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.

[WaxSw]

It's not impactful becuase it's easy to recover from taking damage with single button press, which always happens to be oGCDs.

Not in reality, even if we take the power of OGCDs down and rely more on GCD healing then we'll rely more on the most boring, poorly designed and non interactive heals of our kit, wether we like or not for the majority of healers the best designed tools are in the oGCD heal/cooldown kit so reducing their impact to make us use more succors, adlos, cure 2s, benefic2 etc... would only increase the number of generic actions we do per fight and for every tiny bit of downtime that happens the problem of lackluster dps kit would remain there.

You as a healer only get to do dps once you have finished your primary job, healing, before the next incoming damage

Not really, as long as the heal is done before the threat (to not get the dps loss of deaths) it doesn't matter when we heal so damage happening doesn't strictly stops our downtime immediatly.

Adding more dps options does not solve the problem.

It actually does to some extent, our problem is having big quantities of low quality downtime, if we make that downtime high quality then the problem would simply fade away, no one complains about having big quantities of something enjoyable.

but in your previous reply you were deadset on dps option alone.

As stated previously and in past replies, the problem of healers is having big quantities of low quality downtime, you can tackle that in 2 ways, either make it high quality (better downtime rotation in the way of buffs/attacks/interactions etc) or make it less quantity, I'm dead set on the first one because is simply the easiest to implement as the second one would require a game rework and a fundamental change to our healing kit that would more likely than not cause an increase in the skill floor that everyone tries to avoid.

You can't just take other's idea to an extreme and expect to persuade anyone

You do you then but I didn't really say any lie there.

A=Our downtime kit is boring to use
B=Downtime is unavoidable even when reducing the importance of oGCDs

A+B=We still have unavoidable periods of time were we use a boring kit

Both arguments you said for example can be argued against but I'm just gonna say

"Adding more offensive actions would require more buttons which leads to button bloat. In which case, SQEX will have to reduce the healing actions we currently have [...]"

YES PLS, besides with the introduction of toggle skills that shoudn't be such a problem, also there are actions whose removal/rework would hardly impact the job's gameplay (looking at you physick/cure/benefic)

[QooEr]

also there are actions whose removal/rework would hardly impact the job's gameplay (looking at you physick/cure/benefic)

and fey blessing... i mean seriously who thought a heal as "strong" as a single miserable regen tick deserved to be in sch's kit more than miasma or bane

[GrimGale]

Or Selene. We have an ability slot that is just literally a cosmetic change.
That could be a toggle option on an NPC. Sic and Place could stand to be on the same button, it doesnt make that much difference to just cycle the commands. Aetherflow and Energy drain too. Is there a moment where you'd want to Aetherflow before you've exhausted your stacks? Hmm, maybe if there is no target to use ED and you want to get the AF cooldown rolling.

Play and Draw on different buttons? Draw Minor Arcana and Play Minor Arcana on different buttons? Undraw?

WHM doesn't have that many buttons compared to the others.

[HappyHubris]

WHM doesn't have that many buttons compared to the others.

Which is why WHM is bestest.

[Saefinn]

"Adding more offensive actions would require more buttons which leads to button bloat. In which case, SQEX will have to reduce the healing actions we currently have, leading them being limited to do what they're currently trying to do, enhancing healing aspect on healers based on new encounter design"

As much as I think our vast healing kits are cool, the fundamental problem is that the game doesn't push you to get the full use of them. So I would then argue that we have bloat in terms of healing spells. So I would welcome a trimming of our healing abilities.

There are two main ways it would help:
- it would allow room for more abilities to use in our downtime
- It would reduce the downtime somewhat

So you simultaneously make the healing more engaging and the downtime more engaging.

Case in point. Blue Mage healer. It has fewer healing abilities and more DPS ones, but when I've done dungeon runs on it? It's a more engaging healing experience. This is because I couldn't just pop oGCDs to get people's health up.

[Aword3213]

lackluster dps kit would remain there.

Yes, it would. At least it will lower the time spent on dpsing to below 70%. Not saying the problem goes away you know. However, SQEX currently don't want to emphasize on healer dps.

Not really, as long as the heal is done before the threat (to not get the dps loss of deaths) it doesn't matter when we heal so damage happening doesn't strictly stops our downtime immediatly.

saying no for the sake of ...saying no? I don't want to play this game, so I'll let you win on this.

It actually does to some extent, our problem is having big quantities of low quality downtime, if we make that downtime high quality then the problem would simply fade away, no one complains about having big quantities of something enjoyable.

Enhancing healing aspect of the game also does solve the problem to some extent, and they're currently doing it. They are willing to enhance healing intensity and raising the skill floor in terms of healing rather than your suggestions. It's a fight you cannot win.

I'm dead set on the first one because is simply the easiest to implement as the second one would require a game rework and a fundamental change to our healing kit

Not this again, but okay let's do this
Adding dps options would require a game rework and a fundamental change to our kit, thus we should not ask for dps. This is the conclusion I have. Nothing you say will change my conclusion because that's your attitude.

Also, unless you work for SQEX, it's really not your place to say something is easy to implement. They are spending resources on the oppossite direction to your ideas. Either they think it's much more easier, which contradicts to what you think is easy, or it's a direction they find worthy to spend resources on.

that would more likely than not cause an increase in the skill floor that everyone tries to avoid.

Apparently SQEX disagrees with you. Otherwise SQEX wouldn't have removed most of our dps actions we once had in the first place.

A=Our downtime kit is boring to use
B=Downtime is unavoidable even when reducing the importance of oGCDs

is B borrowed from my idea? if so, you're very wrong.

Both arguments you said for example can be argued against

There's no need to argue. My example was unreasonable. Brought up just to irrate my opponent. Spending time arguing over unfounded statement is meaningless. Surely you've noticed I gave up explaning my ideas on how to address those issues to you like many replies ago.

YES PLS, besides with the introduction of toggle skills that shoudn't be such a problem, also there are actions whose removal/rework would hardly impact the job's gameplay (looking at you physick/cure/benefic)

A rework is very welcome indeed. I would love to see it happen.

[ToodlesElNoodles]

Or Selene. We have an ability slot that is just literally a cosmetic change.

I have a theory that the reason Summon Selene still exists because it determines which fairy comes back after using Dissipation/Seraph.

I.e. pressing Summon Eos makes PC_Fairy = 1 and Selene probably makes PC_Fairy = 2.

So when Dissipation/Seraph ends, it references back to PC_Fairy value.

[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.

[MellowMink]

Even if Square Enix doesn't want to make Scholar's fairies do different things again, which I think is silly because surely there are even minor differences that they could at least have like unique stat boosts for the sake of improved gameplay diversity, they could at least combine both fairies into a single button and then just have their visuals based on a glamour similar to Summoner's current carbuncle glamour options for Egis.