Quote Originally Posted by Duelle View Post
Two mediocre hybrids don't make up for a solid healer or solid DPS on the field. It looks good only on paper.
I really couldn't win with this. If I hadn't edited that in, someone would have called me out on exactly that.

If you're using the mess with WHM in FFXI as your reference, the problem was more due to lack of staying power and a wonky formula with which to calculate heals. Pre-abyssea, SCH and RDM could easily outlast a WHM between Sublimation and Refresh. Two jobs that could restore their MP vs a job that could not. Secondly is the cure formula, which was recently revamped because unlike nukes and melee DPS, which had stat penalties, healing since the game came to the US did not. As WHM in XI was pretty much the only real healer, it was ludicrous that they were not the best and most efficient at healing, and the devs noticed that and changed things (several years too late).

Sharing the role of healer with other jobs is not what can hurt WHM. It is when other jobs have something that should come baseline like staying power and WHM lacks it that they get kicked to the curb.
I absolutely agree with all of this. I realize I come off as completely against adding a new healer, but I'd rather consider myself extremely reserved. I would like to see more options, but here are some of the concerns I've been trying to voice in this thread (sorry if I'm just repeating myself...)

1. Many of the hybrid options that have been suggested in this thread would easily be better than having a white mage in the party. If they were nerfed specifically to prevent this, they would probably not be worthwhile over a strong healer. While I'm admittedly a staunch defender of WHM, I'd also rather not see any unwanted classes in XIV.

2. So many people want a HoT-focused job. To me, this is them asking for a job where they can main heal without actually paying attention. Harsh? Yep. But it's the truth. "Healing over time" spells should NOT be a job's main focus on healing (even besides being unable to recover from spike damage). The amount healed over what amount of time is really a ratio that should be kept in check over all healing jobs. If a job that only has healing-over-time spells is able to keep up with a job that only has "instant" heals (i.e. Cure), then they have accomplished what I said earlier, being able to heal just as well without pressing as many buttons. In my opinion, healing over time spells should be a utility available to all healers, and should never make up a class entirely.

3. As an expansion of my second point, so many people are suggesting classes that specialize in one nook of a healer, i.e. group heals vs. single-target heals; slow, high heals vs. fast, low heals; etc. You're welcome to disagree, but I view all of these as integral parts of a good healing job. If you don't have all of them, you're missing something. In a large group, you can always have one of each specialized healer, but for normal content you only have one healer--not 5, as with DPS.

4. It's very difficult to find alternative methods to main heal besides restoring health. It's kind of the definition of healing. With DPS, I think I can safely say that there are multiple kinds for different reasons, but most importantly you need to include multiple kinds of DDs so it's a moot point. With tanking, you can tank by taking less damage from hits, having more HP to lose, getting hit less, etc. All of these is making use of a completely different mechanic, but for the most part are feasible in any situation. With healing, you can heal by...giving HP to others. It's difficult to find different ways to give HP back. You could suggest that the healing "comes from different sources" (TP, MP, etc), but it's difficult to manage that in a way that doesn't become extremely situational (Can the healer get close enough to build tp? Will the healer run out of mp? If the healer has to sacrifice to heal, will they end up dying from an AoE after?).

5. Since FFXIV characters can access all classes, we're more likely to expect someone to come as a job they don't like. It's a lot easier to expect someone to change jobs and kick them if they refuse than it would be to kick a character who is playing the wrong job in WoW.

TL;DR: By all means, add another healer. However, it's more complicated than just thinking up cool lore-acceptable ways that a character can restore health.


P.S. I'm totally in for the damage mitigation class. It's probably just as effective as a healer (i.e. the end result is the same--the player has more HP than they started with), but very different, and can retain their value if in a party alongside a traditional healer.

Equips a set of flame-resistant gear.