[Opinion] Why I'm disappointed by most changes to healers.

[NocturniaUzuki]

So I've finally managed to get my feelings on this matter fairly organized. As I mentioned in the title, this is an opinion piece, so at times I don't mince my words (there's nothing rule-breaking though) !
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I don't like the changes to AST. But frankly, I don't like most changes in most MMOs. I have what seems to be a very unusual opinion on game balance. The problem with FF14 (and almost every other MMO in existence) is that they balance around algorithms rather than taking situation into account. Most MMO developers these days also listen to their playerbase far too much, to the point that it is actually becoming a detriment, because your average gamer does not have a Masters degree in game design. Player feedback is usually not about what is actually good for the game. It's about what the players want. And those two things are not mutually inclusive.

So since the vast majority of gamers are material-minded and are completely obsessed with speed and maximum DPS potential and potency, the developers continually make changes to satisfy those players. Unfortunately, most developers tend to do this poorly: they seem to equate player happiness with the game's mechanical health, which is poor design. Yes, it's important to satisfy the players, but it's also important to not reduce the entire game to nothing but algorithms, the way the DPS worshippers do.

What games need to be genuinely unique and interesting are job mechanics that cannot simply be classed into "viable" and "not viable" for DPS. These are mechanics that are situational and allow the player to have a huge impact if used in creative ways. They're mechanics whose power is mainly (or entirely) in the hands of the player using them.

For DPS jobs, it's harder to make these sorts of skills, and not as important either, since DPS classes do actually revolve around maximizing DPS. But tanks and healers are different. Especially healers. Healer jobs are the only jobs that actually deal with unscripted situations on a regular basis. This is because, unlike DPS and Tanks, their targets are not AI; their targets are their allies, who are human. So, healer kits need much more focus on being able to adapt to unpredictable situations as they appear. Situational skills are paramount. As far as I'm concerned, the healer's job is keeping their allies alive, first and foremost. DPS is something that healers should only be concerned with when there is no risk of allied deaths.

However, most of the playerbase is still hopelessly obsessed with DPS on healers, even healer mains. And I don't just mean healers casting DPS spells. I also mean healers obsessing over buffing the DPS of their party members. Most healers will blame the party for wipes, "because they were the ones who got hit 10 times in a row, so it's not my fault!" But that is just pathetic, in my opinion. Yes, the players got hit. Maybe even they got hit a lot. But guess what! Being prepared to keep those players alive despite them getting hit is your job, healers! If you just derp around assuming that your allies will never get hit, always holding and fishing for Balance cards or using your cooldowns to increase your DPS indirectly by reducing your MP usage or speeding up your healing to give you more time to DPS, then it's your fault if you don't have your cooldowns up or enough MP and your party member dies as a result. Of course, it's a judgment call on the part of the healer whether they can afford to spare their cooldowns for DPS. If the party is top notch and rarely gets hit, then the healer might feel safe using those cooldowns for DPS. However, in that case it's still the healer's fault if a party member dies because one of their spells was on cooldown!

This is why I am upset by the changes to Spear. They took one of AST's best disaster-preparedness skills and turned it into yet another pointless DPS tool. Most players, even healer mains, seem to be happy about this, but as far as I'm concerned, 99% of the playerbase doesn't understand that there are two sides to healing. Healing is not about exclusively putting party empowerment before survival - that's what "offensive support" classes are for (and FF14 doesn't have any pure support classes, though Off-healers could be considered as such). Healing is also about making sure your party stays alive, no matter how many mistakes your party members make. If a party member dies and you had the cooldowns to save him/her (or could have had them if you hadn't used them for DPS earlier, or had used Spear to reduce their cooldowns), then it's your fault. It's only the party member's fault when you, as a healer, literally cannot save him/her because you had to use your cooldowns to save other people earlier (not to DPS).

This is how I manage stuff like 4-man Royal Menagerie and other nutty stuff, even in parties that aren't flawless. Sure, if my party played flawlessly and never got hit, I might blow a few cooldowns to enhance my DPS a bit. If my party is that good, I can rely on them to almost never get hit. But I almost never encounter parties that good. Even in the 4-man RM parties that cleared, where every member knew the fight really well, people still got hit a bit. And when doing that sort of challenge run, if someone gets hit it often means the healer has to blow a cooldown just to save them. There are even harder challenges out there. Challenges so intense that the healer is forced to use every cooldown just to sustain the party through the unavoidable raid damage, and if a player takes a single avoidable hit, the healer probably won't be able to compensate. For those types of challenges, the removal of Spear's -20% cooldown reduction could potentially have made the challenge impossible to complete. Content effectively got deleted as a result of that change. And what was the change for? For the sake of nothing but clearing a battle 20 seconds faster.
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For the sake of not repeating the same issues, I'll put any determined differences of opinion here:

1. Responsibilities

The common belief is each player is wholly responsible for his or her own death. The healer does not have a responsibility to carry players who take avoidable damage. The healer is only responsible for sustaining through each battle's minimum, unavoidable damage output. As a result, a good healer should map out their cooldown usage to the scripted fight choreography in such a way as to maximize party DPS. This is how healer cooldowns are meant to be used. Any players who repeatedly detract from this ideal choreography should be booted; the healers should remain able to sustain any player errors without resorting to cooldowns. The ultimate goal is to clear the fight as quickly as possible.

My belief is that each player bears some responsibility for his or her own death. However, the healer also has a responsibility to keep the party alive regardless of how often players take avoidable damage. Players taking avoidable damage changes the fight from scripted healing to unpredictable healing. A good healer should ensure that they have the proper tools available to deal with any unpredictable situations. The healer only contributes to party DPS when they feel there is negligible risk in doing so. Every player deserves to participate, so booting is reserved for trolls/permanent disconnects only. The ultimate goal is to ensure that the fight clears, with speed as a sub-goal only.

[magnanimousCynic]

Once you get to Extreme Primal difficulty and Savage, you plan your Cooldowns to how the fight flows to help mitigate damage/mechanics as much as possible. Pre-4.05 Spear did nothing to help that. The amount of time that Spear actually cut off was minimal unless you purposely tried to fish for Spears, which is ill-advised.

Also your argument revolves around players getting hit by mechanics they should be avoiding. The better solution is for the player in question to learn how to avoid any possible damage.

Bole is better at saving bad players than pre-4.05 Spear.

EDIT #1: If you plan on making very large posts, I suggest having a TL;DR: for those who don't have the time to read over 1k words for an opinion.

[NocturniaUzuki]

The better solution is for the player in question to learn how to avoid any possible damage.

This is exactly what I mean by healers blaming other classes.

Yes, ideally the player shouldn't be getting hit. But you're assuming perfection (a favourite habit of DPS-centric players, by the way). Players are never going to just "learn how to avoid any possible damage." If this was possible, then, eventually, nobody would get hit. Ever. But that is unrealistic. Everyone takes hits. Even highly-experienced players. And what about if you're not playing with the top 1% of players?

If, as a healer, you are leaving your party members' lives up to chance by assuming that they won't get hit, then it's your fault if they get hit and you don't have the requisite cooldowns to save them as a result of that aggressive playstyle. Of course, experienced healers in experienced parties may make the judgment call that the chances of a party member getting hit are so low that it's not worth reserving their spells for that chance. But, ultimately, the healer is responsible if their gamble fails; if a party member does get hit and the healer wasn't prepared for it, then it's the healer's fault.

Edit: Bole is useful, but not as useful as most cooldowns. Reducing damage by 20% is nice and all, but if the player about to die suddenly needs an extra 100% HP to avoid death instead of the effective extra 20% from Bole, then Bole isn't going to help. For example, what do you do when a DPS gets targeted by Akh Morn in RM? Do you use Bole? Too bad, that just isn't going to cut it. Frankly, most healers I've seen who encounter that situation just throw up their arms and let the DPS die. If I encounter that situation:

Pre-cast Benefic II to partially counter the first hit
Aspected Benefic to prep for second hit
ED + Swiftcast/Lightspeed Benefic II after second hit

If I don't have ED and Swiftcast/Lightspeed, the player dies. If the reason I didn't have those cooldowns is because I used them for DPS or had to use them earlier and didn't reduce their cooldown, then it's my fault that DPS died.

I suppose Bole might be capable of reducing the damage enough that just Benefic II and ED is enough to get them through it. It would depend on the DPS in question's defensive stats, most likely.

[Rivxkobe]

Sorry, but its not always the healer's fault if an ally dies.

You can say it is, but that doesn't make it so. And bolding and/or italicizing the words doesn't make it any more true. I agree that a healer's priority should be healing, that is obvious, however I disagree on your other thoughts.


From your posts I get this:

1. Healers should heal. If they decide to DPS they better hope no one makes a mistake and dies or else its on them.
2. Healers should waste time doing nothing because someone may get hurt in the next 2 seconds, and if you are casting a DPS spell you can't heal them right away.
3. Don't use your cooldowns. Save them in case things go to hell and you need to make up for other player's mistakes.
4. If you end up not using cooldowns? Good, that means everyone was good and you didn't need to use them.
5. If someone dies, even a DPS who took to much damage too quickly, its the healers fault. Because no player should be expected to take responsibility for their own mistakes. IF you die it means you weren't healed and that means the healer wasn't doing their job. Unless they were healing someone else. But still, you can still blame them because you are dead now.



This is just... subotimal at best. Its also ludicrous that you put ALL the blame on the healer. God forbid a Tank or DPS try to actually look after themselves. Also, Spear was trash and was rarely useful because most players use their cooldowns when they are efficient, and when they can. They don't sit on them.

Edit: Also stating that "content effectively got deleted on result of the change" is just... What is this?

ED + Swiftcast/Lightspeed Benefic II after second hit

If I don't have ED and Swiftcast/Lightspeed, the player dies. If the reason I didn't have those cooldowns is because I used them for DPS or had to use them earlier and didn't reduce their cooldown, then it's my fault that DPS died..

Is this one of those "four-man RM" runs? Because you can't use that to defend or support your position. Why? Because it is NOT real content, and the chances of a single DPS being hit by Ahk Morn in RM with you being the only one healing is so incredibly rare (considering 2 tanks, a co-healer and 3 other DPS) that it is silly to use it as an example.

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Edit 2: I am putting this here because I want my reply to be visible, and I want other's to see how far the OP is willing to twist things to change what is being said just to make those of us who disagree with her look bad.

Uh... what?

There's a video proving that you can 4-man RM. In fact, I'm pretty sure it can be 3-manned. So, yeah, it's real.

You reply to others (including me) telling them they misunderstand what you are saying or misreading your post. But my point is laid out flat and obvious yet you miss it. Tsk.

I never said I didn't believe you. I believe it is possible, however it cannot be used to defend your views of:

1. Old spear was better
2. The healer needs to sit on CDs in case of mistakes (you say this isn't something you believe but... look at your replies. Seriously.)
3. Its the healer's fault if someone dies to mechanics.

4-man RM is not real content, it is taking something and artifically making it harder than intended. Being able to do it is cool, but it doesn't prove your point and it doesn't prove you are a good healer or know healing better than "99% of the playerbase".

Now, if you are just claiming that 4-man RM is irrelevant, then on what basis are you claiming that? Because it doesn't offer any material reward that is relevant to gaining end-game gear, perhaps? Oh, so now only material-minded players are allowed to play the game ?

Maybe you personally believe there is no point to doing that content, but there are plenty of players who enjoy that sort of challenge. It's not just me either. There are plenty of players who enjoy unconventional content like this. And outside of challenge runs of this nature, there's a sizeable portion of the playerbase, especially among casual players, I should think, that just play for immaterial fun. They fight bosses because they enjoy it, and not because they enjoy the rewards. The process itself is the reward for us.

Where in the hell did you pull this out of? I never said anything about material rewards. I was saying it is irrelevant because it is irrelevant to your stance and irrelevant to how the game is designed. And you are under the assumption that I am not a casual player, and that I don't run things just for fun. Which is laughable since I do Deltascape Normal V1.0, v3.0 and v4.0 all the time just for funsies.

[LarcSekaya]

I don't use my CD on CD. By holding onto a spear for the chance that I may need to use a CD, I was wasting my spread space. It's odd, but I don't need to use CDs to keep people alive. I use CDs to make my job easier.

[Sebazy]

Again, I think you're selling the community short, there's a lot of players out there who simply enjoy getting stuck into 'trap' groups and seeing if they can carry/coach them through the content. Have a little faith and get 'networking' so to speak.

Unique and situational abilities with a truly huge impact simply doesn't work. I was a healing pvp shaman in vanilla WoW, I had a bag load of cheap dirty tricks (anti melee invulnerable mail, green whelp armour, anti stealth tremor totems, anti mage grounding totems, skull of impending doom for WSG or just getting in/out of situations, hundreds of NDB/Tubers at all times, the list goes on) up my sleeve and whilst it was amusing in play, it wasn't remotely fair or balanced for those that had the task of trying to deal with me.

As for your comment about the obsession over DPS or DPS buffs. The problem is, what alternative is there? You mention survivability vs avoidable hits but TBH, where can you even go with that? Mechanical fails fall into 2 camps, either it's very survivable or it's going to hit you with way more damage than you could ever sensibly expect to mitigate (Or just kill you in a way that's unpreventable). The only mechanics I can think of in current content can be failed but genuinely require CDs to power through are Susano's lightning and O2Savage's leap. I can't think of any other situation where I couldn't just brute force through it with normal abilities or that player is flat out dead. The RM Ahk Morn is really rather weak compared to Bahamut/Nidhogg for example.

Look at it this way, I've been a healer main since the days of EQ going back to late 1999, I've been raiding since raids were a thing (You'll see me listed on the Kunark and Velious slow charts for example), feel free to google up my 4 digit magelo profile if you want confirmation of that. Despite FFXIV's DPS bias, I've always been known within my server's raiding scene as a cautious healer rather than someone you'd take along for big healer DPS and my logs rankings reflect this, 9th worldwide all stars HPS on Gordias, 4th worldwide on Creator (I was nowhere on Midas primarily due to my house catching on fire). So ya, I'd like to think I know a thing or two about healing.

IMHO? Spear was RR bait or an instant discard because my attention was better rewarded focusing elsewhere than trying to cook up some outlaying situation where it might actually have a real impact beyond advancing my cooldowns 20 seconds forward. Throwing it on a tank or dps in a situation where it would matter (A rough primal or savage) would a best see it going to waste because they use their cooldowns on a strictly practiced rotation, or at worst, would mess their rotation up resulting in something between a wipe/tankdeath or just the loss of a big chunk of DPS.

And what was the change for? For the sake of nothing but clearing a battle 20 seconds faster.

You keep saying this, and yet you keep failing to understand how important DPS pushes were in large chunks of raid content especially towards the end of HW. A Zurvan PF that didn't push soar had a slim chance of clearing. At the opposite end of the spectrum, an A12S group that could kill it before the second set of fountains had a massive advantage over a team that couldn't. In these situations and more, that 20 second faster kill would typically make the difference between a kill or a wipe.

Outside of savage I really don't think it matters because frankly, the content is a trivial face roll at best.

TLDR: I see myself as a support, keeping them alive is one facet of my job, doing my utmost to help them get the clear smoothly and efficiently is the other. Helping them push the best DPS they can even if it involves helping them to ignore mechanics is the best method of this at my disposal currently. Thus that's what I do.

[inhaledcorn]

It almost sounds like you're blaming literally every other player for this change, that you know better, and we're all stupid for thinking otherwise despite us showing proof multiple times in your "In the case of the (former) Spear" thread to the contrary. You're also fundamentally misunderstanding the use of cooldowns and how healing works in general. Yes, a healer should strive to save people from damage, but there's only so much that can be done if a player is actively ignoring mechanics. At that point, it's an MP drain and a focus drain on the healer (and more often than not, the player is doing very bad DPS anyway, so they're probably better off dead so that the healer can contribute more DPS to make up for it).

Healer cooldowns are like tank cooldowns: They're not "Oh shit" buttons. They're meant to be used actively and planned in a way that they would be the most effective. In learning O2s, I figured out that Gravitational Wave is generally spread out enough that Rouse/Whispering Dawn will always be up for it to help my healing and use them accordingly. I also plan out effectively when to use Indom and Excog, so that I'm using Aetherflow efficiently (and well enough that I can also use it on Energy Drain to push down the Aetherflow cooldown and generate some extra damage/mp). Saying, "You should hang onto Assize or Lucid Dreaming until you need it or you get 3 lilies" is extremely foolish and would get you laughed at by good WHM players.

There is just so much wrong with this and puts all the blame on healers when it's almost never just the healer's fault if something goes bad.

[magnanimousCynic]

This is exactly what I mean by healers blaming other classes.

It's my fault if they die to an AoE? AoEs in much harder content either have debilitating debuffs, such as vuln stacks, or will outright one-shot them. How am I supposed to deal with those if they're already at 100% HP before the AoE?

Yes, ideally the player shouldn't be getting hit. But you're assuming perfection (a favourite habit of DPS-centric players, by the way).

Dodging AoEs is not being perfect. AoEs are in virtually every single fight. What WOULD be considered being perfect is maximizing DPS while dodging AoEs. Being able to dodge AoEs is something that people should expect from others. You don't need to be a savage player to deal with a core mechanic of the game.

Also don't make assumptions. While I do enjoy DPS as a healer, I know better than to constantly leave the party at 50% HP just to increase my damage.

If this was possible, then, eventually, nobody would get hit. Ever.

Which is why SE has unavoidable damage in most fights.

Everyone takes hits. Even highly-experienced players. And what about if you're not playing with the top 1% of players?

I don't expect to play with the most elite. I expect people who understand the base mechanics of the game.

If, as a healer, you are leaving your party members' lives up to chance by assuming that they won't get hit, then it's your fault if they get hit and you don't have the requisite cooldowns to save them as a result of that aggressive playstyle.

Why is it always the Healers fault if the DPS die due to AoEs? What if the DPS has 6 vuln stacks and WILL die if they get hit by the next AoE, even at 100% HP? Is it still my fault for not keeping them alive after the 7th AoE which I literally couldn't heal them through?

But, ultimately, the healer is responsible if their gamble fails;

Read above on why it isn't always the healers fault.

Bole is useful, but not as useful as most cooldowns. Reducing damage by 20% is nice and all, but if the player about to die suddenly needs an extra 100% HP to avoid death instead of the effective extra 20% from Bole, then Bole isn't going to help.

If a DPS needs 200% effective HP to survive an AoE, at least that's what I'm getting from your example, then nothing can stop them from dying.

Also I never implied that the only help a DPS would get is a Bole. Being at 100% HP should let a DPS survive any non-EX/Savage content unless they've been stacking their Vuln Up or dying through one-shot mechanics.

For example, what do you do when a DPS gets targeted by Akh Morn in RM? Do you use Bole? Too bad, that just isn't going to cut it.

DPS shouldn't be targeted by Ahk Morn in RN at all. The fault for that situation falls on the problem DPS standing too close to the tanks and the tanks for not being close enough to each other to properly soak it.

Unless you mean the one that doesn't target a tank. If you mean that Ahk Morn then I should tell you that it only kills a DPS if they stay inside of it.

If I don't have ED and Swiftcast/Lightspeed, the player dies. If the reason I didn't have those cooldowns is because I used them for DPS or had to use them earlier and didn't reduce their cooldown, then it's my fault that DPS died.

What? The only cooldown AST has, not counting cards, that could/should be used for DPS is Earthly Star. You shouldn't be using Lightspeed or Swiftcast for DPS if that's what you're saying.

[NocturniaUzuki]

Sorry, but its not always the healer's fault of an ally dies.

You can say it is, but that doesn;t make it so. And bolding and/or italicizing the words doesn't make it any more true. I agree that a healer's priority should be healing, that is obvious, however I disagree on your other thoughts.

From your posts I get this:

1. Healers should heal. If they decide to DPS they better hope no one makes a mistake and dies or else its on them.
2. Healers should waste time doing nothing because someone may get hurt in the next 2 seconds, and if you are casting a DPS spell you can't heal them right away.
3. Don't use your cooldowns. Save them in case things go to hell and you need to make up for other player's mistakes.
4. If you end up not using cooldowns? Good, that means everyone was good and you didn't need to use them.
5. If someone dies, even a DPS to too much damage too quickly, its the healers fault. Because no player should be expected to take responsibility for their own mistakes. IF you die it means you weren't healed and that means the healer wasn't doing their job. Unless they were healing someone else. But still, you can still blame them because you are dead now.



This is just... subotimal at best. Its also ludicrous that you put ALL the blame on the healer. God forbid a Tank or DPS try to actually look after themselves. Also, Spear was trash and was rarely useful because most players use their cooldowns when they are efficient, and when they can. They don't sit on them.

Edit: Also stating that "content effectively got deleted on result of the change" is just... What is this?

You're misunderstanding me a bit.

1. Yes, healers should heal. But just because it's the healer's fault if someone dies as a result of their DPSing, that doesn't mean that I'm saying healers should never DPS. I care a lot about efficiency myself as well. I just approach it in a different way. I'll DPS whenever I can. But I am very careful about when I focus on it. I even try to throw out offensive cards when I'm doing challenge runs. However, I'm very careful about when I do it. Constantly using cooldowns just because "it's inefficient to let them stay available" or fishing for offensive cards at the expense of everything else is not something I do unless I have complete and utter confidence in the party I am with. I adjust my balance of offense and defense to be appropriate to the party and situation I'm in. I don't just use maximum DPS all the time just because "DPS is best".

2. God no. Healers should always be doing something. If you don't need to heal, start casting a DPS spell. You can instantly cancel and start a new cast anyways (though admittedly that takes some practice). The only time I start standing around doing nothing between heals is when I'm in the MP danger zone and don't have MP regen on hand (i.e. I have 1500 MP left, Lucid has 50 seconds left on cooldown, and I just tried and failed to fish for Ewer). But generally I won't hit the danger zone unless I'm under massive MP pressure (solo healing 8-player content and the party is getting wrecked, etc).

3. Correct. Unless you make the judgment call that your party isn't likely to make a critical mistake. You don't need to save all your spells though. Just enough relevant ones to the most likely potential problems. However, if that judgment call fails and the party gets wrecked more than anticipated, it's the healer's fault for not anticipating that. This is why, on my first run with a PUG party, I'm usually playing on the safe side until I get a feel for the party's ability.

4. Yes. But if this is happening consistently, consider taking more risks. Just don't make poor gambles and cause a wipe as a result.

5. The DPS should still take responsibility for their own mistakes, because it makes it harder on the healer. But the healer shouldn't just blame the DPS for not avoiding damage. Just because it's harder on the healer, it doesn't mean it's not still the healer's responsibility to keep the party alive. I can understand that healers get annoyed that DPS are "relying" on heals. But being petty and not healing them just so they'll "learn" not to get hit doesn't help.

[VanilleFang]

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to get into everything I disagree with. I'm tired and I have to be up early.

But if a DPS took damage they could avoid it is 100% their fault if they die. No one else's. It doesn't matter that the healer is there to keep everyone else alive, it is everyone's job to keep THEMSELVES alive as much as possible.

Responsibility on your own life is not healer > yourself. It's yourself > healer. That's like saying a doctor is responsibly if you die because you didn't move out of the way of ticking bomb.

You are literally perpetuating the "healers adjust" meme.