5.0 healer catastrophizing is illogical - Change My Mind

[DiznypKC]

Two things:

1) there is no way they're going to make healers heal significantly more than they do now. No way. Not in 90% of this game's content. Do you remember the community flipout over Steps of Faith and the Royal Menagerie? The skill difference between the low and high end in this game is a chasm. Do more than bump the healing requirements up a bit and the community will lose its collective minds.

2) Even if bizarro world comes to us and they do massively raise healing requirements for some reason (the media preview dungeon videos confirm this isn't true), and if the community Matrix-downloads some much higher average level of skill in the next month, the first seventy levels of this game and all the dungeons, trials, raids, overworld, and solo instances are going to play like Sastasha for all three healers.

Reposting this because it needs to be said...again. And the OP needs to read it because it’s important.

Furthermore,

Every person I’ve read touting the positive changes to the healing kit have neglected to touch on the actual gameplay of the three jobs as complete individuals.

Yes, this is a MMO and healing is an important part of that gameplay, but FFXIV has two distinct facets to its gameplay: 1) co-operative gameplay; 2) Solo content.

How do you feel about completing the solo MSQ duties with 1 nuke, 1 DoT, and 1 AoE? I mean, sure, you’ll be able to over-heal yourself straight to Hydalen, but Ser Aymeric’s trousers that’s going to be a ridiculously long, boring encounter.

All three Healer jobs should have a fleshed out DPS rotation to utilize outside of party mechanics. Doesn’t need to be complicated like the hordes of DPS standing in AoE that they’re trying to keep alive, but it should certainly be more complex than “Apply DoT, Cast [insert generic healer attack spell here] until DoT needs to be re-applied.”

They are not balanced in and of themselves if they can’t perform both. They are not balanced as a whole if they all have the same kit with slightly different potency numbers. That’s not balance, that’s assimilation.

So to you OP, all I will say is thank you for outlining, once again, the positive side of the healing kit changes. The problem, however, remains that the healers are bored with their lackluster DPS rotations, and want to have three different jobs they can play, not a single healer with three different weapons.

[Greywolfamakir]

OP, 10/10.

Great post.

[File2ish]

As DiznypKC above and others have said, thank you for pointing out the changes for healers that are generally, perhaps objectively, all well and good and positive. I'm of the mindset to try to look at things objectively and find merit in the positive and negative threads both. I'm glad there are people pointing out the positive aspects, because they certainly are there.

However, as many other threads and comments have stated; the homogenization of certain aspects of healers, particularly changes to SCH and AST, may detract from the general perception of fun for players regardless of skill level.

I do not doubt that the dev team has considered how fun the adjusted healers are. Needless to say: it's probably is still generally fun to heal in 5.0. But from what information we have to determine from, it seems as though much of what people found subjectively fun about their job was changed to various degrees or removed completely. I particularly found myself disappointed by the breakdowns of the new AST card system and how all three healing jobs now have essentially the same DPS abilities (barring Afflatus Misery and Earthly Star and whatnot of course). A direct damage, a DoT, and an AoE with minor differences in potency/MP cost for each is not particularly attractive after the kits we had access to previously.

Since the job action trailer dropped I was split between going through ShB story with RDM, DNC, DRK, or AST. But I can't deny that the NA media event breakdowns haven't colored the role in a negative light for me. AST is no longer part of that list for now. And I'm really leaning DNC since I really like support abilities (and it's my 2nd favorite job in the FF series, first being RDM).

I love healing, have since 2.0. I have WHM, SCH, and AST at 70 already (WHM on 2 characters even). But I get the feeling the negatives have the potential to outweigh the positives, particularly for AST and SCH. Time will tell, once we all get to play the adjusted jobs. Until we do, I hope we can all try to hold our judgements until we actually get our hands on the jobs.

[Truen]

There's not a single meta player that will not throw a mele-faced Balance onto a BLM if it gets them that 3rd seal they need to then use that 1 oh-so-helpful AOE buff...But the 'core' of what made us want to BE Astro's, instead of WHM's or Scholars. Has been torn down to the point of being no different then a food item being used.

This guy gets it.

[Truen]

Reposting this because it needs to be said...again. And the OP needs to read it because it’s important.

Furthermore,

Every person I’ve read touting the positive changes to the healing kit have neglected to touch on the actual gameplay of the three jobs as complete individuals.

Yes, this is a MMO and healing is an important part of that gameplay, but FFXIV has two distinct facets to its gameplay: 1) co-operative gameplay; 2) Solo content.

How do you feel about completing the solo MSQ duties with 1 nuke, 1 DoT, and 1 AoE? I mean, sure, you’ll be able to over-heal yourself straight to Hydalen, but Ser Aymeric’s trousers that’s going to be a ridiculously long, boring encounter.

All three Healer jobs should have a fleshed out DPS rotation to utilize outside of party mechanics. Doesn’t need to be complicated like the hordes of DPS standing in AoE that they’re trying to keep alive, but it should certainly be more complex than “Apply DoT, Cast [insert generic healer attack spell here] until DoT needs to be re-applied.”

They are not balanced in and of themselves if they can’t perform both. They are not balanced as a whole if they all have the same kit with slightly different potency numbers. That’s not balance, that’s assimilation.

So to you OP, all I will say is thank you for outlining, once again, the positive side of the healing kit changes. The problem, however, remains that the healers are bored with their lackluster DPS rotations, and want to have three different jobs they can play, not a single healer with three different weapons.

Good post.

[Greywolfamakir]

The problem, however, remains that the healers are bored with their lackluster DPS rotations, and want to have three different jobs they can play, not a single healer with three different weapons.

So, for you, if 2 or 3 healers have the same DPS rotation, they aren't different? is DPS rotation determining how unique a Healer job is? i don't get it dude. I agree with DPS rotation being boting, but i don't think that DPS rotation is what make healers unique or equals.

[Rahspdoy]

So, for you, if 2 or 3 healers have the same DPS rotation, they aren't different? is DPS rotation determining how unique a Healer job is? i don't get it dude. I agree with DPS rotation being boting, but i don't think that DPS rotation is what make healers unique or equals.

To some people yes.

To me personaly the differences were that WHM was a pure healer, No pet, no fancy ui (except for the lily thing). Just pure old healing. Scholar was healing with a 'pet' that had some neat abilities, and Astro was a healer with a bunch of various buffs they could use or tweak to use on the party.

In 5.0, WHM's are still a pure healer. Scholars still have their pet, granted Selene and Eos got smushed together, but hey! they got a 3rd fairy out of the deal!.

Astro's?. We got degenerated into a Baker that can heal while we hand out Braised Pipira's to everyone every so often.

In no way at all do i ever see myself enjoying the 5.0 astro as much as i did the Heavensward / Stormblood Astro. In fact, ive completely stopped playing it even now and am instead leveling up a WHM. Because if im expected to just be a Baker walking around that heals, i may as well play the class that has the better of the healing and just bring along 99 Braised Pipira's to hand out to group mates before each dungeon run.

[Alfric]

I just want to throw my two cents in, humbly of course.. ^^’ I do feel that due to all the healing buffs we will be required to heal a lot more. Maybe even a lot more outside our OGCDs. I know it’s hard to imagine SE changing things up this much, but they are and who knows. Maybe we will need these abilities more than we think. It may look like a healing bloat but we haven’t really seen too much to judge that on. I’m no veteran but I do have all three healers to 70 and I have to say I’m super excited for Astro. It’s true, for me personally, that I burn most of what isn’t Balance. Sometimes Spear after a redraw and feeling like I get what I get..

Also on a side note I haven’t seen anyone talk about yet(if they did I’m sorry!) is Astro in pvp is good, but the card system they give us in pvp is not that great :/ you almost never need any of the cards that aren’t Balance so I think this may make pvp more engaging for AST at least. Scholar too. In pvp Scholar doesn’t get the fairy until you have enough Fairie gauge to make it worth it but Summoners constantly have Bahamut out. Not to blatantly compare the two but as the only two pet classes in the game, I do wish Scholar had more use of its Fairy in pvp.

I know pvp isn’t a huge part of a lot of people’s play time in this game, and not to say these changes were made based on pvp but idk. It is a positive to consider what could be.

I feel like I kinda rambled and I’m sorry about that. I am overall excited to see what is to come for all of us when the expac does drop

[Semirhage]

I do feel that due to all the healing buffs we will be required to heal a lot more. Maybe even a lot more outside our OGCDs.

If the media tour dungeon runs are a representative sample, we won't. Also, as I stated earlier in the thread, this game's playerbase wouldn't be able to handle a healing requirement increase that could remotely be described as "large".

[Kabooa]

How do you feel about completing the solo MSQ duties with 1 nuke, 1 DoT, and 1 AoE? I mean, sure, you’ll be able to over-heal yourself straight to Hydalen, but Ser Aymeric’s trousers that’s going to be a ridiculously long, boring encounter. .

Two out of three of them basically do?

I really doubt the second dot on White Mage is adding any real gameplay during those MSQs.