To YoshiP, here's what too stress-free: Healer edition

The few times I really enjoyed healing was back in 2.0 and maybe 3.0 (didn't play healer very much in that expansion).

Healing is pretty meh nowadays, and there's little I can add to the discussion that hasn't been said already, but looking back more recently, only times I've ever truly had fun healing has been when the group I'm with is just really bad, which leads to a lot of deaths, a lot of healing, a lot of scrambling about and making quick decisions lol. I actually get to use all of my skills in those instances. It's a bit of a shame that these situations happen so infrequently because they're actually quite fun. You really do get the sense that you can rescue the entire party from a wipe and just eke on through by the skin of your teeth.

The only reason I liked healing in HW was in dungeons and casual content. It was actually fun to me having to manage a semi finite resource (MP) by finding a careful balance between expensive spells like Holy and actually healing the tank/party. It was also compounded by the fact that not all players were equal, and not all gear was either, so I had to adjust and adapt, and some runs were a lot more DPS focused than others depending how much damage had to be healed through or how fast pulls were actually dying. The fact that MP wasn't back fully between pulls was also a big scarcity factor that I appreciated, and made me actually manage resources for the long run.

It's also why the only place I still like healing is during alliance raids where half the alliances die and I can actually feel useful, raise and heal people, and once more, react to the unexpected. Scrappy runs are the best. Scripted steamrolls are boring.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

but they should have a few more options that are unique to each healer.

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Look, even if the healer's main dps kit remains as simple as it is... there's absolutely ZERO reasons why they should be a [nuke + 30s dot] carbon copy of each other. Even if they want healer dps actions to be this barebones, they can at least have different types of simplicities.

Ideas for tools still making the healer kit remain simple:

- A faster gcd kit with no dot management
- A kit just with time managed dots and no spammable nuke (SCH maybe)
- A simple combo system instead of nuke + dot
- Combust could be a debuff that 'explodes' after a time is off but also can explode earlier for greater damage if caught on Earthly Star
- Afflatus Misery unlocks an elemental combo after you use it

Not that I wouldn't want a more complex thing, but I'm not really holding my breath for that.

IMO the boringification of healers began when they started having every single boss open with a raidwide or tankbuster 5 seconds into the fight. It doesn't matter what your kit is if all the content is the same cookie cutter over and over.

Here's something I'd like to clarify:

Less DPS actions ≠ easier DPS
A while back, I made a thread on the healer forums about how having more DPS actions can actually make a healer's DPS performance easier to maintain rather than harder by comparing EW Scholar to ARR Scholar. You see, in order to keep Scholar's DPS output in line with general healer DPS output, something very important both for single player play and group content, the potency of Broil had to be inflated to justify the removal of Scholar's additional DPS actions. Constantly increasing the potency of a healer's attack spells adds more and more weight on the player to use those spells as often as possible. Let me explain:

During ARR, Scholar's basic attack spell, Ruin (and Ruin II) had a potency of 80. Broil IV on the other hand has a potency of 295. What this means is that every time a Scholar player loses a cast of Broil IV to idling, moving, or casting Physick/Adloquium/Succor/Esuna, they are losing 368.75% of what ARR Scholar lost doing the same thing. There is nearly 4 times the pressure to maintain DPS uptime now then there would be during ARR. On the other hand, ARR Scholar had 5 DOTs they could manage each with different durations to keep track of, and that does sound more daunting and challenging. However, even if you were to simply cast your 5 DOTs every 30 seconds instead of refreshing each of them as they fell off, you would still be doing 79% of the damage your DOTs were capable of.

Let's assume that in both ARR and EW, we have a Scholar who only refreshes their DOTs every 30 seconds and spends the rest of the fight trying to heal or even just idling. ARR Scholar would deal approximately 64% of the damage Scholar can possibly deliver. An EW Scholar that only refreshes their DOT, however, will only deal about 18% of the damage Scholar is capable of dealing. Now, you might say, "well ARR would have to cast 5 DOTs whereas EW Scholar only has 1," which is true. So for the sake of prosperity, let's say the EW Scholar instead casts 1 Biolysis and 4 Broil IVs to match the cast rate. In that case, they would still be doing only about 48% of the damage they could otherwise do.

TLDR, EW Scholar actually requires more DPS effort to put out their DPS than an ARR Scholar needed despite having far less attacks to work with because by erasing variety, we put so much weight on basic attack spell spam. And perhaps that is a greater cause as to why GCD healing is seen so negatively today is because each cast matters so much more than it used to. And adding back more attacks and rerouting potency away from Broil IV into those new attacks can actually make Scholar more forgiving, not less. And this is true for all the healers.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

TLDR, EW Scholar actually requires more DPS effort to put out their DPS than an ARR Scholar needed despite having far less attacks to work with because by erasing variety, we put so much weight on basic attack spell spam. And perhaps that is a greater cause as to why GCD healing is seen so negatively today is because each cast matters so much more than it used to. And adding back more attacks and rerouting potency away from Broil IV into those new attacks can actually make Scholar more forgiving, not less. And this is true for all the healers.

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Honestly, I'm fairly sure that people just look at it in terms of '1 button I press every 30s and 1 button I press all the time' vs 'I have to press all 5 of these buttons in a priority system and make sure none of them fall off', if you put it in those terms, 5 DoTs seem a lot harder to do good damage with.

But if you do the math, you'd see that condensing so much of the healer damage potency into one singular button would not only lead to greater punishment for every dropped cast, but also more unreliable damage output due to damage swings (a problem that used to be unique to DPS jobs and WAR).

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Honestly, I'm fairly sure that people just look at it in terms of '1 button I press every 30s and 1 button I press all the time' vs 'I have to press all 5 of these buttons in a priority system and make sure none of them fall off', if you put it in those terms, 5 DoTs seem a lot harder to do good damage with.

But if you do the math, you'd see that condensing so much of the healer damage potency into one singular button would not only lead to greater punishment for every dropped cast, but also more unreliable damage output due to damage swings (a problem that used to be unique to DPS jobs and WAR).

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Right, but that's why I bring that up. Because that line of thinking is misleading. Refreshing all your DOTs when the longest one falls off is something I remember seeing a lot of during ARR and HW--something I did many times as well. And by doing the math, it's clear that offers a higher overall performance value than doing the equivalent amount of effort today, which is what I wanted to express.

In reality, old Scholar was far more forgiving with the one major exception that is old Cleric Stance, which is I would argue the single most punishing tool on a job that we've ever seen in this game. Doing it correctly really wasn't that hard, especially if all you did was that basic effort of reapplying all DOTs at once, but if ARR had been released without old Cleric Stance ever existing, ARR Scholar would be the most forgiving iteration of Scholar in regards to DPS across all expansions, even Heavensward. Because Heavensward introduced Broil which was a significant jump in potency, and also ignored Ruin II.

Personally, I don’t think that more DPS-actions will be the solution that we should ask for. I won’t deny that it could help, but I think that down the line we’ll come back to the same issue. I like healing, it’s a fantasy that I personally enjoy, however here in XIV I feel like a glorified Caster with some healing spells added to it. I don’t feel like a Healer, especially in normal content.

I think we should ask for the core gameplay of Healers to be changed: Force us to actually heal.

I know people will loathe this comparison, but over in WoW I enjoy healing a lot more because it’s way more present and active. I have 2-3 damage buttons a few utility buttons and the rest are all healing buttons, and I have to use them to keep everyone alive, which to me, feels great. If I’m slacking off people die. I’m also not able to cover all the time for people when they fail a mechanic. Sure, their normal content is easier and this won’t apply much. But their end-game content even on the more casual level, this will apply. Is it perfect? No. WoW’s Yoyo-healthbar is not something that fits XIV or is something that we should try to achieve, however there are other ways to make things more interesting: Mechanics.

If I look at most raids in WoW (no matter the difficulty), Healers are being kept on their toes. There’s a good amount of incoming damage and a few random spikes here and there. This is something that XIV unfortunately lacks. WoW also has Healer-specific mechanics where they have to… Heal. And not healing the party, but a 3rd party. An object that needs to be restored to full health, sometimes even multiple objects. This could be to either survive the next big attack or even keeping the platform “alive” or fall down and wipe if you don’t. XIV really lacks heal checks. Sure, we have the occasional raidwide and mechanic that can be a bit painful, but we lack dedicated heal checks in dungeons & raids.

I also think that SE should make a bold move and change all the Healers to give them their own identity. Instead of worrying about balance, make it balanced because it’s imbalanced. Give every Healer a unique way to heal. If a Healer is weaker in a tier, but can still clear it, that should be the base requirement. As for what examples on how I’d personally separate the Healers:

- White Mage:

Pure Healing. It should be the basic Healer and easy to pick up. Remove the regens and perhaps focus on giving party members “Healing received increased”-buffs.

- Astrologian:

Regen/Channelling focussed. I think Astro would lend itself good to a regen playstyle. Reduce the amount of pure healing it has and distribute it to regens. Perhaps a unique combination that it is allowed to cast supportive/buff spells whilst channelling.

- Scholar:

Should focus on shielding and mitigation. Pretty much how it is now, I think Scholar has a decent enough identity. Could use some more focus on the Fairy, but I’m not too fussed over it.

- Sage:

I think Sage should lean more into the “harm to heal” fantasy it has. Remove Sage’s shields and most of its mitigation, allow Sage to apply a debuff to an enemy, which, upon hit by a spell or weapon attack, heals the player. Focus more on Kardia: Allow it to spread temporarily to the entire party, etc. There’s so much they could have done with Sage but to me it’s 80% “Scholar, but with lasers.”

I think by having all Healers be different would already help a lot, as to me, Scholar and Sage are too much of the same (down to the potency), whereas White Mage and Astrologian also share kits when it comes to their base-spells, they do have enough differences to make up for it, I feel.

Although I don’t expect anything to change really. I’m not getting my hopes up for the Astrologian rework. But I do think that “Healer stress” should be invoked by having to heal more rather than having to handle more dps buttons and/or dps rotations. Imho Healers should be Healers. Not glorified Casters.

But again, that’s my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Kinazu

I think we should ask for the core gameplay of Healers to be changed: Force us to actually heal.

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Devs tried that a savage cycle ago. The results were . . . a slaughter.

Casuals just don't care enough to put in the proper time to learn how to actually heal. It also showed just how shallow modern casual groups are.

There is three problems with the WOW comparison

1) WOW runs on an extremely quick GCD and as such if someone suddenly gets hits with spike damage you can be healing them in less than second, for 14 it can be almost 5 seconds before you can actually hit them with a heal. The spike damage reactive whack a me healing struggles in 14 especially in single target which leads to point 2

2) targeting job party members like NPC’s and having a very short time to heal party members can make controller players struggle, this is most noticeable in AST currently but it’s also noticeable when you try to heal people in the other 2 alliances, it’s not great on console

3) in 14 the WOL is incredibly powerful, arguably the single most powerful person on etheryis, in WOW the adventurer if functionally a stand in for any old semi competent adventurer, making the WOL functionally unable to fight without a party breaks the power fantasy of the WOL

I’m not opposed to more healing but it has to work within 14’s unique situation, not that you are suggesting a 1 to 1 comparison with WOW but it’s also not like it can be implemented in a roughly similar form either even if it was tried

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Originally Posted by Kinazu

But I do think that “Healer stress” should be invoked by having to heal more rather than having to handle more dps buttons and/or dps rotations. Imho Healers should be Healers. Not glorified Casters.

But again, that’s my opinion.

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Your opinion is one that's seen very often, wanting to heal and not have more damage options.

I'll ask you the same questions I asked all the others then.

Why does heightened healing requirements preclude the inclusion of a more complex damage kit?
Why must we only have one or the other when we had both back in Stormblood?
How would your experience with heightened healing requirements be harmed by others optimising complex damage tools around the healing requirements?

I really don't understand why some people who want to heal more will always completely deny the side who wants the damage kit to evolve, especially when all the people who want more damage options also all support heightened healing requirements.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

There is three problems with the WOW comparison

1) WOW runs on an extremely quick GCD and as such if someone suddenly gets hits with spike damage you can be healing them in less than second, for 14 it can be almost 5 seconds before you can actually hit them with a heal. The spike damage reactive whack a me healing struggles in 14 especially in single target which leads to point 2

2) targeting job party members like NPC’s and having a very short time to heal party members can make controller players struggle, this is most noticeable in AST currently but it’s also noticeable when you try to heal people in the other 2 alliances, it’s not great on console

3) in 14 the WOL is incredibly powerful, arguably the single most powerful person on etheryis, in WOW the adventurer if functionally a stand in for any old semi competent adventurer, making the WOL functionally unable to fight without a party breaks the power fantasy of the WOL

I’m not opposed to more healing but it has to work within 14’s unique situation, not that you are suggesting a 1 to 1 comparison with WOW but it’s also not like it can be implemented in a roughly similar form either even if it was tried

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For 1:
I did say that WoW's healing would not work for XIV and that we should not try to achieve something like that. So I don't know why you bring this up as a point, as I agree with you on that.

For 2:
We've had something like this in Shinryu Extreme, so it can be done. If I had to suggest a quick work-around solution: Add them to the party list (with options to customise the order) when the adds appear. Or a 2nd list like the Enmity List but for "Friendly NPCs".

For 3:
I don't quite understand what you're trying to portray. Why is it that our parties are build around a certain composition? The WoL being the most powerful being in their respected universe has, imho, nothing to do with gameplay not being up to par.

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Originally Posted by Kinazu

For 1:
I did say that WoW's healing would not work for XIV and that we should not try to achieve something like that. So I don't know why you bring this up as a point, as I agree with you on that.

For 2:
We've had something like this in Shinryu Extreme, so it can be done. If I had to suggest a quick work-around solution: Add them to the party list (with options to customise the order) when the adds appear. Or a 2nd list like the Enmity List but for "Friendly NPCs".

For 3:
I don't quite understand what you're trying to portray. Why is it that our parties are build around a certain composition? The WoL being the most powerful being in their respected universe has, imho, nothing to do with gameplay not being up to par.

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Point 1) I am also not saying that you said that, just that’s it’s a consideration for others when you consider WOW as a comparison, I never accused you of simply saying we should copy WOW healing, slow healing must be taken as a given in the context of 14 which limits the pure healers potential

Point 2) do note that shinryu extreme was a mess for controller players, it’s probably the best example of how examples like this don’t really work that well, your workarounds if possible do actually fix this problem

Point 3) I’m saying that some WOL’s are healer mains, if the game focuses healers near entirely on healers then the “fantasy” of the power of the WOL doesn’t make any sense, the WOL being both a healer main and the WOL works precisely because healers are accomplished damage casters in their own right, since the adventurer in WOW is of no particular renown since the game doesn’t “track” your characters accomplishments it doesn’t really matter that a healer adventurer can’t really do anything by themselves

I’m not so much calling you out more just explaining the limits of a direct WOW comparison, the idea of encouraging more healing is not flawed in the slightest

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Point 1) I am also not saying that you said that, just that’s it’s a consideration for others when you consider WOW as a comparison, I never accused you of simply saying we should copy WOW healing, slow healing must be taken as a given in the context of 14 which limits the pure healers potential

Point 2) do note that shinryu extreme was a mess for controller players, it’s probably the best example of how examples like this don’t really work that well, your workarounds if possible do actually fix this problem

Point 3) I’m saying that some WOL’s are healer mains, if the game focuses healers near entirely on healers then the “fantasy” of the power of the WOL doesn’t make any sense, the WOL being both a healer main and the WOL works precisely because healers are accomplished damage casters in their own right, since the adventurer in WOW is of no particular renown since the game doesn’t “track” your characters accomplishments it doesn’t really matter that a healer adventurer can’t really do anything by themselves

I’m not so much calling you out more just explaining the limits of a direct WOW comparison, the idea of encouraging more healing is not flawed in the slightest

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Well, at least we agree on some points. My comparison with WoW was purely for engagement. I will fully agree that it should not be copied into XIV with a 1-on-1 comparison. I do believe, however, that certain aspects from the healing system in WoW can be used in XIV to make it more engaged. Of course, not copied directly, but changed in a way that would suit XIV’s playstyle.

And I get where you’re coming from with that fantasy, though in my point of view, being able to restore the wounded and give succour to those in need, is also a sign of a powerful caster. Just the more restorative kind rather than the destructive kind, which is something the MSQ does pretty much jack all to convey – that you’re an actual Healer. Endwalker did touch upon this a little bit, but still sparse. Even as a Healer in the MSQ you pretty much beat everyone with your prowess, sure the gameplay in that regard can feel a bit lacking, that much I agree on, but story-wise everyone is the same no matter the job they play as.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Your opinion is one that's seen very often, wanting to heal and not have more damage options.

I'll ask you the same questions I asked all the others then.

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Let me start by returning the question:

Why is it that we need more DPS buttons to feel engaged in a role that’s not about dealing damage?

With that being said, I think we ultimately want the same thing – Just in a different way! Let me try to explain: If the healing requirement stays like it is now, I fully agree with you. We’d need more DPS buttons to keep us occupied. However, what I rather see, is that the healing requirement goes up so that we actually have to heal and that that becomes our primary engagement. As it stand now, the few DPS buttons that we have are our primary engagement and I’d personally enjoy it being shifted to the plethora of healing buttons that we have.

So no, unfortunately for you, I wouldn’t mind if they would add more DPS buttons, I’d fully welcome it if the healing remains the same. However, to me, that feels like leaving the role behind. I want to heal as a Healer as I enjoy that fantasy and yes, I know I can go for that “Pure Healer / no DPS”-style, but I won’t, as that feels like a waste of my, and my parties’ time.

So instead of adding more DPS-buttons, why not increase the healing so that we can use our current buttons more often? If our healing is engaging enough we don’t need more DPS-buttons. That is what I, personally, would prefer over adding more DPS-buttons.

If they want to raise healing requirements, I would rather have the ‘Barbie EX’ style rather than ‘Abyssos Savage’ style.

I mean I would welcome both. But the latter is too closely associated with mitigation check rather than an actual heal check.

Even mitigation checks are fine……..if the raidwide mitigation was handled near entirely by the healers

Abyssos problem was always the fact that the tanks and the DPS wouldn’t help with the mitigation then wonder why the DOT was absolutely destroying everyone, especially the tanks who would take the initial hit near raw then try to mitigate after the fact

Abyssos damage design would have been fine if not for the fact that of the 17 true raidwide damage mitigations (illumination, soil, expedience, holos, kerechole, temperance, collective, reprisal, heart of light, dark missionary, addle, feint, magical barrier, shield samba, tactician, disassemble and troubadour) only 7 are in the hands of the healers and of those 7 5 are in the hands of the shield healers,

if it was something more like 6 of 8 raidwide mitigations were the purview of the healers then abyssos would have worked fine, because either you know what you are doing and mitigate well making the DOT simple to heal or you fail to mitigate and heal heavily based on your own mistake, not stand there praying the DPS doesn’t drift their tsubame by a GCD and just decide feint isn’t worth pressing

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Originally Posted by Kinazu

Let me start by returning the question:

Why is it that we need more DPS buttons to feel engaged in a role that’s not about dealing damage?

With that being said, I think we ultimately want the same thing – Just in a different way! Let me try to explain: If the healing requirement stays like it is now, I fully agree with you. We’d need more DPS buttons to keep us occupied. However, what I rather see, is that the healing requirement goes up so that we actually have to heal and that that becomes our primary engagement. As it stand now, the few DPS buttons that we have are our primary engagement and I’d personally enjoy it being shifted to the plethora of healing buttons that we have.

So no, unfortunately for you, I wouldn’t mind if they would add more DPS buttons, I’d fully welcome it if the healing remains the same. However, to me, that feels like leaving the role behind. I want to heal as a Healer as I enjoy that fantasy and yes, I know I can go for that “Pure Healer / no DPS”-style, but I won’t, as that feels like a waste of my, and my parties’ time.

So instead of adding more DPS-buttons, why not increase the healing so that we can use our current buttons more often? If our healing is engaging enough we don’t need more DPS-buttons. That is what I, personally, would prefer over adding more DPS-buttons.

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You just gave me vague answers while dodging. Again, I ask, why must we choose one or the other? How does my enjoyment of optimising my damage rotation hurt your enjoyment of the increased healing requirements? You would literally be getting what you want if healing requirements are increased. Why does what I want have to hinge on you not getting what you want and vice versa?

Let me answer your question though, "why do we need more dps buttons to feel engaged in a role that's not about dealing damage?"? What gave you the idea that the healer role isn't about dealing damage? In FFXIV, the healer role has always been about healing as necessary and then doing damage when the party doesn't need healing, this line is literally told to all new players who did the hall of the novice, an increase of healing required doesn't automatically mean you're no longer allowed to do damage. Your experiences in other MMOs is moot, FFXIV has always had the healer role deal damage.

I've asked this same question so many times to so many people, none of them can answer why we have to exclusively have either higher healing requirements or a complex damage kit, why are they mutually exclusive? Especially when, you know, we had both already in Stormblood, we had them together, at the same time, we had to actually heal and we could optimise damage.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

You just gave me vague answers while dodging. Again, I ask, why must we choose one or the other? How does my enjoyment of optimising my damage rotation hurt your enjoyment of the increased healing requirements? You would literally be getting what you want if healing requirements are increased. Why does what I want have to hinge on you not getting what you want and vice versa?

Let me answer your question though, "why do we need more dps buttons to feel engaged in a role that's not about dealing damage?"? What gave you the idea that the healer role isn't about dealing damage? In FFXIV, the healer role has always been about healing as necessary and then doing damage when the party doesn't need healing, this line is literally told to all new players who did the hall of the novice. Your experiences in other MMOs is moot, FFXIV has always had the healer role deal damage.

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I think you're barking up the wrong tree, I don't see the need to be so hostile whilst I do agree with you to a certain point. I never said that it's not okay to get more DPS-buttons. Heck, I even said that I would welcome it, if the healing does not change.

And I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have been healing Savage on XIV since Heavensward. I know how healing here works. I've seen it change for the worse. It's great that you enjoy your shallow DPS-rotation but I am rather done with it after years. I would rather heal more and feel like an actual Healer than having to map out an entire rotation, honestly if I wanted that, I'd play an actual Caster or something close to it. So again, I believe we want the same thing, just a different solution. I want to heal more, you want DPS more.

I believe it's time the put the heal into Healer. But I suppose I must be wrong for wanting to do more of a role that I have signed up as.

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Originally Posted by Kinazu

I think you're barking up the wrong tree, I don't see the need to be so hostile whilst I do agree with you to a certain point. I never said that it's not okay to get more DPS-buttons. Heck, I even said that I would welcome it, if the healing does not change.

And I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have been healing Savage on XIV since Heavensward. I know how healing here works. I've seen it change for the worse. It's great that you enjoy your shallow DPS-rotation but I am rather done with it after years. I would rather heal more and feel like an actual Healer than having to map out an entire rotation, honestly if I wanted that, I'd play an actual Caster or something close to it. So again, I believe we want the same thing, just a different solution. I want to heal more, you want DPS more.

I believe it's time the put the heal into Healer. But I suppose I must be wrong for wanting to do more of a role that I have signed up as.

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I'm not being hostile, I bolded my question so it's easier for you to answer, a question that you're still avoiding by the way.

You keep saying that higher healing requirements and complex damage kits have to be exclusive but have yet to give a reason why, you're just acting like that's a fact of nature. How long you've been healing savage does not matter, I've also been healing savage since Heavensward. I also never said I'm happy with a shallow dps rotation, that's why I'm asking for a more complex damage kit akin to old healers.

Where did I actually say I only want to dps more? I've always advocated for higher healing requirements and a complex damage kit that I can optimise. Anyway, you're probably going to dodge the question again, so I don't know why I even bothered. You clearly substitute what I'm saying with what you think I'm saying, so we're not actually having a conversation here. But on the off chance that you actually have an answer this time, I'm going to ask once more.

Why do we have to only have higher healing requirements or a complex damage kit that we can optimise? Why can we not have both? Why can we not simply return to Stormblood design where we both get to GCD heal and I get the added bonus of optimising a damage kit around the fight? We both get what we want, why do you insist that this wouldn't work when it clearly worked before?

Edit: To be extra clear here, I am asking for both an increase to healing requirements and a more fleshed-out damage kit, I am not asking for only one, I am asking for BOTH. I want to both HEAL MORE and OPTIMISE DAMAGE. It's not hard to understand.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

I'm not being hostile, I bolded my question so it's easier for you to answer, a question that you're still avoiding by the way.

You keep saying that higher healing requirements and complex damage kits have to be exclusive but have yet to give a reason why, you're just acting like that's a fact of nature. How long you've been healing savage does not matter, I've also been healing savage since Heavensward. I also never said I'm happy with a shallow dps rotation, that's why I'm asking for a more complex damage kit akin to old healers.

Where did I actually say I only want to dps more? I've always advocated for higher healing requirements and a complex damage kit that I can optimise. Anyway, you're probably going to dodge the question again, so I don't know why I even bothered. You clearly substitute what I'm saying with what you think I'm saying, so we're not actually having a conversation here. But on the off chance that you actually have an answer this time, I'm going to ask once more.

Why do we have to only have higher healing requirements or a complex damage kit that we can optimise? Why can we not have both? Why can we not simply return to Stormblood design where we both get to GCD heal and I get the added bonus of optimising a damage kit around the fight? We both get what we want, why do you insist that this wouldn't work when it clearly worked before?

Edit: To be extra clear here, I am asking for both an increase to healing requirements and a more fleshed-out damage kit, I am not asking for only one, I am asking for BOTH. I want to both HEAL MORE and OPTIMISE DAMAGE. It's not hard to understand.

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Then let me answer question straight: They don't have to be excluseive from one another. Yes, we can absolutely have both. I just personally feel we're really lacking on the healing scale as of now, and that's why I advocate for more healing. Yes, I wouldn't mind a bit more complexity to the DPS rotation as well, just so that I don't fall asleep during a dungeon, but again I'd rather that I have to heal more to keep myself awake. That being said, I don't mind if both happen either. So again: I don't mind if both healing increases and that we get more DPS-options. I just have a personal preference for one, that does not mean that I disagree with you.

And on that note, I apologise. it seems I've misunderstood your post and, for me, it came across as you only wanted to increase the DPS-side of things. Miscommunications happen unfortunately.

Does that answer your question?

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Originally Posted by Kinazu

Then let me answer question straight: They don't have to be excluseive from one another. Yes, we can absolutely have both. I just personally feel we're really lacking on the healing scale as of now, and that's why I advocate for more healing. Yes, I wouldn't mind a bit more complexity to the DPS rotation as well, just so that I don't fall asleep during a dungeon, but again I'd rather that I have to heal more to keep myself awake. That being said, I don't mind if both happens either. So again: I don't mind if both healing increases and that we get more DPS-options. I just have a personal preference for one, that does not mean that I disagree with you.

And on that note, I apologise. it seems I've misunderstood your post and, for me, it came across as you only wanted to increase the DPS-side of things. Miscommunications happen unfortunately.

Does that answer your question?

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Yes, that does answer the question. Thank you. We don't actually disagree on anything then, I also hate that we barely have anything to heal in Endwalker. I would just personally rather see us get both rather than just more healing to do while the damage side of the kit is left to rot.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Yes, that does answer the question. Thank you. We don't actually disagree on anything then, I also hate that we barely have anything to heal in Endwalker. I would just personally rather see us get both rather than just more healing to do while the damage side of the kit is left to rot.

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That is the reason why I want see the shift for a stronger healing requirement. I think that packing most of the Tanks with a lot of self-sustain (without a cost, in essence), is harming the healing side of things more than it does it any good. If I can get by with <10 healing spells in an entire dungeon, something is wrong. I do think the lesser healing requirement in Endwalker is a combination of a lot of things and handled overall poorly. I just want healing to be fun again. I will agree that Stormblood was, and still is, the peak of healer design (minus White Mage's Lilies) and that it went downhill from there. Sure it had its flaws as well but I had a ton of fun healing in Omega and the Ivalice raids.

But I suppose all we can do is wait and see what Dawntrail brings. Let's just hope it's something good. Of course, if they give us the best of both worlds that would be great! But... I am tempering my expectations.

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Originally Posted by Kinazu

That is the reason why I want see the shift for a stronger healing requirement. I think that packing most of the Tanks with a lot of self-sustain (without a cost, in essence), is harming the healing side of things more than it does it any good. If I can get by with <10 healing spells in an entire dungeon, something is wrong. I do think the lesser healing requirement in Endwalker is a combination of a lot of things and handled overall poorly. I just want healing to be fun again. I will agree that Stormblood was, and still is, the peak of healer design (minus White Mage's Lilies) and that it went downhill from there. Sure it had its flaws as well but I had a ton of fun healing in Omega and the Ivalice raids.

But I suppose all we can do is wait and see what Dawntrail brings. Let's just hope it's something good. Of course, if they give us the best of both worlds that would be great! But... I am tempering my expectations.

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As I stated in my original post, we are lacking on healing frequency. We just don’t actually heal very much. While we can absolutely realign the balance between DPs and healing uptime by re-examining each healers healing toolkit and adjust it alongside some adjustments to future combat encounters, we also have to recognize that FFXIV will never be able to demand a frequency of healing that is higher than there frequency that we DPS. The reason being because that is not how any content in the game is structured thus far, which means what you’d be asking for is a redesigning of the entire game. You’d need every fight that has ever been made to accommodate that increase in healing demand. You can just switch to WOW healing at level 91+

Having time to DPS as a healer is just how FFXIV is. It’s how it’s always been. I don’t get why people can’t just accept that, including the design team. Why fight the nature of the game especially when that’s something that made FFXIV’s healers unique? WOW already exists. Why does FFXIV need to be WOW for people when it can just be FFXIV?

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

As I stated in my original post, we are lacking on healing frequency. We just don’t actually heal very much. While we can absolutely realign the balance between DPs and healing uptime by re-examining each healers healing toolkit and adjust it alongside some adjustments to future combat encounters, we also have to recognize that FFXIV will never be able to demand a frequency of healing that is higher than there frequency that we DPS. The reason being because that is not how any content in the game is structured thus far, which means what you’d be asking for is a redesigning of the entire game. You’d need every fight that has ever been made to accommodate that increase in healing demand. You can just switch to WOW healing at level 91+

Having time to DPS as a healer is just how FFXIV is. It’s how it’s always been. I don’t get why people can’t just accept that, including the design team. Why fight the nature of the game especially when that’s something that made FFXIV’s healers unique? WOW already exists. Why does FFXIV need to be WOW for people when it can just be FFXIV?

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And as I stated a few post above, I am not against adding more DPS-buttons. Please, do point to where I said to turn XIV into WoW. All I said was that we could look to WoW for ideas/changes and apply them to XIV in a way that would suit XIV, and that a 1-on-1 copy would never work and should not be what we want to achieve. I just want is to heal more. Not heal all the time either, but also not heal for only less than 10% of an entire fight and/or dungeon. I just feel that the scale is tipped too much in one direction, thus we barely get to heal.

What's the point of a Healer role when there's barely anything to heal? I'm not complaining about having to DPS as a Healer, you're accusing me of being against something that I find completely normal and that I am also advocating to do when I teach newer peole to heal here. Again, all I am asking for is for the healing requirement to be increased so it doesn't stay the way it is now. And if that comes paired with more DPS-buttons great! Everyone's happy. And if not, I'll count my losses and still play the role regardless.

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Originally Posted by Kinazu

And as I stated a few post above, I am not against adding more DPS-buttons. Please, do point to where I said to turn XIV into WoW. All I said was that we could look to WoW for ideas/changes and apply them to XIV in a way that would suit XIV, and that a 1-on-1 copy would never work and should not be what we want to achieve. I just want is to heal more. Not heal all the time either, but also not heal for only less than 10% of an entire fight and/or dungeon. I just feel that the scale is tipped too much in one direction, thus we barely get to heal.

What's the point of a Healer role when there's barely anything to heal? I'm not complaining about having to DPS as a Healer, you're accusing me of being against something that I find completely normal and that I am also advocating to do when I teach newer peole to heal here. Again, all I am asking for is for the healing requirement to be increased so it doesn't stay the way it is now. And if that comes paired with more DPS-buttons great! Everyone's happy. And if not, I'll count my losses and still play the role regardless.

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I didn’t accuse you of anything. I’m just trying to stress the point the DPS is very much a part of what makes FFXIV’s healer role what it is. The point at the end was directed primarily at the designers. They were not questions directed at you.

I joined in EW,
and even i can see how terrible bad and low
the healing requirements have gotten in this expansion(game)..

The healing requirements, in this game is all over the place..
For the most part its at the bottom...especially true in lv 90 content..
Only a few bosses has some bite to them..and even so they get outlvled quick by ilvl..
I find myself healing more in lvl 50-80 content -- then at 90!..

Healing requirements i would like to see:
*Damage need to happen way more frequent!
*Inc auto hit dmg on bosses.
*Add DoT mechs, that hits all and last for 30-40sec.
*More unavoidable and random dmg spikes.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

As I stated in my original post, we are lacking on healing frequency. We just don’t actually heal very much. While we can absolutely realign the balance between DPs and healing uptime by re-examining each healers healing toolkit and adjust it alongside some adjustments to future combat encounters, we also have to recognize that FFXIV will never be able to demand a frequency of healing that is higher than there frequency that we DPS. The reason being because that is not how any content in the game is structured thus far, which means what you’d be asking for is a redesigning of the entire game. You’d need every fight that has ever been made to accommodate that increase in healing demand. You can just switch to WOW healing at level 91+

Having time to DPS as a healer is just how FFXIV is. It’s how it’s always been. I don’t get why people can’t just accept that, including the design team. Why fight the nature of the game especially when that’s something that made FFXIV’s healers unique? WOW already exists. Why does FFXIV need to be WOW for people when it can just be FFXIV?

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Who said anything about it being like WoW? I'd much rather it be more like XI was - where every job's actual role was important in content. A bard did a bard's job, a Red Mage did a red mage's job, and a White mage did a White mage's job. The blending we see is far more like WoW than any Final Fantasy game. DPS being expected is why I will never pick up my healer jobs on any content of note, I barely even go into dungeons now it's not worth it. If I'm to DPS and that's my main function, there's other jobs for that, more fun, and no side eye when someone did stepped in something bad and died when I was mid-holy.

I agree they would have to redesign from the ground up, but the problem is they have no clear vision for what they want these jobs to be or do.

Why not just get rid of all the differences, make everyone a DPS, and make it all like Bozja where folks fill in the gaps they need with items. That's more or less what we're going. We have DPS with some threat generation\mitigation, a DPS that can do a little healing, and a DPS that hits a little harder than the rest.

Personally I think the whole thing needs major improvements. The playerbases' expectations leaning toward high DPS from all jobs isn't helping.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

Who said anything about it being like WoW? I'd much rather it be more like XI was - where every job's actual role was important in content. A bard did a bard's job, a Red Mage did a red mage's job, and a White mage did a White mage's job. The blending we see is far more like WoW than any Final Fantasy game. DPS being expected is why I will never pick up my healer jobs on any content of note, I barely even go into dungeons now it's not worth it. If I'm to DPS and that's my main function, there's other jobs for that, more fun, and no side eye when someone did stepped in something bad and died when I was mid-holy.

I agree they would have to redesign from the ground up, but the problem is they have no clear vision for what they want these jobs to be or do.

Why not just get rid of all the differences, make everyone a DPS, and make it all like Bozja where folks fill in the gaps they need with items. That's more or less what we're going. We have DPS with some threat generation\mitigation, a DPS that can do a little healing, and a DPS that hits a little harder than the rest.

Personally I think the whole thing needs major improvements. The playerbases' expectations leaning toward high DPS from all jobs isn't helping.

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But even then, what would be the point of just doing XI’s system all over again when XI still exists? XIV should be different because it’s a different game.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

You just gave me vague answers while dodging. Again, I ask, why must we choose one or the other? How does my enjoyment of optimising my damage rotation hurt your enjoyment of the increased healing requirements? You would literally be getting what you want if healing requirements are increased. Why does what I want have to hinge on you not getting what you want and vice versa?

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I'll answer it for you because I've seen it said a lot:

Sylphies reject any kind of DPS increasing abilities on healers because if that were the case the CBU3 job team would have to factor them into fights. That would in turn, essentially require all healers to DPS some in order to clear fights in Prog.

And they don't want that responsibility. It's as plain as that. They want to heal and if DPS options were added, they're afraid they'd have to learn how to DPS.

Granted, I agree 100% with your stance. The game as a healer sucks when sh!t isn't hitting the fan and yet it still sucks when you hit enrage because of all the damage downs accrued when people die due to avoidable damage.

Had this thought, and it might be kind of contradictory to the role, but what if healers had fewer unique healing actions, but more ways to interact with them, and change their effects. Like for example, WHM's primary AOE healing spell were Cure III, but WHM had the tools to like make it an instant cast, make it an oGCD, add a regen effect to it, increase its healing potency or even add damage to it.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Sylphies reject any kind of DPS increasing abilities on healers because if that were the case the CBU3 job team would have to factor them into fights. That would in turn, essentially require all healers to DPS some in order to clear fights in Prog.

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I don't think there are enough Sylphies to have any meaningful impact on game decisions. You could make 20 DPS skills but have your DPS be exactly the same as what we have now and they'd still complain.

It's a staggering realization but Sylphies, you won't be able to go into a world progression group and just heal. I know that is tremendously disappointing but I think you will live with being able to join any other group in this game. It is the curse you bear, just like the ice mages.

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Originally Posted by Niroken

I don't think there are enough Sylphies to have any meaningful impact on game decisions. You could make 20 DPS skills but have your DPS be exactly the same as what we have now and they'd still complain.

It's a staggering realization but Sylphies, you won't be able to go into a world progression group and just heal. I know that is tremendously disappointing but I think you will live with being able to join any other group in this game. It is the curse you bear, just like the ice mages.

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Do these people not see the raw disconnect between sylphie style healing and the power fantasy of the WOL

Ignoring gameplay on solo duties how do these people imagine their WOL being the most powerful being on etheryis if they refuse to actually do anything to achieve said thing, like the MSQ isn’t everything but as someone who while isn’t a RP’er does have a pretty strong connection to developing my OC I just don’t see how you can justify both those points at the same time

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Had this thought, and it might be kind of contradictory to the role, but what if healers had fewer unique healing actions, but more ways to interact with them, and change their effects. Like for example, WHM's primary AOE healing spell were Cure III, but WHM had the tools to like make it an instant cast, make it an oGCD, add a regen effect to it, increase its healing potency or even add damage to it.

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I agree in concept. I firmly believe we could have a lot of jobs have far less actions, but more interactions between them--an expanded take on the style of new PVP actions. Each time I've approached a reimagining of Sage in a way I would've liked it, I have crunched the action total more and more by taking advantage of Eukrasia, and I think different ways of approaching that can work for more jobs.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I agree in concept. I firmly believe we could have a lot of jobs have far less actions, but more interactions between them--an expanded take on the style of new PVP actions. Each time I've approached a reimagining of Sage in a way I would've liked it, I have crunched the action total more and more by taking advantage of Eukrasia, and I think different ways of approaching that can work for more jobs.

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While I can see the idea working for SGE, I personally wouldn't like it if the Eukrasia style of gameplay is ported to even more jobs.

I personally find Eukrasia usage extremely clunky and I occasionally just end up casting regular Diagnosis instead of shielding the tank. I know it's probably a personal issue, so I don't want Eukrasia changed for people who like SGE, but I'd personally not want to see that 'augmentation ability on the GCD' style of gameplay be given to jobs that I enjoy right now.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

While I can see the idea working for SGE, I personally wouldn't like it if the Eukrasia style of gameplay is ported to even more jobs.

I personally find Eukrasia usage extremely clunky and I occasionally just end up casting regular Diagnosis instead of shielding the tank. I know it's probably a personal issue, so I don't want Eukrasia changed for people who like SGE, but I'd personally not want to see that 'augmentation ability on the GCD' style of gameplay be given to jobs that I enjoy right now.

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I didn't mean replicate Eukrasia across all jobs, but the concept of less actions that play off one another, or change the way other actions work in different ways. For example, something that came to mind recently for White Mage was what if Glare and Stone were separate. Glare is your normal attack spell available right from the start of level 1, and White Mage retains Stone, Aero, and Water spells beyond Shadowbringers in a new form. All three are the same casted attacks that set you into three different stances upon cast, each changing the way your other actions work. Like with Aero, your heals all become instant, perhaps certain cooldowns like Tetragrammaton are halved. With Stone, all your heals pulse a damage AOE aura around you, but have a much higher MP cost. With Water, your heals restore your MP instead of cost MP.

That was just a few top-of-my-head thoughts, so don't take that set of suggestions literally, but my point is that there are things we can do to take better advantage of a smaller selection of actions in general. Eukrasia is just one example of this.

Why not consider playing around with bleeds?

Proper hard hitting bleeds that get reapplied frequently throughout an encounter.

For example. Imagine a boss that repeatedly applies an unavoidable non-esunable AoE bleed that inflicts 250% Max hp damage over 30 seconds. This maths out to 25% hp damage every 3 seconds, meaning a player would die after 12 seconds of bleeding.

This is a very lenient time frame to come up with a gameplan of how the group will handle it. Tank/DPS sustain can be used to mitigate the damage temporarily, but these are gated by cooldowns, and burstier heals will be less effective.

It will ultimately come down to healers to manage the damage. Assuming the boss also impliments the occasional hard hitting attack, healers won't be able to cost by on oGCDs alone, and will be pressured to spend GCDs to top up their group for that big attack, or they may not be able to survive even with mitigation.


This also shows how beefing up enemy auto attacks can help with keeping healers engaged. Auto attacks, like bleeds, apply constant damage can only be mitigated by party cooldowns for so long before the healer needs to start GCD healing.

This would only work if bleeds do set damage and can’t be mitigated otherwise it just leads to the abyssos problem

This is assuming set damage. The bleed would always do 25% max hp damage per tick regardless of mitigation, gear, ect.

So here's a question: With the upcoming update on the 23rd? I think? We should be finally getting the benchmark trailer, right? If so, we will get a new animation teased. Endwalker ultimately teased a whole lot of nothing special for most jobs sadly, but we've seen more impressive animation teases before. So I'd like to ask, what do you hope to see for healers next week?
I'
For me, I'd like to see some indication of a new attack or offensive buff of sorts for each job, but even if every healer is finally going to see their offensive gameplay evolve, I don't think they'd have all four healers attacking given the cinematic nature of the trailer. Regardless I think Sage really needs to showoff a new attack unrelated to the current tools since that's supposed to be its thing, and I think Scholar could afford to show off something new that's DOT related if not at least something related to Selene being different from Eos, like perhaps both showing up for one animation at least. White Mage I wouldn't expect to see anything offensive related at least for the benchmark, so I'd suggest something new in relation to lilies that isn't more healing that we don't need. And Astrologian, it's hard to say because it's highly reliant on whatever changes are happening with the job. Even if we're getting another card rework, there's no way to tell that just from the animation. Something more dynamic would be preferred.

Dosis/E.Dosis IV, and Phlegma IV, but instead of a sphere it's now a cube....that's it