Predict the endwalker healing meta!

[Risvertasashi]

I want to joke and say PAL/WAR - what are healers.....

It's a bit of a sidetrack from the original purpose of this thread but - with tanks getting so much more healing...

I'm skeptical it will have a tangible effect on raiding metas. But when people already complain that healing dungeons is boring and very easy... I do kinda expect this is just going to make things worse, particularly once we're all in EW's ilvl gear.

I know you hate it when we say it but this is unfortunately going to be a...now wait for it... WAIT AND SEE kind of thing.

I mean, sure. The point of this thread is to see different viewpoints. And come EW release, we can see "Oh this was right on" or "This was completely off" or "A little of this, a little of that was right/wrong."

This isn't meant to be some "IT'S GOING TO BE HORRIBLE YOU SHOULD JUST QUIT NOW" thing. But discussion does generally include negative aspects in addition to the positive ones.

I personally am very skeptical healers will disappear from raiding, along with some of the other forecasts in this thread. But the point isn't to argue that other views are wrong, it's to see what people are thinking and why.

[BaconBits]

Oh no i can't believe he got you too!

I know you hate it when we say it but this is unfortunately going to be a...now wait for it... WAIT AND SEE kind of thing. And even if the most optimized groups don't run healers that doesn't mean healers have no value outside of that. Not everyone playing this game is going to be playing at that level, for those people having a healer or two will be welcome.

People were saying "wait and see" years ago and I bet my left knee they'll be saying it again 2 years from now when 7.0 is on the cusp of release.

I think it's fair to say folks are more than tired of being told to wait and see.

[Laphicet]

Oh no i can't believe he got you too!

I know you hate it when we say it but this is unfortunately going to be a...now wait for it... WAIT AND SEE kind of thing. And even if the most optimized groups don't run healers that doesn't mean healers have no value outside of that. Not everyone playing this game is going to be playing at that level, for those people having a healer or two will be welcome.

You missed the point of what I was saying. Right now you can easily solo heal any hard content so long as there is no healer-targeting mechs that place stack markers or such the like on two healers. Even then you can still do it but the mechanical complexity increases to such a point it would invalidate the DPS gain for most parties. A big thing though is that you can't do a zero-healer party for most hard content, even with iLVL bloat, the outgoing damage is just too much.

The reason I say zero-healers or solo heal is my prediction is that they are buffing both Healer kits on the healing side AND tank self-heal abilities for all tanks outside of DRK. And with this bloat to these support kits, plus increases in RDMs healing kit and SMN having more ready access to shields, I think you would be able to cut the healer out of things completely provided there's no role bucketing via forced healer target, at least during farm. And with the increase to healer potencies and just more bloating of healer kits I do think you could easily solo-heal during prog with anything but WHM, and WHM could do it with a high-piety build and some ethers. This does assume they won't be increasing outgoing damage, though... but historical record shows that if anything they'll be reducing outgoing damage, so I'm pretty confident in my predictions.

EDIT:
However, there is one big thing keeping solo heal from becoming a thing for higher-end stuff. And that's FFlogs. You see, FFlogs puts anything that's not 2tanks2heals4dps in a category called "non-standard". Non-standard parses don't get added to overall ratings and are basically nonexistent when it comes to your personal records IIRC. This makes it so that a good chunk of people running end-game stuff, parse chaser types, are actively disincentivized from using these non-standard comps as these don't carry as much weight as standard comp parses. If this were to be changed then you'd see a lot more solo-heal parties and maybe even some attempts at no-heal parties even in current content. But for now it's a niche thing that can speed things up greatly in some content.

And like I said before, there is the issue of healer-targeting mechanics going random if there is no healer to target. So all they would need to do is put one very-punishing healer-focused mech in every hard fight and solo heal becomes much more scarce due to the increased coordination required.

It could also be made so that you have to have one shield and one regen healer to get the full "different party members" damage and LB bonus, but such would be a bit vindictive to do and also doesn't matter to people just looking to farm things and get clears... such is moreso a thing for parsers.

[HyperiusUltima]

I think the meta will be: AST and SGE


My reasoning: Given how the healer meta has evolved over the years since Heavensward, I've seen a lot of reasons why it's difficult to balance healers in a way that doesn't step on another job's toes in terms of functionality.

AST from HW to SB was an example with it being "White Mage with Cards" so to speak. SGE is basically the DPS form of a Healer - except when they decided to split healers into 'pure' healers and 'shield' healers. What they wound up with SGE was a hybrid Healer due to its ability to shift between two different stances that can change up how you heal in a given situation.

One problem that does present itself however is how SGE actually has better tools than SCH. If we're basing off of what XIV's general composition is supposed to be, then that only leaves the four healers competing with their separate counterparts. This presents a problem for SCH due to its lacking functionality(outside of fairy AI improvements in the Media Tour) and lackluster ability additions. Virtually, SCH only got 2 Tools. Two. And only one is possibly impactful for Tank Busters.

Unless they plan to address this in a hotfix a la SB WAR style, I don't see SCH ever getting much play in high-end. SGE on the other hand has tools that actually are better than SCH's in some places, such as not having to ground target for a 10% Mitigation effect, and also the fact that Pneuma heals, does DPS, and provides mitigation all at the same time which is very effective as a heavy CD. Then there's the application of Haima and Panhaima, which restore the effects of the 150 potency shield up to 5 times, which adds up to 750 potency worth of shields for raid-wide spam. There's too much good to pass up SGE for SCH in the meta.

As for AST, I would say that the changes that were brought to it were welcome in bringing back SB card functionality in a way with Lord/Lady, as well as providing a system that rewards for good card play that isn't a heavy requirement for AST's performance compared to Shadowbringers. Against WHM, AST has strong oGCDs to use over WHM's large heals; the other fact that WHM's Thin Air was nerfed back down to earth makes it more difficult for them to be MP efficient, while AST now has strong MP regeneration via their new self-mechanic.

But that's not what breaks the camel's back - Macrocosmos is just on paper. The fact they gave AST HP Storage is one of the strongest aspects you can give to a job when you're dealing with multiple raid-wides at once that hit for at least 50% of your Max HP and 65% of DPS' Max HP. This is far stronger than anything Benediction could give you, as sure, you can heal the damage from the raid-wide, but when it comes to HP storage you could heal it up, then take more damage, then burst heal for your Max HP.


Factors that might subvert my prediction: Macrocosmos' functionality. We need to see how the system actually works because just being on paper isn't enough to understand the stipulations of it. One of my speculations was that if a Tank took a 300k Tank Buster, that 150k could be spread across the party - but that's the thing. We don't know if it's individual.

If Macrocosmos' functionality is individual, then the strength of it is different and AST is very close to the same level as WHM's CD Suite, especially since WHM now has a flower they can pop out of the ground for big heals that pulse every time they're hit(and heal at the end).

[Rolder50]

EDIT:
However, there is one big thing keeping solo heal from becoming a thing for higher-end stuff. And that's FFlogs. You see, FFlogs puts anything that's not 2tanks2heals4dps in a category called "non-standard". Non-standard parses don't get added to overall ratings and are basically nonexistent when it comes to your personal records IIRC. This makes it so that a good chunk of people running end-game stuff, parse chaser types, are actively disincentivized from using these non-standard comps as these don't carry as much weight as standard comp parses. If this were to be changed then you'd see a lot more solo-heal parties and maybe even some attempts at no-heal parties even in current content. But for now it's a niche thing that can speed things up greatly in some content.

I feel that if such a meta became common place, the developer of FF Logs would adjust the website such that those parses counted or had their own category or something of the sort.

[QooEr]

I feel that if such a meta became common place, the developer of FF Logs would adjust the website such that those parses counted or had their own category or something of the sort.

nonstandard comps actually used to count in rankings, but they forced standard comps for rankings bevause ppl were complaining about being forced off healing roles.

kind of funny that fflogs does more to make ppl play two healers than the fights themselves do

[AFuzzyMu11in]

Ast is incredibly difficult. It won't be meta over whm.

[MsTanya]

I think people are confusing the actual meaning of meta. Its most effective not most fun to play or most easy to play. In xiv effectiveness boils down to the speed of a kill which basically equates to group dps which means party buffs. Seems pretty plain by that definition alone that a single healer having ~30 more potency on its spam ability won't beat out buffing an entire team of 7 other people over the course of a fight. So as far as predicting the meta, I'm firmly in camp ast/sch.

We see now the effects of a healer that only buffs itself and brings its own damage with whm versus ast. The same will happen with sch and sage. Party movement and a crit buff that will scale harder over time as peoples individual crit scores increase, since that also buffs crit damage, will beat out sages personal dps and slightly more reliable healing. Ast had the rng taken out of its party buff and retains the usual cards on top of that so if anything its even more of a predictable consistent damage boost now except those rare occasions where they hit the lotto and buff themselves 5% with dyne.

[Risvertasashi]

It won't be meta over whm.

In line with what Tanya said, I want to stress that meta isn't the same as popularity.

History has shown us time and again white mage is the most popular healer even when it is the worst healer. For other healers to exceed WHM's population, it needs to not just be the worst performing, it needs to be severely far behind the next lowest. So, if the balance is remotely close, I have no doubt WHM will be the most popular even if it is the bottom performer.

Sage theoretically could change this, but overcoming the iconic-ness of WHM, and that it's the only healer we can start the game as, and so on is a tall order and I personally doubt that will happen. SCH and AST can't do it despite SCH+AST being the speedkill meta this entire expansion and white mage, once more, having the lowest DPS contribution at the tail end. Last expac, it only happened when WHM was really far behind and there was a particularly tough-to-heal raid (O12S).

So to be sure: It's pretty likely WHM will have the highest population unless certain thresholds are crossed. But "meta" is far less likely and personally, I don't think it will happen.

[ForteNightshade]

EDIT:
However, there is one big thing keeping solo heal from becoming a thing for higher-end stuff. And that's FFlogs. You see, FFlogs puts anything that's not 2tanks2heals4dps in a category called "non-standard". Non-standard parses don't get added to overall ratings and are basically nonexistent when it comes to your personal records IIRC. This makes it so that a good chunk of people running end-game stuff, parse chaser types, are actively disincentivized from using these non-standard comps as these don't carry as much weight as standard comp parses. If this were to be changed then you'd see a lot more solo-heal parties and maybe even some attempts at no-heal parties even in current content. But for now it's a niche thing that can speed things up greatly in some content.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but logs are only moved to Non-Standard if you're running two... well, non-standard comps. 1T/1H/6D or two DRGs and 1 Healer. If you only have one, it'll still list it under Standard.

With that said, Rolder is correct. If it ever become commonplace, FFlogs would either adapt or make a ranked category. rDPS exists primarily because of Dance Partner utterly destroying logs.

Ast is incredibly difficult. It won't be meta over whm.

AST has been meta over WHM since 3.4 and thoroughly dominated it ever since. We aren't talking about viability or casual preference but how the meta raid scene will turn out. Popularity doesn't matter in this case. Overall damage does. Presently, WHM is the lowest, losing to both AST and SCH. And by a fairly substantial margin too.