Healers need an overhaul

[MisterNublet]

Who said it was the only way? And although it seems odd to have to tell someone with such a strong opinion on healing this, no one (i.e., not tanks or DPS either) needs to "seek out subpar players." Just run duty roulettes, and you can't avoid them.

Do try to remember, though, that just about everyone was a sub par players at some point.

I stopped running duty roulettes over a month ago. What now? Do I put "bad players only" in the description of my party finder savage groups? Obviously not. That would be stupid.

Not a single person should have to subject oneself to poor play by other players just to enjoy their chosen job. It is the job of the developers to make sure the core gameplay is enjoyable at all levels and facets of the game whether its causal or hardcore, and if they're unable to or unwilling to then they're in the wrong career.

[Silverbane]

Not a single person should have to subject oneself to poor play by other players just to enjoy their chosen job.

That's like insisting you be able to drive without encountering sub par drivers, or ride public transit without having to smell sweaty people and deal with drunks.

It is the job of the developers to make sure the core gameplay is enjoyable at all levels and facets of the game whether its causal or hardcore, and if they're unable to or unwilling to then they're in the wrong career.

First, you can't please all the people all the time.
Second, the job of the developers is to maintain the game's profitability. Everything else is just a means to that end.

[QooEr]

First, you can't please all the people all the time.

you cant please all the people all the time but with 4 different jobs in a role they should at least try to cover their breadth of playstyles to cater to. they almost all feel the same with the exception of ast, which gets to play slightly different for 15 seconds every 2 minutes.


if you like current sage, sure, thats fine. but what do people that used to like their healer job back in stormblood do ? the playstyle of healers before shb does not exist anymore and its why healers have been so dissatisfied since.

[Silverbane]

you cant please all the people all the time but with 4 different jobs in a role they should at least try to cover their breadth of playstyles to cater to.

If you want all four "healers" to be viable "healers" in all the content, that seems pretty difficult.

Let's say, hypothetically, WHM becomes a "pure healer" and SGE stays what someone here called a "gimped damage dealer."
Can you have content that that requires the (assumed) higher healing output of the WHM, that is still doable with the SGE?
And can you have content that require the DPS contribution of the SGE, but is still doable on the WHM?
Perhaps you can, but it seems a lot more difficult to do than what the situation we have now.

Of course, you could always take the easy path and dumb everything down so that the higher heals of the WHM and the DPS contribution of the SGE are never required, but I don't think anyone wants that.

And then there's the go-hear-kill-this quests in the MSQ: do we eliminate them, gimp them for pure healers, or what?
After all, while arguments here seem to center on group and endgame content, solo MSQ progression is still a major part of the game.

[HyoMinPark]

If you want all four "healers" to be viable "healers" in all the content, that seems pretty difficult.

Let's say, hypothetically, WHM becomes a "pure healer" and SGE stays what someone here called a "gimped damage dealer."
Can you have content that that requires the (assumed) higher healing output of the WHM, that is still doable with the SGE?
And can you have content that require the DPS contribution of the SGE, but is still doable on the WHM?
Perhaps you can, but it seems a lot more difficult to do than what the situation we have now.

Of course, you could always take the easy path and dumb everything down so that the higher heals of the WHM and the DPS contribution of the SGE are never required, but I don't think anyone wants that.

It is pretty close to the former—you should honestly look at just how little healing healers actually do in content compared to how much time they spend dealing damage. That’s what I mean by “gimped damage dealer”, by the way: I am spending more time dealing damage as opposed to actually performing my role because healing requirements are so low.

And it’s unfortunate that the developers will not increase the damage output even just a little bit. I’m not talking constant raidwides where you have no breathing room and opportunity to deal damage. I’m just talking about a slight increase in casual content, with the increase scaling the higher you go in terms of content (e.g., Extremes, Savages, Ultimate). As it stands now, current Savages and Extremes are being cleared without healers on content. And while they’ve always been solo healed while relevant, it’s rare for them to be straight-up done without healers while the content is relevant.

And then there's the go-hear-kill-this quests in the MSQ: do we eliminate them, gimp them for pure healers, or what?
After all, while arguments here seem to center on group and endgame content, solo MSQ progression is still a major part of the game.

No one is asking for that. You aren’t actually reading what healer mains want if you think that we are asking for that.

Keep in mind that MSQ is, more or less, one-and-done unless you do New Game+. Group and endgame content is constant.

[QooEr]

If you want all four "healers" to be viable "healers" in all the content, that seems pretty difficult.

is it? stormblood had different playstyles for all 3 healers and they could all clear all the content just fine. in fact every ultimate in the game except for the newly released one has been solo healed by every single healer.
fights in this game do NOT stretch out the resources healers currently have. in a game with such infrequent and low damage the hypothetical healer job would have to be utterly terrible for it to be "unviable". nevermind that patches exist and they can keep finetuning things too.

Let's say, hypothetically, WHM becomes a "pure healer" and SGE stays what someone here called a "gimped damage dealer."
Can you have content that that requires the (assumed) higher healing output of the WHM, that is still doable with the SGE?
And can you have content that require the DPS contribution of the SGE, but is still doable on the WHM?

you have a very black and white view of how healers can achieve the same result in different ways.
why do all 4 healers have to have almost the exact same damage "rotation"? 4 jobs, 4 playstyles.
a whm could have stronger pure heals while a sage could have stronger mitigation to deal with the incoming damage.

Perhaps you can, but it seems a lot more difficult to do than what the situation we have now.

they managed for 11 dps jobs. im sure they can manage with 4 healers. its almost like its the developers job.

Of course, you could always take the easy path and dumb everything down so that the higher heals of the WHM and the DPS contribution of the SGE are never required, but I don't think anyone wants that.

this is quite literally the current situation

[Rolder50]

If you want all four "healers" to be viable "healers" in all the content, that seems pretty difficult.

Let's say, hypothetically, WHM becomes a "pure healer" and SGE stays what someone here called a "gimped damage dealer."
Can you have content that that requires the (assumed) higher healing output of the WHM, that is still doable with the SGE?
And can you have content that require the DPS contribution of the SGE, but is still doable on the WHM?
Perhaps you can, but it seems a lot more difficult to do than what the situation we have now.

The problem therein is that there is zero content that requires current healers to make full use of their healing kit. None. Not even Ultimate. Heck, some of the older ultimates have even been solo healed.

[Silverbane]

The problem therein is that there is zero content that requires current healers to make full use of their healing kit. None. Not even Ultimate. Heck, some of the older ultimates have even been solo healed.

Honestly, that's a problem for you, fine, acknowledged, but it isn't for me.
As long as I'm having fun playing the game, it doesn't matter that I can DPS a bit along with healing and shielding.
I find it way more fun than the tanking, ranged DPS, and melee DPS I've done.

[ty_taurus]

If you want all four "healers" to be viable "healers" in all the content, that seems pretty difficult.

Let's say, hypothetically, WHM becomes a "pure healer" and SGE stays what someone here called a "gimped damage dealer."
Can you have content that that requires the (assumed) higher healing output of the WHM, that is still doable with the SGE?
And can you have content that require the DPS contribution of the SGE, but is still doable on the WHM?
Perhaps you can, but it seems a lot more difficult to do than what the situation we have now.

Of course, you could always take the easy path and dumb everything down so that the higher heals of the WHM and the DPS contribution of the SGE are never required, but I don't think anyone wants that.

And then there's the go-hear-kill-this quests in the MSQ: do we eliminate them, gimp them for pure healers, or what?
After all, while arguments here seem to center on group and endgame content, solo MSQ progression is still a major part of the game.

It's really not at all difficult actually considering most of the DPS are capable of staying largely balanced while being drastically different, and even the DPS that are lagging behind somewhat are still quite playable and often seen.

Here's a simplistic example:

Offensive Healer (Sage) - Give it a RDM lite or SMN lite rotation. Trim down some of its healing resources and empower its healing-through-DPS capabilities. Give Diagnosis and Prognosis a buff that helps SGE salvage a messy run where its other resources have run dry.

Passive Healer (Astro) - Divide Draw in to Astral Draw and Umbral Draw. Astral Draw gives you offensive buffs (Balance, Arrow, Spire) Umbral Draw gives you defensive buffs (Bole, Spear, Ewer). Both have 2 charges, both are on the GCD. Astral Play and Umbral Play replace their respective Draws when a card is drawn until the card is used. Move both of these to the GCD. Drawing and playing a card are two separate GCD actions, and each gives you a new buff stack (max 6). Casting a spell consumes 1 stack to deal a separate 250 potency attack. Synastry changes to an OGCD action that works like Kardia. Whomever you give Synastry to, including yourself, their spells and weaponskills consumes 1 of your stacks to perform a separate 250 potency attack. If there are no stacks, no attack is performed. The potency is based on you and is affected by your buffs regardless of who has Synastry.

There you go, a healer who spends most of their time buffing and supporting with balanced DPS contributions.

[MiaShino]

If you want all four "healers" to be viable "healers" in all the content, that seems pretty difficult.

Other MMOs handled this in past times with minimal issue.

Let's say, hypothetically, WHM becomes a "pure healer" and SGE stays what someone here called a "gimped damage dealer."

No healer is ever pure healer they are all gimed deeps in every single mmo. Sure sure some mmos require more healing which means that downtime is less buuuuut; What do we do when the party is full health? DPS the bad guy.

Can you have content that that requires the (assumed) higher healing output of the WHM, that is still doable with the SGE?

Easily. You do this same way every other design team has rationalized in games that have support. Sage will work harder to reach same healing output as White Mage but find maintaining the stream of outgoing damage more of the easier. My Sage/Sorcerer in Swtor was more of regen low output healer. Had numerous players insisting that it was worst healer and I should switch from it to Merc. Find out they were all healbots and laughed in infinite MP while they overheated/ran out of energy and ate floor. Could easily solo heal the most difficult content in there with my "underpowered" healer. Planned in advance for outgoing bursty damage with hots while specing into overpowered tactical that turned my nuke into a nuke + heal.

And can you have content that require the DPS contribution of the SGE, but is still doable on the WHM?

Again yes. Sage will have lower burst and lower direct healing output. Should be balanced in such a way that would allow Sage to maintain outgoing damage without interrupting to heal. White Mage would be opposite. High burst damage and direct healing with fewer tools for maintaining that burst forcing it to interrupt damage output for healing.

Sooo Sage maintains near 100% dps uptime even while healing. Uses mitigation and pre-planning to circumvent need for big burst healing.

White Mage can only maintain near 80% dps uptime. Makes up that 20% difference by having high burst during downtime (no healing needed).

Both can achieve same theoretical or near identical theoretical output whilst having unique methods of getting there. White Mage burst healing solidifies it as the "beginner friendly" healer.

Perhaps you can, but it seems a lot more difficult to do than what the situation we have now.

What we have now requires zero balancing at'all so, I suppose! What I suggested above has been staple across other games though and for reason. It is also simple method for balancing yet produces far more interesting class design. Even Overwatch managed this.. You do not play Lucio in same way you did Mercy buuuuuut both are incredibly valuable to the team.

Of course, you could always take the easy path and dumb everything down so that the higher heals of the WHM and the DPS contribution of the SGE are never required, but I don't think anyone wants that.

This is what we have though? So you are most correct! We do not want this anymore. Tis not working no it is not. Hence the myriad of threads about it...

And then there's the go-hear-kill-this quests in the MSQ: do we eliminate them, gimp them for pure healers, or what?
After all, while arguments here seem to center on group and endgame content, solo MSQ progression is still a major part of the game.

All of those quests are already mind-numbingly easy and designed so that all roles can complete them. This would not change if all healers had class complexity and deeps options. What would change is that we might be pressing more then one button while doing them as healer and welp, I will take that!