Playing as an Astro since the Heavensward expansion, seeing this beautiful class complex card system getting butchered and the class becoming a White Mage clone on the next expansion, made me think a lot about the state of healing and its problems.
A special question came to mind... "what made astrologian so fun for me to play?".
Well, the awnser was easy. I was a healer, I liked to heal, but even so, that wasn\\'t enough. Turns out that healing is not enough for a healer to have fun, since, this is exactly what we are doing right now. Just healing and our 2 button dps still feels like we can get no satisfaction from it. Even expanding our dps rotation, solely, would not get rid of that feel still.
Buffs, not dots, seems to be the awnser. Think about it!
Why is a class like dancer so popular and fun to play? One of its features is that funny mini game that they have, that buff allies.
The entire identity of healers is support. Why not base their design to be flexible between those two?
They had it with astro, until they got rid of it.
Like old Astro cards, there was one who recovered mana or stamina. Right now in the game, even as a melee class, we have a mana bar, that as a monk, we don\\'t even use. Why not make the classes rely more on each other? Some healers are thankful for Mantra (which increases healing potency)
Why not make it so they also rely on their healers more for their mana and not only dps boost? Replace the "mana" bar for a stamina bar for those classes who don\\'t use it.
As healers we want to feel useful and, in my opinion, a huge part of the fun was to manage and help in whatever you can.
I kind of not agree with the direction in which this game is going, making each class more and more selfish and solely focusing on damage and less on utility. A middle ground should be found.
What are your thoughts on this?
Optional, yet better solution for Healing roles
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10-01-2021, 02:25 PMLanFangHuaOptional, yet better solution for Healing roles
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10-01-2021, 02:47 PMGarnix
Creating dependency between players for MP management is basically the same thing as the synergy that we had in the party for enmity management before Shadowbringers.
They won't go back to this type of design.
Regarding "Buffs, not dots, seems to be the awnser."
I agree and disagree. I personally think they should diversify healers a bit on this aspect.
I don't know, they could have one healer focus on direct damages, one focus on DoTs, one focus on buffs, and one focus on a DPS resource management or something like that.
As I said in another thread, one of the main issues with healer is that they all have Glare and Dia as filler spells. If you give them all a second dia, it doesn't make anything better IMO. -
10-01-2021, 03:58 PMBooPooYes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Garnix
10000000chaaarss -
10-01-2021, 04:17 PMGemina
I think that it is quite commonplace for someone's "solution" to healing is to go back in time. I get it. You enjoyed AST back then, and I think it is always easier to recall the positive especially when nostalgia comes in. If you turn over some mental stones though, you might recall that there were a TON of problems with healing back then. The gripes were non stop, and it was late in SB that the devs told us they were looking into healing. AST was crazy broken back then. This wasn't because of their cards per se, but because of their utility. AST back then quite possibly had more utility by itself than all of the current jobs in ShB combined.
I think from their perspective they did fix/balance healers. They intentionally made healer DPS the way it is. I have no doubt that they encourage healers to contribute to the damage pool, but they want healers focused on repairing damage. I am quite positive that when healers tunnel vision, or leave dead players on the floor, it drives these guys nuts. It could even be possible that players doing that yesteryear is what lead to healer DPS as is today.
My question for you is, if a huge part of the fun was to help with whatever you can, then what's the problem? There is nothing stopping you from doing that now. Losing job synergy was this dev team's response to players having particular compositions in endgame, and they want all jobs to be relevant. In order to do that, they all have to have selfish mechanics with their skills and a certain amount of homogenization within their respective roles.
In close, I feel we ARE on the middle ground. The game, generally speaking is put together quite well, and it is very enjoyable to play in the various content it offers the playerbase. But there are areas to improve, and this is a good thing; as this team should always be aiming to improve the game. However, their idea of improving the game is not by going backwards. They have other aspirations. -
10-01-2021, 05:54 PMGrimGaleIf that's the case then its a horrible solution.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gemina
"SOME healers tunnelvision, therefore we should make ALL healers pay for that."
They would never approach "ice" mages that way, they would not approach floor dragoons that way.
DPS get constant reworks to streamline and maximize their engagement. (Arguably I know, but at least they give them attention), while healers and maybe tanks see their kits dumbed down to their barebone buttons.
They want us focused on healing damage and yet they barely give us damage to heal. -
10-01-2021, 07:13 PMNobleWinter
Im not understanding what you mean by middle ground. What exactly are healers in the middle of? Did we have extreme dps rotations before and now we're halfway between that and no dps at all? We currently have healing kits bloated beyond belief but having tools to prevent wipes and deaths doesn't automatically make anyone a better healer or cause tunnel vision to cease. Duty Finder abounds with healers completely clueless how to use their kits and willfully using them wrong even after all the helpful tips you could possibly offer. The state of healers and the gradual transition of skills doesn't seem like any kind of middle ground so much as a general dumbing down. Healer dps is easier than ever. Instant burst healing options are available to every healer too. Its just all around easier, but it definitely doesn't address the general lack of skill, effort, or attention from the player base. The one thing we need more than anything is grades or ratings at the end of duties to gauge performance. If a healer who stands around doing nothing until they need to heal got an F rating for participating in a duty they would know that more is required of them. If leaving people dead for extended amounts of time affected our healer rating more people would hardcast a revive. If managing MP well part of the rating Lucid Dreaming would be pressed on cooldown by anyone trying to get better scores. Maybe tie Achivements, Minions, and Mounts to high acores to encourage better play. A lot of people claim to be great players because they complete duties but without any kind of feedback bad players will always be bad players no matter what happens to the toolkit.
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10-01-2021, 08:08 PMAword3213is it "pay" ,or rather, punishment if the current dps contribution from the healers meets the desired goal set by developers?Quote:
Originally Posted by GrimGale
Let's say they want healers to contribute 20% of total dps in a fight. They can either make healers do dps rotations to achieve that, or give healers that 1 button spam to meet the same goal. I definitely prefer the former, and I believe most people here in this forum would choose the same. Unfortunately, the developers chose the latter. Maybe developers don't see it as punishment, but as a reward for having to heal the party.
The problem I have when I see threads complaining about jobs are not about reasons, because I agree with them mostly, but the perspectives of view. Like many people want SE to fix WHM, SCH, DRK, etc. However, if a job is working as intended, then apparently there's nothing for developers to fix. Is it punishment if it was designed as a reward? I know some people like 1 button spam because they can still contribute sufficient dps without worrying about rotations. I think our complaints about jobs are no longer about the kits themselves anymore, but the perspective of how the roles should be played. -
10-01-2021, 08:16 PMMisutoraruHave my supportQuote:
Originally Posted by LanFangHua
AST is the first Heal role I am interest in, have it go through MSQ from HW to SB, i enjoy my ability to buff teammate, managing my MP.
HW AST is definitely the most enjoyable AST I have ever play. I don’t care if they add more dps skill on SCH. But out identity as AST have been the ability to buff our teammate when we first introduce to FFXIV -
10-01-2021, 08:39 PMSebazy
I keep suggesting this repeatedly. Diversifying the jobs within the role makes so much sense to appease the different angles various people want healers to go in and it fits right in with the lore and history of the jobs. IMO the big holdup is that SE are somewhere between being unwilling or unable to put the time and effort into implementing and tuning something like this. Healers have historically been rushed with far too little testing and tuning done for expansions and I’ll be surprised if Endwalker changes that (Sadge allowing).
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10-01-2021, 08:50 PMGrimGaleDevs have given themselves enough design space to allow almost anything, considering the healing requirements for most content.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aword3213
How healers should be played is a matter of optimization and common sense based on the system the devs have made. It's not a matter of capricious gamers wanting to enforce some sort of imperative dps model they have just made up.
I agree that meta and number crunching can be detrimental to "fun".
But the opposite is also true. If your abilities become so tediously inconsequential that you barely need them or barely feel the need to use them, that also kills the fantasy of a role or a class.
We healers want to feel useful. We want to feel like our position matters. We want the other players to acknowledge our contribution, something that is becoming rarer in this particular role as the importance of healing and support keeps getting diminished so to allow anybody an easy access.
One button spam is just the consequence of this need for ease of access. I don't think devs want healers to focus on healing.
I think they just want them to be easy. -
10-01-2021, 10:00 PMGeminaThat comment is not to be taken as official. That's just my own personal view formulated from my observations while playing with other healers. I don't believe SE wants to punish their healers, but they also don't want other players to suffer due to the negligence of the game's healers. Healers are responsible for contributing to the DPS pool, but they are not DPS jobs and SE cannot approach them the same way. They have a primary responsibility to cleanse, heal, and raise fallen players, and it is no doubt a challenging task to design healing in a way that allows them to do damage, but also be paying attention to their comrades. The decision to simplify DPS skills for healers was not to cause them misery, and we need to stop thinking that way. For that, I would like to withdraw that statement. It was not meant to make you feel punished.Quote:
Originally Posted by GrimGale
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10-01-2021, 10:32 PMRaikai
It would be nice if we had options to begin with... For example, I don't mind AST's dps rotation because the cards "minigame" is already fulfilling in regards something else to do, and it adds to the dps by buffing others. So, I'd love if they had, let's say, WHM and SGE reaching that "healer dps quota" by just having more complex dps rotations. AST and SCH reaching that quota by buffing its allies and debuffing the enemy respectively while keeping simple dps buttons... Of course the latter would need to have some kind of makeover to make this debuffing process as interesting as Cards.
And paying attention to the encounter mechanics which is already a huge deal, especially on Savage and above. Healers have the most difficult job there because they need to complete the encounter mechanics for everyone's survival, not just their own (like DPS and Tanks by some extent). On top of that, keep up with the healing, rezzing and optimizing their dps.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gemina
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10-01-2021, 10:38 PMIrenia
Yeah, I don't think they wanted to punish good play either, it's just the natural consequence of them following all their other goals.
I just wish more consideration was given to healer gameplay for those who aim high and those in groups who aim high. But perhaps making sure that the player base perceiving healers as 'healing' is more important... -
10-02-2021, 12:36 AMty_taurusIt's hard to express in words how much I hate bringing up tunnel-visioning healers as an arguement in any capacity when talking about design. With how much people bring up anecdotal stories of this one time 4 months ago when a healer didn't heal the tank in time and they wiped once during an expert roulette, one might start thinking that this was a serious issue that was destroying the FFXIV experience, yet it's not. I've dropped healing as of Shadowbringers and I can count the amount of times I've wiped in a dungeon because the healer forgot to heal on one hand in the last 2 years. And you know what happened in each of those experiences? They said "my bad" and we finished the dungeon like any other afterward. People make mistakes sometimes, and that's going to happen whether healers have greater depth in their DPS tools or not. It's not because we have DPS and balancing to prevent those rare and anecdotal scenarios is a one-way ticket to destroying any game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gemina
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10-02-2021, 01:49 AMQooErTanks and DPS also have party dependent skills that require some sort of situational awareness (tbn, aetherial manip, verraise, even addle/feint) and yet theyre allowed to have a rotation that consists of more than one button.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raikai
There are any mechanics in savage and above where anyone's failure = wipe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raikai
"Keeping up with healing/rezzing" stops being an issue past prog. And theres not much room for optimizing dps if all you have is one spam button. its literally just keeping the gcd rollingQuote:
Originally Posted by Raikai
Healers dont have the most difficult job, if anything its the easiest by far because most fights do so little damage so sporadically that you can get by simply throwing an aoe heal as soon as a mechanic happens -
10-02-2021, 03:52 AMGeminaIt's not just one time in a random dungeon, 4 months ago. One player's experience can't dictate job design for the entire player base. I can easily counter your argument with my own experience because I see healers doing damage when they should be healing all the time. Its not a reason to tar and feather those healers. It's an honest mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. Furthermore, most healers will admit to tunnel visioning from time to time, and attribute it to boredom, so it's far from a strawman argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
So is boredom reason enough to change things up? No, it's not. Because healing isn't the only thing healers have to pay attention to. They also have mechanics to deal with. But if mechanics are keeping you engaged, then you shouldn't be getting bored. And if you're so good at the game that you're bored in current EX, savage, and finally ultimate then I honestly don't know what to tell you. Thats pretty exceptional, and once again cannot dictate how all content is designed.
In short, boredom isn't a strong enough or a compelling counter argument to tunnel-vision reasoning by the devs. There are no numbers that represent bored healers, but there are numbers the devs see when players are not getting healed, cleansed, and resurrected. It's self-defeating, unfortunately.
I find that it is more rational to use fairness when it comes to creating engaging kits for healers. If players feel like they are not receiving equal treatment when it comes to their design and making things more fun as other jobs and roles, I believe that makes a far more compelling case for the devs to look at. -
10-02-2021, 04:50 AMAveraxTBH, i really don't understand the people who's idea of enthralling healer dps is simply to add more dots to it. Applying and maintaining dots has never been engaging gameplay for me. It's different if they proc something more exciting to use.Quote:
Originally Posted by Garnix
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10-02-2021, 04:57 AMAcece
I'm really not one for giving buffs to all healers because I feel like that cuts into astro's identity a little too much, and if it's buffs that isn't just straight dps then I feel like we would be taking physical ranged dps thing. I think every healer should have it's own offensive style. ast it's buffs, whm it would be self buffs and burst, sch would be debuffs and dots, and sage it should be it's interaction between its heals and dps. I also hate relying on other people for my damage.
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10-02-2021, 04:58 AMMelorieThis. I'm so tired of this. Every time I come into this forum it's the same "BUT WHAT IF HEALERS ARE DPSING INSTEAD OF HEALING AAA??"... There are DPS out there not doing their rotation, or tanks that don't use their cooldowns, it sometimes happens, some people play the game badly, or sometimes they do mistakes and forget to do something they should - doesn't really mean that it's a good excuse to keep pushing us into a AoE heal > burst heal > glare&dia forever and forever till the keycap 1 in your keyboard breaks. The mental gymnastics people do to defend this is amusing.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
Besides, everyone has to do mechanics. If anything, I would say that most fights aren't that mechanic heavy on healers? I'm not saying that healing doesn't have its own sort of pressure - but acting like it deserves to be treated as a three-button class just because you have to do the stuff that everyone else does... *sigh*. -
10-02-2021, 07:05 AMBooPooThis so much this. Instead of degrading this game into Wow, let's just give healers their own, unique, offensive playstyles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Acece
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10-02-2021, 08:41 AMAbsurdity
In regards to the tunnel-vision argument.
For every single wipe that I've had because a healer was dpsing instead of healing I have also had a wipe where the healer was doing nothing else but heal, except the only heals they were using was Cure (or the equally useless equivalent on AST & SCH) and Medica 2.
What do we do about that? Reduce the amount of heal spells to "big single-target heal" and "big aoe heal" so those types of players can't tunnel-vision the wrong spells? Make healers auto cast because some people can't be bothered to use more than 2 buttons? -
10-02-2021, 09:09 AMty_taurusYou're not being extreme enough. We clearly need to just make enemies not do any damage at all. People don't like even considering the chance that a wipe can happen in a game, so if we make it so that enemies can't actually KO your party, then we eliminate the problem at its root.Quote:
Originally Posted by Absurdity
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10-02-2021, 10:21 AMGeminaThat's fine. You can feel however you want to feel. There's a couple of problems with that though. The first is if you think just because you disagree with an argument it automatically invalidates it. The second is when your emotions prevent you from seeing where the other person is coming from.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melorie
I get tired of things too. Such as players pining for 3.x gameplay to return; players who trivialize content and echo the words of others instead of formulating their own arguments. However, I understand that my feelings don't invalidate their arguments, nor do I dismiss them. I am among the frustrated healers out there wanting more engaging gameplay, and find things like what happened with SCH at the LL totally unacceptable. I also understand the complexity this entails. It's very easy to say tanks and DPS have to deal with mechanics too, so WTF? Again, even though I recognize this argument as dismissive, I also understand that it is 100% accurate. So my rebuttal is while this is true, tanks and DPS don't have to deal with mechanics while also correcting the mistakes others make dealing with those same mechanics. Healing is easy, until it isn't.
I also tire of the "2-button rotation" argument. Good lord has that argument been used over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over. To the point where I just say, "Don't like it, then play something else." This does not invalidate though. I understand that with encounter design the way it is, this dev team needs to figure out how to keep healers engaged as players out-gear the content. It is not fun to sit there smashing one button. Not one freakin bit. But don't give me more DoTs. For the love of all that is holy please do not give me more DoTs. -
10-02-2021, 11:50 AMItMeQuote:
Originally Posted by Averax
Same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gemina
I don't understand the fascination with DoTs.
If they're gonna give us a button we push occasionally, instead of a move you push relatively thoughtlessly I'd prefer one you push contextually. -
10-02-2021, 01:57 PMLanFangHua
You actually have a point. That would give each healer its identity and so to say "mastery" in different types of content.
Excellent! -
10-02-2021, 02:13 PMLanFangHuaEach healer having its own offensive style it's pretty much what I was heading towards with my post. Poorly explained, but you got it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Acece
On the other hand, I understand people like you who don't like to rely on others for damage, but that's not what was meant.
A buff should be a tiny push, nothing else. I feel like this game for being called an mmorpgs, offers to little to it, to the point that people have more interaction outside of the gameplay mechanics itself (role-playing, socializing, story talking, Ect...)
One of the things we underestimate and make us feel good is to feel the synergy. The connection to others and accomplishments as a team.
I also understand that others do not like that, but I mean, that's one of the reasons why the trust system was implemented for.
The thing is, I noticed a disconnect in classes on each expansion. Some skills that are supportive and cover each other weaknesses.
They deleted a lot of cool skills that some might call "gimmicks", but I found them to be very fun and interesting. But you know, after all the stuff they removed, "SLEEP" is still there. This is why I find so confusing the direction in which the development is going. -
10-02-2021, 03:46 PMty_taurusI agree with healers having different offensive playstyles. Some of us want to be green DPS and push the boundaries of our ability to keep the GCD offensive. Others wish the healers never had to DPS at all. There are boundless ways we can approach this issue if we were willing to let each healer play differently to one-another, and as long as the numbers add up, there's no reason it couldn't be balanced either.Quote:
Originally Posted by LanFangHua
For example, I'd further define pure healers as more passive healers that contribute to RDPS through more indirect methods while barrier healers focus more on DPS methods.
WHM: Moderate DPSer with burst damage gated behind properly used GCD healing
- Essentially, we want Afflatus Misery to be more advantageous than Glare spam and make lily generation and usage more involved to reward proactive healing. I'd add a little more direct DPS options, but the goal is that you'd want to prioritize GCD healing over DPS and be the party's main healer as much as possible.
AST: Low DPSer that focuses on dealing damage while healing and GCD buffs.
- AST doesn't actually suffer from the same healing downtime issues as WHM and SCH because of how frequently you're weaving in card actions. That said, though, I think there's a greater opportunity to make AST appeal more to players who would prefer to not DPS as much if at all. I imagine you'd at least want to keep your Combust DoT up, but I'd refocus cards to be more consistent utility buffs while redirecting damage buffs onto the GCD, only instead of % buffs, you instead have ways to heal or support while applying stacks of "Light Arrows" to your party. When an ally uses Spells or Weaponskills, a Light Arrow stack on them is consumed, dealing a 100 potency attack to the first target they hit based on you. This makes buffing more consistent and not dependent on that ally's job. They also already have actions like Earthly Star and this new "Starshower" ability that do DPS while also healing. I'd want to make it so that Malefic is largely for soloing purposes when you place Light Arrows on yourself, but you'd otherwise want to avoid it in raid situations most of the time.
SCH: High DPSer that focuses on DoT management and gauge management to maximize DPS uptime
- I'd like to see Scholar return to being a hyper-offensive healer that not only has some of its DoT potential restored, but also have its DPS tools reworked to have more meaningful interactions with one-another. I'd repurpose the Fey Gauge to be your main source of healing--buffing the faerie, make Eos all about burst healing while Selene focuses on debuff utility and Fey Gauge generation--and repurposing Aetherflow to be more for offensive purposes. You want to manage your Fey Gauge to enable you to rely on your powerful OGCD healing so that you don't need to stop DPSing. Unlike the WHM and AST, your GCD healing causes your DPS to grind to a halt, so you want to avoid it outside of niche or dire circumstances.
SGE: High DSPer that heals by doing damage.
- We'll want to see its full kit come the media tour, but so far this is looking to be a really solid addition to the healer roster. I definitely feel like they were playing it more safe with SGE's DPS options, but perhaps if the Sage maintains a strong playerbase throughout the expansion, the dev team will see that we want healers that have more meaningful GCD usages. -
10-03-2021, 02:28 AMGrimGale
There is so much goddam design space.
--------------------------------Personal DPS---------------------------------------
WHM <----------------------------------------------------------------------->SGE
Regen Healer--------------------------+------------------------------ Shield Healer
AST<-------------------------------------------------------------------------->SCH
-----------------------------------Raid DPS----------------------------------------- -
10-03-2021, 02:59 PMMelorieI'm not here to validate or invalidate your argument. You can have your own opinion regarding things, and I can simply think that you're wrong. For some things, there's no need to be a lengthy discussion in which we consider all point of views - we can just disagree. At the end of the day, this is just a game forum, and it doesn't really matter what you think about my own thoughts and vice-versa. Sometimes we literally just want to vent about things, it's not deeper than that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gemina
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10-03-2021, 05:29 PMHurricanNeither do I.Quote:
Originally Posted by ItMe
Managing dots is also a mindless task once you get used to it -
10-03-2021, 11:13 PMGrimGale
I honestly think Weaving tools are the way to go. The ability to both heal and damage effectively by smartly using abilities into each other is what makes healing most satisfying. Weave buffs with healing or damage. Weave Debuffs or attacks into damage. Weave healing with a buff.
The current approach seems to favour this kind of approach, and I would love them to expand on it, honestly. I wish we had more damage tools to weave in of course, something we can always use to cast in between heals or damage. Not something that becomes useful or available once ever three minutes for a minuscule spike of usefulness.
That is why sub-identities would make things better. We have AST as a buffer. The cards are oGCDs which allows the weaving of buffs into both healing and damage spells. It's great (Althought I'd love them to expand on that too, I still think we cast Malefic too often.)
WHM should be weaving damage as often as SGE would. SCH should be weaving in debuffs as often as AST would. They all have secondary identities that are barely expanded upon and its such a waste considering they are all distinct and unique enough to counter the homogenization of their healing spells. -
10-03-2021, 11:53 PMty_taurusOnce upon a time, SCH actually had quite a few debuffs that weren't just DoTs, because yeah, SCH had 7 DoTs in the beginning, but they also applied a bunch of other debuffs as well:Quote:
Originally Posted by GrimGale
- Miasma and Miasma II would inflict Disease which reduced the amount of healing enemies received. Didn't matter much, but there were bosses that had regen mechanics like Garuda EX.
- Ruin II would inflict Blind that would cause auto attacks to miss.
- Shadowflare also applied Slow to all enemies in its radius.
- Virus was an OGCD debuff that reduced the enemy's Strength and Dexterity--this was basically moved to Feint on melee DPS.
- Eye for an Eye was an OGCD buff you'd place on an ally that had a 20% chance to reflect a damage dealt reduction debuff onto enemies that attacked them.
- Ruin naturally applied Heavy on enemies that slowed their movementspeed. Also very situational but super helpful against very specific bosses like A3S.
- Selene had Silent Dusk which inflicted Silence. Almost useless, except Silence wasn't ubiquitous on other roles, so if there were actions you were meant to interrupt, and you only had one other silencer in your party, it would greatly behoove you to work with them to alternate interrupting that action. The miniboss in Coil 1 was a wakeup call to this for me.
Honestly, I miss having more situational debuffs linked to actions that have more standardized uses like the Disease on Miasma. It adds a bit of flair and allows you to shine just a little more in certain situations. -
10-04-2021, 04:38 AMGrimGaleI'd rather not romantisize or return to the past. Super situational stuff, while impactful tends to be often be balanced in a way that the encounter design leaves it to the side and then we never get to actually use it. AST's card system is always useful, so the AST feels like they can use it whenever the CD is up.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
I want something like that for SCH, a side mechanic that is always useful and feels aligned with the class fantasy. That is why I think SCH could stand to lose the Aetherflow system (or at least merge it with some sort of Stratagem system.) and instead gain a whole debuff, weakness exposing system to make SCH the rDPS shield healer.