Dear SE, I am a Healer

[Andevom]

I don't understand why healers take this as a slight against them. How is this stopping you from being a healer? You're one now, they're not taking jobs away, so...what's the problem?

70-80, your job is likely gonna change significantly and feel fresh and new. So just keep doing what you like doing.

[silentwindfr]

It's my opinion they shouldn't look at them as individual roles if it causes an entire section of the trinity to be ignored for 6 years and get no new jobs.

I'm not sure why certain people don't understand that you can have an opinion about a fact.

Like if I have to give an example for you guys to understand I can....like it is a fact that SE held the NA fanfest in Vegas, but I can have the opinion that I want them to hold it somewhere farther north and central so as a Canadian it wouldn't be such a long distance trip to attend it.

Just like it might be a fact they are separating dps into sub roles or individual roles, but I can have the opinion that they shouldn't be doing that if it causes healers to be ignored for 6 years.

can i be blunt one second? the fact you are bothered by the fact that the role you have decide to play don't get a new jobs is a thing, begin to throw argument that are barely argument for justify the fact that healer was needing a new jobs, when people did come and explain, why they haven't done this. is....i have no nice word for say it...
let's stay civil.
right now, healer jobs have a massive trouble and we don't talk of balance trouble that make a jobs subpar of the other in raid content.... no we talk of identity trouble... on three job.... you have one that litterally are the two other jobs with less to do. (worst it seems yoshida think the white mage is too hard, is not too hard, it's too bland and lack a lot of tool for be unique).
i did seen people come and say: "yes but dark knight is not balanced, then why add a tank" a balance trouble can be fixed.... but even if the dark knight is less desirable it is different of the two other tank... i will not play dark knight, like i play war or pld (and yes i have the three level up)

right now, yoshida and is team did decide to focus on try to work on the healer already present before add another one in the mix... because the healer more than another jobs, need a good work.
and since ranged physical had only 2 jobs they did decide to make the dancer a ranged one... but in the end, dancer is not a magical job, then it was not possible to be a caster jobs (healer or dps) and they had added enough melee job for now. logical choice...

and even if for you dps is for everything else... i invite to try to play final fantasy 14 like it's means to be played.... not focus on one job or on one role and try different role.... caster dps are not played like a ranged physical dps or like melee dps... even in melee dps you don't play them the same way. each have a role different and if the game separate them it's for a good reason.... because yes, in the game they are split into 3 type of dps:
- melee dps: sam, mnk, nin, drg
- ranged dps: brd, mch
- caster dps: smn, blm, rdm
and how we know it? the limit for this three group are different, if the dps was only one role they will have only one type of lb. even how the matchmaking work is means to split melee and ranged dps... all in all, it's frustrating for you to not get a new job in your favorite role... but it don't means you have get nothing too, you are not forbidden to try the new jobs and maybe... i say maybe, you will enjoy them. the game offer the chance to be able to play every jobs with one character, everytime i see someone saying : "oh i only play this job or this role"
i feel this people don't understand the true value behind this game.... don't get me wrong, i don't say that you have not the right to play only healer, only it's sad to think we have a game that allows us to experience every job with one character and not use it. i try to play every job at a certain point even if i say i'm more a tank/melee player. and with every expansion i try new jobs, i try to see the difference into jobs and try to find if they are fun for me. and before stormblood the two jobs i was hating by example was brd and whm.... and with stormblood it's mch and whm (yes whm is by far the jobs that need a very important rework, not because it's hard, but because it's boring without anything that make it unique.)

all i try to say it's instead to outcry about the lack of new jobs healer for this expansion what will not change.... maybe try to offer concept about the type of healer you want they add, how it can be play, what type of weapon, what they will have that make them unique in comparaison of the 3 other healer present...

[Belhi]

First of all, it is childish to repeatedly ignore explanations given simply because you don't agree with them, even though they're the official statements. That was my point. And it seems like I'm not the only one who thought so. I'm not going to go into the "let's be civil" stuff again because frankly, look around, it's not happening.

For the second point, if they indeed balance tanks differently as MT and OT as they say they will, yeah, they will probably add them in order of MT and OT separately. I honestly kind of doubt there will be too many new jobs, but logically it makes sense.

There is a difference between ignoring an explanation and not agreeing with it. People generally aren't ignoring explanations, they just find the explanation doesn't convince them or that they disagree with it. That isn't childish. It is pretty normal adult human interaction frankly and why discussions and debates exist.

As for the 'let's be civil' just because others chose not to doesn't make it any better when you chose not to. It is completely unconstructive and serves no purpose beyond antagonising other posters and making any such discussions usually less relevant to the topics at hand. You cant control the behaviour of others around you but you can control your own. If your going to be uncivil then that is entirely on you and 'well other people are doing it' is a cop out.

Finally, I guess by your final paragraph you would be supportive of tanks in the next expansion if they are complaining that they didn't get their third subcategory then?

I'd rather them fix healers before adding a new one.

Disappointed as I am, I would agree with this as long as they actually manage to fix them this time. It is disconcerting when we have gotten the same reasoning before and nothing got fixed. I feel this detail is something people are overlooking. They literally said the exact same thing when leading up to SB and that lead to what we have currently. You can understand why that might make healer's somewhat sceptical and such logic. SE had failed them before on this and naturally they see this and think 'great, what if they screw it up yet again and we are in the exact same situation next expansion? Do we get no new Job then for the same reason again?' Frankly since they have failed us before on this it is kind of on SE to convince us as they have let us down before.

So the biggest take away for me in that interview was Yoshi-P finally admitted that the concept of a Pure healer wasn't working, after holding stead fast to that idea even though players in 3.0 said it was hurting the healer community.

Now to answer you question in regards to Tanks MT/OT, it makes sense when you look at what a tanks main role is. They are there to hold aggro so in a trial, you only really need one tank to main and a secondary for adds or if the main dies. Tanks really don't hold aggro at the same time unless mechanics require so they really can't work in tandem that way. Healers on the other can both work in tandem with each other healing and buffing which is why SCH/AST are the dominate combo right now, and why WHM pure heal, no utility is hurting.

Physical Ranged DPS in 2.0 was BRD and consider a hybrid support/dps job that did lower dps but kept party up going with resource management and buff/debuff. MCH added a second one that pretty much played like 3.0 BRD but was completely changed from that role in 4.0 for better or worse. The key thing to remember in all this is DF queue times. SE is trying to keep them as low as possible and to do that they need as large of a pool as possible to pick from. For example, if the game had two MT slots and two OT tanks for a trial then you would need to wait on one of two jobs to fill that specific slot so if you had 3 DRK queued, in a normal setting it would add those two and start the trial but if DRK was slated to OT you would still have to wait for a MT to join the queue. Same goes for PRanged DPS, though the algorithm might favor them over other DPS, Duty Finder isn't going to specifically wait from them to join the queue so the matchmaker times are faster. I hope that makes sense?

The interview gives me some hope but until we see the results in May I feel quite uncertain. He also said they plan to make WHM easier and I don't take that as a good thing. Of all the issues with healing WHM difficulty isn't one of them.

As for tanks, the logic is the same. Fundamentally, beyond some support aspects, each role serves the same purpose and striped down to a basic level are mostly interchangeable within that role in group content. A dps has the fundamental job of doing the lion's share of damage to the enemy, the healer's primary job is to counter incoming debuffs and damage from the boss, and the tanks job is control and mitigation. Roles generally aren't good at doing each other's task on nearly the same level. Beyond that it becomes a matter of specific fight's mechanics, how damage is distributed over time, utility a job offers and variation of how a job feels to play. If a tanking role is specifically designed to fit the Main Tank role or specifically designed to fit a Off Tank role then there is a strong argument that their role in a fight is as distinctly different as say a caster vs physical dps.

I make this point to try and express an alternative take on the same argument that is the basis for why dps are considered different categories. I don't really like the whole subcategory thing and I doubt tanks will now be treated in the same way but I felt taking a different context on the same argument might help give different perspectives.

As for availability of roles, according the Yoshi P adding new jobs tends to have very little impact in the distribution of what people are playing and so what is available. Adding DRK and AST didn't increase the number of people playing tanks or healers noticeably by the end of HW. The primary reason for jobs in general are about variation of gameplay, not population role balance, particularly with catagories of dps. I have been in plenty of groups which had no MCH or BRD before.

[Vaer]

right now, yoshida and is team did decide to focus on try to work on the healer already present before add another one in the mix... because the healer more than another jobs, need a good work.

Not "right now." This healer balance problem isn't a new thing, it's actually been this way for 4 years. They've been trying to fix this problem for 4 years. Some games don't even last 4 years. Sorry, people are gonna be annoyed if after 4 years it's the same 'ol same 'ol but balance excuse.

3.0: AST released as a reduced potency half and half, higher support healer - disaster; they spent the beginning of HW buffing it to general playability. This displaced WHM. They spent the remaining HW time buffing noct sect desperately trying to dislodge SCH from the shielder spot (so they could be paired with a WHM, 2 birds with 1 stone), didn't really work.

"No new healer because we are going to spend SB balancing them better."

4.0: SCH released with higher mp costs (if I had to guess it was a balancing compromise to reign in the fairy since it got tether, too bad tether was clunky and a pain to use) - same disaster, different job - spent the beginning of SB reverting the changes. WHM got lilies we don't really have to talk about that, they had to immediately fix plenary and then were pretty much ignored until the very end where they got a bunch of bones. AST got their cards gut when SCH was still being buffed, then a QoL cast time reduction which increased their dps due to lower clipping put them back in the spotlight.

"No new healer because we are going to spend SBh balancing them better." I am not really surprised this excuse isn't being accepted again.

Ironically, MCH IMO has actually had an even worse time balance wise than AST.

Btw, just because people are unhappy with a role not getting a job doesn't automatically mean that that role is the only role they play...

[Enla]

Ironically, MCH IMO has actually had an even worse time balance wise than AST.

Btw, just because people are unhappy with a role not getting a job doesn't automatically mean that that role is the only role they play...

Hell I'm /extremely/ excited and happy with DNC being Ranged DPS and I'm still kinda annoyed by the continued excuses. Though it's softened some with the news of the rework but will likely never edge towards optimism until I actually can play around with the classes in 5.0. I am curious how they're going to deal with the MCH problem however. If ever there was another red-headed step child class in this game, MCH would be it.

[Nujana]

This whole dicussion is going in circles right now, because there are different viewpoints and opinions on the whole role distribution and honestly that is fine.

But I do think there is one thing we all can agree on:
The way they handled the whole thing was (to word it nicely) suboptimal to say the least...

I really think, if they just gave us healers some kind of recognition or explained some of their plans for the healing jobs at fan fest a lot of the backlash would have been avoided. They did give us the reason for no tank/heal in 4.0 and that was fine for most of us. They did not deliver on it and to give the exact same reason now is just disappointing.
All we got was some vague stuff from interviews, with one of this being "we want to make WHM easier". That does NOT exacly give the healing community any hope for them understanding the problem with healers at all.

Right now we can only speculate what will happen with healers in 5.0. It could be an amazing rework - it could also be 4.0 all over again (this is what I fear most). We have no way of knowing and obviously many healers (me included) don't have much hope for real changes.This could have been avoided by them just giving at least some info on their plans.

[cicatriz313]

Finally, I guess by your final paragraph you would be supportive of tanks in the next expansion if they are complaining that they didn't get their third subcategory then?

Went back to make sure I didn't misread your first post. No I wouldn't be supportive of a tank asking for a new subrole. That's not the same argument at all. If Yoshi decided a third subrole was needed, like a ranged tank or something, and people flock to that type and then they needed another ranged tank, then yeah that's fine. People being upset that there isn't a third category for tanks after getting MT and OT (if they are indeed changed enough to be completely different) is a completely different sentiment and not one I support.

As for availability of roles, according the Yoshi P adding new jobs tends to have very little impact in the distribution of what people are playing and so what is available. Adding DRK and AST didn't increase the number of people playing tanks or healers noticeably by the end of HW. The primary reason for jobs in general are about variation of gameplay, not population role balance, particularly with catagories of dps. I have been in plenty of groups which had no MCH or BRD before.

See, this is being posted as fact not opinion. Yeah, Yoshi said that adding new roles doesn't tend to change what people play and that's why adding two dps didn't kill the duty finder. What he didn't say is it's about variation of gameplay, what he said in the interview was literally about balancing the number of jobs in each role, which leads me to think it's not about numbers of people playing the jobs, but rather pleasing people playing those jobs regardless of how many there are.

I really think, if they just gave us healers some kind of recognition or explained some of their plans for the healing jobs at fan fest a lot of the backlash would have been avoided. They did give us the reason for no tank/heal in 4.0 and that was fine for most of us. They did not deliver on it and to give the exact same reason now is just disappointing.

I don't see why healers feel like they need "recognition", you were the odd man out. Out of three different groups, they could only do 2. They haven't gone into changes they're making to combat classes because there's going to be an apparently super long live letter in May. I haven't heard anything about melee jobs yet besides "TP is going away, or something" and I'm not saying I should have been given more info. They didn't give the same reason, honestly, they said what they tried in 4.0 isn't working and they want to change it from the shield healer/direct healer paradigm.

[Reiryuu]

I don't see why healers feel like they need "recognition", you were the odd man out. Out of three different groups, they could only do 2. They haven't gone into changes they're making to combat classes because there's going to be an apparently super long live letter in May. I haven't heard anything about melee jobs yet besides "TP is going away, or something" and I'm not saying I should have been given more info. They didn't give the same reason, honestly, they said what they tried in 4.0 isn't working and they want to change it from the shield healer/direct healer paradigm.

It's all about the cookies. Who has been getting all the cookies? Tanks get fed cookies in the forms of mounts and now a new job. DPS get cookies in the form of lots of new jobs. 3 in the past 2 expansions, 3 of the 4 jobs. That's 75% of the job-based cookies. Healers haven't gotten any cookies since HW and that cookie has been the source of a major stomach ache for the past 4 years. And if they ever gave cookies to WHM those were *not* chocolate chips. How much do you want to bet that all 4 tank jobs get shiny new mounts this expansion? The devs could spend resources on that... yet, they chose to take away resources from the job team to create Blue Mage. In a limited format that no one really wanted. It seems very curious that they would make that decision and not spend that time and resources balancing the healers out. And IF they spent a lot of time reworking the healers like they may or may not have come May, how much hope should we really have that those people who were pulled off the job team to make BLU wouldn't have been able to help speed up the process to get healers a new job? Or even that the job balance changes are even as amazing as people who are not healers seem to think they're going to be?

We have no idea what's happening in May. Yet, everything we've experienced in the past with "balancing" has NOT been pretty. Here's a relative digest of the whole story:

reddit/r/ffxiv
Poster: Lyritha


Original WHM/SCH pair worked well because 1) it was the only possible pair, which 2) made it easy to design encounters around it. You could have damage heavy enough that SCH's shields were necessary for survival, and you could have enough damage going out that WHM's heals were necessary for survival.

Enter Astrologian - in trying to preserve the heals vs shields dichotomy, they made AST capable of both, but not good enough at either (on release) that it could truly replace WHM or SCH. To add to the problem, Gordias was incredibly difficult and had very tight DPS and heal checks. AST also shipped with very bad MP management issues. This means AST was mostly shunned on release because its weaker heals (or shields) couldn't keep up. Midas was released and Diurnal AST gained some popularity, but it was still a difficult tier with punishing mechanics and very punishing heal/mitigation checks (A8S, for instance, wasn't cleared until people had enough HP through gear to survive mechanics) and WHM/SCH still had the edge. This means Nocturnal AST was largely ignored because you needed really solid, beefy mitigation to survive.

So... AST gradually got buffed throughout Heavensward so it could keep up with WHM and SCH and be a proper replacement for either. Enter Creator - the fights' difficulty was drastically reduced, along with several other QoL changes that made prog faster. AST also got buffed even further, and the buff was too heavy-handed (Balance's effectiveness was doubled, and shields were further buffed to the point they are today - the only SCH shield that is stronger than an AST shield is a crit Adloquium). This pushed WHM out of the meta because SCH still had plenty of free healing/mitigation and could offer more than WHM could, and AST's party buffing ability was off the charts ridiculous. Also, the existence of Indomitability covered for AST's lack of burst heals at the time. As a pair, AST/SCH could heal as much as a WHM could, while protecting and buffing the entire party (gentle reminder that Disable and traited Virus were on AST and SCH respectively) and spending fewer GCDs to do it.

This happened before any of the cross-role skill shuffle. AST/SCH was already meta then. This is when the meta truly shifted to what it is today - do the bulk of healing through oGCDs and have as much party utility as possible.

Stormblood came around everyone got access to Shroud of Saints (now Lucid) and a slightly watered down version of Divine Seal (Largesse). The devs made the (baffling) decision to reinforce WHM's identity as a "healy healer" (despite the meta having shifted away from GCD heals), and though they got Benison (which was hot garbage on release), it straight up can't compete with AST and SCH's mitigation. Adding insult to injury, SCH got a party buff (Stratagem) and AST got the incredibly ridiculous Earthly Star, closing the gap between WHM and AST for good - AST doesn't even need to rely on Indomitability anymore, as Earthly is straight up more powerful. Balance being nerfed back to its original state changed little.

The fights never got any harder, so GCD heals became less and less important, and party mitigation/buffs became more and more important. WHM got literally no new oGCD heals and almost every new thing it got relied on GCD heals. (Edit: Plenary is technically oGCD, but relies on GCDs to proc.)

And then AST got more buffs in Stormblood - Collective Unconscious applies instantly now, turning it into a simple oGCD you can weave, and Malefic's cast time was shortened by a second, making AST the only healer with zero weaving issues. The buffs WHM got (Lilies are slightly less garbage, Benison no longer needs lilies, Plenary Indulgence is more useful, Assize had a potency increase) never addressed the core issues, and other healers just kept getting better and better at what became the preferred healer playstyle.

And that is the story of how we reached the point where other healers can do everything WHM can that is actually necessary to clear content, while also being able to do things that WHM can't.

So remember, we were also promised balance in Stormblood during 4.X. Balance that never came. And now we're paying for SE's inability to acknowledge what they've done wrong. What's worse, is by some of Yoshida's own comments on WHM specificially, there's reason for us to believe that they still don't get it. Most of us would probably just like a healer that IS balanced relative to the content while they work on the gloriously horrible mess that they've made of the current 3 just so we have something different to play.

[Nujana]

I don't see why healers feel like they need "recognition", you were the odd man out. Out of three different groups, they could only do 2. They haven't gone into changes they're making to combat classes because there's going to be an apparently super long live letter in May. I haven't heard anything about melee jobs yet besides "TP is going away, or something" and I'm not saying I should have been given more info. They didn't give the same reason, honestly, they said what they tried in 4.0 isn't working and they want to change it from the shield healer/direct healer paradigm.

I feel like that because it is like you said - healers were the the odd man out. We are the unlucky ones, who have to live with no "new toy" until at least 6.0. Maybe it is like you said, someone had to draw the short straw, which is hard enough to accept, because this is entirely there own fault for the choices they made in the past - but okay I'll let that slide.
But the way they handled the whole thing at fan fest felt (at least for me) like they kind of forgot that healers are a thing that exists... no mention or recognition at all.

If they had gone this way during fan fest:
"We know that players were expecting a healing job for ShB, but we decided to go for a rDPS , because we aren't happy with healer balance right now and there will be a major rework for the healing jobs in 5.0! There will be more info on that in our live letter in may, please be patient."
I think the whole discussion would be a lot different!

[Metsonm]

Yoshi did mention in, I think, the Mr Happy interview that going forward they might announce the roles first and then the specific jobs at a later date after talking about the healer expectation.