Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

[HyperiusUltima]

I've been wondering this for a while since it has been a topic raised by some of my friend circles in-game and in Discord. Can Healers survive a fourth healer coming into the game next expansion?

Because honestly, let's be real - they've butchered healers to nothing except oGCD Heals and 1 Attack and 1 DoT. I don't know how they'll be able to shoehorn in a 4th Healer given how the dichotomy works either; unless they do something about shielding and fix SCH's issues. It's really tough to even balance healers right now as is.

[Jaelommiss]

The biggest obstacle to a fourth healer is how shields vs hots defines heal comps. As long as shields do not stack, two healers that use shields cannot play well together.

If a new healer relies on shields then it cannot be used alongside SCH. If it does not then it cannot be used alongside WHM. The easiest option to implement is to allow it to toggle stances like AST, however that infringes on a portion of AST's identity.

A second solution would be to allow all shields to stack. The majority of healing checks in this game are in fact mitigation checks. Everyone needs a certain EHP, or they die. Allowing at-will shielding to stack either eliminates this as a challenge or forces double shield comps.

A third option is to remove all at-will EHP increasing abilities and instead make them finite CDs. All healers would need comparable amounts of EHP increasing tools so ensure that all compositions are equally viable. This would require massive reworks to current healer kits but is the only way to truly dismantle current healer constraints.

A fourth possibility involves redefining damage curves in this game. Current healing design operates around infrequent spikes that can kill characters in a single hit. If sufficiently mitigated then everyone lives and can be topped off effortlessly. This could be adjusted to align more closely to other games by making damage more abundant, less spiky, and making healing a finite resource. This could be accomplished by making offensive spells free and placing large MP requirements on healing spells (MP limited healing), making all healing spells have limited charges and cooldowns (time limited healing), or requiring offensive actions be taken to build charges and resources for healing actions (performance limited healing). None of these would be easy to implement. Either past content is reworks to accommodate such a design, or all healer kits change dramatically at level 81 to match the new content.


As much as I would like to see it, I do not expect that healers will be differentiated by their offensive tools in the future.

[Liam_Harper]

The biggest obstacle to a fourth healer is how shields vs hots defines heal comps. As long as shields do not stack, two healers that use shields cannot play well together.

If a new healer relies on shields then it cannot be used alongside SCH.

Not entirely true. Noct AST for example can actually be used with SCH just fine if needed. AspHelios/Benefic are the only heals to conflict with Galvanize and you really wouldn't need both healers spamming their GCD heal. Noct and SCH also both have ample burst heal and regens. You bring Diurnal anyway because it's more heal power, but the idea that you can't use Noct is a misunderstanding from the community, similar to how many people still think you have to play Noct with WHM when it really only matters in the hardest content.

Neither Noct or SCH are "shield healers". They're simply healers with access to shields, but also plenty of other toolkit. WHM is the odd one out here and the only healer straight-up missing an option in the toolkit.

If the new healer "relied" on shields (currently no healer does) it would be something new and would function fine with all the current healers. SCH wouldn't need to Succor and would like it, putting their better tools to use.

The only potential issue would be giving us another gimped WHM-type healer with a fantasy of having a hole in the toolkit. Then it wouldn't function with WHM at higher Savage.

4th healer has to be the most simple and easy to pick up and learn healer. HAS TO. Why? Because it would start at lv70. SE would have to account for brand new players and players never touching the healer role before picking it up.

Interestingly GNB was the 4th tank this expansion and is probably the least easy to pick up and learn due to higher apm. WAR is the simple tank. Sure, getting a fresh GNB learning to tank in Sirensong sucks, but that didn't stop Enix from releasing it.

[BlueMageQuina]

This is just my two cents...

But I think the fact that this is even a question is the same shortsightedness that brought us BLU. BLU “can’t be balanced for content” NOT because another caster couldn’t inherently be balanced, but only because of the spells that the devs wanted to give it. If you give a caster a potential AOE Benediction (White Wind) of course it will outheal healers. If you give it a spammable tank immunity as long as it has the MP (Diamondback), of course it can align itself with tanks. If you give a caster spells that have majorly elemental and status affinities, of course it won’t work well in current content with the other 17ish classes who have been far removed from elements and status ailments over the past few expansions.

This is the same issue we encounter when we speak about any other role, but especially about a new healer since this is always the excuse we are given: “it can’t be balanced.” Yes, a new healer can’t be balanced and won’t work if we continue talking about designing it the wrong way. For example: we don’t need another shield healer or another HOT healer. We have 2 of both already because of AST. The new healer can and should have an entirely new healing niche. Many new niches have already been discussed ad nauseam on the forums already; life stealing healers, chemist healers, healers that store overhealing for later, maybe a debuffing healer for damage mitigations, etc.

The second reason we must rethink a new healer requiring a new niche has already been mentioned as well; shields don’t stack and therefore another shield healer limits which party compositions can be efficient and limits healer synergy.

Balancing a new healer, as theorized my mind, has always been possible. I just don’t think we will ever get anywhere basing a new design first and foremost on what we already have.

[GavynG]

This is just my two cents...

But I think the fact that this is even a question is the same shortsightedness that brought us BLU. BLU “can’t be balanced for content” NOT because another caster couldn’t inherently be balanced, but only because of the spells that the devs wanted to give it. If you give a caster a potential AOE Benediction (White Wind) of course it will outheal healers. If you give it a spammable tank immunity as long as it has the MP (Diamondback), of course it can align itself with tanks. If you give a caster spells that have majorly elemental and status affinities, of course it won’t work well in current content with the other 17ish classes who have been far removed from elements and status ailments over the past few expansions.

This is the same issue we encounter when we speak about any other role, but especially about a new healer since this is always the excuse we are given: “it can’t be balanced.” Yes, a new healer can’t be balanced and won’t work if we continue talking about designing it the wrong way. For example: we don’t need another shield healer or another HOT healer. We have 2 of both already because of AST. The new healer can and should have an entirely new healing niche. Many new niches have already been discussed ad nauseam on the forums already; life stealing healers, chemist healers, healers that store overhealing for later, maybe a debuffing healer for damage mitigations, etc.

The second reason we must rethink a new healer requiring a new niche has already been mentioned as well; shields don’t stack and therefore another shield healer limits which party compositions can be efficient and limits healer synergy.

Balancing a new healer, as theorized my mind, has always been possible. I just don’t think we will ever get anywhere basing a new design first and foremost on what we already have.

This guy gets it.

[Absurdity]

This guy gets it.

It "could" be done, but it requires SE to get out of their comfort zone of healer (and honestly tank as well) design which they evidently either don't want or don't have the manpower to do so. I'll say it again and again, with their 4 job designers, of which none actually main a healer, we will most likely not see any changes to their current idea of what a healer should be and how it should function.



Think of it like this, if you're a dps main and have not played healer at any relevant level, what would your idea of healing be? Well, healing abilities with a cast time for a start because healers fall somewhat into the "caster" category, then probably some instant healing as well because you know that you sometimes take damage right before the next mechanic and need to be healed fast... oh yeah, sometimes you take a lot of damage from boss mechanics as a dps, so probably some shields... and then 1-2 dps spells because they need to do quests somehow.


That's basically the "complexity" we're currently dealing with, a DPS' idea of what a healer should be, not a healer's.

[Truen]

Probably going to be dumbed down to something like: 2 pure healer jobs, 2 barrier jobs.
We'd be foolish to expect any degree of complexity given the regrettable trend established in 5.0 to homogenize jobs into the same mundane, single-button spamming dps disasters we have today.

[MintnHoney]

I suppose we might have a scenario where the new healer would end up being the darling of the role, where all the complaints and missing attributes for the other jobs are placed, making a "ultimate" healing job of sorts. Then, for the next several patches, every other healer will simply see potency buffs to their healing to compensate for the lack of everything that the new healer has, as if that would fix everything.

On the other, more pessimistic hand, considering the current expansion and the very few (and, therefore, very specific) comments they've provided regarding the healer role, I don't think we'll have to worry about whether or not a new healer would ruin balance, because we seem to be teetering on a path where each healer will just be the same stencil drawing with different glitter glued over the lines to make them feel special and different.

[Deceptus]

Honestly a 4th healer would solve a myriad of healer problems.

1) It could force AST to have to pick a sect and remove the other so they no longer have access to both shields and regens. This has been the major cause for imbalance since AST was implemented.

2) It would provide balance to the healers. 2 shield based and 2 regen based, just like they tried to do with tanks. 2 MTs, 2 OTs (I know they failed at that).

[Dogempire]

I think a 4th healer could be balanced, only issue is that in order to balance adding a 4th healer, there needs to be competent healer designers who are in touch with current healer needs and know how to expand on what we currently have without detracting from what the currently existing healers have to offer.

So in other words, no.