Healer identity in 5.0

[NocturniaUzuki]

I think healers are in a decent state right now, and there are already ways to add a new healer.

The balance thing is overblown. Yes, WHM has a DPS issue, but as far as healing goes, everyone already has enough of that. I don't want to see many or any new healing spells. Anything they add should be done with traits, in my opinion.

WHM's kit is more or less fine as is (minus lilies, and they could maybe use a cooldown-based oGCD party shield or damage reducer), but if they want to boost it's DPS, they can simply raise it's potencies, and I suppose a 1.5s Stone cast wouldn't hurt either. More than that isn't necessary. I get the distinct impression that most people who complain about WHM's lack of mobility don't know and/or don't want to to learn how to play a low-mobility class. BLM has insane damage output, and this is furthered when the player in question knows how to play to minimize movement. Yes, they have Triplecast and the like, but those aren't even needed as often as you think.

Perfect balance is impossible to attain. While WHM obviously gets the short end of the stick right now, that doesn't make it a bad job. If they just flat out boost it's damage output to put it on par with other classes, that would be fine by me.

As for healers in general, I think it's about time we stop getting our hands held and go back to some more challenging content that demands more healing time. If you go back and play old content on MinIL, you will see just how big a difference there is. Basic tank upkeep is actually a fairly active job, and dangerous damage spikes aren't announced by a super long cast bar every time.

But for everyone wanting a challenge, I would also suggest solo healing. Remember, healer is a touchy job. If the party has a bad healer, the fight will wipe without fail. So they can't make it so hard that weaker players can't handle it at all. Instead, they've focused on giving us more than enough tools, then asked the experienced players to have fun by optimizing. And I have no problem with that approach, honestly. Challenge is something people can make for themselves as well.

[Gemina]

snip.

I wouldn't call the current state of our healers descent by any means. Functional? Sure. But in a good or even descent state I would have to strongly disagree. Healers aren't even really healers in this game. They are support DPS, and their offensive toolkit is totally braindead. Identity is a strong issue with AST and is currently making any kind of balance impossible; WHM has too many issues to even list here and would need its own thread. All the while SCH is sitting on a throne, legs crossed at the top of the hill saying, "Sup?"

This role has traversed so far beyond the original intent. The amount of ogcd heals is ridiculous, and if they were eliminated, reduced, or given much longer CDs healers would spend more time actually healing. Obviously, they need their offensive toolkits in order to do solo content, but to spend over 90% of their time DPSing in PvE and still call them healers is just crazy. When Yoshi talked about a restructure to healers, I have good feeling of what the man's intentions are.

A big reason why old content at min ilv is much more challenging is because the majority of ogcd heals are stripped away and/or they become much more reliant on hard casted restorative spells. Now having to heal 90% of the time isn't necessarily the answer either, but it needs to be MUCH higher than 10%. Getting to that 50/50 ratio between healing and DPSing would be a comfortable ratio for most healers I believe, and during that 50% that is DPSing they can most certainly make it more interesting than just spamming your filler spell.

You are correct that perfect balance is not really possible. It's a hanging carrot. But healers can most certainly be more balanced than they are currently. Because when WHM has no distinctive advantages over the other two healers things are not only unbalanced, they are unfair. Ramping up WHM DPS is not the answer. Making it easier is not the answer. Adding a 4th healer is most certainly not the answer. The only way to truly balance our healers is rebuilding them from the ground up. I totally agree with Yoshi and we cannot keep up the pure healer/barrier healer set up. Since he has pointed this out specifically, expect it to go away. I think they will still have strong and even more integrative DPS kits, but we will no longer have as much time to use them in group PvE.

[NYCAcimStudent]

Healers aren't even really healers in this game. They are support DPS...

^ Thank you, Gemina! You just succinctly phrased what I have been trying to say for 2 years. I have been playing MMOs since the original Everquest and I have never seen the "healer" role require healing less than 50% of the time. Sometimes in FFXIV, I am actively healing less than 25% of the time. If I want to play mostly DPS, I would just play DPS.

If we want a revolution in Healer identity, healers need to actively heal again. This oGCD and GCD split is madness. Our healers aren't healers. They are hybrids.

[Zarkovitch]

WHM throw rocks like a boss.