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

[Renathras]

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I think I agree with you pretty much. One idea I've thought would be cool is if WHM gained a Trait where every GCD heal they have now generates a Blood Lily stack. For reference, that's Cure 1, Cure 2, Cure 3, Medica, Medica 2, Regen, Afflatus Solace, and Afflatus Rapture. This way, WHM's identity would really be "The GCD healer", but every three heals is capped off by a Misery cast. There's no balance issue here since, in practice, this is already how WHM plays in terms of damage output, you're just using Glares instead of your GCD toolkit (which is just kinda...there...other than Solace/Rapture, which ARE commonly used) and oGCDs for healing. If the GCD heals generated Blood Lily stacks the same way Rapture/Solace did, then casting them wouldn't be detrimental since it would come out damage neutral. IF it is desired for some reason that they not quite be (e.g. like how 6.0 Misery was a DPS loss over Glarespam, though MOSTLY refunded DPS or how Ruin 2 is a DPS loss over Broil, but not as much as casting nothing or an Adlo/Succor/Physic), then we could replace the Lily system with something that stacks with more increments (for example, a gauge that stacks to 6 with Solace/Rapture building 2 but GCD heals building 1 meaning they're HALF a lost CD, or alternatively could use a 0-100 gauge like WAR or SCH where Solace/Rapture build 20 and other GCD heals build 10 and it costs 50 to cast a Misery, whatever achieves the basic result), so it's possible to make it work.

The Lily system has already created something where WHM can be a GCD healer and be damage neutral, so flexing on that system to achieve its playstyle just...makes sense.

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In brief:

On people being bad: Yes, it's POSSIBLE players were "just bad", but that's irrelevant. Because that's not the "appeal to authority" going on here. The appeal is "How did people play back then", with the assumption (from you guys) everyone played as high temp stance dancing DPS hybrids. The thinking (from you guys) goes that if that's true, that people like me have NEVER BEEN welcome as Healers in FFXIV, and our preferred playstyle has NEVER EXISTED in FFXIV, so we have no leg to stand on in arguing it should exist in the game today or going forward. That's the general logic behind the entire discussion. But what is the answer to that question? Well the answer is "Both ways - WHMs WERE played as essentially pure healers until around 2.4 to 3.0 while SCHs WERE played as Green DPS hybrids". The answer is BOTH were true and BOTH were accommodated by FFXIV. It doesn't matter if you want to say people were "bad". What matters is did the game allow it, did the community generally practice it, and the answer to both is "Yes...for WHM". Which is honestly a HALF-win for you guys, because the answer was "Hybrid fast paced stance dancing...for SCH". You just don't want to accept a HALF-win because that would mean there's precedent for the very thing I'm arguing, which you don't want there to be precedent for because that severely weakens your position.

On majorities: You can see in this very thread a few - not many, but a few - other people expressing perspectives similar to my own. Even on these near-echo-chamber forums (which most discussion forums are at this point), where you have 20 (here) to 1,000 or so (Reddit) common and highly prolific posters, not even in either of these FORUMS is your position absolute. And these are places people go when they're disgruntled with a game played by over 3,000,000 people - a recipe for an echo chamber with strong selection bias. Who speaks for the majority? Probably NO ONE here. The difference is, despite you thinking so, I'm not claiming I am; you are claiming you are. I only claim that there are a significant amount of people like me out there. What you're trying is an appeal to consensus fallacy, and it's even worse since you're appealing to an echo chamber that represents a VERY small portion of the community as a whole. I could even point you to some very high profile healer mains right now that LOVE healing. For one: Cole Evyx.

On pace: Which doesn't change the fact that that is still native FFXIV.

On BLM: Yes, let's have WHM's needing to cast emergency heals...and them be 3.5 second casts that they get interrupted because they had to move out of their Ley Lines and - oops, the party's dead now. That sounds like a terrible idea. Not only that, WHM isn't built that way. Like, at all. It's possible TO build a healer like that, but probably not in FFXIV because of how healing needs to be relatively reliable and a BLM playstyle on a healer wouldn't work. You might get something akin to old SMN (on SGE), but that's the closest you'd probably get. Also, have you ever considered that this forum is an echo chamber and does not represent the whole community? Moreover, have you ever realized that, at most (judging by like counter), only about 5-10 people ACTUALLY find my ideas "horrible"? And good god, how is your position so...backwards? I'm not asking YOU to "bend over backwards" to accommodate ME.

I've said this before, so I'll say it again by itself to make it clear:

The starting point to this discussion is NOT you have full leave to change all 4 healers and I'm trying to convince you not to change one. The starting point to this discussion IS that you have NO leave to change ANY healer, and I've offered for the sake of argument we change 3 and you're insisting that we change all 4. The status quo is EVERYTHING STAYS AS IT IS TODAY and you get 0 healers changed at all.

You think you're arguing from a position of strength when you are arguing from a position of weakness - the default if there's no agreement (not that the Devs are reading this or care, but if we pretend they are) is to stick with the current situation. In fact, YOU should be making the case TO CHANGE the healers, and EACH ONE one by one. The onus is on YOU not on ME to prove your case AND for you to present an ironclad argument that all four MUST be changed and not one may be exempted. Something you aren't doing since you're somehow under the faulty assumption that your position is the default and _I'm_ the one asking _you_ for a favor. The reality is the opposite. _My_ position is the baseline and _you_ are the one asking for an imposition.

...an imposition I'm even willing to grant you in 3 out of 4 cases. You're like a person asking to stay at a friend's house, the friend says "Sure, and I'll let you use 3 of the 4 bedrooms" and you saying "WHAT AN IMPOSITION! Why should _I_ let _YOU_ have one bedroom to yourself?" The logical response would be "Because it's _MY_ house, and if you don't like it, maybe we shouldn't even let YOU have ONE room!"

And the part that's the most rich of it all?

And your demand basically boils down to demanding that the most iconic healer job of the bunch should be reduced to appealing towards players who don't like healing in FF14,

...so by asking that the most iconic HEALER JOB OF THE BUNCH (your words) be "reduced" to HEALING is somehow "players who don't like healing"? You realize _I'M_ the one arguing FOR the players that like healing and YOU are the one arguing that WHM be made into a BLM DPS clone, right? Like...how are you so consistent at being 180 off of reality? It's honestly rather impressive...

Like, seriously, how you're COMPLETELY backwards wrong so consistently is seriously impressive, and I don't mean that ironically, sarcastically...or even insultingly. I'm honestly impressed. Not in a good way, per se, but like they said in Fable, hero or villain, you make your mark.

Listen, I feel bad on a personal level. It feels like the entire healer forums has been at war with Ren for literally weeks now, and regardless of anyone's stance on the game, I imagine that's frustrating, stressful, and disheartening. I don't want to create enemies, and I don't want someone feeling like ass because of video game debates. So I just wanna say, before anything else, I hope it's not taxing you as a person in real life. I want to try and find some middle ground.

I appreciate this. Can you understand how I see my position as the middle ground?

From my perspective, here are the two "sides" of the discussion:

1) No changes. All 4 healers remain as they are today. Future expansions just add abilities/charges/upgrades but the playstyle remains exactly as it is in terms of the DPS kits.

2) Complete changes. Healers lean even more heavily into the oGCD heals, abandoning GCD heals as much as possible (Lilies aside), and instead become full fledged DPS kits or at least half-DPS kits like Tanks have (note that some Tanks like PLD have about as many DPS buttons in their kit as DPS Jobs...which is probably why PLD has the most hotbar spaces required of any Job right now)

Now look at those two positions.

My position - change 3 of the Healers and leave 1 as it is, and possibly shift encounter design more towards needing sustained healing to make heals actually more needed - IS the middle ground. In fact, by saying change 3 and leave 1, my position, if (1) and (2) were at opposite points on a line, would be 75% of the way to point (2). Contrarily, the position of most of you folks is 100% on (2), which is the extremist (in the sense of being an endpoint) position. Can you not see how my position IS the middle ground? You're asking for a compromise on what is ALREADY a compromise position. Indeed, my position is ON YOUR SIDE of what the actual middle ground would be, which would either be change 2 and leave 2 OR take all 4 but only half-change them. Can you really not see that?

That said, I appreciate your words above. My concern is that forums like this are echo chambers that don't represent the whole community. You DO represent a chunk of it - whether that is small or great, I have no idea, but I'd say you represent at least a third of it (which is a lot, don't mistake my intention in saying so; I'm more thinking of the Savage clear numbers here), but so do I. Can we respect that both of our positions are probably widely held within the community?

So again, consider the 75%/25% argument of changing 3 classes and leaving 1 as it is today. Suppose FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT that your view is representative of 75% of the playerbase - a clear majority - and mine of only 25% (I suspect the opposite is the reality, but let's just suppose for a moment): Then would it not make logical sense to have 3 Healing Jobs follow your paradigm and 1 follow mine? That way, the 1/4th of healer players in the game that agree with me would have 1/4th of the healing Jobs as an option that appeals to them, while the 75% that agree with you would have 3/4ths of the healing Jobs as options that appeal to them. Does that not seem fair?

And if not: HOW not?

I get that some people like the aesthetic of WHM but want your playstyle, but some people like the aesthetic of SCH but want my playstyle. In a community of people, at the end of the day, we collectively have to make compromises so that the most people are happy, or at least content, right? So instead of arguing outright against leaving WHM alone, can you present an argument for WHY we can't leave one healer - and it DOES NOT MATTER WHICH ONE; it could be give SGE the Lily system and get rid of Addersgall/sting and Kardia so that the WHM aesthetic goes to your side, I DO NOT CARE WHICH ONE, only that there is ONE - as it is today for the 25% of the community (which is, in reality, probably actually 50-75% and the majority) that does not like your playstyle?

Can you see how, from my perspective, I'm only asking for a little AND offering a MASSIVE compromise from the base position of (1), and how it seems a bit greedy for you guys to not only demand (2), but to act as if (2) is the default position even though (1) is the default position?

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That all said, I can see that you posted a lot more, and I genuinely want to read it (I see Aerith, I read on ), but got to run for now. I will come back and give it a read and see what you came up with.

But I want you to at least consider/try to see that I'm ALREADY at the position of "middle ground". You guys are collectively arguing an extreme (endpoint) position while I'm already arguing for the middle ground on YOUR SIDE of middle.

Again, I genuinely DO appreciate you injecting some Humanity into this, and I'm of the same mind. I don't want to make enemies; if that was so, I'd be arguing for position (1) not position (1.75).