Shadowbringers Healer Role: Complaints, Feedback, and Suggestions

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Originally Posted by Allegor

Sadly, the meta will demand Crit becomes the new Balance, with Tenacity and Piety becoming the new Spire and Ewer aka "the useless cards" - there's just no winning there.

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I wouldn't mind having "situational" cards if we go back to a new Royal Road system. I liked having the ability to bolster or spread cards. It made RNG fun to play around and made better use of cards than the seal system.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

I wouldn't mind having "situational" cards if we go back to a new Royal Road system. I liked having the ability to bolster or spread cards. It made RNG fun to play around and made better use of cards than the seal system.

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I agree, hence why I said 'sadly', since all the meta (aka high end raiders) cares about is Balance, Balance, Balance, Balance with as little rng as possible and that's how we ended with 8 flavors of the same dang card...

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Originally Posted by Allegor

I agree, hence why I said 'sadly', since all the meta (aka high end raiders) cares about is Balance, Balance, Balance, Balance with as little rng as possible and that's how we ended with 8 flavors of the same dang card...

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No. We ended up with six cards doing the same thing because this game simply doesn't prioritize anything except damage. Arrow and Spear were essentially crappier Balance. Spire no longer has any use, Ewer is equally weak given the sheer abundance of MP healers have nowadays and Bole is both rng mitigation and simply unnecessary when we have tanks, healers, ranger and casters all with 10% mitigation tools.

Simply put, electing to do anything except buff the party's DPS was always the wrong decision.

With that said, they certainly could have come up with a better alternative than eight cards (including Lord/Lady) all being colored copies of each other.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

No. We ended up with six cards doing the same thing because this game simply doesn't prioritize anything except damage. Arrow and Spear were essentially crappier Balance. Spire no longer has any use, Ewer is equally weak given the sheer abundance of MP healers have nowadays and Bole is both rng mitigation and simply unnecessary when we have tanks, healers, ranger and casters all with 10% mitigation tools.

Simply put, electing to do anything except buff the party's DPS was always the wrong decision.

With that said, they certainly could have come up with a better alternative than eight cards (including Lord/Lady) all being colored copies of each other.

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They could make the regular cards focus just on utility that is not damage... and leave the DMG boost to Lord/Lady (adding a cooldown to Minor Arcana) and Divination.

They can make MP management relevant for healers again so a MP regen card like the old Ewer would be impactful. They can give movement buff speeds (shorter sprint?)... Bolster physical or magical defense, decrease 10s from the rez debuff, increase evasion rate 25% (useful for dungeons), increase healing potency from you or your cohealer, refresh the HoT or the shield in your target...

Not the current point of discussion (also apologies if it's been suggested before) BUT!

I think one nice change for Scholar would be to take Deployment Tactics and just make it into an anti-Emergency Tactics.
Basically, turn all healing for Adlo/Succor into additional shielding instead of spreading existing shields.

Just a thought! Also, this assumes there isn't already a rework in progress for Scholar.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

They could make the regular cards focus just on utility that is not damage... and leave the DMG boost to Lord/Lady (adding a cooldown to Minor Arcana) and Divination.

They can make MP management relevant for healers again so a MP regen card like the old Ewer would be impactful. They can give movement buff speeds (shorter sprint?)... Bolster physical or magical defense, decrease 10s from the rez debuff, increase evasion rate 25% (useful for dungeons), increase healing potency from you or your cohealer, refresh the HoT or the shield in your target...

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Oh, they could have done plenty. My own proposal was simply adding a second card slot to Royal Road: one offense and one defense. That way Bole, Spire and Ewer never had to compete with damage buffs, which will always be superior.

My original point though was to refute the notion Astro cards were changed due to speed meta. They weren't. At least not in a majority sense. The devs simply took the easiest solution to Balance fishing. I suspect out of concern if cards were pure utility, they would see far less use. Per your example, 25% evasion is rather underwhelming in a game where most casual content barely hurts and higher level content ignores it.

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Originally Posted by Valgen

I think one nice change for Scholar would be to take Deployment Tactics and just make it into an anti-Emergency Tactics.
Basically, turn all healing for Adlo/Succor into additional shielding instead of spreading existing shields.

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I would love to have a new "tactics" instead of changing Deployment for this. Let's call your skill Preemptive Tactics and imagine a Scholar could use this on both Aldoquium or Succor. Full shields before a raidwaide or Tank Buster would be great. We could then also use Deployment to spread larger shields from Adlo esepcially if we forced it to crit with a full shield. Emergency, Deployment, and the new Preemptive could all work wonderfully together.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Per your example, 25% evasion is rather underwhelming in a game where most casual content barely hurts and higher level content ignores it.

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Ah, that's right! My prospects of exploring this kind of thing, also the Ewer becoming a Piety booster again would defnitely require changes in mechanics that are beyond the AST themselves.

Taking the example of that evasion utility... Making things hit harder in dungeons is not exactly the answer because it punishes new players to the role. But instead, why not create a dungeon mode that has a more advanced difficulty? Not asking for a Mythic + esque copy from WoW, but it's been a long term request from players, to have more challenging 4-man content.

It's not just about AST cards... To make the gameplay more engaging for healers and tanks, Squeenix def. needs to look at how the content is designed too, not just the actual job mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Valgen

Not the current point of discussion (also apologies if it's been suggested before) BUT!

I think one nice change for Scholar would be to take Deployment Tactics and just make it into an anti-Emergency Tactics.
Basically, turn all healing for Adlo/Succor into additional shielding instead of spreading existing shields.

Just a thought! Also, this assumes there isn't already a rework in progress for Scholar.

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Would love to see a "Shield Burst" style skill (on a CD of course) where if your shields are about to expire you can transfer the shields to direct healing.

Such a skill would help with DRK's Living Dead ability tremendously.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Would love to see a "Shield Burst" style skill (on a CD of course) where if your shields are about to expire you can transfer the shields to direct healing.

Such a skill would help with DRK's Living Dead ability tremendously.

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I agree and I suggested in another thread that Emergency Tactics should be reworked to work like that, I thought it would be a more useful application of shields. The other benefit is that you find yourself in a situation you might think you need to use Emergency Tactics and turns out your other healer is on top of it, it doesn't get wasted, because you then only use it if your co healer isn't on top of it and you've not waited a GCD and oGCD to find out you don't need it.

I think they can definitely bring back actual utility on AST cards if they move all the damage buff into divination. That way the cards can all do different things without competing with old balance, and divination can feel like a stronger payoff.

The question of what utility they should serve remains.

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Originally Posted by lbr

The question of what utility they should serve remains.

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What about something like:
Bole: enchants all of your attacks with Earth aspected damage + gives the recipient 15% resistance to all attacks for 10 seconds
Ewer: enchants all of your attacks with Water aspected damage + gives the recipient Osmose for 10 seconds (osmose = damage dealt to the enemy restores MP)
Spire: enchants all of your attacks with Lightning aspected damage + gives the recipients attacks the ability to inflict Break and Damage down on enemies hit for 10 seconds.
Balance: enchants all of your attacks with Fire aspected damage + Changes all of the recipients attacks to Aoes for 10 seconds
Arrow: enchants all of your attacks with Wind aspected damage + gives the recipient increased movement, casting speed and spell/ability cooldown for 10 seconds
Spear: enchants all of your attacks with Ice aspected damage + gives the recipient a shield around them that absorbs 5% of damage the player takes for the next 10 seconds, at the end of the 10 seconds the shield explodes dealing 200% of the damage the player has taken over that 10 seconds to all nearby enemies within 5 yalms.

Lord of crowns: transforms the current card into a card that gives the recipient a 15% damage up buff for 15 seconds.
Lady of crowns: Transforms the current card into a card that becomes a powerful aoe heal when no one is selected, and a powerful single target regen when a player is selected


kinda off the cuff, but i think it sounds cool.

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Originally Posted by P0W3RK1D

What about something like:
Bole: enchants all of your attacks with Earth aspected damage + gives the recipient 15% resistance to all attacks for 10 seconds
Ewer: enchants all of your attacks with Water aspected damage + gives the recipient Osmose for 10 seconds (osmose = damage dealt to the enemy restores MP)
Spire: enchants all of your attacks with Lightning aspected damage + gives the recipients attacks the ability to inflict Break and Damage down on enemies hit for 10 seconds.
Balance: enchants all of your attacks with Fire aspected damage + Changes all of the recipients attacks to Aoes for 10 seconds
Arrow: enchants all of your attacks with Wind aspected damage + gives the recipient increased movement, casting speed and spell/ability cooldown for 10 seconds
Spear: enchants all of your attacks with Ice aspected damage + gives the recipient a shield around them that absorbs 5% of damage the player takes for the next 10 seconds, at the end of the 10 seconds the shield explodes dealing 200% of the damage the player has taken over that 10 seconds to all nearby enemies within 5 yalms.

Lord of crowns: transforms the current card into a card that gives the recipient a 15% damage up buff for 15 seconds.
Lady of crowns: Transforms the current card into a card that becomes a powerful aoe heal when no one is selected, and a powerful single target regen when a player is selected


kinda off the cuff, but i think it sounds cool.

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1- waaaay too much RNG to think about
2- how would you check for which buff is up- right now it's relatively simple, but even so I can see some ASTs not really understanding how the buffs would work

Plus some of the buffs are not ones that I would really want anyways - like MP- I'm sure that there can be a case where it could be useful, but there you go - I would have to fish for it, which would be annoying if I really needed it and I couldn't get it.

Regarding the change to crowns - ASTs have TONS of heals. The last thing I would ask for is another healing buff, if anything I would prefer they remain unchanged. I know I'm not coming up with a better idea myself, but I like the damage buff or don't change them at all.

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Originally Posted by P0W3RK1D

What about something like:
Bole: enchants all of your attacks with Earth aspected damage + gives the recipient 15% resistance to all attacks for 10 seconds
Ewer: enchants all of your attacks with Water aspected damage + gives the recipient Osmose for 10 seconds (osmose = damage dealt to the enemy restores MP)
Spire: enchants all of your attacks with Lightning aspected damage + gives the recipients attacks the ability to inflict Break and Damage down on enemies hit for 10 seconds.
Balance: enchants all of your attacks with Fire aspected damage + Changes all of the recipients attacks to Aoes for 10 seconds
Arrow: enchants all of your attacks with Wind aspected damage + gives the recipient increased movement, casting speed and spell/ability cooldown for 10 seconds
Spear: enchants all of your attacks with Ice aspected damage + gives the recipient a shield around them that absorbs 5% of damage the player takes for the next 10 seconds, at the end of the 10 seconds the shield explodes dealing 200% of the damage the player has taken over that 10 seconds to all nearby enemies within 5 yalms.

Lord of crowns: transforms the current card into a card that gives the recipient a 15% damage up buff for 15 seconds.
Lady of crowns: Transforms the current card into a card that becomes a powerful aoe heal when no one is selected, and a powerful single target regen when a player is selected


kinda off the cuff, but i think it sounds cool.

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I like the idea of giving damage + something else that is minor... I wish the elemental aspect you thought of would be of any weight in the main content, but alas, that's too much to ask, I suppose. My take, however would be something like this (numbers are just a draft idea):

Bole: Damage reduction
Ewer: Back to Piety buff
Spire: Remove 15s off the Weakened status (rez debuff)
Balance: 30% evasion buff
Arrow: Add the sprint buff for 15s
Spear: Refresh the last shield or HoT applied
Minor Arcana: This would be the one that would increase %damage to either melee or ranged depending on the card.

I know some people will brand stuff like Piety buff as trash, and they are right. For some of this to work, stuff would have to be changed, like MP being relevant for healers again, or a harder dungeon mode that would justify an evasion buff for trash. And to be honest, such changes are needed in general, so the healer and tank role can be more interesting outside of Savage and up.

And back to the cards, I honestly think the only way the regular cards can have unique flavors again is if the damage component is accopmanied by something else (like the poster I quoted) or simply just being buffs related to defensive utility.

Piety could be increase both MP regen and healing done. It would still be a subpar stat but at least it's marginally better.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Piety could be increase both MP regen and healing done. It would still be a subpar stat but at least it's marginally better.

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If they make healer MP management relevant again it can be a very useful bonus, especially for situations where you expect to get more heals out, or rez more, like a fight being learned, or a tank pulling more than he can chew. I remember back in the day, as a healer, if you opted to pull out your full dps potential, you'd probably be MP starved if the slightest thing went off with the party.

I feel that in XIV, the utility that doesn't relate directly to a +%dmg increase can only be truly relevant if they poke into the base structures themselves.

Ever since Selene had all her unique abilities removed it seemed a bit silly to me to have two different summon buttons for Scholars that did exactly the same thing. Since Lily (the fairies actual name) comes from our Soul Crystal by drawing on our aether I think it would be nice to get a single button called Manifest that acted like our current summon and simply changed from Manifest Eos to Manifest Selene depending on which fairy was currently out. It would save one skill slot for sure. It would save two skill slots if this button had a 60 second cool down and also gave us 3 stacks of Aetherflow. Imagine if every time we replenished our Aetherflow our fairy swapped forms as if her rebirth was a source of our strength. I think thematically it would be interesting and nifty too since you wouldnt be able to forget to summon a fairy anymore. It would suck to die and have Manifest on cooldown and then have neither a fairy or aetherflow but I feel like that could be worked around with new skills to replace the ones being consolidated.

Oh and Could we also have Fey Blessing change to Consolation while Seraph is Summoned. Why in the world are those two separate buttons?!

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Originally Posted by P0W3RK1D

Ewer: enchants all of your attacks with Water aspected damage + gives the recipient Osmose for 10 seconds (osmose = damage dealt to the enemy restores MP)

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Cards aside, that's a sort of interesting idea. Can imagine if Lucid was a sort of mana-drain Bloodbath instead. You'd have to plan it into an open downtime window or abuse aoe in dungeons and 0 dps healing would be far less viable.

I think the OP knows Plenary Indulgence has it's uses, it's just that it feels tacked on, especially for a level 70 skill

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Originally Posted by Anhra

I mean, just look at how FFXI designed their Scholar and White Mage for example

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I disagree, for the most part a lot of people consider white mage to be the only job fit for its role "true healer" and because people don't like playing it players will force anyone who's played white mage in their group to stay as white mage, in other words pretty similar to our situation in FFXIV

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I like the idea of giving damage + something else that is minor... I wish the elemental aspect you thought of would be of any weight in the main content, but alas, that's too much to ask, I suppose. My take, however would be something like this (numbers are just a draft idea):

Bole: Damage reduction
Ewer: Back to Piety buff
Spire: Remove 15s off the Weakened status (rez debuff)
Balance: 30% evasion buff
Arrow: Add the sprint buff for 15s
Spear: Refresh the last shield or HoT applied
Minor Arcana: This would be the one that would increase %damage to either melee or ranged depending on the card.

I know some people will brand stuff like Piety buff as trash, and they are right. For some of this to work, stuff would have to be changed, like MP being relevant for healers again, or a harder dungeon mode that would justify an evasion buff for trash. And to be honest, such changes are needed in general, so the healer and tank role can be more interesting outside of Savage and up.

And back to the cards, I honestly think the only way the regular cards can have unique flavors again is if the damage component is accopmanied by something else (like the poster I quoted) or simply just being buffs related to defensive utility.

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It's definitely a cool idea, but it would likely be additional complexity with no real change to the AST's playstyle (IMO).

ASTs will (likely) still just give the card to the highest performing DPS that matches the type (or, be ostracized by their group for not handling cards that way). I don't see that changing from adding additional buffs because it's still mostly all about DPS in the game. The other buffs would need to be more than just minor and then you'd possibly run into some balancing issues. The randomness involved in the card system really doesn't lend itself to the strategy that would be needed to make good use of a lot of those different buffs. Also, I feel like the card system was simplified so that people didn't need to remember what each card type did, I'm not sure they'll ever change that back.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

It's definitely a cool idea, but it would likely be additional complexity with no real change to the AST's playstyle (IMO).

ASTs will (likely) still just give the card to the highest performing DPS that matches the type (or, be ostracized by their group for not handling cards that way). I don't see that changing from adding additional buffs because it's still mostly all about DPS in the game. The other buffs would need to be more than just minor and then you'd possibly run into some balancing issues. The randomness involved in the card system really doesn't lend itself to the strategy that would be needed to make good use of a lot of those different buffs. Also, I feel like the card system was simplified so that people didn't need to remember what each card type did, I'm not sure they'll ever change that back.

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SE knows most of the community who mains Ast are livid about the simplicity of the card system. They completely destroyed the lore of Astro just because some people fished for balance. I believe they will find a way to give everyone what they want in Endwalker. I wouldn’t be surprised if they change nocturnal stance into a toggle that changes the cards back to the old system and diurnal will be the current system.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

I wouldn’t be surprised if they change nocturnal stance into a toggle that changes the cards back to the old system and diurnal will be the current system.

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I love this. What a tremendous idea for AST! Diurnal can be "all cards are Balance" and Nocturnal can be a cool card system. I would love it if SE revamped the old card system to provide more obvious effects. Obvious, rather than gamebreakingly powerful. Imagine if a party member would glow a different color, based on which card was played! And it would be abilities that you can feel, like haste or being granted a Swiftcast. Flavor matters. Especially with AST.

Some of the most fun I ever had in FFXIV was playing AST in a dungeon with 2 other friends. We were also on voice chat and I would yell out the next person that was getting a juicy card. They would see their DPS shoot up and it was exciting! It required verbal cues. Adding constant visual effects to receiving a card would remove the need for notification that you got boosted.

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Originally Posted by NYCLouisGamer

I love this. What a tremendous idea for AST! Diurnal can be "all cards are Balance" and Nocturnal can be a cool card system. I would love it if SE revamped the old card system to provide more obvious effects. Obvious, rather than gamebreakingly powerful. Imagine if a party member would glow a different color, based on which card was played! And it would be abilities that you can feel, like haste or being granted a Swiftcast. Flavor matters. Especially with AST.

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I doubt we’ll get something like that. If we get defensive cards we have to get ways to play them that don’t involve DPS cards which also means we can’t have Draw remain fixed because having a finite number of cards limits the number you can use in total.

I have a speculative rework drafted out that describes how the cards could be made better and it integrates Diurnal/Nocturnal and Neutral Sect as cooldowns that can only play a specific subset of cards and fixes the StB Version of Minor Arcana. The downside that really isn’t a downside is it reworks Draw and Sleeve Draw into Traits. Traits which give you a stacked Hand of cards to start off in every instance. Those Sects and Play (along with Royal Road) then draw cards after the fact and give you more slots to hold cards, making your primary gameplay about micromanaging your hand to ensure you always draw the cards you need ahead of each window.

I compensate for all of this by nerfing Play to a 1 minute cooldown, since you have other ways to play cards. Divination also becomes the old Celestial Opposition effect, but for cards only since I added some new cooldowns and trimmed back on some old ones to balance out the healing kit. It feels SCH-like in terms of versatility but in a way that fits its flavour, but doesn’t keep the raw value it currently has.

[QUOTE=NYCLouisGamer;5548611]I love this. What a tremendous idea for AST! Diurnal can be "all cards are Balance" and Nocturnal can be a cool card system. I would love it if SE revamped the old card system to provide more obvious effects. Obvious, rather than gamebreakingly powerful. Imagine if a party member would glow a different color, based on which card was played! And it would be abilities that you can feel, like haste or being granted a Swiftcast. Flavor matters. Especially with AST.

I love your idea of colours added. That would be great. Sometimes people don’t even realize they have a card on them but if their avatars glowed like red for balance etc that will be amazing and they can go ham for sure.

you know, why not treat the deck of cards as a deck while we're at it. All 6 cards are drawn at random order before the deck is reshuffled. That way even if one of the cards is a damage buff the other cards still need to be used to get to it regardless.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

It's definitely a cool idea, but it would likely be additional complexity with no real change to the AST's playstyle (IMO).

ASTs will (likely) still just give the card to the highest performing DPS that matches the type (or, be ostracized by their group for not handling cards that way). I don't see that changing from adding additional buffs because it's still mostly all about DPS in the game. The other buffs would need to be more than just minor and then you'd possibly run into some balancing issues. The randomness involved in the card system really doesn't lend itself to the strategy that would be needed to make good use of a lot of those different buffs. Also, I feel like the card system was simplified so that people didn't need to remember what each card type did, I'm not sure they'll ever change that back.

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that's the whole thing about the main cards not providing a dps gain, and instead contributing to the defensive support.

Of course, the Minor Arcana would still remain, and yeah, the AST would probably still choose the best dpser to give it to, but at least while fetching the 3 Divination seals, the cardplay would still focus on actual decisions about who needs card X to get out of a tight spot, or a tank spiking a lot needing more defense, or Ewer on you allowing to go ham with some expensive heals (again, in the case of MP being relevant once more).

I mean, they could even actually just also revert the minor arcana to a direct damage or healing spell. I wouldn't mind healers providing any kind of support but offensive, and pass that role to the support dps jobs.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

I love your idea of colours added. That would be great. Sometimes people don’t even realize they have a card on them but if their avatars glowed like red for balance etc that will be amazing and they can go ham for sure.

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Expanding on the color thing, a glow might be too obvious. However, when a card is played there is this asteroid belt effect that swirls around the target for a second, perhaps this swirl could be colored to the card FX and have this belt rotate slowly around the buffed person after the initial swirl, that way it's still obvious but not as prevalent as a bright glow effect.

Also, fix your formatting, you dropped a "[/QUOTE]"

The issue is defensive cards would have to have so much impact to be reliably useful.

For example, no one is building their class or fight mapping around AST cards. So in a standard run, you probably won't need extra mana because you already stacked Piety to your desired comfort level. You probably wouldn't need minor damage reduction because your tank CD's are planned out and sufficient. Evasion could spoil TBN for DRK. Cooldown reduction results in misalignment. Regen extension can lead to overheal. Movement speed has to save a GCD to help, fights are usually designed so you can get from A to B in time to avoid mechanics and most classes have movement tools.

A lot of utility ideas are things that would feel useful to inexperienced players, but very often wouldn't change the outcome of the run. Which is often the case, where some players who want utility cards just want the illusion of being useful even if they wouldn't be in reality.

However, if any of the utility became too good, it would create issues where you need to fish for it or AST becomes OP. It's not as easy to balance as it seems.

I prefer the illusion of utility to the illusion of fun the current cards offer

I just really wish they would have fullfilled their idea of "pure healer" when they announced it, for Shadowbringers was it? Instead the "pure healer" or "more traditional healer" or whatever it was, went into the completely opposite direction.

I was never the biggest fan of DPSing as a healer too much. I don't mind DPSing a little but if I am to do DPS 95% of the fight in high end fights, then the design of the healer in its core is utterly flawed as mentioned by OP. I dislike the idea of them giving us back DPS tools and making that more exciting because healing would still be bad. It doesn't fix the healer role. It just makes the wrong thing within it a little bit more bearable, instead of spamming 2 buttons, I alternate 4 buttons wooooo. And before anyone rolls their eyes and says "Do you want to do nothing and just cure spam?".
No but if you think that a more interesting DPS rotation for healer is what will fix healers, you're not really wanting to play a healer. You want to play a really easy to play DPS.

Healers need fixing from two sides, the encounter design and the jobs themselves need fixing.
The fight design needs to change, damage is way too low, way too slow, way too predictable. It just needs to be higher and WAY more frequent and come in many different forms. It also needs an element of randomness, not during highly coordination heavy mechanics but during downtime and mechanics that are easier and faster to execute. Tank damage should encourage healing more, I can tell you exactly how often I've healed a Tank in the current savage tier, including progression, just because of pure single target tank damage - twice. I use an Excog once at the start of E12S because it's essentially free until I need it again, not because it's required, and the Dog tankbuster actually requiring some attention from at least 1 healer, though thats only once because for the rest they'll have invulns, so don't even bother. Slap a crit excog on that tank and forget single target healing for the rest of the fight.

Healers themselves just need a lot more interactivity within their own healing toolkit. It's just press the button and forget it until it is back up. It also doesn't help that our main source of healing comes from CDs. Scholar hasn't gotten a single GCD heal since its release. CD's encourage weaving with DPS instant spells and the problem is, that it's the most optimal thing to do. Looking at E12S, I have used 4 Succors and 2 Adloqiums. I have spent about 14- seconds healing in a 9/10 minute fight. As a healer, I spent 14 seconds casting healing spells. Don't get me wrong, using stuff like Soil feels great, it makes a difference, it's strong, feels good, fits well with the SCH theme and it's nice if I get to use it. But the problem is that we have too many CDs, we spend so little time on healing and a lot of time on DPSing. Even as a WHM, my cohealer having 29 healing GCDs used and a whooping 153 DPS GCD spells in the same E12S run.
Not to mention the toolkit itself having either no interaction with the rest of the kit or having really terrible interaction. The only ones that are somewhat acceptable are Spread Adlo and Plenary indulgence because they require somewhat immediate reaction, they encourage (or more like their whole idea is to) use a healing spell before/after. It enables you to heal. Having recently played WoW, I was surprised at how little time I found to DPS and my toolkit itself having a lot of things to look out for, it's not just set and forget. One actions powers up the next, one action enables the next, an interesting loop is created. It felt great to heal because I got to heal, it was necessary and it felt good because my healing spells were interesting. I also can't weave DPS spells in that game, I am forced to heal, as a healer. Forcing a healer to heal is what the game devs should do. Instead they enable us to DPS and it is not a little bit of DPS.

And here is my next point. Healer DPS is way too high. I was only 1k behind my tanks in progression, on farm I did slightly more DPS than my tanks and these are 90%+ tanks. If my cohealer and I decided to not DPS at all, during a savage fight, we wouldn't be able to beat it. We would miss way too much DPS and the group won't be able to make up for that. The problem herein lies with the entire design philosophy. They said healers wont have to DPS to clear a fight. That is not true. As mentioned before, 26k-ish DPS is pretty hard to make up for in just a few seconds. This makes progging in fights like UWU UCOB or TEA absolute hell. The healing required is there until you realize how high it really is. Then you drop it. You adjust your CD's and then it's back to spamming DPS spells because ultimately, that is more important than healing. If YOU don't adjust your healing to be as little time consuming as possibe, you won't beat the fight. In fact, the healing part is a little fun even in prog in fights like TEA because you play it more safe, you get to use more of your healing spells, right, there is some diversity. The toolkit isn't great but it's better than 2 buttons doing the exact opposite of what you're meant to do. Until you internalize the damage and spend all your energy on DPSing again because if you don't, you won't beat the fight. It's ridiculous how rewarding it is to press 1 button. Really??? About as much damage as the tanks??? It's insane to me. The entire damage and healing part of FFXIV is a flawed mess. It's Chaos, a bad one, a frustrating one. Made even more frustrating by the fact that they've gone so long ignoring us, telling us to "try it out first" until the next "try it out first", not listening to player feedback in this very specific regard. Never really telling us that they're aware of the problems either. Just talk to us about this but they won't even do that. I'll keep playing Healer because I like keeping everyone going, I just wish the act of keeping everyone going was more than just ignoring 80% of my kit and mindlessly spamming 2 buttons. I remember telling my group that the hardest fight was E7S, the first two minutes. Because nothing happens and I have to spam Broil for 2 minutes straight, not falling asleep during that was the hardest mechanic in any fight. A more interesting DPS rotation woulda been cool, visually more interesting too maybeeee. But maybe, yknow, healing as a healer with an interactive toolkit would have been real fucking great during those 2 minutes. Alas.

/rant over

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Originally Posted by Cherub

I was never the biggest fan of DPSing as a healer too much. I don't mind DPSing a little but if I am to do DPS 95% of the fight in high end fights, then the design of the healer in its core is utterly flawed as mentioned by OP. I dislike the idea of them giving us back DPS tools and making that more exciting because healing would still be bad. It doesn't fix the healer role. It just makes the wrong thing within it a little bit more bearable, instead of spamming 2 buttons

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Are these things really mutually exclusive? Is it not possible to increase healing frequency and make the damage rotations more interesting than smashing one button over and over again? I will never understand this "healers are supposed to heal and making them do more damage is wrong because that's not what they're supposed to do" mentality. I've played clerics in single- and multiplayer games for most of my life. You know how many of them I've spent anywhere close to 50% of my time spamming Cure in? Zero. Sure, there are really rough encounters that require precise heal timing and blowing all of your resources just to keep up with the outgoing damage and curses and poisons and whatever. That's fun to heal. But it's not something you do all the time. It's generally in high-end challenging stuff (like Ultimate probably should be). No, I've spent the majority of my time pre-buffing and then, horrors, dealing damage. Because I have only ever once encountered a healing class with damage output so pathetic that it wasn't worth wasting the time on the cast (we're talking two digits of damage in a game where DPS were doing tens of thousands). Maybe healers are pearl-clutching nervous pacifists in anime or something, because I've never seen it in Western gaming.

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And here is my next point. Healer DPS is way too high. I was only 1k behind my tanks in progression, on farm I did slightly more DPS than my tanks and these are 90%+ tanks.

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Why is this a bad thing? Damage is what you do as a healer when, ideally, you've done your priority job efficiently enough that you can start attacking. I miss being able to outdamage unskilled DPS in dungeons in Heavensward. I think having respectably high damage output as a reward for keeping your healing efficient is a GOOD thing. Who wants to finish healing and then turn to a five damage poot spell because there's nothing else to do?

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

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I never said that they are mutually exclusive. The ideal outcome is to have an interesting DPS toolkit and an interesting healing toolkit in tandem. Me saying I want to heal is purely that. Me wanting to heal. I dislike the idea of them giving us DPS tools back because I fear that they'd think they'll solve all healing issues with just that. A slightly more interesting DPS toolkit for healers while completely ignoring the healing side of it all, and lets be real, if they gave us back the old tools, it'd just be as frustrating and boring. At least something new and interactive would be nice for DPS. Furthermore your mentality isn't the same as my mentality but thats where the Job differences come in right? There should be healer jobs to accomodate both tastes. I do prefer a healer that spends most of its time healing and dots mainly and only finds a few seconds here and there every minute or so to do DPS while you enjoy the cleric type, healing and DPSing equally. Both should work and exist in an MMO. Its what I experienced in other MMOs, there wasn't much time to do DPS, in fact, the healing was rather tight in a few encounters even if the numbers done by me and my healer were more than acceptable in said scenario. To me thats fun.
It's not a "Healers are supposed to heal and making them do more damage is wrong because thats not what they're supposed to do" mentality, it's a "Have healers be healers not braindead 2 button DPS" mentality. It's gone too far into one direction. And no one is happy with it. The healers who prefer healing more, the ones who like DPSing and Healing equally and the ones who like to DPS a lot. I think I can fairly say, everyone dislikes the current situation.

It's bad because the number itself is too high for too little effort. If the healer outdamages a Tank, a Job that is constantly attacking the target with an actual rotation in its toolkit, by just spamming 2 buttons, something is going terribly wrong. Healer DPS needs to be rewarding, true. But if Tanks and Healers nowadays push 13k, one actually putting in effort, the other one turning their brain off and a DPS pushing around 21k+/- depending on Job... The numbers just seem wrong to me, they are too close to each other. Fights are not clearable without Healer DPS (Not saying they shouldn't DPS). Most groups go to their healers and tell them to DPS harder if they enrage. This became extremely frustrating in TEA, which I experienced as SCH, being constantly told to push DPS because the DPS were meeting just about what they were supposed to do but bad Job comp just kicking us in the ass. It wasn't frustrating because of the criticism but because of realizing how little healing was required and DPS being the opposite, being required so much. Furthermore, keeping healing efficient in this game comes in the form of not healing most of the time, it's too easy to achieve. As if there is any effort in that, you're rewarded more by pushing a single button rather than 3. But don't push those buttons with a cast timer! Those are bad unless you WHM! And why go the extreme and say five damage? Why can't Healer DPS be what it is in so many other games, a bonus. Something like -that bit that the healers did, got us past the enrage. That isn't to say the numbers should be atrociously low but finding the time to DPS should be harder for healers to do. Instead we're at the point of - if healers do not DPS efficiently around 90% of the time, you will most definitely meet enrage and it's impossible that anyone else makes up for it other than better gear over the weeks but you'll never be able to make up for it in its entirety, just a portion of their DPS. 20k-ish (in prog) Combined healer DPS is nothing to scoff at. As it stands, you can not make it, if the healers aren't DPSing hard enough. This isn't about healing efficiently anymore, this is about DPSing efficiently. There is a difference between finding the time to DPS to help the group and being required to DPS so well that if you don't, you wont clear the fight. Color me crazy but a healer being tested for their DPS rather their healing isn't exactly what I imagine as a healer. It just really further pushes the idea that healers need to spend -ALL- their time DPSing and doing everything to optimize their DPS, really just cementing the fight design as it is with high healer DPS being an absolute requirement rather than a reward. If the numbers were lower(Again, this doesnt mean doing 5 five damage points, DPS can be lowered by cutting the time where a healer gets to DPS), they'd be easier to accomodate for by the group, freeing up Healers from the duty of being absolutely required to meet the DPS check, contributing to it as a bonus rather than being required to beat it. It should be rewarding to find the time to DPS and optimize my healing. But the time to DPS is always and the time to heal is, well never. I do the opposite begrudgingly, I find the time where it's absolutely necessary to heal and I feel bad doing it, because it's not efficient, healing as a healer sucks cuz it's bad. As I mentioned before 14 seconds spent on purely healing, even less considering one Succor was done during a phase where the boss wasn't targetable. I am not trying to find the time to DPS, I am not being rewarded for my DPS. My DPS was a requirement from the beginning and the time to DPS is all the time and you're doing it wrong if you're not doing that, effectively holding your group back or just keeping you from clearing.
By the time I finish healing, the next set of damage should enroll to keep me healing and so forth. At that point it's rewarding and I'm actually optimizing my healing as a healer to be able to DPS. I am not DPSing and begrudgingly use 3 GCD heals a fight cuz I ran out of CDs that I begrudgingly used because I clipped them and lost 0.5 seconds on my next GCD DPS spell.
I'm also not sure why you miss outdamaging unskilled DPS when it's still completely possible to do so. Just spam art of war in Paglth'an, works for me. Usually top unless there is a semi competent DPS.

I should mention that I apply what I say to high end stuff only. I really don't care about extremes or dungeons or whatever. I'm mainly applying this to Savages and Ultimates.

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Originally Posted by Cherub

I never said that they are mutually exclusive. The ideal outcome is to have an interesting DPS toolkit and an interesting healing toolkit in tandem.

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I dislike the idea of them giving us DPS tools back because I fear that they'd think they'll solve all healing issues with just that

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I see a disconnect between these two sentences. Now, I get why you think that's the likely outcome of adding an interesting damage rotation, but it also sounds like you don't actually want the damage kits to be interesting.

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it's a "Have healers be healers not braindead 2 button DPS"

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What's the problem with...making them not braindead 2 button DPS?

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It's bad because the number itself is too high for too little effort.

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So the solution is to decrease the output and make the reward for efficient healing less satisfying instead of increasing the effort to make it commensurate with the damage output? This is the perennial argument for healers that very easily applies to tanks. Tanks are supposed to deal with incoming damage, not attack things. That's not their job. It's in the name. Doing damage as a tank is so unsatisfying. Tanks should prefer mitigation management. If they don't then they should just play a DPS class. Having an actual damage rotation is antithetical to the role, so they should just be reduced to a one button spam and deal less damage while having more active mitigation tools.

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As if there is any effort in that, you're rewarded more by pushing a single button rather than 3.

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I agree. A single button "rotation" is a really stupid, unsatisfying reward for being skilled at your job. I hope they change that.

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thats where the Job differences come in right? There should be healer jobs to accomodate both tastes. I do prefer a healer that spends most of its time healing and dots mainly and only finds a few seconds here and there every minute or so to do DPS while you enjoy the cleric type, healing and DPSing equally. Both should work and exist in an MMO.

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By the time I finish healing, the next set of damage should enroll to keep me healing and so forth.

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So you don't want cleric-type healers to have time to deal damage. Because healers "should" be constantly healing.

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Why can't Healer DPS be what it is in so many other games, a bonus.

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Because in most games I've played it's not "a bonus". Healing is something you do when the party's lives are threatened. Every party member does what they can to mow down the monsters in front of them. Most of the time that's holy blasting, or summoning storms, or just plain whacking something with a stick. I don't want to be shackled to the GCD healing in this game for the exact reason you hate the current damage rotations: they're boring and spammy as hell. They have almost no interaction with anything. They're a collection of 2-5 spells that don't feed into anything, don't build to anything, and don't have any function outside "if casting this once didn't do the trick, just cast it again!". The difference between the healing and damage kits here is that the GCD healing kits have always been this boring, whereas at least the damage kits used to have -something- more going for them.

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I'm also not sure why you miss outdamaging unskilled DPS when it's still completely possible to do so. Just spam art of war in Paglth'an, works for me. Usually top unless there is a semi competent DPS.

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Excellent Heavensward Scholars used to outdamage the lower skilled Ninjas on single target bosses, which is pretty cool. I'm not a fan of the general MMO fanbase attitude that healers "should" be doing some tiny fraction of the amount of damage that a dedicated DPS class does just because **reasons**. If the amount of damage output isn't commensurate with the effort, then increase the effort. I'm 1000% opposed to the idea that the only thing wrong with the current godawful healer damage rotations is that they "output too much".

Healing would be alot more fun if the entire Healing Kit would be reworked from the ground up, so that Healers would have more room for utility and damaging abilities. Currently, Healers are built as follows (role skills not included):

Scholar (fairy included): 8 raw healing abilities, 3 HoTs, 3 shields and 7 utility skills of which 4 can be used to affect other players/party members. The rest that remains is summon fairy and 5 damage dealing abilities.

White Mage:10 raw healing abilities., 3 HoTs, 1 shield, 4 utility skills of which only 2 affect other players along with 5 damaging skills and whatever that joke called fluid aura is suppoest to be.

Astro TV: 6 raw heals (+4 if you add the 200 potency heals from "stance abilities), 1* HoT, 0* shields, 17 utility skills of which 8 affect other players (cards included) and armed with 4 damaging abilities.

Before anyone asks, i didn't count in every individual AST card because theyre mostly just copypastes. There is in total only 4 different effects on them. Also keep in mind that abilities such as Discard and Draw are also included in the AST utility count.

*+3 HoTs and +1 Shield in Diurnal and +3 Shields and +1 HoT in Nocturnal.

Hope those numbers help with the discussion about healers.

The point is: Healers should be healing/buffing/shielding 60-80% of their time, and the rest in DPS. The way encounters and healing works right now is 90-95% in DPS and a minimum in healing.
Does the DPS rotation need to be more interesting? Def. But the healing aspect of it should be even more engaging, and higher DPS should be a bonus and used in downtime "as a reward" for your good job and optimal gameplay (you are done with your healing duties, now you can DPS at will).

For this to happen, encounters and healer design should be reworked. It practically impossible to do it for older encounters, but for 6.0 onwards, I don't see why not.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I see a disconnect between these two sentences. Now, I get why you think that's the likely outcome of adding an interesting damage rotation, but it also sounds like you don't actually want the damage kits to be interesting.

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No, I want an interesting damage kit. Like, I don't know what to add here. If that is how you read it, I don't blame you. But that is not what I want.

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What's the problem with...making them not braindead 2 button DPS?

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That's exactly what I said though? Healers to be healers and NOT be braindead 2 button DPS? Like I think the sentence is pretty clear. The Problem is them being a 2 button DPS.

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So you don't want cleric-type healers to have time to deal damage. Because healers "should" be constantly healing.

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No, being a Cleric should allow you to deal with those type of situations where you have the tools to make time to find more room for damage and your healer being complementary to the situation and your Job design. Again, Savage and Ultimates in mind. I'm not sure why you'd think these things are mutually exclusive. Healing via DPS, Preemptive healing/shielding. There can be many ways to make Jobs work and interesting. In both ways, healing and DPSing. An interesting dynamic in Job design would help this out. It's working in other games, why can't it here?

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Because in most games I've played it's not "a bonus". Healing is something you do when the party's lives are threatened. Every party member does what they can to mow down the monsters in front of them. Most of the time that's holy blasting, or summoning storms, or just plain whacking something with a stick. I don't want to be shackled to the GCD healing in this game for the exact reason you hate the current damage rotations: they're boring and spammy as hell. They have almost no interaction with anything. They're a collection of 2-5 spells that don't feed into anything, don't build to anything, and don't have any function outside "if casting this once didn't do the trick, just cast it again!". The difference between the healing and damage kits here is that the GCD healing kits have always been this boring, whereas at least the damage kits used to have -something- more going for them.

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And again, my point. They need to fix the healing toolkits as much as they need to fix the current budgered DPS toolkit which, yea I guess, I have to realize is a distant dream and not likely going to happen. It's true that it's more likely that the healing would stay the same and the DPS rotation would change slightly. GCD Healing has almost never been interesting, true. But you can't tell me any game you've played, has healing DPS required this high to clear a fight. Even your Cleric should have an equal time for healing and DPSing but as it stands, you'll DPS 95% of the time in Savage. Healing being an afterthought, healing feeling bad to do as a healer.

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I'm not a fan of the general MMO fanbase attitude that healers "should" be doing some tiny fraction of the amount of damage that a dedicated DPS class does just because **reasons**. If the amount of damage output isn't commensurate with the effort, then increase the effort. I'm 1000% opposed to the idea that the only thing wrong with the current godawful healer damage rotations is that they "output too much".

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It's like you only read a single sentence and ignore the rest and take little parts out of context. I specifically said that Healers have multiple fronts that need fixing, not that ONLY the output is too high and thats the root of all evil. It just adds to the current terrible design. I am opposed to the idea of leaving the healing as terrible as it is and just fix the DPS aspect of the job and the challenge in being a healer is that, as before, we need to just push DPS, there is no effort in Healing. And this is ultimately what I want, an effort in healing. With DPS being something that adds to the Job rather than define it. Again, call me crazy but I play healer because I want to heal, not because I want to play a braindead DPS. A slightly more interesting DPS toolkit won't be a fix to the effort required in healing, nor the encounter philosophy, nor the DPS aspect even because it will just get stale if there is no effort involved. Does that mean I don't want an ineteresting and more complex DPS toolkit? No. I want the best of both worlds.

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So the solution is to decrease the output and make the reward for efficient healing less satisfying instead of increasing the effort to make it commensurate with the damage output? This is the perennial argument for healers that very easily applies to tanks.

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But there is no efficient healing involved here. There is no effort here and I mentioned in my previous post that the output needs to be lowered by exactly what you said, increasing the effort in healing. There is no reward for the non existing efficient healing either, it's a requirement. If you don't do it, you do it wrong. You're being "rewarded" for nothing as it stands. Having a somewhat more interesting DPS toolkit will only do the same thing. There still isn't efficient healing involved because healing at its core is broken, as much as the encounter design is. At least you'll be rewarded for executing a more complex DPS rotation, sure, that is indeed somewhat better but the effort to heal still won't exist in this case. It won't be a reward, it will stay a requirement. It's a small portion of the job too, it will get stale eventually if you don't fix the counterpart which is, shockers, healing. And again, because apparently people love to read what they want - this does not mean I want to spam cure or keep spamming 2 DPS buttons.

You can still outdamage unskilled DPS in dungeons or extremes, it's not very unlikely that I'll do better DPS than a DPS in pugs, again, with nearly no effort involved from my side. But I don't want to be able to keep up with Tanks and DPS in damage in savage and ultimates because those should test me on keeping the group alive, challenge me in that aspect while pushing me to add to the group with DPS. But it doesn't. There is no challenge in keeping the group alive. There is no challenge in DPSing. The only challenge is in how good you can actually DPS while healing minimally, even in Ultimate you spend majority of the time DPSing and I mean an overwhelming majority of the time.

If I can make peace with the idea of you playing cleric, I don't get why so many people can't make peace with the idea of a healer that heals majority of the time. It shouldn't be either or. They both, and more, should exist here and both should be equally fun and engaging. But right now everyone is playing a pseudo healer who only learned 1 DPS spell and the healing tools are all instant and not engaging. But that 1 DPS spell is mads strong. Spam it or you won't clear the fight.

The problem is that there is no way they're going to make easier content be that healing intense, and I want to be engaged at all difficulty levels. After all, the Golden Rule of Healing is that the better you are at healing the less time you spend healing, and lots of content is designed for bad players to be able to clear.

As there will be content where a good player will not really be healing alot, the not-healing kit fun factor should be given priority, and it should not get worse to play the better you and your team are, which I fear will happen if priority nos given to the healing skills unfortunately.

This issue is unique to FFXIV. I have played many MMOs. I have never seen one where healers were able to consistently outdps DPS classes... until now.

In this case, why bring DPS at all? Just bring multiple healers and you will have roughly equivalent damage with massive healing power. DPS is truly a role that is there for fun (rather than need) in FFXIV.

In other games, encounters are designed with constant low-to-mid level damage being taken by the entire party. Healers have to spend the majority of their time frantically healing & deaths are common.

In FFXIV, incoming damage is either low enough that a fairy or HoT can handle it or it is a one-hit kill from missing mechanics. If healers don't regularly DPS in an instance, they would be doing almost nothing.

Given how encounters are designed in FFXIV... please give healers a cool DPS rotation or an actual healing rotation that builds up to something to incentivize more healing. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by NYCLouisGamer

This issue is unique to FFXIV. I have played many MMOs. I have never seen one where healers were able to consistently outdps DPS classes... until now.

In this case, why bring DPS at all? Just bring multiple healers and you will have roughly equivalent damage with massive healing power. DPS is truly a role that is there for fun (rather than need) in FFXIV.

In other games, encounters are designed with constant low-to-mid level damage being taken by the entire party. Healers have to spend the majority of their time frantically healing & deaths are common.

In FFXIV, incoming damage is either low enough that a fairy or HoT can handle it or it is a one-hit kill from missing mechanics. If healers don't regularly DPS in an instance, they would be doing almost nothing.

Given how encounters are designed in FFXIV... please give healers a cool DPS rotation or an actual healing rotation that builds up to something to incentivize more healing. Thanks!

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On the contrary.
DPS is is king in FFXIV which is why people rather skip a healer. Solo healing ex in favour of taking a 5th dps is common enough and so are 1 tank/ 3 dps runs among premades for daily roulettes. And if not for some arbitary "targets two healers" mechanics and the fact that fflogs ranks them as unusual comps that don't show up as default, savage would see more solo heal runs aswell. In lots of content, healers aren't something you take along because you want to but rather because you have to to fulfill the role requirement for a party if you're not a full premade.
If a healer is out-dpsing a dps, the dps is doing something seriously wrong while the healer has likely highly optimised dps uptime. Quite unfair to compare that.
But it's true that FFXIV has a uniquely low healing uptime while crazy high dps uptime for healers. Until I came across this game I was used to having a much higher heal uptime, tight resource management, no combat ress and being able to fall behind in healing if I didn't pay enough attention or miscalculated.
Since the encounter design is unlikely to change and they will most likely keep the low healing requirement for accessibility, all they can really do at this point is make dps kits more interesting. Having an interesting healing kit is neeeded aswell but it won't alleviate the boredom of spending the majority of fights pushing one button.