PSA - Cleric Stance and vote kicking

[Ama_Hamada]

He actually never said that. There was a question about how much Healers DPS was taken into account when balancing savage raid tiers. He said that the balance was made for healers doing 0 DPS... Which, was completly false considering how absurd DPS checks were in Alexander Gordias/Midas. This statement was made two years ago.

But, somehow, people heard "Healers don't have to DPS, ever, in any content" and took it as a sacred text spoken by the god-of-all-things Yoshi-P.

Yes the quote was misused, and they explained why they did it. They said they factor it as in 90% damage on dummies basically and depending how they are getting those numbers, may not even be possible for players to do. He also said Healers NEED to dps to meet the checks if people enter lower then the ilevel they calculated. So I do not get where people get the idea "yoshi-p said healers do not have to dps if they do not want to" If I am queued as tank does that mean I can play as a dps because I do not have to do something do not want to do? I do not understand how people can twist something so much.

[Belhi]

He actually never said that. There was a question about how much Healers DPS was taken into account when balancing savage raid tiers. He said that the balance was made for healers doing 0 DPS... Which, was completly false considering how absurd DPS checks were in Alexander Gordias/Midas. This statement was made two years ago.

But, somehow, people heard "Healers don't have to DPS, ever, in any content" and took it as a sacred text spoken by the god-of-all-things Yoshi-P.

I believe they are refering to Yoshi P's comments at EU Fanfest when this question came up at the Q&A:

Q: With the upcoming changes to cross class skills and the removal and retooling of actions, what will happen to healer DPS? Will we still have the same capacity to deal damage or are those days coming to an end?
A: I hate cleric’s stance! If we take it away though I think people will get mad, so it’ll stay. But I want to reiterate too, you guys are supposed to be healers. So you still need to focus on healing, and then if you want to help your party with DPS you can. Don’t get so wrapped up in DPS that everyone in your party is dead. Please be careful.

Yes the quote was misused, and they explained why they did it. They said they factor it as in 90% damage on dummies basically and depending how they are getting those numbers, may not even be possible for players to do. He also said Healers NEED to dps to meet the checks if people enter lower then the ilevel they calculated. So I do not get where people get the idea "yoshi-p said healers do not have to dps if they do not want to" If I am queued as tank does that mean I can play as a dps because I do not have to do something do not want to do? I do not understand how people can twist something so much.

Tanks have very clear and developed tank mechanics including enmity management, positioning and maundering targets and damage mitigation which is factor that features in most of their encounter time. They also have solid rotations and actual dps mechanics. Healers have underwhelming Healing mechanics which usually are solved by spaming overpowered spells at the right time which means a great deal of downtime where they don't have anything to heal and simplified dps rotations with cleric stance being the only real mechanic. Now they have removed that mechanic.

I don't have a specific problem with dpsing. I do as a healer pretty much all the time anyway. Healing is under developed in this game. However I think it is a perfectly valid excuse to take issue with the fact there is so much opportunity to dps as it shows the healing gameplay is lacking and I think its fine to take issue with healers finding themselves in a situation where they have to dps to keep active in a fight but are given a tacked on dps system to do it with. They literally just removed the one interesting mechanic dpsing as a healer had.

People obsess over wether healers should dps or not instead of asking the questions of if healer gameplay is actually being properly supported with encounter mechanics and if healers are expected to dps, why hasn't dps been incorporated into their class as a core feature tied to the Job mechanics rather than a thing tacked onto the side?

[dlgc]

Ultimate snipping jutsu

Personally I don't find the dd skills used by healers being "tacked on". However for the sake of argument, can you give detailed, plausible, and workable examples of ways you would rework healers, so all their skills feel "whole"?

Furthermore, even if we buy your premise of the healers' dd skills feel "tacked on", it is still far from being a valid reason for some "healers" to stubbornly refuse to contribute to the party's overall damage output whatsoever.

Cheers,
D.

[Fyce]

I believe they are refering to Yoshi P's comments at EU Fanfest when this question came up at the Q&A:

Q: With the upcoming changes to cross class skills and the removal and retooling of actions, what will happen to healer DPS? Will we still have the same capacity to deal damage or are those days coming to an end?
A: I hate cleric’s stance! If we take it away though I think people will get mad, so it’ll stay. But I want to reiterate too, you guys are supposed to be healers. So you still need to focus on healing, and then if you want to help your party with DPS you can. Don’t get so wrapped up in DPS that everyone in your party is dead. Please be careful.

That might also be part of it, but the question was asked by healers who actually DPS... So if someone were to take that as "hey, you're a healer, so don't DPS", they'd have to be complete idiots.

Yoshi said that middle-ground answer for people not to think that he's saying that healers should DPS like crazy. The punishment for failing as a healer is often a wipe, so he had to be 'gentle'.

Also, that answer told that "I hate Cleric Stance... but Cleric stance will stay". One might argue that it's technically correct, but the fact is that Cleric stance as we know it is gone.
So if that doesn't make people take what Yoshi-P has to say about healers with a grain of salt, the I don't know what they need.

[Naunet]

I don't have a specific problem with dpsing. I do as a healer pretty much all the time anyway. Healing is under developed in this game. However I think it is a perfectly valid excuse to take issue with the fact there is so much opportunity to dps as it shows the healing gameplay is lacking and I think its fine to take issue with healers finding themselves in a situation where they have to dps to keep active in a fight but are given a tacked on dps system to do it with. They literally just removed the one interesting mechanic dpsing as a healer had.

I disagree that Cleric Stance was in any way interesting. It was a laggy toggle button with a boring effect and deciding to use it was just a question of, "Do I want to dps now?"

God what I wouldn't do for a healer whose spells aren't just "single target", "stronger single target", "aoe", though... for the healing jobs to be fully distinct from one another in style and flavor and healing spells. I know I mention WildStar a lot, but as a comparison, this is a general description of some of the main healing abilities for the three classes that can heal:

Esper: Healing revolves around generating Psi Points and spending them for "big" healing spells. Bread and butter is Soothe, a charge-up spell (press and hold to charge, can charge up to 3 levels for varying healing intensity/focus cost) that heals anyone in its long-line telegraph (can be modified to add a HoT to the targets hit). Reverie is the main spender, which is a basic AoE heal, but its potency and cost changes depending on how many Psi Points it uses (can be modified to place a beacon on players hit that increases healing taken). Warden is a ground-based aoe HoT centered around the first person it hits (can be modified to grant defense to players healed). There's also a spender that is an aoe HoT centered around you (follows you) that lasts 6 seconds. There's a single target HoT builder. There's an attack that places a healing circle around the monster it hits, plus anyone who hits the monster with it gains an attack and support buff. There's a seed-like builder that is a delayed heal on one person... and some others and many utility abilities.

Spellslinger: Telegraphs are fairly narrow for the most part, as opposed to the Esper's circular AoEs. Their main mechanic is Spell Surge, which is a toggleable status that regenerates over time and is spent by spells cast when Spell Surge is on. Casting a spell with Spell Surge on can change its focus cost, cooldown, or even how the spell functions. They have an AoE shield, and a charged conal heal (3 tiers of charge) whose cooldown changes depending on the level of charge it was when you used it. There's also an AoE buff that triggers healing when the person takes damage for 12 seconds. Runic Healing is a channeled, focused HoT. I know there are several other abilities, but I'm not as familiar with slinger healing as esper healing.

Medic: They're short-range healers unique in that they can heal player health as well as player shields (a special mechanic in WildStar that is essentially a second layer of HP but comes from a piece of gear called an Energy Shield). The way they're balanced now, it's very important to manage your Actuators to stay under a certain number so that your main heal costs very little/no focus. They've got some fun abilities like Fusion Probe that launches forward and heals people it hits, plus explodes after a bit and heals folk in range. Shield Surge restores shield instead of HP, which is especially powerful for tank healing. Barrier is a long CD ability that restores Shield to 100% and sets Shield Mitigation at 100% for you and 3 other people. A few abilities become available if you land a multi-hit (based on a stat called Multi-hit which essentially has a chance to duplicate your heals/attacks). Dual Shock does both damage and heals, but if you modify it you can convert some of the damage done to healing. Flash is a short-range AoE heal whose cooldown is reduced when you cast Emission (a basic channel that builds Actuators).

Anyway, I'll stop there cause it's getting a bit long. Doesn't cover all of the spells, nor any of the utility that the different healers also bring. But the main point is that, while there are a few similarities here and there, each class is highly distinct from one another. Their spells also have a lot more that goes into using them besides just Cure, Cure II, Medica (and the equivalents for AST and SCH). SE really designed themselves into a corner with healing by simplifying things so much that any other spell they design will have players think, "Well, I wouldn't I just use Cure/Cure II/Medica?"

[Belhi]

Personally I don't find the dd skills used by healers being "tacked on". However for the sake of argument, can you give detailed, plausible, and workable examples of ways you would rework healers, so all their skills feel "whole"?

Furthermore, even if we buy your premise of the healers' dd skills feel "tacked on", it is still far from being a valid reason for some "healers" to stubbornly refuse to contribute to the party's overall damage output whatsoever.

Cheers,
D.

There are two issues and frankly at their core is the question of what healers are supposed to be in FF14. For example, are healers supposed to be true healers in the MMO sense with their focus on Healer gameplay ie. countering the onslaught of damage given by the boss? Or are they supposed to be more along the lines of healing support dps, were they provide group support and sustaining while dealing out as much damage as possible. The design seems to indicate that the devs are shooting for the first option but the mechanics and balance of the game push the reality more towards the second option.

With the first option, healers exist as a distinctly different gameplay to dpsing. Their dpsing is a very minor feature of the Job and often not used in group content. Downtimes between healing is a lot shorter and healers have less long duration automated healing they can depend on. Simply put, the fight mechanics and group damage are often too low or too bursty in fights and healing spells are way too overpowered in FF14. I haven't played another MMO were I require so little direct casting to actually heal. You can with almost trivial ease heal a group from almost dead to max health in only a couple of GCDs in this game. At its core, that is why the healing mechanics in this game fall short. The issue is the healing Jobs are designed for this type of gameplay.

With the second option, Healing is a monitored thing and dpsing mechanics and heal mechanics interact. Prior to Stormblood, Cleric stance creates a risk/reward situation which means healers have to be attentive when it comes to when damage is coming and be able to plan and adapt quickly if things went wrong. It wasn't great but it was something. The removal of Cleric stance removes this sole mechanic and replaces it with nothing. Healing dps is, for pretty much all the healing classes, maintaining a couple of dots and spamming one button. That's it. There is no mechanical interaction between your dps and heals. If they wanted to go for the second option they could make it that using particular dps spells makes certain healing spells cast faster or for less mana or for more healing. They could have spells that apply a leech effect to the target which allows allies attacking it to get hp back each time they use an ability on the boss. They could create actual rotation where you play of say the differences with water and earth elements in WHM. There are a myriad of possibilities. However all we have is a couple of dps dots and a single button spam with literally no interaction with the rest of the Job's abilities. Certainly none with their support/healing. DPS isn't part of the core design of the Job and more an addition so they aren't completely rekt when having to solo something. So, tacked on.

AST is the only one to escape this partially and that is due to the fact their cards create an additional mechanic to the Job. Its very RNG based and that turns people off but it does add an extra layer. For Jobs like WHM and to a lesser extent SCH, there is no real secondary support gameplay. Its just 'how can I minimise my healing time so I can spam my crappy dps rotation'.

[Hyperia]

I'll DPS when I can during dungeons and raids, as long as it does not impact my ability to heal or finish the encounter. I will not be getting Cleric Stance as I need the other cross class abilities. As a WHM, I cant always do the ABC (Always Be Casting) thing due to mana issues, which I doubt will be fixed in SB.

I'll do what I can when I can as long as people are alive, except for DRGs... I'm sorry, but if you want a chance at winning that pony, you have to tank the floor every now and then. You know... its... tradition!

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Snip.

This really is why playing healer really does suck in this game. At least IMHO.

[KisaiTenshi]

The overall problem with healing in MMORPG's is that you can NOT force people into a role they do not want to do. If you make the healer role too tanky or much of a DPS, then everyone will pick the healer and forgo the other roles because the healer is the easiest to min-max.

That said, if you make healers only able to heal, they can not get through any content without substantial help. So for those who think that the DPS skills the healers have mean you MUST use those at every opportunity, no, that's the opposite. When you work in a team, you put the best person in every slot. So that means a tank in the tank slot, a healer in the healer slot, and DPS in the DPS slot. If you require a healer to DPS, then you are insinuating your DPS characters are not competent. So please stop suggesting that healers are lazy. The opposite is true, the healer needs to have much more situational awareness, probably as much as the Tank does.

The other part of the problem here is that people are not aware how level sync works/ilevel sync works. Literately it scales the character's pre-equipment level to that of the character of that level, and for equipment, it scales it down to the non-enhanced gear of that level. So any time you think a normal/hard/extreme dungeon or primal is too easy, consider the fact that you're probably 50 ilevels higher than the content's minimum design. If everyone is overgeared, then yes the healer is under less pressure, but so is the tank.

If you think your healer is being deliberately lazy, watching netflix, being a troll, then just pull more mobs. If you die (as the tank) that is on you for overestimating the healer's competence. Every duty is designed in a way that you can either take the full length of time and take it slowly. It is more likely that a healer can complete a dungeon without a tank than a tank can complete a dungeon without a healer.

In fact I'd wager that you can get away with pulling more mobs than berating the healer for not DPS'ing. That said, if the changes by Yoshi P./Square Enix are as what is suggested, this means that the WHM is being relegated to the healer role by nerfing cleric stance because people are in a sense "not playing a healer role during dungeon play". Remember that Cleric stance was always a bad trade off, 10% boost in DPS for 20% loss in healing, which in this game plus the cool down. So anyone complaining about this nerf is barking up the wrong tree.

What should have happened, and pardon me if this is what is happening as I only watched the FFXIV community twitch video on it, is that Cleric Stance should have always been a damage boost buff. Many of these things like like swiftcast/speedcast/surecast only activate for one action, and that is what cleric stance should have been. Use it before you use Holy or Assize for a bigger poof, or use it before Aero for a longer duration. In effect if the White mage is supposed to be the sole healer in a 4-man party, then the other three players should not have to heal themselves, period. Cleric Stance should never have been a cross-class skill, the Scholar never actually needed it because they started out as a DPS class. Cleric "stance" has basically made healers third-rate DPS and second-rate healers.

Which is why I think the changes from cross-classing to role-casting are being done. Cross-classing is a literal holdover from V1.0 which itself was a hold over from the Wizardy-style class to job upgrade that first appeared in FF1. In a Single Player game, you are more likely to want to pick and choose skills that you actually will use, and in turn the game content should be balanced assuming the player picked sensible skills. In a MMORPG context however this complicates things since other party members might have the same skills set, and thus what might be the ideal min-max'd play style for one dungeon might be counter-productive for another (eg Esuna is useful in some dungeons, useless in others.)

In other MMORPG games, particularly ones that just keep bringing out new skills without obsoleting old ones, obviously can not test for every boneheaded configuration of skills. So maybe this is better, maybe it isn't.

But really, one should consider that demanding the healer to DPS is the same as demanding to be carried. Hence, consider if your play style is maybe instead toxic or unreasonable. If you have a static party that you play with all the time, you can not apply that to a pickup group, for all you know, your static party may have been doing things so much better because they simply worked well together. A pickup group should assume that you have average or less-than-average players who may only have the minimum gear to enter that dungeon because they are actually playing the game, not grinding for end-game sinks.

[Tharne]

Snip

You didn't adress the real problem. i.e. : When there is nothing to heal, the healers should use this downtime in a useful manner, like dishing out some damage.

That's the only thing reasonable people are asking, if during an entire fight you need to heal then no problem you don't have the time to do damage but if you only need to heal during 50% of the fight you should do something (not nothing) during the other 50%.