Just wanna say, I really enjoy healing in this game.

[Hellebore_Ghrian]

So oGCD heals are definitely needed, but I take it you are referring to not casting GCDs here?

I'm not talking about gcd or ogcd, I'm talking about overall quantity of healing skill usage.

In the last savage tier, I've used a lot less healing skills (ogcd and gcd counted) than I've used in ShB 1st savage tier. It goes worse as I go back to past extensions.

I can't compare hps for reasons (stats squich, ilvl etc...) but i can compare the number of skill usage.

For example, on a fight with the same duration in the same week, back in ShB as a WHM, I casted 146 glare in a E1S fight. In EW, on my 1st week down I casted 182 glare. WHM only has one more healing ogcd than in ShB, the 3 min cd lilybell (lilies were still on 30 sec before 6.1 like in ShB), it can't replace 40 gcd.

As for healing skills, not counting, assize (same cd, same number) and benison (same cd same number + 1 on P1S from the 2nd charge) since I used them on cd no matter there is something to heal or not, I used 9 other healing skills in P1S vs 21 in E1S (my coheal had almost the same hps as me in both fight so no one solo healed). Moreover, I overhealed more in P1S than in E1S and we had more deaths on P1S too, so more mistakes.

You can't say that is because i'm getting better than that time either, my E1S performance and activeness were higher than my P1S ones : I already got lazy because the EW healer state and was a lot less engaged in P1S that I was on E1S.

But here is the painting, we're already casting 25% more dps skills and using less than half healing skills in EW than we did in ShB, I don't even want to look at SB and before.

And I'm talking about Savage, not normal content.

That situation comes down from several reasons to me :
- our healing tools are too powerful
- non-healers jobs have a lot more sustain/healing/mitigation capacities (too much ?) than before
- encounters require less healing

[Risvertasashi]

You can't say that is because i'm getting better than that time either, my E1S performance and activeness were higher than my P1S ones : I already got lazy because the EW healer state and was a lot less engaged in P1S that I was on E1S.

But here is the painting, we're already casting 25% more dps skills and using less than half healing skills in EW than we did in ShB, I don't even want to look at SB and before.

And I'm talking about Savage, not normal content.

This is pretty interesting to me, personally. I've previously used similar examinations and the resulting stats to point out how emphasized DPS is, but I hadn't really thought to look at healing trends over time/expacs.

It would be neat if someone did a deep dive on the topic, and looked to see if healing actions - including oGCDs - have decreased over time long term (though it seems almost certain the answer will be "yes") and by how much.

[QooEr]

i think even unreal trials need more healing than current savage floors, and im not exaggerating here.

lets look at a couple logs. i picked logs with a very high combined healer damage rank to show that im not nitpicking parses where im chadding my cohealer or whatever. both were relatively smooth runs with healers who both carried their weight.
ultima unreal i did with a friend. note that this is probably the easiest extreme trial from ARR.
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/compa...5&type=healing
count the healing casts. i used 43 healing actions in this 6:29 fight.

week 2 P2s.
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/compa...4&type=healing
count the healing casts. i used 42 healing actions in a 9:28 savage fight.


somehow i used less actions in a fight that is 3 minutes longer. on a run that was less smooth to boot (3 deaths vs 1). on week two.
honestly.... what? why do the new SAVAGE floors have such pathetic healing requirements, especially compared to easy extreme trials from ARR?

"oh but you have 48% overheal in unreal! thats not fair!"
ill grant you that we had more overheal in the unreal fight. so lets see if that matters.
P2s: 42 casts - overheal% = 32.35
Unreal: 43 casts - overheal% = 22.145

...and then then you realize p2s took 1.46x longer. if ultima unreal had lasted 3 minutes longer, how many casts would i have likely needed?
22.145 x 1.46 = 32.3317.
almost the same number as p2s. on week 2 btw, the healing reqs just get lower the more gear you get!

when we say there is barely anything to heal in modern fights, we mean it.

[Renathras]

Honestly, I like where this discussion is going. This kind of analysis is far more compelling to me than most anecdotes. Even talking about one person's run compared to their prior runs, that at least is establishing an objective trend over time. And for a more general analysis of a lot more people, it would be interesting to compare, say A1S, O1S, E1S, and P1S (and probably also the 4s) to see what it looks like over time.

That situation comes down from several reasons to me :
- our healing tools are too powerful
- non-healers jobs have a lot more sustain/healing/mitigation capacities (too much ?) than before
- encounters require less healing

I think I largely agree wit this. We have too many oGCDs, and they're all super powerful. Non-healers having a bit of healing for soloing and emergencies is okay, but just not needing healers is a little insane. Tank healing is pretty insane too, and they can all more or less solo 4 mans ore come close to it. And encounter healing is pretty minimal in terms of avoidable damage. I feel that the damage we get is too much all at once...but then really scripted and no more damage for a while. This means oGCDs can easily take care of it well before the next damage spike. This generally devalues GCD heals since oGCDs cover most or all of the healing, and ensures you always have an oGCD to heal damage AND that it will do all the work you need.

But yeah, interesting topic worthy of more discussion/investigation.

[Sebazy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is because of Lillies as much as anything, right? Per TheBalance, Regen is an movement tool/HPS gain until Misery unlocks, at which point it is a loss vs Solace because Solace generates damage and Regen does not? Regen is still the bigger HPS, though. A part of this might also be the prevalence of oGCD Regens. Whispering Dawn aside (because it existed then), Asylum, Sacred Soil, etc all have a HoT component, and you have things like Physis floating around. That's a LOT of oGCD Regens.

Eeeh no not really, pre 6.1 I was dumping Lilies into Rapture for movement, post 6.1 I'm still using Rapture over solace as it bring so much more value. A glance at my first P1S clear has 12 Raptures to 2 Solaces for example, and those were due to one of the DPS eating a Gaoler's Flail. I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to find clean runs with 0 Solaces in more consistent groups.

Rather I'll point you towards a part of where I think the issue actually is: Auto attacks

Here's a pair of 6:20 fights against door bosses for the final fight of two different tiers, the links specifically show auto attack damage taken.

The first is Clown Kefka from O8S in Sigmascape

The second is Hesperos from P4S part 1

Now lets break down those numbers.

Kefka swung 58 times hitting our DRK for an average of 13.5k.

Meanwhile Hesperos swung 63 times, hitting the DRK for an average of 13.3k

Now note in that back during Sigmascape, a BiS tank had about 60k HP, whereas now a BiS tank is on the cusp of 90k. There's the whole rabbit hole of tank self sustain (Granted DRK isn't hugely guilty of that). Oh and Kefka could crit, more recent bosses can't.

If we go back further, the difference in tank damage becomes even more apparent. Throughout Coil and Alex, Tank Busters weren't typically things you'd just blow invuln on 3 or 4 times a fight, but rather they were happening anywhere from a minute to as little as 30 seconds. They also tended not to have cast bars, instead being instant abilities on a fixed timer, some bosses even had multiple tank busters that they would merrily use in unison. Twintania will always be my favourite example of this with Death Sentence into Plummet and an auto attack requiring the healers to focus on landing shields, cure IIs and even stoneskins with very specific timings to ensure the tank survived safely.

Nowadays it feels like tank busters are there purely to draw invulns out so that they aren't getting used to cheese other mechanics and as such there's so little going around that it's pretty routine not to even need to top the tank up afterwards (Eg P4S Elegant Evisc would be taken by my groups War with Holmgang up with a switch straight over to the DRK, the War would go from 1hp to full by incidental and self healing before Pinax. Sad TBH).

i think even unreal trials need more healing than current savage floors, and im not exaggerating here.

I can agree with that, Titan Unreal was hugely enjoyable to heal and I did it weekly without fail even when I didn't really care about the points.

[NobleWinter]

The Unreal fights have been a glimmer of hope in a dark world for healers. Titan Unreal was definitely a highlight of my time in FFXIV. My only wish is that the Unreal fights didn't rotate with only one single fight available. There should be a current Unreal for Faux Hollows but the previous ones should still be accessible for anyone who wants to try them later but with no rewards. It's just really fun content and having your full kit is a huge incentive.

[IllyaPrisma]

WHM's only change was the addition of Lilibell and (in 6.1) bumping up the refresh rate of Lilies to 20 sec instead of 30 sec. Misery was DPS neutral in ShB and was made DPS neutral again in 6.1, so that's not really a change. (If anything, NOT doing this in 6.0 was an oversight due to a new tier of Glare and Misery should have just upgraded in potency with that same trait)

This is incorrect. You may want to edit your response so it contains accurate information. Someone mentioned this correction, but it remains unacknowledged.

[Mapleine]

Hard to be positive on a fake role that could be patched out in an afternoon of medium effort.

As healing is my favorite role, I do it in other MMOs that have an ounce of respect for it and their playerbases.

[Sarim]

I guess I am in a minority on this forum, as I still like playing my WHM. Then again, I am playing rather casual currently, so I probably don't feel the "bad" things as much..

I definitely see the fact that the most casted spell is Glare (for my WHM too). But I still do not want more DPS abilities for two reasons:
- First, there is the issue of button bloat. WHM is not as much effected by this problem, but the other healers definitely are.
- Second, even if we were to get more DPS abilities, I do not think that SE would actually increase our overall DPS output. Meaning that we would have to "work" more to achieve the same effect...and that's not something I want!

That said, I would absolutely love to have an AE version of Dia (and the earlier versions). This would be a massive QoL thing IMO.

As for another idea to change the healing role:
Maybe SE could (re-)introduce some resource required for other roles. For example "stamina" for the melee roles, this would be spent while fighting, and in addition to normal healing, healers could provide stamina-restoration via new abilities (preferably not passive buffs but instead active stamina recovery). Or something like that.

[Sebazy]

Eh no I don’t think you’re in a minority really. I think the whole enjoyment vs tedium thing isn’t entirely down to the content, but rather the manner in which you tackle it. Leveling dungeons are a prime example of this as it’s all quite a bit less consistent than Expert and the same can be said of other more casual endgame content if you’re tackling it in a non optimal and optimised manner.

Once you’ve got the fight and your kit memorised and down to a pattern, that’s when the wheels really start to fall off.

Regardless of if SE do or do not increase the complexity of our downtime kits. The damage we do isn’t really the focus here. Personally I have no big issue with the pace at which I kill things in the MSQ but I’d be overjoyed if simply doing just that was a little more involving+++

Aoe dia is a common request yeah. Aero 3s removal was a bad call on SE’s part IMO

Feeding resources is an interesting idea but has issues I think. If you make it required, it’s going to hamstring DPS in solo/open world content and if you make it so it’s not required, then what does it offer beyond kit bloat?

I do think buffs (and debuffs) are an Avenue that should be explored though. Single proc buffs in the vein of FFXI’s old EnElemental spells inplimented like the old FFXIV 1.0 intro trailer could be a neat concept to go with.