Can we delete Seraph, Dissipation, Excog and Sacred Soil? Some ideas on top of it...

[Semirhage]

Square is just never going to budge from babying the worst DF healers forever, and they all play WHM because learning another healer after level 50 is just too darn complicated.

Trading WHM for saving the entire role is just the best possible deal we fathom getting from the devs, thank you for your sacrifice.

Excellent! I can't wait for the cycle of complaining to return the rest of the healers back to horribly designed again. Every time I hear "I don't care if your favorite healer is designed terribly as long as mine is designed well", I can't help but think...right back at 'cha.

The healer role entered this mess in the first place because WHM was designed like garbage and the other two at least had something going for them. The devs want numeric balance, but care less about engagement balance. If the dumdum healer is just as good as the complex ones, the complex ones complain that they deserve more output for their complexity. If it's not, the complex healers are satisfied, but the devs look for ways to bring their numbers closer together. Lobotomizing AST and SCH was their decision at the end of Stormblood.

If you get your complexity back, you're putting the role back in the relative position it was in Stormblood. Who's to say they won't make the same decision again? Healers are all dimwits as you know. At least, that seems to be the balancing team's opinion on it.

[Renathras]

The healer role entered this mess in the first place because WHM was designed like garbage and the other two at least had something going for them. The devs want numeric balance, but care less about engagement balance. If the dumdum healer is just as good as the complex ones, the complex ones complain that they deserve more output for their complexity. If it's not, the complex healers are satisfied, but the devs look for ways to bring their numbers closer together. Lobotomizing AST and SCH was their decision at the end of Stormblood.

If you get your complexity back, you're putting the role back in the relative position it was in Stormblood. Who's to say they won't make the same decision again? Healers are all dimwits as you know. At least, that seems to be the balancing team's opinion on it.

No, the problem was that the "more complex" healers didn't enjoy the complexity enough that it was a reward in itself.

That is, all of you saying "I don't want to be bored" are lying - what you REALLY MEAN is "I want to be a DPS and do more damage".

The problem in SB is that AST and SCH had more involved kits - so in theory weren't bored - but they complained that their "more work" should mean "more damage", even though the Devs said over and over that healer damage was balanced and they weren't going to buff it. But the "I don't want to be bored" players kept complaining. How DARE people that aren't like them enjoy healing and have comparable performance! So the Devs gutted all the healing kits in a "corrupt-a-wish" sort of way: "Now you don't do more work than WHMs! Happy now?!"

The question comes down to: Is it that you really just want more buttons to push to not be bored...or do you really want to play a damage dealer and just do more damage?

I think this is the crux of all of these discussion and people don't want to address it because they probably see themselves in this picture and don't like it.

If it really IS just you being bored and wanting more buttons to push, then it shouldn't matter that there's a healer Job out there that does the same damage with less button presses and that players who DON'T want to be a "dps-lite" can enjoy it and perform comparably to you on it. After all, your goal was to not be bored, not to outpace less skilled/dedicated players, right? Especially when you factor in that WHM has the least overall utility of all the healers.

[Denji]

No, the problem was that the "more complex" healers didn't enjoy the complexity enough that it was a reward in itself.

That is, all of you saying "I don't want to be bored" are lying - what you REALLY MEAN is "I want to be a DPS and do more damage".

The problem in SB is that AST and SCH had more involved kits - so in theory weren't bored - but they complained that their "more work" should mean "more damage", even though the Devs said over and over that healer damage was balanced and they weren't going to buff it. But the "I don't want to be bored" players kept complaining. How DARE people that aren't like them enjoy healing and have comparable performance! So the Devs gutted all the healing kits in a "corrupt-a-wish" sort of way: "Now you don't do more work than WHMs! Happy now?!"

The question comes down to: Is it that you really just want more buttons to push to not be bored...or do you really want to play a damage dealer and just do more damage?

I think this is the crux of all of these discussion and people don't want to address it because they probably see themselves in this picture and don't like it.

If it really IS just you being bored and wanting more buttons to push, then it shouldn't matter that there's a healer Job out there that does the same damage with less button presses and that players who DON'T want to be a "dps-lite" can enjoy it and perform comparably to you on it. After all, your goal was to not be bored, not to outpace less skilled/dedicated players, right? Especially when you factor in that WHM has the least overall utility of all the healers.

THANK YOU.

I have always been very frustrated by this. Don't get me wrong, healers could still use some work. I find them all to be a little bland... but most of the time it isn't ever about whether or not they have more to do, it's just "I want to murder more".

You wanna be a healer with good DPS? Go be a rez mage.

[QooEr]

No, the problem was that the "more complex" healers didn't enjoy the complexity enough that it was a reward in itself.

That is, all of you saying "I don't want to be bored" are lying - what you REALLY MEAN is "I want to be a DPS and do more damage".

forum posters arent a monolith you know. i played ast since heavensward even when everyone in my fc told me it was garbage because the job was fun to me. if i wanted to be a dps and do more damage then... i would be playing a dps?
i didnt stop playing scholar because it "doesnt do damage"; its the highest rdps healer at the moment. i stopped playing it because it lost like 9 actions and became boring.

The problem in SB is that AST and SCH had more involved kits - so in theory weren't bored - but they complained that their "more work" should mean "more damage", even though the Devs said over and over that healer damage was balanced and they weren't going to buff it. But the "I don't want to be bored" players kept complaining. How DARE people that aren't like them enjoy healing and have comparable performance! So the Devs gutted all the healing kits in a "corrupt-a-wish" sort of way: "Now you don't do more work than WHMs! Happy now?!"

this is just fiction. find me a thread from stormblood that has this discussion. i scoured the threads from 2019 and back in the healer forums and guess what? the only balance discussions seem to revolve around buffing whm
i doubt you will find even a single post saying "buff sch" "buff ast" or "nerf whm" that isnt from exactly 4.0 where scholar was lackluster.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...aid-everywhere.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...eds-some-nerfs
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...aying-Nerf-___
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...al-damage-buff
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-getting-buffs
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...vensward-again
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...HM-pDPS-in-4.3
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-sky-is-an-AST.

please just stop spreading lies. also...! it will surprise you that some people still thought healer dps was boring back then. not weak, boring.
these threads have aged like fine wine.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ed-in-the-game
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-filler-spells.
the fact that we want to go back to these days kind of says a lot

The question comes down to: Is it that you really just want more buttons to push to not be bored...or do you really want to play a damage dealer and just do more damage?

its always been the first. pretending its the second one is disingenuous. people keep saying "i want more to do" and you somehow keep hearing "i want to do more dps".

I think this is the crux of all of these discussion and people don't want to address it because they probably see themselves in this picture and don't like it.

If it really IS just you being bored and wanting more buttons to push, then it shouldn't matter that there's a healer Job out there that does the same damage with less button presses and that players who DON'T want to be a "dps-lite" can enjoy it and perform comparably to you on it. After all, your goal was to not be bored, not to outpace less skilled/dedicated players, right? Especially when you factor in that WHM has the least overall utility of all the healers.

no one is having that conversation right now. despite all the awful things the healer role has going for it, its actually the most balanced number wise it has ever been.

[Sebazy]

That is, all of you saying "I don't want to be bored" are lying - what you REALLY MEAN is "I want to be a DPS and do more damage".

Sweeping generalisations are bad pls.

I was about the biggest Sylphie you could imagine especially back during HW. If it was my choice, healing would be far more frantic than it is now, random cleaves, splash damage, damage shields etc. I want to be pushed, but FFXIV's healing just doesn't do it, it hasn't for years now.

I think the biggest mistake you're making here is to assume that our DPS complexity is the only thing we've lost over the years when the reality is that you couldn't be further from the truth with that.

We've lost our buffing busy work, go back to ARR and you'd see SCHs merrily weaving Selene's buffs even if the reality was that they were less impactful than simply keeping Eos out for Whispering Dawn so you could Ruin more. Not to mention shielding required much more precision than it does today with slow casting shields being required on bosses that would merrily auto them off right before a rapid tank buster. AST is the best exception here of course, but even it's buff kit is a far cry from the mini game it used to be.

We've also entirely lost our debuffing kit. Remember when Virus chains were a thing? Eye for an Eye?

Lastly, resource management just isn't a thing anymore, MP for healers is pretty much a 'don't spam medica II' gauge coupled with some way to keep in combat raises somewhat under control in anything that doesn't enrage. A large part of that is down to us being able to offload so much of our healing on free oGCDs (E12S pt1 was pretty taxing on MP because the AoEs were frequent enough to actually start requiring GCD heals at times) but it's also far too quick to recover MP back as a healer as well. By comparison, a geared up dead Cleric in EQ1 could be out of the picture for 10+ minutes without Modrods.

The core problem is that once you've memorised the dance, there's very little to actually focus on as a healer between key mechanics. I want to have to pay attention, not find myself drifting off towards the second screen. At this point I'm far beyond caring how SE actually achieve this, just that they actually make an effort to give me something to do that isn't mindlessly mashing the same button.

[Renathras]

Sweeping generalisations are bad pls. <and the rest of the post>

I agree, but that runs both ways here. The point still has truth to it in that many people refuse to allow ANY of the four healers to stay simple. Why? IF the argument is not wanting to be bored, if 1, 2, or 3 of the healers allow you that, why is allowing one to remain simple and perform comparably a problem? Especially since you're asking the people that like simple to give up (vs where they are now) 1, 2, or 3 healers already. Why insist on all 4?

I've been playing since 2.3. SCHOLAR was more complex in a lot of ways, but WHM? We had one more DoT and less oGCDs so we had to GCD heal (without Lilies) more frequently. That and fiddling with the clunky Cleric Stance were the only real differences. You could argue Virus and Eye For an Eye, but that didn't add a great deal of complexity to the Jobs and wasn't much different than how we use oGCDs now, just on mitigation instead. For WHM. For SCH, again, it was a little more interesting, especially with Deployment Tactics (which worked with Eye, as I recall)

I do agree that the overall encounter model is a problem, though. But I've said that several times already. /scratches head

EDIT:

In any instance where you actually need to use Cure II, as few and far between as that should be, Medica 2 is an upgrade.

Medica 2 takes 15 seconds to get there, Cure 2 takes 2 seconds. Cure 2 is for when you need a fairly large heal quickly and all at once, and don't have (or are synced to a level below having) Solace and Tetra. Not that I recommend actually DOING this, mind you, but with Presence of Mind, Lucid Dreaming, and weaving Thin Airs, Cure 2 spam is among the most powerful form of sustained healing in the game. Only really useful when tanks that don't have any idea how to use CDs (or seem not to know they exist) pull entire dungeons that they're undergeared for. But provided they aren't being alpha-struck into KO, Cure 2 spam can keep almost anything alive.

Until you run out of MP, anyway.

And you don't ever actually NEED to do this now since we have so many oGCDs.

Medica 2 spam does not do that because the HoTs don't do some kind of burst heal when you cast a second one (something like Lily's heal based on stacks when the duration expires), they just refresh the duration.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

You’re missing a few bits there. In early ARR we had Thunder as well as Aero III later on.

There’s also Fluid Aura which was an interesting ability in it’s own right. Whilst on the surface it’s easy to dismiss it as a simple damage oGCD, getting value from it was a neat little distraction in it’s own right. You wanted to use it CD to get the most damage from it, but also had worth pushing casters into the stack, otherwise you also wanted to be mindful to push mobs into a wall rather than tossing them out of aoes. It wasn’t rocket science, but it was something to think about that wasn’t entirely scripted, consistent and predictable.

The same can be said of Cleric Stance TBH, I’ll always stand my opinion that as a concept it was little more than a lame punishment mechanic, but it added a whole ton of depth to the job.

Even Aero III added depth, finding windows to get it cast mid pull was enjoyable and required thought.

It’s the combination of these kind of things that make BLM the job it is now, and IMHO it’s the consistent removal of these things that is the root of a lot the discourse over healers that’s been steadily growing over the last 2-3 expansions.

[Shurrikhan]

Thunder wasn't available to WHM or SCH cross class. Nor was Miasma available to WHM. WHM could use Surecast, Swiftcast, Blizzard II, Ruin (a waste, as it was only 100 potency), Virus, and Eye for an Eye.

Aero III wasn't added until HW. Fluid Aura will be missed though, especially as a mini-CC / gathering skill in dungeons.

Small correction to Ren's earlier post: Stone applied the Heavy, not Stone II. Stone II traded any utility for further damage.

[Sebazy]

Thunder wasn't available to WHM or SCH cross class. Nor was Miasma available to WHM. WHM could use Surecast, Swiftcast, Blizzard II, Ruin (a waste, as it was only 100 potency), Virus, and Eye for an Eye.

I think my old PoV from Titan is gone but here's another:

https://youtu.be/hflUq3qBPlA?t=40

Hotkey number 5, thunder was available for cross class as WHM. Just a lot of people didn't appreciate it's value.