I hate how we have to wait so long for new healers and tanks.

[DamianFatale]

I get that the job system is complicated, and makes things pretty hard for the devs, but I feel like the duration that we wait on new healers and tanks is absurd when there are only four of each.


Healers:

White Mage came first, and used to be the ONLY healer until Scholar was added in A Realm Reborn.

Then came Astrologian in Heavensward for 3.0. two years later. That was in 2015. It wouldn't be until 2021 that we would see a new healer, which was Sage. That was a six year wait. Six full years. Ridiculous.

Tanks:

Warrior, and Paladin were the original tanks in 2.0.

Two Years later we got Dark Knight.

No new tank in Stormblood, so by the time Shadowbringers came out it was FOUR YEARS (when you include Heavenswards launch date) and then finally Gunbreaker came out in Shadowbringers. Tanks had to wait four years. Four whole years for another tank. It's not quite as bad because of Dark Knight, but it is a gap.

Now for Dawntrail, we are confirmed to be getting two new DPS. The single most saturated job type in the game. Don't get me wrong, I am fine with DPS. I understand that DPS is more complex than just a job type. It has multiple different types. I am in the camp that really wanted a new caster dps, so I'm fine with that.

What I'm not fine with is the long waits it takes for this game to add more of the other roles. I can understand if they aren't as common as the damage dealers, because that is how it is in most MMOS, but I wish we had just a few more. A little more often. It feels like the game devs only know how to work a DPS, and not a healer or a tank. I hope that in four to six years we are not without a new healer and a tank. It is an integral part of the playerbase, and should be respected a lot more. There are people that crave new healing and tanking content.

[Sindele]

The problem is that 1) the healer and tank paradigms are sensitive and prone to disruptions that cause a job to not just fall in favor but to fall completely out of favor and 2) that healer and tank designs are by necessity more typecast in what tools they absolutely must have and what form some of those tools must take.

It's not totally a cursed design problem, but it's close: they're inherently harder to differentiate, and then you have to make sure that in differentiating them as much as you can, you don't accidentally break the balance in a way that sends another job plummeting to 2% utilization. The more of them you add, the harder this balancing act gets.

[Voidedge_Ragna]

I am pretty sure I recall "there will be no more healers due to how hard it is to balance them" and i would not be surprised if they have the same way of thinking about tanks. My guess was 1 dps which shares gear with Ninja I'm honestly surprised we got 2.

[Heroman3003]

I get that the job system is complicated, and makes things pretty hard for the devs, but I feel like the duration that we wait on new healers and tanks is absurd when there are only four of each.


Healers:

White Mage came first, and used to be the ONLY healer until Scholar was added in A Realm Reborn.

Then came Astrologian in Heavensward for 3.0. two years later. That was in 2015. It wouldn't be until 2021 that we would see a new healer, which was Sage. That was a six year wait. Six full years. Ridiculous.

Tanks:

Warrior, and Paladin were the original tanks in 2.0.

Two Years later we got Dark Knight.

No new tank in Stormblood, so by the time Shadowbringers came out it was FOUR YEARS (when you include Heavenswards launch date) and then finally Gunbreaker came out in Shadowbringers. Tanks had to wait four years. Four whole years for another tank. It's not quite as bad because of Dark Knight, but it is a gap.

Now for Dawntrail, we are confirmed to be getting two new DPS. The single most saturated job type in the game. Don't get me wrong, I am fine with DPS. I understand that DPS is more complex than just a job type. It has multiple different types. I am in the camp that really wanted a new caster dps, so I'm fine with that.

What I'm not fine with is the long waits it takes for this game to add more of the other roles. I can understand if they aren't as common as the damage dealers, because that is how it is in most MMOS, but I wish we had just a few more. A little more often. It feels like the game devs only know how to work a DPS, and not a healer or a tank. I hope that in four to six years we are not without a new healer and a tank. It is an integral part of the playerbase, and should be respected a lot more. There are people that crave new healing and tanking content.

There are 3 different opinions on how jobs are separated. First is by general role, Healer, Tank and DPS. In that view, you are correct, the amount of roles in each slot and time btween releases makes no sense. But there is also second view - where we go by the full role: Healer, Tank, mDPS, rDPS and mDPS. And third - by gear, in which mDPS is split into Scouting, Maiming and Striking too. And, honestly, it seems, from expansion patterns, that SE does not percieve things by general role, but rather somewhere halfway between full role and gear. They dont see it as "we're getting 2 DPS after expansion of DPS and Healer", its "we're getting Scouting and Casting after expansion of Maiming and Healing, and before that expansion of Fending and Aiming, and before that, expansion of Casting and Striking". DPS is not treated as singular role type by the devs, clearly. Whether that's right or wrong, its for one to decide on one's own, but honestly, we got a tank and healer more recently than we got last casting or scouting jobs, so theres the one simple explanation

[Eisi]

You are right about this. The last Tank was supposed to appeal to DPS players, the Sage aesthetic at least is DPS oriented even tho in practice it's playstyle had to be conformed into the current extremely narrow healer design corset. So it's clear to me the devs 1. believe players like DPS jobs more than tanks/healers and 2. don't actually know what to do with those jobs.

They have essentially designed for maximum accessibility, minimum complexity and minimum depth so that the enormous anxiety burden that potential tanks/healers face is lowered. However that has not improved the situation. It seems like Tanks and healers are alien roles for the devs which can't be fully appreciated or seen as something someone would actually play for fun as if nobody in the team actually played them.

In my opinion they should start designing those roles to be fun first and foremost while keeping the barrier of entry low. If they are fun, players have an incentive to overcome their anxiety. In order to do that you need to start viewing those roles as normal, not inherently burdensome to play or design for.

It also seems schizophrenic to demand a 50:50 H/TPS split in parties while there's only 8 healers/tanks to a whopping 13 DPS jobs in the game.

[SomeRandomHuman]

I recall hearing about AST and DRG getting some major overhauling for 7.x, so you could say AST might as well be the 3rd job like how SMN was for EW.

I personally think there's too many melee dps. If the new one doesn't share gear with NIN then they need to remove scouting sets all together and toss them into the ranged pool. They already do it for right side gear anyways.

In terms of role distribution we have 4 tanks, 4 healers, 5 melee(6 once DT job 1 hits), 3 ranged, and 3 casters(4 once DT job 2 hits) and then BLU is outside drunk off it's ass on the bench since it can't do what the rest do because limited job. So should we get to 8.x There needs to be another ranged to even the roles out across the board.

[Supersnow845]

You are right about this. The last Tank was supposed to appeal to DPS players, the Sage aesthetic at least is DPS oriented even tho in practice it's playstyle had to be conformed into the current extremely narrow healer design corset. So it's clear to me the devs 1. believe players like DPS jobs more than tanks/healers and 2. don't actually know what to do with those jobs.

They have essentially designed for maximum accessibility, minimum complexity and minimum depth so that the enormous anxiety burden that potential tanks/healers face is lowered. However that has not improved the situation. It seems like Tanks and healers are alien roles for the devs which can't be fully appreciated or seen as something someone would actually play for fun as if nobody in the team actually played them.

In my opinion they should start designing those roles to be fun first and foremost while keeping the barrier of entry low. If they are fun, players have an incentive to overcome their anxiety. In order to do that you need to start viewing those roles as normal, not inherently burdensome to play or design for.

It also seems schizophrenic to demand a 50:50 H/TPS split in parties while there's only 8 healers/tanks to a whopping 13 DPS jobs in the game.

SGE feels like it was designed as what a DPS main who has dabbled in WHM in sub level content thinks a “DPS healer” should be, not what actual healer mains wanted

[PirateRyanG]

SGE feels like it was designed as what a DPS main who has dabbled in WHM in sub level content thinks a “DPS healer” should be, not what actual healer mains wanted

As a healer in pretty much every major MMO, and plenty of smaller ones, over the last 20-30 years;

I'd never touch a Sage. That gameplay does not appeal to me at all. Tried it. Was awful.

You're right. I don't think it was meant to appeal to healers, which I guess was the intention. You don't want to attract the current healers to a healing class, you want to attract the braindead DPS.

[Sindele]

Speak for yourselves. I still carry the candle for Stormblood AST, but SGE suffices in the meantime, even if it's got some rough edges.

[Eisi]

You don't want to attract the current healers to a healing class, you want to attract the braindead DPS.

Interesting statement considering that most DPS jobs in the game are way less braindead than the healers.

I think this pride is the only attractive thing left about playing healer: you can pretend you are cut from better cloth.