Latest Official Developer Statements About Healer DPS?

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

I don't know what "healing as a DPS race" you're talking about, nor where you see enrages "everywhere" as there aren't enrages in a good deal of the game content. In harder content healers have contributed to DPS while healing for years. It isn't new, in easier content while many enjoy doing so technically it's completely optional to DPS and be able to complete the content as a healer in parties.

I also don't understand where you see people asking for all DPS and no heals.

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the core fundimental of the game is "do damage" everything you do is damage optimized, uptime, gear, materia and rotation. in other mmos its not so important to push dps, but because most ppl in this game raid ex or savage at least the gameplay loop of being a high damage class has bled into every aspect of the game. damage is the game. damage is to win. ignoring mecanics and doing damage is a literal strat now for some fights. this is why healers want to do more damage, and have more dps skills.. to not heal.. because healing is usless if you want to do damage

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I also don't understand where you see people asking for all DPS and no heals.

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try reading what i said again

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even if you had no heals and all dps.. youde still hate it eventually

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

people keep thinking the buttons are the issue, but theyre not. its the combat thats stale, healing should not be a dps race but due to the game pushing enrage, everything is. its a fundimental flaw with this combat system we have, and even if you had no heals and all dps.. youde still hate it eventually. because every job is a dps dressed up as a tank/healer

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The argument that "You'll hate/get tired of it eventually" is a flawed one. Humans get bored of something eventually by nature, but if we get what we want, we'd have 4 unique healers to choose from, so if we hate one, we can play another.

What options do we have if we don't like 1 DoT 1 filler healers right now? None.
What options do we have if we don't like builder spender tanks right now? None.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

The argument that "You'll hate/get tired of it eventually" is a flawed one. Humans get bored of something eventually by nature, but if we get what we want, we'd have 4 unique healers to choose from, so if we hate one, we can play another.

What options do we have if we don't like 1 DoT 1 filler healers right now? None.
What options do we have if we don't like builder spender tanks right now? None.

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but you cant have 4 unique healers in a game like this... you can only have 4 different flavours of dps racing healers that heal passively, thats what you current have and you dont like it. the only way to fix these issues is to change the gameplay loop to stop being about dps racing

Imagine saying this game is based around "DPS races" XD
A large chunk of the player base don't even know their own rotation yet can still clear.

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

but you cant have 4 unique healers in a game like this... you can only have 4 different flavours of dps racing healers that heal passively, thats what you current have and you dont like it. the only way to fix these issues is to change the gameplay loop to stop being about dps racing

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WOW has unique feeling healers and they still have a massive focus on pumping as much DPS as they possibly can, 14’s problem is that oGCD’s are so overpowered you are punished for GCD healing so the classes feel excessively DPS focused

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

the core fundimental of the game is "do damage" everything you do is damage optimized, uptime, gear, materia and rotation. in other mmos its not so important to push dps, but because most ppl in this game raid ex or savage at least the gameplay loop of being a high damage class has bled into every aspect of the game. damage is the game. damage is to win. ignoring mecanics and doing damage is a literal strat now for some fights. this is why healers want to do more damage, and have more dps skills.. to not heal.. because healing is usless if you want to do damage




try reading what i said again

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I just read this line "This is why healers want to do more damage, and have more dps skills.. to not heal.. because healing is usless if you want to do damage" and that really encapsulates a misunderstanding both of healer motivations in a number of situations as well numerous options for healer designs.

Not to mention, from what I've seen from Lucky Bancho- no - most people don't do extreme and Savage content , however everyone does normal content. "Do damage" has not "bled into every aspect of the game" to the same degree, I am not advocating for healers to do no DPS in normal content - I am stating that it is possible for them to do so and that content can be completed - there is a difference.

Once again quoting your "even if you had no heals and all dps.. youde still hate it eventually"- I have no idea where you get that from. who is asking for that?

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

but you cant have 4 unique healers in a game like this... you can only have 4 different flavours of dps racing healers that heal passively, thats what you current have and you dont like it. the only way to fix these issues is to change the gameplay loop to stop being about dps racing

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You say this, but the core of the game has not changed since ARR, we had so called "dps races" back then as well, yet we had 3 unique healers in HW/SB.

WHM was direct heals and direct damage.
SCH was preemptive shields and passive over time damage.
AST was delayed and extended heals and have unique buffs.

All the unique traits of the healers were taken away in ShB when they were mashed into the same mold. But sure, tell us how 4 unique healers wouldn't work within the core of this game (despite then working that way before).

I mean, the "core fundamental" of every RPG is "do damage." At the heart of every combat system is an HP bar that needs to be depleted. FFXIV's problem is not that damage is valued, because damage is always valued. The problem is that FFXIV's combat design is so meticulously scripted that everything has to happen as it is structured or the system falls apart. Attack speed is a joke for most jobs because then your rotation drifts and we can't have that. Crowd control can't exist because if you silence a boss' cast, then you just skip a mechanic. You can't stun the boss or the entire fight choreography desynchs as the boss' mechanics will be delayed with mechanics that emanate from external sources outside the boss. It's like that cartoonish Disney Channel honors student type character that can't have fun unless they schedule time to have fun ahead of time.

The reason only damage matters is because they cannot think of anything beyond damage to influence the flow of gameplay.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I mean, the "core fundamental" of every RPG is "do damage." At the heart of every combat system is an HP bar that needs to be depleted. FFXIV's problem is not that damage is valued, because damage is always valued. The problem is that FFXIV's combat design is so meticulously scripted that everything has to happen as it is structured or the system falls apart. Attack speed is a joke for most jobs because then your rotation drifts and we can't have that. Crowd control can't exist because if you silence a boss' cast, then you just skip a mechanic. You can't stun the boss or the entire fight choreography desynchs as the boss' mechanics will be delayed with mechanics that emanate from external sources outside the boss. It's like that cartoonish Disney Channel honors student type character that can't have fun unless they schedule time to have fun ahead of time.

The reason only damage matters is because they cannot think of anything beyond damage to influence the flow of gameplay.

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A perfect example of a right that is god awful because the player can desync the boss timeline is T7S and if probably argue T7S is the single worst and single hardest fight in the entire history of the game specifically because 14’s jobs aren’t designed to allow the player to manipulate the boss in any way so the fight ends up feelings like an absolutely travesty

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

A perfect example of a right that is god awful because the player can desync the boss timeline is T7S and if probably argue T7S is the single worst and single hardest fight in the entire history of the game specifically because 14’s jobs aren’t designed to allow the player to manipulate the boss in any way so the fight ends up feelings like an absolutely travesty

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There was also A8s too cause too much damage could cause the robots into their hyper mode at the same time so then you get two aoes at the same time so you had to hold dps. The most hilarious one was a A!!S speed kill attempt where the group accidentally skipped Cruise chaser's whirlwind before his second phase and they had to wipe cause they wouldn't be able to push him to skip add phase.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

In 2017, Yoshi-P went on record stating the developers do not expect Healers to contribute to DPS.* Like so many things, some people liked this and some people disliked this, but regardless it provided some valuable insight into the way the devs approach the design of content and roles.

My question is: a lot of time has passed since 2017, so I'm wondering if since then Yoshi-P has ever gone on record as having either altered or reinforced this stance. If so, I'd be grateful if someone could provide the source for whatever he said about it.

I'm just curious to know what the devs have officially said about this sort of thing. Thanks for the help on that!

*Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5la_nyC5BO0&t=282s

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Homie said healers don't have to dps while he was cooking sage in the back , laughing

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

In 2017, Yoshi-P went on record stating the developers do not expect Healers to contribute to DPS.* Like so many things, some people liked this and some people disliked this, but regardless it provided some valuable insight into the way the devs approach the design of content and roles.

My question is: a lot of time has passed since 2017, so I'm wondering if since then Yoshi-P has ever gone on record as having either altered or reinforced this stance. If so, I'd be grateful if someone could provide the source for whatever he said about it.

I'm just curious to know what the devs have officially said about this sort of thing. Thanks for the help on that!

*Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5la_nyC5BO0&t=282s

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Devs are caught between a rock and hardplace. Essentially they got two options right now with Healers:

Focus Healers on just healing - This would mean that raid damage must increase substantially so that Healers are spending MORE time doing heals and sustainting/protecting the group, so they would have less of a need for DPS skills

Reduce focus on Healers healing - This would mean raid damage would either have to decrease, or increase self sustain by everyone else, so that healers woul essentially have time to commit to a dps rotation

Neither answer is actually all that good. Casual players seem to lean towards the former, while more higher end players tend to lean into the latter. From my perspective though, it feels like theyre testing the waters currently with the former, as a lot of 'higher end' content feels a lot more damage heavy, requiring more healing from support. And if they wanted healers to be more damage focused, I figure theyd have to give more sustain to everyone else to compensate for lack of healing while adjusting healing to be more OGCD based and adding in offense abilities (think how tanks operates, where most of the skills are offense with some oGCDS for defense buffs))

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Devs are caught between a rock and hardplace. Essentially they got two options right now with Healers:

Focus Healers on just healing - This would mean that raid damage must increase substantially so that Healers are spending MORE time doing heals and sustainting/protecting the group, so they would have less of a need for DPS skills

Reduce focus on Healers healing - This would mean raid damage would either have to decrease, or increase self sustain by everyone else, so that healers woul essentially have time to commit to a dps rotation

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Or they could go with option 3: Put equal importance on the healing kit and the damage kit while raising healing requirements

Just boost healer damage up to tank levels so their damage output will settle to about the same as the percentages now even when they're forced to GCD heal.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Devs are caught between a rock and hardplace. Essentially they got two options right now with Healers:

Focus Healers on just healing - This would mean that raid damage must increase substantially so that Healers are spending MORE time doing heals and sustainting/protecting the group, so they would have less of a need for DPS skills

Reduce focus on Healers healing - This would mean raid damage would either have to decrease, or increase self sustain by everyone else, so that healers woul essentially have time to commit to a dps rotation

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Um, healers focus on healing so little already that even in Savage, healers can maintain 100% DPS uptime (excluding AST). How is the swollen DPS uptime windows healers already have access to is not enough to justify more than 1 filler attack, 1 30 second DOT, and 1 40/60 second cooldown bonus button?

Healers don't have to dps if they don't want to. They'll just find that when it comes to endgame no one will want them in any content because for that content, they indeed do need to DPS.

Imagine you are playing a healer and you only heal and your Tank turns around and stops DPSing after he has aggro and doesn't use any cooldowns. Would you still blame the Tank? His Job is to Tank the boss/mobs not to do damage or Mitigate. Think how long a Tank like that would last in your party. Would be the quickest flick you ever give someone, so don't be suprised when as a Healer you receive the same treatment.

The people that come up with these muck statements that a healer shouldn't have to DPS are saying so because they've only done toddler content. They were also the first to cry when bosses hit too hard and so we had to nerf boss damage so now everything hits like a wet noodle.

A lot of these players aren't actually very good at playing the game and are just here for the story, but because they make up the majority of the player base and thus a lot of the income we have to adapt to them or they will leave taking their money with them. So increasing boss damage again isn't really gonna help the situation even though it would make the role more engaging. If they increase the damage and Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men rock up as your healers then you aint clearing anything.

What makes it even more annoying is in addition to reducing the damage players take, they also reduced the rotation of Healers to 2 GCDS so no wonder the better players are getting bored. I think it's time for Healers to get a proper DPS rotation and factor it into the fights, even something as basic as a Tank rotation would do and have them healer themed. If healers don't contribute DPS then it just takes longer, but those that do contribute have something meaningful to do. This way both parties get to play the game they way they want.

They are currently in an akward spot because they don't want to upset either side but as we are all aware, something needs to be done. Healers are currently in the worst position in the game role wise.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Or they could go with option 3: Put equal importance on the healing kit and the damage kit while raising healing requirements

Just boost healer damage up to tank levels so their damage output will settle to about the same as the percentages now even when they're forced to GCD heal.

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I dont think that solves the fundamental gripe - Healers are just to boring to play from a dps perspective. I mean yeah, if it was purely a numbers game, then just adjusting potency would solve hte issue, but thats not the problem really. People dont like spamming Glare, for example.

So to make it more interesting on the DPS end, youd have to add complexity in the form of a rotation and DPS based GCDs/oGCDs (like tanks). This ends up requiring either heals be less important in raids, or turning heals more into oGCD based healing, which then makes healers operate more closely to how tanks behave with their mits. Not saying that is necessarily a bad thing, but it is fundamentally a different style of play.

Then you got the players who just want to heal on a healing class. Yeah you could increase their damage output to be more in line with tanks by adjusting potency, but why bother doing that if those players arent concerned with damage to begin with? Especially if you increase that damage output you end up having to adjust content because you are increasing hte overall expected group dps which alters difficulty in a fight.

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Originally Posted by Asako

Imagine you are playing a healer and you only heal and your Tank turns around and stops DPSing after he has aggro and doesn't use any cooldowns. Would you still blame the Tank? His Job is to Tank the boss/mobs not to do damage or Mitigate. Think how long a Tank like that would last in your party. Would be the quickest flick you ever give someone, so don't be suprised when as a Healer you receive the same treatment.

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You can absolutely, without question, maintain aggro with no difficulty by simply keeping your tank stance up and spamming Fast Blade, Total Eclipse, or even Shield Lob. If the mentality around healers is that "healers are meant to HEAL, not be DPS. If you want to play DPS, then play a DPS job, not a healer." Then I 100% am in support of treating the tanks the same way. Reduce every tank to those 3 buttons. You don't need a DPS rotation to tank. You just need 1 basic attack and tank stance to hold aggro. Everything else can be about mitigation and personal sustain/barrier application.

Tanks are meant to TANK, not to be DPS. If you want to play DPS, then play a DPS job, not a tank.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

I dont think that solves the fundamental gripe - Healers are just to boring to play from a dps perspective. I mean yeah, if it was purely a numbers game, then just adjusting potency would solve hte issue, but thats not the problem really. People dont like spamming Glare, for example.

So to make it more interesting on the DPS end, youd have to add complexity in the form of a rotation and DPS based GCDs/oGCDs (like tanks). This ends up requiring either heals be less important in raids, or turning heals more into oGCD based healing, which then makes healers operate more closely to how tanks behave with their mits. Not saying that is necessarily a bad thing, but it is fundamentally a different style of play.

Then you got the players who just want to heal on a healing class. Yeah you could increase their damage output to be more in line with tanks by adjusting potency, but why bother doing that if those players arent concerned with damage to begin with? Especially if you increase that damage output you end up having to adjust content because you are increasing hte overall expected group dps which alters difficulty in a fight.

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That’s already exactly what the healers are, tanks and healers play exactly the same; GCD’s are for damage, oGCD’s are for your core role mechanic it’s just tanks get DPS level rotations and healers get one button

Nobody wants tank style rigid rotations on the healers but if you gave a healer say……..the level 50 DNC rotation with designs in place that stopping the rotation to cast succor doesn’t break the combo then you wouldn’t be changing anything about how the game is currently played; you’d just be making healer DPS more interesting

I think Im not being all that clear. Its not that I dont think healers should or shouldnt have a rotation, Im just saying that if you create one for healers, it changes the dynamic of the class and how it operates. That's not necessarily a good or bad thing, but it is a thing that is inevitable and comes with pros and cons. For example, if you added a rotation with dmg skills, like a tank has and dont change anything in their kit, it creates an issue of skill bloat and optimization issues, where your rotation performance is entirely reliant on your group not requiring healing/resses cause they do THIER things 100% correctly. No job really has that requirement for their rotation. Imagine how frustrating it would be to be in a group where you have to interrupt your dps rotation and skills to do resses and GCD healing? Or what it might be like to have healers who WONT do the healing cause theyd prefer to do their rotation and not bother ressing you cause it was your fault you died (which to be fair, probably is in many cases but that doesnt help out the group).

These are kind of issues that have to be considered when making adjustments to the playstyle of a role. It works the other way to if they focus the role more on healing aspects and how players of all different skill levels take to it. This is the rock and hard place problem Devs got with healing. Its a matter of which direction they take it, with pros and cons, and why that its not quite easy to just say "Give us a rotation" or "Just let us only heal".

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

I think Im not being all that clear. Its not that I dont think healers should or shouldnt have a rotation, Im just saying that if you create one for healers, it changes the dynamic of the class and how it operates. That's not necessarily a good or bad thing, but it is a thing that is inevitable and comes with pros and cons. For example, if you added a rotation with dmg skills, like a tank has and dont change anything in their kit, it creates an issue of skill bloat and optimization issues, where your rotation performance is entirely reliant on your group not requiring healing/resses cause they do THIER things 100% correctly. No job really has that requirement for their rotation. Imagine how frustrating it would be to be in a group where you have to interrupt your dps rotation and skills to do resses and GCD healing? Or what it might be like to have healers who WONT do the healing cause theyd prefer to do their rotation and not bother ressing you cause it was your fault you died (which to be fair, probably is in many cases but that doesnt help out the group).

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Honestly, I don't consider those "problems". If you absolutely need to interrupt your rotation to heal or raise someone......just do it? You're a healer after all. And if someone doesn't heal or raise because their rotation is too important......just kick them? They're not doing their primary duty that they signed up for at that point.

If someone's enjoyment of playing healer is purely from doing dps and healing with only OGCDs......DNC, WAR and GNB are right there. I'd rather see healers get more emphasis on actually healing and doing damage when it's safe to do so.

But now the argument goes back to "What is the primary function of a healer?" which is "To heal/Res/Support team". So why have a DPS rotation in that case? And if youre trying to increase healer DPS output, that comes with a bit of drawback to it as well, both on actual design, and how people will operate that class. Yeah in theory people should be focusing on the support aspect over dps as a healer cause, you know, its hte role. But there will inevitably be people who ignore that because "I have a DPS kit now,s o I wanna do that thing. Your death was your problem, git gud." In the current setup, that position does not fly. In an environment where there is a 'functional' dps rotation for Healers, well that viewpoint now as legs. Its not exactly ideal from a dev standpoint and has to be considered, whether we as players like it or not.

Once again we need a FAQ for the general opinions of the healer forums because again nobody wants healers to do more damage, we want to do the damage we are currently doing in a more interesting way

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Once again we need a FAQ for the general opinions of the healer forums because again nobody wants healers to do more damage, we want to do the damage we are currently doing in a more interesting way

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Here, I brought a trampoline:
https://i.imgur.com/DQif2S9.jpeg

Since the running theme of healer discussions is people jumping to conclusions, I figured I'd set the mood.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

But now the argument goes back to "What is the primary function of a healer?" which is "To heal/Res/Support team". So why have a DPS rotation in that case? And if youre trying to increase healer DPS output, that comes with a bit of drawback to it as well, both on actual design, and how people will operate that class. Yeah in theory people should be focusing on the support aspect over dps as a healer cause, you know, its hte role. But there will inevitably be people who ignore that because "I have a DPS kit now,s o I wanna do that thing. Your death was your problem, git gud." In the current setup, that position does not fly. In an environment where there is a 'functional' dps rotation for Healers, well that viewpoint now as legs. Its not exactly ideal from a dev standpoint and has to be considered, whether we as players like it or not.

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You have to explain to me how anyone not doing their primary duty that they signed up for has any leg to stand on at all.

If a tank doesn't do a tankswap properly and says "I'm not provoking, I have no weave slots during burst, it's the other tanks fault for not dropping stance and shirking.", would you accept that and say they have a leg to stand on?

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Reduce focus on Healers healing - This would mean raid damage would either have to decrease, or increase self sustain by everyone else, so that healers woul essentially have time to commit to a dps rotation

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This is a misunderstanding that crops up quite often. Let's take an example, arguably one of the 'most complex' healers to DPS on, HW SCH. Back then, we had Bio at 18s (dealing a total of 240p), Miasma at 24s (dealing a total of 300p), Bio 2 at 30s (dealing a total of 350p), and Shadowflare at 30s (dealing a total of 250p). By contrast, the 'filler' at the time, Broil 1, was 170 (later 190 iirc). Now, we have Broil 4 at 295p, and one DOT at 30s, for a total of 700p. Notice how all those old DOTs deal only a fraction of a Broil more than an actual Broil (with Miasma being about 180% of a Broil), compared to now, where our single DOT does over 200% of a Broil. 'Misplay' with the old systems, eg dropping a DOT for a tick or two, was a lot less punishing than the current systems, where missing a tick of the current DOT is equal to losing about a quarter of a Broil cast

But the key thing about 'not enough time to commit to a DPS rotation' is this: When we have multiple DOTs, we refresh them on time ideally. If we cannot, because of a hard healing requirement (cough Harrowing Hell), either we delay the refresh by a GCD (as many times as is needed until you are safe to), or you refresh early. But regardless of which of these options you take, you're doing the same thing: removing one Broil cast from your fight timeline. If you are intending to go Broil, Bio, Miasma, Bio2, Broil, and you have to Succor to shield the team part way in there, you don't just drop a DOT entirely, you shift it back one GCD to make Broil, Bio, Succor, Miasma, Bio2, Broil, and the last Broil is pushed backwards by a GCD. Playing around the fact that this GCD is pushed back, and striving to make sure it's your least valuable GCD (in this case, Broil since it is the lowest potency compared to the DOTs), is the optional depth that we have lost from the class and seek to have back

If we have an extra button on WHM that has a 15s CD (like old Fluid Aura, but GCD), healing isn't going to suddenly be impossible to handle because of it. We hit the button when we can, and if healing gets in the way, we do the healing stuff first, then hit the button when it's next safe to.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

I figure theyd have to give more sustain to everyone else to compensate for lack of healing while adjusting healing to be more OGCD based and adding in offense abilities (think how tanks operates, where most of the skills are offense with some oGCDS for defense buffs))

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Healing IS OGCD based as it stands. The issue that the devs need to realise is that where they gave the tanks offense skills like Confiteor and Primal Rend, they have given the healers an overabundance of these OGCDs and not enough offense skills to keep the 'between healing' gameplay interesting. Effectively, the tank equivalent situation would be to have WAR have it's Eye and Path combos, and nothing else for it's damage. Then, in place of Upheaval, Onslaught, Infuriate, Inner Release, Primal Rend, that AOE punch thing, Decimate or Fell Cleave, SE gives them another 7-8 cooldowns to mitigate damage with. And not interesting ones, just 'reduces damage taken by X%', literal reskins of Rampart. At a certain point, you have enough mitigation to survive the hit, you don't need more. Same with healing, we have enough to heal through the content. So why do we keep being given more, when the content stays roughly as 'hard to heal' as previous incarnations of the same difficulty level? Nothing about the raid tiers this expansion felt 'harder to heal' than SHB, and the devs have been on record at some point iirc saying that E12S was 'probably the hardest they can make healing before it becomes unreasonable'. So if they can't go further than that, but 'that' wasn't enough, then we have to change tact somewhere, because it means 'more healing needed from player' isn't going to be a viable solution to the issue

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Once again we need a FAQ for the general opinions of the healer forums because again nobody wants healers to do more damage, we want to do the damage we are currently doing in a more interesting way

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IDK about anyone else, but I'd happily take a 25% whack to my output (going from 8k to 6k with current BIS gear for example) if it meant we had four healers each with unique and fun rotations to deal that 6k with. WHM can be 'bursty', SCH can be 'DOT city', AST can be 'supporty' by having cards to play way more often, and SGE can be 'actually a DPS-Healer' by making Kardia into something more than it currently is.

I do not want to do 'more damage' as a healer, I would be perfectly fine with doing LESS damage as a healer. I want the method by which we deal that damage to be more engaging than 'this could be done with a RuneScape autoclicker'

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Since the running theme of healer discussions is people jumping to conclusions, I figured I'd set the mood.

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Ironically, the brand name of that trampoline is the exact antonym of current healer design

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Ironically, the brand name of that trampoline is the exact antonym of current healer design

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I stand by what I said a week ago: I'd rather let a tarantula lay eggs in my ear canal than play PVE healer in EW.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

But now the argument goes back to "What is the primary function of a healer?" which is "To heal/Res/Support team". So why have a DPS rotation in that case? And if youre trying to increase healer DPS output, that comes with a bit of drawback to it as well, both on actual design, and how people will operate that class.

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First, drop that "if you're trying to increase healer DPS output..." and take a look of these (Yes ty_taurus, I'm nabbing your pics):
https://i.imgur.com/NHA9QHf.png
VERSUS
https://i.imgur.com/BPN4Lm4.png
Can they do more/less? Possibly. But the point was never "I want to increase DPS output".

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

[...]But there will inevitably be people who ignore that because "I have a DPS kit now,s o I wanna do that thing. Your death was your problem, git gud." In the current setup, that position does not fly.

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Second:

• We already have DRK/GNB/AST refusing to weave in their cooldowns because their overbloated reopener.
• We already have PLDs who refuse to not use Circle of Scorn+Explacion after Goring Blade because apparently it's what the 'opener taught them to' despite knowing that those two buttons can be placed anywhere within burst window and the change would be very minimal so long it snapshots the buff.
• We already have healers who refuses to hard raise despite there being plenty of window to hardcast it safely because "My Swift is not up".

Many more to mention revolving around "[X] player refuses to use [Y] job's kit because [Z] reason" but suddenly when healer wants to do slightly more people tend to laser focus---why? The double standard is sickening.

Not a healer but responding to a specific comment:

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Imagine how frustrating it would be to be in a group where you have to interrupt your dps rotation and skills to do resses and GCD healing?

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As a Red Mage main, I've literally been in that position before (mostly in dungeons, though I have had to rez mid-combo in raids before as well). Maybe it might be considered a different scenario because I'm a DPS and therefore it's not a "regular" expectation, but I didn't find it particularly frustrating to break my burst combo to Vercure the tank, rez the healer, and keep Vercuring the tank until the healer was back up.

Would it be frustrating if it was a regular thing expected of me and it continued to break the combo the way it does? Yeah, for sure. But the post above the one I'm responding to by Supersnow said "...with designs in place that stopping the rotation to cast succor doesn’t break the combo...", and I can't imagine it being very frustrating in that case. You delay the damage to heal and/or rez, then go right back to the damage combo.

In terms of a situation where it just messes with the rotation in general, and not specifically burst, it's even less of an issue. I'd even say that I enjoy the occasions where I'm allowed to have fun "healer" moments as a Red Mage!

Obviously this is the perspective of someone playing a DPS job, and not the same as a situation where healing is my main role, but hopefully it's somewhat relevant as a response to this point.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

You say this, but the core of the game has not changed since ARR, we had so called "dps races" back then as well, yet we had 3 unique healers in HW/SB.

WHM was direct heals and direct damage.
SCH was preemptive shields and passive over time damage.
AST was delayed and extended heals and have unique buffs.

All the unique traits of the healers were taken away in ShB when they were mashed into the same mold. But sure, tell us how 4 unique healers wouldn't work within the core of this game (despite then working that way before).

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im not advocating for 3.0 combat, but at least jobs did have more identity
perhaps then the issue is encounter deisgn. MHW can be a dps race and yet every fight feels different and its because of how the monsters react. kingdom hearts boss fights are similar like this too. maybe ff14s encounter design is just to rigid?

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Originally Posted by Jade_Tyrant

Not a healer but responding to a specific comment:



As a Red Mage main, I've literally been in that position before (mostly in dungeons, though I have had to rez mid-combo in raids before as well). Maybe it might be considered a different scenario because I'm a DPS and therefore it's not a "regular" expectation, but I didn't find it particularly frustrating to break my burst combo to Vercure the tank, rez the healer, and keep Vercuring the tank until the healer was back up.

Would it be frustrating if it was a regular thing expected of me and it continued to break the combo the way it does? Yeah, for sure. But the post above the one I'm responding to by Supersnow said "...with designs in place that stopping the rotation to cast succor doesn’t break the combo...", and I can't imagine it being very frustrating in that case. You delay the damage to heal and/or rez, then go right back to the damage combo.

In terms of a situation where it just messes with the rotation in general, and not specifically burst, it's even less of an issue. I'd even say that I enjoy the occasions where I'm allowed to have fun "healer" moments as a Red Mage!

Obviously this is the perspective of someone playing a DPS job, and not the same as a situation where healing is my main role, but hopefully it's somewhat relevant as a response to this point.

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If healers had an actually engaging, interactive gameplay loop when DPSing, anyone who finds having to pause that to heal is not the demographic we should be taking advice from when considering healer changes. I said this in one of the other threads, but the thing that made FFXIV's healing so fantastic in the beginning was that it was a dance between your offense and your healing. You weren't just an HP battery, but a combat medic that revolved around making decisions throughout the fight based on what best suited the situation.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

This is a misunderstanding that ....next safe to.

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I do remember given the time period mentioned that dots had issues back then with lining up nicely among other things, and that being partially the reason devs moved away from dots. That said, what you are mentioning here is more meta complexity, that can probably be achieved with smaller fixes than whole reworks. It's not really a 'rotation' in the sense of other classes, like that of Monk, Sam, BLM, and etc. Granted I think stuff that has meta complexity is definitely more feasible for the devs to accomplish, and I personally like complexity in this regard because its interesting.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Healing IS OGCD based as it stands. ....to be a viable solution to the issue

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I agree mostly with how healing currently is but there is a bit of a caveat to this? You could technically heal a fight with just oGCDs if coordination is superb (so both healers work well, as long as proper mitigation and no one taking excessive damage). In organized statics I can see that happening, but in PF....

That might be why things are as they are now, because it requires more coordination you need more robust healing options that are semi redundant because you have to factor in other players and the mistakes they may make much more than any other role[/QUOTE]

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Originally Posted by Aravell

You have to explain to me how anyone not doing their.... say they have a leg to stand on?

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The role of healer is a bit more unique in that, unlike other jobs where their rotation is pretty much their own business, healers business is that of other players. So if you had a rotation as a healer, how well that rotation goes will become some what more dependant on your party members doing their stuff to a T and not getting killed or taking excessive damage. So imagine player feelings when people cant do their healer dps rotation cause DPS eat pancakes or make mistakes.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

First, drop that [I]"if you're trying to increase healer DPS output....... standard is sickening.

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That example is not exactly great. All it does is essentially assume that "If something is more complex, it is more interesting and fulfilling." But that is an assumption, and is ultimately missing the 'reward' aspect that isnt subjective.

If you wanted a better example, it should be more like this:

50 + 50 = 100

50+x(2y/(x+45))^2 = 10,000

The complexity added is rewarded with increased output. This is an objective meaningful increase to complexity that people will naturally find more fair (if, the effort to get the increase is 'reasonable'). This is kind of important because, being frank, the example you showed is actually a nerf, because to achieve the same results, you now must do way more work. People will not generally find that change justified. You and a few others may on a personal level like the change cause its harder, but most players wont see it that way. They will complain and ask for reversion.

But even then, just consider the added complexity is a reward in of itself and people do accept that. That added complexity still comes at a cost to the game design, no matter how you slice it. It can be things like button bloat problems, balance issues, changes in the player mindset when playing the job, and so forth. Those are things devs have to consider before making changes. It is exactly why they havent settled on one design direction or another, and its not an easy problem to solve.

Lastly roles not doing their intended jobs is actually a problem that is worth pointing out. Tanks refusing to mitigate cause "gotta get my deeps", or healers not ressing cause "no swift cast" actually illustrates problems with player mentality when it comes to their roles, where the focus of their play becomes to much about DPS. Yeah, tanks need to be mitigating, and healers need to be ressing, even if it means a DPS loss because their roll is supposed to do those things. Why, then, would it be a good idea to encourage more of problematic behavior just because other roles have that issue? That really doesn't make sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Jade_Tyrant

Not a healer......as a response to this point.

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THe problem with the proposed solution is that it ultimately is no different than pressing 1 button. Consider it mechanically: What is the difference between 1,1,1,1,1,1, and 1,2,3,1,2,3? You arent really adding complexity, partially because the problem with the proposed solution is there is no 'punishment' for breaking rotation. Youre just delaying it technically so you can do role specific actions that you are there for. There has to be something that gives a reason why spamming 1,2,3 (as an example) is more interesting an option other than you have more buttons to push that accomplish the exact same thing as pressing 1 button. And that complexity has to be meaningful, meaning it should come with 'punishments' for not doing it optimally.

Have you not seen what SE has done to make sure that rotations aren't messed up anymore? Melee and tank range attacks don't interrupt the combo anymore and same goes for Holy Spirit and Atonement and who said anything about a 123 rotation? Why not have something like BLM lite or RDM lite?

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

If you wanted a better example, it should be more like this:

50 + 50 = 100

50+x(2y/(x+45))^2 = 10,000

The complexity added is rewarded with increased output. This is an objective meaningful increase to complexity that people will naturally find more fair (if, the effort to get the increase is 'reasonable'). This is kind of important because, being frank, the example you showed is actually a nerf, because to achieve the same results, you now must do way more work. People will not generally find that change justified. You and a few others may on a personal level like the change cause its harder, but most players wont see it that way. They will complain and ask for reversion.

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Um... The current tank balance would say otherwise:

https://i.imgur.com/8oz4O1x.png

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Um... The current tank balance would say otherwise:

https://i.imgur.com/8oz4O1x.png

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The tanks are so hilariously balanced you almost get punished for picking a more complex class or one that has a worse invuln

But WAR isn’t allowed to be bad at anything

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Um... The current tank balance would say otherwise:

https://i.imgur.com/8oz4O1x.png

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I wasnt initially discussing comparisons between classes cause that starts involving a whole slew of nuances that arent exactly relevant to what I was trying to say about the example and generally the overall approach to making a healer class more complex.

What I was saying was increasing complexity to achieve the exact same goal is not enough in of itself. That isnt meaningful in an objective sense. There has to be a tangible reward for the increase in complexity from a previous iteration. A tangible reward could be an increase in dps, but could be other things that give its complexity an edge over less complex iterations. So if a healer increases complexity with some rotation on top of keeping all other aspects intact only for it to achieve the exact same end result as its previous incarnation that spammed 1 all day long, the change isnt really justified as a positive. It is, in fact a defacto a nerf to the class. One many people will not outright accept, especially if the level of complexity is substantially increased.

If we were to talk about complexity between classes within a role, this just goes back to what I mentioned about the problem with making changes: Added complexity comes with cost. Balancing, as an example, becomes substantially more difficult to do if the goal is to keep the relative output of all classes within a role 'viable'. Its actually easier to dumb things down and homogenize than to add complexity to maintain balance. So even if they want to make healers have a rotation, they have to consider balance as a result. A way this plays out is actually pretty easy to see: If WHM, for example, had a pretty damn complex rotation that is significantly harder than all the other 3 healers to achieve the same result, it will likely see LESS play overall from the player base because people will optimize into a class that better bang for their buck.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The tanks are so hilariously balanced you almost get punished for picking a more complex class or one that has a worse invuln

But WAR isn’t allowed to be bad at anything

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Certainly not perfect, but also not a disaster either. Which is why I find the 100 vs 10000 comparison to be highly uncharitable.

In general, balancing around the difficulty of a class/character in a game is not only common, but fairly standard practice, so the sentiment does make sense, but we're ignoring a lot of nuance to that concept. First and foremost is we need to consider how difficult is the job actually and what is the general performance expectation that we have of the average player in different settings? (Like if Sage is our complex DPS healer, how does the average dungeon player perform? How does the average alliance raider perform? How does the average savage raider perform? etc.) What you end up with, when balanced well, is a job that can outperform an easier class/character to some extent (i.e. without invalidating the alternatives), but also can underperform when played incorrectly. In other words, we have a higher maximum threshold, but a wider swing in terms of performance levels, and that's perfectly okay, as we see with Black Mage for example. Black Mage has the widest swing of all jobs in the game by a mile, and yet, its balance is rarely an issue (with caster DPS the issue is more on SE's insistence on massively overtuned utility tax on Summoner and Red Mage. Things like utility tax or mobility tax are fine for balance, but SE does not seem capable of comprehending how to hold back when it comes to DPS taxes).

tl;dr: Our hypothetical "complex" healer (and I use the term "complex" loosely) may have a higher maximum DPS output, but would also have a lower minimum--a wider swing.

Also, something to consider is DPS vs utility. Something I've said before is that every healer should have a unique advantage that gives them a different angle to approach more challenging content with. Scholar already has this in the form of Expedient, and Astrologian arguably has this in Macrocosmos being able to delete certain types of healing checks (if things like Reaper's Toll were more frequent, that could be Astrologian's niche). As long as White Mage can be allowed to have its own form of utility, like the example of float I've given elsewhere in the past or something else entirely, then Sage's niche could also just be an extra couple steps higher of DPS output, not unlike the concept of Black Mage.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

[...]

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You see, I don't really disagree vehemently against many of your points. However the fact remains that neither the changes they've imparted into the green role nor their related past statements had made any sense.

Why say "healer DPS isn't expected" while also pruning the complexities away & creating fights like E8S that clearly expects healer's contribution? To add insult to the injury, have they ever given back anything in return after those pruning? (rhetoric)
Why say "we want healer to heal" but also keeps adding buttons that specifically to make healers heal less or sometimes none at all (aka button that literally created to solve a very specific mechanic)? Lilybell & Panhaima are the biggest offender in this category. Multi-hit instances are nice to have, but do you know why healing through Styx in Zodiark Normal was more fun as a WHM than SGE? Because I can make that in-combat decision to where to keep my 2-3 lilies so I don't need to hardcast Medica II/Cure III, drift Assize, and I don't have Lilybell at that level. What's wrong with SGE? Just Panhaima+Kerachole and Dosis away(??????).

Make it make sense, small indie company. They're clearly capable of making things better, they just refuse to for whatever reason.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

[...]Why, then, would it be a good idea to encourage more of problematic behavior just because other roles have that issue? That really doesn't make sense to me.

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This goes both ways. ARR - StB healer dps buttons would like to have a word with this particular sentence.

You (general you) give a 1 2 1 1 1 1 rotation to a healer, then suddenly newbie & scared healer are shocked that healer needs to contribute dps because just how easy it is to achieve about 60% of a full fledge DPS job's contribution. This is exactly what's happening after ShB pruning.
You give back old Cleric Stance to healers, then suddenly newbie or scared healer can remain within Cleric Stance to heal safely because everybody knows the risk just isn't worth it if they can't pull it off. This was a common occurrence in the olden days.

As somebody that enjoys leveling all jobs to max and playing all of them, healers are my least played.

Why? Because its the only role where your gameplay is tied to party incompetence, meaning the amount you heal depends on how much tanks suck and dps ignore mechanics. If party is competent then the gameplay loop is quite boring one button spam.

For non-static play this is toxic relationship. Meanwhile if healing in statics its essentially "optimizing the fun away" as you minimize healing you do for your one button spam.

At least with tanks you have some semblance of rotation so after optimizing mits you still have gameplay loop to keep brain engaged.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

THe problem with the proposed solution is that it ultimately is no different than pressing 1 button. Consider it mechanically: What is the difference between 1,1,1,1,1,1, and 1,2,3,1,2,3? You arent really adding complexity, partially because the problem with the proposed solution is there is no 'punishment' for breaking rotation. Youre just delaying it technically so you can do role specific actions that you are there for. There has to be something that gives a reason why spamming 1,2,3 (as an example) is more interesting an option other than you have more buttons to push that accomplish the exact same thing as pressing 1 button. And that complexity has to be meaningful, meaning it should come with 'punishments' for not doing it optimally.

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And the easiest way to show how bad a path that logic follows, is to just ask the opposite. Let's say you're right, what IS the difference between 111111 and 123123? Then the question is: Why do healers get the former, but tanks and DPS are given the latter? Given there's 'no difference in complexity really' between the two, why do DPS not all have 11111 as their rotation, like healers? Why do Tanks get to have new buttons like Confiteor, Primal Rend or Double Down each expansion? Surely for a DPS, just pressing True Thrust or Hakaze over and over is all they need, with the correct balance applied? Or for Tanks, all they really need is Heavy Swing, Overpower for AOE, and Tomahawk for picking up adds from range, right?

But we have been through that particular point a million times already, to the point where there really ought to be an FAQ of the most debunked points somewhere. We don't actually think Tanks and DPS should have their gameplay rendered so bland. We just want to know why Healers are subject to the decision, when they are equally 'not DPS' as another role who DOES have such gameplay (Tanks). If we had something akin to WAR for healers, but a little more simplified, then these complaints wouldn't be happening in such numbers. Consider WAR, you have Eye combo to maintain a buff, Path combo for filler, a 0-100 gauge that you can spend on a big hit (Fell Cleave), a move to generate 50 gauge (Infuriate), a 60s burst move for '3 gauge spenders for free, plus a big hit too (Primal Rend)', an OGCD (Upheaval), and a 3 charge OGCD (Onslaught). If you remove the 1-2 part of the combos, Eye is like Dia, and Path is like Glare on WHM. From there, what else do we have as WHM that compares? Orogeny, the AOE version of Upheaval, could be likened to Assize, but it's 30s to Assize's 40. POM, our burst window move, is 2min compared to WAR's 1min. Beyond that, there's not really anything else.

That's why I suggested what I did before. The addition of a 0-100 gauge on WHM would add all this extra design space for new moves, like an Infuriate analogue, or the healing move and it's linked 'damage refunds' of Quake, Tornado, Flood, being 'sorta kinda' similar to IR, 3 Fell Cleaves (given that the gauge build rate I had worked out to about 60 gauge per minute, allowing one use per minute roughly in single target).

Btw, I've yet to see a single person who's suggested a healer rework in the healer section of the forums, suggest a hard 1-2-3 combo as part of their idea (hard being 'you must use 1 2 3 in that order, without anything in between that would break the combo'). Usually it's 'soft combos', incentivized by some buff or another that makes a certain order more desirable to use. EG, if you have Glare increase the potency of your next Holy by 30% per stack, then at 4 stacks, Holy becomes a gain over another Glare, making a 'soft combo' of 4 Glares, then a Holy. You could safely interrupt the 4 Glare building phase with a heal, and retain the stacks. Alternatively, the most common thing I've seen (partially because it's what I go with) is to not have combos at all, instead making the 'rotation' based on priority system, more akin to something like BRD or RDM. Where BRD is (at it's absolute simplest) 'Is your DOT up? If no, use it/refresh it, if yes... Is Refulgent procced? If yes, use it, if not use Burst Shot', I would have healers be something like (WHM for example here) 'Is Dia up? If no, use it. If yes, is Banish on CD? If no (it's ready to use), use it. If it's on CD, use Glare'. If you need to heal, you heal, and then go back to the priority system. For example, lets say you need to use Banish, but you need to heal in that GCD. So you would heal, and keep the team alive (as is your role requirement as a healer). Then, you go 'OK damage time' again, but oops, because you had to heal, Dia fell off. So now, you use Dia (because it's higher priority), then Banish, then Glare again. No messing about with combos is needed, we can keep the damage rotation pretty simple to understand without it being 'boring to execute' by just having a few (in this case, two) short CD GCDs. I used Dia at 12s and Banish at 15s as examples. The fact that the two do not have a neatly aligning timer means that you can't just go BDGGGGBDGGGG for the whole fight. If both were 15s, it wouldn't solve much of anything. The fact that the two would drift about within your rotation (in relation to one another, not to your GCD) is what would give it executional depth (or at least, more than it currently has).

This is a video of the idea, of a 12s Dia and 15s Banish, in action. Well, kind of, I had to take creative liberties with the tools available. So it means 'manually refresh Dia at 18s left' and 'use this one Lost Action in Bozja, using the instance timer to track it's 15s CD since the Lost Action itself doesn't have a CD'. And it has a cast time, whereas my version of Banish would be instant (allowing WHM more mobility, and therefore more casual friendly). Regardless, I would hope that, just off of this video demonstration, it's apparent the difference between our current rotation, and what a small change like what I have suggested, could do for our gameplay.

Somehow, we always seem to have to talk about 1-2-3 combos. I don't really understand why we are forced to consider this angle time and time again because healers are casters, not melee, were able to have a wider selection of attack spells in the past that did not include 1-2-3 combos, and literally no one is saying "give healers a 1-2-3 combo and that'll solve the problem," but here we are. Again.

I think people just want me to feel the unrelenting desire to scoop out my own eyes with a spoon and give up on humanity.