I'm gonna say it. cause no one else will.

[ty_taurus]

VictoriaLuv ruined Viera for me.



It's not a conversation when anyone with an opposing view - granted with some level of aggression (but honestly unparalleled to the aggression of the other side) - is told that they're baiting for inflammation and irritation. You acknowledged that the forums can become an echo chamber, but continue that preconception. Wording can be the difference between bait and a true opinion sometimes, it's true, but so can the poster's intent.

There have been people that have brought up concerns about not wanting the role to become harder for incredibly valid reasons. Examples like "my brother has special needs," "I'm in my 60s now and its hard to keep up with DPS jobs," "I have joint problems in my hands that make it hard to maintain a rotation," are all things that I've heard and are completely reasonable things to want healing to stay simple and not require optimization which is exactly why the vast majority of us have been beating the dead horse over and over and over again that raising the skill floor is NOT what we want, and it is entirely possible to raise the skill ceiling without making a noticeable impact on the skill floor, or even making it easier for the casual audience to improve their optimization without changing how they will play the job.

There have actually been several great conversations with players that had an opposing view, but the difference is that we were able to find a healthy middle ground whereas there are players on here who's entire point is basically:

"I like it because it's boring, so why can't you?" Which just isn't something that you can debate about. And I also just have a very difficult time accepting that that's a real perspective that someone can have on a video game and not just someone verbally teabagging on players who are frustrated with a game's direction for the sake of being obnoxious. It's difficult to make that discernment between someone who's legitimately trolling and someone that is either poorly communicating their point or just has a very extreme opposing view.

[Drkdays]

Well reasoned, except for the part where you put words in my mouth. I never said I want boring. I never said healing was boring. That was all you. I said that it's unreasonable for some players to cry for change in a working system that is already very important and engaging. I said that changing the way healers do damage seems greatly unnecessary since the damage they do seems to be in a good place. I said that healers should always focus first on healing and that over complicating their dps systems JUST FOR THE SAKE OF OVER COMPLICATING THEM seems really dumb to me when, clearly, not everyone wants that.

If you're bored with healing that's between you and your chosen play style. Maybe you should take a break til you can play Sage, which seems to have been made more complicated just for those who want a more challenging class...

[Grimoire-M]

Well reasoned, except for the part where you put words in my mouth. I never said I want boring. I never said healing was boring. That was all you. I said that it's unreasonable for some players to cry for change in a working system that is already very important and engaging. I said that changing the way healers do damage seems greatly unnecessary since the damage they do seems to be in a good place. I said that healers should always focus first on healing and that over complicating their dps systems JUST FOR THE SAKE OF OVER COMPLICATING THEM seems really dumb to me when, clearly, not everyone wants that.

If you're bored with healing that's between you and your chosen play style. Maybe you should take a break til you can play Sage, which seems to have been made more complicated just for those who want a more challenging class...

If you actually found healing engaging enough you'd have AST and SCH unlocked and at 80 by now given your sparse forum history suggests you've been playing long enough to justify ranking up all classes in your spare time. You've only levelled White Mage which by everyone's standards is literally the poster child for every design problem healers have. It's certainly 'interesting' how its suffered multiple expansions of getting entire aspects of its kit stripped down and given to everyone else and you literally do not have even a modicum of actual experience on said jobs historically to see that. And given your lack of Edenmorn gear on your Dragoon I'm pretty comfortable saying you're a casual player who doesn't run extreme or savage content. As a result of those three factors combined, it is fairly likely your opinion comes from a place of ignorance. If you are actually happy with healers then log on and start levelling another one or go run Savage/Extreme pugs until you can acquire some necessary perspective. Anyone who can clear that content reliably or reads some damned tooltips and actively tries to improve will understand where we're coming from. Healers are about action efficiency, getting the minimum amount of healing necessary in the least costly and smoothest way possible. I can comfortably say you are not doing so if you have your current opinions in combination with what I've noted above. All SE needs to do to cater to your perspective is not add an enrage to the encounters you actually do.

[NobleWinter]

This is what happens when a BLM uses Scathe and the trait for doubled potency kicks in.

[Drkdays]

Ooooh, burnnnnn!

Except you're dead wrong because this is my new main. Only thing you're right about is that I haven't done eden savage because I'm focusing on assisting new players in my FC who came over from WoW and also on farming gil for the expac. I've played since the tail end of ARR.

lol /golfclap. sit down.

[Silver-Strider]

Well reasoned, except for the part where you put words in my mouth. I never said I want boring. I never said healing was boring. That was all you. I said that it's unreasonable for some players to cry for change in a working system that is already very important and engaging. I said that changing the way healers do damage seems greatly unnecessary since the damage they do seems to be in a good place. I said that healers should always focus first on healing and that over complicating their dps systems JUST FOR THE SAKE OF OVER COMPLICATING THEM seems really dumb to me when, clearly, not everyone wants that.

If you're bored with healing that's between you and your chosen play style. Maybe you should take a break til you can play Sage, which seems to have been made more complicated just for those who want a more challenging class...

The Draw of SGE is that it has some interplay between it's healing and damage. Kardia heals the Tank while the SGE is doing damage so why can't other healers be given similar tools in their toolkit that don't take away from their jobs as healers but allows them to continue contributing to the fight?

AST is getting Macrocosmos to attack with and heals based on the damage those affected by Macrocosmos have taken.
SCH used to have Shadowflare to deal damage and slow enemies as a form of mitigation.
WHM's entire Lily system is pretty much the idea of rewarding Healing with DPS.

Why can't these be expanded on?

It's not as though there isn't a plethora of ways to mitigate damage so why can't there be a way to incorporate them into new offensive skills for healers?

Say, for example, Aqua Veil is now a GCD damage attack that has the same potency as Glare but also grants a 15% damage reduction to the Tank. Would this be any different than the current form of Aqua Veil being weaved in between Glare? I would still need to hit the button for Aqua Veil in both situations and the skill could be given a CD similarly to other GCD skills that have their own CD, like Air Anchor on MCH, so that I can't simply replace Glare with this GCD version of Aqua Veil and gain permanent mitigation. It would require that I plan its usage more careful since I wouldn't simply be able to cancel casting glare to use Aqua Veil in time for a Tank buster but isn't that part of being a better healer, where you learn how to best utilize your CDs to make a run smoother? So, why can't we have a system that works like that for healers when there's already a precedence for it?

[ty_taurus]

Well reasoned, except for the part where you put words in my mouth. I never said I want boring. I never said healing was boring. That was all you. I said that it's unreasonable for some players to cry for change in a working system that is already very important and engaging. I said that changing the way healers do damage seems greatly unnecessary since the damage they do seems to be in a good place. I said that healers should always focus first on healing and that over complicating their dps systems JUST FOR THE SAKE OF OVER COMPLICATING THEM seems really dumb to me when, clearly, not everyone wants that.

If you're bored with healing that's between you and your chosen play style. Maybe you should take a break til you can play Sage, which seems to have been made more complicated just for those who want a more challenging class...

I get what you're saying. I do.


BUT

Healers DOOOOOO have dps abilities already. Several, actually. They can and do contribute, even though it was stated that it should never be considered necessary for success. It's even been stated many times that they are even better at doing damage than tanks. So this ability to push themselves to be better in the available windows of down time is already clearly there. Its just ...IRRITATING to read about people complaining about, essentially, how EASY and boring it is to do great dps while effortlessly healing like it's some huge problem.

That's why I feel like people really just don't know what it is they want. MORE CAKE!

Here is my interpretation of that sentence:

You're irritated to read about people complaining that healing is easy and boring as if that were a problem. To me, this reads as you affirming the statement that healing is both "easy and boring," and find that to be a selling point of the role rather than a design flaw, which would mean that I am not putting words in your mouth. That said, if this was poorly worded from that former post, and you would like to further clarify your stance, then you're welcome to do so and we can discuss that from there.

In addition to that, I'd like to point out that we've already discussed how "focus(ing) on healing" is not mutually exclusive to having engaging DPS mechanics. You keep saying this is for the sake of over complicating healers when that's blatantly untrue. I don't know how much more I can say this before it sticks, but what we want is a way to make healing more fun to play regardless of whether there is or is not a reason to heal in a way that does not put pressure on casual players.

The "Does not put pressure on casual players" part is already something that exists in the game by the fact that healer DPS optimization is extremely lax to the point that it's entirely optional outside of EX, Savage, Ultimate, and Unreal. I would hope that everyone at least try of course, but as long as you're doing at least something when healing isn't needed, you'll cruise by any casual content with ease regardless. For all I care, completely ignore any additional DPS buttons and continue to spam Glare. In the example I gave, the difference in your Parse vs mine wouldn't really be that big of a gap.

[Grimoire-M]

Ooooh, burnnnnn!

Except you're dead wrong because this is my new main. Only thing you're right about is that I haven't done eden savage because I'm focusing on assisting new players in my FC who came over from WoW and also on farming gil for the expac. I've played since the tail end of ARR.

lol /golfclap. sit down.

Funny, I'm doing the same thing, on my third alt. I've bought houses for three other people and I don't even craft properly. Said third alt is for my sister's first time playing this, and she literally quit White Mage because she found it both frustrating and boring. I've been playing since 2.3. Took AST and SMN into Gordias at their worst and got clears on both as my first foray into raiding period. I still think healers were better back then in spite of me being worse at the game and when I explained to her why she moved onto Dancer and AST with zero hesitation. She agrees that she'd prefer more support aspects (I told her AST did that in place of having DPS spells at one point but still has the same problem) but she would rather not heal if all there is to it is filler DPS spell spam.

If a casual player can recognize where the design problems are once they're shown a few examples, you can manage it.

[Drkdays]

Should probably delete the part where you bought houses for other ppl...it implies things.

As for the rest. What your sister, or you, consider a problem doesn't matter a pickle to me.

[Drkdays]

Here is my interpretation of that sentence:

You're irritated to read about people complaining that healing is easy and boring as if that were a problem. To me, this reads as you affirming the statement that healing is both "easy and boring," and find that to be a selling point of the role rather than a design flaw, which would mean that I am not putting words in your mouth. That said, if this was poorly worded from that former post, and you would like to further clarify your stance, then you're welcome to do so and we can discuss that from there.

In addition to that, I'd like to point out that we've already discussed how "focus(ing) on healing" is not mutually exclusive to having engaging DPS mechanics. You keep saying this is for the sake of over complicating healers when that's blatantly untrue. I don't know how much more I can say this before it sticks, but what we want is a way to make healing more fun to play regardless of whether there is or is not a reason to heal in a way that does not put pressure on casual players.

The "Does not put pressure on casual players" part is already something that exists in the game by the fact that healer DPS optimization is extremely lax to the point that it's entirely optional outside of EX, Savage, Ultimate, and Unreal. I would hope that everyone at least try of course, but as long as you're doing at least something when healing isn't needed, you'll cruise by any casual content with ease regardless. For all I care, completely ignore any additional DPS buttons and continue to spam Glare. In the example I gave, the difference in your Parse vs mine wouldn't really be that big of a gap.

You interpreted wrong. Clearly wrong. It's others complaining about how boring it is, which is why they apparently need more sparkly button distractions. I really can't see how you'd think by now that I found healing boring. Seems like less poor wording on my part and more poor reading on yours.

Would I consider boring healing a problem? Perhaps, but I never have considered healing boring. And even if I did I would not advocate for change.