Is It Even Possible To Have A New Healer Job?

[Renathras]

Any healer Job will be viable provided it has the following tools:

A) A spamable, potent single target heal (to use on tanks).
B) A spamable, decent AOE heal.
C) A spamable, decent single target heal (for spot healing).
D) The MP to use these consistently for the fight.
E) A Raise ability.

All the three healers currently in the game have these abilities as their base toolkit. So:

A) Healer/debuffer.
B) Healer that stacks points/tokens. Like NIN combinations but for healing.
C) Healer with consistent, but weaker, buffs than AST, with each retaining some unique buffs.
D) TP based healer with weaker heals that can be sustained, can use MP for burst healing with a TP skills to manage MP (like PLD), probably a melee based healer. (RDM/PLD-ish)
E) "Blood Mage" healer that uses their own Health pool + drain life.
F) Sky's the limit - there are more possibilities.

FF Jobs:
Dancer(C/D), Chemist(B/C/D), Cleric(C), Druid(A), Shaman(E), Blue Mage(A/C/D/E)
(Could explain, but char limit...)

[Maku]

TP based healer/melee healer and debuff/healer

This games debuffs are a joke and the whole enfeebling system would have to be redone for this combination to be of any use. However, if they did this and allowed this debuff/healer combo to also DPS they would outshine the other healers immediately provided their healer abilities were enough to get by on.

Melee/healer/TP will again outshine all other healers because if their healing is good enough to clear content the literal NEED to DPS to heal will outshine the other healers who have a choice to DPS or not and some times can't because of healing requirements.

I have no doubt that we will see another healer, but it will be a redesign of the three we already have and that is all that SE's current design will allow without significant redesign.

[Renathras]

"...but it will be a redesign..."

As I said, char limit, but that was a thought of mine as well. But not necessary.

But, you say that something "would/will outshine" - that's an assumption of your part, not a logical necessity. It's possible that a new healer with those traits would NOT outshine. AST was initially undertuned, if I recall correctly. A melee/TP healer could be balanced by simply making its DPS roughly on par with a SCH's "nominal" (not great but not poor player) DPS. It would be "easier" since it would be passively part of their "rotation", but that doesn't mean "better". Again, a RDM that heals instead of casting DPS abilities, but has something like PLD's Riot Blade as a 3 point melee combo would fit in just fine with the current meta and give people a "different" feeling healer to play. Dancer/Blue Mage could fit.

I do agree that buff/support and debuffing really isn't fleshed out in this game enough to warrant a separate entry, though. But there are possibilities.

[Rinion]

I quite like the idea that others have mentioned about having a Chemist type healer who can Mix in the way that Ninjas use Mudras. As to what niche it might fill (shields, etc.), who knows?
However as others have said, healers that heal by dealing damage sound like a nightmare to balance in that their damage would likely be negligible to make up for the fact that they have much smaller dps downtime compared to the other healers (although this does mean that they'd also have less healing uptime ie. when the boss jumps and can't even be targetted, so again, who knows?)
Just my 2 cents =)

[Maku]

snip

Except that yoshi has said many times that he wants healers to get away from trying to push DPS. So making a DPSing healer seem very unlikely as it breaks what Yoshi wants to see happen to healers.

[Sebazy]

Except that yoshi has said many times that he wants healers to get away from trying to push DPS. So making a DPSing healer seem very unlikely as it breaks what Yoshi wants to see happen to healers.

He did? I remember him commenting about his disdain for cleric stance as well as the whole Gordias balancing saga. I don't ever remember him outright stating that he doesn't want healers to be pushing DPS tho? Got a quote or link for any of those times?

[Maku]

He did? I remember him commenting about his disdain for cleric stance as well as the whole Gordias balancing saga. I don't ever remember him outright stating that he doesn't want healers to be pushing DPS tho? Got a quote or link for any of those times?

I'm sure I can find one but he mentioned he wanted healers to focus on healing more in one of the live letters before StormBlood release.

[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.

[armandojc3]

sexual healing is stilll missing

[Mimilu]

I'm sure I can find one but he mentioned he wanted healers to focus on healing more in one of the live letters before StormBlood release.

I believe this is from an Email interview he did with Mr. Happy:

He said that the dev team doesn't expect healers to DPS or for it to be mandatory but he knows a lot of endgame healers like that aspect of the role, so they wanted to make it more approachable and less punishing (by making damage based on Mind and removing the Cleric-Stance-Dance).