I want to contribute significantly to DPS no matter my role

[Keridwyn]

stance dance

Cleric Stance can stay a dead and useless cooldown thank you. As a healer I enjoy my current ability to dps without the detriment to the primary aspect of my role.

A far more important discussion should be a rework of the tank stances to allow a similar benefit.

[Avatre]

Cleric Stance can stay a dead and useless cooldown thank you.

The healer stance dance was fun though. I personally think that was the most enjoyable part of playing a healer.

[Keridwyn]

The healer stance dance was fun though. I personally think that was the most enjoyable part of playing a healer.

I'm genuinely curious why? Did you never have any of the issues some of us did where we'd click the button and it wouldn't respond? For the longest time I though that was my lag until I read on the healer forums that other people were having the same issue. It was right up there with your Benediction target dying before the animation finished for me.

For me the most enjoyable part of playing a healer is salvaging those razor edge situations where you get that critical heal off at just the right moment.

[Avatre]

I'm genuinely curious why? Did you never have any of the issues some of us did where we'd click the button and it wouldn't respond?

I honestly can say I don't think I ever did experience that. Mind you, I didn't even think about touching healers until the last bit of HW, so it's possible there may have been a fix for it by that time(or I just got super lucky...which would explain why mounts drop so rarely when I run things). All because of the Garo PVP event did I end up leveling my healers.

[Kabzy]

I'm genuinely curious why? Did you never have any of the issues some of us did where we'd click the button and it wouldn't respond?

It was a simple case of 'git gud'. Except the majority of the playerbase can't handle that, so they just removed it to dull things down for us even more. Give yourselves a pat on the back, maybe in 5.0 we'll actually have one button rotations for everything.

[Sunhwapark]

the tank doesn't get an unexpected buster

Sorry, but there's a lot of foretold moments where hefty incoming damage is on the way, indicators or whatever you may call 'em. you simply do not 'unexpectly' get hit by things like GA-100, Punishing Heat from A9/12 (both normal and savage)- they have huge visual and audio cues. Fair enough if it's something that happens every so often, such as the cleave auto attacks from some bosses - but even so they are quite scripted to some extent. There's only so many times you can be unexpectedly hit by something before it becomes clear that the player is not paying attention to what's going on at all and is running around like a lunatic.

I think the reason some are dissatisfied was that stance dancing kept a good distinction between your average healer and one that goes above and beyond in their performance in terms of party contribution. However, with the removal it has made it a bit strange, there will always be 'princess pure' healers as they are apparently called so the change doesn't really affect them, but for those that want to feel as though they're putting in some work - the system has been simplified too much for healers right now, to the point where even further damage skills have been outright removed, our ability to use damage reduction for incoming mechanics (Disable/Virus) has even been stripped from healers and given to other roles.

Personally i'm half/half about it being gone, i never had this problem that most people seemed to have where they got 'screwed over' by cleric stance - but i don't really button mash, but i'm not trying to imply that people were or anything. I really enjoyed using it as a raider playing AST during heavensward, even prior to the card animation buff/balance overbuff and all that quality of life change jazz, but to be honest cleric stance seemed to be one of those skills that one either loves or hates to some degree.

[kikix12]

It was a simple case of 'git gud'. Except the majority of the playerbase can't handle that, so they just removed it to dull things down for us even more. Give yourselves a pat on the back, maybe in 5.0 we'll actually have one button rotations for everything.

Cleric Stance was a horrible skill purely from the technical point. The game frequently ignores single presses for some people (based on their geographical location) because it's way too sensitive while being a server-based game (where client is just a nice little graphic-making tool). Then there is the PING issue (again, geographical, but also technical), where it's possible that an effect from using a buff/debuff does NOT register for a skill used right after. For example, I CANNOT cast a spell right after using Swiftcast, because it will be cast normally, with cast time. When using emergency heals and Cleric Stance, even IF the stance would register, it was possible for the emergency heal to still heal for pittance.

There is no problem with the idea, but it is something that can be done only in client-based games where geographical location is irrelevant (like, single-player games) as the client makes all the calls, and servers work by synchronizing them and making sure they are valid (as in, no mod that removes a cooldown, for example). Final Fantasy XIV is far from such a game. The only way Cleric Stance could work as...well...a stance, is if its penalty/bonus were small enough to be still able to effectively heal while it's on (akin to how tanks can still deal pretty decent damage).

[Shurrikhan]

I'm genuinely curious why? Did you never have any of the issues some of us did where we'd click the button and it wouldn't respond? For the longest time I though that was my lag until I read on the healer forums that other people were having the same issue. It was right up there with your Benediction target dying before the animation finished for me.

For me the most enjoyable part of playing a healer is salvaging those razor edge situations where you get that critical heal off at just the right moment.

Maybe it was just the APM giving them a feeling of doing more?

Oh, better hit that preparatory button so I can use the other half of my toolkit. Oh, better swap it off.

Decisions added, lest someone would drop from being overhealed to dead in a GCD within a single GCD -- none. But, at least it takes more buttons!

[Lukha]

Maybe it was just the APM giving them a feeling of doing more?

It added a sense of rhythm to battle for me, since in a really fraught encounter I'd be toggling it on and off constantly. The reason I ended up gravitating to healing in this game, when in previous games I found it sort of boring, was because ('pure healers' aside), if you push yourself you can basically NEVER not be doing something. 4.0 utterly destroyed that, because what with removing Cleric Stance, either Aero I or II depending on your level AND Fluid Aura's damage going bye-bye, I'm left with a big gap in my damage rotation that I can only fill with yet another StoneI-IV. And I can't even choose WHICH stone to cast anymore, since those were locked based on level, too (Like, usually the best choice is going to be the highest tier, but it was nice to keep I on my bar, too, for the Heavy effect).

[Shurrikhan]

It added a sense of rhythm to battle for me, since in a really fraught encounter I'd be toggling it on and off constantly. The reason I ended up gravitating to healing in this game, when in previous games I found it sort of boring, was because ('pure healers' aside), if you push yourself you can basically NEVER not be doing something. 4.0 utterly destroyed that, because what with removing Cleric Stance, either Aero I or II depending on your level AND Fluid Aura's damage going bye-bye, I'm left with a big gap in my damage rotation that I can only fill with yet another StoneI-IV. And I can't even choose WHICH stone to cast anymore, since those were locked based on level, too (Like, usually the best choice is going to be the highest tier, but it was nice to keep I on my bar, too, for the Heavy effect).

I have to admit, the one thing I really do miss about Cleric Stance is how it let me know what my co-healer would most likely be doing with their next global. It was easy to track from the animation or the buff in the corner of my vision as to whether my co-healer could drop CS this global, or if I would, at it actually gave a sort of right-of-way system that worked pretty decently alongside tracking each other's DoTs.

As far as the pacing or button-flow though, I'm content with "this global actually requires healing; and now back to DoT checklist and stone spam". The intermediate step did honestly feel neat in some cases, but I don't feel like I've lost anything in its removal.

Now... the breadth of damage spells, while it's never really been to my satisfaction at any point, I do quite miss. In a way, just having a synergetic offensive toolkit can do as much or more to create a sense of rhythm as Cleric Stance ever did -- and look! there's a spare button for it! (SE: Here, have a separately bound Enkindle Bahamut, or equivalent, for that.)