Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[Gemina]

Pretty much.. In the majority of content I barely have to heal. My OGCD cover most everything. Literally no point in casting things like cure 2, unless the group is really failing miserably doing mechanics. Most of them are completely worthless. Most of my WHM gameplay is pressing 1 over and over and over, literally.

OGCD healing is still healing. I don't approve that they are our primary resource for heals, but it is what it is. Content still has a healing requirement, and even with the rotation being 1,1,1, healers are still tunnel visioning.

Also, WHM has the closest to any DPS mechanic with PoM. While this is a marginal boost to DPS, you still want to get nothing but Glares inside its window. If you use any other GCD during this window such as reappying a DoT, or tossing out a regen, it is a DPS loss.

While I understand they WANT a pure healer role, it literally can't be done in an MMO because healers have to be able to complete the MSQ as well as other jobs.

And you need damage to do that. Sometimes a decent amount of it.

But I guess that's why SE implemented that "easy" mode of the MSQ fights.

If you want look at pure healer like completely devoid of any offense, then you are right and SE will never obtain that. But I also think they know that, and it doesn't mean that they can't strip healers down to the bare minimum of offense. And there is still more they can take away (PoM for WHM, all damage for Energy Drain, etc.)

All we have to do is look at what has happened to healers over the coarse of the last couple of expansions. It is quite easy to see that they are not adding offensive skills. Nothing is pointing at any indication that this direction is changing.

[Morningstar1337]

While I understand they WANT a pure healer role, it literally can't be done in an MMO because healers have to be able to complete the MSQ as well as other jobs.

And you need damage to do that. Sometimes a decent amount of it.

That's more on the quest design end if anything, It is technically possible that if the devs put in enough manhours back in 2.0 we'd have quest that required healing existing targets rather than damage for Healers specifically

[Derio]

Im sorry but 3 dps buttons on healer just bores me. WHM is the only healer I will run as due to the amount of dps you are able to do and even then that gets really boring. This is the only expansion where healer has been the adventurer in need most of the time.

They are not going to increase the healing requirements because they do not want to put stress on one particular job. They are not going to put dps checks that require healer dps because that would put more stress on that particular job.

They are not going to add more dps options to healers because again, that would add more complexity to that particular job.

I dont know how they are going to fix healers next expansion simply due to the fact that SHB has simplified the jobs so much to where any additions to dps or content difficulty via overall party damage will expand the skill ceiling.

[Dyvid]

Well I still believe the best path forward for healer is to make it into a Healer/Support job. In every iteration of the of job in the series the Healer had some kind of support spell or abilities.

Further more the biggest flaw in 5.0 was trying to make both Healer Roles into generic version of each other. Jobs need a different mechanics and playstyles to help players chose what they enjoy for that role. Turn AST back into a gambling type job, Scholar could add back stance dancing, White Mage would cast spells again.

[Vahlnir]

Well I still believe the best path forward for healer is to make it into a Healer/Support job. In every iteration of the of job in the series the Healer had some kind of support spell or abilities.

Further more the biggest flaw in 5.0 was trying to make both Healer Roles and Tank Roles into generic version of each other. Jobs need a different mechanics and playstyles to help players chose what they enjoy for that role. Turn AST back into a gambling type job, Scholar could add back stance dancing, White Mage would cast spells again.

Idk, I've played PLD, DRK and GNB. All of them feel pretty different, even if they perform the same general function.

[Deceptus]

Idk, I've played PLD, DRK and GNB. All of them feel pretty different, even if they perform the same general function.

100% this. One might be better than the others, but they play pretty differently but at the same time a basic frame work. Build resource > Spend resource.

[Deceptus]

Well I only leveled DRK to 80 but it feels dumb down from what it was. Regardless, we can agree that each job should play different from each other.

DRK needed some serious help. It [DARK ARTS] was [DARK ARTS] nothing [DARK ARTS] more [DARK ARTS] than a dark arts spammer and it was pretty much the worst tank defensively (save with TBN)

[Recon1o6]

DRK needed some serious help. It [DARK ARTS] was [DARK ARTS] nothing [DARK ARTS] more [DARK ARTS] than a dark arts spammer and it was pretty much the worst tank defensively (save with TBN)

That was the case in SB, but not in heavensward. Spamming your dark arts in hw was a punishing affair.

And its the HW dark w/ actual fixes most DRKs want

[tdb]

They're not. But Cure spamming *is* the playstyle consequence of the "pssssh just gut oGCD heals and force us to spend the majority of your GCDs healing" suggestion gestalt that's made its rounds on the forums. I mean, think about it: your oGCDs are mostly destroyed, and Medica 2 is already ticking. You're spamming something here, whether it's Cure/2, Medica, or Cure 3.

Healer GCDs quickly hit a dead-end spammy non-rotation after exhausting a few fire and forget spells in both halves of their kits, and it'll become quickly apparent if design spends too much time forcing you to lean on either one. That's the caution I personally give to anyone who thinks swapping an 80% damage uptime for 80% healing will "fix" things.

So give healers an actual rotation for their GCD heals. Combos and procs that actually matter and are worth using. A lot of DPS and tank classes have resources which accumulate through the use of abilities and are used for more powerful attacks, why can't healers have something similar? WHM's lilies accumulate completely passively, SCH fills their gauge with a single button dedicated to that purpose. AST's cards are the most engaging healer class mechanic but honestly the buffs seem fairly inconsequential.

[Genz]

Healers in FFXIV are impossible to salvage because of the dumb battle design based on one-shot gimmicks, making the concept of healing worthless. If you want to play healer, play another game (or pvp)