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

[Torunya]

Snip

Wow. There's a lot here.


- "This sums up the dmg of shared dots with bane."

Part of why people are upset is precisely because we have had a complex aoe dot rotation swapped for a 1-button push-to-win. Sure, even if the damage from Art of War is comparable to what Scholar's dots + Bane used to be, it just isn't as exciting to click one button over and over; additionally, this was part of Scholar's identity and distinctiveness as a job. The fact that the Scholar "is like other healers now" is part of why people are upset. Scholar lost part of its identity in the wave of homogenisation that has occurred, and that is absolutely a valid concern to address.

- "So instead of just look the changes with some logic( yeah its hard to that for some ppl)"

You, uh, might want to tone down the salt a bit.

- "So the only loss if u count it as a loss is miasma 1 and 2."

I just cannot see this logic. They lost so much more than just 2 skills. Having all of Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II, Bane and Shadow Flare, also Eye for an Eye and Selene herself be entirely ousted from the Scholar's kit for a measely Art of War is so much more of a loss than just two skills. It is not even comparable. Part of the damage here, as others have iterated, is the unfairness in the trade-off.

- "Healers were always that simple in skills cause their main job is to heal not to dps."

Reading this just makes me sad. Part of the healers' charm, and Scholar's in particular, in ffxiv ARR and HW was that healers didn't just heal. Sticking to Scholar, it could do so much more during its downtime back then than it ever could now. As a Scholar, you could contribute to fights with an actual meaningful dps rotation that was your own, shared lore-wise with the Arcanist and Summoner. It meant a lot to players because the job had more versatility and a higher skill ceiling which allowed for more complex gameplay outside of just healing. It was part of what made Scholar special. Now, however, we've been homogenised.
I cringe whenever I see this argument because if anyone truly believes that healers should only heal and not dps then I'd say you're missing out on the fun that playing healer used to be like. Although I understand that newer and more inexperienced players might have a difficult time of it handling a more complex toolkit, I think dumbing down the options at the expense of your veteran playerbase is a grave misstep. Instead, tutorials in-game should reflect and emphasize that any player learning to play a healer job should focus on mastering their healing toolkit first, then worry about dps later when they're comfortable -- or not at all, if that's your cup of tea. While I am not a game designer, I think this would be a much more inclusive path for both parties than the direction we're going in now. Don't get me wrong, I'm very much in favour of job accessibility, but not at the expense of job homogenisation.

- "cause sch was never engaging dps wise."

Yes. It was.

Honestly, I can't see your "pure logic and math." It's fine if you support the alterations the devs have made to Scholar, but please bring more substantial arguments to the table than just sheer salt-ridden rhetoric. This helps no one.

[Kazukiyashuo]

Not gonna bother anymore with this discussion really. Sch is now like other healers. Healers are perfectly balanced and so tanks as well. If u felt special being on meta all these expansions pushing out whm and u are not needed anymore thats fair to me. All healers should be and are equal. Why Sch having more dots and baning them, no u will get the same spell like holy and gravity, take it or leave it. The ultimate meta stupid theory made SE to homogenosize jobs cause einsteins out there excluded jobs from raiding resulting in masses following their advice causing ppl that liked a job to reroll to Sch or Ast. now all jobs are accepted and thats a big win win from SE side. Even if u think in your little galaxy brain that sch had a difficult rotation well now he doesnt , he is like other healers that always were boring. If u dont like it reroll. u never gonna get back what SCH had, SE wont do that mistake again. Hail meta for everyone. Cyaaaa

[Yani-Madara]

"Healers were always that simple in skills cause their main job is to heal not to dps."

I'm a dps main, currently leveling astro.

Even when playing healers a bit during dungeons, it is blatantly obvious that there is a lot of down time in which you have nothing to do. When everyone has full health or almost full with regens, a healers job should be to dps.

Giving all healers one button spams when there is so much downtime is just terrible game design. But it wouldn't be bad to have one easy healer for hyper casual players or people oddly allergic to dps.

Regarding the "meta" issues, WHM needed a boost, not destroying the other healers.

[Billythepancake]

Not gonna bother anymore with this discussion really. Sch is now like other healers. Healers are perfectly balanced and so tanks as well. If u felt special being on meta all these expansions pushing out whm and u are not needed anymore thats fair to me. All healers should be and are equal. Why Sch having more dots and baning them, no u will get the same spell like holy and gravity, take it or leave it. The ultimate meta stupid theory made SE to homogenosize jobs cause einsteins out there excluded jobs from raiding resulting in masses following their advice causing ppl that liked a job to reroll to Sch or Ast. now all jobs are accepted and thats a big win win from SE side. Even if u think in your little galaxy brain that sch had a difficult rotation well now he doesnt , he is like other healers that always were boring. If u dont like it reroll. u never gonna get back what SCH had, SE wont do that mistake again. Hail meta for everyone. Cyaaaa

Lmao. Whoever said people wanted SCH to be meta? You can have classes be unique AND balanced, believe it or not, science hasn't deemed such a thing impossible. But yeah man, see ya, you couldn't handle people proving you wrong and threw a temper tantrum.

[ItMe]

But yeah man, see ya, you couldn't handle people proving you wrong and threw a temper tantrum.

I dunno man, I searched up some of their older posts and it looks like they're low key being bullied on this forum.

[Billythepancake]

I dunno man, I searched up some of their older posts and it looks like they're low key being bullied on this forum.

Depends on what you mean by "bullied". If they're constantly throwing out wrong facts in a salt-fueled rage and they're being shot down because of it, I'd hardly call that bullying, just someone who couldn't handle being told they're wrong. IE, he really thinks that SCH only lost 2 dots despite the fact SCH has lost 3+ dots since HW, lost Selene, lost the ability to use the fairy separately from their own GCD, lost the ability to spread their dots, etc.

[Satarn]

now all jobs are accepted and thats a big win win from SE side.

Is it really a win though?

Why was it an issue that certain jobs were "excluded"? If your job wasn't meta, then why couldn't you just reroll to a better one? Why does it matter what job you play? Why is balance important, if you can just switch to any job whenever, based on what's preferred at the time?

Is it because you enjoy playing a certain job and dislike the others? Because people have play-style preferences? But if that's the reason, then how does making all jobs play similar and killing off their individual mechanics help?

It doesn't.

Balance through homogenization is straight up pointless, as it defeats the entire purpose of striving for balance - to let people play what they want without feeling forced to play something they don't like. If you achieve equality by making everything feel the same, then you're not giving players more viable options - you take options away and force everyone to play the same, cookie-cutter job, just with different paint job choices. Shadowbringers tank and healer design is the epitome of missing the point. Asymmetrical balance isn't just better - it's the only way that makes any sense, in a game that's designed around different class choices.

[Lyth]

If you're always expected to reroll to the meta pick, then you're losing out on options either way.

Homogenisation isn't the answer, but it is the starting point. Once you have a level playing field, you can start understand the difference between what is simply useful and what is essential. No job should have a monopoly on essential abilities. You can change up everything else after that to create variation and flavour.

There was a lot of inertia against change that had built up behind the usual meta picks over the past three expansions. Shadowbringers took a sledgehammer approach to it.

[BarretOblivion]

Not gonna bother anymore with this discussion really. Sch is now like other healers. Healers are perfectly balanced and so tanks as well.

I'll say it once and I'll say it a million other times.
Fun is more important than balance. You can make a job that's balanced between all other jobs... just make them all do the same thing. Is that FUN???!??!?

[Satarn]

There was a lot of inertia against change that had built up behind the usual meta picks over the past three expansions. Shadowbringers took a sledgehammer approach to it.

Except everyone already had the essential abilities. While WHM and DRK were considered "the worst" in their respective roles, neither was even close to unplayable in any content, nor were they actually widely excluded in Stormblood. The only situations when you'd be realistically locked out were speedruns(which will always pick the meta jobs regardless of how small the advantage is) or a couple dumb PF people who exclude jobs based on arbitrary prejudice(which also will always happen, as those prejudices are often not even based in reality). Things weren't even remotely bad enough to warrant bringing out the sledge hammer.

They also didn't give the same treatment to DPS jobs, which had much worse issues with meta, so I find it rather naive to think they intended to just "reset things and start over".