Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[Semirhage]

It kind of is though, there are several ways they could tackle this problem, if they even see it as a problem. They could keep healers with only one main DPS spell but if encounters had you healing 80% of the time and DPS 20% suddenly "Glare Glare Glare" isn't as big of an issue. Of course they could also give them more DSP tools, and keep fights as they are, but seems pretty clear that's not something they want to do.

It's really not. Solo duties would still be Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare. Healing 80% of the time with current healer kits would quickly exhaust the oGCD options, and then you'd get Cure2 Cure2 Cure2 Cure2 Cure2 Cure2 Cure2 Cure2. It's monotony either way if you stick to an 80-20 split with healing and damage. Encounter design can -hide- a boring kit, but it doesn't make that kit not boring. Getting better at healing means spending less time healing and more time doing whatever you kit has you doing when you aren't healing, that's just the nature of the beast. I for one don't want the reward for improving heal skill to be "yay I can cast this one boring spell again".

[linayar]

Then make that 80% more interesting. Spamming Glare or Broil or Malefic for the vast majority of it is dull-as-heck.

But people don't want that because they will just complain that the healer in their party is DPSing too much and should be healing especially if that healer makes a mistake. Hey, I'm all for ignoring those people, but the devs would need to as well. Judging by Yoshi P's comments this time around I don't think they are given the aim behind the SCH change was for people to rely on aetherflow more for healing and less on Energy Drain.

Either, healing needs to be frequent and engaging enough to be fun, or our DPS needs to be engaging enough, or a bit of both. Me? I'd rather a bit of both, because it's a game the favours DPS and it's a healer role.

Infrequent healing and dull & unengaging DPS is the worst of both worlds if you're a healer player. Hey, DPS and tanks might not mind so much, but they get to enjoy their preferred role.

If, by 80%, you mean the damage side, because of the difference in target for healing (AOE aside), maybe they want it simple so that you can switch to heal anytime you feel you need to (though ideally you would know when that would be and can plan for it).

What's frustrating is they had this balance right IMO. But they decided to change it.

Out of curiosity, when was that?

[Ultimatecalibur]

It's really not. Solo duties would still be Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare. Healing 80% of the time with current healer kits would quickly exhaust the oGCD options, and then you'd get Cure2 Cure2 Cure2 Cure2 Cure2 Cure2 Cure2 Cure2. It's monotony either way if you stick to an 80-20 split with healing and damage.

Semihage you constantly spout slippery slope strawmen like they are going out of style. None of the Healers are so bad that they would only spam Cure 2 and doing so wouldn't even last a minute because Cure 2, Adloquium and Benefic 2/Aspected Benefic (Noct) are too expensive to spam that much. You want to know what a 80/20 Healing/Dps split should look like for the current healers instead of making claims about spamming the same unsustainable healing spell here it is:

White Mage: Dia -> Regen -> Cure -> Cure -> Medica 2 -> Medica -> Cure -> (Free) Cure 2 -> Regen -> Glare -> Cure -> Medica 2 -> Dia -> Afflatus Rapture -> Regen -> Cure 3 -> Cure -> Medica 2 -> (Free) Cure 2 -> Glare -> Cure -> Regen -> Cure -> (Free) Cure 2

• 24 spells
• 9 different spells
• 3 casts of a single target gimmick heal
• 7 basic single target heals
• 3 single target big heals proced by the single target basic heal
• 3 cast of an AoE gimmick heal
• 1 cast of a basic AoE heal
• 1 cast of a quick AoE heal
• 1 cast of a big AoE heal
• 2 DoT casts
• 3 single target damage casts

It is not supposed to be 2 Dot casts, 17 single target damage spell casts, 2 quick AoE/Big single target heal casts, 2 AoE gimmick heals and a big single target heal.

Encounter design can -hide- a boring kit, but it doesn't make that kit not boring. Getting better at healing means spending less time healing and more time doing whatever you kit has you doing when you aren't healing, that's just the nature of the beast. I for one don't want the reward for improving heal skill to be "yay I can cast this one boring spell again".

The problem is not that the healing kits are boring. Getting better at healing should mean going from not even having room to cast a single DoT to casting 2 DoTs and 3 to 4 direct damage spells total every 60s instead of going from 2 DoTs and 10 damage spell casts to 2 DoTs and 17 damage spell casts every 60s.

[Semirhage]

Semihage you constantly spout slippery slope strawmen like they are going out of style. None of the Healers are so bad that they would only spam Cure 2 and doing so wouldn't even last a minute because Cure 2, Adloquium and Benefic 2/Aspected Benefic (Noct) are too expensive to spam that much. You want to know what a 80/20 Healing/Dps split should look like for the current healers instead of making claims about spamming the same unsustainable healing spell here it is:

White Mage: Dia -> Regen -> Cure -> Cure -> Medica 2 -> Medica -> Cure -> (Free) Cure 2 -> Regen -> Glare -> Cure -> Medica 2 -> Dia -> Afflatus Rapture -> Regen -> Cure 3 -> Cure -> Medica 2 -> (Free) Cure 2 -> Glare -> Cure -> Regen -> Cure -> (Free) Cure 2

Honey, I've been on these forums for years. You call it a slippery slope strawman, I call it this community pitching a fit every time non-savage encounter difficulty asks them to use even 50% of their class's capabilities. I've seen it over and over and over again. If so much as one single person whines that this game is tooooooo hard, the devs will happily dumb it down. Please find me an anti-DPS 5 CPM Sylphie who could possibly perform that rotation you just made up if it was necessary to keep a party alive. I seriously don't get this clamoring to "force" healers to constantly heal lest everyone die. The Duty Finder healer population would implode. Why do you think the devs keep making healing easier?

Just raise the skill ceiling with a damage kit, ffs. Duty Finder healers can derp their way through encounters. Skilled healers have a cap to work toward. Both have something going for them.

[Recon1o6]

Snip

let me correct you on that front
Cure 1 and benefic 1 are literally too weak to use at 60, whm's have complained for years freecure trait is a trap. So yes, they would be forced to spam cure 2 and benefic 2

Non savage encounter healing being upped to 80% heal would not be fun because ti would be trading one form of spam for another suddenly and it would break the game's combat flow.
80% is too extreme. If the devs want us to heal more, they need to up the damage and variation on how that damage is distributed to a reasonably challenging amount, just as 60/40 heal to dps gcd usage

You don't ask tanks to just turn on tank stance and auto attack away, why should healers only heal? Everyone should use their whole kit and have a fun kit too. That means a dps kit and a healing kit for healers, and a dps and mitigation kit for tanks

Healers had a fun downtime/dps kit in HW and for Sch/Ast, SB and they destroyed it because of their desire to make us heal more without actually looking at WHY we were using our dps kits so much- because encounter damage and mechanics was scripted and low, with ogcd healing being high in potency and frequent.

This is what healers want, they want their fun downtime kits back when there's no healing ot be done AND to use their healing kits more. Not having to spend solo duties mindlessly pressing 1 button, not seeing half their kits in an average duty wasted because of an abundance of redundant heals.
They are not mutually exclusive!

[Saefinn]

If, by 80%, you mean the damage side, because of the difference in target for healing (AOE aside), maybe they want it simple so that you can switch to heal anytime you feel you need to (though ideally you would know when that would be and can plan for it).

Maybe yes, they want it to be simple, but the problem is, it's made it dull and un-engaging, hence arguably it's a problem that needs fixing. And in fairness, the change I am advocating for the most keeps it simple from a healing perspective. It respects current design, it keeps a low skill floor, it just raises the skill ceiling. Which is the compromise I've arrived at. More DPS abilities won't make healing hard. But it will break up that 80%, it means they can keep simple content simple, they can respect the inexperience of newer healers, but not bore more experienced healers at the same time. It also means in more healing heavy fights, they're not compromised because they'll just DPS less and heal more.

Out of curiosity, when was that?

It was Shadowbringers mainly. Stormblood showed symptoms and WHM was already in a bad place for it. SCH healed too well and had a little pruning DPS-wise in SB, but not much, hence I never complained. But the big changes were on Shadowbringers release.

WHM was already underwhelming in their downtime and lost Aero III in addition to that and couldn't stack Aeros no more. But at least they fixed other problems on the healing side of WHM from Stormblood, because that was full of problems, so it flows a lot better, but still, their downtime is mostly filled with Glare or Holy. Devs maintained a philosophy of White Mages should be the healiest healer, which is a concept that was made redundant as far back as Heavensward, this really only worked in A Realm Reborn when Scholars were less efficient at pure healing because they were the "shield healer" (a concept that barely exists anymore with how efficient oGCD's are). Heavensward patched that by making SCH get health up almost as quickly and added AST, which combined SCH's and WHM's niches. I've seen WHM's call for "more to do" since then, maybe just some utility just to bring more in line with SCH and AST. It's these kind of changes are why you might see some claim healers are homogenized.


For SCH we saw a huge gutting of their DPS skills in exchange for more healing-related abilities. They removed the functionality of Selene, who contributed to their downtime activity. You'd use Selene if healing intensity was low to give the party a bit of a DPS boost, you'd have Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Bane, Shadowflare, Miasma II, Energy Drain, and you'd add your Broils. And it wasn't even complicated. Now? It's Biolysis with Broil/Ruin II spams (or Art of War for AoE) and the occasional Energy Drain, the latter of which has just been nerfed because Yoshi P says the devs want us to be prioritising our aetherflow stacks for heals not Energy Drain.

With faerie abilities being turned into player actions means an element of faerie micromanagement is gone (where you weave their abilities during your own, which you might do in a DPS rotation). The effect of all the Scholar changes is that it just feels like you're spamming the same ability over and over when you don't need to heal.

For AST their card system was simplified fairly heavily and all cards now have the same effect as each other. AST used to have a problem with useless draws, but this was fixed through Minor Arcana in Stormblood. You had a system where you'd think about what you'd do with the card you drew, whether it is to Royal Road it, whether it was to use it, whether it was to hold it for later or to redraw or use it as a Minor Arcana. The most effective card was The Balance, so yes, there were people who fished for The Balance. So now ALL cards are in effect, The Balance. Which, funnily enough the "Seals" system they added didn't stop the fishing problem (only changing Sleeve Draw in 5.3 alleviated that). The only "choice" element is who to give it to. It also meant they lost a DPS ability from Minor Arcana because now that's just a more potent version of The Balance. There's no Royal Roading anymore, which allows you to modify your next card whether to extend the effect, make it stronger or spread it. And the ability to extend the duration of cards and to stun enemies has been replaced with another oGCD heal. But at least they still have their card system, which is why when I heal now I don't heal SCH (which was my main) but I use AST instead, just because it has a bit more to do.

For all healers the original Cleric Stance is gone, it was changed to something else in Stormblood (a temporary DPS boost) and removed entirely in Shadowbringers. This was an ability that added an element of risk and reward to healer DPSing, but got complaints because people forgot to turn it off when they needed to heal.


When you look at what has changed and been dulled or simplified or removed, it's quite significant, and it changed how interesting they were to play. But the thing is, they weren't that complicated either. I mean, there were varying levels of difficulty, with WHM being the lowest and AST being the highest, but that's a good thing. Because variety in design and complexity is the main advantage of having multiple jobs for the same role, you can appeal to what works for different people better.

I think some of the changes would have been fine on their own - I mean, yes, I miss Cleric Stance but I can understand why they removed it and would have the consolation of "I've got these other things that keep me interested", but sadly is not the care because of all the other changes too.

[Deceptus]

There have been multiple threads attempting to show how the FFXIV healer design is currently the wrong approach as the game is currently developed but it all boils down to this very simple sentence:

Healers are the only Role in the game that "rewards" you with worse gameplay the better of a player you are.

If you play your job skillfully, you are rewarded with a single button filler spam.

No other role would find that acceptable. Why is it acceptable for healers to play that way?

Tanks wouldn't accept a lone single target dps button, an aoe, and the rest of their kit be zero damage aggro generators and damage mitigation. They'd riot.

Recommended Reading:

A Summary of Healer Issues

The Healer Double Standard

A critique on the availability of battle job designers

[QooEr]

I think some of the changes would have been fine on their own - I mean, yes, I miss Cleric Stance but I can understand why they removed it and would have the consolation of "I've got these other things that keep me interested", but sadly is not the care because of all the other changes too.

I honestly think cleric stance come back as high end optimization tool. My idea would be something like

Cleric Stance: Increase damage action potency by 5% and reduce healing action potency by 50%.

which would mean healer dps without cleric would work the exact same as now, and nobody but minmaxers would feel pressured to use it.

That way you add depth to gameplay to those who want it and you relieve casual players from worrying about it since the difference isnt that big.

[Gemina]

There have been multiple threads attempting to show how the FFXIV healer design is currently the wrong approach as the game is currently developed but it all boils down to this very simple sentence:

Healers are the only Role in the game that "rewards" you with worse gameplay the better of a player you are.

If you play your job skillfully, you are rewarded with a single button filler spam.

No other role would find that acceptable. Why is it acceptable for healers to play that way?

Tanks wouldn't accept a lone single target dps button, an aoe, and the rest of their kit be zero damage aggro generators and damage mitigation. They'd riot.

It's ok to say "punished" for playing their job correctly. That's how most healers feel. Here's the thing though, can anyone describe how to universally play healer correctly without adopting the mentality "heal as little as possible"? Keep in mind that I did not say how to play it optimally; I said correctly.

For starters, I would probably stop comparing healers to tanks. In order to make the skills they use to perform their primary duty comparable, restore skills would have to heal and damage at the same time. While there are skills that exist that do this such as Earthly Star and Assize, having nearly everything healers do cause damage to the enemy is in no way a direction the devs will ever go. It's not a double standard. It's just a standard.

The only healer with any kind of DPS reward is WHM with Misery. An argument could be made for ASTs Divination, but let's be real; a mechanic that charges up a buff just doesn't add enough spice to the meatball. Now the ironic thing with WHM, is that this DPS reward is usually granted for not playing WHM optimally. The reason for this is because WHM can sustain a group perfectly fine without the Afflatus skills.

Healer's should be rewarded with being able to cause additional damage to the opposition, and this reward should come by having interactive job gauges. All the pieces for healing to be engaging are there, they just have to piece together the puzzle. I will express again that raising the ceiling for healing requirements and/or adding more DPS skills are the deadend answers that are easy to conclude, but will never solve the problem.

[Saefinn]

For starters, I would probably stop comparing healers to tanks. In order to make the skills they use to perform their primary duty comparable, restore skills would have to heal and damage at the same time. While there are skills that exist that do this such as Earthly Star and Assize, having nearly everything healers do cause damage to the enemy is in no way a direction the devs will ever go. It's not a double standard. It's just a standard.

"Dual purpose" skills has been something i have thought of (in that we have Assize and Earthly Star), but only in the extent of how I think they could work for Scholar. A suggestion I made in a thread a while ago replaces none of Scholar's existing skills nor does it add new abilities, but plays to its tactician persona and potentially returns some of the risk/reward we got with stuff like Cleric Stance without being clunky or disastrous.

The idea is that there's 3 abilities in Scholar's tool kit than can modify the effect of certain abilities.
Those 3 Abilities are:
- Deployment Tactics
- Emergency Tactics
- Summon faerie

Summon faerie of course would be bringing back Selene for a Utility focus, but it could also change how the following faerie abilities work too: Fey Blessing, Fey Union, Summon Seraph (IE: a "Utility" based Seraph)
Deployment Tactics could work like Bane if used on an Enemy
Emergency Tactics could broaden its scope to not just replace Galvanise with a heal. But it would work like Thunder procs on BLM, so you could deal ALL damage dealt by Biolysis in one go. Maybe Emergency tactics could change the effect of Excogitation to be support based (it could be the reverse of Excogitation, instead of healing people when their health is below a threshold, it could be a damage boost as long as their health is above a threshold). The knock-on effect too is that instead of Excogitation being used so healers intentionally let people drop their health, but to use it when they're expecting your health to drop low.

I think this recycling could work because in a lot of content these abilities are just bloat. So when we don't need them, we can tactically re-purpose them. It adds risk/reward in that you will need to think about whether or not it's appropriate to use these abilities that way.

I'd also say it's still approachable for beginners because they can play the job exactly as it play right now. It won't be optimal play, but really, to me optimal play only matters in high end content, by which point we'd expect somebody knows how to play their job well by that point.

Of course, I've not thought about how such a thing would be balanced, just a principle of how you could make use of dual purpose abilities without compromising any of the existing job design and make it more engaging from a playability point.