Healer Job Concept: Exorcist

[FusionFool3]

Hello, I've decided to try my hand at making a Job concept and am open to thoughts, concerns, and critiques. I made Melee Healer Job based on the Bravely Second Job of the same name, Exorcist. Trying out a few ideas and hoping they make sense while also not causing this Job to overshadow other Healing Jobs with its own mechanics.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Unfortunately, what I have written couldn't be done in 3000 characters thus I put it all in Google.docs. I hope you give it a shot despite this oversight.

Thank you for reading.

[MitsukiKimura]

[Crushnight]

You can bypass character limit by posting a sentance then edit to add everything you want to talk about.

As for the idea interesting but cannot work with current healer design by lv24 you used up 5 damaging spells/abilities including an aoe at lv15, whm has the most damaging abilities at 5 and they don't get the 5th until lv74 and everyone gets their aoe mid 40s, if something like this was implemented while current healer design is still around you are going to have a lot more Exorcist mains just from the sheer idea that downtime will be more engaging than 1 DoT, 1 nuke spam. (something like this may be needed to get the devs to see the error in judgement with regards to healer downtime).

[FusionFool3]

Putting all that in mind, a Melee Healer in FF14 of today would be a lot more of a problem since Melee would need more damaging skills than Casters. I should have taken that into consideration and remove some damage skills and rework the 'Stress' mechanic to be more like the Bard's Song gauge vs. this weird version of the Warrior's Beast Gauge.

Thank you for your insight

[Volkaj]

Could just be me, but...

Undo is better than Benediction in virtually all real healing scenarios, with half the cooldown. That's without considering the free rez effect at level 72.
Ectoplasm is almost as good as Hallowed Ground, with only 180s cooldown. Being able to rez everyone at no cost (and half cast time) is just icing on the cake.

The healing potencies on Sadism/Masochism are really low, especially when fighting bosses where damage tends to be spiky (few, but powerful hits).

[FusionFool3]

Thank you, I am currently struggling with Undo to match what it can do in Bravely Second but with A) Not being too mechanically crazy and B) my greatest fear was having it outshine Benediction. Ectoplasm will probably have its CD increased in that case or get something new to make it weaker than the Tank Invulns.

[Volkaj]

On Safe State/Undo: Something in the same mindset (?), but easier to balance would be:

• Safe State
  Grants Current State to target party member. Current State changes to Anterior State I, II, III as the target takes damage.
  
• Undo
  Restore target's HP based on Current State and Anterior State effects cast by you on the target.
  Current State: 200 potency,
  Anterior State I: 800 potency,
  Anterior State II: 1000 potency,
  Anterior State III: 1200 potency

On Ectoplasm: Any sort of healer invuln is almost certainly overpowered. Even if the effect was just "you can't be reduced below 1 for next hit", you could use it instead of a tank LB3 and just use healer LB3 instead, which is strictly better (anyone dead or hurt would be healed to full). Tanks also cannot rez other players; even if the invuln prevents rezzing, you could just wait it out then rez others.

[FusionFool3]

I see, thank you for your input.

It's starting to become painfully clear that the Exorcist idea grabbed from Bravely Second can't work in FF14 due to how broken Undo is so I will have to alter it greatly. A shame but gotta get with the times, this ain't a single player game after all.

[tesni_g]

Putting all that in mind, a Melee Healer in FF14 of today would be a lot more of a problem since Melee would need more damaging skills than Casters. I should have taken that into consideration and remove some damage skills and rework the 'Stress' mechanic to be more like the Bard's Song gauge vs. this weird version of the Warrior's Beast Gauge.

I think the other big problem with a melee healer is "taking" the melee spot in raids. Having more than 4 melee in a group (2 tanks, 2 melee) for current content is punishing because there's just not that much room in melee range when mechanics are making people spread or dump or whatnot. Having that fifth melee in a group means one of those melee is out of range during some mechanics and has to delicately work with all other melee/tanks for most other mechanics.

If we had a melee healer, that melee healer is not getting a prime melee spot. So either the group comp would have to be 1 melee shy to accommodate a melee healer, or the melee healer is just last priority and no group concern with being in range when mechanics become involved.

I would only consider a melee healer in a preformed group that is caster heavy, and then I would feel compelled to keep an off job healer for pugging.

You could circumvent this by adding yet another ability, a dps nuke at range, but if it is weaker than the melee stuff, it will feel bad to be stuck using, and if it is not weaker than the melee stuff, than it is used in place of it.

But the game is already 30 levels deep in 8-man content that do not support a melee healer. I don't see the game design changing to accommodate one healer when most gameplay development time is given to melee dps. And since I'm getting salty about developer stuff, I might as well add the obligatory "SE spends entire live letters talking about SAM MNK and NIN tweaks while ignoring widespread complaints of all healers, so I can't trust them with a melee healer. They won't do it well."

[Billythepancake]

I think the other big problem with a melee healer is "taking" the melee spot in raids. Having more than 4 melee in a group (2 tanks, 2 melee) for current content is punishing because there's just not that much room in melee range when mechanics are making people spread or dump or whatnot. Having that fifth melee in a group means one of those melee is out of range during some mechanics and has to delicately work with all other melee/tanks for most other mechanics.

If we had a melee healer, that melee healer is not getting a prime melee spot. So either the group comp would have to be 1 melee shy to accommodate a melee healer, or the melee healer is just last priority and no group concern with being in range when mechanics become involved.

I would only consider a melee healer in a preformed group that is caster heavy, and then I would feel compelled to keep an off job healer for pugging.

You could circumvent this by adding yet another ability, a dps nuke at range, but if it is weaker than the melee stuff, it will feel bad to be stuck using, and if it is not weaker than the melee stuff, than it is used in place of it.

But the game is already 30 levels deep in 8-man content that do not support a melee healer. I don't see the game design changing to accommodate one healer when most gameplay development time is given to melee dps. And since I'm getting salty about developer stuff, I might as well add the obligatory "SE spends entire live letters talking about SAM MNK and NIN tweaks while ignoring widespread complaints of all healers, so I can't trust them with a melee healer. They won't do it well."

Not to disagree with healer problems, but, technically speaking, there is no reason to run 2 melee DPS now. You could easily run 2 casters and 1 melee and have plenty of dps to make checks and compete with speed kills. In that comp a melee healer would be easy to add, but, TBH, I halfway don't expect a healer at all next expac, and I kinda don't want it either. SE can't handle 3, I'd hate to see how they'd butcher a 4th.