Concerns About Healing Balance in the Dawntrail Expansion

Having looked through the skills introduced in the Dawntrail expansion, I notice no indication that the issue of excessive healing abilities in the game is being addressed. Instead, the problem seems to be exacerbated by new abilities like SMN’s Lux Solaris and Picto’s Tempera Grassa. It feels like DPS and Tanks are prioritized in design, and healers are left to cope with the consequences.

In case CBU3 is not aware:

• Giving a 30-second cooldown, 250 potency oGCD group shield to a DPS does not assist healers; it makes them feel even more redundant. If healing were to become a group responsibility, then shielding and mitigating should be primarily within the healer's domain.

It seems there are two possible intentions here:

1. That having heals, mitigations, and shields on everyone is meant to diversify the healer's experience in otherwise very rigid encounter designs.
2. That healers are intended to be somewhat 'carried,' with SMN and PCT saving them GCDs for dps.

However, neither of these points seems to work favorably. It mostly leads to overhealing in many situations. While preventing overhealing could arguably be a form of skill expression, ultimately not playing your role at all is not enjoyable.

• Increasing tank sustain makes the game more monotonous for healers. Tank Busters + Invulnerability windows were already dead times where healers had nothing to do. Tanks needing even less attention will only worsen this issue. I wonder if the developers see having nothing to do as a positive experience for healers, but let me assure you: It is not. In DSR, healers already had nothing to do for the first minute of the fight (P2) because there was only a single TB that was invulned.
  

• Adding more healing to Barrier Healers and more mitigations and shields to Pure Healers blurs the PH/BH distinction, which is ironic and nonsensical. This separation seemed like the only real development for healers with EW, and now it’s being partially reverted. Why?

• Providing single-target actions to healers in 2024, when everyone and their chocobo has an inflated support kit, seems outdated. Aquaveil was already regarded as a placebo skill that could be used but ultimately wouldn’t make a difference. Now AST is getting weaker versions of skills like Aquaveil and a third ED charge. Giving skills multiple charges was interesting because the cooldown could be kept rolling, but a third charge without a reduced cooldown? This is beyond pointless.

Things I'd have liked seeing:

• Multiple charges on Swiftcast
• Means to save someone from a deadly hit that isn't Rescue
• Less contention in healing, more precise and distinct role definition and the ability to assess incoming damage without the need for external tools

Judging by the very first dungeon bosses there has been no increase in the amount of unavoidable damage. I counted 6 unavoidable party wide effects on the last boss in a 3 minute fight.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GrimGale

Judging by the very first dungeon bosses there has been no increase in the amount of unavoidable damage. I counted 6 unavoidable party wide effects on the last boss in a 3 minute fight.

---

Isn't 6 actually much more? There's usually only 2-3 unavoidable. Or maybe I don't recall properly

But anyway, one every 30s... considering the tools we have, a bit more wouldn't hurt. I really don't see how any healer could struggle healing a dungeon provided the players don't eat up every single avoidable AoE.
They litterally could be healed with the kit of a lv 30 healer with no real effort.

Yeah...the dungeon enemies/bosses still hit like wet noodles so I'd like to think this isn't going to apply to the trials and raids as well.

One group of testers already did a no healers run of the dungeon for kicks and just personal CDs were enough to keep everyone up through all the damage with a one tank/three DPS party.

Let's be real here, they're not going to make the first dungeon of an expansion, which it's mandatory through MSQ, hard. We have to wait and see lv 100 content. I've had a look at the dungeon and it looked more interesting that we've got nowadays.

I don't think "You have to actually use your healing/tank cooldowns to not die" is a high bar to set for people at this point in the game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awhitet

Let's be real here, they're not going to make the first dungeon of an expansion, which it's mandatory through MSQ, hard. We have to wait and see lv 100 content. I've had a look at the dungeon and it looked more interesting that we've got nowadays.

---

ah the old "wait and see"

third time is the charm

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awhitet

Let's be real here, they're not going to make the first dungeon of an expansion, which it's mandatory through MSQ, hard. We have to wait and see lv 100 content. I've had a look at the dungeon and it looked more interesting that we've got nowadays.

---

Zot would like a word. It's unironically one of the hardest dungeons in EW.

The Tower of Zot featured a rather challenging final boss fight that set high expectations, only for the subsequent dungeons to fall short of those expectations.

Both Zot & Holminster should’ve been the standard dungeon experience above 65+

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Both Zot & Holminster should’ve been the standard dungeon experience above 65+

---

Holminster had a forced 4 single target packs after the second boss, but outside of that it's great.
Main problem with EW dungeons that it forces way too many split packs on you.
Babil has a lot of them. like at the start first 2 packs, then the lift where it's also forced single packs.
Vanaspati after the first boss is a single 3 pack and another single pack, then more single packs after the second boss.
Ktisis is better, but then again only single forced packs after the first boss.
Altiascope is terrible in that regard. You have 2 guys at the start, then Ilberd that does nothing but wastes your time, then second 2 pulls you get outside help. Next 2 pulls are alright but eh.
Dead Ends is legit great. No extra walls, mobs hit hard, bosses mechanics are actually dangerous and level sync means that you can't just sleepwalk through the dungeon.
Then level cap dungeons are all easy, because SE made them that way.

Savage Criterion Dungeons are actually more challenging to heal than Ultimates. CBU3 clearly knows how to create content for healers, but they just won't apply this knowledge to other content. Why this is the case, I can only speculate: Is it because there is only one healer and their duty cannot be shirked? Is it because rezzes are not available, forcing healers to keep everyone alive to avoid a failed run? Is it because they expect very few people to do parse runs?

On a different note, I liked TOP's version of Hello World and P4 because it actually made me focus on healing, regardless of which healer role I played. The range of healing effects played a major part in this. However, the fight was cleared without healers, implying that the support abilities of tanks and DPS have power crept to the point where they eclipse those of healers. At the very least, utilizing those support abilities does not have a sufficiently detrimental effect on their DPS output.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awhitet

Let's be real here, they're not going to make the first dungeon of an expansion, which it's mandatory through MSQ, hard. We have to wait and see lv 100 content. I've had a look at the dungeon and it looked more interesting that we've got nowadays.

---

Tower of Zot and Holminster Switch begs to differ.

Zot damage at the start of expansion and the final boss's mess was cool to heal with strangers because it absolutely caught some people off guard. the 2nd pack and the final pack of Zot was also a bit tougher than your average 2 packs pull.

Holminister switch 2nd 3x pack was the same, + the first few mobs after the first boss definitely got a few kills for themselves.

I didnt liked the 81er dungeon at the start of EW.
The Pack between boss 1 and 2, and than again 2 and 3, did to much dmg, that i was to busy for my taste.

I was non stop at healing and allways worried, that i would be to slow or to weak, to keeped the tank alive (and failed from time to time). And that, with the 530er Set at that time, as a scholar.

I have little experience with healing at 90. But hope, that the early dungeons are a bit less painfull as to EW start.

Astrologian is going to be not only hot garbage in its design for the upcoming rework, but will also be incredibly weak.

Just think about it:

-Macrocosmos is now a slight DPS loss vs malefic (probably will be updated)
-You only get 2 offensive cards vs 4 from EW, and the damage increase remains the same (6/3%).
-Depending on RNG, you could've gotten more uptime with Lord throughout a fight (2 every minute vs 1).
-Astrodyne's power hasn't been shifted anywhere else. It's 10% reduced cast times + 5% healing/damage increase hasn't been shifted anywhere else. I know these values are not massive in one burst rotation, but over a course of a fight they do add up.
-MP regeneration being effectively halved from cards + no MP regen from astrodyne.
-Lightspeed will probably stay for the burst window, which means, WHM is still the better choice for mobility, especially with a gap closer + 3 instant GCD's in your 2 minute window. None of the other healers struggle with mobility as much as AST, and their is genuine mechanics in high-end raiding where you just do not have enough to mitigate movement requirements and end up burning swiftcast or macrocosmos (or just nothing and cant GCD).

So, the job has been effectively nerfed. The healer with the lowest DPS out of the four, who is supposed to make up for it by providing buffs to its allies will now... not provide as many buffs to their allies (and no, mits/healing do not count) and also suffer from pathetic MP economy and awful movement.

I genuinely just do not see a reason to bring AST. WHM is better, yet SGE/SCH will absolutely dominate at the highest end of the raiding pool. They have the best mitigations, as per their role, but they now have even greater regeneration ability with their newest capstone spells. Can you imagine stacking them together in a prog scenario? Philosophia also empowers the rest of SGE's tool kit, so something like a Pneuma-Zoe will now be, if my math is right, a 1080 potency burst heal? Along with the rest of their kit?

So in conclusion:

-AST is garbage in every way possible, and boring. Pathetically weak.
-WHM is fine.
-SCH will remain insane.
-SGE is very good.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lailani_Fey

Adding more healing to Barrier Healers and more mitigations and shields to Pure Healers blurs the PH/BH distinction, which is ironic and nonsensical. This separation seemed like the only real development for healers with EW, and now it’s being partially reverted. Why?

---

The distinction was nonsensical to start with.

There's nothing about CNJ/WHM that says "pure healer incapable of barriers/shields/mitigations," and there's no reason why it needs to be buttonholed as such.

Likewise, there's nothing about SGE that says, "barrier/shield healer incapable of restoring HP."

And when it comes to 4-person content, where you have only one healer, there is a lot more flexibility to design encounters if the designer(s) can assume that the one healer is capable of both "pure healing" and "barrier/shield healing." Otherwise, the encounters need to be designed for the lowest common denominator... (Apologies to ForsakenRoe, because I can't find their comment making an observation along these same lines -- stupid useless forum search feature :p...)

Which is not to say, that, for example, SGE should be better at barriers and WHM should be better at straight-up HP restoration, but I see nothing to be gained by a hard, strict separation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

The distinction was nonsensical to start with.

---

Honestly I could picture it working under the pretense that BH manages shields and PH manages mits, giving both sufficient healing capabilities for 4-man content while having most synergy together in 8-mans.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awhitet

Let's be real here, they're not going to make the first dungeon of an expansion, which it's mandatory through MSQ, hard. We have to wait and see lv 100 content. I've had a look at the dungeon and it looked more interesting that we've got nowadays.

---

Funny, because imo both Zower of Zot and Holminster Switch are one of the harder dungeons of their expansion, and both of them the first. In fact, Zot made me think EW dungeons were gonna be amazing, but everything after turned disappointing.
I think we can absolutely judge, based on the first dungeon.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

(Apologies to ForsakenRoe, because I can't find their comment making an observation along these same lines -- stupid useless forum search feature :p...)

---

Hi

To follow on from this, we can consider two kinds of mechanics: we call them 'checks'. Pure-healing Checks, such as Seat of Sacrifice's 'your HP is now 1 and you have a doom, get to max HP to remove it' require fast HP restoration, and because it's possible for SOS to throw you into a group that has 2 SCHs, the SCH has to have enough 'pure healing' within its kit, that it can handle this 'check'. On the flipside, 'Barrier Checks' are far less common. There are examples though, Photon in A11S or TEA, and Vulcan Burst in any Ifrit encounter (UWU being the most important), where using a Barrier to block the damage, means that something about the mechanic is made 'less threatening' (outside of 'you don't die'). In TEA, Photon drops you to 1 HP, and 4 of your team has Nisi, a pretty weak DOT, but with only 1 HP, even a single tick is going to kill you. In UWU, Vulcan Burst knocks you backwards, likely into the deathwall, if you don't have a Barrier applied.

By having a Pure/Barrier split, it sounds like the healers would get to have more identity in how they handle healing, but in practice, all it has done is remove design options from content. For example, there's no way for a WHM to deal with a Barrier Check in a 4man Dungeon, and so that design element doesn't get used there. If it were, for example, a midboss has a raidwide that applies a bleed if you don't Barrier it, then it would be a mechanic only for SCH and SGE. They could choose to Barrier it to block the bleed, or let it happen and heal through the bleed after. That'd give them agency and choice in how they tackle the mechanic. But for a WHM, who doesn't have access to an on-demand shield (only one as a followup from Temperance, a 2min CD), they can't Barrier-Block the raidwide, unless it coincidentally happens to occur once per 2mins or less, and so they don't get the agency, the choice. It's made for them, by SE, that 'they are the 'Pure healer', they have to Pure heal to solve the mechanic'.

Finally, please remember Shadowbringers was originally intended to have a MT/OT split in the Tanks. They backed down on it, because they realized that sometimes, the OT-designated tanks would have to be in the 'MT position' at times, such as in 4man content, or after a tankswap, and having a big focus on 'I can throw Mits at my co-tank' is not great for surviveability, when YOU'RE the one that is taking the hits. The Pure/Barrier split is quite similar in this regard: Every healer has to be capable of Pure healer position, and has been designed as such (see Recitation Indom, Zoe Pneuma, and now Seraphism letting you use pseudo-Cure3 spam), but for some reason not every healer can Barrier heal. SCH/SGE can work as a comp very well, and in some cases is far and away the 'superior' option, due to how over-reliant SE is on making difficulty in content via 'you need X% mitigation to survive this raidwide'. On the flipside, the Pure/Barrier split has done only one thing successfully: Made WHM/AST a non-viable comp, and for no discernible benefit to the gameplay of the role

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awhitet

Let's be real here, they're not going to make the first dungeon of an expansion, which it's mandatory through MSQ, hard. We have to wait and see lv 100 content. I've had a look at the dungeon and it looked more interesting that we've got nowadays.

---

We absolutely can judge based on levelling dungeons. And we do not need to wait to see level 100 content, because at level 100, the ILVL cap breaks and we're able to out-scale the 'expected ILVL' of the dungeons WAY harder. That's the reason Tower of Zot feels so much harder than Smileton, or Dohn Mheg feels harder than Twinning. If the levelling dungeon from the media tour is getting done with 1 tank, 3 DPS, then the level 100 content will absolutely be possible like that too. If you want to copium about it, copium with the thought that 'since people were 1T3DPS running the dungeon at the media tour, Yoshi-P will have seen that and gone 'oh that's not good for PR we should change things so that can't happen'

Imagine PLD, 10% of their max HP + Clemency potency, stacking 2 barriers on themselves.. when the barrier healers are fighting for the spot, overwriting each other's barriers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awhitet

Let's be real here, they're not going to make the first dungeon of an expansion, which it's mandatory through MSQ, hard. We have to wait and see lv 100 content. I've had a look at the dungeon and it looked more interesting that we've got nowadays.

---

Uhm did you play SHB and EW?
Both of the arguably hardest levelling dungeons in the expansion were Holminster and Zot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awhitet

Let's be real here, they're not going to make the first dungeon of an expansion, which it's mandatory through MSQ, hard. We have to wait and see lv 100 content. I've had a look at the dungeon and it looked more interesting that we've got nowadays.

---

Not only were the EW and ShB first dungeons nasty, the first dungeon in HW, though optional, was not any nicer. Up to the first boss, Dusk Vigil is a warmup. But after you get past the mammoth you get to some gnarly bosses and mob packs that can be dangerous. The freeze dot from standing in the wrong place can quickly kill you and the flood of zombie mobs could gank you if you were not prepared with cooldowns, heals, and quick aggro management. I saw quite a few naive WHMs and ASTs get devoured by zombies when they cast a Medica 2 or a Diurnal Aspected Helios before they spawned. The second boss had nasty raidwides and potent adds back in the day, and the last boss could debilitate inattentive players.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LynxDubh

Not only were the EW and ShB first dungeons nasty, the first dungeon in HW, though optional, was not any nicer. Up to the first boss, Dusk Vigil is a warmup. But after you get past the mammoth you get to some gnarly bosses and mob packs that can be dangerous. The freeze dot from standing in the wrong place can quickly kill you and the flood of zombie mobs could gank you if you were not prepared with cooldowns, heals, and quick aggro management. I saw quite a few naive WHMs and ASTs get devoured by zombies when they cast a Medica 2 or a Diurnal Aspected Helios before they spawned. The second boss had nasty raidwides and potent adds back in the day, and the last boss could debilitate inattentive players.

---

Even Sastasha used to cause wipes when 2.0 launched if the greybeards are to be believed, lmao.

Not sure what people are going on about in here about hard dungeons. The only hard dungeon in stormblood was the one in the steppes. Satasha was extremely rare to wipe in. In fact the only time I ever remember wiping in ARR leveling dungeons was if you got a scholar healer who didn't know how to play scholar yet. Tower of zot wasn't hard by any metric either so that one is especially surprising to hear.