A summary of healer issues

[Irenia]

Games are business and what gets most people satisfied is king aka balance. Adding more jobs is not directly related to imbalance. GNB is a new job but that's finely balanced. The dmg dealt is roughly the same as the dmg of the other tank jobs so GNB is only adding variety to the tank class.

What I enjoy is having relevant DPS as a healer and SE is probably going to continue going in that direction. I don't like healing that much but I like the option of having access to heals.

You know... you just contradicted yourself.

Imagine the healers were rebalanced so that none of them could contribute an appreciable amount of damage in raids, yet have the same amount of downtime as they do now. Just give the people who don't like dealing damage everything they want in this regard. They would be balanced, yes, but by your own admission, you would not like this.

Therefore, Balance is not king. Something else is.

I'm not saying that balance isn't important. But it comes into play later, once a good foundation is set. Because while balance does nothing on its own, unbalance can kill enthusiasm, generally through community pressure in this game. But balancing without considering what brought people to your content in the first place can do the same.

[Roeshel]

You know... you just contradicted yourself.

Imagine the healers were rebalanced so that none of them could contribute an appreciable amount of damage in raids, yet have the same amount of downtime as they do now. Just give the people who don't like dealing damage everything they want in this regard. They would be balanced, yes, but by your own admission, you would not like this.

Therefore, Balance is not king. Something else is.

That's not balance. This is making one class equally useless in the game. Uselessness is not something balancing can bring. This is also the main reason why a healer's total DPS output is not more than that of an actual DPS job. This would have made DPS jobs completely useless, can't say that I don't prefer it that way, but it is unrealistic. It can only become a possibility when DPS jobs become something more than a class that deals damage. Currently, there is nothing that makes a DPS job valuable other than DPS. The only difference between a ranged melee and magical DPS is LB and aesthetics. Rotation is something you learn by heart and unlike healers, even if something goes wrong with your party members, you keep on DPS-ing because you have nothing else to do. The exception from this rule is the SMN because they can raise and the RDM because they can raise and heal.

[Irenia]

That's not balance. This is making one class equally useless in the game.

Exactly. Equally useless, therefore balanced.

It seems that we are using different definitions of "balance". I have a rather strict one, and it goes like this. Decide what quality you want to measure, and what objects you want to measure. Measure them, and compare the difference(s). The less of a difference there is, the more balanced they are in that respect. This entire time I was measuring "DPS" between "healer jobs". If the healer jobs all did 20 dps, that would be balanced. If they all did 3000 dps, that would also be balanced.

As such, let me clarify and repeat that dps balance amongst healers (or tanks, or dps) is important, but does not bring value on its own. You mention jobs being useful, which does bring value. Amusingly, this is done right now by making sure damage bewteen healers, tanks, and dps are unbalanced in favor of the DPS, which you agree is a good thing. This imbalance is a choice made when designing the jobs, and these conscious choices make all the difference in the world. Things like "usefulness" are a bit nebulous though; I'd argue that role usefulness is unbalanced in favor of Tanks at the moment.

Still, regardless of balance or imbalance, what's most important is how players feel about a job. Usefulness is a part of it, yes, but so are other intangibles like aminations, rotations, glamour, story, so on, and so on. That was what I was trying to impart - there are many things that go into this, and not one of those things are king. Enjoyment, or rather, the combination of it all is king. And the thing is, you can't exactly measure that, since each person values things differently.

You mentioned earlier that Balance brings in the business. I believe certain imbalances hurts business, like dps within the healer role. But what brings in the business in the first place has little to do how jobs stack up against each other.