How to easily have healers dps engaged ( yet another thread)

[Renathras]

Honestly, at this point, I'd just like to see a healer that has something other than "Nuke + 30 sec DoT + once a min or so third DPS button". And I say this as a healer that doesn't find DPS enjoyable and is thus perfectly content to have 1 button DPS. Even I find the "111111111112111111111123; repeat" to be stupid. We have 4 healers, why do they all have essentially an identical heal kit? If one is 11111111111111111 while another is 123123123 and another is 1112111311121114, this would be better to me than them all being essentially identical. Glare, Dia, Misery. Dosis, Eukrasia Dosis, Plegma. Malific, Combust, Earthly Star (I guess? Don't ever play AST because I don't care much for it). SCH is the only one that's at all different because it has Ruin 2 for a spamable (but you don't WANT to spam it) movement tool (useful for things like Wraith donuts in Delubrium) and that Energy Drain isn't a 45/60 sec GCD but rather a semi-spamable (limited by resource) oGCD. But even that is, for most purposes, 11111111111211111111112 between Broil and Byolysis, just with "3" weaves for Energy Drain (if not using the AF for healing; 6 under Dissipation) and Ruin 2 as an option.

As much as I'd be happy for WHM to just lose Dia and ONLY have Glare (and Misery), I'd also love to see some other design space across the healers. One having a simple 1-2-3 rotation like MCH does (which is just 1-2-3 with oGCD weaves and the 1-2-3 doesn't break when they use their other GCDs, so the hypothetical healer's wouldn't either, allowing them to freely cast cure GCDs if needed without gimping themselves) and one having something more proc or context based would not go amiss, imo.

That we have 4 healers but they all have MORE OR LESS identical rotations is just stupid. We have 4 tanks and they aren't TERRIBLY complicated, but each of them still feels like I'm playing a different thing when I swap between them because they all have different rotations, even their core rotations. WAR has an occasional upkeep buff finisher, PLD swaps between two finishers, a 3 hit stinger on Royal, and then the caster phase, GNB has a 1-2-3 like WAR but without the upkeep buff, instead playing with its GCD continuation abilities to prevent overcap, and DRK...well, I don't play DRK, but I'm guessing it's a bit different as well. There's no reason for healers to not be AT LEAST a bit more diverse given that.

[ty_taurus]

Honestly, at this point, I'd just like to see a healer that has something other than "Nuke + 30 sec DoT + once a min or so third DPS button". And I say this as a healer that doesn't find DPS enjoyable and is thus perfectly content to have 1 button DPS. Even I find the "111111111112111111111123; repeat" to be stupid. We have 4 healers, why do they all have essentially an identical heal kit? If one is 11111111111111111 while another is 123123123 and another is 1112111311121114, this would be better to me than them all being essentially identical. Glare, Dia, Misery. Dosis, Eukrasia Dosis, Plegma. Malific, Combust, Earthly Star (I guess? Don't ever play AST because I don't care much for it). SCH is the only one that's at all different because it has Ruin 2 for a spamable (but you don't WANT to spam it) movement tool (useful for things like Wraith donuts in Delubrium) and that Energy Drain isn't a 45/60 sec GCD but rather a semi-spamable (limited by resource) oGCD. But even that is, for most purposes, 11111111111211111111112 between Broil and Byolysis, just with "3" weaves for Energy Drain (if not using the AF for healing; 6 under Dissipation) and Ruin 2 as an option.

As much as I'd be happy for WHM to just lose Dia and ONLY have Glare (and Misery), I'd also love to see some other design space across the healers. One having a simple 1-2-3 rotation like MCH does (which is just 1-2-3 with oGCD weaves and the 1-2-3 doesn't break when they use their other GCDs, so the hypothetical healer's wouldn't either, allowing them to freely cast cure GCDs if needed without gimping themselves) and one having something more proc or context based would not go amiss, imo.

That we have 4 healers but they all have MORE OR LESS identical rotations is just stupid. We have 4 tanks and they aren't TERRIBLY complicated, but each of them still feels like I'm playing a different thing when I swap between them because they all have different rotations, even their core rotations. WAR has an occasional upkeep buff finisher, PLD swaps between two finishers, a 3 hit stinger on Royal, and then the caster phase, GNB has a 1-2-3 like WAR but without the upkeep buff, instead playing with its GCD continuation abilities to prevent overcap, and DRK...well, I don't play DRK, but I'm guessing it's a bit different as well. There's no reason for healers to not be AT LEAST a bit more diverse given that.

I mean if you don't really want to engage with a healer's rotation, if all the healers get a more developed rotation, why not just ignore the rotation and spam whatever button you want? It's not like it matters at all outside of savage anyway. You can always just not use Dia if you hate it that much.

[Renathras]

I mean if you don't really want to engage with a healer's rotation, if all the healers get a more developed rotation, why not just ignore the rotation and spam whatever button you want? It's not like it matters at all outside of savage anyway. You can always just not use Dia if you hate it that much.

This is something people like you will never understand.

People not wanting something to have a high skill feeling aren't necessarily people who don't try to do their best anyway. There's this weird thing with folks who think like you that goes something like this: "If a person doesn't want an involved 15 button full on DPSer rotation on a Healer...it obviously means they don't care about optimizing, doing well in the Job, must not do Savage, and clearly only press 1 button now and will press 1 button only in the future, so them doing low damage and getting kicked from groups won't change their game experience at all (somehow)"

It's an inane "counter".

Especially to someone like me, who is genuinely advocating FOR SOMETHING YOU WANT, just with you 75% of the way instead of 100%. Do you always attack and belittle people trying to help you?

I engage with the full rotations on the three healers I play on, thank you very much. And I actually do Savage (now) and have done Extremes for three expansions. Good god, no wonder you don't get what you want with that attitude. I'm literally saying "we have 4 Healers, the Devs could increase the dps kits on 2-3 of them and mix things up without it harming the game", and your response was to attack me instead? Really dude?

.

EDIT:

While I'm no fan of homogenization in general, and Twelve know healers are the ones that need it the least, I think it'd make sense if Toxicon becomes Sage's version of Misery - get adderstings as a reward for shielding, get 3 stacks and you get a big boom spell.

One problem with this is it would likely be too powerful. Keep in mind Misery can't be generated by spamable heals (e.g. Cure 2s), only from spending a GCD consuming a resource you only get one of every 20 seconds. If SGE could just cast 3x Eukrasia Diagnosis and then get a DPS neutral/gain nuke, that would be pretty unbalanced.

Sacred Soil stepped on asylums toes first with getting a regen on it
It's too late for Asylum to step on Sacred's toes if Sacred is stomping all over it already

Honestly, I'd be fine with it coming with Confession/Plenary Indulgence. A 10 sec Protect/Shell would give me a reason to actually hit PI, and Expedience and Fey Illumination are precedent for "two in one" abilities like that. It has a 60 sec CD already and is rarely used because it's seldom needed. Normally using PI means one or MAYBE two AOE heals, probably Rapture, and you really don't use the full 10 sec duration and effect because you simply don't need to heal people for more than 100% health that often. Having a mitigation tacked on would actually make it more useful for its intended purpose, which is large incoming damage in several waves. The mitigation could be used to reduce it while the boosted healing would be used for restoring that damage. And when a fight doesn't require that, it would serve just fine as an additional party mitigation for when Temperance is on CD or when a smaller mitigation would do, and give WHM 3 total mitigations per 3 minute time period.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who doesn't find Dots engaging. I Liked Aero 3s animation but that was it.

Glad to see I'm not alone either! People have this weird idea that DoTs are somehow the pentacle of amazing game design when, in practice, they're "thing you press once every 30 seconds" boring and obnoxious. I wouldn't even mind them if it wasn't for the fact EVERY SINGLE HEALER has one as part of its carbon-copy "damage rotation". I've even said many times, I can actually like DoTs IF the class using them is built around using them and they have interactions. For example, a DoT that stacks to 3 and all three refresh when you refresh it, but if you let it fall off, you have to stack to 3 again (I haven't played it in years, but I remember Druids in WoW having a HoT that worked this way that you'd maintain on the main tank), or things like Bane and Fester (the old ones) that interacted with DoTs. The ones in FFXIV simply do not. WHM has never had any kit interaction with DoTs and they have always been "apply, don't let fall off...and that's it" for the Job.

Though I, too, miss twirly staff tornado storm Aero 3.

I will counter one thing, though: SCH's Miasma 2 was kind of nice for some fights like Brayflox Hard's final boss since the initial tick of damage counted for knocking bombs away in all those old fights where you had to do that. They just needed to make it where it was a DPS loss on single target but a DPS gain for AOE (like Art of War is) to allow spamming it for AOE situations but not force people to use an AOE ability for single target fights. Aero 3 should have been the same. They managed to do this with the regular single target vs AOE nuke spells, so they should be able to manage it for AOE DoTs in some way, too. Or just make them 1-2 AOE combos somehow.

I also agree with buffing. I never understand HEALERS that want to DAMAGE. Healing is a support role. The point is to aid and boost allies, and that's the player most attracted to the role. I don't even mind having damage focused healers AS ONE OF THE OPTIONS, but having them all be that is just silly. Other MMOs managed to figure this out, I'm not sure why FFXIV - and not even FFXIV, more FFXIV's hardcore/elitist players - can't.

SCH isn’t a pretty job, it’s a tactician/field medic

What part of "field medic" screams "I poison people to death", though?

This trend towards “fey mage” has no basis in SCH’s lore and makes it feel too much like a WHM

WHM's have no connection to Fey Magic, so it doesn't make SCH feel like WHM's at all. And it's not some new trend with no basis. SCH's ENTIRE lore is based on them working with their partner/pet. That IS their lore. The tactician part of their lore is expressed through it. SCH's being able to place Eos into the center of the arena or send her to the opposite side if the raid team has to split completely apart, being able to have her use abilities while the SCH is free to either deal damage or use their own heals, etc, is the tactician part of SCH. Issuing commands to their subordinate and leveraging both your character and your support minion to heal your party. I'm not sure what part about that DOESN'T feel like a tactician to you.

And that has been their lore from the start. It's not some new thing they've picked up. Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination have been in the game since ARR.

The idea of DOT’s on healers is you can’t have rigid rotations on classes that may have to triage at any moment

This was a valid complaint in 2013, it isn't in 2022. If you weren't aware, the Devs have updated most Jobs to where combos don't break. On GNB, hit 1-2 then hit Gnashing Fang and watch something magical happen: You can go through your entire Gnashing Fang combo and that 3 button is still lit up and ready to go. PLD spells don't break their combos anymore, either. And I think RDM may not. Hop on MCH. Hit 1 then Drill then 2 then Chainsaw then 3. MAGIC!!!

Something amazing happened on the way to 2022: The Devs learned how to make it where combos don't break!

So a healer could have a "rigid combo" of 1-2-3 and be coded to where their healing spells don't break the combo. BAM! Problem solved!

DoTs on every healer are a relic from 2013/2.0 when healers only had one or two damage buttons to press. When WHM only had Stone 1 and Stone 2, which was better than Stone 1 in every way, and no oGCD heals to speak of, it made sense for them to have two DoTs since they might not have anything to do otherwise. That makes much less sense now with fights that have a lot more movement and higher APMs with oGCD weaves and instant cast movement heals and the like, as well as even WHM having more damage buttons now than they did in ARR.

[Cheremia]

I also agree with buffing. I never understand HEALERS that want to DAMAGE. Healing is a support role. The point is to aid and boost allies, and that's the player most attracted to the role. I don't even mind having damage focused healers AS ONE OF THE OPTIONS, but having them all be that is just silly. Other MMOs managed to figure this out, I'm not sure why FFXIV - and not even FFXIV, more FFXIV's hardcore/elitist players - can't.

Yes, altough a niche game, I LOVED Geomancer in FF Explorers. You could customize your fields to heal and buff and or to do damage. Or both at the same time. Multiple of them, it was super fun to put down fields to support my allies and all that shizzle. And the outfit was super cute, we need more massive round hats in XIV.
I want healers to heal more, but since the game design doesn't allow it, I want to buff my allies instead of dotting my enemies. I don't play healers to do damage. Don't be mistaken, i glare and dia and assize and lilly and misery and everything until i become more blind from my own light, but that is because the game does not support healing-healers... it is fine, if there was anything else to do.

I'm one of the few whms that use wings for big aoes, that uses benison and aquaveil etc. Many people don't even use their cooldown, it's especially noticeable on schs with no soils and no seraph etc. I know it's not ultra needed in most normal content, but it adds a little more engagement that just "aw man i have to spam 1 button". Yes, we do, but you also could use the rest of your kit more, even if its redundant in MOST normal content...

But I don't need brds and dancers to be support. I don't mind that they are, I like support classes a lot, I want healers to also count more to it.
Shields is nice and damage buffs are nice, but something... it's hard to explain what i would want, but something else i have to juggle.
What if i have to combo my attacks/heals with some oGCDs? They won't interrupt each other and you'd have enough time on each juggle for heals to not break it.
Breaking whatever you're juggling won't be the end of the world either, you just have to build it up again or something.

Timers aren't a bad thing, putting dots on a mob you only have to refresh and nothing more, is.
Bufftimers are more fun to juggle than that, in my opinion. It's hard to explain. I just want to do more for my TEAM instead of just.... set it and forget it dot.

It's just that i don't see where more dots would help me be more engaged if it's less engagement because I only have to press the button every 30 seconds or more or less... doesn't really matter which way. It does ALL the work by itself when I press it, even if i die after it.

[Supersnow845]

What part of "field medic" screams "I poison people to death", though?



WHM's have no connection to Fey Magic.



This was a valid complaint in 2013, it isn't in 2022. If you weren't aware, the Devs have updated most Jobs to where combos don't break. On GNB, hit 1-2 then hit Gnashing Fang and watch something magical happen: You can go through your entire Gnashing Fang combo and that 3 button is still lit up and ready to go. PLD spells don't break their combos anymore, either. And I think RDM may not. Hop on MCH. Hit 1 then Drill then 2 then Chainsaw then 3. MAGIC!!!

Something amazing happened on the way to 2022: The Devs learned how to make it where combos don't break!

So a healer could have a "rigid combo" of 1-2-3 and be coded to where their healing spells don't break the combo. BAM! Problem solved!

DoTs on every healer are a relic from 2013/2.0 when healers only had one or two damage buttons to press. When WHM only had Stone 1 and Stone 2, which was better than Stone 1 in every way, and no oGCD heals to speak of, it made sense for them to have two DoTs since they might not have anything to do otherwise. That makes much less sense now with fights that have a lot more movement and higher APMs with oGCD weaves and instant cast movement heals and the like, as well as even WHM having more damage buttons now than they did in ARR.

1) the part that is basically “a field medic will do whatever it has to to be victorious in a fight and it learned poison magic as an ACN so it’s going to use it, what do you want a field mage to use, a knife, should we bring back book slap meta
2) WHM may not actually be a fey mage but the animations for the two are starting to look far to similar and nor did I ever say the fairy shouldn’t be a support tool you should use to gain an advantage, you know buffing and debuffing, not “replace the SCH as the healer“, the fairy is a support tool (remember fey covenant, fey wind etc) not a healer proxy
3) yeah so DOT juggling is boring but enforced 1-2-3’s are interesting just because succor won’t break my combo, pls explain that logic, and you used to have to weave as much as you do now, especially on SCH, let’s not pretend that the healers have to be insanely simple on DPS because heal weaving is gigabrain because we have 8000 oGCD’s now

DOT’s don’t have to be everyone’s shtick (I’m actually totally in favour of other healers losing DOT’s for something different) but why are people suddenly so opposed to that being what makes SCH more interesting because that is literally their lore, it’s like completely deleting cards off AST then going “yeah but like AST is star magic, a star mage doesn’t play yugioh”, it’s established lore within the game

[Rilifane]

One problem with this is it would likely be too powerful. Keep in mind Misery can't be generated by spamable heals (e.g. Cure 2s), only from spending a GCD consuming a resource you only get one of every 20 seconds. If SGE could just cast 3x Eukrasia Diagnosis and then get a DPS neutral/gain nuke, that would be pretty unbalanced.

There's a fairly easy way to fix it: add MP cost to Toxikon.

The strongest healer sets have very dangerous MP economy to the point where a rezz can make you chug a Super-Ether to offset the loss and avoid doing punchy things. If they added a 400 MP cost to Toxikon, a SGE would lose 1500 MP for every 2min burst they do the full 3x Toxikon fish. That's not something you can do with a min-Piety set (not even with a mid-Piety set in uncoordinated settings) and you'd lose more dps by doing this than sticking with your higher dps set.
It would make Toxikon into a movement and, closer to the end of the fight when you know how much MP you can sacrifice, dps optimization tool that is limited by MP. It would also give an option to optimize MP usage a bit if a boss had downtimes that brought your MP higher than necessary and could even lead to overcapping with LD or delaying it and losing a usage.

Overall I'd prefer a more active approach to Addersting as ty_taurus suggested though.

Edit:

And on the topic of dots: one advantage of them is, that if you have multiple dots on different timers, you have a constantly shifting rotation which I find far more engaging than a basic, generic 123 combo. And unlike cooldowns, there is also the option to refresh them earlier to take a lower dps loss than losing a full GCD.
Ideally they also offer something like Thundercloud proc or any form of interaction with the kit but even without that, 3 dots on different timers offer more engagement for me than a 123 combo where I can only ever press 2 after 1 and 3 after 2.
If we're talking about multiple branching combos like MNK had, then I'm down for it. It would need more buttons but constantly switching between branching combos would offer more variety for downtime as well.
It all boils down to breaking up monotony for me, anything that isn't easily predictable and rigid.

[Renathras]

Yes, altough a niche game, I LOVED Geomancer in FF Explorers. ...

Never played that game, but agree all around with your points on FFXIV and healing in general. I've played a number of MMOs, and while none are perfect, some do a better job of having healers kind of sub-spec into other roles. Everquest had healers that were sub-defined as being able to off-dps, off-buff, off-debuff. WoW had some healers a bit better at DPSing with some having more buff options. FFXI has several healer sub-specs (largely based on which secondary Job you pick for WHM and SCH, the two "actual healer" Jobs, though some others have managed to poke into healing from time to time, like RDM), where they can double down on healer or branch into buffing the party, debuffing the enemy, or flex into being decent at additional party damage.

We have 4 healing Jobs in FFXIV. The players make the meta all about damage (and everything being slapped with an Enrage mechanic kind of nudges that unhealthy direction along), but having a healer or two focused on something other than damage in their off-time would go a long way to making the role more diverse and interesting and really appeal to different player types.

AST already kind of flexes into that buffer role and has the weakest personal DPS, but it's also arguably the most complex of the healers, its buffs are a little random and wonky to use, and the aesthetic of a Tarot reader doesn't appeal to everyone. It's one of the reasons I argued for Chemist as the 4th healer, as it could have an off-buff focus role of short duration potion effects it could apply to allies via a Mix command that I think would have appealed a lot. The trick is to make the buffs as spamable as damage spells are now so the healer that does buffs can really feel like that's what they do when not actively healing.

EDIT:

1) 2) 3)

1) Eh...not from their lore. But I guess to each their own.

2) In what world does Art of War look like Holy 3? Adlo like Cure 2? Medica 2 like Succor? You have to squint REALLY hard before their abilities look alike.

3) It's about the player. I find MCH fun to play and BRD a headache because my brain doesn't track DoT timers well. On healers, my DoTs often fall off - probably for just a sec or two - but I have no idea how long. When I try to play BRD, I catch myself refreshing my DoTs when they have about 12-15 seconds on them (meaning my brain DOES do the 30 sec thing moderately well...), but then I'm playing BRD bad. But MCH I find easy. Metronome 1-2-3. I think this really comes down to taste. You may LOVE pressing one button every 29 seconds like clockwork and pressing the same 1 button over and over again for the 27.5 seconds in between. Me personally, I hate that and would much prefer a 1-2-3 I can hit over and over to have my animations change up a smidge and feel slightly more engaged but in a good way as opposed to the DoT, which is a bad way.

Also, no you didn't used to have to weave as much as now. We didn't have even half this many oGCDs in HW, I don't think, especially not on WHM. I think it was ShB when we went to having more oGCDs than GCDs. Part of that was making abilities force upgrade (e.g. Stone 1 -> Stone 2) cutting down on some of the GCDs that were redundant anyway, but we simply didn't have that many oGCDs. At the end of ARR, SCH had Atherflow, Lustrate, Sacred Soil, and Bane (AF spenders), and 4 Faerie abilities, 2 from each Faerie, and something else (was Shadow Flare oGCD? I genuinely don't recall...) vs Ruin, Ruin 2, Leeches, Physic, Adlo, Succor, Resurrection, Bio, Bio 2, and Miasma. And that's not counting cross-class spells. I believe the oGCD > GCD became a thing in ShB, though it might have been SB for SCH. For WHM, it was absolutely ShB.

I'm not opposed to SCH having DoTs, I'm just confused why a person would think DoTs are its lore (when the actual Job quests don't mention DoTs directly in any way I can think of) but that Faeries AREN'T part of their lore, when the Job quests REVOLVE around helping Lily get back her memories as the initial crux of the SCH lore the player is introduced to, and the lore continues this, going into how the Faeries were each tied to a different Job Stone, Amdapor kidnapping them, and so on and so forth. I just don't understand how you could NOT see Faeries as part of SCH lore when their lore is centered on them.

...and, for the record, if you read my posts again, you'd see I'm talking about healers collectively and DoTs, not just SCH. I even said (and have multiple times) with 4 healers, why not have a DoT one, a 1-2-3 one, a priority system (e.g. RDM Stone/Fire procs) one (probably SGE for that one), and a simple nuke spell, possibly with a second spell proc or single DoT. That's been my argument for a while. We have 4 healers, why must they all have identical DPS kits?

There's a fairly easy way to fix it: add MP cost to Toxikon.

Maybe, but then it becomes an optimization issue and arguably reduces the use case of Toxicon.

Edit:

And on the topic of dots: one advantage of them is, that if you have multiple dots on different timers, you have a constantly shifting rotation which I find far more engaging than a basic, generic 123 combo. And unlike cooldowns, there is also the option to refresh them earlier to take a lower dps loss than losing a full GCD.
Ideally they also offer something like Thundercloud proc or any form of interaction with the kit but even without that, 3 dots on different timers offer more engagement for me than a 123 combo where I can only ever press 2 after 1 and 3 after 2.
If we're talking about multiple branching combos like MNK had, then I'm down for it. It would need more buttons but constantly switching between branching combos would offer more variety for downtime as well.
It all boils down to breaking up monotony for me, anything that isn't easily predictable and rigid.

I think this mainly depends on the player.

When I'm doing DPS, I want it as close to rigid as possible. My mind doesn't work for DPS - that's why I play healers and occasionally tanks. If my brain worked well for complex DPS rotations, I'd be playing MNK. I like simple, and rigid means easy to keep my place in. As such, I far prefer a 1-2-3 static rotation to something bouncing all over the place.

In ShB, wanna know what my go-to DPS Job was?

SMN.

Yes, SMN.

Because say what you will about complexity, the Job was rigid in a 2 min window. There was a little flexibility, but it was STATIC flexibility. There weren't procs, the rotation didn't CHANGE. You had some instant casts and you needed to use 4 of them per 1 min cycle (and stock 4 for Bahamut in the back half of that cycle), but once you figured out fights, you could map them out to where you were always using them at the same place. Or you could Yolo it and press them for movement, with the caveat if you were within 15 sec of the next Trance, you'd blow through any you still had unless you wanted to get fancy with the log ping crazy-weave going into Firebird.

Point is, things that seem complex to some people can seem simple to others AND vice verse; things that seem easy to some may be complex to others.

Some of you like variability to prevent "boredom", some of us like consistency and a set pattern since it's for a thing we're being forced to do that we really don't even like doing anyway.

Everyone's different.

Again, it's why I think we should really flex us having four healers to address this - we could easily have both a multi-DoT rotation, no-DoT rigid rotation, a no-DoT proc/variable rotation, and a EW era nuke+DoT rotation. Having 4 healers means these four playstyles could coexist side by side by side by side, and players could then pick the one they like best from there.

The thing is though is that the healers as they stand are very badly designed for the combat system of XIV and no job should be subjected to 1 button being roughly 80% of their casting focus. It's just not healthy design. Every healer should be reworked to have a healthy library of GCD actions they rely on, and the undeniable truth of FFXIV's foundational design is that it does not require much healing even in some of the hardest fights in the game. So while not every healer needs to have a DPS focus, all of them need to be designed within respects to DPS contributions, hense the AST example I've vomited more than enough times on the forum rewarding buff usage with passive Malefic-potency damage. There still has to be restrictions on that system though, whether that be MP, cooldowns, or external resources like lilies, there can't just be free, unlimited healing that also deals as much damage as filler spells. Every healer will need to eventually return to some filler spell usage. There is a lot we can do to reduce that from 80% down to something far more manageable, but the healers can't just stay as they are if we ever want to see healthier design.

The problem with this argument is, it's you wanting everything to be EXACTLY like you want and you wanting to actively exclude anyone who plays different.

That'd be like a GNB main demanding all four tanks have a cartridge system and 1 min burst, or a BLM main demanding every dps Job have a DoT with procs and two phases of burn and regen that they shift between. No other role has all Jobs within it having an identical rotation. Why should healers?

Considering balance is ultimately just a matter of numbers, they could legitimately make all healers have the same DPS contributions if they wanted to based off of that. The only place it gets wonky is group buffs because if the DNC buffs a SAM vs buffing a MCH, the end result will be rather different.

And I'm not sure ONE healer staying as it is ISN'T healthy. Keep in mind that the problem is arguably that the healers are all identical. Meaning having 3 change and 1 remain the same would remove that problem and thus be an improvement. But if 3 changed to be exactly the same, or if all 4 changed to be the same, just different than the same that they are now, neither of those are particularly good "improvements".

AGAIN: We have FOUR healers.

Let's have them each be different.

To wit:

SCH began its identity as a healer that focused on DoT management and enfeebling enemies with debuffs that made them weaker with tools like Virus and Eye for an Eye and this was the core aspect of SCH's identity up until ShB. That's a playstyle many people enjoyed, myself included, and now it's gone and we're not allowed to play it. I think that's something that should've been respected, and if it's not a playstyle you enjoyed, then it probably wasn't the best job for you. It would be nice if each healer had their own unique styles, that way if one healer didn't appeal to you, there's a chance another might. And that's also why I hope we continue to see new healers in the future, even if they're released slowly. But that does of course imply that healers gain the freedom to have unique playstyles apart from one another.

THIS I actually agree with.

.

But this...not so much:

Absolutely incorrect. The Scholars of Nym were Arcanists to begin with, you can go to the Lodestone page for Scholar to read the blurb that says - "In an age long past, when mankind flourished under the radiance of arcane mastery, the island of Vylbrand was home to a city-state called Nym."
The link to ACN to SCH isn't in name alone, it's built into the lore and still is, regardless of you liking that or not. In fact, the original 1.0 lore for Arcanist was supposed to be centered around a plague - Las Vegas Fanfest 2014: “In Limsa Lominsa, the original Arcanist quest that was supposed to be released in 1.0 was actually about this disease spreading around La Noscea called the Green Rot. It would infect all of these people and they would die. To make money off of this, a bunch of merchants would try to smuggle in snake oils and tonics and things like that, and try to sell those to the people dying so they could get their money because they knew they were going to die anyway and were desperate."
Sound familiar? Seems almost like how Scholar's entire job questline and lore is dealing with plagues... so fitting for Miasma, Shadow Flare, Bane, etc to be apart of SCH's kit. Much more than Eos or Selene using attacks - something they have NEVER done.

If we're going to bring up the "lore" argument when it comes to gameplay, this is why wanting the fae gauge to have damage associated with it wouldn't work. "These learned men and women defended the freedom of their tiny nation with their unique command over spell-weaving faeries, utilizing the creatures' magicks to heal the wounded and bolster the strength of their allies." Outside of that, the faeries shouldn't have damage associated with them at all, because it throws Scholar's healing priority out of alignment when the faeries have always been Scholar's main source of totally free healing.



Scholar has not moved forward at all, it has been a continual worsening of the job. For every one good thing Scholar gets, it gets two good things taken away from it. I have no idea why you would think that something like SB SCH wouldn't be viable in today's content - is that based off of your experiences healing in Savage on SCH this tier?

Just a couple points:

"arcane" in this context means "magic". It's talking about the Fifth Era which was dominated by Mage nations, of which there were 12 that gradually whittled down to 3 - the Black Mage nation of Mhach ("'Mhach, Mhach, beware the dark! Stay away or lose your heart...' THAT Mhach?!"), the White Mage nation of Amdapor, and the Scholar/Marine nation of Nym. The age that ended in the "War of the Magi" and the Calamity of Water because of how overtapped out the magical reserves of the land were from all that magic being thrown around. That's what it means there, not "Arcanist".

The 1.0 lore that never was doesn't have much bearing on the 2.0 lore that is. The lore that they wanted to keep they kept, and the lore they didn't, they either retconned out or ignored so it would quietly go away. Moreover, "dealing with plagues" can mean "curing plagues". Doctors giving people vaccines so they don't die isn't the same thing as doctors spreading bioweapons. While the knowledge to cure a plague might include the ability to start one, that doesn't mean HEALERS trying to HEAL people suffering from a plague actively traffic in spreading plagues, either. That's like arguing doctors that treat gunshot wounds actively go out and get into gunfights with people on the daily.

I do agree that the Faeries shouldn't deal damage...directly. One could argue "bolster their allies" could include party damage buffs like haste or the like. Which is bad under the modern gearing/meta, but buffs that increase damage could fall under "bolster the strength of their allies" just fine.

And SCH has not "been a continual worsening of the job". I get that some people REALLY DON'T LIKE IT, but SCH is still the top of the healing game now as it was in SB. The Job has improved in quite a few ways. Whether the net result is positive or negative is subjective, not objective. It's far less clunky than HW/SB era SCH was, for example.

because literally nobody likes new SCH better than old SCH

I'm not sure you know what the definition of the word "literally" is.

Well strictly from a game design standpoint, the assets associated with Miasma (as well as Miasma II and Miasma III) and Shadowflare were made and still exist for use. That's not to say new abilities shouldn't be made, but if we're trying to restore SCH's identity as a more offensive healer, then why not use the tools already at their disposal? Because you specifically are not a fan of them? And I don't meant that to sound mean or harsh, but there's not a real reason as to why those tools don't work on SCH. And SCH's identity also included those spells. SCH's identity as an offensive DoT healer was defined by its combination of those spells and its barriers.

I think, if we really distill it, SCH is defined thus:

A healer who leverages their Faerie to assist them in combat and has a general command of defensive and healing magics, with some skill in offensive magics.

This is (minus the Faerie, I believe), also how FFXI SCH works (which...I believe was the more or less OG incarnation of the Job as the only one prior to it in the series was, what, FF3's?). I've only read about it, but FFXI's SCH basically has a light and dark stance for healing and damage, making it decent with both white and black magic. Basically like FFXIV RDM if PvE RDM played a smidge more like PvP RDM.

I also agree reusing existing assets isn't at terrible idea, but that's just for leveling. Broil IV isn't Ruin 6. Indeed, the Ruin spell-line DOES continue...for SMN...into Ruin 3 and 4. SCH's Job spells tend to all switch up the names anyway, and EVERY Job switches up animations. Even Dosis 3 doesn't look much like Dosis 1.

As far as her sass - she's responding to where someone told her she was probably playing the wrong Job earlier, I'd wager.

[Rilifane]

Maybe, but then it becomes an optimization issue and arguably reduces the use case of Toxicon.

And that would be worse how exactly?
We currently get 3 free stacks and then avoid the skill like the plague in a 10min fight. I never claimed it would fix all issues but if "too op" really is your only concern, I provided a very simple and very effective fix - limit it by MP cost that are too high to make it spammable. That's all. It would certainly be better than what we currently have and even offer a little bit of a skill ceiling. Having something to optimize isn't a bad thing.

[ty_taurus]

And that would be worse how exactly?
We currently get 3 free stacks and then avoid the skill like the plague in a 10min fight. I never claimed it would fix all issues but if "too op" really is your only concern, I provided a very simple and very effective fix - limit it by MP cost that are too high to make it spammable. That's all. It would certainly be better than what we currently have and even offer a little bit of a skill ceiling. Having something to optimize isn't a bad thing.

A really easy way to fix the issue with Toxikon while making SGE more fun to play would be firstly to either buff Toxikon to double Dosis potency or have it combo into another Dosis potency OGCD attack used right after Toxikon.

From there, simply reworking how Addersgall/Addersting are obtained slightly. Instead of generating normally over time, SGE gets a new DPS button that generates 1 Addersgall and 1 Addersting, has a 20 second cooldown on the GCD, and has 2 charges. Then whenever you activate Kardia healing, your gauge increases by 2. When your guage is 50 or higher, your next E. Diag or E. Prog grants 1 Addersting. The Addersting generation on E. Diag breaking is removed.

You get an extra button that now combos into Toxikon every 20 seconds, gain occasional value to using a GCD barrier heal, and have a bit more of a fluid gameplay loop. I still think more is needed to make SGE great, but that would be a really strong step forward.

[ty_taurus]

I engage with the full rotations on the three healers I play on, thank you very much. And I actually do Savage (now) and have done Extremes for three expansions. Good god, no wonder you don't get what you want with that attitude. I'm literally saying "we have 4 Healers, the Devs could increase the dps kits on 2-3 of them and mix things up without it harming the game", and your response was to attack me instead? Really dude?

The thing is though is that the healers as they stand are very badly designed for the combat system of XIV and no job should be subjected to 1 button being roughly 80% of their casting focus. It's just not healthy design. Every healer should be reworked to have a healthy library of GCD actions they rely on, and the undeniable truth of FFXIV's foundational design is that it does not require much healing even in some of the hardest fights in the game. So while not every healer needs to have a DPS focus, all of them need to be designed within respects to DPS contributions, hense the AST example I've vomited more than enough times on the forum rewarding buff usage with passive Malefic-potency damage. There still has to be restrictions on that system though, whether that be MP, cooldowns, or external resources like lilies, there can't just be free, unlimited healing that also deals as much damage as filler spells. Every healer will need to eventually return to some filler spell usage. There is a lot we can do to reduce that from 80% down to something far more manageable, but the healers can't just stay as they are if we ever want to see healthier design.