6.0 Both Tank and Healers Need Major Focus on Bringing Back Job Identity

[BarretOblivion]

Lets be blunt, the dev team has done a terrible job at moving any of the Tank or Healer jobs forward this expansion. The main focus of course was dumbing down and trying to appeal new players to pick up tank/heal jobs but unfortunately this has resulted in veteran tanks/healers leaving at about the same ratio as new players coming in, resulting in the median skill level of those playing these jobs dropping (at least from my experience). 6.0 All Tanks and Healers deserve to be the main focus on class evolution, creating identity, and addressing pain points of playing these jobs, not dumbing down the experiences even further.

Of course DPS jobs deserve to also evolve in 6.0 but I don't think besides MNK/BRD do any of those dps jobs need any kind of reworks to be major. Healers/Tanks, boy do we need them.

[Billythepancake]

I wouldn't hold my breath, tbh. While I want SE to fix healers by 6.0, I 100% doubt they'll ever be anything more than "WHM but with ___" at this point, anything besides that is just impossible to balance, apparently. ShB was also massively successful, despite healers sucking so much ass, there is literally no incentive for them to change their design philosophy. As it stands, I think it will only get worse for the role in the expac.

I'm done being upset about it though, I'm just looking to clear the content I want to clear, unsub, and move on. Find a game that doesn't treat their healers like trash. It's a shame too, I love the fight design of this game, I really do, I love that healers are there to do more than just kiss booboos away, they're there to fight on the front lines with everyone else, patch them up when they need it, then go back to fighting, it feels really nice to balance both, but I hate that that's been reduced to "lmao, spam your 1 button and shut up"

Can't say anything for tanks though, don't really play the role.

[BarretOblivion]

I wouldn't hold my breath, tbh. While I want SE to fix healers by 6.0, I 100% doubt they'll ever be anything more than "WHM but with ___" at this point, anything besides that is just impossible to balance, apparently. ShB was also massively successful, despite healers sucking so much ass, there is literally no incentive for them to change their design philosophy. As it stands, I think it will only get worse for the role in the expac.

I'm done being upset about it though, I'm just looking to clear the content I want to clear, unsub, and move on. Find a game that doesn't treat their healers like trash. It's a shame too, I love the fight design of this game, I really do, I love that healers are there to do more than just kiss booboos away, they're there to fight on the front lines with everyone else, patch them up when they need it, then go back to fighting, it feels really nice to balance both, but I hate that that's been reduced to "lmao, spam your 1 button and shut up"

Can't say anything for tanks though, don't really play the role.

Tanks are in the same spot as healers. Basically all of them have the same or minorly changed shell of all tank classes. You got your spam button buff like Inner Release and build up a guage by doing a very basic melee combo before using a "fell cleave" attack with a different animation. GNB gets to use a melee combo by using a charge, but its basically at its core all the same tanks with different skins and different invulns. Thats the difference between them.

[FoxCh40s]

Lets be blunt, the dev team has done a terrible job at moving any of the Tank or Healer jobs forward this expansion. The main focus of course was dumbing down and trying to appeal new players to pick up tank/heal jobs but unfortunately this has resulted in veteran tanks/healers leaving at about the same ratio as new players coming in, resulting in the median skill level of those playing these jobs dropping (at least from my experience). 6.0 All Tanks and Healers deserve to be the main focus on class evolution, creating identity, and addressing pain points of playing these jobs, not dumbing down the experiences even further.

Of course DPS jobs deserve to also evolve in 6.0 but I don't think besides MNK/BRD do any of those dps jobs need any kind of reworks to be major. Healers/Tanks, boy do we need them.

Not gonna happen, Billy is right. They have exactly ZERO incentive to do anything about it.

[Recon1o6]

Tbh, I don't even think new healers are coming in since there is no incentive for them to level to 80 and queue times are getting longer

More than anything, the devs need new people on the job design team, ones that play their roles and beefore the expansion get some actual feedback from in game and forums about what were the most popular iterations of each job and work from there.
The current "design" philosophy is not working and must be scrapped. Each job should look, feel and play uniquely

But yeah i doubt its going to happen. Rip DRK, WHM, SCH, AST, MNK and BRD

[ArianeEwah]

[...]get some actual feedback from in game and forums about what were the most popular iterations of each job and work from there.

What's funny about this: they had a few people trying out their beta build, and when they tried Titania all healers said they had nothing to do... heck, Scholars were very vocal about AF being bad because they couldn't spent it on something useful. They didn't even add ED back for the launch, but later in 5.05.

You are totally right, either the design team doesn't play the role they are working on, or they have a really special view about their role. Well, at least Yoshi P can be happy about BLM this expac, at least this job turned out great...

If possible, I would press that "F*CK GO BACK" button for both tanks and healers.

[Lyth]

DPS jobs are where the sub money is at.

That's why, instead of introducing a new healer job in 5.0, we subdivided dps into 3 fake sub-roles to justify the addition of yet another dps. Oh, right. We need the physical melee dps, physical ranged dps, and magical ranged dps to each all individually have equal weighting to tanks and healers. Wait, we haven't created a magical melee dps category yet. Let's move RDM into its own fake category and spend the next 3 expansions releasing only dps jobs. Why do these fake sub-categories not have their own dedicated raid slots like tanks and healers do? Right, because they're fake, and at the end of the day, a dps is a dps.

Problem is, you don't need an incentive for people to play dps. Ever. And when your tanks and healers dry up, your dps dries up too.

[Crushnight]

Afraid Billy probably has the right of it, I would love the devs to put on the brakes and reverse course on a lot of Shadowbringers changes with jobs but so far they have shown inclination or every acknowledgement that certain jobs even have issues, major ones that need urgent looking at.

Go ahead and just prove us pessimists wrong SE, please I would love you to but nothing hasbeen shown or talked about that they even have a clue on any issue tanks/healers and some dps jobs have.

[Crushnight]

Afraid Billy probably has the right of it, I would love the devs to put on the brakes and reverse course on a lot of Shadowbringers changes with jobs but so far they have shown zero inclination or even acknowledgement that certain jobs even have issues, major ones that need urgent looking at.

Go ahead and just prove us pessimists wrong SE, please I would love you to but nothing has been shown or talked about that they even have a clue on any issue tanks/healers and some dps jobs have.

Sigh on phone edited my above to be a bit better English.

[Claire_Pendragon]

I agree. But, Tanks are "semi"~ ok when it comes to their playstyle. (Semi* because they mostly have the same playstyle, and some players have come to love it, but I agree there should be more than just 1 playstyle, but at least 1 of the tanks should retain this style. Nor does this mean the other 3 should get the same "new style" when made either. Idealy each being unique, so players pick which they like)
WHM has always been the "simple healer" and should remain as such. (with the exception of giving them tetra or benne at Lv35 or 40, since cure2 spamming in qarn-arum vale is making me run out of MP, even with using lucid dream on CD. current WHM just wasnt design with large pulls in mind for those dungeons, where as SCH/AST do just fine. WHMs only emergency option just makes them drain MP faster)
I would normally say make PLD the "simplest" tank, but considering its the only one with an actual long rotation, it would be awful to do that to PLD fans... and since WAR has already been butchered, maybe its the best option for a "simplistic" tank (its already pretty close, just needs adjustments, which im sure WAR players wont like, but it should be the one of the "starter" tanks imo)

*EDIT: to clarify "simplistic" i mostly mean in 4man, not necessarily in 8man. So for tanks, the biggest option would be threat on multiple enemies, and passive mitigation. (any of the following; single target threat, all dps, and TB/raidwide mitigation can still be complex) For healers, single target healing, and "maybe" AoE DPS. (But single target DPS, AoE healing, and shielding, can all still be more complex.) Only the bare minimum to level up to max is made "simplistic".

SE would never do this, but id personally make the tanks similar~ to how their current mitigations are being treated.
Some have easy access to TB mitigation, some have more options for raid wide dmg, some have many on long CDs, or few on short CDs. Or are a jack of all trades/middle ground.
But now take this logic, and spread it to the other 2 categories: Threat and DPS.

My ideal way of separating tank playstyles is each tank has an easy time with 1 category, like mitigation being near passive, and a hard time with another one, lets say threat. (not to be confused with unable to do it. i mean their playstyle is built around building up towards it)
examples:
PLDs natural shield block. (passive)
Rampart (darn near passive. just press it when ever you want.)
Inner Beast (old version. Active Mitigation you had to build up beast gauge for, and be in the right stance for, and uses the GCD. Unfortunately took up the same resource as DPS, so nearly useless 99% of the time)
Storms Path (old version. you could maintain the debuff, in order to keep mitigation up. unfortunately was a DPS loss, and it should have been a buff to yourself, not a debuff, as the debuff lead to imbalance issues. This was a GCD, and had to be part of a combo. Active mitigation.)

Theres a lot more they could have done, but ever since they made skills like rampart, sentinel, shield oath, hallowed ground, they ruined tanking diversity, because they didnt want to nerf those abilities to be based on the PLDs defense. (where as its based on the enemies dmg.)

For healers, back when support mostly meant MP management (not so much now) MP maintenance was part of the healers playstyle, but with no one else to help, all healers need to be capable of maintaining MP on their own. Similar for threat, but thats gone. (Still could be a feature, but SE wont do it)
Now the playstyles would mostly just boil down to;
DPS, Single Target healing, AoE Healing, and Shielding.
Healing became over simplified the moment content required 80-90% DPS, so in reality, the only way to truly diversify playstyles, is in shielding, and DPS, since SE refuses to make healers do more active healing.
Which is were the obvious change in ShB is, DPS rotations became too simplistic. (again its fine that one healer has it, but not all healers, or even most) Next being shielding should be near passive for WHM (currently is with benison) and more active for the other healers. Currently middle ground for SCH, as they have a cast bar, and its a GCD, but no other build up required. And AST is between middle ground and passive, as its instant cast, but also on GCD, and requires a "1 choice action stance" prior to combat.

Ironically enough, SE did "attempt" to diversify the healers healing, but thats mostly only noticeable in 4mans, and u mostly just notice it with SCH compared to WHM. where AST is just a clunky mess, who does best trying to mimic SCH.