Not enough Mage Jobs available?

[Rones]

Its not the lack of healing jobs, its the lack of people playing them. You could have 100 different jobs for healing, and valkurm would still have a lack of healers, because everyone wants to be the melee and cause the big dmg.

[Icemage]

Rones is right. There aren't a lot of healers because... well... most people don't like playing them. This is especially true because you can't play an "offensive" white mage with any sort of success most of the time(*).

It is undeniable fact that for the majority of your levelling career as a WHM, the more you try and play as an attacker, the less effective you are as a healer. For many players, this is too passive for their playstyle - you see the same phenomenon with red mages.

Many red mages "grow up" through the mid-30's thinking they can be equally good at magic and melee, and when they approach level 40 and have reality shoved in their face, the react one of two ways:

(1) They learn that their role has shifted, and compensate accordingly.

or

(2) They don't learn, and sit around Jeuno at level 40-50 waiting for parties, not understanding why no one wants to party with their "obviously superior" RDM/WAR.

Some WHM players go through the same learning phase, though it is rarer since, unlike RDM, our effective melee capability fades off much earlier, somewhere between level 15-20.

The majority of players prefer the attacking jobs, as the tangible benefits to parties is very visible and obvious (i.e. "Wow I just hit that monster for 1000 damage... that's great!!!"). Far fewer understand that it is, in fact, the most offensively passive jobs that contribute the most to a party (WHM, RDM, SMN, BRD). While being able to rack up the big damage numbers is certainly an ego stroke, there is a different sort of satisfaction that comes with knowing that your presence in a party helps everyone else do what they do far better than if you weren't there.

That being said, I *would* like to see another magic using job appear at some point. If nothing else, it could break the stranglehold that WHM have on levelling between levels 15-33, when WHM are simply the best healers available, and you basically don't go out without one, and it would certainly make the backline party dynamics different.


Icemage

(*) It should be noted that at the highest levels, I have seen some WHM use /SAM for Meditate so they can activate Hexa Strike to complete a skillchain. This is still fairly rare, and is only done when hunting things which are relatively weak to your level, but I dislike making blanket statements without qualifying them.

[Cooncon]

Well, my view, on the healers, say for myself, I level my whm, but when I want to level something else, no other class is in the same league as the white mage, so when I switch classes, it would be to a more offensive player or a buffer.

If I had the option, I would level a different healer, such as when a War wants to change class he would then go level his DRK or PLD or MNK and so on. If I wanna be a healer, I only have one option. And if I wanna play something else, that's one less healer for the parties.

[Rones]

I would level a different healer

If you want to play another healing job, you can play near identical to whm as a smn/whm or play a healer style rdm who has to worry a little less about pulling aggro in the early lvls. Also, not quite as pure healer, try out brd/whm. With max mp gear and pies you will feel a lot like a whm for 1-24 until you get mage's ballad.

Still, one more mage class would be fun to play, perhaps it would entice a few more away from melee (don't need any more people playing these).