Dawntrail Healers need a rework

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

They want the game to be very easy for anyone to pick up, and easy to pick up doesn't have to come at the cost of skill expression.

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In any normal content healers do not have to do a single bit of dps and duties are still patheticly easy to complete. Healer checks can often be done with just 1 ability, and otherwise a combination of 3 buttons if they have to be done faster. So any addition into the dps wont hurt this skill floor part at all, as especialy for less good players the focus has to be on keeping the team healthy anyway.

But i hope they will use the condensing of abilities (as they already do for some msq battles), would be used on a healer. While 111 spam might be dull, using it as a base is still welcome. You then can chain in additional abilities that for example is usable every 3rd 1 cast. By condensing you can make quite a combo system with some flexibility, but not having it take up many buttons. With 3 buttons it can be made quite extensive (1AB being the base buttons on the hotbar): 1 being a 123 combo on its own. 2 grants 'A', 3 grants 'B'. Using A converts B into C, or if B was already used, D. And suddenly those 3 buttons already involve 7 dps attacks and 2 branching possibilities (12AD3B,123ABC,123BAD). While at the same time making it barely more difficult (the ABCD buttons only need to grant a little bit more potency and missing one barely hurts, making the GCD part still more relevant)

EDIT: and note, DT doesnt have to instantly make all 3 branching paths either. This can be seperated through several expansions. And provide additional effects towards its chaining.

Earlier in the thread some others have talked about the glut of oGCD's so I wanted to also share my thoughts on this. I think the large amount and power of oGCD heals combined with the shorter cast time change for all healers has made them a bit less interesting. I'm hoping for new GCD abilities for scholar in dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Afras

Earlier in the thread some others have talked about the glut of oGCD's so I wanted to also share my thoughts on this. I think the large amount and power of oGCD heals combined with the shorter cast time change for all healers has made them a bit less interesting. I'm hoping for new GCD abilities for scholar in dawntrail.

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cast time changes really hurt white mage, I really liked the long cast times.

OGCD heals need to be rare, healers should actually have to GCD heal, this makes utility extra abilities from other classes also really good as a side effect, right now healers don't really care about utility from other jobs because both can handle healing through ogcds alone. Upping the auto attack damage also making tanks actually have to use defensives properly to help healers, ect.

I actually think a lot of the utility, healing and tank related issues are pretty much down to the abundance of OCGD healing in the game with the lack of damage. (obviously other points outside that, but we really need to get rid of the massive ogcd kits of healers).

Agreed. If the problem in every expansion is button bloat, then get rid of some of the healing oGCDs and add more DPS skills.
Healers have too many "free" heals and in most contents casting a GCD heal is considered the wrong move.
Make healers actually use their GCD heals and make DPSing more fun.

While I do totally agree that healing oGCDs are way out of hand, I feel like it’s going to be difficult to convince the developers to ever change that.

From their point of view, if they cull oGCDs and move the healing over to GCDs, then newer healers are going to become headless chickens and kill everyone on the planet (even though you don’t have many oGCDs at lower levels lol). Similarly with if they inverted the potencies so gcd was stronger; they’d see it as punishing the newer heals by making them ‘work harder’ to keep everyone healed.

It’s also worth mentioning, they have designed most savage+ content specifically with healers dps’ing in mind. If they had to gcd heal to a much greater extent they’d not be able to hit those ‘maximal dps targets’ they need/are supposed to hit, which might necessitate rebalancing a ton of raid content.
Ironically though that’s kind of the point - people don’t generally want healing to be about ‘hitting maximal dps targets, while using healing abilities to spend as little time and thought as humanly possible on not-dps’ing. But I feel like the devs are going to be super resistant to it because they’ll be like, ‘well, you said you wanted healers to dps!’.

Then there’s also the potential of them going for a ‘you have to have one or the other’ scenario. That is to say, they’ll come with the ultimatum of choosing between ‘good healing’ or ‘more dps’. They’ll say that if we have more healing then healers can’t be expected to dps; if they have more dps, they’ll say they can’t be expected to gcd heal.

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Originally Posted by Connor

It’s also worth mentioning, they have designed most savage+ content specifically with healers dps’ing in mind. If they had to gcd heal to a much greater extent they’d not be able to hit those ‘maximal dps targets’ they need/are supposed to hit, which might necessitate rebalancing a ton of raid content.

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No reason to rebalance stuff on an encounter end, this is easily solved by adding another DPS button or two and/or just increasing some potency on your filler spell to make up for the Now-Mandatory GCDs you're dropping into heals instead of damage. Not like potency inflation is anything new to 14, duno why you wouldn't think that would happen before changing numbers on bosses lol

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Originally Posted by Connor

From their point of view, if they cull oGCDs and move the healing over to GCDs, then newer healers are going to become headless chickens and kill everyone on the planet (even though you don’t have many oGCDs at lower levels lol). Similarly with if they inverted the potencies so gcd was stronger; they’d see it as punishing the newer heals by making them ‘work harder’ to keep everyone healed.

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This argument makes no sense.

As you point out, you don't even get oGCDs, meaning newer healers aren't using them.

In a more general sense, as skill goes up, oGCD use goes up and GCD use goes down. Lower skilled - or even lowEST skilled - healers aren't using oGCDs. There's the reason "Cure/Medica spam" is the meme it is, because that's how unskilled healers heal. It's not "more work" it's "what they're doing already". Having GCD heals being stronger relative to oGCDs would help the newb/low skilled/spammer healers, and there's no argument on the planet that cycling through your oGCD healing plan is easier than pressing Medica over and over would be.

I've seen this argument used a lot, but it's never by new healers, it's always by experienced ones. Ones that rely on oGCDs and tend to like doing so, and are using this argument to defend keeping them around, incidentally. :)

There are arguments for oGCDs - the movement heavy fights are one of them - but not that they benefit new healers. oGCD use is one of the things new healers are REALLY bad at. A lot of people even treat oGCDs as GCDs when they start playing FFXIV because the concept of oGCD weaving is relatively specific to this game. Like in WoW, healer CDs are generally on the global cooldown. You can often see this with new healers casting their last GCD, then hitting the oGCD and waiting around 2.5 sec before their next action. Because they haven't figured out that oGCDs are different. And the game doesn't teach that.

So while there are arguments for keeping around oGCDs, this isn't one of them.

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Originally Posted by Connor

From their point of view, if they cull oGCDs and move the healing over to GCDs, then newer healers are going to become headless chickens and kill everyone on the planet (even though you don’t have many oGCDs at lower levels lol). Similarly with if they inverted the potencies so gcd was stronger; they’d see it as punishing the newer heals by making them ‘work harder’ to keep everyone healed.

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We have no reason to expect that that is how they feel about it, not (quite) the least of which is simply because... that'd make no damn sense.

The lower the relative power of oGCDs, the greater portion of maximum output can be managed through even just a few keys (or, viewed from the opposite end, the more the returns diminish from/with each additional button one must track).

Siphoning power away from oGCDs towards GCDs would in net effect, make healing more accessible in most content/encounters (i.e., in all cases except where one must now specifically bank further oGCDs in order to meet minimal eHP thresholds extremely bursty healing requirements, such as back-to-back top-off checks).

This is my first FFXIV expansion where I do not plan to level a healer at all. I love MMO healing, but the game just refuses to give us much to do outside of oGCDs and glare spam. So DPS it is, because I can always tune my efficiency more instead of having less and less to do as the group gets better.

I mean, that was what I was trying to get at lol. Their actions/statements for healers don’t make sense, contradict each other then lock the role into an endless cycle of mundane misery.

Maybe I am completely wrong and they’ve been working on addressing all the feedback about ‘boring healers’, but their recent comments about (mostly) continuing with the 2min meta info Dawntrail (because ‘it’s what we wanted’*) don’t give me much hope they’ll be making any kind of significant or worthwhile changes beyond like an extra DoT button and some more oGCD heals between 90-100.

And I mean, maybe I’m just being overly critical of them. But given these are the same guys that gave us ‘Scholars shouldn’t have Energy Drain because they’re forcing their cohealers to do all the healing’, I really wouldn’t be shocked if they were still pulling these kind of mental gymnastics (i.e ‘weaker oGCDs will hurt newbie healers who don’t even have them yet’).

If they somehow manage to make healing and contributing dps and whatever other stuff they’ve got going on (ast cards SCH fairy w/e) then I’ll be the first to praise them lol. But given that - as of now - they haven’t still acknowledged there even is an issue with healers (to my knowledge), I just find myself fairly doubtful they’re going to get the message in time for the next expansion.

Like if they had even just said at any point ‘we’re aware healers are unhappy and are looking into it’ or w/e I probably wouldn’t even be on the forums. But the closest we’ve got is ‘go play ultimates’

* (I’m well aware that we literally did ask for it, but at the same time, I dunno that the ask was ‘just make it all the exact same’ lol, at least do some 30/60/90s stuff.)

Honestly?

I feel like it's more they're not sure what to do with healers, and everything they try (e.g. bleeds that require GCD Regens to be applied) gets them yelled at, so they've shifted to a "as few changes as possible/don't rock the boat" policy regarding healers. They've made some pretty big changes to healers over time, most of them in response to player feedback. But there's a big "day crowd/night crowd" effect where the people complaining about the changes ARE happy (generally) when they get them, but this just pisses off a different group of people who become vocal instead. The Devs don't know who is who, exactly (that is, who is part of which group), they only see "The players complain no matter what we do".

It's one reason I really harp on the 4 healers thing, because I genuinely DO think it's the only solution (outside of specs which would be a game change larger than healers and cause all kinds of...interesting...knock-on and balance and etc effects) that can fix this by making sure each group has something they like. While you'd still get people complaining other people have it easier/better than them or they prefer the aesthetics of another Job but want it in their playstyle, etc, the fact is, the only way to stop the Devs getting told they're wrong no matter what they do is to have an offering/content representing each group's desires in at least some way.

Otherwise, they're stuck in the rut of "any change gets us yelled at, so we'll only make tiny changes so we only get yelled at a tiny bit and people are MOSTLY happy, right?"

Same with the 2 min meta. Few people asked for it, but those that did were...vocal. Synodic Scribe just put out a video this week addressing this point and calling on compromise, noting that that requires all groups to speak AT THE SAME TIME so we can see what the whole community does want and work out something compromise with everyone accepting there will be trade-offs to getting it, but the result should give everyone something to be happy about.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Honestly?

I feel like it's more they're not sure what to do with healers, and everything they try (e.g. bleeds that require GCD Regens to be applied) gets them yelled at, so they've shifted to a "as few changes as possible/don't rock the boat" policy regarding healers. They've made some pretty big changes to healers over time, most of them in response to player feedback. But there's a big "day crowd/night crowd" effect where the people complaining about the changes ARE happy (generally) when they get them, but this just pisses off a different group of people who become vocal instead. The Devs don't know who is who, exactly (that is, who is part of which group), they only see "The players complain no matter what we do".

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Strong disagree. The devs are being exceedingly consistent:

1. • There are WAY more super-casual players than any other kind of player.
   • We can't let the least skilled players get challenged or frustrated at all, because they bring in the money.
   • As long as players can wave their hands, green sparklies appear, and health goes up, they're happy they're healing.
   • We need to add a few new skills each expansion, to create the appearance of moving forward.
   • Anyone who doesn't like this style of content can play ultimate, LOL.

People on these forums advance grandiose theories, design reworks, and publish reams of analysis, but the devs are incredibly happy with the current state of healing. And the amount of American forum/social media feedback that reaches the Japanese developers is effectively zero. Indeed, the type of person who comes here and expresses frustration at healing is likely under one percentage point of players. There are way more people who just want to buy a ticket, get on the theme park ride, go through the motions, and feel good about passing content.

Devs probably feel like providing ultimate encounters is a disproportionate use of resources for fixated players, or treat it as an expression of their passion for their game. Rebalancing content across the board or overhauling the core design of healing is a step way way way beyond that and is never going to happen. We see this in interviews and empirical class and encounter design.

Healers possess two crucial components in their arsenal: the act of healing, which I find to be generally in a commendable state. However, the Scholar (SCH) could benefit from a comprehensive rework, as it currently resembles the Sage too closely. While Sage presents a smoother experience in most situations, Scholar feels somewhat clunky. To establish a clearer distinction between the two, a profound rework for Scholar seems warranted.

Nevertheless, concerning healing capabilities, Astrologian (Ast), White Mage (Whm), Sage, and Scholar all exhibit distinct characteristics and perform effectively across various content. Therefore, aside from a potential Scholar rework, this aspect should remain largely untouched.

The issue arises in the domain of DPS and downtime. The perennial debate unfolds between those who find downtime monotonous—a one-button snoozefest, often voiced by dedicated Savage raiders—and those who prefer a healer's primary focus to be on healing without the complexity of managing a DPS rotation, typically voiced by a more casual or less skilled audience.

Presently, the balance appears tilted toward the latter perspective, and I am inclined to believe that furnishing healers with a full-fledged DPS rotation, particularly one that significantly impacts their overall DPS, may not be prudent. Healer players typically engage with the role for its curative aspects, and imposing a demanding DPS rotation alongside healing duties could prove intimidating for many, especially considering that a significant portion of healers engage primarily in content up to Extreme trials or Savage 1-2.

My proposal stays away from a traditional rotation and leans toward a priority system, similar to that employed by the Sage, wherein additional DPS is marginally increased—by no more than 20%. While this might seem substantial for a DPS role, the context changes for healers. In practice, the DPS variance among healers in challenging content often stems from factors like downtime, inefficient use of abilities, and casting interruptions during movement mechanics, rather than a lack of intent to contribute damage.

The key determinants of a healer's DPS are uptime and healing resource management. Therefore, introducing a few more DPS skills would likely have a negligible impact on overall results. For instance, abilities like White Mage's Blood Lily, Sage's Phlegma, and Astrologian's cards could be regarded as downtime skills—simple additions to enhance DPS without interfering with the primary healing responsibilities. Scholar, with its current toolset, might require more substantial enhancements.

To illustrate, Scholar's Ruin II could be transformed into a 9-second Damage over Time (DoT) effect, dealing the same potency as Broil. This adjustment would allow the healer to move every 9 seconds without sacrificing DPS, exemplifying a more nuanced approach to downtime skills.

In essence, a priority system could benefit healers at varying skill levels, aiding less experienced healers by reducing the overall number of button presses while ensuring that the selected actions contribute meaningfully to DPS. Establishing a balanced middle ground entails encouraging the community to appreciate healers striving for excellence and acknowledging that, for lower-tier content such as Ex trials or dungeons, the inclusion of additional DPS skills can be optional without jeopardizing the group's success within reasonable time constraints. The goal is to foster an environment where healers feel empowered to optimize their contribution without overwhelming them with unnecessary complexity.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

My proposal stays away from a traditional rotation and leans toward a priority system, similar to that employed by the Sage

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I've been trying to say this for like a year, but every time the topic of 'healers getting a couple more damage buttons' comes up, someone skips to the end of the currently active thread, ignores the previous discussions, and retreads the same debunked 'well you just want a 123 combo then????' lines

I suggested, for WHM, Dia to be 12s duration instead of 30, and a new 15s CD called Water (later Banish). In effect, it's a priority system of 'refresh Dia, use Banish, fill with Glare'. SCH's two additional DOTs, 24s Miasma and 15s Shadowflare, are the quintessential 'priority system', you just refresh them as they fall off, and if two are falling off at the same time, you refresh the one that does more damage over its duration (assuming it can tick for the full duration). AST was 'use Minor Arcana on CD (15s), fill with Malefic', and SGE was almost entirely unchanged from current, just changing Toxikon to be a selfbuff effect instead of 'scuffed Ruin2'.

The issue is that we can say 'priority system' all we like, it seems there are certain people who don't understand the idea that in that priority system, 'keep party alive' comes before every damage action. Besides that though, I've also wanted the 'fill downtime with damage' to have more interactivity and reward in the kit than just 'the enemy dies faster'. To incentivize players to do damage instead of waiting around for something to heal, making damage build towards healing tools. Maybe WHM gets a gauge to build, that is spent on a big heal. Maybe SCH gets some effect where Fairy Gauge also builds based on DOT ticks, and Quickened Aetherflow returns. SGE can have actual 'damage>healing' interactions by augmenting Kardia with various effects, like if we had 3 or 4 more moves that work like Soteria but with other effects like 'makes it AOE' or 'converts it to shields'. IDK how AST would 'get healing opportunities from doing damage', maybe it doesn't need them though, if it's the 'buff focused healer'

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

The issue arises in the domain of DPS and downtime. The perennial debate unfolds between those who find downtime monotonous—a one-button snoozefest, often voiced by dedicated Savage raiders—and those who prefer a healer's primary focus to be on healing without the complexity of managing a DPS rotation, typically voiced by a more casual or less skilled audience.

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It's a false dichotomy. There shouldn't be downtime in the first place, if content was designed to keep healers occupied.

To make an analogy, if DPS players could only do damage for five seconds every minute and the other 55 seconds they had to spam a buff button, everyone would agree that it's insane. But (FFXIV) healers are stuck in a rut of deciding what to do with downtime, as clears are done without 2 healers or even any healers at all.

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Originally Posted by HappyHubris

To make an analogy, if DPS players could only do damage for five seconds every minute and the other 55 seconds they had to spam a buff button, everyone would agree that it's insane.

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Ironically, such a thing existed for healers in old WOW, the one that uses the model of healing some people want to move towards, with the triage and the 'MP is a real concern' and all that. Loatheb only let you heal once, and then you got a 55ish second debuff that prevented you from healing again, so you had to really ration out what you were going to use your one heal for.

I wonder what the healers did during those 55 seconds where they couldn't cast any heals... Surely it wasn't doing damage, that'd be 'against what the healer role is about' right /s

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Ironically, such a thing existed for healers in old WOW, the one that uses the model of healing some people want to move towards, with the triage and the 'MP is a real concern' and all that. Loatheb only let you heal once, and then you got a 55ish second debuff that prevented you from healing again, so you had to really ration out what you were going to use your one heal for.

I wonder what the healers did during those 55 seconds where they couldn't cast any heals... Surely it wasn't doing damage, that'd be 'against what the healer role is about' right /s

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I know you have an axe to grind against WoW, but digging up a single encounter is silly when we're Glare spamming so much in almost every fight.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Scholar rework

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I feel like if they do a SCH rework, it will shift it more in the direction of SMN. Other than MNK, most reworks have been to make things simpler/more streamlined.

I still believe that the solution isn't to do the same thing with all the healers. For example, _A_ healer Job having a priority system makes sense. But all of them having it? Then we're in the same situation we're in now. The problem, I think, is all the healers' downtime being more or less the same. Going from one same to a different same doesn't fix that. There needs to be an outlet for people that don't like what the others offer. And just having a different priority system doesn't help when there are people who don't like priority systems.

It's like taking a bunch of people that hate sports and were playing videogames and saying you want them to play soccer, and when some say they don't want to play soccer, offering them basketball and football as options, ignoring that they aren't saying they don't like soccer, they're saying they don't like sports, which is why they were playing videogames instead of sports when you happened upon them. While some might like videogames AND sports and take you up on one of the options presented, that doesn't help the people that don't like sports and were explicitly avoiding sports.

It ultimately comes down to different people like and are good at different things. The Caster role reflects this well, with BLM, RDM, and SMN all being distinct and appealing to different types of player.

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Originally Posted by HappyHubris

It's a false dichotomy. There shouldn't be downtime in the first place, if content was designed to keep healers occupied.

To make an analogy, if DPS players could only do damage for five seconds every minute and the other 55 seconds they had to spam a buff button, everyone would agree that it's insane. But (FFXIV) healers are stuck in a rut of deciding what to do with downtime, as clears are done without 2 healers or even any healers at all.

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This is honestly a REALLY good analogy. Thank you.

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Originally Posted by HappyHubris

It's a false dichotomy. There shouldn't be downtime in the first place, if content was designed to keep healers occupied.

To make an analogy, if DPS players could only do damage for five seconds every minute and the other 55 seconds they had to spam a buff button, everyone would agree that it's insane. But (FFXIV) healers are stuck in a rut of deciding what to do with downtime, as clears are done without 2 healers or even any healers at all.

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tbh we actually really, really *do* need downtime. Not nearly as much as we have right now, but if there was none at all playing with randos, especially in lower level roulettes, would be basically impossible. Downtime creates buffers for people that have messed up or fallen behind to catch up if they aren't already on top of things and thus throwing out dps instead. If there was no downtime you'd need everyone to be perfect 100% of the time.

Also to be perfectly honest, in modern FF14 DPS and tanks aren't really that far off either. You cram all your biggest damage buttons into one small 20s window once every two minutes and then just coast until it's time to burst again, and a significant chunk of your total damage happens in that window. Tanks slam every single defensive cooldown they can into the tankbusters that happen infrequently enough to make this the normal way to play. All the roles could stand to have less downtime, and more varied things to do during the luls between the important parts of each encounter.

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Originally Posted by HappyHubris

I know you have an axe to grind against WoW, but digging up a single encounter is silly when we're Glare spamming so much in almost every fight.

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You misunderstand, I think there's plenty of things we could learn from WOW. I just want to know, in that fight where the healers had very little healing to do, not because of a lack of damage per se, but because they literally could not heal thanks to the fight's mechanics, what did those healers do to fill the downtime? I'd imagine that it'd be damage, which is just what we have here, in which case the two games are very alike. The difference was that there was more damage to heal back then in WOW, but we might not be able to get away with raising healing required here as much because WOW has something we don't: responsiveness

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Originally Posted by Renathras

It's like taking a bunch of people that hate sports and were playing videogames and saying you want them to play soccer, and when some say they don't want to play soccer, offering them basketball and football as options, ignoring that they aren't saying they don't like soccer, they're saying they don't like sports, which is why they were playing videogames instead of sports when you happened upon them. While some might like videogames AND sports and take you up on one of the options presented, that doesn't help the people that don't like sports and were explicitly avoiding sports.

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I think the analogy falls apart a bit when you consider that the four healers are part of the same role, therefore they have to be related. Probably makes more sense to say that each role is a hobby, like 'sports' or 'video games' or 'reading books', and within that category you have different things. Like the four healers can be four different sports, and some sports involve a ball, some don't (running/highjump/longjump), but at the end of the day they're all linked in that they require some amount of physical exertion, like how healers have 'healing' as their core. And regardless of the sport, all of them have a fair amount of depth to 'master' said sport. Pretty sure most people agree that the four healers should feel different in their damage, there's just disagreement on why one should be left as it is

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I think the analogy falls apart a bit when you consider that the four healers are part of the same role, therefore they have to be related. Probably makes more sense to say that each role is a hobby, like 'sports' or 'video games' or 'reading books', and within that category you have different things. Like the four healers can be four different sports, and some sports involve a ball, some don't (running/highjump/longjump), but at the end of the day they're all linked in that they require some amount of physical exertion, like how healers have 'healing' as their core. And regardless of the sport, all of them have a fair amount of depth to 'master' said sport. Pretty sure most people agree that the four healers should feel different in their damage, there's just disagreement on why one should be left as it is

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Well, here's the thing, if we stick to the analogy, then the thing they're part of is videogames.

So you asking them to do sports would be you asking them to do a thing outside of their role. At the end of the day, DPSing IS outside of the healer role itself. We have an entire role devoted to that.

Now, if we had roles of Tank, Healer, and Support, where there was no dedicated DPS role, then sure. But we aren't in that game. We have three roles, one of which is DPS. And healer is not that role.

Now, it's fine, then, to offer Wi Sports as one of the options (e.g. SGE that heals by doing damage). But it shouldn't be all of them. Since the role is videogames, not sports.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Well, here's the thing, if we stick to the analogy, then the thing they're part of is videogames.

So you asking them to do sports would be you asking them to do a thing outside of their role. At the end of the day, DPSing IS outside of the healer role itself. We have an entire role devoted to that.

Now, if we had roles of Tank, Healer, and Support, where there was no dedicated DPS role, then sure. But we aren't in that game. We have three roles, one of which is DPS. And healer is not that role.

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And tank is also not that role. Tanks don't need anything more than what healers have for DPS, yet they do. There is a disconnect between the way the two non-DPS roles are treated, which means one of them is failing to respect the rules of their role. Either healers are failing to meet a sufficient amount of DPS variety that is acceptable for non DPS roles as established by tanks, or tanks are grossly overstepping their acceptable amount of DPS variety.

If the rule is that a Non DPS role should have a basic single target attack, AoE attack, and 1-2 additional tools for allowing them to function in solo content, but anything else is not permitted for crossing over into DPS role responsibilities, then tanks have failed and should have their DPS actions culled.

Just because the name says "healer" doesn't mean the role is made to just heal and it would be great if the game was more open about it.

Damaging and non healing actions that benefit the party (buffs,CC...) have always been part of the role simply because the limited utility heals (as hp is binary and damage taken is a limited resource) and any decent healer can attest to that. In XIV, a game with so many dps checks that can't be cleared without healer dps, a game scripted in nature that has been built with the idea of healers dealing damage, disregarding the non healing side as something "not for healers" is a mistake as big as saying that dps shoudn't help with mit or tanks shoudn't deal any damage.

This reductionist view of X role should only do Y only hurts the playerbase. It grows lazy players that refuse to see the big picture of a fight and limits their usefulness, because, no matter how they try to spin it, a healer that keeps the party alive and does damage will always be more useful than one that don't.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

For example, _A_ healer Job having a priority system makes sense. But all of them having it? Then we're in the same situation we're in now. The problem, I think, is all the healers' downtime being more or less the same. Going from one same to a different same doesn't fix that. There needs to be an outlet for people that don't like what the others offer. And just having a different priority system doesn't help when there are people who don't like priority systems.
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I mean yes sure, there could be plenty of things. The card is different from the lilies which are different from the sage system. I mean there are plenty of things that could be done. But I meant that an actual 123 rotation might not be desirable as, first it would be interuppted (i mean the flow) randomly there and there by having to heal. Also, 123 would take space on the bar and do very little in term of breaking the 11111 monotony. So unless they'd do something where you button changes, that something to be mindfull about, button bloat.

Ultimately for instance, caster are based on a priority system and have no strict rotation, and they all feel quite different from one another. (not involving difficulty here).

And we're not talking about making 4 new dps rotation, we're talking about adding 2-3 buttons to each healers to end the eternel complaint of "1buttonspamjob". I feel there was a step in the good direction with things like blood lilies. We just need a bit more. (and a SCH rework)

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

And tank is also not that role. Tanks don't need anything more than what healers have for DPS, yet they do. There is a disconnect between the way the two non-DPS roles are treated, which means one of them is failing to respect the rules of their role. Either healers are failing to meet a sufficient amount of DPS variety that is acceptable for non DPS roles as established by tanks, or tanks are grossly overstepping their acceptable amount of DPS variety.

If the rule is that a Non DPS role should have a basic single target attack, AoE attack, and 1-2 additional tools for allowing them to function in solo content, but anything else is not permitted for crossing over into DPS role responsibilities, then tanks have failed and should have their DPS actions culled.

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Interesting take, I for one believe they should have indeed more tools to mitigate damage as I feel tank are currently too focused on DPS.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Interesting take, I for one believe they should have indeed more tools to mitigate damage as I feel tank are currently too focused on DPS.

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Interestingly enough, while there is a complaint that tanks are not tanking enough and have lost many of their responsibilities, that actually has nothing to do with their higher focus on DPS as tanks.

Enmity has been completely simplified into just ‘is your tank stance on?’ And in harder content, Provoke and Shirk for tank swaps. That’s it. Ironically, the reduction in aggro management is also associated with a loss of DPS variety in the removal of aggro combos. The removal of DPS and healer aggro reduction is something I would say isn’t a huge deal in that regard. They could’ve made aggro uniquely a mechanic that tanks handle by themselves rather than depend on other players to use their own cooldowns, but it was simplified on them too to the point where it’s an automatic process. The only influence DPS has had on the process was the dropping of their aggro combo to make their only combo, the higher damage one, always the right answer. But they could’ve addressed that in other ways, such as making aggro attacks just as strong but come at a gauge cost, or even MP. Imagine if the Oath Gauge was something you used to manage not only Shelton, but also OGCD Flash, for example.

But even more than enmity, boss positioning has been almost completely deleted, and that has nothing to do with the tank kits and everything to do with fight design. Tanks getting new parts to their DPS gameplay every expansion has not actually been the reason why they’ve lost responsibility.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

If the rule is that a Non DPS role should have a basic single target attack, AoE attack, and 1-2 additional tools for allowing them to function in solo content, but anything else is not permitted for crossing over into DPS role responsibilities, then tanks have failed and should have their DPS actions culled.

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To be fair, tanks gain aggro by attacking, while healers get aggro by healing. That's how it works. You can't just "well if healers don't attack, neither should tanks then".

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Well, here's the thing, if we stick to the analogy, then the thing they're part of is videogames.

So you asking them to do sports would be you asking them to do a thing outside of their role. At the end of the day, DPSing IS outside of the healer role itself. We have an entire role devoted to that.

Now, if we had roles of Tank, Healer, and Support, where there was no dedicated DPS role, then sure. But we aren't in that game. We have three roles, one of which is DPS. And healer is not that role.

Now, it's fine, then, to offer Wi Sports as one of the options (e.g. SGE that heals by doing damage). But it shouldn't be all of them. Since the role is videogames, not sports.

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Have you been sleeping somewhere, since healers have had more to do than heal in multiple games, including this one? (Rift, Everquest, SWTOR, Aion, etc) all of those games either had healers who healed through damage and/or had specs , so that healers could go full DPS or hybrid spec for solo or groups.

So now, in this game, we have a healer that the game designer declared "heals through damage' i.e Sage- so, yes healers do damage.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

To be fair, tanks gain aggro by attacking, while healers get aggro by healing. That's how it works. You can't just "well if healers don't attack, neither should tanks then".

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Is it even worth it to go down this rabbit hole? I don't want to remove attacks from tanks out of what seems to be someone's interpretation of the healer game design (which is not even aligned with the latest healer) , nor do I want to remove attacks from healers.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

Is it even worth it to go down this rabbit hole? I don't want to remove attacks from tanks out of what seems to be someone's interpretation of the healer game design (which is not even aligned with the latest healer) , nor do I want to remove attacks from healers.

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I'm just pointing out that that logic doesn't make much sense to me. I'd prefer more healing as healer but we all know we'll never get that. lol On a similar note, I want aggro management and positioning back. Both would give me something to do other than AoE #1 & #2 spam. You can tell the game was designed with that in mind but MMO players are so used to mediocrity it's funny. lol

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

I'm just pointing out that that logic doesn't make much sense to me. I'd prefer more healing as healer but we all know we'll never get that. lol On a similar note, I want aggro management and positioning back. Both would give me something to do other than AoE #1 & #2 spam. You can tell the game was designed with that in mind but MMO players are so used to mediocrity it's funny. lol

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But you aren’t applying that logic fairly. Healers “aren’t allowed” to have more than the barest minimum because “we aren’t the DPS role” apparently.

So if that logic applies to healers, then it should also apply to tanks, meaning tanks shouldn’t be allowed to have more than the barest minimums as well, or in other words, 1 single target attack, 1 aoe attack, 1 DoT, probably 1 ranged attack for uptime, and 1 bonus button so they aren’t all literally exactly the same.

Your logic assumes that point means tanks get no attacks at all and thus cannot deal any damage whatsoever, but that’s not a charitable take on the argument, because that also is not treating the tank role fairly with the healer role. You’re taking even more away from the tanks than what the healers have.

If Warrior has Storm’s Eye, Storm’s Path, Mythril Tempest, Tomahawk, and maybe Fell Cleave on a 40 second cooldown, why does Warrior need anything else? If you think they need more in order to maintain aggro, then you have no idea how aggro works. And that’s ignoring the fact that you don’t need to deal damage in order to generate aggro in the first place. Flash used to be a thing you know, not to mention Provoke and Shirk which do exist.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

Nah I’m good. Keep things the way they are. Bad enough trying to get healers to heal with just one dps skill spam. I can’t imagine the disaster it would be if they gave us more dps skills again.

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Yeah I agree with this. I've watched 10 years of people going back and forth on this wanting _____ without compromise and Yoshi P has broken his back several times bending over for people.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

Yeah I agree with this. I've watched 10 years of people going back and forth on this wanting _____ without compromise and Yoshi P has broken his back several times bending over for people.

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Given that the number of people incapable of healing under any kind of pressure has only increased since increasingly dumbing down healing... it's hard to give any positive sort of credit for bending in an utterly wrong direction.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

And tank is also not that role.

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And I'd be fine with a tank that just has one spam damage button, one upkeep buff, an oGCD attack, an oGCD burst buff, and Primal Rend. So this is fine.

The point is, there was an analogy and that's the correct way to view it.

Also, when did I ever say "Non DPS role"? Did I not literally say "Now, it's fine, then, to offer Wi Sports as one of the options (e.g. SGE that heals by doing damage)." Did you not read that part of my post? I see you removed that line from the quote box. Why's that?

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

Just because the name says "healer" doesn't mean the role is made to just heal and it would be great if the game was more open about it.

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The healers aren't "just heal" now? Mission accomplished!

Also, where did I say "X role should only do Y"?

Like, both of you guys are arguing against positions you just made up. Maybe that's why you guys disagree with me all the time - you're not disagreeing with me, you're disagreeing with your own made up positions that you superimpose on top of me.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

I mean yes sure, there could be plenty of things...

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I used to worry about this a lot more, but then EW PLD came out.
...hear me out.

In EW, they removed Clemency breaking combos. Though it's hit and miss where they do this (RDM's combo is broken by any spell casting, including Vercure or Verraise). Personally, I'd RATHER have a 1-2-3 than a DoT, but different people have different preferences.

Hence why I think the idea should be to all make them different. I hate RDM these days. It uses a priority system. I honestly find GNB easier to play than WAR for this same reason; with GNB, I know where in my rotation/cycle I am because it's pretty rigid. DRG works the same way. I also REALLY hate MNK and it uses a priority system based on where you are in the rotation when things come up.

Short version: Not everyone likes priority systems, either. The goal should be make each of the healers different, that way, if people don't like one thing, they have an out/alternative. I think this is the problem with healers right now as well. For all the people asking for all the healers to change, we might not be at that point if they hadn't gutted SB SCH and AST when they made ShB WHM. Most people saw the WHM changes as a positive, but there was tremendous negativity due to the SCH/AST changes that has persisted to this day and spread. If SCH and AST weren't changed from SB to ShB, most people would have seen the WHM change as a positive, people that didn't like its rotation would have stuck with SCH for more DPS mental load, and everyone would be happy(ier) now today.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

I'm just pointing out that that logic doesn't make much sense to me. I'd prefer more healing as healer but we all know we'll never get that. lol On a similar note, I want aggro management and positioning back. Both would give me something to do other than AoE #1 & #2 spam. You can tell the game was designed with that in mind but MMO players are so used to mediocrity it's funny. lol

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This guy gets it.

It's a shame FFXIV's net code is so abysmally sloppy, as one complete left of field avenue to explore would be abilities to actively counter incoming attacks such as timed shields and barriers that get significant bonuses for being correctly timed. If the pay off could be big enough that it was worthwhile over simply smashing glare as fast as the GCD allows then that's an instant huge shakeup to the current gameplay loop right there. Drop it in a reasonably short cooldown so that it's frequent enough to be impactful but not causing us to stand around doing waiting for something to counter and IMO it'd be a neat addition.

We kind of almost had a very small indie version of it in the past with PLD but it'd be nice to see it done properly assuming SE ever managed to get things tight enough that it would actually work consistently and feel good across the sort of ping ranges seen outside of the JP homeland.

Perhaps it's time for SE to implement hold skills? ;)

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

To be fair, tanks gain aggro by attacking, while healers get aggro by healing. That's how it works. You can't just "well if healers don't attack, neither should tanks then".

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The problem is not "well if healers don't attack, neither should tanks then." Then problem is "Healers can end up with so much downtime that they're able to spend nearly the entire fight spamming one filler dps button and raising the healing requirements can only work up to a certain extent before excluding people who can't manage healing at that level."

No, you can just multiply 10x aggro generation on tank DPS skill on top of whatever it is currently and remove DPS skills from each expansion - Remove primal rend, remove Fell Cleave, remove all those "DPS skills". All you need is Heavy swing (WAR) / Fast Blade (PLD) / Hard Slash (DRK) / Keen Edge (GNB) as your Single Target Filler Damage and Overpower / Total Eclipse / Unleash / Demon Slice as your filler AoE. All of them just gets the trait upgrade on par with healer filler DPS upgrade. You don't need a damage gauge. You can get aggro with oGCD AoE skills instead. Your gameplay can be oGCDs that generate aggro instead of DPS because the boss can just get one skill that lowers tank aggro and uses it every 30 seconds. There, problem solved.

That's literally the healer equivalent on 'DPS skills'. The bare minimum. That's all you need in the DPS category as a tank. Take the Primal Rend, Fell Cleave, Chaotic Cyclone, Burst Strike, Sonic Blade, Gnashing Fang Combo, Continuation, Blasting Zone, Bloodfest, Flood of Darkness, Edge of Darkness, Blood Weapon, Salted Earth, Carve and Split, Quietus, Delirium, Living Shadow, Shadowbringer, Circle of Scorn, Goring Blade, Requiescat, Holy Spirit, Holy Circle, Atonement, Expacion, and Confiteor combo out of the game because those are all not necessary on "Tank aggro". Replace it with 100x aggro generation for all those tanks who somehow still fail to keep aggro.

The lack of DPS is made up for your filler getting stronger. That's literally it. You don't need anything else as a tank because tanks aren't a DPS. If there's any concessions that need to be made because you're a tank and need a gap closer to stay in melee range, they can all keep Plunge / Intervene / Onslaught / Rough Divide, except they now do 0 damage so it can be a fully fleshed out mobility skill instead of being a pesky "DPS skill". Please now enjoy spamming your filler skill until the boss dies and the trash pack dies because DPS is not your concern, ensuring you have lots of aggro is.

GNB should be the DPS tank you say? Well, just look at Sage. It's the "DPS by healing" healer, but the DPS side is virtually the same as any other healer. If you want a skill like Toxikon, then you can just get Lightning Shot to do the same DPS as your ST filler every 30 to 60 seconds. Clearly no issues with the gameplay and every tank wouldn't have a problem with it. /s

It even hurt to write this because of how backwards design it is on tank gameplay once you go back to doing MSQ and side content that doesn't necessarily require a party.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

And I'd be fine with a tank that just has one spam damage button, one upkeep buff, an oGCD attack, an oGCD burst buff, and Primal Rend. So this is fine.

The point is, there was an analogy and that's the correct way to view it.

Also, when did I ever say "Non DPS role"? Did I not literally say "Now, it's fine, then, to offer Wi Sports as one of the options (e.g. SGE that heals by doing damage)." Did you not read that part of my post? I see you removed that line from the quote box. Why's that?

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Because I had no interest in partaking in the hobby analogy discussion and it wasn't what I was addressing. All I was addressing was that this mentality of 'healers are not DPS, therefore, they should not have DPS beyond the bare minimum necessary for getting through solo' that I have seen regurgitated by mulitple people in different ways over the years is inconsistent. Because no one says that about tanks. Tanks do not need anything more than the bare minimum to function, so where is the person crying 'I play tank because I want to tank!' when someone talks about adding a new attack to a tank? Where is the person that goes 'I don't want attacks on my tank. If I wanted to DPS, I'd play DPS'?

I want consistency. If the way healers are currently treated is the "correct" way, then I want the same for tanks. If the way tanks are treated is the "correct" way, then I want the same for healers. That's all.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Because I had no interest in partaking in the hobby analogy discussion and it wasn't what I was addressing. All I was addressing was that this mentality of 'healers are not DPS, therefore, they should not have DPS beyond the bare minimum necessary for getting through solo' that I have seen regurgitated by mulitple people in different ways over the years is inconsistent. Because no one says that about tanks. Tanks do not need anything more than the bare minimum to function, so where is the person crying 'I play tank because I want to tank!' when someone talks about adding a new attack to a tank? Where is the person that goes 'I don't want attacks on my tank. If I wanted to DPS, I'd play DPS'?

I want consistency. If the way healers are currently treated is the "correct" way, then I want the same for tanks. If the way tanks are treated is the "correct" way, then I want the same for healers. That's all.

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Then why'd you reply to me?

Because (a) that is what I WAS talking about and (b) because I didn't have "this mentality of 'healers are not DPS, therefore, they should not have DPS beyond the bare minimum".

The "bare minimum" for WHM would be having Holy (or Glare, but Holy is useful in AOE as well as single target) and literally nothing else. Glare, Dia, Misery, and Assize are not needed. And that's not counting Presence of Mind and that Swiftcast can be used as a DPS gain. A single spell that does damage is all you need to get through solo content. So we already have more than "the bare minimum".

Also, Tanks with cast time spells? Yeah, that'll work really well with positioning bosses.

Healers aren't DPSers, but Tanks are also not Healers, nor Healers Tanks. What's next, do Healers need an invuln because Tanks have them? Do Healers need a Taunt because Tanks have them? No? Why not? Because they are different roles and thus have different needs and focuses, right?

.

Again, I'm not now - nor have I ever - argued for Healers to have no DPS abilties or "the bare minimum" (of just one single) DPS ability. Ever. I've even outright argued AGAINST people who pitched that idea, either seriously or in mockery.

I also, as you know, stand for a position where a couple of Healers get more damage buttons and rotations, specifically for people that want that. In fact, I take the exact opposite of your "consistency" approach, other than I think every role should have at least one easy and at least one complex offering.

Though now that I think of it...I wonder what the damage button difference is across TANKS.

PLD: 17 (20 if you count Swords separate), 15 for single-target (boss) fights (e.g. not counting AOE rotation), 14 not counting Shield Bash
1-2-3, Atonement, Intervene, Holy Spirit, Expiacion, Circle of Scorn, Fight or Fight, Requiescat, Goring Blade, Confiteor, Shield Lob, Shield Bash, Total Eclipse, Prominence, Holy Circle

WAR: 15 (17 if you count Infuriated spenders separate), 11 for single-target (boss) fights
1-2-3, Storm's Eye, Tomahawk, Fell Cleave, Primal Rend, Inner Release, Infuriate, Upheaval, Orogeny, Onslaught, Overpower, Mythril Tempest, Decimate

DRK: 17 (don't play it so not sure but I think that also includes 3 AOE rotation buttons, so that comes down to 14 for single-target? Though I think they also have a couple "X replaces Y" buttons, I'm not sure which they are)
1-2-3, Edge of Shadow, Plunge, Bloodspiller, Blood Weapon, Carve and Spit, Living Shadow, Salted Earth, Abyssal Drain, Shadowbringer, Unmend, Quietus, Unleash, Stalwart Soul, Flood of Shadow

GNB: 17 (21 if counting the Continuations as 4 different things), 14 for single-target
1-2-3, Sonic Break, Rough Divide, Blasting Zone, Double Down, Bow Shock, Burst Strike, Gnashing Fang, Continuation, Bloodfest, No Mercy, Lightning Shot, Demon Slice, Demon Slaughter, Fated Circle

So there's a spread of 11-15 (difference of 4) between the low and high end for single target, and...that spread is similar for including AOE of 15-17, or 17-21 if including the "X replaces Y". Meaning a wider spread from "least DPS buttons to most DPS buttons" than Healers, where the spread is, what...1?

WHM: 5 for single target NOT including Swiftcast or Thin Air or Solace/Rapture, 9 if including them, 6 if just the base single-target + Holy, 10 if everything + Holy
Glare, Dia, Assize, Misery, Presence of Mind, Swiftcast (arguably), Thin Air (laughably), Solace/Rapture (by proxy), and Holy

SCH: 4 NOT including Chain or Dissipation, 6 if including them, 7 if including Art
Broil, Biolysis, Ruin 2, Energy Drain, Art of War, Chain Strategem (technically a burst damage CD), Dissipation (in practice)

AST: 3 used in single target directly dealing damage, 5 if we count the burst CDs, 8 if we count Cards, 6 if we count single target + Gravity, 9 if we count everything + Gravity
Malific, Dia, Earthly Star, Gravity, Minor Arcana (sometimes), Draw/Play (if counting), Astrodyne (if counting), Divination (if counting as burst)

SGE: 5 used in single-target, 6 if we also count Dyskrasia, 8 if we count the shields to break for Toxicons.
Dosis, Eukrasia Dosis, Plegma, Toxicon, Pneuma, EuPrognosis/Diagnosis (IF we counted Solace/Rapture), Dyskrasia

This gets us a spread of 3-5 for single target and 7-10 if we count everything (note for the Tanks I was counting everything, including things that don't directly do damage like Infuriate...not sure I counted Blackest Night for DRK, I suppose you could add that?)

.

Not really making a point here, just was curious and using this to write them down. :)

EDIT:

Though on reading...that makes WHM only 2 less than WAR on single target fights IF you do count all their abilities (3 if you don't count Thin Air, 5 if you don't count Solace/Rapture), though at that point, we have to talk about if things like Tomahawk should count. But it's still interesting that WHM is already the most DPS-loaded of the Healers any way you look at it.

I suppose the closest "point" being made here is "they don't all need to be the same". Obviously, the spread for DPS Jobs is even wider (SMN being the lowest and whatever that highest one being something like 8 more, NIN or DRG, maybe...? I'd have to look up that thread again.)

Because of this sentence:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Now, if we had roles of Tank, Healer, and Support, where there was no dedicated DPS role, then sure. But we aren't in that game. We have three roles, one of which is DPS. And healer is not that role.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Because of this sentence:

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And where in that post did it say "Healers should either have only 1 or only 0 DPS buttons"?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

And where in that post did it say "Healers should either have only 1 or only 0 DPS buttons"?

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You didn't. Where in my post did I say "Renthras is saying Healers should either have only 1 or only 0 DPS buttons?"

Idk why you're hounding me over nothing. I don't like that original sentiment because it's not fair and not consistent. That's all I said.