Suggestion as to how to get people to become healers.

[Atlaworks]

You are leaving out:
"People that do not care what they do, just as long our effective DPS is not changed to be less then what it is currently. Having no cleric stance and having it scale off mind will do little to change how much you can dps for those to use it well. Take SCH for example, If I need to heal someone I can cast Emergency tactics >adloquium> lustrate> cleric stance when the cast ends (still on ocd though) and cast DPS when my OCD is ready. Because how this game works with casting, you can get around having no clipping and therefor, no impact to DPS to warrant our spells to be weaker if they scale it off mind.

"You are leaving out my agenda"

[Vexander]

You are leaving out:

"People that do not care what they do, just as long our effective DPS is not changed to be less then what it is currently. Having no cleric stance and having it scale off mind will do little to change how much you can dps for those to use it well. Take SCH for example, If I need to heal someone I can cast Emergency tactics >adloquium> lustrate> cleric stance when the cast ends (still on ocd though) and cast DPS when my OCD is ready. Because how this game works with casting, you can get around having no clipping and therefor, no impact to DPS to warrant our spells to be weaker if they scale it off mind.

To be fair, I couldn't see Healers losing Cleric Stance without ending up doing equivalent damage to when they had it. The point of Cleric Stance is to give healers a way to do solo content such as Questing. They receive enough to complete that content, which is enough to contribute to DPS in group content as well. Square would have to make sure Healers can still effectively complete solo content. If MND became the stat to give Healers DPS as well as Healing, then it would still have to roughly give them exactly what they need. If SE gave Healers a new trait for +10% damage to offset the loss of Cleric Stance, nothing changes other than the removal of Cleric Stance. If SE keeps Cleric Stance and changes it to be group friendly, Healer DPS remains the same with it.

What is lost with Cleric Stance is:

1) What some players view as Risk and Challenge, providing Fun.
2) What some players view as a mark of Skill at playing a Healing Job.
3) What some players consider a clunky tool that, if it acts up at the wrong time, can lead to a wipe.
4) What some players consider a vexing tool that prevents them from ever truly trying to play as a Healer.

Truly there is no right choice here. The best Square can do would be to give us a new Healing Job that does not use Cleric Stance or have access to Cleric Stance, and instead has its damaging spells/abilities scale off of its main stat. However, this will still end up creating a divide amongst players of healers as existing healers would disparage it as an, 'EZ Mode Job,' and be upset with Square for not providing a, 'Real Healer Job.' Worse, if such a job were added and it was ever part of the meta due to something like AST Balance Cards, the levels of vitriol would be outstanding.

This thread just seems to be evidence that players cannot respect one another's preferences and playstyles.

[Belhi]

I said it already but I will say it again:

Stance dancing is the one real mechanic in healing dps. Healer rotations are so facerolly they frankly aren't even worth calling rotations and no they cant really spice them up because alongside the healing skills the hotbars are already full to bursting.

Unless they are going to make healing far more engaging (which will require an overall nerf to healing potency and more healing mechanics introduced into fights) Cleric stance is a useful addition that actually creates some risk reward aspect to dpsing while healing.

[Welsper59]

This thread just seems to be evidence that players cannot respect one another's preferences and playstyles.

That's exactly why I don't look down on the devs doing things by their own decision on many matters, rather than one decided by (or heavily influenced by) the players. My input is not going to be anymore valid for someone else than theirs would be for me. Matters of play style should be (mostly) on the devs own understanding of what is enjoyable. As you've stated, they probably would be doing the "right" thing by introducing an EZ Mode job, but it really wouldn't be as dramatic of a shift in players taking on other roles.

The majority simply do not like the responsibility. Think about how quickly people are to anger by simply being given advice among the party or being singled out. Think about how low the populous is that are willing to be leaders (as in people who actually lead, not just take the title and do nothing about it). They don't like to be the one people will blame for bad things happening.

[Ama_Hamada]

"You are leaving out my agenda"

I'm with AlphaFox up there. There shouldn't be incentive like a unique mount to be a mentor because true mentors need no incentive to be helpful. Personally I've run into only a handful of bad mentors since it's inception. The majority are silent, which is better to me than being an ass. The only mentor I ever reported was in PotD. The dude was unhappy becauseme and another sprout kept dying on floors 91-100. We apologized profusely but it's palace. Shit goes wrong there. Well on floor 99 the mentor decided to use up every pomander in our inventory and say "my parting gift for morons". He left us to wipe. I've never been angrier at another player before or since this happened. I really don't care what peoples motivation for mentoring is. If you wear the crown, I hold you to a higher standard than the rest of player base. And if you're not willing to help, at least keep your mouth shut. A silent mentor is better than a dick head.

Ill just leave that.

To be fair, I couldn't see Healers losing Cleric Stance without ending up doing equivalent damage to when they had it. The point of Cleric Stance is to give healers a way to do solo content such as Questing. They receive enough to complete that content, which is enough to contribute to DPS in group content as well. Square would have to make sure Healers can still effectively complete solo content. If MND became the stat to give Healers DPS as well as Healing, then it would still have to roughly give them exactly what they need. If SE gave Healers a new trait for +10% damage to offset the loss of Cleric Stance, nothing changes other than the removal of Cleric Stance. If SE keeps Cleric Stance and changes it to be group friendly, Healer DPS remains the same with it.

What is lost with Cleric Stance is:

1) What some players view as Risk and Challenge, providing Fun.
2) What some players view as a mark of Skill at playing a Healing Job.
3) What some players consider a clunky tool that, if it acts up at the wrong time, can lead to a wipe.
4) What some players consider a vexing tool that prevents them from ever truly trying to play as a Healer.

Truly there is no right choice here. The best Square can do would be to give us a new Healing Job that does not use Cleric Stance or have access to Cleric Stance, and instead has its damaging spells/abilities scale off of its main stat. However, this will still end up creating a divide amongst players of healers as existing healers would disparage it as an, 'EZ Mode Job,' and be upset with Square for not providing a, 'Real Healer Job.' Worse, if such a job were added and it was ever part of the meta due to something like AST Balance Cards, the levels of vitriol would be outstanding.

This thread just seems to be evidence that players cannot respect one another's preferences and playstyles.

Referring to this:

I've always thought Cleric Stance was a terrible design. It's awkward and half the time doesn't even turn off properly when you hit it. Remove Cleric and balance healer damage to be slightly lower than what it would've been in Cleric to even out the marginally higher DPS uptime from no longer having to stance dance.

and posts like it. People think we need our DPS lowered too offset not having to stance dance. YOU HAVE NO DOWNTIME, if you do it right, because how the game works. You can say cast a heal, then Lustrate, while you are still waiting for the cast. Finally once the cast ends, you are still on cd (for about .5 sec) you use cleric here and you can still be waiting for the gcd to finish to cast a spell. You have no downtime stance dancing if you do it right and quick, and this is most true with WHM who you can easily do it during gcd from regen. (or swiftcast cure II > terga ) for a large heal and enter cleric while in gcd. There is lots of ways and lots of tools to use cleric without clipping.

Also I like to know why there is bigger movements for if cleric should be removed over tank stance dancing. In my experience, improper tank stance dancing is more of a problem then cleric is.

[Kazrah]

Also I like to know why there is bigger movements for if cleric should be removed over tank stance dancing. In my experience, improper tank stance dancing is more of a problem then cleric is.

Probably because Cleric Stance is far more of a liability compared to a tank stance dancing. If the tank screws up because of bad tank stance dancing, there's a lot more potential time to recover. If a healer screws up because they got stuck in Cleric Stance, then the odds of recovery are vastly reduced. I've always had far more issues with getting stuck in Cleric Stance than I ever had with stance dancing as a tank, but probably because I spend more time running content that isn't savage, and like the majority of the playerbase, I honestly couldn't care less about that content even though I know circumstances there compared to other content can be very different.

The other reason is that tank stance dancing isn't as much of a requirement compared to healer stance dancing unless your DPS suck out loud. Even if a tank is great at it, unless it's a WAR or maybe a really good DRK, it's nowhere near as much as how much damage a typical healer can put out if they're stance dancing just as effectively.

[Blueyes]

On the topic of Cleric Stance, if not removed, one possible change would be to have it behave more like the existing tank stances, meaning a less severe shift in how healing and damage spells are affected. Cleric Stance would still be ideal for maximizing damage, but having it active wouldn't completely hinder your ability to heal, nor would dealing damage without Cleric Stance feel like a waste of mana. Stance dancing would still be a thing, but less punishing.

[Sebazy]

Truly there is no right choice here. The best Square can do would be to give us a new Healing Job that does not use Cleric Stance

Hit the nail on the head with this point imo. Simply hacking cleric out of the existing jobs is going to annoy one side of the community whilst helping the other, you're taking one person's problem and putting it in someone else's lap instead. SE absolutely missed a trick with AST, having a healer that could indirectly generate DPS by spending it's GCDs getting cards rather than doing the DPS itself would have been a fantastic option for those that try to be more faithful to the support role.

[loreleidiangelo]

Hit the nail on the head with this point imo. Simply hacking cleric out of the existing jobs is going to annoy one side of the community whilst helping the other, you're taking one person's problem and putting it in someone else's lap instead. SE absolutely missed a trick with AST, having a healer that could indirectly generate DPS by spending it's GCDs getting cards rather than doing the DPS itself would have been a fantastic option for those that try to be more faithful to the support role.

Agree with this 100%, and that's precisely what I was hoping the AST job would be in my pre-HW hype. I'd much rather spend globals manipulating my cards to support the group than spend them plastering lame blue balloon graphics and a little galaxy on my enemies. The distinction is absolutely in things like immersion/character identity. I don't personally identify with the whole "battle cleric" image from D&D, I like healing and support. Right now there's no job in FFXIV that satisfies that for me. On the other hand, I've lurked around here and Reddit enough to know that there ARE people who like that gameplay, and at this juncture it's just as damaging to take that away from them.

If I had to choose, I'd say I'd definitely rather see the DPS side of things go rather than be emphasized even more. But the devs are missing some prime opportunities IMO to really differentiate their healers on how they contribute to group success.

[technole]

Not to wiggle the argument but you have to realize every job is a DPS, just with a different background color in their icon.


This is a DPS oriented MMO, that preface hasn't changed one bit and why tanking and healing in this game is by-far better than other MMO products out there. There is a higher skill ceiling for players who don't always sit in tank stances and take advantage of cleric stance. This dynamic of the game does create a greater skill gap however, but it's perpetuated by the raid design between casual and savage levels, and lessening the DPS-checks as we got further in Heavensward. You don't have to go far to see two ends of the player spectrum. There are numerous threads here pointing this out.

Although there are some outliers like the Zurvan Skip Soar meme that rehashed this "everyone DPS" subject, it's good for the game. You have to realize there is a base that likes the way it is today, and wants to see it more refined. But on the same token also make the healing challenges harder like they were in the A1S first weeks, or the days where you knew that White Mage earned their real healer stripes because they cleared Final Coil.