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

[Anhra]

The best solution for SCH, would be to finally cut it off from Arcanist, and rework it from the Ground up into its own Job. No amount of band-aids will save this Job. It does not need First Aid, it needs a proper Operation.

I would even go so far, and say that instead of adding a new Race and Job for next Expansion, they should focus those ressources more on current Jobs and existing undertuned Content like Dungeons.

[Anhra]

So I mean is this just people wanting to have fewer healing skills and more dps skills so they can do more in leveling roulette and overworld? I can get behind that since right now it feels like they wanted healers to have an entire firehose rotation with a dozen buttons that need to go off to heal someone or mitigate some massive tank buster, then go pew pew on bosses for like near nothing.

What People want, i think, is a proper equilibrium of things. Healers have on average, arround 14 Heal Abilities that restore HP, either as a bland direct Heal, a HoT or a Shield (that also heals). That is pretty much half you entire Kit, with KUST the same Skill that isnt even needed in MOST content. Hell, you could even remove HALF of them, give the remaining ones a bit of increased Potencies and nothing would change at all.

And what makes matters worse, is that all Dungeon and pretty much every Trial with very few exceptions (like synced Rathalos-or Suzaku savage for example) have all their Bosses with extremely low HP, damage output and extremely slow and predictable/small AoEs. Healing is pretty much not needed in most of these, alone from the fact that Tanks are now beefy pseudo Healers and even DPS, can completely sustain themselves with their meek Healing kit.

And all that Yoshi P. and the Dev Team tell you is "go play ultimate, if you think healing isn't hard enough", completely dodging the original Question asked.

[Colt47]

What People want, i think, is a proper equilibrium of things. Healers have on average, arround 14 Heal Abilities that restore HP, either as a bland direct Heal, a HoT or a Shield (that also heals). That is pretty much half you entire Kit, with KUST the same Skill that isnt even needed in MOST content. Hell, you could even remove HALF of them, give the remaining ones a bit of increased Potencies and nothing would change at all.

And what makes matters worse, is that all Dungeon and pretty much every Trial with very few exceptions (like synced Rathalos-or Suzaku savage for example) have all their Bosses with extremely low HP, damage output and extremely slow and predictable/small AoEs. Healing is pretty much not needed in most of these, alone from the fact that Tanks are now beefy pseudo Healers and even DPS, can completely sustain themselves with their meek Healing kit.

And all that Yoshi P. and the Dev Team tell you is "go play ultimate, if you think healing isn't hard enough", completely dodging the original Question asked.

Probably reading into this a bit too much, but it sounds like they are at the point of burn out with FFXIV and that happens to just about anyone. I'd say 2017 was the tipping point where the enthusiasm started to dry up, but FFXIV desperately needs some new community management and Yoshi P. can't really fill that job while also doing the work he is doing.

[Nizzi]

The best solution for SCH, would be to finally cut it off from Arcanist, and rework it from the Ground up into its own Job. No amount of band-aids will save this Job. It does not need First Aid, it needs a proper Operation.

I would even go so far, and say that instead of adding a new Race and Job for next Expansion, they should focus those ressources more on current Jobs and existing undertuned Content like Dungeons.

It pretty much is already completely cut off from Arcanist though, even with Resurrection which is likely on the way out for ACN/SMN come 7.0. Personally I would rather they had removed SMN from ACN to allow there to be two healing jobs you can start from at the beginning, especially because I felt like ACN was always a better fit for SCH than it ever was SMN, but I suppose SE disagrees and believes that we need more DPS options to start with.

And to be honest, I don't trust them with a rework of SCH even though I think it probably needs it. As it stands, I'd be content with the job if it just got Miasma and Bane back and I'd more than likely main it for the rest of EW. That's not to say I don't think it has problems because I've got an entire thread about how I think it's poorly designed, I'm just desperate for something more to do on it, even if managing a second DoT isn't exactly hard.

[Nethereal]

They wanted SCH to use AF stacks on healing actions, so thet removed Energy Drain completely, only to give it back after a ton of backlash. ED is the Aethetflow dump, and is absolutely needed to manage AF waste and MP.

Yet, rather than remove the damage the ability does, which makes it a DPS gain and thus actively punishes you for using AF to heal, in EW they removed the MP refund part.

So now, you still get punished for not using an ability they intended as a AF dump.

I really don't understand what they were trying to do.

I'm so much happier on SCH pretending I'm SGE and not playing correctly and using my aetherflow on healing, what could've been if the game wasn't punishing me.

So I mean is this just people wanting to have fewer healing skills and more dps skills so they can do more in leveling roulette and overworld?

Yes and no, it'll be easier to explain if you just casually read through the thread over the course of the next few years so if anything does change you'll know why.

[BingleNingle]

thought i'd try healing again. went as sage. tank was a warrior. he killed me by accident misdirecting something and i just kinda... hit dosis the whole time anyway. nobody else died. it was fine. warrior is all the healer any party needs. what a dreary existence

[MintnHoney]

So I mean is this just people wanting to have fewer healing skills and more dps skills so they can do more in leveling roulette and overworld?

It's not exactly that. To put it as simply as possible, although this doesn't encompass every individual idea and it may not be as simple as needed, this is more about us wanting to be able to use what is being given to us and, in lieu of being able to provide that, giving us things that we can be using more regularly so that we're not stuck with just one or two buttons to exclusively push repeatedly throughout any encounter, regardless of difficulty.
This isn't to say that we don't use the other buttons. This isn't a request for more damage, or less healing. We're not really asking for more dps skills and less healing skills. We just want to be able to do something more than just deal with a one-button rotation that sprinkles in other buttons "in the event of *insert 'emergency' here*."

[ty_taurus]

It's not exactly that. To put it as simply as possible, although this doesn't encompass every individual idea and it may not be as simple as needed, this is more about us wanting to be able to use what is being given to us and, in lieu of being able to provide that, giving us things that we can be using more regularly so that we're not stuck with just one or two buttons to exclusively push repeatedly throughout any encounter, regardless of difficulty.
This isn't to say that we don't use the other buttons. This isn't a request for more damage, or less healing. We're not really asking for more dps skills and less healing skills. We just want to be able to do something more than just deal with a one-button rotation that sprinkles in other buttons "in the event of *insert 'emergency' here*."

However, adjusting healers to have more unique and satisfying DPS rotations is by in large the most reasonable way to address the situation with healer gameplay. Something Misshapen Chair brought up in a recent video is that making future content do damage more frequently in order to encourage the use of healing actions only addresses the issue with new content while failing to address the 9 years of content that already exists. It means old content will still have the same issues. We can't expect the devs to rework everything we've seen up till now to encourage a more heal-focused style of gameplay.

That said, what we could do is rework how we approach healing by moving away from having just a mass OGCD healing library and instead create more dynamics between offensive and healing actions on the GCD. During ARR and HW, the amount of damage wasn't much different, yet because healers didn't have more healing buttons than they knew what to do with, you had to make decisions with your tools. I think trying to create a way where optimal healing is about using weaker, more resource-focused healing that is in some fashion DPS neutral while having very powerful, accessible healing that's a DPS loss creates a healthier environment to encourage more healing use.

DPS is king in terms of metrics we care about, so trying to use tools that allow you to avoid losing DPS will always be the route taken by skilled players, but having accessible and powerful heals keeps the role relatively forgiving for newcomers and lower skill players.

[Deceptus]

If I was betting, Energy Drain is on it's way out come next expansion.

Short of a full Aetherflow removal or overhaul to gauge. Like mentioned well back, obviously it struck a nerve with YoshiP before Eden's Promise when he said he preferred Aetherflow being used for healing when they nerfed it and added potency on bio/broil. But of course weaving things, and then EW 1.5s cast time happened. Plus how Sage is designed with it's gauge being heal only, and toxicon's boxed-in skill. Scholar 2.0 is a good idea, now they don't have to make another healer.

And if the Aether healing and Energy drain both weren't tied to Aetherflow, Energy Drain wouldn't really have any reason to exist (it's been nerfed to hell as it is).

But there's no reason SCH's can't have some OGCD damage on a short charge system. Sage has Phlegma, SCH's can have Outburst or Painflare or call it something else.

[MintnHoney]

We can't expect the devs to rework everything we've seen up till now to encourage a more heal-focused style of gameplay.

I just want to make it clear that I'm not advocating for the devs to rework the entire game, by any means, although an overhaul of the entire healer role might be necessary to provide for both high and low skill level players.