Healers need an overhaul

I have never heard of Misshapen Chair until now but he is very fluent in speaking fax.

https://youtu.be/1d_fMH9Lwvs

The less depth there is in the game in general, the harder it is to make engaging support jobs. For example, TP is no longer a thing, and MP is useless for most jobs. If this were not the case, then we might see a healer with MP/TP restorative elements in its kit. This helps the party, while giving the healer something to do during downtime that isn't just tapping the dps button. In essence, the game needs an overhaul to make healing feel better. Even if you just wanted to keep the kits we have now, they're so overtuned for like 95% of the game's content because the devs are scared of making normal modes have any teeth at all. My hopes aren't high. But I agree with you, OP. I want to feel engaged while healing across difficulty levels.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BaconBits

I have never heard of Misshapen Chair until now but he is very fluent in speaking fax.

https://youtu.be/1d_fMH9Lwvs

---

I'm glad that there are content creators finally pointing out the bad healer design elephant in the room. Maybe that'll create traction, maybe it won't. The Cassandra in me urges caution though: I've seen Chair's takes on healers, and he really seems to get what vet healers are complaining about. For the *most* part. I just also see hints of what I like to call the DPS blinders; there's this thing where someone who mains a DPS class and maybe occasionally heals doesn't fully get what support job mains find entertaining, and an extra quadruple dose of DPS blinders explains a -lot- about the bad direction healer design has gone in the last few expansions. I saw a bit of it in his "parsers are bad" video, mainly the line about healers "chasing imaginary numbers instead of keeping people alive".

The thing is, in the part of the video he said that, everyone WAS alive. They were just at low HP.

DPS blinders goes something like "healers are supposed to heal". See, DPS jobs chase their skill ceiling by maximizing the output of their primary role. That's an oversimplification, but it's easy to understand. Support jobs chase their skill ceiling by minimizing theirs. Figuring out how little you can get away with is part of getting better at the role. That "stress" that Square is hellbent on chasing out of the role is why people main it in the first place. You want to pull people back from the brink of death at the last second. That's the point. I hope that people who actually main healer jobs follow in the wake of this. It's why I like Lucy Pyre's videos more, because she was a healer main. She gets it. You can tell when a DPS main is talking about healers, because you get the sense that they don't quiiiiiiite get it. And that's okay, that's not the high they're chasing. But put someone with those blinders stapled to their face in charge of designing the role, and well...

Misshapen Chair's video is good but I think he's over thinking the recent trends in job design trying to rationalise SE's decisions over the last couple of expansions.

I still stand by my healer designer thread from years ago and I think this lack of manpower and experience within the core job design team is forcing them to homogenise and streamline things to keep everything manageable within the limitations of the tiny team they have to work with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Semirhage

I saw a bit of it in his "parsers are bad" video, mainly the line about healers "chasing imaginary numbers instead of keeping people alive".

The thing is, in the part of the video he said that, everyone WAS alive. They were just at low HP.

---

Honestly, this is a pretty common viewpoint and amusingly its this exact thing that's had me keep my spot in such a high end FC despite how hilariously bad my logs generally are.

*edit*

Out of curiosity, I just double checked the credits:

Kei Sato - Battle Director

Takashi Kawamoto - Battle System Designers
Hikaru Tamaki
Hironori Isami

So nothings changed since Shadowbringers. Isami isn't listed as a Junior designer anymore but that's it. Best case, that's 4 full time job designers and that's assuming that Sato doesn't get pulled away for overarching game direction work given his senior role.

Keep in mind that this is the same sized team that ARR launched with, with literally half the number of jobs not to mention far fewer abilities per job.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ealer-designer.

Talk about ageing like a fine wine :rolleyes:

Heya, while I’ve owned FF14 for some time now I never really started playing it as I was a WoW fanboy but now has seen the light, while in WoW I mained Resto Shaman in all end game content getting Cutting Edge which is like your Ultimate Raids but would love to give a few insight from a healer playing both games.

While I really am focusing more in FF14 now as AST and SCH it does become a little mind numbing when theirs not much to do but it’s really hard to give solid feedback as basically every healer in FF14 basically plays the same. Theirs really no specialists in healing besides Pure Healer/Regen and Barrier Healer.

In WoW you’d try to bring multiple healers for their specific roles and unique cool-downs, granted they have 20 player raids so you tend to bring 4/5 healers, but I feel like that seems to be the problem in FF14, it’s gotten to a point where every healing job is basically like the other, just one regens while the other shields and even that isn’t truely unique as most healing jobs have a few spells that do the opposite.

For example Paladins in WoW are the kings of Tank Healing as their mastery bonus (a stat), heals more the closer they are to the target, while brining immunity bubbles, Restoration Shamans bring mana tide totem (mana regen) and spirit link totem (It reduces damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. Every second it also redistributes the health of all affected players so everyone has the same percentage of their maximum health), which is massive..

But that’s what I think is what’s the game is lacking, maybe reduce the amount of heals each class has but then implement more class specific abilities unique to them, make each healing job bring something amazing to the table unique to them.

Healing DPS is hard to fix, while in WoW, as A Resto Shaman on single target honestly it’s 3 buttons, Lightning Bolt, Flame Shock and cast Lava burst when Flame Shock procs a instant cast lava burst, but you always busy healing so it’s not that much of an issue while in FF14 a lot of abilities can be dodged or minimised by stacking mechanics or range damage drop off.

It was a huge change coming from WoW to FF14, being used to procs to use abilities and more consistent healing I feel like FF14 is very “casual” friendly, which is good and bad.

While I never played the jobs in other expansions, and only played FF14 really for 9 weeks I do feel healers could benefit from a more dps focused rotation, I love how they’ve done the new PvP, like why can’t these new abilities make room into PvE?, WHM have seraph strike, SCH Mummification (reduce damage dealt in exchange for reduce healing received in PvE) and AST double cast. I think Sages Skills are available in PvE and PvP.

But that’s just a Band-Aid fix but will definitely add a little more to do. Personally I feel like each healer is to similar, once you’ve played one you’ve played them all it seems.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pepino

But that’s what I think is what’s the game is lacking, maybe reduce the amount of heals each class has but then implement more class specific abilities unique to them, make each healing job bring something amazing to the table unique to them.

---

They're afraid to do this because of balance~ They don't want to create a meta yet fail to realize their lack of action has already created one.

I'm honestly fairly resentful that the game could be so much more pve wise but the devs are scared of arbitrary numbers and meta so they refuse to do anything fun in relevant content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nethereal

They're afraid to do this because of balance~ They don't want to create a meta yet fail to realize their lack of action has already created one.

I'm honestly fairly resentful that the game could be so much more pve wise but the devs are scared of arbitrary numbers and meta so they refuse to do anything fun in relevant content.

---

I 100% agree, there will always be a meta but I’ve always said player skill trumps meta classes, but I seriously been researching a lot and it seems through each expansion most healing jobs keep losing what use to make them unique through each expansion, for example I’d love AST to get Diurnal Sect & Nocturnal Sect back, I feel that would of been a great start of making healing jobs unique, AST being a healing job that could then be flexible with any co-healer.

But it seems they have 2 choices really, either overhauling end game content where theirs more consistent damage so we have to heal more which then brings issues with MP which would have to be adjusted, or completely overhauling every healing job making them actually have a semi dps rotation to do during the down time when healing isn’t necessary.

I’ve heard from reading the forums AST is getting reworked, so this might be a great indication of the direction they are choosing to go with. Personally I’d love to see Healers getting perhaps their PvP skills incorporated into to their PvE kit and perhaps throw in some proc based interactions to help keep us busy, Combust has a 30 - 40% chance per tick to make your next Fall Malefic instant cast, then with the PvP ability you double cast it which then reduces the the cool-down of double cast by 7.5 seconds like how double cast works in PvP would be nice.

It’s hard to say exactly how to mend this issue, I’ve played 17 years of WoW, so I’m pretty use to how WoW works and I do enjoy how they’ve made each healer feel unique, while yes there is a meta in WoW I’ve never had issues playing non-meta classes/specs doing all high end content, that really only affected those who did the race to world first.

But I’m interested to see how Square Enix addresses this issue if they ever do, because honestly maintaining combust every 30 seconds and spamming Fall Malefic is a little lack luster.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Avoidy

The less depth there is in the game in general, the harder it is to make engaging support jobs. For example, TP is no longer a thing, and MP is useless for most jobs. If this were not the case, then we might see a healer with MP/TP restorative elements in its kit.

---

See AST's card problem for more information.

AST had MP/TP restoration. Spire (I believe) and Ewer (as seen in PvP currently).

I would LOVE for MP to matter outside of Raise and DRK. I don't think we're going to see that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebazy

Honestly, this is a pretty common viewpoint and amusingly its this exact thing that's had me keep my spot in such a high end FC despite how hilariously bad my logs generally are.

---

Yeah, I've seen the viewpoint pretty often too. I think DPS and Tank mains really have no idea just how infrequent AOE damage in this game is. Yeah I left you at 30% health for 20 seconds, random phantom DPS player. What are you scared of? We're in a dungeon, it's not like the boss is going to do anything.

The game was worse in an imbalanced state than it is in its current one. The devs could not design meaningful support abilities without making them so overpowering that not having them made the game less fun.

Like, I get the desire for something better, and I get that imbalance placed in the right places makes the game more fun, but people want something that the dev team has shown no desire or even ability to actually do. Healing is frankly the only time that the devs have given us something that we didn't ask for. And even in this day and age, people still get unreasonably mad whenever there's an imbalanced thing that adds flavor to a job, like AST trivializing that one mechanic in P3S.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

The game was worse in an imbalanced state than it is in its current one. The devs could not design meaningful support abilities without making them so overpowering that not having them made the game less fun.

Like, I get the desire for something better, and I get that imbalance placed in the right places makes the game more fun, but people want something that the dev team has shown no desire or even ability to actually do. Healing is frankly the only time that the devs have given us something that we didn't ask for. And even in this day and age, people still get unreasonably mad whenever there's an imbalanced thing that adds flavor to a job, like AST trivializing that one mechanic in P3S.

---

I would much rather have an imbalanced game that's fun than a perfectly balanced game that's boring, and I feel like healing has become a victim of the latter in most cases. Balance is important, but it shouldn't come at the cost of enjoyment. I don't care that the old AST cards were a balance disaster. I would play that AST over our current AST 100% of the time if given the opportunity. I don't give a shit that new AST has balanced cards that I can rely on when using them is boring and yet somehow convoluted.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

people still get unreasonably mad whenever there's an imbalanced thing that adds flavor to a job, like AST trivializing that one mechanic in P3S.

---

That was a dev oversight, they've nerfed skills for less. E.G. Adlo crit interaction, Selene completely removed for TEA, expedient nerfed possibly because of DSRU.
If that skill ever has an interaction like that ever again I would be surprised. They're probably not going to nerf it til they invent another fight with a similar mechanic.

The main problem with that example is that everything needs to be OP for nothing to be OP AST being the only class able to do that was just frustrating.
If classes are better at each other at something that's fine it's a nice spice but if a class is simply better, that's it, that's not fun.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

The game was worse in an imbalanced state than it is in its current one. The devs could not design meaningful support abilities without making them so overpowering that not having them made the game less fun.

Like, I get the desire for something better, and I get that imbalance placed in the right places makes the game more fun, but people want something that the dev team has shown no desire or even ability to actually do. Healing is frankly the only time that the devs have given us something that we didn't ask for. And even in this day and age, people still get unreasonably mad whenever there's an imbalanced thing that adds flavor to a job, like AST trivializing that one mechanic in P3S.

---

While some people take the approach of anything less than perfect balance is the end of the world, those people should be ignored just like those who claim to find a job hard yet they have never bothered to learn it.

An approach where everything is imbalanced but fun is shown by several games to not only be viable but much more fun than the current status of ff14. Jobs were at their heights in HW and SB depending on the individual job when jobs were imbalanced but still fun and encounter design still encouraged "weaker" jobs over stronger ones in some instances. That is why its the golden age of job design even if it had some rough patches that the devs failed to fix.

Providing that even the weaker jobs are still viable, then its fine. Pvp shows this, not every job is equal but they are all unique and fun and a team of weaker jobs can still flatten a supposed stronger one with player skill.


Unfortunately the devs are in the middle of a long term plan of dumbing everything to oblivion. Its only picked up the wider pushback it deserves now because it finally got around to dps jobs when in fact it should never have got off the ground.
For healers specifically, we need to rollback to Sb (sch, ast) and Hw (whm, ast) asap.

if ast does get its cards back in 6.2, then that will bring a lot of players back to the job. Because it was fun and useful in contrast to what parsers screech who care only about their E-peens

edit: I'm a week from my sub running out and SE has sent me no less than 4 emails now saying eorzea needs me to return. Maybe if healers weren't completely unnecessary, ast got its cards and time magic back, sch got its dots and selene back, whm got its elements back and expanded and sage got some more damage buttons I'd be more inclined to listen and sub for a month.
If they actually put some proper repeatable content in, I'd sub even more!

I'll keep an eye out for Ast's revision in 6.2 but I ain't holding my breath. The housing timer is off rn so I can afford to wait for the drip feed of content to 6.2 or 6.3.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Recon1o6

An approach where everything is imbalanced but fun is shown by several games to not only be viable but much more fun than the current status of ff14. Jobs were at their heights in HW and SB depending on the individual job when jobs were imbalanced but still fun and encounter design still encouraged "weaker" jobs over stronger ones in some instances. That is why its the golden age of job design .....

---

This is only the case when in low to high skill levels the balance is somewhat similar. And only the extremely skilled would be able to exploit the true strenght. Otherwise even for the relatively high skilled games, a lot of jobs will already be called useless. People always look at a skill level above them for building a meta, as that shows them there is room for improvement.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Providing that even the weaker jobs are still viable, then its fine. Pvp shows this, not every job is equal but they are all unique and fun and a team of weaker jobs can still flatten a supposed stronger one with player skill.

---

PvP is a completely diffirent aspect with a diffirent balance approach. A lot of things you can do to players are impossible in PvE, and a lot of PvE aspects do not show in PvP. In most PvP games its still individual skill that beats class balance, and usualy simpler jobs (that normaly are weaker) end up being stronger because of that simplicity.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Recon1o6

if ast does get its cards back in 6.2, then that will bring a lot of players back to the job. Because it was fun and useful in contrast to what parsers screech who care only about their E-peens

---

Any measurement tool is horrible at nuances, and on that just causes people to blame each other (hence i think its good that its bannable). And especialy in mid/high to low skill ranges such information is usualy incomplete. The best measurement is still looking at such players. And from experience, we can say that in such skill level no player can properly do that. But its usualy that players who lack such knowledge are still using such tools and blindly looking at it to state when a healer did good or bad. The most simple example: measuring the dps of a healer is a garbage metric. If the tank is taking excessive damage, the healer has to heal that and reduce the dps that way, but at the same time, that damage taking can be used to allow the DPSs to deal even more damage with AoE's.

Sadly i cant comment on the cards system as i joined ffxiv too late for that. But i am quite well aware of balance potential, and what simplification sometimes can do. In the current system however i generaly just ignore the exact cart and only just apply it in the way of 'it boosts some damage, so a dps gets it' (you only need to look for a few cards), and sometimes looking at the sun/moon/star-icons to optimize those by rerolling a card. I can imagine this being more complex to also being more rewarding.

I just wish we had one healer where you could definitively say "Yep, a dev mains this job." Going from something like Black Mage, where you can tell there's love and attention put into it, towards something like White Mage, is night and day.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Recon1o6

if ast does get its cards back in 6.2, then that will bring a lot of players back to the job. Because it was fun and useful in contrast to what parsers screech who care only about their E-peens

---

This is why you'll never get your cards back.

If your argument for something involves insults and an attack at a group of players who don't share your opinion, no dev will ever listen to you.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

This is only the case when in low to high skill levels the balance is somewhat similar. And only the extremely skilled would be able to exploit the true strenght. Otherwise even for the relatively high skilled games, a lot of jobs will already be called useless. People always look at a skill level above them for building a meta, as that shows them there is room for improvement.

---

FFXIV has always been very consistent about balance though, or at least, not having jobs be unviable for nearly all of the game's lifespan. Consider that WHM for example who has quite literally nothing to offer that any of the other healers can't offer, and yet people were taking it into Ultimate during the world first race streams.

EDIT: Unrelated to this post above, Misshapen Chair has a new video as of yesterday that's not specifically about healing, but is definitely something important to the ongoing healer discussion, and I wanted to throw it down here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d_fMH9Lwvs

Watched that video myself, he has some pretty solid points.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

This is why you'll never get your cards back.

If your argument for something involves insults and an attack at a group of players who don't share your opinion, no dev will ever listen to you.

---

Let's not be facetious: that isn't why those cards aren't coming back.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MintnHoney

Let's not be facetious: that isn't why those cards aren't coming back.

---

They'll never come back because they have like 4-5 people balancing every single job and they can't justify the math required to balance AST cards.
Not to mention they're salty the community only used balance when they designed such an oh so great system.

DPS neutral Lilies were a good change and I'm glad they listened on that. Now it's time for the devs to go even further beyond and to read the healer forum!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nizzi

DPS neutral Lilies were a good change and I'm glad they listened on that. Now it's time for the devs to go even further beyond and to read the healer forum!

---

There's very little chance of that ever happening. I'm not even sure the community reps go in there anymore and they probably haven't since Stormblood.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reiryuu

There's very little chance of that ever happening. I'm not even sure the community reps go in there anymore and they probably haven't since Stormblood.

---

I'm down on my hands and knees, begging you please Yoshida, make our jobs fun again... ;_;

Again? Well, good luck.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Consider that WHM for example who has quite literally nothing to offer that any of the other healers can't offer, and yet people were taking it into Ultimate during the world first race streams.

---

IMO WHM is easier to play (less stress), doesn't require any unlocks, has good looking gear (for some aesthetics matter), and has Holy. That's just a few things that makes it different from other healers.

It's simple to pick up and just go...even if you don't main healer. Some people want 'easy and reliable' (let's call it 'comfy') especially when going into unknown situations.

I've been a healer main in EVERY mmo I've played for 20ish years now and I have never been able to heal in FFXIV. It's like they are appealing to people who DON'T LIKE to heal. I don't want to dps the whole fight while weaving heals. In fact, it should be the opposite.

Let the HEALER role focus and prioritize HEALING!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Knetik

I've been a healer main in EVERY mmo I've played for 20ish years now and I have never been able to heal in FFXIV. It's like they are appealing to people who DON'T LIKE to heal. I don't want to dps the whole fight while weaving heals. In fact, it should be the opposite.

Let the HEALER role focus and prioritize HEALING!

---

I was going to start out by saying that it is designed to appeal to people who like to heal and DPS- and the game was *appealing* a few years ago (speaking as HW scholar main).

i can say that i also have been playing MMOs for at least that long and this * healers just stand and heal* is nonsense- a number of games gave healers options to both DPS and heal. Sure, in some situations, a healer would be only healing, but that could represent only a fraction of game content.

So no thanks, this approach is fine, i don't see why someone can't or wouldn't want to be able to DPS while weaving in heals.

I imagine you're asking for perhaps something like random incoming damage or some other types of mechanics? Random mechanics aren't part of this game (though that could change), maybe the addition of more utility skills?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Knetik

I've been a healer main in EVERY mmo I've played for 20ish years now and I have never been able to heal in FFXIV. It's like they are appealing to people who DON'T LIKE to heal. I don't want to dps the whole fight while weaving heals. In fact, it should be the opposite.

Let the HEALER role focus and prioritize HEALING!

---

The Core problem with FFXIV Healers is, that they are way overtuned for most Content they are to cover. ALL Dungeon content, ALL Raids except Ultimate content, is severely undertuned in the way how much HP and damage Monsters/Bosses have and deal. And on the flipside, Healers are bloated with a average Number of 14 Healing Abilities, that fundamentally do the same.

And to make matters worse, Tanks are now pseudo-Healers that most of the time, dont even NEED heals from a second Party and ONTOP of that, both Tanks and the Deeps are covered with a silly amount of Utility Skills that should normally be in the hands of Healers.


So tl;dr: Squeenix WANTS Healers to wear Diapers because they simply dont trust the average Player to cover basic Healing duties in MMOs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

I was going to start out by saying that it is designed to appeal to people who like to heal and DPS- and the game was *appealing* a few years ago (speaking as HW scholar main).

i can say that i also have been playing MMOs for at least that long and this * healers just stand and heal* is nonsense- a number of games gave healers options to both DPS and heal. Sure, in some situations, a healer would be only healing, but that could represent only a fraction of game content.

So no thanks, this approach is fine, i don't see why someone can't or wouldn't want to be able to DPS while weaving in heals.

I imagine you're asking for perhaps something like random incoming damage or some other types of mechanics? Random mechanics aren't part of this game (though that could change), maybe the addition of more utility skills?

---

i feel like theres some disconnect. i dont want to speak for the other person, but i also wish they stopped designing the healer role around people who dont want to heal. what do i mean by this?

i always liked healing in ffxiv, because the reward for becoming a good healer (that is, learning how to heal efficiently), was to do a lot of damage. theyre designing healers around people who dont like to heal, in that by removing dps actions they make the reward for being efficient is unrewarding. in that theres so little, infrequent and scripted damage that theres not much in the way to even being efficient in the first place. when you can overheal things 3x over, resource management is gone.

the current approach is not fine because they're failing to appease both crowds: the healers who want to heal, and the healers who want to dps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by QooEr

i feel like theres some disconnect. i dont want to speak for the other person, but i also wish they stopped designing the healer role around people who dont want to heal. what do i mean by this?

i always liked healing in ffxiv, because the reward for becoming a good healer (that is, learning how to heal efficiently), was to do a lot of damage. theyre designing healers around people who dont like to heal, in that by removing dps actions they make the reward for being efficient is unrewarding. in that theres so little, infrequent and scripted damage that theres not much in the way to even being efficient in the first place. when you can overheal things 3x over, resource management is gone.

the current approach is not fine because they're failing to appease both crowds: the healers who want to heal, and the healers who want to dps.

---

Speaking for myself- I can only say that l like to do both.

Also, I see very few people who don't actually like to heal, I rather see unhappy healers. I also do see people who claim that that aren't being healed, but those tend to be people who expect to see a cast bar or are standing off in Narnia.

I wouldn't expect to see healers deigned around those people who truly don't like healing at all, or who are the most extreme of casuals- example- they will pick it up just to get a mount or title - they may or may not even know their skills, fine by me, you do you - but leave that out of consideration. I do expect that the healer design considers all levels of content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Knetik

I've been a healer main in EVERY mmo I've played for 20ish years now and I have never been able to heal in FFXIV. It's like they are appealing to people who DON'T LIKE to heal. I don't want to dps the whole fight while weaving heals. In fact, it should be the opposite.

Let the HEALER role focus and prioritize HEALING!

---

The issue with FFXIV healers is the fact that they are quite overpowered and have overly bloated healing toolkits for the majority of content in this game. Most content hits like a wet noodle, and healers have so many industrial-strength bandages for the booboos that the healing-to-damage ratio is even more skewed.

That said, I am not a fan of being a heal bot standing around healing for 90% of content. It would be just as monotonous spamming Medica 100+ times in a fight as it is spamming Glare 100+ times in a fight. I prefer a healthy balance. This game doesn’t have that—it’s 80% or more dealing damage and 20% or less actually healing. A more even distribution would be nice.

It’s unfortunate that the developers have zero plans to actually increase healing requirements, since apparently that would be “too hard”. Can’t say I appreciate the insinuation that players who enjoy the healer role have the intelligence quotient and skill level of a small rock.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

The issue with FFXIV healers is the fact that they are quite overpowered and have overly bloated healing toolkits for the majority of content in this game. Most content hits like a wet noodle, and healers have so many industrial-strength bandages for the booboos that the healing-to-damage ratio is even more skewed.

That said, I am not a fan of being a heal bot standing around healing for 90% of content. It would be just as monotonous spamming Medica 100+ times in a fight as it is spamming Glare 100+ times in a fight. I prefer a healthy balance. This game doesn’t have that—it’s 80% or more dealing damage and 20% or less actually healing. A more even distribution would be nice.

It’s unfortunate that the developers have zero plans to actually increase healing requirements, since apparently that would be “too hard”. Can’t say I appreciate the insinuation that players who enjoy the healer role have the intelligence quotient and skill level of a small rock.

---

That's why I've taken the standpoint that we should have industrial strength suboptimal heals that are cheap, very powerful, and gives SE an out to allow the rest of healing kits to be designed well as, when push comes to shove, the lowest common denominator they want to appeal to can spam the uber heals and keep the party alive even if at the cost of damage output. Meanwhile, the rest of your healing kit is weaker, but about allowing you to maintain damage contributions, including ways that don't involve direct DPS.

At the end of the day, we need to respect the reality that DPS is king, and you can't just change that because it involves changing every fight in the game up to this point. But what you can change is the healer kits to work around that, such as the example I've brought up before of GCD AST cards.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Knetik

I've been a healer main in EVERY mmo I've played for 20ish years now and I have never been able to heal in FFXIV. It's like they are appealing to people who DON'T LIKE to heal. I don't want to dps the whole fight while weaving heals. In fact, it should be the opposite.

Let the HEALER role focus and prioritize HEALING!

---

This argument again? It must be Thursday.

Yawn. I've refuted this before, so I'll just link it instead of retyping it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Knetik

I've been a healer main in EVERY mmo I've played for 20ish years now and I have never been able to heal in FFXIV. It's like they are appealing to people who DON'T LIKE to heal. I don't want to dps the whole fight while weaving heals. In fact, it should be the opposite.

Let the HEALER role focus and prioritize HEALING!

---

I’m new to FF14 coming from WoW, it was a huge adjustment, while in WoW you dps when you can it’s not the priority, while in FF14 it seems the opposite, which I personally don’t mind but I just wish if this was the route they taking I wish it was more the spamming Fall Malefic and maintaining combust, make the dps side more interesting.

I’m happy to DPS as a healer, and throw the off ogcd here and there to keep everyone alive, I’ve already gotten use to it just I wish they made the dps side of things more pleasing, personally I’m in love with the new PvP and currently ranked 20th on the Materia DC as AST and wish that the PvP abilities some how make its way into PvE, I feel like healers have to many heals for the content they’ve provided, maybe switch some out for the PvP abilities? AST for example gets double cast, WHM Seraph Strike, SCH mummification.

Or perhaps combo our DPS, make it atleast visually pleasing and satisfying to dpsing inbetween the occasional heal, perhaps when comboing our dps they can then buff our next GCD heal increasing its potency or increase our dps by a flat % reward us.

My issue is seeing Fall Malefic over 100 times becomes a little mind numbing.

Edit; Also wanted to say FF14 is amazing and I’m a fool for not trying this earlier, so many wasted years in WoW :(

IIRC, there are 3 types of DPS

1. Direct DPS
2. DOT
3. AoE DPS

I think that's enough though, if you want a rotation I suggest making it like GnB 1 button combo I think? I mean, I still want to focus on heal even though there's a DPS... DPS-ing can be quite hard in dungeon especially in W2W scenario where the tank could be just wanking and defending it and didn't use any CD (and mad at me in the process) or even the standard tanking with CD

But it's a dungeon scenario, I haven't played any savage or any ultimate so I put it as dungeon perspective first.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pepino

I feel like healers have to many heals for the content they’ve provided, maybe switch some out for the PvP abilities? AST for example gets double cast, WHM Seraph Strike, SCH mummification.

---

Seraph Strike is something I've wanted in general PvE since it got introduced in Bozja. I'm a bit irked that WHM only got Seraph Strike in PVP while SCH got a version of Lost Impetus for normal play. Bozja has so many great abilties in it while they would have to be changed to work in normal PvE Expedient hopefully won't be the last time they do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by megamino

IIRC, there are 3 types of DPS

1. Direct DPS
2. DOT
3. AoE DPS

I think that's enough though, if you want a rotation I suggest making it like GnB 1 button combo I think? I mean, I still want to focus on heal even though there's a DPS... DPS-ing can be quite hard in dungeon especially in W2W scenario where the tank could be just wanking and defending it and didn't use any CD (and mad at me in the process) or even the standard tanking with CD

But it's a dungeon scenario, I haven't played any savage or any ultimate so I put it as dungeon perspective first.

---

There aren’t really three types of DPS—it’s more like three types of damage abilities. And the healer design was simply the developers going Ctrl+C > Ctrl+V for each one, changing the names, and then tweaking certain skills just slightly to give the illusion that this healer is different from that healer.

There are only a select few dungeons in this game that actually have any bite to them when it comes to being a healer—and several have been nerfed throughout the years due to gear scaling, job changes, and direct nerfs by the development team. Stone Vigil used to be an excellent dungeon for challenging a healer approaching level 50 in ARR. Even in HW, SB, and ShB it could have a bit of bite to it. It has since been adjusted to remove things like the patrolling Aevis mobs that could surprise an unsuspecting party and up healing requirements. Other notable examples include:

— Aurum Vale: Leeroying into the first room was a death sentence, and still is to some extent, but it certainly doesn’t hit as hard as it used to.
— The Vault: OG The Vault in HW was brutal in terms of the amount of damage tanks took and healers had to heal. It was actually a wonderful dungeon because of that. It got nerfed.
— Bardam’s Mettle: due to Stormblood gear stat scaling, Bardam’s actually ripped unprepared tanks a new one even in i270 or i274 stuff, which was the highest item level gear you could have at level 65. Even tanks that came in synced down from level 70 could get their butts handed to them by the first few trash pulls if they weren’t careful.
— Holminster Switch: the pulls leading up to the first and second bosses are honestly still a bit spicy. The ones leading up to the last boss are boring because they’re forced single pulls.

Other than that, all the other dungeons are snoozefests—especially any dungeon that was once a level-cap dungeon (i.e., 50, 60, 70, 80, and now 90 dungeons). I can heal the level 90 dungeons with oGCDs alone and never have to touch my GCDs on any healer that isn’t a WHM. The only time I have to GCD heal in most dungeons is either I’m level-synced and don’t have my oGCDs, or I have a paper tank. The latter is artificial difficulty; not genuine difficulty of the healer role being challenging.

Savage content has even less healing: to the point that decent healers don’t even touch their GCD heals, and heal primarily with oGCDs. This tier only had a handful of mechanics that were spicy heal checks, and that was primarily during Week 1 when you were at the minimum item level required for the content. With gear, they are trivialized, if not skipped altogether if the group has good damage (e.g., P3S Life’s Agonies). A healer’s most cast ability is their single-target nuke, and by a long shot. For Ultimates, they tend to be more mitigation check than anything else; only TEA has a real heal check in Living Liquid’s and BJ/CC’s phases, and during J-Waves. Perfect Alexander is resident sleeper though in terms of healing. DRU is more mitigation check than anything else, speaking as someone who is currently progging it on a healer. If someone misses a mitigation piece, people just outright die, and you can’t really do anything about that as a healer. You can’t heal one-shots. Which, is okay, I guess—until you consider that Yoshida told healers that, if they wish to be engaged in their role, to go do Ultimate. My engagement comes from the mechanic dance; it doesn’t come from performing my primary role.

The healing requirements in this game aren’t that high. It takes a seriously memey party to really make healers break a sweat—you’re more likely to find those in 24-mans versus any other piece of content. There’s a reason I run some of the old 24-mans routinely on healer: at least I might have a chance to be a healer over a damage dealer. And it’s honestly quite fun to get the clown fiestas. I love Day 1 24-mans for that reason alone.

I really don’t like how, when you have a good party, your job as a healer becomes more monotonous and more boring. You can only really perform your primary role when people are seemingly going out of their way to get hit by stuff or die to stuff. Tanks can suffer from this to an extent, but at least they have a damage rotation they can perform and focus on. DPS are engaging right off the bat in terms of their rotation. I don’t understand why healers have to be the only role treated as if everyone who plays it is a fragile human being that cannot string together more than a single button. Or who would fall apart at any sliver of difficulty.


All that said, healers are primarily dealing damage most of the time they are in combat. It’s simply a fact. At this stage, the developers need to give them an interesting damage toolkit instead of continuously bloating their healing toolkit with more oGCDs that are overkill for 99% of the content in this game. And each healer’s DPS kit should be slightly different from one another. WHM could have your basic 1-2-3 with Misery maybe being a powerful finisher if people want it detached from the healing (or they could leave it as is now, since it is finally DPS neutral). SCH could get its DoTs and Shadowflare back and be a DoT healer with a nuke they spam between DoT management. SGE could have more oGCDs in its kit that further expand on the healing via damage/Kardia job gimmick. Only AST really functions well with the current 1 DoT-1 nuke design due to having its own mini game in the form of the card system (as horribly gutted and clunky as it is).

1-button DPS rotations should be an optional configuration. Not everyone wants to just press a single button constantly—that’s literally the complaint healers have right now. I’d prefer separate skills since they simply feel more engaging to me over 111111111111111, even if said 11111111111111 is actually three different skills. Perhaps it’s because I play on controller and it just feels better to be pressing circle > X > square > left D-pad > weave in right D-pad and triangle > etc. over XXXXXXXXXXXX.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by megamino

IIRC, there are 3 types of DPS

1. Direct DPS
2. DOT
3. AoE DPS

---

These aren't "types of DPS".

To be fair, though, there isn't really any separate DPS "type," only priority or application. Even then, the only cases we really see are "Focus Damage Priority" vs. "Total Damage Priority" and, simultaneously, though not in XIV, "Burst Damage Priority" vs. "Total Damage Priority".

Additional, sometimes useful labels include "Split," "Linear," "Fall-off," and "Funnel" damage in regard to AoE types. ("Split" is essentially ST damage in its total potency, at least before accounting for any additional effects, as the damage is evenly split across all AoE enemies. "Funnel," not seen in XIV, increases damage to a primary target with the number of additional enemies nearby.)


An offensive skill's damage profile (the "shape" of the skill, so to speak) has 4 factors:

• Potency as portion of filler.
• Direct Target-scaling
• Availability
• Potency cost of desync

Note that "Potency as portion of filler" follows rDPS rules. The relative potency bonus applied over Twin Snakes' duration, for instance, would be assigned to Twin Snakes, not each affected ability.

Target scaling refers to the increased total damage over target count. A pure AoE has 'n' target scaling. A 50% falloff AoE has '1 + .5(n-1)' scaling. Etc.

This can be direct (as per the earlier examples) or indirect, such as per the old DoT-Repertoire interactions. The indirect gains tend to be more narrowly applicable (such as often not themselves gaining from target count) and/or more complex.

Availability refers to frequency of available use, be that through average gauge generation towards a gauge spender, the cooldown or recharge time of a hard-CD skill, or the soft-CDs of DoT or buff timers.

Potency cost of desync refers to the contextual cost of performing a given skill early or late.


Fillers, of course, have neither the first nor last quality.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

1-button DPS rotations should be an optional configuration. Not everyone wants to just press a single button constantly—that’s literally the complaint healers have right now. I’d prefer separate skills since they simply feel more engaging to me over 111111111111111, even if said 11111111111111 is actually three different skills. Perhaps it’s because I play on controller and it just feels better to be pressing circle > X > square > left D-pad > weave in right D-pad and triangle > etc. over XXXXXXXXXXXX.

---

I do like suggestion to configure how you prefer to play, be a huge quality of life for those who prefer that style of play, be just like in PvP, I personally enjoy the PvP style where the buttons combo to the next, draw/play being together aswell. I just personally think SE could do so much more with healers then what we have right now, I’m actually very excited and nervous about this major overhaul coming to AST in 6.2, AST/SCH both being my favourite classes.

I think this AST overhaul is going to be a clear direction on where healers be heading and the future of healers.

But I strongly believe a combo for each healer would def help out, visually pleasing too, that’s what I love about this game, the animations and visuals are 2nd to none, they simply amazing and definitely would bring some more life into healers DPS, like for example WHM, Glare > Radiance > Blinding Light (I’m really bad at making up skill names), completing the combo then grants a DPS % increase/healing Potency increase or MP regeneration. This way we get rewarded for dpsing like every other job currently, new visuals and animations both be aesthetically pleasing bringing life and excitement into the respective healing job.

While yes it’s a Band-Aid fix, but it’s definitely more better then just being a Glare/Malefic/Broil/Dosis spam bot with the occasional refresh of your DoT.

I’m also hoping SCH steps away from its “Tech” visuals of Art of War, Biolysis and so on and really double down on its Fae abilities and visuals, Sage is the tech based healer, personally I think that takes away the uniqueness and identity of SCH now, but that’s for another post.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, Healers PvP skills I feel should make its way into PvE, I love AST double cast, imagine WHM Seraph Striking into melee to get into range for Holy, SCH Mummification debuffing enemies, it will bring a new uniqueness to each job.

Just moving this back to the front page again. It really is a shame that they are so stubborn really with this sort of design for healers when it's starting to become increasing archaic in that their fight design just never really changes not even after 10 years at this point.