It's time to kill the argument that DPS abilities keep healers from healing.

[GrimGale]

Allow me to extend an olive branch:

Honestly I get it.

There is the expectation that healers should balance dealing damage and keeping their party members alive. No other job has to juggle targets around this much- You switch from Enemy to Ally constantly, AST being probably the worst offender. On controller, AST target switching to throw cards is almost painful. So in order to make this process accessible, the Devs decided to make the juggling of the two very simple.

Each further change of this juggling only serves to make it more accessible:

-Removal of actions while maximizing potencies. You press less variety of buttons, meaning you have to keep track of less things to contribute the same.

-Shorter cast times to ensure ease of weaving without punishing the healer damage. Devs want you to DPS, they made it easier now to both cast your Nuke while weaving in healing.

-Giving Tanks more self sustain tools to make sure they don't die to auto-attacks, giving healers more time to adjust their juggling. It also eases the pressure to keep an eye on your tank's HP.


But the thing is, not all healers are AST.

WHM and SCH primarily have so many automatic heals and mitigations that they can easily spend their time focused on Damage. Why, then do they have basically the same DPS kit as AST? Why does Sage, the new "technical" healer for "advanced" players that "focuses" on DPS have essentially the same buttons as WHM and SCH?

AST complaints revolve around the card system being simplified or losing its flavour.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

Allow me to extend an olive branch:

Honestly I get it.

There is the expectation that healers should balance dealing damage and keeping their party members alive. No other job has to juggle targets around this much- You switch from Enemy to Ally constantly, AST being probably the worst offender. On controller, AST target switching to throw cards is almost painful. So in order to make this process accessible, the Devs decided to make the juggling of the two very simple.

Each further change of this juggling only serves to make it more accessible:

-Removal of actions while maximizing potencies. You press less variety of buttons, meaning you have to keep track of less things to contribute the same.

-Shorter cast times to ensure ease of weaving without punishing the healer damage. Devs want you to DPS, they made it easier now to both cast your Nuke while weaving in healing.

-Giving Tanks more self sustain tools to make sure they don't die to auto-attacks, giving healers more time to adjust their juggling. It also eases the pressure to keep an eye on your tank's HP.


But the thing is, not all healers are AST.

WHM and SCH primarily have so many automatic heals and mitigations that they can easily spend their time focused on Damage. Why, then do they have basically the same DPS kit as AST? Why does Sage, the new "technical" healer for "advanced" players that "focuses" on DPS have essentially the same buttons as WHM and SCH?

AST complaints revolve around the card system being simplified or losing its flavour.

Because if AST is meta in order for other things to be competitive to other players they must be just as simple in my opinion

[ForteNightshade]

And so healers, and ONLY healers, cannot have a skill cap above ankle height because someone, somewhere, somehow, might stand on the skill floor and get the vapors if they feel even the slightest urge to move upward in any way.

How pathetic ARE healer players in your mind?

Apparently, healers are drooling on their own keyboards and jump at the slightest sound. It's honestly quite remarkable just how far they'll reach to defend this simplicity for healers specifically. Tanks and DPS can have fun doing secondary aspects of their job, which is a rather generous claim for tanks as they spend 95% of their time DPSing. Healers though? Nope. They can't have more than two DPS buttons or they'll be literally shaking.

I do find it amusing how they completely ignored my response about healer relevancy and how Warrior can solo dungeons. Couldn't have anything to do with it entirely undermining the role and showing just how irrelevant non-DPSing healers are in this game.

[GrimGale]

Because if AST is meta in order for other things to be competitive to other players they must be just as simple in my opinion

But that's the thing! AST is NOT simple.

Sure it's "simpler" now, but it's still the healer with the highest APM, despite having a simple damage rotation of 1 nuke and 1 dot. AST has a side system that warrants its DPS kit being more simplistic- (Even if they could stand to have maybe 1 more offensive ability- Though the new Minor Arcana will somewhat fix that.)

AST is in a good place regarding the amount of non-healing abilities it has. It's busy enough, it's effective and has some variety to its downtime. Its numbers might be overtuned but that isn't a mechanical problem.

WHM, SCH and SGE are extremely barebones compared to AST. They have a rather sparce set of abilities to fill their respective healing downtimes and a lot of abilities that only make that healing downtime more prevalent.

[Semirhage]

We're not talking about a skill cap for healing though, are we. But rather, their other supposed role. Their second enforced responsibility.

Healing less and gaining more downtime IS the skill cap for healing. It always has been, and it always will be. That's just how a role with a defined hard limit on its primary responsibility works. As you consume more calories than you burn, thermodynamics doesn't "force" you to gain weight. It's just how it works. Geometry doesn't "force" squares to have four sides. That's just how it works. Healing someone with full HP is a waste of time. That's how it works. The encounter finishes when the DPS, not healers, are done with their primary job. Sticking your fingers in your ears and screeching "HEALERS SHOULD HEAL ONLY!" is reality denial. It's not how games with combat systems work.

[Liam_Harper]

Ironically, if someone only wants to heal and not do dps, they should probably play a dps. Yup, the very thing they keep telling healers who want to deal damage to go and do.

Since healing requirements are so low in this game, a "pure healing" Sylphie isn't actually very useful. You can say "I want to heal and help my team!" but you're not really helping. You're covering some almost irrelevant heal basics and nothing else in a game focused on damage. Overhealing is useless, it does nothing. The healing job in ff14 is better suited to someone who can cover that basic while contributing dps. They're just more valuable to the team.

On an easy dps, like DNC, all you have to care about is dealing damage. Just hit the shiny buttons, put Dance partner on and you'll be useful. So if you really only want to do one thing and have no other responsibility while still supporting your team, roll a dps.

[ASkellington]

Because if AST is meta in order for other things to be competitive to other players they must be just as simple in my opinion

I don't understand this argument.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying that since AST is meta the other healers should have just as simple a dps kit when they don't have to juggle as much?

Why? SCH and WHM do not have cards to buff other players. Only SCH has a buff similar to Divination (Chain Strat) and it does not require a build up like AST does prior to 6.0/

AST come 6.0 is getting Minor Arcana back along with Astrodyne (and a new seals system) to make it busy. It deserves to have 1 button nuke and dot.

SCH, SGE and especially WHM do not.

[Ayche]

AST come 6.0 is getting Minor Arcana back along with Astrodyne (and a new seals system) to make it busy. It deserves to have 1 button nuke and dot.

SCH, SGE and especially WHM do not.

On that point, let's remember that jobs are not meant to be equally busy, that is a preference choice. WAR is not as busy as GNB. DRG is not as busy as SAM, not to mention RPR who seems to be very busy.

Some jobs are meant to be more relaxed, whichever jobs those end up being.

[GrimGale]

On that point, let's remember that jobs are not meant to be equally busy, that is a preference choice. WAR is not as busy as GNB. DRG is not as busy as SAM, not to mention RPR who seems to be very busy.

Some jobs are meant to be more relaxed, whichever jobs those end up being.

Well no, ofc not. But you can have a relatively low APM count and still hit a healthy variety of buttons. BLM is a prime example: It's slow but relatively varied. The most "spam" you do is the 3 Fire IV in a row, twice per cycle.

[MellowMink]

The idea that not doing dps as a healer is considered lazy is bonkers. It relates directly to the "go go" mentality that many hate.

It's not like I play this game thinking that I want to hurry up and finish so I don't have to play this game anymore. Throw some dots and hit some glares, but a healer should never feel like they're irrelevant by focusing on just healing.

There's no rush!

The idea that not doing any summons or Aetherflow actions as a Summoner is considered lazy is bonkers. It relates directly to the "go go" mentality that many hate.

It's not like I play this game thinking that I want to hurry up and finish so I don't have to play this game anymore. Throw some Bios and hit some Ruins, but a Summoner should never feel like they're irrelevant by focusing on just dots and Ruin.

There's no rush!