Concerned for the long-term diretion of healers

[HeulGDarian]

I haven't seen anyone recently say "WHM should be forced to be simple and boring" in fact, I've seen everyone advocating for WHM to have more to do as well.

I dont know but it feels like the shadowbringer healer changes not only did they have no real effect on whm but they also made all 3 healers be alot like whm complexity wise.
broil/glare bio/dia , dont remember the astro names but they got the same , art of war/ holy / gravity. i get that its just the dps side of things but with astro already having cure 1 2 equivalents it make the similiarities more noticable , benediction/essential dignity/excog all perform the same thing excog is slightly different ,but since i havent touched healing after leveling it cause boredom is something that makes me pay attention less not more thus playing bad , i keep getting tips that tell me to use excog with recitation basicly having the same function. Not only that the "nerfs" no more cheese with addlo , no more bole mage worsened the identity and satisfaction of pulling off the main thing its job was known for while whm remained practicaly the same. It just feels like instead of wanting Whm to get in line with the other healers , they found it easier to just put the 2 other healers in line with whm

[Side-Eye]

I've never seen a SCH or AST enthusiast volunteer their job for the Netflix Nap Healer slot, of course. It's only WHM that should suck.

I don't think anyone is saying WHM should suck. Most people just acknowledge WHM as the purest of the heal jobs. Personally, I have a great appreciation for how Squeenix used to design healers -- from the most straightforward (a bit easier to learn, with some room to grow in performance) to the more complicated (e.g. SCH having to master weaving/rotations) to the more complex (AST having to learn enough about the various tank/dps jobs to maximize buff efficacy).

If I had been brand new to the healer archetype when I started playing FFXIV, I would've wanted the most straightforward healer type. However, I've played healer in several other games, so I wanted something a bit more complex, and something that would force me to learn how other classes/jobs function, even ones I wouldn't want to play myself.

I see the dumbing-down, i.e. 'homogenization' of heal jobs as a negative, because it not only makes all heal jobs more boring, but also it doesn't give new players different levels of challenge.. and perhaps unintentionally, encourages as much laziness as it does boredom.

[Saefinn]

I think it is fine for WHM to be the more approachable and easiest to learn of healers, but I think for a long time it hasn't been in a great place versus SCH or AST, or at least until SCH and AST were brought down in ShB. But I don't think WHM needed a lot to help bring it up and nothing complex either. One thing they ask for, for example, was utility, their status as "healiest healer" was made redundant by the fact SCH and AST are competent enough at healy heals. But honestly, I think if they add a couple extra DPS abilities they can weave and ones that can help WHM feel like it has raw power, I think it'd feel better. I've proposed the idea before now of giving WHM Tornado and Quake. Tornado could be the replacement for Aero III they lost (better if it stacks with Dia too), but feel more powerful as a result. Quake would appease those who miss rocks and gives them something extra to their DPS rotation to break it up a bit. Then maybe a little bit of utility (maybe give Fluid Aura actual utility as it is sat as a mostly wasted skill).
WHM could be like the RDM of healers, straight forward to play, but varied enough to be able to break up any monotony.

Of course, the increase in DPS for WHM here would allow more room for SCH and AST to get more of what they've been asking for too. SCH can have a more complicated DPS rotation again and AST could have a card system the feels like it has more of an impact.

This is what I feel was the big flaw in the healer balance this time, SCH and AST didn't need to be brought down, WHM needed to be brought up.

[Gravagar]

When Stormblood WHM got pushed into the "pure healer" type, I thought, "well, that's fine. White Mage is what you think of when you think of a FF healer. So, making it fit what your healer job-fantasy is must be good, because that'll get you in the healing door. If you want more than just straightforwardness, you can play SCH or AST like I do!" I didn't worry too much since the skill ceiling was still intact even for WHM.


Then SCH and AST got so many mechanics and abilities cut and dumbed down, and even WHM lost abilities. We're no longer playing healer jobs designed for FF14 content. These jobs would make a lot more sense if we were playing a different game that had different encounters. Because, healers and tanks are the 'defense team'- most of how our playstyle varies not based on our job mechanics, but the demands of reacting and preempting enemy offensive mechanics. I don't believe it would be a wise use of resources to change every encounter from ARR onwards to match the "pure healer" design philosophy. Instead, it'd be easier to just embrace how "pure healing" is actively discouraged by 7 years worth of encounter design, which is DEFINITELY here to stay, and design your defense-team kits to match.

[elioaiko]

I've only joined in SB and even then I felt that SCH and AST were in a much better place. They were more unique than they are now.

SCH had no ghosting issues unlike they do today, and their fairies weren't reduced to glams. SCH lost so much of it's DPS options that made it fun to juggle.

AST lost its time aspects and cards for more consistent one which is torture as an opener. Royal Road was not clunky, OP? Maybe. But it's what helped you make decisions and allowed depth in their decisions. It felt impactful. Now, it just feels like I'm going to do the same exactly thing every time. AST's cards were a gamble and that's what made it feel. SE's biggest mistake was making some of the cards straight up damage buffs.

WHM lillies were hot garbage in SB. Plenary Indulgence originally was truly horrifying with the short duration and the obsessive need to make WHM the most braindead healer has caused more harm than help.

SE may have wanted more accessibility but in the end, they only drove away more veterans while boring new ones. It's truly depressing when a new healer finishes the AST storyline and wonders why the cards are different.

I honestly wish SE were more transparent and actually take criticism. They're so stubborn about what they want and clearly it hasn't been working because there's lots of healers complaining and surely, not every one of those people are wrong. SE needs to sit down with an actual healer main veteran and talk because they clearly need something.

[Recon1o6]

personally, for the long term direction for healers we need the following:

Conjurer to be treated as the tutorial healer, not white mage as conjurer is a class and not a full job. Once this baseline is down, we can move onto complexity for all jobs
All healers to be built around the combat medic concept, where healers heal unavoidable damage and when no healing is required, damaging away. anywhere between 60 and 85% of our casts are dps based and our kits should reflect this
A unique direction for each healer, both for our downtime kits and our healing kits so they all have different styles. Focus on fun and uniqueness not acessibility. Conjurer is the accessible babies first healer
Fresh ideas for our gear design that are not robes or shawls. Plate, mail, gambisons, overcoats, studded leather...there's tons of different protective gear that we should be able to wear, not be barred from just because we want to support our allies.

Finally and most important: Devs to listen to feedback and be willing to admit mistakes. Things work a lot smoother when player sknow they are listened to, and devs providing their vision and how they can refine it.
The pure healer concept needs to be destroyed, it is not fit for this game, nor most games these days.

[Ririta]

I've only joined in SB

SCH lost so much of it's DPS options that made it fun to juggle.

Didn't SB scholar have only 2 DOTs?

I present you... this monster:

[Maltothoris]

Didn't SB scholar have only 2 DOTs?

It techically had 3 dots because they added Miasma II for an aoe dot but people saw that it was a better weave tool than ruin II was so if you want to get into sematics, you could say sch has 3 dots along with shadowflare on a one minute cd.

That being said ya, I agree there is something wrong with the direction of healers in this game atm. First content design isn't healing intensive and as such the gaps in downtime for the healers to do during it is glaring. Everything wrong with it has already been said ad nauseam and so far the only thing they have commented on recently is that they aren't sure what they can do with bard which means they are aware about its failings at the moment and they haven't said anything about healers.

[Gravagar]

Just wanted to share a 6 min long video from Extra Credits that is super relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWZLB8CyPbM
The resources that were spent applying that frustrating "not usable outside of combat" label onto Aetherflow, or screwing with the card system, or completely uprooting the fairy system for something that is objectively less functional and is prone to random cooldown-consuming errors could have been spent actually improving the jobs. I really don't enjoy feeling like I'm a nuisance to be designed around so that mister impatient Dragoon McFloortank doesn't have to wait 30sec for Aetherflow. Not when it would be so much easier to, instead of doing a solution that only lets everybody BUT the scholar have fun, to actually address the design concern and add a cooldown like Ninja's hide that resets the cooldown. Or if they want to commit to nerfing us after 6 years (???? but if we can't change minds, that's how it's going to be), then give us a button (that shares a CD with AF) that we can hit that gives us a buff. That buff is consumed by entering combat and immediately gives your 3 AF stacks + MP + puts AF on cooldown.



That video hit too close to home for anybody else?

[elioaiko]

Sad that the same energy they put toward DPS jobs are not used for tanks or healers. People praised them up and down for how well RDM and DNC first came out as well as BLM being well designed.

Where's that for healers/tanks? Where's the same love? Instead they just keep closing their ears and give us more of the same. The same that's been nothing but frustrating. It's clear that healers are not happy but they continue to turn a blind eye.

How quickly they responded to NIN and SMN complaints but radio silence for healers. The only time I remembered them apologizing about healers is how AST came out and 3min Divination and 5.0 Sleeve Draw was....applauding.