Healers need an overhaul

[MintnHoney]

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, Healers PvP skills I feel should make its way into PvE, I love AST double cast, imagine WHM Seraph Striking into melee to get into range for Holy, SCH Mummification debuffing enemies, it will bring a new uniqueness to each job.

You're definitely not the only one who thinks so. It would be wonderful to get PVE equivalents added in, and to see more of this design direction in general.

[Knetik]

The issue with FFXIV healers is the fact that they are quite overpowered and have overly bloated healing toolkits for the majority of content in this game. Most content hits like a wet noodle, and healers have so many industrial-strength bandages for the booboos that the healing-to-damage ratio is even more skewed.

That said, I am not a fan of being a heal bot standing around healing for 90% of content. It would be just as monotonous spamming Medica 100+ times in a fight as it is spamming Glare 100+ times in a fight. I prefer a healthy balance. This game doesn’t have that—it’s 80% or more dealing damage and 20% or less actually healing. A more even distribution would be nice.

It’s unfortunate that the developers have zero plans to actually increase healing requirements, since apparently that would be “too hard”. Can’t say I appreciate the insinuation that players who enjoy the healer role have the intelligence quotient and skill level of a small rock.

I agree, I don't necessarily want to sit back and spam heals like back in the 90s by any means, but healing seems like such a backseat to dps as a healer - just feels off to me. But ive def always thought that if SE increased even just boss auto attack damage it would make a large difference in this area.

[Welsper59]

I agree, I don't necessarily want to sit back and spam heals like back in the 90s by any means, but healing seems like such a backseat to dps as a healer - just feels off to me. But ive def always thought that if SE increased even just boss auto attack damage it would make a large difference in this area.

From what I gather based on my experience from healing across many games, but most notably with XIV, XI, and WoW, the main thing that makes healers different here is the removal of any actual MP management as the game went on. That, in combination with many other things, is why healers are in the monotonous spot they are now. Back in ARR, Mage's Ballad from BRDs were often viewed as mandatory in many cases, but it was already evident that healers were pretty self sufficient in the MP department if they needed to be.

I do think that Sage is an early glimpse into the direction that healers will eventually change into (more buttons to press to complicate DPS rotation and healing options). Make no mistake that if healing became more complicated in the healer area, most healers would despise the change. A lot of the other games make AoE healing extremely high on the MP cost, to the point that you could wipe your group simply because you did one too many AoE heals. So those were often treated as occasional or rare happenings, while single target healing was the more efficient way to go most of the time, even for AoE damage. The same goes for having more frequent heavily impacting status ailments to remove (e.g. a potent group wide Paralyze).

The thing all healers need to come to terms with is what are they actually enjoying doing as a healer. Do you want to spend more time doing healer things or do you want more time to DPS? You can't have both and logically one will take away time from the other. Then the next question is whether or not you would stop healing if the choice you want wasn't picked and you now have to do more of that other thing.

Also keep in mind that healers and tanks are very simple for a reason. They're critical roles and the devs don't want to complicate that, which would result in less people playing them if they did.

[WaxSw]

From what I gather based on my experience from healing across many games, but most notably with XIV, XI, and WoW, the main thing that makes healers different here is the removal of any actual MP management as the game went on.That, in combination with many other things, is why healers are in the monotonous spot they are now.

At least in XIV case MP is not the cause of the problem, the excesive homogenization of both dps and heal tools are, especially the dps rotations as we end up pressing the same button hundreds of times more than any other.

I do think that Sage is an early glimpse into the direction that healers will eventually change into (more buttons to press to complicate DPS rotation and healing options)

Sage is none of that, it falls under the same 1 button spam as all of the healer and its gimmick of "complexity" in the form of eukrasia is very underplayed only working with the standard nuke to give us the standard dot every healer has and with the 2 GCD heals that barely see any use to give us their upgraded version a la Physick->Adlo, there is nothing unique or special about that.

The thing all healers need to come to terms with is what are they actually enjoying doing as a healer. Do you want to spend more time doing healer things or do you want more time to DPS?

We like both, as simple as that. Most of us come because we like the support style and are right now asking for more dps options because increasing the healing requirements at this point would require a game overhaul

Also keep in mind that healers and tanks are very simple for a reason. They're critical roles and the devs don't want to complicate that, which would result in less people playing them if they did.

Then they're failing, healers after the changes have become the least played role on all level ranges and that excuse of being critical is moot when content has been proven to be clearable without healers, we're a comodity not a necessity, and for the endgame (where this would matter) due to enrage timers dps are as important as the other 2 roles so that argument could be applied to them too. There is no justification for having an ENTIRE ROLE with the same gameplay of 1 button spam.

[Welsper59]

At least in XIV case MP is not the cause of the problem, the excesive homogenization of both dps and heal tools are, especially the dps rotations as we end up pressing the same button hundreds of times more than any other.

Yeah, as I said, it's not just the MP thing, but it is one major point. It actually doesn't have to be either depending what form of management is being focused on (e.g. time).

Sage is none of that, it falls under the same 1 button spam as all of the healer and its gimmick of "complexity" in the form of eukrasia is very underplayed only working with the standard nuke to give us the standard dot every healer has and with the 2 GCD heals that barely see any use to give us their upgraded version a la Physick->Adlo, there is nothing unique or special about that.

That's why I said an early glimpse. A glimpse is not at all intended to mean complete or nearly complete reference. Add in the mention of early and it's even more so not supposed to be taken that way.

Think along the lines of having spells or abilities that alter the way you use your spells dramatically, something that Sage does do, even if it is simple right now.

We like both, as simple as that. Most of us come because we like the support style and are right now asking for more dps options because increasing the healing requirements at this point would require a game overhaul

The question was not posed as needing to choose whether or not you like one or the other. It's asking which you favor, in the context of this problem of boredom that people have. It's logically impossible to increase time healing AND simultaneously increase DPS time, unless you want fights to go on much longer... resulting in more boredom probably with being back to square one lol.

This question is being asked because of what you'd like to see be the more critical and time consuming part of the role. Do you want more healing duties and for it be more complicated or do you want your DPS to be more complicated? You could do both but... I'm fairly certain almost no one will like that.

Then they're failing, healers after the changes have become the least played role on all level ranges and that excuse of being critical is moot when content has been proven to be clearable without healers, we're a comodity not a necessity, and for the endgame (where this would matter) due to enrage timers dps are as important as the other 2 roles so that argument could be applied to them too. There is no justification for having an ENTIRE ROLE with the same gameplay of 1 button spam.

Were healers the most played role before or something? At any point of this game or ANY game with the holy trinity set up, healers and/or tanks are the least represented lol. That's news to me that healers aren't needed at all in much of this games relevant content.

[WaxSw]

That's why I said an early glimpse. A glimpse is not at all intended to mean complete or nearly complete reference. Add in the mention of early and it's even more so not supposed to be taken that way.

Think along the lines of having spells or abilities that alter the way you use your spells dramatically, something that Sage does do, even if it is simple right now.

My bad then, I've seen too many people saying Sge has a complex dps rotation because of Eukrasia without realizing that is just that an idea that is not developed.

The question was not posed as needing to choose whether or not you like one or the other. It's asking which you favor, in the context of this problem of boredom that people have. It's logically impossible to increase time healing AND simultaneously increase DPS time, unless you want fights to go on much longer... resulting in more boredom probably with being back to square one lol.

This question is being asked because of what you'd like to see be the more critical and time consuming part of the role. Do you want more healing duties and for it be more complicated or do you want your DPS to be more complicated? You could do both but... I'm fairly certain almost no one will like that.

That leads to a deeper discussion that I'm gonna sum up as: Increasing the healing requirements/make healers heal more is a very inefficient effort, it would raise the skill floor much without raising as much the skill ceiling and in order to make the jobs feel good when healing a complete game overhaul would be required, even after that, drawing the line of "sufficient healing needs" is a problem by itself because what for an experienced healer is enough healing for a new healer is a living hell and what a new sees as good healing for an expert is a 90% dps spam boredom duty.

Leaving aside how the devs themselves have said they won't increase the healing requirements if you analyze the game it basically has the perfect enviroment for a dps expansion of the healer's kit, very bursty and predictable damage with plenty of downtime, non complex mp management, loads of dps neutral tools and oGCDs to heal the damage, a charge system and job gauges that allow for action delays without dps loss... everything there would allow for a healer to have more dps actions that do not get in the way of healing.

Were healers the most played role before or something? At any point of this game or ANY game with the holy trinity set up, healers and/or tanks are the least represented lol. That's news to me that healers aren't needed at all in much of this games relevant content.

IIrc they were more played than tanks or on par at least while right now we have level ranges like the one below lv59 where there is a healer every 3 tanks and at lv90 the ratio of dps-tanks-healers is 2-1-0.7, healers have also been bleeding mains since Shb.

About the healers not being that needed in relevant content I'll sum it up with things you can easily check: All experts have been cleared and cosistently farmed without healers (1 tank 3 dps), While current in EW both the 2 first extremes have been cleared without healers (and EX1 is commonly farmed with 1 healer only) the last EX has been cleared with just 1 healer too, in Savage both P1S and P2S have been cleared without healers and P4S have been cleared with 1 healer, in Ultimate Ucob has been cleared without healers UWU with 1 healer, TEA with 1 healer and ofc there is no 1 healer clear of DSR yet.

[Rilifane]

The question was not posed as needing to choose whether or not you like one or the other. It's asking which you favor, in the context of this problem of boredom that people have. It's logically impossible to increase time healing AND simultaneously increase DPS time, unless you want fights to go on much longer... resulting in more boredom probably with being back to square one lol.

It is not logically impossible to increase healing requirements AND add a more engaging dps rotation. Time spent doing something isn't the same as engagement so "time" shouldn't be a factor or an argument. It's how something is designed that makes the difference. You can have 100% healing uptime and be bored out of your mind.
Ad other MMOs have proven that you can have more engaging downtime options while at the same time having higher healing requirements. SE shies away from both and that is what drove off veteran players en masse.

This question is being asked because of what you'd like to see be the more critical and time consuming part of the role. Do you want more healing duties and for it be more complicated or do you want your DPS to be more complicated? You could do both but... I'm fairly certain almost no one will like that.

I would.
Give me more complex healing while also having more engaging dps options. Not that it will ever happen and I'm personally fine with healing requirements not being signifcantly higher than right now as long as it's not so bad that healers as a role only exist for comfort of the rest of the party instead of being a necessity. And right now they are the "comfort for others" role.

Were healers the most played role before or something? At any point of this game or ANY game with the holy trinity set up, healers and/or tanks are the least represented lol. That's news to me that healers aren't needed at all in much of this games relevant content.

Not the most played role but before ShB you usually had instant invites on tank, short queue time on healer (5min or less) and longer queue times on dps (10-15min, more depending on the duty/ time). The decline started with ShB and continues. They utterly failed at making the role more attractive because they worried so much about attracting new healers that they completely failed at giving them a reason to stay while simultaneously ignoring veteran healer mains that have been reliably filling queues for years and driving them off.
It's now the least played role in all content and more and more people catch on to doing things without/ one healer, including the more casual people. 1 tank/ 3 dps is becoming more popular for experts and even some leveling dungeons because it changes absolutely nothing - you approach the dungeon in the same way.

A lower entry barrier doesn't mean more people will main it, it only means more people might be tempted to try it. And SE failed to see that.
They lowered the entry barrier but didn't give healers a reason to stay - why would you stay on a role that only exists for the comfort of others while having next to no engagement unless you happened to land in a clownfiesta meme party when you can play a role that is and feels important while also providing constant engagement?

[IDontPetLalas]

From what I gather based on my experience from healing across many games, but most notably with XIV, XI, and WoW, the main thing that makes healers different here is the removal of any actual MP management as the game went on. That, in combination with many other things, is why healers are in the monotonous spot they are now. Back in ARR, Mage's Ballad from BRDs were often viewed as mandatory in many cases, but it was already evident that healers were pretty self sufficient in the MP department if they needed to be.

*snip*

The thing all healers need to come to terms with is what are they actually enjoying doing as a healer. Do you want to spend more time doing healer things or do you want more time to DPS? You can't have both and logically one will take away time from the other. Then the next question is whether or not you would stop healing if the choice you want wasn't picked and you now have to do more of that other thing.

Also keep in mind that healers and tanks are very simple for a reason. They're critical roles and the devs don't want to complicate that, which would result in less people playing them if they did.

1- I don't get your point about the removal of MP management as a facto to healers being more monotonous. Are you saying that we should need to rely on another job in order to assist with our resource management- if I understand you correctly, no pnly do I find MP management a fairly dated concept in terms of engagement, I also find that tying it to another job for critical skills would be a big "NO" from me.

I also disagree with the 'do you want to heal more or DPS more" in a sense, the game just doesn't require people to be at full health 100% all of the time. if someone wants to 'heal more", well the closest thing so far is the latest ultimate with a heal check , but even with fight- you can clearly see healers DPSing and healing.

OK, last point - this one to be honest is really annoying - tanks have *far* more interesting rotations than healers. Healers don't need to be dumbed down this much. in addition, when the game designers have added on so much mitigation and self-healing to tanks, and other roles are often there to raise- your argument that healers are *critical* and shouldn't be *complicated* really doesn't hold water.

[Nizzi]

Also keep in mind that healers and tanks are very simple for a reason. They're critical roles and the devs don't want to complicate that, which would result in less people playing them if they did.

If tanks are very simple just like healers, I am humbly requesting for an equivalent of PLD or GNB's rotation on healers. Thank you.

[rewd]

If tanks are very simple just like healers, I am humbly requesting for an equivalent of PLD or GNB's rotation on healers. Thank you.

Or give tanks a 1 button rotation. If that's apparently good for healers, I'm sure that's good for tanks too.

That way they can focus on boss positioning and mitigation without worrying on DPS.