Final Fantasy XIV’s healer problem and how it’s kind of unsolvable

[Saefinn]

I mean, again, DPS with some minor additional responsibilities is not a Healer. And there will always be options for more skilled players to exploit things. Though they could slow down the casting of the Glare-equivalent and increase it's MP cost too I suppose to discourage it.

See, this is what I don't like and I feel is where people can be narrowminded when it comes to games that use the triad of "healer, tank, DPS". Different games will approach how that triad works differently and not all of them will use the exact same philosophies and I don't like that people come to this game and then expect this game's philosophy to change. The game is designed to benefit from healer DPS, it encourages it and at the higher tiers of content, needs it. I joined this game happy with the design philosophy and fell in love with healing in this game and now in its current state is dull as heck.

And it was a design that I feel complements the series as a whole. Because Final Fantasy hasn't generally been so rigid in such clear cut opaque definitions. Generally in an FF title you will find times your party doesn't need healing, in that time your healer character will have other things to do. This is a philosophy true of their single player games and philosophy true of their MMO's.

I played SCH in XI as our static's main healer, that job was plenty complicated and had a LOT and I mean an awful lot to do in its downtime and had a lot of DPS abilities and probably the biggest ability pool in the game. Whilst XI is a wholly different game, I love that they retained the philosophy of giving you more to do in your downtime when you're not healing. And now it's dull as heck.

And honestly, for people who struggle to keep up with healing and DPS, personally, I don't mind if they sacrifice DPS or just DPS sub-optimally, just as long as they're not being lazy when everybody else isn't. In fairness, for a lot of content, DPS helps but is not required. I was the same when I was still new and newish to the game, once more became second nature, I appreciated that I had more I could be doing.

IMO, they had the balance right for DPS/Heals in ARR and HW. So no inevitable shifting to being DPS that has the odd bit of healing. After all, it is not how many DPS abilities you have that affects DPS focus it is the content and how well your healing spells handle it that affects your healing focus. By adding things to restrict DPS or make it less dynamic, it doesn't make you do more healing, it just makes you more bored.

Blue Mage with 4 healing spells and a butt load of DPS ones has more of a healing focus in healer stance than any real healing jobs.

[Gemina]

I played SCH in XI as our static's main healer, that job was plenty complicated and had a LOT and I mean an awful lot to do in its downtime and had a lot of DPS abilities and probably the biggest ability pool in the game. Whilst XI is a wholly different game, I love that they retained the philosophy of giving you more to do in your downtime when you're not healing. And now it's dull as heck.

It's interesting that you bring up XI. While I did not play SCH in that game, I did spend an enormous amount of time healing on my WHM and RDM. Red Mage in particular I would like to focus on because it is an example that SE has a history of taking away engaging gameplay for healers and dumbing them down gradually over time to only needing to execute a few skills in order to contribute to a party. It is also a job that in its prime, I felt played very closely to SCH in XIV during its prime back in 3.0, which was a huge reason why it is my first and still my go to job for all content. As such, I am more inclined to compare the gameplay of RDM in XI to SCH in XIV; while from what I know about SCH in XI seems more like a distant cousin to BLM in this game.

While RDM didn't have its skills pruned per say, it did suffer from a large part of its skillset becoming redundant, and its simplification is what ultimately caused me to leave the game. I think this is a big reason why I haven't been affected as greatly as other SCH mains because I have already been conditioned and come to expect this kind of treatment from SE towards its healers.

I have a greater amount of history and investment towards XIV now, but I would take healing in XIV over healing in XI any day of the week with the last impression that game left me with. Encounter design in XI is far different that XIV though, so while I do know where you are coming from, it is a difficult comparison to make. Ultimately, I know your point is you would like for more engaging gameplay as a healer, but just find it odd that you seem to prefer XI healing over XIV when I found the former to be even more dull.

[Saefinn]

Snip

The parallels I see between FFXIV and FFXI SCH is the following:
DoT Focus - Although each did it differently, in XIV you had 3 DoTs, you could spread them, place a DoT on the ground or a sudden DoT AoE. These were all the big parts of DPSing as FFXIV Scholar. Although FFXIV SCH was capable of nuking like a BLM (almost), it also had a DoT focus with the Helix spells, you'd use Weather spells to enhance them, you could also Modus Veritas on them and deal more damage in less time. But I guess FFXIV still gets a nuke in the form of Ruin/Broil. Just FFXIV SCH doesn't have an elemental aspect to it.
Stratagems - We very loosely have a reference to them, the ability to enhance spells based on a situation, this of course was way heavily in XI with its stratagem system, but we do have Deployment Tactics and Emergency Tactics that kinda fulfil that purpose.
Choice of how you expand your abilities - In XI you could either expand your White Magic with Addendum: White or your Black Magic with Addendum: Black, so it depended on whether you were DPS moding or heal moding. A parallel could also be made to faerie choice in FFXIV, because Eos is more healing focused and Selene was more utility focused.

In terms of healing, FFXIV SCH I think was the most unique kinda healing experience I've had in an MMO, which is one reason I loved it.

FFXI's ended up finding its niche with Regens, though initially it didn't, it was through its stratagems enhancing their cures, but when content ramped up and WHM got Cure V and Cure VI, in their refusal to step on WHM's toes, SCH was a weaker healer until they gave SCH a higher tier Regen to make up the difference. Though during my prime, it was when SCH was the weaker healer, but that was never a problem for me, because I made it work, I was the main healer for my static back when everybody wanted WHM, but I guess this is where some of my "fun > balance" arguments come from, because I've had the experience of trying to join groups to be met with "do you have WHM instead?", refusing to level WHM and being like "well, you can have me or wait ages until you find a WHM" and I'd get to play the job I enjoy. This is something that's waaaay less of a problem here. I've only seen it twice in the 7 years I've played this game and against people who'd probably out DPS most.


And Red Mage, yeah sadly, got left behind and I don't know if they ever made up for that. I remember RDM getting no love for a looong time, kinda like MNK here.