Should healers be designed like tanks?

[SargeTheSeagull]

I'd argue that the DPS jobs are the poster children for bloat. They all have one task: Do damage. The only GCD buttons they need are:

- One GCD button for single target melee damage.
- One GCD button for single target ranged damage.
- One GCD button for melee AoE damage.
- One GCD button for ranged AoE damage.
- One GCD button for melee single target DoT.
- One GCD button for ranged single target DoT.
- One GCD button for melee AoE DoT.
- One GCD button for ranged AoE DoT.

(Not all jobs currently would have all 8 of these buttons.)

Replace damage/DoT with heal/HoT if you want to build a GCD healing kit.

Everything else can be moved into an oGCD ability, if necessary.

Amazingly, the healers are already fairly close to that GCD design philosophy. The DPS and tank jobs are the ones that are bloated and think you need, say, 3+ GCD buttons for single target damage.

... What????

[shade62]

I'd argue that the DPS jobs are the poster children for bloat. They all have one task: Do damage. The only GCD buttons they need are:

- One GCD button for single target melee damage.
- One GCD button for single target ranged damage.
- One GCD button for melee AoE damage.
- One GCD button for ranged AoE damage.
- One GCD button for melee single target DoT.
- One GCD button for ranged single target DoT.
- One GCD button for melee AoE DoT.
- One GCD button for ranged AoE DoT.

(Not all jobs currently would have all 8 of these buttons.)

Replace damage/DoT with heal/HoT if you want to build a GCD healing kit.

Everything else can be moved into an oGCD ability, if necessary.

Amazingly, the healers are already fairly close to that GCD design philosophy. The DPS and tank jobs are the ones that are bloated and think you need, say, 3+ GCD buttons for single target damage.

I would weep for DPS and Tank mains that end up with this mangled corpse of a kit.

[NobleWinter]

I'd argue that the DPS jobs are the poster children for bloat. They all have one task: Do damage. The only GCD buttons they need are:

- One GCD button for single target melee damage.
- One GCD button for single target ranged damage.
- One GCD button for melee AoE damage.
- One GCD button for ranged AoE damage.
- One GCD button for melee single target DoT.
- One GCD button for ranged single target DoT.
- One GCD button for melee AoE DoT.
- One GCD button for ranged AoE DoT.

(Not all jobs currently would have all 8 of these buttons.)

Replace damage/DoT with heal/HoT if you want to build a GCD healing kit.

Everything else can be moved into an oGCD ability, if necessary.

Amazingly, the healers are already fairly close to that GCD design philosophy. The DPS and tank jobs are the ones that are bloated and think you need, say, 3+ GCD buttons for single target damage.

Some ideas are just bad and this is one of them.

[AmiableApkallu]

I would weep for DPS and Tank mains that end up with this mangled corpse of a kit.

Some ideas are just bad and this is one of them.

Welcome to the world of the Prevailing Opinion, where it's okay to make healers' healing kits less and less interesting, but heavens forbid you apply the same philosophy to DPS jobs and their DPS kits.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Snip

Regardless of role, I can’t tell if this is a sarcasm or not…

[VentVanitas]

Welcome to the world of the Prevailing Opinion, where it's okay to make healers' healing kits less and less interesting, but heavens forbid you apply the same philosophy to DPS jobs and their DPS kits.

Probably because making things less interesting is BAD?

please tell me you're just taking the piss. I refuse to believe that this is what you actually think.

[Dzian]

Now, if they're going to increase incoming damage, they better get to it already!
I remember Yoshida doing a Q&A with Mizzteq (from MTQcapture) and telling her that they would increase healing requirements for EW fights. But... did that ever happen? No, it didn't. So far the only fight that seems more demanding to me is P3S. But that's just one fight!

And if they do somehow increase the healing requirements from 6.2 and onwards, what will they do with every other fight before that? Are we supposed to only have fun with the newest content? That would be stupid, and I would come back here to protest for healers to be more like tanks.

The thing is that they do actually do this. They increase the heal requirements on numerous occassions for newer content.

The Problem is that it's unnoticeable because of a third element that often goes overlooked.

You have job design. and the various ways that impacts healers and gameplay.

You have encounter design. and the impacts of highly scripted and predictable damage.

And there's also progression design. In this game that's a problem because of how much content gets overpowered so quickly and easily. The speed of power creep completely negates those increased healing requirements almost immediately.

The vast majority of content in the game is quite literally "Dead on arrival" in terms of tuning.
Even something recent like Endsinger EX which is tuned to i580 but released at a point where most players were already 590-600. Even just 10 ilevels is a very substantial difference when multiplied by 8 party memebers..

So what happens is at i580 maybe that tank buster does indeed hit harder and perhaps takes 2 heals to heal up instead of just one..

However at 590-600 that tank takes notably less damage from that same tank buster plus has a notably larger hp pool.
And that healer heals for notably more hp so it goes right back down to 1 heal to heal that tank buster not 2..

There's so many compounded design elements that stuff up healers (and other jobs). Job design, Encounter design, Progression design, The complete misunderstanding of the word "casual". when the devs think it means "easy", "simple" or "accessible".. Oh and the heavy focus on solo play as well. literally the only reasn healers have any dps buttons at all...

Enough little issues make a huge problem. thats why there's no easy fix. turning healers into green dps doesn't fix anything. like how a lot of people find tanks boring because there just blue dps..

[Liam_Harper]

Ignoring the bad takes, it's an interesting question. First thought is yes they should be designed like tanks. Second thought is I used to be a tank main in other MMO's and actually quit tanking here because I find ff14 tanks so boring and unrewarding. They're just a bland watered down dps that press cooldowns 3-4 times a fight for tankbusters. I honestly don't even like DPS design much in this game and feel Endwalker in general has been sliding downhill. It's just QoL, simplification, "button that lights up when you use your 2 min cooldown", traits that mean nothing and aoe fluff fillers of ST oGCD's and vice versa.

It would be an improvement, but I feel the reason people have been talking past each other here is that fixing healers is going to require a lot more than focusing one area. The whole kit needs revitalizing and given identity, they did nothing with this "barrier/pure" split, we need more to heal, more frequent damage, toolkits that flow and connect and of course engaging dps.

Sadly, I don't think they can even do it right now. Healers are the most neglected role, but almost all jobs were neglected in Endwalker really with the bulk of their time going into simply making Reaper. And now we've learned that making changes to just 2 jobs out of 20 is such a massive project it'll have to wait until next expansion. Fixing an entire role and the combat for the game seems way out of their league ...but it shouldn't be. Honestly, the dev team has serious issues right now. They've fallen way behind and they aren't suddenly going to find time next expansion unless they make big changes.

[shade62]

Welcome to the world of the Prevailing Opinion, where it's okay to make healers' healing kits less and less interesting, but heavens forbid you apply the same philosophy to DPS jobs and their DPS kits.

Sorry, but I refuse to believe it's THAT difficult to understand this theoretical DPS kit would be profoundly uninspired and boring as all hell to play. Sure, let's bring down DPS and Tanks to our level. Kick them in the nuts while you're at it, too, why don't you? I don't know, man, maybe the healing kits feel less interesting already because they don't put us in enough situations to require using every part of it. Maybe this game is designed around every role dealing damage. We shouldn't be dragging everyone else down with us. Healers should be elevated to Tank and DPS levels of enjoyment.

I don't think it's hard to understand that I don't want to see every job play the exact same like healers already do, and in the process, strip away what little nuances differentiate them and what others might find fun about their job.

[IDontPetLalas]

Probably because making things less interesting is BAD?

please tell me you're just taking the piss. I refuse to believe that this is what you actually think.

It did get your attention though, didn't it?

That is very close to how healer design looks, just replace the word 'damage" by "healing" and a good deal of that would apply. SE homogenized and simplified healers, and to some people this was bad. Crickets until it starts to touch other jobs.