Improve Healers in FFXIV

I was always thinking of how square enix could add new healer without missing things up or making the job a copy clone of another existing job.

This post is a message to FFXIV developers that we love this game and we love your work our voices maybe noises but it is for a greater good for the game.
This post is to give positive feedback to developers and give ideas to actually improve the healing role.

Why current healing situation is bad?

• Healing is kinda generic all healers do same thing is the same way
• healers have less utilities than expected
• Healing and shielding identity didn't solve the issue

Anyone in this post can present their ideas and discuss it with an open mind.

My idea:

Split healers into 3:

• Healer can heal while doing DPS - example Sage.
• Healers can give buffs to team so they can heal them selves while attacking - Astrologian if it was good.
• Healers can give debuff or poison to enemies so anyone attack them can get healing - Scholar improvement from the old days

Keep healing easy like white mage but also keep job interesting and complex if done optimally like Astro (if Astro was good)

in this way we can have 3 styles of healing so dev can be more creative when introducing new job

The idea of further splitting the healers is a good one in my opinion.

Here's my idea - Kinda sub-dividing based on what is already there.

WHM - Burst Healing with Minimal Regen (Nerf Regen and Medica 2 Slightly)
AST - Timed Healing/Regen Healer. with less burst. ( Boost the regens a bit, Has 4 Regens already and Focus on Heals that activate after a duration , as it has several abilities that do that [Exaltation, Earthly Star, and Horoscope, Macrocosmos] - You could rework cards to instead of Buffing Characters, change how the heals behave but not like a healing mode or shielding mode.
For Example - Card that increases regen duration and potency, Card that changes Earthly Star and Horoscope to their upgraded variants instantly and reduces there time to activate. Card that gives Single target heals a small AoE Like 5y (similar to cure 3)
SGE - Heavy Mitigation Focused with minor focus on Shielding
SCH - Heavy Shielding with Minor Focus on Mitigation.

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Originally Posted by NoOneofConsequence

The idea of further splitting the healers is a good one in my opinion.

Here's my idea - Kinda sub-dividing based on what is already there.

WHM - Burst Healing with Minimal Regen (Nerf Regen and Medica 2 Slightly)
AST - Timed Healing/Regen Healer. with less burst. ( Boost the regens a bit, Has 4 Regens already and Focus on Heals that activate after a duration , as it has several abilities that do that [Exaltation, Earthly Star, and Horoscope, Macrocosmos] - You could rework cards to instead of Buffing Characters, change how the heals behave but not like a healing mode or shielding mode.
For Example - Card that increases regen duration and potency, Card that changes Earthly Star and Horoscope to their upgraded variants instantly and reduces there time to activate. Card that gives Single target heals a small AoE Like 5y (similar to cure 3)
SGE - Heavy Mitigation Focused with minor focus on Shielding
SCH - Heavy Shielding with Minor Focus on Mitigation.

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Adding to your points I would love to add some criteria that will help:

Add 2 different parameters to verify healer identity example:

Dot healer that can give team mitigation, or Burst healer that give regen, Buff healer that give shields.

so you can mix and match to add variety of jobs

The biggest issue they have is they basically can't split jobs up or make them interesting because there are no systems in game to manipulate or interact with that would set them apart or differentiate them from each other.

What debuff can you give to a boss for example. You can't blind them. You can't silence them, you can't slow them, confuse them, paralyse them or sleep them, bind them, and gravity them.

You can't break or imperil them to certain attack types or elements, nor could a buffer style job buff party attacks with said elements to exploit those weaknesses and debuffs.

Outside of yet another boring debuff that is nothing more than +% damage for x seconds. They can't do anything.

They can't make combat or jobs interesting without putting interesting systems into the game that jobs can manipulate and play with.

And every system that was once in the game has been gutted because simplicity and too complex. only to recently be regretted by the devs.

It'll take a hell of a lot to put that stuff back and make things interesting and more fun.

For example, how cool would it be if a boss could be blinded and a tank buster that typically does critical damage suddenly is now either a glancing blow instead or maybe misses entirely.

Or like back in the days of coil. Binding an add in place so they can't move and getting them petrified to form a barrier the party can hide behind.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

The biggest issue they have is they basically can't split jobs up or make them interesting because there are no systems in game to manipulate or interact with..

What rebuff can you give to a boss for example.. you can't blind them. You can't silence them. You can't slow them confuse them or paralyse them.. sleep them bind them, gravity them,

You can't break imperial them to certain attack types or elements.. nor could a buffer style healer buff party attacks with said elements to exploit those weaknesses and debuffs...

Outside of yet another boring debuff that is nothing more than +5% damage for x seconds. They can't do anything..

They can't make jobs interesting without putting interesting systems into the game that jobs cam manipulate and play with..

Amd every system that was once in the game has been gutted because simplicity and too complex.. only to recently be regretted by the devs.

It'll take a hell of a lot to put that stuff back and make things interesting.

For example how cool would it be if a boss could be blinded and a tank buster that does criticism damage suddenly is now a glancing blow instead..

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I can't agree more.. stats variety is an issue and having very strict battle system continue to kill the enjoyment of have "an impact" as a support healer.

there is a room to add 3 more stats that can be done without breaking the system - Armor penetration, stamina and rage for enemy monsters.

that can be done for debuff and buff healer jobs to trigger.

example game done this well is Granblue Fantasy Relink

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Originally Posted by Tunda

there is a room to add 3 more stats that can be done without breaking the system - Armor penetration, stamina and rage for enemy monsters.

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2 of those have essentially already been in the game and removed. again because "simplicity" and dumbing things tf down.

TP was basically stamina and had means to be extended with goad and paeons invigorates and such.and
Armor penetration essentially existed with things like dancing edge or storms eye or dragoons whatnot that applied either piercing or slashing debuffs.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

2 of those have essentially already been in the game and removed. again because "simplicity" and dumbing things tf down.

TP was basically stamina and had means to be extended with goad and paeons invigorates and such.and
Armor penetration essentially existed with things like dancing edge or storms eye or dragoons whatnot that applied either piercing or slashing debuffs.

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What I mean by stamina is stamina bar to monster.. if certain damage done it will knock down the monster and give extra bar to limit break.. something like that.. I am not a fan of TP it was a complex for no reason in my opinion.

Armor pen could increase damage done to stamina bar of the monster.. example you can have 2 builds.. build for armor penetration or regular build

Or example like range dps could be the best class for triggering stamina or increase rage for monster

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Originally Posted by Tunda

I was always thinking of how square enix could add new healer without missing things up or making the job a copy clone of another existing job.

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Well the first thing that has to be done is make the healers different.
White Mage, Astrologian and Sage, basically have the same basic kit (cure 1, cure 2, medica, medica 2 GCD's), and Scholar "mostly does" (nobody uses Physick, but Adloquium is the same as Cure 2 for all intents, Succor the same as Medica.)
And they all have essentially the same DPS kit "GCD DPS, oGCD Dot, AOE and oGCD AOE"

I will repeat for those in the back. "THE HEALER, IS NOT A DPS, PLEASE STOP TRYING TO TURN IT INTO ONE"
- No DPS combos, an argument going back to 2.0 era. DPS combos are for jobs that are DPS.
- No additional GCD DPS. This is a healer. I know you're sick of pressing 1-1-1-1, but you are literately not doing your job if you are doing this.

Personally I find it's possible to play all MSQ content using only the GCD heals, and that just tells you how they want you to play it. The rest of the kit is there, but the healing pressure to use them is not. Most content can be played as Medica 2 - Dia - Glare III - Glare III, repeat. Boring but that's the problem. They are not expecting you to heal from only oGCD's in MSQ content, otherwise it would be "too hard." Raids on the other hand you are under more pressure to heal the content using more of the kit, but in the end it still comes down to the developers trying to make the content completable by everyone.

The White mage in particular, in Final Fantasy is not a DPS, and should never be treated like one. If you are playing WHM and complaining about DPS, this is not the job for you. Scholar as it was introduced was this job. The fairy was supposed to be doing 50% of the healing while the healer does the shielding. That allows them to use the DPS actions. Unfortunately we lost the DoT's that Scholar had.

Astrologian is barely different from White Mage. The best way to make AST different would be to make the GCD heals literately "Astral Aspected Benefic" and "Umbral Aspected benefic" not "Benefic 1" and "Benefic 2" that do neither. Likewise for Helios. So if you want both effects you have to cast both. Now you have a 1-2-1-2- healing combo, congrats.

Sage, I've not played to level 80 so can't make a judgement about, but really, It's just "white mage with a small DPS gimmick" and trying to play it like WHM will NOT work. This probably should have been making all it's "DPS" actions GCD's that fuel a party Regen/Shield effect. Like with AST above, one action charges the heal, the other charges the shield. Every successful hit, adds 1 tick to the regen or shield.

However I feel the developers have co-mingled this so much that they clearly have forgotten what White Mage, Scholar and Astrologian are.
White Mage has a very clear and defined role in Final Fantasy, the only DPS they have in canon is "Holy"/Dia, and Dia only worked on undead. For very very obvious reasons you can't make a MMO White mage have zero DPS until they are maximum level.

Scholar and Astrologian have never had a defined role in Final Fantasy. But they both have a clear identity if you actually play their storylines in 14. The Astrologian in particular makes a lot of emphasis on stars, signs, etc. The Scholar's story pretty much all about the fairy companion.
"Sage" however is confusing, because the only time "Sage" has been used in Final Fantasy before is in the first game, which is a "job upgrade" from "Wizard"

So fixing healers also requires fixing their identity. To put it bluntly, this is how I'd describe each job to someone who has not played any FF:
White Mage = DnD Cleric
Scholar = Summoner of healing pet
Astrologian = Magical (girl/boy) like Card Captor Sakura that uses cards
Sage = DPS Healer.

None of these are accurate, but that is the expectation someone comes into the game with. White Mage should be as close to "Cleric" in other CRPG/TTRPG's so players of those games have those expectations. The Astrologian, the cards aren't even connected to the healing or dps mechanic, they're just buffs, so that makes players tend to ignore the mechanic during trash fights, and barely use it during boss fights.

Scholar and Sage meanwhile make DPS optional and required(sage) to actually use the full kit.

White mage has the baggage of the original 1.0 conjurer to 1.20 refactor. Thus people have made a lot of mistakes using the 2.0 white mage because they were told to "ABC" so they in fact used all the casts, even ones that they should not be using that makes the fight harder, or wastes time.

How I'd fix a lot of things with the healers would be removing Swiftcast, Surecast, PoM/LightSpeed, and make revive's have a 0-second cast since that's all healers are using swiftcast for in the first place, adjust the recast timer based on healing casts. Refactor the healing GCD's to automatically "PoM/LightSpeed" when used consecutively, and tune-down DPS actions so they are cast immediately but have long recasts. Bigger more-useful DPS actions instead of many tiny useless ones that distract from healing. Full DPS casts generate status effect debuffs (stun, slow, heavy, blind, silence, etc).

But people of course have different expectations from the game. Make the game too easy, healers have nothing to hard, make the game too hard, healers have something to do, but tanks are constantly sweating, and players quit the game.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

So fixing healers also requires fixing their identity. To put it bluntly, this is how I'd describe each job to someone who has not played any FF:
White Mage = DnD Cleric
Scholar = Summoner of healing pet
Astrologian = Magical (girl/boy) like Card Captor Sakura that uses cards
Sage = DPS Healer.

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I agree with you for most of the points, but l would be surprised if Square Enix just nuke all healers DPS.. as the current design is require some kind of DPS to survive at as solo player.

Regarding stats I don't think it is possible square enix is trying to remove any stat other than: damage dealt / damage taken / increase healing recovery ( and I believe this system is holding FFXIV back).

I came across some Idea that is adding some kind of stats regarding each classes like:

Tanks - Keep tenacity.
Healer - Determination.
Striking DPS - Crit
Scouting DPS - Direct Hit
Maiming DPS - Weak Point (New)
Range DPS - Armor Penetration (New)
Magic DPS - Arcane Mastery (New)

as example each boss will have another bar let's call it stamina.
stamina will be reduced by:
- simply attacking GCD.
- reduce the amount by following calculation:

let's say boss have 100% stamina
to apply above calculation let's say we have minimum 4 (max of 6) roles in the team so each can consume 25%(max 100%) and (or 16.6% if roles are 6 and max of 100%)

if for example machinist and dancer broke 25%/25% of armor penetration bar it will apply Rage to boss (increase damage) + increase party main stat by 3%(max 21%) + apply awakening for each job (awakening is special skill will be activated that have special effect (not buff but maybe skill/spell).

last 25% boss will be in a full rage his damage increase 30% and team damage will be increased depends on how much they reduce the bar.

More threads about healers are always appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

I agree with you for most of the points, but l would be surprised if Square Enix just nuke all healers DPS.. as the current design is require some kind of DPS to survive at as solo player.

Regarding stats I don't think it is possible square enix is trying to remove any stat other than: damage dealt / damage taken / increase healing recovery ( and I believe this system is holding FFXIV back).

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They can't remove all the DPS functionality from the healers because they wouldn't be able to play the MSQ story. But nothing is stopping them from actually having server-assigned phases that enable or disable some casts based on being in the party.

Like solo content would enable extra DPS functionality on healers and tanks, and extra healing functionality on DPS and tanks. But as soon as you're in a party, the extra DPS actions are detuned for "bigger booms (eg 5 second casts) while healing functionality on DPS are detuned for longer casts, larger casts. Just adjusting the recast timers for these would press players to rely on their party rather than do foolish things like try to solo the boss from 90%. Certain points in dungeon and raid content will unlock this functionality when the player is separated from the party, but otherwise it remains unavailable or expensive to cast.