I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[Kacho_Nacho]

2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1

THIS is the main problem of healers, yes, the healing kit could be far more interesting and less generic, yes, the content could require more healing but even with that you can't reward the mastery of the the healing with a 2 button spam, especially when even if the new content required healing the remaining of the game does not require that amount of healing.

If you are using healing spell, you're not hitting a damage button. So, there is no spamming going on. If there was something else you could cast which would help the party's performance, you wouldn't be hitting a damage button, So, again, no spamming is going on. The only time spamming 2111 etc... would happen is when you had nothing to do except deal damage. So, the big issue isn't the damage kit, it's the healing kit and the content.

People say they want more healing but the reality is that the majority of those who ask for it (and the playerbase) wouldn't be able to handle the healing required to justify those tools, because not even savage justify the tools we have now, and most healers can't handle it. That's why the solution lies in the dps kit, because it's the easier one to execute and the one that most players would be able to handle.

I disbelieve this. I feel most people drawn to being a healer would rise to the challenge.

Sure, there will be some who won't; but, it'll be silly to make healers into primarily damage dealers with a side of healing abilities. Healers shouldn't be like Blue Mages.

Players who want to be healers know what they are getting into. It's just like players who want to be tanks know what their role entails and damage dealers know what their role is. It's not like a healer is going to be surprised that they have to heal in a duty.

[Maltothoris]

I disbelieve this. I feel most people drawn to being a healer would rise to the challenge.

You said this but we got stuff like this. Have to edit since it exceeds the 1000 limit.

Q2: For this Savage, there seems to be a serious lack of healer participation going on. My question here to you is: Are you aware of the reason and is there something you will reflect on, and if any are there plans to address this issue (that is within the means and intention of the dev team), and if there is, may I know the plan to address the issue?

YoshiP: (Super long paused followed by a long "hmmm") Things to reflect on......things to reflect on? Well for one I did read something written on Matome (Summary) sites, something about "Green river"※......Hmmmm? (another long pause) ...n...nothing much I can say about that... But we also experience situations where there is a serious lack of tank participation and this seems to depend on the timing and situation...(another long pause) If I have to make a comment about it, I think the reason would be because it's a high difficulty content, and there are other factors which contributed to this issue....well, this is hard to answer...I mean there's also the request we got from players that asks us to create more situations that require healers to heal, and among other things that is asked of us...(another long pause) So in this case, due to certain circumstances and certain "wall" which caused deviations (biases?) to occur, and this is definitely a thing after operating this game for a long while, but as for the state of healers right now, I think it's just an extremely......I mean this simply is due to the healer population in general as well as the population of raiders participating in this tier...but if I have to say anything on this matter what I am able to say at this point is "please give healers a try", and that's what I want to convey, since this is a game where you are allowed to handle multiple roles, and when you try playing a completely different role you'll definitely find something interesting through that experience....hmmm...well we will need to observe the situation a little more...yeah.

※ - A meme referring to "Healer slots being so open and available in PF due to so little healers willing to join recruitment". There's also a DPS equivalent of such meme, called "Red River", where the excessive amount of DPS slots open for Ranged role (PFs usually are full of melees and casters, but not so much on ranged, which created the perception of ranged being undesirable). The "Red River" meme usually applies to PFs with practice parties as their objective.i

and then the follow up question

Q7: This is a question regarding the fourth floor of Savage (P8S), the Savage content, which includes the DPS check required, is definitely a challenging content, the healing check for the second half of this battle was really tight and compared to Dragonsong Reprise (DSR), I feel that there are certain parts in the second half of the battle contains healing check that is required which is comparable to what Ultimate would require, personally I welcome the increase in healing intensity but it causes the parties to be lack of healers when it comes to PF recruitment (be it progging or weekly clears) so I wonder what is your thoughts and opinion on the matter?

YoshiP: Ok I mean this happened before, but if I give an answer to one question, it won't work on the other one (for some reason). Right, we are told that (healers) are free, which is why healers tend to focus on firepower instead, and we should give healers more situations where they need to heal, and we increased the healing work required... I mean for the entire expansion and we did it but as expected this happens....so what are we supposed to do now hahaha...oh god if any I should be the one trying to discuss with you guys here. Aaaaaaahhh I mean yeah I knew this will definitely happen (long sigh). I mean I thought we've achieved quite a good balance here....(long ponder), Well yeah I mean if I have to start decreasing the difficulty and I'll get comments saying it's too lax (laughs). Well I will need data...either way we did indeed increase the intensity for sure, although this was the balance that was asked of us......I mean this is personal disparity, yeah, there are healers who are completely fine with this tuning, and there are other healers who would go "this is too hard I can't do this".

Yeah I apologize but please allow us to continue ponder on this matter and find out what is best and this is what we can do for now.

[WaxSw]

If you are using healing spell, you're not hitting a damage button. So, there is no spamming going on. If there was something else you could cast which would help the party's performance, you wouldn't be hitting a damage button, So, again, no spamming is going on. The only time spamming 2111 etc... would happen is when you had nothing to do except deal damage. So, the big issue isn't the damage kit, it's the healing kit and the content.

You could have the most interesting healing kit of the history of gaming, if the content is designed in a way that does not push it it will be useless because healing has a usefulness cap, and the game is not precisely lacking of content that does not push not even the current healing kit (like msq or normal content). On top of that due to healing being something with a usefulness cap (because if the enemy is going to deal 10k damage its useless to heal 20k instead of those 10K) the more the gameplay evolves and players optimize the more present the 2-1-1-1-1 rotation is making the job more dull the better the player is when the opposite is what should happen.

This is leaving outside factors like how the encounters are scripted which makes this optimization (and the subsequent abundancy of moments spamming 2-1-1-1-1-1) even more present.

I disbelieve this. I feel most people drawn to being a healer would rise to the challenge.

You can disbelieve it as much as you want but look at what happened the previous tier, the healing requirements increased drastically and a lot of healers simply left because they coudnt handle them (among other factors), no only that but if you go to the forbidden raiding website you'll see how the majority that ask for more healing have never faired well/entered in content that required that healing they ask for.

Sure, there will be some who won't; but, it'll be silly to make healers into primarily damage dealers with a side of healing abilities. Healers shouldn't be like Blue Mages.

No one is saying they should be primarily damage dealer, that's the strawman that those who dont want to engage in an actual useful discussion throw around. We ask for a better rotation, that does not mean we are damage dealers, look at healers in the past of the game and they were not only healers but also capable manage much more damage actions. There is a wide margin between dps rotation and the current 2 button rotation, we ask something closer to the middle not something all the way up to dps.

It's not like a healer is going to be surprised that they have to heal in a duty.

See the paragraph about EW 2nd savage tier, one thing is that they know that they may have to heal, another very different is if they can handle that healing

[Kacho_Nacho]

You could have the most interesting healing kit of the history of gaming, if the content is designed in a way that does not push it it will be useless because healing has a usefulness cap, and the game is not precisely lacking of content that does not push not even the current healing kit (like msq or normal content). On top of that due to healing being something with a usefulness cap (because if the enemy is going to deal 10k damage it's useless to heal 20k instead of those 10K) the more the gameplay evolves and players optimize the more present the 2-1-1-1-1 rotation is making the job more dull the better the player is when the opposite is what should happen.

This is leaving outside factors like how the encounters are scripted which makes this optimization (and the subsequent abundance of moments spamming 2-1-1-1-1-1) even more present.

You are talking about the healer paradox. Simply put, the better the party plays, the less healers are needed. This is true in all MMOs, at least the ones I've played.

While I'm not denying the current situation is boring, I feel the answer is to make changes to the healing kit, such as giving healers the buff/debuff abilities which damage dealers have currently. One idea I've seen bantered around is having heal spells restore a percentage of health, instead of having potencies. Perhaps, that'll address the issue of having healing spells being too powerful for the content.

As for the damage kit, it could be expanded somewhat. But, my concern is S.E. will not provide us with challenging content. That would result in healers using their damage spells most of the time. They'd be like blue mages rather than healing classes. That's why I lean toward the idea of changing the healing toolkit to make healing fun again; rather than, adding a more involved damage rotation.

You can disbelieve it as much as you want but look at what happened the previous tier, the healing requirements increased drastically and a lot of healers simply left because they couldn't handle them (among other factors), no only that but if you go to the forbidden raiding website you'll see how the majority that ask for more healing have never faired well/entered in content that required that healing they ask for.

I believe two facts can be concluded from that circumstance. Bad healers will be bad and many of healers of the previous tier had become complacent because nothing prepared them for the previous difficulty. This is a tuning problem on the part of Square Enix and has nothing to do with the actual abilities those healers had at their disposal, healing or damage spells.

No one is saying they should be primarily damage dealer, that's the strawman that those who don't want to engage in an actual useful discussion throw around. We ask for a better rotation, that does not mean we are damage dealers, look at healers in the past of the game and they were not only healers but also capable manage much more damage actions. There is a wide margin between dps rotation and the current 2 button rotation, we ask something closer to the middle not something all the way up to dps.

Actually, that is what people are saying. Asking for a complex damage rotation is pushing healers further into the role of green dps, especially when players are saying they have nothing to do but spam two damage buttons. If you are a class primarily pushing damage buttons, what are you? It doesn't matter how many healing abilities you have on your toolbar, if you aren't using them.

See the paragraph about EW 2nd savage tier, one thing is that they know that they may have to heal, another very different is if they can handle that healing

So, the answer is to increase the number of damage spells healers cast? That makes no sense. Again, it is a tuning problem on the part of Square Enix and not an issue with what abilities healers have at their disposal. Changing the content is the solution to this issue.

The big white elephant in the room is we healers have been spoiled by the ease of the content, the potencies of our heals, the MSQ, and all the other challenges presented to us by Square Enix. That needs to be addressed before anyone starts changing healer damage rotations.

[Shurrikhan]

So, the answer is to increase the number of damage spells healers cast? That makes no sense. Again, it is a tuning problem on the part of Square Enix and not an issue with what abilities healers have at their disposal. Changing the content is the solution to this issue.

In part, yes. Why not?

If you change the tuning such that, say, we spend as much time healing then as we do dealing damage now, that's going to be outright oppressive to your less skilled healers and, by extension, their parties. If we go back to even just Stormblood levels of relative healing requirements, well, we also had more involved damage-dealing back then.

By all means, nerf free tank sustain back to roughly Shadowbringers levels (adjusted slightly, perhaps, for better parity and greater skill expression) and nerf Healers' healing by a good quarter or so (just flat out remove Maim and Mend [+30% damage and healing trait] from Healers while increasing attack potencies by at least that 30% in compensation), but there's no reason not to also add (back) new/returned offensive skills at the same time; we were plenty able to handle them back even in the most intensive eras of healing requirements and, to most, they felt good to use.

[Nizzi]

The big white elephant in the room is we healers have been spoiled by the ease of the content, the potencies of our heals, the MSQ, and all the other challenges presented to us by Square Enix. That needs to be addressed before anyone starts changing healer damage rotations.

Can I just ask you something, respectfully - what is the highest level of content difficulty you're talking about and doing? Are you claiming that Savage and Ultimate are easy for healers?

[Kacho_Nacho]

In part, yes. Why not?

If you change the tuning such that, say, we spend as much time healing then as we do dealing damage now, that's going to be outright oppressive to your less skilled healers and, by extension, their parties. If we go back to even just Stormblood levels of relative healing requirements, well, we also had more involved damage-dealing back then.

Shouldn't less skilled players be given a reason and opportunity to improve? It isn't engaging to go through content mindlessly. Players only stay with a game if it hooks them in some way emotionally.

Also, is it fair for Square Enix to balance healers around the lowest denominator? If they continue to do that then FFXIV will continue to lose veteran healers, because they're bored, leaving only the least skilled.

from Healers while increasing attack potencies by at least that 30% in compensation), but there's no reason not to also add (back) new/returned offensive skills at the same time; we were plenty able to handle them back even in the most intensive eras of healing requirements and, to most, they felt good to use.

Totally agree.

Can I just ask you something, respectfully - what is the highest level of content difficulty you're talking about and doing? Are you claiming that Savage and Ultimate are easy for healers?

I'm saying everything up to that point was too easy. Healers weren't prepared for the sudden leap in difficulty. Difficulty should be a steady slope instead of big steps up, if you know what I mean.

[Shurrikhan]

Shouldn't less skilled players be given a reason and opportunity to improve? It isn't engaging to go through content mindlessly. Players only stay with a game if it hooks them in some way emotionally.

Also, is it fair for Square Enix to balance healers around the lowest denominator? If they continue to do that then FFXIV will continue to lose veteran healers, because they're bored, leaving only the least skilled.

A 10-14x increase in GCD healing required (flipping the portions of uptime spent healing and portion spent attacking) is hardly a small and manageable shift. You already saw my suggestion, ultimately about a 25% nerf to outgoing healing (with small accordant changes), which would be itself a huge increase to GCD healing required because the largest factor forgoing the need for GCD healing right now is simply how much is provided for "free" via oGCDs.

Let's not pretend that anything / everything short of a n absurdly extreme or "nuclear" option (more healing requirements than we've ever had before, just to balance out having the least engaging downtime activities we've ever had) is no change at all...

[Sebazy]

I'm saying everything up to that point was too easy. Healers weren't prepared for the sudden leap in difficulty. Difficulty should be a steady slope instead of big steps up, if you know what I mean.

This is a big part of the puzzle for sure. For all it's jank, one thing 2.0 ARR absolutely nailed right out of the gate was it's progressive difficulty curve that steadily ramped up as you progressed through dungeons into the HM Primals and onto Coil. They even used to dungeons to introduce people to key primal mechanics. Genius design IMO.

One part I will disagree with you on though, it's not always possible to have constant healing requirements throughout the fight. Even Godka had some downtime (We needed it to get MP back). I do agree that a rethink on healing requirements and incoming damage is a central piece of the puzzle if at least to eliminate the chances of us getting another Byregot or E8S, but giving us something to do during downtime and solo content should still be a consideration IMO. It doesn't have to be DPS, buffing/augments gets the thumbs up from me++

[WaxSw]

You are talking about the healer paradox. Simply put, the better the party plays, the less healers are needed. This is true in all MMOs, at least the ones I've played.

While I'm not denying the current situation is boring, I feel the answer is to make changes to the healing kit, such as giving healers the buff/debuff abilities which damage dealers have currently. One idea I've seen bantered around is having heal spells restore a percentage of health, instead of having potencies. Perhaps, that'll address the issue of having healing spells being too powerful for the content.

It's because that healer paradox why its common for the devs to give healers more stuff to do outside healing, wow knows it, overwatchs knows and basically any other game with the exception of XIV seem to know it. Engagement by healing, is, by definition, finite.

Buff/Debuff abilites are part of a dps rotation, which is also what we ask for, not simply attacks. If you mean buffs in the term of mit then it would solve nothing because the amount of focus on dpsing would remain the same and in the less healing intesive contents those buttons would hardly be necessary

That would result in healers using their damage spells most of the time

This is what we are doing, right now, in all the content. From normal mode to savage healers spend easily over 90% of their total GCDs on dpsing, adding more buttons if anything would be that 90% of those GCDs more engaging and not a slog where 1 button can be over 50% of your total actions (yes, GCDs AND oGCDs)

I believe two facts can be concluded from that circumstance.

Believe what you want, the truth is that more healing leads to less healers and I can assure you the game wont go out their way to teach those players how to use those tools, besides, even in that tier the problems of healers spending 80-90% of their total actions remained so that is clearly not the solution. As healers get better they dps more and that dps should be a reward and not boring gameplay.

Actually, that is what people are saying. Asking for a complex damage rotation is pushing healers further into the role of green dps...

That people is saying that we want a dps-level rotation as if we were dps when we are not asking for that. What we ask is that if current healers are a 1 on the dps scale and dps are a 10, the content would be far more enjoyable if intead of being a 1 we were a 4-5, not having a rotation on the same level of complexity of a dps job but a better than one because if dpsing is, in one way or another, what we are going to doing the most (because 99% of the content dont need healer-level healing) then make it more engaging than simply pressing 2 buttons

So, the answer is to increase the number of damage spells healers cast? That makes no sense

It does.

The problem is that healers are boring because dpsing is what we do the most and the dps rotation is extremely lackluster. You can solve that problem in 2 ways:

-Make them interact with the dps rotation less, this is the "healers heal more route" with all the issues I've mentioned and far more like the dev resources spent and how it would make even casual content less accessible for everyone

-Make the dps rotation more engaging, which is what most veteran healers support because it consumes less dev resources, is more aproachable and casual friendly, increases the skill ceiling of the jobs without strictly raising the floor, tackles the core issues of the game better...

It makes perfect sense that healers ask for a better dpsing.

The big white elephant in the room is we healers have been spoiled by the ease of the content, the potencies of our heals, the MSQ, and all the other challenges presented to us by Square Enix. That needs to be addressed before anyone starts changing healer damage rotations.

For the same reason casual content dont have dps checks, to not wall players because other people's actions. If they were to stop spoiling (like in the healers heal more route I mentioned) the healers unable to keep up with the hps would face a hard wall, increasing the frustration among players and like we saw in EW 2nd tier reducing the amount of healers overall. This is also leaving outside factors like how there is not a sweet spot for healing, the thing a noob healer identify as hard is a slog of 1 button dps spam for a veteran and what a veteran may find engaging may be straight up unhealable by the less experienced player.