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

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

In 27+ months of playing FFXIV, that is literally something that's never happened to me, and something that I've never had to worry about.

I've run content with my FC-mates, several of whom are obviously on-content Savage raiders. (It's obvious from the gear and mounts they're sporting, even if they don't say anything.) Not once have I heard them remark on anyone's DPS, let alone the healers'. For the healers -- It's always, "Here's a good time to use Temperance." Or, "Here's a good time for Lilybell/Panhaima." Or when a few members of the party are tanking the floor, "F everyone else, just keep yourself alive for 10 seconds, and then LB3."

Every reasonable player I've ever encountered pushes the healers in the party to keep themselves alive and then to keep party alive. Healer DPS is the lowest priority.

In the end, it is true that FFXIV players expect healers to excel... at actually healing and keeping the party alive. If they can do DPS, that's an added bonus.

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I was lectured by a party member about doing 0 healer DPS while leveling my very first healer in Brayflox Longstop a month or two after starting the game. If we're contributing personal anecdotes.

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Originally Posted by vetch

I was lectured by a party member about doing 0 healer DPS while leveling my very first healer in Brayflox Longstop a month or two after starting the game. If we're contributing personal anecdotes.

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OK, so don't keep us in suspense. That's only part of the story, first of all , who gave you the lecture, and what happened after that?

Mechanics that kill people are almost consistently on the 2 minute mark these days.

Red Mage will invariably be doing ~25.4-38.1 seconds worth of melee combo during 2 minute (larger number being the potted triple melee). If someone dies during that 2 minute, either healer will need to grab that raise (as they *should* be first to raise in any case) and if both healers are dead then just wipe at that point.

That said I'm indifferent about uninterruptable melee combo. It'd make being the group maid easier but I didn't sign on to be the group maid, I signed on to be a magic swordsman. There'd still be annoyances with raising during a combo like "now stuff is outside buffs that shouldn't be" but it'd be far less a cost than otherwise to be sure.

Heck, I'd argue that its intentional to balance verraise but how many balances do we have to put on the dang spell before we all sit back and realize that its time to just let it go?

It would be nice, however, if we got it so sprint and pot (at the very least, pot) don't eat dualcast. Makes potted reopeners so annoying.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

OK, so don't keep us in suspense. That's only part of the story, first of all , who gave you the lecture, and what happened after that?

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I have no idea what point you're trying to make.

Nobody else said anything. I snarked at the person a bit and then we finished the dungeon.

If by chance you're supposing they earned a black mark on their account for violating the TOS, well, they didn't get one from me and neither of the other party members seemed to care.

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Originally Posted by vetch

I have no idea what point you're trying to make.

Nobody else said anything. I snarked at the person a bit and then we finished the dungeon.

If by chance you're supposing they earned a black mark on their account for violating the TOS, well, they didn't get one from me and neither of the other party members seemed to care.

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It was a simple question as you didn't provide any information on: the way the remark was phrased (e.g. was it helpful, was it abrupt), whether anyone else said anything, whether you said anything, whether you found it helpful (or not), whether you modified anything (or not).

Up to you on how much you wanted to provide, however without at least some of the above (and not being there) it's rather difficult to understand the circumstances, nor was I speculating regarding any violation of the TOS. I wasn't doubting that it happened, before anyone raises that question.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

It was a simple question as you didn't provide any information on: the way the remark was phrased (e.g. was it helpful, was it abrupt), whether anyone else said anything, whether you said anything, whether you found it helpful (or not), whether you modified anything (or not).

Up to you on how much you wanted to provide, however without at least some of the above (and not being there) it's rather difficult to understand the circumstances, nor was I speculating regarding any violation of the TOS. I wasn't doubting that it happened, before anyone raises that question.

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Ah.

It was quite abrupt. I didn't consider it helpful at the time but in hindsight they were correct; I was anticipating a lot more incoming damage than was actually happening and didn't need to conserve MP nearly as much as I was.

My point in bringing it up was that there are absolutely people commenting on healer DPS performance and not just whether they're keeping the party alive, so I wasn't thinking of the things you're asking for as relevant. Sorry.

in my experience most people dont care about the healer dealing as much dmg as possible... but they care about the healer doing something. doing nothing and overhealing without limits are the two no gos for healers

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Originally Posted by Renathras

We have 4 healer Jobs, let's have them play differently so everyone can find one they like. AST can have more buffs, SCH more DoTs, SGE more damage rotation, WHM be left as it is today. Everyone wins. Hell, WHM and SGE can both stay as they are today, point is, something that gives everyone an option.

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Where's my WHM with a mildly more interesting DPS kit, perhaps along the lines of ForsakenRoe's proposal? Where's my simple, direct HP restoration and regen healer with a DPS kit based on direct damage that isn't godawful boring?

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

IMO don't need a more complex DPS rotation. You need encounters that actually make you play as a healer instead of a green DPS.

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Agreed. I don't think healers would really be complaining about the state of their DPS rotation if their role was actually engaging on the healing end.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

Where's my WHM with a mildly more interesting DPS kit, perhaps along the lines of ForsakenRoe's proposal? Where's my simple, direct HP restoration and regen healer with a DPS kit based on direct damage that isn't godawful boring?

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Sorry brother but you'll have to keep asking, cos mine had Dia stay as a DOT so it doesn't count /s

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Originally Posted by angienessyo

Agreed. I don't think healers would really be complaining about the state of their DPS rotation if their role was actually engaging on the healing end.

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Probably, but I expect it to be even less likely for SE to make healing engaging than to give us some 'mostly ignorable extra damage buttons', since 'not being able to keep up with the extra healing' directly translates to 'party wipes because they hit zero HP'

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Come on, if SE pitched 'hey we were thinking of making it so that if you use Swiftcast Verraise mid melee combo (or any of the later steps like Scorch), it doesn't break the combo', who'd say 'no I want to have the combo keep breaking'?

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No one. But do I think RDM needs it on the same level as tanks did? No. For the sheer simple fact that RDM's primary job is NOT to help rez. You rez when you can. Do you have to rez the exact moment in your melee combo? Chances are 90% of the time no. You usually have 2 healers who have swiftcast Raise each.

Do I think it would be a welcome change? Sure. Do I think RAISE would be the skill to not break? Pfft no.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

SCH more DoTs, SGE more damage rotation

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I do agree with the idea overall, But isn’t this ultimately just the same thing?

If Scholar goes back to being a dps heavy DoT Plague Demon, doesn’t that make it ‘the dps rotation job’? We can argue one way or another, but DoTs still ultimately end up as conveyor belt rotations, Bio II, Miasma, Bio - Bio, Miasma, Bio II (the variable durations meant you simply reversed for reapplication times lol). Where does that leave Sage? Likewise if Sage becomes the premium dps healer, what does that make Scholar and its DoTs? I’m not sure ‘does the same but with with slightly more consistent numbers’ is enough of an identity for a job.

Moreover, the game’s sole remaining DoT class has just two damage over time abilities, has never had Bane lol , and uses a single button. It no longer has any interactions between DoTs and damage abilities (i.e old Sidewinder) and they don’t even affect procs anymore. Ultimately, I find it difficult to envision them adding Miasma, Bio I, Miasma II, Bane, Fester, and Tri-Disaster to Scholar when actual dps jobs aren’t even being asked to manage DoTs in such a way.

Which then leaves the question of ‘What do we do with Scholar?’ Apparently the devs answer to that is/was ‘absolutely nothing’ lol. Personally I believe Scholar should do what it says on the tin.

I don’t have the exact quote, but when Alka Zolka is asked what a Scholar is, he describes them as ‘taking the role of support’ and utilising ‘powerful healing and restoration magicks, which were hardly uncommon at the time’, and that ‘it was the use of fairies and the manner in which they employed them’ that set them apart as military tacticians capable of leading a small contingent against a significantly larger force. The Scholar should be a job with poorer healing and damage output than the others, but through tactical use of buffs/debuffs and working in synergy with the fairy they can empower their allies through fights they may never have otherwise survived. It can distinguish itself from Astrologian through focusing on buffs and debuffs that are more ‘utility oriented’ than Astrologian’s damage-focused cards

What’s what I think, anyway. Not that I won’t concede the most obvious point though, that ‘but that’s just Astrologian!’. Plus, everyone would ofc just stack the two support healers (or the two dps healers lol). But I feel like building on the identity Scholar has already tried to set out for itself will work better than forcing it into a SB Summoner shaped hole (which we all know is what the new caster will be lol)

Again, and I will repeat it for the umpteenth time...
DPS healers have already been proven to work with BLU mage healer in the current system, my BLU healer get this... has 14 (and sometimes more) DPS buttons... and I push them on cooldown while also healing, funny isn't it? Though no one is asking for that complexity...they just want something that isn't 1111111111. So about healer dps complexity it would not be complex at all even if they added 5 new dps buttons for each healer (which would be a start).

Raising fight heal requirements won't solve a thing when downtime is concerned, because for one: there will always be skilled enough healers that will always have downtime, and for two: gear scores will level that off to the point healers might not be needed as healing required levels off when gear score increases to the point we become replaceable if not already. And for three, the devs would have to rework every single piece of content in the past (and I don't see them doing so, given it would be a shock for newer players and would require more time than I see them caring to even give out.)

I definitely am a broken record at this point...but still feel I need to bring it home. Adding dps buttons won't make a healer heal less, unless they are bad (which then that's a skill issue, and that person should learn to grow into their job.)

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Originally Posted by Connor

But I feel like building on the identity Scholar has already tried to set out for itself will work better than forcing it into a SB Summoner shaped hole (which we all know is what the new caster will be lol)

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Where are you getting this idea that SCH has "tried to set out" for a "utility buff/debuff" identity versus it's historic FFXIV and FFXI identity of a job that uses DoTs in combat? Expedient and Chain Stratagem?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Because it is an either-or situation. The misconception is from the people thinking it's not.

At the very least, with these Devs and this type of design, it's VERY unlikely they could pull something off that wasn't.

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Except it's still not an either-or situation. The devs have proven that they can create a satisfying healing kit with good interactions, a satisfying dps kit with room for skill expression and good fight design that requires healers to heal, all this was done back in SB. We're asking for them to go back to that good balance of design instead of trying to push all the complexity into the mechanics dance itself, which is clearly not working because you only progress a fight once, after you clear, you now understand the fight to the point that most of the complexity is already gone. (Also, the more complex moving parts they put into a single mechanic, the more limited the solution becomes, but that's another problem entirely.)

SCH was gutted slightly going into SB, but it was still decently satisfying to play. AST was extremely weak at the start of SB, but they managed to tune it properly eventually and it felt good to play. The only healer that sucked was WHM.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Where are you getting this idea that SCH has "tried to set out" for a "utility buff/debuff" identity versus it's historic FFXIV and FFXI identity of a job that uses DoTs in combat? Expedient and Chain Stratagem?

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Embrava, Adloquium and Regen V say hi lol. Also wasn’t Scholar used either as a support healer or a skill chainer / magic burster with Immanence lol? So…it focused on buffs, debuffs and support lol. Helixes (Helices? Lol) were cool and valuable, but I don’t really think they were supposed to be the entire focus of the job. An important aspect, undeniably, but I don’t think they conceptualised Scholar as a ‘poison Mage’ in ff11 or ff14 lol.

Even if you don’t count ‘buffs that amount to generic healing’ like Whispering Dawn, Protraction and Excogitation (which honestly I think SE mistakenly categorises as ‘buffs’ rather than ‘healing’) you still have general damage reductions, magical damage reductions, critical hit rate against target increased by 10%, movement speed increase. Then if you start looking into things they removed, there’s AoE Haste, AoE Esuna and further debuffs like Enemy Silence (not particularly reliable but it existed lol), Eye for an Eye, Virus, Shadow Flare.

To turn the question back at you, where are you getting that Scholar is a job that uses DoTs in combat lol? The fact it used to share spells with Summoner? And if that were truly part of the job’s core design, how could the devs still think it does that with a single, uninteractive DoT lol? If anything it’s ‘historic identity’ is that of a versatile caster that can change tactics depending on the situation, i.e Dark / Light Arts, which in turn means it’s buffing, debuffing and attacking the enemy equally. But I don’t see how it could be categorised as an ‘offensive DoT job’ in either game really - it seems a little reductionist

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Originally Posted by Renathras

At the very least, with these Devs and this type of design, it's VERY unlikely they could pull something off that wasn't.

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"If the actor is explicitly incapable, the act is unlikely to succeed."

Well, no shit. But if we're to limit discourse solely to what we think the devs could likely pull off, what constructive activities could ever be possible here?

So, any counter here that doesn't rely on purposely damning premises? There's not a suggested change that you've made, either, that wouldn't be equally damned by that premise, after all.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

They generally are [mutually exclusive]. If they weren't, you guys would support the "4 Healers Model" since it offers both.

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Your model excludes some aspects of available depth from some jobs and other aspects of available depth from other jobs -- i.e., treats those aspects as mutually exclusive, when they wouldn't need to be if you just allowed each kit greater depth/agency in total instead of insisting on an equally low or barely raised skill ceiling.

It's not that people would support your model if increasing healing requirements and having more involved downtime options weren't mutually exclusive. They are not mutually exclusive, and your model tends to get crap for treating them as if they were.

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Originally Posted by Connor

To turn the question back at you, where are you getting that Scholar a job that uses DoTs in combat lol? The fact it used to share spells with Summoner? And if that were truly part of the job’s core design, how could the devs still think it does that with a single, uninteractive DoT lol?

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The basis of its form of magic as established in this game tends to focus on the lesser wheel / not-directly manifest magics. ACN destabilizes enemies' aether as to debilitate both their physical (Bio) and magical bodies (Miasma). From there, SMN instead channels their Egi for access to more directly manifest magics and for means of more immediate (though often less efficient) release (see old Ruin III operating alongside Ruin I; Fester, Painflare) while SCH focuses instead on the imbued Aetherpool itself, thereby able to effectively boil enemies alive through those aetheric excesses and disturbances (Broil) they created. This doesn't get carried out very well in the gameplay, but that doesn't mean the setup isn't/wasn't there.

And no, the devs almost certainly don't think that that identity is covered by a single, uninteractive DoT. But they also probably don't think about identity, period, at this point.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

The basis of its form of magic as established in this game tends to focus on the lesser wheel / not-directly manifest magics. ACN destabilizes enemies' aether as to debilitate both their physical (Bio) and magical bodies (Miasma). From there, SMN instead channels their Egi for access to more directly manifest magics and for means of more immediate (though often less efficient) release (see old Ruin III operating alongside Ruin I; Fester, Painflare) while SCH focuses instead on the imbued Aetherpool itself, thereby able to effectively boil enemies alive through those aetheric excesses and disturbances (Broil) they created. This doesn't get carried out very well in the gameplay, but that doesn't mean the setup isn't/wasn't there.

And no, the devs almost certainly don't think that that identity is covered by a single, uninteractive DoT. But they also probably don't think about identity, period, at this point.

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So they established an identity for Scholar as an ‘aetherial poison Mage’ as you say…then removed all the poisons? That doesn’t add up to me lol. I don’t think the developers are that stupid. If they designed Scholar to be a DoT oriented offensive healer, I don’t get why they would then remove all the offensive DoTs? Unless there was more to it than just the DoTs. If they didn’t like it that much surely they would’ve done a Summoner style complete redesign to fit the ‘DoT attacker’ identity they had conceptualised? I find it hard to believe they said ‘fuck it, let’s take all the DoTs from the job whose identity is DoTs and give them nothing in return’. And before we pull Summoner into it, they do technically give something in exchange for the lost DoTs…it just sucks lol (Rite / Astral Flow spam)

I mean, putting aside that Bio and Miasma sound suspiciously like the perfect debuffs through such description (physical / magical damage reductions) isn’t this ignoring the converse?

Scholars utilise the manipulation of aether within a physical body / entity for a desired effect, through geometric formulae and/or Nymian script (it was written on Setoto’s fathers coat when you find it). Like releasing fire aspected aether to ignite an enemy

Does it not also follow that they would be competent in altering aether for a positive effect? I mean, isn’t altering someone’s aether to make them more resilient still the exact same thing as altering it to slowly unravel? So…debuffs and buffs lol. Gathering aether together to form a shield, corrupting/distorting enemy aether to weaken them or lower their resistances, reinforcing allies aether to weather stronger attacks, all whilst utilising the fairy for direct healing magicks. It still seems reductionist to me to just say, ‘Scholars are offensive attackers who utilise corrupted aether to inflict pain on their enemies’. It’s certainly part of the full picture, but it’s ultimately still only one half lol. It’s like saying Bards are either just Archers with lasers or Musicians who really likes
bows. Whether we like it or not, the identity (currently) is both lol.

I just don’t want to see Scholar get dismantled and replaced with a DoT Drone because of a preoccupation with one aspect of the job (that arguably wasn’t a major one). They’ve already ravaged Bard and Astrologian, I don’t want to see Scholar be next lol. I don’t even disagree with Scholar actually getting more DoTs. But I don’t want to see it reduced to a DoT Botter (lol) that just sits around pressing the same 3 buttons all day without actually having to do anything tactical or strategic. There should be a purpose to them beyond ‘hit every X seconds to deal damage’

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Originally Posted by Connor

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To be clear, here, I'm not against reframing them to have more of a buff emphasis. I meant only to point out that the DoTs were very much interlinked with SCH's identity (albeit through ACN / the way XIV specifically chose to set up SCH magical arts, just like the natural-astral elements and White Magic are likewise interlinked in XIV) and why people may therefore feel strongly about them.

I'd agree that the intersections between both is where SCH would probably feel the most iconic and fleshed out. Current Galvanize doesn't really do any more with its current namesake than Bio/Miasma do/did.

For instance, between SGE and SCH, I would think the first would be more about multi-tasking with individually weak but highly responsive actions through its nouliths that could coalesce into synergetic techniques at time, while SCH's foresight would be a bit more long-sighted and more about investments into individual units to be exploited later.

Back in the day, I'd say DoTs were a pretty big part of SCH gameplay and there's ample opportunity for them to be more interestingly involved, but imo it'd be far from ideal to just throw the DoTs and Bane back onto the kit, improvement though it would be.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Back in the day, I'd say DoTs were a pretty big part of SCH gameplay and there's ample opportunity for them to be more interestingly involved, but imo it'd be far from ideal to just throw the DoTs and Bane back onto the kit, improvement though it would be.

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This is how I feel as well. I’m not suggesting DoTs aren’t important part of Scholar’s identity but I also believe part of that is that there’s more to them than just the application of damage over time abilities.

Personally, I’d be happy with just Biolysis and a Second DoT, Miasmalysis lol? (Not that I can imagine how one would cause the breakdown of miasma lol). But to me, what’s most important is that they have a tactical purpose beyond simply applying them, like affecting damage taken or dealt, critical hit resistances, Slow, etc. Then with things like adapting Deployment Tactics (and giving it 2 charges lol) those tactical usages can influence how/when you use them, like refreshing them early to spread them to adds on spawn and making the most out of the debuffs (and damage over time). With buffs and debuffs competing for Deployment Tactics Scholars would (theoretically) have meaningful decisions to make over whether to spread buffs, debuffs, or try to spread both based on the context.

Of course there are some issues that arise, like ‘what’s the point of being able to spread debuffs when 90% of content is against a single enemy’ lol. Plus, buffs/debuffs getting math’d into oblivion so you have to use the ‘superior’ ones all the time every time. Not to mention the obvious issue of, if the debuffDoTs can both the applied together you just stick them on every X seconds and that’s it. If they’re mutually exclusive, then it’s still basically just using 1 DoT at a time, you’re just switching it up every so often. I won’t claim my idea of where Scholar should go are foolproof or flawless (not that many things are lol), but I personally believe that kind of design is what would see Scholar’s identity flourish most as a ‘versatile, tactical support healer’

Also as an aside, remember Miasma had that weird status effect tacked onto it in 2.0 - 4.0? I want to say it was Disease but I don’t exactly remember lol. I feel like this was part of their half-baked idea for ‘DoTs that function to weaken/debuff the enemy’, similar to the Slow effect on Shadow Flare. And likewise with shielding covering the ‘buffing’ aspect, even though it’s probably more accurately categorised as ‘healing’

My first healer was a Scholar. When I started out it was during the time that cleric stance was still in effect. I went on hiatus for a while, when I came back not only was cleric stance gone, so were multiple DPS skills (the offensive dots as above), but the buffs that were interesting to use ( such as eye for an eye) plus more- so many skills were removed it felt like someone had taken a hatchet job to it. I'm sure I've see a post here and there that listed them all, if I remember correctly it was around a hotbar or so.

If anyone, while I agree that SCH has had some interesting skills introduced, it already was dismantled (Selene and pet changes for example), the devs already reverted one change in the past, and admitted that they didn't know what to do with it- which to me is an admission that they need fresh blood in their design team if they are stock stuck for ideas.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Embrava, Adloquium and Regen V say hi lol. Also wasn’t Scholar used either as a support healer or a skill chainer / magic burster with Immanence lol? So…it focused on buffs, debuffs and support lol. Helixes (Helices? Lol) were cool and valuable, but I don’t really think they were supposed to be the entire focus of the job. An important aspect, undeniably, but I don’t think they conceptualised Scholar as a ‘poison Mage’ in ff11 or ff14 lol.

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Why mention Embrava but not it's dark magic counterpart Kaustra, which is a DoT? And iirc you could use Immanence to set up skill chains into MB Kaustra in soloing? So in both games, it is a job that uses DoTs in combat, which is a part of its historic identity. Do you think it was just a coincidence it turned out like that when ARR was being developed? Also, the "poison theme" of the DoTs has nothing to do with wanting them back, I couldn't care less if it were Bio and Miasma or they were named something else honestly, though I do like Bio and Miasma as they are thematically. I ask for those back because it's no work, no new animations or developer effort and can be done in a minor patch while helping the monotony that Scholar has had for two expansions. It's the gameplay, not the thematics.

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To turn the question back at you, where are you getting that Scholar is a job that uses DoTs in combat lol? The fact it used to share spells with Summoner? And if that were truly part of the job’s core design, how could the devs still think it does that with a single, uninteractive DoT lol? If anything it’s ‘historic identity’ is that of a versatile caster that can change tactics depending on the situation, i.e Dark / Light Arts, which in turn means it’s buffing, debuffing and attacking the enemy equally. But I don’t see how it could be categorised as an ‘offensive DoT job’ in either game really - it seems a little reductionist

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What? Helixes were Scholar specific DoTs in FFXI. So was Kaustra. SCH used Modas Veritas to reduce its Helix timer but double the DoT's damage. Dark Arts gave bonuses to SCH's Helix spells, and Tabula Rasa did as well. Up until Shadowbringers, SCH had 4 DoTs it used in combat (more than SMN did in SB, and it has 1 more than SMN has now lol). The new PvP version of Scholar is built around using your DoT offensively and defensively, along with Biolytic using Miasma's icon for its debuff which is amusing. I don't get how that's reductionist at all, honestly. Was it simply a coincidence that its offensive kit had such a heavy DoT focus until ShB? I'm not trying to be rude by asking that either, but there was clearly a design philosophy shift with healers in ShB, the developers even stated as much when they said they wanted healers to focus on having a more "heal oriented playstyle" that has yet to actually come to fruition. There's a reason every healer has the same amount of DPS actions, but I don't think that changes much of anything when that design philosophy is the reason for this thread's topic and the discontent with the current design direction.

Further, "buffing" and "debuffing" in FFXIV is incredibly boring and there's less of a chance of that changing than there is of healers getting more DPS buttons because of how they've set up the modern game. DPS and Tank players really do not like it when you mess up their rotations; things like Selene's haste buff or AST's cards were removed or changed for this reason. For anything they could've given as a way for healers to lean more "utility support" they've either removed or jobs have ways to manage that themselves, such as Lucid Dreaming on Casters. This is why "supportive buffs" are all just "does x% more damage" etc, another player mistiming or not buffing correctly isn't going to effect a person's rotation. Say Scholar got Virus back as a debuff next expansion. You just use it as an oGCD when there's a heavy raidwide coming out that needs to be mitigated, just like you do any other oGCD for that same purpose. It doesn't stop you spamming Broil and it doesn't change any considerations Scholar has to make. There's nothing tactical about that. Every bit of this game is timelined, and that matters a lot in terms of the design of jobs. It's not that I like the fact that buttons get shoved off to the side because "there's no point to use this" but if there really is no point to using it versus something else, why would I use it?

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Originally Posted by Connor

But I don’t want to see it reduced to a DoT Botter (lol) that just sits around pressing the same 3 buttons all day without actually having to do anything tactical or strategic. There should be a purpose to them beyond ‘hit every X seconds to deal damage’

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What do you mean lol, it's been reduced to a Broil Botter that sits around pressing the same 1 button all day. Is that interesting to you now? There shouldn't have to be any purpose, justification or "strategy" to it other than the fact that spamming Broil 160+ times in an encounter for 90% of your GCDs is not fun, simple as that. Besides, the tactics and strategy of Scholar comes from using your shields effectively while minimizing their usage and maximizing your Energy Drains; knowing where you can get by not shielding and not using Aetherflow on Soil or other Aetherflow resources is that in the job. This game and its encounters are simply not built for strategy or tactics that do anything more than optimizing your damage at the current time. Things like 'Malady' and 'Heavy' on Miasma and 'Blind' on Ruin II, while flavorful, ultimately don't serve any purpose than added flavor. With a fight's timeline, you're always going to use your buttons at the same time, on every job.

The healers DO have varied healing kits and considerations, though small as they may be between SCH and SGE. That's why they should play differently DPS wise as they did in the past, considering you spend the overwhelming majority of your GCDs as a healer on DPSing.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Personally, I’d be happy with just Biolysis and a Second DoT, Miasmalysis lol?

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All I'd ask for is:

Broil V (we know it's coming), 300p
Biolysis, 30s, 350 total
MiasMalady/MiasMalaria/MiasMalign pick any pun you like, 24s, 340 total (30 per tick, 100 on cast)
Shadowflare, AOE blast around target, drops puddle centered on them. 100p on cast, plus 50p per tick (total 350). This makes the move also be a gain to use in AOE pulls, but not enough damage to spam instead of AOW.

That's all. It's not like this would suddenly make the class be 'BlackMage hard to play'. Let us hit em with the MiasMumps Measles and Rubella SE


Unrelated to the above pitch, doesn't it make sense that SE would say 'we didn't really know what to do with SCH', having neutered it's DOT focused identity in SHB? As in, if it still had, say, the above pitch for DOT kit, wouldn't they have found it easier to fit a new skill in, like idk Salted Earth SCH ver., 'it makes your Shadowflare puddle bubble up and deal 100p more damage, as an OGCD!' kind of thing? By insisting on the healers having such simple DPS kits, they've artificially hamstrung their potential design space on what to give the jobs. And it's super apparent on WHM, because that job is a 'pure healer'. It can't get shields, that's Barrier healer stuff. It can't get buffs that help deal damage, that's AST territory. So instead it just gets the Overheal Weed, and Aquaveil which, while cool, could also have just been a Trait/Upgrade to Benison to add the effect of 'while the shield holds, damage taken is reduced by X% too'

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

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I’m sorry, but thinking FFXI SCH existed just to deal damage with DOTs is simply untrue lol. It’s completely ignoring the vast majority of their other spells lol. Plus the fact that SCH in XI was overwhelming used as a support healer lol. It had DoTs, and they were crucial, but they were not the literal definition of the job lol. They also had a suite of powerful buffs. That’s like saying Black Mage’s historical identity is an ice Mage. It’s an aspect of the job undeniably, but it’s also just one aspect of it, and it’s inaccurate to act like that one half of the whole is the entire identity of the job.

It’s also difficult to deny that XIV’s Scholar was heavily impacted by their decision to make it split from Summoner. They literally admitted it was a huge mistake. If those DoTs were part of some bigger picture that’s absolutely crucial to Scholars, I still don’t understand where they are now? Why would they make Scholar a DoT Fiend then remove all its DoTs? Yeah maybe they’ve just done it out of spite because they hate the western healers or whatever…or maybe they just didn’t think the DoTs were the sole determiner of Scholar’s identity.

Plus, how do you reconcile the existence of old Summoner? Scholar was a DoT heavy spell caster that does big dick deeps…Summoner was a DoT heavy spell caster that does big dick deeps. If Scholar was supposed to be a super damage dealer, why is it a healer and why was it adjacent to a literal DoT dps? That still doesn’t add up

I mean, saying ‘buffing’ and ‘debuffing’ in ffxiv is doomed to forever be non-existent is one opinion I guess, they’re gonna have a hell of a time with Astrologian then lol. And Dancer, and Bard. I’d say that White Mage and Sage already exist for players who don’t want to support the party and just want to deal damage (in theory).

It’s the exact same with PvP? You’re saying that SCHs are there to spread death and destruction through DoTs, but if only they had another useful ability that could also be spread. Like…a damage buff…lol. It’s almost as if they’re intended to buff and debuff equally depending on the situation. Furthermore, if having a single DoT makes the job ‘a dot damage dealer’, how does having a single buff spell not make it ‘a buff healer’? Why does having a single DoT spell completely redefine the jobs identity, but having a single buff spell means absolutely nothing lol. How can you say you’re not being reductionist when you’re literally ignoring all but one of Scholar’s PvP abilities lol. Is Adloquium a DoT damage spell now? Did they give Deployment Tactics two charges just so you can spread DoTs twice in a row? Why doesn’t Scholar have a damage Lb in that case?

The logic you’re giving kind of supports the exact design for all healers we have now. Buffing and debuffing is a waste of time, healing is a waste lf time, anything except dps is a waste of time. Minimising all support and healing as close to absolute 0 just so you can focus purely on damage rotations sounds exceptionally boring to me…yet it’s literally the exact same design we’re using now, we just only have 2 damage buttons.

Also, isn’t it possible that they ‘didn’t know what to do with Scholar’ because they every time they try to move the job towards it’s intended playstyle it causes a ridiculous amount of backlash from some players? They can’t/don’t want to give it more DoTs, yet all anyone ever asks for is more DoTs lol. Of course they’d not know what to do then, because essentially it leaves them with nowhere else to take the job. If they go with what they think it should be the forums are drowned in ‘SAVE SCH’ posts. If they take it the direction the community wants, it becomes more dps focused than the literal dps lol.

That’s not accounting for the whole ‘damage potency’ issue. If Scholar gets 3-4 DoTs, either the potency of Biolysis is distributed equally amongst them, which leaves them working harder for the same amount. If each DoT gives Scholar additional potency, it then needs rebalancing or it becomes disproportionately stronger than the other three healers. I mean, how could a White Mage or Sage hope to compete with a Scholar dealing more damage than them, and having Chain and Expedient, and being completely immune to ever using GCDs on non-damage spells. And where would that leave Sage? (Besides the garbage lol)


Don’t you see that you’re saying we should literally keep it exactly how it is now? But it’ll all be ok because we’ll have 3 more DoTs lol. Except Scholar can’t have three DoTs because as aforementioned it would literally be managing it’s dps more than the actual dps jobs. Good luck convincing the developers otherwise lol
Again, the only remaining DoT class in the game has 2 DoTs, reapplies them with a single spell, no Bane, and they do not interact with its toolkit. Yet we want Scholar to pumping out giant damage with a slew of DoTs, spread them, extend them, and we want it to be able to just keep healing through the entirety of content with Recitation - Indomitability lol.

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Originally Posted by Connor

I’m sorry, but thinking FFXI SCH existed just to deal damage with DOTs is simply untrue lol. It’s completely ign g the vast majority of their other spells lol.

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Please show me where I said FFXI SCH existed just to do that? I said they're apart of its historic identity in combat. This is a thread discussing healer DPS rotations being boring in combat.

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It’s also difficult to deny that XIV’s Scholar was heavily impacted by their decision to make it split from Summoner. They literally admitted it was a huge mistake. If those DoTs were part of some bigger picture that’s absolutely crucial to Scholars, I still don’t understand where they are now? Why would they make Scholar a DoT Fiend then remove all its DoTs? Yeah maybe they’ve just done it out of spite because they hate the western healers or whatever…or maybe they just didn’t think the DoTs were the sole determiner of Scholar’s identity.
If Scholar was supposed to be a super damage dealer, why is it a healer and why was it adjacent to a literal DoT dps? That still doesn’t add up

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"where are the dots if they were apart of scholar's identity? also they try to ''move it towards its intended playstyle'' but never end up actually doing that, the intended playstyle is totally the one i want and SE agrees with me and it wasnt the one the job was designed with from the start"

okay man lol

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I mean, saying ‘buffing’ and ‘debuffing’ in ffxiv is doomed to forever be non-existent is one opinion I guess, they’re gonna have a hell of a time with Astrologian then lol. And Dancer, and Bard. I’d say that White Mage and Sage already exist for players who don’t want to support the party and just want to deal damage (in theory).

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Yeah, they are. Do you think AST has "interesting" buffs? They're all flat damage buffs except for Astrodyne, can you guess why that is? Because people don't like it when someone else messes up their rotation or changes their control of situations. Even minor abilities like Minne or Paean on BRD do not make it interesting nor do they change anything about how it plays. Like cool, a BRD in the party can save a healer a total of 2 GCDs across P12sP2 if they want to take over Esuna duty for the two times a healer has to use Esuna in that encounter. It's still just an oGCD that doesn't change anything. All of BRD's rotational buffs are just "does x% type of damage", that's BORING. All of DNC's are the same way, flat DMG increase or a 2m crit/ dhit buff. Do you think that they will completely change how the game works and go back to a way of buffing and debuffing that was either largely hated or largely useless? Further, even if they did, you haven't answered how any of that changes the fact that BROIL SPAM IS BORING!

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The logic you’re giving kind of supports the exact design for all healers we have now. Buffing and debuffing is a waste of time, healing is a waste lf time, anything except dps is a waste of time. Minimising all support and healing as close to absolute 0 just so you can focus purely on damage rotations sounds exceptionally boring to me…yet it’s literally the exact same design we’re using now, we just only have 2 damage buttons.

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I never said any of that? You use your buffs at the same time in an encounter, your party uses their debuffs at the same set times in the fight (Feint, Addle, Reprisal), you shield if you will die to the hit without one, otherwise you heal after it with oGCDs. You use certain CDs at heavy damage moments and all the while, you are spamming your damage button. That doesn't change if SCH gets Miasma and more back. All it does is give SCH more engagement again and cuts up the Broil spam.

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Also, isn’t it possible that they ‘didn’t know what to do with Scholar’ because they every time they try to move the job towards it’s intended playstyle it causes a ridiculous amount of backlash from some players? They can’t/don’t want to give it more DoTs, yet all anyone ever asks for is more DoTs lol. Of course they’d not know what to do then, because essentially it leaves them with nowhere else to take the job. If they go with what they think it should be the forums are drowned in ‘SAVE SCH’ posts. If they take it the direction the community wants, it becomes more dps focused than the literal dps lol.

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Sounds like they should just return SCH to how it was, and not some ""intended playstyle"" that it has literally never had in this game? These jobs should be designed so they're fun for the people who main them. I don't want SCH to change to suit people who don't play the job or who just play it casually. I play this job in every bit of content I do, of course I have a personal investment in wanting it to be as good as possible. And "more dps focused than the literal dps"? Do you think replacing a Broil cast with a Miasma cast is some gigabrained, galaxy tier struggle of herculean proportions? It's not.

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That’s not accounting for the whole ‘damage potency’ issue. If Scholar gets 3-4 DoTs, either the potency of Biolysis is distributed equally amongst them, which leaves them working harder for the same amount. If each DoT gives Scholar additional potency, it then needs rebalancing or it becomes disproportionately stronger than the other three healers. I mean, how could a White Mage or Sage hope to compete with a Scholar dealing more damage than them, and having Chain and Expedient, and being completely immune to ever using GCDs on non-damage spells. And where would that leave Sage? (Besides the garbage lol)

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SCH already only deals more damage than SGE or WHM in optimized environments that can take advantage of Chain. Outside of that, it does less damage and SGE/WHM are better in unoptimized groups. Also "completely immune to ever using GCDs"? That isn't true at all? I use Succor like 40+ times in DSR.

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Don’t you see that you’re saying we should literally keep it exactly how it is now? But it’ll all be ok because we’ll have 3 more DoTs lol. Except Scholar can’t have three DoTs because as aforementioned it would literally be managing it’s dps more than the actual dps jobs. Good luck convincing the developers otherwise lol

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Yeah I actually like how SCH heals right now, and the DoTs would slot back in effortlessly and only replace Broil casts, so that's what I want. I don't want SCH to change radically, I like Scholar and play it in high end content. Again, "managing its dps" because of added DoTs is ridiculous and it says a lot if you think that replacing a Broil cast with a DoT is harder than "actual dps jobs".

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Again, the only remaining DoT class in the game has 2 DoTs, reapplies them with a single spell, no Bane, and they do not interact with its toolkit. Yet we want Scholar to pumping out giant damage with a slew of DoTs, spread them, extend them, and we want it to be able to just keep healing through the entirety of content with Recitation - Indomitability lol.

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Do you notice how you're the only one mentioning anything about "giant damage" or the numbers? Nobody is asking for that, they're asking for ENGAGEMENT and for the job to go back to the engagement it once had. Also:
"we want it to be able to just keep healing through the entirety of content with Recitation - Indomitability lol"

That isn't true at all and doesn't reflect how SCH heals, if you think it's only healing things with Recit Indom every 90s I would kindly ask that you play SCH in things above alliance raids and normal raids.

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

You could have the most interesting healing kit of the history of gaming, if the content is designed in a way that does not push it it will be useless because healing has a usefulness cap, and the game is not precisely lacking of content that does not push not even the current healing kit (like msq or normal content). On top of that due to healing being something with a usefulness cap (because if the enemy is going to deal 10k damage it's useless to heal 20k instead of those 10K) the more the gameplay evolves and players optimize the more present the 2-1-1-1-1 rotation is making the job more dull the better the player is when the opposite is what should happen.

This is leaving outside factors like how the encounters are scripted which makes this optimization (and the subsequent abundance of moments spamming 2-1-1-1-1-1) even more present.

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You are talking about the healer paradox. Simply put, the better the party plays, the less healers are needed. This is true in all MMOs, at least the ones I've played.

While I'm not denying the current situation is boring, I feel the answer is to make changes to the healing kit, such as giving healers the buff/debuff abilities which damage dealers have currently. One idea I've seen bantered around is having heal spells restore a percentage of health, instead of having potencies. Perhaps, that'll address the issue of having healing spells being too powerful for the content.

As for the damage kit, it could be expanded somewhat. But, my concern is S.E. will not provide us with challenging content. That would result in healers using their damage spells most of the time. They'd be like blue mages rather than healing classes. That's why I lean toward the idea of changing the healing toolkit to make healing fun again; rather than, adding a more involved damage rotation.

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

You can disbelieve it as much as you want but look at what happened the previous tier, the healing requirements increased drastically and a lot of healers simply left because they couldn't handle them (among other factors), no only that but if you go to the forbidden raiding website you'll see how the majority that ask for more healing have never faired well/entered in content that required that healing they ask for.

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I believe two facts can be concluded from that circumstance. Bad healers will be bad and many of healers of the previous tier had become complacent because nothing prepared them for the previous difficulty. This is a tuning problem on the part of Square Enix and has nothing to do with the actual abilities those healers had at their disposal, healing or damage spells.

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

No one is saying they should be primarily damage dealer, that's the strawman that those who don't want to engage in an actual useful discussion throw around. We ask for a better rotation, that does not mean we are damage dealers, look at healers in the past of the game and they were not only healers but also capable manage much more damage actions. There is a wide margin between dps rotation and the current 2 button rotation, we ask something closer to the middle not something all the way up to dps.

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Actually, that is what people are saying. Asking for a complex damage rotation is pushing healers further into the role of green dps, especially when players are saying they have nothing to do but spam two damage buttons. If you are a class primarily pushing damage buttons, what are you? It doesn't matter how many healing abilities you have on your toolbar, if you aren't using them.

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

See the paragraph about EW 2nd savage tier, one thing is that they know that they may have to heal, another very different is if they can handle that healing

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So, the answer is to increase the number of damage spells healers cast? That makes no sense. Again, it is a tuning problem on the part of Square Enix and not an issue with what abilities healers have at their disposal. Changing the content is the solution to this issue.

The big white elephant in the room is we healers have been spoiled by the ease of the content, the potencies of our heals, the MSQ, and all the other challenges presented to us by Square Enix. That needs to be addressed before anyone starts changing healer damage rotations.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

So, the answer is to increase the number of damage spells healers cast? That makes no sense. Again, it is a tuning problem on the part of Square Enix and not an issue with what abilities healers have at their disposal. Changing the content is the solution to this issue.

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In part, yes. Why not?

If you change the tuning such that, say, we spend as much time healing then as we do dealing damage now, that's going to be outright oppressive to your less skilled healers and, by extension, their parties. If we go back to even just Stormblood levels of relative healing requirements, well, we also had more involved damage-dealing back then.

By all means, nerf free tank sustain back to roughly Shadowbringers levels (adjusted slightly, perhaps, for better parity and greater skill expression) and nerf Healers' healing by a good quarter or so (just flat out remove Maim and Mend [+30% damage and healing trait] from Healers while increasing attack potencies by at least that 30% in compensation), but there's no reason not to also add (back) new/returned offensive skills at the same time; we were plenty able to handle them back even in the most intensive eras of healing requirements and, to most, they felt good to use.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

The big white elephant in the room is we healers have been spoiled by the ease of the content, the potencies of our heals, the MSQ, and all the other challenges presented to us by Square Enix. That needs to be addressed before anyone starts changing healer damage rotations.

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Can I just ask you something, respectfully - what is the highest level of content difficulty you're talking about and doing? Are you claiming that Savage and Ultimate are easy for healers?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

In part, yes. Why not?

If you change the tuning such that, say, we spend as much time healing then as we do dealing damage now, that's going to be outright oppressive to your less skilled healers and, by extension, their parties. If we go back to even just Stormblood levels of relative healing requirements, well, we also had more involved damage-dealing back then.

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Shouldn't less skilled players be given a reason and opportunity to improve? It isn't engaging to go through content mindlessly. Players only stay with a game if it hooks them in some way emotionally.

Also, is it fair for Square Enix to balance healers around the lowest denominator? If they continue to do that then FFXIV will continue to lose veteran healers, because they're bored, leaving only the least skilled.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan;6327894

By all means, nerf free tank sustain back to roughly Shadow Bringers levels (adjusted slightly, perhaps, for better parity and greater skill expression) and nerf Healers' healing by a good quarter or so (just flat out remove Maim and Mend [+30% damage and healing trait

from Healers while increasing attack potencies by at least that 30% in compensation), but there's no reason not to also add (back) new/returned offensive skills at the same time; we were plenty able to handle them back even in the most intensive eras of healing requirements and, to most, they felt good to use.

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Totally agree.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Can I just ask you something, respectfully - what is the highest level of content difficulty you're talking about and doing? Are you claiming that Savage and Ultimate are easy for healers?

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I'm saying everything up to that point was too easy. Healers weren't prepared for the sudden leap in difficulty. Difficulty should be a steady slope instead of big steps up, if you know what I mean.

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Shouldn't less skilled players be given a reason and opportunity to improve? It isn't engaging to go through content mindlessly. Players only stay with a game if it hooks them in some way emotionally.

Also, is it fair for Square Enix to balance healers around the lowest denominator? If they continue to do that then FFXIV will continue to lose veteran healers, because they're bored, leaving only the least skilled.

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Unfortunately FFXIV has always had healers to dps, even way into ARR. It was just less frequent due to how cleric stance in particular operated. Where we are now, dps is expected...even if you increase healer checks...

Regarding that statement of "players only stay with a game if it hooks them emotionally" if you are going to apply that specifically to job and/or encounter design I don't see how you can or should treater all players as a monolithic block.

There are players that stay in this game because of glamour, or because of RPG, and that pass the entirety of their game in Limsa or in clubs. Some of these players are are likely very invested in their character's lore and how it looks, possibly their animations but not its progression or skill floor/ceiling.

Finally, can anyone point me to the source of those people who are actually asking for complex DPS skills for healers? I still haven't seen it..ever.

Let's compare this to savage or ultimate raider. What's the emotional hook there? It is far more likely to be the job optimization, the sense of achievement when they complete a difficult duty in most efficient way possible synchronizing their skills with their party.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Shouldn't less skilled players be given a reason and opportunity to improve? It isn't engaging to go through content mindlessly. Players only stay with a game if it hooks them in some way emotionally.

Also, is it fair for Square Enix to balance healers around the lowest denominator? If they continue to do that then FFXIV will continue to lose veteran healers, because they're bored, leaving only the least skilled.

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A 10-14x increase in GCD healing required (flipping the portions of uptime spent healing and portion spent attacking) is hardly a small and manageable shift. You already saw my suggestion, ultimately about a 25% nerf to outgoing healing (with small accordant changes), which would be itself a huge increase to GCD healing required because the largest factor forgoing the need for GCD healing right now is simply how much is provided for "free" via oGCDs.

Let's not pretend that anything / everything short of a n absurdly extreme or "nuclear" option (more healing requirements than we've ever had before, just to balance out having the least engaging downtime activities we've ever had) is no change at all...

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

I'm saying everything up to that point was too easy. Healers weren't prepared for the sudden leap in difficulty. Difficulty should be a steady slope instead of big steps up, if you know what I mean.

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This is a big part of the puzzle for sure. For all it's jank, one thing 2.0 ARR absolutely nailed right out of the gate was it's progressive difficulty curve that steadily ramped up as you progressed through dungeons into the HM Primals and onto Coil. They even used to dungeons to introduce people to key primal mechanics. Genius design IMO.

One part I will disagree with you on though, it's not always possible to have constant healing requirements throughout the fight. Even Godka had some downtime (We needed it to get MP back). I do agree that a rethink on healing requirements and incoming damage is a central piece of the puzzle if at least to eliminate the chances of us getting another Byregot or E8S, but giving us something to do during downtime and solo content should still be a consideration IMO. It doesn't have to be DPS, buffing/augments gets the thumbs up from me++

You're also bored when you heal because 95% of the relevant content in this game doesn't even require a healer. For healing to be enjoyable across the board, the entire game would have to be revamped to make support roles feel enjoyable. This means making people more dependent on each other in ways that feel meaningful. This means gutting the current "I do my own thing until it's time for the 2 minute moment to kick in" system and replacing it with one where, say, your Mana actually means something and gets supplied by support jobs. Or your attack speed can be lower and you want it to be, and this can be supplied by support jobs. Or the boss can and should be debuffed and this debuff is supplied regularly by support jobs. And on and on and on.

Since we can't even count on people to press Esuna in a timely manner and the game is actively shaping itself to suit those kinds of players, you can kiss this dream goodbye along with any notions of a complex damage rotation.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

This means making people more dependent on each other in ways that feel meaningful.

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This is one of the main things that was lost going into ShB. If it were up to me, I'd want tanks to return to their SB level of mitigation. Inter-party reliance is not a bad thing, tanks were not actually as squishy as people remembered back in SB, you could still do the mega pulls with a fantastic healer. But at this point, if any move is made to shift tanks down so they rely more on the healers and their co-tank, some tanks will riot, especially those who are so used to WAR being a one-man army that doesn't have to care one bit about what anyone else in the party is doing.

People often say that relying on other people to do their job is not fun, but having no inter-party reliance is also a bad thing. We don't currently do dungeons with other players, we currently do dungeons adjacent to other players.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

Finally, can anyone point me to the source of those people who are actually asking for complex healing skills for healers? I still haven't seen it..ever.

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Go spend more time on the healer forums then.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

You are talking about the healer paradox. Simply put, the better the party plays, the less healers are needed. This is true in all MMOs, at least the ones I've played.

While I'm not denying the current situation is boring, I feel the answer is to make changes to the healing kit, such as giving healers the buff/debuff abilities which damage dealers have currently. One idea I've seen bantered around is having heal spells restore a percentage of health, instead of having potencies. Perhaps, that'll address the issue of having healing spells being too powerful for the content.

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It's because that healer paradox why its common for the devs to give healers more stuff to do outside healing, wow knows it, overwatchs knows and basically any other game with the exception of XIV seem to know it. Engagement by healing, is, by definition, finite.

Buff/Debuff abilites are part of a dps rotation, which is also what we ask for, not simply attacks. If you mean buffs in the term of mit then it would solve nothing because the amount of focus on dpsing would remain the same and in the less healing intesive contents those buttons would hardly be necessary

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That would result in healers using their damage spells most of the time

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This is what we are doing, right now, in all the content. From normal mode to savage healers spend easily over 90% of their total GCDs on dpsing, adding more buttons if anything would be that 90% of those GCDs more engaging and not a slog where 1 button can be over 50% of your total actions (yes, GCDs AND oGCDs)

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I believe two facts can be concluded from that circumstance.

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Believe what you want, the truth is that more healing leads to less healers and I can assure you the game wont go out their way to teach those players how to use those tools, besides, even in that tier the problems of healers spending 80-90% of their total actions remained so that is clearly not the solution. As healers get better they dps more and that dps should be a reward and not boring gameplay.

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Actually, that is what people are saying. Asking for a complex damage rotation is pushing healers further into the role of green dps...

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That people is saying that we want a dps-level rotation as if we were dps when we are not asking for that. What we ask is that if current healers are a 1 on the dps scale and dps are a 10, the content would be far more enjoyable if intead of being a 1 we were a 4-5, not having a rotation on the same level of complexity of a dps job but a better than one because if dpsing is, in one way or another, what we are going to doing the most (because 99% of the content dont need healer-level healing) then make it more engaging than simply pressing 2 buttons

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So, the answer is to increase the number of damage spells healers cast? That makes no sense

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It does.

The problem is that healers are boring because dpsing is what we do the most and the dps rotation is extremely lackluster. You can solve that problem in 2 ways:

-Make them interact with the dps rotation less, this is the "healers heal more route" with all the issues I've mentioned and far more like the dev resources spent and how it would make even casual content less accessible for everyone

-Make the dps rotation more engaging, which is what most veteran healers support because it consumes less dev resources, is more aproachable and casual friendly, increases the skill ceiling of the jobs without strictly raising the floor, tackles the core issues of the game better...

It makes perfect sense that healers ask for a better dpsing.

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The big white elephant in the room is we healers have been spoiled by the ease of the content, the potencies of our heals, the MSQ, and all the other challenges presented to us by Square Enix. That needs to be addressed before anyone starts changing healer damage rotations.

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For the same reason casual content dont have dps checks, to not wall players because other people's actions. If they were to stop spoiling (like in the healers heal more route I mentioned) the healers unable to keep up with the hps would face a hard wall, increasing the frustration among players and like we saw in EW 2nd tier reducing the amount of healers overall. This is also leaving outside factors like how there is not a sweet spot for healing, the thing a noob healer identify as hard is a slog of 1 button dps spam for a veteran and what a veteran may find engaging may be straight up unhealable by the less experienced player.

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Originally Posted by vetch

Go spend more time on the healer forums then.

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You're still not providing an answer, but nice try at trying to deflect the argument.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

In 27+ months of playing FFXIV, that is literally something that's never happened to me, and something that I've never had to worry about.

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I'm genuinely happy to hear that's the case; sadly, it's not the case for everyone. While some of my friends are top tier, some of my friends are just barely "good enough" to do baseline content. And some of these players have literally stopping queuing for content without a pre-made or a Trust because the number of times they've been criticized or talked down to has left the enduring impression that in any group with randoms there's a non-trivial chance that someone will single them out. And that sucks a whole lot.

It's a problem that the game has, one that the devs themselves recognized in 2021 when they revised the form factor of the game's list of Prohibited Activities (which caused quite a stir as players worried they weren't even allowed to offer suggestions anymore).

Sadly, as we well know, the ToS alone doesn't prevent harmful behavior, it can only mitigate and sometimes punish it. That's why it's also beneficial to use game design itself as a means to provide solutions to problems such as these. By giving players a diverse array of options to select from, each player can find one that better suits their personal needs and playstyle.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I get called LOTS of names in there and am the subject of near constant dogpiles - to the point the common Healer forum posters will dogpile on me in any other part of the forum now, such as General or the Tank or DPS forums - since they don't like the idea of a compromise that has even one healer Job still appealing to people that like healing as it is today.

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For what it's worth, even when I don't agree with you I like reading what you write here, as you tend to be one of the more reasonable users here. I appreciate that you provide your reasoning, tend to acknowledge and value a diversity of perspectives, and try to stimulate genuine good faith discussion. ^^