Pipe Dreams: Expanding the healer pool

[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.