Healers in 5.0

[OcieKo]

Is it bad that I'm optimistic and excited about these changes?
As a WHM main, the healers in 5.0 look similar enough to where I'm enthusiastic to try them out, but different enough that they look like good alternatives if I'm getting bored of WHM. I don't feel that way about our current healers.
That being said, I am sorry for those who feel gutted by these changes. Just because I like them doesn't necessarily mean they're good for everyone.

Healing wise, I think if the content requires enough more of it, most will agree with you. It really depends on battle content at this point. If content requests more healing, the loss of damage options will feel less impactful.
On the other hand, utility stuff, at least in ASTs case, looks effective, but boring as hell.

[Melichoir]

Okay, again, this issue doesn't revolve solely around dungeons and raids. Healer mains usually like to progress through the story as, you know, a healer. While in the past it was never that exciting to level through the MSQ as a healer, it's worse now. We have one dot, one dps, and one aoe. That's all we get to play with when we're leveling up in the open world. That's all we get to use in FATEs, on Hunt mobs, solo instances.

The problem is not just how they play in dungeons.

Ok, Ill take two tacts to this:

First - even with MSQ content, you still dont know how thats gonna play out, particularly since they said theres gonna be role MSQ related stuff. Again, I think this is jumping the shark because you see your skills then assume "its gonna be boring." Until you have your hands on it, you really dont know, and I think people should be patient at the very least rather than working themselves up over it. Cause frankly, theyre not going to rebalance the classes this close to launch and theyre not on a mission to screw over healers by making their jobs so bloody boring no one will ever play one.

Second - Even if want to talk about skills, you play a healer. That means most of your kit is gonna revolve around healing. I play tanks generally, half my kits are mitigation based stuff. I dont sit here and think "HMM THIS BORING CAUSE AS A TANK I SHOULD HAVE MORE DPS IN MY KIT!" I know well enough that my kit is gonna have some things in it which dont play out to usefully in MSQ. Managing tank CDs on trash mobs during MSQ isnt exceptionally engaging. If you want a more expansive skill set for DPS during MSQ, then level as a DPS and dungeon grind as a healer. I mean if youre soloing fates, then yeah might be boring. If youre soloing hunts, might be boring. But you typically arent. In solo instances, you usually have NPC allies. So youre playing a class thats more restoration focused and complaining you dont get as large a damage kit as DPS focused jobs.

I mean apply your own logic to your choices: Why are you playing a healer if you dont like healing? It's not rocket science here. If you wanna do dps, cause you enjoying dpsing, playing a healer seems kinda not a brilliant decision when that kit is focused on mitigation/healing. Itd like me saying "You know, I enjoy threat management, mitigation, and being tanky. Imma go play a SMN!"

So I still dont see what the fuss is about in either case.

[BlitzAceRush]

I'm pretty damn happy with the changes, got a lot of what I wanted and a few nice surprises. I healed from 2.0 but wanted to try out tanking during 4.0 I fell in love with DRK and adore their changes, but I'm heavily considered going back to healers this time around, will really have to think about it.

[Lyndis]

I am very excited if the changes play the way people think they will. I have always wanted to play a healer role in FFXIV but always have to play hybrid classes like red mage should be.

Also excited for shorter queue times since everyone is leaving healer.

Not sure how astrologian will play out with their card changes. Will have to wait and see on that.

[Tralix]

Here's a proposal. The complaint is that healers will be too weak to hunt, fate, and do other outside world stuff effectively. So how about healers get a new buff to give their chocobo to deal higher dps. Does this solve the issue?

[Valderen]

First, I use to main a Scholar, and switched to a Red Mage with Stormblood. I still play Scholar though as my second job.

I personally like the change. I know it's not a popular opinion though and I understand and sympathize with the people who played a class for a long time and see it gutted to something they don't like anymore.

I love healing, and love how the Scholar works, but always dislike the amount of work the DPS aspect took, so having to manage just 1 dot, 1 single target and 1 aoe target DPS is welcome to me, I might very well move back to healing as a main.


That said, it's not something I ever asked for, or wanted...I'm quite happy as a Red Mage.

That said, there's a lot of change to healing and tanking...so I'll wait to see how it all plays out before making a final judgment.

SE has managed to improve the game with each expansion in my opinion, so they've earned some goodwill from me.

[Deceptus]

Second - Even if want to talk about skills, you play a healer. That means most of your kit is gonna revolve around healing. I play tanks generally, half my kits are mitigation based stuff. I dont sit here and think "HMM THIS BORING CAUSE AS A TANK I SHOULD HAVE MORE DPS IN MY KIT!" I know well enough that my kit is gonna have some things in it which dont play out to usefully in MSQ.

How would you feel as a tank if your kit contained two buttons that built massive emnity, and an aoe emnity generator and the rest were defensive CD's?

Because that's how healers are feeling.

[BlitzAceRush]

How would you feel as a tank if your kit contained two buttons that built massive emnity, and an aoe emnity generator and the rest were defensive CD's?

Because that's how healers are feeling.

Eh, I'd be OK with that, so long as I was given cause to use said defensive CD's, If that fights are fun, that's what I enjoy not how many buttons I press. I'm happy with the Tank changes, I've seen people complain we lost our emnity combos, combos I used all of once per fight unless something went wrong.

I'm fine with Healers having less DPS options from what they've said, they don't want us healing with no down time, but they want a greater focus on healing, I don't want a complex DPS rotation on my Healer because I shouldn't have that much down time, Healers have always had weaker DPS rotations if you could even call them that because we're not a DPS our DPS spells are literally only there as filler and so we can do stuff on our own.

I always try to be casting, but I'd rather be casting more heals and less attacks, hopefully with MP being more limited and their design choices I'll get that, I'm fine with having one DPS spell and a dot and even if they gave me a DPS rotation comparable to say DRG that wouldn't make me happy, in fact it would likely drive me from the role, because that's not why I want to play a healer.

[Melichoir]

How would you feel as a tank if your kit contained two buttons that built massive emnity, and an aoe emnity generator and the rest were defensive CD's?

Because that's how healers are feeling.

Id be fine with it if the fights were intense, particularly if the rest of my defensive kit was interesting. Which is where I would be looking at when it comes to tanking. Right now, my Def CDs are pretty much "Push button, reduce damage". If they removed all my damage skills and made the defensive skills more interesting, Id be fine with it because hey, Im a tank. Not a dps. My primary job is to tank things and not die in a hit. Having a bit of flexibility in damage is fun, but its not the end of the world for me if I cant do damage so long as other aspects of my kit are interesting.

Which it appears to be the case for Healers? Most of your classes interest and playstyle revolves around the healing. I mean consider this from the other angle - You have fairly interesting DPS mechanics, but only one direct heal, 1 aoe heal, and a regen. Nothing else. All one button pushes. Would you really consider yourself a healer at that point? Would you be a happy healer in content that had you focus more on healing than dpsing? I mean some of this does come off as "I want a complex and interesting healing kit, but I also want a complex and interesting dps kit." Off the top of my head, I cant think of any class that gets the best of all worlds.

[Valderen]

The thing we don't know is that with more tools, maybe managing heals will be more complex and engaging, and maybe you wouldn't have time anyways to weave all the DPS actions anyways. Heck maybe we will be taking more damage overall requiring you to heal more.

If we end up just pressing the 1 single target damage, or aoe damage spell all the time then yes I'll agree with all the doom and gloom, but if I'm constantly juggling all my heals spells and weaving in a DPS spell once in a while, then I'll be just fine.