Adapting healers in other games into FFXIV for fun: Taion/Tactician

[Renathras]

While it is true that you can shoehorn anything into anything else if you try hard enough, there's a point where it loses a lot of what makes it IT. For example, if you took Tactician and shoehorned it into FFXIV, it would lose all its Debuffs other than maybe something akin to Dismantle on one of its abilities (boring), as a Healer Job under FFXIV's current paradigm, it would lose most of its attack spells and would get a slate of variations on "boring heal".

Honestly, Eunie or Valdi's classes would make more fitting FFXIV Healers, though again, largely altered. Valdi's is arguably similar in concept to SGE:

https://xenoblade.fandom.com/wiki/War_Medic

Technical Heal (Talent Art) - Heal party
Multi Blast - Area heal on hit (Rank 1 Master Art)
Heal Bullet - AOE / Heal
Advanced Cooldown - Field / Def. up (Rank 10 Master Art)
Cure Bullet - AOE/Clear debuffs/Debf. barrier
Vital Bullet - AOE / Delayed healing

Hero-Exclusive Arts

Trickshot, Area heal on hit
Hyper Reload, Field / Def. up
Surprise Beat, Atk down / Machines↑

That sounds a lot closer to a FFXIV Healer Job.

Collectively, AOE heal, AOE heal, field effect/area heal, field effect defense, AOE Esuna + debuff protection, AOE HoT, area heal, AOE mitigation/defense, and finally a basic attack. Many of the other "attacks" are also AOE heals, so think Assize/Earthly Star/Pneuma type abilities. You'd still need to add a bunch of abilities (because apparently no FFXIV Job is allowed to have less than 25 or so, Role Actions included, so around 20 Job actions, and that's just 9. But there's definitely something there to make a FFXIV Healer out of, especially once you add the obligatory Cure 1 and Medica clones for low levels, as well as the mandatory Raise spell, some CDs, and some kind of Job mechanic/gauge and buttons associated with manipulating/spending it.

Now, you can argue we can change the paradigm, but that has to happen BEFORE Jobs that violate it are added, not the other way around. Otherwise you end up with cases like Blood DK in Cata where they sucked because, while they were what Bliz planned on making all the Tanks INTO, the others weren't that yet, and so were more powerful vs the content than the "reactive mitigation" model Blood DK used.

Clearly - given SGE's design - you can make a class from anything. But there's a point where it is so lacking in resemblance to its original form as to be irrelevant. If SGE had a weapon designed after a Mondo, four of the paper birds, or maybe 8/12 where they're in micro "flocks" in place of each single Noulith, it would still not be Taion, it would be SGE with paper bird Nouliths.

.

EDIT:

Anyway, the point is, I know Ty like XC3's classes, but they don't fit into FFXIV unless altered to the point they aren't even what they are. Taion's class would probably be added as a DPS before being added as a Healer in this game because of how little healing focus it has.

Yes, you CAN add anything to anything. That doesn't mean it ends up as anything but a hollow mockery of its former self.

[Semirhage]

Sorry BLU tangent, TLDR SE decided they wanted to do X with a fan favorite class and refuse to budge on it for any reason whatsoever

This is where the main disconnect is for me. I hear the call to make BLU "real" and I think "w. a. t. BLU has never been a 'real' class. It's always been a jankalicious class you fight a boss with because you want to break it. Which is like. Definitionally the complete opposite of a play-it-safe sterilized perfect balance in all things homogenized MMO class. If people want a boring two minute meta job with goofy animations, more power to them. Call it "Real BLU". Personally I wish even in that boring "raiding is all that matters" world they'd take the current BLU concept and expand way in the opposite direction. Make more puzzle fights. Let them in snoozefest fate grindland that is Eureka. Give them a separate achievement for deep dungeon soloing. Free yourself from the stupid rut that current FFXIV's snoozetastic combat system has dug itself into. To hell with the community's Raiding Uber Alles insistence on boxing themselves into that tedium. I don't vibe -at all- with "they played BLU too safe, so let's finish its mutation into boring two minute metaland so we can spend the next four years bitching about how horribly designed it is".

[ForsakenRoe]

I don't vibe -at all- with "they played BLU too safe, so let's finish its mutation into boring two minute metaland so we can spend the next four years bitching about how horribly designed it is".

The issue is not that they 'played it too safe', its that they didn't play it safe, which is good. Playing it safe would be to introduce it as another 2min job. However, we could have had one of two things, 'playing it not-safe in addition to safe', ie, what I put before where it can be broken strong or 'able to participate with other players in standard content too'. Alternatively, remember that it was introduced in 4.55. Before the 2min meta came and standardized everything into stale homogeneity. Though I'd agree on 'it being safe' design wise, in that they 1:1 copied how it works from the other MMO, not realizing that the two MMOs function very differently at their core.

And yeh, MMO gameplay loop is usually that the point of doing things is to increase how strong your character is (or to get some new item to show off with). So it's no surprise to me that 'current raid' is the 'content that matters'. An absolutely tiny amount of people do Deep Dungeon solo runs, and out of that tiny amount, an even tinier amount does more than one run, as most do the title run and then never go back. Opening DDs up to BLU would give a spike of player attention to that content, but then after it's not 'new' anymore, it'd drop off and return to what we have now. In a sense, every other job is more 'evergreen' in a sense, new patch comes out, new content for any job. BLU doesn't get that, BLU has to wait for a BLU specific update patch to get new content. IDK about anyone else but I view that as a very inefficient design choice in terms of dev time and such.

More puzzle raids would be nice but it boils down to the UWU issue: UWU's difficulty and 'length' was tied up in the fact that the world-first racers were doing it wrong because of the Woken mechanic. With that 'puzzle' solved, the prog time of the fight is literally halved, possibly more, for every group who does it later with guides. Any puzzle fight added will have a similar fate, I think. This isn't to say 'don't do it, its a waste of time' per se, just to acknowledge that this is the eventual outcome and design with that in mind. I've made a post somewhere (don't remember where) about an idea for a Halicarnassus style fight where each role has to deal with an add of some sort, using their role actions. A Healer-tethered add which has to be GCD healed through, a debuff to Esuna, Reposing it once it's in position to lock it in place and stop it from moving, for example. But that's just one fight.

The first step towards 'more puzzle fights' is for SE to stop pussyfooting around their players in hard content and add some more Interrupt-checks, and some Esuna-debuffs. Heck, one simple thing from the other MMO that we can steal is a debuff that explodes for damage when it's cleansed or times out. If you ignore them all, you die at the end. If you cleanse one, it hurts like hell. So the healers have to stagger out when to cleanse a debuff from someone. Additionally, it could be put in as 'the fightwide gimmick', and mixed into other mechanics as the fight goes on. The comparison that comes to mind is Curtain Call, but that is based on moving away from your thorn rather than Esuna-ing a debuff. I guess taking the responsibility of 'when to pop' away from everyone and throwing it on the healer is just too stressful, though. Another thing we can steal from other MMO is heal-absorbs, ie if you have 30k of heal-absorb on you, the next 30k healing received does not work and instead reduces the absorb. An 'anti-shield' if you will. Macrocosmos wouldn't even help, as while 50k of damage and 50k of absorb both need the same healing pushed to solve, the latter isn't 'damage' and so Macro doesn't power up from it. Benediction would solve it though, and shields would still apply, as the heal still 'works', it just hits the absorb instead of the HP bar.

whew managed to steer it back to healer talk at the end

[ty_taurus]

While it is true that you can shoehorn anything into anything else if you try hard enough, there's a point where it loses a lot of what makes it IT. For example, if you took Tactician and shoehorned it into FFXIV, it would lose all its Debuffs other than maybe something akin to Dismantle on one of its abilities (boring), as a Healer Job under FFXIV's current paradigm, it would lose most of its attack spells and would get a slate of variations on "boring heal".

Anyway, the point is, I know Ty like XC3's classes, but they don't fit into FFXIV unless altered to the point they aren't even what they are. Taion's class would probably be added as a DPS before being added as a Healer in this game because of how little healing focus it has.

Yes, you CAN add anything to anything. That doesn't mean it ends up as anything but a hollow mockery of its former sel

I think you're missing the point of the topic being more lighthearted and less cynical. I get that you loathe healers that have multiple DPS buttons. You've made that very apparent many many times, but Tactician is a healer, not a DPS. Its DPS output is mediocre, and its healing output is par for the course amongst XC3 healers--not the strongest, but definitely not the weakest. You can disagree about the concept of something similar not working in FFXIV, but that is nothing more than one opinion.

EDIT: I'd like to add that I find it uncharitable to say that any attempt to adapt a concept from one game into another is something that can only result in a "hollow mockery of its former self." The entire basis of game design is creativity and problem-solving. More often than not, the systems of your game will create obstacles that challenge your vision for an idea. The ability to overcome those obstacles is determined by your creativity and problem-solving skills as a designer. As I said, the point of this was to do something more lighthearted, so I'm not going to say that the build I created is objectively perfect, because it isn't, but it is near-sighted to suggest that it cannot be done in a way that is satisfying to play while also capturing the heart of the source material. I should think Red Mage is proof of that at the very least.

[Shurrikhan]

The issue is not that they 'played it too safe', its that they didn't play it safe, which is good. Playing it safe would be to introduce it as another 2min job. However, we could have had one of two things, 'playing it not-safe in addition to safe', ie, what I put before where it can be broken strong or 'able to participate with other players in standard content too'. Alternatively, remember that it was introduced in 4.55. Before the 2min meta came and standardized everything into stale homogeneity. Though I'd agree on 'it being safe' design wise, in that they 1:1 copied how it works from the other MMO, not realizing that the two MMOs function very differently at their core.

Sorry for the tangent, but... BLU essentially limited its competitive skill-pool ("deck") to that of a 2-minute rotation before the rest of the game even standardized to it...

And... outside of perhaps the fact that MP actually matters to it and it actually has some heft to its support, it plays like any other mainstay combat job in any mainstay combat content, because elemental weaknesses and debuffs simply don't work anyways outside of Masked Carnival.

As such, they absolutely could have retained its uniqueness while nonetheless making it more polished and engaging in its single to handful of competitive builds and capable of playing alongside other jobs in current content...



To bring that back to the point at hand, it seems to me that there typically isn't nearly so hard or distinct a point/line of contrast between creative design and being "workable" as many on these forums would suggest.

_____________

As for the thread's intent, I'm still looking through some random games for what I think could be added to the game workably, but still with some aspect or mechanic that, despite being seemingly a good and easy fit, is not yet in the game. My intent therein is to use the new job --as I've long believed each should be-- as an excuse to augment and flesh out the game as a whole.

(Think NIN bringing a stealth and Blindside mechanic to the game that could make Enmity more than a pretense of a mechanic; AST bringing a Weight mechanic and the ability to de/accelerate tick rates and lengthen/shorten durations, which we might then see in encounters; DRK bringing a delays-damage-to-instead-be-taken-over-time or fixed amount healing-nullification mechanic that would have been meant to allow for a more tightly worked Living Dead; etc. Granted, I'll try to keep whatever I add to this thread a bit more modest.)

[Renathras]

...

I'm not saying NOTHING can be. I'm saying some things cam be - I even made the point with Valdi's War Medic class being a pretty good candidate for a FFXIV Healer Job. Indeed, it's borderline OP in XC3 specifically BECAUSE it has so much healing potential which most other classes in that game lack, making it much more like a FFXIV Healer.

Also, we've been over this, so you can shelve that tired old lie again. I don't mind "multiple DPS buttons" - ALL of the Healer Jobs RIGHT NOW have multiple DPS buttons, and I've argued repeatedly to leave 1 or 2 alone, meaning I have no issue with "multiple DPS buttons". I just don't like annoying, obnoxious, or "more buttons to have more buttons" DPS rotations, nor do I like overly complex or punitive DPS rotations on NON-DPS Jobs/classes, or a shift in focus that places DPS at the forefront for non-DPS Jobs. I've made THAT very apparent may many times, yet you still manage to get it wrong in a slander attempt somehow... <_<

By all means, be creative, I've just noticed several times you've dipped into XC3 classes for ideas of FFXIV Healer Jobs, seemingly not wanting to recognize the distinction between their paradigms, and oddly avoiding the XC3 Healer classes that WOULD transition well into FFXIV Healer Jobs, like War Medic.

[ty_taurus]

Also, we've been over this, so you can shelve that tired old lie again.

Will you stop accusing people of lying every 14 seconds please? It's really annoying and a tone-deaf retort when you very clearly understand what I'm trying to say. It's not lying.

By all means, be creative, I've just noticed several times you've dipped into XC3 classes for ideas of FFXIV Healer Jobs, seemingly not wanting to recognize the distinction between their paradigms, and oddly avoiding the XC3 Healer classes that WOULD transition well into FFXIV Healer Jobs, like War Medic.

I've done a XIV theorycraft on a XC3 class exactly once--this thread. Maybe there's a different liar in the room. I appreciate your opinion that War Medic is the better exactly, however, I respectfully disagree with your opinion.

[Renathras]

Anyway, for a more precise critique...

Gauges

This kind of runs the risk of "gauge bloat", as it were, but most Jobs at this point have two, though most don't charge like this. It seems most similar to SCH, in a way. In fact...very similar, if Aetherflow was generated by casting Broil, Bio, and Art of War. Which...is actually not a terrible idea other than AF spenders other than Energy Drain being potentially OP if they were up that frequently. Anyway, nothing really terrible here as both seem to be useful and do things that give them purpose to exist.

Actions

Breaking this down into straightforward terms:

Medica - Generates Aetherflow equivalent.

30 sec CD Sacred Soil that does an Expedient but costs no resource to use and has a 30 sec CD. KINDA OP, like as not... (Note Sprint and Expedient don't say how much they increase movement speed by, so this could be less/equal/greater). Also grants Aetherflow.

Broil IV

Art of War - 50% chance to grant an Aetherflow, has a massive potency increase if used as a combo action after Boil IV and guaranteed Aetherflow generation.

Holy - Except it costs 3x the MP, has a Dismantle effect on all targets, and also does an AOE Sleep. Can be spammed, making this OP as all hells.

Single target Goring Blade that allows the use of Fight or Flight instead of just being one button that does both even though the second button cannot be used unless the first is pressed before it.

Fight or Flight - Except you have to press Goring Blade FIRST.

???? - Zodiark Ex's multi-hit laser thing or non-SMN Ahk Morn that hits multiple times. like those do. 2 min CD damage spell.

Miasma 2 - but it costs an Aetherflow to use and only does full damage on the first enemy making the other DoTs weak and meaning even though it's AOE, you have to spam it while rotating your target. Generates 10 Faerie Gauge, too. Debuffs the enemy for...

Painflare, but requires Miasma 2 to be used first and each time you want to use it again. Costs 3 Aetherflow.

Phlegma - But it costs 3 Aetherflow, has half the CD so it's up twice as often, and shares a CD with...

Plegma Also - but costs 1200 MP as well as the 3 Aetherflow and does a Medica.

Miasma 2, without the DoT (so Art of War) - does all the same stuff otherwise and still costs an Aetherflow, including allowing one use of Painflare, but also also has a 60 sec CD. So maybe more like Plegma than Art of War.

oGCD costs 1 Aetherflow and makes next healing action proc Painflare.

Art of War - except it does more damage, costs 50 Faerie Gauge, generates 1 Aetherflow, and does a Medica.

???? again - but this time it costs 50 Faerie Gauge and only has a 1 min CD.

.

So we have Medica (that generates Aetherflow) and two attack spells that proc a Medica/Assize AOE heal on use, being Plegma with a 20 sec CD that shares a CD with another Plegma that doesn't do the AOE heal and doesn't costs 1200 MP, as well as a Faerie Gauge spender that generates Aethrflow but is otherwise identical (just does slightly less damage).

That's the entire healing toolkit this class has.

It also has a better Expedient; Expedient if it had Sacred Soil's 30 sec CD and generated an Aetherflow rather than consuming one.

It then has 12 attacks, many of which make the Cure 2/Tetra/Afflatus Solace mistake of being 2-3 ways of doing the exact same thing, just costing different resources.

And finally it has 2 attack boosting oGCDs, one of which is Fight or Flight and the other of which is actually something unique, spending an Aetherflow to make a Painflare proc happen on the next heal. So an offensive Freecure generating Recitation, basically. Which I don't mean to make light of, as that's actually an interesting idea.

.

I'd have to play around with it to see what generating the Aetherflow and Faerie Gauge equivalents did and felt like, but this strikes me far more like a Support/Ranged Phys type Job. Something that primarily does DPS and has a few healing procs/abilities on the side. RDM if it had Medica and some abilities that proced or generated it, or DNC with Curing Waltz come to mind. It has about as much healing as RDM would if Vercure were Vermedica instead, and similar levels of utility kinda like Magicked Barrier.

I'm not sure that I dislike this idea as a FFXIV Job, but it very much looks like a Support minded DPS Job, not a Healer Job. It has no single target heals, no mitigation for tankbusters (single target defensive abilities), no quick or efficient spot healing, somewhat odd AOE healing, and it has only 300/400 potency AOE heals. I assume it has a generic Raise, but if not, definitely DNC. If so, then RDM-adjacent support Caster.

As I happen to like RDM (and wish it DID, in fact, have Vermedica - while that would make Healers even more redundant, it would make RDM more cool and fun), I don't dislike this as a Caster or possibly Ranged Physical Job. It's not a Healer Job and couldn't fill the role's requirements in a lot of content, but it could be an interesting DPS Job, honestly.

[Renathras]

You know what?

No, I'm not going to.

I bear you no ill will and want you to be creative and have fun with your idea. So I'm going to delete what I was going to say other than to say "You're wrong, and if you REALLY want I can show you what I WAS going to say to show so".

I'd rather discuss the idea, not anyone's personal failings or whatnot.

[ForsakenRoe]

The only things that stand out to me of why 'this would not work in FFXIV' are these two: Unceasing Curse, and Spirit Raven. I don't think the game is able to differentiate if an enemy has a certain debuff, and allow/disallow ability use based on that, so the options are to either make the debuff into a buff on self, or to accept that people can misplay and use the skill with no effect (like old days when you'd Bane right after Bio and it'd 'miss' because Bio hadn't fully applied yet). Secondly, Spirit Raven has a dual cost of both 3 Interlink, AND 1200mp. I don't know if there's any skills that take multiple resources to use, so maybe just having the Gauge cost is enough idk. Actually, re-reading it, is Spirit Raven literally 'everything Grand Priest is, plus it heals too', and that's why it costs the MP cost too?

Everything else looks to me like 'it would work in FFXIV'. At least, from a technical perspective. GCD ground-zone placing spell? HW Shadowflare. Spells with combos? Leverage 'X skill Ready' buff statuses, and if needed, make them fall off when you don't 'complete the combo', like how you can break the Ifrit 1-2 by casting something in between. Potencies too big/small or MP costs too big/small etc, just adjust them as needed for balance.

The question really, is whether it would 'work' in terms of meshing with the battle design we see in raids and such. And unfortunately that would be a matter of....opinion

https://xenoblade.fandom.com/wiki/War_Medic

I don't play Xenoblade so all I can go off of is this link. And what it seems to say is that this class is entirely healing skills. It says in the flavor text 'strengthening allies' but I don't see which skill does that, unless it's like, 'restores allies MP (or game's equivalent)' mana battery class. In which case, 'more like Snore Medic am I right?' Reason classes like that can exist in singleplayer games is because the player is not controlling just one character, they are controlling several. Where you have one dedicated healer in the team who has zero damage of their own, that's made up for by the fact you have some heavy bruiser 'DPS analogue' character who has no healing, and they make up for each other's shortcomings because the 'one cohesive unit in the player's control' is not the characters, but the party as a whole. Contrast this to MMO, where the only thing under the player's control is their own character. If you were to set your whole team as War Medics, how would you get through the story? They don't die, sure, but how do they beat enemies, Auto Attacks?

It has no single target heals, no mitigation for tankbusters (single target defensive abilities), no quick or efficient spot healing, somewhat odd AOE healing, and it has only 300/400 potency AOE heals. I assume it has a generic Raise, but if not, definitely DNC. If so, then RDM-adjacent support Caster.

As I happen to like RDM (and wish it DID, in fact, have Vermedica - while that would make Healers even more redundant, it would make RDM more cool and fun), I don't dislike this as a Caster or possibly Ranged Physical Job. It's not a Healer Job and couldn't fill the role's requirements in a lot of content, but it could be an interesting DPS Job, honestly.

1: Since MP costs were attached to specific skills, I assume that anything that does not have an MP cost listed is therefore 'free'. As such, you don't need a 'single target' heal because you can just use the AOE basic one for single target too. In fact, this would alleviate the issue of 'swapping target to save someone fast enough'. It's also instantcast so as long as you're not spinning the GCD you can immediately react. If Solace is good enough for clutch saves, this would be too, theoretically. Plus you can just pump it back to back with zero concern for MP or resources, at the cost of a bit of damage, by the looks of it. edit: I actually don't know if this is meant to be a Pure or Shield healer. I'd assume Shields, because of it's name, but it's got a more Pure looking throughput level and sparse mitigation suite

2: Like Aquaveil, which is surplus to requirements in all but Ultimates (and Week 1 Savage)? Or Benison, which is just thrown out on CD and eaten by exactly one autoattack because it's so weak? edit: it's got that 10% debuff to enemy, assuming it's meant to be a Pure like WHM or AST, that debuff would be their 'Aquaveil', just different in that it applies to the enemy rather than an ally. Like how Reprisal is a raid mit that applies to the enemy, and Shake/Veil is a mit that applies to the allies

3: This is just point 1 again

4: Odd in your opinion, it could be argued that gating one of the most powerful AOE heals in the game behind using a big laser on the enemy (thereby requiring an enemy target in order to heal) is 'odd'. Or that half of SCH's healing does not actually center on the SCH. This, I think, would be just another 'oh it's a bit different, I see' and then we'd get used to it and carry on as usual

5: Isn't this point 4 (and kind of 1) again again?

And what about Vermedica would make RDM 'more cool and fun'? You're not going to be using it in a party setting, because you'd have a healer. You're not going to use it solo because you have Vercure which would presumably be stronger for singletarget. I can't see the use-case. And looking again at the wiki you linked, it seems what you like/dislike is already moot'd by the source material, it says it's a healer class in XC3. Of course, you could argue 'they can adapt it to be a different role' but then you run the risk of it being left as...

... a hollow mockery of its former self.