It's time to hire dedicated Tank an Healer devs!

[Deveryn]

And that's absolutely fine for casual healers. Veteran healers realize that healing is not intensive in this game and you'll easily spend 60% or more (a lot more) of your GCDs casting damage if you are playing halfway decently.

Because every role should be doing SOMETHING beneficial every single GCD they can. For healers, when there's nothing to heal, that means they're either:

1) Mitigating damage
2) Doing damage.

All we are asking for is that damage to be meaningful and fun. Not 2 damage buttons from lvl 4 to lvl 90 like it is currently.

And the solutions aren't entirely complicated. Easy solutions would be:

Scholar: Give back the Quickened Aetherflow trait. This ENCOURAGED them to use their aetherflow stacks.

White Mage: Change the FreeCure trait from Cure1 (it's a trap currently) to their GCD filler spell Stone / Glare.

AST: Give a Slow to Gravity or have Malefic lower the CD of ED by a second or two per cast.

AST: Spamming slow will do nothing but make mobs immune in a short time rendering arm's length useless. It sounds like you want ED to be some kind of gauge skill because playing around with recast timers like that is not something they do. This is what they've already done with Sage, where certain actions lead to others. Perhaps after 6.0, they'll start looking in that direction for the other healers.

Maybe we should wait and see how sage plays out as well as all the other healer changes.

[CrimsonGunner]

AST: Spamming slow will do nothing but make mobs immune in a short time rendering arm's length useless. It sounds like you want ED to be some kind of gauge skill because playing around with recast timers like that is not something they do. This is what they've already done with Sage, where certain actions lead to others. Perhaps after 6.0, they'll start looking in that direction for the other healers.

Maybe we should wait and see how sage plays out as well as all the other healer changes.

and then you will have a repeat of the mess that happened in 5.0 for ast and sch

[Deveryn]

and then you will have a repeat of the mess that happened in 5.0 for ast and sch

This really means nothing to me as I started after that. I've played MMOs for many years and the one big problem is communication from the players, not just in saying what they'd like, but listening and understanding what the devs communicate as far as limitations. A lot of what I see in this thread is either vague, in need of polish or just moot because 6.0 is likely to bring about these changes.

[StriderShinryu]

This really means nothing to me as I started after that. I've played MMOs for many years and the one big problem is communication from the players, not just in saying what they'd like, but listening and understanding what the devs communicate as far as limitations. A lot of what I see in this thread is either vague, in need of polish or just moot because 6.0 is likely to bring about these changes.

So much this. There's a ton of armchair game dev going around when it comes to MMO players, and often the longer the player has played the game the more certain they are they that they know exactly how to fix the problems they perceive, without realizing that the developers have likely already thought of that and have chosen not to implement it for one reason or another (be it cost, resources, technical, staffing, intended impact, lack of player desire, etc.).

The other issue is that most suggestions are made from a personal bubble. There's an immediate assumption that "Well, I want this so..." or "Well, the people I hang around with want this so..." by players who have no access to analytics or even in some cases no interest or care for the wider community. MMOs by their very nature need to service as many people as possible. FF14 has recently passed 24 million accounts and, while it's absolutely true that not all 24 million are current, active players of the game, there are still a ton of people playing the game, and every single one of them would like something a little different even in cases where they do agree on the broad strokes. If the developers don't implement your chosen changes, it may well be that your chosen changes just don't fit into the game they are making because those changes are deemed to be against what works for the larger majority.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

Consider it this way:

Let's say 6.0 lands, and Reaper has had a complete rework again for release.

It's now got a single GCD nuke and a GCD instant 30 second dot from the word go, a 2 minute self haste buff at level 30, a 30 second instant oGCD at 56, and finally a big nuke that needs to be charged during downtime at 74.

That's it. That's it's entire kit to grind through solo MSQ content with.

SE would get torn a new hole to breath through if they dropped the class like that. And yet that's precisely what healers have been reduced to in solo content now. Watch a commentary free stream of a healer playing at level 10 or level 80 and the gameplay is far too similar. It truly boggles my mind that people consider this to be acceptable irrespective of what angle you are coming at this game. Giving healers a more compelling gameplay loop in downtime isn't a raider centric thing by any stretch. It's every bit as bad for the newer casual players, it's just that they haven't gotten bored of it yet (and ironically, healing levelling dungeons whilst being under geared is arguably the most enjoyable and challenging healing content pre Extreme and Savage).

It's lazy design from a team that has demonstrated that it is capable of so much more.

As far as the solution goes. Honestly, SE have backed themselves into a monumental corner at this stage and unless they've taken steps to address the potency of our healing kits vs our HP pools with this stat squish, I'm honestly not sure they'll ever dig themselves out of this mess until the inevitable overhaul towards the end of the game's life whenever that may be.

You are correct about the success though, I suspect that SE do indeed see the current overall strategy as being a net gain even if it does equate to having the core gameplay loop treading the same water since 3.4. The influx of new players handily outweighs the burnout of jaded veterans.

[Deceptus]

Consider it this way:

Let's say 6.0 lands, and Reaper has had a complete rework again for release.

It's now got a single GCD nuke and a GCD instant 30 second dot from the word go, a 2 minute self haste buff at level 30, a 30 second instant oGCD at 56, and finally a big nuke that needs to be charged during downtime at 74.

That's it. That's it's entire kit to grind through solo MSQ content with.

As someone so poignantly said in my Healer Double Standard post a few years ago:

Imagine if Tanks had a single 30 second dot and a single button for Aggro and the rest of their tools were defensive CD's. The tanks would Riot.

That's exactly what healers are dealing with right now.

[Melorie]

This really means nothing to me as I started after that. I've played MMOs for many years and the one big problem is communication from the players, not just in saying what they'd like, but listening and understanding what the devs communicate as far as limitations. A lot of what I see in this thread is either vague, in need of polish or just moot because 6.0 is likely to bring about these changes.

If you're a long-time player though, and specially a healer main, you already heard the "just wait for the expac drop" a few times, just to be disappointed over and over again. Then you hear "oh no, just wait for x.1!", after that it's "they'll fix next expac". So please, if you don't follow the discussion of this community over the years, I would get off your high horse. Many people here have their own reason to be a bit over-the-edge regarding healer issues.

I understand wanting tanking and healing to be more interesting...but why more complex?

I think that would be better suited for content, not Jobs.
Give tanks more responsibility, make healing more of an important or urgent matter. Again i can get behind making the jobs more interesting to play, but i think the bigger issue is the battle content

I also think that changing encounter design would be one way to deal with this - but this would only make these changes impactful on the newest content. What about the rest of the game? Why do I have to press one button forever while doing 60, 70 and 80 content? If you don't touch the job class itself, the people that don't actively prog or try extremes at launch will be left with spamming one button. The casual community isn't made of only people with a total lack of interest in getting better and feeling engaged by the combat of the game. Besides, changing encounter design is way harder than giving healers something to do, specially considering that in 1.x/2.x and even 3.x they had this.

Anyway, this discussion is really old and you had a lot of suggestions all over the place - more dps skills, mobs that hit harder, more "support" skills such as buffs/debuffs... And yet, here we are. Spamming glare.

[Jeeqbit]

So much this. There's a ton of armchair game dev going around when it comes to MMO players, and often the longer the player has played the game the more certain they are they that they know exactly how to fix the problems they perceive, without realizing that the developers have likely already thought of that and have chosen not to implement it for one reason or another (be it cost, resources, technical, staffing, intended impact, lack of player desire, etc.).

Exactly and I have watched almost all the interviews yoshi-p did in the media tour and he explained the reasoning including that some healers prefer just to heal and he doesn't want to pressure them, but he also agreed that sage will offer something for healers that want to DPS. More to do on healers would be nice like how astrologian is, but I do find a strange joy in spamming broil.

In the live letter he acknowledged some people want 3.0 class complexity but said they are keeping it in the direction 5.0 went because it has made them playable by a lot more people. When the classes are easier the mechanics can be harder too.

[Sebazy]

Exactly and I have watched almost all the interviews yoshi-p did in the media tour and he explained the reasoning including that some healers prefer just to heal and he doesn't want to pressure them, but he also agreed that sage will offer something for healers that want to DPS. More to do on healers would be nice like how astrologian is, but I do find a strange joy in spamming broil.

In the live letter he acknowledged some people want 3.0 class complexity but said they are keeping it in the direction 5.0 went because it has made them playable by a lot more people. When the classes are easier the mechanics can be harder too.

That's a very fair stance and I'm actually onside with that.

The ideal solution is where the different jobs within the role should be used to offer a choice of truly distinct play styles. The issue with that is that it requires a lot of tuning and testing to get the balance right to avoid a repeat of AST in 3.0 or WHM in 3.4/5. Arguably more time than SE are willing to commit to the role unfortunately