The state of healers is affecting everyone

[Melichoir]

The difficult thing about the cleric dance was hoping that the server recognized the input. Often enough it didn't and that was annoying as hell.
On that front: I don't miss the skill. With better servers it would have been cooler.

As for the 5% buff: considering the cooldown that thing was so pathetically weak it wasn't even funny anymore. Good riddance, I say.

I still lament the loss of Aero III. AoE DoT was fun and unique to the class.

Bottom line I would agree with Samsta: WHM doesn't feel too different to play. I welcome the added mobility via the lily heals.


I tried to touch on the subject in this post:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post5173503

Suffice it to say: I am not convinced that a pure healing playstyle would be more engaging than a weaving of healing and DPS. I think the latter has more potential in the long run, esp when encounters are on farm status if the DPS portion of the role isn't too dumbed down.

The point is Im not saying Pure Healing, Im saying Healing focused. This would require them (the devs) to be clever about things. As for outgearing, once you start outgearing the content, its gonna become faceroll for MOST people. That isnt a healer thing, thats a player thing. How that can be mitigated against is using % based damage more frequently, tuning the content harder, or making it more mechanically driven giving you less time to cast. Its gonna require them to change how they handle encounters. The other solutino is to abolish the Trinity, and just give all classes self sustain and remove a healing/support orientated classes, with more telegraphed mechanics and less AA mechanics. Simply stating that you want to be able to be a viable DPS class as well as being a solid healer is asking for the healing role to be special in design. Meaning, it gets to be a functional dps and a functional healer, where Tanks and DPS are limited in their aspects.

And mind you, of the healers that has a 'successful' dps kit, that was SCH. So that is your benchmark. And balancing that against the other healers who had a lot smaller DPS kits was a problem, particularly when DPS is a big part of how encounters work.

I dont think making everying DPS is gonna fix it. I hazard that youll end up unbalancing the healers again. If you dont want to be healing when content becomes easy, roll a DPS at that point. How engaging the content will be will vary depending how geared you are, and if healing just doesnt do it for you and you want that DPS fun, then be a DPS. But I think if people want more fun playing healers, having them up the complexity of encounters is a better option.

[JunseiKei]

Well I mean what they could do to make everyone happy is revert SCH and AST, and Add 4 or 5 DPS skills to WHM, and tune fights so that the healers need to deal almost as much damage as DPS all the while making sure healing is not that important.

Subjective, obviously, but god no. I don't need 4 or 5 DPS skills on WHM. If I have nothing to add to a party but my heals and apparent DPS, but my only worth is DPS, give me a NUKE. However, I still am not happy with the whole vocal community's stance on healers and DPSing in general, because:

While Im being flippant, this is the crux of what Im not understanding. If youre bored with healing, then why isnt the argument to make fights even more pressing that forces even more healing and attention? Why is the fix for the classes "We need more DPS skills for healers."

...I've been asking the same thing for years now. That's why I don't mind the simple healer rotation if it means the fights are more entertaining. Having blindly progged and clearing all of savage that way and not just following some guide that someone else wrote, I didn't hurt for 'interesting' DPS rotations. The fights themselves were interesting and fun. That's what I want more of as a healer.

Unfortunately, I perceive that many that play healer don't really want to play healer but rather a DPS with heals as a secondary skill. So, I'm at least glad I'm not the only one that has gotten this feeling.

[Billythepancake]

Subjective, obviously, but god no. I don't need 4 or 5 DPS skills on WHM. If I have nothing to add to a party but my heals and apparent DPS, but my only worth is DPS, give me a NUKE. However, I still am not happy with the whole vocal community's stance on healers and DPSing in general, because:



...I've been asking the same thing for years now. That's why I don't mind the simple healer rotation if it means the fights are more entertaining. Having blindly progged and clearing all of savage that way and not just following some guide that someone else wrote, I didn't hurt for 'interesting' DPS rotations. The fights themselves were interesting and fun. That's what I want more of as a healer.

Unfortunately, I perceive that many that play healer don't really want to play healer but rather a DPS with heals as a secondary skill. So, I'm at least glad I'm not the only one that has gotten this feeling.

Fights are interesting when you're learning them, sure. Then what? Where do you go? Where do you improve? hitting the broil button more? The problem with expecting fights to get all of your complexity from is that, once you've learned them, it's the same as any other content, spam 1 button until someone gets a big ouchie, then stop for a second to heal, then back to spamming. On SB, I had room to improve, because I had several things to keep up with, and it was almost guaranteed I would forget something, be it a dot, be it crucial fairy placement, be it not using an ED on time to make the most use of quickened aetherflow, forgetting that the boss moves in that instant, so save shadowflare until he does. All of that is gone, so the ceiling on my class and room to improve is gone. I don't know about you, but I never want to hit a static cap where I feel like I can't get any better, and that's the problem with the current iteration of healers, that skill ceiling is too low. Something as simple as adding 2-3 more dots could alleviate that, at least to some degree, so long as they had different timers.

[Gaethan_Tessula]

More complexity would be great. But it will not happen outside of Ultimate, possibly Savage, and maybe EX if we're getting crazy. Raids have gotten easier since Midas. We haven't seen crowd control used frequently since ARR and some stragglers in HW. SE killed triage as a healing skill once they elected to give all the healers several powerful oGCDs and they've kept adding more since.

And if you think they'd make challenging and interesting healing checks in normal content (which we all still must run for progress and efficent tomes), you clearly haven't been paying attention to their target audience skill level or how they design to that skill level.

Tanks ARE essentially DPS/defensive support hybrids now. Very little of the pre-ShB aggro management systems remain. I don't see why healers cannot be the same, and it seems more in line with what SE design goals are (clears are for everyone, optimization is for the elite).

[JunseiKei]

Fights are interesting when you're learning them, sure. Then what? Where do you go? Where do you improve? hitting the broil button more? The problem with expecting fights to get all of your complexity from is that, once you've learned them, it's the same as any other content, spam 1 button until someone gets a big ouchie, then stop for a second to heal, then back to spamming.

With the confines of this game, then you optimize, but see, you've already done the fun part. Aside from making encounters random, I doubt it'd make anything interesting. Again, managing DoTs and hitting <interest number of buttons to use a 'rotation' on a healer> isn't difficult or interesting. There's no skill involved in the game past memorization for the fights and hoping your 7 companions don't wipe us all. I don't think people can handle randomization either, given Guardian or Midgardsormr, which aren't even truly random but rather 'will do X or will do Y and then will do the other option later.'

I honestly live for the moments when people mess up mechanics. It's the only time I feel like a healer: can I keep them alive and can we stay on track (but again, your worth as a healer is only how well you DPS, not how well you keep people alive because perfect play is something I don't expect outside of my raid group).

[Billythepancake]

With the confines of this game, then you optimize, but see, you've already done the fun part. Aside from making encounters random, I doubt it'd make anything interesting. Again, managing DoTs and hitting <interest number of buttons to use a 'rotation' on a healer> isn't difficult or interesting. There's no skill involved in the game past memorization for the fights and hoping your 7 companions don't wipe us all. I don't think people can handle randomization either, given Guardian or Midgardsormr, which aren't even truly random but rather 'will do X or will do Y and then will do the other option later.'

I honestly live for the moments when people mess up mechanics. It's the only time I feel like a healer: can I keep them alive and can we stay on track (but again, your worth as a healer is only how well you DPS, not how well you keep people alive because perfect play is something I don't expect outside of my raid group).

And yet every other class has SOMETHING to do when they're done learning a fight, they have several buttons to press, several timers to watch, things to keep up with. I genuinely don't understand why healers are the one class that are stuck with "you're only fun when learning, once you learn you sit in a corner and press your 1 button"

[LaylaTsarra]

And yet every other class has SOMETHING to do when they're done learning a fight, they have several buttons to press, several timers to watch, things to keep up with. I genuinely don't understand why healers are the one class that are stuck with "you're only fun when learning, once you learn you sit in a corner and press your 1 button"

Maybe if you find Scholar that boring perhaps you might want to try WHM or AST, or maybe try healing without your pet.

[JunseiKei]

And yet every other class has SOMETHING to do when they're done learning a fight, they have several buttons to press, several timers to watch, things to keep up with. I genuinely don't understand why healers are the one class that are stuck with "you're only fun when learning, once you learn you sit in a corner and press your 1 button"

I get the same feeling on DPS, because once you learn when to hit what for maximum greed and buff alignment, there is nothing else to learn. Again. Button 4 feels the same as button 1 which feels the same as button 9, which feels the same as 2, 5, 8, etc.

Didn't see your edit, so here:

On SB, I had room to improve, because I had several things to keep up with, and it was almost guaranteed I would forget something, be it a dot, be it crucial fairy placement, be it not using an ED on time to make the most use of quickened aetherflow, forgetting that the boss moves in that instant, so save shadowflare until he does. All of that is gone, so the ceiling on my class and room to improve is gone. I don't know about you, but I never want to hit a static cap where I feel like I can't get any better, and that's the problem with the current iteration of healers, that skill ceiling is too low. Something as simple as adding 2-3 more dots could alleviate that, at least to some degree, so long as they had different timers.

See, I feel this is mostly a scholar and astrologian complaint. Having played WHM since the game began and raided with it through everything, it's always been 'okay, can I get the other 7 people to NOT screw me over?' Usually to a resounding no. This expansion is the first time I've actually done well in raids because my team made the effort to help me do well as well. Ex: Eden Prime, pulling the boss so it goes to the same corner as the BLM and I; BLM, WHM and SCH all stacking there and not moving for Delta for nothing but uptime. Melees and tanks doing the baiting for puddles, leaving me and the other casters to sit and cast.

These are all vastly more beneficial to me and other players than having that many more buttons to hit. As a WHM, I hear 'more buttons to hit' and I think 'hEaLeRs AdJuSt AnD tHiNgS i WoN't Be AbLe To CaSt.' I can't tell you how many times I had to do Chain of Memeories in Alphascape 3 Savage despite having a scholar or astrologian having Ruin II or Lightspeed. Nah, make the white mage with no instant casts do the chain. At least Dia does damage on initial hit now; only took 6 years to get that to use when my team decides to be silly despite healers are only worth the DPS they output by the same team.

[Billythepancake]

Maybe if you find Scholar that boring perhaps you might want to try WHM or AST, or maybe try healing without your pet.

"healing without my pet" lul, gonna miss that 3-4k embrace on the tank with 134k hp. The main reason I even have fairy out at this point is for dissipation because that's about the only thing it's good for anymore after they nerfed it to the ground. That or the 1 or 2 times I can find a use for Seraph per fight, or as she should be known, rouse with 2 mini succors.

As for WHM, I don't see how they'd be any better? look just like SCH to me, just with no shields, other than that they play the same. AST on the other hand DOES have a lot to do, at least, in their opener, because you're desperately trying to get out divination within 4 GCDs. After that, business as usual with a butchered card system.

[LaylaTsarra]

"healing without my pet" lul, gonna miss that 3-4k embrace on the tank with 134k hp. The main reason I even have fairy out at this point is for dissipation because that's about the only thing it's good for anymore after they nerfed it to the ground. That or the 1 or 2 times I can find a use for Seraph per fight, or as she should be known, rouse with 2 mini succors.

As for WHM, I don't see how they'd be any better? look just like SCH to me, just with no shields, other than that they play the same. AST on the other hand DOES have a lot to do, at least, in their opener, because you're desperately trying to get out divination within 4 GCDs. After that, business as usual with a butchered card system.

Sounds to me you need another profession. I enjoy healing quite a bit and relative to whm i lke the changes they've made.