What exactly is the design philosophy underlying the healer role?

[Risvertasashi]

No one really knows. SE maintains an iron curtain of silence on the topic. The most guidance we get is "go play ultimate", etc

[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.

[Jirah]

And you hit the nail straight in the head with the backwards design of not only healers, but all jobs.

But healers specifically have it the worst as not even high end content really requires them to be handsy, idk if this changes for ultimate but that’s a major sign of crappy design if you fixate a role only on 1 fight that like 10% of people will actually clear….and a influencer

[Sunhwapark]

but it’s not like people complained about the stormblood healers that much, is it?

Oof, Imagine if WHMs were still stuck with that RNG 20% cure fishing for lillies + divine benison having a lily cost.

[Silver-Strider]

Oof, Imagine if WHMs were still stuck with that RNG 20% cure fishing for lillies + divine benison having a lily cost.

I believe the 20% was on Confessions for PI.
Lilies had a 50% chance to proc on Cure 2 and a 100% chance on Cure 1.
I believe patch 4.05 changed Lilies to be 100% on Cure 2 and made Confessions always apply on AoE heals. Divine Benison however would continue to consume Lilies all thru the expansion for the most minute CD reduction when it was better served on Tetra or Asylum due to their longer CDs or at least on Assize so it would at least refund a small amount of the DPS loss for using Cure 2.

Couple with the removal of Stoneskin, Divine Seal becoming the Role Action Largesse and Cleric Stance going from swapping Mind/Int to being just a damage CD, there was a great many things to complain about in SB in regard to healers.

[Sunhwapark]

I believe the 20% was on Confessions for PI.

Thanks for the correction, I was wondering why my brain was so fixated on 20% I have forgotten and mixed it with how PI worked with confession stacks back then.
But yeah, healing system definitely felt all over the place at the time. Offensive parts of the healers kit at the time though made it feel a bit more enjoyable to play than how it is today. (imo)

It's quite sad that healers have had so much taken away.

[Deceptus]

but it’s not like people complained about the stormblood healers that much, is it?

Yes, yes we did.

[Erakir]

Thanks for the correction, I was wondering why my brain was so fixated on 20% I have forgotten and mixed it with how PI worked with confession stacks back then.
But yeah, healing system definitely felt all over the place at the time. Offensive parts of the healers kit at the time though made it feel a bit more enjoyable to play than how it is today. (imo)

It's quite sad that healers have had so much taken away.

Don't forget our other 20% Chance!
Secret of the Lilies 2, a trait so bad few even remember it ever existed, even during the expansion itself.

A 20% chance on healing critical HP with Cure or Cure 2 to reduce the CD on assize OR asylum by 5s. Healing critical HP meant critting, not healing someone low. So, ya know, RNG on RNG for a CD reduction applied inconsistently to different skills.

Assume a 20-25% crit chance and that's a 4-5% chance on casting good ol C2 and C1. Spam it and you may get one a minute! Hooray! And if there's one thing we love in the healing world it's variance on healing CD timings, especially short CD reductions that could rarely be relevant.

Lucky for us there wasn't any variance anyway cause you could go an entire tier of prog without seeing that proc once, let alone ever noticing it.

What an abysmal mess they gave us going into Stormblood.

[Silver-Strider]

Don't forget our other 20% Chance!
Secret of the Lilies 2, a trait so bad few even remember it ever existed, even during the expansion itself.

A 20% chance on healing critical HP with Cure or Cure 2 to reduce the CD on assize OR asylum by 5s. Healing critical HP meant critting, not healing someone low. So, ya know, RNG on RNG for a CD reduction applied inconsistently to different skills.

Assume a 20-25% crit chance and that's a 4-5% chance on casting good ol C2 and C1. Spam it and you may get one a minute! Hooray! And if there's one thing we love in the healing world it's variance on healing CD timings, especially short CD reductions that could rarely be relevant.

Lucky for us there wasn't any variance anyway cause you could go an entire tier of prog without seeing that proc once, let alone ever noticing it.

What an abysmal mess they gave us going into Stormblood.

Honestly, for all the gimmicks SE's pulled in SB for WHM to try and lower the CD on their oGCDs, one would think they'd have lowered them in ShB but given how little SE actually seems to care about healers, it's not all that surprising.