We are in need of a official response to the healer situation

[Mortex]

Just because it's called Ultimate does not mean it does not suffer from the same healing design issues as Savage.

What if you design content in such a way that dropping an OGCD or a Regen does not take care of the whole thing?

Can you really not think of ways to force healers to use some GCDs?

Ultimate has very heal intensive phases doesn’t mean it’s hard to heal it’s just a timing and movement fight. If Shb does these fights with more healing required and less movement you still have the same fight and in the downtime you press 2 buttons separate to deal dmg and fall asleep?

[Reiryuu]

*snip*

Mmkay. Let's see here. First let's take a look at some things. In 5.0 I will have: Cure 1, Cure 2, Cure III, Medica, Medica II, Assize, Solace, Rapture, Tetra, Benediction -- that's 10 skills dedicated to healing (and just direct healing 12 if you want to include regen and assylum). In a game where button bloat is a reason for skill reduction and upgrades, why couldn't Cure 1 or Cure 2 have been upgraded to do what the new single target lily heal does-- instant if I have one, regular cast if I don't -- and Medica be upgraded to the new lily AoE heal's effect instead of giving me... 2 more healing skills that I don't need? I can tell you I would be thrilled to have these upgrades in exchange for 2 new skills that would expand on white mage's identity. On the other hand, I have 3 buttons for damaging. 3.5 if you include assize... well okay 4.5 for misery too even though it's a loss of DPS and takes 90 seconds and 4 global cooldowns to use. Why can't any of these skills besides Cure 1 and Cure 2 interact with each other in meaningful ways (I don't think I've ever utilized the cure III proc >.>; )? BTW, do you have any idea how long it takes to kill a mob when you're at or slightly below the iLvl for the level of a mob as a healer? Now imagine you have to do that all by pressing 1 button then a second button 10 or so times till the mob dies... same spell... same effect...over and over and over again. For hours on end. Compelling gameplay, do you think?

Why should it be OK for skills to be taken out of our core ability list, put into the role actions list for all healers to use, and then be returned to us at a higher level as a "brand new skill" which we get precious few of each expansion? If that had been done to Monk, would you be happy about it? I'm willing to bet not. Yet it has happened to WHM twice-- with stoneskin to Divine Benison and Protect/Divine seal being consolidated to Temperence. Now, Happy interviewed Yoshida and asked about tank skills and their level. Yoshi mentioned something about the level being how pertinent or core to the job's identity it was. So why is Temperence-- a skill that combines Protect PVP version and Divine Seal-- 2 spells that are core to the white mage in 2.0 into a level 80 skill when Sacred Soil is 40 and Collective is 56? And now Repose (lol), one of the only skills we have left to take has been taken and put it into the role action list. Should we be happy when it gets returned to us as a 2 minute cooldown at level 86 because... that's SE's track record with the WHM right now. Do you not find this odd at the very least? Yet, Happy makes no comment on this.

In 5.0 the White mage will, more or less, be able to be played exactly like it was in Heavensward in dungeons. Can you name any othe job in FFXIV that can be said the same for? Though, sadly as it is, I bet AST and SCH mains would love it if they could say the same for their classes. Shouldn't there be some expansion on the game play? Shouldn't WHMs be able to look forward to new and interesting things in an expansion for their job? Not... constant hollowing out and redundant skills like we have been getting?

Oh right... and why do I need a bind in Fluid Aura? A knockback to drive a mob back to the tank's AoE or push around a mob like in Saint-whateveritis Hard with the Mud Pie thing at the last boss is far more useful. And just something to weave DPS in on an oGCD would be even more useful even if that's all it did. But no damage, just... a bind... yay?

Do I need to wait until level 80 to make any of these conclusions?

As for the Spire... couldn't they have... y'know... given it a new effect instead of TP? And if they hated MP regen... the Ewer one too? Enmity up and down maybe? Not great at all, but it sounds like something SE would and could do.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

First off, IMHO, extremely disrespectful. He literally laughed at the question, for merely saying that people have concerns. But to his quote:

Tbh, and I'm sure he doesn't actually mean it, but I'm really getting tired of him laughing off healer concerns. They haven't gotten healers right since HW, at this point you shouldn't be treating it as a joke.

As for his specific answer, he mentions again that WHM utility is more through personal damage. This has, or at least was supposed to be the case, since HW. And it NEVER worked out. With Afflatus Misery being a DPS loss overall (unless you spam heals during downtown), WHM still being very GCD dependant for healing and still having DPS clipping issues... I'm not seeing this issue change.

[EaMett]

But bigger numbers is not the only way. I'd argue it's the worst way.

Splitting the party is one way:
Imagine Hello World mechanics hitting harder, akin to the short stack, so that everyone is in danger, not just the short stack and the solo stack tank. While this is a "bigger numbers" adjustment, it would be just as trivial if the party was stacked up. But everyone is spread out. When's the last time you had to single target heal anyone other than a tank?

Adding uncertainty is another way:
Imagine Alexander (Ultimate). You get to play with time, so here's a random suggestion: Alexander picks random points (within reason) in a time window, say [0m, 2m]. Whatever HP the party was missing at these points is added to a total, which is then released as a raidwide in one of his attacks.

That's just a few shitty examples. Obviously this is pretty hard to design, because the healer kits are too strong, especially when they hit the entire party. So now that I think about it, gutting the hell out of OGCD potencies would be a good first step.

The main point to keep in mind while thinking about all this is that most increases in healing will also raise the level cap required for healers (whether it's flat or by splitting the group). While I certainly wouldn't mind, it's worth noting that one of the arguments in favor of the recent changes is that it makes the jobs easier on people who already struggle with the content (or some jobs because of complexity). And although most of us disagree with the way they have handled it, it's still telling of their desire to keep things other than ultimate super accessible. That and their recent announcement of the level of difficulty expected from the savage tier.

Yes you're right that the ogcd kits are too strong. Actually, all healing potencies could probably be cut in half. But the solution of nerfing any of these just doesn't mesh well with keeping things accessible. And it works even less with the 6 years of content already in the game. That's also why a significant rework of mana management can't be accomplished either.

The bottom line is that we're going to be stuck with healing downtime. If SE makes another MMO they'll be able to review the entire system, but until then that's how things are.

The current situation is that downtime is basically using 3 main dps skills and having another toolkit to weave. AST has cards to weave, SCH has dps skills to weave, WHM has nothing (and WHM have been asking for this for a while now). Obviously moving forward AST retains some version of this, SCH has traded those DPS skills for faerie skills and the complaint is that we will not need to use them that often so it's a downgrade to gameplay (that and some incorrect potencies will make gameplay clunky), and WHM still doesn't have anything.

There have been quite a few viable suggestions in the forums about what to do with that downtime. Imagine AST having cast time to their cards and draws etc.. So long as the cards provide higher support than the personal dps lost from drawing and using them, you'll make use of them. This significantly reduces the amount of downtime spent DPSing and makes AST feel more like a healer and support than a glorified DPS.
The thing is, SE either doesn't care for that kind of design, can't come up with options for the other healers, thinks it's too big of a change, etc.. etc.. Instead they decided to try and force us into healing with things like not having a stack dump, or using lilies on healing before you can use the extra dps skill, etc.. Obviously these skills will just overheal or not be used (based off of ultimate healing numbers). Hence where we are now.

[EaMett]

And now we have the closest thing to a statement we're going to get from Yoshi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmffV4oKZu4

First off, IMHO, extremely disrespectful. He literally laughed at the question, for merely saying that people have concerns. But to his quote:



In short, it was a lot of non answer and our feedback until 5.0 drops is irrelevant to him and his team.

Honestly, I would laugh if I were yoshiP too. WHM doesn't need a party buff per se. It just needs the pDPS to make up for it. I'm perfectly fine with SE not wanting to give WHM party utility ever, and if I kept getting nagged about it I would be annoyed too. With that said they've never gotten the pDPS right to this day.
I just think the question wasn't good. "Has the testing shown that WHM pDPS will make up for it's lack of utility?" would have been a better question and most likely better received. His answer of "wait and see" is also somewhat accurate in relation to this very question. Although I'm inclined to think WHM's potencies are still too low, it's hard to tell without actual hands on content.

At this point I just want one person in a Q&A to know what they're talking about when it comes to healers. Just one.

[nalol]

Nowhere did I say spam Cure. Most unhappy healers complain about the changes because we spend too much time DPSing with an easy rotation. If making you put your healing kit to use is not enough for you, then what exactly do you want?

What do you want from the healer role? What do you consider an "un-clunked" kit?

a guy who only wants to heal will be happy no matter what the changes, coz he/she doesn't really care about the dps part .. unless in solo content.

a guy who wants to play the class fully (dps and heal) wants interesting dps and heal.

you always have to consider that you'll need more healing at the start of xpac and the better geared the less you'll need to heal. So that's when u start dpsing more and more. because u can afford to.

and that's where players, who like to dps on healer to maximize their enjoyment and to push limits .. and to make faster runs, see the issue on the new healer's kit. Once we master the zones and the healing required (which usually is quite fast) ... we'll get bored pressing same spell over and over.

that's why having some kind of dps rotation on a healer is also benefic. and what u can do is pair healing and dps on the rotation.
healer's dps should never match a true dps class. but doesn't mean it shouldn't be interesting or challenging.

and the little healers had has been removed (lord of crowns, ED/bane ..). Only WHM now has blood lilly .. but from what I see .. it's still a bit too time gated and not skill gated.

[Shurrikhan]

In short, it was a lot of non answer and our feedback until 5.0 drops is irrelevant to him and his team.

Well, the only surprise would be if it meant something to him after 5.0, for once.

[Kabooa]

The thing is, SE either doesn't care for that kind of design, can't come up with options for the other healers, thinks it's too big of a change, etc.. etc..

Did you ever consider that maybe the feedback from the forums plays a part?

I'm fairly certain for every person who would like spending a GCD for card management you'd have another making enough whine posts about 'Muh Malefic' to drown it out.

[EaMett]

Did you ever consider that maybe the feedback from the forums plays a part?

I'm fairly certain for every person who would like spending a GCD for card management you'd have another making enough whine posts about 'Muh Malefic' to drown it out.

It was just an example of how it could work. There are plenty of other options, from channeling spells to forcing movement (short range spells) etc.. There are a lot of ways to keep a healer busy that doesn't involve actively dpsing.
And sure they probably don't want to rock the boat at this stage, but their changes go in the opposite direction of such things. So them turning around and saying they don't like the way downtime is played as a justification for their changes is very hypocritical.

[Feidam]

And now we have the closest thing to a statement we're going to get from Yoshi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmffV4oKZu4

First off, IMHO, extremely disrespectful. He literally laughed at the question, for merely saying that people have concerns. But to his quote:



In short, it was a lot of non answer and our feedback until 5.0 drops is irrelevant to him and his team.

He wasn’t disrespectful, but telling the truth. And every time there is a change someone somewhere screams bloody murder before trying it. That’s why he laughed. The don’t care about the reactions at the moment because the majority has not played the content yet. Once players get a chance to sink their teeth into things and can give detailed reasons based on actual performance will they listen. Those are the numbers that they will care about. They will look at that feedback and compare it to their plans and adjust then if they feel it is necessary. It’s just the way all mmo’s do it. Doesn’t mean they don’t make bad decisions at times, but it is the way it works.

Edit. This is a side thought. I wonder if these changes are for things to come? Like slowly increasing the hps requirement over the course of the expansion so it is not a jarring change.