A summary of healer issues

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

But I like the shielding/regen stances, the other two have simialr skills and oh yeah, they removed most of the other defining aspects already so that seems to be a long shot.

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Unpopular(?) opinion but outside Seraph, Noct AST feels to me more of a barrier healer than SCH. Gutting the cards was a huge blow and if they ever remove Noct too then the job is as dead to me as BLU.

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Originally Posted by Allegor

Unpopular(?) opinion but outside Seraph, Noct AST feels to me more of a barrier healer than SCH. Gutting the cards was a huge blow and if they ever remove Noct too then the job is as dead to me as BLU.

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It all depends on the way the FFXIV devs want to go forward.

If they stick with the Shield /Regen healers: AST will have to lose one and the new healer will have to be the opposite.

If they ditch the Shield / Regen (IMHO should be buff / debuff based healers): They add a new healer and not much changes.

I finally have gotten around to picking up my other healers in Shadowbringer. The changes as the consensus seems to be is that they are off-putting to say it mildly. While there are some changes I do like, I agree that gutting the flourishing identity of these jobs really killed my excitement to be a healer. After reviewing OP’s suggestions upon many other threads, as well as brushing up on the healers my self, I feel more ready to give my own input. The change list I’m proposing would have to be done for the expansion. It would take role skills out of their own category and directly place them on a job so they can be selectively modified by traits. This should happen for all jobs. I placed a lot of emphasis on the DPS aspects of each of these jobs, and while you won’t necessarily stop having your bread and butter attack spell and DoT, you will have more decisions to weave in between, and more meaningful decisions over all.

Edits: To prove that Medica and Helios should be consolidated to thier aspected counterparts, I have neglected to use these spells at all while leveling. The fact is, I can do all the healing I need to without these spells, and I can get the job done without them. Additionally, to prove that Celestial Opposition should be returned to its original form, I have neglected to use this spell at all. There’s no reason to jam pack so many OGC raidwide heals into a kit, when the same effect can by achieved by spamming Aspected Helios or following up with Synastry and Lightspeed with little detriment to my MP.


White Mage - these changes to White Mage keep it in line with the pure healer archetype. With the addition of Protect and Shell and short duration defense boots, it serves to mitigate damage as well. It still retains the great amount of healing options it has, but can now choose to use some of those offensively without the Tactical commitment featured in Scholar. This is also something of a callback to being able to damage undead enemies with heals. This is a job for people who like the basic healing concept.

-Repose upgrades to Break, inflicting Petrify instead of Sleep.
-Medica upgrades to Medica II
-Esuna upgrades to Esuna II, allowing for raid-wide debuff removals.
-Fluid Aura now can either damage or heal, depending on the target.
-Fluid Aura upgrades to Tetragrammaton
-Tetragrammaton can be used to damage or heal a single target.
-Enemies and allies hit by Assize will now spread Aero or Dia to all other nearby enemies, or Regen to all nearby allies.
-Protect and Shell return, briefly increase physical or magical defense respectively.
-Cure now upgrades to Cure II.
-Dispell now removes a beneficial effect from an enemy.

Level 90 Additions
Holy II - Increase Potency
Cure IV - Upgrade Cure III, now also damages nearby enemies.
Sacred Prism - Changes the next use of Protect, Shell, or Divine Benison into an AoE.

Scholar - These changes not only bring Scholar back to what it should be as a DPS orientated healer, but shift the power window of the fairy to be dependent on the Fae Gauge. This is a job for people who want to make commitment to offensive or defense decisions.

-Rescue upgrades to Lifesaver and will additionally grant a Barrier.
-Leeches upgrades from Esuna and grants a stack of Aetherflow and increases the Fairy Gauge when removing a negative effect.
-Selene is a DPS Fairy
-Embrace: Basic heal.
-Whispering Dusk: DoT AoE
-Fey Dreamdust: AoE Sleep, less duration than Repose.
-Fey Wind Fey Circle: Localized AoE Party Haste (Like Ley Lines, but rather Fey Lines)
-Aetherpact is now free of cost and only forces a fairy to focus the unionized target.
Fairy’s are now instant Summoned like Summoner.
All Fey actions now require cost to Fey Gauge. Aetherflow Actions grant 20 points per use.
-Seraphic Illumination now grants 10% Magic Damage reduction.
Seraph will always summon as a healing Fairy.

Level 90 Additions
Dissipation: Tabula Rasa - Changes Ruin II and Physic into Kaustra and Embrava Respectively depending on if Eos or Selene was dissipated.
-Embrava: High potency Regen and Haste, no cast time.
-Kaustra: Higher potency than Broil, no cast time.
Chain Stratagem: Distribution - Spread Biolysis to all nearby enemies when using Chain Stratagem.
Sacred Soil: High Ground - Increases damage dealt by Art of War while inside of Sacred Soil.
Enhanced Aetherflow - Allows for a 4th Stack of Aetherflow.

Astrologian - Astrologian has been given back its unique card effects as well as Royal road and Spread. Creative strategies with a 3 Card Spread make for a more compelling AST experience. They also will be more involved with managing the duration of status effects. This is a job for people who like to make the most of the hand they’re dealt.

-Repose upgrades to Stasis inflicting Petrify instead of Sleep.
-Helios upgrades into Aspected Helios
-Revert Celestial Opposition to a Stun and gives it timer refresh to AST specific debuffs and buffs.
-Horoscope grants the effect of Horoscope and dishes everyone out a Random arcana. It is no longer modified by Helios, but still reactivates for an AoE heal. Any card replaced during the effect of horoscope will also heal.
-Exhalted Dertriment upgrades from Esuna and now increases the duration of beneficial effects when removing a negative effect.
-Remove Undraw, return Royal Road
-Remove Play, return Spread
-Gravity now inflicts Heavy.

Solar Lord Balance - Determination - RR Duration
Solar Lady Bole - Defense - RR AoE
Celestial Lady Spire - Direct Hit - RR Duration
Celestial Lord Spear - Critical Hit - RR AoE
Lunar Lord Arrow - Skill Speed - RR Duration
Lunar Lady Ewer - Spell Speed - RR AoE

Lord and Lady retain the same effect as now where one directly increases damage of melee and the other increases damage of ranged.

Level 90 Additions
Enhanced Benefics - Upgrade Benefic to Benefic III and Benefic II to Benefic IV
The Knave - 50% chance the Lord or Lady will instead appear as the Knave, increasing damage dealt to an enemy by 5%. The Knave can not appear again for 120 seconds.
Gravity II - Increases the potency of Gravity.
Constellation (Stella) - Sends a damaging chain between all enemies afflicted by Combust and refreshes the DoT.

I think something that also needs to be discussed is Dot Damage.

Right now they're sitting about 2x as potent as our filler spell, where IMHO it should be at least 4-5X as potent. Classically, in RPGs and MMO's the point of dots is they're supposed to be cheaper than filler spells and more effective with the tradeoff of having their damage spread out, not upfront.

This isn't really the case in FFXIV. Playing well, you can easily get 8-10 filler casts off (more if you're a WHM with POM). Having a DoT be only 2x the damage of a filler just seems really low to me.

Interesting takes.

I'd honestly move that 'dia/aero spread' to the current Fluid Aura. The water makes an bubble explosion with the aero marker to spread it out :D. That'll atleast give it a use right now instead of making it meld with tetra, which seems a bit awkward?

Assize, as amazing as it is, does so much as it is, adding 'spreads Dots and Hot' to it's list of Big damage/Big Heal and Mp for free would probably see it nerfed some other way.

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Originally Posted by Sindal

Interesting takes.

I'd honestly move that 'dia/aero spread' to the current Fluid Aura. The water makes an bubble explosion with the aero marker to spread it out :D. That'll atleast give it a use right now instead of making it meld with tetra, which seems a bit awkward?

Assize, as amazing as it is, does so much as it is, adding 'spreads Dots and Hot' to it's list of Big damage/Big Heal and Mp for free would probably see it nerfed some other way.

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I do like Assize and I could see a nerf to the raw potency with this, but I also think it would be well worth it overall. I would rather merge Fluid Aura and Tetra because not only are thier action icons really similar, but both are already single target abilities in the first place. Tetra would pretty much be revised to be like a Holy Water kinda deal.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

(The Scholar Suggestions)

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Leeches is a good idea, rewarding the downtime from cleansing debuffs with extra resources would make it feel way less bad when you are doing mechanics that need to be cleansed.

Rescue trait feels more like fun flavor then anything else, but I've no complaints otherwise.

While I do agree that making Selene and Eos distinct again would be great. I can't help but feel that this model wouldn't encourage healthy play. I can already see all the bad scholars exclusively using Selene at the detriment of the group even if the really good Scholars are swapping them back and forth like bosses. While skill ceiling is absolutely something that should be a thing I can't help but fear this system would just create toxicity. at the bare minimum I would keep Embrace as the filler spam for both faeries so you always have some passive healing going out.

However, all that I said would be contingent on whether or not the actions are shared in their cooldown, if the actions are all seperate then I can see the system working, But i disagree with the offensive fairy having an "auto-attack" because of the situations where a bad scholar would stay exclusively in Selene.

Is there going to be a trade-off of some sort to Aetherpact? Like locking you out of controlling your faerie for X seconds? or is just going to be a toggled on demand powerful regen? That alone sounds too powerful to me.

Since I see no mention of it? is this system going to come with more ways of generating fae guage to offset the fact that more abilities have a cost and that there's more of them you want to use?

No complaints about Seraph, turning it into a powerful mitigation cooldown sounds like a natural progression. If you really wanted to be silly and overkill, have Seraph be an upgrade to Fae Illumination that more or less makes the Seraphic Illumination an "aura" that lasts as long as the Seraph is out.

With Tabula Rasa, i can't help but feel in most cases people would only dissipate Selene, I see no reason for Embrava AND Kaustra to be available regardless of the faerie eaten. especially assuming it's locking you out of both. The spells themselves are fine tho, Kaustra being a free weave slot for the extra aetherflow you have makes it quite solid as an offensive option, and Embrava being a solid emergency heal seems to compliment one another very well.

Attaching the Biolysis spread to Chain feels weird to me. Personally I would attach the spread to Art of War, with Art of War dealing increased potency to the targets afflicted. That way it's more readily available between packs. The damage potency increase combined with Sacred Soil would either compliment or be unnecessary with this change depending on the numbers.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

feedback

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Wow thank you, I actually have had similar criticisms of my own suggestions. I really appreciate the feedback.
-Rescue: I wasn’t sure here what other role spell would be good to upgrade. While I thought it a good idea that WHM and AST get a petrify, I had a hard time thematically justifying it on SCH. My other idea was that Rescue would also provide a Barrier in case the rescue attempt doesn’t work out. I’ve had moments where the pull didn’t pull all the way to safe and they still took the hit- so perhaps that might go over a little better.

Embrace/Spurn: Yeah I also agree here. I’m a Scholar main, so switching Fairy’s while keeping people alive would be no big deal to me but I can see where the baddies would fail miserably.

Fairy Gauge: It might be better to have Aetherflow actions add 20 to the gauge rather than 10. This could offset some of that trouble. At that point it would take 5 uses to put you at a full gauge, which you’ll likely be spending in between. Yes, the Fey actions here would not share cooldowns. If not this kind of change, using Leeches or Chain Stratagem could also add to the gauge. Maybe getting a second stack or so after an Excogition proc. Overall I have never really liked Aetherpact and figure an alternative for the Gauge would lead to more satisfying gameplay.

Aetherpact: Definitely in favor of a trade off here. Despite being very successful as a Scholar I almost never use Aetherpact. I barely even notice it’s more potent regeneration to be honest. I think it’s a great way to force the fairy to target something specific instead of targeting the lowest health person. The high potency regeneration is barely worth using in my opinion. Many times I clear instances without ever once using this skill and a gauge sitting at 100 the whole time.

Chain Strategem: I think making a secondary effect of Bane for CS would be perfect. It’s not necessarily wasted in situations where there’s only one target, and since they’re both of the Analysis thematic, it makes sense. You also won’t be able to Spread on every mob pull, so you still will have times where you manually apply Biolysis, which I think is more than acceptable. Many times when AoEing, you do have a main target that will take the brunt of the damage or is the center of attention and has more health, naturally this is the enemy you want to include Biolysis first and CS-Bane off of it.

Dissipation/Tabula Rasa: I feel like I was on the right track here if level 90 can make Dissipation a little better, but I did have a hard time coming up with something better for Embrava. I was trying to avoid copy-pasting XI, but a Regen and Speed boost might actually apply better here.
Sacred Soil/High Ground: Again something I kinda feel the right track for but a little uncertain. I do tend to throw out SS and use AoW inside it anyways so it felt like a natural bonus for doing something I’d do anyways. It’s basically a potency upgrade for the AoE spell for 90 cap.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

I think something that also needs to be discussed is Dot Damage.

Right now they're sitting about 2x as potent as our filler spell, where IMHO it should be at least 4-5X as potent. Classically, in RPGs and MMO's the point of dots is they're supposed to be cheaper than filler spells and more effective with the tradeoff of having their damage spread out, not upfront.

This isn't really the case in FFXIV. Playing well, you can easily get 8-10 filler casts off (more if you're a WHM with POM). Having a DoT be only 2x the damage of a filler just seems really low to me.

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That's related to one of the worries I had about healers going into 5.0. We were fast approaching the point where healer dots (most noticeably with Miasma since it was the only one unadjusted since ARR) were going the way of the dodo without attention. As main spam spells gained potency, we were fast approaching a point where old dots' total potency was *less* than the nuke, and they'd be dead spells.

"Thankfully" Square noticed this approaching concern, so they deleted half the damage kits and didn't replace them with anything. Problem solved!

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

Chain Strategem: I think making a secondary effect of Bane for CS would be perfect. It’s not necessarily wasted in situations where there’s only one target, and since they’re both of the Analysis thematic, it makes sense. You also won’t be able to Spread on every mob pull, so you still will have times where you manually apply Biolysis, which I think is more than acceptable. Many times when AoEing, you do have a main target that will take the brunt of the damage or is the center of attention and has more health, naturally this is the enemy you want to include Biolysis first and CS-Bane off of it.

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I get your concept for Chain is to make it more useable in large trash packs, however I'm thinking of it more from the perspective that a dot spread should always be relatively accessible for situations where you're killing the mobs faster then chain's cooldown. Perhaps something akin too "Chain now additionally increases the chance the enemies within 10 yalms of the target receive critical hits by 5-10%" would work for that?

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

I get your concept for Chain is to make it more useable in large trash packs, however I'm thinking of it more from the perspective that a dot spread should always be relatively accessible for situations where you're killing the mobs faster then chain's cooldown. Perhaps something akin too "Chain now additionally increases the chance the enemies within 10 yalms of the target receive critical hits by 5-10%" would work for that?

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Sure I could see that. I’m more of the mind to keep it where you can do it every other or every few packs. Really would drive home decision making on when to use it or save it something else ahead.

Rember though, one of my other proposals is that Selene is also getting her own AoE DoT.

What do Astrologian's want?
1. Return card gameplay to the style of having 6 unique offensive and defensive buffs.
Adjust the cards so double astrologian's no longer overwrite each other's cards by mistake
Okay think in the same way

2. Return the time magic and duration enhancing abilities and the stun on celestial opposition. Disable could be a nice silence/stun if returned

NO WAY Here this was changed because the extending from timer makes Diunal to strong and Nocturnal weaker.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...lem_of_Noc.png

And to extend a shild makes not sense of the shild is broken after 2 hits! Hots works better there. So becareful with this wish. The change from CO in a stackable shild or HoT is great.

3. Make nocturnal equal to diurnal. Make it stack shields with itself and scholar, and scrap the mp penalty.

That happend in 5.0 and 5.1 with CO and NSec (in Diu). In the Opener you can mix that skills in the right stance.The change from CO in a stackable shild or HoT is great.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...nfographic.png

So the Diu AST and SCH can stack Shilds. Not the Nocturnal field right but the rest. And with 5.3 coes the mana costs down from shilds and Hots. We goes to a piont where WHM and SCH can call the AST Op! That can I understand. The playstil around the stances was the best Idea SE could make in balance way. The Time Aspect is lost true. But under the wish that makes Diu = Noc its lilltle lose.

5. The wish of a new dps skill

That wish I made in 2018 aswell : The wish of reborn of Stella

6. Change the healing style so its not Whm-lite
The play stile is more on using Hots ATM. Whm is more raw healing ther is a other playstil.
All healer feel like a prist. That is a wish for a new healer. The changes from patch 5.1 kick AST (in Diu) = WHM pic. You heal more over hots in Diu and the WHM wants to use more lilly skills atm.
7. Buff divination and alter how seals are gained to avoid controller issues or scrap the entire thing entirely and give a potent fixed damage buff on a lengthy CD
This can be hard for controller players true and making the line up with other raid buffs harder.

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Originally Posted by Heilstos

NO WAY Here this was changed because the extending from timer makes Diunal to strong and Nocturnal weaker.

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while i agree that buff extension helps diurnal more than nocturnal, thats not really a reason to not bring the effects back. regen extension was of the few non straightforward healing synergy any of the healers have had, and it felt very rewarding to get the most out of well timed heals/extensions. it increased the skill ceiling of the job without changing the skill floor.

if the balance of diurnal vs nocturnal becomes an issue; they could give time dilation an effect like, "also incresses the potency of barrier effects on target applied by self by X%" as to make the skill also strengthen shields.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

if the balance of diurnal vs nocturnal becomes an issue; they could give time dilation an effect like, "also incresses the potency of barrier effects on target applied by self by X%" as to make the skill also strengthen shields.

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Spitballing here, but you could make it so "Nocturnal" shields are just % mitigation like the Bole used to provide.

I frankly was never a fan of having two sects that you just turned on/off before combat based on who your partner was. The "Sect" stances can go the way of the dinosaur, and instead build them into their healing options where Diurnal (HoT based) and Nocturnal (%Mitigation based) work together.

Hot and Mitigation as the core suite still works well with both its potential partners.

And time extending mitigation is ace, and causes less of a tuning headache.

Actually, we can have a lot of option for time related spell such as:

1. Quickening regen = heal based on regen total potency on target (potecy x duration). Its kinda similar to sch ET, but the target/party should have the regen status first. Remove target regen status upon use. Only work for Asp. Bemefic and Asp. Helios regen

2. Enhance shield = reduce shield duration while increasing shield potancy on target. The target should have a shield first before we can enhance it. Only work for Asp. Bemefic and Asp. Helios shield

3. Extending buff = extend card buff/divination duration. Not applicable for extending regen/shield/other buff duration

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Spitballing here, but you could make it so "Nocturnal" shields are just % mitigation like the Bole used to provide.

I frankly was never a fan of having two sects that you just turned on/off before combat based on who your partner was. The "Sect" stances can go the way of the dinosaur, and instead build them into their healing options where Diurnal (HoT based) and Nocturnal (%Mitigation based) work together.

Hot and Mitigation as the core suite still works well with both its potential partners.

And time extending mitigation is ace, and causes less of a tuning headache.

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i really like this approach. not having 2 sects would make balancing the healers in general easier and make tooltips less bloated as well

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Originally Posted by Bobsmiaw

Actually, we can have a lot of option for time related spell such as:

1. Quickening regen = heal based on regen total potency on target (potecy x duration). Its kinda similar to sch ET, but the target/party should have the regen status first. Remove target regen status upon use. Only work for Asp. Bemefic and Asp. Helios regen

2. Enhance shield = reduce shield duration while increasing shield potancy on target. The target should have a shield first before we can enhance it. Only work for Asp. Bemefic and Asp. Helios shield

3. Extending buff = extend card buff/divination duration. Not applicable for extending regen/shield/other buff duration

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You know I never thought about that. I always wondered why they took away the time related abilities from Astro. Well the time extenders anyway. So it’s divination maybe. They didn’t want us extending divination because maybe they thought it would be to op? I hope they give us back time dilation or a similar skill in 6.0.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

You know I never thought about that. I always wondered why they took away the time related abilities from Astro. Well the time extenders anyway. So it’s divination maybe. They didn’t want us extending divination because maybe they thought it would be to op? I hope they give us back time dilation or a similar skill in 6.0.

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I think it's more likely that time will be the gimmick of the new healer. They're prepping us with Gaia this tier. Time mage incoming.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

I think it's more likely that time will be the gimmick of the new healer. They're prepping us with Gaia this tier. Time mage incoming.

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Time Chemist! lol

(Tbh I'd rather have time mage/geomancer/something else because I prefer high fantasy over sci fi themes, but can see why people would like chemist to play something more 'out of the box' and less WHM ish)

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Originally Posted by Allegor

Time Chemist! lol

(Tbh I'd rather have time mage/geomancer/something else because I prefer high fantasy over sci fi themes, but can see why people would like chemist to play something more 'out of the box' and less WHM ish)

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I just want to slam dunk some healing potions on foos

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I just want to slam dunk some healing potions on foos

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Now I've got hilarious lore justifications spinning in my head. "No no no, these potions are topical! Wait you've been DRINKING them? No wonder you get sick if you have more than one every 5 minutes!"

Potions have always been topical in FF. If i recall correctly, most animations, if not all animations involving a character using a potion in Final fantasy games are "toss thing up in the air, vial shatters and a mist of refreshing curative particles trickles down on the character."

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Potions have always been topical in FF. If i recall correctly, most animations, if not all animations involving a character using a potion in Final fantasy games are "toss thing up in the air, vial shatters and a mist of refreshing curative particles trickles down on the character."

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Yeah, I was joking about the fact that potions in XIV have agonizingly long cooldowns so there's going to be some neat lore reason why chemist in particular can machine gun them at party members every ~2.3 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Now I've got hilarious lore justifications spinning in my head. "No no no, these potions are topical! Wait you've been DRINKING them? No wonder you get sick if you have more than one every 5 minutes!"

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https://i.imgur.com/cwC6dKG.png

(source: manly men doing manly things)

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Yeah, I was joking about the fact that potions in XIV have agonizingly long cooldowns so there's going to be some neat lore reason why chemist in particular can machine gun them at party members every ~2.3 seconds.

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If we get a Garlean magitek style Chemist, I'd figure we will be using our own aether, rather than pre-loaded Potions, to "shoot" at party members.

While a full fledged Garlean Chemist would have to use ammo, as magic capable people, we will be able to synthesize healing draughts out of our own aether. (Just like Machinists produce bullets)

Maybe this is where the "mix" ability will come in. By carefully aspecting our aether and then mixing it in specific proportions, we will be able to prepare charges with unique effects.

Something I'd personally add to my list of issues with the healers.

"Hello, I am {User in practically any thread on these forums}. The healer role has been butchered. It's in such an unacceptably bad state. All three healers play the same now, with really basic kits, a bunch of boring oGCDs that hardly interact with one another, and a one-DOT, one-nuke damage spam that makes up almost the entirety of their endgame skill ceiling.


Anyway, here is my five paragraph essay on why this is a horrible tragedy that befell Astro and Scholar detailing why they should be completely overhauled. Also when I'm reminded that White Mage exists my intro paragraph will receive a softer touch. Sparse kit? Overhealing? Unconnected oGCDs? One DOT and one nuke spamming as the entire endgame? Num num gimme more of that! It's just so unfair that White Mage design is in such a great spot with this exact state of affairs I just spent my intro bitching about. It's all fight design with WHM! The kit is great, just need better combat to make WHM really fun and/or interesting. But AST and SCH, they need overhauls to be fun. It's not fight design there. It's dumbed down and bland when AST and SCH have to deal with it. It's 'great design' when WHM does. No contradictions here! No idea why the devs think these opinions make no sense."

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Something I'd personally add to my list of issues with the healers.

"Hello, I am {User in practically any thread on these forums}. The healer role has been butchered. It's in such an unacceptably bad state. All three healers play the same now, with really basic kits, a bunch of boring oGCDs that hardly interact with one another, and a one-DOT, one-nuke damage spam that makes up almost the entirety of their endgame skill ceiling.


Anyway, here is my five paragraph essay on why this is a horrible tragedy that befell Astro and Scholar detailing why they should be completely overhauled. Also when I'm reminded that White Mage exists my intro paragraph will receive a softer touch. Sparse kit? Overhealing? Unconnected oGCDs? One DOT and one nuke spamming as the entire endgame? Num num gimme more of that! It's just so unfair that White Mage design is in such a great spot with this exact state of affairs I just spent my intro bitching about. It's all fight design with WHM! The kit is great, just need better combat to make WHM really fun and/or interesting. But AST and SCH, they need overhauls to be fun. It's not fight design there. It's dumbed down and bland when AST and SCH have to deal with it. It's 'great design' when WHM does. No contradictions here! No idea why the devs think these opinions make no sense."

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Who are you mad at, exactly?

I have never seen what you describe. Most suggestions about the three healers also include WHM getting an expanded DPS kit, going back to Aero III for AoE dotting, iconic elemental spells such as Tornado and Quake and most of all turning Fluid Aura into a useful spell.
There are also suggestions about getting back Protect, Shell and Stoneskin in some form or another.

It seems the general idea is to make WHM into a healer with an outstandingly powerful personal dps kit, while keeping the other two as buff/debuff healers with focus on raid increasing dps.

None of that seem to imply WHM must stay as a simple and easy healer.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Who are you mad at, exactly?

I have never seen what you describe. Most suggestions about the three healers also include WHM getting an expanded DPS kit, going back to Aero III for AoE dotting, iconic elemental spells such as Tornado and Quake and most of all turning Fluid Aura into a useful spell.
There are also suggestions about getting back Protect, Shell and Stoneskin in some form or another.

It seems the general idea is to make WHM into a healer with an outstandingly powerful personal dps kit, while keeping the other two as buff/debuff healers with focus on raid increasing dps.

None of that seem to imply WHM must stay as a simple and easy healer.

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You're kidding right? I see it in practically every thread on this forum. "Keep WHM simple". "Keep it the straightforward one". "Don't give it complexity, I like it because it's simple". "My design idea has it stay the Pure Raw Healer". Go look at the General Discussion section of the forums for extra eye rolling. "Give AST and SCH their complexity back" + "WHM is great with just a few small tweaks" is all over the place. Check basically any thread.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

You're kidding right? I see it in practically every thread on this forum. "Keep WHM simple". "Keep it the straightforward one". "Don't give it complexity, I like it because it's simple". "My design idea has it stay the Pure Raw Healer". Go look at the General Discussion section of the forums for extra eye rolling. "Give AST and SCH their complexity back" + "WHM is great with just a few small tweaks" is all over the place. Check basically any thread.

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I will concede there are threads that seem to want to keep WHM "simple". As an example, quoting OP here:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

10. The "Pure Healer" concept that was explored in Stormblood and forced upon all healers now is extremely unpopular and is unsuitable for FF14's combat system, lore and community

What do WHM's want?
White mage is job, it is ok for it to be simple, but it must not be a conjurer with larger heals. It must have more complexity
1. Return Aero 3, buff holy, and add at least a second damage button to both aoe and/or single target
2. Expand on the lily system outside of healing.
3. Give back the elemental earth/wind and add some water magic
4. Nerf the mp and healing potencies a little. WHM has practically infinite mp and its healing capability is extremely strong
5. Make it more complex than babies first healer. We have Conjurer for that
6. Include a trait ot upgrade Cure 1 to Cure 2
7. Give it some form of raid utility if damage is not going to be high
8. Give Quake, Tornado and Flood. Long time staples we really should have by now

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OP does say it's "Ok for WHM to be simple"- But I would argue that doesn't mean OP wants WHM to be a job with no depth whatsoever. As an example, BLM is a "simple" class, mechanically- Rotation is easy to grasp and undestand and yet, it requires quite alot awareness and knowledge of encounters to push it optimally.

Still, considering the general consensus on what design problems healers have, I'd say, neither Scholars or Astrologians are your enemies.

I thought Quake Flood and Tornado where ancient level spells mostly associated with BLM.

@grimgale: personally, while i'm fine with jobs having running a gradient of simple to complex, i think even a 'simple' job should have something to do when there's no healing needed.
SCH used to have their dot management (now removed), AST used to have their cards (now lobotomized), etc. it's still really weird that rather than giving WHM a downtime activity they took away the other two's for ShB

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Originally Posted by AC9Breaker

I thought Quake Flood and Tornado where ancient level spells mostly associated with BLM.

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Most people want them for XIV's WHM because they have/had Earth, Water, and Wind spells, versus BLM, which have Fire, Ice, and Thunder spells.

I know square loves to surprise us but I’d really like it if they created a test server for us to test the new skills so we can give feedback on gameplay and just if we like them or not. Instead of giving influencers and such time to test the jobs when obviously none of them are main healers and will just say they love everything SE does just to save face. They end up adjusting multiple jobs throughout the entire expansion which is not necessary if they got it right sooner. They can focus on other things. Job adjustments can be limited. I really hope they give this some thought. Our current healers are solid proof that SE, their own testers and even our lovely influencers have absolutely no idea what they talking about when it comes to healers. No shade just the truth.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

I know square loves to surprise us but I’d really like it if they created a test server for us to test the new skills so we can give feedback on gameplay and just if we like them or not. Instead of giving influencers and such time to test the jobs when obviously none of them are main healers and will just say they love everything SE does just to save face. They end up adjusting multiple jobs throughout the entire expansion which is not necessary if they got it right sooner. They can focus on other things. Job adjustments can be limited. I really hope they give this some thought. Our current healers are solid proof that SE, their own testers and even our lovely influencers have absolutely no idea what they talking about when it comes to healers. No shade just the truth.

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Even the influencers aren't really "testing" anything, they simply get an early look at it. People who got early access to the ShB jobs told SE for example that SCH not having Energy Drain isn't gonna work out. SE did nothing about it and look what happened? They had to put ED back in post-launch since yes, it did indeed not work.


SE's in-house testing quite obviously isn't enough and since they don't do major changes mid expansion unless a vast majority complain about it or it is literally unplayable they need more testing and, most importantly, more outside feedback prior to the design being implemented...or you end up with the current terrible healer design for 2 years and no hope for any changes since it is technically "functional".

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Even the influencers aren't really "testing" anything, they simply get an early look at it. People who got early access to the ShB jobs told SE for example that SCH not having Energy Drain isn't gonna work out. SE did nothing about it and look what happened? They had to put ED back in post-launch since yes, it did indeed not work.

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Lets also not forget that in the 96 questions asked across all "influencers", THREE involved healing, and those were hand waved away.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Lets also not forget that in the 96 questions asked across all "influencers", THREE involved healing, and those were hand waved away.

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Where can we read/see these 96 questions and the dev responses?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...our_interview/

Well here's one example though this was famitsu.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...interview_not/

Here's another example as well.

As you can see very few questions about healers were asked overall during the time of the media tour.

I don't recall exactly where the huge list of questions was regarding healers was but ya you could see it's overall low on their priority list.

Thank you for the links Maltothoris~

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Originally Posted by AC9Breaker

I thought Quake Flood and Tornado where ancient level spells mostly associated with BLM.

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Aero is also a BLM spell, but WHM needs to be able to DPS for story content, and its lore in FF14 is tied to both Ampador and the elementals which makes them into a mixture of like of druid and priest archetypes. Though, because of the elementals influence it's not impossible to expand it with several elemental based-spells, but it's kind of hard to think of anything because of like DPS dominancey. And combat is better designed closer to platinum games combat standards instead of mobile gaming's tap-to-win designs. Though this does not mean that they should totally abandon lower skill levels as implement low skill floors with mastery rewarded through access to difficult areas, defeating stronger overworld mobs, or being way better at PVP. There is currently just way too little reward for several of the different MMO taxonomies, but combat design should not be pigeon-holed to play as almost carbon copies of one another regardless of ease of design and balace

Twinfinity interviewed Yoshi-P with some info about the healer design choices:

Link to Article

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While all the healers can heal just fine, there were big disparities in DPS capabilities.

He explained that Healer DPS is impacted by a lot of factors such as mobility and healing potency, with both of those things impacting the amount of “wiggle room” you have to DPS.

This flexibility is key, and rather than have certain healers specialize in one aspect or another, they decided to even the toolset across the board for all the healers.
The healer that struggled the most in the Stormblood era was White Mage. It appeared to be designed to be the “ultimate” potency healer. For some raid groups, this niche might have been helpful for clearing and progression.

However, most groups favored Scholar and Astrologian, both of which had far better mobility, quicker casts, and DPS potential. When you have a group that knows what they are doing, having that little bit extra healing juice isn’t as useful as being able to get the kill as quickly as possible before other players can make a mistake and cause a wipe. The faster the better.

Additionally, Yoshida-san described a scenario where White Mage and Scholar are paired up to heal. Scholar is primarily a barrier healer and lacks the ability to cure to the extent that a White Mage can. As a result, the White Mage is stuck doing most of the heals while the Scholar can DPS away.

“We went into reviewing all of the actions of these three healer jobs, which are all kind of convoluted and kind of tangled into each other, and sort of made sure that we were addressing the different stress points.” said Yoshida

Yoshida-san wants any healer to contribute equally to DPS/Healing or specialize in one of the other with little issue.

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