Healers need an overhaul

[Lilapop]

I have said it once and I'll say it again... long rotation doesn't = riveting gameplay. if you like the busywork of pressing buttons that don't build up to anything, have fun with that on some other class. healers, in their kit, have what they need tp unfortunately be a top dps as well as what should be, not even sure why this is debatable, their primary goal... healing.

[Nizzi]

I have said it once and I'll say it again... long rotation doesn't = riveting gameplay. if you like the busywork of pressing buttons that don't build up to anything, have fun with that on some other class. healers, in their kit, have what they need tp unfortunately be a top dps as well as what should be, not even sure why this is debatable, their primary goal... healing.

Geniuses clearly state that the primary goal of this god awful role is "...healing" when our primary button casted is Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dosis in EVERY ENCOUNTER IN THE GAME. I wish I could live in the parallel reality that they do, this role must be very engaging and very fun and not at all boring as shit.

[Lilapop]

Geniuses clearly state that the primary goal of this god awful role is "...healing" when our primary button casted is Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dosis in EVERY ENCOUNTER IN THE GAME. I wish I could live in the parallel reality that they do, this role must be very engaging and very fun and not at all boring as shit.

if done right, it is fu and engaging. it isn't done right here. they're called healers, so that is what their primary goal is (not primary button pressed). in a perfect world more healing would be required than basicallyy dps. but as it stands, its dps in all but name with fight reactionary instead of a typical rotation, and 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 pressing too, more or less.

[Nizzi]

if done right, it is fu and engaging. it isn't done right here. they're called healers, so that is what their primary goal is (not primary button pressed). in a perfect world more healing would be required than basicallyy dps. but as it stands, its dps in all but name with fight reactionary instead of a typical rotation, and 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 pressing too, more or less.

What argument or point are you even making then? Are you agreeing with someone or disagreeing? Of course healing could be fun and engaging, that's our issue with it? They've already said many times that they are not increasing healing requirements. They have said that E12S was the top limits of what they feel healing requirements will ever be in FFXIV. They continue to make these fights have us casting 1 button more and healing less. If they have already stated that they will not be making us actual healers, then the logical conclusion is to make the DPS ""downtime"" that encompasses a majority of our casts in every encounter in this game more interesting than 1-1-1-1. And EVEN IF they actually decided to finally make us have to manage healing more than we're pressing 1 button, this won't change previous encounters at all. Do you honestly believe it is realistic that they are capable of changing encounter design entirely when they're clearly happy with it and it works for tanks and DPS? Or does it seem more realistic that they just give us a few more things to manage that we had in the past, whatever they choose, and to call it a day there?

[Lilapop]

What argument or point are you even making then? Are you agreeing with someone or disagreeing? Of course healing could be fun and engaging, that's our issue with it? They've already said many times that they are not increasing healing requirements. They have said that E12S was the top limits of what they feel healing requirements will ever be in FFXIV. They continue to make these fights have us casting 1 button more and healing less. If they have already stated that they will not be making us actual healers, then the logical conclusion is to make the DPS ""downtime"" that encompasses a majority of our casts in every encounter in this game more interesting than 1-1-1-1. And EVEN IF they actually decided to finally make us have to manage healing more than we're pressing 1 button, this won't change previous encounters at all. Do you honestly believe it is realistic that they are capable of changing encounter design entirely when they're clearly happy with it and it works for tanks and DPS? Or does it seem more realistic that they just give us a few more things to manage that we had in the past, whatever they choose, and to call it a day there?

my point is and remains a healer's primary goal is to heal. putting dps at the same level of importance or above it is just nonsense. they can fix the 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 spam without making it a dps in all but name. they can lean more towards support. buffs, debuffs, dots, sage has this, but shielding as well. the only way to fix that isn't making it a dps. if you think it is you need to look back, rather carefully, at what the game already has and all of the viable options that would solve this problem irrelevant of what the devs will do, since we all know they won't be doing anything healers actually want for the foreseeable future.

[Silver-Strider]

my point is and remains a healer's primary goal is to heal. putting dps at the same level of importance or above it is just nonsense. they can fix the 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 spam without making it a dps in all but name. they can lean more towards support. buffs, debuffs, dots, sage has this, but shielding as well. the only way to fix that isn't making it a dps. if you think it is you need to look back, rather carefully, at what the game already has and all of the viable options that would solve this problem irrelevant of what the devs will do, since we all know they won't be doing anything healers actually want for the foreseeable future.

WE HAD ALL THAT AND SE REMOVED THEM ALL!!!

We had skills like Virus, Disable, Eye for an Eye, Slows, Heavys, Knockbacks, Shields, etc. and they all got removed. There is literally NOTHING left but Heals, the occasional mitigation effect and filler spam. Why do you think we're bored out of our minds? Because we lost everything that made Healers fun, not just a handful of DPS skills.

[Lilapop]

WE HAD ALL THAT AND SE REMOVED THEM ALL!!!

We had skills like Virus, Disable, Eye for an Eye, Slows, Heavys, Knockbacks, Shields, etc. and they all got removed. There is literally NOTHING left but Heals, the occasional mitigation effect and filler spam. Why do you think we're bored out of our minds? Because we lost everything that made Healers fun, not just a handful of DPS skills.

then my point is proven, having these WOULD solve the problem. my point isn't based on what the devs will do, since clearly they're happy with the way they're doing things atm. this is a viable alternative to dps in all but name, it's already been done, even.

[Silver-Strider]

I have said it once and I'll say it again... long rotation doesn't = riveting gameplay. if you like the busywork of pressing buttons that don't build up to anything, have fun with that on some other class. healers, in their kit, have what they need tp unfortunately be a top dps as well as what should be, not even sure why this is debatable, their primary goal... healing.

Spamming 1 button while rotating thru our overbloated oGCD healing toolkits isn't riveting gameplay either. Literally, in all content in this game, even the hardest content in the game, as a Healer, you spend the majority of your GCD using 1 button. Healers spam their filler DPS button more than a Tank Autoattacks for crying out loud. There is no reason whatsoever for the gameplay to be so shallow other than pure incompetence by the developers and considering that NONE of them actually play healers at all, it's clear they have no idea what they're doing with the role at all.

[Payotz]

I have said it once and I'll say it again... long rotation doesn't = riveting gameplay. if you like the busywork of pressing buttons that don't build up to anything, have fun with that on some other class. healers, in their kit, have what they need tp unfortunately be a top dps as well as what should be, not even sure why this is debatable, their primary goal... healing.

It doesn't have to be. WoW Holy Priest's dps rotation is this:

- Apply Holy Fire and keep it up
- Chastise on cool down
- Apply Shadow Word: Pain and keep it up
- Smite (until Chastise is up)
- Shadow Word: Death when the target is below 25%.

That's literally just two extra dots and one nuke that you have the option to press. That's a bare minimum DPS rotation, that's literally three more buttons "that are optional" when there's downtime.
If you want to spot heal every 20 seconds raid wide, then feel free to do it. You can ignore the two dots just fine.

But with how powerful each healer's healing throughput is, and with how encounters are designed around "mitigation" checks rather than actual heal checks, you're going to end up healing once ever 30 seconds, and only to fill the party back up in 2 GCDs after every mitigation check raidwide. That's just the reality of how SE designs fights, and I've got a feeling they're not gonna change that anytime soon.

Honestly, a LOT of things need to happen in order to pivot FF14 healer design from literally a "heal only after every raidwide" role.

Healers need less healing tools, and less healing potencies so they work for their heals. Cap Medica 2/Succor/RaidWideAoEHealButtonHere to only affect 4 people in the party in Cure 3 range, and make it so that you have 2 charges of it that refreshes every 30 seconds. Make benediction not fill up to full, and only heal up to 50%. Scholar succor only applies shields and not healing, and buff physick to be at least the same potency as Cure 2, yada yada you get the drill.

Content should stop having most damage go out as massive mitigation based party busters. Actually having a raid wide tick throughout the fight, stacking after every raid wide, is a good step in the right direction. The healchecks at Phase 3 TEA enrage, E12S enrage, E4S tumults are all good examples of raidwide damage. Add more of those rather than binary "did you mitigate? no, you die" checks.

This will make healing rotations an actual thing in FF14. A series of buttons you have to press to get the most optimal healing output from your kit at the moment, and will make healing a lot more engaging than "press 2 GCDs and fill the party back up!" But keep in mind, this will not stop healers from dpsing, because there will always be downtime. There needs to both be a healing and dps rotation for healers to remain engaging and to have a pretty high skill ceiling. This will also unfortunately make healers a lot more inaccessible which I don't think Square should and would do. I don't think raising the skill floor at the risk of alienating players that got used to how low it is right now, is the right move.