Magitech Healing Class

[Transient_Shadow]

How awesome would that be?!

[Lunali]

The problem with a new healing class isn't the base concept, there are lots of those. The problem is making it significantly different mechanically. A magitech dps would be easier to pull off than a healer.

[Kurando]

snip

Well not necessarily. Although not specifically Magitech, the concept of a healer that uses magic bullets to heal allies and other positive effects has been used in quite a few RPGs (see end) not just FF. It would take a little work to ensure it didn't overlap with other healers too much, but with some actions it's bound to happen regardless.

I would definitely enjoy having a healer that can do physical (elemental ranged) damage from a distance with imbuned bullets and also pop shots and AOEs on allies for plenty of the good stuff. Healing flamethrower anyone?

(Best example of top of my head was a character called Pepper Spray in Evolution on the Dreamcast. She had an attachment for her gun to give it healing/buffing effects)

[SilentVoice]

i can see a TP using healing class. while idea sounds fun, i think it will be very challenging to balance

[Zojha]

Well not necessarily.

Unfortunately: Yes, necessarily.

For DPS, it is largely irrelevant how they do their damage, so long as the average total contribution is identical. Big bursts with long downtimes, small and sustained, dots, pets, direct or via buffs... it doesn't matter much if the end result is the same. The differences tend to become bigger in fights where things jump around a lot and the burst jobs don't really pay the downtime price for their big bursts, because the boss is invulnerable in those anyway, putting more sustained jobs who are designed to catch up with the burst in those phases at a disadvantage. But that's encounter specific and usually a wash.

For healers on the other hand, it is not irrelevant when the heal comes, because if it doesn't come at the right time in the right amount, people die. When the damage of bosses is low but steady and healing relatively weak, that's not that important - You can make a wildfire-esque healer work, where the health bars of the party would slooowly drop bit by bit during the minute downtime because the healer can't keep up and then get all the way back to full in the burst. Or, have a healing job that can simply keep up with the damage via HoTs or another via a variety of direct heals etc etc. You're still a bit more limited since buffing other people's healing is, uh... somewhat pointless outside of a raid, as you'll be the only one healing, but there's a lot more you can do.

That is a completely different paradigm for healing however. In this game, damage is huge and spiky, you cannot make up for shortcomings at point X later, because people are already dead by then. Moreover, healing is exceptionally strong in this game and the time actually spent healing thus comparatively low, which also limits what you can do with internal healing mechanics. And on the flipside, since you have that healing gimmick you need to take care of, DPS design can't be too complex on them either.

The devs have designed themselves into a bit of a corner there and I'd expect any new healing job to be either extremely homogenized, or dysfunctional in various ways until homogenized.

[Tridus]

That is a completely different paradigm for healing however. In this game, damage is huge and spiky, you cannot make up for shortcomings at point X later, because people are already dead by then. Moreover, healing is exceptionally strong in this game and the time actually spent healing thus comparatively low, which also limits what you can do with internal healing mechanics. And on the flipside, since you have that healing gimmick you need to take care of, DPS design can't be too complex on them either.

The devs have designed themselves into a bit of a corner there and I'd expect any new healing job to be either extremely homogenized, or dysfunctional in various ways until homogenized.

This. I'd much rather seem then fix this problem than make another class that does the same thing only with a different coat of pant. They're pretty limited on what they can do right now because burst healing is so powerful.

Of course, we learned from WoW that once you get this kind of healing power creep, undoing it is painful and will frustrate a lot of players. So the path of least resistence is a healer that looks different but mechanically really isn't.

A magitech healer would be pretty cool, assuming it isn't "WHM, only with a gunblade."

[Mimilu]

Why is everyone so gloom and doom in here? :B
The OP was just saying he thinks a Magitek Healer would be cool, not trying to revamp the whole healer dichotomy.

[Kurando]

snip

I'm still sticking with "not necessarily" because at the end of the day a new healer job cannot be avoided and one is highly likely to be introduced with the next expac. SE isn't going to put players through yet another long waiting time to do content because of having yet more DPS, not to mention the general consensus is players want a new healer. AST was pretty broken at first but was slowly fixed through patches but then many other jobs have had situations like this as well so let's not point the finger at certain roles hmm.

But hey, shoot down ideas that are brought up for a bit of fun, that's completely fine.

[NobleWinter]

I thought Geomancers were going to be the next big thing or has nothing actually been confirmed for that yet? It's kind of strange they got so much stage time in the astrologian story quest. I was pretty sure it was inevitable they would be the next healer released since they are tied so heavily to Kugane.

[Tridus]

I thought Geomancers were going to be the next big thing or has nothing actually been confirmed for that yet? It's kind of strange they got so much stage time in the astrologian story quest. I was pretty sure it was inevitable they would be the next healer released since they are tied so heavily to Kugane.

Nothing's been confirmed. Geomancer has been telegraphed pretty strongly, as you saw in that quest line. So that's what people expect.

I mean, I like a Magitech healer more than Geomancer. That would be really different. Geomancer bears a very striking resemblance to White Mage, what with the wind (Aero) and stone (Stone) and water (Fluid Aura, possibly the heals) and power coming from the earth (the Twelveswood Elementals). It makes me wonder how they plan to distinguish them aside from "this one is from Gridania and that one is from Kugane".

Maybe they plan to turn White Mages into Priests, which would explain the otherwise very thematically out of place Plenary Indulgence.