Dear SE, I am a Healer

[cicatriz313]

Lots

That is literally what I meant by variation in gameplay.

Mmk so the tank thing, I already answered in the first post, yes I would be supportive IF they made the roles of MT and OT feel different enough. Would be bad for healers, though since then it's even more people getting in line.

If that's what you meant by variation in gameplay, you worded it in a way to say that because you don't see MCH/BRD in a dungeon that their variation doesn't matter. At least that's what I took from it. My point was that people who enjoy BRD/MCH also want variation in THEIR gameplay which isn't the same as getting a melee or caster.

Again, it's completely fair for healers to be upset. But all these random "they could have done ___" is meaningless, the unfairness of this expansion is that you were the ones who didn't get chosen, kind of just that. They've explained everything else. I explained what I thought about the WHM comment in another post.

I think that's why it's such a sting for WHM. Lillies aren't really worth the time and effort. Astrologian's was about putting the cards information into a job gauge, ok not great, but thay already had it, and they added the Crowns to it. SCH got a very useful Fey Gauge (except when your alliance isn't main tanking, so situational but can still be useful)... but Lillies feel very undercooked, and we're that "Pure healer" still. So I'm skeptical.

I 100% agree that WHM being the "pure healer" is a bad ideal, kind of like how BLM and SAM being the "selfish dps" is a bad ideal. In the end, it'll always come down to more utility is desired because of the nature of the game. Hopefully the changes they make will give at least WHM more identity. I personally really enjoy AST as it is, it feels super dynamic and fun. They should probably change the sects and focus more on the cards, but I'm not a game developer so it's hard for me to come up with ways to make jobs unique.

[Sesera]

Again, we can argue about whether we should be addressing DPS as a whole or DPS by sub-role until both of us are blue in the face, but with such a limited cookie as a job, it feels wrong to say "we get 3 times as more chances of getting a cookie than you do and that's fair." Should healers now say, "Wait, we have 3 ranged/caster healers, but we have 0 melee healers and 0 ranged physical healers. We demand 6 new jobs to fill these!" I think we can both agree that's quite ridiculous, but you think that's OK for DPS. *shrug* That is my way of thinking, you have yours. The devs have theirs. I'm not trying to persuade you or them of anything. You asked a question of not understanding. I am trying to offer you an answer. But the fact is that with the resources they diverted, the time they wasted in 4.0, etc. They could very well have fixed the healers or given healers a job in this expansion as well instead of releasing BLU. They chose not to.

There is a big difference between "there is only 2 ranged dps so it is not unfair and ranged dps should not be left because there is already quite a few melees and caster" and "there is 2 ranged they deserved the spot".

Both ranged and healer deserved it however since they could only do 2 jobs so they had to make a choice and it was ranged because it had a pro "only 2" and healer a con "balance issue".

We understand you're mad and you were expecting a healer, a lot myself include thought it would be a healer and you had to wait until the very last fanfest to be told "no sorry healer see you next time" however just because facts don't suit your "I deserved it" doesn't mean you should use sophism as a poor counter-argument it makes you look badly and I'm sure you're better than that.

That said I would love to see a physical ranged healer maybe healing with magic arrows like Viola in eternal sonata however I don't know how you handle melee healer in this game because usually melee healer means healing by hitting ennemies but it doesn't feel like you are a healer. The other way would be to target party member to heal them at melee ranged but it would be very hard to heal ranged dps but in a melee comp it can be very nice.

[Deceptus]

I get that lilies aren't GREAT but you can't say they're unplayable. They're just something not worth thinking about. WHM isn't "messed up" they're perfectly viable.

First of all, I never said they were unplayable, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth.

Second, an added mechanic that is "just something not worth thinking about" is my personal definition of a messed up mechanic.

Anything added to a job should add value and if not it was a waste of development resources.

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!

Spot on. Anyone who knows anything about marketing, communications, or public relations knows that expectation management is absolutely a thing.

That said I would love to see a physical ranged healer maybe healing with magic arrows like Viola in eternal sonata however I don't know how you handle melee healer in this game because usually melee healer means healing by hitting ennemies but it doesn't feel like you are a healer. The other way would be to target party member to heal them at melee ranged but it would be very hard to heal ranged dps but in a melee comp it can be very nice.

If you want an example of a dps healer (not melee) look no further than the Chloromancer of RIFT. They basically can put a buff on any party member they choose and their damage actively heals that target. They also had plenty of group based healing because a little of their heals went to near by party members. They were great off healers and supporters.

Which is the exact type of healing this game drastically needs.

[OcieKo]

Also it seems that shields are so strong that you don’t need massive heals like cure 3 or even benediction, since the shield will absorb the hit and give you time to just cure 2 the person, and even making aoe heals that much less urgent.

SE seem to cover this up (lack of required healing in savage fights) by creating one-death mistake mechanics.

I don’t know how balancing the healers will solve the issue, shouldn’t they be adjusting the content to make it so that healing is required much more often and make the damage sufficiently strong so that shields and heals are both required? Or should they just give dps more healing ability and remove the healer role?

/applause

That nail has a massive headache now. Tanking and Healing are both suffering more from encounter design than they are from class design.

[Enla]

Hi, so I main Warrior but feel I’m fairly competent healing (done Alphascape 1 and 2 with White Mage and Astro, plus half of o11s with those healers too).

I was a bit disappointed that dancer isn’t a healer but after thinking about it I think there are a couple of things that need looking at before they add another healer.

It seems to me that SE don’t have a proper identity for healing, like are healers DPS with healing abilities or are they a class of their own? Most of the content I’ve done (dungeons, trials, raids, savage raids) have all had parts in the fights that have required quick healing but then most of the the rest of the time of the fight I’m just dishing out dps.

Also it seems that shields are so strong that you don’t need massive heals like cure 3 or even benediction, since the shield will absorb the hit and give you time to just cure 2 the person, and even making aoe heals that much less urgent.

SE seem to cover this up (lack of required healing in savage fights) by creating one-death mistake mechanics.

I don’t know how balancing the healers will solve the issue, shouldn’t they be adjusting the content to make it so that healing is required much more often and make the damage sufficiently strong so that shields and heals are both required? Or should they just give dps more healing ability and remove the healer role?

I'm a SCH main but I think you hit the nail on the head. Half the problem isn't just the design of the classes but all the design of healing itself in this game. I can legit go through most content as a SCH and DPS 80% of the time. (Crit Adlo + Excog is no joke) With WHM I can go about 60% of the time if only because most of their spells have casting times. (I dislike AST so I haven't touched it since getting it to 70, but I'd imagine the numbers are about similar because they certainly were while leveling it.) Then I just go right back to a DPS rotation that consists of 1-4 buttons and snore my way through the instance. Healing is a joke in most of this game and in a game where healing isn't all that strenuous, it makes sense that a pure healing class like WHM would be disadvantaged and SCH constantly made to sit at No.1. It's not because it's a better class, though SE did over buff it in an attempt to fix the 4.0 disaster, but rather that WHM and AST to a lesser extent severely overheal what healing there even needs to be done.

[cicatriz313]

First of all, I never said they were unplayable, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth.

Second, an added mechanic that is "just something not worth thinking about" is my personal definition of a messed up mechanic.

Anything added to a job should add value and if not it was a waste of development resources.

You didn't say lilies were messed up you said WHM overall was messed up. WHM is more than just lilies. No reason to get all uppity. I already agreed lilies wasn't a good mechanic, what exactly are you replying to me about? Lilies does add value, not job changing value but it adds value. It's not a waste of resources, it was a mistake. They've already said they're looking at finding another route to take.

Half the problem isn't just the design of the classes but all the design of healing itself in this game.

At this junction, definitely true. And I think they are realizing that as they stated in the MrHappy interview. Hopefully they can come up with different ways to differentiate healing to make them have other things to do than just heal/dps, kind of like AST has card maintenance. I personally hope they don't go the route some people are wanting of having healing be more important, but I'm definitely interested in seeing how far they change the identities of every job in 5.0.

[FeliAiko]

Making encounters harder is almost pointless when this game's general playerbase is the way it is. Look at the reaction Shinryu NORMAL had on release, and it's no surprise why SE makes challenging encounters a niche instead of a cornerstone of content.

[RukiaFae]

Since it's been established that healers have the right to be upset at how they handled healers over the last few years, maybe we should try to keep the thread on the topic of constructive feedback. Maybe we should all work together to discuss the core issues with healers and make suggestions. If we provide constructive feedback maybe we will be pleasantly surprised in May.

We can't control what company decides to do but we can control how we act. If we try to work together and fix the problem, then we will know that as a community at least we did our part.

[Campi]

I think a big Problem is the Skill Lvl of the Playerbase.
While good Players heal every Content easily with barely using GCDs on healing spells, other Healers struggle rly hard and can't heal enough in the same content.

So it's a bit hard for SE to make Content "healing intense" when 97% of the Healers wouldn't be able to clear it.
Think about o12s or the Ultimates.
Must of the healing can be done by only using the oGCDs and some GCDs here and there. But who can rly do that?


So i think it's a good choice of SE try to overthink how healers should work in this game.
It would be good for everyone, if SE can make the gap between good and bad players smaller, before the add a new healer.

[OcieKo]

At this junction, definitely true. And I think they are realizing that as they stated in the MrHappy interview. Hopefully they can come up with different ways to differentiate healing to make them have other things to do than just heal/dps, kind of like AST has card maintenance. I personally hope they don't go the route some people are wanting of having healing be more important, but I'm definitely interested in seeing how far they change the identities of every job in 5.0.

You'll probably find few like me who wouldn't mind 70%+ of my time being healing, but realistically I think most people are looking for Healing to be at least 40-60% of what we do no matter what. At the moment its more like 10-40% depending on encounter and how much you can outgear it. If encounters get any easier to heal, giving RDM an AoE heal would could potentially eliminate the need for at least 1 green icon. Pretty sure its already a thing for single healer challenge runs.

Blue DPS/Green DPS are a meme because of how little the Tank/Healing aspects of a job are needed, trying to get them up to parity at least with their DPS aspects makes sense to even continue using the trinity system. But like what the person you quoted was pointing at, it has more to do with the enemies than the players.