What if DNC is SHOMHOW a DPS?

[BubblyBoar]

I'd prefer Dancer is an alternative to Ninja while we get Geomancer as a healer.

[Kkun]

Why not both? (highly unlikely but still...)
If BLU was a proper, not limited, DPS, this probably wouldn't have been a problem.
At first I thought they were going to introduce multi-role jobs with the announcement of BLU but I guess it would've been too much work.
It would have been cool though if DNC could switch between DPS and healer but alas, it would require a great amount of development time.

[Jandor]

DNC healer and BLU as a real caster would have been nice.

4 casters 4 healers 4 tanks 4 melee, such symmetry! (and 2 ranged physical but can't have it all.)

The 4 melee DPS having 3 separate gear types while the rest all share 1 among themselves really triggers me though. Yoshi plz fix!

[Rinion]

I personally don't mind if dancer is a DPS or healer, I'd just like a new healer in 5.0 XD I'd prefer Chemist but I don't mind the thought of dancer being implemented as a healer either. As others have said, both jobs have the potential to bring something a little different to the healing role (the most common idea being that they could be non robe wearing non casters). Either way, as the OP said, the leaker has been right about basically everything else so Dancer is a fairly safe assumption and I personally feel the assumption that it'll be a healer is also a fairly safe bet.
And, to add to whether a job is in a specific role matters or not, it does and it doesn't. It really depends on the player. I don't mind branching out into tank and DPS but I almost always play healers (just personal preference really). As such, when a job i prefer gets added to DPS I know instantly that I won't be playing it as much as I'd like. On the other side, there is the fact that this game does allow you to play anything on any character and that does mean that if you simply like the aesthetic, the role doesn't matter (and as someone else said in this thread, switching roles is the true variety in the gameplay). I know people who switch roles far more often than I do but I also know people who just stick with 1 or 2 jobs (both in the same role). That's why it does and doesn't matter which role a job gets added to (but seeing as it does and doesn't I'd lean towards the fact that it does).
Just my thoughts =)

[ErryK]

Geomancer as a healer.

Isn't that just White Mage but with a bell?

[Rinion]

Isn't that just White Mage but with a bell?

Ish. Historically geomancers can use basically all the elements depending on where they are (but hey, black mages can usually use more than 3 so yeah). On top of the fact that they (iirc) tend to be damage dealers.
However, in FFXIV, it has been said in the astro quests that geomancers are like astros but they draw their power from the star below (aka. the planet we're on) as opposed to the stars above.
So yeah, taken at face value, they do kinda sound like white mages but they aren't really =)

[kikix12]

There's only so many ways to make "wave your hands, restore numbers" interesting. Meanwhile, there's countless ways to represent swinging a weapon and subtracting numbers. Or shooting and subtracting numbers. It's not some sort of favoritism. It's just straight up harder to make healers diverse.

You're kidding, right?! Please tell me you're kidding. Seriously...

If you count as "diversity" whether the effect of your spell is blue (ice) or red (fire) or purple (lightning) or whatever...then what stops healing to be as diverse?!
There's phoenix (the most powerful healing power in all of final fantasy games is the FFVII I believe Phoenix...full party heal and revive with big-ass damage to the enemy party), so clearly fire can be used to heal. Wind and water both are traditional healing elements. Then there's holy because...you know...holiness and healing go hand in hand. Gaia, the loving mother earth, is often represented as restoring strength...so we can use earth as healing element as well. Dark arts are used for just about anything under the sun...for the right price. So add that to the bag. Then there are natural energies like KI, Chakra (Final Fantasy Tactics had monks with a good non-magical healing skill...called Chakra...and even a free revive skill). Then there's also the good old-fashioned medicine. You can also "reverse time" to unwind wounds or cheat life and body with "real" illusions.

There are TONS of means of showing healing thematically as shown above. Those are not all even. You could find tons of them.

And you are missing a massive thing. Healers ALSO DPS...Even if their healing would be the same, the manner in which they attack can be different.


Or maybe you are talking about mechanical variety?! Then healing is exactly the same as DPS. Burst healing, healing over time, health drain, max and current HP cap increase. You can also add shields as a de-facto healing. Damage is the same. Even if the animation and weapon changes, there's just so many ways it can happen. Ultimate it's just numbers that are detracted from bigger numbers.


As for the topic, healers need a HIGH PROFILE class to be added. Dancer just happens to be a high profile class. It needs a class that will make players want to try healing with it. If Dancer wouldn't be a healer, they'd be high-pressed for another class. Because no, I do not think that Chemist or Geomancer fit the bill. The former is the most basic healing class from Final Fantasy games that you don't use after the first few missions in general, while all the "rave" for geomancer began only with Stormblood, even though there were mentions of it before it.

[AvenoMatt]

I want DNC to be a healer but a melee healer or at least a gimmick that pushes them into going into the frontlines like how RDM has it's moment jumping into the frontlines. I also want DNC to be the opposite of AST in terms of utility as in instead of buffing the party they debuff the enemy.

As for the players saying that DNC has traditionally a support role I see no reason why that should prevent it from being a healer. I mean in XI it had heals and though I couldn't be the main healer it still had the option to heal so all they would be doing this time is focusing more on heals rather then support. Plus if XIV has shown us anything a job doesn't need to follow past iteration that closely or at all. Look at DRK in past games it has always a DPS not a tank, SCH in XI was kinda like RDM where it could do both white and black magic but now it's just a healer with a fairy that it never had before.

[Sheriyana]

Tanking is not hard. Healing might not be either. You know what makes both hard. The Players. Random dungeon/trials/(raids?) always has one or two people unhappy with how either of the two roles are doing their things. Healers, DPS! Tanks! Pull to the boss! Don't worry. Neither of you will suffer greatly if neither of the two are exceptional with it.

I refuse to tank for random people. I'll take the 20-40 min DPS queues thanks. You all can thank the other people who declare the right and wrong way to do things.

That said. Since Gunbreaker is a Tank. It's mostly likely a given that the next Job is a Healer. There is no way they are giving tanka a new one and not healers, cause I do agree, these two roles do need something new. I've done PLD since ARR... I switched to DRK because hey, something new, PLD became very boring for me, I needed something new if I was going to continue tanking with my little group.

That's true for all roles though, dps'ing is hard too when the tank and/or healer suck. Constantly grabbing aggro from the tank and dying when the healer can't be bothered to heal. Personally I find it way easier to tank myself to not have to deal with duty finder tanks. Bad dps are the least damaging to a dungeon run or whatever.

I don't really understand finding fault in players wanting healers to dps and tanks to do big pulls, it's just more efficient that way. As a dps I find it infuriating when a tank pulls 2 mobs at a time, as a healer it might be more stressful to do big pulls but that's usually only if the tank is bad (not using cooldowns/badly geared), it's so boring to heal most dungeons anyway that I dps just to have something to do, throwing a cure II every 5 seconds isn't very engaging gameplay to me.

For myself I hope gunbreaker will be fun to play and that it'd more dps oriented like warrior, I've mained warrior since 3.5 and I'd like something new as well. I've played paladin and dark knight (enough to get all of the tank mounts) and neither of them come even close to warrior when it comes to the fun factor for me.

[Kaedan]

How so? Because they look to be returning to the trinity? (Gunbreaker - tank, Blue Mage - DPS...?)
DNC in XI was a DPS. I'd be cool with it being a support DPS or healer. Still I'd prefer a DPS with maybe whip or fans.
To be honest, I feel like they have healing covered at this point. Mind you they also had tank covered too...

Dancer in FF11 is/was a healer, not DPS.

And if tanks and healers are "covered", then there's a GLUT of DPS.