SE FINALLY ANSWERED THE HEALERS COMMUNITY LONG ANSWERED QUESTION

[Saefinn]

Some jobs were able to deal with that enmity system far better than others, like pulling anything as a WAR instead of PLD because they could follow up their Tomohawk with an Equilibrium and maintain aggro just doing their dps combo with natural ease. NIN was a very popular class for fights with enmity resets due to them being able to shirk their own enmity onto the tanks and smokescreen the healers so that they don't get shanked after casting a cure III or Indom and such. (Hello God Kefka)
I do recall in some cases as a dps you could pop your 'Quelling Strikes/Diversion' buffs to mitigate your enmity generation and still end up ripping threat in the downtime between your Quelling Strikes/Diversion.

I did really like how you could play around things such as in the second part of Deltascape V4S in a composition with a PLD, you could ignore some of the enmity resets and simply cover the person that's taking the Aero III Tankbuster after that followed shortly after an Almagest. (It was a white mage the majority of the time) But if you lacked that, people would still really want a NIN on the team because it made the enmity battle so much more easier for the tanks. And then there's the whole stuff at lower levels because SAM + RDM still hit like trucks, I recall they even touched the enmity modifiers a few times to try to resolve that issue.

Even with this enmity simplification, It's surprising how often I've seen DPS constantly get murdered via a dual Tankbuster because the OT wasn't 2nd Aggro in places like E4S/E12S.

I honestly don't know how they would be able to make enmity management more dynamic in its current state, but you do make a good point about the hall of the novice... Is it mandatory to go through the hall of novice? I just vaguely recall doing it when I was new because it gave you free gear or something along those lines.

All good points.

And with Hall of the Novice, it's not mandatory but there is that gear incentive, the main one being the EXP rings, I'm an RPer who has altitis, so on new characters I have ploughed through Hall of the Novice because the EXP ring is worth it.

I feel like it should work because when I started I think the way the game was laid out was a good learning tool because at level 10 you unlock guild hests, which is like your first flavour of grouping up and you kind learned the basic of a party set up this way and at level 15 you got Satasha, which of course was very forgiving as a learning dungeon and the difficult of content levelled with you as did you skills and they would have fights that offered DPS, tanking and healing checks. Ifrit felt like an early DPS check, Titan felt like an early healer & DPS check and Garuda felt like an early tank check (we even used to use the tank LB). So by the time you were level 50 you had a good idea of the game's mechanics and how to play your role to then progress gradually into the higher content. This was something I praised the game for. Whilst we still have all that content the game isn't balanced to give that benefit anymore.. And you're definitely not going to get this benefit if you use a jump potion. When you use a jump potion you get a prompt for Hall of the Novice anyway.

So I think especially now we have better NPC AI's this could be expanded on into the Hall of the Novice. Heck, I even had suggested the idea of a log as well (kinda like Blue Mage has) where you it gives you dungeons to gradually queue for that help you put different things into practice with a real group. I know some might view it as a bit of handholding, but I think if you're trying to make a game accessible, it's a tool to help people self-improve without the trail-by-fire.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

Some jobs were able to deal with that enmity system far better than others, like pulling anything as a WAR instead of PLD because they could follow up their Tomohawk with an Equilibrium and maintain aggro just doing their dps combo with natural ease. NIN was a very popular class for fights with enmity resets due to them being able to shirk their own enmity onto the tanks and smokescreen the healers so that they don't get shanked after casting a cure III or Indom and such. (Hello God Kefka)
I do recall in some cases as a dps you could pop your 'Quelling Strikes/Diversion' buffs to mitigate your enmity generation and still end up ripping threat in the downtime between your Quelling Strikes/Diversion.

I did really like how you could play around things such as in the second part of Deltascape V4S in a composition with a PLD, you could ignore some of the enmity resets and simply cover the person that's taking the Aero III Tankbuster after that followed shortly after an Almagest. (It was a white mage the majority of the time) But if you lacked that, people would still really want a NIN on the team because it made the enmity battle so much more easier for the tanks. And then there's the whole stuff at lower levels because SAM + RDM still hit like trucks, I recall they even touched the enmity modifiers a few times to try to resolve that issue.

Even with this enmity simplification, It's surprising how often I've seen DPS constantly get murdered via a dual Tankbuster because the OT wasn't 2nd Aggro in places like E4S/E12S.

I honestly don't know how they would be able to make enmity management more dynamic in its current state, but you do make a good point about the hall of the novice... Is it mandatory to go through the hall of novice? I just vaguely recall doing it when I was new because it gave you free gear or something along those lines.

See this right here is why I hated enmity back when quelling strikes was a thing, I almost quit many times behind it. I play my job to do damage and do my role, if I have to manage multiple other aspects, like a set big brain rotation, emnity, boss mechanics, pre shielding etc that’s a fucking “JOB” and not a fun experience of playing a game where I play a class/job. I shouldn’t be forced to put hard work into the game for content that isn’t ultimates imo. Savage sure some hours are fine but when you start talking about all this management shit , that’s for players who like that not for the majority who finds that meaningless and just annoying.

[Sqwall]

We're basically where MNK was an expansion or two ago.

Try Heavensward onward....MNK's have been dealing with this for years.

At least healers can do something right....heal.

The fact that healers are complaining about DPS is beyond me. That should be an after thought. I didn't pick a healer to DPS. There are like 12 other jobs that do that.

DPS is something you do when your done topping off everyone's HP, the downtime portions.

I honestly think the DPS could be squashed rather quickly if enemies and bosses hit WAY harder. Then healers are FORCED to heal, and not worry so much about DPS. You know the game has it wrong when I don't feel anxiety in keeping party members alive, but that I let combust fall off.

Healers need to sweat more in keeping people alive.

[Truen]

Once again fantastic post gem.

Yeah, only we've been listening to things like that for 2 years and none of she's talking about ever materializes. We're still bored to tears with a healing kit that's too powerful and a dps spell that's boring as Hell. Fact is, compared to what we've seen in the past, the SCH sucks and it's Yoshi's fault.

[Deceptus]

See this right here is why I hated enmity back when quelling strikes was a thing, I almost quit many times behind it. I play my job to do damage and do my role, if I have to manage multiple other aspects, like a set big brain rotation, emnity, boss mechanics, pre shielding etc that’s a fucking “JOB” and not a fun experience of playing a game where I play a class/job. I shouldn’t be forced to put hard work into the game for content that isn’t ultimates imo. Savage sure some hours are fine but when you start talking about all this management shit , that’s for players who like that not for the majority who finds that meaningless and just annoying.

If hitting a single button to make other people's jobs just a smidgeon easier is what almost caused you to quit that says a lot about you. You're clearly more focused on yourself than the group.

[Saefinn]

Try Heavensward onward....MNK's have been dealing with this for years.

At least healers can do something right....heal.

The fact that healers are complaining about DPS is beyond me. That should be an after thought. I didn't pick a healer to DPS. There are like 12 other jobs that do that.

DPS is something you do when your done topping off everyone's HP, the downtime portions.

I honestly think the DPS could be squashed rather quickly if enemies and bosses hit WAY harder. Then healers are FORCED to heal, and not worry so much about DPS. You know the game has it wrong when I don't feel anxiety in keeping party members alive, but that I let combust fall off.

Healers need to sweat more in keeping people alive.

I know the problem for MNK's was longer, but in terms of where we are now in terms of the devs addressing this, I think it's comparable to one or two expansions ago for MNK. And yes, healers can heal, but what do we do for the remaining 70% of our time?

And MNK is doing something right too. Sure there's always been problems with MNK and some quite glaring ones but my friend still cleared Ultimate on it, he's still Savage raiding on it and so are other MNKs. I don't think this consolation of "at least healers can do something right" really works because all jobs do something right, none of them are out right unplayable nor are any unviable for any content. Which of course doesn't mean there aren't big problems. It doesn't belittle MNK's problems, nor does it belittle any others.

And some of these complaints we have existed for WHM for longer and I think do go back as far as HW too. WHM's was a trickle, for SCH and AST it was sudden. Though symptoms of started to appear in SB.

As for why healers are complaining about DPS complexity, it's because it's how our jobs were designed, we liked it, they took it away and never compensated for it and we're left with this big hole of boredom of monotony.

We figure the best and safest option is to fill that hole with more DPS options because we are filling it with DPS anyway, your performance is measured by DPS contribution and whilst I think many of us are fine with the idea of healing itself being more intensive, the devs also want the role to be more accessible (and I think that's fair enough) and making healing too intensive would be an issue for those on the lower skill levels and I think the level of intensity to keep experienced healers engaged might still be too much for the lower end.

So DPS can present a low skill floor and high skill ceiling because DPS is secondary and not a necessity and therefore a lower skilled healer can focus on their heals. It means I can queue up for roulettes and not spam Broil for the vast majority of it because I have other stuff to break it up. And given there is a secondary solution here, if I queue for an EX or Savage fight then I'm probably going to heal a lot more (especially if they tune it better for healers).

And unless they do what you've said they should do, then we're gonna be bored. And though Yoshi P has just said they're focusing on higher intensity healing he did say it's their focus 5.x onwards and we've not seen it in 5.x and we're skeptical about seeing it in 6.x, my hope on it is riding on the stat squish, but I'm not raising my expectations until I experience it.

[Aword3213]

So DPS can present a low skill floor and high skill ceiling because DPS is secondary and not a necessity and therefore a lower skilled healer can focus on their heals. It means I can queue up for roulettes and not spam Broil for the vast majority of it because I have other stuff to break it up. And given there is a secondary solution here, if I queue for an EX or Savage fight then I'm probably going to heal a lot more (especially if they tune it better for healers).

And unless they do what you've said they should do, then we're gonna be bored. And though Yoshi P has just said they're focusing on higher intensity healing he did say it's their focus 5.x onwards and we've not seen it in 5.x and we're skeptical about seeing it in 6.x, my hope on it is riding on the stat squish, but I'm not raising my expectations until I experience it.

Isn't this is already the case in terms of variances in skill floor and skill ceilling? In fflogs, healers as a role already has wide spectrum of it. The gap between skill floor and skill ceiling of healers are huge compared to other roles and jobs.

I don't understand why keep pushing the idea that adding more dps options wouldn't affect the skill floor or the players on the lower end when,in fact, it would. There are arrays of healers exist between Sylphies and top tier healers. Some healers want to able to contribute high damage, but are limited by their groups or the skills of their own. With current 1 button spam, they can at least dish out steady dps and thus increasing their contribution little by little. Adding more offensive options will surely affect them. Those healers at the lower end might be able to handle healing just fine, and still want to contribute more in terms of their own personal dps. Perhaps they have already helped their team pass the enrage with teeny tiny dps they squeenzed out. I'm all for giving healers more offensive tools, but I honesty believe it will affect more people within the healer community in more ways than we expect.

Despite the fact that developers want healers to be accessible, they are not shy from the idea of increasing healing requirement. They talked about adding more healing intensive gameplay before, and they talked about it once again during media tour. It seems to me they would rather raise the skill floor in terms of healing than in terms of damage contribution. Yes, they failed to achieve that in 5.x. I was very disappointed, too. What we will get in EW are yet to see. However, their design philosophy on healers has since changed, and we already knew that the glory days of complex healers won't be coming back. We learned this during media tour. Since we all want healers to be engaging, instead of sending the request that will surely be denied, maybe try asking for things that go along well with their design choice?

[Sqwall]

I know the problem for MNK's was longer, but in terms of where we are now in terms of the devs addressing this, I think it's comparable to one or two expansions ago for MNK. And yes, healers can heal, but what do we do for the remaining 70% of our time?

And MNK is doing something right too. Sure there's always been problems with MNK and some quite glaring ones but my friend still cleared Ultimate on it, he's still Savage raiding on it and so are other MNKs. I don't think this consolation of "at least healers can do something right" really works because all jobs do something right, none of them are out right unplayable nor are any unviable for any content. Which of course doesn't mean there aren't big problems. It doesn't belittle MNK's problems, nor does it belittle any others.

Then I suppose the real question is this.

What do you want healers to do?

The general consensus is heal minor boo boo's until satisfactory, and then back to glare/malefic spam. To me that's boring, and not really what I signed up for when healing. I signed up to heal and keep the party/raid alive.

I have come to the realization that healing in this game has become it's own worst enemy. The dev's want healing to be accessible to encourage people to heal, but when the skill for healing is SOOOO low, healing is trivial. Boring. So the dev's gave us a simple damage rotation.

Now the stigma behind healers is basically this. If your standing around not healing, you're bringing the team done. Therefore you MUST DPS...or gtfo.

Again I find spamming malefic and the occasional combust just boring as hell. So to increase healing I'm ASKING for tanks to get hit harder, prey markers to nearly wipe out a DPS. MORE raid wide AOE's. Give healers something to do other then hit 1 button. Otherwise, we are going to see a draught of healers...which we did in Shadowbringers, and I for one HATED queuing for anything as a healer because I knew I would just be spamming Gravity/malefic as healing is so stupid face roll easy.

No challenge for me. And my personal best DPS as a healer is a VERY shallow trophy to earn. DPS should not be a reward for good healing. Keeping a tank from dying because the boss hit's like a truck NO MATTER the ilevel should be a reward.

It's time for main healer/off healer style gameplay imo.

1 healer for the MT
and the off healer takes care of the group.

If the off healer likes to DPS fine. I'll be MT healer and focus only on that, with good MP regen and cooldowns.

[Saefinn]

Then I suppose the real question is this.

What do you want healers to do?

The general consensus is heal minor boo boo's until satisfactory, and then back to glare/malefic spam. To me that's boring, and not really what I signed up for when healing. I signed up to heal and keep the party/raid alive.

I have come to the realization that healing in this game has become it's own worst enemy. The dev's want healing to be accessible to encourage people to heal, but when the skill for healing is SOOOO low, healing is trivial. Boring. So the dev's gave us a simple damage rotation.

Now the stigma behind healers is basically this. If your standing around not healing, you're bringing the team done. Therefore you MUST DPS...or gtfo.

Again I find spamming malefic and the occasional combust just boring as hell. So to increase healing I'm ASKING for tanks to get hit harder, prey markers to nearly wipe out a DPS. MORE raid wide AOE's. Give healers something to do other then hit 1 button. Otherwise, we are going to see a draught of healers...which we did in Shadowbringers, and I for one HATED queuing for anything as a healer because I knew I would just be spamming Gravity/malefic as healing is so stupid face roll easy.

No challenge for me. And my personal best DPS as a healer is a VERY shallow trophy to earn. DPS should not be a reward for good healing. Keeping a tank from dying because the boss hit's like a truck NO MATTER the ilevel should be a reward.

It's time for main healer/off healer style gameplay imo.

1 healer for the MT
and the off healer takes care of the group.

If the off healer likes to DPS fine. I'll be MT healer and focus only on that, with good MP regen and cooldowns.

I am not so sure the general consensus is to heal minor boo boo's until satisfactory and back to glare/malefic/broil spam, it's just what we've got, especially if you're trying to be efficient at playing your job, which is usually the end goal in learning a job.

But I don't think it's just a question of what I want but also what I am willing to compromise, but I know what I want is very unlikely to happen and may end up a cause for complaint, but what I am willing to compromise on is more realistic (in the sense this is compatible with the devs' stated direction).

But I do fall into the category of people who find the healer/DPS concept to be interest, because I enjoy juggling both and I mean not a Broil spam.

I came from an FFXI SCH main, which was effectively a WHM and BLM hybrid and the way I used to heal was have a balance between healing, weather spells and helix spells (because there were more economical and quicker to cast than nukes).


I took on a SCH main here back in 2.0 and once I learned to play it well enough I started weaving in DPS abilities and I loved it. Sure first and foremost I am here to heal but I like stuff that's technical and versatile and gives me variety. And SCH appealed to that because it was a part of its identity as a 'tactician'. And I loved (and still love) the healing aspect of SCH, it is different to other healing jobs/classes I've played in other games and it was cool.

And I also am one of those people who liked Cleric Stance because of its risk/reward aspect (though it was clunky, which I can totally get)

However, where I am willing to compromise is keep me busy and don't make my experience monotonous. So talking of still liking SCH's healing kit, so I don't mind if I end up getting to use the full use of my kit as a healer because most of the time I don't get to on SCH.

[Sqwall]

I am not so sure the general consensus is to heal minor boo boo's until satisfactory and back to glare/malefic/broil spam, it's just what we've got, especially if you're trying to be efficient at playing your job, which is usually the end goal in learning a job.

But I don't think it's just a question of what I want but also what I am willing to compromise, but I know what I want is very unlikely to happen and may end up a cause for complaint, but what I am willing to compromise on is more realistic (in the sense this is compatible with the devs' stated direction).

But I do fall into the category of people who find the healer/DPS concept to be interest, because I enjoy juggling both and I mean not a Broil spam.

I came from an FFXI SCH main, which was effectively a WHM and BLM hybrid and the way I used to heal was have a balance between healing, weather spells and helix spells (because there were more economical and quicker to cast than nukes).


I took on a SCH main here back in 2.0 and once I learned to play it well enough I started weaving in DPS abilities and I loved it. Sure first and foremost I am here to heal but I like stuff that's technical and versatile and gives me variety. And SCH appealed to that because it was a part of its identity as a 'tactician'. And I loved (and still love) the healing aspect of SCH, it is different to other healing jobs/classes I've played in other games and it was cool.

And I also am one of those people who liked Cleric Stance because of its risk/reward aspect (though it was clunky, which I can totally get)

However, where I am willing to compromise is keep me busy and don't make my experience monotonous. So talking of still liking SCH's healing kit, so I don't mind if I end up getting to use the full use of my kit as a healer because most of the time I don't get to on SCH.

Then it seems SGE is the new meta healer for those that want to DPS and heal effectively.

From what I can tell is SGE is nearly completely dependent on healing via damage skills/spells. And healing your "dance partner". This is quite literally the best of both worlds. Your not sacrificing personal DPS with having to switch gears to heal. It's all in one. The pure healers seem to have taken the other route of downshifting to DPS and then upshift to heal.

Will I attempt SGE...maybe. I'm not keen on shield/barrier healing as I prefer the pure healing style. AST will be my go to healer, but I will forever hate malefic spam. It was fun when it became the norm...now it's just boring as hell to spam 1 spell.

SGE mostly uses it's whole kit, to heal. My feeling is SGE will become the desired form of healing in the future simply because you have more to offer then a point button DPS.