Isn't playing WHM optimally going completely against what SE wants healers to be?

[lulunami]

It's a legitimate flaw in the game's design because it has been stated by the game's designers that they want healers to heal most of the time. It's not a matter of taste.

Never really take what a game developer says at face value. The community will play the game how they want to play it.

Nintendo intended Smash Bros Melee to be a casual party game. The community turned it into a glitch/tech-monster game with wave-dashing and other advanced techniques. Rocket jumping in FPS games was not intended by the developers, but became a community created technique for greater movement. Even old Mario Bros games can be played at a considerably higher level than what the developers intended.

If there is a huge DPS check that a group has to overcome, they are not going to play the way the developers intended the game to be played. They will try to win.

[loreleidiangelo]

I do agree with the view that that the class team seems to be in a bit of a mess over the direction and design of healers currently. But the content itself is pretty impeccable considering what they've got to work with.

Isn't the whole point of this thread supposed to be ABOUT how the direction and design of healers is kinda bad? I mean, that's the way I'm taking it. Even looking at your logs (sorry, you put yourself out there for spying haha), as a self-professed "conservative" healer, you are still doing about 1 DPSing spell on Neo Exdeath for every 2 healing spells you cast. Don't you think that's a little high, for what is supposedly the hardest healing content we have in this game? (It's also clear you're carrying the healing load, as your AST co-healer's DPS abilities outnumber their healing ones significantly, skewing the values for the fight further.)

I'm not trying to antagonize, and I'm not really going to comment on what the ambiguous plethora of quotes from the producer of this game are meant to mean, since as Lulunami pointed out, the community is the one who generally shapes how the game is played at the upper echelons of skill. But can anyone honestly look at healing in raids in this game and think that it's well-designed? When even a healer who is handling "most" of the healing in a two-healer party is still spending 1/3rd of their GCDs on DPS?

To me, it's not about never wanting to have to cast a single offensive ability in this game in my healing career ever again. It's just about wanting the ratio to be a bit more balanced insofar as what you'd generally EXPECT from a "healer" role. Maybe some will still disagree, but I just want to clarify that point. I'm not "anti healer DPS" in the strictest sense. I just don't think we should be spending such a stupidly significant portion of our time DPSing just because our actual healing abilities are tuned too high and are on too short of cooldowns relative to the amount of HPS raids require.

[Sebazy]

Isn't the whole point of this thread supposed to be ABOUT how the direction and design of healers is kinda bad? I mean, that's the way I'm taking it.

Perhaps, but unless I'm misreading something, the OP is basing this on the assumption that Yoshida is anti healer DPS. An assumption which I don't think is quite correct. Rather I think he wants groups to be able to make the choice themselves, more hardcore teams may require it to clear turns within the first month or two, whereas casual groups that come at it further down the line won't be nearly as reliant on it.

It's pretty hard to defend the current class design of all 3 healers tho, I definitely can't argue with that. When you compare what we have here to even failed MMOs like Warhammer Online, SE's efforts here seem really rather uninspiring by comparison.

Even looking at your logs (sorry, you put yourself out there for spying haha), as a self-professed "conservative" healer, you are still doing about 1 DPSing spell on Neo Exdeath for every 2 healing spells you cast. Don't you think that's a little high, for what is supposedly the hardest healing content we have in this game?

I suppose it depends on the angle you're looking at it from. If I compare myself to Elia, Fretty or indeed many of the other regular raid healers in my FC, I'm massively overcautious and healing far more than I need to be, whereas from a more casual viewpoint, It might appear that I'm pushing a ton of DPS. Also note that my DPS throughput is steered somewhat both by my co healer's desire to push our combined DPS upwards as well as my Tanks drawing a bit of a line on my enmity generation vs O4S' style cramping enmity resets with each Grand Cross =(

Raid content is always going to be a compromise and I think Omega does it pretty well given the circumstances especially after the snooze fest that was Creator. Both O3S and O4S are a great challenge at iLvl 320 and even with my team being slower than we'd like in getting our clears, I've enjoyed myself in the process.

It's going to be interesting to see how many of these issues get addressed with super savage. Not having to factor in iLvl progression is going to help the content team tune this thing much tighter imo. I'll be surprised if it's SCOB savage grade, but I'm hoping it'll at least be on par with A3S if not harder.

No offence taken whatsoever tho! Solid discussion and debate is always a good thing <3

[ShadowPayaso]

My issue with the healers is that AST is a better version of both WHM and SCH when it comes to role individuality, SCH healing is extremely mana-draining and Aetherflow usage isn't all that great while also having nerfed dps, and WHM has to dps as often as possible in savage raids. If they made AST an inbetween of the other 2 healers (nerf shielding and regen to NOT be better than other 2 jobs), lightened the dps load of WHM and gave it back some uniqueness, and buffed SCH shields then all three would be in a much better spot

[Elamys]

Never really take what a game developer says at face value. The community will play the game how they want to play it.

Yes, but this is a game subject to constant, regular updates, with changes made based on the devs's vision for the game. Remember that small potency nerf NIN got a few weeks ago to ah...Gust Slash, I think it was? That was because players were using a different rotation than the devs intended. This entire thread is about how huge of a mess healer design is in right now. The devs have one goal, which is to minimize how much healers DPS, which they've made numerous steps for. Their goal isn't to get rid of healer DPS entirely, and they're not going to actively stop people from it. But they've said they still don't want people to DPS as healers as much as they are. But the changes they've made so far don't reflect that. The entire structure of damage taken vs. healing power in the game would have to be changed.

[lulunami]

This entire thread is about how huge of a mess healer design is in right now. The devs have one goal, which is to minimize how much healers DPS, which they've made numerous steps for. Their goal isn't to get rid of healer DPS entirely, and they're not going to actively stop people from it. But they've said they still don't want people to DPS as healers as much as they are. But the changes they've made so far don't reflect that. The entire structure of damage taken vs. healing power in the game would have to be changed.

They are trying to satisfy both the players on the skill floor and the players at the skill ceiling. Tanks, healers, and DPS at the skill floor do not play at the same efficiency as players at the skill ceiling.

[Sebazy]

The devs have one goal, which is to minimize how much healers DPS ....... But they've said they still don't want people to DPS as healers as much as they are.

You're referring to the following?

We didn’t like seeing healers doing entire dungeons in Cleric Stance, especially if they forget to switch back and heal!

Look closer:

We didn’t like seeing healers doing entire dungeons in Cleric Stance, especially if they forget to switch back and heal!

entire dungeons

You're basing your argument on a quote that you're taking waaaaaaaaaay out of context if I'm not mistaken? Please correct me and link a quote that says otherwise if I'm wrong tho <3

[loreleidiangelo]

I suppose it depends on the angle you're looking at it from. If I compare myself to Elia, Fretty or indeed many of the other regular raid healers in my FC, I'm massively overcautious and healing far more than I need to be, whereas from a more casual viewpoint, It might appear that I'm pushing a ton of DPS. Also note that my DPS throughput is steered somewhat both by my co healer's desire to push our combined DPS upwards as well as my Tanks drawing a bit of a line on my enmity generation vs O4S' style cramping enmity resets with each Grand Cross =(

Raid content is always going to be a compromise and I think Omega does it pretty well given the circumstances especially after the snooze fest that was Creator. Both O3S and O4S are a great challenge at iLvl 320 and even with my team being slower than we'd like in getting our clears, I've enjoyed myself in the process.

It's going to be interesting to see how many of these issues get addressed with super savage. Not having to factor in iLvl progression is going to help the content team tune this thing much tighter imo. I'll be surprised if it's SCOB savage grade, but I'm hoping it'll at least be on par with A3S if not harder.

No offence taken whatsoever tho! Solid discussion and debate is always a good thing <3

Maybe I didn't ask my question very clearly, since I didn't really get an answer to what I was looking for. I wasn't criticizing how your static does things, as that's not my nature or my business, but was rather using your own statements about how you divide the healing and DPSing load in your group to make a general statement about your FFLogs data with regards to how much time healers have to DPS at even the hardest levels of content in the game.

My question is, as someone who is self-admittedly doing more of the healing in your static than your co-healer (due to reasons that work best for your team, which again, is perfectly fine), how do you feel about still having the time in this game to dedicate 1/3rd of your GCDs to DPS? Do you think that means the healing is well-designed in this game or that there's an issue with how powerful we are, at either the healing end or the DPSing end? Do you think that SE's push towards WHM having the best throughput on both the healing end AND the DPSing end rather than just the healing end implies that the developers know that healing power is something of an afterthought in this game when it comes to deciding raid compositions?

On a final note, thanks for being willing to engage me in some in-depth, rational discussion on the healer DPS subject. If anyone else has any insight, feel free to hop in.

[Ghishlain]

Maybe I didn't ask my question very clearly, since I didn't really get an answer to what I was looking for. I wasn't criticizing how your static does things, as that's not my nature or my business, but was rather using your own statements about how you divide the healing and DPSing load in your group to make a general statement about your FFLogs data with regards to how much time healers have to DPS at even the hardest levels of content in the game.

My question is, as someone who is self-admittedly doing more of the healing in your static than your co-healer (due to reasons that work best for your team, which again, is perfectly fine), how do you feel about still having the time in this game to dedicate 1/3rd of your GCDs to DPS? Do you think that means the healing is well-designed in this game or that there's an issue with how powerful we are, at either the healing end or the DPSing end? Do you think that SE's push towards WHM having the best throughput on both the healing end AND the DPSing end rather than just the healing end implies that the developers know that healing power is something of an afterthought in this game when it comes to deciding raid compositions?

On a final note, thanks for being willing to engage me in some in-depth, rational discussion on the healer DPS subject. If anyone else has any insight, feel free to hop in.

@WHM question - I felt S-E made the shift to do this too alleviate the WHMs concerns that "they have nothing unique". By providing both the highest HPS and DPS throughput, as well as best MP regeneration, they could give WHMs something unique that still respected their definition of "pure".

In terms of content design - would I say this well designed for healers? From a pure healing perspective - no, it's not because when you think of traditional healers you think of healers that need to constantly watch HP bars and have the quick reactions to gauge sudden changes in the fight and respond appropriately. This type of healing is also quite stressful and not everyone has the capability to do so.

I do feel the healing design in the game is extremely new player friendly and that was the primary intent for S-E - they wanted to design healers so those with low healing experience can still play the class successfully, thus setting the bar fairly low compared to healers in other MMOs. This leave those who have much higher healing experience many windows of opportunity to contribute heavily in the DPS department. As a tangent discussion, I do feel the healer's DPS spells are as potent as they are to allow them pass through story line content without too much hindrance. This leads to times where combined healer DPS contributes 10-15% of a total 8-man savage raid when both are playing well. I won't necessarily say that the developers consider healing as an afterthought, but given the quality of healers I've seen through my time PuGing as a non-healer in non-savage content, I can safely say that a lot of healers won't be able to handle the checks thrown out by the developers despite the rigid nature of each fight.

On the note of rigid nature, the one thing I will say is I can appreciate the scripted nature of each fight and how it allows for fight optimization versus independent optimization. Nothing like going into WoW raid at a relatively average gear level and then basically have your MT die to a one shot because the boss critted you and the MT didn't evade / block / parry and their defensive CDs were offline (talking about BC here, haven't played since then). If the MT dies and is doing mechanics properly then it's entirely up to the healer and I like that aspect of it. The dances are scripted - this means less reactions and more planning. This allows to maximization of CD usage versus saving them as o-snap buttons. While I know this type of content isn't appealing to everyone, I can enjoy taking the good this style of content provides and still gaze with a critical eye on what this style fails to do which is provide suitable heal checks. I do feel White Hole is a good step in the right direction because it can't be overgeared if you will. In fact it also encourage spreading the gear out towards healers as well because if HP values get too high it becomes more difficult for a lower ilvl healer to keep HP bars literally topped off for the mechanic.

To summarize the previous wall of text - I feel healing is designed to have a low barrier of entry and that in combination with the scripted nature of fights to reduce RNG elements leads to many opportunities for healers to contribute DPS for their group. This means the healer design is lacking at times but the content design overall is really engaging and rewards those players who can plan out their ability usages in conjunction with the group dynamic. I don't feel this is bad for overall content design but I can appreciate why experienced healers may find this discouraging.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Perhaps, but unless I'm misreading something, the OP is basing this on the assumption that Yoshida is anti healer DPS. An assumption which I don't think is quite correct. Rather I think he wants groups to be able to make the choice themselves,

That's part of it, yeah. I don't think that SE is completely anti-healer DPS. I just think they're too indecisive about what they want healers to be, and that's hurting the role as a whole.

With this indecisive way of thinking, content is being designed in a way that caters to both playstyles. All this does in the end though, is create a situation where there's too little damage to heal through, which puts healers who just want to heal in a bad spot, because there's not enough damage going out to warrant you not doing anything else.

I'm just repeating myself at this point, but It's just a shame that healers are in such a state.