Healer boycott in 5.0

[Truen]

If Senix wanted to do so, they could make the mana based healing less efficient for scholar, remove some mana regen, and you would have limited healing and unlimited DPS, which probably would be the change that makes healing interesting (especially if more incidental damage hits the team that pressures you to monitor multiple targets and decide between using single target highly mana efficient heals like physic, a mana inefficient aoe heal, and one of three big heal spells you can cast for free every X seconds.

Yeah right. They basically want the three healing jobs to be clones who's biggest differences are cosmetic, not functional design. They assume people aren't clever enough to understand even moderately difficult rotations, and because of this they've turned the healing role into what you see in 5.0. Bland. Basic, bleh.

[dezzmont]

Yeah right. They basically want the three healing jobs to be clones who's biggest differences are cosmetic, not functional design. They assume people aren't clever enough to understand even moderately difficult rotations, and because of this they've turned the healing role into what you see in 5.0. Bland. Basic, bleh.

To be extraordinarily clear, 5.0 is likely going to be better than SB in that regard, because now WHM has a purpose (Specifically it no longer lags over 1k potency per minute in single target content behind despite having LESS utility. Yes, I did the math, I think the idea of Shadowflare and Energy Drain coming back is.... unlikely to say the least), scholar can't depend as much on auto-healing and will need to devote more casts to healing. Astro always was the thinking man's healer, and the focus increasing on ED and ES sticking about still means it is the 'foresight' healer, which I like a lot.

Will it be good? Eh? Will healers now consistently fail routine healer content? Probably not. It does seem like there are some legitimately good changes (Double Essential Dignity means Astros spend even more time 'healer edging' which is delightful, scholar DPS getting beaten down hard means that WHM is now a mirror of BLM in terms of being 'best DPS if you are really slick and know the fight' which rewards mastery, ect) but nothing that changes the game a lot. Either you are going to have no downtime cuz you are mashing your offensive spells, or no downtime because your mashing basic heals. I don't see either reality actually making healers think about healing, which is very different than them spending TIME healing. You don't think about DPS on a healer now, you spend time doing dps. Likewise, in Shadowbringers, you probably won't think less or more about DPS or healing, you just DPS less and heal more, judging by the dungeon playthroughs. It is just you still hitting basic abilities. Its sorta why I am not mourning the cards changing despite liking astro, you generally don't think about the cards that much outside VERY niche situations, the way old cards worked just made it so there were unilaterally better combos based on party comp and you were mostly hoping RNG gave em to you. Like yeah you could I guess use Spear to help heal but... well... it is FFXIV healing, you don't need spear to help you heal, that was a novelty. Astros won't necessarily be thinking more with these new cards, but at the very least they will be more focused on them (because your needs DO actually change over time), and the fact you can redraw like crazy means the overall experience is less frustrating. I don't want to DPS-splain (I can't stress enough how I don't heal that often in FFXIV and am more giving the perspective of the kinda person Square Enix is likely TRYING to please, the healer from WoW, KOTOR, EvE, GW2, Neverwinter, Champions, take your pick, who is deeply unimpressed with FFXIV healing. I side with you unhappy folk as long as they recognize the fact that the way things are now isn't great for everyone either!) but everything I found interesting about Astro as a longtime MMO healer got more interesting.

Like... I dunno man. Healing in FFXIV never was good, and all this focus on potency decreases and losing offensive spells kinda makes me feel pretty isolated in this debate because I super don't care either way (But totally support your desire to Broil/Stone/Antilixir people instead of having pure downtime, #chemisthealerwhen?) compared to desires neither filled the status quo or the way things will be in HW.

Like... not to be mean... but SB healing was pretty bland and basic too... People talk a lot about healers 'afking' in WoW when they top folks off... but they aren't, despite the fact they aren't casting. There is something truly amazing about the act of dedicating all of your focus to the non-trivial task of managing everyone's health and zappy magic bars, including your own, that I can't easily describe. Where you are constantly watching and anticipating and in the split second something happens you need to quickly figure out what it was and how to react because no spell in your kit is a one size fits all bandaid, and choosing wrong has significant long term costs, while in FFXIV using the biggest heal spell you have is rarely the wrong choice.