The Healer Manifesto

[Stelaria]

Like many of you, I, upon seeing the Shadowbringers job changes for healers, have feelings somewhat approaching dread. While I'd hardly say that healing was perfect at any point in this game's history, I can't help but notice that while many jobs have seen robust incremental improvements to their play style and a few (MCH, PLD) have seen major overhauls for the better... the changes and additions to healers in Shadowbringers leave one with a strange sense of deja vu. In short, job identity is now nonexistent.

Take, for example, the state of Astrologian as it's been throughout Heavensward and Stormblood. Much of the astrologian's play involves around managing cooldowns to take advantage of the power of Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition as buff extenders - a mechanic unique to the astrologian that no other job has anything close to. Look at the Shadowbringers abilities for Astrologian and, what's that, Celestial Opposition is a heal. In fact, it's just an aspected heal/shield with very little interesting about it at all, completely losing the 'time stop' flavour it once had. And as for Time Dilation... what Time Dilation?

Likewise, much has been made of how the one damage ability White Mage has gained is only even a benefit over simply casting Glare in an AoE situation unless one considers opportunity cost, in which case it still barely breaks even. It's certainly not worth the loss of Aero III.

Something that perhaps hasn't been discussed as much is how the changes impact the leveling experience - 1-50 and in particular 1-30 were already less than enjoyable for many jobs, but in the current state of Scholar, one might as well go AFK and let one's fairy do all the work, so gutted is the job at low levels.

In general, I feel that healing in this game lacks something, and simply having added more, more powerful healing tools that are essentially redundant... is not the answer. On the contrary - I believe what healers are looking for is a faster-paced, less predictable triage-based gameplay in endgame content. Where that isn't possible, in content which needs to be highly accessible to weaker players (leveling and story dungeons, normal-mode trials)... skilled healers, who are able to use their kit to its fullest potential and leave themselves time to spare, would like something more interesting to do than simply spam Stone, Broil or Malefic.

That being my hypothesis, I'd like (well, I'd also like to hear what you think - go on, tell me I'm wrong!) to outline my ideas for making healing a more interesting experience for players at all levels of skill.

[Stelaria]

Firstly - endgame should be unpredictable. At present, aside from 'phase pushing', endgame raid bosses follow an extremely consistent, rehearsable pattern involving complex mechanics with many independent moving parts that the entire raid needs to participate in. I think that's an extremely valid paradigm... but it shouldn't be the whole story. What's more, I think it's that paradigm that feeds elitist mentalities that use parsing and fflogs to justify 'optimal compositions' to drive players who enjoy jobs with less raid utility away from statics and PF groups.

What I'd like to see is a meta in which these complex, almost theatrical mechanics and phases are interspersed with phases in which bosses act much more unpredictably - and perhaps DPS can focus on their rotations more while assisting healers using abilities like Mantra or even Vercure - but that mostly focus on, rather than healing output, triage and ability to improvise under pressure, both from healers and tanks. Right now, that experience seems limited to situations in which something has already gone terribly wrong!

In short: less predictable bosses, perhaps not more difficulty, but more necessity for improvisation and less rote learning of strats and meting out of CDs.

My second point has less to do with endgame and more to do with DPS. What I'd like to propose is the following radical philosophy: the healer's DPS output shouldn't depend strongly on healing uptime.

Now, you're probably thinking, 'that's insane!', but the fact is, the Afflatus skills are already a strong indicator of how this could be done. Something I've become aware of looking over the new jobs is the following: the developers seem to be strongly opposed to the idea of single resources that can be used for DPS or for healing. This explains the loss of Energy Drain and Bane, as well as much of the design philosophy behind the changes to Astrologian's cards. However, I don't think they've taken the philosophy far enough.

Consider the following: according to the tooltips we currently have for the White Mage in Shadowbringers, the basic nuke, Glare, has 300 potency, while Afflatus: Misery has 900 potency as an area-effect skill and requires, effectively, four GCDs. In terms of opportunity cost, it's effectively three Cure IIs or Medicas and three Glares, though! That's great - it's excellent value, and becomes even better in AoE situations! Except, looking at it another way, that's three of our four new spells used up on a single mechanic. A single ability that's a 600 potency AoE nuke on a 90 second cooldown - or some factor of that - and some slight tweaks to cast time and mobility - would do almost exactly the same thing! That's awful!

[Stelaria]

However, there's something interesting to take away from this, which relates to opportunity cost. Much has been said on the issue of healer DPS in this forum, the so-called 'saltiest place on Earth', and rightly so. The way I see it, there's only one solution that would actually satisfy everyone - that is, extremely stable healer DPS outputs that are irrespective of healing output in all but the worst triage scenarios - and how I propose achieving that is as follows:

1) Healers should have a simple but robust DPS rotation.

2) That DPS rotation should not include any effect or mechanic that can expire or time out while the healer is healing, or that punishes the healer for needing to cast healing spells.
2a) Yes, that includes DoTs. Up to now, DoTs have been an integral part of healers' DPS. Either they need to go, or they need to be able to be renewed through a wide variety of healing spells depending on the needs of the party at that particular moment.
2b) You'll note that the original version of Cleric Stance falls foul of the latter, and rightly so! For all that it made skilled healers feel absolutely great... it wasn't exactly conducive to a smooth learning curve.

3) Healers' DPS should take into account the opportunity cost of casting GCD heals.
3a) Afflatus: Misery, much as it is maligned, is a good example of a mechanic that does this. Healing spells that refresh DoTs in a way similar to the black mage's Thunder proc would also be a way to implement this.

4) That DPS rotation should be exciting and build to something, in much the same way as DPS-centric jobs' rotations do.
4a) The samurai's kenki gauge is another model that shows how an enjoyable DPS rotation can function without the need for time pressure or limited resources. I envision a healer job with a gauge that grows slowly from damage GCDs or much more rapidly from focused healing and mitigation and that can be used to activate powerful damage oGCDs.
4b) I briefly considered the concept of a 'backlash' or 'revenge' ability that could be triggered when the scholar's shields are broken by an enemy's attack, but on further consideration, I realised that this would be poor design for the following reason:

5) A healer's DPS output shouldn't depend on the damage being dealt by enemies.
5a) For a reason - the thematics this is associated with are better used by tanks, and for healers to use it in any more involved manner than Excogitation would essentially punish healers for a tank's effective use of mitigation abilities.

[Stelaria]

6) Healers should have a personal DPS around 50% of that of the average dedicated DPS job against single targets, but rise to 100% as the number of targets increases.
6a) Strong AoE DPS has always been part of the healer role's identity in FFXIV, and while melee are at last fully catching up with ranged and caster DPS in that regard, that's no reason for healers to fall behind.
6b) If more numbers are necessary - I envision the personal DPS of a healer falling by around 20% when heavy healing is necessary, and also becoming significantly more dependent on DoTs and oGCD burst; contrast it to the present situation in which a healer's DPS scales almost directly with the amount of GCDs they can spare to cast damage spells.

7) Raid damage boosting is dangerous and hard to balance. While the 'they have one, so I want one too' position of white mages toward cards and Chain Stratagem is very understandable, I don't believe that healers should bring raid DPS beyond their personal DPS. Those abilities have shown themselves to create toxic environments at endgame and scale in unpredictable ways.
7a) If healers do need such an ability to prevent solo healing from being an unassailable meta, it should be a role action. A reflect would be cute, but I can't imagine how it'd be balanced, so I can't see it happening.
7b) Damage boosting buffs are one of the hallmarks of the astrologian, so, unfortunately, single-target damage boosts might be a necessary part of healer design: see the addendum on cards below.

8) Any healer damage should be intuitive at all levels of skill and still provide weaker healers with the opportunity to deal damage without endangering the party.
8a) This is because of the vast disparity between 4-player dungeon clear times with stronger and weaker healers. The difference in clear times invites toxicity towards weaker healers, while the danger inherent in healing and damage 'fighting for GCDs' discourages novice healers from attempting to improve.
8b) This might include making it easy for healers to use damage spells and abilities while healing without having to worry as much about targeting - a UI option that makes damage abilities hit the current target's target if the current target is a friendly, or a way to transparently and cleanly macro that for individual spells and abilities (I admit, I've always shied away from macro use aside from on the scholar's fairy because of GCD clipping problems) might be an option.

[Stelaria]

9) Healer DPS should be MP-positive.
9a) But why, you ask? This is a somewhat complicated one. The obvious reason is that MP-tight situations do occasionally happen, and might well happen more in Shadowbringers. They're to be avoided, of course, but simply standing still waiting for Lucid Dreaming or Assize to come off cooldown is less than desirable. The white mage has its Freecure mechanic that becomes relevant in that kind of emergency situation... but the scholar has lost Energy Drain and the astrologian can no longer use its cards for emergency healing - awkward!
9b) The other reason relates to players experienced with a certain popular MMO published by Activision Blizzard. In that game, MP, particularly for healers, at least as I remember it, was very tight - tight enough that at the time there was a damage archetype with a secondary focus on providing MP to the rest of the raid. I don't know if this is still the case, but... I've seen many players in leveling content use solely Cure, Benefic or Physick. These players often object to polite suggestions that they use more of their kit, complaining about MP efficiency. I believe that DPSing being MP-positive would help to establish a different mindset regarding MP economy and help newer players feel comfortable with healing.

10) Healing should be fun, and not scary.
10a) I've noticed a lot of DPS mains talk about how they're afraid to play healer or tank. Recently, I've noticed more of them being willing to try tank, and while I have reservations about the removal of tank stances in Shadowbringers... I believe that the change is justified for that reason. Healer play is still very much to be feared, though, it seems. People have high expectations for their healers, and a lot of strange expectations about what a healer is and does. I believe that a cohesive vision for healer is important to the ongoing health of the game, and the one I've set out, while not the only one by any means, is something I have strong feelings and much confidence in.
10b) There is, unfortunately... an elephant in the room here, and that is the fact that, in a 4-man group without a summoner or red mage, the death of the healer usually means a wipe. I don't know how to solve this one. We've all got stories about how the tank (usually a warrior) managed to heroically solo a boss from some unreasonably high amount of health, and I'm sure that people will find a way to keep doing that in Shadowbringers! But, that doesn't mean this isn't a problem. And, quite honestly, I don't know how to fix it, and I'd welcome any and all suggestions that work within the overall flow of the game, the balance of high-end play, and the feel of existing jobs. It's a tricky one, though.

[Stelaria]

In any case, I've most likely bored all of you to tears with my needless verbosity, and I'm sure you want to read something else - I certainly wasn't expecting to end up with a massive essay when I wrote this - but... I do have one more thing I'd like to add (and an addendum, I suppose) and that is this - while we've seen tanks, melee and ranged DPS in the gorgeously animated expansion trailers released by Square Enix, the healer role is conspicuously absent!

I feel like this, as much as anything else, could be a massive boost to the playerbase's willingness to try healing. Almost everyone wants to try out the signature class of a new expansion along with whatever new jobs are introduced - in particular, I've noticed a lot of players putting together glamours for Dark Knight in the run-up to Shadowbringers. What does this mean, though? What it means is that in the eyes of many players, healing simply isn't cool. And I can't stand for that.

To me, healers in this game are much more than passive healbots, demurely throwing out cure after cure to keep the 'real participants' in the fight on their feet. The healer role is a master tactician, keeping track of everything on the battlefield where others might be focused single-mindedly on bloody melee. The healer is a master of order and chaos who controls life and death with calm and focused triage.

In short, Yoshi-P should give us a little more respect and make healer a role people want to play, not just for short queues or to help friends, but because healing is cool and enjoyable! But, enough about me: what are healers to you, and what do you think of these proposals?

[Stelaria]

Addendum on cards.
As a former astrologian main (and a diehard nocturnal sect defender in the dark days of 3.2, though I've since switched to white mage), I enjoyed the paradigm of the astrologian's card mechanic a lot - even if it often just reduced to how fast one could make a spread Balance. And as such, I was as shocked as the rest of you at the changes in Shadowbringers.

However, while the new card mechanic feels awkward, I don't believe that the removal of TP, the de-emphasising of substats (the removal of crit-based mechanics from bard is very telling) and the continued position of the white mage with regard to raid utility allow for anything else.

I do, however, have one major objection. The cards that boost melee DPS should also boost the tank's damage output, while those that boost ranged DPS should also improve the healer's damage. This is because in 4-player content, players will often queue with two ranged or two melee DPS - and 'close combat' and 'ranged combat' include more than simply DPS classes. There will always be a tank and a healer available for the astrologian to buff, and a 6% bonus feels considerably more real and meaningful than a 3% bonus.

I've yet to feel out how the mechanic plays in practice, and I doubt it'll live up to the experience of the old version of the mechanic - but that change, at least, I could consider an unfortunate sacrifice if it weren't for the more drastic changes to the role as a whole.

[Anthy]

Healing has been a side-thing for me since I hit Heavensward, but Arcanist into Scholar was my first class I took to the current max level at the time, and I really enjoyed how you had a balance to both helping damage and healing others. It wasn't that deep, essentially hitting all my dot buttons and throwing out bane if it's a group of mobs, and then focusing on healing or spamming Broil, but it was interesting.

Now that I tank, I might be a little out of touch about Healing/Healers other than the occasional dungeon run where I pull out Scholar, but seeing that the only AoE damage is a single upfront damage spell is, annoying on several levels, cause now you can't throw out dots on the trash pulls and then actually focus on healing, it's actively a choice between damage or healing.

Overall, I hope points like this that Stelaria made are taken into account if changes are made prior to the release, or at least within the early steps of Shadowbringers, because as of now, as a Tank, and sometimes as a Scholar player, I really feel bad for how Healing gameplay looks, and honestly the point about bosses is one I really like as well. Bosses having exact patterns is kinda why day/week 1 gameplay for new content always felt so lively and interesting, and then grows stale later on average, having some variance would make them last a bit longer even for the average player.

[Metamyth]

I do, however, have one major objection. The cards that boost melee DPS should also boost the tank's damage output, while those that boost ranged DPS should also improve the healer's damage. This is because in 4-player content, players will often queue with two ranged or two melee DPS - and 'close combat' and 'ranged combat' include more than simply DPS classes. There will always be a tank and a healer available for the astrologian to buff, and a 6% bonus feels considerably more real and meaningful than a 3% bonus.

From what I've read in multiple places, from translated Japanese tooltips it's more akin to Melee and Ranged "Attackers" rather than "DPS." By proxy, Tanks fall under Melee Attackers while Healers fall under Ranged Attackers.

Do note, though that is from strangers on the internet interpreting a language I cannot read, so I might take that with a grain of salt.

[MrAptronym]

I am sure this will be controversial (and I think the thread title is a little misleading) but I agree here: I would love these changes. These points all seem well thought out and would lead to an overall healthier and easier to balance healer role. Right now healer is fun when things are falling apart, adding some unpredictability in-between more conventional phases could give a litte of that without actually near-wiping. A DPS rotation that is neutral to moderate amounts of healing and even slightly helps with MP would be nice. It is clearly something they've toyed with. I really like the idea of the blood lily ability on white mage, I know there are some implementation issues right now but that idea that you can regain the DPS loss you incurred by healing is a good one. (I am leveling up WHM as a probable new main job right now because of 5.0) If Scholar got some DoT maintainance tied to its own healing kit, it could allow for the job to retain some of its flavor. I would disagree on DoTs going away otherwise though. I think that DoTs have their place as a way to deal consistant damage while stopping to heal periodically. Yes, having some issues at the time you need to refresh does cause downtime, but it's much less of a loss than all the times you stop to heal.

I am a bit stumped by AST right now. They wanted to kill a lot of synergy that the AST card system worked on, so I understand them changing that system, but the new one still looks dull to me. The reduction of card mechanics alongside the implementation of the Dancer job makes it feel more like a slap in the face. The addition of seals could have provided some kind of engaging gameplay but they just... didn't do anything with them? Like, if we had different combinations that gave us an added effect on divination or something beyond just "One of each for a little extra DPS every few minutes". The addition of some kind of unique DPS mechanic on AST could help fill time better, but you'd probably want that tied to cards and I am not sure what that would be. I liked that AST felt kind of busy because of how much downtime a healer doing casual content has, and I don't feel like this system is scratching that itch for me. (I'll know in a month I guess)