Healer identity in 5.0

[Kalise]

tl;dr I want more direct healing too! But I want to see it through encounter design instead of ability nerfs

Though, irregardless of if priority was shifted from oGCD via nerfs or via encounter design, the overall outcome would be that people will think of it as a nerf.

Since, going from DPSing 80% of the time to DPSing like 40-60% of the time will be a loss of DPS no matter what the case is that is making you shift.

That said, if the issue against going towards more GCD healing is merely how "Slow" the gameplay would feel without oGCDs... Then the problem isn't even that big.

You don't need to remove oGCD's to promote GCD healing. You merely need to shift the power of oGCD vs GCD healing.

At the moment, oGCD reign supreme because they're MASSIVE heals that make GCD heals plain not necessary. It's not just Benediction that is doing ridiculous burst healing, but all oGCD heals.

If you reduced the power of oGCD's, you can still keep them in healers kits, just they can then become supplementary healing skills, rather than the primary source of healing output.

Much like how DPS jobs have their primary damage coming from GCD skills and oGCD skills are less powerful but get weaved in alongside their GCD skills during the small periods between ability usage and GCD resets.

This would actually let you make healers busier, since you can afford to reduce oGCD skills actual CD's so they can be used more frequently, when they're not healing for 50%+ of someone's life.

Essentially, turn oGCD's into something that you use to quickly top up someone who went critical HP to buy time for a GCD heal to replenish their health, or something you use after a GCD heal to get that extra burst of healing to for example, get a Warrior back from 1HP after a successful Holmgang.

Thus making optimal Healer play be about balancing usage of your entire kit. DPS GCD's, Healing GCD's and oGCD's.

Which can then be further played upon with encounter designs that focus less on singular large bursts of damage, but more frequent, random, damage spikes.

[Coltvoyance]

I fully support SE implementing more random damage spikes. Hell, just making fights more random. But SE scripts their fights down to the tiniest details you'd think they we're making movies instead of challenging encounters.

It's just a big round of "Simon Says". It's how they design encounters. It lets them make sure they're "Exactly this difficult". But if it's always exactly that difficult, then it's always that predictable. And predictability is boring. "Simon says its time to heal! Simon says move here. Simon says DPS, then DPS while moving! Simon says move again, then Heal."

SE is so adamant about forcing you to stick to the script that they just guarantee you get killed if you mess up more than once. They do this in the form of Vulnerability stacks. Get hit once? You'll live, but heres a Vulnerability stack. So if you get hit again, you're likely gonna get 1-Hit KO. This does two things: 1) Ensures you can't cheese through mechanics by just healing through them. 2) Forces SE to make the damage/mechanic avoidable, making healing less relevant. I can't heal if people don't get hurt.

Some damage is unavoidable, but it's so pitiful that everything solves itself in one GCD. So taking "scripted damage" is just a nuisance, not a life threatening situation; and thus, trivial and boring.

At one point, SE used to design parts of the encounter specifically around healers. Like Ifrit EX tethers or Leviathan EX healing debuff. I don't think there was a single mechanic in any of the Stormblood fights that inhibited, changed, or impacted healers in a meaningful way. Tanks get Tank Swaps and Tank busters. Healers get... to just move around and dodge things like DPS do? Where are our mechanics?

[Ceasaria]

At one point, SE used to design parts of the encounter specifically around healers. Like Ifrit EX tethers or Leviathan EX healing debuff. I don't think there was a single mechanic in any of the Stormblood fights that inhibited, changed, or impacted healers in a meaningful way. Tanks get Tank Swaps and Tank busters. Healers get... to just move around and dodge things like DPS do? Where are our mechanics?

Don't need to put all the burden on Healers again.
I'am happy that everybody have the same mecanics to do, or if we have role mecanic, then every role should have the same amount.

[Coltvoyance]

Don't need to put all the burden on Healers again.
I'am happy that everybody have the same mecanics to do, or if we have role mecanic, then every role should have the same amount.

But thats the thing, Healers are a role of responsibility. In fact, some would argue it has the most responsibility, or is at least equal in burden to that of a Tank. But it doesn't feel that way in FFXIV.

I agree that if Healers are dealing with a mechanic designed for them, they shouldn't have to do the same mechanic as a DPS on top of that. Keep it equal. But we're a unique role and we should have unique mechanics to deal with other than "Oh no! We took everyone's HP down to 1! What are you gonn--- Oh they're completely healed already...".

I get it. Making healing easier makes it more approachable. It also helps protect healers from being blamed, criticized, and berated by sloppy players. People can be down right nasty when trying to scapegoat a healer for their mistakes. But if healing is so easy and approachable, then you can't judge someones merit by it, and players end up looking for a different way to judge you, like if you have poor DPS *Cough* WHM *Cough*. And that's even more unfair because it's not what we signed up for to be judged on.

[tesni_g]

That said, if the issue against going towards more GCD healing is merely how "Slow" the gameplay would feel without oGCDs... Then the problem isn't even that big.

You don't need to remove oGCD's to promote GCD healing. You merely need to shift the power of oGCD vs GCD healing.

At the moment, oGCD reign supreme because they're MASSIVE heals that make GCD heals plain not necessary. It's not just Benediction that is doing ridiculous burst healing, but all oGCD heals.

One of the more common complaints WHMs voiced has been how slow WHM feels. And as far as ogcd weaving, yes, ogcds do supplement what DPS and tanks do and not dominate their potential like healing ogcds do now, but my point is still rather that DPS and tanks get lots of things to juggle, and if the ogcd healing abilities are nerfed to the point that they're just kind of whatever, (which I think will happen), then healing becomes this slow as molasses, static thing.

More and dynamic damage patterns would definitely help though, because any time we can't align ogcds to the mechanics, those direct heals come to play.

[Kalise]

One of the more common complaints WHMs voiced has been how slow WHM feels. And as far as ogcd weaving, yes, ogcds do supplement what DPS and tanks do and not dominate their potential like healing ogcds do now, but my point is still rather that DPS and tanks get lots of things to juggle, and if the ogcd healing abilities are nerfed to the point that they're just kind of whatever, (which I think will happen), then healing becomes this slow as molasses, static thing.

More and dynamic damage patterns would definitely help though, because any time we can't align ogcds to the mechanics, those direct heals come to play.

Well, the cool thing is, that if you're not wholly reliant upon oGCD heals as your primary healing source, it opens up the opportunity to allow for some oGCD damage/support skills to weave in between your GCD heals/damage.

As well as the whole thing about currently, some oGCD's have relatively long timers, which makes some sense when they're designed to line up with boss mechanics to completely heal them... But with less emphasis on having such high throughput on oGCD's you can have shorter timers, meaning you weave them in more frequently.

To say nothing about also getting better job gauges that go into this new type of oGCD usage. For example, WHM not having trash Lilies (Which would actually be somewhat solved by Cure I/II now being used) that allows them to juggle those as a mechanic. SCH having more Aetherflow synergy to play with (Due to shorter CD on Aetherflow to cast more oGCD's), perhaps allowing it to interact with their Fairy in some way (*Cough*Demi-Titania*Cough* ). AST being able to draw Lord/Lady more often in addition to their buff cards.

P.S. Tanks don't get a lot of things to juggle. In fact, 2/3 don't even have many oGCD's to use outside their defensive CD's (WAR has only 1 oGCD damage skill for example)