Giving Whm an identity

[Semirhage]

If the devs actually thought that healers should focus on dealing damage, they would have given us a proper and interesting rotation. But that's not the case now, is it? Healer's DPS being relevant is an afterthought, it is the consequence of smth else, it is not the primary focus and it has never been.

I couldn't disagree more. Damage is the primary focus in almost every single RPG I've ever played, single- or multi-player. When you're in combat, the combat is over when your enemy is dead. The thing that makes your enemy dead in 99+% of encounters is damage. Healing output can help you get there. Buffs can help you get there. Mitigation, debuffs, countering enemy attacks, those can all be important depending on the systems as designed. But at the end of the day, those are all supporting your ability to smack your enemy to death. I can count on one hand the number of games I've played where my healers haven't been respectable damage dealers. Fact is, if all but the most explicitly difficult content requires constant heals or support, most players are going to die. Squeenix wants most players to ultimately succeed in the vast majority of content. That gap between players on top of their heal/support game and the ones struggling to keep up through story dungeons is where the downtime comes in. That downtime has been pretty large in most games I've played. From tabletop D&D type games, to easy RPGs, to more difficult ones. I've never reached the end of a Final Fantasy game where my more heal-focused character wasn't spending a good 80% of their turns attacking the enemy in some way.

The ability to deal damage while healing is important, because that's the way RPGs are generally designed. FFXIV isn't some bizarro world exception to a rule where forum princess healers are "strangely" "forced" to deal damage. Healing is regularly a multitasking role with a sliding scale of downtime based on how skilled you get at your primarily important task. Having downtime that isn't a terrible, stupid snoozefest of a reward for gaining finesse at your basic task is one of the most important facets of designing a multitasker class. I don't enjoy playing healers because I'm particularly enamored with spamming Cure over and over and over again. I like healing because it's a balancing act that should be rewarding when you manage to minimize healing as much as you possibly can. Because that's the (perhaps ironic) definition of getting more skilled at healing, no matter how much of it you design into an encounter. Minimizing it is ALWAYS the eventual goal.

[Roeshel]

snip

Damage being the primary focus in most rpgs doesn't change the fact that the devs don't like the idea of healers doing dps that much. From what I've learned, with Shb they even tried to reduce sch and ast to perform as poorly as whm when it comes to damage dealing. SCH had many dots and strong ED while ast had a very op time dilation spell that extends the buffs you put on targets by 15s and a 20% damage buff on some cards or smth. If whm is their model for a healer then in the gms' perspective the other two were seen as defects that must be corrected. So that only supports my point. The problem can't be with whm as this it is probably the first healer they designed so they must have put more thought into it and how it plays out than the other healer roles. It is also the only healer class with which you can start the msq so obviously it is going to be the most popular one with the strongest personal dps. In my opinion, sch and ast have been given good weaving spots because it is just harder to play them in general and they rely exclusively on ogcd to heal. So at the end of the day, it is only appropriate for a healer class with a higher skill ceiling to deal more damage and heal more than the easiest class.

And yes, things die quickly when you have the ability to deal damage. However, that damage doesn't have to come directly through you. The healer class is a support class in nature. It is kinda the reason why it doesn't come naturally to ppl to start dpsing as healers in dungeons. When your damage output is close or even higher to the one of your dps party members your class is no longer a support class, something that healers are meant to be.

Spamming cure is very different from spamming glare because if you mess it up ppl will end up dying. That's putting pressure on healers. This is why I liked tanks doing big pulls even if they don't use cds when I was levelling my first healer role. On the other hand, if you skip one, two or ten glares nobody will care as long as the boss doesn't enrage.

[Semirhage]

Damage being the primary focus in most rpgs doesn't change the fact that the devs don't like the idea of healers doing dps that much.

Then the devs don't understand how RPG combat works. This is evident. They tried making Scholars spend less time dealing damage by deleting several of their damage spells. That's...not how this works. Time spent on an activity isn't determined by the number of tools you have to do it. It's determined by the most useful thing you can be doing at the time. Even if that's pressing one button a thousand times.

If whm is their model for a healer then in the gms' perspective the other two were seen as defects that must be corrected.

Most healers who had any skill at healing whatsoever despised WHM's design in Stormblood. For reasons that were explained in excruciating detail both here and in other places on the internet. Doubling down on what your skilled players consider boring is...a look I guess.

So at the end of the day, it is only appropriate for a healer class with a higher skill ceiling to deal more damage and heal more than the easiest class.

Yes yes, WHM deserves to be the weakest AND most boring healer because AST and SCH are just so much more complex. Their superiority should be written into the Forever Meta, et cetera and so on. I've been rolling my eyes at that since late Heavensward, and they keep on rolling. This is not a dynamic for any other role in the game. WHM is the only job people regularly come out and advocate for sucking just...because.

It is kinda the reason why it doesn't come naturally to ppl to start dpsing as healers in dungeons.

I started dealing damage in Sastasha. Naturally. Because I've played a healer before. And I know that means keeping people at 100% HP all the time is a fool's game.

When your damage output is close or even higher to the one of your dps party members your class is no longer a support class, something that healers are meant to be.

Not in the RPGs I've played. They certainly haven't done *more*, but comparable? Absolutely. At least depending on the encounter.

Spamming cure is very different from spamming glare because if you mess it up ppl will end up dying. That's putting pressure on healers.

Pressing one button over and over again is good design guys. Really.

[BaconBits]

Jesus Semirhage how do you even have eyes at this point?

[Semirhage]

Jesus Semirhage how do you even have eyes at this point?

I have Visine droppers installed on the underside of my brow bones. They get a good re-wetting every time my eyes roll up there.