Healer identity in 5.0

[Fyce]

Numerical fights currently needs abour 2/3 of a single healers output to be healed... while you get two.

That's why healers get to press their Broil/Stone/Malefic for 80% of the fight, that's really very entertaining. It's even worse for SCH being able to run Selene, and still spend two thirds of his Aetherflow on Energy Drain, because there's virtually nothing else to use them on - in a 8 min fight you're lucky when you reach more than 5 Indoms and Excogs. (so much for "oGCD healing")

I'm obviously not talking about good healers who know how to use their tools to the fullest. I'm talking about those who already struggle having the necessary awareness and reaction time to do Extreme content. These below average healers are currently allowed to do EX fights and still have a decent win rates. They already heal with GCDs because of a bad oGCD use. Raising the bar means that these people won't be able to do EX content. This is a loss for them, but also for everyone else. You might even force them to change their role, or even quit the game.

I guess so. When I play a healer I want to heal. And if able toss some dps. Not the current I dps and toss out a ogcd heal as a side action. There is nothing wrong with challenging healers. They are there to heal first and foremost. How is a group wiping due to healer screwing up any worse than a dps screwing up? A tank? Each role needs to have responsibilities that if not met wipes the group. A healer unable to perform the healing requirements should wipe a group just like dps that can’t meet the dps check.

We already have tank checks and DPS checks. We also already have heal checks. What you ask for can only be happening if this happens:
- Auto-attacks being way more powerful, forcing single-target healing through GCDs.
- Raid busters and raid damage being way more frequent, forcing AoE-healing through GCDs.
- Having way more single target damage requiring GCD healing.

In short, in order to force people into having to heal with GCD, you have to exaust the oGCD first, and then push even more damage on them so the only thing left to use are GCDs. This is when things break. A lot of people will simply not be able to do that. Which echoes what I've said to Hustensaft just above.
Tanks will die from auto-attacks. Group members will die from chip raid damage (including the healers themselves). Side effects also include a way bigger risk for using Raises, as MP issues will become instantly fatal.
This is extremely frustrating already when it happens. What you suggest will make it happen even more. And again, this is not desirable. There is absolutly nothing that warrant groups wiping more to that kind of things.

Also, what you want is not are not heal checks. You just want to raise the HPS healers do by forcing GCD usage. This is literally using more Medicas and Cures. This doesn't bring any interesting interactions, simply because the current GCD heals we have are not interesting to use. If there was a gameplay value, then I could maybe agree with you, that the cost of wiping more to frustrating things is worth it because of the good gameplay that would arise from playing this way. But that's not the case currently.

Forcing people into using GCD heals is not the way to go (at least not with the current GCD we have). The stakes are too high, for a very arguable and subjective benefits.
What I do agree on, is that "there is nothing wrong in challenging healers". But only if you challenge the right healers in the right content. Which isn't what you advocate for.

[Feidam]

I'm obviously not talking about good healers who know how to use their tools to the fullest. I'm talking about those who already struggle having the necessary awareness and reaction time to do Extreme content. These below average healers are currently allowed to do EX fights and still have a decent win rates. They already heal with GCDs because of a bad oGCD use. Raising the bar means that these people won't be able to do EX content. This is a loss for them, but also for everyone else. You might even force them to change their role, or even quit the game.

We already have tank checks and DPS checks. We also already have heal checks. What you ask for can only be happening if this happens:
- Auto-attacks being way more powerful, forcing single-target healing through GCDs.
- Raid busters and raid damage being way more frequent, forcing AoE-healing through GCDs.
- Having way more single target damage requiring GCD healing.

In short, in order to force people into having to heal with GCD, you have to exaust the oGCD first, and then push even more damage on them so the only thing left to use are GCDs. This is when things break. A lot of people will simply not be able to do that. Which echoes what I've said to Hustensaft just above.
Tanks will die from auto-attacks. Group members will die from chip raid damage (including the healers themselves). Side effects also include a way bigger risk for using Raises, as MP issues will become instantly fatal.
This is extremely frustrating already when it happens. What you suggest will make it happen even more. And again, this is not desirable. There is absolutly nothing that warrant groups wiping more to that kind of things.

Also, what you want is not are not heal checks. You just want to raise the HPS healers do by forcing GCD usage. This is literally using more Medicas and Cures. This doesn't bring any interesting interactions, simply because the current GCD heals we have are not interesting to use. If there was a gameplay value, then I could maybe agree with you, that the cost of wiping more to frustrating things is worth it. But that's not the case currently.

Forcing people into using GCD heals is not the way to go. The stakes are too high, for a very arguable and subjective benefit.
What I do agree on, is that "there is nothing wrong in challenging healers". But only if you challenge the right healers in the right content. Which isn't what you advocate for.

We Are going to have to agree to disagree. Also there are already in game options to help with raises and mp regen. Which as far as I can tell is there so healers can dps more because that is how they tend to be used these days in my experience.

[Mansion]

Snip

I'm not reasoning the same way but we agree in the end I think.
More healing requirements is not the way to go because for me in the current state of gameplay, healing is borderline boring. We don't heal that much, but we prevent damage, we calculate time for efficiency of regens, we study movement and positions for better performance and uptime, we plan the best use of oGCD while doing our most basic rotation which is refreshing DoTs and DPSing as long as no one will die.
Making more AoE damage, or harder auto-attack is just lazy design to force healers into GCD heals, which is not the shiniest part of healers' kits.

And I think that with the implementation of AST and the evolution of SCH, the devs are more in that state of mind of healers meeting a healing requirement (not letting anyone die), and give them more options to do more than healing (cards, pet management, buffs, DPS rotation).

So yeah, it's frustrating to die because of lack of healing, but it's even more annoying to spam heal during the majority of a fight because the game forces you into it, (the add fight in Orbonne just before Cid for instance; it requires a lot of raid healing, much more than what your oGCD heal can sustain on their own, and it's just boring).
I like healing when I have to think about it, time it right, not overheal etc. (and that's just my taste, I don't actually manage to do that in a savage setting).
Unless healing itself gets a major overhaul that makes it interesting to heal a lot, I'm going to say healing requirements are okay as they are.

[Hustensaft]

I'm obviously not talking about good healers who know how to use their tools to the fullest. I'm talking about those who already struggle having the necessary awareness and reaction time to do Extreme content. These below average healers are currently allowed to do EX fights and still have a decent win rates. They already heal with GCDs because of a bad oGCD use. Raising the bar means that these people won't be able to do EX content. This is a loss for them, but also for everyone else. You might even force them to change their role, or even quit the game.

Savage clear rates are numerical so low, that the number of healers you're talking here is insignficantly low. At some point overall class design for the vast majority of remaining healers should be more important then cutting a tiny fraction out of clearing savage. At some point overall class design should be more important then a minimal fraction of the healer base that is not capable of accepting that their performance is just not up for the task, while at the same time they're are crying about some problems with healer balance.

SCH on paper is perfectly balanced. SCH could/had to be buffed in 4.0 to 4.3 because when solo healing, SCH performance was not up to the task.
Healer "imbalance" is a state created by WHM+AST being disfunctional, i.e. it's missing one part that SCH+X does have, that is the fairy.
In several interviews it's been said that SCHs "imbalance" comes due to the fairy (wether it's a numerical or mechanical advantage has not been said) - fairy is a smart heal, probably performing vastly better then your below average healer. One could imagine how a nerf to the smartest healer in game will impact everyone.

Lastly, increasing the HPS requirement for healing will probably change very little for these below average healers. They spam heals regardless of the group needing heal. Increasing the healing requirement at the end will probably only reduce their overhealing, while having very little impact on them clearing the fight.

Though ultimately, the way damage happens has to change. The amount is to be healed is the least problem. As long as the encounters are as scripted as they are, there isn't no way to improve healer gameplay. Any increased tank or raid damage outside of dancey-phases will just be carried by the currently overhealing HoTs.

[Fyce]

Savage clear rates are numerical so low, that the number of healers you're talking here is insignficantly low. At some point overall class design for the vast majority of remaining healers should be more important then cutting a tiny fraction out of clearing savage. At some point overall class design should be more important then a minimal fraction of the healer base that is not capable of accepting that their performance is just not up for the task, while at the same time they're are crying about some problems with healer balance.

I'm sorry but you missed the context, even when you were part of the conversation I was refering to at first.
This wasn't about Savage. What I was talking about was what Feidam wanted for "Normal eight man content". And within that context, below average players are not a "tiny fraction".
Quote for reference:

Normal eight man content can require both healers healing as well. That does not have to the domain of savage only. That will require moving the scale towards more healing and less dpsing on a healers part.

SCH on paper is perfectly balanced. SCH could/had to be buffed in 4.0 to 4.3 because when solo healing, SCH performance was not up to the task.
Healer "imbalance" is a state created by WHM+AST being disfunctional, i.e. it's missing one part that SCH+X does have, that is the fairy.
In several interviews it's been said that SCHs "imbalance" comes due to the fairy (wether it's a numerical or mechanical advantage has not been said) - fairy is a smart heal, probably performing vastly better then your below average healer. One could imagine how a nerf to the smartest healer in game will impact everyone.

I don't know why you are bringing SCH on the table. I never once mentionned a single job. I have nothing to answer you here.

Lastly, increasing the HPS requirement for healing will probably change very little for these below average healers. They spam heals regardless of the group needing heal. Increasing the healing requirement at the end will probably only reduce their overhealing, while having very little impact on them clearing the fight.

Below average healers don't mindlessly spam heals. I'm not talking about terrible healers.
I don't think you understand what kind of players I'm refering to. Yet, these players are numerous.

Though ultimately, the way damage happens has to change. The amount is to be healed is the least problem. As long as the encounters are as scripted as they are, there isn't no way to improve healer gameplay. Any increased tank or raid damage outside of dancey-phases will just be carried by the currently overhealing HoTs.

If your tanks were to take 30k autos in the face constantly, and your whole raid 10-20k every ten to twenty seconds, while also maintaining the current style of busters we have, I can assure you that you'd drastically change how healers have to spend their GCDs. And regens wouldn't be enough at all.

Whatever the case, fights being scripted is the crux of FFXIV's battle mechanics. This will not change.