What exactly is the design philosophy underlying the healer role?

[Kabzy]

There has never been a point where healers didn't have a lot of complaints in this forum...

Just wanted to expand on this to sort of see the other side. Back in ARR, things felt great as a SCH. You had several DoTs, you had Cleric Stance for DPS, percentage based Lustrate to synergise with tanks and staying in DPS stance, only a few OGCDs so that GCD healing was still required, you actually managed the faerie, and you had utility in the form of Virus - a debuff on bosses that literally would prevent the party from wiping to stronger raidwides. While this sounds like a dream, and TBH was probably one of the best designed jobs SE had back in the day, so many healers complained because they couldn't handle all of that.

Then came the expansions and their adjustments, and essentially SE accommodated. They definitely took it way too far, and seem to be completely ignoring healer feedback now which is wrong, but they also did listen at one point and we've ended up with what we have now. So yeah, the complaints seem to have done a 180 since ARR, understandably so. But without pointing the blame at any particular player group, it was kind of asked for.

[Deceptus]

Just wanted to expand on this to sort of see the other side. Back in ARR, things felt great as a SCH. You had several DoTs, you had Cleric Stance for DPS, percentage based Lustrate to synergise with tanks and staying in DPS stance, only a few OGCDs so that GCD healing was still required, you actually managed the faerie, and you had utility in the form of Virus - a debuff on bosses that literally would prevent the party from wiping to stronger raidwides. While this sounds like a dream, and TBH was probably one of the best designed jobs SE had back in the day, so many healers complained because they couldn't handle all of that.

Then came the expansions and their adjustments, and essentially SE accommodated. They definitely took it way too far, and seem to be completely ignoring healer feedback now which is wrong, but they also did listen at one point and we've ended up with what we have now. So yeah, the complaints seem to have done a 180 since ARR, understandably so. But without pointing the blame at any particular player group, it was kind of asked for.

And in their hypocrisy, the FFXIV devs nerfed SCH down to other jobs instead of making other job's kits more cohesive like SCH was.

You know, in direct contradiction to what they do to say DPS.

Yoshi-P on Red Mages (2 part GIF):



Meanwhile on Scholar

[fulminating]

And in their hypocrisy, the FFXIV devs nerfed SCH down to other jobs instead of making other job's kits more cohesive like SCH was.

You know, in direct contradiction to what they do to say DPS.

Yoshi-P on Red Mages (2 part GIF):



Meanwhile on Scholar

I mean that didn't stop them killing smn, maybe they realised and this is the monkey's paw version of consistency between roles

[glamazon]

Summoner is so boring it’s actually painful.