Disrespectful and Dismissive.

[Billythepancake]

I have the 2 most upvoted questions in the entire thread, by a wide margin as well, and I am 100% certain that both will be ignored, just like the live letter.

[Tweets]

that why there was only 3 good cards with dps ...
now you have dps in every card ...
what the diffrence ?

As I explained, the difference was that you had to put a modicum of thought into things, choosing what would be best out of a variety of options - You had to make the most of what you got, the only truly useless card was the Spire. You had to account for what you had at the time - Is something already Spread? What's in my Royal Road? Should I burn this Arrow to double the duration of my next card, or do I apply it now? Oh, my MP's hurting, I can fix that if I use the next Ewer I get, but if I do that I can't share out the Balance I have in my Spread.

Now, none of that thought goes in. If it's red it goes on a Healer or Ranged, if it's blue it goes on a Tank or Melée. If you already have the seal it gives you turn it into a Lord or Lady, if you don't you use it. There's no weighing up of choices because there is no choice to make. You either do the thing the game's telling you to do right, or you do it wrong.

[Crushnight]

I have the 2 most upvoted questions in the entire thread, by a wide margin as well, and I am 100% certain that both will be ignored, just like the live letter.

Can only hope something anything does at this point but i should just be cynical and realize they won't bother like with the whm 4.0 thread :/

[Tweets]

If we're talking relics I find it prudent to go even further back. Back when there were five dots on different durations to track. When Miasma had Heavy and Misery, Ruin II had Blind, we had Cleric Stance and Shadowflare was casted, had no cooldown and gave Slow. While casting any of these or waiting on GCD we could tell the fairy to do something, like pick up our healing slack. And a lot of other different things.

The single application of each of these had little effect, but it was the coming together that made it feel so great.

I carry a very nostalgic of 3.0 because I could go into anywhere and know it's not the Duty I'm looking forward to, it's seeing how much more of all these skills I can exploit in the time before healthbards drops beyond Lily's capabilities. I would love to see better and interesting uses of Fairy Gauge instead, more tools to control the fight, something new so the job can evolve. All I've gotten are more ways to fill up healthbars that I never had a problem to begin with. What used to be an even split between offensive/support/healing skills have gotten to 5/10/12 and most of those support and healing skills gathers dust outside of a couple pulls and fights in the game's ever increasing number of <level 80 instanced Duties and Fates.

You have perfectly encapsulated why Scholar was fun in the past. Whenever people disagree with how it was 'gutted', they only talk about how we went from 2 DoTs in 4.X to 1 in 5.0.

But that's a technicality, isn't it? That's pulling up figures from a time in which things were pretty bad to point at and say "Look, it's not too much of a loss!" 4.X SCH wasn't very fun, because it lost so much from 3.X. What little remained was then taken away in 5.0. To discuss it honestly, you need to look at what's changed over the lifetime of the class, and while I can't speak for 2.X as I did not play at the time, I can certainly say that since 3.X the amount of fun I have had playing SCH has decreased from a decent amount (I'd say 6-7/10) to the absolute gutter (1/10).

We went from 5 DoTs (Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Shadowflare, and Aero) in 3.X to 2 (Miasma, Bio II) in 4.X, and now to 1 (Biolysis) in 5.0. That's the problem here. For those of us who played SCH in 3.X we had a somewhat-engaging gameplay loop to look forward to of managing multiple discrete timers, a fairy, and and Aetherflow, and this gameplay loop was significantly eroded in 4.0 and has not been completely eroded in 5.0 with the removal of fairy control (by making her abilities clip and removing the ability to target Embrace), removing the vast majority of our DoTs, and simplifying Aetherflow so much (though this at least was improved in 5.05).

[Lagomorph]

Not interested in semantics or cross-expansion examples. I'm clearly talking about patch 5.1 and future possibilities. They've demonstrated that they are willing to make major changes to jobs, at least with NIN.

You did not make it clear that you were only talking about 5.1 in the slightest. Also, they've demonstrated nothing with ninja yet. All they did that say that changes were coming. Remember when they said that we weren't getting another healer because they were so hard at work on the current 3 healers, only to give us the healers that we got now? Yeah I remember too.

Yes, yes, nothing is provable. Everything can be reduced to an assumption. I'm not interested in philosophy.

I'm not here to talk philosophy either, glad we're on the same page. Me saying that you're making assumptions has nothing to do with philosophy. I've seen you throw around the term "straw man" a few times here. I'm going to say that what you're doing here is more of a straw man than anything you've accused of being a straw man was.

I don't know what they're planning. This is observation:
1. Healers are more balanced than ever. (5.05)

Unfortunate that it came at the cost of making all the healers basically the same.

2. Healer basic DPS abilities have been reduced to a single target, a dot and an aoe spell. This is obviously intentional, they are not monkeys punching their keyboards until something happens.
3. They do not want healers to have too many DPS abilities. In case you couldn't tell.

And this is where the problem lies. Their vision of healers sucks. It's boring and not fun to play for many. It's quite obvious that they don't want healers to have many dps spells. It's also obvious that players do not appreciate this design decision. It wouldn't be such a big deal (to me at least) if I weren't dpsing for pretty much the entire time of almost every encounter. Their design choices contradict each other here. They don't want us to dps, yet that's pretty much all we do in optimal play. This is why I call the devs clueless when it comes to healers.

Yes, and I'm saying ask for what we want most. Because if the old skills come back, we're not getting anything else.

Here's another thing I will call an asumption. Unless you work for square enix, there is no way that you could claim this with certainty. There is literally no good reason why they can't add back some deleted skills for the duration of 5.x and remove them again when they are ready to introduce more better designed skills. No philosophy here, but feel free to straw man if you like.

"They deleted your abilities to make room for new ones" directly implies that they deleted the abilities with the purpose of replacing them with something else.
"Keeping Bane, Miasma and Shadowflare precludes SCH from getting anything better in the future" implies that we could potentially get new abilities, but not if we get these 3 abilities back. Because observation says that Squeenix does not want healers to have many DPS abilities.

I thought you weren't interested in arguing semantics?

[Sathona]

Not exactly true. Maybe a handful out there have been disrespectful, but I've seen a lot of constructive posts and threads without insulting or disrespecting the devs. And punishing the many for the deeds of the few is not a really good way to go.

If you wanna do the "treat others like you wanna be treated" then the community has given a lot of communication for the devs to see about the issues as well as suggestions on how to improve on said issues. So if we offer them communication so they ought offer us communication in kind? That's exactly what this thread is complaining about, so your logic works, even if your assumptions were wrong.

Complaints aren't disrespectful in themselves. I worked years in complaints, most of the stuff I've seen on the forum I'd have found to be reasonable if I was on the receiving end, because they're not being nasty about it, they're giving good detail as to why they're not happy and giving answers as to what would make them happier.

Ive seen some constructive posts with people below attacking them or being utterly negative.
Had a friend on discord say he will go back to maining AST after 5.05 and people attacked him.
Some people are hopeful others are not but you dont need to throw your negativity at someone whose actually having fun[not reffering directly to you btw oof]

[Cherub]

Clipping is only better if you have the ping for it, and that, again, feels terrible to do. [...] and with her having to be weaved in now, as well as just being less effective in general, she just doesn't anymore.

Reading this made me so angry because it's the truth. Clipping feels worse than ever before, the focus on DPS is now higher than ever before, previously it was more complex but you had more sources of damage and some of them being instant cast or in Bio's case, instant and you'd have to reapply it more often than a 30 second dot. At least before we had some more leeway with being able to use fairy skills during GCD casts. Now it just feels so punishing to simply clip a single broil because that is your major DPS source.
And then the fairy healing for about the same as she healed 3 years ago. Before, the fairy felt so impactful and important and now she is just a medium for CD's that feel bad to use because you have to clip your Broils for a measly heal. Embraces may as well not exist at all at this point. Feels like it doesn't exist even. Making broil a 2 second cast and simply buffing fairy potency, especially on Embrace, is all I ask for now. It's just so frustrating and it agitates me so much thinking about it and about how they won't acknowledge these problems on SCH and the other problems the job still has and obviously the other healers too. I also wish Energy drain would interact with your aetherflow heals and not lock them out. WHM got a system where heals lead to DPS and for SCH we have to sacrifice healing in favor of DPS. It felt good to use healing skills with SCH, now it all better be energy drain for that sick deepz. There could have been a more elegant solution for aetherflow dumping. One solution that may even support THEIR idea of having an expansion where healers assume a more pure healer role. Instead they just pushed the focus on DPS on healers to a next level. I have to feel bad clipping my broils now.

[LariaKirin]

You did not make it clear that you were only talking about 5.1 in the slightest. Also, they've demonstrated nothing with ninja yet. All they did that say that changes were coming. Remember when they said that we weren't getting another healer because they were so hard at work on the current 3 healers, only to give us the healers that we got now? Yeah I remember too.

Absolutely did. The words "latest live letter" and "I wonder how that will turn out" make it perfectly clear. If you cannot make that connection, that is on you.

I'm not here to talk philosophy either, glad we're on the same page. Me saying that you're making assumptions has nothing to do with philosophy. I've seen you throw around the term "straw man" a few times here. I'm going to say that what you're doing here is more of a straw man than anything you've accused of being a straw man was.

... I said I don't know what they're planning and that it's based on observation of their behavior. Yet what you're interested in talking seems to be assumptions and what we can't or cannot prove.

I could take the quote below and write "assumption" on most of these statements too. I won't do that, because I understand that you're not making these statements as a matter of absolute certainty, but based on observable recent behavior from Squeenix.

And this is where the problem lies. Their vision of healers sucks. It's boring and not fun to play for many. It's quite obvious that they don't want healers to have many dps spells. It's also obvious that players do not appreciate this design decision. It wouldn't be such a big deal (to me at least) if I weren't dpsing for pretty much the entire time of almost every encounter. Their design choices contradict each other here. They don't want us to dps, yet that's pretty much all we do in optimal play. This is why I call the devs clueless when it comes to healers.

I don't understand why you're saying they don't want us to DPS... They do, because that's why we have DPS buttons.

Here's another thing I will call an asumption. Unless you work for square enix, there is no way that you could claim this with certainty. There is literally no good reason why they can't add back some deleted skills for the duration of 5.x and remove them again when they are ready to introduce more better designed skills. No philosophy here, but feel free to straw man if you like.

Do I really have to put a disclaimer on every single statement explaining that it's not a claim of certainty, but based on observation of Squeenix' behavior?

Here's two versions of scholar:
- Current 5.05 SCH
- Current 5.05 SCH with Miasma, Shadowflare, Bane.
Which of these two versions do you think is more likely to receive new abilities, given Squeenix' recent behavior?

[Hatstand]

Here's two versions of scholar:
- Current 5.05 SCH
- Current 5.05 SCH with Miasma, Shadowflare, Bane.
Which of these two versions do you think is more likely to receive new abilities, given Squeenix' recent behavior?

Based on SE's behaviour of never having given SCH a new dps move without simultanously removing more I'd say they're both equally likely to receive new abilities (that is to say they're not) and the latter is more likely to have more dps moves after they add some, if they ever do.

[Lagomorph]

Absolutely did. The words "latest live letter" and "I wonder how that will turn out" make it perfectly clear. If you cannot make that connection, that is on you.

You said "latest live letter" in reference to ninja only. You can't expect anyone to extrapolate that you wanted that bit referencing the ninja changes to apply to your entire statement. Once again, I regret to inform you that I cannot read minds.

... I said I don't know what they're planning and that it's based on observation of their behavior. Yet what you're interested in talking seems to be assumptions and what we can't or cannot prove.

When you present statements such as "The existence of Bane, Miasma, Shadowflare today would preclude the existence of anything better than that in the future" as fact, I believe asking for them to not be an assumption is reasonable, especially when this is one of the core points that we're discussing here. There are some things that we can consider implied assumptions. This is not one of them. Remember this?

What am I assuming? I'm not assuming anything.

It'd be nice if we could not present assumptions as facts, and it'd also be nice if we didn't say "I'm not assuming anything" when in fact one of the most the most crucial point that we (in this case you) are making is at it's core, just an assumption. It's not rocket science and it's not philosophy either.

I don't understand why you're saying they don't want us to DPS... They do, because that's why we have DPS buttons.

"We believe trying to heal as little as possible and DPSing instead isn’t what a Healers role should be"

Interpret this however you want. The way I interpret it is that they don't like healers doing damage. They've said in multiple interviews both directly and indirectly that they do not like the mentality that healers should be damage dealers.

Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...54w3SuMgaL704g

Do I really have to put a disclaimer on every single statement explaining that it's not a claim of certainty, but based on observation of Squeenix' behavior?

Nope, but on some statements it's pretty important. Again, the statement that having bane, misama, and shadowflare would prevent us from getting new better abilities is a statement that has very little reason behind it and having proof here would be appreciated. If you can't substantiate that claim with at least some form of evidence, then I suggest that you don't present it as a fact like you did.

Here's two versions of scholar:
- Current 5.05 SCH
- Current 5.05 SCH with Miasma, Shadowflare, Bane.
Which of these two versions do you think is more likely to receive new abilities, given Squeenix' recent behavior?

5.0 sch was boring
5.05 sch is still boring, but it's slightly better.

Here is what I find most likely: sch (and all 3 healers in general) remain unfun to play for the duration of 5.0
Here is what I find to be possible, but unlikely: SE will listen to their players and healers will get some of the pruned abilities back
Here is what I find to be most favorable, but extraordinarily unlikely: SE does a rework of healers in the middle of the expansion, and gives healers new abilities that fit the classes better than the old ones we had in stormblood
Here is my prediction for 6.0: Healers will suck for the entirety of shadowbringers. SE will remain clueless in 6.0, and give us boring healers once again. Will I even be playing this game at this point? Probably not, if it continues like this