and simply be a weaker shield healer with the benefit of regens triggered by having their smaller shields broken. So Aspected Helios could in theory put a Noct Barrier on the party about a quarter maybe or less the strength of a Scholar; a barrier that can be stacked with Scholar mind you, and once its broken grant the party 15 seconds of Diurnal regen. The Scholar shield would take priority in being eaten allowing the regen to only kick in once all shielding is gone. A fourth healer, lets call it Chemist, could grant shields as well but that dont affect effective hp like Astro and Scholar. This shield could simply reduce damage taken by maybe 10 or 20 percent and then also trigger a bursts heal once its duration expires. This could allow every healer to work together well especially if every healer could heal for the same potency but in their own way both before and after damage. It would still take both healers using a single skill to get the party through the raid wide but it would feel different for each of them. As long as two WHM can heal the party to full there is no imbalance. Tanks should be responsible for keep the party alive with special mitigation through mechanics that can't be raw healed through to keep things balanced and WHM always viable.

[Valkyrie_]

Maybe we don't need every single job to be perfectly balanced with each other, maybe if the devs just focus on having all jobs be just viable in savage content instead of prioritizing what the meta-slaves think, then we could stop worrying about how the healer balance could "survive" a new & fun class being added.

Sacrilege i know, but look at how much trying to achieve a perfect balance has destroyed job identity, all 4 of the tank classes play exactly the same except for GNB which is only slightly different since it doesn't have a "fell cleave spam" phase.
Emnity has been trivialized.
Stance swapping has been cut.
Mp/Tp has been cut.
Resistance debuffs have been cut.
Ranged dps were turned into casters at one point.
And healers have had their kits butchered beyond belief.

I'm not saying trying to achieve some semblance of balance is bad, 2.0 warrior for example was a trainwreck and desperately needed change, but that's what i mean when i say the devs should just focus on jobs being viable enough to raid, and not worry over whether having a certain job will allow us to clear a raid a few seconds faster than another job.

Fun should always be the biggest priority, and having all classes be the same + never adding new jobs = incredibly unfun.

[Mansion]

I think there are two main options, being either have two groups of two similar healers and balance these like that, or have the four healers given access to both shielding and regens.

While in theory I prefer the second option, I kind of doubt they would succeed in making four healers feel unique if they go that way (in my opinion, that's what we have since 5.X, all healers kind of do the same thing, healing wise).
And if I can go further, I'd rather have them fix healing itself before anything. Because strict "shield vs regen" is not a great idea, given how shields are unnecessary most of the time, while regens are always strong.

Now I don't think balance is the issue. In the strict sense, healers are balanced healing wise. Adding a fourth healer that would be a copy of the others would be very frustrating.

[Anhra]

The whole purpose of a Healer, is TO BE unbalanced. It is a Specialist role with the main Focus of providing healing and utility/support while dishing out damage/using debuffs on the side when things are going smooth. Balancing a Healer would mean turning it into Red Mage minus the Melee abilities, for that Job, is the embodiment of Balance, a Jack of all trades, but master of none.

As i mentioned before on another thread already, Squeenix will just copypaste their WHM formula on any Healer that's being added and call it a day, in the most likely scenario.

[Absurdity]

As i mentioned before on another thread already, Squeenix will just copypaste their WHM formula on any Healer that's being added and call it a day, in the most likely scenario.

The pessimistic outlook, which I unfortunately share for now, would be exactly that.
A 4th healer wouldn't destroy the balance in this scenario because it would be designed like all the current ones. 1 DoT, 1 dps spell that you spam, maybe a nuke, the usual single target and party GCD heals, a boatload of strong oGCDs, mostly direct or regen healing, most likely some shields to make up for WHM's lack of it and some gimmick mechanic that has barely any impact to make it easy to balance.

[Saefinn]

Honestly? I think it could be fine with a 4th. But really depends on how they approach things. Me personally? I don't think they know how to handle healing jobs.

My fear is that a 4th healer won't have much in the way of anything unique or exciting in favour of balance.

The dichotomy we used to have back in 2.0 no longer exists and I think it'd be a fool's errand to try to maintain it...as much as I loved it. I don't think adding a new healer would impact things as much as adding AST did as healing jobs are more rounded these days. Back in 2.0 it didn't matter if healing jobs weren't well-rounded because you could make SCH and WHM complement each other and nobody would complain about a SCH/WHM meta. IMO a SCH/WHM was great back then, we felt like we offered different benefits. In fact, I think them NOT being well-rounded made for the experience and is why their relationship worked.

AST I feel like was designed to try and fit into both niches, whilst at the same time making SCH more rounded and WHM lose its niche. The end result was terrible balance, because they designed a job to fit the dichotomy whilst also breaking the dichotomy and I think it has been a job of playing catch up since...and also made SCH OP.

I think it's going to require them to reassess how each healer job fit their identities. I think the mentality of "big heals healer" and "shield healer" are long gone and we need to adjust to uniqueness within roles that don't necessarily have a benefit over each other.

I think instead they should be well rounded BUT feel appropriate to their identities:
WHM would need to feel powerful.
SCH would need to feel tactical
AST would need to feel technical
New Healer would need to achieve whatever feel they're going for.

WHM, SCH and AST already have the tools and groundwork to achieve them.

[Liam_Harper]

I'm surprised there's still any talk about separating into "shield healer" and "direct healer". There is currently no such thing as a shield healer. Noct or SCH both have HoT's and strong direct heals with their shields simply being an additional part of a versatile toolkit. WHM is the only healer with an incomplete toolkit.

I definitely can't see them adding another WHM. Shields are generally recommended for Savage prog and most groups need them for e12s. While this is currently fine since the other two compensate for WHM, a 4th healer with a similar toolkit wouldn't be viable with WHM in higher Savage. You'd need a healer with shields and this would result in something similar to the "MT/OT" divide they steered well away from with tanks. While Enix generally discourage doubles of one class, they've been careful to avoid having any combination of 2 different classes within a role simply not work in some content. So it's most likely the 4th healer will have a diverse well-rounded heal kit.

The best way to differentiate between the healers is probably in their style of gameplay. Buff, debuffs, AST's cards, pets, utility, DoT's, high APM weave, maintenance buffs, complexity, comfiness and so on. We've got a good base for that, but unfortunately they've steered away from it a bit in their goal of accessibility. But they could easily build on it again. I've always been against a class identity of gaping holes in your toolkit or clunkiness though.

[Emscott3002]

Well at this point Healing class should just be aesthetic meaning that, you should just pick which one you like the best. I think AST is the only one who is a little different because it focuses on both healing and Mitigation and also buffs the party. They could add another Healing class that heals and buffs the party up to balance the other two healers we current have.

Or, they could base it on a more supportive class that focuses more on support.

[ItMe]

. You'd need a healer with shields and this would result in something similar to the "MT/OT" divide they steered well away from with tanks. While Enix generally discourage doubles of one class, they've been careful to avoid having any combination of 2 different classes within a role simply not work in some content. So it's most likely the 4th healer will have a diverse well-rounded heal kit.

That's a really interesting way of framing the issue.
I dropped SCH and picked up AST explicitly so I could heal with my WHM friend or my SCH friend without our kits awkwardly fighting, so I really hope the 4th healer really shatters whats left of their dichotomy.

[Side-Eye]

The simple truth is: a 4th healer is going to step on toes. There is already a heal powerhouse, there is already a shield powerhouse, and there is already a healer that can sufficiently compliment either of the first two, with a card/buff gimmick to supplement what it lacks in healing.

As much as I accept that Squeenix is pretty much backed into a corner to produce another heal job, I would honestly prefer that it devoted those resources into making the current three heal jobs more enjoyable, with a more sophisticated DPS kit and each with its own unique tricks for healing.