Healer Survey:

[ty_taurus]

They can be found here++



I'll give a +1 on the meaningful support abilities as well. Go back some years and we used to be able to do stuff like Esuna Warrior's pacification penalty. I really do miss quirks like that. Shielding to protect against debuffs and vulnerabilities even used to be a key mechanic that saw use in Coil (gogo prey), surely that's something worth exploring again now that all healers have some means to single target barrier.

Esuna could very easily become a more prominent mechanic if they just updated the UI on debuffs to be very visible and easier for anyone to notice. I've brought up the FFXII example many times before, but something like this would instantly make Esuna debuffs clear and identifiable to any player:



Esuna is tricky though, because some debuffs aren't worth using Esuna on while others must be Esuna'd, like Doom, but there are things that you could do to make it more interesting and more of a decision healers need to make. For example, if all instances of Doom can either be Esuna'd or removed by healing someone to 100%, you have 2 routes to clearing the problem. Healing it off with OGCDs is the better solution, but might not be as easy in certain scenarios. And if you're dry on resources and need to spam something like Medica/Emergency Tactics Succor to remove it, Esuna now becomes a better alternative potentially.

Or if we look at other debuffs... Heavy for example doesn't need to be removed, but if it's applied during mechanics that aren't impossible to do while heavy but are otherwise more challenging, you have a decision to make, including potentially using Rescue instead of casting Esuna. Paralysis as well isn't always a detriment to physical jobs, though is very helpful to remove off casters, particularly BLM.

EDIT: This also means that Esuna utility on other roles can be actually helpful and another way to help diversify other roles. Bard being able to remove debuffs for the healers can give them a niche that goes beyond raw damage over Dancer and Machinist, but you'd also want for Dancer and Machinist to also have other advantages that Bard does not have where each of them can thrive.

[Sebazy]

That's a good suggestion for the party bar, I like it++

Esuna is tricky though, because some debuffs aren't worth using Esuna on while others must be Esuna'd, like Doom

This is a bigger issue than SE realise IMO. A new player will go through the game generally seeing cleansable debuffs that aren't worth the GCD to Esuna for the most part, but every now and again we'll get a Throttle or Doom. Your hud element would go a long way to make it more apparent how important something is to cleanse, but I also think SE should pull their belts up and experiment with making poisons/bleeds actually worthwhile to cleanse as well. The majority of them aren't much more than our standing regen. And don't get me started on paralyse, if there's one thing that got neutered harder than SCH's damage kit, it's Paralysis debuffs =(

[ty_taurus]

That's a good suggestion for the party bar, I like it++



This is a bigger issue than SE realise IMO. A new player will go through the game generally seeing cleansable debuffs that aren't worth the GCD to Esuna for the most part, but every now and again we'll get a Throttle or Doom. Your hud element would go a long way to make it more apparent how important something is to cleanse, but I also think SE should pull their belts up and experiment with making poisons/bleeds actually worthwhile to cleanse as well. The majority of them aren't much more than our standing regen. And don't get me started on paralyse, if there's one thing that got neutered harder than SCH's damage kit, it's Paralysis debuffs =(

If you've not played FFXII, that icon flickers slowly and cycles through each debuff on your party members. You also see an icon near the health bar above their head, and the name of the debuff pops up on the character who receives it when its applied, not to mention most debuffs have a visual effect on your character. Poison turns you purple, slow turns your character's shadow red, oil turns your character mostly ink black, etc. Some combination of these elements could also go a long way at communicating what can be Esuna'd vs what can't, like a Vuln up.

As for Paralysis, I always Esuna it off BLM first, as well as SAM, SMN, and RDM since it can interrupt cast times, and for BLM that can be devastating potentially since it ruins your rotation timing, and with their long cast times, it's very likely to occur. Other jobs, I don't always remove it because it's not really a problem for MNK or DNC. It can techncially interrupt them but it isn't likely too and they have mobility to get out of AoEs. But it depends on the situation. If it's a single target Paralysis, then usually I'll do it regardless, but if the party is paralyzed, like in Puppet's Bunker, by the time I get to other jobs, it's probably not worth casting Esuna since the timer will be running out anyway.

[ty_taurus]

Since we have a lot more submissions, I'll also share the percentages we have right now for the healers on what people want to see added and what people want to see less of.

WHM

What do you want to see more of?
Healing actions: 8.8%
Attacking actions: 81.3%
Utility/mitigation: 63.7%
Offensive support: 45%
Mobility actions: 35%
Other: 10.4% - (Combination of Aero 3, Fluid Aura, Lily interactivity, Seraph Strike, Cleric Stance, and also "An entire new gauge"?)

What do you want to see less of?
GCD healing: 39.7%
OGCD healing: 26.9%
Attacking actions: 1.3%
Utility/mitigation: 2.6%
Offensive support: 2.6%
Nothing needs removing: 38.5%
Other: 7.8% (Most of this is Cure 1/Freecure stuff, and also 1 call for removing Tetragrammaton in exchange for buffing lilies)

SCH

What do you want to see more of?
Healing actions: 8%
Attacking actions: 84.1%
Utility/mitigation: 37.5%
Offensive support: 52.3%
Mobility actions: 18.2%
Other: 17.6% (Mostly things about the faeries and the gauges)

What do you want to see less of?
GCD healing: 9.2%
OGCD healing: 44.8%
Attacking actions: 6.9%
Utility/mitigation: 5.7%
Offensive support: 8%
Nothing needs removing: 32.2%
Other: 16.5% (References to bloat, dissipation, energy drain, faeries... generally comments on condensing)

AST

What do you want to see more of?
Healing actions: 3.9%
Attacking actions: 68.4%
Utility/mitigation: 52.6%
Offensive support: 51.3%
Mobility actions: 38.2%
Other: 22.1% (Time magic, better card tools, and nocturnal sect pretty much)

What do you want to see less of?
GCD healing: 20%
OGCD healing: 50.7%
Attacking actions: 4%
Utility/mitigation: 8%
Offensive support:6.7%
Nothing needs removing: 22.7%
Other: 26% (Bloat, astrodyne, minor arcana, enhanced benefic, card bloat)

SGE

What do you want to see more of?
Healing actions: 11.9%
Attacking actions: 83.1%
Utility/mitigation: 32.2%
Offensive support: 49.2%
Mobility actions: 28.8%
Other: 15.3% (Kardia interactions, toxikon buffs, MP management, more DPS and healing interactions)

What do you want to see less of?
GCD healing: 7%
OGCD healing: 43.9%
Attacking actions: 5.3%
Utility/mitigation: 17.5%
Offensive support: 3.5%
Nothing needs removing: 43.9%
Other: 7.2% (Condense actions, single-target healing, HoTs)

These results are also now slightly inaccurate cause more results came in while I was writing this, and it would still be prudent to get at least 100 submissions for more accurate info, but this is what things are looking like at this time.

[RyuDragnier]

If you've not played FFXII, that icon flickers slowly and cycles through each debuff on your party members. You also see an icon near the health bar above their head, and the name of the debuff pops up on the character who receives it when its applied, not to mention most debuffs have a visual effect on your character. Poison turns you purple, slow turns your character's shadow red, oil turns your character mostly ink black, etc. Some combination of these elements could also go a long way at communicating what can be Esuna'd vs what can't, like a Vuln up.

As for Paralysis, I always Esuna it off BLM first, as well as SAM, SMN, and RDM since it can interrupt cast times, and for BLM that can be devastating potentially since it ruins your rotation timing, and with their long cast times, it's very likely to occur. Other jobs, I don't always remove it because it's not really a problem for MNK or DNC. It can techncially interrupt them but it isn't likely too and they have mobility to get out of AoEs. But it depends on the situation. If it's a single target Paralysis, then usually I'll do it regardless, but if the party is paralyzed, like in Puppet's Bunker, by the time I get to other jobs, it's probably not worth casting Esuna since the timer will be running out anyway.

I feel like they should make Paralysis something you WANT removed quickly. Like making it so it has a 50% chance of interrupting your attacks, so it's a hindrance to everyone. This would encourage not only using Esuna quickly to remove it, but incentivizing people doing the mechanics to avoid it, as it's that much of a hindrance now. Slow is definitely something you want removed because of how bad it is, but I feel like every status ailment should pose a terrifying threat in its own right. Silence and Pacification are already 2 status effects that people dread getting hit with, why not make them all dreadful?

[ty_taurus]

I feel like they should make Paralysis something you WANT removed quickly. Like making it so it has a 50% chance of interrupting your attacks, so it's a hindrance to everyone. This would encourage not only using Esuna quickly to remove it, but incentivizing people doing the mechanics to avoid it, as it's that much of a hindrance now. Slow is definitely something you want removed because of how bad it is, but I feel like every status ailment should pose a terrifying threat in its own right. Silence and Pacification are already 2 status effects that people dread getting hit with, why not make them all dreadful?

The part about that which I think is troublesome is we have raidwide paralysis cases (though extremely rare), and it's not exactly a fun experience just casting Esuna 8 times. Perhaps if we expand upon debuff cleansing as a form of utilty though, that could be better. But the issue is if it's that dreadful, then it becomes a mandetory Esuna rather than a choice or a decision that needs to be made. The worse it is, the sooner you want to remove it as well, so it can feel quite binary in that regard. The best cases are situations where you need to decide how to approach a problem, such as Rescuing a heavied ally rather than Esunaing the heavy off them.

Or perhaps you include things like Warden's Paean that prevent debuffs, so timing an effect like that before you see a debuff coming could also play into more interesting decision making.

[ASkellington]

The part about that which I think is troublesome is we have raidwide paralysis cases (though extremely rare), and it's not exactly a fun experience just casting Esuna 8 times. Perhaps if we expand upon debuff cleansing as a form of utilty though, that could be better. But the issue is if it's that dreadful, then it becomes a mandetory Esuna rather than a choice or a decision that needs to be made. The worse it is, the sooner you want to remove it as well, so it can feel quite binary in that regard. The best cases are situations where you need to decide how to approach a problem, such as Rescuing a heavied ally rather than Esunaing the heavy off them.

Or perhaps you include things like Warden's Paean that prevent debuffs, so timing an effect like that before you see a debuff coming could also play into more interesting decision making.

There's also the issue of not being able to target the debuff you want. Don't even need to go to the extremes with Bad Breath. Deep dungeons usually combine Silence with Pacification. As a mage, you'd want Silence gone. But Esuna picks whichever one at random. If we want to make removing debuffs to have some decision making, that may be another thing we need to address.

[ForsakenRoe]

The part about that which I think is troublesome is we have raidwide paralysis cases (though extremely rare), and it's not exactly a fun experience just casting Esuna 8 times. Perhaps if we expand upon debuff cleansing as a form of utilty though, that could be better. But the issue is if it's that dreadful, then it becomes a mandetory Esuna rather than a choice or a decision that needs to be made. The worse it is, the sooner you want to remove it as well, so it can feel quite binary in that regard. The best cases are situations where you need to decide how to approach a problem, such as Rescuing a heavied ally rather than Esunaing the heavy off them.

Or perhaps you include things like Warden's Paean that prevent debuffs, so timing an effect like that before you see a debuff coming could also play into more interesting decision making.

Could have Esuna upgrade at some point to uhh, is it called Astra? The one that works like Warden's, where it blocks the next debuff that should apply. Then yeh, you could coat the raid in them and ignore Throttle as a mechanic I guess, but you're still spending GCDs to do so. And since Throttle only hits 6/8, you're spending 2 GCDs on people that won't even get debuffs, which is a damage loss and that is criminal behavior (apparently). Alternatively, make the upgrade to Astra be WHM specific so it has that as an advantage over AST, and watch as nobody gives a damn because it's not something that increases rDPS

[ty_taurus]

Could have Esuna upgrade at some point to uhh, is it called Astra? The one that works like Warden's, where it blocks the next debuff that should apply. Then yeh, you could coat the raid in them and ignore Throttle as a mechanic I guess, but you're still spending GCDs to do so. And since Throttle only hits 6/8, you're spending 2 GCDs on people that won't even get debuffs, which is a damage loss and that is criminal behavior (apparently). Alternatively, make the upgrade to Astra be WHM specific so it has that as an advantage over AST, and watch as nobody gives a damn because it's not something that increases rDPS

No, I don't think just having it be an upgrade changes anything. I'm talking more like Warden's where it's OGCD, or it has to come with some sort of resource element to it, for example, a lily spell that prevents a debuff and nourishes the blood lily, an option that Selene provides but Eos doesn't, a card effect on AST, and an alternative DPS spell that prevents debuffs on your Kardia target at a higher MP cost for SGE, or something to those effects. But those are also examples that really require you dive head-first into debuff mechanics in order to justify the additional hotbar space.

Even if healers only have Esuna, if we do have more instances of debuffs being important, it does also open the door for non-healer jobs to have another avenue of utility to set them apart from their alternatives rather than everything being about flat damage.

[Rilifane]

That's a good suggestion for the party bar, I like it++



This is a bigger issue than SE realise IMO. A new player will go through the game generally seeing cleansable debuffs that aren't worth the GCD to Esuna for the most part, but every now and again we'll get a Throttle or Doom. Your hud element would go a long way to make it more apparent how important something is to cleanse, but I also think SE should pull their belts up and experiment with making poisons/bleeds actually worthwhile to cleanse as well. The majority of them aren't much more than our standing regen. And don't get me started on paralyse, if there's one thing that got neutered harder than SCH's damage kit, it's Paralysis debuffs =(

Honestly, the entire party frame is a cluttered mess of unimportant but emphasized information and vital information getting de-emphasized for whatever reason.
The grouping is terrible, the vertical and horizontal eye movement is far too high and unintuitive, the contrast between elements but also background and elements is terrible and especially for people with some form of impaired vision it's just horrible.

I'd be all for placing more importance on cleansing but they really, really need to step up their game with the party frames. Much older games, single player and MMOs alike, did a lot better job with grouping, proper emphasis, customization and accessibility options. And the design of the debuff/ buff bar on the party is one of the major offenders here.