What if the new expansion doesn't a healer or a tank

[Brightshadow]

Might as well quit then. FFXI only had 3 viable tanks for most of it's run and didn't get a fourth until the newest expansion. Even then I heard that one of their tanks doesn't really tank anymore. Someone might have to correct me, but FFXI only has 3, maybe 4 tanks.

Yet how many hours did DPS have to wait to do content? If I remember correctly my PUP and DRG “might” get a party once a week. Plus there wasn’t a real role system in that game, so players decided the roles and of course everyone wanted to be a DPS. Jobs like warrior and samurai could have evolved as tanks but the player base wouldn’t support it. Big reason why now FFXI only has WHM as the only usable healer when Dancer could have been a proper healer if the player base supported it. Just because the majority of the player base wants to be a DPS doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have new exciting ways to heal or tank. Heck I sacrificed my Astrologian main because RDM is so much fun, I wonder how many left the healing/tanking roles because the roles are becoming generic and stale. All healers function similar with scholar being the outlier, and all tanks are similar as well with warrior being a bit different. These roles really need diversity or eventually a large portion of tanks and healers will transition to DPS because they are getting all the new “toys”.

[Vhailor]

I wouldn't personally care much one way or another. All I hope is that if they introduce a new job, it actually feels like a new job. SE has done a generally good job making each class unique, but they've had some hiccups, and AST already feels a bit like WHM with Cards added on. SCH and WHM feel completely different; I'd like to see a hypothetical fourth Healer job have a similarly unique sort of feel to it.

In other words, I don't want SE to make new jobs - regardless of role - if they don't have a good idea for one. If it's going to play like something we've already got, then don't bother. Give it more time. The game has plenty of variety job-wise already.

Edit / Addition: I'd be interested to see SE's take on a melee-range Healer job. A diversion-oriented tank could be nice, too (not an Utsusemi clone, but something that nonetheless occupies a monster via flashy distractions rather than meat-shielding it up).

Yet how many hours did DPS have to wait to do content? If I remember correctly my PUP and DRG “might” get a party once a week. Plus there wasn’t a real role system in that game, so players decided the roles and of course everyone wanted to be a DPS. Jobs like warrior and samurai could have evolved as tanks but the player base wouldn’t support it. Big reason why now FFXI only has WHM as the only usable healer when Dancer could have been a proper healer if the player base supported it. Just because the majority of the player base wants to be a DPS doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have new exciting ways to heal or tank. Heck I sacrificed my Astrologian main because RDM is so much fun, I wonder how many left the healing/tanking roles because the roles are becoming generic and stale. All healers function similar with scholar being the outlier, and all tanks are similar as well with warrior being a bit different. These roles really need diversity or eventually a large portion of tanks and healers will transition to DPS because they are getting all the new “toys”.

That's a bit too simplistic, in my mind. Dancer, Blue Mage, Red Mage, Summoner, and Scholar all had utility healing. The problem is that there were significant limits on what they could heal. SE never introduced a job that could truly go toe to toe with WHM when the healing needs got serious. Hard to fault the community for going with the only A-level option available. The next best healing job was somewhere around a C+ / B- at best.

A similar scenario existed with tanks, of course. Warrior and Samurai (and Monk for that matter) could tank in certain scenarios, but they couldn't handle others. Ninja and Paladin offered far better flexibility, and hence were more widely adopted. Again, this is a case of only a couple of jobs getting an A grade for tanking, while everyone else was situational and around a C+ / B- at best.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

That's really beside the point. So now the difference between WHM and AST is 450ish(looking at the fastest God Kefka kill this patch with a WHM). In the same encounter, the difference between the DRG and the NIN/MCH was 800. Then the BRD is 1400 down from the DRG.

Those dps jobs are considered top tier. How is WHM "grossly underpowered" when the difference between it and AST is only about half of that between the best and the second best damage job.

Because unlike Ninja, or Bard or DRG or any of those top jobs, they don't have utility.
A Ninja maybe be below a DRG, but their raid dps shoots them way higher than normal. WHM has none of that. What you see is what you get. And what you get is a job that is underperforming even before considering raid contribution.

[KaivaC]

My own personal opinion, I wouldn't mind it terribly if no healers or tanks were added initially. The devs can't even balance the healers and tanks we have now. Nice as the drk changes are, the job still feels like its incomplete. A 4th role, support, would be nice instead, but we wouldn't even see that if the devs went that route in this MMO.

[basketofseals]

Because unlike Ninja, or Bard or DRG or any of those top jobs, they don't have utility.
A Ninja maybe be below a DRG, but their raid dps shoots them way higher than normal. WHM has none of that. What you see is what you get. And what you get is a job that is underperforming even before considering raid contribution.

I am already accounting for raid dps. The damage numbers I've mentioned are already with each job's respective raid wide damage buffs attributed to them. So DRG is 1400 ahead of BRD still. Even if you were to come at a non-damage utility angle, the difference between MCH and BRD was 600 despite bringing nearly the same utility. In fact MCH might bring even more with Dismantle being three times more available than Troubadour.

You are making a mountain out of a molehill.

[KisaiTenshi]

This is going to sound like a "why not both?"

Add a new geomancer job and make it tank, healer and dps(melee/range). Whichever off-hand gear is equipped determines if it's tank/healer/ranged/melee. Then just re-map the 1-30 skills as if they were half pld, half whm, half mnk, half brd. That way everyone who switches to it at least "gets" the idea of how it works and aren't alienated by high level skills that can't be used in levelsynced 1-30 content.

Unlike the SCH/SMN/ACN, basically the entire skillset is themed to the off-hand gear. So they have to wear tank gear, healer gear, melee gear, or range gear. The game already supports using the same main hand gear for multiple jobs. It is not a stretch to move the vital main traits to the off-hand gear to make it work.

Or they could just increase the capacity of the "job stone" inventory and make more than one job stone, thus 4 separate jobs need to be leveled.

The game really does need at least one job that you can play as tank/healer/dps without having to level three separate jobs that play differently.

[Iscah]

Unlike the SCH/SMN/ACN, basically the entire skillset is themed to the off-hand gear. So they have to wear tank gear, healer gear, melee gear, or range gear. The game already supports using the same main hand gear for multiple jobs. It is not a stretch to move the vital main traits to the off-hand gear to make it work.

Aside of anything else, gear like that probably wouldn't work, because you'd be expected to have different armour according to your intent and the 'recommended gear' button wouldn't handle it well. (See: ARR-era gear where the tank *can* wear mages' robes and therefore the auto-equip button will put you in them if they're higher-level than your armour, regardless of what it actually does to your defence. I think this is why 50+ gear is increasingly locked down by class.)

Yes, you can - and would need to - manually equip all the gear that you actually need, but it's tedious, and a lot of players might not understand that they need to do it.

[Kowen]

I'm fine with the tanks and healers we have now. There's only so many ways they can make holding aggro and healing your team interesting.

How about a DoW healer (Dancer?), or a DoM Tank (Blue Mage?)?

If they tried, they could definitely make something that feels fresh.

[Mikki]

Big reason why now FFXI only has WHM as the only usable healer when Dancer could have been a proper healer if the player base supported it.

Dancer as a healer class actually sounds really nice! The healers are always so prim and proper. I'd like one that's not covered up in a big robe or dress all the time. And if the animations are nice, it would certainly be a fun class to play.

[Oriens]

I'd forego new jobs if we were given the option to specialize or diversify ourselves with the current jobs. But that in itself seems like a complicated mess which probably won't happen