I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

Quote:

---

Seeing as some of you have been 'career healers' for many, many years now, have you not given any thought to simply swapping over to the dark side?

---

I play dps as well. So ?

It's an individual choice, not a group one. I'm fully aware that there are misguided souls out there willing to bore themselves to tears in the name of letting us queue into instances, usually based on a grossly inflated sense of the importance of the role. My question is, why are you, specifically, willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of others?

Honestly, it's not worth it. And sometimes, a change of pace is what's needed to refresh your enjoyment of things. Also, while you can 'play' many roles, there's always going to be one that you prog on and main.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

It's an individual choice, not a group one. I'm fully aware that there are misguided souls out there willing to bore themselves to tears in the name of letting us queue into instances, usually based on a grossly inflated sense of the importance of the role. My question is, why are you, specifically, willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of others?

Honestly, it's not worth it. And sometimes, a change of pace is what's needed to refresh your enjoyment of things.

---

Can you be more direct ? I mean, you dance around a phrase that you embellish a little, but your whole message comes down to "play something else".

To answer you: it has nothing to do with a “sense of sacrifice” (?!). It has to do with the fact that the game is based on the holy trinity of dps - tank - healer. Every role is needed. So each role must be valued in one way or another.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

It's an individual choice, not a group one. I'm fully aware that there are misguided souls out there willing to bore themselves to tears in the name of letting us queue into instances, usually based on a grossly inflated sense of the importance of the role. My question is, why are you, specifically, willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of others?

Honestly, it's not worth it. And sometimes, a change of pace is what's needed to refresh your enjoyment of things. Also, while you can 'play' many roles, there's always going to be one that you prog on and main.

---

I play every role. I'd play healer a whole lot more if it was actually fun instead of 80%+ one button spam, particularly if the different diverse amount of buttons were DPS related and heals were more GCD, and each healer had unique DPS rotations just like every other single job in the game. It's wild how healers are the only role that don't get unique damage rotations and you say the solution is "just go play DPS."

I understand that significant changes are needed to supports in general. I've been arguing in favor of tank positioning responsibilities for years, so I'm no stranger to this. I've seen a lot of the same faces here post about healer concerns across multiple years, fighting the same fight endlessly. My question is simple: why?

The crux of the problem comes down to value. Tanks and healers, in their current state, don't provide enough value. If you're a good player in terms of rotation and uptime, you provide so much more value to your team simply by being on DPS instead of a support. It can make or break encounters, so much so that I would much rather that the weakest members of a group were consistently on support.

That's a reflection of game direction. I don't agree with it, but given that we've seen this to be the case for many years now, doesn't it make sense to just go to where the value is?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

I understand that significant changes are needed to supports in general. I've been arguing in favor of tank positioning responsibilities for years, so I'm no stranger to this. I've seen a lot of the same faces here post about healer concerns across multiple years, fighting the same fight endlessly. My question is simple: why?

The crux of the problem comes down to value. Tanks and healers, in their current state, don't provide enough value. If you're a good player in terms of rotation and uptime, you provide so much more value to your team simply by being on DPS instead of a support. It can make or break encounters, so much so that I would much rather that the weakest members of a group were consistently on support.

That's a reflection of game direction. I don't agree with it, but given that we've seen this to be the case for many years now, doesn't it make sense to just go to where the value is?

---

Hm... nah, not exactly.

I don't play healer only for the gameplay. I play healer because I like to support. It's the same as... Dunno, playing melee dps job because you feel more at ease with it. BLM is one of the most interesting job rn ; but you would have to pay me to play it, 'cause I can't stand being immobile in a fight.

A job can't be restricted to its gameplay. It's a feeling, a rhythm, and an aesthetic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Merrigan

I play healer because I like to support.

---

I can appreciate the aesthetic choice, sure. But looking at the thread title, that's not really the point, is it?

I think the value of those 'support' elements, at present, is vastly oversold, and deep down everyone knows that real value comes from doing more damage. Again, that's pretty much the point of the thread topic. In an ideal world, they would fix all this and make all three roles equally important. In practice, that isn't happening (in fact, I think if FFXIV was released in current times, it wouldn't be a trinity MMO, but that's another story). If you want to be valued for what you do, then why haven't you switched yet?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

I can appreciate the aesthetic choice, sure. But looking at the thread title, that's not really the point, is it?

I think the value of those 'support' elements, at present, is vastly oversold, and deep down everyone knows that real value comes from doing more damage. Again, that's pretty much the point of this thread.

---

You asked why we were growling because of the gameplay, so I answered you (from my point of view, oc) : we growl because we are deeply attached to the role, and we would like to have a relevant gameplay.

And don't forget that most of us also play dps. On this game it's quite rare to have a player who only does ONE role only.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

I can appreciate the aesthetic choice, sure. But looking at the thread title, that's not really the point, is it?

I think the value of those 'support' elements, at present, is vastly oversold, and deep down everyone knows that real value comes from doing more damage. Again, that's pretty much the point of this thread.

---

We want more damage options because square continues to cut our support options

When one oGCD out of 500 I have covers the raidwide damage and any party buff that’s not “make someone else do more damage” isn’t allowed to be in the game what else are we supposed to ask for

SCH got one single ability that fills a niche of true support and square fully admitted we only got it because they were so out of ideas for SCH they literally threw shit at a wall till something stuck. What are we supposed to take from that comment other than “expedient is an outlier, don’t be surprised if it’s gone soon”

I’ll get some good laugh if they take away SCH’s Expedient one day only to give it to one of the Phys Ranged under the “we don’t think healer should have this”-pretext.

Personally speaking, I don't play the healer role for any "noble" or "selfless" reasons, I play it because I'm not interested in wiping in fights due to people not recovering a situation that is clearly recoverable. While the melee DPS are better designed and I have been enjoying MNK, I can't exactly salvage a bad situation as a melee DPS.

I do agree that the latest trend appears to be setting the weakest member of your static to play the healer role though. It makes the most sense because healers have been getting responsibilities stripped from them repeatedly, they just need to drop enough heals to clear the content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

I’ll get some good laugh if they take away SCH’s Expedient one day only to give it to one of the Phys Ranged under the “we don’t think healer should have this”-pretext.

---

It's going to be given to BRD, because they keep asking for in-combat Peloton. They'll call it Battle March or something and it will just steal directly from Expedient.

I'm honestly not sure what they can even give healers in 7.0 that won't feel redundant that isn't either more offensive abilities or more support/utility.

We already have so much healing and mitigation that you're pretty much always going to have something ready for a given mechanic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

I understand that significant changes are needed to supports in general. I've been arguing in favor of tank positioning responsibilities for years, so I'm no stranger to this. I've seen a lot of the same faces here post about healer concerns across multiple years, fighting the same fight endlessly. My question is simple: why?

---

For my part, I’ve stopped playing healer completely since Shadowbringers apart from giving Sage a fair chance in the first couple patches of 6.X, doing the first raid tier (and the new PVP). So I’m not playing the martyr for the sake of the community. In fact, a part of me hopes the healer situation crashes and burns, because from the fire comes fertile land. If the situation were so dire that the design team were forced to respond, we could see really worthwhile and meaningful change.

To put it plainly, I criticize healers because I care. I want to love this game, and I want to love healing. I enjoy some jobs like Dancer to some degree, but it does not fulfill me like how Scholar used to. Until I see chance I will not stop talking about it, or until I quit the game because of the lack of healers, which is something that will probably happen in DT if nothing changes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm honestly not sure what they can even give healers in 7.0 that won't feel redundant that isn't either more offensive abilities or more support/utility.

We already have so much healing and mitigation that you're pretty much always going to have something ready for a given mechanic.

---

Obviously, the only thing the people designing combat know what to give healers. More OGCD heals.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

Obviously, the only thing the people designing combat know what to give healers. More OGCD heals.

---

And bosses with 2 minute intervals between two raidwide AOEs with 4 dinky auto attacks for the tank, and slow, massively telegraphed avoidable AOEs for the party.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

I can appreciate the aesthetic choice, sure. But looking at the thread title, that's not really the point, is it?

I think the value of those 'support' elements, at present, is vastly oversold, and deep down everyone knows that real value comes from doing more damage. Again, that's pretty much the point of the thread topic. In an ideal world, they would fix all this and make all three roles equally important. In practice, that isn't happening (in fact, I think if FFXIV was released in current times, it wouldn't be a trinity MMO, but that's another story). If you want to be valued for what you do, then why haven't you switched yet?

---

I believe you've already received some very good answers as to why it isn't an acceptable choice for many people to simply abandon a role. I'd just like to add my voice., with the addition of saying that while you've phrased this as "In an ideal world, they would fix all this and make all three roles equally important.", in actuality the bar has been even lower in my view, even some recognition of involvement of healer changes in public discussions like the FanFest, the addition of a dedicated designer for healers would be promising changes. Some incremental communication of changes or even a vision would be a plus.

Instead the healer role is the only one that does not have a dedicated designer. It seems to be the only role where it is acceptable for Square to say "we do not what to do with this job" (SCH) and walk away, or even have the lead designer repeatedly defer job design questions in interviews for years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

...

---

The recurring answer seems to be 'we're actually playing other roles now', which is a sensible one. Like taurus suggested, the role will likely have to fall completely flat before a change in the design philosophy can be initiated.

But I also don't believe that the average player is specifically in it for a 'challenge for its own sake'. What it really comes down to is the balance of effort and reward. As long as support roles remain sufficiently 'comfy', there's always going to be a subset of the playerbase that migrates to them, simply for the opportunity to weave watching their favorite shows inbetween GCD heals. If the healer population doesn't plummet next expansion, it's unlikely to happen in the long term. I think as an individual, you have to make a conscious decision on what you are willing to invest your time in.

I'm not so sure about the job designers claim, though. I remember something from an interview back in Stormblood that has been paraphrased for many years, but I haven't seen anything recently about the number and distribution of designers. If you can point me to a source from this expansion, I'd be interested to see it.

I do think that more needs to be done to communicate job design philosophy with the playerbase directly. It'd be great if when it comes time to do the job showcases, that they break it down into a number of smaller reveals by role, and really take the time to discuss their design philosophy on each (especially since we're going up to 23 jobs next expansion). The Endwalker job reveal itself was several hours long, so they're bound to cut corners in discussing some jobs if they try to get through it all in a single sitting.

The SCH issue strikes me as relatively obvious, but you do have to read between the lines a bit. Historically, SCH has generally had a dedicated spot in raid comps. I've watched the dev team attempt to stealth nerf the job between expansions since Stormblood, and they're consistently forced to backpedal from the backlash. This time around they just turned it into its own subrole, to split the SCH fanbase up. It's an effective strategy, and they've done it before.

If you decide to to play a game that is advertised as a holy trinity style game then your quality standard may be that "as long as one role is acceptable for me, that's fine". However that may well not a "sensible" view to other people. Other people may well expect that each role is given a sufficient, dedicated number of resources and no role is overshadowed by the other roles. If I had a model, it would be a triangle instead of the distorted balance that we have now.

Regarding to your request about the job designers? I don't want to seem uncooperative however it's not just something I invented. For one thing, in the helare forums , around 2 years ago, when one mega-thread started, there was a comparison of the job designers by name from at least 3 games, compared to FFXIV. All of their names can be found, and guess who had the least? That's right- FFXIV- and jobs have been added since then.

Also, I am being completely sincere when I do not comprehend your statements regarding SCH. I don't think Square is that Machiavellian. In particular, when you discuss "sub-role" , are you actually trying to say that the SGE design was meant to set SCH players against each other? So I believe it's really more of a question of them having a mis-translation of some player feedback and their translating that through the views of DPS and tank viewpoints, not from dedicated healers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

I honestly can't think of a single RPG where you press 1 button for 80% of your gameplay and it being considered good gameplay.

---

'press 1 button for 80% of the gameplay' is when I'm doing auto-battle to grind XP/money in SMT games. And even then, it requires more attention/reaction than healers do atm, on account of the chance of running into some bozo demon that reflects physical damage and if I don't react in time I'll oneshot myself on it

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

It's going to be given to BRD, because they keep asking for in-combat Peloton. They'll call it Battle March or something and it will just steal directly from Expedient.

---

Now this, I've actually posted as an idea before, but not just as 'take it from SCH, give to BRD', but as a new way to customize playstyle via Materia. If a system were made where you could pick one of three 'traits' that modify your supporting skills in some way (eg they're not DPS-output related, else there'd be 'the locked-in choice'), one of the Materia choice 'traits' for phys-ranged could be something akin to 'Peloton now functions in combat, but has 15s duration and a 2min CD'. This gives groups the potential to have the benefit of a SCH's Expedient, without the SCH. However, for groups that DO have a SCH, they have Expedient naturally, and so the phys-ranged player's 'trait Materia' choice can be dedicated to something else, such as 'Repelling Shot clears the BRD of any Bind or Heavy effects', or MCH getting 'Dismantle's CD is reduced to 90s'

This would cause an avenue to open up for 'players communicate with one another about their strategy' and so SE cannot have that, on account of 'the potential toxicity' or some such

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm honestly not sure what they can even give healers in 7.0 that won't feel redundant that isn't either more offensive abilities or more support/utility.

We already have so much healing and mitigation that you're pretty much always going to have something ready for a given mechanic.

---

As I've said previously, my predictions for WHM are thus:
92 - New Glare/Dia rank, +10 potency
94 - trait that gives Divine Benison a third charge
96 - new skill, Salt and Light, causes Asylum to flare up and deal 400p of healing to anyone inside
98 - trait that finally gives Tetra a second charge
100 - Afflatus Purgation, 2min CD that fires a line that is damage neutral. It's literally Pneuma, but instead of 600p it's 500p, and then 500p as a 15s regen

I've seen that reference about job designers before, and it dates back to a Stormblood interview. The reason why I asked for a source is because I wanted to know what time period you were specifically referring to. I am genuinely interested in knowing how their job design process currently works, so if there's an up to date reference I would be definitely interested in seeing it. I tend to go to the source for most things, simply because I want to understand what's actually being said without alteration.

The SCH observation is a personal one that I've noticed from watching the game across multiple expansions. SE is extremely reluctant to do direct nerfs to jobs, sometimes at the cost of game balance. They would much sooner employ a system of 'upward balance' through job buffs alone, just to avoid the backlash. But the difficulty with this approach is that it leads to a gradual power creep that ends up being addressed inbetween expansions.

Job nerfs (stealth nerfs) typically happen during these transition periods when nobody has a sense of what any of the potencies and stat values mean. This is typically where they go after perennially powerful and dominant jobs. These jobs tend to stay in power perpetually because there's a strong and vocal backing from the fanbase, which in turn fuels their popularity.

The problem with this approach is that people catch on to the nerfs, and then start demanding buffs, until they're back in the position that they originally started off in. Over the course of each expansion cycle, you see this pattern repeat itself. WAR and SCH are two of the longest running targets of this.

This time, they opted for a slightly different strategy. They turned SCH into its own subrole, and created a new flavor, SGE. Now, you no longer have a unified fanbase demanding revisions. The same would be true if they introduced in a lifestealing Hammer tank as a counterpoint to WAR (and I would not be surprised if that is next in the cards for 8.x). In the long term, these sorts of approaches are good for the state of the game because they ensure comp diversity.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

I'm not so sure about the job designers claim, though. I remember something from an interview back in Stormblood that has been paraphrased for many years, but I haven't seen anything recently about the number and distribution of designers. If you can point me to a source from this expansion, I'd be interested to see it.

---

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

I made a thread commenting on this back in 2019 as stated above, comparing SE's class design team to a few rivals of the time. Back in ARR this compact team was clearly absolutely fine. But now? I'm not so sure, the player base's knowledge and understanding of the game often outstrips the developers themselves at times. IMO they are just stretched too thin not only having to deal with double the number of jobs and a far more savvy player base since ARR, but also the additional load of PvP kits as well.

And to clarify, this is info taken from the credits and as such, is still accurate to this day.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

I do think that more needs to be done to communicate job design philosophy with the playerbase directly. It'd be great if when it comes time to do the job showcases, that they break it down into a number of smaller reveals by role, and really take the time to discuss their design philosophy on each (especially since we're going up to 23 jobs next expansion). The Endwalker job reveal itself was several hours long, so they're bound to cut corners in discussing some jobs if they try to get through it all in a single sitting.

The SCH issue strikes me as relatively obvious, but you do have to read between the lines a bit. Historically, SCH has generally had a dedicated spot in raid comps. I've watched the dev team attempt to stealth nerf the job between expansions since Stormblood, and they're consistently forced to backpedal from the backlash. This time around they just turned it into its own subrole, to split the SCH fanbase up. It's an effective strategy, and they've done it before.

---

IMO they've just had to eat humble pie more times than they'd care to admit over media previews and early patch notes with clear problematic issues that the developers and testers have somehow failed to spot. Hiding numbers until the patch drops is just a sad state of affairs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

I've seen that reference about job designers before, and it dates back to a Stormblood interview. The reason why I asked for a source is because I wanted to know what time period you were specifically referring to. I am genuinely interested in knowing how their job design process currently works, so if there's an up to date reference I would be definitely interested in seeing it. I tend to go to the source for most things, simply because I want to understand what's actually being said without alteration.

---

If you want a quick way to get the credits without having to sit through a bunch of inn cutscenes you can use the following link:

https://www.mobygames.com/game/17679...playstation-5/

The staff you want to look for are the Battle System team which is specifically the job design team as has been confirmed by various mentions of Kei Sato over the years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebazy

...

---

If the Battle System Team is involved in job design, then the 6.55 end credits list the following:

Kei Sato
Takashi Kawamoto
Hikaru Tamaki
Hironori Isami
Tomonari Kurokawa

That's interesting, but it doesn't really tell me how these designers are allocated, or whether this is by role. On what basis are we saying that there is no healer designer? Is there another interview that you're drawing this information from?

(I also note that the current credits have changed relative to your list and link - I can provide a screenshot if you want).

I don't know if there is anyone in charge of Healers... Since playing one feels mostly like an afterthought for most things. Doing MSQ as a healer is one of the worst things as the game entirely expects you to be doing damage in the instanced fights... But being a healer, you have the lowest damage in the game and your entire DPS kit is spamming one spell for about 25 seconds at a time between refreshing your DoT.

The one thing that to me really feels like healers don’t have a dedicated designer is the fact that if you forced me to come up with a justification for modern healer design it really feels like it was designed around asking a DPS main who’s never played a healer how they think healers should work in terms of how they work around DPS

The massive over abundance of heals that aren’t remotely needed, the “rotation” that can be cancelled anytime to heal, the “optimisation” that basically amounts to “hope the DPS presses feint at the correct time”

All of it just feels like someone started from the philosophy of “DPS are the main characters how can healers best facilitate that” rather than “healers are their own entity and their own classes that people who play want to enjoy”

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

snip- length

Job nerfs (stealth nerfs) typically happen during these transition periods when nobody has a sense of what any of the potencies and stat values mean. This is typically where they go after perennially powerful and dominant jobs. These jobs tend to stay in power perpetually because there's a strong and vocal backing from the fanbase, which in turn fuels their popularity.

The problem with this approach is that people catch on to the nerfs, and then start demanding buffs, until they're back in the position that they originally started off in. Over the course of each expansion cycle, you see this pattern repeat itself. WAR and SCH are two of the longest running targets of this.

This time, they opted for a slightly different strategy. They turned SCH into its own subrole, and created a new flavor, SGE. Now, you no longer have a unified fanbase demanding revisions. The same would be true if they introduced in a lifestealing Hammer tank as a counterpoint to WAR (and I would not be surprised if that is next in the cards for 8.x). In the long term, these sorts of approaches are good for the state of the game because they ensure comp diversity.

---

Thanks, and by the way Sebazy found exactly the thread I was thinking about - and clearly I have a faulty recall as it was more than 2 years ago!

I don't know. You're seeing SCH as the target of some nerfs and buffs, hello, former AST main here? Would like to discuss major job reworks here? Not to mention, your theory regarding some previously unified fanbase now being split is interesting, and that may be the case with some players, however I honestly don't see that as having a major impact, that "new flavour" SGE? It really isn't that new, in comparison to SCH, for many healers - nor, in comparison to any healer in many respects- for that matter. Nor do I follow your reasoning that there is now some healer 'comp diversity' that didn't exist before - it's like saying - did the pure/barrier healer split really make sense from a healer/encounter design? You'd probably get a fair number of arguments that would point to "no, not really".

Sage is quite literally the Super Smash Bros Dr. Mario of FFXIV. Mario, but heavier, with some mildly different attack animations, and a different down special. Scholar, but more smoothbrain, with some different animations, and a burst heal instead of expedient.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

That's interesting, but it doesn't really tell me how these designers are allocated, or whether this is by role. On what basis are we saying that there is no healer designer? Is there another interview that you're drawing this information from?

(I also note that the current credits have changed relative to your list and link - I can provide a screenshot if you want).

---

He must be a somewhat recent addition, that's good at least. Assuming there's no typo in the name, I can't find any history listed on them which honestly is probably a good thing. Fresh blood and ideas is the best thing this team needs IMO. It would be interesting to find out where they came from though!

As far as specific allocation goes, we're not fully privy to the whole process. Yoshida has talked a little about things but it's nothing concrete. It's mostly conjecture from the much more public processes we saw with World of Warcraft where you had several key designers that fought tooth and nail for their 'favourite' class (Eg Tigole/Kaplan and Rogues). The designer's favourite jobs are known from various fanfest boards where they've posted.

It's also very evident from some of the oversights and errors that have been made even recently with regards to healers and expansion updates that there isn't a whole heap of attention being paid or at best, the people sanity checking the numbers honestly don't play the job to any level beyond base competency. Eg anywhere from Misery potency not being scaled up with Endwalker's release or right the way back to SCH being 'updated' to have no spammable AoE button at any level. These are just a few examples that anyone with interest, experience and ability in the role should spot almost immediately with a bit of playtime in even basic content.

And of course, this is before we point to the simple and undeniable fact that current healer kits simply do not match up with mainstream content. There's a huge disconnect right there.

I'm not at all certain about it, but it feels to me that SGE didn't actually fracture the SCH community, it feels like it drew people out from the WHM community instead. Most SCH mains I know absolutely hate SGE because it strips out everything we find fun about SCH.

I feel like SGE pulled from a combo of noct AST mains and WHM mains, you have to truly be a masochist to still be a SCH main and if moving from 4.x SCH to 5.x SCH didn’t convince you to stop playing SCH I don’t think “smooth brained SCH” is going to change anything

This is further supported by the fact that the SCH parse numbers didn’t really change, WHM went down a bit when the class was in the toilet in 6.0 but it seems like most of the playerbase was pulled from the cratering AST playerbase, SCH has remained remarkably consistent

In my case, I support the healers getting more DPS button options because I know the devs have done it before. They have a certain tech to do it as well since it is already being used to update the single DoT spell according to what level trait we have on. Updating Cure to change to Cure 2 would be one step that would apply to all of the healers' equivalent to that. It might be possible to consider Afflatus Solace and Rapture taking the same slots as Cure 2 and Medica. Only reason not to would be if the lily spell version needs to be saved, but I haven't been able to find any instance where we actually use Cure 2 over Afflatus Solace as well as the AoE versions. The lily spells are pretty much the better version in almost every way with the only drawback being that it uses the blue lilies to discourage mindless spamming.

A few others mention the Heavensward and Stormblood Scholar. We actually did have Shadowflare and the Miasma DoT. AST is subjective which model would be the best, but the 6 cards started with unique buffs. It is probably the way it is due to the memes of "The Balance" continually getting fished for the card storing spell. I heard NINs usually told us to not give them "The Arrow" since the increased haste for their rotation could do more harm than good for them. Ninjutsus and Mudras are likely why and they already clipped their GCD with the 3 mudras without haste. It was more so the BLM card. We also lost the Royal Road spell to enhance the buff with either higher strength, AoE effects or extensions to the buff time. Royal Road allowed us to convert cards not good for the party into those buff extensions, but we might still get the card we don't want again 30s later. Redraw was a 60s cooldown back then if I recall right and it didn't have any way to prevent the same card from being drawn again at the time either. Definitely need some methods to fix the RNG it had in the past where a card could be godly in one party or a dud in another due to different DPS classes being present.

Another thing to say is that the WHM, SCH and AST had more DoTs to place up in the past. Bio 1 and 2 as well as Aero 1 and 2 were completely separate spells. Both the one and two versions were placed on enemies. WHM even had Aero 3 as the AoE DoT. Art of War used to be Miasma 2 as a burst hit and AoE DoT as well. This request will probably have some resistance to returning since I heard we have a 30 slot limit to the buff / debuff slots. There was a thread created to request increasing the slot limit if I remember right. Until such a thing happens, we probably won't see these multiple DoTs return yet. Players seem to only want SCH to have it with something different for the other 2 classes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

They would much sooner employ a system of 'upward balance' through job buffs alone, just to avoid the backlash.

---

You and I must have exceedingly different definitions of 'job buffs'. Considering half the Healer changes going into shb could be summed Up as 'how dare you have Something worthwhile the other healers lack, let's take it away'

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sani2341

...

---

Like I said, the transition between two expansions is where stealth nerfs generally happen. I can't think of too many examples where they openly reduced the potency of an action or remove an effect in the middle of an expansion (although I think most of the exceptions have been from this expansion). Even if a job has a significant dps advantage over all the others in its role category, they would much sooner buff every other job than reduce the dps numbers on that single job down to parity.

Keep an open mind and watch what happens during the transition period into Dawntrail. This is where they'll go after outstanding balance issues that they've wanted to address throughout Endwalker, but haven't dared to nerf publically.

The main consensus I'm seeing here is that dedicated healer mains aren't happy and want more to do than 80% 1 button, while some non-healer mains say there's no problem and just to go play other roles. Most others, myself included, want healers to have actual DPS rotations and less OGCD heals, while a small minority want to just be heal slaves with minimal to no DPS at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mithron

The main consensus I'm seeing here is that dedicated healer mains aren't happy and want more to do than 80% 1 button, while some non-healer mains say there's no problem and just to go play other roles. Most others, myself included, want healers to have actual DPS rotations and less OGCD heals, while a small minority want to just be heal slaves with minimal to no DPS at all.

---

I think part of the problem is that people come in here and see the title asking for a rotation, then they immediately jump to assume that what we want is a full-blown MNK or BLM rotation when that couldn't be further from the truth.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mithron

The main consensus I'm seeing here is that dedicated healer mains aren't happy and want more to do than 80% 1 button, while some non-healer mains say there's no problem and just to go play other roles. Most others, myself included, want healers to have actual DPS rotations and less OGCD heals, while a small minority want to just be heal slaves with minimal to no DPS at all.

---

The greatest problem is fight design and how scripted it is. There will always be a perfect healing rotation with ogcd tools. Same as you have now spreadsheet fights if you aren’t sch + sgn in a comp.

Let’s say we take away ogcd heals. The biggest change would be to use a gcd heal for a glare or other 1 buttons, somewhere in between so it would just take 1 hotbar 3 and make it 1 hotbar 1 (my hotbar layout). A dps rotation would effectively give you depending on downtime and kill time and other situations things to do. And it would not in anyway, shape or form grieve the players that didn’t use dmg spells even if they have 2 spells.

Or a more wild solution would be a symbiosis of healer dmg kit and healing kit. But that takes way more planning and thinking into the mix and we all know the job design team doesn’t do that for the healer role.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mithron

??

---

Actually the case put forward was that 'mains' don't exist, because everyone 'plays everything'. I personally don't agree with this, as there's not enough time to equally gear and maintain your skillset on every job, but you can't have it both ways.

Pandering aside, there are few issues worth considering here. There has been a progressive shift in design philosophy away from a classical 'trinity' setup, in favor of a more modern action MMO format where everyone is DPS with varying degrees of support functionality.

This naturally erodes the value of a healer, because everyone brings their own shields and heals (the only thing missing are 'potion' and 'phoenix down' role actions with a fixed number of charges available to every job). Then you throw in some tanks, like PLD and WAR, which have built in healer functionality simply by executing their rotation, and then you're left questioning what your healer's function is in the first place.

There is a lot of redundancy in support gameplay. If your tank dies, you have a spare. If your healer dies, your DPS puts out the raise. The boss positions and orientates itself on behalf of the tank. The tank self-regens, self-heals, and mitigates raidwide damage on behalf of the healer. There are so many safeguards here that it really doesn't matter who your supports are.

A lot of this redundancy is apparent in your toolkits as well. Do you really need so many support and defensive options, when everyone else in the team is packing their own self heals and shields? You're stuffed full of so many 'just in case' GCD heals and defensives, that you don't have room for an actual rotation. And even if you did have a rotation, you can't hold a candle to a real DPS in terms of value.

DPS is relatively well preserved, by contrast. If anything, there's no longer an overlap between the damage output that a support is capable of doing relative to a pure DPS, like there was in Heavensward. And I think that's where a lot of the frustration comes from. You've lost a lot of your support value, but gained next to nothing in terms of DPS impact.

When you put this all together, you can see the design direction. I don't agree with it personally, but we've been going full steam ahead on this since Stormblood. It would be great if you manage to change it. But in the interim, you need to make your own mind about whether you want to be valued more for your talents as a player.

One thread that was a thing some time back was a petition to get Yoshi-P to play a healer (for a year)... Maybe sentiment needs to come back and maybe the community managers that should theoretically be around could toss that sentiment towards the entire combat design team... Make them all take a healer from a fresh start all the way to the end of 6.55.
See what they think about the healer gameplay.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

I think part of the problem is that people come in here and see the title asking for a rotation, then they immediately jump to assume that what we want is a full-blown MNK or BLM rotation when that couldn't be further from the truth.

---

I LOVE when my criticisms of the role are dismissed because people hear 'I'd like a bit more of an in-depth rotation for the inevitable downtime we'll have in all levels of content' and they respond with one of the following tired lines:

- You want healer to be as complicated as BLM while also having to heal??!?!? (No I would like something akin to WAR or nu-PLD)
- We don't need more damage buttons, we need more damage taken to heal (As much as this sounds great, Abyssos existed. Also, it doesn't really solve lower content like EX roulette without gating less-skilled players)
- You should just play DPS if you want to do damage so much (No, I enjoy the split responsibilities of 'keep team alive' and 'help team meet enrage check'. Also, if every healer went to DPS like this, queues would grind to a halt)

They set up strawmen to argue against because they cannot argue against the truth and win. Healer, as a role, is not as engaging as it could be, and it does not take a BLM rotation to make it so. Just adding back staggered DOT timers/CDs, with 2/3 additional buttons added for that purpose, would go a massive way to helping this issue. WHM example, as it stands, we press 18 Glares a minute, 2 Dias, 3 Lilies and a Misery. Add a new 15s CD GCD (call it Water/Banish), and change Dia down to 12s duration (making it feel more 'bursty' with potency adjustment as needed), and suddenly you change it to 11 Glares, 5 Dias, 4 Banish's, 3 Lilies and a Misery. A 35%ish reduction in 'press Glare' per minute.

Similar with SCH, keep Bio as a 30s DOT sure, but we could have Miasma back as a 24s DOT with an initial cast time, and ShadowFlare as a 15s AOE ground effect. And the potency on SF could be tuned in such a way that it is a gain in AOE, but not to spam (for example, if AOW is 170, SF could be 100p, plus 50 per tick, for a total of 350), which would also allow for the button to pull double-duty and spice up the onebutton AOE rotation as well

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

One thread that was a thing some time back was a petition to get Yoshi-P to play a healer (for a year)... Maybe sentiment needs to come back and maybe the community managers that should theoretically be around could toss that sentiment towards the entire combat design team... Make them all take a healer from a fresh start all the way to the end of 6.55.
See what they think about the healer gameplay.

---

Game developers are notoriously stubborn. The best case would be that they get to 6.55 and say that the style of play isn't for them personally. They just have to look at the numbers and see that Healers outnumber tanks in terms of queue times just to come to the conclusion that healers enjoy that play style because... they keep playing healer. When healers get to tank level queues to where it's actually a problem, then adjustments would be made.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niroken

Game developers are notoriously stubborn. The best case would be that they get to 6.55 and say that the style of play isn't for them personally. They just have to look at the numbers and see that Healers outnumber tanks in terms of queue times just to come to the conclusion that healers enjoy that play style because... they keep playing healer. When healers get to tank level queues to where it's actually a problem, then adjustments would be made.

---

"You think you do, but you don't"