Skipping Healer Slide Again?

Taking bets here, who thinks they're going to introduce something even worse and then skip the Healer slide again? Anyone?

How bad do we think it's going to be? What's the realistic take on this?

wanna just wait till you see the live letter to complain about healers.

We've been waiting all expansion, it's fair to complain at this stage.

at this point i assume they talk about sandwiches or 2 b thights again.

My bet is they will give something marketing IE talk about sage is brand new and why they made it a shield healer and maybe at a push decided why they decided to destroy the last traces of astro instead of a less destructive option but then give no useful information.

My expectations are low since at least gunbreaker got a new attack but even the tanks are still suffering. Warrior just got an aoe version of an existing skill which doesnt count since that could be a straight upgrade instead of taking a hotbar slot. Pld and Drk got nothing new.

I'm expecting another clear indication the job designers haven't a clue with an incorrect assumption on how healers function and a vision that is incompatible with the game. Something about "we think low healer numbers in shb is because of a lack of a new healer and due to the popularity of gnb" and missing the actual reason which is "shb healers are excruciatingly dull to play outside of select savage fights before ilvl catches up"

Yeah… I’m trying to hold my tongue on healers at the moment…

But I still can’t believe they are making this so difficult to make healers interesting. I like to think SE hired people that used to play a ton of different MMORPG or just games in general, to help realize that they have a golden opportunity to appeal to every playstyle considering the amount of jobs we have in this game. Healers could have easily appealed to all types of healer mains with one designated for those who only want to heal, another to those of us who like to DPS and heal and the last to those who like to buff and heal. Sage could have come in with another playstyle for healers… but here we are…

And yet, for some reason, they continue to only listen to “healers only need to heal” or “just play a DPS or something” crowd that normally doesn’t even main or play healer. I couldn’t imagine the outrage if all jobs were treated the way healers were but then again there are some people that want to see all jobs dumb down into something mindless…

But I’ll just wait to see if I’ll even bother to level a healer, outside of SCH (only because it’s tied to SMN), this expansion.

LL healer slide (i'm guessing one whole slide between all three existing classes, and maybe sage will get it's previous two slides from it's announcement out to reheat!) probably be as reductive as usual, since it's not like real humans or anyone on the devteam plays healers by choice right?

Skipping the healer slide again is practically a guarantee at this point. I'm not sure how it could get worse than that.

Only ways it could be worse is if there was no healer slide in the first place this year, they admit that they have no fucking idea what they are doing with healers and winging it, or they go in the complete opposite direction the community has been wanting and remove even more of the DPS kits somehow.

Also.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

wanna just wait till you see the live letter to complain about healers.

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+ They said they weren't going to add a new healer cuz they're gonna balance out the current healers, just wait and see.

+ They only skipped over the slide, just wait and see until the expansion launch.

+ They just release an expac, healers are always borked on expac release, just wait and see.

+ I'm sure they'll patch it eventually, just wait and see.

+ They're bound to patch it for this second raid tier, just wait and see.

+ It's too late for a rework this expac, just wait and see and I'm sure they'll fix it next expac. (You Are Here)

+ So what if the live letter wasn't promising, I'm sure the job action trailer will show good things.

+ They just release an expac, healers are always borked on expac release, just wait and see.

Repeat and rhyme as necessary.


I've been "Waiting and seeing" for two years at this point and I don't see a shred of these healer changes I've been told to wait and see for. I only see the opposite, in fact, with the crap they've pulled with scholar and the promise to gut YET ANOTHER part of AST's lore form its job kit.

Should we start a petition for Energy Drain now or wait until it's gone again?

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Should we start a petition for Energy Drain now or wait until it's gone again?

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Might as well get ahead of the curve.

Considering the new job is a healer, I doubt they could skip it even if they wanted to, but at the same time I don't expect to hear anything we didn't already know

I still don't see what the complaints are about healers, and I've been playing one since 3.2.

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

I still don't see what the complaints are about healers, and I've been playing one since 3.2.

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Boring monotone gameplay were if you optimize you are rewarded with pressing the 1 key more, clunky as hell white mage, neutering of the cards and fairy ai/skill (don’t forget ghosting).I mean if you didn’t feel these changes I have no clue what healer role you did play

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Originally Posted by Mortex

Boring monotone gameplay were if you optimize you are rewarded with pressing the 1 key more, clunky as hell white mage, neutering of the cards and fairy ai/skill (don’t forget ghosting).I mean if you didn’t feel these changes I have no clue what healer role you did play

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My WHM and SCH are both 80. I don't really play SCH but I do play WHM and I honestly don't see the issue. I always play with random players so I never know what to expect with each group. Sounds like complaints from statics. You also admitted to causing the problems yourself in this post.

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

My WHM and SCH are both 80. I don't really play SCH but I do play WHM and I honestly don't see the issue. I always play with random players so I never know what to expect with each group. Sounds like complaints from statics. You also admitted to causing the problems yourself in this post.

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Yes but causing the problem myself because I wanna play the job better sounds already so dumb. And even in random groups fights are boring as hell as healer you either have a healer who doesn’t heal or heals that spam heal when the party has lost 1 % hp. Also I don’t find it fun to scratch the same player of the ground who dies too all mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

I still don't see what the complaints are about healers, and I've been playing one since 3.2.

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Here, maybe this other thread with will enlighten you. This is the majority of just the shb changes btw, when there's more changes/nerfs from stormblood that are still outstanding
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-healer-issues

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

I still don't see what the complaints are about healers, and I've been playing one since 3.2.

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Mainly 1 button spam the vast majority of the time as there isn't much to heal in almost any content (only TEA P1 and P2 comes to mind as something that actually requires healing) + a lot of the healer mechanics have been dumbed down and changed for the worse like Sch fairies for example or just plain clunky and uninteresting

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

My WHM and SCH are both 80. I don't really play SCH but I do play WHM and I honestly don't see the issue. I always play with random players so I never know what to expect with each group. Sounds like complaints from statics. You also admitted to causing the problems yourself in this post.

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Playing well isn't a problem and has nothing to do with statics or randoms. Good players are good players.
It makes existing problems more apparent because casually playing something isn't a good benchmark for whether a class is well designed or not. Healers function. That's not the same as being well designed or having interesting gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

Playing well isn't a problem and has nothing to do with statics or randoms. Good players are good players.
It makes existing problems more apparent because casually playing something isn't a good benchmark for whether a class is well designed or not. Healers function. That's not the same as being well designed or having interesting gameplay.

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I always hate thus arguement. "They function fine, what's the issue?"

I hate hate hate HATE that arguement, as if the same thing was done to us as DPS, the whole game would be shut down and there would be profuse apology statements, and massive overtime and overhaul to fix it, and a huge PR train to announce it.

With Healers, we get Jack SHIT and zero care.

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Originally Posted by FoxCh40s

I always hate thus arguement. "They function fine, what's the issue?"

I hate hate hate HATE that arguement, as if the same thing was done to us as DPS, the whole game would be shut down and there would be profuse apology statements, and massive overtime and overhaul to fix it, and a huge PR train to announce it.

With Healers, we get Jack SHIT and zero care.

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The argument is even worse considering even dps jobs (namely MCH and MNK) have had cases where they're good in numbers but the jobs themselves just feel 'blegh' to play, and even then hesitated to give them overhauls, controversial as they'd be, because they were "fine as is"

That said, I think now more than ever they've gotten the most negative feedback regarding healers so maybe, hopefully, finally, they get acknowledged and addressed.

I'm not getting my hopes up. I would love to be surprised, though. Make me excited to play healer again!

What bet ?

We already know the answer.

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Originally Posted by Allegor

The argument is even worse considering even dps jobs (namely MCH and MNK) have had cases where they're good in numbers but the jobs themselves just feel 'blegh' to play, and even then hesitated to give them overhauls, controversial as they'd be, because they were "fine as is"

That said, I think now more than ever they've gotten the most negative feedback regarding healers so maybe, hopefully, finally, they get acknowledged and addressed.

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The Problem is they at least try to fix these somehow and yes maybe they didn’t do a good job but they still did try. Healer are just not getting touched. Like they made absolutely bad Lily’s into something you can use and that was badly necessary that being the only change the entire time. Sch got fluffed really hard 1 fairy ai being dumb as bricks and the ghosting and then the audacity too take away energy drain when it was clear that you don’t even need the stacks for healing in 90 % of the content. They killed astros job thematic when they had so much possibility’s too build on that (like saving heals in a time loop so you can use them when you need it like horoscope but also with single heals and card buffs maybe). And yes the also have no clue what too do with monk since 3 expansions

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Originally Posted by AngeliouxRein

And yet, for some reason, they continue to only listen to “healers only need to heal” or “just play a DPS or something” crowd that normally doesn’t even main or play healer. I couldn’t imagine the outrage if all jobs were treated the way healers were but then again there are some people that want to see all jobs dumb down into something mindless…

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It's more their emphasis on accessibility at all difficulty levels simply doesn't work with healers because the better you become the less rewarded you are. They're at a point where they have to accept this and allow for there to be a skill gap. Unfortunately, I suspect they'll stubbornly cling to the belief healers should focus more on healer despite it being practically non-existent. Our only saving grace is Shadowbringers actually saw casual players complaining about being bored. It might wake them up to the flaw in their design philosophy. But at the same time, Monk has ignored for six years because someone on the job design team just can't let go of a design nobody likes.

I really hope they don't, but I'm so pessimistic about the state of healers in the game that I am expecting disappointment. I can see potential in the slithers of information we've got, but I also can see what direction that might go in too, where it's more-or-less the same problems we have now.

My wish:
Splitting out healers into "shield" and "pure" healer concepts allows them to address a balance issue that's existed since Heavensward by applying a concept that worked well in 2.0 and building an evolution on that for current day content. A situation where Scholar only needs to be balanced against Sage and White Mage against Astrologian and this then gives room for more interesting forms of gameplay for healers because now it's easier to balance, because before SCH had to be balanced against WHM, Di Ast and Noct AST and the same principle across all healers. And the removal of Nocturnal Sect not only accommodates this balance, but allows AST to grow its own identity more as a healer, rather than fulfilling "WHM mode" and "SCH mode" mentalities. The stat crunch they're also doing helps address some of this balance where maybe healers don't feel like they're spending 80% of a dungeon DPSing.

My expectation:
The distinction of "Shield" and "Pure" healer is superficial and only makes a difference at high-end content. They'll make us heal more for high end content but all other content remains the same dull repetitive and uninspiring experience. My basis of this assumption is partly founded in that they still consider Scholar a "shield" healer, when it is far more dependent on oGCD's than it is on shields. Its priority for shields is low when it used to be high and felt like its own healing style. I expect this design philosophy to carry over on Sage, which will at least have the novelty of being new and fresh. Sage will be an adaptation of Noct Sect. AST's sacrifice means it gets closer and closer to being like WHM. They'll try to get rid of Energy Drain again.

I end up saying "I'm maining DNC" again, the later switch to being a semi-healer main again so me and a friend who also hates the states of healing can tag team, so one of us is a healer and the other DPS and swap out.

I also predict that we get the repeat of "wait and see" every time wee hit a goalpost. Granted at this stage, it is kinda valid but at the same time, you can get the pessimism. But once we do know what we're getting, I don't find it applies.

The whole "shield healer" and "pure/regen healer" announcement already destroyed any hopes i had for any decent healer changes.

Squeenix isnt going to reinvent the wheel on Healers with those changes. They should focus more on individuality on Jobs, rather than category everything.

Mark my words, before we know it, they will pull off this stunt on tanks next.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

The whole "shield healer" and "pure/regen healer" announcement already destroyed any hopes i had for any decent healer changes.

Squeenix isnt going to reinvent the wheel on Healers with those changes. They should focus more on individuality on Jobs, rather than category everything.

Mark my words, before we know it, they will pull off this stunt on tanks next.

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I don't think necessarily a "reinvent the wheel" but an attempt to return to a design philosophy that used to work quite well in this game. During 2.0 the shield and pure healing had a dichotomy and complemented each other well with SCH's shield healing still working fine in solo heal set ups, but due to shield stacking not being a thing the only problems really occurred in a SCH/SCH set up, which still worked, but weren't ideal. AST was then design to fit into that dichotomy with WHM and SCH modes, but it became a mess to balance and in them improving SCH's pure healing they've gradually made this whole thing not work as it should and it's a mess, especially as SCH became OP and AST treaded on WHM's toes a lot.

Their direction since has seemed to favour the idea of having healer jobs be more rounded. I think they could then take it in a direction where all healing jobs are well rounded and embrace other parts of their identity, so WHM could be designed to feel strong and powerful, SCH could be designed to feel tactical and AST to feel technical. But they failed to take that opportunity in ShB and just made them 'eh' with their identities feeling watered down.

My biggest worry is that it's going to be a mix of both. They're going to try and return to this time where healer dichotomy was a thing because they know that worked but not be willing to give shield healers more dependence on their shields...which will mean said dichotomy won't work.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

We've been waiting all expansion, it's fair to complain at this stage.

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lol as if the development team would just drop everything and completely redesign all three healers mid-expansion, give me a break XD

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

lol as if the development team would just drop everything and completely redesign all three healers mid-expansion, give me a break XD

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No but what they can do:

Acknowledged the issues and there's 3 simple ways they could have addressed that:
- "We are aware of the complaints, however we will not be making any changes to this effect because they are working as we intended them"
- "We are aware of the complaints, we will look into them for you, please bear with us"
- "we are aware of the complaints, we hear you and we will resolve them but please appreciate that it takes time".

Make QoL patches to hold us over EG: NIN and SMN got them in 5.1. MNK got some later on. In many of these threads people have made suggestions that could be implements in a patch rather than be a redesign just to hold us over. And heck they could undo some of the changes they've made, they could have given SCH back some of the DPS spells it lost (Miasma, Bane, Shadowflare), then give WHM Aero III back to compensate SCH sudden increase in DPS (and gives WHM another ability to use in their downtime again) and maybe then give AST boots to cards so their damage increased feel a little more significant, because AST is in a position where it has more to do in its downtime. They're some small things, but they still make a difference in breaking up the monotony. And add other QoL stuff and it might be better.

And they could also have tuned newer content better for healers, stuff that was in the works so that they are healing more. It'd have helped.

When's the live letter again?

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Originally Posted by Imora

When's the live letter again?

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18th or 19th depending on your timezone

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

18th or 19th depending on your timezone

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Ah, gotcha. In Europe. I probably will just look at a rundown after the fact.

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Originally Posted by Imora

Ah, gotcha. In Europe. I probably will just look at a rundown after the fact.

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i believe here in europe we're gonna wake up as its finished

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

i believe here in europe we're gonna wake up as its finished

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Cool can’t wait the ruin my entire work day by looking at the live letter on my way too
Work.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

wanna just wait till you see the live letter to complain about healers.

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Top Kek right here.

I've been playing the 'Wait and See' game since 2016. Not falling for it again, gonna keep complaining.

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Originally Posted by Videra

Top Kek right here.

I've been playing the 'Wait and See' game since 2016. Not falling for it again, gonna keep complaining.

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it went "dont complain until the fanfest preview players tell their impressions" -> "dont complain until it's live (those guys dont count)" -> "it's awlays a big change at release, give it till X.1's balance changes" -> "well we cant change it now X.2 is the raid patch and big sweeping changes would upset th raiding playerbase" -> "it's X.3, it's too late for any big changes, just wait for the next xpac" -> and here we are again, probably with no early real gameplay previews due to covid restricting the usual fanfest interactions and showcases.

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Originally Posted by FoxCh40s

Taking bets here, who thinks they're going to introduce something even worse and then skip the Healer slide again? Anyone?

How bad do we think it's going to be? What's the realistic take on this?

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I expect as much; so long as Yoshi has his hands on healers they're going to continue to get worse and worse. I have no faith in his 'vision' for healing after 5.0.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

18th or 19th depending on your timezone

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It's actually the 17th at 10PM Pacific, 18th at 11am JST (GMT +9)

I'd just like to see the healing load increased substantially. If you want me as pure heals then make me heal. The damage incurred to the party in most content is just weaksauce, and they wonder why we stand there one button spamming our single AoE attack? It's because if we didn't we'd just be standing, watching, not helping, hands in pockets, maybe fixing my hair idk..

Give.
Me.
Something.
To.
Do.

OTHERTHANDPS

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Originally Posted by Arrhin

I'd just like to see the healing load increased substantially. If you want me as pure heals then make me heal. The damage incurred to the party in most content is just weaksauce, and they wonder why we stand there one button spamming our single AoE attack? It's because if we didn't we'd just be standing, watching, not helping, hands in pockets, maybe fixing my hair idk..

Give.
Me.
Something.
To.
Do.

OTHERTHANDPS

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Sadly, it will never happen, because that would make the game mildly challenging to new people, and we can't have that, can we?