Healers need an overhaul

[MonsutaMan]

The job system needs an overhaul.......

[Midareyukki]

The job system needs an overhaul.......

I don't suppose this is feasible considering the amount of stuff they've added to the game that relies on the current system being designed the way it is...

That said, they need to rethink their approach. WAR has always (I think?) had really good levels of sustain, and even DRK used to have it before. But they didn't invalidate healers. And healers worked just fine with more DPS tools, they never stopped clearing content because of it. I understand that this then led to a mindset that "healers should DPS and worry about their DPS" and sometimes forego healing entirely. But iirc that was a mindset of really elite endgame players who played in specific groups, it wasn't the total norm. We're long past the days of Cleric Stance hindering healing too. If the issue is Balancing, then that's a different story altogether. But that's why it's important to have members of the dev team who are invested in playing healers, so that they understand what can be done vs what cannot.

Square needs to come to terms with the fact that their design is too simplified and roles are watered down. And that they need to not be scared of numbers being high leading to imbalances. A class can still be very useful even if it does low damage. Many other MMOs have such classes, and it's in fact a major reason why one would take Astrologian. It deals low personal damage but it had really good healing, safety nets and improved peoples' damage output with buffs. They need to not be shy about utility.

And they need to be more creative with said utility. :T Probably a shite opinion, but AST really doesn't need to only give damage buffs on its cards. There's more to buff than just damage. If they're so scared of Balance and Spear being broken again, they can just relegate the damage buffs to Divination and rework the card system to give other things. The more they only focus on stuff "dealing damage", the more watered down the roles will be. Because at this point there's only 2 priorities: "Get Aggro/Heal Low Health" and "Damage when the first criteria isn't an issue". And if you notice, it's ludicrously easy to meet the first criteria unless the devs design some sort of gimmick to make you have to work harder to meet it. Everything else? All about damage, nothing but damage.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't suppose [giving the job system an overhaul] this is feasible considering the amount of stuff they've added to the game that relies on the current system being designed the way it is...

Well, they're going to have to do something about the lack of undermechanical depth and the lackluster job system at some point.

And they need to be more creative with said utility.

All utility is going to be limited to the systems (e.g., undermechanics) available to be utilized. Can't levitate to avoid ground damage when there's no Z axis. Can't earth-barrier to avoid lightning damage when there are no damage types beyond Physical, Magical, and Dark/True/Absolute. And that's not even accounting for the redundancy of eHP or, worse, healing increases in typical content in which healing requirements are so low.

[Midareyukki]

Well, they're going to have to do something about the lack of undermechanical depth and the lackluster job system at some point.

Yes, provided that they address the past content that relies on it, is what I'm saying
Because it'd always be better if they reassessed their system. Issue is, it takes them forever to address issues with past content, often even not being addressed at all. And there's quite a fair bit there because most past content is still expecting X things to be able to happen. Hell, ARR NPCs still use skills that got culled or reworked since Stormblood xD Which is hilarious.
Even if it's just expanding the roles a bit, there's still bosses that rely on some skills being used, some LBs, even LB generation itself.

The issue isn't that it isn't doable. Because it is. The issue is that... well... this is Square Enix ^^; and there's a lot they'd need to go back and check.

All utility is going to be limited to the systems (e.g., undermechanics) available to be utilized. Can't levitate to avoid ground damage when there's no Z axis. Can't earth-barrier to avoid lightning damage when there are no damage types beyond Physical, Magical, and Dark/True/Absolute. And that's not even accounting for the redundancy of eHP or, worse, healing increases in typical content in which healing requirements are so low.

True. At one point I was talking to my friends and I pointed out how you can't have the same sort of stuff from FF11's classes like Corsair and Scholar. Because some stuff just doesn't exist. But I still went through it for the hell of it and compiled some stuff that they do based on what we could have in FF14. Stuff that right now we don't do:

COR skills:
- Autoattack Evasion
- Increase to attack range (finnicky)
- Increased healing received
- Increased defence
- No MP cost (finnicky, needs to be limited on classes whose gimmick revolves around MP like PLD or BLM)
- MP Restore (Remember when BRD and casters could do this? Pepperidge Farms remembers...)
- Double Attack/Double Hit
- Movement Speed
- Instant Casts (though it's useless on physical attackers)

SCH skills:
Penury: Reduces the MP cost of your next spell
Celerity: Reduces the cast time of your next spell
Accession: Have party members share in on your next heal, like an AoE Kardia. But the cost of the heal is doubled.

Obviously, having stuff like "barfire" isn't going to work in this game. Damage is either Magical, Physical or that weird third version in ARR/HSW. But they could honestly be creative with these things. Also, there's no need for a Z Axis: FF12's Float allowed you to do just that, it was just programmed to ignore some stuff. You weren't really floating. BUT :P this one's just a curiosity, pay no mind.
Now, I won't say that this MUST be what they must add in terms of utility. As you can see, I even labelled some as being problematic. I'm not saying that I'm right in this, just that I think the current system needs "more". But I'm not a game dev, they're the ones that would need to think hard on this. And again, some stuff are things we used to have, like MP Restore tools.

Otherwise, we'll need to rework different jobs to get out of the super strict system we have going on. Especially with healers. Before SGE came out, a lot of people wanted a healer that worked off of dealing damage. With the way SGE works right now, it's totally doable to rework it into something along those lines. They just need imagination and to not be so strict. Because what I said before was that their strictness is causing the current system to only care about damage numbers and healing numbers (both ours and the enemy's). And such a strict system will water down roles just as much as simplifying classes waters down jobs. The problem is getting them to understand that and take on the work, given how past content would need to be adjusted to it.