Healer Suggestions Megathread

[ty_taurus]

Anyone who's taken a look at the healer forums for more than 5 minutes can probably tell that there are all types of suggestions, kit rework designs, theorycrafting, and all other sorts of healer ideas/changes/suggestions littered across many different topics that are ultimately about other things. The forums is not the most organized space out there, to be sure, and that probably won't change anytime soon. But organizing information more clearly makes it a lot easier for access for anyone glancing through the forums.

For that reason, I want to start a megathread as a space specifically for that type of discussion, not only to avoid potentially derailing other topics, but also to make it as easy as possible to locate various types of suggestions.

So if you're someone who's had some ideas before, why not post them here? Or when you get another idea, use this space to share it so we can try and centralize this info. And if you're reading through, try and remember to upvote the changes you like and think would be good, if you can.

[GrimGale]

Two obvious suggestions, either could work.

-Don't add new damage tools but switch to an attrition and triage model , where damage is slow but constant and random- Something more akin to Barbariccia EX. Give healers interestingly designed healing tools, abilities that don't blaket the group with enormous potency, but something that forces players to triage and think about who to heal, when and with which tool.

-Maintain the current model of encounters but give healers tools to make their filler downtime more interesting while still contributing to the party's progress, either more DPS abilities to juggle with, new expanded forms of support with buffs for allies and debuffs for enemies.

Both of course while trying to maintain a semblance of balance between the healers. Give a party reasons to bring all the healers along.

[ty_taurus]

Realistically, there are innumerous ways you could go about addressing the problem with healer design and healer engagement in this game. The only limit is the imagination of the designer, and while not every solution will work, there is not only one right answer either, but the key is in identifying which ways will make the largest amount of players from all sides happy.

The thing is, there isn't just one problem area that's causing all this unrest. Healer dissatisfaction stems from a number of weak points in this game's design as a whole:

1. Fight design at all levels does not deal damage frequently enough to require healers to heal more than they attack.
2. Healer kits have become too powerful. Fight design has not adapted to the throughput that the healers are capable of.
3. When no healing is needed, healer gameplay is atrociously slow, boring, and also horribly designed to support a "solo-play friendly" design philosophy.
4. Non-healer sustain is too frequent and too powerful that it lowers the value of the support that healers are meant to bring.

Resolving the issues with healers cannot adequately be corrected by addressing only one of these aspects. The best way to turn the healing role around is to address all of these points within respects of one another.

Now, addressing all these points at the same time is possible, but can also be tricky depending on how they're executed. It's entirely reasonable to say that the best way to approach these points is to do so gradually in waves. For example, perhaps you start with the healer kits, let the community become comfortable with those changes, and ramp up healing requirements across all difficulties of content over the course of an expansion until you find a healthy sweet spot. Meanwhile, non-healers can have some forms of sustain, but perhaps we make it more about utility that empowers the healers rather than doing the work for them.

With WAR, for example, maybe instead of being a flat heal, Equilibrium instead increasing the amount of HP restored to the WAR via healing actions. Overhealing received extends the duration of Thrill of Battle's HP increase to a maximum of 10 more seconds. Shake it off increases the value of the next barrier received on the party by 10%. Things like that can help make that utility about the healers without gutting the tanks or any other job.

[Renathras]

Two obvious suggestions, either could work.

-Don't add new damage tools but switch to an attrition and triage model , where damage is slow but constant and random- Something more akin to Barbariccia EX. Give healers interestingly designed healing tools, abilities that don't blaket the group with enormous potency, but something that forces players to triage and think about who to heal, when and with which tool.

-Maintain the current model of encounters but give healers tools to make their filler downtime more interesting while still contributing to the party's progress, either more DPS abilities to juggle with, new expanded forms of support with buffs for allies and debuffs for enemies.

Both of course while trying to maintain a semblance of balance between the healers. Give a party reasons to bring all the healers along.

Agreed, and then some. I said in General something that I think is the core of the problem here:

As a long time Healer both here and in other games, the Healer ROLE isn't the problem. Encounter design and the Tank and DPS roles being arguably OP with heals and mitigation is. Homogenization is, but that extends well beyond the Healer role. The big issue that no one wants to talk about is the battle system is super rigid with Jobs/Roles supposedly having very rigid places in it, but then you get ones that blur the lines (like RDM) in ways that break the delicate balance that the rigid system is pushing for

In a game with a less rigid system, this would be fantastic. But in one with a rigid system, it makes some roles or mechanics broken or trivial or unnecessary or etc. The thing is, it's unclear if FFXIV can change from that rigidity. And that rigidity is what has driven things to the point they're at now.

WoW is different than FFXIV with wild disparities in balance and DPS and even some specs not being welcome in content. But it allows for this because its Trinity is far less rigid than FFXIV's is, and it was even more freeform in the past, with Vanilla flirting with having a full on buffing/Support role. This is true of some other games as well, such as Lord of the Rings Online. MMOs used to be that way, though arguably less by intent and more by accident and oversight and just not being...polished. But FFXIV has been polished to a homogenized morass. I think Sebezy and (maybe?) Roe have also said this - that the more the game's encounters have shifted to being "puzzles to solve", the fewer actual options there are in "how to solve the puzzle", leading to a rigid system with rigid solutions that get boring.

And while some may be tempted to blame FFXIV's technological debt, the fact is, it wasn't this way until ShB and on. Even SB encounters weren't this way, and ARR and HW ones absolutely were not. So it's not exactly some limitation imposed by the game engine itself. (And even if it somehow were - e.g. bosses not being able to autoattack while casting [which they did in the past, so that shouldn't be, either] - there are ways around that such as having untargetable NPCs off the field like the dragons circling Nail in the final fight of Second Coils.)

[ForsakenRoe]

As per the OP, here is my idea on what to do with WHM

Here is my idea on what to do with SGE

(the SCH and AST ones can be ignored they kinda suck)

WoW is different than FFXIV with wild disparities in balance and DPS and even some specs not being welcome in content. But it allows for this because its Trinity is far less rigid than FFXIV's is, and it was even more freeform in the past, with Vanilla flirting with having a full on buffing/Support role.

Ironically, on the PTR at the moment you can try a new spec, which is in fact entirely support focused. I don't know the exacts of it, but from what I've heard about Augmentation Evoker, it's actual personal dps is roughly 40% that of a regular DPS, and 60% of it's output comes from it's buffing allies. It's got skills like 'you buff the nearest 4 allies' primary stat with a percentage of your own primary stat for X seconds', and then a bunch of interactions that extend that buff so you refresh it less often. Kinda like 'Iron Jaws'-ing it. And it's got an AOE version of Wildfire, which every party member can contribute to (not just yourself), AND every skill that is used on it is considered to have crit for the sake of calculating the total compiled damage (so it's not going to noodle and feel bad)

I hope it turns out to be a rousing success for them. If anyone's interested to look, the talent tree gives a good overview of what it's capable of and how it plays

edit: turns out it'd be better to watch a video about it, the levelling passives and mastery are pretty important to the gameplay too and they're not mentioned in the talent tree

[Irenia]

I've been thinking about theorecrafting, and put in a lot of work in a WHM rework, and a bit into a SCH one. The big thing is that I've been using a newer framework, that attempts to answer what the game is testing as a whole, and then asking how to design jobs to match the game. There is the assumption that to be good at content is to be able to consistently clear said content, and that encounters will be designed similarly to how they are now. As such, there are two axis to consider. The game tests knowledge and observation, with knowledge given the greater weight. The players must prepare for these encounters and execute on them, however, preparation is key (a failed run is prep for the next one, here).

Knowledge * Preparation : Fight knowledge, spreadsheet planning, job muscle memory, general game knowledge. This is the most important thing for a clear. Going in blind means you are only bringing your muscle memory and general knowledge to beat, and you have to learn while you fight; gaining information from those who came before will quickly get you to a point where your reflexes can carry you the rest of the way.

Knowledge * Execution : The ability to execute mechanics while doing your job. This is "Uptime". Easier encounters will be lax on this, but this is what enrage timers, above all else, test. Second most importantly, here.

Observation * Preparation : The ability to learn. This is most important for world first races and others who do things blind, but unless you have someone doing all the shotcalling for you, even watching a video needs a bit of this in order for it to sink in.

Observation * Reaction : Dealing with random or chaotic encounter design, as well as players not playing well. The game is currently designed for players to minimize needing this as much as possible. That said, if you do BLU raids or crazy stuff like healerless ultimates, this is very important due to the increased chaos. Plus, recovering from a supposed wipe does feel good, even if rare.

After all of that, I think the big thing is that the healers don't really test knowledge that hard. There is optimization, yes, but only if you need to squeeze as much as you can from your primary heals. My answer is to put "cool stuff" that players may want to do in a job that requires knowledge and practice to access effectively. Or, less stuff gated by only a cool down timer.

As an example, my WHM idea would bring back a revised Cleric Stance. All of your good stuff can only be used in Cleric Stance. Out of Cleric Stance you only have Cure II, Medica, and an oGCD or two - enough to keep people alive in anything Extreme and under. Keeping DPS up and replenishing resources requires changing your stance. But unlike DPS who tend to have tight buff windows for max deeps, WHM is flexible in when they change stance while not dropping damage. And if things really it the fan, you can replenish resources quickly, but it is not as smooth to do so; or you can spam Cures and Medicas, since those work as well as Stone to replenish lilies, of course.

This will allow players to Medica a Expert dungeon raidwide to get people topped, but good play allows them to set up some mit beforehand tied with a regen in a way that requires some forethought outside of "is it up yet".

TL;DR : design should engage the brain even on simple stuff. Do this by making cool stuff take a little work to access.

[ty_taurus]

[...]

If you're doing some theorycrafting, I recommend checking out Miro as something to arrange your thoughts with. It's a whiteboard space you can share similarly to a google doc that we started using at work, and I think it's magical. It just makes things look so clean and readable.

In another thread I did a FFXIV theorycraft on a job from another game just as a for-fun idea that turned out like this, as an example of how I arranged things using the app. Up to you of course, just thought I'd share.

[Shurrikhan]

My $0.02 of wants for the healer role, in ascending order of ambition:

1. More to do with/during downtime.

2. Somewhat increased healing requirements, especially in a manner that doesn't directly increase the severity of whatever heal checks are already noticeable.

Soft Target of Change: I'd like for the occasional oGCD to be something worth saving (even if less so for SGE/SCH, who can just Lustrate/Druochole, etc., in a pinch).

3. Greater differentiation of healer kits.
If we're not going to make MP a real thing, there's no point in each having a Cure-equivalent opposite a job-unique heal (Adlo, C2, AB, EuD), nor a Medica-equivalent for 3 out of 4 healer jobs (though at least Eukrasia makes this more forgivable on SGE). More importantly and ultimately, though, jobs just shouldn't feel like a unique gimmick strapped atop a shared core, but should instead feel like a theme unique to that job that's been organically expanded upon but with some deliberate cultivation to ensure each is enjoyably leverageable for healing purposes.

(Role Actions? Ideally, get rid of all of them, replacing them --only as would improve in-practice depth and enjoyment-- with job-unique of reaching the former capacity [likely among others].)

[Aravell]

In addition to the expansion of the downtime kit, I think healers could benefit from diversification of their healing kits as well. Some ideas I have about each healer's kits:

WHM
Remove the regens, just purely big numbers. The only healer that can top up the party in 1-2 buttons should be WHM. Direct heals, staggered direct heals, healing buffs etc.

AST
Regen healer, play into the time aspect, applies many types of regens. Can consume regens for emergency heals, regen extension, regen speedups etc. Maybe a button that freezes all damage for a few seconds and then spreads it out into a DoT (doesn't work if the damage is 500% higher than your max HP to prevent cheesing enrages and such).

SCH
Remove the shields. Play into the tactician aspect. Lots of buffs/debuffs, can utilise fairy for stratagems, has heavy mitigation and utility. Maybe a button that applies a debuff on a target which allows all allies to drain HP from the target.

SGE
Remove all mitigation, just pure barriers. Limited utility, has big shields, stackable shields, can boost shield strength etc.

[Irenia]

If you're doing some theorycrafting, I recommend checking out Miro as something to arrange your thoughts with. It's a whiteboard space you can share similarly to a google doc that we started using at work, and I think it's magical. It just makes things look so clean and readable.

In another thread I did a FFXIV theorycraft on a job from another game just as a for-fun idea that turned out like this, as an example of how I arranged things using the app. Up to you of course, just thought I'd share.

Thanks

I kind of had... Thoughts for awhile and it just came out as a jumble now. The WHM stuff I've actually started to write up but I haven't posted because I wasn't satisfied with the organization. So I'll check Miro out.