Dear SE, I am a Healer

[Sesera]

Then why not also play WAR, since it has a fairly complex, DPS-style rotation?

For most people, role comes first, then flavor second. Why should the DPS role have 10 options, while tanks have 4, and healers bottom out at 3? Even with 2x the DPS required per duty, that still doesn't come out as anything other than unfairly biased.



Healers and tanks also all play differently, but they're not differentiated any other way. Neither are DPSes in party comp. This argument just isn't valid.

Of course they are all labeled as DPS unless you want to wait even longer to enter dungeons and the game forces you to do them with specifics roles.

It is not about they aren't dps it is about they aren't picked because they are DPS.

[Physic]

They don't divide the healers into sub-type (yet) because there isn't yet enough variety for them to do so.
I'd love for healer to have 10 different jobs, magical and physical, melee and range, enough varieties that SE can also divide them into sub-types.
But we are still stuck with our current 3 healers (which I guess technically we can group them into "caster healer" sub-type) for another expansion.

We can't say the dev don't think the same about healer sub-types until there are enough varieties of healers.

i think they would have built at least one of the healers differently if that was the case. Astro could have been a predictive gambling type healer if that was the case, fitting its theme, but instead they opted to make it pretty much the same with a few differences in its support skills. Its concepts of fate, chance etc are an afterthought in its main rotations.

i doubt this was accidental

Of course they are all labeled as DPS unless you want to wait even longer to enter dungeons and the game forces you to do them with specifics roles.

It is not about they aren't dps it is about they aren't picked because they are DPS.

you hit the nail on the head, the classifications of healer and tank are made for duty finding and simplification of grouping. not as co equal representations of what players want to fantasy roleplay/game as.

[Penthea]

Healers and tanks also all play differently, but they're not differentiated any other way. Neither are DPSes in party comp. This argument just isn't valid.

If dps aren't differentiated, why is it that people who are recruiting for their raid team or pug ask for specific dps classes to join? Why recruit a specific class if any old dps is fine?

Or...could it be...that there are differences between being a melee and ranged? Differences between being a caster and ranged phys dps? That some classes have certain buffs while others do not? That certain types of classes are better suited to certain types of fights?

Dps have sub-types, as mentioned by cicatriz31, the SE devs clearly look upon it this way. They don't lump all dps together. They consider melee, caster and ranged phys to be distinct.

Also healers have sub-types as well. They mainly fall into two types; raw healing and mitigation (shields). But the difference is all healers bring the exact same role actions to a fight. This is not the case with dps.

Currently there are only two ranged phys dps in the game. Among the selection of role actions, theirs has the smallest number of classes that have it. Every other group of role actions has at least three classes. This needed to change. So we got dancer.

I'm not happy we are not getting a new healer but I'm not going to pretend that the addition of a ranged phys dps makes no sense. It makes a lot of sense.

[Sesera]

'Designed around' is a bold claim when the character class list used to not be split at all outside of DoW, DoM, and DoH/L.

keyword here "used to".

[cicatriz313]

Omfg... you have people who only prefer the dps role. They decide they like the melee playstyle and just don’t want to play the melee jobs. They then have the options to go physical ranged or caster. Then you have people who only like only/primarily the healer role. We get tired of playing caster healer, we don’t have anything else. We are stuck with the same playstyle within our role. I have other jobs I could play sure, but they are not my preferred role. No one should have to go out of their preferred role just to mix up how we play. Dps aren’t expected to do that. They get all kinds of new playstyles.

You may prefer melee, but if you wanted to move out of that for something new while staying within the dps role, you have options. How have I said dps aren’t varied when I’m sitting here SAYING dps has a wide variety and healers just want the same (and not even to that extent, just SOMETHING)? And whether you like it or not, sub roles do not mean they aren’t dps. Period. Their job among them is the same, and that is “kill the enemy”. You also have smaller jobs like buffing/debugging, but your primary job is reducing the hp bar. If you don’t do that, you get kicked. The healer’s primary job is to HEAL. We may not get to do a lot of it due to bad content design, but our main job is still to keep people alive. We also have smaller jobs like dealing damage and buffing/debuffing. People typically pick their jobs based off of whether it’s a tank/healer/dps in mmos, then go for the sub role they prefer from the main role.

Omfg indeed. For a dps, role isn't as meaningful. Of course they're still dps, but melee dps has intricate rotations with positionals and hazards in melee range THAT ONLY MELEE HAS. Like I don't know how many ways I have to type this, but you're wrong and the devs are on the right side. I'm not sure why you're still mentioning healers should get more types, I already agreed with that point. But what you're saying about DPS is straight up false.

[Physic]

Omfg... you have people who only prefer the dps role. They decide they like the melee playstyle and just don’t want to play the melee jobs. They then have the options to go physical ranged or caster. Then you have people who only like only/primarily the healer role. We get tired of playing caster healer, we don’t have anything else. We are stuck with the same playstyle within our role. I have other jobs I could play sure, but they are not my preferred role. No one should have to go out of their preferred role just to mix up how we play. Dps aren’t expected to do that. They get all kinds of new playstyles.

You may prefer melee, but if you wanted to move out of that for something new while staying within the dps role, you have options. How have I said dps aren’t varied when I’m sitting here SAYING dps has a wide variety and healers just want the same (and not even to that extent, just SOMETHING)? And whether you like it or not, sub roles do not mean they aren’t dps. Period. Their job among them is the same, and that is “kill the enemy”. You also have smaller jobs like buffing/debugging, but your primary job is reducing the hp bar. If you don’t do that, you get kicked. The healer’s primary job is to HEAL. We may not get to do a lot of it due to bad content design, but our main job is still to keep people alive. We also have smaller jobs like dealing damage and buffing/debuffing. People typically pick their jobs based off of whether it’s a tank/healer/dps in mmos, then go for the sub role they prefer from the main role.

people pick a tank because they want to tank, and healer because they want to heal, but everything else? not really. Most people play the other jobs for different reasons, and thats why, outside of using dps meters you find a great many "dps" are apparently not that concerned with maximizing their dps. In FFXI people picked summoner because it summons giant monsters. People played ninja because it was a ninja, then found out later they usually end up tanking. I highly doubt most people pick jobs because of roles. in all my various RPGing endeavors, its not the main motivator other than healers, and a smaller % of tank types.

[rachcouture]

If dps aren't differentiated, why is it that people who are recruiting for their raid team or pug ask for specific dps classes to join? Why recruit a specific class if any old dps is fine?

Or...could it be...that there are differences between being a melee and ranged? Differences between being a caster and ranged phys dps? That some classes have certain buffs while others do not? That certain types of classes are better suited to certain types of fights?

Dps have sub-types, as mentioned by cicatriz31, the SE devs clearly look upon it this way. They don't lump all dps together. They consider melee, caster and ranged phys to be distinct.

Also healers have sub-types as well. They mainly fall into two types; raw healing and mitigation (shields). But the difference is all healers bring the exact same role actions to a fight. This is not the case with dps.

Currently there are only two ranged phys dps in the game. Among the selection of role actions, theirs has the smallest number of classes that have it. Every other group of role actions has at least three classes. This needed to change. So we got dancer.

I'm not happy we are not getting a new healer but I'm not going to pretend that the addition of a ranged phys dps makes no sense. It makes a lot of sense.

They recruit specific DPSes because of what skills they bring to the table, not because of where they fall under the melee/range/caster separations. For instance: NIN is a common pick for its support even though it's melee, not a ranged DPS. MCH, comparatively, has rarely been considered for anything.

There didn't need to be two DPSes in Stormblood, and there definitely doesn't need to be a new one now. All this does is further the role disparity.

keyword here "used to".

We're talking about what the game is 'designed around'. I think how it existed at launch is incredibly relevant in that case.

[cicatriz313]

They recruit specific DPSes because of what skills they bring to the table, not because of where they fall under the melee/range/caster separations. For instance: NIN is a common pick for its support even though it's melee, not a ranged DPS. MCH, comparatively, has rarely been considered for anything.

There didn't need to be two DPSes in Stormblood, and there definitely doesn't need to be a new one now. All this does is further the role disparity.



We're talking about what the game is 'designed around'. I think how it existed at launch is incredibly relevant in that case.

First off, that's because bard is the better job in that subtype, and EVERY group wants a bard for refresh/tactician which oh, wait, you mean only ranged physical bring those? Amazing. It's almost like that's part of game design. Also most people want a ninja for trick attack because it's a good skill sure, but they also don't want 4 melee because fights are designed around having less melee usually. Second, no how the game was launched has little bearing on anything because the game has been out for over 5 years and it's changed since then with the types of jobs and the abilities of jobs. (Remember cross class skills? And how bard used to have a healing LB3?)

[Miste]

people pick a tank because they want to tank, and healer because they want to heal, but everything else? not really. Most people play the other jobs for different reasons

How do you know that? As far as I can see you have no data or proof to show about how other people feel about the DPS jobs. How can you claim "most" people play the other jobs for different reasons? You have no way of knowing this.

[Physic]

They recruit specific DPSes because of what skills they bring to the table, not because of where they fall under the melee/range/caster separations. For instance: NIN is a common pick for its support even though it's melee, not a ranged DPS. MCH, comparatively, has rarely been considered for anything.

There didn't need to be two DPSes in Stormblood, and there definitely doesn't need to be a new one now. All this does is further the role disparity.



We're talking about what the game is 'designed around'. I think how it existed at launch is incredibly relevant in that case.

your basic background believes in a role disparity, what others are saying is classes are not released based on role, and players are not predominately choosing based on role.

i will say many people dont want to play a tank or healer, because of the specific type of stress those jobs bring, but outside of that, the other group is pretty varied in what they are looking for in a class.