Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[HyoMinPark]

Im sure a good portion of this community (and the casual MMO community in general ) will be constantly debating and at each other's throats whether Yoshi-P is unfit to further lead the game and that he should be fired.

Honestly, I don’t really think that Yoshida needs replacing. I don’t think that’s what healers need. What needs to happen is they need to have someone on the development team actually play healers. It has been stated in the past that none of the battle team “mains” the healing role, and I think that this has contributed just as much as listening to non-healer mains to how we went from “healers” to “gimped damage dealers”.

The development team doesn’t play the healers, so they can’t get any sort of insight on to the how or why healer mains are so unhappy with the state of the role right now. They give us more and more healing tools that are complete overkill in 99% of content, while also making healing requirements less and less in all types of content and streamlining our DPS abilities until all healers are 1 DoT, 1 nuke—a design that only really works if a job has a secondary mechanic. AST is really the only healer that can have the 1 DoT, 1 nuke design since it has the cards to deal with; but the cards are a huge spot of contention within the community. Particularly between any healer that has played AST since it released in Heavensward and those who didn’t touch the job until ShB, or even EW.

AST as a job has suffered from balance problem after balance problem: from the old Sect system where one Sect was always inherently better than the other, no questions asked; to either being a job borderline unplayable to being a job that was extremely overpowered. Even next to the healer it directly competes with (WHM), AST has always ended up completely dominating at some point in an expansion. The closest AST and WHM ever were, in my opinion, was in Stormblood—but AST was still the better choice at an optimization level. There could be some argument for ShB, but AST had a particularly rough beginning in ShB before rising from its grave. As it stands now, however, there is no competition between AST and WHM.

Currently, AST is in a bad spot in terms of gameplay. The lore of the card system (and even the original time mage-y aspects) is completely gone. The card system could be boiled down to just Balance, and the other five could be removed. The Seals exist to keep each card relevant. And now Astrodyne exists to keep the Seals relevant—and is a terrible addition to an already divisive system. The buff itself is negligible enough that, at an optimized level, you don’t even try to for a 3-seal Astrodyne and instead consider the ability to be a second form of Lucid Dreaming. Minor Arcana is an underwhelming ability that, while an echo of the original Stormblood system that didn’t really have too many issues, is no longer a system that adds anything to the job. It’s either “Get Lord, be happy” or “Get Lady, be sad”. AST has so much healing—and there’s so little in terms to actually heal in this game—that getting ANOTHER healing option is overkill; and Lord becomes the only thing that matters, because damage is the only thing that matters in this game.

I don’t know if your assessment of AST being fine comes from a standpoint where you aren’t familiar with the deeper issues of the job; or from you not knowing that this job has never been “fine” in terms of balance. I could write out a dissertation about the issues the job has had since its inception, but I’ll just leave it at this Cliff Notes version and climb off of my AST Boomer Soapbox now.


The team also doesn’t seem to listen to the concerns of healer mains over the whining of non-healers that want everything to be disgustingly easy and boring. The Stormblood Lily System is a prime example of how the team completely dismissed all of the initial concerns following the media tour regarding how useless the system was, constantly repeating “Just wait until the expansion drops to try them”, “Just wait until the first adjustment patch”, “Just wait until Savage comes out”, “Wait until we release the new Ultimate mode”. Lilies were a dead system for two years, and it wasn’t even acknowledged until the ShB media tour where they finally became something better. And now? Back to not being so great. But WHM in general is in a terrible state.

Additionally, the EW media tour was extremely disappointing in that none of the career healer mains that make optimization guides and job guides about each healer were invited to provide their feedback on EW changes. I believe it was the ShB media tour (but it could have been the SB one), where the developers did the same thing, and instead asked DPS mains their opinions on the state of the healers and the upcoming changes to the jobs. Which, a DPS main isn’t going to be able to provide the same kind of insight and feedback that a healer main could.


Healer change is possible without replacing Yoshida as a producer/director. But it will require him to not make comments like the one he made about healing and “just do Ultimate”, actually listen to valid feedback provided from people who play healers (and play them extensively, not just casually here and there), and get someone on the development team who is familiar with the role and actually plays it.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Yeah this is what I think we should instead encourage the devs for. Have somebody in the job design department actually main healing to see where most of these complaints are coming from

...which is weird since seriously how would they neglect a part of the main core game like that?

[CrimsonGunner]

I play Dark Knight because I sometimes like the general play and feel of their abilities? Im not some hardcore "gotta go with the current best" in an MMO. This isnt a competition. I want my personal preferences dictate my fun in this game and so far this game does a good job doing that. This is the same reason why personally I feel fine with current healing BUT PLEASE FOR THE LOVE GOD PAY ATTENTION TO ME SAYING THIS....I acknowledge that it can be better.

I also dont stick to just one class, especially on Savage Raiding. I always go in with the class thats my highest gear level and the one Im most comfortable at to deal damage while paying close attention to fights.

notice how that question ticked u there, you love DRK.
you asked what made us tick so i decided to make you feel that way

people have other jobs they can play in other roles but its not the role they want to play. they want to have the healer experience meaning they want to heal/support. they also don't stick to one job in particular but its not "their job" per se.
if u want to be a healer(or feel like one) that helps people in a party, the sad reality right now is that the role(not job but role) can be replaced in current content (both casual and higher ones as shown) and simply not needed due to self heals and others able to heal/ress the same as healers(tanks and dps alike).

[Atelier-Bagur]

notice how that question ticked u there, you love DRK.
you asked what made us tick so i decided to make you feel that way

people have other jobs they can play in other roles but its not the role they want to play. they want to have the healer experience meaning they want to heal/support. they also don't stick to one job in particular but its not "their job" per se.
if u want to be a healer(or feel like one) that helps people in a party, the sad reality right now is that the role(not job but role) can be replaced in current content (both casual and higher ones as shown) and simply not needed to do self heals(tanks and dps alike).

I would highly disagree on the casual content with no healers. Unless everyone is top notch, have the best use of mitigation, survivability solely depends if everybody picks the right class and everybody is on top coordination. Ive had dungeon wipes due to healers making a mistake and even boss wipes when healer dies but tanks cant keep themselves alive long enough to finish the job.

Im not saying that the contrary ever happens, Ive already had a few experiences were we managed to pull through by the skin of our teeth when a healer perishes. But I dont think nor believe the healing useless has gotten so bad that we just dont need them anymore.

[HyoMinPark]

I would highly disagree on the casual content with no healers. Unless everyone is top notch, have the best use of mitigation, survivability solely depends if everybody picks the right class and everybody is on top coordination. Ive had dungeon wipes due to healers making a mistake and even boss wipes when healer dies but tanks cant keep themselves alive long enough to finish the job.

Im not saying that the contrary ever happens, Ive already had a few experiences were we managed to pull through by the skin of our teeth when a healer perishes. But I dont think nor believe the healing useless has gotten so bad that we just dont need them anymore.

It has gotten that bad, though. Tank healing (with the exception of DRK) is insane. WAR is unkillable with things like Bloodwhetting—WAR in general has always been lauded for its self-healing. It is possible to do dungeons without a healer. Extremes can be done either without a healer or with just a single healer because there’s very little to do in terms of healing. Even Savage can be done with just one healer. The developers force a two-healer composition by forcing mechanics to target healers specifically (P4S fire stacks target healers, to give an example)—but it can be done with just one healer. And has been done. And this doesn’t even require top notch play. I’ve done dungeons with casual, non-raider, not-top notch players before without a healer in there. As a healer in a dungeon, I spend 95% of my time spamming my AOE or single target nuke. The only time I have to actively heal is, quite frankly, if I get a bad tank.

And that last statement echoes something I’ve asked in the past: why is it that the healing role, in order to actually feel engaged or to actually do any significant amounts of healing, has to rely on bad players or bad runs to perform their primary role? I’ll be honest, the reason I’ve been spamming Dun Scaith as a healer recently is because the runs are easy enough to turn into a clown fiesta, and I can FINALLY do something other than spam Dosis until my fingers fall off. But that’s not a reflection of the content requiring me to heal, and more so a reflection of lots of shite hitting lots of fans. And that has been the case with healers for a long time.

[CrimsonGunner]

I would highly disagree on the casual content with no healers. Unless everyone is top notch, have the best use of mitigation, survivability solely depends if everybody picks the right class and everybody is on top coordination. Ive had dungeon wipes due to healers making a mistake and even boss wipes when healer dies but tanks cant keep themselves alive long enough to finish the job.

Im not saying that the contrary ever happens, Ive already had a few experiences were we managed to pull through by the skin of our teeth when a healer perishes. But I dont think nor believe the healing useless has gotten so bad that we just dont need them anymore.

im afraid it reached that way, except for drk ,every casual content can be cleared without healers that is how much healing tanks and dps has right now so unless u really hit a party that wont do mechanics, even unexperienced party can clear it without healers after 1 or 2 wipes

[Atelier-Bagur]

It has gotten that bad, though. Tank healing (with the exception of DRK) is insane. WAR is unkillable with things like Bloodwhetting—WAR in general has always been lauded for its self-healing. It is possible to do dungeons without a healer. Extremes can be done either without a healer or with just a single healer because there’s very little to do in terms of healing. Even Savage can be done with just one healer. The developers force a two-healer composition by forcing mechanics to target healers specifically (P4S fire stacks target healers, to give an example)—but it can be done with just one healer. And has been done. And this doesn’t even require top notch play. I’ve done dungeons with casual, non-raider, not-top notch players before without a healer in there. As a healer in a dungeon, I spend 95% of my time spamming my AOE or single target nuke. The only time I have to actively heal is, quite frankly, if I get a bad tank.

Yeah but I'm also playing this game where the contrary also happens, where healers are needed in dungeons. People's skill levels and playing levels are just different and in my experience more times than not, healers are a necessity.

[HyoMinPark]

Yeah but I'm also playing this game where the contrary also happens, where healers are needed in dungeons. People's skill levels and playing levels are just different and in my experience more times than not, healers are a necessity.

Here’s an edit in case you missed it: it addresses this “healers are a necessity” comment in a way—

And that last statement echoes something I’ve asked in the past: why is it that the healing role, in order to actually feel engaged or to actually do any significant amounts of healing, has to rely on bad players or bad runs to perform their primary role? I’ll be honest, the reason I’ve been spamming Dun Scaith as a healer recently is because the runs are easy enough to turn into a clown fiesta, and I can FINALLY do something other than spam Dosis until my fingers fall off. But that’s not a reflection of the content requiring me to heal, and more so a reflection of lots of shite hitting lots of fans. And that has been the case with healers for a long time.

Healers aren’t a necessity anymore. Healers aren’t even healers. We are gimped damage dealers that heal sometimes. Just because you have a run where people cannot perform properly doesn’t make healers a necessity when other roles easily fill their niches: healing, raising, and mitigating.

There used to be dungeons where a healer was needed. There used to be dungeons that were actually hard to heal and forced healers to heal versus just mindlessly spamming their damage spells (OG The Vault is a perfect example of a dungeon that required having a decent healer). But these don’t exist anymore. They have been steadily shadow nerfed by either potency changes or job changes. In Endwalker, there are only a handful of pulls that could actually be considered spicy, and require a healer to pay attention. Most of them though? I’m spamming my AOE nuke. I’m not healing. If I am healing, it’s because I have a very bad tank who doesn’t understand the concept of defensive cooldowns.

[CrimsonGunner]

Yeah but I'm also playing this game where the contrary also happens, where healers are needed in dungeons. People's skill levels and playing levels are just different and in my experience more times than not, healers are a necessity.

the only moment those stuff happen is when u do wall to wall pulls which again not mendatory and clearly dungeons were not design to be that way but still they are being done that way cause its possible and easy to do.
if you do a dungeon the way it was intended and pull 1 group at a time you would even barely need a mitigation skill and just use your self heals, let alone a healer to make sure ur alive.

and as hyo said before you have loads of other jobs able to replace healers, u need a heal another then other then every tank(except DRK) u have rdm/dnc/smn or that same person can heal themselves like melee can with their role actions. you need to raise someone smn/rdm and very very rare cases u need cleansing you have brd. every aspect you need a healer is basically replace or not exist in most contents(cleansing a buff).

but you don't need a special composition to make a run work, u just need to know a fight and after 1 or 2 wipes if happens and you can clear a dungeon/ trial without a healer in a party.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Like seriously, I've experienced wipes in a trial or an alliance when all the healers are down and no rezzes or people who have a rez didnt survive long enough during a fight to get it off. The same with dungeons content. And again I feel stupid for having to repeat myself that I'm not saying that people have ran certain content without a healer and managed to do fine. But what Im seeing there happen is that everyone on that team is on their game, knows how to play their class and is coordinated enough to pull something like that off. Which I dont see it happen that smoothly whenever I play this game as normal everyday player. Sometimes I make a mistake in focusing too much on dps as a healer and I cause a wipe, Sometimes I see tanks not doing their job too well. There's all these different factors that I see that happen daily that I cant consistently rely on what people say here. But I acknowledge that it happens. Just dont acknowledge that this is the case 100% of the time without fail.