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

[rewd]

If they could aim all of the classes to where SGE is, personally I think thats the sweet spot for complexity

So no complexity at all?

[ThivraK]

I kinda hate how many of the people shouting about "healing is easy and boring" is that they actively ignore the many players in this game that struggle with managing heals during normal content. Its not as blatant in 8-man or 24-man stuff because of the fact that you have co-healers to synergize with when things get bad as well as other alliance healers who can spare a rez or two.

that's because those players do not want to put in any kind of effort into this game and only want to get carried
the same players that single pull and don't mitigate anything
the same players that do nothing but press 1 to 3 buttons as a dps and nothing else
and why? because people enable this toxic behaviour and bend over backwards to appease to people disrespecting them

[rewd]

I kinda hate how many of the people shouting about "healing is easy and boring" is that they actively ignore the many players in this game that struggle with managing heals during normal content. Its not as blatant in 8-man or 24-man stuff because of the fact that you have co-healers to synergize with when things get bad as well as other alliance healers who can spare a rez or two.

Nothing can ever be classified as "easy", then. There will always be someone that struggles with the most basic task. This is particularly funny because a lot of the people that are bad at this game are bad because they don't want to improve, not because they can't. If this community wasn't so averse to advice or normal human interaction, everyone would be able to see how completely braindead healing currently is.

Yes, Freecure fishers struggle with healing. No, this doesn't make healing "hard" or "not easy for everyone". I could use my nose to tie my shoes and I would find it struggling. Doesn't change that tying up shoes is easy.

[WaxSw]

SGE is the closest we'll probably get to slightly more complex healer and I'm willing to bet, without a shadow of a doubt, that it will lose some complexity in 7.0.

Tell me you don't know anything about Sage without telling me you don't know anything about Sage

Is literally a streamlined Shb Sch which is already a job in its dumbest state ever. Its absurd to call it complex when there are classes, yes CLASSES not jobs, that are far more complex

[Lauront]

I also highly doubt that SE's data shows them why people aren't playing the role, only that it's declining. Whether or not that is because the average player considers it "too hard" or "too boring" is really anyone's guess.

The only clearly visible feedback we have as to why people don't want to play healer anymore is from healer mains in this forum, of which the vast majority considers the role to be a mess with boring gameplay and no clear vision behind it's design.

Exactly. So-called revealed preference data is of limited use on its own; it just tells you something is happening but not why. So other than sites like this, where else are you going to get feedback to figure that out? Surveys? Maybe they do them, but what assurance is there they're doing those properly? And it doesn't seem like they even taking healer feedback on sites like this into account. All the data in the world is not going to do you any good unless you understand it and know how to (and want to) make proper use of it.

The forums, more specifically the NA forums, are such a hilariously small vocal minority in the bigger pie. While their play rate data doesn't DIRECTLY show the REASON, it likely illustrates a trend between the healer roles. Combining that with the feedback they are getting from their internal teams, fanfests / live events, instance testing etc,, I don't think it's rocket science to understand the conclusions that are being drawn. Alot of the development team are also players (yoshi-p has confirmed this), so they get direct feedback from the populace by mutual conversation as well.

So another small sample instead of this small sample. People have understandable questions of their internal testing after the recent Famitsu interview. Of the people they speak to during fanfests (e.g. streamers), how many are experienced healers, and of those, how many would be willing to jeopardise any relationship with the company through putting forward critical feedback? Even if it's just random interactions, it's still a tiny sample - even tinier than the forum in all probability. I'd argue the forum is probably the best of the widely used social media sites for the game. It's under their direct control. Any issues with it are pretty much at their own feet. Nonetheless, insofar as the NA and EU fanbases are concerned, it is geared towards having a proper conversation, unlike sites such as reddit or Twitter, or unlike fanfests, where it's a coin toss who gets through to them. So I wouldn't be so hasty to dismiss it... if they want more systematic feedback, they can use surveys or similar methods. That "bigger pie" is directly accessible to them in that sense.

[Liam_Harper]

SGE is the closest we'll probably get to slightly more complex healer and I'm willing to bet, without a shadow of a doubt, that it will lose some complexity in 7.0.

SGE is probably the easiest healer. It's just Dosis and Phlegma, same as WHM has Glare and Assize, except unlike WHM you have even more "keep your party alive" buttons and you passively heal your tank the entire time.

Less buttons doesn't = easy. WHM's toolkit is basic, but being basic makes things harder because you're so limited when it comes to high damage situations.

[Teno]

If people struggle healing normal 8-man and 24 raids they suck, period. The fact that they were on a healer to begin with only aggravates it since blowing off an ogcd every 20sec is all it takes, even in the latest ones.

[CrimsonGunner]

SGE is probably the easiest healer. It's just Dosis and Phlegma, same as WHM has Glare and Assize, except unlike WHM you have even more "keep your party alive" buttons and you passively heal your tank the entire time.

Less buttons doesn't = easy. WHM's toolkit is basic, but being basic makes things harder because you're so limited when it comes to high damage situations.

To add to your remark, the limitation isn't cause of difficult but because whm design shoots himself in the foot cause his poor design. Everything about him is negative.

He dont have utils to mitigate damage, he bearly 4 ogcd, if u need gcd healing then misery punish you by being dps negative(you dared use gcd, you will be the reason/other reason for hitting enrage). And if u dared use your basic gcd your "strong heals" prevent u from weaving(no ogcd heal weave) and they will oom you cause your mp regen is so negative that just using ur only gcd will oom u from basic use in battle.

[Banriikku]

SGE is complex ? Where ... please tell me >.<
On a serious note, all healers are easy. Fact. The diffrence is AST has more buttons if you want to do more DPS but for the healing all healer are more or less the same. I play all of them with no piety melds at all, only WHM gets annoying when you have a "mechanics are for cars" player's in your party. As a SGE i use only OGCD's even in PF. So no SGE is not complex or hard to learn.

But if you struggle as a healer if have tipp for you: Tooltips, read them and after you read them look at the other healers tooltips. With this knowledge you will be a better player.

[Silver-Strider]

A bad healer is far more noticeable and can wipe your raid more consistently at literally any ilvl more than any other role in the game.

This was maybe true once upon a time, but the ridiculous levels of support they've given to DPS and Tanks have killed this argument. I was carrying groups with my PLD all thru ShB and EW just made Healers totally irrelevant in regards to casual content, even in normal raids and 24 main and I would not call myself a good tank at all. It also doesn't help that healing requirements are so low in all current content that you can clear everything up to P2S without healers at all, leaving only 2 fights that actually require healers at all. Hell, my FC has been training people that have never done Savage content to clear P1S with a SGE solo healing and they've been getting clears and immediately starting to help them learn P2S. I know because they occasionally ask me to come in as DPS to fill out spots.

Healing has become ridiculously unnecessary and people STILL fail at it and at that point, I just chalk these people up as lost causes. There's no helping them at this point, regardless how child proof they make the role and SE needs to stop pandering to them.