They literally hand you some of the, if not the strongest classes right off the bat in Second. Wizard literally shits on everything once you unlock time mage. It was probably a good thing time mage was acquired so late. Edit: I posted that before I got to the part in the video where he said wizard is the strongest thing in the whole series lmao.
It's been a while, but I seem to remember White Mage doing MORE healing for less BP than Bishop. Yeah, Bishop could do a full heal off of 2BP, but White Mage could essentially do the same thing with Cura late game.
I think it's a crime to have not brought up exorcist once. I actually swapped my main healer in BS to an exorcist and used that for the entirety of the end game. Reverting HP to previous states as a method of healing felt so perfectly in line with the brave and default system, allowing you to create crazy healing scenarios. I'd say the biggest advantage they have is the fact that their healing can target KOd units. Nothing's worse than lining up a curaga and that unit dies before it goes off, but with exorcist, alive or dead the undo still goes off. Throw on all the other utility and the somewhat broken online functionality that of course, no longer functions at all, and you've got my favorite caster in the game.
Excorsist is so good. I feel it would be hard to use as a healer on its own though because it cant multiheal by itself (without tounges obviously). If its not too much to ask what was your exorcists subjob/build?
One option they could roll with is making salve-maker the early game healer, but rather than it being a job that improves upon existing healing items from the get-go it starts by making the basic healing items from reagents that would be significantly easier to obtain, dropping from nearly every enemy. Or they could have their own resource a la guardian that they can spend on generating potions or hi-potions. Then in the higher job levels this new salve-maker could do it's usual job of improving upon the normal healing items, roughly around when you would be getting white mage or even slightly before.
This what ff:war of the lions did with offering chemist first. Its great because it evolves as more power items become available later on. A chemist like healer should always be the starting healer.
I feel the biggest problem with White Mage game design that I noticed during my current playthrough of BD1 is that it does too much: It can heal really well with the right skills. Raise allies, Cast protective spell, Get rid of status effect. Does damage. This is too much and due to this. Other class aren't able to stand on their own or offer something when there a class that does it better.
Im sorry but i completly dissagree with you (essay warning💀). In my opinion all of the jobs should be usable from beginning to end and relativly equal in power. Its this way in bd2 and i think thats what they where going for in all the games. (Except maybe 4 heros if that even counts in this discussion but tbh i have not played it yet). Making early jobs weak just gives the player less choice. Players are allready encouraged to experiment by abilities and simply wanting to try new jobs. I did not switch my physical attacker from monk/beastmaster to ranger/beastmaster because ranger is "better". I did it because i wanted to try it. And you are nothing but rewarded for trying out new jobs because even if you dont use it later you get abilities you can use for other job combos which is true in every bravely game (ignoring the job switch penalties in bd1 which havent come back since). I think any scenario where a later job is "better" then earlier ones is just a coincidence of a mistake in balance (ignoring the obvious outliers of yo kai, bravebearer and maybe conjurer). And i love counters but i think its ridiculous to imply that the goal is to make you switch up your party. Its more something you would play around. You would maybe focus on having your red mage heal individual allies instead of your white mage that battle if you could. Instead of swapping your white mage to red and leveling it enough to get the healing spells. Though i agree with you that im glad there is more variety in healing classes in bd2 i do NOT think bd2 red mage is a healing job. It cant even multiheal or revive. Its definitely an offensive magic class that has some healing spells. Thats not a bad thing and its a cool job but its not a healer. I do feel we need more healing jobs im general. I am happy with the variety in bd2 with 3 healers (white mage, salve maker and spiritmaster) but i think 4 or 5 would be preferable. I am shocked you consider bd1 salve maker usable as a healing class on its own. I dont think multiheal costing bp is reliable on its own. I think its more of a supplememtary class to white mage like bd1 spiritmaster. But i have never tried it. It definitely does technicly work. Spiritmaster has no healing spells on its own btw so even if the abilities were cheap it wouldent work. Sort of unrelated but red mage in bravely second has curada so it has potential to work as a healer. But i have not tried it. I used red mage but it was on my magic attack focused charicter so even though i used the healing spells frequently (more then the attacking spells since they get outclassed by spirit magic) i wasnt focusing enough into wisdom so it wasnt strong enough to work as a main healer. But if you focus on wisdom and have an a teir or s teir wisdom job as your main it could theoreticly work. Anyway even though i dont agree with you its always nice to hear what you have to say. Great video.
I actually prefer having a strong healer as one of the early jobs; I actually find it incentivizes trying out different jobs. A lot of jobs are (understandably) really lackluster until they've gotten enough levels. some are even lackluster until you've established a particular synergy, which requires leveling up multiple jobs. Thus, at some point, you have to go from your decently high current job to a new level 1 job, which will be accompanied by a drop in overall performance in battle. Such a drop in the mid game is a lot more manageable (at least for me) thanks to having a strong healer that I've already gotten to a decently high level as a secondary job on one of my characters. besides, I don't feel like strong healing from late game White Mage is even all that necessary. By late game, attacks either do minor damage that can be healed with low level healing, or straight up kills from full HP. Either way, I stopped using White Mage; other classes had just as good healing for the situations I kept finding myself in, while also providing better damage, more varied support abilities, or both... Though granted, a large part of that might just be because Ninja's kairai (I think that's the ability's name; been a while since I played) basically neuters single-target *anything* from the opponent.
You make an interesting argument. I do agree that it's kinda boring to mostly be using one job throughout the game. I did have a lot of fun experimenting with other healer options throughout the games, like Salve Maker in BD1 and SM and Spiritmaster in BD2, but WM has always been an easy option to fall back on and it adds up to a lot of play time throughout the game. A "crappy" early game healer is an interesting way to offset that, as long as it does some things nothing else can do so it maintains a unique niche throughout the game (not that it even needs to be as good as the others, just some reason to use it on occasion). That said, the reason why the WM is the early game healer in the first place is because of its simplicity. It's an easy to understand, easy to use option that new players can use while they get used to the battle system until they unlock more complex options later. Starting out with something more complicated, only to unlock the simpler WM later feels very weird. Then again, Second starts you out with the Wizard who has spellcraft, which is one of the more complicated mechanics in the game, so maybe it could work, idk. That's just my two cents.
Honestly, I really like the notion of getting White Mage for the second half of a game and getting Red Mage like maybe... a third of the way in? Forcing heling item use in games with a FF chassis should be something a game does because default potions are pretty economical for what they provide, but fall off hard once HP starts to get higher. The Freelancer's Halfsies could be a good skill on this hypothetical medic job, along with healing boost and possibly a Bishop-style good measure-esque ability for item healing. Two potions combined for the power of 3 made into an efficient AoE that decreases the potency somewhat with healing boost on top of that (and the potential to stack item boost as well in the late game) seems pretty reasonable and scales with better healing items. However 2 potions, a brave point and mana every time you want a decant AoE heal is prohibitive enough to encourage exploring alternate jobs when hi-potions come into play and doesn't really swing back into viability until the late game when x-potions and gil are abundant and you have way more tools.
Thinking about the Bravely series and other Asano games, I think I can come up with a few ideas. Red Mage could be made available before Black Mage and White Mage, as an inferior but more versatile job that could possibly stay strong even in the late game. That's also kind of the case in BS, but there's also Wizard and Bishop even before it. If it's the BD/BS Red Mage, it would work as is, but for BDII's version, while it may still work, the set healing might have to be changed (to not be too strong in the early game, but also not fall off later). Red Mage's Heal spells in BDII are an interesting alternative to Cure spells, not just because it's set healing, but also because it can only be used on a single target, which is an interesting element to keep in mind. The weaker early game healing job could only have single target spells while the stronger late game job could have access to AoE healing. Bishop in BS, while probably at least slightly overtuned, is interesting because it's got percentage-based healing. And that's a pretty good alternate type of healing, as long as one doesn't clearly overshadow the other. In Various Daylife, there are different jobs that can heal, and some of them distinguish themselves with this kind of healing, as opposed to a stat-based healing. There could also just be a power split between the jobs, like the earlier job gets the weaker Cure and Cura spells, while an endgame job gets Curada and Curaga. With other abilities in their kit of course, which could be completely different (so that the endgame job doesn't necessarily completely overshadow the early game one). As you've mentioned, there can be a job focusing slightly more on Regen, or other forms of healing like reviving / curing status ailments (and maybe keep the "cure all status ailments" thing more towards the end of the game). Overhealing (healing beyond max. HP) can be a form of advanced healing as well. Some of these ideas are done in Triangle Strategy. I want to say that I like your idea of random healing a lot, I think it could be very cool to see. There's a lot of other possibilities, which can be more weird/unique, like playing on different types of costs (MP costs, BP costs, pg costs, ...), counter healing (maybe like, healing that's not immediate but triggers when attacked, which would be actually good to use on allies with full HP), and more. But I'm not sure if complexifying the game like that is a good idea. Could be worth it though.
I'm going to be honest. I view White Mage in BD as the basic healer. The one that you have to use if you want a healer. The bread, so to speak, of the sandwich, since subclassing is a thing and all. So it's always been about "what can I get up to in mixing this with another class for maximum screwing around potential" for me. But to be fair, I am also a fan of costumes looking good and will in fact run four freelancers with relevant subjobs in endgame to prove a point if I have to.
I felt I should add this here as I forgot to include it in the video: I believe the core of this idea comes from FFXIV, where you don't start with the classic Final Fantasy classes but instead get lesser versions of them to start with, that you then later work towards. For me, I started as a Thaumaturge, which led me to Black Mage with time, and was something I enjoyed there.
You only don’t start with the traditional classes because it was building on 1.0. If it had been built good from the start we very likely would have just gone straight into Warrior/Black Mage/White Mage/Monk
I think there might be a problem with having the White Mage show later on in the game. That problem being how it's even harder to acquire later in the story than earlier, what with said class being really difficult to damage more per round than it can heal.
Maybe make Salve Maker the early Healer class. The way I would work it is give it a default passive that grants back the Brave used in when using Forage, so you can put that brave back into making and using items for healing early on, then expand into debuffs and buffs.
I agree that white mage being so strong and reliable early limits the healing job exploration. I don't think making an intentionally weaker job is the best solution, I like that every job can feel strong in it's own right. I think a good solution would be a healing job that is focused around defensive play. For example, their base kit is focused around increasing defenses, preventing incoming damage with a shied (that is less effective that hp restoring), or healing more on a character that is defaulting. This option still gives a job that has uses and feels complete, but people wanting to be more offensive or proactive will be tempted to try upcoming healing jobs.
Honestly I totally agree. I put in the work for Salve-Maker and came to love it, but the vast majority of people probably look at it and think "this is just White Mage but it costs items." If there were some significant shortcoming for the job or it had a rough start and required a lot of effort to get it to do what it does it might be fine, but White Mage is kinda just too good at too much right out of the gate.
Tell you what I think, I think we need to approach healing the same way we approach martial classes in these games, away with the broadly useful group cast heal spells and give us classes with different healing abilities with their own stipulations and mechanics. Imagine a starting healer with all single target skills that includes a single target heal that applies a marker on the target, a "reaction heal" skill where the healer waits for the next ally to get hurt and heals them for a good amount after (once per turn), and a skill that procs a heal on all party members with the marker from the single target heal and removes it. from there, introduce later classes that either interact and compliment the starting healer's skillset (skills that add/interact with heal markers) provide other utilities the healer can perform during downtime (shields, status curing, buffs/debuffs) or other healing classes with their own stipulations, like a class that returns the elemental damage they do into group wide healing. This sounds convoluted and complicated, but that's the idea! make healing something you have to work for, something that involves moment to moment decision making to get the maximum value with the current game state, something that requires a bit of preparation just like damage. and instead of having the one do-it-all healer, make the healer something you gotta build for on each battle like you do with damage classes.
The point of getting White Mage earlier is it is not only a primary class that’s recognisable by history but because of said history everyone understands it. It is easy to do and something to fall back on. All the early jobs are. This allows jobs going foward to be unique
I think it would be fun for Salve Maker to be the first healer we get. Because, I do think that in the late-end game it’s better than the white mage, in the early game it would be trash because you don’t have easy access to the items it requires.
Honestly I'm down for the next Bravely game changing up the formula and giving us White Mage later, it'd be pretty interesting to see considering they did the same thing with Wizard as the early game magic class in second, and it remains useful due to its higher magic and innate access to spellcraft
Great video. I also agreed with white mage being too powerful in the early game, and I think a beginning class with only single target healing with ok physical damage so it not bad late game can work too.
Probably would be a good idea to have Red an Blue Mages as early options, so players can experiment with different kinds of magic, then introduce the heavily specialized White and Black ones mid game, since those can reach highs the other two can't. This is a problem I have with Red Mages in general, why would I bother making any of my characters a red Mage in any game, if specializing in a single role yields better results?
The only thing I can say to this is that in the original FF Jobs game, Final Fantasy 3, White Mage only got to lvl 5-6 spells, and the White Magus with the cat ear hood could do 1-8 spells, sort of like a class up. I think the problem is that BD knows that FF3's jobs were stupid unbalanced, but didn't know how to fix or change the white mage dilemma, since in FF5 it's the same, you basically keep a White Mage on at all times and there is *no* upgrade aside from White Wind Blue Mage, which can only be obtained in the late game by a rare enemy. Maybe having a weaker healer, like FFT's Chemist, early on, would be helpful, but i also understand just how important sticking to FF is for Team Asano and BD. Leaving White Mage for the middle or end is weird. Maybe give WhM some good endgame skills to give you a viable reason to master it, but keep them stuck at Cura, and then introduce the Spiritmaster with access to Curaga, similar to WhM and WhMagus?
I'm personally a fan of having White Mage early. I've come to expect it from playing so many Final Fantasy games and obviously it does a good job of helping less experienced players. The real problem is that White Mage is primarily a pure healer and generally games with multiple jobs aren't going to create multiple pure healers. They'd rather give them damage like Red Mage or unique utility like Spirit Master. I don't think there's anything wrong with this. I think it's more up to the player to stop relying on White Mage when there are so many other viable team builds out there. But if you're new to JRPGs or just trying to chill, White Mage is simple and trust worthy.
I'm someone who enjoys doing challenge runs to intentionally make my party less optimal because it forces the player to be creative. So for my personal tastes, I would love a change like this. It would make me appreciate the other aspects of the game more, and it invites me to experiment to try out all the available classes that can heal, even if they're not designed to heal primarily. I guess the only thought that would give me pause is would this change make the game less accessible for those looking to get their feet wet in the turn-based RPG space? I'm not sure. Plenty of games have a higher difficulty curve very early on and I think I vaguely remember them doing what you suggested. Etrian Odyssey is one such example. I think their healers were not great at the beginning, and you had to rely on filling the holes with your DPS and Tanks from time to time. It does get the creative juices flowing though, and I personally really enjoy those intense moments.
I'll disagree on this one, as a veteran of this series and Final Fantasy. It's easy to say you want the healer later, but JRPGs fundamentally need their healers, where they also have their own utility. In Fire Emblem, staff utility is basically the most busted thing. In Final Fantasy IX though, the White Mages are useful, and you really feel not having them, but you donxt necesarilly need them in the party. Xenoblade very much likes having its healers, but its healers also do more. Signifier is a healer class, but that's not why it's the best class in the game, it's because it's a buffing/utility class. But, in other Xenoblade games, Tanking characters can make healers useless depending on the party. What I'm trying to say is that White Mage is powerful by design, yes, because it's an anchor of game design, to make sure a player always has the tools moving forward. Aa you said, the Red Mage healing in BD1 just wasn't enough, and that's sort of the point of it. It's strength of flexibility is its selling point, able to supplement any given area whenever, but giving up power in exchange. Ultimately, healing and utility classes will always be powerful, because there is always something they can do. In games where they're not, it's often because there's aomething else very specific being done, but I could still confidently tell you that a healer was still powerful in the game. On what you said about weaker classes, we did have one in Final Fantasy Tactics, though that game.use a system of essentially promoting into higher class levels.
Something that comes to mind for me is how Xenoblade 2 wound up in a "Healers aren't worth using" situation. It primarily applies to lategame, but healers are made redundant because other classes could access sufficient healing on their own. 3 addressed this by nerfing all sources of healing, and cutting down on ways to heal overall so it would be almost exclusive to the healers, and even then, direct healing is heavily restricted for most of them, instead mainly being given general support options. I could imagine BD sorting out its "The healer is too strong" issue by doing the inverse and splitting up healing abilities across multiple classes instead of putting them all in one basket. Would also be nice putting a bit of usable utility in more classes' toolkits because BD jobs can sometimes end up with one-trick-pony syndrome, which felt especially prevalent in BD2. Pretty much set it up so other jobs working together could scrounge up just enough recovery to get by without a dedicated healer so you won't feel shackled to always having one.
Xenoblade 3 then has the issue of zombie teams just being fantastic. I remember running 5 Thaumaturges and Teach as my hero as a joke, and it genuinely just worked. The accessory that recharges your arts when you revive an ally is really nice, too.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I think it's more important that other healer jobs are given strong capabilities that make them desirable to play with, rather than making a mediocre white mage or pushing it to the late game. Octopath is considerably more limited in experimentation, but also really good at handling this with your healer options. Apothecary and Cleric divide rather easily into a Physical Tank in Apothecary with high damage for higher risk and less spread healing, and powerful healing with ease of use in exchange for the frailty of the Cleric. The Cleric fulfills the White Mage's traditional role, but the uniqueness of the Apothecary lets it stand apart from the Cleric. But back to Bravely. An important feature with Bravely is the use of the Subjob and Ability system, making the skill list as important to builds as the jobs are. It's the subjob system that allows classes like the Red Mage to become dedicated healers, as they can tailor themselves to fill the role with things like Items for All and Glace or Healing Lore. Some classes can excel as healers simply by adding a skill or two from another class. In other words, Bravely Default's own system incentivizes diversifying even with having a strong, standard job in the white mage. Thusly, I think instead of making the White Mage worse, the other healer jobs should provide alternative mechanics that make them rewarding. I'll include Vampire/Catmancer because they're allowed to have their mixed bag of tricks while still having a solid but gimmicky heal, and that is huge to its usuability. The Salve-Maker provides unique options that with some experimentation (or a guide), it gives exclusive tools like x2 Max Hp, Reraise and Half-Elixir in the same kit. Bishop's issue on the other hand is a case of being too centralizing and also boring. Where White Mage has alternatives that can provide good hp with benefits for some more work, nothing can quite outpace Bishop's easy max hp options. My issue with the Medic concept is that classes are not necessarily defined to be useful at set points in the game, but at all points, with the player being encouraged to make them useful. Especially with NG+ being a dedicated system in the game. Of the top of my head, if I were to give it defining features while still making sure it drops in how effective a healer it is as you pick up more jobs, the Medic could have Healing Shiv-inspired abilities. Namely, it heals allies by 'attacking' them. This would allow it to proc certain on-hit effects like revenge. By focusing on single target HP healing, it automatically limits itself by not providing group targeting, a highly valuable thing healers want and need later on. In exchange, the Medic could also provide a handful of other tools. (Reliable) status ailments, buffs, debuffs, barriers, MP recharge, or even BP transfer are all things it could potentially take in the mid game, forgoing group healing. In the late game, it could be given synergies with other heal classes to get that group healing, or have a unique ability that allows group casts of its own abilities, circumventing the "First healer is best." It would be awkward to have the White Mage exclusively be in the back half of the game, but not the original six FF1 classes. It'd be interesting to see the six of them come as the final classes, with maybe a warrior or freelancer for the final asterisk holder.
Honestly; White Mage is the most simple and straightforward healer, hence why it has been the first one you should get, That being said; I’m all for splitting up its utility, with jobs like Green Mage who could take over its ability to empower and maybe even take over Red Mage’s lackluster ailment gimmick.
I don't feel like introducing a "weaker" job is admittedly a good idea, because I do think it's important for games like BD to maintain the idea that jobs remain useful throughout. Either for the abilities it provides in battle or the bonuses it can give through passives. However, healing is also an issue because you can only apply it in so many ways before you start overlapping in concepts. BD's focus on white mage mostly comes from the fact it's really the only main story you get, with Salvemaker being entirely optional. Same with how Bishop is also the only real healer of Second (if you don't count Exorcist's method of "healing"), they have to remain good until endgame so you don't walk up to the final boss with an underpowered healer that can't handle everything it throws at them. BDII has the benefit that it makes most jobs mandatory, allowing it to also mess around with how healing can be applied: basic white magic, flat number healing red magic, item-based healing + ailment recovery at once Salvemaker, even the -bringer line from Spiritmaster to have a passive healer that can use its turns for other actions. It's the best variety the series has, with each coming with their own approach for healing. That and Freelancer also has its treat skill for some quick HP/MP recovery very early game if you don't have potions ready. Comparing to its sister game, Octopath has a simple difference between the two healer classes being that one is an AoE healer and the other is a single-target healer, sacrifising either weaker group recovery or strong heals for little BP. Some advanced jobs do have unique ways to heal but the main jobs are just a simple AoE vs single-target difference. So my thoughts? Do like BDII and just introduce different healing methods that may be riskier but can outshine white mage if played right. Passive healing that frees your hands for more actions, flat healing so you don't have to worry about stats, healing that gets stronger depending if conditions are met, or even those that even heal from attacking the enemy. Add to that the bosses that encourage job switching and you probably could make white mage feel less mandatory.
I played BD1 blind on hard recently (first time trying the series) and White mage was pretty much the only job I just never let go of. Putting such a strong healer class so early made the game feel like “if you dont get one shot you win,” which is definitely weird to avoid in a turn based rpg but pretty much my entire run was hoping my healer didnt get sniped every once in a while (and afaik there isnt a taunt until pirate). Don’t get me wrong i still enjoyed the game a lot and i love the different jobs but White mage felt like it was the core of everything. I would swap around jobs on everyone but Tiz (my healer) and while i did like the different styles they offered i feel that it didnt really matter because as long as i was using White mage to full heal i couldnt lose. In the end to me it felt like the game was balanced entirely around white mage forcing enemies to do loads of damage leading to grinding for hp every boss or cheesing with valk/ninja because the heal was just that powerful. In comparison, Red Mage was just a straight downgrade. Salve maker was fine but to be honest i just used it to get Healing Lore. I have no idea how other people experienced the game though so those are my thoughts. I would love if such strong healing class was only accessible in lategame so they wouldnt feel so centralizing. Personally I’d love if every job was balanced throughout the game and new one’s didnt completely outclass old ones, so white mage wouldnt be that overwhelming still but i suppose that helps with the feel of powerscaling and progression, so this solution is fine.
It is odd that White Mage is the only support job in Bravely Default that offers direct healing. Even if you try to use the other support jobs, Perfomer, Salve Maker, or Spirit Master you're going to add White Magic as the secondary ability. The only case I can think of otherwise is using Performer as a secondary job for a Freelancer, and that's just to use My Hero in combination with Mimic to get infinite BP. However, that's nothing new. Both Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy V White Mage is one of the first jobs you get, and most players will have a character being White Mage or using White Magic as a secondary ability for almost the entire game.
I used the white mage class till the end in BD/BS. Atleast for BD I often read, that white mage is not an endgame class. I found it to be nearly irreplaceable.
I agree and may add besides wizard in BD2 Black Mage is in a similar boat I never felt the need for Arcanist when Black Mage seems to do higher damage numbers
Plentiful (no true hard use limit or real opportunity cost) and unconditional (lack of conditions requiring preparation/class cooperation/opponent participation) healing in is generally detrimental to meaningful choice inside most turn based combat systems. Your health pool is effectively limitless, damage from opponents must be designed around engaging in a numerical race with your healing ability that you are meant to win, you get hit and you react with a heal, it's just down to numbers granted by grinding rather than good decisions as to whether you keep up. If healing every single turn is not a choice then it's never going to feel like a satisfying decision, instead it is a class/party member that your opponent is playing and making decisions for you. Unless there's a wildly extra-mainstreamal philosophy applied to the next Bravely game anyone who agrees with this video is going to be disappointed and with the series already suffering in broad appeal for being a bit niche due to its minor divergence from the norm, change is not likely. PS if you thought classes in Delicious in Dungeon were pretty cool, you should take a look at Wizardry 1: Proving Grounds of the Mad God. It happens to feature the hard use limits and opportunity costs for healing that I'm raving about.
Speaking of "Medic" though... Aren't they force you to use "Freelancer" as Healer on Bravely Second with their [ Halfsies ] ability? Even on the part when you fight with Bella & Cú Chulainn for the first time, that is till you got Fencer & Bishops on the fight of [ Janne & Nikolai I ], It will be more challenging if you keep that way till you've to choose between Thief for more DPS but keep Freelancer as healer. or Red Mage as your first healer. I'd says its too early we get those 2 job class, at least... till you fight Janne III on the fort for Fencer, and Nikolai II on the Crystal Shrine for Bishop.
I don't know if I agree with you, but I'm here for any conversation about the Bravely series in hopes of convincing SQEX to finally make Bravely Third (or whatever they're gonna call it).
I'm here to comment, given the tough gites towards the end of BD, WHM isn't OP. What I loved about BD is it challenged you and made you think up different combos to use with classes.
These turn based game should really have very unique abilities for their respective class. Or like equpping the job by itself grants multiple specific passive abilities Like initially White Mage has White Ward, which grants a chance to to half damage taken, but maybe with higher job levels it can learn a Healing over time buff that heals more if the target if lower in HP, or heck even something special like casting only healing spells allows the user's turn tobcome up much faster(this wouldnt work in phasic turn based battles like BD and BSecond, maybe up their priority?)
Or heck, maybe a healing spell that can bank the overheal amounts to heal the target again as soon as they take damage Though this prolly could be a passive too
Pretty sure I used spirit master absorption + black knight dark hole spam to beat everything past the first iteration including the final boss Really wasnt too costly considering how low my level was. Very sustainable but certain combinations broke the games damage engine. Dont really have a problem with white mage and had a lot of weird setups without a dedicated heal
Honestly I think Red Mage should be the starter offensive and healer class with Black and White mages coming soon after. It gives the player a jack of all trades early that usually gets discarded later for more specialized job classes later.
I honestly don’t understand the problem I switch my jobs all the time and I’ve rarely a healer and with sub classes having white mage as a sub job and have offensive magic class
I more so thinking of do we need a White Mage at all? Don't get me wrong I love the classic FF jobs but I think it would be kinda fresh abondon the FF jobs and instead introduce more new jobs for BD3 if that ever becomes a thing.
Etrian oddysey has very few dedicated healing classes, usually they are something else as a primary and with investment healing gets added to those buffs debuffs or attacks. Thats probabky the way to handle this, you shouldnt start with a dedicated healer, you should have a hybrid, no reason to have such a specialist at the start
I gave this a lot of thoughts because I feel there's a problem here but your solution of a weaker healer is a bit misguided imho. First of all technically BD1 already does this because the Duchy jobs are actually an advanced form of the 4 basic jobs you get in the story. This hinted by the fact that both arcanist and spiritmaster have passives that improve black magic or white magic and also hinted by the skit teaching you the combo phoenix's flight + minus strike. It seems that in their idea and design white mage was already not the ultimate healer but spiritmaster was, this is also reflected in the Stats. Imho the problem is less about white mage being too strong but the fact that creating healing classes is very difficult and thus has created the variety problem, Second tried to do some variety thanks to exorcist and spellcraft from wizard but I believe Asano improved on this on BD2, salve maker is tied to some easy to find items (also and Red mage has proper heals now. Now I'm probably missing alot because I haven't played the games in a hot minute however I feel like the problem isn't that white mage is strong, the problem is that generally alternatives come late or aren't interesting
Interesting thoughts, not sure I'm on board, but like ... are they even in the work of a BD3/Bravely Third? Feels like Bravely may have flamed out, despite how much I love the series. BD2 felt like a big downgrade from Bravely Second to me.
For red mage in BD and BD second you use it for its passives not it's spell list, red mage's identity is tied to bp manipulation more than anything. In BD2 you just don't use red mage, simple as, all you need is thief to win the whole game, did it myself.
never had this problem becaus eive always hated white mage and i stop using as soon as i can use something else... and salve maker is so insanely good because it can fully heal everyone's hp mp and bp every turn for completely free so like why would i ever use white mage in endgame
I don't think pushing white mage till later is a good idea. Given how much healing is nessesary in the series, and how straightforward white mage is for new players, changing the early game healer would require a complete upturn of how the game is played. Healing early not good enough? Enemies will have to be weaker Healing items are cheeper or easier to get? Why heal class at all, everyones a soft white mage now Other healers can hold the line? Either they're just a new white mage, or white mage is obsolete. I agree that id like something to be done. If you know how to min max or grind for items you could go healerless for all the games. But its way more difficult and we do have to think about new or casual rpg enjoyers. I already weep for red mage, who never lived up to the jack of all trades thing only to turn into the new bishop in bd2. Theres gotta be a healthy balance somewhere
The best healer is obviously a Dark knight spamming his hit all Dark move after your spiritmaster made everyone absorb dark
@@Edujs23 this is the most based comment yet
And then they made Bishop in Second which renders the White Mage completely obsolete lmao
Bishop obliterates WM in Second, but Angelic Ward is nice.
Ok but White Mage Magnolia and Edea are hot so...
They literally hand you some of the, if not the strongest classes right off the bat in Second. Wizard literally shits on everything once you unlock time mage. It was probably a good thing time mage was acquired so late.
Edit: I posted that before I got to the part in the video where he said wizard is the strongest thing in the whole series lmao.
Spiritmaster in BD1 is literally just a glorified White Mage upgrade, lmao
It's been a while, but I seem to remember White Mage doing MORE healing for less BP than Bishop.
Yeah, Bishop could do a full heal off of 2BP, but White Mage could essentially do the same thing with Cura late game.
I think it's a crime to have not brought up exorcist once. I actually swapped my main healer in BS to an exorcist and used that for the entirety of the end game. Reverting HP to previous states as a method of healing felt so perfectly in line with the brave and default system, allowing you to create crazy healing scenarios. I'd say the biggest advantage they have is the fact that their healing can target KOd units. Nothing's worse than lining up a curaga and that unit dies before it goes off, but with exorcist, alive or dead the undo still goes off. Throw on all the other utility and the somewhat broken online functionality that of course, no longer functions at all, and you've got my favorite caster in the game.
Excorsist is so good. I feel it would be hard to use as a healer on its own though because it cant multiheal by itself (without tounges obviously). If its not too much to ask what was your exorcists subjob/build?
One option they could roll with is making salve-maker the early game healer, but rather than it being a job that improves upon existing healing items from the get-go it starts by making the basic healing items from reagents that would be significantly easier to obtain, dropping from nearly every enemy. Or they could have their own resource a la guardian that they can spend on generating potions or hi-potions. Then in the higher job levels this new salve-maker could do it's usual job of improving upon the normal healing items, roughly around when you would be getting white mage or even slightly before.
Octopath's Apothocary was really balanced as healing goes for early game, late game busted but not early.
This what ff:war of the lions did with offering chemist first. Its great because it evolves as more power items become available later on. A chemist like healer should always be the starting healer.
I feel the biggest problem with White Mage game design that I noticed during my current playthrough of BD1 is that it does too much:
It can heal really well with the right skills.
Raise allies,
Cast protective spell,
Get rid of status effect.
Does damage.
This is too much and due to this. Other class aren't able to stand on their own or offer something when there a class that does it better.
Also offers the single best source of passive defense in BD1, Angelic Ward.
Im sorry but i completly dissagree with you (essay warning💀). In my opinion all of the jobs should be usable from beginning to end and relativly equal in power. Its this way in bd2 and i think thats what they where going for in all the games. (Except maybe 4 heros if that even counts in this discussion but tbh i have not played it yet). Making early jobs weak just gives the player less choice. Players are allready encouraged to experiment by abilities and simply wanting to try new jobs. I did not switch my physical attacker from monk/beastmaster to ranger/beastmaster because ranger is "better". I did it because i wanted to try it. And you are nothing but rewarded for trying out new jobs because even if you dont use it later you get abilities you can use for other job combos which is true in every bravely game (ignoring the job switch penalties in bd1 which havent come back since). I think any scenario where a later job is "better" then earlier ones is just a coincidence of a mistake in balance (ignoring the obvious outliers of yo kai, bravebearer and maybe conjurer).
And i love counters but i think its ridiculous to imply that the goal is to make you switch up your party. Its more something you would play around. You would maybe focus on having your red mage heal individual allies instead of your white mage that battle if you could. Instead of swapping your white mage to red and leveling it enough to get the healing spells. Though i agree with you that im glad there is more variety in healing classes in bd2 i do NOT think bd2 red mage is a healing job. It cant even multiheal or revive. Its definitely an offensive magic class that has some healing spells. Thats not a bad thing and its a cool job but its not a healer.
I do feel we need more healing jobs im general. I am happy with the variety in bd2 with 3 healers (white mage, salve maker and spiritmaster) but i think 4 or 5 would be preferable. I am shocked you consider bd1 salve maker usable as a healing class on its own. I dont think multiheal costing bp is reliable on its own. I think its more of a supplememtary class to white mage like bd1 spiritmaster. But i have never tried it. It definitely does technicly work. Spiritmaster has no healing spells on its own btw so even if the abilities were cheap it wouldent work. Sort of unrelated but red mage in bravely second has curada so it has potential to work as a healer. But i have not tried it. I used red mage but it was on my magic attack focused charicter so even though i used the healing spells frequently (more then the attacking spells since they get outclassed by spirit magic) i wasnt focusing enough into wisdom so it wasnt strong enough to work as a main healer. But if you focus on wisdom and have an a teir or s teir wisdom job as your main it could theoreticly work. Anyway even though i dont agree with you its always nice to hear what you have to say. Great video.
I actually prefer having a strong healer as one of the early jobs; I actually find it incentivizes trying out different jobs. A lot of jobs are (understandably) really lackluster until they've gotten enough levels. some are even lackluster until you've established a particular synergy, which requires leveling up multiple jobs. Thus, at some point, you have to go from your decently high current job to a new level 1 job, which will be accompanied by a drop in overall performance in battle. Such a drop in the mid game is a lot more manageable (at least for me) thanks to having a strong healer that I've already gotten to a decently high level as a secondary job on one of my characters.
besides, I don't feel like strong healing from late game White Mage is even all that necessary. By late game, attacks either do minor damage that can be healed with low level healing, or straight up kills from full HP. Either way, I stopped using White Mage; other classes had just as good healing for the situations I kept finding myself in, while also providing better damage, more varied support abilities, or both... Though granted, a large part of that might just be because Ninja's kairai (I think that's the ability's name; been a while since I played) basically neuters single-target *anything* from the opponent.
You make an interesting argument. I do agree that it's kinda boring to mostly be using one job throughout the game. I did have a lot of fun experimenting with other healer options throughout the games, like Salve Maker in BD1 and SM and Spiritmaster in BD2, but WM has always been an easy option to fall back on and it adds up to a lot of play time throughout the game. A "crappy" early game healer is an interesting way to offset that, as long as it does some things nothing else can do so it maintains a unique niche throughout the game (not that it even needs to be as good as the others, just some reason to use it on occasion).
That said, the reason why the WM is the early game healer in the first place is because of its simplicity. It's an easy to understand, easy to use option that new players can use while they get used to the battle system until they unlock more complex options later. Starting out with something more complicated, only to unlock the simpler WM later feels very weird. Then again, Second starts you out with the Wizard who has spellcraft, which is one of the more complicated mechanics in the game, so maybe it could work, idk. That's just my two cents.
Honestly, I really like the notion of getting White Mage for the second half of a game and getting Red Mage like maybe... a third of the way in?
Forcing heling item use in games with a FF chassis should be something a game does because default potions are pretty economical for what they provide, but fall off hard once HP starts to get higher. The Freelancer's Halfsies could be a good skill on this hypothetical medic job, along with healing boost and possibly a Bishop-style good measure-esque ability for item healing.
Two potions combined for the power of 3 made into an efficient AoE that decreases the potency somewhat with healing boost on top of that (and the potential to stack item boost as well in the late game) seems pretty reasonable and scales with better healing items. However 2 potions, a brave point and mana every time you want a decant AoE heal is prohibitive enough to encourage exploring alternate jobs when hi-potions come into play and doesn't really swing back into viability until the late game when x-potions and gil are abundant and you have way more tools.
Thinking about the Bravely series and other Asano games, I think I can come up with a few ideas.
Red Mage could be made available before Black Mage and White Mage, as an inferior but more versatile job that could possibly stay strong even in the late game. That's also kind of the case in BS, but there's also Wizard and Bishop even before it. If it's the BD/BS Red Mage, it would work as is, but for BDII's version, while it may still work, the set healing might have to be changed (to not be too strong in the early game, but also not fall off later).
Red Mage's Heal spells in BDII are an interesting alternative to Cure spells, not just because it's set healing, but also because it can only be used on a single target, which is an interesting element to keep in mind. The weaker early game healing job could only have single target spells while the stronger late game job could have access to AoE healing.
Bishop in BS, while probably at least slightly overtuned, is interesting because it's got percentage-based healing. And that's a pretty good alternate type of healing, as long as one doesn't clearly overshadow the other. In Various Daylife, there are different jobs that can heal, and some of them distinguish themselves with this kind of healing, as opposed to a stat-based healing.
There could also just be a power split between the jobs, like the earlier job gets the weaker Cure and Cura spells, while an endgame job gets Curada and Curaga. With other abilities in their kit of course, which could be completely different (so that the endgame job doesn't necessarily completely overshadow the early game one).
As you've mentioned, there can be a job focusing slightly more on Regen, or other forms of healing like reviving / curing status ailments (and maybe keep the "cure all status ailments" thing more towards the end of the game). Overhealing (healing beyond max. HP) can be a form of advanced healing as well. Some of these ideas are done in Triangle Strategy.
I want to say that I like your idea of random healing a lot, I think it could be very cool to see.
There's a lot of other possibilities, which can be more weird/unique, like playing on different types of costs (MP costs, BP costs, pg costs, ...), counter healing (maybe like, healing that's not immediate but triggers when attacked, which would be actually good to use on allies with full HP), and more. But I'm not sure if complexifying the game like that is a good idea. Could be worth it though.
I'm going to be honest. I view White Mage in BD as the basic healer. The one that you have to use if you want a healer. The bread, so to speak, of the sandwich, since subclassing is a thing and all. So it's always been about "what can I get up to in mixing this with another class for maximum screwing around potential" for me.
But to be fair, I am also a fan of costumes looking good and will in fact run four freelancers with relevant subjobs in endgame to prove a point if I have to.
I felt I should add this here as I forgot to include it in the video: I believe the core of this idea comes from FFXIV, where you don't start with the classic Final Fantasy classes but instead get lesser versions of them to start with, that you then later work towards. For me, I started as a Thaumaturge, which led me to Black Mage with time, and was something I enjoyed there.
You only don’t start with the traditional classes because it was building on 1.0. If it had been built good from the start we very likely would have just gone straight into Warrior/Black Mage/White Mage/Monk
@@mrbubbles6468 On top of that Yoshi-P has wanted to remove base classes for years, but hasn't been able to justify it yet.
I think there might be a problem with having the White Mage show later on in the game. That problem being how it's even harder to acquire later in the story than earlier, what with said class being really difficult to damage more per round than it can heal.
Maybe make Salve Maker the early Healer class. The way I would work it is give it a default passive that grants back the Brave used in when using Forage, so you can put that brave back into making and using items for healing early on, then expand into debuffs and buffs.
I agree that white mage being so strong and reliable early limits the healing job exploration. I don't think making an intentionally weaker job is the best solution, I like that every job can feel strong in it's own right. I think a good solution would be a healing job that is focused around defensive play. For example, their base kit is focused around increasing defenses, preventing incoming damage with a shied (that is less effective that hp restoring), or healing more on a character that is defaulting. This option still gives a job that has uses and feels complete, but people wanting to be more offensive or proactive will be tempted to try upcoming healing jobs.
A real take you have here ! White mage is like the only class I kept in BD1 and BD2
Honestly I totally agree. I put in the work for Salve-Maker and came to love it, but the vast majority of people probably look at it and think "this is just White Mage but it costs items." If there were some significant shortcoming for the job or it had a rough start and required a lot of effort to get it to do what it does it might be fine, but White Mage is kinda just too good at too much right out of the gate.
Are you talking about bd1 or bd2?
Tell you what I think, I think we need to approach healing the same way we approach martial classes in these games, away with the broadly useful group cast heal spells and give us classes with different healing abilities with their own stipulations and mechanics.
Imagine a starting healer with all single target skills that includes a single target heal that applies a marker on the target, a "reaction heal" skill where the healer waits for the next ally to get hurt and heals them for a good amount after (once per turn), and a skill that procs a heal on all party members with the marker from the single target heal and removes it.
from there, introduce later classes that either interact and compliment the starting healer's skillset (skills that add/interact with heal markers) provide other utilities the healer can perform during downtime (shields, status curing, buffs/debuffs) or other healing classes with their own stipulations, like a class that returns the elemental damage they do into group wide healing.
This sounds convoluted and complicated, but that's the idea! make healing something you have to work for, something that involves moment to moment decision making to get the maximum value with the current game state, something that requires a bit of preparation just like damage. and instead of having the one do-it-all healer, make the healer something you gotta build for on each battle like you do with damage classes.
The point of getting White Mage earlier is it is not only a primary class that’s recognisable by history but because of said history everyone understands it. It is easy to do and something to fall back on. All the early jobs are. This allows jobs going foward to be unique
I think it would be fun for Salve Maker to be the first healer we get. Because, I do think that in the late-end game it’s better than the white mage, in the early game it would be trash because you don’t have easy access to the items it requires.
Didn't Final Fantasy Tactics do that?
You had to master the item class (forgot its official name) in order to unlock the White Mage class.
Honestly I'm down for the next Bravely game changing up the formula and giving us White Mage later, it'd be pretty interesting to see considering they did the same thing with Wizard as the early game magic class in second, and it remains useful due to its higher magic and innate access to spellcraft
Great video. I also agreed with white mage being too powerful in the early game, and I think a beginning class with only single target healing with ok physical damage so it not bad late game can work too.
Probably would be a good idea to have Red an Blue Mages as early options, so players can experiment with different kinds of magic, then introduce the heavily specialized White and Black ones mid game, since those can reach highs the other two can't.
This is a problem I have with Red Mages in general, why would I bother making any of my characters a red Mage in any game, if specializing in a single role yields better results?
The only thing I can say to this is that in the original FF Jobs game, Final Fantasy 3, White Mage only got to lvl 5-6 spells, and the White Magus with the cat ear hood could do 1-8 spells, sort of like a class up.
I think the problem is that BD knows that FF3's jobs were stupid unbalanced, but didn't know how to fix or change the white mage dilemma, since in FF5 it's the same, you basically keep a White Mage on at all times and there is *no* upgrade aside from White Wind Blue Mage, which can only be obtained in the late game by a rare enemy.
Maybe having a weaker healer, like FFT's Chemist, early on, would be helpful, but i also understand just how important sticking to FF is for Team Asano and BD. Leaving White Mage for the middle or end is weird. Maybe give WhM some good endgame skills to give you a viable reason to master it, but keep them stuck at Cura, and then introduce the Spiritmaster with access to Curaga, similar to WhM and WhMagus?
I'm personally a fan of having White Mage early. I've come to expect it from playing so many Final Fantasy games and obviously it does a good job of helping less experienced players.
The real problem is that White Mage is primarily a pure healer and generally games with multiple jobs aren't going to create multiple pure healers. They'd rather give them damage like Red Mage or unique utility like Spirit Master. I don't think there's anything wrong with this. I think it's more up to the player to stop relying on White Mage when there are so many other viable team builds out there. But if you're new to JRPGs or just trying to chill, White Mage is simple and trust worthy.
I'm someone who enjoys doing challenge runs to intentionally make my party less optimal because it forces the player to be creative. So for my personal tastes, I would love a change like this. It would make me appreciate the other aspects of the game more, and it invites me to experiment to try out all the available classes that can heal, even if they're not designed to heal primarily. I guess the only thought that would give me pause is would this change make the game less accessible for those looking to get their feet wet in the turn-based RPG space? I'm not sure. Plenty of games have a higher difficulty curve very early on and I think I vaguely remember them doing what you suggested. Etrian Odyssey is one such example. I think their healers were not great at the beginning, and you had to rely on filling the holes with your DPS and Tanks from time to time. It does get the creative juices flowing though, and I personally really enjoy those intense moments.
I'll disagree on this one, as a veteran of this series and Final Fantasy. It's easy to say you want the healer later, but JRPGs fundamentally need their healers, where they also have their own utility. In Fire Emblem, staff utility is basically the most busted thing. In Final Fantasy IX though, the White Mages are useful, and you really feel not having them, but you donxt necesarilly need them in the party. Xenoblade very much likes having its healers, but its healers also do more. Signifier is a healer class, but that's not why it's the best class in the game, it's because it's a buffing/utility class. But, in other Xenoblade games, Tanking characters can make healers useless depending on the party. What I'm trying to say is that White Mage is powerful by design, yes, because it's an anchor of game design, to make sure a player always has the tools moving forward. Aa you said, the Red Mage healing in BD1 just wasn't enough, and that's sort of the point of it. It's strength of flexibility is its selling point, able to supplement any given area whenever, but giving up power in exchange. Ultimately, healing and utility classes will always be powerful, because there is always something they can do. In games where they're not, it's often because there's aomething else very specific being done, but I could still confidently tell you that a healer was still powerful in the game. On what you said about weaker classes, we did have one in Final Fantasy Tactics, though that game.use a system of essentially promoting into higher class levels.
Something that comes to mind for me is how Xenoblade 2 wound up in a "Healers aren't worth using" situation. It primarily applies to lategame, but healers are made redundant because other classes could access sufficient healing on their own. 3 addressed this by nerfing all sources of healing, and cutting down on ways to heal overall so it would be almost exclusive to the healers, and even then, direct healing is heavily restricted for most of them, instead mainly being given general support options.
I could imagine BD sorting out its "The healer is too strong" issue by doing the inverse and splitting up healing abilities across multiple classes instead of putting them all in one basket. Would also be nice putting a bit of usable utility in more classes' toolkits because BD jobs can sometimes end up with one-trick-pony syndrome, which felt especially prevalent in BD2. Pretty much set it up so other jobs working together could scrounge up just enough recovery to get by without a dedicated healer so you won't feel shackled to always having one.
Xenoblade 3 then has the issue of zombie teams just being fantastic. I remember running 5 Thaumaturges and Teach as my hero as a joke, and it genuinely just worked.
The accessory that recharges your arts when you revive an ally is really nice, too.
I would love a video detailing how absurd the wizard class was in second haha
you mean spellcraft not wizard
@neobahumuth6 the class was "wizard". Spellcraft is just the classes speciality.
adella was my back up in jobs my beast tamer my thief and then they gave me godspeed strike on the fastest character.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I think it's more important that other healer jobs are given strong capabilities that make them desirable to play with, rather than making a mediocre white mage or pushing it to the late game. Octopath is considerably more limited in experimentation, but also really good at handling this with your healer options. Apothecary and Cleric divide rather easily into a Physical Tank in Apothecary with high damage for higher risk and less spread healing, and powerful healing with ease of use in exchange for the frailty of the Cleric. The Cleric fulfills the White Mage's traditional role, but the uniqueness of the Apothecary lets it stand apart from the Cleric.
But back to Bravely. An important feature with Bravely is the use of the Subjob and Ability system, making the skill list as important to builds as the jobs are. It's the subjob system that allows classes like the Red Mage to become dedicated healers, as they can tailor themselves to fill the role with things like Items for All and Glace or Healing Lore. Some classes can excel as healers simply by adding a skill or two from another class. In other words, Bravely Default's own system incentivizes diversifying even with having a strong, standard job in the white mage.
Thusly, I think instead of making the White Mage worse, the other healer jobs should provide alternative mechanics that make them rewarding. I'll include Vampire/Catmancer because they're allowed to have their mixed bag of tricks while still having a solid but gimmicky heal, and that is huge to its usuability. The Salve-Maker provides unique options that with some experimentation (or a guide), it gives exclusive tools like x2 Max Hp, Reraise and Half-Elixir in the same kit. Bishop's issue on the other hand is a case of being too centralizing and also boring. Where White Mage has alternatives that can provide good hp with benefits for some more work, nothing can quite outpace Bishop's easy max hp options.
My issue with the Medic concept is that classes are not necessarily defined to be useful at set points in the game, but at all points, with the player being encouraged to make them useful. Especially with NG+ being a dedicated system in the game. Of the top of my head, if I were to give it defining features while still making sure it drops in how effective a healer it is as you pick up more jobs, the Medic could have Healing Shiv-inspired abilities. Namely, it heals allies by 'attacking' them. This would allow it to proc certain on-hit effects like revenge. By focusing on single target HP healing, it automatically limits itself by not providing group targeting, a highly valuable thing healers want and need later on. In exchange, the Medic could also provide a handful of other tools. (Reliable) status ailments, buffs, debuffs, barriers, MP recharge, or even BP transfer are all things it could potentially take in the mid game, forgoing group healing. In the late game, it could be given synergies with other heal classes to get that group healing, or have a unique ability that allows group casts of its own abilities, circumventing the "First healer is best."
It would be awkward to have the White Mage exclusively be in the back half of the game, but not the original six FF1 classes. It'd be interesting to see the six of them come as the final classes, with maybe a warrior or freelancer for the final asterisk holder.
Honestly; White Mage is the most simple and straightforward healer, hence why it has been the first one you should get,
That being said; I’m all for splitting up its utility, with jobs like Green Mage who could take over its ability to empower and maybe even take over Red Mage’s lackluster ailment gimmick.
I don't feel like introducing a "weaker" job is admittedly a good idea, because I do think it's important for games like BD to maintain the idea that jobs remain useful throughout. Either for the abilities it provides in battle or the bonuses it can give through passives. However, healing is also an issue because you can only apply it in so many ways before you start overlapping in concepts.
BD's focus on white mage mostly comes from the fact it's really the only main story you get, with Salvemaker being entirely optional. Same with how Bishop is also the only real healer of Second (if you don't count Exorcist's method of "healing"), they have to remain good until endgame so you don't walk up to the final boss with an underpowered healer that can't handle everything it throws at them.
BDII has the benefit that it makes most jobs mandatory, allowing it to also mess around with how healing can be applied: basic white magic, flat number healing red magic, item-based healing + ailment recovery at once Salvemaker, even the -bringer line from Spiritmaster to have a passive healer that can use its turns for other actions. It's the best variety the series has, with each coming with their own approach for healing.
That and Freelancer also has its treat skill for some quick HP/MP recovery very early game if you don't have potions ready.
Comparing to its sister game, Octopath has a simple difference between the two healer classes being that one is an AoE healer and the other is a single-target healer, sacrifising either weaker group recovery or strong heals for little BP. Some advanced jobs do have unique ways to heal but the main jobs are just a simple AoE vs single-target difference.
So my thoughts? Do like BDII and just introduce different healing methods that may be riskier but can outshine white mage if played right. Passive healing that frees your hands for more actions, flat healing so you don't have to worry about stats, healing that gets stronger depending if conditions are met, or even those that even heal from attacking the enemy. Add to that the bosses that encourage job switching and you probably could make white mage feel less mandatory.
I played BD1 blind on hard recently (first time trying the series) and White mage was pretty much the only job I just never let go of. Putting such a strong healer class so early made the game feel like “if you dont get one shot you win,” which is definitely weird to avoid in a turn based rpg but pretty much my entire run was hoping my healer didnt get sniped every once in a while (and afaik there isnt a taunt until pirate). Don’t get me wrong i still enjoyed the game a lot and i love the different jobs but White mage felt like it was the core of everything. I would swap around jobs on everyone but Tiz (my healer) and while i did like the different styles they offered i feel that it didnt really matter because as long as i was using White mage to full heal i couldnt lose.
In the end to me it felt like the game was balanced entirely around white mage forcing enemies to do loads of damage leading to grinding for hp every boss or cheesing with valk/ninja because the heal was just that powerful. In comparison, Red Mage was just a straight downgrade. Salve maker was fine but to be honest i just used it to get Healing Lore. I have no idea how other people experienced the game though so those are my thoughts.
I would love if such strong healing class was only accessible in lategame so they wouldnt feel so centralizing. Personally I’d love if every job was balanced throughout the game and new one’s didnt completely outclass old ones, so white mage wouldnt be that overwhelming still but i suppose that helps with the feel of powerscaling and progression, so this solution is fine.
It is odd that White Mage is the only support job in Bravely Default that offers direct healing. Even if you try to use the other support jobs, Perfomer, Salve Maker, or Spirit Master you're going to add White Magic as the secondary ability. The only case I can think of otherwise is using Performer as a secondary job for a Freelancer, and that's just to use My Hero in combination with Mimic to get infinite BP.
However, that's nothing new. Both Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy V White Mage is one of the first jobs you get, and most players will have a character being White Mage or using White Magic as a secondary ability for almost the entire game.
I used the white mage class till the end in BD/BS.
Atleast for BD I often read, that white mage is not an endgame class.
I found it to be nearly irreplaceable.
I agree and may add besides wizard in BD2 Black Mage is in a similar boat I never felt the need for Arcanist when Black Mage seems to do higher damage numbers
Plentiful (no true hard use limit or real opportunity cost) and unconditional (lack of conditions requiring preparation/class cooperation/opponent participation) healing in is generally detrimental to meaningful choice inside most turn based combat systems.
Your health pool is effectively limitless, damage from opponents must be designed around engaging in a numerical race with your healing ability that you are meant to win, you get hit and you react with a heal, it's just down to numbers granted by grinding rather than good decisions as to whether you keep up. If healing every single turn is not a choice then it's never going to feel like a satisfying decision, instead it is a class/party member that your opponent is playing and making decisions for you.
Unless there's a wildly extra-mainstreamal philosophy applied to the next Bravely game anyone who agrees with this video is going to be disappointed and with the series already suffering in broad appeal for being a bit niche due to its minor divergence from the norm, change is not likely.
PS if you thought classes in Delicious in Dungeon were pretty cool, you should take a look at Wizardry 1: Proving Grounds of the Mad God. It happens to feature the hard use limits and opportunity costs for healing that I'm raving about.
Be quite honest the medic idea is actually very interesting😁
Edit: 10:26 you Sly dog
Speaking of "Medic" though... Aren't they force you to use "Freelancer" as Healer on Bravely Second with their [ Halfsies ] ability? Even on the part when you fight with Bella & Cú Chulainn for the first time, that is till you got Fencer & Bishops on the fight of [ Janne & Nikolai I ], It will be more challenging if you keep that way till you've to choose between Thief for more DPS but keep Freelancer as healer. or Red Mage as your first healer.
I'd says its too early we get those 2 job class, at least... till you fight Janne III on the fort for Fencer, and Nikolai II on the Crystal Shrine for Bishop.
I don't know if I agree with you, but I'm here for any conversation about the Bravely series in hopes of convincing SQEX to finally make Bravely Third (or whatever they're gonna call it).
I'm here to comment, given the tough gites towards the end of BD, WHM isn't OP. What I loved about BD is it challenged you and made you think up different combos to use with classes.
These turn based game should really have very unique abilities for their respective class. Or like equpping the job by itself grants multiple specific passive abilities
Like initially White Mage has White Ward, which grants a chance to to half damage taken, but maybe with higher job levels it can learn a Healing over time buff that heals more if the target if lower in HP, or heck even something special like casting only healing spells allows the user's turn tobcome up much faster(this wouldnt work in phasic turn based battles like BD and BSecond, maybe up their priority?)
Or heck, maybe a healing spell that can bank the overheal amounts to heal the target again as soon as they take damage
Though this prolly could be a passive too
Pretty sure I used spirit master absorption + black knight dark hole spam to beat everything past the first iteration including the final boss
Really wasnt too costly considering how low my level was. Very sustainable but certain combinations broke the games damage engine.
Dont really have a problem with white mage and had a lot of weird setups without a dedicated heal
My counter argument: I dont like the outfit so I dont use the class
Porqué no hay videos de bravely default en español!. Gracias a dios tengo los subtitulos automáticos
Honestly I think Red Mage should be the starter offensive and healer class with Black and White mages coming soon after.
It gives the player a jack of all trades early that usually gets discarded later for more specialized job classes later.
I honestly don’t understand the problem I switch my jobs all the time and I’ve rarely a healer and with sub classes having white mage as a sub job and have offensive magic class
I more so thinking of do we need a White Mage at all? Don't get me wrong I love the classic FF jobs but I think it would be kinda fresh abondon the FF jobs and instead introduce more new jobs for BD3 if that ever becomes a thing.
Etrian oddysey has very few dedicated healing classes, usually they are something else as a primary and with investment healing gets added to those buffs debuffs or attacks. Thats probabky the way to handle this, you shouldnt start with a dedicated healer, you should have a hybrid, no reason to have such a specialist at the start
I gave this a lot of thoughts because I feel there's a problem here but your solution of a weaker healer is a bit misguided imho. First of all technically BD1 already does this because the Duchy jobs are actually an advanced form of the 4 basic jobs you get in the story. This hinted by the fact that both arcanist and spiritmaster have passives that improve black magic or white magic and also hinted by the skit teaching you the combo phoenix's flight + minus strike. It seems that in their idea and design white mage was already not the ultimate healer but spiritmaster was, this is also reflected in the Stats. Imho the problem is less about white mage being too strong but the fact that creating healing classes is very difficult and thus has created the variety problem, Second tried to do some variety thanks to exorcist and spellcraft from wizard but I believe Asano improved on this on BD2, salve maker is tied to some easy to find items (also and Red mage has proper heals now. Now I'm probably missing alot because I haven't played the games in a hot minute however I feel like the problem isn't that white mage is strong, the problem is that generally alternatives come late or aren't interesting
Its not just in the bravely series
Good thing it won't depends on you then
Interesting thoughts, not sure I'm on board, but like ... are they even in the work of a BD3/Bravely Third?
Feels like Bravely may have flamed out, despite how much I love the series. BD2 felt like a big downgrade from Bravely Second to me.
@@Theycallmetomu an announcement was made that we should expect news regarding the series sometime this year
@@RedNovaTyrant Got a link? I've been waiting for news but assumed it would never come so I just stopped waiting for Godot.
This video covered the announcement ua-cam.com/video/yKsDKn5bvTo/v-deo.html
For red mage in BD and BD second you use it for its passives not it's spell list, red mage's identity is tied to bp manipulation more than anything. In BD2 you just don't use red mage, simple as, all you need is thief to win the whole game, did it myself.
never had this problem becaus eive always hated white mage and i stop using as soon as i can use something else... and salve maker is so insanely good because it can fully heal everyone's hp mp and bp every turn for completely free so like why would i ever use white mage in endgame
I don't think pushing white mage till later is a good idea. Given how much healing is nessesary in the series, and how straightforward white mage is for new players, changing the early game healer would require a complete upturn of how the game is played.
Healing early not good enough? Enemies will have to be weaker
Healing items are cheeper or easier to get? Why heal class at all, everyones a soft white mage now
Other healers can hold the line? Either they're just a new white mage, or white mage is obsolete.
I agree that id like something to be done. If you know how to min max or grind for items you could go healerless for all the games. But its way more difficult and we do have to think about new or casual rpg enjoyers.
I already weep for red mage, who never lived up to the jack of all trades thing only to turn into the new bishop in bd2. Theres gotta be a healthy balance somewhere
My biggest problem with BD was the rape dungeon... and the content repetition. Playing on an 3ds emulator sucked also.
BD is 10 times better playing in a 3ds, same with Inazuma Eleven