I wanted to have a little fun and get away from the constant, more serious discussions, so I came up with an idea of designing light concepts of how healers in other games could be adapted to FFXIV and what they would look like. This is just a fun way to let out some creative juice and perhaps inspire some ideas for others. I'll give some details, but I won't be going too deep into the nitty gritty.
For this first attempt, I'll be adapting the character Taion from Xenoblade Chronicles 3 into a healer referred to as the "Tactician", or TAC. This is Taion's first class, but I'll also be taking inspiration from his Interlink form even though it's not directly tied to the Tactician class itself. This is not meant to be a full kit, just transforming the abilities available to Taion into something that works within FFXIV, as well as creating a gauge for this job.
The Tactician uses Mondo as a weapon, a form of paper birds created and controlled by a device affixed to Taion's arm. In battle, these Mondo will circle around the player and play a role in the animations of your abilities.
EDIT: I spent a little more time cleaning up, filling gaps, and better organizing this concept to be a more completed healer. I changed a few small things, and I made the full breakdown of everything significantly more presentable. Take a look here to see all of the details. I'll also include a light summary of the concept below:
Gauges
Tactician has two gauges, the Interlink Gauge and the Talent Gauge. Both are inspired by elements of XC3's gameplay. In short, most of your normal spells will generate Interlink to a maximum of 10. Interlink can be spent on actions affiliated with Taion's Interlink Form, giving you damage as well as healing resources that are able to coexist. Interlink is generated faster than it can be spent on DPS resources, so excess exists for healing and MP management. Spending Interlink then increases the Talent Gauge which is used for your biggest attack, Eightfold Divide, which runs on a cooldown. Excess Talent can also be spent on chip healing to keep the party thriving.
Gameplay
Overall, this job has less actions than all other jobs in FFXIV, but there's more flexibility within those actions. Your standard heals, for example, are quite usable and can be relied on in challenging battles in contrast to spells like your Cure/Benefic/Physick/Dosis and other largely avoided tools. You have a very small, RDM like 1-2 combo with an optional alternative to your second hit that mitigates at a high MP cost. Several of your other tools are cooldown based and will have you breaking away from that 1-2 combo regularly per 20 second, 30 second, 40 second, and 60 second intervals.
As usual, this is an on-paper concept only. Without having a prototyping build, it's difficult to balance values like potencies, MP costs, and cooldowns, but values are easy to adjust whereas the interactions between your tools are what's more important to focus on.
With these adjustments, are there any elements that stand out to you that you think are worth discussing?