A summary of healer issues

[ForsakenRoe]

Should note, since WOW's UI was brought up (and how people used addons to help track DOTs), the DF rework to the UI helps track your DOTs a lot better. They appear on the 'nameplate' for each enemy that you're fighting, and as of god knows which expansion at this point, they have what is known as the 'pandemic window', named after Pandemic, an Aff Lock skill. Basically, you can refresh a DOT early and it'll add the remaining duration to the refresh, up to a maximum of 1/3 of the original duration (so a 30s DOT can be refreshed at up to 10s early, and it'd go up to 40s), allowing some flexibility in when to refresh the DOTs (ie, if you need to move 6s before the DOTs fall off, you can use the DOT refresh as your mobility casts)

If there's a plugin that allows FF14 players to have their DOTs appear on the emnity tracker list thingy, as I tried to show in that pic, then I hope SE implements something similar soon. Since, y'know, they seem to be adding a lot of plugin-made solutions for things that were previously described as being 'impossible'. Like 'have I obtained this orch roll yet' details in the tooltip. Or damage types for flying text when you get hit. Or timers appearing on the party list so you can track debuffs (imagine trying to do P10S daemoniac bonds if you can't tell whether it's Role>Spread or Spread>Role). Be nice if they could add chat bubbles hint hint

[Shurrikhan]

Should note, since WOW's UI was brought up (and how people used addons to help track DOTs), the DF rework to the UI helps track your DOTs a lot better. They appear on the 'nameplate' for each enemy that you're fighting, and as of god knows which expansion at this point, they have what is known as the 'pandemic window', named after Pandemic, an Aff Lock skill. Basically, you can refresh a DOT early and it'll add the remaining duration to the refresh, up to a maximum of 1/3 of the original duration (so a 30s DOT can be refreshed at up to 10s early, and it'd go up to 40s), allowing some flexibility in when to refresh the DOTs (ie, if you need to move 6s before the DOTs fall off, you can use the DOT refresh as your mobility casts)

I think that was added back in... jeesh, MoP?

(What's especially funny is it wasn't even the first gamewide fix that was originally a Warlock talent/trait by that name. DoTs originally couldn't crit without the Warlock talent called Pandemic.)

On that note...

Personally, I'd prefer a hybrid function (flat + smaller percentile) or 3/4-power function, or maybe even a flat ~4 seconds, over a fixed percentage as high as 30%, as the last can remove the advantage of SkS at many GCD thresholds* rather than merely fixing the bottleneck hurting SkS at other thresholds.

* Consider: that's up to 18 seconds [9 SAM GCDs] of leeway on Higanbana, 9 seconds [4 GCDs] on Dia. That seems excessive.

If the object of the duration-rollover mechanic is to allow for a greater number of GCD speeds and to less constrain what rotational nuance might otherwise exist, then our goal should be shifting but exploitable play: E.g., the speeds at which one would be forced to clip Demolish significantly early or else potentially lose more than one DoT tick (e.g., drop Demolish for any length of time greater than 3.0 seconds) should allow for just enough pandemic to then fit in an extra Snap Punch per Demolish in the next rotational string.

The only 18s rotational DoT, for instance, is on Monk, who has a maximum of a 2s GCD.

The next bound rotational DoT is DRG's 24s, where if SkS just weren't so terrible, one might likely run a 2.4 GCD in order to do 5 combo cycles per raid cycle, rather than 4.8 cycles (causing drift) and to apply CT every 10th GCD instead of per every 10.42 GCDs' time.

And our final common DoT is the healers' 30s, every 12th GCD.

With the only remainder then being Bard's 45s, every 18th GCD, and SAM's Higanbana, starting at a frequency equal to 27.59 GCDs, but which many may SkS to per 27 (a 2.22s GCD), and SkS addicts stretching as far as per-30 GCDs (a 2.00s GCD).

The most key among these, for the simple fact that they're bundled rather than free DoTs (outside of PB on Monk), are going to be the MNK [1 in 9], DRG [1 in 10], and SAM [1 in 27-30] DoTs...

How can we simultaneously get the MNK DoT to be capable of less constrained rotation without giving the SAM far too much leeway? For now, DRG would never run a short-Heavens rotation due to the ppgcd of the 4th|5th GCDs of each combo being so high now (especially compared to HW or early SB), but that then begs the question... could pandemic ever actually benefit them, since you'd progressively just overcap the Chaos Thrust for, at most, fewer dropped DoT ticks over a long boss transition?

Hmm... Will have to do a fair bit of spreadsheeting. Darn.

[Renathras]

...

I've never held the position of "despise rotating in actions other than your filler attack". That's been a caricature used incessantly to discredit everything I say, but is just a made up straw man. It's so easy to disprove, too, considering how many times I've proposed SGE have a rotation just like MCH. Which I've done a lot. If my position was "I don't ever want to press a second button", I wouldn't propose a 1-2-3 +something rotation.

Not sure what you mean by "just a roundabout excuse", as it's never a position I've held.

I don't believe the focus of Healers should be DPS rotations or complex DPS rotations, but I don't have an opposition to having other buttons to press that do damage. I've not advocated for Assize or Misery to be removed, for example, and even on WHM, my own proposals have been to get Holy into the single-target rotation. Again, why would I do that if I was opposed to ever pressing another button?

If people didn't believe in these random lies that I've never said as if they were gospel truth, we'd get a lot farther in these conversations.

[Akava]

I have a lot of issues with healers as they are today but the biggest issue to me personally is the new Regen Healer & Shield Healer design. We added a healer in EW yet it feels more restrictive.

Before EW, I was willing to play WHM or AST and that covered any possible healing combo. Now, if my healing partner is a WHM or AST, I'm out of luck, so I've been forced to add SGE even though my interest in the job is minimal. It would be unfair for me to say that in the past things were perfectly balanced, most people didn't want to run a WHM and a nocturnal AST but it was possible and I wish it was something they continued to work on.

They were going to try this approach with tanks (PLD & DRK would be MTs and WAR/GNB would be OT iirc) but the community voiced their distaste for the idea and the devs changed course. They took that concept and applied it to healers instead and I don't understand why.

On a related note, I really do hate how shield healers can step on each other's toes while regen healers see no issues working together.

[ForsakenRoe]

On a related note, I really do hate how shield healers can step on each other's toes while regen healers see no issues working together.

The issue with shield healers is that you can overwrite each other's shields. The issue with regen healers is that you lack so much mitigation between you, you cannot actually clear some savage fights until you outgear the hell out of them. I think it's a fundamental flaw, that two jobs in the game cannot clear content together because of a design choice, especially considering the other two CAN clear content together, and with coordination can often be a better choice than 1 pure/1 shield. It'd be like if PLD and GNB couldn't clear fights because their invulns are too long to deal with the fight's design. Oh, but WAR DRK CAN work together, along with any other comp that isn't PLD GNB.

[Absurdity]

The issue with regen healers is that you lack so much mitigation between you, you cannot actually clear some savage fights until you outgear the hell out of them. I think it's a fundamental flaw, that two jobs in the game cannot clear content together because of a design choice, especially considering the other two CAN clear content together, and with coordination can often be a better choice than 1 pure/1 shield.

This leads back to the fundamental design flaw of CBU3's endgame encounter design, that they're all just fights that require strong mitigation and not consistently strong healing output.

But also a general imbalance between mitigation/shields and pure healing, mitigation/shields are always useful even if the attack wouldn't have oneshot everyone. The same however can't be said for healing, if the mechanic flat out kills your party then no amount of healing afterwards can fix that.

[Banriikku]

A thought i had while testing Overwatch 2.... FFXIV Healer feel like healer but the encounter design feels like a Supporter is needed NOT a healer.

[Post]

Adding to that mitigation imbalance, increasing the range of all oGCD mitigation and healing tools to account for the increased sizes of hitboxes or increased demand on movement or spreading requirements puts an even heavier imbalance on against direct healing, as those same tools that generally require a healer to be stationary have a smaller range than even non-healer cooldowns now.

I think range as a dimension of gameplay to consider is currently being eroded much like MP economy, enmity, dispelling, applying status effects shielding for prey, positionals etc.

Hopefully they have something equally or more engaging to take it's place, or else it may feel like there's less to consider at every level of gameplay.

[Shurrikhan]

A thought i had while testing Overwatch 2.... FFXIV Healer feel like healer but the encounter design feels like a Supporter is needed NOT a healer.

Except that XIV also lacks sufficient gamewide (e.g., via shared undermechanical) depth / nuance / complexity for a Support here to do a fifth of what all it manages there...

But if you bring up adding that depth as to support more interesting kit and a role that isn't so inherently quick to become redundant and they'll point at the current repetitive kits and say "For what purpose?" leaving those kits with nothing to source them and game mechanics with nothing to leverage, or worse, further their downward reductive spiral.

[Renathras]

A thought i had while testing Overwatch 2.... FFXIV Healer feel like healer but the encounter design feels like a Supporter is needed NOT a healer.

Sort of, that's 2/3rds of the problem.

The other 1/3rd is that FFXIV's combat system is so rigid, there's not room for a Support either. And I mean this in two ways - there's not room for a Support ROLE and also there's not room for a Support playstyle.

In games with dedicated Support/Control roles, they tend to have a lot of things they can manage. Adds are serious threats, so crowd control is the order of the day, either pacifying enemies or mind-controlling them. Resources (MP, TP, Energy, Rage) are tightly managed, so classes with refresh are welcome. Rotations aren't rigidly optimized, so things like Haste are a boon rather than a headache. Snares/slows, stuns, sleeps, polymorphs; all valued additions. And in many games, teleports and summons (of other players to content) are also welcome, as are making food/water, and wipe recovery, especially in games with stiff death penalties and long walks back to the zone-in for the raid (or even dungeons) from the nearest graveyard.

FFXIV has literally none of that other than HAVING MP at all, but MP management isn't a thing any Job does seriously other than BLM, and in BLM's case, it's part of the rotation and the crux of the Job's design in the first place.

So the problem is three parts:

1) FFXIV Healer Jobs are designed to be, and feel like, Healers.
2) FFXIV encounter design seems to be based on having DPS and Support (even many mechanics are executed this way), not DPS, Healers, and (often) Tanks.
3) ...but FFXIV's rigid combat system doesn't really even allow for Support, it just allows for "things that are worse at DPS" but required (sometimes) by some encounter specific mechanic.

(1) isn't inherently a problem, but for the fact (2) exists; but (2) is also its own problem because of (3).