Give your opinion on healer design!

[ty_taurus]

Frankly, I'm glad to see Shadowflare gone, It seems to be better served as an ability and I'd think 1 should be the maximum amount of abilities per job that require you to manually place an AoE on the ground. Though That might be because I use a macro for such abilities that places them on the target and I might make an exception for Jobs based around the concept (lay say maybe Geomancer)? At best maybe make it a SMN-only oGCD ability, not a GCD skill.

I'd say the Shadowflare issue is more that you can't have it out and Sacred Soil at the same time for some reason. I'd prefer to have it back though. Shadowflare is such a cool, icon Final Fantasy ability and it's a shame to ditch it.

[Vitreus]

Frankly, I'm glad to see Shadowflare gone, It seems to be better served as an ability and I'd think 1 should be the maximum amount of abilities per job that require you to manually place an AoE on the ground.

The simple solution would be to have shadowflare be a targeted ability that appears at the location of the target so it could be macro-d instead of just removing it.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd say the Shadowflare issue is more that you can't have it out and Sacred Soil at the same time for some reason. I'd prefer to have it back though. Shadowflare is such a cool, icon Final Fantasy ability and it's a shame to ditch it.

If anything, I'd like to see some synergy added between them, if only of a sort that's too expensive to see frequent use.

That said, I still don't see what Shadow Flare has to do with the Arcanist toolkit, let alone Scholar's. I can kind of imagine Summoner having access to it, but it doesn't feel as related to mana banking and manipulation, as per most SCH skills, as, say, Ruin, Broil, Galvanize, Deployment, or even Meltdown would.

[FoxCh40s]

To be honest. SE will never satisfy everyone and I think they understand that. They wanted to kill the meta and they’ve done that. Take Sch and Astro back to the way they were in 4.0 will only create that meta again and Whm will get ousted. They not doing that. Sch needed its DPS slashed completely because it was way to OP with the fairy. Astros fished for balance and so they made every card a mini balance. Yeah it’s boring and I think they should be more unique with their ideas for the healers but I really don’t want Sch going back to having all those dots with bane and shadowflare. Astro cards should have some variety but maybe not make them strong as they were in 4.0. All healers are quite balanced now and it should stay that way. Giving healers more to do than just dps is something that I personally am wanting. Dps is fine but it can get boring. I want them to create some unique ways to make healers more interesting in dungeons and raids. More support type skills for all healers will be nice.

Please don’t come for me saying I’m one of those healers that only wants to heal. Not true. However I don’t agree that healers should have more dps skills either. I want more support type/debuffing type skills. That way it can bring some complexity and decision making back to healers. SE needs to stop giving healers so many OGCD heals anyway. We barely use GCD ones anymore.

Why do we have this arguement? The ONLY time people complained Scholar was too OP is when we were all over geared to hell. This is, and always has been, the stupidest arguement against Scholar.

It was the most well made Job, even though it was a completely contradictory mess. The reason why it was so good was because it was the closest thing we were ever going to get to a real Red Mage. It is diversity through skills and damage made it good, and players will always gravitate toward the best that gives you the most options to deal with how the system was made and is being played.

Scholar fit all of those parameters, it could heal sufficiently AND Dps exceptionally well, and (at the time) wasnt bogged down by conceptions that the creators of the game had that contradicts how the players play the game.

It absolutely DID NOT, need to be cut down the way it was; they should have brought every job to Scholars level, instead they gutted all of them because (insert exceptionally stupid) reason here.

[Saefinn]

Why do we have this arguement? The ONLY time people complained Scholar was too OP is when we were all over geared to hell. This is, and always has been, the stupidest arguement against Scholar.

It was the most well made Job, even though it was a completely contradictory mess. The reason why it was so good was because it was the closest thing we were ever going to get to a real Red Mage. It is diversity through skills and damage made it good, and players will always gravitate toward the best that gives you the most options to deal with how the system was made and is being played.

Scholar fit all of those parameters, it could heal sufficiently AND Dps exceptionally well, and (at the time) wasnt bogged down by conceptions that the creators of the game had that contradicts how the players play the game.

It absolutely DID NOT, need to be cut down the way it was; they should have brought every job to Scholars level, instead they gutted all of them because (insert exceptionally stupid) reason here.

Thinking how many times Holy was nerfed of the course of history and how the percentages are lower in AST’s new card system tells me that SCH’s DPS didn’t need nerfing, WHM needed to be nerfed less and AST possibly a boost.

[Truen]

To be honest. SE will never satisfy everyone and I think they understand that. They wanted to kill the meta and they’ve done that. Take Sch and Astro back to the way they were in 4.0 will only create that meta again and Whm will get ousted. They not doing that. Sch needed its DPS slashed completely because it was way to OP with the fairy. Astros fished for balance and so they made every card a mini balance. Yeah it’s boring and I think they should be more unique with their ideas for the healers but I really don’t want Sch going back to having all those dots with bane and shadowflare. Astro cards should have some variety but maybe not make them strong as they were in 4.0. All healers are quite balanced now and it should stay that way. Giving healers more to do than just dps is something that I personally am wanting. Dps is fine but it can get boring. I want them to create some unique ways to make healers more interesting in dungeons and raids. More support type skills for all healers will be nice.

Please don’t come for me saying I’m one of those healers that only wants to heal. Not true. However I don’t agree that healers should have more dps skills either. I want more support type/debuffing type skills. That way it can bring some complexity and decision making back to healers. SE needs to stop giving healers so many OGCD heals anyway. We barely use GCD ones anymore.

This poor guy...almost felt like giving him a pity "/like," because not a soul seemed to resonate with the arguement, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The whole "However I don’t agree that healers should have more dps skills either. I want more support type/debuffing type skills," line of reasoning is nauseating.

While debuffs are fine, the current build where healers basically spam ONE button all day long, and that's enough accordingly? Hardly even worth responding to honestly, but I just want to go on record saying: no, we sure as heck need MORE dps options. The current job design for Scholars is garbage.

[FoxCh40s]

This poor guy...almost felt like giving him a pity "/like," because not a soul seemed to resonate with the arguement, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The whole "However I don’t agree that healers should have more dps skills either. I want more support type/debuffing type skills," line of reasoning is nauseating.

While debuffs are fine, the current build where healers basically spam ONE button all day long, and that's enough accordingly? Hardly even worth responding to honestly, but I just want to go on record saying: no, we sure as heck need MORE dps options. The current job design for Scholars is garbage.

The current Job design for *Healers* is terrible overall.

His line of arguement is the reason were in this mess, because all of them suddenly came out of the freaking woodwork to complain on the forums because they get flamed on for standing there only healing, and BARELY keeping up with that, then protesting big pulls.

Look, I guess I'm generalizing, the fact is, usually the people who complain about healers needing less dps skills are the people who can barely handle the role at 10% capacity.

I'm tired of this Healers shouldnt Dps arguement, we almost, gdit ALMOST had this entirely squashed in Stormblood, and then SE has to reignite the whole freaking arguement again by culling all of the damage skills.

Frankly at this point, enough is enough; I'll say it again, no amount of culling of skills or lowering dps or taking it away from us will stop the community from kicking bad healers who stand around and do nothing. No amount of homogenization, no amount of statements saying us doing what weve been doing for SIX YEARS isnt how you think the player base shouldnt be playing.

Healers DPS, PERIOD. END. OF. STORY.

You say, "We dont include healer dps in our needs to beat fights" and then completely contradict yourselves with Shiva Savage.

[Saefinn]

Whilst I'd be okay with a CC, support & debuff kinda design to be a part of healer design, for it to work with how this game is designed would requite other changes. Debuffs back when SCH had them on DPS skills were useful in that they'd help mitigate damage, but SCH's plenty adequate at healing and damage mitigation these days, if anything it'd add to the down time now. In terms of support, this is already AST's role. BLU has proven CC can be fun and useful in clearing dungeons quicker, but at the same time encounter design is not really created to make good use of CC's, not like SW:TOR, as a example. Future encounters, maybe could be cool.

But performance in this game is purely based on rDPS because the game is designed to zerg things. The current support we have in game is all measured based on how much rDPS contribution they make. Hence AST's cards offer a DPS boost and why people felt non-DPS boosting AST cards were a waste. And SCH still technically has its own debuff, but that debuff only aids DPS (Chain Stratagem).

So, I always feel it comes back to how DPS is the simplest solution. Not only is it the simplest solution, it's the best solution that needn't negatively impact newer or less confident healers. Because until you get to Savage and Ultimate, healer DPS is a "nice-to-have" and a mark of an efficient healer rather than needed. This means efficient healers can have more to do whilst less efficient healers don't have to focus on it. Heck even there's argument for them to contribute to DPS, it doesn't have to be efficient DPS. Most cases people won't care if you're a SCH who only spams Broil whilst everybody else is weaving all other manner of DPS spells. The general rule is "ABC" always be casting. If you're doing that, people will care less or even not notice. And not like people can use a parser to harass you about how much DPS you're doing as a healer because it's something you can report and something they're cracking down on. So you're only raising the skill ceiling here and not the skill floor.

With DPS as a solution you can keep the healing and encounter design EXACTLY as they are. This is a change that would not impact anything else.

And with DPS as a solution. I feel it is pretty Final Fantasy appropriate. Those who fill healer roles in other Final Fantasies will typically contribute to party damage, because there's not pure heal focus in Final Fantasy and it is the case in FFXIV. It has always been the case in FFXIV, it is still the case in FFXIV, just it's more dumbed down. Encounter design means your healer will be DPSing more than healing. If this is no longer desired, healer design wouldn't only need to change, but encountered design too. To retroactively do that would be a logistical nightmare.

If you want future encounters to be more healing focus, then don't remove DPS abilities because it's the encounter and how our healing abilities handle it that determines how much DPS focus there is.

[Connor]

My tl;dr for healer design opinion would be something like:

I get what they were trying to do, but it’s like they forgot what they were doing halfway through and started on something completely different.
Like, ‘we want to healers to heal, so let’s take away their dps skills...wait, what were we doing? Meh lets just leave them like this’...then they wonder why players eventually say ‘you took our dps skills but didn’t change the amount we have to heal or give us something else to do’

[Ayesafaile]

Like, ‘we want to healers to heal, so let’s take away their dps skills...wait, what were we doing? Meh lets just leave them like this’...then they wonder why players eventually say ‘you took our dps skills but didn’t change the amount we have to heal or give us something else to do’

If they wanted players to focus more on healing, they needed to add more healing spells, not abilities. It's more like they wanted to quash the disparity between good and bad healers by gutting DPS rotations and eliminating a lot of decision making.