AST (and DRG) had their improvements pushed to 7.0 PLD are getting theirs in 6.3

[Renathras]

You know, the forums are, by in large, a place where you either preach to the choir or yell at brick wall in almost every instance of interaction,

It seems unfortunate, but that does largely seem to be the case. The issue seems to be hardliners - which includes most - that don't want anything other than everything. So when people point out different solutions, middle ground, or multi-faceted ones, they're attacked.

Then you get the sycophants cheering the attacks. /shrug

[Rithy255]

Despite leveling Dragoon I hardly played it outside that, But I heard mainly positive things, I think from what I've heard is it will be hard to make future changes so it makes sense why they're waiting for 7.0 In my opinion.

Astrologian generally doesn't need any emergency changes, I like the current state of the Job although It generally fits into the meta and the game (I believe) they even recently got some decent changes and I personally don't think they're in need of any Major rework, maybe potency adjustments but I don't really know, I think it's good that white mage fills the "beginner healer" while Astro is more for a challenge, I guess difficulty is subjective but I like how the job generally plays I don't think it needs any urgent reworks, maybe changes and adjustments.

The fact that Paladin wasn't changed despite being the poster boy, with the raid buffs being put into 2minutes shows that PLD prolly wasn't really looked at all to much this expansion, that a lot of blocking effects don't proprerly work with a lot of the new mechs put into harder content shows that PLD generally needs to be looked at, I don't think PLD's issues are just a "output issue" either but I doubt we will get much in the way of utility changes.
We're likely just going to get Fight or flight removed, super buffed req window and that's about it in all honesty I don't think the PLD changes are going to be considered too much, I would like a general rework (PLD currently is fun though) but It's likely just gonna change existing PLD into a burst job.

I could be wrong they could change things like how PLD's utility isn't even that good and it's defensives suck, they could somehow make it's rotation even more fun then current pld but I don't think we're gonna get those changes it's going to be ways to simplify it and make sure it fits under raid buffs, I don't really see a preference here, I guess we will wait until the patch notes and just pray they're in a positive direction for the job. I hope Astro and DRG mains also get good changes in the future.

[Absurdity]

The fact that Paladin wasn't changed despite being the poster boy, with the raid buffs being put into 2minutes shows that PLD prolly wasn't really looked at all to much this expansion

I think it's less that they didn't look at Paladin and more that they arbitrarily decided that every party buff should be 2 minutes, because putting thought into what you're doing is heresy, without considering the consequences of stacking every damage multiplier in the same 15 second window and the effect it has on jobs that aren't designed around that. Paladin isn't at all the only job that suffers from the 2 minute meta.

[T-Owl]

Violent snip

I'm not a man but thanks and you literally made an implicit threat against me in another threat. Which I reported you for.

Snip

You know. I actually would love of SE would design Encounters in which healers have to only heal and there is little room for dps, just because that design would consequently gate keep sylphies and guy who are all about I want to help others and be supportive ingame while threatening people in online forums from the entire role. People who already struggle with the low healing requirements and high ogcd healing opportunities in the current state of the game probably would crumble away and fail immediately at more involved healing styles, like for example wow and its constant incoming damage. We know that everyone of those people would immediately fail at full gcd healing uptime requirements.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

You know. I actually would love of SE would design Encounters in which healers have to only heal and there is little room for dps, just because that design would consequently gate keep sylphies and guy who are all about I want to help others and be supportive ingame while threatening people in online forums from the entire role. People who already struggle with the low healing requirements and high ogcd healing opportunities in the current state of the game probably would crumble away and fail immediately at more involved healing styles, like for example wow and its constant incoming damage. We know that everyone of those people would immediately fail at full gcd healing uptime requirements.

I mean, no need to look too far beyond. The current Abyssos' damage frequency has already begun to weed out some healers & 'sylphies' from the raiding scene. While overall AoE damage are still pushover (at least on first 2 floors, I still yet to reach 3rd floor & beyond), the incoming damage to the tanks are 100% on point of what should've been a "tankbuster" imho. Still, I really hope SE do not see this as a sign to double back to Asphodelos' rate of incoming damage though. If this slight increase in healing engagement is enough to weed out that many healers, then I wonder how much more will just raise their hands if they decide to go further.

A little bit of anecdote to take with grain of salt: I have a friend who only started PF'ing into Savage contents back in 6.05 as a WHM. They loved being a healer because they feel less pressured to dps, which is fine to some degree. I mean who cares so long they still contribute adequately for a clear, right? Then 6.2 Abyssos dropped. Bam! They reluctantly switched around DPSes beyond 2nd week prog/reclear because apparently the tank damage is 'too high' & it made them uncomfortable (they admitted letting tanks die more than usual). Interestingly, they also cited about seeing DPSes slots filling up way more frequently than healers which coincide with some other stories I heard about declining healers participation in PF.

[Rilifane]

I mean, no need to look too far beyond. The current Abyssos' damage frequency has already begun to weed out some healers & 'sylphies' from the raiding scene. While overall AoE damage are still pushover (at least on first 2 floors, I still yet to reach 3rd floor & beyond), the incoming damage to the tanks are 100% on point of what should've been a "tankbuster" imho. Still, I really hope SE do not see this as a sign to double back to Asphodelos' rate of incoming damage though. If this slight increase in healing engagement is enough to weed out that many healers, then I wonder how much more will just raise their hands if they decide to go further.

A little bit of anecdote to take with grain of salt: I have a friend who only started PF'ing into Savage contents back in 6.05 as a WHM. They loved being a healer because they feel less pressured to dps, which is fine to some degree. I mean who cares so long they still contribute adequately for a clear, right? Then 6.2 Abyssos dropped. Bam! They reluctantly switched around DPSes beyond 2nd week prog/reclear because apparently the tank damage is 'too high' & it made them uncomfortable (they admitted letting tanks die more than usual). Interestingly, they also cited about seeing DPSes slots filling up way more frequently than healers which coincide with some other stories I heard about declining healers participation in PF.

The bleedbusters are a blessing imho.
We had all these fancy skills like ED, Exaltation, CI, Benison, Tetra, Veil, Protraction, Krasis, Haima, Aetherpact... but nobody needed them.

A friend of mine and I played a minigame of "dot uptime" when we both tanked on Hippo by constantly running into the water and trying to keep the Dropsy dot up as much as we could. It was a learning and intro event for people that didn't have any raid experience yet, mind you. Including the two healers. They didn't need to heal us at all. We were entirely fine with our selfheal while deliberately eating as much extra damage as we could.

Now healers finally have a good use for their single target heals. The only time I really used them was on bird add phase and when T/H got tethers on p4s part 1 to save aoe resources. Benison on each healer before the hit and more Rapture for Pinax, towers, orbs etc.
That's it. For an entire tier. At min ilvl no less.


And I find the reactions to the current raid tier quite amusing.
I've heard plenty of times how bleedbusters are a nightmare, how Tree is hell, how Carby's damage should be nerfed and so on. And when I hop into PF to help friends or get reclears on my alt, we frequently wipe to unavoidable back-to-back damage because on top of mitigation being bad in PF, many healers just don't heal in time and have no clue about when they press which button. It's rare to see a healer that at least has a general idea of when they use their big 2min/ 3min cooldown and do it somewhat consistently.
Quite recent example of this: my last Carby reclear party kept wiping to unavoidable damage and when I asked the WHM if he has a specific time for Lilybell, he first asked me which skill I mean. I used auto translate. Asked again, which skill that is supposed to be, told me to wait while he looks through his spellbook. Found it. Said "No idea. I just use something when I see a low HP bar". And that Temperance doesn't feel like it makes any difference so he doesn't use it. While we were getting one-shot through Kera + shields.

[ty_taurus]

I think a big part of it though isn't so much that people who play healer are just bad, but that XIV's extreme reluctance to dish out the amount of damage needed to warrant the shear amount of healing tools we have has left healers unprepared to handle them effectively. And the problem is that SE will likely see this stress and then dial it back for the remaining raids. Then they'll go "well we tried to make fights deal more damage but everyone complained."

They need to keep this threshold of damage consistent and trickle that down into more casual content (by which I mean, introduce things like bleedbusters and double raidwides that can still be easier to manage in casual content, but gets people in the mindset of expecting that kind of heal check.) Over time, people will get better. At a certain point, you need to remove the training wheels, and just because your healer-child falls doesn't mean it's time to screw the training wheels back on. You have to let people fall if you want them to learn.

[Rilifane]

That's what it boils down to, isn't it?
SE is scared of letting healers fail. It's fine for tanks and dps to be able to fail but for some reason, healers must be exempt from this.
And I don't even think they're trying to do healers I favour there, I think they're more focussed on minimizing or outright deleting anything that could interrupt the flow for the rest of the party in case you get a worst case-healer.
The moment a healer could do something that results in unpleasant consequences (not that a death or even a wipe in any content is that bad) they're ready to screw the training wheels on again.

I liked Carby in that regard because despite the fairly frequent raidwides (21 vs 15 within ~9min compared to p6s), the raw damage is not that far above the average HP pool so it doesn't take much to just survive and deal with the healing afterwards.
And I feel like while teaching people to use mitigation is important, hits that don't one-shot as easily but are more frequent send a better message.

But I personally believe that if a healer is doing highend content, there should always be a certain understanding of their toolkit.
I do not care one bit about how much a dungeon might have coddled them, if someone is in a reclear party for savage fights, they have to know what their skills do. Period. No excuses there.
Testing the waters in practice parties, experimenting with timings and miscalculating and so on is fine. You have to get a feeling for the damage patterns and that is best done in practice, not in theory.
But I draw the line at not knowing your toolkit and what skills even do and that is something I see more often than I don't. Almost every time I try to coordinate a little bit, as a matter of fact.
Over the past 2 weeks I had exactly one healer that didn't reply with some form of "no idea what you mean xD / uh which skill? / one sec, need to bind it / no idea xD / uhm I'll just see, sometimes I use it there, sometimes not... I think?" when asking if use a big cooldown at specific times or could use them at specific times (e.g. Lilybell on 2nd tumult, Seraph for stack/ spread etc).
No elaborate mapping for all the buttons, just 1-2 skills on a long cooldown.

[Videra]

You know, the forums are, by in large, a place where you either preach to the choir or yell at brick wall in almost every instance of interaction, but its moments like these that remind me why I like coming back.

I'll be honest I've posted some wild shit here since I've been posting since I was like, seventeen, but gosh. Coming back here always fills me with a certain level of serotonin as I watch people try to argue that what we literally used to have in HW and SB for healer gameplay was 'bad', and that somehow reducing it to a majority of your uptime being broil is good for the healer fantasy.

[Absurdity]

I think a big part of it though isn't so much that people who play healer are just bad, but that XIV's extreme reluctance to dish out the amount of damage needed to warrant the shear amount of healing tools we have has left healers unprepared to handle them effectively. And the problem is that SE will likely see this stress and then dial it back for the remaining raids. Then they'll go "well we tried to make fights deal more damage but everyone complained."

This is what annoys me so much. CBU3 has created an entire generation of healers that do not know what a proper healing challenge is, they don't know how to effectively use their toolkit or sometimes even what their toolkit can do in the first place, because they never needed to. They were exempt from failure for over 2 years and it really shows when they face anything that can't just be facerolled through.