Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[Side-Eye]

As AST is apparently about to become one of two regen(pure) healers with the loss of nocturnal/shield healing and the introduction of a second shield heal job, my only hope is that Squeenix does something -- anything -- to revamp the card system (i.e. make it more interesting and/or restore versatility as it was pre-5.0), or add something new to explain the job's lore. Because right now it doesn't align with the job's storyline quests and one of its strengths is its ability to pair with either a shield or regen healer.

[GavynG]

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.

This guy gets it.

[Absurdity]

This guy gets it.

It "could" be done, but it requires SE to get out of their comfort zone of healer (and honestly tank as well) design which they evidently either don't want or don't have the manpower to do so. I'll say it again and again, with their 4 job designers, of which none actually main a healer, we will most likely not see any changes to their current idea of what a healer should be and how it should function.



Think of it like this, if you're a dps main and have not played healer at any relevant level, what would your idea of healing be? Well, healing abilities with a cast time for a start because healers fall somewhat into the "caster" category, then probably some instant healing as well because you know that you sometimes take damage right before the next mechanic and need to be healed fast... oh yeah, sometimes you take a lot of damage from boss mechanics as a dps, so probably some shields... and then 1-2 dps spells because they need to do quests somehow.


That's basically the "complexity" we're currently dealing with, a DPS' idea of what a healer should be, not a healer's.

[GrimGale]

Agreed. I really hope they allow more support for the shield based healers. Buff / Debuffs are sorely needed on healers in general and shouldn't be on the DPS. They rarely ever use them.

To be fair, I like the distinction between rDPS (raid/utility) and pDPS (personal/selfish) in terms of design for all jobs. I like having all three roles with jobs being more oriented towards empowering others (either through directly buffing allies or weakening enemies), I think its a good avenue for class design and distinct identity. I just wish they would commit to this better especially with healers.

DPS classes can be designed with buff/debuffs and utility in mind in the same way Healers can get strong dps skills, if only to give them a sense of identity ( i. e Afflatus Misery) . I am not advocating for Healers to become as powerful as DPS jobs, or for DPS or Tanks to have skills that make Healers redundant.

The devil is in the details, I suppose.

[Deceptus]

DPS classes can be designed with buff/debuffs and utility in mind in the same way Healers can get strong dps skills, if only to give them a sense of identity ( i. e Afflatus Misery) . I am not advocating for Healers to become as powerful as DPS jobs, or for DPS or Tanks to have skills that make Healers redundant.

Sadly, this already exists and has existed before. Warriors with steel cyclone able to heal for more damage than mobs could do.

E4S was done with zero healers because SMN mitigation and heals and Dancer mitigation and heals are really strong. PLD Clemency added to that? Yeah, healers weren't needed.

[Mimilu]

For me, I think they can balance the jobs fine in terms of being useable in content.
What I'm worried about is: Can they distinguish the healers enough visually and gameplay-wise, while also making playing said healers fun and unique-enough?

I have to admit, other then their weapons, I'm not that hyped for Sage.
From what I saw in their trailer, they look like WHMs with shields.
I know they said Sages will be able to augment their own magic during the presentation but didn't really show it (or at least show it distinctly). I'm half worried that the only spells they can augment are their healing spells and given the dev team's track record with GCD vs oGCD heals, doesn't seem very promising.

[Liam_Harper]

Sadly, this already exists and has existed before. Warriors with steel cyclone able to heal for more damage than mobs could do.

E4S was done with zero healers because SMN mitigation and heals and Dancer mitigation and heals are really strong. PLD Clemency added to that? Yeah, healers weren't needed.

To be fair, in the case of Warriors outhealing mobs, it's mainly because mobs hit like wet noodles. Expert Roulette today can be done without a healer quite easily, not because dps and tanks have op heals, but because the damage is minimal.

In the case of e4s, that was an exceptionally skilled and coordinated group being innovative with class abilities and mitigation. You couldn't argue "healers aren't needed in e4s" because that fight hits rather hard and 99.9% of groups wouldn't stand a chance without heals.

I like having class self-sufficiency myself because it opens the opportunity for harder hitting content, because the group has more tools overall and it rewards skilled players who could pull off impressive feats. As a healer I don't feel my role is threatened if an extremely good tank or dps could stay alive for a while without me by using their full toolkit, 99% of the time I'm still useful. As a dps I wouldn't feel threatened if extremely good tanks or healers potentially had 75-80% of my dps with a wider toolkit either, because on average I do more so I'm still more useful 99% of the time. I don't like when they make classes bland, ineffective and lukewarm because they don't want terrible players to feel bad being outperformed in their role by exceptional players of another role.

[Kabooa]

In the case of e4s, that was an exceptionally skilled and coordinated group being innovative with class abilities and mitigation. You couldn't argue "healers aren't needed in e4s" because that fight hits rather hard and 99.9% of groups wouldn't stand a chance without heals. .

It was also 5.1, where Summoner got something like a +20% damage buff through its rework and potency shifts.

They still almost failed the kill run as well.

[NYCLouisGamer]

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.

I just had a flashback. I dreamed about FFXIV this week! I was a Healer & I kept getting DPS procs while I played. It felt wonderful.

[Truen]

Probably going to be dumbed down to something like: 2 pure healer jobs, 2 barrier jobs.
We'd be foolish to expect any degree of complexity given the regrettable trend established in 5.0 to homogenize jobs into the same mundane, single-button spamming dps disasters we have today.