Is It Even Possible To Have A New Healer Job?

[Kacho_Nacho]

Looking at the three current healers, white mage, scholar, and astrologian, it seems like all the possible healing strategies have been covered. We have healing by raw power, we have healing and mitigation with the help of a minion, and we have healing, mitigation, and buffs with the help of cards.

What else is there? Every idea of a new healer expressed on this forum ends up stepping on another healer's toolkit or is simply unplayable.

So, has Square Enix painted themselves into a corner where no new healing classes can be developed?

[Sebazy]

I think there is, but it’s either going to be a SCH clone or something properly fresh (to ffxiv at least). Warhammer Online is a good example of how diverse healers can be.

[Kacho_Nacho]

I think there is, but it’s either going to be a SCH clone or something properly fresh (to ffxiv at least). Warhammer Online is a good example of how diverse healers can be.

I attempted to do some research but all I could find is that Warhammer Online was sunsetted. Could you give me an example, Sebazy?

[Sebazy]

Could you give me an example, Sebazy?

Aye!

The game effectively had 3 different types of healer:

The rune priest/zealot was the games traditional healer, regular heals and fairly straight forward buffs.

The Archmage/shaman was the alternative caster styled healer, their gameplay revolved around balancing healing and dps to charge a secondary resource for additional abilities. Think FFXIV's Red Mage but instead of white/dark nukes, you're juggling heals and dps to charge that bar and get the prize at the end.

Lastly and perhaps most distinctly, the Warrior Priest/Disciple. This was a melee class with very very basic raw healing spells, instead of being MP limited, your melee abilities generated charges for your proper heals with an emphasis on party wide abilities to allow you to focus on your meleeing. Whilst it wasn't perfect, I still think that this job was one of the best and most original healer concepts in any MMO to this date. It's a huge huge shame that SE didn't base RDM on it IMHO!

It's worth noting that whilst the healer jobs were tremendously enjoyable, many people would question the balance between them which is pretty fair. The more diverse the jobs, the harder it is to keep them balanced across a broad spread of content.

[Rilifane]

Lastly and perhaps most distinctly, the Warrior Priest/Disciple. This was a melee class with very very basic raw healing spells, instead of being MP limited, your melee abilities generated charges for your proper heals with an emphasis on party wide abilities to allow you to focus on your meleeing. Whilst it wasn't perfect, I still think that this job was one of the best and most original healer concepts in any MMO to this date. It's a huge huge shame that SE didn't base RDM on it IMHO!

It's worth noting that whilst the healer jobs were tremendously enjoyable, many people would question the balance between them which is pretty fair. The more diverse the jobs, the harder it is to keep them balanced across a broad spread of content.

Reminds me a bit of the Mistwalker Monk from WoW. Though you weren't required to use your melee abilities, you were sure as hell more effective if you properly used them to charge up Chi. I generally like the concept of a class whose basic abilities are fairly weak and need to charge special resources for their stronger skills.

I think the question is not only wether the healers are varied, yet balanced but also wether the bosses are varied, yet balanced. If 9 out of 10 bosses require burst healing it's not rocket science to know what happens to hot healers or generally "slow" healers who have some kind of ramp up phase. It's far easier to make every healer viable if the encounters themselves are also varied with some requiring lots of heavy lifting, some with constant raid wide dmg, others a lot of spot heal and others higher eHP or a combination of them.
Like rock, paper, scissors. For a healer to be viable there also needs a boss whose mechanics are "countered" by particular healers.
And with Squeenix tendency to make stuff hit harder but still be heavily scripted, you can almost outright dismiss some class concepts. That healers are incredibly powerful compared to incoming damage doesn't make it easier either.
The leech healer niche is also harder to fill because every healer has the tools to also do decent dps.
Also mp management seems to be much more forgiving, so having constancy paired with efficiency as a defining trait would be hard to implement aswell.
They really designed themselves in a corner here. :/

I'd rather have the occasional balance problems in exchange for varied healer classes. I don't mind getting benched or switching class for a raid or specific bosses though I'm very particular about my main class. You can level all classes on one char which is already a huge plus over many other MMOs and makes adjusting to balancing problems a whole lot easier for the players.

[Kacho_Nacho]

Aye!

The game effectively had 3 different types of healer: The rune priest/zealot was the games traditional healer, regular heals and fairly straight forward buffs.

The Archmage/shaman was the alternative caster styled healer, their gameplay revolved around balancing healing and dps to charge a secondary resource for additional abilities. Think FFXIV's Red Mage but instead of white/dark nukes, you're juggling heals and dps to charge that bar and get the prize at the end.

Lastly and perhaps most distinctly, the Warrior Priest/Disciple. This was a melee class with very very basic raw healing spells, instead of being MP limited, your melee abilities generated charges for your proper heals with an emphasis on party wide abilities to allow you to focus on your meleeing. Whilst it wasn't perfect, I still think that this job was one of the best and most original healer concepts in any MMO to this date. It's a huge huge shame that SE didn't base RDM on it IMHO!

It's worth noting that whilst the healer jobs were tremendously enjoyable, many people would question the balance between them which is pretty fair. The more diverse the jobs, the harder it is to keep them balanced across a broad spread of content.

Thanks! The classes of Warhammer Online sound like they were fun!

Now, looking at the current situation, we have everything covered as far as healing goes. We have HoTs, single heals, AoE heals, damage mitigation, and buffs. Any new healer would be redundant on a lot of fronts. In addition, if the new healer is too good, players will be less inclined to play the current three. But, if the new healer wasn't good enough, then the question of why the new healer was added in the first place comes up.

Certainly, a big issue is that our boss fights don't allow a lot of variety in healers; but, as you pointed out, that may be a blessing. It's far easier to balance a few jobs than it is many.

I'm inclined to believe unless there is a complete overhaul of FFXIV's dungeons, and our existing healing jobs, there can be no additional healers added.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Thanks! The classes of Warhammer Online sound like they were fun!

Now, looking at the current situation, we have everything covered as far as healing goes. We have HoTs, single heals, AoE heals, damage mitigation, and buffs. Any new healer would be redundant on a lot of fronts. In addition, if the new healer is too good, players will be less inclined to play the current three. But, if the new healer wasn't good enough, then the question of why the new healer was added in the first place comes up.

Certainly, a big issue is that our boss fights don't allow a lot of variety in healers; but, as you pointed out, that may be a blessing. It's far easier to balance a few jobs than it is many.

I'm inclined to believe unless there is a complete overhaul of FFXIV's dungeons, and our existing healing jobs, there can be no additional healers added.

We dont technically have a HoT healer, we have healers with 'some" regens.
WHM being the closest, as they can stack medica2, and regen.
(Though their mechanics arent really built on HoTs)

Saying "we have it covered" is like saying DPS having Second Wind has healing covered.

But i do agree we need some adjustments to prior jobs, who borrow mechanics, in order to fill their own mechanics out, so that those mechanics can get a playstyle in and of itself.

[Sebazy]

I'm inclined to believe unless there is a complete overhaul of FFXIV's dungeons, and our existing healing jobs, there can be no additional healers added.

I think they can add a new healer, the issue they have is that it really needs to fit into one of the two pigeonholes we have currently. How it gets there is fair game really, IMHO SE do have room to put in either a disc priest or melee style healer to compete better with the SCH slot.

I'm all for diverse jobs in this game, but with the whiny player base we have, it's not going to happen.

Depressingly true about the whiny player base, but that's really an online game thing in general, FFXIV isn't alone there. The devs just need to know when to listen to us and when to ignore us. Yoshida's got a reasonably decent track record so far if you ask me <3

[uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu]

Aye!
Lastly and perhaps most distinctly, the Warrior Priest/Disciple. This was a melee class with very very basic raw healing spells, instead of being MP limited, your melee abilities generated charges for your proper heals with an emphasis on party wide abilities to allow you to focus on your meleeing. Whilst it wasn't perfect, I still think that this job was one of the best and most original healer concepts in any MMO to this date. It's a huge huge shame that SE didn't base RDM on it IMHO!

I can see this as.. VerMedica(!) ..level extension past 70, works like VerFlare or VerHoly.

[Keirgan]

I think there is, but it’s either going to be a SCH clone or something properly fresh (to ffxiv at least). Warhammer Online is a good example of how diverse healers can be.

Oh god i miss bashing faces for heals and justice.... Good times.