Openly admitting to ignoring the players

[Brandedblade]

People are unironically pretending they enjoy a level 80 job literally having a simpler rotation than a level 4 Lancer just so they can "bye, Felicia" the remaining few healer mains out of spite lmao

Because people aren't playing it to have a complex rotation, they're playing it because they want to heal and support their group and *gasp* don't mind having downtime to their skills.

So with that said *ahem* "Bye Felicia ♡"

[Rubiss]

Because people aren't playing it to have a complex rotation, they're playing it because they want to heal and support their group and *gasp* don't mind having downtime to their skills.

So with that said *ahem* "Bye Felicia ♡"

If only the downtime wasn't the majority of the encounter.

[Boizinho]

Because people aren't playing it to have a complex rotation, they're playing it because they want to heal and support their group and *gasp* don't mind having downtime to their skills.

So with that said *ahem* "Bye Felicia ♡"

If you're actually playing a healer to heal in Final Fantasy XIV, you would be extremely dissatisfied too because healers BARELY heal in this game.

You seem to share the asinine view that the developers have: people will use healing skills more if they have more healing skills, and they will use DPS skills less if they have fewer DPS skills. This could not be further from the truth. 60-80% of casts in any given encounter will be the exact same nuke spell. If you're not spending over half of your time DPSing, you are massively overhealing even in Savage.

I always get the impression from opinions like yours, who are against healers having a more complex rotation at level 80 than they do at level FOUR, that you don't want to "play a healer to heal," you want to play a healer to be the laziest person in the party.

[Deceptus]

You seem to share the asinine view that the developers have: people will use healing skills more if they have more healing skills, and they will use DPS skills less if they have fewer DPS skills. This could not be further from the truth. 60-80% of casts in any given encounter will be the exact same nuke spell. If you're not spending over half of your time DPSing, you are massively overhealing even in Savage.

Pretty much this.

We have the exact same dps options from lvl 4 to lvl 80 as of now. A 30 second dot and a filler spell we cast in between 12 times.

[Boizinho]

Pretty much this.

We have the exact same dps options from lvl 4 to lvl 80 as of now. A 30 second dot and a filler spell we cast in between 12 times.

Ironically, WHM and AST start out with 18 second duration DoTs instead of 30 seconds. So a WHM's level 80 rotation is actually more shallow than their level 4 rotation. It goes from 11111112 to 1111111111112.

[Saefinn]

Because people aren't playing it to have a complex rotation, they're playing it because they want to heal and support their group and *gasp* don't mind having downtime to their skills.

So with that said *ahem* "Bye Felicia ♡"

Hmm, I don't like the implication here, because I know you've been around these healer forums for maybe roughly the same time as me. So you will know the biggest cause of complaint. You focus on the 'complex rotation' part, but that's only a solution to a problem. Yes, there are alternative solutions, but the making more complex DPS if anything is the most sensible one. Well, I'd say a mix of two things, making DPS more complex and making sure future encounters better utilise the healer kits.

People talk about the high downtime a lot and give huge numbers - sometimes backed with tangible data on how big that is and people often put "70%" as the average for talking points because it is a realistic number.

For those who are playing healers to heal and support (which I would argue alsoincludes many of those complaining) are they having that desire satisfied if they have a big and complex healing kit they don't get full use of because they only need use a healing skill for 30% of the time?

Let's go with how bad it is in things like dungeons, I got Anamnesis Anyder in a roulette the other day on my SAM. The healer DC'd after the first pull. We didn't get a replacement until just before the last boss. We managed the majority of the dungeon with Paladin, Samurai and Summoner. I feel like if we had maybe a Paladin, Red Mage, Samurai and Summoner set up it could have been an easy run with a higher overall DPS than a 2 DPS, 1 tank, 1 healer set up. So when I see things like that I feel the role of a healer if anything is undervalued.


The alternative solution is:

Up the healing requirement. Squash that 70% down to 10 or 20%, you'll find that I'll stop complaining except maybe in solo content.

To me and I think for many others it's acceptable because hey, they get a lot more to do and have more to focus on and get to appreciate the complexity of the healing kits they've already design for us because they're thinking most about how they can use it efficiently to keep people alive. You'll still get those who'll say "it's not WoW, I liked the healing/DPS hybrid concept we had going" but ultimately the biggest complaints are resolved and the complaints from the complaining right now will be reduced.


But there are a few problems:
- Healing is now harder (which is fine for me)
- Healing is now less accessible
- People start complaining because there's healers struggling to keep up
- It'd take a monumental amount of changes for the devs, because encounters and mechanics would need to be tweaked to accommodate this. Not just future ones but existing ones.


However, if we simply make the DPS more complex (and not to DRG or SMN levels or anything ridiculous like that) then we'd find the following:
- It respects existing game design
- Historic encounters can be left alone
- It's a lot less work on the devs to implement
- Healing is just as accessible as it is now.
- Healing remains exactly as it is
- People with long downtimes get more to do.
- Most content doesn't require healer DPS, so people don't have to jump in and embrace the complexity unless they're seeking to optimise DPS.

But if we were to say, take the SCH philosophy of 2.0 for DPS, it wouldn't be a combo rotation, so no pressure to finish it when there's healing to be done, but you keep DoTs topped up and throw in various beneficial moves as and when you can, so it's not actually that complicated.

It's reasons like this that the "complex rotation" idea is pushed. It's not so much that we don't want to heal and support our group like everybody else (and in a game where rDPS is how performance is measured, DPS contribution IS supporting the group), yes, some prefer the idea of a healer/DPS hybrid and started playing this game when that was an option (like me, for example) but hey, it'd be a lot easier to concede if the downtime was a lot lower because we're still having fun.

[BooPoo]

Up the healing requirement. Squash that 70% down to 10 or 20%, you'll find that I'll stop complaining except maybe in solo content.

Lol what about Sage then. If everyone needs to heal 70% of the time but sage either:

1. Can both heal and DPS during that time, then it becomes the only choice of healers.

2. Needs to focus on spamming GCD healing abilities during 70% of the time. It invalidates half of Sage's kit but most importantly, destroys Sage's identity as a healer that heals by damaging enemies.

I don't see that as a good solution for a large group of players that want green DPS tbf.

[Saefinn]

Lol what about Sage then. If everyone needs to heal 70% of the time but sage either:

1. Can both heal and DPS during that time, then it becomes the only choice of healers.

2. Needs to focus on spamming GCD healing abilities during 70% of the time. It invalidates half of Sage's kit but most importantly, destroys Sage's identity as a healer that heals by damaging enemies.

I don't see that as a good solution for a large group of players that want green DPS tbf.

Well yes, they stripped SCH a chunk of its identity, made WHM's identity redundant and watered down AST's, so what's one more, eh? I mean, heck healers don't use much of their kit most of the time anyway, so welcome to the healer experience?

Putting he facetiousness aside, in actuality, no, you wouldn't need to change how SGE heals. Because SGE's DPS kits heals people, so in a way this is where SGE ends up just adding a layer to this, if you're DPSing an enemy to heal somebody that I would say that doesn't count as downtime and counts as healing uptime. It's when you're DPSing to DPS that it is downtime. With SGE this becomes harder to measure.


However, I already acknowledged this method doesn't respect the game's design. But I state it is 'a' solution (and in the context of the "healers heal" argument, this would better fit those desires), but I do not think that it is the right solution but it is a better solution than twiddling thumbs and may result in interesting healing play. But if you want to make healers engaging with their current design, that's how you're gonna do it. And I think if people are enjoying playing their healer job, they're more amenable to that change and compromise and less likely to complain. But there are problems that I listed with this approach (and is not an exhaustive list).

Breaking up the downtime with a variety of DPS-related moves is really the most sensible way to go. Because the only thing that will change is how many abilities are available to us in our downtime and how our rDPS is balanced.

[BooPoo]

Putting he facetiousness aside, in actuality, no, you wouldn't need to change how SGE heals. Because SGE's DPS kits heals people, so in a way this is where SGE ends up just adding a layer to this, if you're DPSing an enemy to heal somebody that I would say that doesn't count as downtime and counts as healing uptime. It's when you're DPSing to DPS that it is downtime. With SGE this becomes harder to measure.

Not meaning to disapprove of your final solution, I very much want it, but just want to add another reason against upping healer uptime to 90%:

Assuming no changes to healer kits, if healers have 90% uptime but sage is the only one that's able to consistently output damage during it (aside from Assize, Star etc. since those are like 400 pot per minute) then it becomes way too OP. Sorry but I can't fathom how SGE can exist in a world where everyone needs to be a curebot with balance in mind.

[Saefinn]

Not meaning to disapprove of your final solution, I very much want it, but just want to add another reason against upping healer uptime to 90%:

Assuming no changes to healer kits, if healers have 90% uptime but sage is the only one that's able to consistently output damage during it (aside from Assize, Star etc. since those are like 400 pot per minute) then it becomes way too OP. Sorry but I can't fathom how SGE can exist in a world where everyone needs to be a curebot with balance in mind.

That's fair and something I did not consider, because with that configuration SGE would have a higher rDPS and people would just pick SGE. So it is possible then if they took this approach then they would either have to add damage to more healing spells on other jobs or take away that part of SGE and knowing their track record it'd be the latter rather than the former. The former, however, would not be so bad, but given the solution I was describing was with the "healers heal not DPS" crowd in mind and the steps that would require healers to be engaging with the current design then it'd be the latter option it'd follow.

Which of course doesn't work with those who're on the side of healer/DPS hybrid. Though I feel ultimately the reason the healer/DPS hybrid approach is the best solution is because the game was designed to favour that approach, which makes sense because it was how healers were designed originally. And it is further evidenced by the fact we have huge downtimes of spamming 1 or 2 buttons. Hence it would be a lot of work to satisfy the "healers heal and are not DPS" camp, because although it looks like it on paper, how healers are designed don't favour that mentality either because it's not just healer design that controls this.

It's correct that they manage to satisfy people that come for the story and music, or FF themes. But they like to deliberately excuse job and role design decisions around those players in mind. Holding back players because others cannot manage to accomplish the same results is a terrible idea. One man's frustration can make up for a thousand, and the silent majority do not set trends. As I have said, all of these choices are made by the developers themselves.

They should introduce optional difficulties. If most players are unable to play at an efficent pace, it makes sense to accommodate them this way. If they are bothered by pressing more than 1-2 buttons, I don't see what's hard by giving them the option to do that. I just don't want to be treated the same way honestly.

I mean, if you're in a dungeon and your healer is spamming Glare or Holy when there's a bigger range of options available, how many people in that party are going o complain about that healer's performance? I reckon maybe a small handful. Because how many people sit there and criticise how well their DRG or their NIN or their MNK are performing? Or any of the tanks for that matter, if you don't see PLD use their full DPS kit do we see people complain? And PLD has a few facets to their DPS kit but they can still perform well enough on their base kit.

I feel like the people who'd be most affected are those at the higher end trying to maximise their own DPS contribution, so it's extra steps for them, I'd argue those at that higher level of play are in a position where they can handle it, especially if we take the kind of approach we had with SCH where your skills are worked gradually and between heals and not a combo like DRG or MNK or to the same level of complexity. Or if it's like SGE where there is a dual purpose of healing and DPS in their spells. I get some might not want to do that, but I'd wager they'd still at least enjoy the role and if we're looking for a happy medium, there's compromises somewhere on each level (even on mine)