Adventurer in need: Originality

EDIT: This thread is useless and I know it, it's not like any of the healer threads changed a thing since the pre-release media tour. I just wanted to post some ideas I had, knowing full well this thread will be dead in a day or two. SE made it very much clear they don't give a damn, there's no fighting fate.


Let's face it, healers don't have very original kits.

Without even considering the lack of damage abilities, which is to me a glaring issue, and the strong imbalance between healers, our abilities are rather bland and tasteless.


Cure/Cure II/Physick/Benefic/Benefic II: ST heal
Medica/Medica II/Succor/Whispering Dawn/Indomitability/Helios/Aspected Helios: AoE heal
Glare/Broil/Malefic: ST damage
Dia/Biolysis/Combust: ST DoT
Tetragrammation/Lustrate/Essential Dignity: OGCD ST heal

So many of our abilities are the same across all classes with maybe a different potency, there's only a handful of unique abilities (such as Assize, Excog, Emergency Tactics, AST Cards, Earthly Star), and it really shows when all healers' gameplay are similar to one another.

It goes like this:

Single enemy -> Glare+Dia until dead*
Several enemies -> Holy until dead*
One ally hurt -> Cure II + Regen*
Several allies hurt -> Medica II + Medica*
Above level 30-ish -> Use CDs when available, and healing CDs when needed

*Just replace the WHM spells with the SCH and AST equivalents

No rotations, extremely little interaction between our skills, nothing but flat damage, dots, flat heals, and some shields and regens. Not immensely exciting.

All classes require good knowledge of their kit to achieve decent performance. Healers? Just spam your damage spell, use your dot every 30s, use healing CDs when someone stubs their toe, and bam you're above the average already.

I honestly think we deserve a more complex kit than "click to damage, click to heal". We could use a buildup, or something that looks like a rotation.


So why don't we bring in some originality?
You know, stuff that isn't yet another Cure II copy, or Combust XII, or Broil VII (although WHM is getting close to that, Glare is just Stone V to my eyes)

I did the brainstorm thing and wrote down plenty of abilities that aren't just yet another flat and bland healing CD we never asked for, and those are the ideas I came up with (in no particular order):



Passive, converts 10% of all overheal into damage on the nearest enemy (damage converted from regen overheals is halved)

Passive, converts 100% of overheal potency into MP (ex: cast Cure II, half of it is overheal, you recover 350MP)

OGCD, ST heal that turns 100% of its overheal into damage on the closest enemy to your target

OGCD, converts your next healing spell into a damage spell with the same potency (works on AoEs, shields are counted as healing potency, regens don't count)

GCD, deals damage and heals ally closest to target, lower potencies and higher MP cost

OGCD, target an ally; for a short duration, all damage the target takes is spread across the entire party

Passive, Reduces the next damage spell's cast and recast time after landing a healing spell, and vice versa

OGCD, heals target equal to the amount of damage they did in the last 10s

OGCD, marks an enemy for a set duration, all allies get a small lifesteal effect from the marked target

GCD, ST heal and small AoE damage centered on target

OGCD, places a mark with infinite duration on the ground, any player can step on it to recover health once (doesn't trigger if the player has above 80% health)

GCD, AoE mitigation with a short cast and long recast time

Passive, increases next healing spell's potency by 50% after using a damage spell, and vice versa

Passive, using a damage/healing spell gives the player a healing/damage stack respectively; each stack is consumed upon landing a corresponding ST spell to generate
a 50 potency aoe on top of the spell (ex: you cast malefic 3 times, your next benefic will have an additional 150 healing aoe; you cast physick 4 times, your next broil will deal 200 additional damage in an aoe)

OGCD, marks an ally, the first enemy who attacks the marked player gets a DoT and damage debuff that spreads itself to nearby enemies every server tick for the remaining duration, with 50% potency

OGCD, link self to an ally, linked ally recovers health equal to 10% of the damage you deal

OGCD, cone AoE that deals damage and heals with low potencies, multiple charges

OGCD, Asylum-like AoE that follows the targeted player

GCD, ST damage spell followed by a weak but long aoe dot

OGCD, gives ally an aura that deals damage over time and heals the bearer for a small percentage of the damage dealt

GCD, ST heal followed by a short mitigation, high MP cost


There, I think that's it.
Plenty of healer spell ideas, and none of them is Stone XVI or Cure/Medica with a fancy name.

What's my idea behind those spells, you may wonder?

Firstly, to break the barrier between "Healers should dps whenever possible" and "Healers shouldn't have to dps".
I hate those two mentalities, and the "deal damage or heal, but not both at the same time" aspect of our current kits tend to exacerbate this.
Right now, one side sees healing as a dps loss, and the other sees dps as a liability. Being not only able, but encouraged to do both would make things better.
And I'm sure some of the less confident healers out there would enjoy having a damage+heal button, in order to get used to not babysit the tank at all times.

Secondly, to break the monotony.
It's a bit sad that our classes play the same at level 30 and 80, with a few extra heal OGCDs. I understand that we couldn't really make use of a hard rotation, but we could definitely make use of soft rotations like DoTs, or CDs that allow us to give heals while dealing damage.
We have a ridiculously strong damage output tied to one button, and extremely strong heals capable of topping off an entire team in seconds.
I think we should have a more dynamic playstyle with weaker potencies overall, and to be rewarded for juggling between heals and dps instead of only doing one and then maybe the other if needed.
Furthermore, you may have noticed I included some GCD mitigation skills in the list. If heals and shields are GCD-based for a good part, why would mitigation be only on cooldowns? I think we should be given the choice to sacrifice a GCD or two to push more mitigation, and this would give us more things to do than just playing Whack-a-mole with health bars.

Thirdly, to end the overheal curse.
An overzealous DPS who does all they can to deal damage will be rewarded with big dps (if they don't die, that is).
An overzealous healer who does all they can to keep the party at 100% health will be rewarded with... nothing. Worse than nothing.
This damned stat that's visible on everyone's favourite dps meter, that inavoidable number of shame that shows how much all the effort you put into keeping your team alive was wasteful, and could have been optimized. There's no avoiding overheal.
I think that converting some of it into, well, litterally anything would make the whole role feel better. There's few things worse than casting your strongest heals, and then turns out your co-healer was way ahead of you and you just wasted 1300MP for nothing.
Getting damage out of overheal would soften the loss, and getting MP from overheal could actually be used as an emergency battery, sacrificing GCDs to recover MP.


To sum it up:
More original and varied spells overall, CDs that aren't just instant versions of existing spells, and actual choices instead of "dps until someone's head falls off"

Would it be difficult to balance? Perhaps. But it's not like healers are balanced right now, so we have nothing to lose. Although keep in mind SE added a new tank and reworked another, and they were all quite balanced on release. It could also happen to healers, someday.
Would it make the classes more interesting? Probably. The current amount of decision making is a few kilometers below sea level and we could use a more interesting kit.
Would it mean we'd lose some of our current heal CDs? Yes PLEASE. We have so many of them our actual healing spells are scarcely needed. A first step towards making the role more fun would be to remove all those instant heal buttons, so we'd actually have to take our time and heal.
Would it mean we'd lose damage potencies on our current spells? Of course, having our entire dps rest within one or two buttons is plain boring and it should be spread across multiple abilities, and most importantly, interactions. Right now, we can almost reach our maximum dps output by pressing 1. That's not fun.


Goodness, what a wall. Well if you read it all, thank you for staying I guess.

Am I being too hopeful? Yes, totally. But I still want to believe SE will make healers fun to play someday, even if everything hints at the exact opposite.
I'll keep an eye on patch notes, but I don't expect to see much more than Glare reduced to 250 potency, and then nothing for half a year. Before making Combust III a 60 potency DoT. And then nothing for another half year.

It sounds to me like you would really rather play a damage dealer than a healer.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

It sounds to me like you would really rather play a damage dealer than a healer.

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In case you didn't notice (you probably didn't, since the very first sentence is about healers as a whole), this entire post about making both dps and healing more interesting, because both are boring and unoriginal.

If all I cared about was dps:
1- I wouldn't be here talking about healers,
2- I wouldn't play a healer,
3- I would be playing BLM.

If all you have is the usual "you just wanna play a dps xd" rethoric, please get out. Thank you!

I can't blame them for sounding like that, but at the same time healers still feel very lackluster because you still have more than enough buttons to deal with damage and only up to 4 buttons to deal damage with, and the utter lack of reward once you know how the fight runs and you can keep your entire team healthy. Sure, you get to cast throw roc- wait, it's light missile now, more often, but that's not really a reward, that's just what you do when you don't need to heal already.

Ok, Ima start out with this, when did you start playing??!! The game has changed to be this way!! Many of us hate it too and it was done, for the most part in the name of "Balance". WHM, SCH, heck even AST used to be unique, colourful classes (jobs, whatever). Everyone bloody well askin' fer balance simplicity and this is where the devs brought us, and it's a common complaint for career healers. Healing in 2.X is not what healing is now, there was a calculated risk switching to Cleric stance and droppin some serious damage, the drop in healies was significant and although for SCH Eos did help bridge the gap it was still not done lightly unless you really knew yer tank. SCH and WHM teamed up nicely for 8 person stuffs since the potent group heals and regen on WHM complimented the strategic mitigation style of SCH. I really miss those days, even if there have been some nice qol improvements in the game overall. In the quest for balance and ease of use our favourite classes have lost their personality. To be clear I do believe there was need for balance, or at least to bring things closer in line. I do think it could have been done without such watering down. I do recognize that raid utility suffered a lot for some classes but there had to be a better way.

I liked some of the ideas. Specially the Healer throwing Bloodbath, Asylum who folloows someone, Synastry that heals with damage and a spot on the floor that you get healz...

I wish SE would do something like that...

I don’t like this at all. I play whm because it is easy compared to something like blm or rdm. I don’t want complex stuff or rotations I have to memorize. I suck at memorizing rotations and because of it I can never play a dps optimally. I prefer my simple dia, glare and holy damage. I don’t need anything else. And there are already plenty of healing tools as well, particularly lilies; I like the new abilities with lilies and it makes healing easier for me in expert dungeons and other higher level stuff. I don’t understand why people want to make things so complicated to the point where it’s no longer playable.

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Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

I don’t like this at all. I play whm because it is easy compared to something like blm or rdm. I don’t want complex stuff or rotations I have to memorize. I suck at memorizing rotations and because of it I can never play a dps optimally. I prefer my simple dia, glare and holy damage. I don’t need anything else. And there are already plenty of healing tools as well, particularly lilies; I like the new abilities with lilies and it makes healing easier for me in expert dungeons and other higher level stuff. I don’t understand why people want to make things so complicated to the point where it’s no longer playable.

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Just like how you prefer simplicity, many of us prefer complexity. I dont think 1 class being the simple healer is a bad thing, so long as it is not TOO simple, but not all healers should be dragged down to that level. And many of us find it completely unfair that our classes were stripped of what made them complex and fun, and that's what most of these threads are addressing.

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Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

I don’t like this at all. I play whm because it is easy compared to something like blm or rdm. I don’t want complex stuff or rotations I have to memorize. I suck at memorizing rotations and because of it I can never play a dps optimally. I prefer my simple dia, glare and holy damage. I don’t need anything else. And there are already plenty of healing tools as well, particularly lilies; I like the new abilities with lilies and it makes healing easier for me in expert dungeons and other higher level stuff. I don’t understand why people want to make things so complicated to the point where it’s no longer playable.

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It's possible to increase the complexity of a rotation without making it unplayable. As it stands, healer's "rotation" is not really a rotation at all. It's literally a single button, with another button that you press every 30 seconds.

No one is asking for a Black Mage or Red Mage rotation for Healers. It wouldn't be plausible to give us a rotation that would suffer if dropped. A Healer needs to be able to react to any situation. However, it IS possible for us to be given a system that feels like it evolves as we utilize it.

For example, take away the Lillies from White Mage and give them a three petalled lily gauge: 1 for each element that they use. Casting Stone, Aero, and Fluid Aura (with it's damage back, please and thank you), adds energy to the corresponding petal. When that petal is full, that element becomes awakened (or whatever terminology you want to use). Stone becomes Quake, Aero becomes Tornado, and Fluid Aura becomes Flood.

Boom. You've already made DPS more enjoyable but not at all more complex than what we already have. You could manage that, could you not?

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Originally Posted by DiznypKC

It's possible to increase the complexity of a rotation without making it unplayable. As it stands, healer's "rotation" is not really a rotation at all. It's literally a single button, with another button that you press every 30 seconds.

No one is asking for a Black Mage or Red Mage rotation for Healers. It wouldn't be plausible to give us a rotation that would suffer if dropped. A Healer needs to be able to react to any situation. However, it IS possible for us to be given a system that feels like it evolves as we utilize it.

For example, take away the Lillies from White Mage and give them a three petalled lily gauge: 1 for each element that they use. Casting Stone, Aero, and Fluid Aura (with it's damage back, please and thank you), adds energy to the corresponding petal. When that petal is full, that element becomes awakened (or whatever terminology you want to use). Stone becomes Quake, Aero becomes Tornado, and Fluid Aura becomes Flood.

Boom. You've already made DPS more enjoyable but not at all more complex than what we already have. You could manage that, could you not?

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That's a pretty neat idea, I would love to see it implemented, tbh. Though, not sure a lot of WHMs would be happy to see misery go. Heh.

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

Just like how you prefer simplicity, many of us prefer complexity. I dont think 1 class being the simple healer is a bad thing, so long as it is not TOO simple, but not all healers should be dragged down to that level. And many of us find it completely unfair that our classes were stripped of what made them complex and fun, and that's what most of these threads are addressing.

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The problem with "complexity" is that it takes more work to do correctly. This in and of itself isn't a problem, but what *is* a problem is that people - rightfully - expect more complex tasks to be more rewarding. Translated into practical FF14 terms, a simple-to-use job shouldn't do as much damage/healing/tank as well as a more complex one, because the justification goes that if something is more complex and thus takes more work to do correctly, it should be more rewarding.

This works out relatively fine for dps classes, as you can more easily create different flows of complexity in a job that are perceived as more or less difficult by various people. BLM has it's own set of complexity despite having a rather simple rotation; a BLM needs to have a very intimate knowledge of a given fight in order to minimize movement and maximize casting uptime, because 100% of their damage comes from on-global skills. On the other side of things, a SMN has far more baseline mobility than a BLM, but trades that in for far greater oGCD complexity, as well as watching buff timers and debuff timers like a hawk. MNK is another example of a "simple yet complex" job. It has very few oGCD attacks, and thus is largely a GCD-based dps. But correctly performing as a MNK requires quite a bit of manual dexterity in order to maximize your dps output, which is another skill entirely (ER notwithstanding).

As it stands now, it seems like SE is going the route of complexity for healers being linked to knowledge of a given fight, much like tank complexity works. I've seen many tank players lament the "simplicity" of the combos that tanks have, and asking for something more "challenging" but that misses the mark. The complexity for a tank is having arguably the most intimate knowledge of a fight such that you know exactly when to use your various cooldowns and how close you can cut something to snag an extra GCD in a way that no DPS will ever think about it. The combos are kept simple for a reason; they're not the main challenge or focus of a tank job. DPS jobs have combos and rotations as their main focus. Healers - on the whole - seem to have moved more towards the tank style of "encounter complexity" as opposed to "rotational complexity." And this likely was done at least in part to avoid the situation of "AST/SCH are more complex to play than WHM so playing them successfully should thus be more rewarding" which saw an entire healing class largely sidelined for most of SB.

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

That's a pretty neat idea, I would love to see it implemented, tbh. Though, not sure a lot of WHMs would be happy to see misery go. Heh.

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Not necessarily. The funny thing is, a lot of ideas for job evolution can be found in the MSQ. Personally, I think it's silly that White Mages spam Holy. Holy is supposed to be our ultimate (besides LB). So for 2.0, change Holy to something a little less grand and lose the Stun. For time sake, let's call it "Pearl" (the OG Holy) and give it a blind effect, or no effect at all, to bring it in line with Art of War and Gravity. In 3.0, when we're focused on the Holy See and all that divine mumbo jumbo, let's add a center to the Lily gauge to represent Light, that fills over time and changes Pearl to Holy. In 4.0, let's add Quake/Tornado/Flood. In 5.0, after a Holy proc, the Lily becomes the Blood Lily. Stone becomes Glare, Aero becomes Die, Fluid Aura becomes Banish, and Holy becomes Misery. When Misery is cast, Blood Lily ends and reverts back to our Source-White Mage Lily. Just an example on how it COULD be done when you look at the evolution of the storyline.

The point is, you can passively make the class more engaging without creating risk. That's the kind of mechanics healers should have. They can still choose whether or not they want to be a healbot, or utilize their full kit. They wouldn't suffer from dropping a cast, but they could still feel like they're doing more than pressing 1 2 11111111111111111111111 2 1111111111111111111 for ten minutes.

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Originally Posted by Quor

The problem with "complexity" is that it takes more work to do correctly. This in and of itself isn't a problem, but what *is* a problem is that people - rightfully - expect more complex tasks to be more rewarding. Translated into practical FF14 terms, a simple-to-use job shouldn't do as much damage/healing/tank as well as a more complex one, because the justification goes that if something is more complex and thus takes more work to do correctly, it should be more rewarding.

This works out relatively fine for dps classes, as you can more easily create different flows of complexity in a job that are perceived as more or less difficult by various people. BLM has it's own set of complexity despite having a rather simple rotation; a BLM needs to have a very intimate knowledge of a given fight in order to minimize movement and maximize casting uptime, because 100% of their damage comes from on-global skills. On the other side of things, a SMN has far more baseline mobility than a BLM, but trades that in for far greater oGCD complexity, as well as watching buff timers and debuff timers like a hawk. MNK is another example of a "simple yet complex" job. It has very few oGCD attacks, and thus is largely a GCD-based dps. But correctly performing as a MNK requires quite a bit of manual dexterity in order to maximize your dps output, which is another skill entirely (ER notwithstanding).

As it stands now, it seems like SE is going the route of complexity for healers being linked to knowledge of a given fight, much like tank complexity works. I've seen many tank players lament the "simplicity" of the combos that tanks have, and asking for something more "challenging" but that misses the mark. The complexity for a tank is having arguably the most intimate knowledge of a fight such that you know exactly when to use your various cooldowns and how close you can cut something to snag an extra GCD in a way that no DPS will ever think about it. The combos are kept simple for a reason; they're not the main challenge or focus of a tank job. DPS jobs have combos and rotations as their main focus. Healers - on the whole - seem to have moved more towards the tank style of "encounter complexity" as opposed to "rotational complexity." And this likely was done at least in part to avoid the situation of "AST/SCH are more complex to play than WHM so playing them successfully should thus be more rewarding" which saw an entire healing class largely sidelined for most of SB.

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The problem with relying on fights for people to get their complexity is that, once you've learned the fight, then what? Where do you go, you can't go back to your class and improve there because the skill ceiling is too low. DPS have to learn the fight mechanics too, but they still have a lot to juggle in the class itself as well, I dont see why tanks/heals cant have the same thing. I can't speak for you or anyone else, but I never want to hit a static cap where I feel like I can't get any better at my role, and that's where I feel this current iteration of healers is going to go, so simple and easy that it'd be impossible to get any better at my job, outside of fight specific optimizations, which just comes down to "where can I get away with not healing so I can squeeze in 1 more broil"

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Originally Posted by DiznypKC

The point is, you can passively make the class more engaging without creating risk. That's the kind of mechanics healers should have. They can still choose whether or not they want to be a healbot, or utilize their full kit. They wouldn't suffer from dropping a cast, but they could still feel like they're doing more than pressing 1 2 11111111111111111111111 2 1111111111111111111 for ten minutes.

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I must ask. How do you make something more passively engaging?

There was the active cleric stance dancing before - it had risks to use with damage being the reward, but that got removed. Debuffing bosses via Virus/Disable got taken and given to other roles. MP Recovery skills/debuff cleanses were all unified into lucid dreaming & esuna.

Healers are on a very thin plate at what they can do at the moment. Dealing or Healing is all there really is to do, once players identify what unavoidable damage does not 1-shot them.

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Originally Posted by DiznypKC

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That's why I like it, there is no rotation. It is reactive. Its simple to memorize, use this skill in the event this happens, use this for when this happens and so on. I like that better than having to memorize a string of abilities just to get a heal or damage off or use another whole string of abilities for when something procs or whatever. That's just too much for me. And I don't like having to keep track of three or more meters. Rdm was hard enough with two. I like where lilies are now, just one gauge that goes up in battle. Use three lilies to get red lily, use red lily and repeat. I like where it is now. Its not complex, its simple and i can handle that. Anymore and it gets too much.

In order to passively make a class feel more engaging, you would have to organically evolve the mechanics so that there is more of a progression as opposed to a rotation.

The Blood Lily mechanic is an example. It’s not a good one, but it’s a step in the right direction. It would be better if there were another way to expend lilies that didn’t require healing. I find myself using Solace between wall to wall pulls in Ex roulettes because I don’t need them otherwise. If we had, say, a shield we could throw out with a lily, that would be an improvement.

I’m getting off topic, but the point is that the Blood Lily is sort of a passive way of making White Mage feel like they’re more engaged. It gives the class a touch more complexity without making it busy, unlike the new card mini-game Astros have or the lackluster faeries Scholars use.

You can keep the class reactive and engaging at the same time. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

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Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

That's why I like it, there is no rotation. It is reactive. Its simple to memorize, use this skill in the event this happens, use this for when this happens and so on. I like that better than having to memorize a string of abilities just to get a heal or damage off or use another whole string of abilities for when something procs or whatever. That's just too much for me. And I don't like having to keep track of three or more meters. Rdm was hard enough with two. I like where lilies are now, just one gauge that goes up in battle. Use three lilies to get red lily, use red lily and repeat. I like where it is now. Its not complex, its simple and i can handle that. Anymore and it gets too much.

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Also, due to the current combat design, at a certain point the job will stop being reactive and becomes rote muscle memory. What will you do then, when the only variety you have is the occasional mishap made by the less experienced player?

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Originally Posted by DiznypKC

Also, due to the current combat design, at a certain point the job will stop being reactive and becomes rote muscle memory. What will you do then, when the only variety you have is the occasional mishap made by the less experienced player?

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That’s what you don’t get though, I don’t want variety or super complex stuff. If it gets too complex, then I can no longer play the game which would be sad because then I can’t experience any of the story. :( I switched from rdm because it was too complex. I’m not a hardcore raider, I’m just a casual that likes the story. I don’t need more complexity. Whm is fine as it is.

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Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

That’s what you don’t get though, I don’t want variety or super complex stuff. If it gets too complex, then I can no longer play the game which would be sad because then I can’t experience any of the story. :( I switched from rdm because it was too complex. I’m not a hardcore raider, I’m just a casual that likes the story. I don’t need more complexity. Whm is fine as it is.

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I agree that it's good for players like you to have a class that suits them. I've always kinda seen WHM as that, and though I sympathise with WHMs who want more complexity, at least they previously had two more complex classes which they could choose instead (ofc that's not to say old WHM has never had issues. It did and it does). However, by the same virtue that you yourself want a simple class, you'd have to agree it's a bad thing that those of us who want a deep or complex class no longer have access to that.

I also have little interest in playing dps classes, because the purely mechanical challenge of doing your rotation perfectly doesn't appeal to me. What does appeal to me is the challenge of balancing defensive responsibility with diverse offensive options, of reacting to situations in such a way as to maximise my offence while maintaining my defence, while not being bored out of my skull by my offensive options. There is no longer any class in the game that offers this.

I like the ideas. Would be very difficult to balance though.

The BIG issue with the addition of new skills, due to SHB homogenization EVERYTHING needs to be exactly like the other thing.

All party DPS buffs are to be~ 5%, doesn't matter if one click or 4 clicks to achieve it.

All party-wide mitigation has to be 10%. No more, no less.

Because of this 'The most strict Balance in all things' approach, getting exciting and bizzare skills has become substantially less likely. As SE seemed to have taken the most boring approach to balance and that is balance by making most stuff the same.

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Originally Posted by Quor

As it stands now, it seems like SE is going the route of complexity for healers being linked to knowledge of a given fight, much like tank complexity works. I've seen many tank players lament the "simplicity" of the combos that tanks have, and asking for something more "challenging" but that misses the mark. The complexity for a tank is having arguably the most intimate knowledge of a fight such that you know exactly when to use your various cooldowns and how close you can cut something to snag an extra GCD in a way that no DPS will ever think about it. The combos are kept simple for a reason; they're not the main challenge or focus of a tank job. DPS jobs have combos and rotations as their main focus. Healers - on the whole - seem to have moved more towards the tank style of "encounter complexity" as opposed to "rotational complexity." And this likely was done at least in part to avoid the situation of "AST/SCH are more complex to play than WHM so playing them successfully should thus be more rewarding" which saw an entire healing class largely sidelined for most of SB.

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Then with the possible exception of Savage SE has utterly failed... I got E3N for Raid Roulette the other day as a Tank, I had never tanked it before and was a bit nervous, I needn't have been though as the only Tank thing I had to worry about was a very clearly marked 'tank buster' every other minute (which wouldn't have killed me even without mitigation, but I like being kind to healers).

Doing the same fight again as a BLM though, I had to get my timings, cooldowns, and movements right for a whole bunch of mechanics lest I screw up / drop my rotation (or die!) and have to start over... so it was far more involved than tanking (and as a result, far more enjoyable).

Additionally, I still remember tanking Midas (A5-8) normal mode back in HW and almost every fight as a tank I had to worry about mitigation (I would have died otherwise), positioning, tank swaps, Cover as PLD, etc. So even comparing tanking now to tanking (or healing) back in 3.X it feels less engaging on an encounter level than it used to.


NB: As for WHM being side-lined, that was (is) due to people’s obsession with DPS (driven by hard enrage and FFlogs); WHM was plenty capable of clearing the content, it just couldn't quite post the rDPS, or boost others rDPS the way AST and SCH could.

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Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

That’s what you don’t get though, I don’t want variety or super complex stuff. If it gets too complex, then I can no longer play the game which would be sad because then I can’t experience any of the story. :( I switched from rdm because it was too complex. I’m not a hardcore raider, I’m just a casual that likes the story. I don’t need more complexity. Whm is fine as it is.

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As I mentioned earlier, and I’ll say again, it’s possible to make the class feel more evolved without necessarily making it any more complex than it is now for players such as yourself. Engaging gameplay and simplicity are not mutually exclusive. You don’t have to have one or the other.

If things exactly as they are suit you just fine, then good. I’m not asking to take that away from you. Nor should you request that nothing every change, grow, and develop for other players.

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Originally Posted by Acidblood

Then with the possible exception of Savage SE has utterly failed... I got E3N for Raid Roulette the other day as a Tank, I had never tanked it before and was a bit nervous, I needn't have been though as the only Tank thing I had to worry about was a very clearly marked 'tank buster' every other minute (which wouldn't have killed me even without mitigation, but I like being kind to healers).

Doing the same fight again as a BLM though, I had to get my timings, cooldowns, and movements right for a whole bunch of mechanics lest I screw up / drop my rotation (or die!) and have to start over... so it was far more involved than tanking (and as a result, far more enjoyable).

Additionally, I still remember tanking Midas (A5-8) normal mode back in HW and almost every fight as a tank I had to worry about mitigation (I would have died otherwise), positioning, tank swaps, Cover as PLD, etc. So even comparing tanking now to tanking (or healing) back in 3.X it feels less engaging on an encounter level than it used to.


NB: As for WHM being side-lined, that was (is) due to people’s obsession with DPS (driven by hard enrage and FFlogs); WHM was plenty capable of clearing the content, it just couldn't quite post the rDPS, or boost others rDPS the way AST and SCH could.

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Well yes, that's a braindead fight on normal. Large pulls in expert roulette provide more challenge than tanking E3N. A better example would be why a tank doesn't want to re-center Titania EX immediately following the first frost rune, or how far is acceptable to pull Inno towards the edge during 4x Starbirth. Small things in the large scheme of a fight, but if you don't do them right, you could wipe the whole raid.

As for WHM, yes, that's the issue, as well as a few other classes. Again, complexity in and of itself isn't necessarily bad, but asking for core design changes in the name of "complexity" is a sure route to seeing one or more jobs sidelined, because pretty much everyone agrees that a more complex job should be met with commensurate reward *if* performed correctly. So adding raw complexity to a job isn't going to solve any issues (at least, not any of the issues SE has tried to solve with the actions they have taken as of late). The key then comes in how complexity can be added on another level beyond changing core job design. A good example of that would be old Hagakure in 4.0 SAM. It opened a very strategic meta-game as SAM where you made certain decisions on Sen usage throughout a fight that would have an impact several GCD's down the line. It was very enjoyable and engaging for those who understood it, but wasn't strictly "better" than any other job. It was simply another style of approaching a fight, utilizing a longer-term thinking and planning strategy instead of the more GCD-to-GCD tactical approach a MNK would take.

As far as I can see, SE wants healers to be focusing on healing. I don't have a problem with this per se, but it would be nice if actual heal checks made it back into the game to support that style of encounter. The endless enrages and dps checks have gotten old.

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Originally Posted by Quor

As far as I can see, SE wants healers to be focusing on healing. I don't have a problem with this per se, but it would be nice if actual heal checks made it back into the game to support that style of encounter. The endless enrages and dps checks have gotten old.

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The problem with the whole "SE wants us to focus on healing more " is that, the game is not designed for us to heal more, and outside of an ARR level rework, I dont see how they could fix it. Encounters as well as healer kits are not designed to have healers heal most, or even half, of the time. For an example, look at scholar, your main heals are all locked behind a timer, and healing outside of that is expensive, and if done too much will screw you over. IMO SE is better off just embracing green dps, and just giving us things to do other than heal, because both the encounters and classes are better designed for it

Alternately, they could make us focus on healing more in the new content by making it require more healing, and leave us with our offensive kits to be used in older content and when we get the hang of new content.

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

IMO SE is better off just embracing green dps, and just giving us things to do other than heal, because both the encounters and classes are better designed for it

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This gave me the thought that if they don't want us to straight DPS, the could give us support based DPS abilities like Stygian Spikes to cast on teammates, or even Stoneskin back for WHMs and an amended 10s (or so) Protect for SCH. Stuff like that would be cool, I'd think.

Or even some debuff oriented skills.

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Originally Posted by Tahldon

This gave me the thought that if they don't want us to straight DPS, the could give us support based DPS abilities like Stygian Spikes to cast on teammates, or even Stoneskin back for WHMs and an amended 10s (or so) Protect for SCH. Stuff like that would be cool, I'd think.

Or even some debuff oriented skills.

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Either of those is fine. I just want something to do other than spam broil ad nauseam. IMO SB SCH was great for that, it wasnt even as complex as say, RDM, but it was complex and satisfying enough, and that's all I ask for. 3 dots, a fairy that casted completely independently of you, as well as having 2 unique fairies with their own abilities, and aetherflow choices between dps/healing. That's all I need and all I could ask for in terms of scholar. It wasnt perfect, but it was a great baseline to build upon.

IDC if my dps is direct or indirect, I just want more to do in my massive amounts of down time. I dont think theres a problem with having a lot of down time as a healer, there just needs to be something to do during it

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Originally Posted by Tahldon

This gave me the thought that if they don't want us to straight DPS, the could give us support based DPS abilities like Stygian Spikes to cast on teammates, or even Stoneskin back for WHMs and an amended 10s (or so) Protect for SCH. Stuff like that would be cool, I'd think.

Or even some debuff oriented skills.

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I agree healers should get more party support, but if Protect goes anywhere but WHM...

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

The problem with the whole "SE wants us to focus on healing more " is that, the game is not designed for us to heal more, and outside of an ARR level rework, I dont see how they could fix it. Encounters as well as healer kits are not designed to have healers heal most, or even half, of the time. For an example, look at scholar, your main heals are all locked behind a timer, and healing outside of that is expensive, and if done too much will screw you over. IMO SE is better off just embracing green dps, and just giving us things to do other than heal, because both the encounters and classes are better designed for it

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Costs can always be adjusted, as can the level of unavoidable outgoing damage, and the penalties for mechanics (e.g. a non-removable Slow instead of Vulnerability / instant death*).

I do agree though that it would be less work to simply give healers a better 'down-time kit' than it would be to shift encounter design and rework classes to be more support orientated... then again, they have taken a LOT out over the years, so they could slowly add it (and more) back in.

* Note: I feel that all too often the 'job' of a healer is simply to cover other people’s mistakes, but if healing is to be a 'full time' job then other people’s mistakes shouldn't be adding to that workload; a Slow effect would be a noticeable alternative to death that players would want to avoid.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I agree healers should get more party support, but if Protect goes anywhere but WHM...

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Protect (physical) and Shell (magical) should be Defensive CD role actions. Relatively short CD ones (1 min, 5-10s duration).

Give healers the defensive support they're sorely lacking.

Well, I'm glad this thread didn't get shot down with "you just wanna play a dps" and "healers shouldn't heal", haha.

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Originally Posted by IndyRevolutions

I can't blame them for sounding like that, but at the same time healers still feel very lackluster because you still have more than enough buttons to deal with damage and only up to 4 buttons to deal damage with, and the utter lack of reward once you know how the fight runs and you can keep your entire team healthy. Sure, you get to cast throw roc- wait, it's light missile now, more often, but that's not really a reward, that's just what you do when you don't need to heal already.

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This is a major problem for me, our dps output almost reaches 100% by just pressing a single button. Right now, the only (slightly) rewarding healer to me is WHM, Misery feels better than most of what we have right now.

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Originally Posted by Arrhin

Ok, Ima start out with this, when did you start playing??!! The game has changed to be this way!! Many of us hate it too and it was done, for the most part in the name of "Balance". WHM, SCH, heck even AST used to be unique, colourful classes (jobs, whatever). Everyone bloody well askin' fer balance simplicity and this is where the devs brought us, and it's a common complaint for career healers. Healing in 2.X is not what healing is now, there was a calculated risk switching to Cleric stance and droppin some serious damage, the drop in healies was significant and although for SCH Eos did help bridge the gap it was still not done lightly unless you really knew yer tank. SCH and WHM teamed up nicely for 8 person stuffs since the potent group heals and regen on WHM complimented the strategic mitigation style of SCH. I really miss those days, even if there have been some nice qol improvements in the game overall. In the quest for balance and ease of use our favourite classes have lost their personality. To be clear I do believe there was need for balance, or at least to bring things closer in line. I do think it could have been done without such watering down. I do recognize that raid utility suffered a lot for some classes but there had to be a better way.

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I started playing in 4.0, completely unaware of what healers had lost already. Once 5.0 came, I started looking more into the complexity this game used to have, and I didn't know it's possible to miss something I never tried myself. I wish I started playing four years earlier.

Every healer is practically able to solo heal everything nowadays, it's incredibly sad. When you look at the kits, it looks like the game is designed to never let us do any damage; we have ten times more healing buttons than damage buttons. But in practice, it's ridiculously far from that.
Shoutout to everybody who said "you won't need damage spells anymore, you will be healing 90% of the time" before the expansion's release!

This forced simplicity is driving me away from the game, I wonder if 6.0 will backpedal on these changes or just merge all our attack buttons into one big button so we have to think even less.

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Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

I don’t like this at all. I play whm because it is easy compared to something like blm or rdm. I don’t want complex stuff or rotations I have to memorize. I suck at memorizing rotations and because of it I can never play a dps optimally. I prefer my simple dia, glare and holy damage. I don’t need anything else. And there are already plenty of healing tools as well, particularly lilies; I like the new abilities with lilies and it makes healing easier for me in expert dungeons and other higher level stuff. I don’t understand why people want to make things so complicated to the point where it’s no longer playable.

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Giving each healer one or two DoTs or CDs would make them a lot less boring for the more experienced players, without barring newer players from playing.
Healers who don't cast a single damage spells are plenty already, giving them more will not change a thing to them.

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Originally Posted by Evanoel

I like the ideas. Would be very difficult to balance though.

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Healers are already unbalanced as heck, it wouldn't make things worse.
Besides, they managed to add one whole new tank and rework another, and make all tanks super duper balanced for some reason.

I think that things wouldn't get any worse if they tried to shake the healer box a bit.

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Originally Posted by Ubbernaut

The BIG issue with the addition of new skills, due to SHB homogenization EVERYTHING needs to be exactly like the other thing.

All party DPS buffs are to be~ 5%, doesn't matter if one click or 4 clicks to achieve it.

All party-wide mitigation has to be 10%. No more, no less.

Because of this 'The most strict Balance in all things' approach, getting exciting and bizzare skills has become substantially less likely. As SE seemed to have taken the most boring approach to balance and that is balance by making most stuff the same.

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And healers are somehow not balanced, how can they mess balance between three classes with functionally identical spells...?
If "boringness for the sake of balance" is the way the game is heading, I'm out for good. And I don't believe I'm the only one who thinks about quitting.

This is just sad, how they blatantly ignore our feedback and stubbornly refuse to make the classes interesting.

Here are my half-baked thoughts on how to differentiate the healers while making them more fun and engaging:

WHM: Nuke all direct-healing oGCDs except for Bene. Add an oGCD that is Wildfire, but for healing - when it goes off, the raid is healed for some percentage of the amount healed on the original target. Add a short-cooldown oGCD that converts all remaining regen ticks on the target into an immediate direct heal for the same amount. Make MP management part of the class. Gets a "Euphoria" mechanic proposed elsewhere, where overhealing a target to 125% HP will give the target a damage buff and place a DoT on them. This makes all of WHM's healing output useful, and is an engaging way of buffing rDPS. A good WHM will be able to keep Euphoria rolling on the DPSers while healing through the resulting DoT and the fight damage.

SCH: Eos's DPS pet. Aetherflow is now built by dealing damage with DoTs and a proper DPS rotation, instead of being given by an oGCD. Meltdown is a DoT that boosts damage of the SCH's spells against the target. Drain will heal the closest party member to the target for a percentage of its damage (shamelessly lifted from Atonement in WoW). Adlo/Succor become Aetherflow heals and get stronger (but can no longer crit). Instead of healing, Fey Union now burns fairy gauge to give a damage boost to the target, like a dance partner or DRG tether.This makes SCH's buffing more engaging than just smashing Chain Strategem every two minutes. A good SCH will keep their DPS up so they can generate Aetherflow stacks to deal with fight damage, fill the fairy gauge, and Fey Union during burst phases.

AST: Go all-in on the time magery. Instead of shields, Noct-AST turns Aspected spells into delayed heals. Aspected Benefic/Helios under Noct puts a buff on the target that heals for big potency when it expires. Di-AST regens no longer stack with WHM regens, because allowing four regens on one target is stupid. Aspected Malefic is a DoT (Di) or a delayed damage (Noct). ty_taurus's brilliant card system replaces that...thing that AST has now. Time Dilation returns as a GCD that is the bread and butter of AST's gameplay now. Aspected spells' potency will snowball, increasing with each tick up to some limit, as long as the effect remains on the target without interruption. This limit will NOT be reached naturally during the short duration of an Aspected spell. Time Dilation extends all AST-supplied effects on the target for two or three more ticks. This keeps Di-AST regens and DoTs ticking away at their max output, and Noct-AST delayed spells gain extra potency with each tick of the buff when they eventually expire. A good AST will be able to keep damage effects rolling on the boss, big heals rolling on the tank or party, and juggle buffs on a couple of players.

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Originally Posted by Punslinger

AST: Go all-in on the time magery.

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A lot of us assume Time Mage is next, more with the removal of ShadowFlare with its slow, I would be even more disappointing if that is not the case for the loss of TD and CO.

So, I'm of two minds on this topic.

On the one-hand, I agree that a lot of healer kits feel very same-y in terms of offerings. You've got your DoT and single-target attack, your AoE attack, two ranks of single-target heal, two ranks of AoE heal, and an assortment of CDs (one of which is another attack).

On the other hand... I also understand why the kits are same-y like that. From a damage-dealing perspective, a healer's kit shouldn't necessarily be too complex in that regard, largely because their core focus isn't on dealing damage and they should avoid being distracted by a rotation when they may need to drop everything at a moment's notice to spam heals on the tank, especially when any level of complexity in their damage rotation wouldn't necessarily be rewarded with particularly high output. From a healing perspective, every healer position has basic requirements and breakpoints they need to meet/fulfill, and by allowing them to have similar basic kits, it's easier to balance them against one another and balance encounters around the assumption that each healer has the necessary tools for each curveball; meanwhile putting a "rotation" on healing also limits their ability to respond to damage output without "breaking" the rotation.

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Originally Posted by KanameYuuki

A lot of us assume Time Mage is next, more with the removal of ShadowFlare with its slow, I would be even more disappointing if that is not the case for the loss of TD and CO.

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Considering AST has Lightspeed, Gravity and Regen, still casts damage buffs on the party, and only recently lost the ability to extend its buff timers or grant specifically attack speed (the latter because literally only BLM wants it anyway), I would be severely disappointed if they went and made Time Mage, much more so as another healer competing with AST that took tools away from it, especially while there are still untapped alternative options that don't step on existing healers' toes/themes/kits.
Bear in mind that "Time Mage" is a misnomer, since the job has always been about time and space magic (shown through access to Gravity, Float, Comet/Meteor, etc), which remains the domain of the AST.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

So, I'm of two minds on this topic.

On the one-hand, I agree that a lot of healer kits feel very same-y in terms of offerings. You've got your DoT and single-target attack, your AoE attack, two ranks of single-target heal, two ranks of AoE heal, and an assortment of CDs (one of which is another attack).

On the other hand... I also understand why the kits are same-y like that. From a damage-dealing perspective, a healer's kit shouldn't necessarily be too complex in that regard, largely because their core focus isn't on dealing damage and they should avoid being distracted by a rotation when they may need to drop everything at a moment's notice to spam heals on the tank, especially when any level of complexity in their damage rotation wouldn't necessarily be rewarded with particularly high output. From a healing perspective, every healer position has basic requirements and breakpoints they need to meet/fulfill, and by allowing them to have similar basic kits, it's easier to balance them against one another and balance encounters around the assumption that each healer has the necessary tools for each curveball; meanwhile putting a "rotation" on healing also limits their ability to respond to damage output without "breaking" the rotation.

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I'd agree with that, if we actually had a lot of healing to do. But right now, it's nothing more complex than "stop spamming Glare, use a CD or maybe even a GCD if things are really dire, resume spamming Glare". It's terribly easy.

When even E4S can be solo healed, I think that healing as a whole should be reconsidered. Unless a tank decides to aggro an entire dungeon, you'll pretty much always spend more time dpsing than healing, and it only gets worse as our gear increases in level because there's even less healing to do.

We need to shake things up a bit, by giving us either more interesting tools or more things to use them on.

The following GCD actions are necessary for healers to function on a fundamental level in all content at (almost) all levels:
ST heal
AoE heal
ST damage

The fact that the majority of the above actions are the same is because there's no need for them to be different. The variance between them is the same as the difference between the first and second step combo actions among a lot of the DPS jobs. They're fundamental to the most basic function of the healer, and fundamental to the most basic solo PvE interactions. These action in themselves don't need any fancy effects, but are good candidates as stepping stones towards other job-specific mechanics.

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Passive, converts 10% of all overheal into damage on the nearest enemy (damage converted from regen overheals is halved)

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An overzealous DPS who does all they can to deal damage will be rewarded with big dps

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An overzealous healer who does all they can to keep the party at 100% health will be rewarded with... nothing. Worse than nothing.

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An overzealous DPS that do "all they can" at a bad time will be punished by lower overall DPS and efficiency. If you burn a cooldown or slam a potion right as a pack dies or right as the boss goes away, you lost a good 15-30 seconds of damage. If you drop a ST nuke on a mob with 1 HP, you're losing out on 99% of the potency in that nuke that could have gone into the next enemy. That's the punishment to promote good and smart play (- but let's be real and realize that a lot of us don't optimize these aspects). But in the end the "punishment" is lower efficiency, which outside of savage doesn't translate to an encounter loss.

General cases of overhealing should NOT be rewarded as you as a healer or you as a pair of healers are fucking it up. Having a cooldown that helps salvage overhealing is one thing. Rewarding what's in essence poor judgement and resource management is terrible. If you're overlapping heals with your partner and wasting 1300 mana then the solution is you talk with your partner and not overlap the heals.

I personally think that overhealing consequences are far too lenient now that aggro is a joke. Making it so that smashing through the upper bound of healing fuckups have no consequences or even rewards seem maddening.