Future healing class archetypes...

[RichardButte]

Was thinking about the future of healing classes and how they might implement new healers in the future.

Here are a few ideas in that vein...

Healing Through Damage

My favorite healing class of all time had to be the Discipline Priest from WoW. Its primary means of healing was via dealing damage, which was used to cover light healing, but it had additional tools to use if light healing wasn't going to be enough at that particular moment.

I'd love to see a healer like this in FFXIV, one that uses smart heals to heal the nearest injured party member when you deal damage to an enemy.

The balance of this kind of healer revolves around using DPS for light healing while more intensive healing requires the use of abilities that may quickly drain it of mana if you're not careful.

The Blood Healer

There's no real example for this healer that I can reference, but the idea is fairly straightforward: a healer that does its best healing by giving away chunks of its own HP to other players.

The class would focus on constantly restoring its HP using weaker but reliable spells, maybe primarily HoTs of some kind. It would then trade chunks of its HP to give larger chunks of HP to party members, and some of its cooldowns would do things like increase the amount of HP given for the same amount of HP taken, and something similar to DK's "living dead" where you can pop a CD to stay alive and keep healing at 0 HP for a short period of time.

The key to this healer would be situational awareness. You need to know when it's a good or bad time to "give it your all" as you place yourself at extreme risk if you drop too low right before a raid-wide AoE. The class may even have a trait for always taking reduced damage, due to its volatile nature.

The Melee Healer

Nothing too fancy here, just fairly potent heals that can only be done at short range, with perhaps the most powerful heals being in melee range. Now THIS class would definitely have a natural damage reduction, and possibly increased movement speed as it would be find itself needing to run to the targets it needs to heal in a hurry.

Also, this kind of class would be perfect for an aura of some kind: basically, a passive bubble that either has a HoT or % damage reduction just for being near the healer at the time.

I'm not sure if any of the aforementioned ideas could be added to the game as preestablished FF classes, but they'd be neat to see either way.

Feel free to post your own healing class concepts.

[LycorisSelunis]

I feel like melee and heal-through-damage combined (cough mistweavers) would be perfect for a DANCER type healer in this game (only FF can do dancer better than mistweaver ever was, that poor class has so many balance issues)

As for blood healers, Vanguard had a blood mage that could heal and Forsaken World had the Vampire class, with a blood spec for healing.

Speaking of Forsaken World, check out the bard healer. They ONLY had aoe heals, no single target direct heals at all, and this cool combo system for combining chords to make song buffs.....

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I would rather have a Plate Armor, Giant Mace wielding class.

[Raso]

A healer through damage can be a mess to balance when the class structure is so ridged.

The one class I think I see them doing next is a reverse Ninja, the Chemist. You use say 6 chemicals to create different effects via mix and match.

[LStarbreeze]

I have played around with the idea of a Pugilist and Conjurer melee heal job. I do this when I'm bored, and I love reading other people's ideas for jobs. The blood healer could be awesome, like a Necromancer. Though I like AST, I was a little disappointed it plays too much like the existing heal jobs, so I hope the next one can be different.

[phyxx19]

When ast was announced, I thought it would be a HoTs healer for sure as it would be a fitting third type of healer. Still waiting for a HoT healer although my favorite is the healer via damage, like chloromancer from Rift. anyone

[phyxx19]

When ast was announced, I thought it would be a HoTs healer for sure as it would be a fitting third type of healer. Still waiting for a HoT healer although my favorite is the healer via damage, like chloromancer from Rift.

[GideonHighmourn]

I normally play a "heals through damage" class. Blood Mage in Vanguard was my favorite, along with Chloromancer in Rift and Blood Magic in The Secret World.

[Assirra]

Honestly Healing Through Damage is a good sidethingie but should never be your main way to heal for a couple reasons:

If the heal is actually smart like the disc priest you are referring to then it's straight up cheating, the game is doing your work for you without any input other then hitting your damage rotation
A healer wants control above all else, you don't want your "smart" heal acting like a dumbass and healing the wrong target which might cause a wipe.

[GideonHighmourn]

Honestly Healing Through Damage is a good sidethingie but should never be your main way to heal for a couple reasons:

If the heal is actually smart like the disc priest you are referring to then it's straight up cheating, the game is doing your work for you without any input other then hitting your damage rotation
A healer wants control above all else, you don't want your "smart" heal acting like a dumbass and healing the wrong target which might cause a wipe.

It's possible to do, without making everything a smart heal. VG did it very well with Blood Mage, as did The Secret World and Rift, but I'm not sure that XIV would support that kind of gameplay, since VG/TSW/Rift allowed you to have multiple targets.