My take on the simplicity of healers and the healer problem

[IDontPetLalas]

Healing is just adding a value to an HP number. There isn't a lot you can do with that. That is the only way healing is expressed. You can overheal (shield), which is just a temporary extension of the HP number. You can reduce the subtraction of HP through temporary damage reduction.

Since you can't expand this to any further variety the solutions people put forward are always geared toward changing boss encounters in ways that only benefit healers while screwing over everyone else. On top of that, the benefit to healers are dubious.

For example, if you put vuln stacks instead of damage down (as OP suggested) all that means is the healer simply will not be able to heal someone if they take vuln. It makes you less good at healing, because you won't be able to mathematically prevent them from hitting 0 HP no matter what you do. It would entail your damage reduction mitigation becoming stronger or boss damage mechanics becoming weaker, because in Savage they can already kill you easily on your first mistake, if you aren't topped off or if your gear isn't the best yet.

All by itself, vuln over damage down doesn't actually help healers and entails a lot of other changes to mechanics and abilities just on the back of this one idea.

Every "healer" system change suggested is like this--it entails a bunch of things changing about the way the game is played and penalizes every other role in favor of rebuilding the whole game around healing.

Your job is just to put numbers back on the HP bar. If you don't like that, healing isn't for you.

I disagree with the last sentence, the people in an instance only need enough HP in order to survive. Healers won't be constantly healing.

We don't have constant incoming damage in this game, there is no need to be constantly healing. Healers need to heal what can't be avoided, or to assist with mistakes.

I have no idea where the "healing is not for you" comment comes from, I have no idea what jobs you play, but it isn't at all unusual for heals to heal and do damage in games, to various degrees depending upon the context.

[ty_taurus]

I disagree with the last sentence, the people in an instance only need enough HP in order to survive. Healers won't be constantly healing.

We don't have constant incoming damage in this game, there is no need to be constantly healing. Healers need to heal what can't be avoided, or to assist with mistakes.

I have no idea where the "healing is not for you" comment comes from, I have no idea what jobs you play, but it isn't at all unusual for heals to heal and do damage in games, to various degrees depending upon the context.

I really don't understand why it's the healer role that continues to be subjected to a very blunt and literal interpretation of what the role is "supposed" to do when the DPS and Tank roles are not subjected to this in any way. Why are there people who say that healers should only heal when there are no people saying that DPS should only deal damage, or tanks that should only manage aggro and mitigate? I totally understand that there are healer players who may not want a very aggressive playstyle, but I imagine the majority of that group would not just be restoring HP--that they'd also want to be mitigating damage, providing buffs, offering utility and crowd control, and have all that take the place of damage, but not just be HP batteries.

FFXIII showed how you could have a tank role that never attacks, or only deals damage through counterattack. Where are all the extremist tank players clamoring for that?

[Allegor]

I really don't understand why it's the healer role that continues to be subjected to a very blunt and literal interpretation of what the role is "supposed" to do when the DPS and Tank roles are not subjected to this in any way. Why are there people who say that healers should only heal when there are no people saying that DPS should only deal damage, or tanks that should only manage aggro and mitigate? I totally understand that there are healer players who may not want a very aggressive playstyle, but I imagine the majority of that group would not just be restoring HP--that they'd also want to be mitigating damage, providing buffs, offering utility and crowd control, and have all that take the place of damage, but not just be HP batteries.

FFXIII showed how you could have a tank role that never attacks, or only deals damage through counterattack. Where are all the extremist tank players clamoring for that?

When you see a very slow interruptable spell being cast (the chimeras at the very start of WoD say hi) but you're just a healer...

[ty_taurus]

When you see a very slow interruptable spell being cast (the chimeras at the very start of WoD say hi) but you're just a healer...

It's a shame that healers are stuck with Repose, a near-useless form of crowd control that barely even works in environments where Sleep would be useful (I find most enemies are immune to Repose while soloing HoH as SGE) not to mention it is blatantly inferior to the caster's Sleep which is AoE. I love the concept of sleep as a debuff, but it's not at all given value in this game.

I would really love if interrupt were a thing that was regularly useful and not just reserved for the fringiest of cases, and then to offer healers a silence. I don't really want to add buttons for mechanics that the devs seem to forget exist, but it is quite a bizarre experience seeing an incoming attack and not being able to do a thing about it when that's otherwise the only thing healers are really doing other than atomizing their filler DPS button. Also, having the ability to dispel buffs is something that feels like it should've been a day 1 healer mechanic.

[Tint]

When you see a very slow interruptable spell being cast (the chimeras at the very start of WoD say hi) but you're just a healer...

Swiftcast Holy

[Connor]

How did I managed to post in the wrong thread. Who am I? Where am I?

[Connor]

[now irrelevant)

[Allegor]

It's a shame that healers are stuck with Repose, a near-useless form of crowd control that barely even works in environments where Sleep would be useful (I find most enemies are immune to Repose while soloing HoH as SGE) not to mention it is blatantly inferior to the caster's Sleep which is AoE. I love the concept of sleep as a debuff, but it's not at all given value in this game.

I would really love if interrupt were a thing that was regularly useful and not just reserved for the fringiest of cases, and then to offer healers a silence. I don't really want to add buttons for mechanics that the devs seem to forget exist, but it is quite a bizarre experience seeing an incoming attack and not being able to do a thing about it when that's otherwise the only thing healers are really doing other than atomizing their filler DPS button. Also, having the ability to dispel buffs is something that feels like it should've been a day 1 healer mechanic.

A lot more dispellable debuffs/bleeds and interrupts would be nice to break monotony more often. I'm sure the reason people don't ever even use Esuna/Interject is because A- they're so few and far between that most even forget they can counter those effects, and B- an aoe regen will be enough to cheese through it.
I recall someone in the healer forum suggesting the Cure I variants be fused with Esuna and honestly that idea lives rent free in my head since.

[ty_taurus]

A lot more dispellable debuffs/bleeds and interrupts would be nice to break monotony more often. I'm sure the reason people don't ever even use Esuna/Interject is because A- they're so few and far between that most even forget they can counter those effects, and B- an aoe regen will be enough to cheese through it.
I recall someone in the healer forum suggesting the Cure I variants be fused with Esuna and honestly that idea lives rent free in my head since.

I also think cleansable debuffs are poorly communicated. The little cyan bar above icons is too small and too out of sight that, given how infrequently they occur, it's too easy to forget that Esuna is a thing or to pay attention to debuffs like that. I think the UI needs a major update on debuffs as well as dispelable buffs. FFXIV already pulls UI aspects from FFXII, which is something I've brought up before as being a great source of inspiration for updating the debuff UI.




As you can see, the icon overlays atop the character's HP bar, and an icon appears near their overhead HP bar. The name of the debuff also appears as flying text overtop the active character, which you can see is fading in the first image. The part where the debuff icon and name overlay the party list HP bar flickers slowly rather than sits over the HP bar perpetually, and if the character has multiple debuffs, it will cycle through them. This is only done for debuffs in FFXII (and Lure for some reason, which is essentially a 'tank stance' buff). If this were exclusively done for buffs that can be Esuna'd away, it would drastically increase the visibility of these aspects and make it easier to work into more challenging content.

Here's also a video link to see how the debuff examples work in FFXII for further reference. The boss has a "bad breath" type attack that applies a bunch of debuffs to everyone hit.

Something else from XII that I just now realized would be incredibly helpful is, anyone being targeted by abilities has their name change to pink. It would be really cool if a character's name changed color when they're at the top of the threat chart, or when they're being targeted by certain mechanics, like double healer stack markers.

[Deceptus]

When you see a very slow interruptable spell being cast (the chimeras at the very start of WoD say hi) but you're just a healer...

The amount of times I've seen people die to:

1) A mob turning around to a DPS charging up it's massive laser attack
2) A mob holding a single had up with a massive glowing orb

etc etc

Is to damn high.

A lot more dispellable debuffs/bleeds and interrupts would be nice to break monotony more often. I'm sure the reason people don't ever even use Esuna/Interject is because A- they're so few and far between that most even forget they can counter those effects, and B- an aoe regen will be enough to cheese through it.
I recall someone in the healer forum suggesting the Cure I variants be fused with Esuna and honestly that idea lives rent free in my head since.

Similar with Surecast too. I love to use it on knockbacks to not move, but you're never 100% sure if it's going to work on the knockback because CBU3 has made it work on some but not others.