Would Discipline Priest Mechanics work in FFXIV?

[FoxyAreku]

This is something I've been curious about for a long time, as someone who mained a Priest in World of Warcraft before coming to this game nearly 3 years ago.

For people who have not played WoW, and I ask that you forgive the comparison to that game and hear me out, Discipline was a specialization of the Priest class, and its main defining factor was that a percentage of all the damage it did was distributed as healing to nearby targets who were less than full HP. For example if you did 1000 damage to the enemy, and the tank was near it and missing some HP, they would recover 100-200 HP from that hit.

Now what I'm wondering, since healers contributing DPS is such a controversial debate in this game (and is basically required in endgame raiding), what if there was an incentive like this? Not on all the classes mind you, but one of them. Perhaps Scholar could get a trait next expansion that makes Broil heal, or maybe even they could use it as a trait for Red Mage to be a healer that DPS'? Would there be a problem for such a system to exist in this game that maybe I am missing?

Please discuss. I think this would be a great thing to add somewhere.

[SendohJin]

couldn't base a new job around it but don't see anything wrong with one or two abilities with that effect.

would work better as a shield than a heal though.

[Voltyblast]

In my opinion, yes but not with the current stat system we use: right now healers have to swap their stats via cleric stance, reducing their healing by 20% and so on. In my opinion a "Discipline priest based" healer could perfectly worked IF they had one stat like the healers in wow...or most recent games really.

Infact I still think that MND should be the defining stats for healers that grants both damage and healing to their spells, a bit like DEX works for rogues in a unique way (despite being a stat for RANGED) or how like VIT works for tanks only. If they could remove INT from healers of the game, I'm almost sure a class like that could be possible. As of now it would be a clunky mess and not worth it.

PS: before saying that cleric stance dancing isn't hard - and I agree - it's still annoying as a mechanic and really unfun to do. If they ever remove the dual stats from the healers however - and in my opinion a small rework, so that each stat works on specific classes instead of a generic type of class - we could have many more healing options in the future. Heck, a melee healer could be even possible like this! (Or else they would need STR alongside MND, since STR affects melee damage)

[JisKing98]

Its like i said to my fc, SE and Yoshi should take things from other mmos out there and improve on them. Like look at their class and think to yourselves" Hm how can i make this better then how they did and make it unique to my game?" Going off your priest idea, they should make a melee healer that heals. Like in wow they have the demon hunters who when they attack rip out soul shards of the enemy. When they return to you they heal you for a %, of course their mobility would make all other dps jobs obsolete. Like i was thinking that your priest idea would instead of being a range user makes him a melee user who when he does his moves doesn't do them from afar but from close to the tank and others.
Now that you brought up WoW, i would love it if they found a way to give us specs like they do have. I can be a ninja who instead focuses on the shadows or a ninja who likes to jump in and burst down the enemy or make a Warrior who instead of tanking be a straight up dps class.

[Reinha]

Perhaps Scholar could get a trait next expansion that makes Broil heal

Gods no, they already have a fairy giving MP-free and oGCD healing. But for a new healer it would be great. I've given a similar suggestion in another thread: for every bit of overhealing a certain amount of damage is done to an enemy. It would be great for healers who just want to heal. Maybe they could be stances for a healer? Heal by dps'ing (off healer) or dps by healing (main healer).

[FoxyAreku]

The posts of melee make me remember, Mistweaver monks actually did the same thing, they were a melee healer and their attacks distributed healing to nearby party members based on the damage they did.

That would be neat in this game too.

[Alberel]

Yeah a discipline priest from WoW could be mechanically adapted to work within FFXIV. There are absolutely loads of unique healing mechanic implementations that we could see introduced with future jobs. Unfortunately for AST the devs just chose to combine the two pre-existing healers into one weaker hybrid which was... disappointing to say the least.

A few ideas of other healing mechanics:

- A TP based healer that would build TP with physical attacks and then spend it on healing.
- A reactive healer that heals by placing timed status effects on allies that automatically heal them when they take more than a certain amount of damage or after a certain amount of time.
- A lifetap healer that directly converts their own HP into healing for allies and then doing damage to restore their own HP.
- A healer that primarily mitigates damage by debuffing enemies instead of healing allies.

All of these ideas have been successfully implemented in other MMOs. There is no reason they could not be adapted for FFXIV. It just depends on the devs actually wanting to introduce new mechanics to the game rather than always trying to maintain the status quo.

Honestly I would LOVE for the next healer to be a physical job of some kind instead of magical.

[Donaria]

After reading the post about the melee healer ideas this already sounds like an existing job within the ff multiverse...The Dancer, hell even a chemist could possibly do this, but I think this would be a great idea for dancer mechanic.
Great ideas guys keep the creative juices flowing.

[Darkstride]

The Secret World has a similar concept called Leech Healing.

The game has no classes, but instead your abilities are determined by the 2 weapon types that you use. Rifles have the ability to drain health from targets and distribute it either to yourself or another targeted party member (defensive target). Each offensive ability had a % leech effect on it that increased with your Heal Rating. You had to balance attack stats and healing stats to get an effective damage/heal ratio.

Being a hybrid, it requires a different stat distribution than both DPS or pure healers. Most importantly, you need enough Hit (Accuracy), to ensure that your attacks do damage in the first place. Most players pair the Rifle with Blood Magic (barriers) or Fists (HoTs) so that there are healing options when there are no targets available to attack and drain health from.

It works incredibly well in that game, but I\\'m not sure how successful something like this would be in FFXIV, because the stat and class structure is pretty limiting. The game was also initially designed with that mechanic is mind.

Personally I love diversity and I think it would be a mechanic that rewards players who really utilize it well, assuming it could be implemented and balanced properly.

[SendohJin]

melee healers do not work in XIV. They would have to redesign old encounters and never use a mechanic they have used in multiple fights in the future to accommodate for melee healers.

Ifrit EX, Leviathan and Gordias 4 are all examples of why we will never get melee healers.