Shield/Pure Healer Split Feedback

[Liam_Harper]

It ended up the exact nonsense that was predicted. Mitigation is king and bosses don't need that much healing, making the extra raw heal power of a "Pure" healer mostly irrelevant. So in reality the divide looks like this.

Healer with nothing else.
Healer with mitigation and shields.

Easy choice.
AST and WHM hang in there mainly because 99% of content is just irrelevant and any healer works fine. AST also brings mitigation and CU/Neutral are extremely good, not to mention Macro and Star are just OP to the point of carrying mechanics. But it's not good because you need a Pure Healer. It's good because it's OP and has enough barrier for endgame.
WHM is just WHM. They should just make it a limited job at this point for Normal mode content.

As predicted too, SGE/SCH is a ridiculously good comp in the hands of a decent team. It would easily be top if AST wasn't OP.

The only thing the shield/barrier split has done is discouraged AST/WHM comps in the harder content. That's literally it.

[Supersnow845]

It ended up the exact nonsense that was predicted. Mitigation is king and bosses don't need that much healing, making the extra raw heal power of a "Pure" healer mostly irrelevant. So in reality the divide looks like this.

Healer with nothing else.
Healer with mitigation and shields.

Easy choice.
AST and WHM hang in there mainly because 99% of content is just irrelevant and any healer works fine. AST also brings mitigation and CU/Neutral are extremely good, not to mention Macro and Star are just OP to the point of carrying mechanics. But it's not good because you need a Pure Healer. It's good because it's OP and has enough barrier for endgame.
WHM is just WHM. They should just make it a limited job at this point for Normal mode content.

As predicted too, SGE/SCH is a ridiculously good comp in the hands of a decent team. It would easily be top if AST wasn't OP.

The only thing the shield/barrier split has done is discouraged AST/WHM comps in the harder content. That's literally it.

You could pretty much extend that last line to all it does is discourage WHM comps in general because the shield healers are just so much better and AST holds on by virtue of its raw power. WHM just has absolutely no niche, and in true FF14 style it continues to be the most played healer despite bringing absolutely nothing to the table

[IDontPetLalas]

The only reason why healing is a mess is because of a diffirent issue.

If healers are more difficult, it generaly means players will be less healed up, and die more often. These deaths will be blamed on the healer (instead of the player standing in the AoE). Simply because players are realy bad at looking back in time, and looking at others (only healers do this well as thats their job). If healers get blamed all the time, it hurts their popularity even more. And this is what they want to avoid, so they actualy are too easy and effective.

As a result, healers got excessive healing, and a lot of classes got self heals to again mitigate healer mistakes. It just oversimplified the role.

But on a side note, i have noticed in plenty of cases where teams were new to a dungeon, that as healer you are getting pushed quite a lot already (and its generaly also the most fun as a healer with it). And to me that actualy shows that the kits of the classes arent actualy too bad either. Its just that most of the time you are simply not demanded to use this kit and can just resolve towards abilities that preserve most dps.

The issue is that "when people are new to a dungeon" wears off quite quickly. Yes, you will get people that will run a dungeon for the first time for an extended period. However- once people learn the mechanics and/or outgear that dungeon, what you're describing. That's very poor design.

In addition, regarding your comment on increasing healing difficulty and other players blaming healers? Healing jobs have been simplified. The issue of people blaming healers for something hasn't gone away and likely never will. Sometimes it is justified - as healers make mistakes, or of course- maybe just not be a good team player just like any other person in any job- but sometimes people are just picking the most obvious target. All of this, after, as you say, trying to respond to either a healer shortage problems or a perceived issue that some healers were not healing. Too bad SE being a small indie company cannot afford a healer designer.

[Supersnow845]

The issue is that "when people are new to a dungeon" wears off quite quickly. Yes, you will get people that will run a dungeon for the first time for an extended period. However- once people learn the mechanics and/or outgear that dungeon, what you're describing. That's very poor design.

In addition, regarding your comment on increasing healing difficulty and other players blaming healers? Healing jobs have been simplified. The issue of people blaming healers for something hasn't gone away and likely never will. Sometimes it is justified - as healers make mistakes, or of course- maybe just not be a good team player just like any other person in any job- but sometimes people are just picking the most obvious target. All of this, after, as you say, trying to respond to either a healer shortage problems or a perceived issue that some healers were not healing. Too bad SE being a small indie company cannot afford a healer designer.

Pls understand as a small indie developer we can only afford 4 job designer devs, BLM gets two all too itself, PLD and the melee DPS share 1, everyone else gets the last one even though he is a RPR main and the unpaid intern gets the healers

[SieyaM]

Pls understand as a small indie developer we can only afford 4 job designer devs, BLM gets two all too itself, PLD and the melee DPS share 1, everyone else gets the last one even though he is a RPR main and the unpaid intern gets the healers

BLM gets not just two designers, but one of those is the director himself, meaning all things must be done to ensure that jobs success and his satisfaction. It is no coincidence that BLM got changes the moment it fell behind in PVP and remains the most well designed job in the game.

[DustyBlue]

I think it's just as flawed a balancing mentality as designating tank jobs as meant to be main tanks or off-tanks, and they eventually realized that was dumb themselves so I hope they realize it's dumb for healers too, sooner rather than later. They need to make any combination of healers compatible with each other, double barrier healers continues to not make a whole lot of sense, 7 years later. Instead of AST and SCH it's now SGE and SCH, and SGE is sort of like a reverse of AST in that it can be either/or, depending on if they use Eukrasia or not. I think all the healers should work like that, in a way. I was always bummed that AST couldn't change sects mid-battle as needed. SCH could have more consistently available Emergency Tactics as a sort of reverse Eukrasia. I think a Shadowbringers-style tank rework is warranted, but the problem is healers are so boringly homogenized already that I'd hate for them to make that even more pronounced, so if they could find a way to do that while also reintroducing challenge and depth/distinct gameplay again that'd be great

[ToodlesElNoodles]

I think they need to drop pure/barrier dichotomy.

It’s stifling.

I honestly want SGE to be reworked and fulfill what it’s supposed to be as THE DPS healer. And take away its GCD shield.

It’s horrible design that SCH has the better shields, but the SGE’s weaker shields get priority or even downright block SCH shields. Pepsis and Adder’s Sting need to be tossed into a garbage can, set on fire, and thrown off a cliff.

And I’m mostly saying that as a selfish player who’s getting tired of explaining how shields work to lvl 90 SGE players who have 0 other healers leveled and spam Eukrasia Prognosis continuously every 5 sec.

[Sunhwapark]

I think they need to drop pure/barrier dichotomy.

It’s stifling.

I honestly want SGE to be reworked and fulfill what it’s supposed to be as THE DPS healer. And take away its GCD shield.

It’s horrible design that SCH has the better shields, but the SGE’s weaker shields get priority or even downright block SCH shields. Pepsis and Adder’s Sting need to be tossed into a garbage can, set on fire, and thrown off a cliff.

And I’m mostly saying that as a selfish player who’s getting tired of explaining how shields work to lvl 90 SGE players who have 0 other healers leveled and spam Eukrasia Prognosis continuously every 5 sec.

Agreed, also it's ridiculous how they 'solved' the Nocturnal AST/SCH barrier problem by giving the problem to Sage.

[GoatOfWar]

I thought the split only really mattered for parties assembled via "Raid Finder"?

Anyway, I still don't understand the "pure" vs. "shield" split. It's not how I (currently) think about the healing jobs:

- WHM: On demand restoration of HP.
- AST: Delayed restoration of HP.
- SCH: Swiss Army Knife - Perhaps the best answer to every healing problem, but some assembly and planning required.
- SGE: ???

Sage should have been the dps oriented healer as promised.

[Renathras]

It's...an _interesting IDEA_. When properly executed and in a game that actually leans int/allows it.

Yes, those are caveats that mean, yes, it didn't work for FFXIV.

Having dichotomies like "main tank/off tank" work in games with more complex (e.g. less scripted) battle systems and more varied gameplay styles. For example, consider WoW circa Wrath of the Lich King. At that time, there was a dual tank healer (Holy Paladin) that had only a few single target healing spells (and no AOE to speak of), but they were hyper efficient and very powerful, meaning in a large (25 person) raid with 4-6 healers, bringing one was a no-brainer. Restoration Druid worked as a heal over time focused healer whose main job was to keep several HoTs on the tanks to smooth their recovery and "roll HoTs" across the raid group to ensure stable health values (no one getting and staying too low, recovery to max health over prolonged time periods of no damage). Restoration Shaman maintained buffs and assisted with party mana restoration (so did Druid in a pinch with Enervation, I think it was, and Paladins could help with Judgement of Wisdom on the boss that would proc MP gain for raid members striking the boss), and was good at AOE healing party members with the affectionately named "banana beam" (Chain Heal) among others. And Priest had two healing specs, Holy which was kind of the jack of all trades of healers, and Discipline, which for the first time was actually somewhat useful (it was mainly just used for leveling in Vanilla and BC) as a shield tank to smooth damage and a passable tank healer if you couldn't find a Paladin despite them being everywhere. It fully came into its role through Cataclysm and into Mists of Pandaria, the following expansions.

Now, I say this not to praise WoW or condemn FFXIV, but more to point out that a game that ALLOWS AND EMBRACES NICHES can work if the game plays into that AND the encounters support it.

FFXIV does neither.

The longer GCD filled with oGCDs completely alters the dynamic, and the scripted fight damage and low tank auto-attack damage collectively mean you don't need things like tank healers or party healers. All healers in FFXIV, even the powerful barrier healers, have effective and potent HoTs. They aren't spamable, but they don't need to be as there's no case in FFXIV where a Resto Druid-like "rolling" of a single target instant cast HoT (Rejuvination, which was basically Regen) is ever needed or useful to a party. While WHM _could_ do that...they could just cast a Rapture, Assize, or Medica 2 and call it a day in most cases.

.


There's too much overlap (all barrier healers have regens, AST has barriers, WHM is the only odd one out), the fight design doesn't really allow that flexibility (barriers can't be MANDATORY or WHM can't heal an encounter, Cure 3 can't be mandatory or SGE can't heal an encounter, etc), and with fight damage that can be easily covered with oGCD healing in most cases anyway, regardless of if there's a barrier or HoT attached or not.

Every healer but WHM is an effective barrier healer. That includes AST. Every healer is an effective HoT healer. Every healer is an effective AOE healer. Every healer is an effective single target healer (in the few cases that's called for). Every healer has effective throughput/on-demand healing. Every healer has effective MP regen for their mainly used healing tools.

So you don't need an efficient single target Holy Paladin or a Hot Rolling Druid, an AOE specialized Shaman or a damage smoothing Discipline Priest, and a generalist Holy Priest doesn't come into play because ALL of our healers are basically generalist Holy Priests. It helps when the raid size is 25 as you're EXPECTED to have roughly one of each healer in your 4-6 person strong healing team.

.

So it's a nice idea. I see what they were going for.

But the healer design (everyone has all the tools anyway), encounter design (scripted fights with rigid damage in predictable patters that can all be handled with oGCDs), and rigid class design (because every Job in FFXIV does every thing, there's no niche expression to speak of, and where there is, like SCH having extremely powerful shields, they aren't used in encounters because the other healers would then be unable to clear content)

As such, the idea failed.

FFXIV's combat system is just too rigid right now for specializations to work.

[Ironically, the main-tank/off-tank thing CAN work because raid groups CAN optimize to have one tank that just eats damage and the other that deals more and this be moderately effective. While gearing allows that to shift to just using 2x off-tanks for the greater damage leveraging their support skills to keep each other alive, at least during prog that dynamic actually IS useful, whereas the Pure/Barrier split never really is because the Barrier healers can match the Pure healers in throughput when using CDs, and the times you have those heal checks are both infrequent and scripted, meaning it's easy to have those CDs ready. This is why SCH/SGE actually is effective despite both having, on paper, less throughput. Because they have it when they NEED it, and that's all that matters. And as others have said, AST is only useful because of the party buffs and that it has a lot of mitigation for a Pure healer as well. WHM is only there because it's still easy and that matters to a lot of people, but it does less party damage contribution and has weaker mitigation meaning it's harder in prog AND farm. Somehow. <_< ]