Healers need an overhaul

[Raven2014]

You people are completely incapable of formulating an argument without being purposefully obtuse. I have not seen one take from any anti-healer-rotation person in here that didn't boil down to intellectual dishonesty.

I'm sorry I forgot to include the /s.

And after 5 pages of full on serious debate with various people for 2 whole days, here I thought I'm allowed to make an honest joke. If you want some with intellectual honesty, I recommend go back the last 5 page. Of course, whether you will recognize any opinion that not align with yours as intellectual or honest is a very different matter. I don't know how well I did on the intellectual part, but at least I can assure you about the honesty whether you gonna perceive them as such or not.

The post you just quote was a total **** post though. I just thought it was silly enough that most "honest" people would recognize it as such without me spelling that out.

the problem with healers isnt the lack of dps, but the lack of a need for there even being a healer. healers are meant to heal, its in the name, and most content is way too easy to clear without a healer. what really needs an overhaul is the content itself to give a point to healers. and the problem with that is that this is a story game before an mmo, that very thing is what stunts the game from being a much better mmo. it needs to balance classes to clear msq content with all of them, and can't focus on them individually, nurturing each class into what it can truly be

I agree, and while the notion had repeatedly shot down by the pro-DPS people, I think eventually the pro-healing side will prevail. As note, healer DPS is already at the point where it's not a surprise to see they are able to out-DPS a bad DPS, and even more common for a high-output healer to outDPS even an average tank. If the healer DPS is pushed any further than this, it'll cross the point of healer will become a DPS in anything but name.

FF14 is still branched as an MMO based on the holy trinity, and there is only so far they can skirt it until it's necessary to rebranch. The reason I bring up this point because you can easily see how new players to this game still act like traditional healers. Most sprouts I ran into during lvling roullete only heal, and that's not because they're bad. A heavier DPS focus at end game will simply create an a downward pressure on this, and beyond this the game will need to reconsider re-branching the system.

Also while they have never promised about making healer DPS more interesting and in fact, consistently removing DPS option. While at the same time, had consistently promise to make healing become more of a focus. Granted, they have not made good of those promise, but at least they are indicator of where the dev's intention are. So have faith, at least I'll hold onto mine ... for now.

The most noticeable change in this expansion is the deliberate separation of the DPS and healing channel, with SGE being the prime example. Basically for the most part, even a greedy healer can still heal while DPS without stripping on their healing responsibility. In fact, SGE is designed to encourage ... no, require the healer to heal in order to keep up their DPS - somewhat similar to the 5.0 Blood Lily, except done in much better way. So it's clear there are a new direction they're taking healer. To where, we don't know yet. But at least, encourage healer to do more healing (instead of feeling they're being punished whenever they heal) is still a step in the right direction.

[Silver-Strider]

The most noticeable change in this expansion is the deliberate separation of the DPS and healing channel, with SGE being the prime example. Basically for the most part, even a greedy healer can still heal while DPS without stripping on their healing responsibility. In fact, SGE is designed to encourage ... no, require the healer to heal in order to keep up their DPS - somewhat similar to the 5.0 Blood Lily, except done in much better way. So it's clear there are a new direction they're taking healer. To where, we don't know yet. But at least, encourage healer to do more healing (instead of feeling they're being punished whenever they heal) is still a step in the right direction.

This right here is all the proof anyone needs to show how wrong you are. SGE doesn't play any differently than any of the other healers. It's not required to Heal to keep up its DPS any more than any of the other healers are. It's in the exact same ballpark as WHM in terms of needing to use their Lillies to sustain because its MP economy is entirely locked behind Addersgal abilities which only enforces overhealing instead of smart healing and if that's the design that SE is going for, Healers are in an even worst position for it.

[Raven2014]

snip

And this is to show you don't really care about your healing at all.

- It does not tie to a DPS trade off, you're not punished for not using it. Comparing to WHM Arssize or Lily or SCH's stack. It is an infinitely better designed. Assume you're not the type who dump every single damn heal on your co, it's possible to match Addesgal for meaningful heal for the mechanic instead of needlessly rush dump it. The MP economy of SGE while need you to use it, it does not require you to rush it on cooldown but use them as need, as long as you use them. Your post is clearly show you don't have the mentality of a healer and only think about DPS optimization.

The only place where it becomes an overheal is 24, but that has nothing to with the healer design, it's just the 24 faceroll nature.

- Another example is SGE great design is the fact their Pneuma is a DPS neutral ability. It is the SGE biggest heal, and they have the luxury of only use it when they need the heal without losing their DPS unless they want to pad an AOE, which only happen during the blackfire phase in P3S. Again, this is an infinitely better design than WHM's system where you're force to make choice between DPS or heal.

The chronic issue of FF14 is there are not a lot of thing to be heal. Overhealing is itself not a problem given how powerful the healing kits and how many oGCD healers have comparing to the pitiful amount of damage taken. The real question has always been do those heal go out at the right time? And in the case of WHM - no they don't more than half of the time. Arsize going out at the same time of a needed heal? That's a happy coincidence, not deliberate because that shit needs to be burn on cooldown. And why do you think they finally make Misery DPS neutral (hey, just like the SGE kit) instead of a DPS loss? It finally dawn on SE that the best way to deal with greedy healer is to create DPS neutral healing style, and which job you think lead the charge on that? SGE is their eureka moment.

The issue with even greedy healer is not just the amount they heal, it's when they heal it. Before their current iteration the issue with WHM is they have both low HPS but at the same time they also have crap ton of overheal because alot dump their heal when not needed to in exchange for DPS optimization. SGE's design addressed both of that problems. If you say WHM is the same SGE then you have some serious foundational understanding and can not look at thing above face value.

SGE is great because even in the hand of a Greedy/Newbie healer, it still creates minimum pressure toward the co-healer, while a greedy (old)WHM is a mega pain in the arse It wasn't designed for healer like you, it's a job design to create more healthy grouping environment, and it accomplishes that goal splendily. There is no healer I want to be grouped up in PF with more than an SGE. But then, I don't expect you to understand my point because like I said, I geared my argument toward healing, yours are geared toward DPSing. We don't think on the same wavelenght.

[Banriikku]

And this is to show you don't really care about your healing at all.
*snip*

Hmmm, not sure but SGE works like the other healer's. Only skill diffrent is Kardia and this one is not really strong or interactive. It's "fire andd forget" and has the annyoing part of that you need to switch fairly often the target or you overheal. Furthermore is the heal recieved from Kardia not strong. Only enough to outheal autoattacks, depending on the boss. So Kardia is not really that "Wow" or "special".

Your take on "greedy healer" or "newbies" is something i cant follow. Also your point about HPS is weird but hey "Forum hot takes" are the new cool.

A couple of questions:
Aszize is bad ? Why ?
SCH is weird and plays boring but weak ? Or did i missunderstood you ?
Lily's are DPS neutral now, did you talk about the old WHM ?

SGE and WHM is very similar and here is why:
Both use their damage reduction spells to reduce tb or AOE damage. Both use their OGCD to heal and DPS. I am honest here i played hippo Savage as SGE and WHM and both times i did not hard cast heals (exception as SGE i used the moment hippo jumps and cant be targeted to refill stacks for DPS movement). Lets be honest nobody did hard cast any heals and i am not that good or special.

The way how SE rewards only DPS and not healing results in the following = healing is binary = enough or not. That's it. And for this rerason give us a DPS rotation.

[Silver-Strider]

Snip

Tying your MP to a mechanic that is, by its very nature, finite in usefulness is bad design. It is entirely possible for a SGE to sit on 3 Addersgal for long periods of time due to long periods of no healing even being required so unless you're using your Addersgal to overheal, you're just screwed. It has NOTHING to do with DPS optimization and everything to do with how shit the design actually is. And SGE DOES have a DPS trade off in the form of Toxicon so you're STILL wrong.

All your post does is showcase how terrible Healer Design is and fails to prove your point at all.

[Nizzi]

It finally dawn on SE that the best way to deal with greedy healer is to create DPS neutral healing style[/b], and which job you think lead the charge on that? SGE is their eureka moment.

This should be a very very bad thing if it took them this long to do. Hilariously, they could have done this back in Shadowbringers with both White Mage and Scholar by giving them the weave windows they have now, DPS neutral Misery, and hell, even removing Energy Drain and just making Aetherflow grant more MP/fey gauge if you had stacks when you pressed it again. Not that I would've liked that Aetherflow change, but the point being they could've done it and replaced Energy Drain with Shadow Flare or Miasma for SCH's "extra DPS button" and making sure SCH didn't sacrifice DPS to heal.

So why did it take them over 3 years to realize "hmm maybe Scholar and White Mage should have the ability to weave heals freely like AST does" instead of them realizing that right at Shadowbringers launch or at any point during Shadowbringers? This is another huge issue that healer mains have; this imaginary fantasyland where the developers "have a vision for healers" is pure cope. They do not and the way these jobs are treated over DPS jobs or tanks when it comes to changes shows this. Weave windows should not have been the "major expansion change shakeup!" they tried acting like it was, especially when AST got its weave window change in the middle of Stormblood - it should have happened in Shadowbringers. It should not have taken until 6.1 for Misery to become DPS neutral when people were asking for that for the entirety of Shadowbringers. If they didn't like Energy Drain being the priority for Aetherflow, they should not have changed it from a 10 potency gain at the end of ShB to a 100 potency gain in EW. SGE is not a "eureka moment" for SE. SGE is SE throwing their hands up and admitting they do not know how to design jobs in this role for how the game fundamentally wants healers to perform.

[Payotz]

I don't even know why "pro-healing" vs "pro-dpsing" is even a thing when they're both two sides of the coin that you have to balance.
You don't get to just heal and only heal anymore, and you actually have to interrupt your dps in order to heal at times. That's just how the role works.

Even in old "classic" MMOs, healers wouldn't be healing all the time either. They just stare at the screen for 30 seconds, and just afk until someone takes damage, and then they heal back up.
Healing right now is basically the same thing, except instead of actually afking, you actually play the game and contribute to the team by doing the only you thing you can do, dps.

Literally the only difference is if you should dps within that downtime where people aren't taking damage. That's it. That's literally what most "heal only" healers are complaining about.
"HOW DARE THEY ASK ME TO PLAY THE VIDEO GAME INSTEAD OF SPAMMING CURE 1 HURR DURR"

Even if Square Enix adds actual unpredictable damage to content, people are still gonna dps, because there's going to be windows of opportunity where everyone's topped, and there's 5 seconds before the next damage instance will come out, and that's an extra dps spell. You will never eliminate dpsing from the role because dps IS downtime.

Even WoW, with lower healing potencies, lower healer damage potencies, a lot less mitigation for tanks in general, and a lot more outgoing damage in raids and Mythic +, I still dps as a healer, because there is still downtime in content. There will always be downtime in content. Hell, one of the healers actually need to dps to heal everyone back up (Disc Priest).

So why not make give healers that WANT to make that downtime interesting, the tools to make it interesting?
Giving healers more dps buttons to push isn't going to harm you folks who like staring at hp bars and casting a heal every 15 seconds. It's not gonna lower the skill floor at all. Healing will still be the accessible, easy role it is right now, and the casual content is still not gonna have tight dps checks, so you guys won't be affected by the extra dps buttons. Feel free to press Cure 1 to your heart's content.

What it will do is raise the skill ceiling, give the healers more room for skill expression and that's what's sorely needed in the game right now.

For people like us, healing someone is just the base thing you do, just like dribbling in basketball.
I understand that for newer healers that healing a tank wall to wall is satisfying, the same way you first learned how to dribble the ball on the court.

But we need room for us to express our creativity in dribbling the ball. In shooting the ball. In carrying the ball and passing the ball. In defending the ball.
More dps options will give healers that needed factor in the job design, one that's sorely needed for almost every role in the game right now.

Us breaking ankles on the court is not gonna affect you people who like to only dribble. Have fun with dribbling! That's okay! You're not going to be forced to do more than dribble the ball if that's where your satisfaction lies. You shouldn't be!
But don't stop us from trying to do tricks on the court, cause that's our fun. Us doing these tricks won't stop you from just dribbling the ball, so don't stop ours.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

The thing is, you're making these huge sweeping statements but the whole thing completely falls apart at the feet of a simple question.

What am I supposed keep myself busy with in something like a fairly smooth Aglaia run?

We used to have a powerful set of debuff tools = all gone.

We used to have to hardcast our mitigation on the GCD = all gone.

oGCD twitch healing was a highly limited and valuable resource = all gone.

We used to have to watch our agro closely = all gone.

Remember when bosses frequently had agro resets or dangerous adds with clean agro tables? = all gone.

Remember when we had to watch our MP closely? = all gone.

Remember when we had to keep track of multiple dots on different timers? = all gone.

Remember when bosses had often had tank busters on fast cooldowns that didn't have a 5 second cast bar cue? = all gone.

I was the champ of 'Sylphies' back in the likes of Gordias, Midas and Creator.

I want to be healing, I want to be buffing, I want to be debuffing, I want to be the support superstar but the game just doesn't offer any room to do that anymore. Instead I'm another 'greedy green dps' because that's the only way in which I can help improve my party now. Sure, Savage gives me a little more room to play it safe and I'm fortunate enough to have been able to land particularly chad co healers over the years, but in casual content even that doesn't work. There's just not enough to heal and nothing else to do beyond that and spamming Glare.

If I actually wanted that I'd go play Cookie Clicker.

[Deceptus]

Remember when we had to watch our MP closely? = all gone.

Hey now, Sage can run into some MP issues if they're not dumping Addersgall on useless heals to get back that MP.

Sage was just a developer "f*ck you." to the community, specifically the healer community because they begrudgingly had to give SCH Energy Drain back after they took it away.

So they just copied SCH without Energy Drain, did a few touch ups and released it as a new healer, 2 birds 1 stone. They even advertised it as the "dps healer" for that chef's kiss.

100% correct.

Sage's Kardia / Kardion system is nothing more that what the old Embrace Macros used to do. Force a heal on a DPS spell.

All the abilities with the extra + healing or + mitigation is nothing more than a replacement for the fairy.

[IDontPetLalas]

I'm sorry I forgot to include the /s.
snip
I agree, and while the notion had repeatedly shot down by the pro-DPS people, I think eventually the pro-healing side will prevail. As note, healer DPS is already at the point where it's not a surprise to see they are able to out-DPS a bad DPS, and even more common for a high-output healer to outDPS even an average tank. If the healer DPS is pushed any further than this, it'll cross the point of healer will become a DPS in anything but name.

Also while they have never promised about making healer DPS more interesting and in fact, consistently removing DPS option. While at the same time, had consistently promise to make healing become more of a focus. Granted, they have not made good of those promise, but at least they are indicator of where the dev's intention are. So have faith, at least I'll hold onto mine ... for now.
The most noticeable change in this expansion is the deliberate separation of the DPS and healing channel, with SGE being the prime example. Basically for the most part, even a greedy healer can still heal while DPS without stripping on their healing responsibility. In fact, SGE is designed to encourage ... no, require the healer to heal in order to keep up their DPS - somewhat similar to the 5.0 Blood Lily, except done in much better way. So it's clear there are a new direction they're taking healer. To where, we don't know yet. But at least, encourage healer to do more healing (instead of feeling they're being punished whenever they heal) is still a step in the right direction.

So based upon your comment this is how an imaginary discussion would look like, or part of one would have looked like:

Hey guys, we can't affect any changes to job "a" because :
if job "b" cannot hit their buttons it makes them look bad. Goodness, can't have it seem like a more skilled player would make someone who makes no effort want to learn how to play their class.
I am concerned that unlike all of the other jobs, job "a" is unable to make decisions on when to use its skills. ! Well, it's interesting that it isn't applied to other jobs. What makes everyone who plays job "a" incapable of decision making? Can't overload them! Let's just assume that they can't!

I also find it interesting that you are now putting people into "pro-DPS" and "pro-healing" camps. Where did this even come from? The vast majority of healer mains do both.

Your statement about Sage is also very, very strange. In order heal, sage needs to DPS effectively, Not heal in order to keep up their DPS. It wouldn't even make sense to do it the other way around- what do you do when someone is at full health- where would your damage come from- could you explain that?