Adventurer in need: Originality

[Quor]

Just like how you prefer simplicity, many of us prefer complexity. I dont think 1 class being the simple healer is a bad thing, so long as it is not TOO simple, but not all healers should be dragged down to that level. And many of us find it completely unfair that our classes were stripped of what made them complex and fun, and that's what most of these threads are addressing.

The problem with "complexity" is that it takes more work to do correctly. This in and of itself isn't a problem, but what *is* a problem is that people - rightfully - expect more complex tasks to be more rewarding. Translated into practical FF14 terms, a simple-to-use job shouldn't do as much damage/healing/tank as well as a more complex one, because the justification goes that if something is more complex and thus takes more work to do correctly, it should be more rewarding.

This works out relatively fine for dps classes, as you can more easily create different flows of complexity in a job that are perceived as more or less difficult by various people. BLM has it's own set of complexity despite having a rather simple rotation; a BLM needs to have a very intimate knowledge of a given fight in order to minimize movement and maximize casting uptime, because 100% of their damage comes from on-global skills. On the other side of things, a SMN has far more baseline mobility than a BLM, but trades that in for far greater oGCD complexity, as well as watching buff timers and debuff timers like a hawk. MNK is another example of a "simple yet complex" job. It has very few oGCD attacks, and thus is largely a GCD-based dps. But correctly performing as a MNK requires quite a bit of manual dexterity in order to maximize your dps output, which is another skill entirely (ER notwithstanding).

As it stands now, it seems like SE is going the route of complexity for healers being linked to knowledge of a given fight, much like tank complexity works. I've seen many tank players lament the "simplicity" of the combos that tanks have, and asking for something more "challenging" but that misses the mark. The complexity for a tank is having arguably the most intimate knowledge of a fight such that you know exactly when to use your various cooldowns and how close you can cut something to snag an extra GCD in a way that no DPS will ever think about it. The combos are kept simple for a reason; they're not the main challenge or focus of a tank job. DPS jobs have combos and rotations as their main focus. Healers - on the whole - seem to have moved more towards the tank style of "encounter complexity" as opposed to "rotational complexity." And this likely was done at least in part to avoid the situation of "AST/SCH are more complex to play than WHM so playing them successfully should thus be more rewarding" which saw an entire healing class largely sidelined for most of SB.

[Billythepancake]

The problem with "complexity" is that it takes more work to do correctly. This in and of itself isn't a problem, but what *is* a problem is that people - rightfully - expect more complex tasks to be more rewarding. Translated into practical FF14 terms, a simple-to-use job shouldn't do as much damage/healing/tank as well as a more complex one, because the justification goes that if something is more complex and thus takes more work to do correctly, it should be more rewarding.

This works out relatively fine for dps classes, as you can more easily create different flows of complexity in a job that are perceived as more or less difficult by various people. BLM has it's own set of complexity despite having a rather simple rotation; a BLM needs to have a very intimate knowledge of a given fight in order to minimize movement and maximize casting uptime, because 100% of their damage comes from on-global skills. On the other side of things, a SMN has far more baseline mobility than a BLM, but trades that in for far greater oGCD complexity, as well as watching buff timers and debuff timers like a hawk. MNK is another example of a "simple yet complex" job. It has very few oGCD attacks, and thus is largely a GCD-based dps. But correctly performing as a MNK requires quite a bit of manual dexterity in order to maximize your dps output, which is another skill entirely (ER notwithstanding).

As it stands now, it seems like SE is going the route of complexity for healers being linked to knowledge of a given fight, much like tank complexity works. I've seen many tank players lament the "simplicity" of the combos that tanks have, and asking for something more "challenging" but that misses the mark. The complexity for a tank is having arguably the most intimate knowledge of a fight such that you know exactly when to use your various cooldowns and how close you can cut something to snag an extra GCD in a way that no DPS will ever think about it. The combos are kept simple for a reason; they're not the main challenge or focus of a tank job. DPS jobs have combos and rotations as their main focus. Healers - on the whole - seem to have moved more towards the tank style of "encounter complexity" as opposed to "rotational complexity." And this likely was done at least in part to avoid the situation of "AST/SCH are more complex to play than WHM so playing them successfully should thus be more rewarding" which saw an entire healing class largely sidelined for most of SB.

The problem with relying on fights for people to get their complexity is that, once you've learned the fight, then what? Where do you go, you can't go back to your class and improve there because the skill ceiling is too low. DPS have to learn the fight mechanics too, but they still have a lot to juggle in the class itself as well, I dont see why tanks/heals cant have the same thing. I can't speak for you or anyone else, but I never want to hit a static cap where I feel like I can't get any better at my role, and that's where I feel this current iteration of healers is going to go, so simple and easy that it'd be impossible to get any better at my job, outside of fight specific optimizations, which just comes down to "where can I get away with not healing so I can squeeze in 1 more broil"

[Acidblood]

As it stands now, it seems like SE is going the route of complexity for healers being linked to knowledge of a given fight, much like tank complexity works. I've seen many tank players lament the "simplicity" of the combos that tanks have, and asking for something more "challenging" but that misses the mark. The complexity for a tank is having arguably the most intimate knowledge of a fight such that you know exactly when to use your various cooldowns and how close you can cut something to snag an extra GCD in a way that no DPS will ever think about it. The combos are kept simple for a reason; they're not the main challenge or focus of a tank job. DPS jobs have combos and rotations as their main focus. Healers - on the whole - seem to have moved more towards the tank style of "encounter complexity" as opposed to "rotational complexity." And this likely was done at least in part to avoid the situation of "AST/SCH are more complex to play than WHM so playing them successfully should thus be more rewarding" which saw an entire healing class largely sidelined for most of SB.

Then with the possible exception of Savage SE has utterly failed... I got E3N for Raid Roulette the other day as a Tank, I had never tanked it before and was a bit nervous, I needn't have been though as the only Tank thing I had to worry about was a very clearly marked 'tank buster' every other minute (which wouldn't have killed me even without mitigation, but I like being kind to healers).

Doing the same fight again as a BLM though, I had to get my timings, cooldowns, and movements right for a whole bunch of mechanics lest I screw up / drop my rotation (or die!) and have to start over... so it was far more involved than tanking (and as a result, far more enjoyable).

Additionally, I still remember tanking Midas (A5-8) normal mode back in HW and almost every fight as a tank I had to worry about mitigation (I would have died otherwise), positioning, tank swaps, Cover as PLD, etc. So even comparing tanking now to tanking (or healing) back in 3.X it feels less engaging on an encounter level than it used to.


NB: As for WHM being side-lined, that was (is) due to people’s obsession with DPS (driven by hard enrage and FFlogs); WHM was plenty capable of clearing the content, it just couldn't quite post the rDPS, or boost others rDPS the way AST and SCH could.

[Quor]

Then with the possible exception of Savage SE has utterly failed... I got E3N for Raid Roulette the other day as a Tank, I had never tanked it before and was a bit nervous, I needn't have been though as the only Tank thing I had to worry about was a very clearly marked 'tank buster' every other minute (which wouldn't have killed me even without mitigation, but I like being kind to healers).

Doing the same fight again as a BLM though, I had to get my timings, cooldowns, and movements right for a whole bunch of mechanics lest I screw up / drop my rotation (or die!) and have to start over... so it was far more involved than tanking (and as a result, far more enjoyable).

Additionally, I still remember tanking Midas (A5-8) normal mode back in HW and almost every fight as a tank I had to worry about mitigation (I would have died otherwise), positioning, tank swaps, Cover as PLD, etc. So even comparing tanking now to tanking (or healing) back in 3.X it feels less engaging on an encounter level than it used to.


NB: As for WHM being side-lined, that was (is) due to people’s obsession with DPS (driven by hard enrage and FFlogs); WHM was plenty capable of clearing the content, it just couldn't quite post the rDPS, or boost others rDPS the way AST and SCH could.

Well yes, that's a braindead fight on normal. Large pulls in expert roulette provide more challenge than tanking E3N. A better example would be why a tank doesn't want to re-center Titania EX immediately following the first frost rune, or how far is acceptable to pull Inno towards the edge during 4x Starbirth. Small things in the large scheme of a fight, but if you don't do them right, you could wipe the whole raid.

As for WHM, yes, that's the issue, as well as a few other classes. Again, complexity in and of itself isn't necessarily bad, but asking for core design changes in the name of "complexity" is a sure route to seeing one or more jobs sidelined, because pretty much everyone agrees that a more complex job should be met with commensurate reward *if* performed correctly. So adding raw complexity to a job isn't going to solve any issues (at least, not any of the issues SE has tried to solve with the actions they have taken as of late). The key then comes in how complexity can be added on another level beyond changing core job design. A good example of that would be old Hagakure in 4.0 SAM. It opened a very strategic meta-game as SAM where you made certain decisions on Sen usage throughout a fight that would have an impact several GCD's down the line. It was very enjoyable and engaging for those who understood it, but wasn't strictly "better" than any other job. It was simply another style of approaching a fight, utilizing a longer-term thinking and planning strategy instead of the more GCD-to-GCD tactical approach a MNK would take.

As far as I can see, SE wants healers to be focusing on healing. I don't have a problem with this per se, but it would be nice if actual heal checks made it back into the game to support that style of encounter. The endless enrages and dps checks have gotten old.

[Billythepancake]

As far as I can see, SE wants healers to be focusing on healing. I don't have a problem with this per se, but it would be nice if actual heal checks made it back into the game to support that style of encounter. The endless enrages and dps checks have gotten old.

The problem with the whole "SE wants us to focus on healing more " is that, the game is not designed for us to heal more, and outside of an ARR level rework, I dont see how they could fix it. Encounters as well as healer kits are not designed to have healers heal most, or even half, of the time. For an example, look at scholar, your main heals are all locked behind a timer, and healing outside of that is expensive, and if done too much will screw you over. IMO SE is better off just embracing green dps, and just giving us things to do other than heal, because both the encounters and classes are better designed for it

[Hatstand]

Alternately, they could make us focus on healing more in the new content by making it require more healing, and leave us with our offensive kits to be used in older content and when we get the hang of new content.

[Acidblood]

The problem with the whole "SE wants us to focus on healing more " is that, the game is not designed for us to heal more, and outside of an ARR level rework, I dont see how they could fix it. Encounters as well as healer kits are not designed to have healers heal most, or even half, of the time. For an example, look at scholar, your main heals are all locked behind a timer, and healing outside of that is expensive, and if done too much will screw you over. IMO SE is better off just embracing green dps, and just giving us things to do other than heal, because both the encounters and classes are better designed for it

Costs can always be adjusted, as can the level of unavoidable outgoing damage, and the penalties for mechanics (e.g. a non-removable Slow instead of Vulnerability / instant death*).

I do agree though that it would be less work to simply give healers a better 'down-time kit' than it would be to shift encounter design and rework classes to be more support orientated... then again, they have taken a LOT out over the years, so they could slowly add it (and more) back in.

* Note: I feel that all too often the 'job' of a healer is simply to cover other people’s mistakes, but if healing is to be a 'full time' job then other people’s mistakes shouldn't be adding to that workload; a Slow effect would be a noticeable alternative to death that players would want to avoid.