While Shadowbringers has been a massive and well-received expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, there’s one element in particular that some fans have taken umbrage with. Shadowbringers introduced two new job classes: Gunbreaker, a tank job, and Dancer, a ranged DPS job. The lack of a specific healer class has been controversial for some, especially since a new one hasn’t been introduced since 2015’s Heavensward. Director Naoki Yoshida commented on why no new healer class was added for Shadowbringers.
Yoshida explained that a lot of it has to do with balancing. With the sheer number of jobs in Final Fantasy XIV, it can be tricky to make sure each one’s balanced correctly. Apparently, healer classes in particular are some of the most difficult jobs to get right. Yoshida noted:
Of course, with healers, yes, we do admit that there are difficulties in balancing different jobs in that category. It was a struggle over the years maintaining different jobs.
Expanding on that point, he doesn’t believe adding a new healer class at this point would be beneficial for the game as a whole:
At the brink of the new expansion, introducing yet another healer before we’re able to achieve a satisfactory level of balance would complicate things further. We’re very hesitant to say we could maintain balance amongst four [healer] job titles.
Considering the difficulties relating to balancing, it can be easy to see why the Final Fantasy XIV may be hesitant to add a new healer class, despite fans’ wishes. Yoshida does acknowledge their frustrations, however:
We do see that Scholar has the ability to cast barriers and the fairy they can summon, they’re very mobile. On the other hand, it was lacking in pure healing capabilities. We do see players utilizing the Scholar to just have barriers set up and the rest of the time they’re mainly attacking. Healers who utilize other jobs may look at the Scholar and think, they can do everything else, why can’t we have that?
While he notes the team has been “continuing to tweak and make adjustments,” Yoshida admits that “there may not have been complete balance yet.” In our own interview with Yoshida, he also acknowledged that popularity is a big factor in determining what jobs are added, noting that the team looks at data to see which classes are most popular.
Would you like to see a new healer class added to Final Fantasy XIV? Let us know!
[Source: Dualshockers]
