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

[Sebazy]

My conclusion is that your party did not make a whole lot of mistakes. Compare that run, for example, to your average synced DF run these days where half the party is new, your co-healer falls off on the first Landslide after the wall breaks, at least 2 DPS eat an avoidable AoE every single time they spawn, the tank doesn't use cooldowns appropriately, nobody stacks to bait AoEs (or to receive Cure IIIs, for that matter), and half the party falls off before 50%.

I can tell you exactly what would happen, it'd enrage, the end.

Also, note the instance timer in that replay, it actually took quite a few attempts because the margin for error was rather small, one dps mistake was dooable, two typically meant an enrage wipe as I wouldn't always have swiftcast on hand (swiftcast double curing 3 and a half years ago, go figure) not to mention, I personally had to have a near perfect run from start to end.

It's also worth heeding that at the top tier of play, you simply replace insufficient tank cooldowns with tanks that just refuse to sit in their tank stance past a 15 second opener, oh and the DPS don't fail to spot the mechanic they just sat in, they just don't care about it

I don't think you're taking into account just how rough some runs can be. Most people tend to just quit and try to find a better party in these situations. I challenge myself it pull through it.

Oh I appreciate entirely how rough runs can be, but I've got enough experience to know when to abort an attempt vs keeping the train wreck rolling in a bid to learn something. I tend take a different approach to you though, I'm more the sort to coach and train someone to handle a mechanic or encounter correctly rather than just mindlessly brute force them through it (Unless they are paying for the privilege ofc ).

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Or something.

However, I don't think anything actually became impossible to complete unless you pushed a phase

A4S springs immediately to mind. Going further back, T7 was a good example of more mainstream content where pushing a phase at the wrong time could cause a guaranteed wipe due. T6 Savage is another great example of this in action.

I don't see how missing the phase push actually makes any difference except to clear speed.

I can only suspect you've simply not done the content where this level of precision genuinely matters? I'd really like to see your lodestone achievements to get a better understanding of the angle you're coming from TBH. I get the impression you'd rather make a challenging situation out of softer content rather than tackle the full fat raids where you're more at the mercy of other people and all baggage that brings?

But a healer that only knows how to play in a party that makes very few mistakes is a bad healer, in my opinion. Not because they are mechanically bad, but because their experience is isolated. If these sorts of healers are faced with sudden, high-pressure disaster situations, they crumble under the pressure; they don't know how to handle it.

Is this another thinly veiled jab at raiders? Before you come back with your wishy washy 'it was hypothetical' lines or some such other excuse, I'll just add that we don't just magically hit a new raid tier with a crisp and fresh Xeno/Mr Happy guide sitting in our laps you know. I can guarantee you that T1/T4/T5/T7/T9/Coil Savage/T11/T12/T13/A3S/A4S/A6S/A8S/O3S/O4S early progression put us under far more pressure than you'll ever experience in your 4 man RM runs no matter how cretinous a team you might manage to pull together for it. At the end of the day you're taking a simple encounter and making a slow meat grinder out of it, but it's still the same simple and forgiving mechanics.

In closing, if you really want a proper healing challenge, hurry up and get stuck into Omega Savage. O4S is legitimately mind blowing from the word go and I genuinely can't think of any healer check in any MMO I've played over the years that is comparable. (I quit WoW after LK tho, the mythic tiers or whatever might have had something on par?) Picture the raw HPS and timing requirements of minIL Turn 13 whilst also having to do complex mechanics and extensive movement at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FoQ44TTybY

It's a cheesy meme, but it pretty much sums up how I felt within the first few pulls of O4S and the effects are amusingly appropriate

Holy moly that turned into an essay and a half

[BloodRubyXII]

hello there was text here but i snipped it ayyyyy

NGL, excellent post; worth the read.

[Anastacy]

Am I really reading a thread where someone is claiming that pre-4.05 garbage Spear is somehow BETTER than the current Spear??? What nega universe have I fallen into? People have been begging for that awful card to get adjustments since practically it came out.

Yup.

I haven't even seen the OP acknowledge that Spear also affects healing, either. He/she keeps going on about DPS. Kinda feels like I'm in a salt mine.

[Gun-Cat]

When I say "derps around" I'm not just referring to the common usage of healers who stand around not healing at all, trying to DPS instead. I'm also referring to healers who are too busy buffing the party or using cooldowns for DPS, then cause a party wipe because they didn't have the right defensive spells available at the right times. These sorts of healers can even be found at high levels of play. Generally, these healers blame the party for wipes. "That tank though; he just kept eating AoEs and getting vuln stacks. But it's not MY fault! I was still throwing out great DPS cards/speeding up the add phase with Holy spam." But here's the question: why was the healer so busy throwing DPS/offensive buffs out when the tank got wrecked? They could have saved the tank if they'd had, say, a Bole held. Or maybe if they hadn't blown Largesse/PoM earlier to save MP/create DPS uptime. Maybe the healer made the judgment call that the tank wasn't likely to get wrecked, so they focused on offense. But that judgment call ended up being wrong, the healer didn't have the spells available when needed, and the tank died. That is at least as much the healer's fault as the tank's.

Should the content require the tank to have a Bole ready I'd rather ask the groups BRD or MCH to go for Palisade, since that is atleast reliable available. If you imply I should hold a Bole in my spread for an entire fight just for that moment, then I am ignoring all the other tools I could have for that in the interim. Also, why is the healer busy doing DPS? Because it increases the chance of victory and can be planned around. Fights in XIV are incredible straight forwards and you can plan around phases where players might make mistakes. With 4.0 you can even correct some of those with Rescue.

Example 1 (which I gave earlier): DPS is the target of Shinryu's Akh Morn. This will require cooldowns if you want them to survive.
Example 2: Any situation in which the healer is being put under more pressure than most people consider it "intended" to handle.

You seem to be under the impression, like others, that anything that isn't a full 8-man party (or even a full party with a couple critical members down) is somehow an "irrelevant" situation. What happens if the party is taking more damage than you're able to heal without using cooldowns? Even if your party is at 100% topped off at all times with shields, party members can take more damage than you can prepare for, if they make mistakes and get hit by avoidable damage. Or even if it's unavoidable, if you're doing undersized content, etc. If your perspective is only being based on farming parties, then yes, this kind of situation isn't likely to show up very often. And if it does, people will cry "I thought this was a farm party!?" and disband.

Heck though, if the use of cooldowns was entirely avoidable, then they wouldn't be in the game in the first place.

Yes, DPS getting targeted by a tankbuster might require CDs to stay alive. Mostly Bole I'd say. But again, you can plan around this because it happens at certain points in time and I don't see how the spear is of any help there. And being under pressure is the fun part. And guess what, good healer manage to be under pressure, keep everyone alive AND contribute to the DPS. Because what you want to happen is the fight to end asap when shit hits the wall. Less windows for screw ups and all. Also, the usage of cooldowns IS entirely avoidable. They are crutches if you are under geared or people mess up.

"There shouldn't be any stress on the healer, and if there is, it's the fault of players getting hit by avoidable attacks. Any stress on the healer detracts from their ability to contribute to the party's DPS."

DPS-centric players feel this is a reasonable expectation. Players that make mistakes are holding the party back and deserve to be kicked. They should get better before they join public parties.
I do not believe this is a reasonable expectation. Players that make mistakes are only human, and everyone has different skill plateaus. Players with a lower skill plateau shouldn't be disallowed from joining parties if it is within the healer's power to manage the extra load.

Both tanks and healer have the job to smoothen encounters out so DPS can do their job. If anything doing DPS is a self imposed stress to help with the fight in any way possible.

Why are you so unable to see the new gameplay changes the new Spear gives? Why are you using this thread not to discuss the Spear but instead, try to validate your own opinion about 'correct healing' over and over again? You are building strawman after strawman of this 'bad healer' without answering to the simple question: Healer A uses his cooldowns exclusively for keeping people alive. Healer B uses smart casting, predicting the encounter and judgement calls to keep people alive while contributing to DPS via cards/buffs. Who was more useful in the end?

[NocturniaUzuki]

LOL OP you must be real fun. Did you even mention SCH/WHM once? Or are you basing your entire healing on AST?

I do reference WHM a few times throughout the thread, but I generally don't talk much about SCH. I don't feel I can speak accurately about it because it is my least-played healer and isn't even Lv70 yet because its kit just looks so lackluster to me. I could talk about it generally though.

But since the thread is largely drawing on my previous thread about Spear, and the changes to it in 4.05, it does make sense that I focus on AST.

[NocturniaUzuki]

I predominantly play healer because I cba with DPS queues, but I just find healing so boring and bland right now because of the way damage in this game works. You heal a spike then do nothing but dps (which in ast case, is spamming m3 over and over). I'd like our dps to become more interesting (don't need bigger numbers, just more fun) or a much more proactive support toolkit (I only play ast because cards take away some of the dull)

This is largely why I rarely play in farm parties, preferring to help out learners or just PUG challenge runs with random groups that feel up to it. Healing minimum raid damage is boring as all heck in my opinion.

[NocturniaUzuki]

I can tell you exactly what would happen, it'd enrage, the end.

I've cleared it many times in DF parties that play out exactly as I described. Most DF parties will end up with half the party falling off by 50%, and the other half (who actually have some idea what they're doing) finish the fight. Now, if it was minIL then yes, it'd almost certainly enrage with only 4 players alive.

Oh I appreciate entirely how rough runs can be, but I've got enough experience to know when to abort an attempt vs keeping the train wreck rolling in a bid to learn something. I tend take a different approach to you though, I'm more the sort to coach and train someone to handle a mechanic or encounter correctly rather than just mindlessly brute force them through it (Unless they are paying for the privilege ofc ).

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Or something.

Agreed. I do like to help out by explaining a lot of the time. But sometimes I'll just brute force it because it's more fun for me, personally, because it's more challenging to heal through.

A4S springs immediately to mind. Going further back, T7 was a good example of more mainstream content where pushing a phase at the wrong time could cause a guaranteed wipe due. T6 Savage is another great example of this in action.

I've seen phase pushing cause wipes. As for missing a phase push, I don't play in phase-pushing parties enough to really know. I just think it's silly if the boss is designed to be impossible to complete without a phase push. I can't see SQEX releasing content like that intentionally.

I can only suspect you've simply not done the content where this level of precision genuinely matters? I'd really like to see your lodestone achievements to get a better understanding of the angle you're coming from TBH. I get the impression you'd rather make a challenging situation out of softer content rather than tackle the full fat raids where you're more at the mercy of other people and all baggage that brings?

I haven't done as much content as I'd like, largely because finding parties for old content at minIL is rather difficult. But also because I never got around to a lot of it. I guess I'll take your word that phase pushing does have a significant effect in some content and cede that, in those situations, it becomes necessary to focus on offense over defense. That's no different than trying to clear a close-call DPS check. Once again going back to the 4-man RM runs, I throw out as much Gravity AoE and offensive cards as I can during that phase.

You're right that I tend to prefer making challenges out of so-called "softer" content rather than tackling hardcore content. There are a number of reasons for this, including my disdain for the attitudes of hardcore raiders, as well as my preference for doing content where healers can make more of a difference via healing, rather than increasing DPS. I dislike hard-scripted fights. So when I look at something like A12S pre-Stormblood, where healers have limited ability to recover from major player errors, it's still a fun challenge, I guess, but I don't find it particularly fun to heal because you just learn the healing choreography and do it again. And again. And again. And again.

Is this another thinly veiled jab at raiders? Before you come back with your wishy washy 'it was hypothetical' lines or some such other excuse, I'll just add that we don't just magically hit a new raid tier with a crisp and fresh Xeno/Mr Happy guide sitting in our laps you know. I can guarantee you that T1/T4/T5/T7/T9/Coil Savage/T11/T12/T13/A3S/A4S/A6S/A8S/O3S/O4S early progression put us under far more pressure than you'll ever experience in your 4 man RM runs no matter how cretinous a team you might manage to pull together for it. At the end of the day you're taking a simple encounter and making a slow meat grinder out of it, but it's still the same simple and forgiving mechanics.

In closing, if you really want a proper healing challenge, hurry up and get stuck into Omega Savage. O4S is legitimately mind blowing from the word go and I genuinely can't think of any healer check in any MMO I've played over the years that is comparable. (I quit WoW after LK tho, the mythic tiers or whatever might have had something on par?) Picture the raw HPS and timing requirements of minIL Turn 13 whilst also having to do complex mechanics and extensive movement at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FoQ44TTybY

It's a cheesy meme, but it pretty much sums up how I felt within the first few pulls of O4S and the effects are amusingly appropriate

Holy moly that turned into an essay and a half

I'm surprised you don't agree with me on this, actually. It seems like a pretty easy-to-understand concept. I'm not trying to jab raiders at all here. I'm just saying that players who intentionally stay in their comfort zone are naturally going to fall apart when they're suddenly thrown into something they are not comfortable with. This applies to everything in life. You take a science teacher and try to get them to teach a language class and they may know basic teaching methodology, but they're in completely uncharted waters despite that. Or trying to get someone who knows how to drive a car to drive an 18-wheeler. You need an extra driving certification for that for a reason. In both cases, you're driving. But it's just not the same. So the same goes for healers. Healers that are only used to healing in experienced parties will struggle when faced with inexperienced parties. And a healer who only has experience dealing with the chaos of inexperienced parties isn't going to play to maximum potential in a farming party, for example.

Simpler and more forgiving mechanics are the only reasons the healer can make such a big difference to begin with. In more hardcore raids, like A12S, a single player dying (usually to something that isn't healer-preventable) can be impossible to recover from, and the consequences of a single player's mistake can wipe the entire party instantly. There's no point playing defensively with cooldowns if your cooldowns aren't going to be able to save the raid in the end anyways. But there are still plenty of battles that are not so hardcore.

I'd like to have had experience with Omega Savage. But, unfortunately, I started an intensive 1-month class at a university a week before it came out, so I haven't had a chance to yet.

[NocturniaUzuki]

Yup.

I haven't even seen the OP acknowledge that Spear also affects healing, either. He/she keeps going on about DPS. Kinda feels like I'm in a salt mine.

Are you referring to the new Spear and the idea that "More DPS = Less Healing"?

If that's the case, then my response is that the "More DPS = Less Healing" mantra is not true in FF14 in almost all raid circumstances. Killing mobs faster does reduce healing, and increasing DPS is an important part of healing in mob-filled dungeons (and also add phases in raids, to some extent). According to Sebazy, at least, it also applies to certain "required" phase pushes.

However, it does not apply outside of those situations. FF14 boss encounters are entirely scripted, there is only one enemy, and that enemy is balanced to not cause the healer to run out of MP unless the party kills the boss within a certain time limit. Technically, you don't have to heal as much if the boss dies faster. Maybe you only have to cast 13 AoE heals instead of 18. But the problem is that once the boss is dead, the question of DPS letting you heal less is irrelevant. Once the boss is dead, there is no combat; there's nothing that is going to cost you cooldowns and MP. It's only relevant in mob-clear situations with large pulls because the rate of healing required drains the healer's MP and cooldowns extremely fast. If the mobs don't die, then eventually the tank dies. Bosses, on the other hand, are balanced differently. Healers will never run out of MP on a boss as long as they are being smart with their MP regen skills, not overhealing excessively, and their party isn't taking ridiculous amounts of avoidable damage. There is no "If the boss doesn't die, the party will die." Except for enrage, obviously. But then if the boss enrages, being able to heal less is irrelevant.

[Ryorian]

This dude has spell speed materia in his gear as a healer. How can I take him seriously? Dear god...

"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."

LOL

[NocturniaUzuki]

This dude has spell speed materia in his gear as a healer. How can I take him seriously? Dear god...

"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."

LOL

And what would you suggest, oh infallible god of materia?