Why is FFXIV Tuned to Discourage Healing?

[Saccharin]

What's odd is that FFXIV seems to like to tune content so that healers barely get to heal. I healed at level 70 and found that the only time that I felt like a full-time healer was when I was doing extreme primals with pick up groups where everyone just barely met the ilvl requirements (I never got into Savage raiding). 4-man content and non-extreme bosses was mostly spamming stone/holy with a healing spell or DoT spell thrown in every once in a while.

You've just discovered the reason: it's ilevel inflation. The newest dungeon drops gear 5 ilevels below the 8 main raid, then you have the 'random 24 group' factory instance dropping 10 ilevels higher than the raid. Even with syncs and ilevel caps a higher ilevel still helps.

Savage the entry barrier is higher so unless you have a few savage pieces your ilevel isn't going to be high enough to make a safer on mechanics that dont one shot. Let's be honest, the vast majority of healing is healing stupid (of the average player) and higher ilevel helps stupid greatly.

[Gemina]

I just wanted to quote this for emphasis. I agree completely. A lot of people say "healers are boring" and "we need more complex rotations.". Because of the filler nuke.

On the healing side there's a lot of interesting stuff. But the way the game is designed, we could get by with a 1 single target heal and 1 aoe heal for most content. The only time the kits' depth comes into play is in savage and beyond, but even then, we spend so much time hitting that filler nuke.

I think this is a testament to how easily a perspective can be shifted with just a little bit of variety. There are only so many ways to heal, and when you boil all the skills down they are either ST or AoE. Yet, it remains interesting because of the various skills and animations applied to combat. When I think about skills like Aero 3; I miss the animation more than I do the damage. I think they could literally take the outgoing DPS of healers from savage fflogs, and disseminate the damage from Glare spam into two more skills, and I honestly think players would rejoice at that.

[Saefinn]

It reminds me, I was doing roulettes the other day, I joke around and for my bad jokes I was told to perish, the person I realised I was the healer and said "no, whatever you do don't perish"

I healed 3 times, I felt like they over estimated the importance of me staying alive, especially as there was a second healer, but being honest, a RDM would have sufficed.

But I prefer the idea of being able to use our current healing toolkit than gutting it, because I think it's a good toolkit.

I feel like there can be better ways to utilise it more, heck giving dual purposes to healing spells is potentially a way forward, we get it with Assize and Earthly Star and I made suggestions in another thread how some of SCH's heal skills can be given dual purposes to erode some of the problems we have.

I also like the idea of sacrificing healing power to boost your utility or DPS use (maybe even making a heal spell do damage instead at your choice). Cleric Stance was good in principle for sacrificing heals for damage potential, but many found it clunky or found it easy to forget, but the principle could be applied in other ways.

[Risvertasashi]

I think this is a testament to how easily a perspective can be shifted with just a little bit of variety. There are only so many ways to heal, and when you boil all the skills down they are either ST or AoE. Yet, it remains interesting because of the various skills and animations applied to combat. When I think about skills like Aero 3; I miss the animation more than I do the damage. I think they could literally take the outgoing DPS of healers from savage fflogs, and disseminate the damage from Glare spam into two more skills, and I honestly think players would rejoice at that.

You can make this argument about DPS too. It's all AOE or ST, direct damage or damage over time.

Layer on complexity to how different abilities interact, and then it gets interesting. The ground target AoE regen is good in one situation, the direct cast spell is good in another, the oGCD is good for mobility and DPS uptime, and so on. Heal kits to have this depth, just precious few opportunities for them to be explored.

[Gemina]

You can make this argument about DPS too. It's all AOE or ST, direct damage or damage over time.

Layer on complexity to how different abilities interact, and then it gets interesting. The ground target AoE regen is good in one situation, the direct cast spell is good in another, the oGCD is good for mobility and DPS uptime, and so on. Heal kits to have this depth, just precious few opportunities for them to be explored.

That's not an argument though. It's how it is. ST and AoE versions is just how you break down targeting, and since there is only one, or multiple targets, they can't get broken down any further than that. The point that I am arguing though, is that Glare/Broil/Malefic are essentially consolidated combos wherein the total potency equals 300pot. What I was implying with my post is that if they took a healer's ST and broke it down into 2-3 skills, players would be happy about it. Even though at best after adjustments, they would be causing the same amount of damage they do now.

This essentially puts the same proc system used for a traditional combo in the healer kit, which the devs are reluctant to do. But these guys just love to make things more complicated than they actually are. With 5.1, they already gave HUGE leeway to the duration that procs remain available, and because of this the 'break in flow' they stated they are concerned with is a non-factor now.

Their other concern that I am aware of is healers focusing in too much on damage, and tunnel vision in such a system. But I think what they've done with proc duration addresses this too. If a healer knows that they don't have to hurry to get the next string in their combo off, then their focus can remain where it needs to be, and they simply use that skill the next time it is safe to do so.

After that we have button bloat concerns. I think we've already hit the maximum amount of skills. And I know with casters like SMN and SCH, they have heavily utilized consolidating skills into a single button such as with the Demi and Seraph summons and their abilities. Even without controller restrictions, there really is only a certain amount of skills before players start dealing with skill bloat. So do we prune some healing skills to make room for more offense? If you feel there are precious few opportunities to use them, then why not?

[Inkpot]

I think quite the opposite, given the choice between “heal only” content like some phases of WoW where you should only be healing, and healing really comes down to conserving resources and having a capable team that doesn’t force you to burn them. This kind of content has a short skill ceiling and is difficult to balance. Healers are typically mocked because in practical terms they aren’t participating, and are very much at the mercy of the whims of their companions (get out of the fire, etc)

In FFXIV healing is easily accomplished in a few GCDs, and healers kits are specifically tailored to accomplishing your healing while doing damage. SCH and AST are, more than WHM, equipped to heal without ever needing to burn GCDs on dedicated healing. This leaves lots of room to grow in skill as a healer because it comes down to utilizing scenario-specific oGCD healing tools effectively and efficiently. Sustained damage combatted with regen, burst damage combatted with shields, laying on what is needed and nothing more to preserve resources and oGCDs- the beauty of this is that a good healer is more than equipped to salvage just about any situation.

In short, FFXIV healing is low skill floor, high skill ceiling, while traditional “no damage” healing is medium skill floor and low skill ceiling.

The real problem comes when you make that damage aspect impossibly boring. A healer’s kit should not be DPS tier, because they have plenty to juggle with just healing- but making it one button defeats the entire fun of the design.

[Billythepancake]

I think quite the opposite, given the choice between “heal only” content like some phases of WoW where you should only be healing, and healing really comes down to conserving resources and having a capable team that doesn’t force you to burn them. This kind of content has a short skill ceiling and is difficult to balance. Healers are typically mocked because in practical terms they aren’t participating, and are very much at the mercy of the whims of their companions (get out of the fire, etc)

In FFXIV healing is easily accomplished in a few GCDs, and healers kits are specifically tailored to accomplishing your healing while doing damage. SCH and AST are, more than WHM, equipped to heal without ever needing to burn GCDs on dedicated healing. This leaves lots of room to grow in skill as a healer because it comes down to utilizing scenario-specific oGCD healing tools effectively and efficiently. Sustained damage combatted with regen, burst damage combatted with shields, laying on what is needed and nothing more to preserve resources and oGCDs- the beauty of this is that a good healer is more than equipped to salvage just about any situation.

In short, FFXIV healing is low skill floor, high skill ceiling, while traditional “no damage” healing is medium skill floor and low skill ceiling.

The real problem comes when you make that damage aspect impossibly boring. A healer’s kit should not be DPS tier, because they have plenty to juggle with just healing- but making it one button defeats the entire fun of the design.

I've never met anyone I agree more with. Thank you. I hate the "just get rid of oGCDs and force people to spam cure" idea people keep throwing around. If I wanted WoW healing, I'd play WoW.

[Sparkthor]

'snip'

I'm also agree with you. Healer in FFXIV have a lot of room for their dps spells, even in EX/SAVAGE content doesn't mean they are badly designed, it's just another game balance that i'm fine with.

I understand complain about how low uninteressing the dps kit is, and i really think some improvement should be done about it. However, i wonder how it can be implemented the right way (i don't estimated Sch 3.x/4.x to be a good one). The blood Lilly is something i see as "What could be done". The best we can do is to hope than 6.0 healer will get more tools like this.

[Rufalus]

They added a self heal ability to all jobs in pvp which charges up to 3 stacks. I'd rather the whole game worked more like that lol so you can make every role be basically a dps and spread the healing responsibility to whole party. Astro could have way more dps and card support abilities if you pruned half of its heal buttons. Just thinking out loud - I know this might be a bad idea or unfeasible but I find it interesting.

[Inkpot]

I'm also agree with you. Healer in FFXIV have a lot of room for their dps spells, even in EX/SAVAGE content doesn't mean they are badly designed, it's just another game balance that i'm fine with.

I understand complain about how low uninteressing the dps kit is, and i really think some improvement should be done about it. However, i wonder how it can be implemented the right way (i don't estimated Sch 3.x/4.x to be a good one). The blood Lilly is something i see as "What could be done". The best we can do is to hope than 6.0 healer will get more tools like this.

With the world visit systems, the Aether/Crystal splits, SE said they were making big changes to “have room to grow” so I’m praying that the homogenization of Tanks and Healers is meant to give a better foundation to build from by 6.0 and not a sign of things to come.

I don’t see any reason why they would simplify healer DPS, from any other angle. If the intent was to make it easier to balance, and lower the spread of healer DPS, it backfired completely because people have taken the reduction of healer DPS abilities as official validation of a “no damage” playstyle.

Personally I think SCH just needs bane + Miasma (and maybe a third DoT, but that’s just me being greedy) with shorter durations. That leaves SCH with more windows to cast its GCDs without having to lose DPS. Nothing excessive, just more than the current “one window every 30s”