Another Yoshi interview: Healer DPS, Sage, Scholar, etc (MTQ)

[AFuzzyMu11in]

It's the usual problem. He doesn't play a healer, neither does the class design team. They're looking at it from the perspective of a new sprout healer. It's frustrating to see how this impacts healer design over and over again, when in all other areas the dev team have a philosophy that it's important to play the game they make and even play other games for inspiration. Yoshida even discussed how other games can feel like the developers don't even play their own game and how they strive to avoid that. ...Except healers for some reason. I don't get it.

But for the record I agree with him. Healing should stay as it is. It’s incredibly hard as it is right now for encoutners trials em savage etc

[GrimGale]

But for the record I agree with him. Healing should stay as it is. It’s incredibly hard as it is right now for encoutners trials em savage etc

The healing part isn't really that complicated, especially if you just focus on healing and forgo dealing damage or mantaining your dots. You have very strong tools for both AoE healing and movement.

What might get a bit more dicey is balancing dealing damage and healing for a new healer. Fair enough, but that aspect is not affected by added complexity beyond the nuke and the dot. Even then you can still just use your healing spells.

But of course, for a player that has mastered the healing part, there is little recourse but to focus on the balancing act so adding more complexity to the non-healing parts of the kit is the way to go. Doing so doesn't change the healing part. It doesn't affect the people who just want to focus on healing and it doesn't raise the skill floor of the jobs.

This is something the Devs seem to fail to see.

[Aword3213]

The healing part isn't really that complicated, especially if you just focus on healing and forgo dealing damage or mantaining your dots. You have very strong tools for both AoE healing and movement.

What might get a bit more dicey is balancing dealing damage and healing for a new healer. Fair enough, but that aspect is not affected by added complexity beyond the nuke and the dot. Even then you can still just use your healing spells.

But of course, for a player that has mastered the healing part, there is little recourse but to focus on the balancing act so adding more complexity to the non-healing parts of the kit is the way to go. Doing so doesn't change the healing part. It doesn't affect the people who just want to focus on healing and it doesn't raise the skill floor of the jobs.

This is something the Devs seem to fail to see.

Does adding more offensive options for healers really raise no skill floor?

More dps options for healers does not mean healers can exceed the maximum dps contribution set by the developers. By giving healers more dps options, SE has to lower the potency of our current offensive spells in order to maintain the current proportion of dps contribution from healers. If the current healers have no problem reaching the maxium dps contribution, they might difficulties meeting the same standard with those new,yet lowered, offensive tools.

I know many top tier healers around here may have no problem contributing the same proportion of dps, but mediocre healers, the majority of the raiding player base, may no longer be able to dish out steady dps due to complexity.

[rewd]

Does adding more offensive options for healers really raise no skill floor?

More dps options for healers does not mean healers can exceed the maximum dps contribution set by the developers. By giving healers more dps options, SE has to lower the potency of our current offensive spells in order to maintain the current proportion of dps contribution from healers. If the current healers have no problem reaching the maxium dps contribution, they might difficulties meeting the same standard with those new,yet lowered, offensive tools.

I know many top tier healers around here may have no problem contributing the same proportion of dps, but mediocre healers, the majority of the raiding player base, may no longer be able to dish out steady dps due to complexity.

Hard content should be, by definition, hard. If a healer player can't keep up with a 123 DPS combo, then they should get better at it. DPS and tanks get better at their rotations in order to clear Extreme and Savage, why should healers be simplified?

Normal mode content doesn't require healers to DPS, so a healbot WHM that ignores Glare will still be able to clear any normal content by ignoring Glare 1, Glare 2 and Glare 3. If they want to do hard content, they need to get better or just forget about hard content, which is supposed to challenge you.

[GrimGale]

More dps options for healers does not mean healers can exceed the maximum dps contribution set by the developers.

I think better healers should be able to exceed said maximum. Of course you should be rewarded for pushing that heal-damage (Or in AST case buff management) balance to the very edge if you're experienced. We should see more experienced healers perform better than less experienced ones. I don't think devs should cap healer damage to the same level as the bare minimum by removing skills and skill expression from more experienced healers.

Of course there is going to be a cap for healer damage at some point. There is a cap on DPS job damage after all. But the potential breath of DPS contribution between the floor and the ceiling should be wide enough to encourage much more growth.

[Risvertasashi]

Of course there is going to be a cap for healer damage at some point. There is a cap on DPS job damage after all. But the potential breath of DPS contribution between the floor and the ceiling should be wide enough to encourage much more growth.

If you dig into FF logs, you'll find healers already have the widest variance (that is, the biggest gap between skill floor and skill ceiling) of DPS compared to any role/other classes.

So, this is already the case.

[Aword3213]

I think better healers should be able to exceed said maximum.

What if current top tier healers already exceeded maximum?

If course you should be rewarded for pushing that heal-damage (Or in AST case buff management) balance to the very edge if you're experienced. We should see more experienced healers perform better than less experienced ones. I don't think devs should cap healer damage to the same level as the bare minimum by removing skills and skill expression from more experienced healers.

Of course there is going to be a cap for healer damage at some point. There is a cap on DPS job damage after all. But the potential breath of DPS contribution between the floor and the ceiling should be wide enough to encourage much more growth.

But to say there's no skill ceilling regarding current healers is hyperbole. The difference between top tier healers and low teir healers is based on the number of offensive GCDs cast, and how much they heal while dealing damage. Healers at the lower end may have high HPS, but low damage contribution. Mediocre healers may be able to deal high dps, but at the cost of low healing output. Top tier healers can excel at both healing and damage. The skill floor and skill ceiling do exist. Maybe not in the way you like it, but they exist.

[HappyHubris]

But for the record I agree with him. Healing should stay as it is. It’s incredibly hard as it is right now for encoutners trials em savage etc

Hard content is meant to be hard and doesn't need to be cleared by every player. Savage raids are allowed to have a skill floor.