I hate to, but I think I put down healing for now. Please make it engaging again, SE.

[GrimGale]

I never said it was. I said they're free to make new precedents in fight design (in this case, as relevant to healing) whenever they want. Things change when and only when they don't do the same thing each time. They've gone out of their way to keep them the same. The haven't introduced a single unique healing or healable mechanic since HW. White Hole? We've had that Doom effect since WP HM in ARR. Split damage? ARR. Stacking DoT stacks? ARR. Nullifying knockbacks via shielding? HW.

There also were those enemies that had to be healed in Shinryu (SB) fight. It's not really a different healing mechanic though.

Healing mechanics are not what will make healing interesting if they can be solved by simply "healing more" or "healing this other target" . You essentially do that already with just a lower intensity.

That's why I personally think healers should get more active support skills to enrich their gameplay. CCs, Debuffs, knockbacks, stuns and slows, buffs, damage and healing weaving, position-based heals, position based buffs, channelling abilities.

We ofc have some of those "interesting" abilities already: Earthly Star, Soil and Asylum. Assize and Excogitation, Plenary indulgence and Horoscope. Divination and Chain Stratagem. But those are reserved for punctual moments. "Regular" heals are essentially identical between the three classes and conform much of the arsenal healers have.

[Shurrikhan]

That's why I personally think healers should get more active support skills to enrich their gameplay. CCs, Debuffs, knockbacks, stuns and slows, buffs, damage and healing weaving, position-based heals, position based buffs, channelling abilities.

Agreed. There are only so many directions in which to take healing. When healers can fully embrace being the far end of Support -- in a class unto themselves uniquely suited to healing, but still as just part of the overall Support kit, we might finally see healers feel engaged in any and all content, rather than reduced to 10% of their kit 90% of the duration of 90% of XIV's fights.

Now, that's not to say that healing itself has reached anywhere near its potential; one only need take a glance at other MMO's rotation-affecting passives like Resto Shaman's Undulation, or take a page even from Ragnorak Online to see how simple effects can lead to preparative, capitalizing, hedged-bet, or all-in interactions in healing. Undermechanics and gameplay-affecting passives are powerful tools for engagement.

[MitsukiKimura]

I took some time to try to adjust to Astrologian's new game play but I can't seem to fake my enjoyment any longer. I've tried to like this new card system but I can't anymore, it's not fun. I miss my time extender buffs, I miss the variety of the cards and each one feeling special. I've grown depressed playing it ever since the expansion.
AST felt special and powerful back in stormblood, now you've just made it so stale and lackluster. I will be hanging my healer cap on the wall and switching to Gunbreaker main. Maybe someday I will return to be an AST main. But until Square Enix addresses the concerns of the healers, I cannot force myself to play something that I find no enjoyment out of. This will be my last post and I hope someday they can listen.
-Mitsuki

[Sloprano]

Agreed. There are only so many directions in which to take healing. When healers can fully embrace being the far end of Support -- in a class unto themselves uniquely suited to healing, but still as just part of the overall Support kit, we might finally see healers feel engaged in any and all content, rather than reduced to 10% of their kit 90% of the duration of 90% of XIV's fights.

While I will always enjoy healing that statement needs backing up and several asterikses to it: I like healing under pressure. Standing still with no danger to myself and barely any to those around me is not my kind of healing. Is why I enjoyed Medic in Battlefields and TF2: could play any other class with gun and point them at other players, but added responsibility of trying to reach someone low on health or cross open field to revive/Ubercharge someone is the moments to live for. 2.0 showed me something else: Completely and utterly scripted fights, but a skillset that you always could squeeze more out of in interesting ways. I never cared that Mindflayer or Siren would do the same things at same moments, I was busy keeping dots up with cleric stance, manageing Aetherflows and keeping the party alive. That was the genius of it.

That was a dps class base with healer spells, abilities and pet hotbar on top. And worked really great and I think Scholar would still benefit great from some less oGCDs and more getting back in groove with it's old friend Arcanist. Would adding dps class to WHM and AST work too? I don't know. From the records here, AST had the same kind of core gameplay earlier, but the cards play a big enough role to distract from it. While WHM sounds like the progenitor of these issues and finally got something more, albeit at having to overheal for Misery and at the far end of the level scale. They wouldn't even have to have the exact base, something to make them feels like adventuring jobs and vocations first, healer when you need to keep someone alive. Just turn them back to 3.0, build from there and leave them mostly be. Then they can go wild and instead make all their bland decisions for a "Pure healer" for 6.0.

Far as I know, SE did once attempt to boast of a healing skillcheck, that was those Heads in Shinryu. As I should've known at the start of 4.0, it was another misbegotten attempt for 40-something SE to "how do you do, fellow healers. Here are some npcs you must heal, and fast!" and they never said anything like that again. Now the mobs before and TG himself are great, but then all 24-man are. Allowing us to have to have the combat suite, buff suite or card suite then the fights comes alive. firs you reach the point "Now I can keep this party alive and then some, lets see what else I could do." and those you wanted more out of it would find it and those that are happy standing around filling healthbars would have that.

This will be my last post and I hope someday they can listen.
-Mitsuki

Godspeed. My codex is traded for a fishing rod unless any friends need help. Breaking down fish for aethersands remains leagues above Broil spam.

Honestly wouldn't shock me at this point. Shows where healers are on the totem pole of the dev team.

Finally read the summaries and I do find themselves up butts, their own and 2Ps.

Love your new sig, Billy.

[Billythepancake]

Love your new sig, Billy.

Thank you, fren.

[Shurrikhan]

While I will always enjoy healing that statement needs backing up and several asterikses to it: I like healing under pressure. Standing still with no danger to myself and barely any to those around me is not my kind of healing. Is why I enjoyed Medic in Battlefields and TF2: could play any other class with gun and point them at other players, but added responsibility of trying to reach someone low on health or cross open field to revive/Ubercharge someone is the moments to live for. 2.0 showed me something else: Completely and utterly scripted fights, but a skillset that you always could squeeze more out of in interesting ways. I never cared that Mindflayer or Siren would do the same things at same moments, I was busy keeping dots up with cleric stance, manageing Aetherflows and keeping the party alive. That was the genius of it.

I feel like the core of Support is that it broadens your fight perspective. As a DPS in XIV, you want all this micromanaged setup to optimize your damage. Sadly, you rarely have to think ahead except insofar as remembering when not to pop a raid buff before a jump phase (whereas other MMOs do a far better job of making their complexity less scripted and therefore less negligible), but still, its depth is in its minutia, a sort of tunnel vision. Support, in any game in which supports tend to be widely praised, are playmakers of two sorts: they have strong enough utilities to swing or save a fight, of course, but they also interact with the kits of everyone else. They have to know their team or at least be ready to tally up the probabilities and be where they're most likely needed to do what's most likely optimal at the time. Even in games that ultimately devolve into hitting something til it's dead, with little real risk outside of blatant player errors, Supports can still be engaging as long as fights are intense enough that the risk of player error demands your attention.

Heck, take one of the seemingly simplest supports of all, Overwatch's Mercy: By swapping through a fireteam with your damage boost channel, each in just the moment before their projectiles are fired or their hitscan/melee hits land, you can put out some serious damage off just a 30% buff. The mechanic is just holding Right Mouse button or Left Trigger or whatnot on target ally, but it's potential skill ceiling is immense just because of how Supports can uniquely interact with the battlefield. Of course, the same goes for tanking (a joke of a mechanic in XIV) and suppression (dead and buried in XIV), but examples across any game that does any of the three well show that depth doesn't just have to be "vertical" or self-contained in one's rotations (and, more importantly, decisions made on the fly to optimize them); "horizontal" depth, whereby you need to both know and respond to your teammates' kits and opportunities, has tremendous gameplay value, too, if not more.

...Which, is why it so peeves me that this game continually tries to remove the awareness required for team play, save for in the few "stand in the right place at the right time" split duty mechanics, which someone just make the lack of awareness required in regular gameplay feel even worse...

[Sloprano]

...Which, is why it so peeves me that this game continually tries to remove the awareness required for team play, save for in the few "stand in the right place at the right time" split duty mechanics, which someone just make the lack of awareness required in regular gameplay feel even worse...

Something simple but risky and makes an impact is a great way to go about it. As you said, foregoing healing in favor of damage stream and it might just take a moment without the constant healing for that party member to die. And you'd rather be behind a wall than peek down the hallway in fear of flying arrows or whatnot. Mercy's counterpart in TF2 shares these traits in choosing beteen Ubercharger and Kritzkrieg: Slower buildup resulting in eight seconds of invulnerability on you and target, absolutly invaluable to break a stalemate. Or faster buildup for 100% critchance on target for 8 seconds, but with massive sound cues and visual effect. Taking a risk by hunting down hurt enemies or get some free Ubersaw hits in can result in almost any other class one-shotting you, wasting everything you have charged, but you might just pull it off.

These are games with a lot more randomness and unpredictability compared to FFXIV's dungeons, bar Deep Dungeons and PvP, though the thought of being able to boost someones damage to ridiculues levels but at very great risk to yourself and healing. Although still carries the current problem of well over half my abilities does not benefit me in any way when I try to fight something, solo or in group and I'd rather see more spells on gcds and being less reliant on cooldowns to get anything substantial done. Turning that Mercy right-click on it's head and making it a self-buff at the cost of healing. I feel you on the 'vertical' part, which is probably exactly how I enviewed 3.0, as I could do anything, but expect from not dying the party probably didn't notice it beyond having Fey Wind up at times. Horizontal with things like Mantra, Convalesence or Defiance being active, reminding me to capitilize on it with Illumination or even Dissipation for larger shields that seems they specifically wanted to depart from in 5.0. Which I wanted to belive instead came at the change to make every job, even ast, whm and sch, more 'vertical', less buffs to line up or react to, but then we got what we got.

And lastely, is the kind of movement and respond to mechanics that's been in the game since it's reconception, yet they keep cutting back on our ability to make decisions on the fly.

[CrimsonGunner]

I took some time to try to adjust to Astrologian's new game play but I can't seem to fake my enjoyment any longer. I've tried to like this new card system but I can't anymore, it's not fun. I miss my time extender buffs, I miss the variety of the cards and each one feeling special. I've grown depressed playing it ever since the expansion.
AST felt special and powerful back in stormblood, now you've just made it so stale and lackluster. I will be hanging my healer cap on the wall and switching to Gunbreaker main. Maybe someday I will return to be an AST main. But until Square Enix addresses the concerns of the healers, I cannot force myself to play something that I find no enjoyment out of. This will be my last post and I hope someday they can listen.
-Mitsuki

goodbye mitsuki you will be missed, also dont forget to post in the "has anyone quit healing?" thread.