Is It Even Possible To Have A New Healer Job?

[Kacho_Nacho]

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.

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

I'll have to take a wait and see stance on this. Either of those concepts could work; but, there would need to be something there which will make the jobs enjoyable to play.

Now, Cyrocco mentioned a sacrificial healer, that's something new to the game. I wonder if the concept could work in FFXIV?

As far as a whiny player base, 'eh. I don't see them having much influence on the game. It's the well written, thought out posts which capture the developer's eye.

[NorthernLadMSP]

This example isnt very accurate . . .

I wasn't someone who was complaining about it. I mentioned it as an exampe of what other people were complaining about, so all of the stuff you typed means nothing to me.

My entire point was to illustrate that people in this game cannot be happy with their jobs unless they have the same shiny tools everyone has, thus no diversity between jobs. You see the same BS in the healer threads, the tank threads, the caster DPS threads, etc. and it's very much the communities fault.

It's a snowball. One person starts complaining that X job doesn't have the same tools that Y job has, the complaints snowball, and then before you know it, SE is "making adjustments based on feedback."

[Claire_Pendragon]

I wasn't someone who was complaining about it. I mentioned it as an exampe of what other people were complaining about, so all of the stuff you typed means nothing to me.

My entire point was to illustrate that people in this game cannot be happy with their jobs unless they have the same shiny tools everyone has, thus no diversity between jobs. You see the same BS in the healer threads, the tank threads, the caster DPS threads, etc. and it's very much the communities fault.

It's a snowball. One person starts complaining that X job doesn't have the same tools that Y job has, the complaints snowball, and then before you know it, SE is "making adjustments based on feedback."

I was saying it wasnt a very accurate representation of the complaints in most cases. Only in small cases.
But to be fair, if the problem WAS fixed, then the only remaining complaints would be what you say, and in turn, would be the majority again. (Similar to how MNK and SAM are higher DPS, but with low utility, and therefor they would be upset at being low in demand, due to not having the unqiue trait thats in higher demand.)

[VanilleFang]

melee style healer

I would love a melee healer. It would be a nice change of pace for the role as a whole. All the healers play differently, but they feel so same-y with them all being casters with melee weapons.

[Tint]

i think the problem is not the design of the current classes - but the design of the fights. damage comes in spikes, wich requires burst heal and big shields. a pure HoT healer would get into troubles with our current fight designs...

[Claire_Pendragon]

i think the problem is not the design of the current classes - but the design of the fights. damage comes in spikes, wich requires burst heal and big shields. a pure HoT healer would get into troubles with our current fight designs...

All HoT healers in the MMOs ive played, have emergency burst healing. (One of the most common methods of dealing with it, before it gets nerfed, is they have normal cures on longer cast times, or cures that heal more based on HoTs up on the target. But they start precasting the longer cast heals, and when the cast gets half way, they see if the tank is low enough in HP, to bother finishing the cast. They cancel if not, and let it finish if so.

The only real issue with this, is that this method lowers DPS, in a game where healer DPS is considered.

The 2nd part, requires things like GCD regens, and oGCD regens, along with things that apply all regens as an emergency skill, or ways to mess with the regens, such as turning off thier HoT effect, and it saves up any healing ity would do, and then you "pop" the heal at once. etc.

There is no such thing as "This cant work at all" only "it cant work w/o some fine tuning to MAKE it work."

[Ayer2015]

i think the problem is not the design of the current classes - but the design of the fights. damage comes in spikes, wich requires burst heal and big shields. a pure HoT healer would get into troubles with our current fight designs...

That can be remedied by an ability which consumes active HoTs and provides a spike heal, and/or large shield

[Tint]

so we have to turn the HoT healer into a burst / shield healer to make him work?

[Rilifane]

I don't really understand the appeal of a "HoT Healer". It's literally the same thing as burst healing except it takes longer.

Having HoTs is good to help alleviate the need to burst heal, but having only (or mostly) HoTs just makes healing someone to full HP take longer. It doesn't really save the caster any time... it just make them have to keep an eye on more icons.

There is more to hot healers than simply taking longer.
They have various benefits:
1) steady baseline healing
2) generally more mobility
3) efficiency

It's not surprising that the concept of a hot healer seems unappealing to FFXIV players because the general design of incoming dmg and other healers makes the benefits obsolete.
With so much dmg being bursty, 1) is simply too slow and unnecessary. With every healer having various oGCDs aswell as SC and many heal checks being inbetween movement phases, 2) isn't that desirable either. And seeing as even AST can manage his mp fairly well and being starved for mp isn't something that is common unless to have to raise left and right, 3) is not that much of a benefit either.
The downside of being relatively slow comes with plenty of benefits - they simply don't feel like benefits because of the general design of many boss fights. Have a boss who constantly applies a raid wide, undispellable debuff or one who requires constant movement even while lots of healing is required and it's different.

Long story short: the devs are SEVERLY limiting their options regarding new healer classes with their boss fight design alone.

[VanilleFang]

Sorry, yeah. I meant I don't see the appeal of a HoT healer in FFXIV. I understand how it can be beneficial in other games, but the way boss fights, and just fights in general, work in FFXIV it isn't very appealing.