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

[Renathras]

I feel like the AST (and DRG) changes are going to be SOMETHING significant, but they got put off by all the SAM/Kaiten complaints. They made that change thinking it would be a relatively simple one for accessibility and balance/tuning, and the SAM community has had a complete and total meltdown over it. I feel like that stayed the Devs' hand and now they won't make ANY changes that are not outright necessary until expansions going forward because they don't want to have to deal with that blowback and people seem to accept changes more when they come with an expansion.

For the cards, this also makes some sense as they may want to do some stat reworks and such, and if that's the case, they may be waiting for those. For example, say for the sake of argument they were going to rebalance crit to just be a chance and NOT increase crit damage. That would change gearing but would also change the value of things like Chain Strategem. It would also make a DH and Crit Card somewhat equal in power (vs today where Crit would automatically be better). So there may be some of that going on.

And for DRG, they said they weren't sure where to go with it now (like 5.X SMN), so...yeah.

[ASkellington]

snip

And in my second post I said that it was fair.

And I also said in my second post it doesn't keep me from being salty that they waited this long to fix the cards. I'm not mad that cards aren't getting changed in 6.2. I'm mad they weren't changed in 6.0. Because and I'll quote myself here:

• To keep the RNG flavor they made the Seals system so that while the CARDS don't really mean any thing the SEALS do.
• The Seals system in 5.0 was flawed because 6% damage on Divination vs 5% (coupled with old Sleeve Draw and even guarenteed seal Sleeve Draw afterwards) was not worth the effort you put into it.
• Seals System 6.0 moved it to Astrodyne but still kept the same issue. Constant refresh replaces Lucid Dreaming in 80% of content because we don't have high mana costs, Haste when you get it doesn't amount to anything and neither does having 6% damage on top.

They had a chance to make the Seals system decent while keeping the cards flavorless by having Moons, Celestials and Suns in certain set ups = certain buffs so that you could control when and where you got them (for example, don't like the refresh on 2+ Moons? wait for another draw and change it to something else) this expansion and didn't do it

The seals mechanic COULD have worked as a replacement for cards if they actually worked on it. Instead of it being a damage buff a la Divination (5.0) or Astrodyne (6.0) it could have given some of the effects old cards had for support.

They didn't do that. We LITERALLY got 5.0 Divination lite with Astrodyne.

And on top of that, we don't know what they're doing. IDEALLY they will reinstate the cards in some way. Either akin to PvP or some adjusted way of SB's. I have 0 faith in the devs right now for anything considering what 6.0's gimmick is for AST currently and their decision choices with some classes do not inspire any confidence.

Tl;dr - I am not saying that their reasoning for pushing back is wrong. It is a completely valid reason. I am just frustrated both in my class (AST) and role (healer) suffering from major neglect and what seems to be consistently ignored feedback. Because once again they could have changed the card system in 6.0 and didn't do it. I know why and why is 100% valid, they wanted to make the seals system work I get it, but they clearly didn't understand WHY we wanted our cards back and incorporate it into the seals system in 6.0. So I'm angry.

[Renathras]

I think part of the problem is that the healer community doesn't even agree.

You have two groups of people in the same role - those that like to optimize damage and those that like to optimize healing. And it's further compounded by the encounter design and Job design. The ones that want to optimize damage go full in on optimizing healing with oGCDs and get bored with the damage kits, so want more damage buttons. The ones that want to optimize healing tend to dislike the oGCD healing model entirely but are just kinda stuck with it. And I'm not saying either is better than the other, just they're sharing a design space/role.

The encounter design and healing model has shifted considerably since ARR/HW, or even SB. Some of those beloved (and infamous) raids of HW were designed under the GCD healing model, not the oGCD one. The SB raids/fights were designed for far more GCD and far less oGCD healing than are in our toolkits today, and those are (generally) well loved. Healers did have an extra DoT (or 3 in SCH's case) back then, but there was also FAR more GCD healing and far LESS oGCD healing and a healing paradigm of the oGCDs being more emergency tools outside of Aetherflow heals.

The Dev team, though, isn't really designing Jobs OR encounters for, frankly, either of those groups, which leads to a lot of unhappiness.

That said, there are also a lot of people happy, or at least content, with things as they are right now. They're the masses of the 2-3 million strong playerbase that aren't in these threads and don't visit these forums or Reddit to post about it.

[ty_taurus]

I think part of the problem is that the healer community doesn't even agree.

You have two groups of people in the same role - those that like to optimize damage and those that like to optimize healing. And it's further compounded by the encounter design and Job design. The ones that want to optimize damage go full in on optimizing healing with oGCDs and get bored with the damage kits, so want more damage buttons. The ones that want to optimize healing tend to dislike the oGCD healing model entirely but are just kinda stuck with it. And I'm not saying either is better than the other, just they're sharing a design space/role.

The encounter design and healing model has shifted considerably since ARR/HW, or even SB. Some of those beloved (and infamous) raids of HW were designed under the GCD healing model, not the oGCD one. The SB raids/fights were designed for far more GCD and far less oGCD healing than are in our toolkits today, and those are (generally) well loved. Healers did have an extra DoT (or 3 in SCH's case) back then, but there was also FAR more GCD healing and far LESS oGCD healing and a healing paradigm of the oGCDs being more emergency tools outside of Aetherflow heals.

The Dev team, though, isn't really designing Jobs OR encounters for, frankly, either of those groups, which leads to a lot of unhappiness.

That said, there are also a lot of people happy, or at least content, with things as they are right now. They're the masses of the 2-3 million strong playerbase that aren't in these threads and don't visit these forums or Reddit to post about it.

Optimizing damage and optimizing healing is the same thing. In order to maximize DPS output you need to maximize the value you get out of each healing tool. If you heal suboptimally, at least in savage, there's a good change that may bleed into your DPS optimization. I think what you're trying to describe is moreso the group who wants a more engaging selection of GCD actions, largely in the form of DPS rotations on par with what tanks have vs those who don't want to have to DPS at all nor have to engage in anything resembling a rotation. Naturally there are people who fall in-between of course, but those are your left and right stances.

On the topic of encounter vs job design, absolutely. The way encounters are fundamentally designed continues to blatantly and directly clash with their supposed stance of not wanting healers to feel obligated to DPS. In challenging content, maximum DPS uptime on healers is quite literally essential. Just look at how tight the DPS checks were for this savage tier at launch. Sure it can be outgeared, but fights should launch with expectations that reflect the goals and values the team has of each role. And if we go to casual content, damage is so infrequent and so low that there's no reason any of the healers shouldn't have 100% DPS uptime outside of WHM using lilies. Dungeon tankbusters do so little damage, it barely breaks through a single layer of Haima.

On the topic of people content with the role. I would challenge that most of them would be content no matter what happens to the healing role. Most players are casual and really don't care about buttons, actions, or rotations. As long as it looks cool and clearing casual content doesn't require beating your head against the wall, they'd be fine with healing gaining complexity, as they'd either adapt or not care and just do whatever they felt like. That's what happens anyway now. It's what happened before ShB when the community was far happier with the state of healers.

Healing also has a very high turnover rate. The vast majority of people who heal are not dedicated healer mains. They're players who have WHM leveled for free roulette bonuses, and/or who are comfortable flexing into healer as needed if needed.

[Liam_Harper]

I feel like the AST (and DRG) changes are going to be SOMETHING significant, but they got put off by all the SAM/Kaiten complaints. They made that change thinking it would be a relatively simple one for accessibility and balance/tuning, and the SAM community has had a complete and total meltdown over it. I feel like that stayed the Devs' hand and now they won't make ANY changes that are not outright necessary until expansions going forward because they don't want to have to deal with that blowback and people seem to accept changes more when they come with an expansion.

Which is a good thing. Because the community provided strong negative feedback over badly done changes that made no sense, the devs actually have to analyze their own jobs and make the toolkits enjoyable and work well.

The bad thing is that now they're forced to do something that should be standard, we have to wait an entire expansion because their job design team isn't actually capable of it. It demonstrates there are serious issues with their job design team and how few experienced developers are assigned to it.

[Avoidy]

I'm glad it's delayed. Their track record with tweaking healers has honestly been pretty terrible lately. I'm expecting them to completely gut the job in 7.0 because some people who don't even play AST complained about having to weave or something. But my opinion on this is pretty moot. I quit AST at the start of EW when I felt the new changes firsthand. I'm so apathetic on everything this job has to offer now. Maybe they'll take this extra time and really think about what they want to do with this job before they ruin it even further, but my hopes aren't high. I mained it in shb but dumped it for whm in endwalker because I just can't be bothered to play it right now.

Never played DRG, but I feel for them. Most I met in game seemed happy with the job as it was, and now they're all dreading the rework because none of them asked for it and they're wondering wtf square is even going to fix.

[Renathras]

Optimizing damage and optimizing healing is the same thing.

No, it isn't. And never will be.

That's like saying mastering being a gunslinging police officer and mastering being a surgeon treating gunshot victims is "the same thing".

I think what you're trying to describe is moreso the group who wants a more engaging selection of GCD actions, largely in the form of DPS rotations on par with what tanks have vs those who don't want to have to DPS at all nor have to engage in anything resembling a rotation. Naturally there are people who fall in-between of course, but those are your left and right stances.

I'm not quite sure that's accurate, but it's probably an approximation of an understanding. There are some who want more DPS buttons, some who don't, and many who are probably more than content with things as they are today. The old adage is accurate that those who are upset complain but the vast majority who are content sit in contented silence and aren't taking part in these discussions. These "healers need more DPS buttons" discussions don't at all represent an majority position.

EDIT (for space):

The way encounters are fundamentally designed continues to blatantly and directly clash with their supposed stance of not wanting healers to feel obligated to DPS.

Somewhat agree. It's ironic that the trash packs (in wall to wall pulls) in dungeons are more deadly than the bosses. Though it should be noted that it's pretty clear they DIDN'T intend the DPS check to be so tight this raid teir. But yes, I agree overall that it seems like the encounter design and their desired objective kind of clash with each other. Though that's also somewhat the nature of Enrages in general. If DPSers are slacking off, Healers (and Tanks) have to pick up their slack, if they can, to get clears. Though right now, even post nerf, the Enrages are too tight to meet without Healer (and Tank) damage being fairly pronounced. Enrages are a sticky subject because I've hated them since way back when. I've never felt they're a good system for encounters, and it's lazy design that developers use because...well, it's lazy.

I would challenge that most of them would be content no matter what happens to the healing role.

I will contest that and say you're wrong. Now, here it really DOES depend on who we're talking about, but first we have to do a quick and dirty parsing of the community. At the top end (99%ers) you have the 1% of the community. Bleeding edge, theorycraft in their sleep, you know, the actual best of the best. Then we have the 9%ers, these are the 90-99% who AREN'T the elite, but want to be. These are also the people that most complain about things like balance and want to exclude people less skilled/dedicated/whatever than them from content. They see themselves as part of the 1%, but they aren't actually quite there. Then you have the Mid-core, which is the 50-90% types that still do hard content, still clear it, but do it more as a social thing with friends for fun and good times. They derive general joy from doing the stuff together, but they don't derive joy from min-maxing everything or making the game into a job. (I largely fit into this group, personally, and have since at least the middle of SB.) Then you have the "casuals(?)" which are the 0-50% that many times don't even step into hard content at all, and on the rare occasion they do, either do so with a group of friends or are doing old content for glamour or the like. These people generally don't know what weaving is, the difference between a GCD and an oGCD, etc. (I was one of these up until probably mid-SB when I started looking into SCH guide videos and happened across one from Momo or Wesk Alber or someone that explained the difference.)

The Mid-core would be destroyed by changes like that, and so they would, in fact, not be content if the roles were completely changed. The hyper-casuals wouldn't care IF it doesn't come to bother them - the issue with Cleric Stance type stuff is that it DID, in fact, come to bother them with people getting yelled at in Dungeon runs if they were never using Cleric or weren't DPSing, which resulted in Cleric being removed ("This is why we can't have nice things"). Whenever stuff like this has bled out into the common player/casual content, the result is always that it was removed/nerfed. If the Healer rotations were made harder and it WAS a significant part of clear times so that 9%ers running 4 man roulettes started complaining about them, it would run into the same problem Cleric did.

The 1% wouldn't care. The 9% would be gleefully smirking at the mid-core no longer being able to clear "their" content and relishing having more exclusivity.

So I contest that they wouldn't care. The 50-90 would care because they aren't able to clear content, and the 0-50 would care because the 9% would now be complaining about every dungeon run taking longer than they want.

It's what happened before ShB when the community was far happier with the state of healers.

Let's correct that: It happened in SB once HW era healing was arguably gutted with the Cleric removal BECAUSE that was going on. It forced Cleric's removal and a stricter hand with TOS for people to be "far happier". Not only that, you say "the community was far happier". What evidence do you have of this? I would wager the 9% was far happier, but was the community AS A WHOLE? As much as the 9% complain, I feel the community AS A WHOLE is far happier with ShB healing than SB and certainly than HW.

Healing also has a very high turnover rate. The vast majority of people who heal are not dedicated healer mains. They're players who have WHM leveled for free roulette bonuses, and/or who are comfortable flexing into healer as needed if needed.

Agreed, but in the opposite direction you likely mean.

The people that want more DPS buttons on healers likely fit that mold. They want more DPS buttons because they'd really rather be playing a DPS Job but are on a Healer either for ques or for a raid spot.

People that DO main healers - as in have only one Job at level 90 and it's a Healer - are likely more the casuals or "Sylphies" who don't want that.

I'd wager that's the case, anyway. Again, when I was 0-50 casual, I only had WHM and SCH leveled (ARR, HW, and half of SB). It was literally all I did. It was when I shifted more into the mid-core that I actually had other Jobs leveled.

.

Overall, I don't exactly disagree with you on some things in a general sense, but I disagree on the specifics and the why of them, I suppose?

.

Never played DRG, but I feel for them. Most I met in game seemed happy with the job as it was, and now they're all dreading the rework because none of them asked for it and they're wondering wtf square is even going to fix.

This is a position I do kind of agree with. Why change something when no one's asking for a change to it?

SB to ShB change to WHM made sense. SB WHM was pretty meh and people were asking for changes, and the Lily/Misery changes we got were pretty fantastic. ShB/EW WHM was and is an improvement over SB WHM with their glorified Freecure Lily system. Losing twirly-staff Aero 3 kind of sucks, but trading Aero 3 and Aero 2 for Solace, Rapture, and Misery is an absolute gain in my book and has been so significant it's arguably WHM's core identity at this point!

On the other hand, SB SCH's were largely satisfied with the Job. The only thing they really needed were Eos to be more responsive and ghosting to be less of an issue. Well, they got changes in ShB...but those weren't them. They DID finally get a more responsive Eos in EW, but ghosting still exists.

I don't know why the NEED to change a Job. I get the SMN argument of "we didn't know where to go with it", but the solution might have just been "a bit more of the same until people complain" as opposed to a complete top-down rework...

[ty_taurus]

No, it isn't. And never will be.

That's like saying mastering being a gunslinging police officer and mastering being a surgeon treating gunshot victims is "the same thing".

I don't understand your analogy. The way the game mechanically functions dictates that optimizing your healing does in fact have a direct impact on your ability to optimize your DPS. The two are intrinsically linked. By choosing the best healing tool for any given scenario, you are extending your ability to continue DPSing, so I'm not sure what it is you're trying to talk about. In a given example, imagine you have a SCH who needs to heal the party after a light raidwide. Using Fey Blessing may be the most optimal heal, whereas opting for Succor instead, the less valuable heal, will take away from your ability to contribute DPS. In practice, though, I suppose we can say there's a fair amount of room for error, particularly in casual content, where choosing certain unnecessarily powerful heals that result in overhealing both don't take away from your DPS and aren't going to stress your resources later. Using Pneuma on a dungeon raidwide, for example, is highly unnecessary, but it's not going to leave you wanting for a Pnuema later in the fight where it will be on cooldown.

I will contest that and say you're wrong. Now, here it really DOES depend on who we're talking about, but first we have to do a quick and dirty parsing of the community. At the top end (99%ers) you have the 1% of the community. Bleeding edge, theorycraft in their sleep, you know, the actual best of the best. Then we have the 9%ers, these are the 90-99% who AREN'T the elite, but want to be. These are also the people that most complain about things like balance and want to exclude people less skilled/dedicated/whatever than them from content. They see themselves as part of the 1%, but they aren't actually quite there. Then you have the Mid-core, which is the 50-90% types that still do hard content, still clear it, but do it more as a social thing with friends for fun and good times. They derive general joy from doing the stuff together, but they don't derive joy from min-maxing everything or making the game into a job. (I largely fit into this group, personally, and have since at least the middle of SB.) Then you have the "casuals(?)" which are the 0-50% that many times don't even step into hard content at all, and on the rare occasion they do, either do so with a group of friends or are doing old content for glamour or the like. These people generally don't know what weaving is, the difference between a GCD and an oGCD, etc. (I was one of these up until probably mid-SB when I started looking into SCH guide videos and happened across one from Momo or Wesk Alber or someone that explained the difference.)

The Mid-core would be destroyed by changes like that, and so they would, in fact, not be content if the roles were completely changed. The hyper-casuals wouldn't care IF it doesn't come to bother them - the issue with Cleric Stance type stuff is that it DID, in fact, come to bother them with people getting yelled at in Dungeon runs if they were never using Cleric or weren't DPSing, which resulted in Cleric being removed ("This is why we can't have nice things"). Whenever stuff like this has bled out into the common player/casual content, the result is always that it was removed/nerfed. If the Healer rotations were made harder and it WAS a significant part of clear times so that 9%ers running 4 man roulettes started complaining about them, it would run into the same problem Cleric did.

The 1% wouldn't care. The 9% would be gleefully smirking at the mid-core no longer being able to clear "their" content and relishing having more exclusivity.

So I contest that they wouldn't care. The 50-90 would care because they aren't able to clear content, and the 0-50 would care because the 9% would now be complaining about every dungeon run taking longer than they want.

Let's correct that: It happened in SB once HW era healing was arguably gutted with the Cleric removal BECAUSE that was going on. It forced Cleric's removal and a stricter hand with TOS for people to be "far happier". Not only that, you say "the community was far happier". What evidence do you have of this? I would wager the 9% was far happier, but was the community AS A WHOLE? As much as the 9% complain, I feel the community AS A WHOLE is far happier with ShB healing than SB and certainly than HW.

I mean I wouldn't exactly toss around any numbers or percentages as I haven't polled the playerbase or anything, but I've been here since ARR and I've seen how people have reacted to job changes both good and bad--a lot of people. I've been on these forums since ARR days, and I've talked with many players over the years whether in FCs, linkshells, or shout chats. Most people just don't have strong opinions on job changes. They tend to pick the jobs that they like visually or thematically and just stick with those with a small caveat that overly complex jobs do tend to drive people away, hence AST or ShB SMN. What most players care about is the MSQ, glamour, and the aesthetic of their job.

I'll elaborate that when I said "community" I should've specified "dedicated community" as in the types of players who do engage with job discussion whether here, on Reddit, or on YouTube discussions. With that in mind, what I've seen is that during ARR, there was very little negative that anyone had to say about the healers. FFXIV's healers were regularly praised, actually, for not being curebots in contrast to WoW at the time. During HW, there was some amount of bickering that started as more WoW players started getting into HW, and WoW healers were not expecting FFXIV's healers to have to DPS or stance dance. I won't say it was exclusively WoW healers, of course, but they were the ones who kinda started the fire. SB was more mixed as WHM was very poorly thought out, SCH was initially missing several core tools at launch, but also had good elements as well. I'd argue it was great for Cleric Stance to be removed, actually. It was too much of an all-or-nothing ultimatum that left no room for error and was heavily punishing. So yeah I would argue that the at least dedicated healer community was much happier prior to Shadowbringers given how little issues people had with healing overall. It wasn't really until feedback was being outright ignored that things started to heat up. And as mentioned earlier, those not heavily invested in healing were and still are largely indifferent.

Agreed, but in the opposite direction you likely mean.

The people that want more DPS buttons on healers likely fit that mold. They want more DPS buttons because they'd really rather be playing a DPS Job but are on a Healer either for ques or for a raid spot.

People that DO main healers - as in have only one Job at level 90 and it's a Healer - are likely more the casuals or "Sylphies" who don't want that.

I find this statement quite callous to be honest with you. If I wanted to play as a DPS, then I'd play a DPS, and I do as it stands because healers are so poorly designed that it angers me how much I dislike playing as a healer. I love playing a support role in every other game out there. When I played league a couple years ago, my favorite role was specifically enchanters--characters like Bard, Rakan, and Nami. I recently played through Xenoblade 3 where I'd actively control healers, my favorite of which could spread debuffs, create evasion fields, and could heal the party, all while still dealing moderate damage. I also played Wakfu a long time ago where my favorite class was the Eniripsa who was the dedicated healer, but also had the ability Unnatural Remedies that would zombify enemies and cause healing to hurt them. You could even heal allies while also injuring zombified enemies with your AoE heal. All that said, I still want each FFXIV healer to have a wider library of GCD options, not just healing mind you. I've said before that I feel SCH and SGE should be the DPS heavy healers, AST the support heavy healer who replaces GCD DPS with GCD support that passively contributes to their DPS numbers, and WHM who's more balanced.

I find it kind of rude that you are writing off those of us who fight for more DPS options on healers as effectively 'not real healers,' because the true healer mains are apparently the casuals who don't want DPS at all. That's a really narrow minded perspective to have. There are many different types of healer players, and all of them are valid. That said, this game does not support heal-only healers on any level and there's no way around that without quite literally redoing the game's encounter design from scratch which is just not reasonable. It's like playing Super Smash Bros and complaining about its platforming elements. That's a part of the package, just as DPSing is a part of the package with FFXIV's healer design. I would love to see one of the healers fulfill a gameplay style that could better satisfy people who want a healer that only heals or supports, but it will still realistically need to rely on some amount of DPS.

At the end of the day, if you are content with the healers as they are, then that's your right. But they are still terribly designed for this game. You can like something that is poorly designed just like how you can like food that's bad for you, like clothes that don't match, or like a movie with bad acting.

[Renathras]

I don't understand your analogy.

You're looking at the problem mechanically and ignoring the non-mechanical side of the puzzle. The best way I can explain it is imagine a doctor with no bedside manner. One who is competent in the treatment of illness, but shows neither empathy nor compassion to Human patients, and thus it interferes with their recovery as Humans (being social creatures) need that as well as mere physical ministrations.

Your belief is that mechanically, by perfecting an oGCD healing plan for an encounter, you are able to devote more GCDs to healing, and thus optimizing healing in this way leads to optimizing DPS. What you aren't taking into account is that many people don't enjoy DPSing. They optimize healing because they like healing, and then when they've done that, they will hit a one or two button DPS rotation as filler in the truest sense of the word - something they don't enjoy but they put up with on a basic level because it's not too obtrusive.

People can arrive at a similar destination by different routes. But the distinction here is that if the DPS rotations were more involved, many people would not enjoy that and wouldn't optimize it. Further, the optimizations themselves are different. For example, across my 20ish years of playing healers in MMOs, I've gotten fairly good at it. And by it, it mean healing, not DPSing on a healer. I learned about what my heals do to healthbars of my targets and so figured out what to use that is most MP efficient, thus freeing up more MP for future heals if needed, and also adapting to the group and comfort level, such as using Succor on practice/clear groups doing new content, knowing that those shields can actually save people from mistakes while I would omit that step with more experienced parties. Comparing cast times vs healing needed - I can say I've legitimately used Cure 1's shorter cast time before to spot heal someone who would have died before a Cure 2 would have landed - MP costs, and how much healing actually is needed.

This is optimization, is it not?

But it's not optimization to optimize DPS. It's optimization to optimize healing. If that means I can use an extra GCD on a Glare, so be it, and that's fine and good, but that is neither the focus of the effort nor would I relish having to fill that GCD with "Comboglare" or "Dia 2 refresh".

EDIT:

I mean I wouldn't exactly toss around any numbers or percentages as I haven't polled the playerbase or anything, but I've been here since ARR and I've seen how people have reacted to job changes both good and bad--a lot of people.

Indeed, but we both have that same story. I have been playing since the patch before NIN was released (which I think was 2.4). I distinctly remember the "7 NIN lf healer for FATE train" in Northern Thanalan because of the legendarily bad DPS ques. I was drafted into one of those a Saturday afternoon, getting from the lower 40s up to level 50 from it. Which made finishing the MSQ more streamlined (remember how bad the level gating was on quests where you'd have to grind out a level every so many quests so you could continue the MSQ?)

In that time, I've interacted with quite a few people as well.

The general position is that people want to do well, but people's minds work differently. I'm great at optimizing healing. I'm mediocre at optimizing damage dealing. That's part of why I play healers in games. (The other and main reason is that I like helping people in need with healing and raising - when I go into Eureka, I'm generally one of those people replying in shout with an "omw" when someone's asking for a Raise)

While I WILL use my damage buttons, I prefer them to be as streamlined and unobtrusive as possible, since they're interfering with or, at beast, as side plate to my main objective, which is ensuring my party members are hale and whole so they can complete their objective of defeating the big bad boss. But that only goes to an extent that the rotations AREN'T obtrusive and AREN'T overly convoluted. It is the reason I don't play DPSers, because I genuinely don't enjoy DPSing as a thing. When I play WAR, I like Fell Cleave and Primal Rend because they look and sound cool. I pay so little attention to damage numbers I couldn't even tell you what my average damage when using them is. Come to think of it, I can't on WHM, either.

On the contrary, though, I CAN tell you that Cure 2 does a bit less than 20k healing, 30k on my crits, as does Solace and (roughly) Tetra. Or approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of a tank health bar (depending on their gear) or 1/3 to 1/2 of a Healer/Caster's. Those are the numbers my mind works for and I'm most concerned with. I accept my Dia uptime and Glares are killing bosses, but I can't see 0.01% change increments on the boss health bar the way I can see 25% increments on a Tank's, nor can I even tell you offhand what that damage number that pops up on enemies I hit with Glare even is in a ballpark way. I dunno, 15-25k? Legitimately no idea.

I do agree with you, though, about players driving away from overly complex Jobs. It's why my position is still WHM should be left alone while SCH, AST, and SGE can be changed to have more involved DPS rotations, as that would at least provide a haven for people that don't want that.

And fair enough on that elaboration. When we're talking about FFXIV and the word "community" comes up, I'm thinking "the community of players of FFXIV as a whole". If you meant only those who come to the official forums and Reddit (which...seem to be the ones most likely to be jaded and/or disappointed with the game - those who enjoy it seem not to be on the forums defending or even talking about it), then you're probably right. However I would caution against the Devs making any changes as requested by such a small portion of the community that WOULD affect the whole, which such changes as these would, make no mistake.

I'd also caution about relying too much on ARR. When games are in their infancy, a lot of weird stuff happens. Molten Core circa 2004 was considered the pinnacle of raid design at the time. But many bosses were tank and spank + gimmick, which was something like "remember to dispell this one thing every 5 minutes". Many classes had simple, or even no rotation. Hunters were expected to autoattack because their damage attacks would often pull threat from the Tanks, and bosses could only hold 8 debuffs, so only a few select debuffs were allowed to be applied to the boss, no DoTs or similar. ARR wasn't as bad, but theorycrafting and optimization was far from what it is today. Moreover, healing wasn't, either. Modern FFXIV healing can often be done with oGCDs, to the point people complain about GCD healing outside of WHM Lilies. Back then, GCD healing was not only expected, it was the norm, especially for WHM. The only oGCD heals at the time were Benediction on a 6 min or something CD and Lustrate which was a % heal not a potency based heal (and thus bypassed Cleric Stance limitations)

Encounter design damage was also completely different. And healers even in HW were not being "regularly praised" for not being curebots. They were being regularly CONDEMNED if they were being curebots, to the point that the Devs removed Cleric Stance from the game because it was creating such a toxic environment.

I find this statement quite callous to be honest with you.

You may find it callous if you wish, but that isn't my intent. From talking with a great many people, it seems to be the truth.

People that like healing - and by that I mean making health bars go from somewhat empty to somewhat full or applying shields or mitigation (there's something amazingly satisfying, if moderately fruitless, about Recitation + Critlo + Deployment + Soil a party before a boss ultimate and seeing the shields not even fully consumed after the attack lands - THAT is the kind of thing that I enjoy) - tend to like the healer kits in the game right now. They're powerful, functional, and capable, and with minimal obtrusiveness of non-healing mechanics (e.g. damage)

People that don't EXACTLY like healing - and by that I mean, and I quote from prior conversations, "I don't want to be the party's heal b-tch while they have the fun pulling big numbers" - are the ones largely complaining. People that, if FFXIV was more like FFXI, would likely enjoy playing on RDM in that game as a hybrid that throws out clutch heals to save the party ("The only health point that matters is the last one!" mentality folks) while pushing their kit to the highest level to deal damage on enemies. The people that take great pride if they can "keep the party alive and do it while out-DPSing tanks and even some damage dealers!"

Folks that would enjoy something like an Everquest Bard or a Guild Wars Mesmer that really shift the course of a battle if they're highly skilled in leveraging their sometimes-finicky, often highly nuanced, but powerful when executed well, toolkit.

I'm sure you've met a few people like that, given your above statement on your history and conversations?

You say "If I wanted to play as a DPS, then I'd play a DPS", but this is just as true of folks saying "If I wanted to damage the boss instead of heal party member healthbars, I'd play a damage dealer", right?

If there were Jobs in FFXIV that DID work that way, would you not find yourself likely enjoying them more? Reading your post, it seems like you might. "characters like..." "spread debuffs, create evasion fields, and could heal the party, all while still dealing moderate damage". Does my statement above not well encapsulate your mindset?

And note, I don't mean it as an insult, so please don't take it as one. In my mind, there are four types of players in MMOs (well, besides the spade/heart/club/diamond):

Tanks, Healers, Supports, and Damage Dealers.

But for whatever reason, games tend not to like having Supports (probably harder to balance, but it's not like MMOs are ever perfectly balanced anyway...) This forces Support minded players into other roles that they have to make a best fit with. A FFXIV friend of mine has that mindset and his favorite Jobs are RDM and PLD, and he likes it when we let him RDM-heal 4 man dungeons. We could probably add BRD and DNC to that list of Support-oriented Jobs.

So it's not me "writing off" people like you.

I'm merely pointing out that you don't exactly speak for all healers, since you (to my way of thinking) speak for Supports as a group - as I'd wager Support minded people would agree with your positions.

The unfortunate truth is that FFXIV doesn't have such a role. It really SHOULD, but...

So we're stuck fighting over the Healer role.

It's not me saying you're "lesser" or anything. I don't say Tanks are "lesser" than Healers. But if a Tank minded player picked up a Healer and started complaining that they don't have enough mitigation and agro generation, we'd both agree that they're barking up the wrong tree and should play Tanks instead.

It's kind of a tough spot for Support people, though, since the closest thing they have in FFXIV to a dedicated role is Ranged (DNC and BRD, specifically), but SE won't just make that a thing already, so we're stuck fighting over Healers.

Which also plays into my continued proposal to leave WHM and shift each of the others to different aspects. I'd personally like to see AST go all in as a buffer/Support, SCH as a DoT juggling class, and SGE as a RDM-lite Healer/Damage Dealer semi-hybrid (just from the healing side where RDM is from the DPS side). I feel like that's the best way to appeal to and make the most people happy. And to clarify on this:

I find it kind of rude that you are writing off those of us who fight for more DPS options on healers as effectively 'not real healers,' because the true healer mains are apparently the casuals who don't want DPS at all.

This is the strawman that's obnoxious.

I didn't say "not real healers", though I do think "would be happier as Supports" is correct. That isn't an insult or a "writing off". If I was "writing off" those people, I wouldn't be suggesting no less than 3/4ths of the Healer Jobs be shifted to tailor to them, now would I?

The second part is only true in people who don't ENJOY dpsing, but will throw dps spells if it's unobtrusive and uncomplicated.

No, that's not narrow minded - it's me looking at reality. And I'm even trying to please people with that other mindset with the lion's share of the Healing Jobs as a compromise position - a compromise position that offers 75% to the other side is a pretty good compromise, one would think...

That said, this game does not support heal-only healers on any level and there's no way around that without quite literally redoing the game's encounter design from scratch which is just not reasonable. It's like playing Super Smash Bros and complaining about its platforming elements. That's a part of the package, just as DPSing is a part of the package with FFXIV's healer design. I would love to see one of the healers fulfill a gameplay style that could better satisfy people who want a healer that only heals or supports, but it will still realistically need to rely on some amount of DPS.

That's hardly true - ARR encounters and HW encounters required far more Healer healing GCDs, and (in THEORY if not in PRACTICE) was supposedly balanced around healers contributing no DPS.

That said "it will still realistically need to rely on some amount of DPS" - if we kept WHM as it is today, I wouldn't be upset with that. I still hate DoTs and would honestly prefer a 1-2 rotation over a 11111211112 rotation, but no one's arguing to strip healers of all their damage buttons when someone says to have one healer (generally WHM because it's already there and is the only healer in the game right now that seems designed to actually USE GCDs for healing) remain with the current system.

In fact, the Devs have said since ShB that's what they want for all the healers - again, their encounter design, we agree, has not met that design goal - so a compromise position would probably be the best answer.

At the end of the day, if you are content with the healers as they are, then that's your right. But they are still terribly designed for this game. You can like something that is poorly designed just like how you can like food that's bad for you, like clothes that don't match, or like a movie with bad acting.

Now who's being rude, callous, and writing off?

Some people like vanilla and some like rocky road moosetracks. Neither is good or bad, they're just different flavors.

WHM is pretty well designed for the game right now, imo. The only changes I'd honestly make is give Plenary Indulgence a 10% damage mitigation as well (basically Protect/Shell on a 60 sec CD that does some bonus healing), make Regen not a DPS loss (either generate Blood Lily or be oGCD), and...that'd honestly be about it. The rest of the kit I find fun and enjoyable to use.

[ty_taurus]

Snip

I'm just going to summarize for time because it's getting to the point of extreme with these post lengths. Sorry.

On Optimization: If someone is slacking off on their DPS uptime, that means their optimized healing is no longer optimized. I don't care if they don't enjoy DPSing. They chose to play FFXIV, not me. I didn't drag them here. In this game, healers contribute to DPS for every GCD that isn't need for healing, which is nearly all of them. Every 2.5 seconds that they cast nothing because the idea of DPSing upsets them, they are griefing the party. Either contribute or leave. If they don't like that, then they can play something else.

On not liking DPS: Like I said before, I can sympathize with wanting healers that don't spend 80+% of their time casting offensive spells. I understand that there are players who don't like that and think there should be a heal/support oriented healer who's DPS is passive rather than active, because they still need to compete with the other healers and thus need similar DPS contributions numerically to not be dead in the water. That said, if you do not like DPS rotations in a game built on GCD combat design, then you are playing the wrong game. This is why healer design is objectively bad--why WHM should not stay as it is. This game is foundationally built on the concept of having a rotation of actions to cycle through, and that is the benchmark for effective game design regardless of opinion. If that is not the type of gameplay you enjoy, then this is not the right game for you no more than Super Smash Bros is the right game for you if you don't like platform fighters, or any more than Persona 5 is the right game for you if you don't want to engage with slice of life management. The healing role is failing utterly to utilize the core style of gameplay that FFXIV uses and it is creating an exodus of people leaving the role. Healer population is on the decline and it's only going to get worse if nothing changes.

On what it means to be a "Healer:" Both "healer" and "support" are seen as synonymous. You may not agree, but the entirety of the game design industry sees differently. Xenoblade 3, for example, labels the role as "healer" and not "support," yet every healer has offensive skills, and some combination of utility, many interesting combinations I might add. There is no LoL healbot character, nor a healbot in any other MOBA that I've seen. Even in the 'Tales of' series where older games had dedicated healers, they would still have offensive spells they'd use regularly. Cheria, the dedicated healer of Tales of Graces, for example... Wanting to have engaging gameplay outside of just ways to counter boss mechanics is absolutely something true healers can want. It doesn't make them any less of a healer, it just means they have higher standards for their gameplay.

On FFXIV's DPS Checks: All savage level content has required a significant amount of healer DPS contributions on launch regardless of how perfectly the DPS play. Eventually, this could be circumvented with gear, but it has always been the expectation that most of a healer's GCDs would gear toward offense, even in HW where savage demanded far more frequent usage of healing GCDs, moreso due to a far more limited OGCD healing library on each healer. No amount of practice would fix that until you started gearing.

On bad game design: I wasn't being rude saying that you're allowed to like the healers. But the reality is, none of them are well-built for this game objectively. This is because of how poorly they translate to the core design philosophies of the game as a whole. If you're content with that, that's your choice. It's not being rude to say that it's your choice. I like honey mustard on pasta, but that's not a good choice. It's not healthy, nor is that something most people enjoy, but that's fine. The key though is that me eating honey mustard on pasta doesn't force anyone else to eat honey mustard on pasta. You can like bad things. It's not an insult.