Tinfoil Hat Time! A new Lens to Look at Healer Changes!

[ZaqueXIII]

I think from the lens of healing needed so far in SHB, the minor healing buff across the board and expansion of healing kit was necessary. What is disturbing about the changes to me is that SE doesnt appear trust healers enough to give them a kit to defend themselves and then make MSQ and Job quest have us fight things with our stripped and gutted kit. Its unfortunate but hopefully they will remedy it for all healers in a near future patch now that everyones healing has been brought in line. Also WHM party damage increase when? Like all they had to do was make afflatus misery a debuff and bam all the healers have a similar kit and levels of usefulness.

[Stamps]

I think from the lens of healing needed so far in SHB, the minor healing buff across the board and expansion of healing kit was necessary.

In my experience, the expanded healing kit is only necessary if you're interested in doing dps. That's the baffling bit.

In expert roulette, for example, with wall to wall pulls, I still spend ~60% of my time spamming Art of War when paired with the average tank. That's because I am utilizing our new abilities like Seraph and Recitation (and the busted new SS). But they're entirely unnecessary if my goal was to simply keep the tank alive.

It's why, SE, I am confusion. You give us all these admittedly nice healing abilities; you take away most of our damage kit; we take those new healing abilities and properly utilize them; proper utilization leads to healers DPSing for a large part of their time in group content. So we're still DPSing the same amount, healing a bit more, but are all the more bored for it because we spam 1 button.

[fogboundturtle]

In my experience, the expanded healing kit is only necessary if you're interested in doing dps. That's the baffling bit.

In expert roulette, for example, with wall to wall pulls, I still spend ~60% of my time spamming Art of War when paired with the average tank. That's because I am utilizing our new abilities like Seraph and Recitation (and the busted new SS). But they're entirely unnecessary if my goal was to simply keep the tank alive.

It's why, SE, I am confusion. You give us all these admittedly nice healing abilities; you take away most of our damage kit; we take those new healing abilities and properly utilize them; proper utilization leads to healers DPSing for a large part of their time in group content. So we're still DPSing the same amount, healing a bit more, but are all the more bored for it because we spam 1 button.

So is the solution to nerf tank so healers spend more time healing and less dpsing ?

[Alathon]

So is the solution to nerf tank so healers spend more time healing and less dpsing ?

The solution is to look at the situation in a more productive way. Healers being combatants when not healing is a good thing. It creates a beneficial incentive to the rest of the party to do mechanics, use cooldowns, and otherwise avoid damage: healer(s) being able to add damage and clear faster (or at all, if you're up against an enrage timer). A great many players have enjoyed this mechanic. Several hundred hours of FFXIV content can (sometimes, must) be played solo, which means Healer classes doing damage. The desire of a small minority of Sylphies to have FFXIV copy other MMOs shitty whack-a-mole healing should not be pandered to.

From that axiom, one can then examine ways to make playing healer classes fun. That can include things such as adding interaction between healer damage and heal abilities (ex: WHM Lilies and afflatus spells), re-adding things that used to work (SCH damage rotation), adding ways for a healer to buff party damage on GCD in place of spamming damage spells, and a whole lot of other ideas.

The appropriate goal is to convince employees at SE with decision-making authority that they have erred in their current direction for healers. It's that's simple. Their current direction reflects genuine incompetence: they have failed to improve two out of three healer classes in the eyes of a preponderance of those classes' players, they have failed to make healers "focus more on healing", it appears they have failed to balance healers for raids (though the jury is still out), and they have failed to admit these failures and begin course correction. What must happen is for them to admit their error and correct their actions.

Though, we should probably leave out words like 'incompetent' when addressing them directly.

[Naychan]

So is the solution to nerf tank so healers spend more time healing and less dpsing ?

Why would you nerf the tanks when you can make the mobs hit harder? That seems like the quickest adjustment to make. Nerfing the tanks would be asinine.

[loreleidiangelo]

Why would you nerf the tanks when you can make the mobs hit harder? That seems like the quickest adjustment to make. Nerfing the tanks would be asinine.

Less dramatic change; nerf regens and oGCDs appropriately so that they supplement direct GCD healing rather than outright replacing it. For largely being instant cast and insanely mana-friendly (if not free), these abilities do far too much with little thought required behind their use.

[nalol]

Less dramatic change; nerf regens and oGCDs appropriately so that they supplement direct GCD healing rather than outright replacing it. For largely being instant cast and insanely mana-friendly (if not free), these abilities do far too much with little thought required behind their use.

mana free but for WHM or SCH they usually use other type of ressource (lilly or AF) so they aren't free. Or have CD so u cannot spam them. Well I like those abilities coz then u can dps on the side.