Healers in 5.0

[Melichoir]

I'm disagreeing in the basis of: content didn't need your big heals and they're now giving everyone more heals. What for? And you're happy they get more powerful heals? Again, what for?

Maybe Im being terrible at articulating myself: I dont know what the context of combat will be in ShB. No one does. This is a big crucial factor. Im looking at the skills and going "Hmm if I had to take a guess, there will be more damage in ShB." Cause some DPS and some tanks got mitigation/healing too. That staying alive burden is spreading out a bit. Why? If its just that healers need to be healers, then no point in giving tanks and dps utility for that. Nor if damage remained constant, buffing healing out put becomes very weird, which you do point out correctly. Im making a guess, but Im not getting pissed at SE over their design decisions because I do not know what the game content is gonna be like. That is a big big big factor in all of this that keeps getting outright dismissed by people who are "getting their knickers in a twist."

I'm basically now stuck to hoping that content design heads a different direction while dreading the fact they won't even touch old content to reflect this possible need for more healing while leaving me spamming one button if i want to do anything other than healing. (i am looking forward to see how mp management is going to work though, but only because it's new. Let's hope i won't hate it once i get my hands on it.)

Again, I actually agree the old content thing will be an issue. It's not a new one, but its still a problem. I agree that part will be annoying.

regarding SCH complaining I dunno. I don't feel it's just the dps loss. SCH as AST to me... they seem like the're complaining about the loss of decision making which is part of what makes healers fun. SCH had options to pick between damage or more heals. Now it stricly heals. AST had the different card effects and you had to decide on the fly especially if you got a bad hand. Now every card does the same thing and you fish for different seals for an aoe damage buff so basically it feels like it's balance aoe fishing again with a new fresh coat of paint.

One of the biggest complaints was the RNG factor of cards, and how out of most of them only 3 were truly all that useful. They have addressed this directly while addressing the other issue: they dont want you to be forced o bring an astro. It will have perks, but it wont be so optimized and synergized that it will be a must bring (In theory...). Even then, AST has more footing to complain than SCH. SCH is quite literally a DPS/Healer hybrid that had objectively much more DPS skills than the other two. I think that if it was gonna get realligned, DPS trimming was going to happen. They certainly would not have given it more damage abilities, and if Im right about damage output, simply adding a few extra heals will either not be sufficient OR that youll be spending more time healing so you wont have the time to fully use that DPS kit. If they give you both, then SCH becomes OP and a must pick.

Don't get me wrong. there are things I have liked. I like how they've picked up on the fact that WHM was frustrating to play if you had to actually use your gcds to heal and you had to sit there to cast while every other healer has aoes heals that are instant. WHM basically had a skill to speed up casting (which considering how fast some fights where it wasn't enough) or blow swiftcast which then you had to pray no one died (or use your smn/rdm as rez bots instead)
Also you keep bringing WHM up. You do realize WHM is arguably the one who is better off right? And neither of us can't really comment on WHM being buffed because combat changes will affect potencies so 500 potency right now might be different from 500 potency in Shadowbringers. Did it get some QOL changes? Definitely but I wouldn't call them "buffs". Not yet at least.

WHM gets, no matter how you cut it, a buff in damage output. It's true how much that is is very debateable and relies on us seeing it live. But WHM got the best in 'QoL' cause it was the worst in regards to that. Overly big heals, inflexible mechanics, and a lack of proper DPS made it less optimal than AST and SCH in SB. It needed the most work. We'll see how that plays out though.

[Schan]

One of the biggest complaints was the RNG factor of cards, and how out of most of them only 3 were truly all that useful. They have addressed this directly while addressing the other issue: they dont want you to be forced o bring an astro.

If you happen the have the misfortune of being matchmade with all ranged or all melees... guess what. half of your deck is still useless. Like i said. things haven't really changed. They were just given a new coat of paint. You still fish for the aoe damage boost and you still have the risk of having half of your deck being useless. ewer, spire and bole were niche uses. now if you get terrible matchmaking you still get half of the deck made useless with no chance of having a niche thing going for it.

I can almost garantee you will be forced to bring Dancer. I'm baffled at how devs don't realize how gamers really like roles that buff everyone and I don't mean just here in FF. You can look at other games and see that pretty much everywhere. team buffer = good and usually picked over the pure healer or pure dps. (horible example but since devs liked it... overwatch. People didn't pick Moira because all she did was heal and damage (so she could heal more) so they would bring healers with utility instead of her). Lineage? people made money creating buffers. Sword dancers and blade dancers were mandatory if you wanted to tackle anything remotely challenging. The list goes on. Buffers are really important and usually a staple in every party regardless of the game if you want to tackle anything challenging.

Even then, AST has more footing to complain than SCH. SCH is quite literally a DPS/Healer hybrid that had objectively much more DPS skills than the other two. I think that if it was gonna get realligned, DPS trimming was going to happen. They certainly would not have given it more damage abilities, and if Im right about damage output, simply adding a few extra heals will either not be sufficient OR that youll be spending more time healing so you wont have the time to fully use that DPS kit. If they give you both, then SCH becomes OP and a must pick.

SCH as always been OP and a must pick (except at the begining of SB but that was a mess in general for a lot of people.)
If you look at the thing that can't be named guess what. SCH is the top DPS and top healer in savage content (lol Yoshida saying SCH heals less than WHM - it actually heals more and it can move while healing)

WHM gets, no matter how you cut it, a buff in damage output. It's true how much that is is very debateable and relies on us seeing it live. But WHM got the best in 'QoL' cause it was the worst in regards to that. Overly big heals, inflexible mechanics, and a lack of proper DPS made it less optimal than AST and SCH in SB. It needed the most work. We'll see how that plays out though.

That argument doesn't stick. Everyone is getting a buff to damage output if anything because we are going to get better gear. WHM lost aero III and you get a "nuke" that can only be used if you heal 3x with the lilly skills.
Unless you mean WHM gets a damage buff because it's the only healer to get a damage skill this expasion while everyone else got theirs removed which as several people have pointed out, as it stands it will actually be a dps loss if you go for it. You're better off spamming your regular dps ability like every other healer if you want to go for dps, which is why i'm hoping they will change the potency.

[Jybril]

Hi everyone!

My issue is I feel like they are insulting us healers, by oversimplifying, watering us down into the ground with these changes.
AST won't be the same because it's this 50/50 thing and SCH just got murdered for us all to see.

Making everyone the same is not exactly a good way of balancing. This just tells us you all dunno what the hell to do with us healers
and now we may as well never change a job because they will pretty much play the same...only difference? Aesthetics.
I like more things to play with and all, but just throwing MOAR HEALS isn't really that fun. I actually ENJOY Dpsing on my healing down time.

It's just....I'm bored lol. A lot of us healers are gonna be damn bored for another 2 years because of this, and we're already there.
If things stay like this, then I have no hopes for a melee healer or anything that'll shake the system now.
I don't wanna jump ship yet, but it's just not looking good or fun now...I've been a healer main since the game started,
and I don't really care to DPS/Tank so these changes will make or break me playing, AGAIN, for a while.
Just gotta wait to see how truly BAD this will be, and hopefully the homefront agrees with us so it doesn't stay this way.

I'm just sad because Yoshi made it seem like he'd really try to make healing fun for us because we didn't get a healer again this expansion.
Just another slap in the face. ):

[HarryTipper]

[GrimGale]

Making everyone the same is not exactly a good way of balancing. This just tells us you all dunno what the hell to do with us healers
and now we may as well never change a job because they will pretty much play the same...only difference? Aesthetics.
I like more things to play with and all, but just throwing MOAR HEALS isn't really that fun. I actually ENJOY Dpsing on my healing down time.

In all honesty, MOAR HEALS can potentially be fun and interesting. In wow, healing is basically providing a constant stream of health to different party members considering how much damage the tank and the rest of the party takes. Its tense and action packed because you have to manage mechanics while keeping an eye on everybody's health. You heal enough to keep people just above half their health but not enough to keep them topped off at all times. It's rather satisfying, plus the healers in WoW have all their own mechanics and feel different to one even if they all technically do the same; fill in a green bar.

That being said, WoW does have a much faster GCD and cast times in general, so reaction times are a bit more relaxed. If you applied the same speed to FFXIV without changing how the GCD works, you'd find yourself often in a situation where you'd run out of GCDs to heal your party before they are killed. And that would be incredibly frustrating as it would feel like the game does not allow you to perform your role.

But the thing is, in FFXIV healer identity revolves around specific gimmicks that are more or less unrelated to healing. WHM's lillies build up just by being in combat and spending them grants a big dps burst. AST's cards are a slot minigame now, completely unrelated to the healing aspect of the class ( that has been so from the very beginning tbh )- SCH is the only one whose gimmicks are now fully related to healing: Aetherflow grants stacks that are used for healing spells exclusively now. Spending aetherflow fills the fairy gauge wich allows for extra healing abilities.
Oddly enough, the fact that SCH only brings healing now will potentially be its downfall. While WHM brings strong dps and AST brings buffs, SCH uniquely healing focus will probably make it the less desired class when raiding.

[Derio]

From the looks of it. Seems as though scholar entire dps kit was stripped and looks to be quite boring now outside of just pure healing. WHM got the best deal here and the other healers seemed to have drawn the short straw.

Will have to see how it plays out. Might retire my scholar this expansion though.

[LalaRu]

...Hardly any need for healing, even dpsing in the downtime will send you to sleep.

When puggin', healing is still needed. The DF run where I cannot dps because too busy on healing aren't that rare.

Raiding, "logrun" groups are an exception, of course, but change everything to apply for a very small % of base players isn't too much?

On side note, where I can get raiding (o12s) population %? Don't remember where to look for numbers...

[BunnyChain]

Everyone seems to think the answer to making gameplay for healers better is to just have more damage going out and I don't think that is the real solution. If everyone is mad about having DPS reduced to one or two buttons why would spamming one or two heal buttons make the gameplay any more engaging. There needs to be something different for healers sure and I am not quite sure what it is, but making auto attack damage high enough to eat through half a tanks hp is not going to make healing fun or more interesting, its going to just make them spam heals.

Why not take a look at dancer's buffs and make it into a combo like every other job in this game. Like a NINs mudras, you could have different combos that apply different effects to your heals. Would make it feel more like you are "casting an intricate spell".

[Melichoir]

If you happen the have the misfortune of being matchmade with all ranged or all melees... guess what. half of your deck is still useless. Like i said. things haven't really changed. They were just given a new coat of paint. You still fish for the aoe damage boost and you still have the risk of having half of your deck being useless. ewer, spire and bole were niche uses. now if you get terrible matchmaking you still get half of the deck made useless with no chance of having a niche thing going for it.

Umm what? Old set of cards had 8, and of those 8, 3 were useful in increasing DPS in some capacity, 1 had a defense effect, and 4 were situationals at best. Of the 3 that were dps increasing, 1 was amazing, and 2 were ok/good.

So you really had at best a 3/8 chance of getting an 'always' useful card, and a 1/8 getting the ideal card you want.

The new system will award you with a damage boost no matter what. The damage effectiveness is based on whether its better for melee or range. But none of the cards are effectively useless. They all award you a seal, by the looks of it, regardless if it was ideally placed or not. And they give you guys more leeway on this with Redraw having stacks, sleeve draw being a thing, and changing how minor arcanum operates. So this whole "Youre SoL if youre purely melee/ranged." is kinda bunk. You still have benefits out of hte new set up. It's a matter of min maxing some of that RNG, which is now 50% to get effective cards, rather than...12.5%-37.5%.The new system is gonna balance around how you play the cards, by the looks of it, and not so much which card you get.

I can almost garantee you will be forced to bring Dancer. I'm baffled at how devs don't realize how gamers really like roles that buff everyone and I don't mean just here in FF. You can look at other games and see that pretty much everywhere. team buffer = good and usually picked over the pure healer or pure dps. (horrible example but since devs liked it... overwatch. People didn't pick Moira because all she did was heal and damage (so she could heal more) so they would bring healers with utility instead of her). Lineage? people made money creating buffers. Sword dancers and blade dancers were mandatory if you wanted to tackle anything remotely challenging. The list goes on. Buffers are really important and usually a staple in every party regardless of the game if you want to tackle anything challenging.

Dancer buffs, while great, will have to be checked by DPS output and survivability, as well as overlap with other classes. As an example (and Im gonna be extreme) - If Dancer does effectively 100 DPS compared to the 10k everyone else does. Doesnt matter how much buffs dancer brings, that 100 DPS will make it a class that cant be brought because no one is gonna bring a dancer for buffs at the cost of 9900 DPS. Furthermore, if its a must pick, it will get nerfed down the xpac. If Im not reading it wrong, having two skills which increase its base damage, to me, doesnt read well for it. Sounds like the class will be functionally weaker than other ranged dps. Since some of its skills seemt o rely on buffing heals or mitigating damage (or providing heals), its necessity may drop depending on your comp due to overlap.

As a point, RDM having verraise is useful for prog, but for clears, its better to take another caster for the damage and output. Utility isnt the only factor to consider. Not saying itll be trash or bad, but I think DNC might not be as big as its being played up to be. Maybe it will be though. Have to see when xpac drops.

SCH as always been OP and a must pick (except at the begining of SB but that was a mess in general for a lot of people.)
If you look at the thing that can't be named guess what. SCH is the top DPS and top healer in savage content (lol Yoshida saying SCH heals less than WHM - it actually heals more and it can move while healing)

There are reasons why WHM was not brought to Savage over SCH. The inflexibility of WHM kit to fit effectively within Savage content meant it was less overall effective as a healer. SCH was far more flexible. If anything, youre kinda saying that the SCH changes are justified.

That argument doesn't stick. Everyone is getting a buff to damage output if anything because we are going to get better gear. WHM lost aero III and you get a "nuke" that can only be used if you heal 3x with the lilly skills.
Unless you mean WHM gets a damage buff because it's the only healer to get a damage skill this expasion while everyone else got theirs removed which as several people have pointed out, as it stands it will actually be a dps loss if you go for it. You're better off spamming your regular dps ability like every other healer if you want to go for dps, which is why i'm hoping they will change the potency.

Huh? "Were all getting better gear so DPS goes up!"

Well no kidding? That's not what I meant. Adding potency or more skills that can damage increases their DPS, regardless of how stats are distributed, unless they specifically counter balance the stats to make it so that even with more potency/skills, the class will only do the same amount of damage. If they added two oGCDs to DRK, and each one did 1000 Potency, DRK damage will increase comparatively to if they didnt have those skills. This being said, If its a potency loss to use a new skill and its better to spam, they will probably change that. They used to have that issue with DRG and one of there skills at lower level, but that was changed. Things right now are not 100% set. Potencies can change and be re-balanced. Some skills might not be in their most up to date form. This is why waiting till the xpac goes live makes most sense?

[xbahax92]

Q: I'd like to ask about the concept behind the job changes for Shadowbringers. I remember the keywords for the previous expansion, Stormblood, being "reducing the things to manage." What was the plan this time?

Yoshida: First, we wanted to cut down on the number of hotbars to manage, and thus the number of actions.

Q: So the numbers themselves?

Yoshida: Yes. Part of it was because there were too many role actions, but we had to do another reorganization at this time in consideration of future developments. Especially for new players, they won't know whether a job is interesting or not if they don't understand its system, so we tried to make everything easier to understand.

This is sadly the case why we are getting less and less skills. I wouldnt be surprised to reach the low point of having one damage skill on healers.
Either its "skill bloat" or "new players that cant read skill texts".