Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[Shurrikhan]

Instead, I think they could go further/more general and split healers into Proactive vs Reactive.

That's a really neat idea.
I think that would at least help the healers click better conceptually at least.

How, though?

What could be uniquely "reactive" that would not be redundant with the same damage sources the "proactive" are meant to reduce? And if the potential redundancy (i.e., both wanting to use their unique portions around periods of greatest damage intake) is somehow avoided, that only causes either the "proactive" to be unnecessary, or the "reactive", in turn, un-unique (as both obviously need to have access to basic healing) or able to produce the same effect at less effort.

There can be differing extents or means of "proactive" or "reactive" healing that add to theme and flavor, certainly, but that dichotomy itself does very little to make healer identities "click"; it merely makes random matchmaking either slower or more problematic.

[Mimilu]

How, though?

What could be uniquely "reactive" that would not be redundant with the same damage sources the "proactive" are meant to reduce? And if the potential redundancy (i.e., both wanting to use their unique portions around periods of greatest damage intake) is somehow avoided, that only causes either the "proactive" to be unnecessary, or the "reactive", in turn, un-unique (as both obviously need to have access to basic healing) or able to produce the same effect at less effort.

For me, I think the Proactive healers kind of allow the Proactive healing define them, while, with how simple the heals are designed, Reactive healers will have to be define by how the heals are executed and/or managed.
Some hypothetical ideas could be:
-A healer with a system which allows you to use only a certain amount of abilities with in a time frame (similar to SCH's Aetherflow allowing 3 every 60 seconds)
-A healer who gains a resource that is used up every time they use a oGCD that affects its potency or effect.
-A healer who has multiple pairs of abilities that share cooldowns and you have to decide which ability to use at that time.
-A healer who instead of using oGCD abilities, uses high cost, insta-cast spells and has to manage their MP (maybe their DPS kit is weaponskill-based to compensate)
-A healer who has to choose between regen effects or HP-drain effects depending on the situation (like if the enemy isn't targetable)
-A healer who can use channeled heals and has to maintain them via a gainable resource

Additionally, a simple healing kit could allow for a more interesting DPS and/or Support kit.

[ItMe]

How, though?

Because proactive/reactive is already how my brain tries to sum up the pure/shield healer dynamic, even though that's not quite what we actually have.
So if it were legit just made into proactive/reactive it would be make more sense to me.

[Shurrikhan]

-A healer with a system which allows you to use only a certain amount of abilities with in a time frame (similar to SCH's Aetherflow allowing 3 every 60 seconds)
-A healer who gains a resource that is used up every time they use a oGCD that affects its potency or effect.
-A healer who has multiple pairs of abilities that share cooldowns and you have to decide which ability to use at that time.
-A healer who instead of using oGCD abilities, uses high cost, insta-cast spells and has to manage their MP (maybe their DPS kit is weaponskill-based to compensate)
-A healer who has to choose between regen effects or HP-drain effects depending on the situation (like if the enemy isn't targetable)
-A healer who can use channeled heals and has to maintain them via a gainable resource

What do any of these have to do with a proactive/reactive distinction, though?

Deliberately using spells other than your cooldown-limited big burst heals, which you can then save to react to heavy burst damage, is itself proactive.

Generating resources by which you can then quickly react to a situation... is proactive.

Take even, say, an iconic self-healing tank like a Blood Death Knight from WoW. Their healing is wholly reactive (based on damage just taken), but the resources needed to employ that healing must be prepared in advance, to the extent needed to survive that damage -- proactive.

Other, more purely cooldown-based tanks meanwhile have to proactively save those cooldowns so that they may appropriately react to the dangerous events against them.

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A proactive/reactive distinction exists only in terms of externally or (additionally) internally constrained invention and whether the majority of meaningful decision-making seems to come before or after an event; there will be no true or encompassing difference on the whole.

When you have all the control in the world by which to prepare for upcoming events through your (especially, if complex) toolkit, and more of your decisive actions proceed any given event than seem to follow it, that tends to feel a bit more "proactive" simply because there is nothing yet to react to beyond the most essential (the fight dynamics themselves).

Similarly, when you add atop all that additional randomizing elements or inertias that one must account for and gamble based on (whether these create play from/during the events themselves or even just between them), then that tends to add "reactive" gameplay, but that's not something mutually exclusive with what seems "proactive".

[IceBlueNinja]

Agreed, WHM has all but moved onto from relying on regens for their main source of healing. I also miss GCD regens having longer durations. They just feel so short now.

This is why even if mathematically regens are better I feel their short duration and slow ticks on huge pulls is in the same categories of shields when they smash. I can throw all 4 regen on ast and dungeons like bardams still tearing up a well gear tank. Better off using bene 1 ands 2 or digs. at that point wont sch have no choice if they out of lustrates to spam alco? not like got some physic 2 such as whm/ ast.

[IceBlueNinja]

For me, I think the pure vs shield dichotomy is kind of too shallow to really allow for more interesting healers.
Instead, I think they could go further/more general and split healers into Proactive vs Reactive.
Proactive healers would set things up before damage is done (shields, damage down buffs/debuffs, heal bombs) while Reactive would heal after damage is done (burst heals, regens, drain heals).
This would at least give them more things they could design a healer around other then if it can place shields or has higher burst and/or regens. :B

This I been always having this thought for a while. SE just have issues when it comes to balance in the shield department and they slip in many ways I will list em and no am not stepping on no one toes here not trying to start issues, I respect everyone thoughts.

1 = whm/whm= their regens can stack with each other

2 = sch/sch= their shields cant stack up

3= ast/ast= dirunal netrual shields and regens can stack with noct stance netrual regens+ shields

4=ast/sch= dirunal shields can work however noct field and gal dont get along, wierd thing they did is if a sch alqo and gets a cata, noct field wont cancel cata only galavine, also celestial opp shield=wont cancel galvine

5 =ast/ast 2 dirunal /noct aspected helios shields cant stack yet strangely though which ofc is wierd and no one do that but say accidentally both ast pick the same stance and the tank already hit the boss locking us out of switching, if one ast aspect helio dirunal/noct what they can sorta do to make it work is one aspect and the other would use opposition so they are not regen fighting, make it a turn thing oh A =u asp helio and B cu oppo, then b = asp helio while A cu oppo.

6=- whm/ast= the most biggest mistake se shot it self in the foot for was dirunal ast regens able to work with whm regens. Why not had follow the same noct ast/sch role where the regens could not stack with each other? may as well then let noct stance ast and sch shield can work, but in the end I know that probably be too broken to the point you may not even really need regens then but if one way was applied to one side, should be the same with others.

Overall SE does not know how to balance this pure regens/vs shield healer things base on the list on top. Though the regens are honestly not an issue as they all work together cept ofc 2 dirunal ast, other than that the shielding is a major balance issue.

[Semirhage]

Regens stacking isn't a problem because you can't cheese mechanics with stacked regens. They're very hesitant to allow stacked GCD shields because you could cheese mechanics with those. They haven't come up with a solution for the cheesing problem, so GCD shields don't generally stack. If you want Noct shields and Galvanize to stack, you have to do something about being able to survive mechanics by cheating your health pool up.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

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Not much can be done with how fights are designed in this game. There are only 5 ways to restore someone's health; Directly (Cure, Physick, Benefic, Clemency), Regenerative (Regen, Aspected Benefic, Sacred Soil, Aurora), Barriers (Succor, Shakeitoff, Soon-to-be-gone Nocturnal sect, Blackest Night, Brutul Shell), Parasitism (nothing in FF14) and Vampirism (Bloodbath, Storm's Path, Souleater, Brutal Shell), and lastly Health Sacrifice (nothing in FF14).

Bosses go invulnerable and untargetable so often, and sometimes for extremely long periods of time, in this game that a healer that heals through damage dealt (parasitism or vampirism) wouldn't be able to heal the party when the boss goes untargetable, with no adds being spawned, and then starts blasting the arena with unavoidable damage without having on demand healing or having their co-healer pick up the work.

A healer that heals using their own health would be a nightmare to balance with this game's fight design. And the devs have proven time and again they can't balance healers without homogenizing them.

And on a healer that uses damage reduction: Damage reduction is the best form of damage mitigation in any setting. There's a reason you don't see any of the AoE damage reduction abilities going above 10% and cannot be stacked. If it were higher it would trivialize content more than deployed Catalyzedlos. If it were higher it would mean the devs would need to gut damage reduction into redundancy or increase incoming damage so much it's mandatory. Barriers are the same way but can be more easily balanced by just removing or nerfing the health restoring component. Think Aldoquium acting like Blue Mage's Gobskin. Scholar has Emergency Tactics to deal with the loss of health restoration from Aldoquium and Succor, just give it 2 charges and make them have no cast times.

Because of how fight design is, in FF14, we are stuck with 3 types for healers; Direct, Barrier and Regeneration. They could make interesting versions of Barrier and Regeneration healers though. Abilities that remove HoTs or barriers and heal based on remaining HoT duration or remaining shield strength. HoTs with extremely low durations but high potencies or extremely long durations with low potencies. Shields with extremely low durations but high potencies etc etc. But I personally don't see much else happening for healers, and also tanks (there are only a few ways to reduce damage taken and they've hit that threshold, without CC being a viable option which it isn't and can't be in FF14, and any new tanks will be copies of existing tanks), with how late it is in this game's life and how strict and rigid fight design is.

[Rilifane]

You're assuming parasitism/ vampirism would be the only way for this particular healer to heal and using it as an argument to completely exclude it from the game.
All it takes are one direct ST and aoe GCD heal each to solve that problem. Every healer always has a direct heal baseline kit, that had always been the case in any game that used any special type beyond direct healing. Even if you happened to have two parasitism healers in a trial that has a phase without target but is somehow so difficult and has such high healing requirements that it was impossible to get everyone above threshold before that phase, all it would take would be one or two GCD heals and done.
We're not stuck. We just need to stop thinking in black or white extremes only.
"Parasitism healer" doesn't have to mean they're completely screwed and unable to heal anything without a target.
It means they also use parasitism healing - to what extend is completely up to the devs and can go anywhere from the occasional skill to the majority of healing done.

[IceBlueNinja]

Regens stacking isn't a problem because you can't cheese mechanics with stacked regens. They're very hesitant to allow stacked GCD shields because you could cheese mechanics with those. They haven't come up with a solution for the cheesing problem, so GCD shields don't generally stack. If you want Noct shields and Galvanize to stack, you have to do something about being able to survive mechanics by cheating your health pool up.

Very true indeed hence I mention that would be broken if shields just can stack, though diru ast + sch or ast/ast getting away with this xD. stack regens wouldnt save a hard core 99999999 damage set attack whew. Or honestly make all healers just do regens with some proper nice design since again indeed these mechs lately aint hitting hard enough that would need shielding unless them really are type like eden shiva savage. Fingers cross maybe in end walker we may see the reason for needing migi more idk....cant trust anything now lately. Really curious if they will even have the audicity to at least rewrite ast story and not confuse new people to ast on abilities that no longer ever exist.