One thing I've been wondering about lately, is if the next new healer will rely on cleric stance like the current three. It'd be fairly disappointing to me if this was the case, since it'd create another similar play style to what we already have. I can understand why AST's have it, and at least they have their card buffs to add to party DPS in newer ways, but if you look at their attack spells, they have three DoTs, and one heavy hitting casted spell, just like WHM. Even SCH isn't that much more complicated, and feels fairly similar.
So do you think there could be a healer that doesn't need Cleric Stance to DPS? Would it be broken as all fuck unless their DPS/healing output was significantly lower?
I was thinking about Dancer being added as the new healer, and having only melee attacks. If combined with shorter range heals they'd need to get off the boss to heal, but it wouldn't feel as restricting as Cleric Stance. They could do something similar with Red Mage if they added that as a healer too, with primarily melee focused damage with a shorter heal range.
thedukeofdukes :
As long as healing is based on the MND stat and magical damage is based on the INT stat. C stance is a must for all healers.
Edit: Everyone is telling me they could just add another form of C-stance. but in the end, thats still a toggle-able ability which is what OP doesn;t want. But every class has a main stat that it focuses on with the only exception being tanks who prioritize strength and VIT. but as a healer you NEED MND for your heals. They can't change healing gear to incluide STR or DEX without fundamentally changing healers or including a new type of cleric stance that just switches MND with the other main stat.
Kelesis_Aleid:
This is assuming that said healer would deal damage based on magical attacks and not physical attacks as was mentioned with Dancer.
Even Red Mage could allow a bridge between the two with the option of dealing higher damage physically from melee range but relying on long range spells when unavailable or playing it safe.
Cleric's Stance is assuming that CNJ will be cross-classable with whatever healer it may be. Yes, I think there can be other ways to both do damage and heal without Cleric's and I'd like to see what the development team can come up with.
Edit: It could even be added that MND is purely the only stat needed for a job if there were actions that, depending on the target, healed party members OR damaged enemies.
SenaIkaza:
The way I thought of Dancer working is requiring melee range to use any of their damage abilities, and a short range heal (or just making their heals do more the closer they are to their target) so they'd need to move to heal the ranged classes. Not to mention this creates a situation where you would have 5 melee's clustering around the boss, where some boss fights would make this really tricky to get away with. As a WHM I usually try to stay close to get Fluid Aura off but frequently have to back away otherwise I'll crowd the melee DPS and get them or myself killed.
I think a healer like this could function without being entirely broken, as they'd have to be very careful with their movement. Would also be a good reason to finally give a healing class a movement ability similar to Aetherial Manipulation. That combined with a shoulder tackle-like ability to get back to the boss could create a very dynamic healer in terms of movement, being able to dash around to heal people and deal damage. Could go even further with this idea and have a few of their heals do more the further they are from their target, to encourage them to move away from the tanks to heal them and then move back in to continue DPSing.
FerricDonkey:
They could easily add another stance or trait that ties int (or str or dex if it's not a standard caster healer) to mind. Wouldn't have to be a toggle skill,but if it was, it could do something like shorten healing range or something other than just drop potency.
Not sure if I think that'd be a good idea, but it'd be possible.
BigDaddyDelish:
It'd be hard to make work. Healing has to scale with mnd, and because a healer needs to heal more than they need to dps, they have to have something to bring up their damage stat.
The best idea I have would be giving a job like Dancer a buff like Enochian (maybe a bit easier to keep up than Enochian though), where you gain a large boost to int or whatever your damage stance is that scales with mnd as a buff that you have to maintain rather than a stance.
Harder to pull off but potentially bigger rewards.
So What is the Future of Healer DPS in your mind ? You are welcome to share your ideas here , and if u want to buy cheap ffxiv gil , FFXIV4GIL.com is 7/24 online waiting for you!