Healer Q&A in PLL LXVIII

[Renathras]

And stop with the "there not being enough to heal", you've played this game long enough to know this is a heavily scripted system, you know it won't change much of how you play in the end. What healers need is more damage options and everyone needs to stick and focus on that.

Many healers don't want to be damage dealers. I know this is an "unpopular opinion" (it isn't in the community as a whole, it just is on forums and among high end raiders), but if I wanted to deal damage and have the ability to throw out heals from time to time, I could main PLD, WAR, or RDM, or arguably SMN (Phoenix, not lolPhysic)

I hate DoTs, upkeep buffs, DPS "press on CD" buffs/buttons, and complex rotations that I adhere to like a metronome. When I'm a healer, I want engaging HEALING. I don't mind if my DPS "rotation" is 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,... as what I find enjoyable is picking and employing the most efficient heals to do the job, and I just filler DPS when I have no healing to do.

And note, I CAN run complex rotations - I played old SMN pretty well and my tank of choice right now is GNB - I just don't find that overly enjoyable, especially not while healing. I find GNB enjoyable WHILE TANKING. I just get no personal satisfaction from "big damage". Zero. None. Not everyone in life is about big damage, and it boggles my mind how so MANY very OPINIONATED people seem not to get this.

The problem is healing, not damage. I wouldn't even mind if we had a spectrum from easy healer to complex healer (e.g. SB era WHM vs SCH), but the problem is the ones with the more complex rotation wanted to do more damage, so ALL the dps kits were nerfed. Congratulations... >_< Even WHM was a bit more interesting back then having Aero 1, 2, AND 3 to upkeep between Stone 4 spam. Again, I hate DoTs with a passion (and it aggitates me TO NO END that EVERY healer's kit is "1 DoT + 1 Spamnuke + 1 Special"), but that was largely okay with me as an example of allowing some healers complexity while keeping others simple.

[ty_taurus]

Many healers don't want to be damage dealers. I know this is an "unpopular opinion" (it isn't in the community as a whole, it just is on forums and among high end raiders), but if I wanted to deal damage and have the ability to throw out heals from time to time, I could main PLD, WAR, or RDM, or arguably SMN (Phoenix, not lolPhysic)

But that is fundamentally NOT how healers play in this game. You would quite literally need to foundationally overhaul encounter design for every fight in the game to kill healer DPS contributions. It's like sitting down to play Mario Kart and then complaining that the game's too silly and that the items are unfair. Well, that's what happens when you choose to play Mario Kart instead of playing Gran Turismo. You're playing the wrong game, and it's selfish and entitled to barge into a game and demand it plays antithetical to its design because you don't like one aspect of it. If you want to play a healer that only heals, go play a game that supports that playstyle, which the only MMO I can think of that actually does this is Everquest.

[Renathras]

But that is fundamentally NOT how healers play in this game. You would quite literally need to foundationally overhaul encounter design for every fight in the game to kill healer DPS contributions. It's like sitting down to play Mario Kart and then complaining that the game's too silly and that the items are unfair. Well, that's what happens when you choose to play Mario Kart instead of playing Gran Turismo. You're playing the wrong game, and it's selfish and entitled to barge into a game and demand it plays antithetical to its design because you don't like one aspect of it. If you want to play a healer that only heals, go play a game that supports that playstyle, which the only MMO I can think of that actually does this is Everquest.

Here's the problem with that:

Mario Kart didn't start out as Grand Turismo.

I've been playing FFXIV since 2013. I'm not "barging into" anything. If anything, I'm asking that the game return to its ARR/HW roots. They've designed themselves into a corner, but those design changes started in SB and have come since then.

If you were playing Grand Turismo and a major patch turned it into Mario Kart, I think you complaining about that would be totally fair.

Also note: WHEN did I say "I want to play a healer that only heals and DOES NOTHING ELSE?"

I believe it's called a "Straw Man Fallacy" when you make up your opponent's arguments and then beat up on those arguments they aren't making instead of addressing their actual arguments...

.

Though I do agree with Grimoire-M that, in that game's case, you have a lot of other support/non-damage options as well. But if I wanted to be playing Everquest, I'd play Everquest. If I wanted to play Everquest with a Final Fantasy skin, I'd be playing FFXI.

None of that has anything to do with this discussion, since I didn't make that argument. I'll thank you to NOT put words in my mouth, if you please.

[ty_taurus]

Here's the problem with that:

Mario Kart didn't start out as Grand Turismo.

I've been playing FFXIV since 2013. I'm not "barging into" anything. If anything, I'm asking that the game return to its ARR/HW roots. They've designed themselves into a corner, but those design changes started in SB and have come since then.

If you were playing Grand Turismo and a major patch turned it into Mario Kart, I think you complaining about that would be totally fair.

Also note: WHEN did I say "I want to play a healer that only heals and DOES NOTHING ELSE?"

I believe it's called a "Straw Man Fallacy" when you make up your opponent's arguments and then beat up on those arguments they aren't making instead of addressing their actual arguments...

.

Though I do agree with Grimoire-M that, in that game's case, you have a lot of other support/non-damage options as well. But if I wanted to be playing Everquest, I'd play Everquest. If I wanted to play Everquest with a Final Fantasy skin, I'd be playing FFXI.

None of that has anything to do with this discussion, since I didn't make that argument. I'll thank you to NOT put words in my mouth, if you please.

I was there during 2013 and the healing role was objectively not designed to be played only healing and never DPSing. A lot of players fell back on that because it's what they expected, but it wasn't how the game was designed, and as players realized how important healer DPS was, the that's when a subset of players who had experience with old WoW or Everquest started complaining that this wasn't what they signed up for. But it was. You can see it literally day one that the game's lore was telling you that just healing is not enough. That was quite literally the backbone of the CNJ class quests' story. It was trying to teach you that you need to juggle offense and defense.

If what you want is for healers to be designed more like how they were in ARR, than that would mean trimming the fat of healing bloat and reintroducing more offense and crowd control back into the role.

Now, yes, we do DPS a lot more, but that's not because healers are designed to DPS. It's because SE keeps trying to make the role easier by adding more healing buttons despite the fact that that's no why novice healers continue to fail healing checks in dungeons, or address the pressure to know mechanics as a healer (outside of making damage so low that the rest of the party can still clear a fight even well after the healer has been KOed).

[Punslinger]

Many healers don't want to be damage dealers.

Yes, Sylphie from the CNJ quests provides a notable example of the archetype.

One would also have to wonder about the popularity of Atonement in WoW going from an optional talent to a fundamental part of Disc Priest gameplay, if "many healers don't want to be damage dealers."

I hate DoTs, upkeep buffs, DPS "press on CD" buffs/buttons, and complex rotations that I adhere to like a metronome.

Why are you playing an MMO, then? That's like saying, "I hate memorizing combos and playing DDR with the D-pad in order to perform special moves," while playing fighting games.

I find GNB enjoyable WHILE TANKING. I just get no personal satisfaction from "big damage". Zero. None. Not everyone in life is about big damage, and it boggles my mind how so MANY very OPINIONATED people seem not to get this.

You get no satisfaction from "big damage," yet you tank as GNB, the tank with the most DPS buttons in the role? (press X to doubt)

This is not about "OMG BIG DEEPS NUMBARZ GUD." This is about 2111111111 being boring as hell. This is about fight design giving healers almost nothing to do but spam 21111111111. This is about the MSQ giving healers nothing to do but spam 2111111111. This is about your "solution" being to replace 211111111 DPS spam with 211111111 heal spam. How is it that you Sylphie curebots seem not to get this?

We advocate for Green DPS because that is the only feasible way to save the role at this point! The time to take fights off of rigid scripts and switch to attrition-based healing was three expansions ago. That ship hasn't just sailed, it's struck an iceberg, and then been torpedoed just to be sure.

Square will not radically change how they design fights going forward, breaking with almost a decade of tradition. Square will not radically overhaul that same decade's worth of existing content to make it work with a new healing model. Square will not radically redesign every healer's healing kit from the ground up, or make MP management a key part of gameplay, such that HPM becomes relevant, in order to make GCD-centric healing interesting the way it is in other MMOs. Square will not do anything that raises the skill floor of the role, because Yoshida seems to believe that healers have IQs smaller than their shoe sizes.

So given those realities, the only way to make the healing role more engaging is to give it a DPS rotation that cannot be performed by a drinky-bird perched over your keyboard's 1 key. This makes healing more fun for skilled players, Sylphie can keep ignoring her job's DPS kit entirely, it fits with existing content design philosophy, it fits with existing job design philosophy, and it requires minimal effort from a dev team that plainly is not interested in spending anything more than minimal effort on the healing role.

[Renathras]

Yes, Sylphie from the CNJ quests provides a notable example of the archetype.

One would also have to wonder about the popularity of Atonement in WoW going from an optional talent to a fundamental part of Disc Priest gameplay, if "many healers don't want to be damage dealers."

MANY does not mean ALL. You know this, yes?

MANY healers do not agree with, just as MANY healers do not play Disc Priest in WoW.

Why are you playing an MMO, then?

Because there are other types of gameplay in MMYs than that? It's why I play a healer and not a DPS. Like...because of that very thing - that I don't care about that. To help you, it'd be more like saying, in a fighting game, "I don't like special moves but I love using combo attacks", which is an entirely viable form of gameplay. But even there, the comparison is laughable - fighting games have different styles of characters as well (some focus on their special game, some focus on combos, juggles, zoning, etc). Your argument is like a person saying "I don't like to play with specials or be a zoner" means "I don't like to play fighting games" when they DO like playing fighting games as a juggler.

Your comparison is just silly and nonsensical, even with your own example.

You get no satisfaction from "big damage," yet you tank as GNB, the tank with the most DPS buttons in the role? (press X to doubt)

I like GNB precisely because it's easy. The rotation is simple. I hit the buttons on CD and that's how it works. It's the same every time. I don't care about the damage numbers. I also like that it uses a gunsword. /shrug If I wanted an involved DPS rotation, I'd play PLD or DRK. At least, I THINK DRK's is more involved. PLD's is, which is why I don't play it. There's more drift and optimization and that weird "only use 2x Atonements here" nonsense. GNB doesn't have that. It's simple. Though I have considered leveling WAR since it's apparently even easier...

Your arguments just don't make sense, man. Especially your attempts to psychoanalyze me.

I like 21111111. My only complaint - and here's where MAYBE you could agree with me? - is that ALL HEALERS have identical (more or less) DPS kits.

I'd be fine if ONE (say, WHM or SGE) was 211111 and the others were a bit more. Though AST is already busy enough, and SCH doesn't exactly have a shortage of buttons...

.

If you are right that Square won't radically change how they design fights, then you should stop asking for dps rotations for healers, because they won't do that, either. Literally all your arguments - that they won't overhaul tradition - is opposed to your argument for more dps rotations. They just gutted them for ShB after simplifying them in SB and carried that onward into EW complete with a new healer designed around it. "tradition" is against you, here, too.

Against us both, I suppose...