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

[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.

[Renathras]

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.

Fair enough.

There probably are some solutions to be had. I guess the important thing is just to bring up options and see if anything sticks out as a good solution to employ.

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.

One argument I've seen is changing Rhizo to generate Addersting (and either making it a 60 sec CD or giving it 2 charges). And, honestly, it's one of SGE's most lackluster abilities, so having some extra function there might be just what the doctor ordered.

EDIT:

I love how you just make the statement oh yes things have changed, what things, oh you know things,

I can go into more depth, if you like? Off the top of my head:

- 1.5 spamcast to allow more weaving
- Differentiation into Pure and Barrier Healers (for whatever that's worth in practice)
- The removal of a spec (nAST) and addition of a new Healer Job (SGE)
- The new capstone abilities, particularly Expedient
- SCH pet changes, both in terms of potency and responsiveness
- Ability/Button changes (like Consolation being merged with Seraph)
- Tuning changes (like Misery being DPS neutral, which wasn't true in 5.X nor in 6.0)
- Party changes that affect Healers (like tank active mitigation abilities)
- All of the new abilities added overall as well as charge gains on existing abilities (Benison, Aquaveil, etc)
- Encounter design changes and how they work with these abilities (for example, more short pulses of multi-hit damage; the addition of strong bleed debuffs)

That's just a few things off the top of my head that might make zero difference to you, but we're not talking about just you, we're talking about every healer in the game collectively. Indeed, note how SCH is at the bottom of the list in satisfaction in the 5.0 poll, but is 7th most played and most played healer in the 6.2 JP data. While the latter is of "main" so we don't know if they're all satisfied, it's probably reasonable to assume people picking it more means they don't HATE it, and it is more played by the JP base than the others. The data you provided seems to indicate there's been a change over time.

The healer role is not, it seems, "exactly the same as it was in 5.x" unless you squint so hard that a WHM looks like a SAM. You do the same thing you accuse me of, btw, insisting there were no changes, pointing out some things that changed, but insisting they didn't really do anything.

And no you can’t just go “yeah but you were annoyed because your main got lobotomised,

I'm curious what argument you think I'm making?

I'm not saying you can't be annoyed or that feelings of annoyance aren't valid.

I'm saying that those feelings do not persist to players who started or picked up a Job after the change and don't have that emotional attachment to its previous form. There are many cases of irl things where people who are with it when there is a change hate it, but new people who are introduced to it after the change love it.

job satisfaction crashing after a major change is the cleanest way of showing a change was unpopular,

WITH THE PEOPLE who didn't like the change or liked the prior state. You know as well as I that many of those players stopped healing while we also have literally millions of new players, including hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, new healers. You think all of them identically share that opinion? What is your basis for that belief?

and the fact that it didn’t recover from 5.0-5.25 shows it was a sustained bad decision

This, on the other hand, is a decent argument. The problem with it is, it's also 3 years old. DO we know that it didn't recover after 5.25? No. DO we know it was a sustained position? No. So we don't know it was a sustained bad decision because we don't have the data to support that.

And no adding those points up says absolutely nothing because you are counting people multiple times,

O...kay. Let me ask you this question:

When you shared that data, what did you think it showed? That is, what were you trying to prove with it?

And I said “kinda okay” with the caveat that raids don’t work without healer mains

(...this exact same argument can be made for literally all mains...)

there is little to no data for endwalker I’ve found the most up to date data there is,

This does seem to be the case from me searching to see if there's new data as well. Kind of unfortunate since I'd like to see if those trends have held up or not. I suspect they have not, but data is needed to know one way or the other.

it’s obvious that you don’t really care what I have to say

That can't be obvious - because it isn't true.

I actually do care what you have to say. I disagree with a lot of it, but that doesn't mean that I don't agree with any of it, nor does it mean I don't care.

On the subject of expedient if you actually believe that people were clowning on the skill and not how square chose to display it then that’s a reading comprehension issue

If you were on this forum OR Reddit OR most any FFXIV Disc OR in the comments of any FFXIV content creator's YouTube videos - you know that people were clowning on the skill.

There were people, to their credit (not to toot, but I was one of them), pointing out that it might be a sleeper skill that would turn out to be really good. My own position was that SCH was the most powerful (clunky as all hells, but powerful) healer in ShB and likely would be in EW, despite all the shiny new toy SGE hype and people talking down SCH.

...but there were a LOT of people clowning on not only Expedient but SCH, insisting the Job was a total mess, and moreover, that no one would be playing it in 6.X with SGE there to move to instead.

Those people absolutely existed, and it wasn't a "reading comprehension issue", and I suspect even you know that.

I can use other examples of the community feeling one way but those views changing, if you don't like that one, but I suspect you realize the truth of my argument there and just don't like it...

THAT SAID:

I don't mind good discussions. If you have more data, we can talk about it, and I actually do enjoy those conversations and comparisons. As I've said a couple times now, my issue is the hyperbole and overstatement of claims. It prevents any serious discussions or solutions because the absurdity of the positions. And there's legitimately no reason for it.

You don't need to claim that 90% of people hate healing and the role is on its deathbed...to note that there are problems with the role and Jobs in it and they need changing. It could be that only 10% of people dislike the role and it's middle of the pack in terms of popularity, and that could already justify working on changes. There's no reason to overstate the case at all.

Woah, look at the badass over there. A badass who averages 60-70% GCD uptime. Sorry, lad, but someone who does nothing for a third of the fight doesn't get to talk about "understanding of the topic".

You are getting carried by your groups. End of story.

This, I will dignify with no further response other than pointing out it's a TOS violation. Good job, "lad". (I bet you think pressing oGCDs is "nothing" too, as if the buttons magically push themselves...)

[Conchoidal]

Fair enough.
I'm saying that those feelings do not persist to players who started or picked up a Job after the change and don't have that emotional attachment to its previous form. There are many cases of irl things where people who are with it when there is a change hate it, but new people who are introduced to it after the change love it.

WITH THE PEOPLE who didn't like the change or liked the prior state. You know as well as I that many of those players stopped healing while we also have literally millions of new players, including hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, new healers. You think all of them identically share that opinion? What is your basis for that belief?

Honestly I think it's a bit unfair to completely discard the opinions of the veteran players who truly have a passion for this game to have played it and engaged with the community for years in favour of newer players who have no real "loyalty" to the game or community and might leave once another shiny new MMO comes out. FFXIV doesn't have new players because of current healer design, it has it in spite of it. We will lose these new players very quickly if jobs are continually homogenised and sterilised.

[T-Owl]

Honestly I think it's a bit unfair to completely discard the opinions of the veteran players who truly have a passion for this game to have played it and engaged with the community for years in favour of newer players who have no real "loyalty" to the game or community and might leave once another shiny new MMO comes out. FFXIV doesn't have new players because of current healer design, it has it in spite of it. We will lose these new players very quickly if jobs are continually homogenised and sterilised.

We have to also consider, a great portion of new Players also comes from World of Warcraft and I can't see many of them staying engaged with the healer design of this game in the long run, compared to what they knew. WoW Healers are much more diverse and complex in terms of their different playstyles than they were at any point in FF14. Somebody who played Discipline Priest in Wow and jumps to Sage in FF14 because its advertised as similar will probably have a rough awakening after the first honeymoon phase. And that isn't really a process that only affects veteran. I only took up FF14 healing seriously in Endwalker, before I just leveled Scholar once during Stormblood. By just knowing that I am supposed to dps most of the time and use ogcd heals before casts I could already start with a hugh dps uptime and it took me mere months until I was burned out of the role due to the 1 button spam. And I played main heal in most mmos outside off ff14.

And lets be honest, the Honeymoon Phase For WoW Refugees should be about over at this point and you can see it by complaints over issues like job balance getting louder. People start to be done with the MSQ.

[Renathras]

We have to also consider, a great portion of new Players also comes from World of Warcraft and I can't see many of them staying engaged with the healer design of this game in the long run, compared to what they knew. WoW Healers are much more diverse and complex in terms of their different playstyles than they were at any point in FF14. Somebody who played Discipline Priest in Wow and jumps to Sage in FF14 because its advertised as similar will probably have a rough awakening after the first honeymoon phase. And that isn't really a process that only affects veteran.

I somewhat agree with this. It's long been amazing to me that WoW had such differences between their healers with them still being relatively well balanced and viable outside of some weirdness here and there (I remember in Vanilla/BC when Disc was "the leveling spec" for Priests until they could respect to unlock Shadow Form because it increased wand damage -and yes, you read that right. Mage was like that with Arcane, and there was even a meme in a machina video at the time, and I quote, "I'm gonna...WAND you to death!!!"). They all feel different, but generally good.

I think part of that is due to the raid size, though. When the game is tuned to encounters where you have 4-7 healers (and the number can be kinda variable based on party, team, encounter, etc) AND where players can easily swap specs (so healers can quickly swap over and DPS or Tank on fights then swap to Healer on the fights they heal), where it can be assumed you have all of them at the table together in most encounters, it's probably easier to balance than if you have only 2 and you have to balance based on (most) combinations of the two.

Though I really do agree that it would be nice to get more diversity between the Healers. There's no reason they should all have the identical "rotations" they do today.

EDIT:

Honestly I think it's a bit unfair to completely discard the opinions of the veteran players who truly have a passion for this game to have played it and engaged with the community for years in favour of newer players who have no real "loyalty" to the game or community and might leave once another shiny new MMO comes out. FFXIV doesn't have new players because of current healer design, it has it in spite of it. We will lose these new players very quickly if jobs are continually homogenised and sterilised.

Good thing...I'm not doing that, then?

I didn't say to "completely discard" them. I'm saying you have to weigh them against others. For example, my main in SB _WAS_ SCH. Want to know the two things I hated about SB SCH?

1) DoTs - because I hate DoTs in general as a gameplay mechanic.
2) Having to macro Eos.

In ShB, they removed the latter and MORE OR LESS removed the former. So not every veteran agreed with the concensus position. Moreover - and this was my point - many people warmed to it after playing it a bunch (especially later in ShB - 5.3 and on) and many new healers or people that newly picked up SCH liked it as well. But people are often very passionate about changes, even if after living with them for a while, once those emotions die down, they reevaluate if their complaints were valid or if they were emotional responses. That was the point I was making.

I'm not saying discard their opinions, I'm saying the dated polling/survey is likely not reflective of the current situation AND likely captured a lot of emotion/passions of the time.

I also contend, to the last point, that a lot of people DO like FFXIV's healer design. I personally believe it can be improved on, but it appeals to a lot of people, including new players.

[T-Owl]

I somewhat agree with this. It's long been amazing to me that WoW had such differences between their healers with them still being relatively well balanced and viable outside of some weirdness here and there (I remember in Vanilla/BC when Disc was "the leveling spec" for Priests until they could respect to unlock Shadow Form because it increased wand damage -and yes, you read that right. Mage was like that with Arcane, and there was even a meme in a machina video at the time, and I quote, "I'm gonna...WAND you to death!!!"). They all feel different, but generally good.

I think part of that is due to the raid size, though. When the game is tuned to encounters where you have 4-7 healers (and the number can be kinda variable based on party, team, encounter, etc) AND where players can easily swap specs (so healers can quickly swap over and DPS or Tank on fights then swap to Healer on the fights they heal), where it can be assumed you have all of them at the table together in most encounters, it's probably easier to balance than if you have only 2 and you have to balance based on (most) combinations of the two.

Though I really do agree that it would be nice to get more diversity between the Healers. There's no reason they should all have the identical "rotations" they do today.

As we agree on one thing, I think one important difference to be pointed out is just how healing works technically. WoW always had a pretty good makro system that had to be reigned down quite alot in its past actually and was always open for addons, which it will occassionally adapt, which lead to mouse over healing becoming pretty much the norm for WoW. It should be a standart feature. Having to regularily switch targets manually is just not comfortable and the shorter gcd makes healing actually more flexible. Then there is stuff like Damage profiles, damage is far more frequent but individually usually smaller in WoW, which makes regen healing more valuable because it serves the purpose of overall smoothing out the parties health bars. And in modern WoW, healing is really a maintanance and management game, one important aspect of WoW Healing is maintaining your healing tools on the party, with healer dps, often synergizing with the way Healers heal or being enabled by their healing style.

FF14 healing is not only extremely streamlined because differences in healing toolkit aren't that distinct, its also extremely clunky. Not to forget that it is counter intuitive. While Sage can teach some basic, especially White Mage by its design teaches inefficent, bad healing. And by virtue of being the only level 1 healer job and being the most iconic FF healer, this will most likely affect most beginner healers. Its even worse since FF14 lacks any dedicated skill system or anything like that, so there isn't even that to encourage new players to look into outside ressources.

[Conchoidal]

Personally, I think DoTs are very good design for healers (since it allows them to still contribute DPS whilst GCD healing), especially for Scholar considering how it played in FFXI and the general class fantasy. They also provided a lot of depth to the class in a way that makes it accessible for casual players and gave more "professional" players more chances to optimise and generally provided an engaging gameplay experience for all different types of players.

I also think it's perfectly fine for some players to feel emotional at a class they enjoyed being changed for no real reason, considering that 3 years later in Endwalker healing requirements are still incredibly low (meaning that the removal of DPS tools was mostly pointless). Good for those players that somehow enjoy spamming broil/glare/dosis/malefic as well new players who play healer, but the current design is completely unsustainable for the longevity of the game.

[Azuri]

This, I will dignify with no further response other than pointing out it's a TOS violation. Good job, "lad". (I bet you think pressing oGCDs is "nothing" too, as if the buttons magically push themselves...)

You are aware they are called off-GCDs because you are supposed to use them between GCDs, not instead of them?

Like, Renathras, you come here arguing how skilled healers are wrong about healing while your personal level of play is abysmal. There is nothing wrong with being bad at the game, but if you want to be having arguments, stop dismissing people for saying they only press one button. You are not managing even that.

And learn to be concise. It's really an important skill when you are trying to share ideas.

[Renathras]

You are aware they are called off-GCDs because you are supposed to use them between GCDs, not instead of them?

Like, Renathras, you come here arguing how skilled healers are wrong about healing while your personal level of play is abysmal. There is nothing wrong with being bad at the game, but if you want to be having arguments, stop dismissing people for saying they only press one button. You are not managing even that.

And learn to be concise. It's really an important skill when you are trying to share ideas.

Okay, I'll give this a bit:

1) Yes, I weave them. The problem is when I need a bunch at once because a lot of people are making mistakes. You may have a 99 parsing team of Statics, I do not. My content is PUGs and DF. Last night I had an E8 I (happily, because that's just the kind of person I am) dragged the party through. I had to hardcast several raises, even Cure 2s because all my oGCDs were on CD. My "abysmal" play is clearing content with players that are probably generally gray parsers.

2) You say my play is "abysmal", but I'm consistently parsing Green and Blue, which is "average". "average" is not "abysmal", it's average.

3) "average" is also not "bad at the game", it's "average at the game".

4) I'm "not managing even that" because I'm not even arguing that - I'm arguing no one is pressing "only" "one button". Even people that are at high levels of play aren't, but the game also cannot be balanced nor designed only around high levels of play.

5) If anything, my opinion should carry more weight - statistically, I'm an average player, and generally speaking, you want to design games around average players, not 1% of the player base. So, if anything, you should be listening to me more, not less, based on your critique. Even if you want to argue - WRONGLY - that I'm "bad" and "abysmal" instead of average, again, a large portion of this game's community are what YOU would call "bad" and "abysmal", meaning the game should be balanced around their perceptions and playstyles.

6) I was quite concise in my reply to you. But brevity isn't good when it leads to misunderstanding and confusion. Also note there's a somewhat tight post limit, so having to combine posts is necessary (especially if discussing things with lots of people), though I do need to look up those hide tags again...

EDIT:

You are literally threatening me here. Thats an implicit threat.

You literally broke TOS to attack me. And no, that's not "literally" threatening NOR an "implicit" threat. The only "threat" is that if you did it more I might report you or mouth off at you, which is a lot less toxic than what you're doing.

Like, maybe don't threaten people

Good thing I didn't threaten anyone then, isn't it? I get you REALLY want to paint yourself the victim here, but considering you attacked me first, your attacks have been far more personal and STARTED with personal attacks, and you even violated TOS to attack me, you clearly aren't the victim in this paring.

if you want others to take your whole "I want to support others"-Attitude seriously and not consider you toxic and unhinged?

I'm not the one going on toxic and unhinged rants against people. Personally, I prefer talking about the topic and the facts, and have engaged with people doing so in-kind. I don't even like making this kind of post, but you just won't STOP. I'm also not the one going out of the forum to find things to attack people for. And my attitude is serious. If you aren't taking it seriously, that's on you. Honestly, I've seriously considered just ignoring your posts, but you keep poking at me because I guess you enjoy being an online abuser - as that is typical online abuser/bully behavior - and I haven't quite brought myself to the point of just sighing and ignoring you yet.

Having played multiple MMOs my whole life, the only reason to like FF14s healers really is either enjoying the idea of dpsing while healing because FF14 made it mainstream before WoW and still has a higher DPS focus than WoW, the superficial animations without regard for gameplay or never having played any MMO before and having no point of comparison what proper healer gameplay looks like. I mean, again, look at WoW. Can you make up any explanation how FF14s healer design is not objectively shit compared to what its biggest competitor came up with in terms of their healer classes, healing styles and healing gameplay?

False Dichotomy - logical fallacy. There are other reasons people would like FFXIV's healers than just the ones you mentioned.

THAT SAID:

As I said in my other reply, I do like WoW's healer design. I'm not sure how well that would work in FFXIV because FFXIV has an oGCD and movement heavy game (a lot of WoW encounters - at least back when I played it - had long periods where casters/healers could stand still and turret; FFXIV encounters do not), and quite a few of its healers are designed around doing little to no DPS in raids. The raids are also balanced around having most every healer present, or at least several of them. 25 mans are balanced around having something like 4-7 healers, FFXIV's are balanced around having 2. If the average raid in FFXIV had 3-5 healers, it would probably also open up that design space quite a bit.

I do agree it would be neat for there to be more variance, which is why I've argued for more variance between the healer gameplay styles and functions.

.

Daily thread limit: Hence why I have to combine posts...

You actually just reinforced my point. 70% GCD uptime is a guaranteed grey for a DPS. But for healers not rolling GCD for a third of the fight is somehow average. The role has been destroyed and simplified to the point where it's given over to the weakest players to participate in savage. And this decision rightfully brought ire of those who enjoy having a skill ceiling and requirment to have something more than a pulse to play.

And yeah, catering to your ilk is what makes developers the most money... You know what also leads to most money? FIFA Ultimate Team.

Okay, yeah, I'm just...not going to.

Moving on to people that actually want to have a good faith discussion and not gaslight...