A summary of healer issues

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

What fights? I distinctly remember having more mechanics to deal with as a healer than the dps did, even as far back as ARR. Searing wind for example. Or we had mechanics where everyone had to do the exact same mechanic, like dive bombs on twintania. I feel that the only difference between old mechanics and new mechanics is that mechanics now are far more complicated and the game doesn't run like it's on spaghetti code anymore. The boss-designers have gotten so much better at boss designs too. No, we had to GCD heal more because we had nearly zero healing OGCD's. That was the difference. I have to say I hard disagree with that statement.

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You seem to have a propensity for arguing against something people didn't even say. "Rarely any mechanics target healers" does not mean "OMG HEALERS GET TO DO NOTHING IN EVERY FIGHT".

It's what happened in the other thread too, you just see me saying AST had middling complexity and twist it as if I said "OMG AST IS SO COMPLICATED I CAN'T EVEN".

And for the record, I'm talking about fantastic mechanic design like Forsaken, where tanks took tankbusters, DPS handled skulls and healers stand in the middle and heal so nobody dies during it. As opposed to mechanics now like Superchain Theory, where everyone does the exact same thing regardless of role and anyone tripping over just completely resets the fight, such engage, much wow.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

The main reason older fights were good and newer fights are rarely good is because older fights required you to perform your role.

Tanks had adds pick up or they had to swap for mechanics.
Healers rarely got targeted by any mechanics but they had to ensure the survival of the team as they handled the mechanics.
DPS had to deal damage the best they can while handling mechanics that may or may not force them to disengage from the boss.

Newer fights just have every role do the same dance and anyone who fails a dance step will wipe the raid. Hardly a fun time.

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Briny Mirror might still be the cleverest healer mechanic in the game, tbh. Such a simple little thing but when it gets combined with crit-autos, or deaths, or any of a dozen of other factors it can cause your pull-by-pull decision-making to vary wildly.

Mechanics that ask you to make role-related decisions are good.

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Originally Posted by vetch

Briny Mirror might still be the cleverest healer mechanic in the game, tbh. Such a simple little thing but when it gets combined with crit-autos, or deaths, or any of a dozen of other factors it can cause your pull-by-pull decision-making to vary wildly.

Mechanics that ask you to make role-related decisions are good.

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Searing Wind and Briny Mirror were great healer mechanics. Anything that limits you and forces you to think about how to solve it is great.

Sadly we barely see anything like that anymore in modern fights.

Modern healer design is basically "Here, you are now a lightning rod for light party stack mechanics, that is your only role.".

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Searing Wind and Briny Mirror were great healer mechanics. Anything that limits you and forces you to think about how to solve it is great.

Sadly we barely see anything like that anymore in modern fights.

Modern healer design is basically "Here, you are now a lightning rod for light party stack mechanics, that is your only role.".

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Hey that’s not the only lightning rod we get to be. We also get to be a lightning rod for the DPS complaining about wipes because they don’t understand that their addle is essential to our kit plan and would rather just drift it then blame the healer for underhealing

Im so sick of them adding more healing crap when I dont even use 80% of the healers kit in 90% of the content. Might be a hot take.

Id be awesome to add, but the WAR already healed himself and the party is never in harms way to use the whole dam kit unless its prog savage

If there is one thing I’m excited about for seraphism is that I’m genuinely excited for that plus recitation CD reduction to make SCH break the new ultimate so hard with its limitless mitigation and 123% shields that square looks like absolute fools for their complete misunderstanding of how powerful the healers already are

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

If there is one thing I’m excited about for seraphism is that I’m genuinely excited for that plus recitation CD reduction to make SCH break the new ultimate so hard with its limitless mitigation and 123% shields that square looks like absolute fools for their complete misunderstanding of how powerful the healers already are

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And then they buff SGE again because why not? :)

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

If there is one thing I’m excited about for seraphism is that I’m genuinely excited for that plus recitation CD reduction to make SCH break the new ultimate so hard with its limitless mitigation and 123% shields that square looks like absolute fools for their complete misunderstanding of how powerful the healers already are

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Barring my distaste over the transformation into a pretty cosplayer with flaccid wings, giving SCH another healing potency up cooldown is just broken... If they want to retain this healing potency surplus, they need to take away some of our pure healing cooldowns.

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Originally Posted by rawker

Barring my distaste over the transformation into a pretty cosplayer with flaccid wings, giving SCH another healing potency up cooldown is just broken... If they want to retain this healing potency surplus, they need to take away some of our pure healing cooldowns.

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Well, It looks like Seraphim not only transforms your looks but changes Adlo and Succor spells. (Because I can't really see them add 2 more buttons, rather I'd make more sense to just empower existing abilities.)
It makes them presumeably more potent and notably, they become instant cast.

That means Seraphim has a very specific niche. Unlike Seraph, which allows you to weave, mitigate and keep DPSing while she does her thing, Seraphim seems to empower your GCD heal abilities exclusively. So it's a CD for when you need heavy shields, you don't have recitation+adlo+deployment available and/ or you have to heal on the run and you don't have Seraph.

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Originally Posted by Aword3213

If only they could bring back some designs in older savages where shield can be used to avoid debuffs, single target damage on different players combined with cleave tankbuster cleave combo....

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On the one hand, it would be cool. On the other hand, it would make shield healers even more desirable. They are already way better than regen healers because everything is a mitigation check where avoiding taking damage altogether is always better than eating the damage and then healing it up.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

On the one hand, it would be cool. On the other hand, it would make shield healers even more desirable. They are already way better than regen healers because everything is a mitigation check where avoiding taking damage altogether is always better than eating the damage and then healing it up.

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If the goal is to try and reinforce this pure/barrier split, then having mechanics that demand pure healing and barrier healing would make sense. That of course means both need to be enforced, and also that there’s no healer that isn’t just as—if not better than the opposite role at their own game. Sage having extremely accessible regens and an effective 900 potency DPS neutral heal when their barriers are either a DPS loss or are at 2-4 times the length in cooldown, I’m looking at you.

See, that's why I think the split is a silly idea. If you want two healers to deal with 'Pure Healing' (or, bulk HP restoration in hard hitting scenarios like Harrowing Hell) and two to deal with mitigation/applying barriers (ie reducing the damage dealt by the hits of Harrowing Hell) then the end result of following that idea to its logical conclusion is that the two healers that do Pure Healing don't care about mitigation, and the two healers that do Mitigation/Barrier stuff don't care about Pure Healing. Effectively, all that this does is lock out the healers from interacting with the opposite side of 'healing design'.

As an example, WHM cannot mitigate things outside of Temperance. Why? WHM in older games has Protect, and in some games (eg 10) Nul-Element spells that protect the party from certain elemental magic damage. It's okay to take a design position of 'WHM is not as good as other healers at mitigating damage, but is incredible at healing after the damage is dealt', but by preventing it from, for example, using Lilies to apply raidwide shields, it just can't interact with any Barrier related mechanics. That then follows into 'we cannot have something that functions as a Barrier Check of sorts (eg Photon in A11S/TEA, Vulcan Burst in Ifrit EX/UWU, etc) in 4man content, because we can't guarantee that the DF will provide a healer that has accessible Barriers'. It just hampers content design, for very little gain. Especially considering that Barrier Healers can do Pure Healing to an extent, because of things like 'Recitation Indom', or 'Zoe Pneuma', or the stupid Regen effects on Sacred Soil/Kerachole that are so strong, they actually powercreep Indom and Ixochole

It's not like WHM should suddenly be the best at mitigation, either. I just think it'd allow for much more freedom of design for content, if WHM was able to apply Barriers (that are slightly weaker than SCH/SGE), via Lilies. If SCH can Pure Heal because of Aetherflow, or SGE via Addersgall, Physis, Holos (it heals too), Zoe-Pneuma, then WHM should be allowed to apply a Barrier via Lilies. It'd also mean that, when we need to prep Misery, we can get some value out of the Lily being spent even if the party is at full HP. And, it'd synergize with Plenary Indulgence, since, if the Barrier application doesn't have a heal attached (eg it's just a flat 250p shield, compared to SCH/SGE's 320p plus heal), then there's less chance that BarrierLily + Plenary would overheal

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

On the one hand, it would be cool. On the other hand, it would make shield healers even more desirable. They are already way better than regen healers because everything is a mitigation check where avoiding taking damage altogether is always better than eating the damage and then healing it up.

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This could be easily addressed with things like uncleansable DoTs that deal direct health loss, something that wants strong spammable regens. The tech to deal a set amount of health loss ignoring shields and mitigation is in the game already but it's only used in LotA, IIRC.

They're not serious about the healer split or about healer engagement in general, though, so they don't bother.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

See, that's why I think the split is a silly idea. If you want two healers to deal with 'Pure Healing' (or, bulk HP restoration in hard hitting scenarios like Harrowing Hell) and two to deal with mitigation/applying barriers (ie reducing the damage dealt by the hits of Harrowing Hell) then the end result of following that idea to its logical conclusion is that the two healers that do Pure Healing don't care about mitigation, and the two healers that do Mitigation/Barrier stuff don't care about Pure Healing. Effectively, all that this does is lock out the healers from interacting with the opposite side of 'healing design'.

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I'm not entirely against pure vs barrier healing if it were actually done well, but if I were going to lean into it, I think there is a way to resolve that issue. In order to explain, let me start by establishing what a healing action can cost.

Any given healing action will have some sort of cost: MP; DPS; mobility, cooldown, or other resources (such as lilies or aetherflow).

If White Mage is a pure healer, then their pure healing--their high-potency heals that allow them to resolve large healing checks effortlessly should be their primary method of healing and should come at minimal costs. Meanwhile, they can still have access to barrier and mitigation tools, but those actions feature all high costs. When paired with a barrier healer, the pure healer will generally rely on the barrier healer for those barrier mechanics, but can both assist and/or replace the barrier healer in a pinch at a steep cost. In other words it is significantly less efficient to be the barrier healer when you are the pure healer and vice versa.

Like with my Sage example, it makes a negative amount of sense to me why they have a 2 regens on a 30 second and 60 second cooldown respectively--the 30 second cooldown actually restoring your MP mind you, when all their barriers either cost them DPS or sit on 2 minute cooldowns. It should be the other way around. I should have a party-wide barrier on a 30 second and 60 second cooldown. And maybe I have a regen on a 120 second cooldown, or a regen spell that costs a major chunk of MP and costs me DPS.

But personally, I'd rather each healer have a more distinct healing style. Pure and barrier can be where those styles lean, but that each healer approaches both pure healing and barrier healing in their own unique ways. For example with barrier mechanics:

Scholar has large, single-use barriers that block most of the damage.
Sage directly reduces the damage taken by the party and has smaller, layered barriers.
White Mage extends the party's Max HP so that they can soak more damage.
Astrologian can cause damage to be staggered across several seconds.

They're all different and have different strengths and weaknesses, but all four of those are able to function as barrier and mitigation mechanics.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I'm not entirely against pure vs barrier healing if it were actually done well, but if I were going to lean into it, I think there is a way to resolve that issue. In order to explain, let me start by establishing what a healing action can cost.

Any given healing action will have some sort of cost: MP; DPS; mobility, cooldown, or other resources (such as lilies or aetherflow).

If White Mage is a pure healer, then their pure healing--their high-potency heals that allow them to resolve large healing checks effortlessly should be their primary method of healing and should come at minimal costs.

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Exactly what I'm getting at. Where I suggest WHM having a Lily Spender that applies a barrier, it has to be considered that the barrier is weaker than the SCH/SGE equivalent, and also has no heal attached. It'd be much more efficient to use the Lily on healing after the damage, but the option is there in case it's needed (eg the SCH is dead and you need mit to live through a raidwide). I also feel that, with Lilies allowing for damage refund, that it's good to have this 'emergent gameplay' for groups to allow the WHM to handle applying certain shields, to save healer GCDs sometimes. But regardless of that, the barrier would have an opportunity cost: It is gated behind a resource with a 20s recharge (so you have to pick and choose where and when to use barriers), and it is not as strong as the Pure Heal alternative.

To that end, it reminds me of what I wrote a while back about bringing back Nocturnal Sect, wherein AST would have only one way to apply 'barriers', and that's via their standard GCD (which should probably not be called Aspected Helios, if we're in a nighttime-related stance). So in a WHM/AST comp, the WHM would have to rely almost entirely on the AST to deal with % mitigation effects, and the AST would want to rely almost entirely on the WHM for applying Barriers, and more of the Pure Healing (as the OGCD healing throughput for AST would be a bit lower in Nocturnal).

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

But personally, I'd rather each healer have a more distinct healing style. Pure and barrier can be where those styles lean, but that each healer approaches both pure healing and barrier healing in their own unique ways. For example with barrier mechanics:

Scholar has large, single-use barriers that block most of the damage.
Sage directly reduces the damage taken by the party and has smaller, layered barriers.
White Mage extends the party's Max HP so that they can soak more damage.
Astrologian can cause damage to be staggered across several seconds.

They're all different and have different strengths and weaknesses, but all four of those are able to function as barrier and mitigation mechanics.

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See, these are especially interesting designwise, because the WHM and AST ones don't actually reduce the damage taken. If the WHM extends the party's Max HP by 10%, that extra 10% buffer has to come from a heal somewhere. If the AST staggers 20% of the damage taken to be dealt over the next 12s (5% per DOT tick), then that DOT still has to be healed through. Barrier healers, meanwhile, actively reduce the damage taken. That Sacred Soil or Kerachole reduces damage taken by 10%. That 10% is deleted from the game entirely. Also, AST staggering damage out would synergise with the, what is it, 3 different HOTs in their kit?

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Originally Posted by vetch

This could be easily addressed with things like uncleansable DoTs that deal direct health loss, something that wants strong spammable regens. The tech to deal a set amount of health loss ignoring shields and mitigation is in the game already but it's only used in LotA, IIRC.

They're not serious about the healer split or about healer engagement in general, though, so they don't bother.

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Something like natural alignment but for the whole party. The problem with the DoT raidwides of Abyssos was that they snapshot mitigation, making shield healers just... better anyways. I don't want another 3 years of SGE/SCH being just objectively better, and shoving a bunch of mit onto WHM/AST isn't gonna fix that. Instead I expect them to completely trivialize any kind of pure healing mechanic, just like before. Pure healers can't do mit checks as well as shield healers, but shield healers can do healchecks just as well as pure healers bc every one is also a mitcheck.

But it's ok bc daddy Yoshida said fights will be harder, and he's never been wrong or just straight up lied before.

Sadly, shield healer dominance will continue, because they gave SCH another healing boost, which means beefier deploys, which means they need to buff SGE so they're not deemed useless, which means absolute power creep.

RIP pure healers.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Sadly, shield healer dominance will continue, because they gave SCH another healing boost, which means beefier deploys, which means they need to buff SGE so they're not deemed useless, which means absolute power creep.

RIP pure healers.

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Tbf, I think SCH will end up around the same amount of heal amp bc there's no SHOT they keep dissipation around. That ability is probably like the most bitched-about part of SCH's kit next to energy drain. Which is a shame, because it's probably the most interesting button they have.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

See, these are especially interesting designwise, because the WHM and AST ones don't actually reduce the damage taken. If the WHM extends the party's Max HP by 10%, that extra 10% buffer has to come from a heal somewhere. If the AST staggers 20% of the damage taken to be dealt over the next 12s (5% per DOT tick), then that DOT still has to be healed through. Barrier healers, meanwhile, actively reduce the damage taken. That Sacred Soil or Kerachole reduces damage taken by 10%. That 10% is deleted from the game entirely. Also, AST staggering damage out would synergise with the, what is it, 3 different HOTs in their kit?

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I would say that staggered damage also can synergize with delayed healing, since it gives you more time to allow that delay time to pass.

Also, I think it's interesting to assume how the stagger mechanic could work mechanically. I think the way that might be most FFXIV friendly would be that AST provides a buff that lasts for 10 seconds and reduces damage taken by 20%, storing that reduced value; then when the duration ends, that accumulated damage is taken over the next 12 seconds, and that would give you more time before you have to deal with the damage as well. That would prevent the effect from triggering a bunch of DOTs that bloat the buff/debuff limit on the party if they get hit a bunch of times during the effect duration. Could you imagine a tumult situation?

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Originally Posted by Kissune

Tbf, I think SCH will end up around the same amount of heal amp bc there's no SHOT they keep dissipation around. That ability is probably like the most bitched-about part of SCH's kit next to energy drain. Which is a shame, because it's probably the most interesting button they have.

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It’s incredibly rare they remove capstone skills and removing a healing amplifier that’s also a damage tool from level 60 and “returning” it at level 100 is something I doubt they will do

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

It’s incredibly rare they remove capstone skills and removing a healing amplifier that’s also a damage tool from level 60 and “returning” it at level 100 is something I doubt they will do

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"He said, confident in the devs, only to one month later discover that they had removed both Dissipation and Energy Drain."

(It was a joke Apollo, keep the gift of prophecy to yourself)

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

It’s incredibly rare they remove capstone skills and removing a healing amplifier that’s also a damage tool from level 60 and “returning” it at level 100 is something I doubt they will do

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It's actually highly likely that they'll delete both Dissipation and Energy Drain, all in the name of ease of use, because both those abilities are being complained about non-stop.

They can also just point at SGE as justification and say "See? You don't need to have Energy Drain, quit your whining".

Anyway, if they deleted both those skills, I'm done with the role permanently. Deleting Energy Drain means they think healers shouldn't be required to make choices, and deleting Dissipation would mean they don't believe in paying a cost to receive a benefit. That doesn't sound like a healer design I want to invest time into anymore.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

It’s incredibly rare they remove capstone skills and removing a healing amplifier that’s also a damage tool from level 60 and “returning” it at level 100 is something I doubt they will do

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Didn't they remove WHM's old healing amp just to bring it back as Temperance? I wouldn't put it past them.

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Originally Posted by Emitans

Didn't they remove WHM's old healing amp just to bring it back as Temperance? I wouldn't put it past them.

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Divine seal was a role action at the time, not a capstone ability

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Divine seal was a role action at the time, not a capstone ability

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Divine seal was a whm ability, they moved to make it cross class by renaming it Largresse...so technically divine seal is a whm only ability. Regardless they removed both. And now other skills have heal potency increase baked in, such as your healer flavor of temperance or asylum. Personally would rather they just remove skills that only operate to increase healing as...any heal is basically going to heal to full anyway or heal you to where you are fine to continue your one button spam, unfortunately.

They'll probably removed Synastry too, god forbid AST's have an interesting button which could become much more useful in non-emergency scenarios with one single change. But they'll probably delete it, since they love never building on healers but just take away

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Divine seal was a role action at the time, not a capstone ability

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Ah, right. I forgot.

I wouldn't be surprised if they just turn dissipation into a generic heal amp that doesn't kill fairy. It may or may not give AF either. But I also expect it to just upgrade into Seraphism, and be a weaker version of it until then.

The though of dissipation being a “weaker” version of Seraphism is terrifying given it’s already the strongest healing buff in the game

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The though of dissipation being a “weaker” version of Seraphism is terrifying given it’s already the strongest healing buff in the game

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By 'weaker' I mean just a heal amp, no extra stuff added to the other abilities. Effectively turn it into a less interesting neutral sect with no opportunity cost, decision making, or reward for optimizing aetherflow usage.

Which is exactly why I expect it to happen :P

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Originally Posted by Kissune

By 'weaker' I mean just a heal amp, no extra stuff added to the other abilities. Effectively turn it into a less interesting neutral sect with no opportunity cost, decision making, or reward for optimizing aetherflow usage.

Which is exactly why I expect it to happen :P

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Oh I know I mean if they make seraphism an improvement over dissipation with no opportunity cost what are they going to add to seraphism to make that upgrade worth it. That’s the scary part

Adding some instacasts to GCD shields as a level 100 capstone of a level 60 skill seems weak, are they going to buff the healing amplifier further, that’s the scary part

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Oh I know I mean if they make seraphism an improvement over dissipation with no opportunity cost what are they going to add to seraphism to make that upgrade worth it. That’s the scary part

Adding some instacasts to GCD shields as a level 100 capstone of a level 60 skill seems weak, are they going to buff the healing amplifier further, that’s the scary part

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100 capstone is gonna be dissipation upgrade to seraphism.

Effect reads. Upgrading dissipation to seraphim’s and lets the fairy stay active while using this ability.

Would be hilarious and mega sad if they do stuff like this.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Oh I know I mean if they make seraphism an improvement over dissipation with no opportunity cost what are they going to add to seraphism to make that upgrade worth it. That’s the scary part

Adding some instacasts to GCD shields as a level 100 capstone of a level 60 skill seems weak, are they going to buff the healing amplifier further, that’s the scary part

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Interestingly enough it seems like the very act of activating Seraphism is not an oGCD, at least judging by the fact that there is no teal whoosh effect in the trailer. So it's a GCD that makes your GCDs instant and presumeably more potent.

https://i.imghippo.com/files/s0iVd1716643390.gif

It is quite likely not to be an oGCD.

Then again, today's Afflatus Misery also have that windy teal VFX on their caster when used despite being a GCD, hence one of the examples of outliers in that case. So who know. :shrug:

Bump for clarity

I would say at the very core of it all is two issues.

First is that as they keep adding new OGCD heals, tank heals and the combat design exclusively centers around short bursts of damage from the boss... Healers keep getting excessively more downtime in fights, but they absolutely refuse to give healers anything to do in this downtime other than spam their one attack spell.

Second is that most healers don't really have any way to really use their Job Gauge in a positive manner... AST cards being a damage boost were always useful, but you need good RNG for Astrodyne and Minor Arcana is a 50/50 to be useful... SCH being the best healer class, it can get rid of extra Aetherflows to do damage so you can always make full use of them, but the attack is a 100 potency one.
The other two are completely shafted as WHM has to overheal with lilies to get to use Afflatus that they had to buff multiple times to not be a DPS loss compared to Glare spam. And SGE has to overheal with Druochole to recover MP.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Then again, today's Afflatus Misery also have that windy teal VFX on their caster when used despite being a GCD, hence one of the examples of outliers in that case. So who know. :shrug:

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Might be because the Afflatus skills are always instant, even if they're technically GCDs.
I can't be bothered to check but what VFX does Aspected Benefic have?

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Might be because the Afflatus skills are always instant, even if they're technically GCDs.
I can't be bothered to check but what VFX does Aspected Benefic have?

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Aspected Benefic doesn't have the windy teal VFX either upon execution.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Aspected Benefic doesn't have the windy teal VFX either upon execution.

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Then I'm out of ideas.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Might be because the Afflatus skills are always instant, even if they're technically GCDs.
I can't be bothered to check but what VFX does Aspected Benefic have?

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To know wether a skill is GCD or oGCD its also useful to check the cathegory.

Spells and weaponskills are always GCDs
Abilities are always oGCDs