Pipe Dreams: Expanding the healer pool

[Soonkyu]

I think it'd be a mistake to make a bunch of other healing classes that heal as WELL as White Mage, while also having a utility beyond just the healing. We've all stated that White Mage does one thing: it heals. The last thing it needs is Chemist walking up into its territory and smacking it down off the hill, because Chemist heals just AS WELL, but Chemist also debuffs the mob. Balance is going to be a very key component to any new jobs that get added.

I think to reach that balance, you have to look at synergy. The classes need to cooperate to be stronger together, where they'd be weaker without one another. For example: Chemist comes out as a class. It has healing abilities, but these healing abilities don't quite reach the playing field of the White Mage. What the Chemist does have, however, are great buffs and debuffs. Chemist could use an Area of Effect potion that will amplify the next Curaga delivered, which only the White Mage can do, or a buff potion that will allow the next target buff (like Regen) to last a certain % longer. They're not the same jobs (and Chemist could do it all by itself, albeit a little less effectively), but they're designed to amplify each other. Imagine the Chemist popping a potion that allows it to absorb Regen up to a certain %, with that extra % of HP then transferring to another party member on the next target potion used.

This synergy can be applied to any class archetype. Damage Dealer, for instance. Maybe Samurai comes out with a plethora of armor debuffs (or an armor debuff is the natural effect of its weapon skill combo) that allow the Monk's next attacks to be more effective, or act as a guaranteed critical for the Dragoon. Dragoon has its lance for armor piercing, but the other DD classes could always benefit with some extra help in that regard.

Postulation is really as far as we can go at this point. We don't know the content, the situations, or the other variables we're going to be faced with. I just think that we don't need different options in terms of "I want to take a Chemist healer today", but options in terms of getting the most out of the classes offered. In the end, the community is ALWAYS going to do what it wants. It's going to demand that its way is right and that everyone else follow along, like it did with Ninja, Red Mage, and Summoner (to name a few) in FFXI. SE can prevent this by making each class benefit the other, without taking some of X job's toys and giving them to Z.

[SwordCoheir]

I think it'd be a mistake to make a bunch of other healing classes that heal as WELL as White Mage, while also having a utility beyond just the healing. We've all stated that White Mage does one thing: it heals. The last thing it needs is Chemist walking up into its territory and smacking it down off the hill, because Chemist heals just AS WELL, but Chemist also debuffs the mob. Balance is going to be a very key component to any new jobs that get added.

I think to reach that balance, you have to look at synergy. The classes need to cooperate to be stronger together, where they'd be weaker without one another. For example: Chemist comes out as a class. It has healing abilities, but these healing abilities don't quite reach the playing field of the White Mage. What the Chemist does have, however, are great buffs and debuffs. Chemist could use an Area of Effect potion that will amplify the next Curaga delivered, which only the White Mage can do, or a buff potion that will allow the next target buff (like Regen) to last a certain % longer. They're not the same jobs (and Chemist could do it all by itself, albeit a little less effectively), but they're designed to amplify each other. Imagine the Chemist popping a potion that allows it to absorb Regen up to a certain %, with that extra % of HP then transferring to another party member on the next target potion used.

This synergy can be applied to any class archetype. Damage Dealer, for instance. Maybe Samurai comes out with a plethora of armor debuffs (or an armor debuff is the natural effect of its weapon skill combo) that allow the Monk's next attacks to be more effective, or act as a guaranteed critical for the Dragoon. Dragoon has its lance for armor piercing, but the other DD classes could always benefit with some extra help in that regard.

Postulation is really as far as we can go at this point. We don't know the content, the situations, or the other variables we're going to be faced with. I just think that we don't need different options in terms of "I want to take a Chemist healer today", but options in terms of getting the most out of the classes offered. In the end, the community is ALWAYS going to do what it wants. It's going to demand that its way is right and that everyone else follow along, like it did with Ninja, Red Mage, and Summoner (to name a few) in FFXI. SE can prevent this by making each class benefit the other, without taking some of X job's toys and giving them to Z.

I'd have to agree this would make the most reasonable choice when it comes to diversifying groups, give X job something that benefits Y and Z, but Y and Z in turn has something that can benefits each other and job X. You could make them into equip-able traits (like Fingerprint of the gods) or a full time buff that can be turned on or off, but the same buffs CANNOT stack with each other in order to discourage job stacking for increased benefits.

In any case, sure they would be situational in some instances, but make them right and you will still have something the entire party could benefit from regardless of setup.

For instance...

PLD- Has buff that increases cures received from other players and those near him, the extra amount cured boosts PLD's Enmity instead of the casters.
WAR- Has a buff that can auto-pull hate off party members at critical HP for 5 seconds and steals any Enmity gained from Player for the 5 seconds.
BLM- Has a buff that increases magic and stun resistance and lowers the chance of interruption when casting.
WHM- Has a buff that reduces Enmity of other players around them (not the WHM itself can't make their job too easy).
DRG- Has a buff that increases the range of players melee attacks to that of the Dragoons and increases Crit. Rate.
MNK- Has a buff that reduces a monsters AoE damage when multiple people are grouped together.
BRD- Has a buff that strengthens other buffs (Both Magical and JA).
SMN- Has a buff that allows party members to bypass special resistances by changing 20% of damage from magic and physical attacks to neutral damage.

That's just a few ideas I could come up with that could be potentially beneficial for a group regardless of setup, but you get the idea.

[Duelle]

I think it'd be a mistake to make a bunch of other healing classes that heal as WELL as White Mage, while also having a utility beyond just the healing.

Considering WHM in XIV has MUCH more utility built in than the White Mage from the console FFs, this is not an accurate assertion to make. Not to mention that I doubt WHM would stay as it was at the end of 1.0, and think it would gain more to round it out.

I wrote the OP with focus on the types of heals for a reason. Hence my saying "you can do whatever with utility". You can give WHM and the other healers different kinds of utility depending on what makes sense for each of them (as I mentioned, CHM could have a snare and a root as opposed to the Magic Evasion Down, Bleed and Sleep spells WHM has access to).

I just think that we don't need different options in terms of "I want to take a Chemist healer today", but options in terms of getting the most out of the classes offered.

That's not exactly what I'm asking for either. What I'm asking for is design where if a guy on CHM shouts for a group you easily take him as your healer as quickly as you would a guy on GRM or WHM. I don't want one becoming the obvious choice or the preferred choice while the others are kicked to the side for being not ideal.

I think paladin should be refocused for stronger healing along with its tanking. I feel like thats the
paradigm it best fills.

Begs to differ.

[Jeronlmo]

Given I do not believe any of the jobs will work like they did in 1.0... I did

Considering WHM in XIV has MUCH more utility built in than the White Mage from the console FFs, this is not an accurate assertion to make. Not to mention that I doubt WHM would stay as it was at the end of 1.0, and think it would gain more to round it out.

I wrote the OP with focus on the types of heals for a reason. Hence my saying "you can do whatever with utility". You can give WHM and the other healers different kinds of utility depending on what makes sense for each of them (as I mentioned, CHM could have a snare and a root as opposed to the Magic Evasion Down, Bleed and Sleep spells WHM has access to).

That's not exactly what I'm asking for either. What I'm asking for is design where if a guy on CHM shouts for a group you easily take him as your healer as quickly as you would a guy on GRM or WHM. I don't want one becoming the obvious choice or the preferred choice while the others are kicked to the side for being not ideal.

Your playing both sides of the fence throughout this thread...

If WHM was to stay the top-end healer, then its always an obvious choice, if the content is built around having other types of healing that you dont even need to think about (smart-healing) then it would end up being dungeon to dungeon on which healer is better, so unless your saying that even with all of these new types of healers the content is still based around whm always being the best... it cant/wont work that way.

I can only assume your a big WoW fan... healing in that game is a joke, they tried to do exactly what your asking for, these "smart heals" you basically just spam and it heals the whole group.

Im a main WHM, and always have been, so likely a bit bias, but im not against other types of heals, but they should be emergency heals like smn/rdm, but not their main purpose. Whm in 1.0 could easily DD, I did it all the time in AV/CC when HP was full and inbetween mob attacks, I generally did 3-4k less than the BLM's, I think whm was over-powered in 1.0 dmg wise compared to blm's but I kinda like the fact I had the option to DD I guess and do decent at it. People should have the ability to DD and off-heal in the same way I could heal and off-DD I guess.

I would actually prefer whm to do virtually nothing but healing and regaining spells like paralyna/blindna/silena/stona and end the "we must combine everything together for a dumber generation" mentality but considering 2.0 is supposed to be more PvP based it would sadly make sense to do what I said above...

[Duelle]

Your playing both sides of the fence throughout this thread.

I like to think that my view on things is a little more complex. There are parts where I'm willing to make concessions, but I really do think the game'll benefit from having a roster for each role where they can perform comparibly at their main role. There are ways to help classes distinguish themselves without making one clearly superior to the other for content. It really falls to aesthetics, mechanics, rotation, and in this case, heal types available per class.

I can only assume you're a big WoW fan... healing in that game is a joke, they tried to do exactly what your asking for, these "smart heals" you basically just spam and it heals the whole group.

I have played WoW since vanilla, but I'm not exactly a fan. Otherwise I'd be gobbling up the garbage they've been calling "lore" for the last two expansions.

Maybe you forgot, but the way smart heals work is that they have a target limit, unlike AoE heals which affect everyone in range. A Curaga can hit 8 people in a full party so long as they're in range with no pentalties. Chain Heal can heal up to 4 targets, loses effectiveness for every additional target it hits, and will always pick the targets within range that have the lowest HP. That alone creates a difference in how you play and prioritize your heal targets, because by design you have smart heals or have AoE but not both within the same class.

I think whm was over-powered in 1.0 dmg wise compared to blm's but I kinda like the fact I had the option to DD I guess and do decent at it. People should have the ability to DD and off-heal in the same way I could heal and off-DD I guess.

IMO WHM was fine because it played more like a healer in a modern MMO like Rift, WoW and CoH rather than the FFXI version. Besides, we know when the sh*t hits the fan any healer worth their salt will start their healing rotation and not even look at the DPS abilities.

[Jeronlmo]

I like to think that my view on things is a little more complex. There are parts where I'm willing to make concessions, but I really do think the game'll benefit from having a roster for each role where they can perform comparibly at their main role. There are ways to help classes distinguish themselves without making one clearly superior to the other for content. It really falls to aesthetics, mechanics, rotation, and in this case, heal types available per class.

I have played WoW since vanilla, but I'm not exactly a fan. Otherwise I'd be gobbling up the garbage they've been calling "lore" for the last two expansions.

Maybe you forgot, but the way smart heals work is that they have a target limit, unlike AoE heals which affect everyone in range. A Curaga can hit 8 people in a full party so long as they're in range with no pentalties. Chain Heal can heal up to 4 targets, loses effectiveness for every additional target it hits, and will always pick the targets within range that have the lowest HP. That alone creates a difference in how you play and prioritize your heal targets, because by design you have smart heals or have AoE but not both within the same class.

IMO WHM was fine because it played more like a healer in a modern MMO like Rift, WoW and CoH rather than the FFXI version. Besides, we know when the sh*t hits the fan any healer worth their salt will start their healing rotation and not even look at the DPS abilities.

"Smart Heals" in FF terms like curaga also gave massive hate, which is why virtually none used Curaga IV, the only time I ever used it was as a whm/sch (-cast time sch ability, full -50% cast time gear, curaga4) when zerging a kirin or something if benediction was down. The limit to the amount of people "Smart Heals" like those in WoW hit is generally an entire party, which would likely be the majority of the games content.

It just seems like a job based around smart heal(s) like WoW has would require no thinking... unless the job is a hate machine.

[Niqote]

I like to think that my view on things is a little more complex. There are parts where I'm willing to make concessions.

I feel myself sliding into this problem often in the forums, sometimes it's hard to communicate your stance on something when you are realistic you can not always have everything ^^;

Maybe you forgot, but the way smart heals work is that they have a target limit, unlike AoE heals which affect everyone in range. A Curaga can hit 8 people in a full party so long as they're in range with no pentalties. Chain Heal can heal up to 4 targets, loses effectiveness for every additional target it hits, and will always pick the targets within range that have the lowest HP. That alone creates a difference in how you play and prioritize your heal targets

However Curaga did work like a ''Chain Heal'' (excuse me as I have not played WoW)
FFXIV's Curaga prioritizes amount healed by lowest HP with a maximum to each person that is half the Curaga's overall maximum potency. IE. Your max Curaga is 3000, your tank is missing 1800 HP - then he will get 1500 hp but the guy next to him only missing 400 hp will not get 1500 HP if there are other targets (max of 8)


Chemist makes me think of playing as an Accountant... you need to pay to play just like a COR or (used to) an ARC/BRD. - Unless they gave you abilities such as 'Double stock' which means if you used a potion etc under the influence of this buff - it would not detract from your current stock.
And passive abilities 'potion potency +10%' or on gear etc etc... just doesn't seem fun.

[Soonkyu]

The Chemist class would not use regular potions in their gear slots. Just like Archer/Bard, no consumable stacks for their necessary skills. That would be a giant step backwards from what they tried to do with arrows. It would likely be in the form of a ranged or offhand item. That's just my opinion on supposed items for a proposed class. They'd have swaps for whatever potion effect they might need.