"I don't want to think while I play, so no one should be allowed to."

[pikalovr]

whats funny s everyone sits here and defends healer design when we still have undraw and fey gauge LMAO

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I'm getting 2nd hand embarrassment just from reading certain individual outing themselves encouraging bad practices. I know this is not an exactly healer focused thread based on the OP (I think...), but boi. How ludicrously shallow they are.. just like the role's design itself.

[anhaato]

This has to be one of my favorite threads I've started lmao y'all are getting their asses. I don't even have to say anything. But I will!

Every single argument in favor of current healers is inextricably based in "I enjoy it because I play it badly," if any of them were to no longer play it badly they, too, would realize where we're coming from. But they're of the party of players who don't want to get good and therefore find the suggestion that they have room to improve to be offensive. They don't want to improve, they don't want to try, they just want to turn their brains off and press one button for dps between spamming medica 2 or succor because can't let the regens or shields drop!!! They don't say it, but it's quite obvious that they don't want healers to have more complex dps because they wouldn't or couldn't do it with their current lack of drive (not skill, I'm a firm believer that anyone can become good at this game with a bit of determination), and their failings would then be more obvious compared to those who do pull off their rotations.

I'm getting 2nd hand embarrassment just from reading certain individual outing themselves encouraging bad practices. I know this is not an exactly healer focused thread based on the OP (I think...), but boi. How ludicrously shallow they are.. just like the role's design itself.

I didn't intend it to be entirely healers, but they're the greatest victims of dumbing down jobs so there's a lot more to say for them. Also if I were to say I miss tank stances I'd get jumped so lol.

[Nizzi]

One of these days, Scholar's job guide on the Lodestone will look like this and I will cry, Yoshida please. Literally one little funny purple button

[Padudu]

I'm getting 2nd hand embarrassment just from reading certain individual outing themselves encouraging bad practices. I know this is not an exactly healer focused thread based on the OP (I think...), but boi. How ludicrously shallow they are.. just like the role's design itself.

I know that we've seen a lot of weird takes on this forum but dear lord lol.. this deserves an award of some sort.

[TaleraRistain]

I will say the lack of direct feedback about healer concerns is valid. I would like to hear more from the devs on the topic. I'm not in the camp for more dps, but I would like more things for us to do. My desires trend more toward buff/debuff/crowd control and remaining firmly in a more support position.

Something I have noticed from being a WHM main since ARR is that mechanics did not require nearly as much movement in the past, but we also had to stay still more since we did not have as many options for instants. As our ability to move more increased, the complexity of the mechanics in the fights increased. If they intend to continue this trend, I can see where they may have concerns about individual job complexity.

I also know a lot of my experience in PUGs depends on who I get. With a well-oiled machine, I'm rather bored since much healing isn't needed. With a pear-shaped group I'm constantly busy. That we have this variability could be another reason the developers are cautious about what they do and don't add. But it would be nice to have their thoughts on the matter.

[Shougun]

I didn't intend it to be entirely healers, but they're the greatest victims of dumbing down jobs so there's a lot more to say for them. Also if I were to say I miss tank stances I'd get jumped so lol.

I'm def glad tank stance dancing and cleric dancing are gone, though I wasn't of the opinion it had to be removed entirely- I just really disliked having to do it on at least one job lol. My suggestion long ago was to change Paladin to a new Oath system, such that you might spend your points to take an oath and it would have an effect for sometime with activation effects on the oaths themselves as well. So you might have a moment where you burn all your gauge to have both Shield and Sword active at the same time (or there might be some super holy power at later levels that gives you fancy aura effects and activates a 'super oath' lol). Effects wouldn't be exactly the same, obviously since it's less passive now, and I was imagining it would also come back around to other mechanics almost like a spell blade / rune blade / Death Knight like concept (making Oaths would allow you to release havoc later, making the concept itself a sort of core component that leans on being a 'Paladin').

But on point- I didn't like having to stance dance and lose a GCD and stuff like that I always felt annoyed to do it but did it because I knew there was a substantial difference if you didn't. Beyond finding it very cumbersome / annoying I also felt it went against what I would prefer to consider the roleplay theme of the job was "I don't intentionally defeat my own purpose of being a TANK by tanking worse". Similar reasons for healer. Silly to shoot yourself in the foot for your own job's purpose, so I didn't like it as a concept. Back onto a gameplay level of annoyance I'd say it was akin to Warrior's needing esuna'd on berserk, felt very cumbersome and not fun (imo).

I don't think those strategies for gameplay enhancements are the best examples of making something more complex / interesting. Particularly because they also /ensure/ a huge difference between decent play and skilled play. Ideally there is an opportunity for fine tuning and feeling clever, but I don't think having many situations (or perhaps jobs in general) that it's like okay-good play "dirt on the ground" skilled play "the next solar system over".

So I maintain, at least for some jobs, it was a great move- and I prefer the play style without it. But I didn't really feel it had to be entirely purged lol. Though at the same time I would have liked to discuss /other/ ways to maintain some interesting choices while it being less inhibitive to your own purpose. As even if it was just saying "maybe some jobs should keep it" I'd be like "can we not do better?" "are there not BETTER ideas to do what that does? Let's discuss that, I am not here to purge and give you nothing.. but I don't think you have the best either". I don't think those two spells were particularly good spells for quality gameplay, imo (but I don't mean to say all jobs get it removed and nothing fills the void created, as it obviously did require some technical skill to use).

/pounce

[Rilifane]

I miss stance dancing but I understand why people disliked it.
Perhaps it would've felt better if it was more designed as a reward for good tanking. FFXIV mitigation is, unfortunately, extremely straightforward and disconnected from everything else: push button, take less damage for x seconds. There is no real thought behind it.

I would prefer it if it was more dynamic and interactive and the dps stance was a reward for good tanking as in reacting particularly well to damage patterns.
You block a hit, now you can activate a skill within the next X s which gives you a very short buff (something like 3s) and if you take damage while the buff is up, you get a stronger damage reduction that offsets the one you lose from switching to dps stance while also increasing your damage in dps stance for a short while. The extremely short duration means you need to watch out for long casts and try to time it with the next auto/ raidwide going off but if executed well you get rewarded by taking the same damage as if in tank stance while benefitting from the dps increase of the dps stance and then you switch back.
On average it should be a dps gain over just blindly staying in dps stance because, say, you can't use the "after block" skill in dps stance. You can block but not use the skill.

You used a mitigation that lasts for 15s. For every hit you take during this time, you get one stack. Afterwards you can consume all stacks within x seconds to get the same benefit is above: damage reduction to offset the dps stance, slight additional dps gain in dps stance. So now it becomes important when exactly you use your mitigation instead of just "some time around x seconds so it gets the tankbuster". Timing it well rewards you with less damage taken from the additional hits that got mitigated (not interesting enough for most tanks to even try it) but also additional dps without any downside - and this should be interesting enough to work on mitigation timing. You get rewarded by thinking about your tank duty first.

These were examples from the top of my head, I'm sure others can come up with more polished examples but I hope it gets across what I mean by dps stance being a reward for good tanking instead of something that feels like it's going against the own role. I think damage should tie into your primary duty in the form of a reward instead of mitigation and dps being completely disconnected from each other.
Casual content doesn't require any of that so it would be perfectly fine to just chill in tank stance and pay no heed to it, there's no pressure to nail mitigating for some deeps gain.

[pikalovr]

snip

well the issue is the same thing we see happen even now where instead of fixing things or trying to build around it to feel better they just gut it instead

ok aggro management is more on DPS than the tanks? get rid of aggro entirely instead clearly. instead of getting rid of other roles being able to divert aggro. forcing them to properly stance dance and understand their stance timings if they want to optimize. like ok i know after AOeing a few times in tank stance i can get 18s in my DPS stance before aggro starts to fall off, or do like what shougun said and make their resources be able to be used to maintain both forms for x seconds etc... there was so many ways they could've tackled it besides turning it braindead

same with slashing piercing blunt damage they could've really fine tuned the system but the issue is they couldn't design fights that gave each damage type a time to shine or be used, or even allow each damage type to be superior in at least one of each savage fight and maybe give them each a time to shine in the 4th fight of the tier (i would actually prefer option 2 since it would promote actually switching jobs if you wanted to be optimal and make use of the play all jobs on one character aspect)

[tearagion]

I will say the lack of direct feedback about healer concerns is valid. I would like to hear more from the devs on the topic. I'm not in the camp for more dps, but I would like more things for us to do. My desires trend more toward buff/debuff/crowd control and remaining firmly in a more support position.

people ask for more DPS options, most often DoTs, because it is the bare minimum the development team would have to do to make the role more interesting. Buffs, debuffs, and crowd control would all be nice, but are either harder to balance, or don't fit into FFXIV as it is right now. Whereas, for example, giving SCH back its DoTs would instantly skyrocket veteran player job satisfaction without distorting the balance of the game. DoT #2 and #3 being executed properly could be a <15pps gain over Broil spamming and people would rejoice anyway, because they would finally have something to do.