Would Discipline Priest Mechanics work in FFXIV?

[Reinha]

Fair enough. Of course, with the DPS obsession raids have so that they can push content, it's going to create a problem unless you do something like making Atonement only work when out of Cleric Stance. Even then, if having our Disc analogue increases raid DPS, Disc becomes mandatory and WHM, AST and SCH get to fight over who is the second healer in an 8-man group.

Make Disc automatically heal a bit smaller heals than a fairy for every damage cast (which come a bit faster than a fairy's heals). Make that heal be a reactive or absorbing shield on a random target that overwrites and prevents the application of SCH/Noct shields.

This ensures that:
1) Disc will be a competitor for SCH for the off healer spot. If its passive healing while doing dps is exactly as good as a fairy then there will be no problem. If its active healing is exactly as good as a Scholar's active healing + the fairy (gimped raw healing and some gimmicks + passive heals) then there will be no problem. Think of atonement as the replacement for what the fairy does.
2) It won't be a good idea to have a Disc and a SCH for their dps. If taking both off healers is a bad idea, then AST and WHM still have a place in the meta. Every healer would have an equal chance for a raid spot (50%).

[Sylvain]

It would definitely work but with some tweaking obviously.


First, you obviously can't allow a healer to pull tons of heal and damage at the same time. Not in a game with so many dps check. WoW doesn't suffer from that many DPS check in most encounters, it's more about dodging and doing mechanic properly. Also, the dps from the Disc priest is very low compared to what a FFIV healer can pull. Something like 1/5 - 1/6 of a normal dps. Which means that you can't allow him to damage in cleric stance and heal at the same time.
Heal should be heavily tuned down (if not removed) in priest stance. And his normal damaging skills should be tuned around being not in cleric stance.


Also, as you might know, the Disc Priest doesn't only dps. He needs to apply a buff in order to make his damage. Compared to WoW, FFIV suffers from an outreagously long global cooldown.
I'm not saying it has to be exactly the same, but in fact, there's need to be more than just DPS. The healer still needs to decide who he heals. DPS is the mean, but he still needs to focus the heal on specific target.
With a 2.5sec GCD and a 8man party. You would need to properly tune how the job would apply such effect. (I pray for a smaller GCD in stormblood...)

This kind of mechanic would fit extremly well the dancer.
But again, unless FFIV evolves to be more like WOW (less dps check, more mechanic check), having a healer who's heal is based on DPS is extremely risked.
You'd risk making a new favorite DPS heal combo again, Astro + Dancer or Dancer + Scholar. Again leaving the WHM in the dust.

Finally, while I pointed "Dancer" (since it's highly requested and we know they'll implement highly requested jobs), a melee healer would be tricky to introduce in this game.
So I don't really know how well they could adapt it. But it is definitely possible, Blizzard prooved it.

I wouldn,t be surprised SE is well aware of WoW Disc Priest. And again, I would bet my money on the Dancer following this kind of mechanic.
It would leave one spot for themed healer, the Resto Druids (HoTS).
With these 5 healers, all playstyle would be well covered
WHM - Generic Big Heal
Scholar - Shield Pet
Astro - Buffer
Dancer - DPS heal
[INSERTNEWHEALJOB] - HoTs

[Aylis]

As much as I adore talent tree and spec systems, I fear they wouldn't work in this game. Not without rebuilding the combat system from the ground. Which I don't see happening, not without making an entirely new game. That and I recall Yoshida saying at one point he wants to keep the roles as even as possible. To avoid one from outshining or out performing another so as not to create raid and party class favoritism.

Realistically within the game and something I would love however is a way to spec effects to a base weapon skill to spec in and out of as needed on the fly faster for fights that may require a specific debuff. As well as removing excess clutter from the skill bar. Meaning like I have one attack that does a silence effect, one that does a paralyze effect and one that does a stun effect. Three different skills on the hotbar and each with a base damage to them. I'd so much love to have them all congregated into one base damage ability. A fight comes up and it's like "Oh! I need silence for this one. Let me open up my spec window and spec this one singular damage ability to include silence" No sifting through action windows and no waiting on a cool down to reset.

[LineageRazor]

While I could easily see a melee DPS job given a greatly-toned-down ability of this type (basically, an aoe Bloodbath), the concept of a melee healer in general is one that would require quite a few adjustments to pull off. Folks have already brought up the difficulty with certain mechanics in older fights (Ifrit Ex, Leviathan, Midas 4), and while it's tempting to say "screw 'em" since they're older, irrelevant content, it doesn't change the fact that SE may well want to use similar mechanics in the future.

I actually don't think it's that big a problem. SE just needs to make some new categories - split the "Healer" category into "Ranged Healer" and "Melee Healer", just as DPS is already split into "Ranged DPS" and "Melee DPS". Then, for fights like Ifrit, change the targeting preference from Healer to Ranged Healer, targeting Melee Healers only if no Ranged Healer is present (or is present, but dead).

Naturally, melee-based healers will need to have ranged heals of some kind, as well, in order to target far flung casters and healers, but I think it can be assumed that melee healers will have as robust a variety of abilities as any other healer does.

I think a melee-based healer would be awesome, and doable - but I'm not the one who needs to be convinced. SE would need to jump through quite a few hoops to make such a thing viable, and they've been developing this game SUPER conservatively, with great reluctance in straying from the balance they've currently struck among jobs.

[Naunet]

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.

Heurgh. I miss the REAL discipline priest mechanics... all absorbs all the time...

Legion disc priest is nothing but a shallow attempt at chloromancer from Rift. That said, I've long hoped for a chloromancer-like class in this game.

Everyone keeps talking about Legion, I was talking about Pandaria's disc priest, where you didn't have to place atonement on people and your DPS just automatically healed the closest targets, and you also still had flash heal, greater heal, prayer, etc.

Discipline priests in Pandaria were not fundamentally defined by their ability to heal while doing damage. They were VERY much focused on absorbs. The reason Legion Disc doesn't work is because its tools were gutted and not replaced with anything noteworthy. Thus why I prefer referencing chloromancer when thinking about a class that ties damage to healing.

[MistakeNot]

I doubt a melee healer would have absolutely all its healing locked behind it.

Probably not all of it, but the majority.
What I think of when I hear "melee healer" is something like the Bear Shaman from Age of Conan, or the (blue-line traited) Captain from Lord of the Rings Online. Both of them have major healing abilities that require hitting opponents in melee to trigger. They have some lesser healing abilities that can be used even outside melee, but they are quite limited outside of melee.
They also happen to be my favourite classes in those games, so I certainly would welcome a melee healer class in FFXIV as well.