Pipe Dreams: Expanding the healer pool

[Eldaena]

I'm looking forward to Arcanist and their support role. If they came out with a Chemist class I could see that being fun, but expensive! lol I feel like White Mage will probably always be the well-rounded healer, but I could only imagine making a class/job similar to it would require making something completely new so there aren't identity crises. An example I thought of was maybe in order to have a class/job with similar healing potency to a white mage you could make a class that plays up the weaknesses of white mage.

How about a sacrificial mage? I have no idea any previous lore for a class/job like this, but here is my ideas: The class/job would actual be durable as far as hp and def are concerned. However, not only do their heal spells require mp, they require hp. This could lead to having even bigger and badder cures than a white mage, but at the risk of the user. Their damaging spells could be absorption based for both mp and hp from the monsters we fight. They could also have a hold of all the old Thaumaturge spells that we liked to play around with. (Sacrifice, Siphon MP, Siphon HP, all the absorb spells and the ability to transfer them to another.)

I like this idea because they are similar to white mage, but they have different strengths while still being a lead healer/support class. It's just an idea, but I think it sort of satisfies a bit of what people want here. They don't want a class/job stepping on the toes of another, and they are both separate enough to actually exist in the same world. Instead of having 2 white mages per party, I could see people doing 1 white mage and 1 sacrificial mage to get the benefits of both. That's what would be ideal for those seeking other class/jobs with healing/support roles, right?

I didn't realize it when I wrote this, but I guess I kind of described how the thaumaturge used to be, lol. Still, I think there is something that SE could do with this.

[Mychael]

So, I'm sorry. Though I do still think that, asides from that, you sounded as though you want WHM to have every type of heal possible and be the only healing job, just because.
Edit: We're probably at some kind of impasse, which I guess is the whole problem with arguing on the internet: Nobody wins, everyone loses.

To avoid calling forth the fallacy fallacy, or point out that the logical fallacy you linked wasn't black and white, but black-or-white...

Truth is, I just like to be the devil's advocate (and mess with people. ). Yes, I believe most of what I'm saying, but despite how I make it sound, I'm not going to quit the game over another healing class no matter how badly it's made. Hell, it'll just give me more jobs that I might actually enjoy.

That said, I hope that by trying to push against the "ZOMG GIVEZ US MORE HEALERZ" will at least make SE think a little about balance before they shove something out to appease the crowd again. ^^:

[IndigoDarkwolf]

That said, I hope that by trying to push against the "ZOMG GIVEZ US MORE HEALERZ" will at least make SE think a little about balance before they shove something out to appease the crowd again. ^^:

Well, I couldn't agree more that any new healing job needs to be carefully considered and delicately balanced. The last thing I want is a rushed job.

To avoid calling forth the fallacy fallacy, or point out that the logical fallacy you linked wasn't black and white, but black-or-white...

...touché.

[Reika]

Haha, balanced as in WHM > it all all things healing, right?

[Duelle]

Haha, balanced as in WHM > it all all things healing, right?

Let's try to leave that behind us.

I'm a little surprised to see some really take to the idea of chemist, though not much has been said on the other two suggestions.

On front line healers: they don't really work. DNC was turned into a DPS/Tank with the heals kinda there or for lolsolo purposes as a subjob. Aside from SE and DNC, the last game that tried a melee primary healer was Warhammer Online with the warrior priest. The community did not take well to it and Mythic had to change things so that healing-specced WPs would equip one-handed hammers for stats and librams that generated their resource...which went against the original design of the class because it was built on you having no resources with which to heal unless you were hitting mobs in PvE or other players in PvP.

[Mychael]

Haha, balanced as in WHM > it all all things healing, right?

Precisely what I mean. ¬_¬

..or as in, all healing classes are equally good without being copies of each other?

Naw. You're right, it's definitely what you said.

[Duelle]

For me they would have to do a good job of making the Healing shot seem magical in nature rather than blazing bullets at people.

You sure about that?



Looks perfectly reasonable for long-range healing. =P

[Alaltus]

You sure about that?



Looks perfectly reasonable for long-range healing. =P

You may convince me the sky is red... that demons are real... and that the dragon messiah has come to purge us of our sins! but you will never convince me of that thing's healing properties! *jumps for cover!* D=

[Zumi]

Problem is that its super hard to balence healers just look what happened in FFXI throughout the years. FFXI had several jobs that could heal and even ones that weren't meant to be healers but healed so they could get in a party.

WHM, RDM, SCH, BLM, SMN

They always had one healer everyone seemed to go to or preferred over the evolution of the game.

FFXI Zilart to ToAU - The Red Mage dominance period
RDM was the go to healer, it had refresh it was self sufficient and could keep its mp up. If you couldn't get a rdm for your party you would take a whm, smn, or even sometimes a blm if they agreed to heal and just take the lower exp when they had to sit for mp. Allthough whm became a great healer with a brd but brds were even harder to find. RDMs were king of healers

WotG - Sch what is this a sub job?
WHMs started to become more wanted as they could now sustain themself with the /sch subjob and sublimation.

Abyssea Era - The return of the WHM as king of all healers
Goodbye RDM, SCH or anything else that could heal you don't have cure 5 and 6 and are pretty useless for healing people who have 3-5k hp in abyssea. The super powers granted by atmas let whms get about 35 mp refresh per tick basically making them the best healers because they were the only ones who could cast stronger heals cure 5 and 6. As players had such large HP pools rdms and schs were not effective healers. If you loved to play RDM or SCH you were out of luck because nobody wanted you for anything but in time things did change. Lots of people still do abyssea this day but once you go past abyssea you will see the rise of another healer

Post Abyssea - Voidwatch - WHM stays on top
WHM retained its hold on the healer spot during the voidwatch era. Atmacites while not as strong as atmas, and tons of temp items each fight made mp regen a joke once again you could just spam your strong heals on the people taking damage never run out of mp, however if your group was good and kept fanatics drinks up they never took damage so you didn't have to do much at all.

ADL, Neo Nyzul, Legion, Meebles, Neo Salvage era - SCH the rise to power
The current FFXI era lots of events are dependent on zergs with the abuse of Embrava the sch only spell which can only be used during their 1 hour ability. Embrava gives you TP regen, HP regen, and Haste all with 1 spell can be further enhanced with Perpetuance and used on group with Accession. You didn't need huge cures outside abyssea. When people figured out how powerful Embrava was it became the keystone to zerg down almost all the remaining content in the game. People plowed their way through Neo Nyzul to get game breaking gear on lv100 floor runs, 2 sch and 4 melee did the job. People used cor mules to reset their SCH's Embrava after each run. Even so SE nerfed it some in Neo Salvage however that didn't stop SCH from being the preferred healers due to giving the group EN spells, aoe status removal, and Embrava is still usefull on bosses even though nerfed. Sorry WHMs or RDMs your out of luck if you want to do Neo Nyzul or ADL ect since you can super buff melees with a broken spell Embrava.

[Duelle]

Problem is that its super hard to balence healers just look what happened in FFXI throughout the years.

We should keep in mind that no one from that developer team is working on ARR, with the exception of Matsui Akihiko. And unless Matsui is calling the shots in class/job design and balance, I am hopeful that mess will not repeat itself.

WHM, RDM, SCH, BLM, SMN

BLM and SMN are victims of poor role distribution between the 20 jobs. RDM design was botched from the start because they wanted a 1:1 copy of RDM as it was in Final Fantasy 1.

FFXI Zilart to ToAU - The Red Mage dominance period

MP regen as a niche for an entirely separate job was a terrible idea, and that period of FFXI's life proved it. Yes, RDM was self-sufficient between Refresh and Convert, but it also accentuated the problem with WHM's design in that it had no way to recover MP. The fact that at that point in time anything higher than cure IV was innefficient due to MP costs and overhealing only made things worse.

Considering spells were effectively shared, there's not much variation in terms of mechanics. People in XI didn't care much because they were that desperate for a healer, which takes us back to the point I made in the OP that funneling your healing into one job is bad for the game in the long run.