Healers need an overhaul

[DeNada]

It’s a combination of both. There’s a low amount of incoming damage compared to a bloated healing toolkit—to the point that a lot of our big heal toys are overkill. And then there’s a surplus of DPS uptime with a boring, one-button “rotation”. The developers have said that they will not increase the amount of incoming damage to heal because that would be “too stressful” for the babies, so hence why healers are now asking for more interesting DPS options.

That's perplexing. I don't really understand why the developers would want to give healers complex healing kits and then not require them to be used and simple dps kits and having them take up more of the healer uptime in a fight.

Would players be unhappy if having to use GCD heals become a necessity if incoming damage is increased, or would they become more engaged?

From my little understanding, currently healers avoid having to use GCD heals and view it as bad, so a core part of the healer toolkits is being ostracized or something which is confounding.

[ASkellington]

That's perplexing. I don't really understand why the developers would want to give healers complex healing kits and then not require them to be used and simple dps kits and having them take up more of the healer uptime in a fight.

Would players be unhappy if having to use GCD heals become a necessity if incoming damage is increased, or would they become more engaged?

From my little understanding, currently healers avoid having to use GCD heals and view it as bad, so a core part of the healer toolkits is being ostracized or something which is confounding.

We avoid using GCD heals because our GCD is better spent doing damage as our oGCD heals more than cover the out going damage.

The times we do GCD healing is when everything is down. Usually when the party is taking avoidable damage.

For example. If I'm healing my tank in a W2W I have 2 charges of Essential Dignity, 2 charges of Celestial Interscetion, Exaltation, Earthly Star (for oGCD) and then Aspected Benefic running as a HoT with Macrocosmos before I even THINK about spamming Benefic 2.

In a boss fight? Exaltation covers all tank busters. Its on a 60 second cool down.

Meaning I never touch Benefic 2 or even Aspected Benefic.

[HyoMinPark]

That's perplexing. I don't really understand why the developers would want to give healers complex healing kits and then not require them to be used and simple dps kits and having them take up more of the healer uptime in a fight.

Would players be unhappy if having to use GCD heals become a necessity if incoming damage is increased, or would they become more engaged?

From my little understanding, currently healers avoid having to use GCD heals and view it as bad, so a core part of the healer toolkits is being ostracized or something which is confounding.

I really wouldn’t even call our healing kits complex. They’re just bloated compared to the amount of damage we have to actively heal. There’s nothing complex at all when it comes to any aspect of the healers.

We avoid GCD heals because 1. GCDs are better spent on damage, and 2. the oGCD heals we have are pretty broken. For jobs like SCH and SGE, their GCD heals are pretty puny and it’s inefficient to use them at higher levels. Diagnosis is less potent than WHM’s Cure I.

Personally, I’d rather just see a closer balance of healing uptime and DPS uptime. I don’t particularly think making GCD heals mandatory would improve this—how different would it be doing Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure or Medica Medica Medica Medica Medica versus Glare Glare Glare Glare? Not much.

[Banriikku]

I really wouldn’t even call our healing kits complex. They’re just bloated compared to the amount of damage we have to actively heal. There’s nothing complex at all when it comes to any aspect of the healers.

We avoid GCD heals because 1. GCDs are better spent on damage, and 2. the oGCD heals we have are pretty broken. For jobs like SCH and SGE, their GCD heals are pretty puny and it’s inefficient to use them at higher levels. Diagnosis is less potent than WHM’s Cure I.

Personally, I’d rather just see a closer balance of healing uptime and DPS uptime. I don’t particularly think making GCD heals mandatory would improve this—how different would it be doing Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure or Medica Medica Medica Medica Medica versus Glare Glare Glare Glare? Not much.

What i am to fail to understand: Do people not know how FF14 encounter are build ?
After all this discussion i still hear "let the bosses do more damage" - This is not how FF14 encounter are designed and if you are changing this in that way many encounter would break. FF14 Encounter are build as a dance, you remember the steps and do them correctly and beat the encounter.
There is not much rng goin on. WoW Encounter are more build as constant dps check and not much as a dance.

But even if they increased dps checks, it would not change the fact that the job design of healer in FF14 are build as resource needed by dps and tanks to beat the encounter and not a class that is played.

So healers need to be changed into "green dps" or all healer's need a major overhaul. I am game for both but i am not believing that SE is putting money back into FF14. My reason is simple "FF16" and many other "Projekts" and how they got handled.
SE dont even understand that "NFTS" are not wanted at moment and they still push.

With all that in mind:
1. NO, increasing damge dont solve the problem.
2. NO, healer should heal do not work at the moment.
3. NO, healer's dont want more damage but more to do.

Healer's are not just a resource needed by DPS and Tanks to beat an encounter but a class to be enjoyed, not only a spot to be filled.

[HyoMinPark]

What i am to fail to understand: Do people not know how FF14 encounter are build ?
After all this discussion i still hear "let the bosses do more damage" - This is not how FF14 encounter are designed and if you are changing this in that way many encounter would break. FF14 Encounter are build as a dance, you remember the steps and do them correctly and beat the encounter.
There is not much rng goin on. WoW Encounter are more build as constant dps check and not much as a dance..

I am not asking for random damage/RNG damage. All I said was that I’d prefer a more even balance of healing uptime and DPS uptime—something closer to 50/50. I’d even take 40/60 healing versus damage. Anything but 10/90 like it is now.

Personally, I don’t care about WoW encounters and how they are built. I played WoW for a day in 2007 and that was it. Was never my cup of tea, and I don’t think FFXIV needs to be just like it. I don’t know anything about its encounter designs, and I’m not talking about its encounter designs here.

You can have a more even healing-to-damage uptime ratio without adding in random outgoing damage that falls outside of the predictable/scripted nature of this game. It’s as simple as just adding in additional raidwides during a boss—or even just make them hit harder instead of barely tickling. As fun as Aglaia is, there are very few raidwides in those encounters. Even Savage doesn’t have as many as it could, and they don’t have to be random. They can be scripted/choreographed.

Crit auto attacks were also a decent way to keep healers on their toes back in SB, in my opinion. And they were actually random. They made healers need to pay attention to the tank versus virtually ignoring them. Especially when they happened after a tank just took a buster. Aaaaand the devs removed those because they were apparently “too stressful”.


I am well aware that the things I would like to see will not happen, so you don’t need to reiterate that for me. This isn’t my first rodeo here. I was merely expressing my wishes in response to someone asking if making GCD heals mandatory in content would provide the engagement healers are wanting. I think they need far more than “you gotta use your GCD heals now”. I don’t find being a GCD cure bot any more interesting than being a Glare Mage.

I also think that healers aren’t even so much of a resource to tanks and DPS. It’s my personal opinion that healers exist in parties because the Duty Finder dictates one (or two) need to be there. But they aren’t hardly as necessary as they should be—due to a variety of reasons. If it weren’t for standard comp rankings on FFLogs, I’m certain top groups would already have dropped the second healer for a fifth DPS. You barely need one a lot of the time—and you simply don’t need two.

[Banriikku]

I am not asking for random damage/RNG damage. All I said was that I’d prefer a more even balance of healing uptime and DPS uptime—something closer to 50/50. I’d even take 40/60 healing versus damage. Anything but 10/90 like it is now.

Personally, I don’t care about WoW encounters and how they are built. I played WoW for a day in 2007 and that was it. Was never my cup of tea, and I don’t think FFXIV needs to be just like it. I don’t know anything about its encounter designs, and I’m not talking about its encounter designs here.
-snip-

I used your quote as context not to attack you. If my text gave you this feeling: Sorry, not my intention. So to clarify: I am on your side of the argument, mostly. My opinion differs on the point how we could achieve the healer changes.

I think rng damage will not change bad healer design. We are beyond this point. Healers need to be "green dps" or get a full rework. These are the options and the "rework" will not happen because we are not important enough for this investment, so i ask for the realistic solution: a dps rotation for healer.

The healers asked for: healer checks, crits on tanks, more use of the toolkit (esuna for example) but the answer was always -NO. The healer lost almost their identity completly and are now "OGCD" overheal monster without purpose besides DPS and Tanks need us to clear certain fights. We have a lot of Extreme and Savage fights that can be cleared with one healer or even without any healer.

Last but not least encounter design is important if we are talking about changing figths for healer. Look at the fights and how they are build and you will see not only got auto crits cut from fights, other parts changed too. And we need to take this in consideration before we ask for something we will regret later on.

SE need to look at the healers and must make a decision "how" they wanna build the healers. At the moment SE has no plan are idea for healers. For example WHM, the Lily change was necessary but every 20 second a Lily for what? WHM has no design besides "take Lilys" but for what, what is the purpose, the reason. Last week i played Savage, A1S, and i had a headache, my co healer did the healing alone without any problems. My group is not "top", not even close but more like "casual raider" and we did it without even flinching.

[MiaShino]

From my little understanding, currently healers avoid having to use GCD heals and view it as bad, so a core part of the healer toolkits is being ostracized or something which is confounding.

Beyond gcd healing being deeps loss it is also rather umm.. miserable feeling. It worked perfectly within Swtor which had East Coast servers and stacking alacrity offering 1 second ish gcd. Rouletting into 50 content as White Mage is experience most feist inducing because of this. If someone requires healing now because they stood in the stoopid and Bene is gone you must slow cast cure 2. Hope you are not lagging or the server does not believe you are still moving causing your cast to interrupt. Yes this happens and it is infuriating. Standing completely still > go to cast heal > interrupted > cast again > interrupted > cast finally goes off on myself. ...

All of this made worse by the insistence that we must be facing targets if we wish to cast on them. Nothing like my character twirling around to look the person I am healing dead in the eyes as I clip into mechanics and go dead on the floor.

Unavoidable damage can interrupt casts (please kill this dumb mechanic). Timing a big phat cure 3 for that multi hit stack? Tough! Interrupted! Hope you have Surecast up and did not use it for the knock back.

If you are lagging and the server decides to not register the heal you are required to begin casting again. GCD heals must be planned in advance due to cast time and wiffing one usually results in death or near death. When ogcd heals fail to apply I can just mash into clipping if it means my target lives.

Mentioned before but shall mention again as disserves its own bullet. FF14 has much longer gcd then most other mmos. If we were forced to rely only on gcd healing our total healing output would drop substantially without reduced gcd or buffed gcd heal potency.

Whiiiiich brings a Mia to final point. GCD heals are not nearly strong enough for me to consider wishing to use them. Why touch 700 potency Benific 2/Cure 2 when ED is 900 potency and Tetra is 700 potency. Have not mentioned lilies because those are deeps neutral now and instant casts.

Would probably finally quit the role if they forced us to rely on gcd healing more frequently without serious overhaul to the gcd healing portion of our kits. Make them stronger and more reliable. Also allow them to interact with the deeps portion of our kit in some meaningful way, then we can talk. Swtor did this to great effect! One heal combos into another altering the effect of that gcd heal in similar way to how skill combos on other classes work. Just going from mashing Glare into mashing Cure 2 is only trading one problem for another.