Suggestion as to how to get people to become healers.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Well SE didn't originally intend for it to be used to stance dance. It was just suppose to be used for soloing so it wouldn't take eons in order to kill a mob when you were questing. The player base just figured out that it could be used that way.

You actually touched on a golden point there:

There's a major issue with the way things were and they way they are now, let alone how they will be. Many things needed to change, and some finally are. Sprint no longer costing TP (hasn't cost TP in PvP since 3.2, and it didn't affect balance at all), cross class skills being reworked into role-specific skills (I have high hopes AND concerns for this one, but we'll soon see), so why then should Cleric Stance not be considered for change?

Slightly related: when almost all DPS jobs and even tanks offer some kind of party utility/support, why then are the jobs primarily designed to do it - BRD and MCH - penalized for doing so once they have to render said support to the party? Healers can and should DPS where and when they can, but why suddenly penalize your ability to heal? This is the part that needs rethinking more than anything.

Some might say if they remove it, healing will be too easy. Okay then, increase the demand for the role's main function. Nothing really hits hard right now, which does leave healers with a lot of downtime that many fill with DPSing. Fine. But if - crazy as it sounds - you had to perform your primary role and the challenge wasn't flipping a switch to dampen your ability to do so, but instead learning where and when to properly do it AND maintain performance of your primary role as effectively as possible, is it so easy then? How would this be any different from learning how/when to cast and move as a caster, or position/pre-position and execute proper rotation as a physical DPS? Which by the way, both cases healers aren't exempt from either.

I'd be in favor of a rework at the least, but I'd rather see it go, and instead see more complexity introduced via the challenge of the content.

As a final thought, I'd say there's a bigger issue when The Man himself doesn't even like the skill.

[Ama_Hamada]

Well SE didn't originally intend for it to be used to stance dance. It was just suppose to be used for soloing so it wouldn't take eons in order to kill a mob when you were questing. The player base just figured out that it could be used that way.

Where is proof of this? I was doing it since 2.0 was released (I do admit I did get comments about it here and there where now it doesn't exist, and the reason for that has to do with the huge healing downtime. I only take it off to cast a cure here and there, otherwise 90%-100%, depending on df, is cleric. Some people did not realize I was taking it off for one healing spell and putting it back on right away back then.) The novice quests for healers talk about doing it as well. Healing in this game has lot of downtime, so I am not sure "SE didn't originally intend for it to be used to stance dance" is coming from.

Also all games apart from FFXI (where healers can still chip in DPS wise though debuff and banish III/holy double magic bursts, least back before level cap broke 75 and SC was a thing) Healers had ways of DPS, and from my understanding what others said, is unique to the FF franchise.

You actually touched on a golden point there:

again, really? I do not think SE had that mindset, esp when it is in the hall of novice.

[SendohJin]

For those that are willing to remove cleric:
Git gud.

i'm willing to remove Cleric, mostly because it annoys me when i'm not healing and the healer is not using it. so what is there to git? should i never play my other jobs?

[Gemina]

Agreed =(

The fact that they stated this whilst A4S was current progression content (which ironically near enough required both parsing and healer DPS to clear for the entirety of a content patch) showed that they were either out of touch or just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck =(

Fingers crossed they learned their lesson with that one.

From my understanding, no content is released that requires healer DPS to clear it, and the devs do it at the minimum iLv possible. So if A4S couldn't be cleared without healer DPS when it was current, then my guess was the group wasn't skilled enough to do it. I would wager that if content was designed where healers must DPS in order to hit the checks, raid clear rates would plummet, and/or clear times would rise.

In response to the OP, removing Cleric won't recruit more healers. I believe it has a higher chance of making current career healers quit. A true career healer learns to use it, makes plenty of mistakes along the way of doing so, and it eventually becomes second nature to them. The game also does not currently have a shortage of healers. If we want to make healing more appealing to players, my suggestion is to not change anything. Healers still need to heal, or you can forget about the clear. Cleanse requirements are just high enough to not be tideous, and DPS windows are huge. It is seriously fun to try and optimize this role in its current state, and if someone can't find enjoyment in all that is involved, then maybe it just isn't the role for them.

[SendohJin]

Where is proof of this? I was doing it since 2.0 was released and the novice quests for healers talk about doing it as well. Healing in this game has lot of downtime, so I am not sure "SE didn't originally intend for it to be used to stance dance" is coming from.

It's cross class for SCHs. so basically they built the SCH job with the option of not having Cleric Stance.

if it's universal that healers gotta have it, it would be like Esuna/Leeches, Raise/Resurrection, they would've given SCH their own version with a different name.

[Ama_Hamada]

It's cross class for SCHs. so basically they built the SCH job with the option of not having Cleric Stance.if it's universal that healers gotta have it, it would be like Esuna/Leeches, Raise/Resurrection, they would've given SCH their own version with a different name.

So is raging strikes, blood for blood, swiftcast, etc, sure you can feint, keen fury, foresight, skull sunder, and fracture your monk, go on about how "invigorate" is not needed then complain about not aoe DPS cuz no tp, because it is not "universal" .. then go nuts I guess? Some people want to be most effective.

I guess I should not have to leeches everything ever because I get it at 40, so WHM should be the one using it. Throwing fallacies is nice and all but gets us nowhere in progress of a discussion. Bringing in leeches only makes your argument weak since we get that at 40, while whm and ast get their version at 18. Also AST needs to cross cleric, no new added healer has gotten something like cleric, so saying healers do not get it by default to prove something in an argument holds no water. Both healer jobs that have to cross class it have no healing class base, it was likely just an oversight (again likely changing for SB), hey I guess SCH shouldn't have protect too right?

In the end, cleric use advice is put in the hall of novice in group settings. I have done it. it is meant to stance in the game. They do not include healer DPS in DPS checks because it would make the stuff too damn hard. That is not proof if SE intended players stance dance in group settings. When you have a guide like hall of novice teaching you to do so, then it does show they foresaw players doing it.

BTW, SB is likely changing this, giving us cleric, esuna, protect, and stoneskin at reasonable levels.

[Zojha]

From my understanding, no content is released that requires healer DPS to clear it, and the devs do it at the minimum iLv possible.

They never stated such. As a matter of fact, they stated the opposite: The item level they assume in their calculations is different from the minimum item level. In which way different, they did not say. They only said that if you are below the item level they assumed during development "or" your DPS can't pull 85-90% of what is theoretically possible with that item level in a live fight, then healer and tank DPS beyond the mere aggro combo is required.

Yoshida: Well, the calculations are based on the item level assumed during development.

Ah, and that's different from the minimum item level required to try the content.

Yoshida: Yes. So if you try to clear it at a lower item level, it will be necessary for tanks and healers to participate in attacking. The difference in skill levels for DPS players will be a factor. If you're below the 85 to 90 percent damage assumption, you'll have to fill in the gap with DPS from tanks and healers. If the DPS work together and think about total party damage, it may also help to break through.

So healers may need to participate in the attack if there wouldn't otherwise be enough. Well, even if there is, healers may also attack just to provide a margin.

Yoshida: Yeah. Especially in Savage because it is difficult to deal damage while handling the mechanics I think there is some opportunity there.

https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/12...tions-requests

The bolded sentence takes my personal cake. They literally seem to expect you as DPS to pull 85-90% of your dummy parse while dealing with mechanics when they do their balancing >_>

[SaitoHikari]

I sort of feel like Cleric Stance in its current form is likely to be removed or overhauled in some way.

Healers are the only role in the game where there's such a huge disparity on exactly what they should be doing at any given time, and it's all because of one skill making things more complicated than necessary. It's easy to see why Yoshi hates it - it has nothing to do with whether or not he believes healers should DPS, it's because he probably looks at healers and realizes that just half of a healer's toolkit is available at any given time, and you press one button to flip between each half. It's not very creative, and it's limiting for the sake of 'balance'. A sense of balance that is probably overblown and causing way more harm than good at this point. Considering the devs have repeatedly stated that one of their primary goals with SB is to shrink the skill gap between casual and top players, Cleric Stance at this point is the literal symbol of a skill barrier that only exists to create such a gap rather than adding any unique gameplay value to the healer role.

One action has split the community into three camps:
- One camp that believes you should never press the button period, and thus lock themselves out of using half of the skills made available to them.
- One camp that wants to flip but is otherwise scared because pressing it at the wrong time will prevent them from fulfilling their primary role during a crucial mechanic, possibly causing a party wipe. There's also accidental activation and double pressing lag to take into account too.
- One camp that believes that button should be pressed as often as possible, and that true skill is based on how long that red icon is up while ensuring the party doesn't die.

There's no justification for this anywhere in the lore either. There is nothing in the lore that explains why the player character can only heal effectively or inflict damage at any given time instead of being able to do both at once. Class quests don't even acknowledge its existence. Enemy healers certainly don't have Cleric Stance. There's that one boss in Lost City of Amdapor HM that has something LIKE Cleric Stance, but the fundamental difference is that it changes how her skills -behave-, not just on a numerical level. (And this is what I mean by Cleric Stance possibly being overhauled instead of removed as a possibility - if the developers delete Cleric Stance, the developers might have White Mages keep an overhauled version of it for class identity reasons, and it'd behave like what the boss in Amdapor HM does, as in toggling it on or off causes certain abilities to inflict damage instead of healing. Basically the concept of Assize, but taken even further.)

Of course, if Cleric Stance is removed and healer damage is made to scale off of Mind, some will ask, what's to stop healers from being another DPS? The answer is that this isn't even an issue in the first place, no healer should be able to emulate the amount of damage a -good- DPS can do anyway, not even in today's environment among raid healers, because healers generally lack the ability to weave in offensive oGCDs between each action like the physical classes and lack the raw power that the casters have.

We should also stop pretending that raids aren't designed with healer damage in mind, some DPS checks these days don't appear to be passable (at least within the first week or two of release) without some form of healer damage, and the removal of Cleric Stance in this way would also lead to the developers essentially standardizing healer damage for raids, instead of being in some weird purgatory where they have to decide whether they want to promote one side or the other. This would let them kill two birds with one stone - let them fully design raids while taking healer damage into account so that the top raid groups don't immediately steamroll fights where healer damage is assumed to be at 0, and make it easier for healers in general to contribute to damage without having to fumble with a button, thus shrinking part of the skill gap.

[SendohJin]

Some people want to be most effective.

The question wasn't about most effective, you asked for proof of their original intention.

I guess I should not have to leeches everything ever because I get it at 40, so WHM should be the one using it.

under 40 you don't, heal through it, everybody else does. what 8 man content is there between Lv 30 and 40 that you can have a SCH and a WHM at the same time that the WHM can be the one using it? no idea why you think you don't have to leeches stuff after 40 though.

AST has nothing to do with original intention either. they originally screwed up WAR really bad that's why it didn't have Provoke and generally sucked at everything.

[Sebazy]

From my understanding, no content is released that requires healer DPS to clear it

What? I'm coming from experiencing this encounter during early progression (Granted personal illness and FC drama meant I got my clear quite late compared to my much earlier A1S-A3S clears). I can 100% say without any shadow of a doubt that your understanding is categorically wrong. I'm sorry if that seems harsh, A4S wasn't a complex fight (It was actually quite slow paced and mostly simplistic compared to A3S) especially with the cheese strat quickly becoming the norm.

The actually reasoning behind this was down to how Yoshida's play testers tested and balanced the encounter, Yoshida openly stated that the root course of the problem was in them testing the encounter phase by phase rather than as a single continuous fight. I'm inclined to go one step further and guess that they made the error of going at each phase with full hp/mp and cooldowns as well, thus in their eyes the DPS checks weren't all that extreme. They clearly learned their lesson as neither Midas nor Creator have any DPS checks that are anything like as tight as A4S was.

But yeah, I really don't think you comprehend just how incredibly severe A4S' DPS checks were, unless you had 4 Brusef grade DPSers on tap, you absolutely weren't getting past those DPS pushes without both the healers and tanks doing some serious optimisation =(