Benchmark trailer

[SweetPete]

The problem with that thinking is nobody applies it to any other role. Tanks are not told to just press mitigation and get two damage buttons. It's also bad considering we had damage skills added that were taken away, meaning that this hasn't always been how the devs handled healers.

That wasn’t until the forums were flooded with healers not healing, healers need to heal more and stop dps etc. That’s when it changed. Now the devs are all about wanting healers to heal. I don’t have an issue with a bit of both but at the same time if healers have many dps skills then they will be expected to uphold a certain amount of dps. Creating more toxicity than it already is. Healers dps is a triggering topic for some. All I’m saying is don’t expect the devs to give in. They won’t. They have been extremely clear where they stand with with healers and we just gotta deal with it.

[Lalatuni]

Well my broader point is that I'd be happy healing more, but the way it is now is bad for everybody, not just healers who like dpsing. Our heals don't interact with each other, so sylphies can't get enjoyment out expressing skill through efficiently healing, and ppl who like doing dmg have to hit 2 buttons 90 percent of the time. This doesn't work at any level friend.

[Semirhage]

If the devs think the number of abilities healers have for dealing damage is the cause of them using said abilities so often, they've got support class game design all wrong.

"Healers spend too much time doing damage and not enough healing" is a consequence of low outgoing damage. Healers failing to keep the party alive and tunnel visioning on damage is a consequence of either being unskilled at healing, making a mistake, zoning out because the damage dealing is just so incredibly boring, or some combination of the three.

The current state of healers is down to a confluence of mindsets. Some of the most important are:
- Healing Should Be Easy So Sprouts Aren't Scared (which makes healing a snooze)
- Healers Should Heal Only And Nothing Else (which makes damage dealing a snooze, because apparently making damage kits boring is how you discourage using them?)
- Expecting Healers To Do Damage Is A Stain On The BadWrongEvil Community (which encourages newbie healers to never improve, which in turn empowers the idea that keeping healers simple and boring is a Good Thing That The Devs Want)

Those three mindsets keep dragging the healing role into the trashfire that it keeps returning to. Even when they make baby steps out of it, it just comes right back again. You don't catch the DPS forums making faces at the idea that they should, shock and horror, use Feint, or Addle, or buff the party, because DPS Should Deal Damage Only And Nothing Else.

[Lalatuni]

I agree completely. Imo the worst thing these changes have done is make playing efficiently and playing fun diametrically opposed to each other. Lilies on WHM, Aetherflow gutting attempts on SCH, it's seems like the devs and players who support them want to say "you aren't here to play well, yourre here to facilitate other ppls fun" like a healbot quest npc.

[ty_taurus]

If the devs think the number of abilities healers have for dealing damage is the cause of them using said abilities so often, they've got support class game design all wrong.

"Healers spend too much time doing damage and not enough healing" is a consequence of low outgoing damage. Healers failing to keep the party alive and tunnel visioning on damage is a consequence of either being unskilled at healing, making a mistake, zoning out because the damage dealing is just so incredibly boring, or some combination of the three.

The current state of healers is down to a confluence of mindsets. Some of the most important are:
- Healing Should Be Easy So Sprouts Aren't Scared (which makes healing a snooze)
- Healers Should Heal Only And Nothing Else (which makes damage dealing a snooze, because apparently making damage kits boring is how you discourage using them?)
- Expecting Healers To Do Damage Is A Stain On The BadWrongEvil Community (which encourages newbie healers to never improve, which in turn empowers the idea that keeping healers simple and boring is a Good Thing That The Devs Want)

Those three mindsets keep dragging the healing role into the trashfire that it keeps returning to. Even when they make baby steps out of it, it just comes right back again. You don't catch the DPS forums making faces at the idea that they should, shock and horror, use Feint, or Addle, or buff the party, because DPS Should Deal Damage Only And Nothing Else.

Something else I don't understand is why we can't also break healers down into how easy it is for them heal? Like one thing about ARR's WHM and SCH was that SCHs had a much harder time healing. We needed to manage our damage reductions and actually use our shields because our only real way to power heal the party was through succor spam. Meanwhile WHMs had a much easier time with Cure III and Medica II to make it very easy for them to respond to heavy damage with equally heavy healing. What's wrong with having some more complex healers for players that want that? Why does every healer NEED to appeal to every healer player? As long as the numbers are balanced at the end of the day, who not add some variety in how challenging different healers are? It seems to not be a problem for DPS players to have more complex DPS than others.

[Semirhage]

Something else I don't understand is why we can't also break healers down into how easy it is for them heal? Like one thing about ARR's WHM and SCH was that SCHs had a much harder time healing. We needed to manage our damage reductions and actually use our shields because our only real way to power heal the party was through succor spam. Meanwhile WHMs had a much easier time with Cure III and Medica II to make it very easy for them to respond to heavy damage with equally heavy healing. What's wrong with having some more complex healers for players that want that? Why does every healer NEED to appeal to every healer player? As long as the numbers are balanced at the end of the day, who not add some variety in how challenging different healers are? It seems to not be a problem for DPS players to have more complex DPS than others.

I don't disagree, but there are two historical things that pose an issue with that. Not that *I* have a problem with addressing those things, but we've seen them play out in how healer design has worked over the past 6ish years.
1) The "complicated" healers tend to...not be happy when the "simple" healer has equivalent output. Rabble rabble "we should have more output for being more complex" rabble rabble, which totally ignores the fact that, if designed this way, what you end up with isn't simple vs complex; you get novice intro class vs directly superior upgrades. I've seen this argument break out basically every time Babby's First WHM gets anywhere close to the damage output AST and SCH have. That's the rub though. If WHM has nothing going for it other than direct healing and damage, and it doesn't uniquely shine at either one of them, then it's just dead weight.
2) Historically, for WHM at least, "simple" hasn't just been a DPS complexity thing. It's lacked anything engaging to do outside spamming Stone and basic b*tch heals that don't really build to anything, maybe the occasional utility oGCD with a long cooldown, often from the role system. There's simple, and then there's simple. WHM's unbelievably simplistic design drags the entire role down when you factor in Squeenix's need to keep the jobs balanced. When your competition can regen, and do fantastic personal damage, and shield, and reduce incoming damage, and buff party damage, and buff party speed, and debuff the boss, and move really easily, and weave without difficulty, and their downside is that they can bring the entire party from empty to full with three twitches of their fingers instead of two, then the healer that can do only the first two things reliably, and maybe the second two every now and then has a really hard time keeping up in the grand scheme of things.

Complexity can be a sliding scale. Squeenix has historically screwed the pooch by making it -very- black and white on healers. If we just go back to the Wonder Twins plus Level 90 Conjurer, expect the same gross imbalances of the past to come back. I'm so tired of WHM being the "baby healer" just because the world outside Cure and Stone is scary.

[Dearche]

Something else I don't understand is why we can't also break healers down into how easy it is for them heal? Like one thing about ARR's WHM and SCH was that SCHs had a much harder time healing. We needed to manage our damage reductions and actually use our shields because our only real way to power heal the party was through succor spam. Meanwhile WHMs had a much easier time with Cure III and Medica II to make it very easy for them to respond to heavy damage with equally heavy healing. What's wrong with having some more complex healers for players that want that? Why does every healer NEED to appeal to every healer player? As long as the numbers are balanced at the end of the day, who not add some variety in how challenging different healers are? It seems to not be a problem for DPS players to have more complex DPS than others.

THIS.IS.THE.PROBLEM.RIGHT.HERE!

SE goes out of their way to make Gunbreaker, a tank for DPS players that's both fun, active, and busy, while in the same expac, gutted EVERY.SINGLE.HEALER! There's been no attempt at making any of the healers interesting, instead just consolidating them and making them all identical aside from their signature differences.

SE's proven than they can do it as long as they're motivated, but it feels like while they can scape a little bit of motivation for tanks (seeing as how badly they treated WAR and DRK), they couldn't be arsed in the slightest for healers.

I don't like to say that WHM should be simple and boring for the sake of ease of play, but if it means that we can have nice, complex, dynamic, and engaging healer jobs, then it's a trade I'd be more than willing to do. Though admitedly, I've never liked WHM so I'm pretty biased there, but WHM is the only healer you get before level 30, sadly enough.

I don't disagree, but there are two historical things that pose an issue with that. Not that *I* have a problem with addressing those things, but we've seen them play out in how healer design has worked over the past 6ish years.
1) ...
2) ...

For you two cases, how would you feel if WHM was more set up so that the difficulty came from pulling out maximum healing while doing mechanics? The end result would vary wildly admittedly, but if, like now but on a better designed skill set, the difficulty doesn't come from spamming attack spells on a striking dummy, but the loss of uptime from movement, with limited ways to gain free movement (like swiftcast and stuff)? The base job would be easy to do well in, but the moment you started to do any remotely difficult content, you'd quickly start dropping damage until you learned to get better at it?

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

And Reapers LB3 is genie hunter from soul eater calling it now lol

nuuh~! ;w; Give me that Djinn Hunter as a badass oGCD ability on a big CD, that feels great to use! >(=w=)>

I'm definitely worried about the Benchmark skills. Most of them looked like visual upgrades to old skills, not only including healers but also tanks and dps. It makes me fear the devs will not fix any problems with the classes, that they will keep this disconnect between content and Job kit for healers thinking that everything is fine and that the only thing Healing Jobs need is a visual upgrade to some of their skills.

I am going to be deeply disappointed, if this turns out to be the case... For not just the Healers, but also the Tanks and Damagers that need changes.

[FusionSamurai]

I can understand maybe 1 new dps skill for each healer but some of y’all act like y’all want 5-6 dps skills to have a whole healer dps rotation. That’s not gonna happen. Those 5 scholar dot days are over. We have allot of healing abilities because we are healers. I agree that some heals can be removed and replaced with more support like skills but not dps. People get to focused on it then cause deaths by not healing. I may get hate for this but I agree that healers shouldn’t have many dps options. Also I do agree that the damage scaling could be higher so we can heal a bit more. I don’t mind the 1 button dps spam but I know others want a little bit more and that’s fine. 1 new dps skill for each. I can get with that. Just not 4-5 new dps skills. No no no.

Sch last expansion had broil, two Dots, miasma II for weaving and AOE, ruin 2, energy drain, and shadowflare. Don't give me that crap. We've had it before, and it was infinitely more fun.

[SweetPete]

Sch last expansion had broil, two Dots, miasma II for weaving and AOE, ruin 2, energy drain, and shadowflare. Don't give me that crap. We've had it before, and it was infinitely more fun.

I never said it was a mistake giving healers dps rotations. What I said was the forums were filled with dissatisfied casual players who complained that in dungeons, extremes and normal raids healers were not healing much because they were to busy with dps.

Yoshi P himself said the reason scholar lost all its dot glory was because they were leaving their co healer which was whm or Astro to do all the healing while they dps and just used faerie skills. Let’s stop acting like this is brand new. Yoshi P already spoke on this. This game caters to 80% which are casuals and that’s being generous. Healers pressing one button boring as heck? Yes but it’s the way they want it now. Complaining on the forums isn’t gonna change that. They have been very clear they want healers to focus more on healing. It is what it is. Y’all out here acting brand new like this is new news and y’all are so shocked