Dear SE, I am a Healer

[Hustensaft]

This problem can't be fixed until they gather the courage to remove certain healing spells from certain healing jobs. Take SCH for example. It has elements from every style of healing: regen (Whispering Dawn), reactive (Excogitation), shielding (Adlo+Succor), direct healing (Lustrate+ET), channeled healing (Aetherpact) and smart heals (Embrace with auto-target). WHM and AST have the same problem. Something has to be taken away and given as a specialty to other healers in order to make them different.

If you look at WoW, healers generally have 8 buttons to heal (with signficantly more raid damage going out - you spend close to 0% dpsing), including tank and raid cooldowns. Against that, FFXIV healers have roughly 15 different heal buttons per job. That's nearly double, that's why every healer has roughly everything, in more than one iteration (excog vs. lustrate, Medica vs. Medica II vs. Cure III).

Healing in it's core only has two mechanical requirements: Heal a single-target when a single target is taking damage vs. heal multiplte targets when multiple targets take damage. After that you can change the amount of damage to be healed, and you get efficient and weak vs. inefficient and strong heals. The reality of healing is that healing does not require many buttons to complete the vast majority of mechanics thrown at it.

FFXIVs job design requires your job to have 20-25 buttons. Healing gameplay requires only a very limited number of buttons. FFXIV's healer issue begin here. WHM, SCH and AST all are hovering at 13-15 buttons that heal (or reduce damage taken) in one way or another. Why do in need multiple emergency heals (Excog vs Lustrate, Benison vs Tetragrammaton vs Benediction)? What's the purpose of Medica, Medica II and Cure III next to Assylum and Assize and PI ? (or the AST copy pasta).

Remove any of the oGCD healing abilities > level 50, and i'd argue you'd reach a vastly more balanced state between all three healers then you have currently. But the QQ about loosing abilities, and no new abilities, will be massive.

But then again, FFXIVs heavily scripted and dancy encounter design only really works with oGCD healing...

[TaranTatsuuchi]

...

Might force people to finally use self heals, or self mitigation. Almost every single job has them. How many SAM/MNK/DRG's use BloodBath, or Second Wind? Cause I sure as heck don't see it. Melee or Ranged sue Feint or Apoc reliably? Nope.

...

Self sustain?

In groups, nope.
Unless stuff has gone horribly wrong, the healers have me topped up before, or shortly after, I've used them.

Solo?
They were instrumental in my completing that sam quest on the boat.
Feint, second wind, bloodbath, stuns, even potions.




Apoc?
I'm not knowledgeable enough to know what it would be useful against, apart from using it during pulls with sprites in dungeons.

Palisade was easier to make use of when leveling bard, it's at least useful on autos if tined poorly. Also great for huge packs of trash.

[Physic]

Yes



Yes, even though healing is already the most difficult role in the game.



Might force people to finally use self heals, or self mitigation. Almost every single job has them. How many SAM/MNK/DRG's use BloodBath, or Second Wind? Cause I sure as heck don't see it. Melee or Ranged sue Feint or Apoc reliably? Nope.



Not if you're fairly competent.

SE has repeatedly said they design content without healer and tank DPS in mind. I dispute that by how close many of the kills have been due to healer and tank DPS contributing so much.

I love doing my DPS as a healer but that's only because healing is otherwise so dang boring and not needed currently.

i would say being a top dps is harder than healing. but its subjective. My biggest problem on healing is usually related to targeting.

As far as people self healing/mitigating, i dont think healers like that, in this very thread people are saying people can get by without dedicated healers, and thats a problem.


you seem to be a person that is ok with failure and want a higher level of difficulty all around. But is this what most people want?

for me personally... i generally prefer a challenge and can accept failure. But i feel like, that is not what most people want.

Also, i kind of hate healer heavy mechanics as a dps, because its basically some unavoidable thing you have no interaction with that kills you/weakens you. Not sure how i feel about that being more common.


Anyhow back to the point, are yall as main healers sure this is what your healer peoples want? more healing, less dps, tougher more heal heavy encounters on a regular basis? They may be looking at this feedback right now.

I feel like people most people like success more than they like overcoming challenges...

[Aramina]

Anyhow back to the point, are yall as main healers sure this is what your healer peoples want? more healing, less dps, tougher more heal heavy encounters on a regular basis? They may be looking at this feedback right now.

I feel like people most people like success more than they like overcoming challenges...

First point: Yes that is what I want.
Second point: I don't think you can have success that does not involve overcoming challenges.

[PondHollow]

But the QQ about loosing abilities, and no new abilities, will be massive.

Not for Scholar - it is otherwise overdue for this. I dread having 50 Scholar controls in Shadowbringers, but I'll get used to it if needed.

[Deceptus]

Self sustain?

In groups, nope.
Unless stuff has gone horribly wrong, the healers have me topped up before, or shortly after, I've used them.

And in the hypothetical that Physic proposed, healers would be 1) healing smaller numbers so they'd have to heal more or 2) tank taking so much damage that healers would have to focus them almost exclusively.

If option 2 was presented, self sustain would almost be required. Which as you said and I both said, most DPS simply don't ever consider.

i would say being a top dps is harder than healing. but its subjective. My biggest problem on healing is usually related to targeting.

I think that healing is the hardest because they not only have to do their primary role (healing), but they are almost expected to do a secondary role (DPS) while mitigating any mess up that players make. Those DPS who try to get that one extra attack in and get blown up.

Whereas DPS simply try to squeeze out as much damage as possible.

[Reiryuu]

Anyhow back to the point, are yall as main healers sure this is what your healer peoples want? more healing, less dps, tougher more heal heavy encounters on a regular basis? They may be looking at this feedback right now.

TBH, I think it's the tanks that like to pull half the instance worth of mobs every dungeon that would have to adjust more than the healers would =p

[Daniolaut]

It's more than that. Fatigue exists and as tank main I honestly would've not pre-ordered shB if they had not released GBR as a tank.
I ve played the same tank classes for years and they just get boring over time. It's gotten to the point where I don't touch my main class outside of savage raids at all.
They can add new actions sure but the identity of the classes didnt change and you get burnout very fast.

SE added Ninja, Samurai, Red Mage, Maschinist and Blue Mage as DD toys over the years and yet healers only had Astro new for them for 4 years and will have to wait 2 more for a healer. I understand the balance issues but that's been a problem since forever and as for tanks they decided adding a 4th class was good for their balancing.

The point is if you only have 3 jobs for your role for 6 years things will get stale. DD players did get more out of Stormblood because there were 2 new DD Jobs

Ok. So you will quit the game because one role doesnt get a new class.

If only they made a video game where you could change roles at the press of a button.... oh... wait....

[Joven]

I don't know if this has already been said as I don't feel like reading through 55 pages of arguments, but to me I think the reason there aren't any new healer classes coming out is because as far as existing jobs in the Final Fantasy universe goes, there aren't that many to choose from. They even had to completely make up the Gunbreaker class to introduce a new tank. Dancer would have been a good choice for a healer role and I am a bit disappointed that it isn't, but the only other class I can think of that could be classified as a healer is Chemist and I can't think of a way they could implement it and make it work.

And technically Red Mage doubles as a healer even though it's catigorized as DPS, it can heal fairly well if need be. Dark Knights aren't wholly tanks either as they can also DPS if needed. I would kind of like to see more dual-capable jobs like those in the future.

[Reiryuu]

I don't know if this has already been said as I don't feel like reading through 55 pages of arguments, but to me I think the reason there aren't any new healer classes coming out is because as far as existing jobs in the Final Fantasy universe goes, there aren't that many to choose from. They even had to completely make up the Gunbreaker class to introduce a new tank. Dancer would have been a good choice for a healer role and I am a bit disappointed that it isn't, but the only other class I can think of that could be classified as a healer is Chemist and I can't think of a way they could implement it and make it work.

And technically Red Mage doubles as a healer even though it's catigorized as DPS, it can heal fairly well if need be. Dark Knights aren't wholly tanks either as they can also DPS if needed. I would kind of like to see more dual-capable jobs like those in the future.

That's not really an excuse just for the reason you stated with the new job of Gunbreaker. They can always make more jobs or reimagine older jobs as a healer. It's probably one reason some people are upset with Dancer being a RDPS rather than a healer. It was one job that, from FFXI's implementation, could have been stepped up to a healer. And a healer that was far different and much more unique than the 3 we currently have.

My biggest fear right now, is Yoshi P making them homogenized and calling it good. I think that's the biggest mistake he could possibly make with the healers at this junction.