All DPS clears highlight a problem with encounter design in ShB

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Originally Posted by ItMe

They must have seen that not every job could solo in FF11 (though most can now) and wanted to change that.
Makes me wonder what's baked into FF14 they're not happy with that will inform the design of their next MMO.

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To be fair. I don't think they are unhappy with GCD healing, or even healers in general. The dev team just seems to have a fundamental discount between how they assume we play and how we actually play. Things like Stormblood Lilies screams they think we spam GCD heals or want to. Hell, Yoshida has said several times now they don't expect healer DPS unless you're aiming for early Savage clears or Ultimate. The problem, of course, is many players don't share this viewpoint and treat a "pure healer" with contempt on the basis of they aren't equally contributing. Healers themselves, who aren't interested in DPS or simply don't want to make it a significant focus, are equally upset because your options thereafter are to spam a single button or do nothing.

What it comes down to is the dev team needs to pick a lane and stop trying to force what isn't working.

GCDs:
- Pre-pull.
- Down time.
- When no oGCDs available.

oGCDs:
- Always use when available.

Result?
Most recent content can be cleared without GCD heals. Unless you have a bad party.

Why did this happen?
Becuse you have not 1, but 2 healers with a number of oGCD heals in their kit with a short cooldown. When mapped out throughout the encounter, you will realize that you don't need GCD heals.

What's the problem here?
- Healers have a lot of oGCDs?
- oGCDs cooldown is short?
- Encounter damage intervals are very spread a part?

If we reduce the amount of oGCD heals available to the healer, healers will just replace that with GCD and the fight would still be easy to heal.
So the problem is not in healers kit, or calling SMN overpowered, but rather the way dev team designed the encounter.
If the encounter required serious healing, no SMN/PLD/DNC comp can do it without a healer.

Solo Healing in PUG Groups is pretty common and I'm on the Crystal Data Center known for being less hardcore. Most groups are quick to change a second Healer Slot to a DPS slot if you make it known you can handle the fight on your own. It's actually surprising to me that we don't have a continuation for Hall of the Novice. Having an actual tutorial that outlined how much power rest in our HoTs would be amazing. Having an NPC encourage us to memorize the attack patterns of our foes to understand when extra healing isn't necessary would go a long way. So many healers just spam heals whenever damage happens leaving the party at full with 3 different Regens ticking away doing nothing. If they really wanted to make the game more accessible to healers and tanks then why don't we have tank swaps explained anywhere. Precasting heals for heavy damage is never mentioned. They did nothing to actually make healing more accessible beyond loading us up with healing abilities that get completely wasted by the average player. Then took away any complexity our DPS kits had to make it more obvious that healing requirements are low. We need more ways for people to learn how to be a good healer in game and not just a ton of skills that serve no purpose in 90% of content. Give us another accessory to boost experience gain for doing level 45/50/55/60 Guildhest. Create a Hall of the Intermediate for learning techniques to clear Extreme Fights and Savage Fights. If we help people become better healers across the board it will be safe to raise the bar for high end content.

There isn't a single answer to the healing requirement problem because there is so much that contributes to it. You can boil it all down to a lack of foresight from the dev team. As an example, this nearly all SMN run I heard about could be eliminated if they make Everlasting Flight so that the regen effect doesn't stack. To me, an issue like this is a glaring one that should have popped up during testing. Even if that is not the case, a lot of changes they make is a result of a design flaw that is exploited by the playerbase. Like electricity, players will find the path of least resistance.

No matter what they do to healing, players will track down the methods of how to get things done using the least amount of it as possible. It's just such a shame that this role gets stepped on during a player's path to greater power. We are needed the greatest when content is released, and the first to be outed as players obtain the better gear.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

No matter what they do to healing, players will track down the methods of how to get things done using the least amount of it as possible. It's just such a shame that this role gets stepped on during a player's path to greater power. We are needed the greatest when content is released, and the first to be outed as players obtain the better gear.

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Reducing healing has always been a part of the game, and optimizing mitigation and ogcd planning to squeeze an extra gcd has always been something uniquely fun about healing. doing so in past expansions felt more rewarding because healers had a limited amount of ogcds to heal the party with, so there had to be more creativity and thought put into planning stuff to get away with 0 healing gcds and minimal aetherflows spent. not to mention this was usually done while the MT was out of tank stance so you had to heal even more than was probably intended. Optimizing was more rewarding with less resources because you had to be smarter about how you used them.

however in shb we just have an overabundance of ogcds to heal (and pretty boring ones at that). to compound this, damage happens in intervals too sparse to even need planning in the first place. during extreme fights ive forgotten i have seraph or collective unconscious purely because any damage the party takes is so spread out that my other ogcds are already up by the time i need them. if the summoners managed to top off the party with everlasting flight, its not just because the heal can stack, but also because the fight itself has damage so infrequent that it ended up being sufficient. i highly doubt they wouldve cleared if phase 2 and phase 3 of titan were swapped. (they tank lb the first earhten fury and you can see how people start dying at the end of the clear vid)

i frankly dont think summoner is "overtuned", because nobody in regular play would use with titan egi and alter their rotation to hold phoenix like that, just like paladin isnt OP because nobody would normally spam clemency either. this run couldve probably been done with red mages vercuring themselves too, but perhaps at a higher ilv.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

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Something I feel goes unsaid, or only briefly touched on are the derp parties. Healing requirements are present, and a healer's kit has to be able to meet those requirements. However, I do believe that some of the reasoning with saturating healers with heals is to account for when things go wrong. I have never had any trouble running out of resources in pre-made parties aimed at higher end content. Ironic as it is, but this actually tends to happen in casual land filled with the randos.

You're never going to see the devs actually intentionally stretch a healer's resources in EX/Savage/Ultimate. A margin for error has to be allowed when multiple players are involved.

As for SMN, even SMN mains themselves are saying they're OP. IIRC, they have the strongest mitigation in the game through Earthern Ward on a very short CD; can increase raid damage; rezz fallen players; and their damage is comparable with BLMs. Then you add the stacked regens from EF... Oopsy! Hence, SMN nerf incoming.

Last expansion savages:
- Almagest
- Charbilis
- whitehole
- Timely heal and shield checks on god kefka heads, neo black holes, final omega patch
- Annoying single target heals on Dadaluma bleads, O6s tank autos, M&F double TBs

Probably forgetting some.

Current expansion:
- Timely heal and shield checks: Voidwalker double flare, shiva knockback mirrors
- Annoying single target heals on Voidwalker dps 1hp before puddle, furor conflag maybe?

And errr that's all I can think of and I'm already pushing it a bit. Week 1/2 shiva was pretty rough on heals, not because of any checks but because of how optimized you had to be to carry enough dps.

In terms of the current expansion I'll raise first week titan clears cause of the ending with voice of the land into tumult spam at the end but thats all else I can think of. For stormblood there was also

• Bahamut Trios in Ucob
• Add phase in Ucob
• Garuda Cleanses in Uwu
• Post Predation in Uwu
• Primal Roulette in Uwu

There are really hardly any heal checks in the two extremes that came out and nothing really in hades or ruby weapon that come to mind given how many ogcds we have to deal with it.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

You're never going to see the devs actually intentionally stretch a healer's resources in EX/Savage/Ultimate. A margin for error has to be allowed when multiple players are involved.

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i mean, i get that. but the margin of error should be placed at least on gcd heals, since thats what theyre arguably for. if i can heal a fight And the mistakes with minimal gcds thats not really exciting

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Originally Posted by QooEr

if i can heal a fight And the mistakes with minimal gcds thats not really exciting

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You feel like hardcasting heals is inherently more exciting? That those buttons are just, what, the fun ones to push?
I'm not really sure I can agree that making us heal with more GCDs = better design.