This has nothing to do with the amount of damage we are doing. Adding more DPS wouldn't solve the simple fact that I press the same button 150+ times in a single savage duty. 2/3rds of my casts are me doing DPS. And no that's not some exceptional number by any stretch. There are logs of E8S clears with 220+ glare/broil/malefic casts. Would you find your DPSing enjoyable if it consisted of you mashing the same button over and over again, often with nothing more than a 30 second dot refresh to break it up?Quote:
Originally Posted by Imora
Everquest managed to pull of a variety of interesting, varied and unique healer DPS kits well over 20 years ago with none of the budget, technical prowess, sources of inspiration or company stability and scale that SE have today.
And what exactly is a healer to heal in the endgame? Savage? I spend over 2/3rds of my time doing damage with less than 1/10th of my kit. Drop down to more casual content such as 24 mans, dungeons etc and it gets considerably worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lexis
What is the solution? Steeper healer checks in casual content? How do you think that will go down with the casuals that struggle as it is? The only solution I see is for SE to add more depth to our downtime gameplay between heals. I literally couldn't care what route they go at this stage. Be it buffs, debuffs, feeding resources or whatever. I'm done with accepting mashing glare/broil endlessly as some kind of acceptable standard of gameplay.
Healers Exist for DPS fun only?
Printable View
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09-08-2021, 06:56 AMSebazy
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09-08-2021, 08:21 AMSaefinn^ This. There are SB Normal Raids where 9/10ths of your time using 1/10th of your kit (if even that). Queuing Normal Raid roulette as a healer can be dead boring. Dungeons aren't as bad because at least you might get a tank who full pulls and you've got a bit more to do at least, but I still maybe DPS half the dungeon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebazy
A healer's kit definitely is not designed accordingly.
A healer's kit is designed for a much higher healing requirement than we get. And I think when you are in a situation that you are pushed (EG: party failing and needs you to carry) then the toolkit melds well and because you're healing you're DPSing less, so the monotony of a Glare or Broil spam is not present. -
09-08-2021, 02:05 PMKranielQuote:
Originally Posted by Lexis
Roeshel is being a bit unreasonable and unfortunately it's making you miss the actual point that the rest of us are trying to make.
I too think that if healers want a better rotation with better DPS output, then they should just play DPS.
But what the majority of us is fighting for is : balance.
Let me try to explain the thought process behind what is triggering the healer community :
1. The premisce : We love healing and support classes, most of us have played them in other MMOs and know that a good healer should make a big difference in a party
2. In FFXIV, the skill ceiling for healing is extremely low, to the point that anyone can jump into it at any time and clear endgame content (by "endgame" content i mean mainly savage/extreme) without much struggle
3. The reason this is possible is because fights are centered around knowing mechanics and have no healer checks, hence it is rarely the case that your technical ability as a healer will be challenged by the game
4. Because of this, as long as we know mechanics, our job will only be to heal through the occasional AoE damage, and DPS the rest of the time
5. However, healers only have two keys to DPS : One DoT and one direct DPS spell
6. This means that we spend most of the fight playing as a boring, dumbed-down DPS class
So what are we asking for then ?
The answer is simple :
Option 1 : Make us busy as healers. That way, we won't care if we only have two keys to DPS, since we'll actually be healing most of the time.
Option 2 : If SE is not going to put out healing skills to contribution, then we want more variety in the toolkit that we use during downtime (which represents 80~90% of the fight in most cases). It doesn't even have to be more DPS keys. It could be support buffs/debuffs as well. Just make us use our brain a bit.
As you can see, we're not asking for the best of both worlds ; just something that makes the class more fun to play. Or i understood everyone else wrongly and all healers on this forum are delusional, but i don't think that's the case :D -
09-08-2021, 03:13 PMReiryuuThe unfortunate problem is, most of the buffs, debuffs and support skills are... on the DPS classes... and in a Savage fight, etc, I wouldn't expect debuffs to really work thus not really solving the problem either unless they really change the way boss fights work... which I don't see happening either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraniel
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09-08-2021, 03:43 PMKranielYep, that's where the issue lies in my opinion. They found a formula that works and brings them a lot of new players, and that formula doesn't need to worry about the healers' job (and tanks are not in a great spot either tbh).Quote:
Originally Posted by Reiryuu
So the only thing we can do is pray and hope that they will do something about it regardless ... But yeah, i'm not getting my hopes up. I'd be happy if we can even get back just a couple support skills that were mowed down for no reason before (Fluid Aura for WHM, Time Dilation for AST, etc ... and before people go all "acktchually" on me, i know Fluid Aura still exists, but let's be honest : it doesn't). The best thing would be a total revamp of how boss fights put each role to contribution, but i don't see that happening anytime soon. -
09-08-2021, 05:37 PMLyth
It shouldn't be too difficult to give healers a more complex rotation. There are plenty of ideas that you can steal from BLU on how to make spells interact with and combo off each other. You would need to trim out a few defensive actions to stay within the action budget, but it's definitely doable. But that's not where the contention lies.
What if the devs give you what you want, but keep your raid dps contribution unchanged from your present state? Healer dps on average will decrease, simply because there will be players who used to be able to do the old rotation in content without trouble, but aren't able to keep up with the new one. The overall distribution will become more spread out because there's a skill differential, and only the very top results will stay unchanged. Are you fine with that, or would you expect healer dps to be adjusted upwards so that the average stays unchanged?
And if you adjust healer damage output accordingly to fix the average, what do you do when the best healers starts chasing down someone like that poor DNC main who posted earlier? Have you considered the unreasonable amount of pressure that you'd be placing on DPS mains, now that they have to do more than an auto-attack only rotation to stay ahead of you? And then if all the straggler DPS quit, their eyes lined with tears, who will buy the dev team's hand painted mogstation glamours to fund SE's next IP flop? They were going to finally make Spirits Within 2. How cruel. Did you consider that?
But seriously, the elephant in the room is your raid contribution. If you wanted to make the game more challenging with no reward, there are plenty of ways to do that already. Turn your HUD off. Play in first person view. People want to see reward for their efforts, but they're either too nice or too polite to ask. "Are you saying that you want more dps?!" "N-no. I-I just want more interesting gameplay. I wouldn't dare ask for more dps. I'll work even harder for less reward. Please don't hurt me." -
09-08-2021, 06:02 PMNobleWinter
Why can't tanks, healers, and dps all do the same amounts of damage? Dps can already aoe heal, use esuna, cast defensive barriers and debuffs, cast regens, revive, etc. So where is the logic in healers and tanks being weaker? Some people might actually use the Samurai and BLM logic to play support roles if they knew they could still see big numbers with them.
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09-08-2021, 06:11 PMKranielNonono.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
I'm not here to DPS.
I'm here to save some ass.
I genuinely wouldn't care about healers DPS spells if healing wasn't as basic and dumb in FFXIV, and i'm sure the majority of healers feel the same.
I want to feel drops of sweat running down my buttcheeks when i heal. I want to have to click left and right and actually have a hard time keeping people alive, and when i do i want them to go "How in hell did you manage to do this ? You're an AMAZING healer". I don't care about the sad commends that i get at the end of a dungeon because no one died when there is nothing to worry about and i can DPS through every wall-to-wall pull as long as i put a regen + barrier on the tank. I didn't sign up for healer kindergarten when i bought the game.
If i want to DPS, i'll play a DPS.
I play a healer, so i want to heal. Simple as that. Damn it give me some work SE! -
09-08-2021, 06:48 PMLythI think that this is also a reasonable direction to take things. Again, the problem comes down to being valued as a healer. You need a skill differential.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraniel
A lot of this comes down to fight design. Tightly scripted fights with unforgiving mechanics will never really be challenging for a healer in the long run. You actually need the opposite: highly variable mechanics where there is some room for recovery (and by variable, I mean variations in mechanic order, not just being randomly assigned to being Healer 1 or Healer 2 on a Gavel mechanic. You need variable damage patterns where the tank is at risk of being burst down to nothing if you blink. You need to have limited resources. It should be possible to bottom out on healing resources, such that you have no choice but to watch your team die in front of your eyes.
There is a downside to this, of course. Some healers just won't be able to clear tougher fights. And they will need to be okay with that fact.
I personally wouldn't mind trying this out. Differentiating healers on the basis of damage output is actually really safe. We know that was done well in ARR and HW, and people liked it. Differentiating healers based on their ability to carry your team through difficult mechanics hasn't really been done here, but it has been done in other games. It's just a question of whether this community would be happy with seeing their clears gated based on healer gear and skill.
I suppose there is a middle ground that I haven't really gone into, and that's if your excess resources from healing more effectively could be turned into extra dps. You'd need fights to force resource attrition, and dps would be a luxury if you healed effectively. But you'd have to be able to wipe your team if you bottom out.
Either way, things can't stay as they are now. The common theme here is that tanking and healing need to be more valuable as roles than they are now, otherwise people will swap off them to DPS. And in the absence of some major changes both to job design and fight design philosophy, I predict that's going to be a big issue in the next expansion. -
09-08-2021, 07:06 PMKraniel100% with you on this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
To be completely honest as a healer (not sure about DPS or tank here), i had more fun with extreme fights during the ARR era than with anything after SB.
I admit that the current extreme fights are very well designed/refined in their mechanics, with a nice dramatic aspect to them (a bit like an interactive movie), but as you said it just doesn't "scratch that itch" for healers and tanks.
I honestly feel more thrill grinding the current Leviathan Unreal fight with randos, than i did during any of the extreme trials/Eden savage so far. I know there isn't an obvious solution to this, as it's directly related to the vision SE have for their game, but i'm just hoping it will change someday. I want to feel like healers and tanks are more than just "filler roles" that are only required to take aggro at the beginning of the fight and heal through the occasional AoE damage.
I just want to feel alive, Lyth. I just want to feel alive ... -
09-08-2021, 07:24 PMRecon1o6The problem is really a two pronged issueQuote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
1. We don't have anywhere near enough buttons during downtime
2. We barely heal.
In terms of skill level
1. Players are not incentivised to get better
2. Those that do get better as a healer get massive increases in output because its very easy to get better with 1 button dps
3. Devs won't raise the difficulty despite shb being the easiest expansion so far with pitiful dps checks outside of delubrum savage.
4. Gear is too strong now yet it feels flat as ever and so what little challenge there has been got smacked down quickly.
These problems only get more noticable as you get better with the role. I seen a lot of new healers asking in game when it gets harder to heal and a few when do they get aero 3. (they are ones who would have seen old guides)
The so called problem of healers doing more damage isn't a bad thing. A healer or tank doing about 70-80% of the damage output of a dps if both are of equal skill level is a good balance. That way in raid settings dps would still have the majority of the legwork collectively, but the healers/tanks could keep up. And we wouldn't get boring situations in the overworld where it takes nearly a dozen more gcds to kill a mob than a dps at the start of the expansion.
Nobody should be babied, we are in our 4th expansion soon. If the dps are going to cry because their freestyling samurai or cryo mages are getting beaten by healers who put some effort in, then let them cry. Players should be incentivised to get better and get rewarded for it with ebtter gameplay -
09-08-2021, 09:19 PMSaefinnI mean, I like the healer/DPS hybrid when it's done well and it WAS done well. Typically in Final Fantasy titles your healer characters don't JUST heal, even in their other MMO title. So to me it's appropriate to have a hybrid ESPECIALLY in a game where performance is measured by your party's average DPS. If I wanted to play a game where I only heal, I'd pick a different MMO.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraniel
With that said, for the majority of content you don't /have/ to DPS, it's really only an issue with DPS checks, enrage timers and optimisation. This game is designed to value DPS regardless of your role.
Then we have this other problem of wanting to make all roles accessible to new and casual players. So ramping up the heal requirement would make it less accessible. Then in addition to that, high iLevels reduces healing requirements too, but content needs to be balanced for people who are still within the iLevel requirement.
It's why I say the best solution is twofold. First is to embrace the healer/DPS hybrid aspect, it works and it solves the monotony on content that doesn't push you enough (particularly those with a higher skill level).
Second is to design future content with an increase in healing requirements.
I just don't see them rebalancing the entire game to give a healing requirement that makes healers work and avoid any compulsion to DPS. And there are a lot of factors they would have to rebalance. It'd not be as simply as nerfing healing abilities or making stuff hit harder, but actual fight mechanics, and how gear affects stats. Because what's a challenge at iLevel 480 will be easier at 520, because your healing spells are more effective, people's HP pool is higher, people kill stuff quicker (and may even skip mechanics), people have better defense and so on and it all adds up. Some fights have mechanics that don't give healers much to do at all because damage isn't frequent enough. So I think a LOT would have to be done to fix this. Now it's possible they're attempting this in the stat crunch on some level...and maybe we will get an improvement there but they've yet to imply as much.
However, they can still make future content more healer intensive. But they will still need to solve the problem for all existing content. DPS is the most sensible way of doing it with the game's current design whilst also respecting a low skill floor. -
09-08-2021, 10:20 PMItMe
This is my fav healer topic in awhile.
There is a lovely discussion going down here. -
09-09-2021, 12:06 AMReiryuu3. Healers cannot actually do anything besides DPS to help a party clear. Healing more than what is absolutely necessary means you're not doing damage and nothing you can do will increase the amount of time the group gets to down the boss. Which... kind of means the whole concept of healers just healing is contrary to the whole boss encounter design. So even if SE gives us 10 extra buttons to press, if they don't increase our party's DPS, our own dps, or do something to help the DPS increase their uptime-- I dunno a buff to increase melee dps hit range or something? then, more than likely, we won't be pressing those much either during fights.Quote:
Originally Posted by Recon1o6
Edit: I'm tired so I hope my meaning comes through. I mean, dead dps do no dps... that's true and all, but the more dps a healer does the less burden the DPS have. I mean if DPS die to mechanics and there's nothing we can do about it since it's instant kill or such, the damage loss from the time the DPS is dead alone could be enough to not make the group clear... I hope I'm making some sense. ><; -
09-09-2021, 12:28 AMKranielOh sure, don't get me wrong, i'm totally fine with DPSing during downtime. What i wanted to emphasize with my previous post was just the idea that we're healers first, not DPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saefinn
So of course, contributing to DPS is a thing and i agree with it, however since FFXIV uses the tank/heal/DPS trinity concept they should make it so that each role has a distinctive way to contribute not only to the group's DPS, but to the fight as a whole.
As i said on a different thread, in their current state you could pretty much remove healers from the game, and slap one or two healing skills on each other class like GW2 did, and everything would be just fine. Healers should not be "expendable", just like any other role. If they're in the game, they have to be put to proper contribution, as healers first, and then and only then, as DPS. Or else we might as well just all start playing RDM. -
09-09-2021, 01:39 AMRoeshelThe concept of healers only healing is contrary to absolutely everything in this game and anyone who has said "healers only heal" must have been joking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Reiryuu
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09-09-2021, 02:10 AMIreniaUnderstandable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraniel
However, it is my belief that all jobs should be engaging in all kinds of content; people rightfully complain about the low level dungeons, for example.
Dungeons in this game will always be easy, due to the team wanting everyone to progress through the game. Even if they make it harder, they won't become harder than extreme trials if you want any kind of difficulty gradient.
So, let's take a player who is but clenching healing a level 90 dungeon. Will a player that is better than that one be engaged in that content? Sure, they would have more fun in extreme/savage/ultimate, but this dungeon needs to be fun on some level. And I don't think there is a way to do this unless the healer's "End Encounter Quicker" buttons are actually engaging on some level.
Once that is done, we can work on making the harder content actually have more of a healing focus. Otherwise healers are stuck only being able to enjoy content that is on their level, more or less. -
09-09-2021, 02:58 AMTruenThat was Yoshi P's entire premise for the 5.0 healer changes. I think the term he coined was "pure healer."Quote:
Originally Posted by Roeshel
Rubbish. -
09-09-2021, 04:19 AMItMeCan you get me a quote on that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Truen
Because as I understood it "pure healer" isn't in reference to a healer that only heals, but a healer who has powerful direct heals and few to no shields / mitigation. A healer who helps keep the party together purely with heals and not with damage reduction tools. -
09-09-2021, 06:35 AMForteNightshadeNot quite. "Pure Healer" is how JP refers to "Regen Healer".Quote:
Originally Posted by Truen
With that said, Yoshida has made blatant statements in the past about not wanting to require healer DPS. Which have all been walked back. His most recent take is healer DPS will be necessary for early clear attempts. This is after people pointed out Shiva (E8S) is mathematically impossible to clear even week two if both healers weren't DPSing. Even Thancred wouldn't be doable week one. He's also stated Eden's Promise is where they "tuned her as high as they reasonably could". Not exactly a ringing endorsement when Promise is literally the only fight in the whole game that demands much of anything from healers save Cycle phase in E11S or Terminal in Gaia. -
09-09-2021, 08:25 AMReiryuuAnd yet, look at the progression of healing tool kits. Buffs removed, DoTs removed, abilities to heal and to bolster healing increased. We can't ask the dev team what fueled these changes or ideas and no one who has ever interviewed Yoshi P or the dev team dares to even ask questions about healers, so we never get to know and the dev team is never really challenged in that regard. Even if it may not have been implicitly said, the changes in healers in recent expansions certainly imply it. The Healer Hall of the Novice trials also heavily implies it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roeshel
Why do we have DPS and DoTs? For soloing and main questing. That's something I am pretty sure you can find Yoshi P saying somewhere. The thing is, people on this forum and in this thread want healing requirements increased. That's fine and all, but the problem with that, hence the post I quoted, is that trials are not a war of attrition. They're a battle against time. As I mention in my post, even if you manage your resources to the fullest and keep all the dps alive, that doesn't mean the boss is going to die. You can still hit enrage. This is a fundamental problem and flaw with healer design, FFXIV's concept of healers, and boss encounter design. One of these things has to give and the devs cling to all of them.
The devs have really pushed healers into a closet from their own design concepts. We're kind of doomed not to get any more interesting kits until we're either let out of the closet or some of the walls are broken down. -
09-09-2021, 10:43 AMJirah
in some cases DPS arent having fun either, dungeons you hardly matter but then again dungeons arent meant to be fun, to quote some bloke off of redit
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09-09-2021, 06:02 PMHermitOwl
I'm a new player that's been playing FFXIV for about a month and a half, but I'd like to put in my 2 cents.
I like that it's not overly complex, it frees my little scrub mind to focus on mechanics and the looks of the boss and the fight and at the same time allows me to be ready to heal when I need to while mindlessly pressing my 2 dps buttons. But I understand that people who have played FFXIV for a long time and have everything down to a tee and have gone through all the iterations over the years to feel frustration.
It's not a simple issue with a simple solution, but there at least needs to be the option to have a more complex playstyle since quite a many players want that while not overcorrecting and making all healers too complex for the people who wants a simpler playstyle and making it too unfriendly to new players. -
09-09-2021, 08:41 PMMortexOh pls as a meele you can tank a entire group for the time bloodbath is up. Also your dps decides if the bad geared tank dies after his cds run out or the bad geared healer is oom then before all mobs are death. Also some aoe rotation do require a little bit of skill. Healer have one button and maybe don’t even aoe when you have a paper tank or a healbot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jirah
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09-09-2021, 08:46 PMMortexThe problem is we do understand that if you start the job here it should start slow and teach you job fundamentals. The problem you only having 2 dps button makes me even the solo lvl stand out badly. Also end game skill ceiling isn’t there because the not ultimates or week 1 raids are mostly so easy too heal you fall asleepQuote:
Originally Posted by HermitOwl
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09-09-2021, 08:51 PMAikenDrum
do we also need a 2 button tank and dps jobs to be friendly to new players and allow them to focus on mechanics and damage mitigation?
i dont see what's so special about healers that they need one and not everyone else -
09-09-2021, 09:14 PMMortexCan’t wait for them too take the last 2 dps spells away or disable them in raid content so you don’t exclude healer that doesn’t do dmg at all. I mean it’s not like you can get reported for telling them that. Oh wait …….Quote:
Originally Posted by AikenDrum
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09-10-2021, 01:29 AMRoeshelHere is a historical overview of AST:Quote:
Originally Posted by Reiryuu
HS:
DPS skills:
Malefic II - 200 damage potency - AST's main damage output at level cap
Combust I & Combust II - DoTs
Stella - useless utility spell on GCD with 100 potency - 2,5 cast time
Gravity - 200 dmg potency to first then 10/20/30/40/50% reduced damage for the next targets. 3s cast time. - Gravity back then was in awful condition, can't weave while casting, can't move in between casts, and on big mob packs, you deal 100 damage potency to the majority of mobs every 3s. The skill stayed in this wretched state for 4 whole years until Shadowbringers came - the expansion that allegedly destroyed AST
Back then all healers had cleric stance. An ability that goes against the concept of healers healing while doing damage. It most probably affected ticking regens as well. I don't want to imagine the mess it caused. You had to stop DPSing just to heal. This type of playstyle is akin only to WHM and it's one of the major issues with the job currently.
For some reason, everybody had access to Aero during HS. An ability that thematically suits only WHM. It had the same potency as Malefic II so unless they wanted to move or weave, they wouldn't use the spell.
SB:
Malefic III
Combust II
Gravity
Earthly Star
Basically Shb AST with old card system with probably serious clip problems and terrible AoE. The only time when you can weave is when you reset DoT. Lightspeed decreased your damage output so it is not something you would want to use to deal damage.
Fast forward two years and now we have the actual quality of life changes for the better. The whole card system is revamped so that you don't have to fish for balance, you can weave with every cast, your AoE is not sluggish and weak, LS is not working against you. Your skills support the playstyle that is expected of you which is to DPS all of the time without clipping. In the previous expansions, you didn't even have that. Not to mention that AST up until Shb had no access to AoE for any content in ARR. Their AoE was available at level 52. I would have probably never queued for leveling roulette. Can you imagine? Running Keeper of the Lake and not being able to AoE anything. The suffering must have been unfathomable. What else can you do besides AoE-ing? Circle your unspreadable DoTs? Give me a break. That gameplay was terrible.
Looking back at AST and the changes made it becomes clear that the GMs are trying to optimize your gameplay for DPSing. The gameplay of AST today is the most fluid version we ever had.
For AST, there was only one unique and offensive spell that got removed - Stella. It being a GCD made it a completely pointless ability to have. Turning it into oGCD would have made it into Fluid Aura with a different pointless utility but it would have still been used because of the DPS. It being removed is better than staying the way it is. It is a poorly designed spell.
It is not completely accurate to say that DoTs were removed for AST. They were simply organized. You don't need Combust ∞ on your bar. As far as Aero is concerned it should have never been part of AST's kit, to begin with.
From what I remember when I was doing the Hall of Novice you are advised to attack when there is nothing to heal which is more or less the old method of healing when healers still had Cleric Stance which made DPSing and healing at the same time as healer difficult. It used to swap MND and INT stats during HS so you must have been healing nothing when it was active. This also means that INT was not an attribute used by magical DPS only but by healers as well which makes healers unnecessary complicated and unable to deal significant damage unless their Cleric Stance is on. I wonder how they were building their BiS back then if healer's gear also had INT stats. -
09-10-2021, 03:20 AMIceBlueNinja
IWhile I love the ast now and agree. the current card system is as boring as the one button dot and dps spell we have. This system is worst then stormblood cards no matter how nitche some of the cards where it at least felt more to really keep an ast on their toes as they were made to be unique of buffing the party and not dps compared to a sch or whm. i was the rare ast that didnt only go for balance fishing when I found use for all card cept spire when tp was gone. Sb cards are way more annoying for this weak water down 5 dps damage increase vs royal road that gave least half of all card effect to all party. remember spear? ast was the only job that gave a crit buff and if it was aoe was crit 5% to all party which wouldnt crit be better than 5% flat damage? The nerves to make our cards only 1 person now buff. even royal balance was 5% for all party instead of single. Am I the only one to see we actually was cheated of our cards? divination is just poor buff bad cd and too much to get it. oh i love using a card early b4 fight only for seal not to apply(not)
Overall even if devs change healers there always gonna be a group of never satisfied people. it always gonna be in this way in this or any game. I just accept lately on any game to accept game what it be like it or not or move on to new things or respect it. -
09-10-2021, 05:23 AMSebazyThe solution to this side of the issue is to simply use the different healer jobs within the role to offer a variety of play styles.Quote:
Originally Posted by HermitOwl
WHM has always been the straight forward, no frills healer. That's fine.
SCH was originally the healer with less brute force power on the surface, but it's strength was in it's subtleties and depth.
AST was the buffing healer and IMHO SE should have taken it even further down that road with a greater emphasis on cards and buffs vs personal nuking.
The unfortunate fact is that it takes a significant amount of time to balance jobs that are this diverse. Time that SE have demonstrated time and time again that they are not willing to invest in the healer role. -
09-10-2021, 05:24 AMSebazyA couple of small corrections.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roeshel
Regarding Heavensward:
Gravity was fine, I'm honestly not sure why you're hating on it so much? It's main downfall vs WHM and SCH aoe was actually the need to target a monster to cast it. It was pretty common to lose a GCD or two to your target mob getting killed right before the gravity cast went off if your group was stomping trash particularly quickly. Weaving with it really wasn't that big a deal, in dungeons you'd generally get the best results just pounding the trash to dust and then dealing with cards whilst running, you'd spam aero/combust/cards as much as you could whilst moving and then just mash Gravity once the Tank positioned things. Also note that Gravity was and still is at somewhat of an advantage vs trash pulls with lots of ground marker spam, the 4th trash pull in The Twinning is a great example of this where Holying through AoEs was particularly risky.
Regen works in the same way as dots in that it's potency snapshots depending on your buffs when you cast it. Dropping a regen on a tank and then hitting cleric stance had your regen continuing to heal for it's full amount. If I'm remembering it correctly, Earthly Star also healed it's full amount irrespective of if you had Cleric stance up or not.
Aero was 100% worth using on the condition that it was going to run it's full duration, 180 potency total over 18 seconds for one GCD. Stacking dots on everything you could was always fundamental to doing good healer damage irrespective of single or multi target. Also just incase it's not clear, Combust I and II both stacked. As an AST you'd use all 3 dots on a single target if you were trying to maximise your damage (assuming it wasn't going to die or go immune before the full dot duration that is). As a fun bit of bonus trivia, back in 2.0 WHM also had access to Thunder which was also well worth using.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGUMzl2cV0 - Some Heavensward AST gameplay of mine in an A12S PF for reference.
Moving onto Stormblood:
You're mostly on point, light speed was primarily a mobility and MP conservation tool at this point. One fairly major point that is worth noting is that AST actually out AoE'd SCH by quite a significant margin in 4.0 initially. WHM was ahead of AST by a modest margin with SCH an insultingly distant 3rd through a perfect storm of nerfs to it's AoE kit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ35BP-PEaI - Stormblood gameplay running Seiryu on AST again in a PF.
Yep, AST's dungeon gameplay pre Gravity was absolutely horrible. Do you know the best part about this? Stormblood saw this exact issue being dumped on SCHs at the level cap. If there was ever a smoking gun that clearly demonstrated that SE's battle system team put zero effort into healers. 4.0 SCH was it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roeshel
Note that the cast time change for AST came partway through Stormblood with patch 4.3. I'd argue that this era was peak AST if you discount the 20% balance times during 3.4.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roeshel
It is 100% accurate to say that DoTs were removed for all 3 healers, AST included. AST used to roll with 3 dots in HW as can be seen in my replay that I've linked. Having dots with different cast mechanics and durations added an extra layer of complexity particularly if you were really trying to min max your efficiency.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roeshel
There was no worth in taking any INT on healers that I can ever remember since you wouldn't see any benefit from it when Cleric was up, nor was it really worth spending GCDs on damage without Cleric stance going by the time you were level 50. If you were really chasing that last bit of damage you'd be cane/book slapping and throwing PPPs.
Lastly, it's fair to say that AST has lost the least depending on where you stand with the new vs old cards. Things don't look so peachy if you compare how SCH has been handled over the years though. And that's without mentioning the raid utility we've lost over time such as Eye for an Eye and Virus. -
09-10-2021, 06:04 AMRinaB
In response to the OP, it wouldn't feel like that if they made tanks and healers feel more important. Obviously you need tanks and healers but the skill cap for both roles is so low now and on top of that not even having to care about enmity is just blah. I've tanked this whole xpac like usual but I would just like the tank role and healing role to be changed somehow to make them more niche instead of "anyone can do it now!"
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09-10-2021, 07:19 AMFoxCh40sI think in general both roles want more relevance than that.Quote:
Originally Posted by RinaB
However, as an Omni Job player, one who gravitates towards healers, I would say right now that Healers are in the absolute worst of it right now. -
09-10-2021, 08:11 AMSebazy
My post above made me think of another way to clearly show how healer gameplay has changed over the years and patches. Here's some comparisons between HW and Shadowbringers healer gameplay in some Savage and Extreme encounters around the 9-10 minute length.
Log 1 - HW AST - A12S - Above average DPS whilst also carrying the HPS to a fair extent
This is the log from the HW A12S video I linked and IMHO, this is what our spread of casts should look like in optimised play. I'm not mashing a single button for extended periods. I've got a fairly even amount of healing vs DPS actions. This is enjoyable healer gameplay with a great amount of depth and optimisation potential despite A12S being clearly the easiest end of tier boss vs A4S/A8S.
Log 2 - HW SCH - A12S - World #2 Ranked DPS, minimal HPS
This log was my long time co healer landing the world number 2 dps ranking in one of our A12S clears. This was the absolute pinnacle of green DPS back in 3.x. Nukes are a little over 2x the next most used ability with the rest of the kit being close behind.
Log 3 - SHB SCH - E10S - Above average DPS, average HPS
Coming to the present in Shadowbringers, another log from my co healer, this time a fairly mediocre messy E10S clear with deaths and whatnot. 180 nukes, 40 ruin IIs, 19 dots, 15 Eds, there's that huge compression towards 2 hotkeys with Broil being pressed at a ratio of 4.5x to 1 vs Ruin II which in turn is just over 2x to Biolysis and Energy Drain.
Log 4 - SHB WHM - E10S - Below average DPS, significantly above average HPS
The same pull as above, this time my casts as a very HPS heavy WHM, except the numbers are even more skewed.... 131 Glares, 20 Dias, 13 Assizes and 12 Aff.Raptures, that's a ratio of 6.5x to 1 Nukes vs my second most pressed hotkey. And remember, this is below average DPS with a fairly good 97%+ active rate, so I'm not exactly sitting around doing nothing.
Log 5 - SHB WHM - Warrior of Light - Significantly above average DPS, below average HPS
Here's a Warrior of Light Extreme cast list from myself, a good DPS run but I wouldn't say I was excessively greedy. 140 Glares, 19 Dias, 12 Aff.Raptures. That's a 7.3x and that's still even close to as bad as it can get for some healers.
Log 6 - SHB AST - Average DPS, Slightly below average HPS
Lastly, as bonus content, here's a completely random recent AST run I plucked out from E10S for completeness. It was handily close to being perfectly average, they weren't slacking on the healing either so please don't consider this a cherry picked example by any stretch. 169 Malefics, 17 Combusts, 17 Draws. That's a hair off a 10x to 1 ratio.
A few things to add to this. If I did decide to cherry pick a log to push my case, the top ranked DPS 'healers' these days are pushing around 11x to 1 ratios. Granted these don't really count because to achieve these numbers, you're offloading work onto a single healer to the extent where you're likely losing overall raid DPS.
Which really leads onto my summary nicely. It really does need to be emphasised here, in the second log linked you've got one of the very best DPS minded Scholars (20th in the world for that tier) paired with one of the most HPS focused healers (2nd in the world for that tier) and the 'best' we could achieve back then was a skew of 2.3x to 1 with a close spread of abilities coming in behind that. I suspect this was primarily down to Fretty having 5 dots with various timers and priorities to maintain vs 1 30 second dot today and indeed, if you combine Bio II, Miasma and Aero into the nuke count you end up with 136 nukes which is much more akin to what we see these days.
To look at it at a different angle. In that world #2 A12s clear, Broil accounted for 26% of Fretty's total casts. Nowadays I can jump into a PF and assuming it's not a complete clown shower, I'll readily hit a ratio of 50%+ nukes and indeed to confirm this, the random average AST clear above hit 53%, my Warrior of light clear above was 57%. Meanwhile at the very top of the charts healers are hitting ratios over 65%.
If this doesn't clearly show that SE have taken healing in entirely the wrong direction, I'm not sure what else I can say. -
09-10-2021, 09:05 AMAceceTo make another point, Broil in Hw (at least in these logs) Did only 28.35% of the total damage while in Shb it does 69.86% of the total damage. That means not only did they simplified sch rotation, they also made it a lot more punishing to miss a broil rather then let dots tick.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebazy
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09-10-2021, 10:08 AMForteNightshadeIt's actually remarkable when you look under the hood just how completely misguided their healing direction is. Keep in mind, this is at the height of Yoshida making comments about fights not requiring DPS; even specifically telling Mr. Happy to relay this sentiment to his audience in 4.1. It's baffling how they can even make a statement like that yet go ahead and buff each healer's nuke to the point they don't ever want to miss a single one due to the now massive damage loss.Quote:
Originally Posted by Acece
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09-10-2021, 03:22 PMKranielWell yeah, i mean, no one in their right mind is going to say "things were better when we had Cleric Stance".Quote:
Originally Posted by Roeshel
It's easy to have a more fluid healer gameplay when you take no risks at all with their design. I am not going to give SE any credit for this. If they didn't standardize all 3 healer classes to make them so similar to play, then sure, i'd have been more willing to praise their effort.
As you said, it's clear that healer gameplay is being optimized for DPSing, and that's exactly the issue at hand. We should be healing first, and DPSing second, not the opposite.
Also, as an AST main i have to say the best version of AST to me has always been the one from SB.
Now, i'm one of these people who much preferred the old card system to the current one, and i'm aware it's a matter of personal taste, so i'm not going to argue with those who like the current system since it'd be counter-productive.
BUT, even with the card part out of the way, i think we can all agree that the fact we used to be able to spread any card effects to the whole team, extend them, etc ... made the job much more fun than what it currently is.
We were also able to save cards to use them at a later point, which i think was an interesting idea.
Also LS made sense at the time since AST had a harder time to manage MP (which is totally not the case now ... current AST is a beast when it comes to MP management).
I agree that sometimes, some skills/concepts have to go, but they really went overboard with the changes they made to AST imo.
Right now, it's just a "fancy" WHM that has one individual damage buff and one group damage buff, that's hidden behind the falsely complex arcanum mechanic.
You can even tell that SE themselves aren't convinced by the whole arcanum mechanic with the changes they brought to Sleeve Draw. They are trying to give as many tools as possible to AST to nullify the impact of RNG on the Divination buff.
The truth is, current cards and the whole arcanum system are completely useless. By the time Divination CD is over, in 99% of cases you will already have drawn all three arcanum and be ready to buff your party with maximum efficiency.
It's effectively the same thing as having only one card that buffs every class for the same amount, and no arcanum mechanic at all. -
09-10-2021, 04:29 PMSemirhageWhat does this even mean? Gameplay has been optimized to make sure that healing is as childproof as possible. So a low-skilled healer has a minimized chance of wiping a party. As a side-effect, this provides more downtime. The current role designers don't seem to get that consequence, so they think that making healing childproof makes the role more "healing focused".Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraniel
Of course you heal first and deal damage second. That's your role, to ensure the party survives. You just end up spending a ton of time dealing damage because that primary responsibility is so easy. But that's one of the huge differences of opinion between players in the healing role. I'm a dirty Green DPS. I believe the primary job of a healer is to keep the party alive. This is the goal no matter how you get there. Gaining skill with doing so means that you minimize the amount of time spent healing, because that's just how the definition of efficiency works. I want to keep the party alive, not spend as much time spamming Cure as possible. Unless everyone takes a heavy penalty for being lower than 100% HP, there's no reason to keep everyone full all the time.
I'm in a decided minority when it comes to opinions on healer design here. I think attrition healing is boring. The idea of spending 80% of my time spamming uninteresting healing spells sounds just as boring as Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare. I'd rather be bolstering my party's defense, blinding my enemies, hexing them, slowing their attack speed, rooting them in place, debuffing their defense, increasing the warrior's strength, and blasting enemies when that's the most efficient thing to do. Healing allies happens when it needs to. For me, healing is a means to the end goal of helping the party. Spamming healing spells isn't the end goal in itself. -
09-10-2021, 05:37 PMKraniel"What does this even mean ?", you ask ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Semirhage
Well i was replying specifically to the post that i quoted, so if you want to know what i meant by that, no need to look any further.
As for the rest of your response, i have already explained my general views on the topic with enough details. I can't blame you for not checking the previous pages of this thread, but if you did you'd know that we pretty much share the same opinion :)
Tldr : Either we get more busy with healing (and i don't mean by pressing frantically the same button by the way), or we get busy with buffs/debuffs/DPS, but the current way boss fights make us use our toolkit is boring as can be. -
09-10-2021, 09:05 PMLyth
One reason why healing is so simplified now is because the devs have effectively removed resource management and resource attrition from Stormblood onward. They don't want you to mismanage your MP and stand around watching your teammates die as you are unable to cast anything to save them. That's why most of your toolkit consists of free, instant cast defensive spells, whereas in other games healing cast time and resource cost are inversely related. There's actually a lot more timing involved when you have actual cast times to work with, simply because you have to precast so that your heal lands just after the damage goes off.