Should Cleric Stance be disabled in party instances?

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Originally Posted by Averax

How else are they supposed to, you know, level up and do quests and junk? They don't heal targets to death, and they can't dungeon grind from the get-go.

This is not an argument against cleric stance, but yeah that's the main reason we have offensive abilities

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To be fair then why is there any other offensive ability besides Stone I.

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Originally Posted by Averax

How else are they supposed to, you know, level up and do quests and junk? They don't heal targets to death, and they can't dungeon grind from the get-go.
This is not an argument against cleric stance, but yeah that's the main reason we have offensive abilities

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If this was the main reason you wouldn't get 50% dps skills (if you count Assize as 0,5) between 50 and 60.

At all it's 8-9 skills and 1 buff which helps (also) dps wise (Presence of Mind). In common AoE scenario Shroud of Saints is an "offensive" ability, too.

A PLD doesn't have much more, if you get rid of every action which is mostly there because of emnity/mitigation, it's around 8-9 abilites including SwO and 1 buff (FoF).
So, are Rage of Halone, Goring Blade and the off-GCDs only there to beat the single player content?


Or are people indeed expected to, well, use all of their tool-kit if appropiate?

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Originally Posted by Connor

Lastly, I haven't seen it referenced recently, but please for the love of god stop using Sylphie's reluctance to commune with the elementals as evidence that healers should dps. The two are not related in any way and there's much more convincing quotations from the game that get the point across

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28VTjT4J9Rs#t=2m1s

Sometimes a healer has to do damage, even if his adventurer friend (like you) took an arrow in the knee.

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28VTjT4J9Rs#t=2m1s

Sometimes a healer has to do damage, even if his adventurer friend (like you) took an arrow in the knee.

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This is some good evidence of how healers can support the party with more than just healing. I can't imagine Y'shtola's spell being quite as effective without Cleric Stance lol.

(sidenote, I want to cast Flow too...)

*sigh* why is this troll thread still going?

As some of you might be aware, SE publishes an official FFXIV magazine in Japan. The latest issue comes with a healing guide (characteristics of the 3 different healing classes, what to do in 4 & 8 man content ect.), and guess what, there's a page about healer DPS. And it tells more or less the same as the novice hall does: Partaking in DPS'ing as healer can be a great merit since it'll end fights faster, as long as one doesn't forget about their primary role

So SE considers knowing when to stance dance and doing so as part of the skills a good healer should have in this game. Deal with it already and stop trying to find excuses to be ultra lazy in group content

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Anyone who asks a healer to dps at length without CS doesn't understand how much CS actually gives...

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Yes, it gives a lot. No need for numbers, I am not one who goes into great detail with that kind of thing for this game but it's something that's visible. This was in relation to the comment that was made if Cleric stance was disabled in PvE dungeons/raids. Though, if it was disabled then the damage would have to be adjusted. Scaling to mind but lowering the potency, or something along those lines.

Though, I think what you said is what PlatoRepublic was referring to hoping would happen if it was disabled, how with the MP draining for such small amounts of damage we would be better off sitting on our hands. Or as he put it the complaining you are not dps'ing will dissipate.

Not in favor of it, though I understand where the argument comes from. Though in the end the issue with it all comes down to the one thing we cannot patch, the players.

Wonder if this will be a skill S.E. decides isn't needed and does do away with but with compensation. I guess we will know more at time goes on. With that said, good luck to all you healers and have fun!

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

To be fair then why is there any other offensive ability besides Stone I.

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Dots for multidotting when you pull more than one mob. Seriously, imagine trying to participate in a fate with only stone to cast. You'd get very little credit in a busy fate.

On top of that, you kind of want some semblance of a rotation so you don't go brain dead. If you want to attract people to a role, you can't make it duller than dishwater up until you're eligible for instanced content where your primary skills are useful.

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Originally Posted by swiss_Momo

*sigh* why is this troll thread still going?

As some of you might be aware, SE publishes an official FFXIV magazine in Japan. The latest issue comes with a healing guide (characteristics of the 3 different healing classes, what to do in 4 & 8 man content ect.), and guess what, there's a page about healer DPS. And it tells more or less the same as the novice hall does: Partaking in DPS'ing as healer can be a great merit since it'll end fights faster, as long as one doesn't forget about their primary role

So SE considers knowing when to stance dance and doing so as part of the skills a good healer should have in this game. Deal with it already and stop trying to find excuses to be ultra lazy in group content

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I would like to hear more about this. Is it translated somewhere?

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Originally Posted by Fyrebrand

I don't want to oversimplify, but what if Mind and Int were just combined into one stat, with spell potency balanced accordingly? Is there any real reason we need to differentiate? In most Final Fantasy games, we just have a "Magic" stat, and that seems to work just fine.

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Yes I see what you mean, but I like the idea of one being white magic and one dark magic both having magical attack and defensive magic.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

And then get accused of trolling and votekicked faster then the inevitable wipe...

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If you can't react to switching stances fast then you can't react to the tanks hp suddenly dropping fast. So if that is the case then the healing job is not suited to that person.

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

If you can't react to switching stances fast then you can't react to the tanks hp suddenly dropping fast. So if that is the case then the healing job is not suited to that person.

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This is why I play tank. If the healer can't handle me dropping tank stance I just let the other tank do it. Grit DRK is the absolute worst...

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Originally Posted by Connor

I feel like the devs should be more transparent with healer dps requirements though. Until the words 'healers must dps' come straight from the horse's mouth the debate will never end.

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I'm confused. We know they don't take healer DPS into account for end-game fights, and the newbie thing that I cannot recall the name of says (paraphrased) "If there is no healing to be done, don't be afraid to toss out a few attacks."

What more do you want?

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Originally Posted by Ilenya

I'm confused. We know they don't take healer DPS into account for end-game fights, and the newbie thing that I cannot recall the name of says (paraphrased) "If there is no healing to be done, don't be afraid to toss out a few attacks."

What more do you want?

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Besides, at this point in the game we are fooling ourselves if we think it really matters what the devs "intended" regarding healer DPS. When you code it into the game, the players do what they will with it. The devs have had years to observe the ramifications of their design choices, and not a single response has been to scale back healer DPS abilities and their effectiveness except when it was an overall game balance issue, as it was when Holy received the same successive target nerf as Flare. If anything they went on to provide more DPS options and upgrades for 51-60.

Anyway, I don't think the devs are well known for telling players how they must play the game. There is unlikely to be any further Word of God declaring either that all healers who utterly refuse to DPS effectively (read: using CS) in group content are terrible or that they should be vindicated in their choice to do less.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

I would like to hear more about this. Is it translated somewhere?

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not that I'm aware off. It would be nice for SE to bring these guides over to the west in some form
(also the previous issue had a guide for tanking. With 3 pages alone on how tank swapping works for example)

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The solution to the "should healers DPS or not?" Argument is absolutely NOT removing the option to reliably DPS entirely

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Actually that's EXACTLY what needs to happen. In no other MMO is healing such an afterthought that the community meta imposed dps standards on healers because they hate the role so much. It's the first step in demanding a more engaging style of healing. There's no reason for a dilemma between being forced to be bored, stand around with infinite healing resources, or bleed off into another role because mine isn't engaging in design. Cutting down on the ability to dps is the first step into forcing a more engaging healing role in future content design and addressing this glaring schism. This is the only MMO out there with such a lack of care going into healing. It's essentially 'go play another MMO if you enjoy skilled healing' and it really has no reason to be like that.

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Originally Posted by Toystore

Actually that's EXACTLY what needs to happen. In no other MMO is healing such an afterthought that the community meta imposed dps standards on healers because they hate the role so much. It's the first step in demanding a more engaging style of healing. There's no reason for a dilemma between being forced to be bored, stand around with infinite healing resources, or bleed off into another role because mine isn't engaging in design. Cutting down on the ability to dps is the first step into forcing a more engaging healing role in future content design and addressing this glaring schism. This is the only MMO out there with such a lack of care going into healing. It's essentially 'go play another MMO if you enjoy skilled healing' and it really has no reason to be like that.

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Even if they would want to make the healer jobs more about healing, the answer would still not be removing the ability to do more than that. I would welcome more healing-intensive fights and more abilities focused on various buffs, for example. But that doesn't mean they should remove the current abilities and replace them with something else. On the contrary, keeping the DPS function in addition to that would offer the exceptional healer players even more room to shine, and I would find that highly motivating, even if I personally wouldn't be able to focus as much on the DPS part. Being able to DPS is also important because of outleveling and overgearing content: it guarantees there's always something to do even when you know the fight by heart and overgear it by 20 item levels.

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Originally Posted by Toystore

Actually that's EXACTLY what needs to happen. In no other MMO is healing such an afterthought that the community meta imposed dps standards on healers because they hate the role so much. It's the first step in demanding a more engaging style of healing. There's no reason for a dilemma between being forced to be bored, stand around with infinite healing resources, or bleed off into another role because mine isn't engaging in design. Cutting down on the ability to dps is the first step into forcing a more engaging healing role in future content design and addressing this glaring schism. This is the only MMO out there with such a lack of care going into healing. It's essentially 'go play another MMO if you enjoy skilled healing' and it really has no reason to be like that.

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Not sure how to begin to address this.

For the moment, let's keep it simple: what other MMO would you suggest offers a significantly better model of "skilled" healing? Healing models that differ in any great way from the one used in FFXIV tend to be one of the following two:

1. Healing through combat, where a large chunk of your healing power comes as a byproduct of damage-dealing. Sometimes characters that heal this way have limited or weak direct healing options and MUST inflict damage in order to heal effectively. This type of healing can reward high player skill, but certain players on these forums seem more interested in eliminating damage-dealing from healer kits, not further rewarding others for using DPS tools.

2. Multiple single-target and AoE high-burst healing options on low cooldowns that allow players to effectively play whack-a-mole with their party's health bars while incoming damage is fast, extreme, and less predictable. Somehow I don't think that players who object to any expectation to deal damage as a healer in a moderately paced game like FFXIV would embrace a twitch-healing model.

Eeeh the only game in which I have found healing itself to be stressful was Ragnarok Online. Mind you, healing was stressful not because it required a high skill cap, but because tank HP used to drop ridiculously low in hilariously short times, so you literally had to be a healbot and spamming Heal on whoever was taking damage. Basically, in RO your entire life revolved around the party window and it was a constant whack-a-mole game with HP bars, with the added bonus of keeping track of party buffs 100% of the time.

While it was definitely fun, I do not want this for FFXIV. I love how healing works in FFXIV. I like that the game has telegraphed or predictable bursts for high damage with downtimes so that you can provide more than just healing and support. Healers have the most depth in these game because of how many things you can provide to the party and it kind of baffles me that people hate it so much. Do you really want to be so simple minded?

The only thing I can think would be to make it easier to cancel, and to make heals auto-cancel it. Not being able to cancel it while it's on cooldown is kind of a stupid restriction, and it can be easy to forget it's on.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

The only thing I can think would be to make it easier to cancel, and to make heals auto-cancel it. Not being able to cancel it while it's on cooldown is kind of a stupid restriction, and it can be easy to forget it's on.

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I'll just quote something I said earlier in this thread in regards to this.

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Originally Posted by Fernosaur

I have to disagree with your opinion on Cleric Stance. As with everything in this game, the skill it requires is not particular dexterity, it's just awareness and knowledge of the fight. The limitation it imposes on healing and the 5-second CD make it a way to punish poor decision making. It also punishes unfortunate situations in which other party members stand in the bad or a tank dies, and unable to foresee this, you entered CS and whoever needs healing is then fucked for the next 5 seconds. Quite honestly the risk-reward mecanic of that 5 sec CD is one of the only things that make healer DPS interesting, considering our DPS "rotation" is spamming the same attack over and over and DoT upkeep.

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Cleric Stance is quite honestly one of the few difficulties of proper healing. Making it any easier could perhaps help the less skillful part of the community, but it's nowhere near being necessary.

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Originally Posted by Fernosaur

Cleric Stance is quite honestly one of the few difficulties of proper healing. Making it any easier could perhaps help the less skillful part of the community, but it's nowhere near being necessary.

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I agree completely. Manual skill has virtually nothing to do with proper use of Cleric Stance, and most people who report it as "buggy" are experiencing unusually severe connection problems or are chronically double-tapping the controls.

Even if CS were made even easier to use (or perhaps eliminated by 4.0 when they look for skills to cut to reduce button bloat), the Never DPS contingent still won't be satisfied until they're given a healer job whose optimal play style is 100% healing and buffing. And then they will complain of the tedium of balancing multiple short-duration buff timers and whatever other awful mechanic SE would have to introduce to make such a play style competitive.

I have had my CS horror stories... Low level, dungeon, let fairy heal, eeeeep! tank is dead because I forgot I wasnt a SMN... High level dungeon, everything going fine, then suddenly the DPS stand in the bad, I think I switched CS off but nope ... Phew no one died!

I've only recently returned after nearly a year afk, slowly finding my comfort zone with DPSing on SCH again. Today I found myself muttering at Eos because she was just flittering happily up and down whilst I was flinging out broils; guess fairies are offering guidance on what to do if we lost Cleric Stance: hover charmingly, flutter our assets, and smile?

This thread needs to be locked or deleted.
Bunch of nonsense.

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Originally Posted by Elladie

Today I found myself muttering at Eos because she was just flittering happily up and down whilst I was flinging out broils; guess fairies are offering guidance on what to do if we lost Cleric Stance: hover charmingly, flutter our assets, and smile?

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xD Make sure you're manually casting her embrace when the tank is above 80% health. She won't cast otherwise. The earlier you start embracing, the more embraces she can do before the Tank's hp becomes low the longer you can DPS without intervening with a lustrate, if you have to at all. Plus, each time she casts embrace you have a chance to proc the Spell speed buff, which has a decent effect to your dps if it lines up with a DoT refresh and especially a bane.

I liked the part about fluttering our assets. xD Good analogy.

i think when they remove unused and unnecessary skills with 4.0 - they should remove cleric stance as one of the unnecessary skills...

just scale the damage from mind and increase all dps potencys by 10%

then the whole healer dps-thing is easier to handle (and they wanted to make the classes easier), it will close the gap between hardcore players who can stance dance in all the content and casual players who are not comfortable with stance dancing in savage (closing the gap is one of the reasons they want to make changes in 4.0) and of course - the whole healing and dpsing at the same time will be less clunky.

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Originally Posted by Tint

i think when they remove unused and unnecessary skills with 4.0 - they should remove cleric stance as one of the unnecessary skills...

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The complains against CS are not really about the stance dancing but about that people have to try to actually play the job efficiently and contribute to party dps, instead of just netflix and randomly casting any healing skills every 10 sec. Even if SE do what you said, they will keep complaining (even more then) about having nothing to do in dungeons, and dps is not what a healer suppose to do; "I rolled a healer to heal, i am good at healing, you cannot make me do anything else!"

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Originally Posted by Normalizer

The complains against CS are not really about the stance dancing but about that people have to try to actually play the job efficiently and contribute to party dps, instead of just netflix and randomly casting any healing skills every 10 sec. Even if SE do what you said, they will keep complaining (even more then) about having nothing to do in dungeons, and dps is not what a healer suppose to do; "I rolled a healer to heal, i am good at healing, you cannot make me do anything else!"

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Someone really needs to murder this talking point. This isn't anything close to being about efficiency. Any honest DPS has plenty of horror stories about healers in their parties who get really ugly about having to click off Cleric's Stance and actually play their role instead of watching their FFLogs stats.

Having said that, I don't see much feasibility in disabling it in parties unless, as has been mentioned, SE allows MND to determine damage rather than INT.

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Originally Posted by Hayward

Someone really needs to murder this talking point. This isn't anything close to being about efficiency. Any honest DPS has plenty of horror stories about healers in their parties who get really ugly about having to click off Cleric's Stance and actually play their role instead of watching their FFLogs stats.

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I don't get the relevance. I thought we had already established that bad players would be bad.

If we promote the reasoning that tools are bad because players will make poor choices with them, then we won't have many buttons left to click.

The conversation is very much about efficiency, and healers who strictly heal aren't being efficient or particularly helpful in a game like this (i.e. one without whack-a-mole healing requirements and strictly limited MP).

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Originally Posted by Yona87

This thread needs to be locked or deleted.
Bunch of nonsense.

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I love how all your posts in this thread have been this XD <3

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Snip.

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I'd argue that argument in particular is more aimed at trolls, rather than people intending to help out. Right now it's ridiculously easy for trolls to let everyone die around them because of the excuses that the community forces healers to dps, regardless of whether or not they're comfortable with it.

Right now, healers are ridiculously easy to play offensively, because of how overpowered their individual heals actually are, so it's very easy for people to know how to dps without having a clue how to actually keep people alive, due to the excessively simple rotation.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

I'd argue that argument in particular is more aimed at trolls, rather than people intending to help out. Right now it's ridiculously easy for trolls to let everyone die around them because of the excuses that the community forces healers to dps, regardless of whether or not they're comfortable with it.

Right now, healers are ridiculously easy to play offensively, because of how overpowered their individual heals actually are, so it's very easy for people to know how to dps without having a clue how to actually keep people alive, due to the excessively simple rotation.

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I don't see that the community is forcing anyone to do anything. I highly doubt that forum-goers are anywhere close to a representative sample of public opinion, and even among those of us who participate in the forums there is some difference of opinion.

If players are healing poorly, it's because they lack skill and/or will, not because they are buckling to some overwhelming pressure to DPS regardless of whether or not they are ready to do so. As you say, healing is not difficult in and of itself; someone who is choosing to neglect their primary responsibility is a bad player, not necessarily a comment on job design.

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Originally Posted by Tint

i think when they remove unused and unnecessary skills with 4.0 - they should remove cleric stance as one of the unnecessary skills...

just scale the damage from mind and increase all dps potencys by 10%

then the whole healer dps-thing is easier to handle (and they wanted to make the classes easier), it will close the gap between hardcore players who can stance dance in all the content and casual players who are not comfortable with stance dancing in savage (closing the gap is one of the reasons they want to make changes in 4.0) and of course - the whole healing and dpsing at the same time will be less clunky.

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Why should there be a gap closer between a hardcore player and a casual player?
A good player should always stand out.

Such nonsense will essentially make the game non-challenging and boring.
By the way, why is stance dancing such a challenge in the first place?
Boggles my mind tbh.
All it really requires is some situational awareness and basic human intelligence don't you think?

Is fat fingering cleric stance or accidentally double tapping cleric stance the game's fault?
Should the game be catered to someone who frequently fat fingers cleric stance?
Therefore remove cleric stance altogether for such said person?
What kind of nonsense is this?
Is there too much thought involved in swapping your main stat with intellect? Why do you think there is a GCD for cleric stance?
Because you have to make the right decision and know the mechanic and the situation of the fight and your party's health before using it.
If you go into cleric stance at the wrong time and someone drops and dies is that the game's fault? or do you need to step up the game?

I love that even your character looks so angry in every post lmao.

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Originally Posted by Yona87

If you go into cleric stance at the wrong time and someone drops and dies is that the game's fault? or do you need to step up the game?

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no it's the fault of the community. because you wanted me to dps. i am perfectly fine with healing only.

i really hate the cleric stance mechanic. but i have no problem to dps in low lvl dungeons without cleric, so i thought removing cleric and scaling the damage from mind would be a good compromise...

but however, i can stay around, being too scared going into cleric, and doing basically nothing...

Do not expect the developers or the game to revolve around a player who cannot play their class at their maximum potential.
The person's inability to play the class with maximum efficiency does NOT = button bloat.
You suffer because you cannot play at that level. (oh, you WILL suffer due to no one liking your idle play style). That is your problem not the majority.
Unless you are a sadistic person that likes being a burden to a group of people, its just downright too bad for you. Sorry to say.

so tell me what you will lose when they scale the damage skills from mind? why is scaling dps from mind = all have to change their playstyle for the incompetent few? or in other words: when the dps is scaled from mind: why would anyone have to stop dpsing? the idea behind this idea is so that the incompetent few have it easier to start dpsing, not that the healers who do dps have to stop dpsing...

and yes, i am not the majority of the playerbase. but i am also not alone. the whole healer dps debatte is not between me and the whole rest of the community. and i don't even started this topic here... i just want to find a compromise.

and developers HAVE announced that they want to make the jobs easier, they want to close the gap between the good and the bad players.

but still: tell me what is the problem with removing cleric and scaling dps skills from mind? all what you are saying is that's a bad idea and i am a bad player. maybe true. but that's nothing we have to discuss here...

What we gain from your suggestion:

Safety
Ez Game, Ez Life

What we lose from your suggestion:

Challenge
A way to stand out
Risk vs Reward
The will to continue playing a game that is so incredibly casual I dont even have to give half an effort anymore.

Ya screw your suggestion... its time for you to git gud because popping on clerics for 2 GCD's is not that hard. They gave you Tetragramaton, Essential Dignity, Benediction, and other instant cast heals for a reason, if you cant see how to use those to allow yourself some time in clerics then... if I say what I am thinking then the internet will kill me so use your imagination here.

No game should cater to the lowest denominator... aka you and your friends who sit there for 15s at a time while waiting to re-apply a regen on your tank.

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Originally Posted by Tint

they want to close the gap between the good and the bad players.

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Also this is false, they do not want to close the gap between good and bad players, what they want is to allow more of the high end content to be accessible to people who cant perform as well, while keeping it fun for those who excel at the game at the same time.

Source: Straight from Yoshi-P's mouth at FanFest 2016 in Vegas.

to give you an example of sources outside of the healer classes that provide risk and reward.

DPS:

Blood for Blood: Take more damage, to deal more damage temporarily. Using this in savage content at the wrong time can kill you, but using it in the right time will make your damage go up without suffering the consequences.

Tanks:

Tank Stance VS DPS Stances: One allows you to hold aggro better and take less damage, the other enables you to deal more damage but you lose the mitigation.

If we were to take all risk away from healers, then I guess we should also give all tanks a passive 20% damage reduction with no effect on damage dealt, and give all DPS a 10% damage increase with no increased damage recieved... because you know, we wouldnt want people to think about their choices, we just want them to put their face on their keyboard, and just hit buttons.