A summary of healer issues

[Semirhage]

I'd rather the existing healers not be flaming garbage before we start in on wacky design spaces like melee healing. Nevermind the fact that Square's encounter design up to now presupposes that all healers are ranged. What would a melee healer do during Searing Wind? /dance?

[Doragan]

I'd rather the existing healers not be flaming garbage before we start in on wacky design spaces like melee healing.

I don't necessarily think a melee healer would be wack, though. I think it would be a bit tricky to implement entirely melee-based healing actions, but I don't think it would be out of this realm if it was most of their DPS actions that would be melee while their healing actions be casts,just like the other healer jobs.

After all, we do have RDM having a melee combo and dashes using weaponskills, PLD can use Holy Spirit spells ranged, a boatload of DRK actions are spells. I think a weaponskill-user healer job would be pretty cool. It would be some risk-taking coming from the dev team regarding healers. It would be pretty exciting,even if it ends up failing.

If they are DoT-based, most of their uptime could come from that,too,to compensate moving away from the target if they need to heal,during mechanics. Kinda like booksmacking during ARR/HW I guess.

On another note,I'm legitimately surprised there isn't any kind of weaponskill on healers entirely,even ranged. Ah well.

What would a melee healer do during Searing Wind? /dance?

If they could refresh their dots from a distance, I don't think it would be that much of a problem.

[Allegor]

I'd rather the existing healers not be flaming garbage before we start in on wacky design spaces like melee healing. Nevermind the fact that Square's encounter design up to now presupposes that all healers are ranged. What would a melee healer do during Searing Wind? /dance?

Do what a RDM does, and know when to and when not to be in melee, I suppose? being a melee healer wouldn't imply they're like a MNK and go the 'no ranged skills whatsoever' route, just that their niche would be going in melee range, even if only temporarily. It's not like our aoes arent point blank range already, and SGE even has a gap closer, for whatever reason - this theoretical melee healer could simply have a disengage like RDM /shrug

[ForteNightshade]

Do what a RDM does, and know when to and when not to be in melee, I suppose? being a melee healer wouldn't imply they're like a MNK and go the 'no ranged skills whatsoever' route, just that their niche would be going in melee range, even if only temporarily. It's not like our aoes arent point blank range already, and SGE even has a gap closer, for whatever reason - this theoretical melee healer could simply have a disengage like RDM /shrug

RDM having to delay it's Melee combo can severely impact its damage. Not to mention, it's only ever in melee range for 5-6 seconds. A healer whose primary source of DPS forced it into melee range would be near impossible to balance as it'd either wind up far too powerful in fights lacking range mechanics or comically weak having to constantly lose damage when the other healers didn't. It'd basically only work in double Caster comps, which are nowhere near as prevalent.

Aftee watching several videos of game journalists struggling with the basic concepts of SGE, I fear the new shiny toy will see an onslaught of new players rush to it.

They will struggle to heal and we'll see a huge wave of Tanks and Dps players complaining about their personal health batteries being defective, causing SE to dumb down healers all over the board yet again.

I wouldn't worry too much. People felt similarly about Gunbreaker. While we certainly had plenty of meme tanks, it eventually balanced out when people got over the "shiny new toy" syndrome and ran back to their old jobs.

[Deceptus]

Not to mention, it's only ever in melee range for 5-6 seconds..

That is 100% a choice. Every "ranged" job can absolutely sit in melee range if they wanted to in lots of content.

Hell, healers LOATHE the dps who stand at the far edge of the arena outside of aoe healing range.

[ForteNightshade]

That is 100% a choice. Every "ranged" job can absolutely sit in melee range if they wanted to in lots of content.

Hell, healers LOATHE the dps who stand at the far edge of the arena outside of aoe healing range.

I'm well aware but that has nothing to do with my argument. RDM is only required to be in melee range for it's combo. Obviously, range players in general should stay relatively close for healing. However, the crux of my point is that comparing a Melee Healer to RDM isn't a good comparison since the latter doesn't need to be in melee range often whereas a Healer's whose damage is based around being in melee range would considering how often healers, reluctantly, spam their single nuke.

Simply put, a melee healer just wouldn't work with how SE designs encounters.