SE FINALLY ANSWERED THE HEALERS COMMUNITY LONG ANSWERED QUESTION

[ASkellington]

Squeenix is dead-set against adding difficulty or complexity anywhere in the healer kits. DPS is just the easiest fix, because it's currently in the most dull state. In my opinion, the healer kits aren't particularly well-designed. There's hardly any interaction between abilities, the few interactions they do have are often barebones "this buffs the next spell" or "this adds X potency for Y seconds". Given infinite budget and a designer that actually cares about the healer role, I'd rework pretty much all of 'em (MAYBE except Astro). DPS isn't the -only- thing that would fix the role, but it should absolutely be one of the things they fix. How is 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 acceptable for any class design in any game? It's awful. It's boring. It's a snooze. It makes MSQ progression a tedious snorefest. Every solo duty is Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone. That's wretchedly bad. And if the design team thinks healers aren't capable of handling more than that, they're incorrect. No DPS player would ever put up with a MSQ experience like that.

I am under the assumption that the devs don't think anyone in their right mind would go through the MSQ as healer from start to finish.

..I wonder what that says about me since I've done that 3 times now.

[FTP]

I am under the assumption that the devs don't think anyone in their right mind would go through the MSQ as healer from start to finish.

..I wonder what that says about me since I've done that 3 times now.

Hehe. I'm about to finish the MSQ for the first time, as whm. Looking back on those three months since I downloaded the game, I have to agree with those devs. Bad choice as a first job.

Anyway.

I want to take exception with those who defend our dps because beginners. If the current design philosophy is intended to draw in new players, my opinion is they have failed.

Almost all solo play has been absolutely monotonous. For the first few days this is fine as there is a lot to take in, but turns out it stays the same for 80 levels. Press 7 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Firmly planted at the absolute healing skill floor, leveling through the various duties haven't always been too enjoyable gameplay either. Runs have been from OK to increasingly not a good time. The problem is however NOT that healer dps is too complex, it's the age of FFXIV. Before you have typed out "Hi, my first time here", the tank has pulled the first three groups and is long since out of los around the corner for two more. And when the megapull is stabilised, in a misguided, suboptimal, frenzied 5-6 gcds or so, it's back to dps monotony... 7 6 3 6 + 6 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

It's not clear where to learn the more advanced skillset, and get its basics on muscle memory, because in easier content it's synced away. An at-level run is too busy to learn well. So beginner friendly, it is not.

[ASkellington]

I want to take exception with those who defend our dps because beginners. If the current design philosophy is intended to draw in new players, my opinion is they have failed.

Almost all solo play has been absolutely monotonous. For the first few days this is fine as there is a lot to take in, but turns out it stays the same for 80 levels. Press 7 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Firmly planted at the absolute healing skill floor, leveling through the various duties haven't always been too enjoyable gameplay either. Runs have been from OK to increasingly not a good time. The problem is however NOT that healer dps is too complex, it's the age of FFXIV. Before you have typed out "Hi, my first time here", the tank has pulled the first three groups and is long since out of los around the corner for two more. And when the megapull is stabilised, in a misguided, suboptimal, frenzied 5-6 gcds or so, it's back to dps monotony... 7 6 3 6 + 6 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

It's not clear where to learn the more advanced skillset, and get its basics on muscle memory, because in easier content it's synced away. An at-level run is too busy to learn well. So beginner friendly, it is not.

I've been meaning to respond to this thought of how I could for a while now and ultimately decided on my experience alone (note- Diurnal AST when I got accessed to it in HW):

From start to finish in... 5.08? I think I started (somewhere along there... maybe?). I was able to heal all MSQ content (so required dungeons raids and trials) with GCDs, ED, and the occasional CO and CU.
I didn't learn to use the rest of my kit until I purposefully tried using it over those abilities (and I got more tanks who were wall to wall pulling).

Now knowing how to use my entire kit, I still don't. Why? Because Horoscope, Neutral Sect, and Collective Unconsciousness are 100% unnecessary when I have Earthly Star and/or Celestial Opposition. I literally have to force myself to use them over the other two because all of them share the same recast timer of 60s (bar Neutral but I don't need its shields anyway... nor want them) and out going damage is scripted enough that if every one plays perfectly I'll always have ES or CO up.

I have more fun at 70 and sometimes 60 than I ever do at 80.

This isn't including EX and Savage and lv80 Alliance Raids... but even still

Take that as you will.

[NobleWinter]

I've been meaning to respond to this thought of how I could for a while now and ultimately decided on my experience alone (note- Diurnal AST when I got accessed to it in HW):

From start to finish in... 5.08? I think I started (somewhere along there... maybe?). I was able to heal all MSQ content (so required dungeons raids and trials) with GCDs, ED, and the occasional CO and CU.
I didn't learn to use the rest of my kit until I purposefully tried using it over those abilities (and I got more tanks who were wall to wall pulling).

Now knowing how to use my entire kit, I still don't. Why? Because Horoscope, Neutral Sect, and Collective Unconsciousness are 100% unnecessary when I have Earthly Star and/or Celestial Opposition. I literally have to force myself to use them over the other two because all of them share the same recast timer of 60s (bar Neutral but I don't need its shields anyway... nor want them) and out going damage is scripted enough that if every one plays perfectly I'll always have ES or CO up.

I have more fun at 70 and sometimes 60 than I ever do at 80.

This isn't including EX and Savage and lv80 Alliance Raids... but even still

Take that as you will.

I enjoy Scholar becuase of the strict healing rotation. It requires thought becuase every action doesnt work together well. It is able to clear content if I know the kit well and that feels exceptionally rewarding. When they buffed Astro to high Heaven by increasing all it's potencies and reducing every cooldown to 60 seconds it felt terrible for the same reason Scholar felt great. I feel like they are definitely on the right track with the job but I think it actually needs it's GCD heals removed. The job would be more fun to me personally if Essential Dignity was on a 20 second recast and it learned all the oGCDs it has earlier. The job would feel better if it was Malefic spam and oGCD's to heal and buff where you went through a rotation of NECESSARY oGCDs and not just superfluous ones on top of standard Helios and Benefic as backups. If we actually had to use every skill in the kit it would be really engaging to get a new skill instead of a let down when you notice the game doesn't require you to use most of them. Can you imagine how wild dungeon runs at low level would be if we werent spamming Benefic but instead waiting for Earthly star to explode and hoping for Essential Dignity to come back off cooldown with Celestial Opposition as our only other option. Im sure we could make it thru dungeons just fine with two charges of ED from the start and it would really seperate Astro from being an extravagant clone of WHM.

[ASkellington]

I enjoy Scholar becuase of the strict healing rotation. It requires thought becuase every action doesnt work together well. It is able to clear content if I know the kit well and that feels exceptionally rewarding. When they buffed Astro to high Heaven by increasing all it's potencies and reducing every cooldown to 60 seconds it felt terrible for the same reason Scholar felt great. I feel like they are definitely on the right track with the job but I think it actually needs it's GCD heals removed. The job would be more fun to me personally if Essential Dignity was on a 20 second recast and it learned all the oGCDs it has earlier. The job would feel better if it was Malefic spam and oGCD's to heal and buff where you went through a rotation of NECESSARY oGCDs and not just superfluous ones on top of standard Helios and Benefic as backups. If we actually had to use every skill in the kit it would be really engaging to get a new skill instead of a let down when you notice the game doesn't require you to use most of them. Can you imagine how wild dungeon runs at low level would be if we werent spamming Benefic but instead waiting for Earthly star to explode and hoping for Essential Dignity to come back off cooldown with Celestial Opposition as our only other option. Im sure we could make it thru dungeons just fine with two charges of ED from the start and it would really seperate Astro from being an extravagant clone of WHM.

Personally I'd just scrap both Benefics, CI and Helios and just be a regen healer from start to finish. Or a time based healer since we also have Horoscope and ES.