Healer design is still terrible and I'm tired of apologizing for it.

[SieyaM]

Once upon a time Scholar had a fairy named Selene that had less healing output than Eos and a tiny raidwide haste buff in exchange. It was literally less healing for instances where you didn't need it. It was amazing, and now it's gone forever. It would definitely be possible for every healer to have tradeoffs built into their kit that prioritized either dps or healing. Cleric Stance was the first attempt at this but it was very punishing for people who couldn't toggle the buff well unfortunately. Still I would very much welcome a return to having options. Astro could get Nocturnal Sect back as a damage phase, Scholar Selene, WHM could use the Iconic Faith buff and Sage could have an Autopsy Mode that focused on dps. The entire healer role is terribly uninspired right now and anything to make each healer more distinct instead of mirroring almost every ability from one another would be welcome.

The best part of Selene for me anyway was the AoE Esuna she had, that was incredibly helpful on Ozma when people started getting bleeding stacks.

[RinaShinomiya]

I think they need to look into SCH and I feel it needs a revamp.
SGE just feels superior in every way and feels much more smooth to play in comparsion to it's barrier brother.
SCH feels terrible as a barrier healer, and I've only really noticed it when SGE came out now.

Deploying barriers is really fun and fast with SGE. To set up barrier, it takes 1 sec of Eureksian and then boom, barrier.
It takes me almost 2 seconds to set up a barrier as SCH and it all feels super clunky to play.
Adblo + Deploy takes forever to set up, which is another almost 2 seconds. I'm probably just a bad player
and haven't touched SCH that much in over 2 expansions but it feels extremely slow in comparison.

I always had a problem setting up barriers in time because I can't cast fast enough before the enemy drops the AoE...
Their cast time is faster than my set up I feel but you have SGE that has something like Kercachole, Pana and even Holos
that's instant and then the 1 second Progonsis (Maybe like 1.2 seconds since it's not really instant) it's still faster than SCH.

So yeah, please take a look at SCH. It needs help and it should have more emphasis on faeries too.

SCH does feel slower but it's tools are insane to make reliable big shields.

I do believe Aetherflow in combination with the Fairy Gauge is an incredibly clunky system and the fact that we need a dump skill (ED) just so that the Job works correctly is... extremely underwhelming to say the least. I'd definitely overhaul that to be something better. Wouldn't be a fan if they made it a 1:1 copy of addersgall but i wouldn't be opposed of it either. And I'd prefer if the fey gauge built up with every embrace cast by the fairy instead of forcing us to spam Aetherflow abilities and causing ED to exist. It'd help feel like the fairy and player work together and help the job identity too.

I also believe that summoning the Faerie should go already. It's really dumb that a SCH gets punished harder for dying than SGE because they have to waste 1 GCD upon revival in order to resummon the fairy (which even costs 200mp). Just make it appear automatically and give us proper Fairy Glam already. A button that dictates who the fairy is supposed to focus on would also be welcome.

[SieyaM]

SCH does feel slower but it's tools are insane to make reliable big shields.

I do believe Aetherflow in combination with the Fairy Gauge is an incredibly clunky system and the fact that we need a dump skill (ED) just so that the Job works correctly is... extremely underwhelming to say the least. I'd definitely overhaul that to be something better. Wouldn't be a fan if they made it a 1:1 copy of addersgall but i wouldn't be opposed of it either. And I'd prefer if the fey gauge built up with every embrace cast by the fairy instead of forcing us to spam Aetherflow abilities and causing ED to exist. It'd help feel like the fairy and player work together and help the job identity too.

I also believe that summoning the Faerie should go already. It's really dumb that a SCH gets punished harder for dying than SGE because they have to waste 1 GCD upon revival in order to resummon the fairy (which even costs 200mp). Just make it appear automatically and give us proper Fairy Glam already. A button that dictates who the fairy is supposed to focus on would also be welcome.

The Faerie gauge also needs something else on it, having the gauge interact with only one ability feels just a little wasteful to me, and most of the time you're just sitting on a full gauge anyway.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I also believe that summoning the Faerie should go already. It's really dumb that a SCH gets punished harder for dying than SGE because they have to waste 1 GCD upon revival in order to resummon the fairy (which even costs 200mp). Just make it appear automatically and give us proper Fairy Glam already. A button that dictates who the fairy is supposed to focus on would also be welcome.

At the very least, that fairy is not affected by weakness/brink of death as opposed to SGE. All of fairy heals: Embrace, Whispering Dawn, Blessing, Seraph, and Union all heals at its normal value. So it evens out. This is unique to SCH alone.

[elioaiko]

I do believe Aetherflow in combination with the Fairy Gauge is an incredibly clunky system and the fact that we need a dump skill (ED) just so that the Job works correctly is... extremely underwhelming to say the least.

Agreed, Aetherflow is antiquated and needs to be scrapped. I already see some comments on SGE needing a dump skill as well. As long as ED exists, it will always be the most optimal use of your stacks. In fact, in an optimal setting, you'd 90% of the time use ED because Recitation exists and since there's already a lack of outgoing damage, the heals are typically not needed in conjunction with your co-healer. But removing ED only exacerbates the issue that not using your Aetherflow stacks before the CD comes up only hinders your MP recovery and therefore wasting your stacks on overheal—hence why ED is remains to be here for that reason alone.

Personally, I think SCH could just use normal CDs on the fairy skills and have a "Rouse" like button that absorbs some of the Fae Gauge (giving the gauge some actual use) to buff the fairy abilities for a duration, whether that's the fairy's Embrace or a buffed Whispering Dawn or adding a small shield on Fey Blessing.

[GrimGale]

Agreed, Aetherflow is antiquated and needs to be scrapped. I already see some comments on SGE needing a dump skill as well. As long as ED exists, it will always be the most optimal use of your stacks. In fact, in an optimal setting, you'd 90% of the time use ED because Recitation exists and since there's already a lack of outgoing damage, the heals are typically not needed in conjunction with your co-healer. But removing ED only exacerbates the issue that not using your Aetherflow stacks before the CD comes up only hinders your MP recovery and therefore wasting your stacks on overheal—hence why ED is remains to be here for that reason alone.

Personally, I think SCH could just use normal CDs on the fairy skills and have a "Rouse" like button that absorbs some of the Fae Gauge (giving the gauge some actual use) to buff the fairy abilities for a duration, whether that's the fairy's Embrace or a buffed Whispering Dawn or adding a small shield on Fey Blessing.

There is a way to make ED act as a AF dump and not turn it into the only optimal use for AF stacks: Simply remove the damage it deals and have it grant MP (And grant Fae Gauge ofc). You get a universal resource that is always useful and have a way to clear stacks when AF comes off CD.

Ofc that'd make SCH's dps rotation even more barebones, but that's another issue.

[Semirhage]

Expansion after expansion, I'm so disappointed by the healer role because it took a step in an interesting direction back in ARR and Heavensward. Then it started twitching and jerkily swinging its foot in random directions, and a lot of us here on the forums got overly excited when it looked like it might land forward, only to continue twitching. Okay, I'm going to abandon this metaphor, because it's getting goofy.

FFXIV made a design decision a long time ago that's had knock-on effects for years. Most damage is avoidable. It's arguably a fantastic decision: it provides an intuitive reward system. It makes players of all roles feel skilled for executing successfully. It punishes you for failure, but not often in a way that makes you feel like your gameplay was jank. There's a lot of good to be had from a system that rewards you for dodging mechanics correctly. The one teeeeeeeensy problem with this...is that if you're dodging damage, you're not taking nearly as much damage. If you're not taking damage, you don't need to be healed. Now, you could increase the amount of unavoidable damage to compensate, but you can only go so far with that. You wouldn't want to entirely cheapen the system you've created where dodging is rewarding, and you don't want to throw out so much unavoidable damage that adding it to the avoidable damage means you need to play perfectly in most content or die to the combined incoming attacks.

Okay, so, as a consequence of the way you've decided to implement this system, healing is less important than it would be in say an attrition healing game, where the healer's job is to counter constant incoming waves of damage. That's not impossible to handle. Nearly all single-player RPGs operate this way after all; when's the last time you've played a single-player RPG where you were constantly spamming heals on your designated health battery? Maybe every other turn in a rough fight, but most of the time you probably relegate that character to a buffer or maybe a holy damage blaster when there's nothing to heal right?

So you look at Square Enix with the anticipation you have for someone who aaaaaaaalmost gets something you're trying to explain to them. Yes, yes, good. You understand the consequences of the design decision you made. You might get that healing is not -worthless-, but definitely less important because of this decision, yes? Good, good, and there are many games who have mitigated this consequence with some concoction of buffs, debuffs, damage, whatever fills time between heals, so this shouldn't be too much of a problem. You've removed a lot of the need to cast healing spells in most content. And you've replaced this time that you refunded with..........

Oh.

Oh no.

[Risvertasashi]

I just find it kind of interesting that more and more groups of friends, when they have 4 people to do a dungeon together, aren't even taking a healer anymore.

I suppose it's a lucky thing that the DF guarantees a spot for one.

[Anhra]

I just find it kind of interesting that more and more groups of friends, when they have 4 people to do a dungeon together, aren't even taking a healer anymore.

I suppose it's a lucky thing that the DF guarantees a spot for one.

Even the current EW savage fights, can easily be done with only one Healer required, since Tanks are almost better at Healing themselves than most Healers could anyway, so i hope this Hole continues to grow so that finally something can be done about it.

The only shame is, that it took a whole 3 Expansions to get to this Point, and i hope it gets adressed properly.

[QooEr]

The extemes have already been done without healers, and the normal raids arent even out yet

[spoilers in link, obviously] https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1qL4y1J7Mh