A summary of healer issues

[Yukarine]

Just a bump to the thread, pretty much everything people dislike about healers as whole has been said twice over.
Also I complained about the state of healers in the 10 year anniversary survey where it asks you about your main job.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Just a bump to the thread, pretty much everything people dislike about healers as whole has been said twice over.
Also I complained about the state of healers in the 10 year anniversary survey where it asks you about your main job.

Thanks for reminding this venue. I'll be doing the same, too.

[Crescent101]

OP is right on all fronts. I only disagree with some of their solutions but just minor details like keeping synastry instead of neutral sect. I have been playing this game as Scholar since AAR and Endwalker was the first time I put down the book. The role is just garbage to play. I tried Astro since it is at least a little more exciting but it was not enough to keep me interested. I stopped healing completely. That was my main enjoyment in the game. I am not sure if I will come back for Dawntrail if it is going to be the same. It is a joke at this point.

[Renathras]

Also I complained about the state of healers in the 10 year anniversary survey where it asks you about your main job.

Eh, I didn't. I praised the idea of having different levels of complexity for different people and that I like WHM, WAR, and SMN for their straightforward nature.

So votes cancelling out, I suppose.

[Carin-Eri]

Eh, I didn't. I praised the idea of having different levels of complexity for different people and that I like WHM, WAR, and SMN for their straightforward nature.

So votes cancelling out, I suppose.

I agree - though I have to confess I still haven't tried any of them yet in any meaningful way!

[Renathras]

I agree - though I have to confess I still haven't tried any of them yet in any meaningful way!

Personally I just think it's the best solution.

Many players don't want to be forced out of the game to read about the game, and even some who don't mind it don't want highly technical Jobs or needing to spend hours at a target dummy or theorycrafting websites. There are some people that play FF1 as four Fighters or the bog standard Fighter, White Mage, Black Mage, X party. Some people play Mario in Smash or Mario Kart.

For an expansive game, it ultimately should accommodate a lot of different types of players and playstyles, and this is generally going to lead to the best outcome as everyone has something they can enjoy and fit in. This means we should have some crazy complex options and some completely simplistic ones, and it's fine for the game to have both of those, and imo, preferable to the alternative.

[fulminating]

Personally I just think it's the best solution.

Many players don't want to be forced out of the game to read about the game,.

Instead there’s a situation where I’ve been forced out of the game because I can’t stomach the miserable experience of playing any job I used to enjoy. It’s only getting worse, but I’m not angry enough to care anymore.

[Renathras]

So then I've been thinking, why are GCD heals (that aren't lilies, and even that's relatively recent) designed to be a dps loss? I know if a party member's dead that's a worse drop and all, but it still feels like we're being punished for doing what the role is supposed to do.

Honestly, no idea. Some people think GCD heals being DPS neutral would make healers braindead/too easy/too forgiving/etc. Personally, I think it would be better than the current situation which is 1 button damage spam and oGCD weave healing and would offer a solution to get healers pressing other buttons and actually raise the active skill ceiling since you'd need to be able to figure out how to work out cast times to heal people and manage MP. But there are a lot of people that don't like that, who like planning out fights with oGCD healing plans for a more strategic gameplay than a tactical, "moment to moment" healing gameplay, and due to being bored with the one button damage that results from the oGCD healing plan, want more damage buttons/a dps rotation on all the healers.

Personally, I think the GCD healing and tactical gameplay is more fun and the right answer, but I get not everyone likes that, so I think having some healers that work with each would be the best answer, like say SCH having more damage buttons and oGCD/Faerie healing while WHM has more GCD healing and Misery refunding damage (like if all GCD heals contributed to the Blood Lily, not just Solace/Rapture). Other people want all the healers to be more like damage dealer rotations and keep the oGCD weaving/planned out entire encounter gameplay.

As for what the Devs are thinking, I'm not sure. You're right the healing/damage combo style of thing feels more fun (WHM could do it via Misery, SGE via Toxicon), though. They could even do two and two with AST/SCH being more oGCD focused and WHM/SGE being more GCD focused with damage neutral GCD heals. No reason not to, really. It's just a question of the Devs deciding if they'd want to to it.

Instead there’s a situation where I’ve been forced out of the game because I can’t stomach the miserable experience of playing any job I used to enjoy. It’s only getting worse, but I’m not angry enough to care anymore.

...and that's why the 4 Healers Model would be a good idea. Well, ANOTHER reason why it would be a good idea.

[fulminating]

...and that's why the 4 Healers Model would be a good idea. Well, ANOTHER reason why it would be a good idea.

It’s why it’s a bad idea. No one wants their favourite to be given the short straw of paint dryer simulator. No one wants to go from having room to grow to tripping over the skill ceiling.

But what about the terminally lazy you may ask? Well if only there was a convenient existing system that gradually introduced parts of the kit, provided a detailed description on what each new addition was and a regular opportunity to use it with new challenges appropriate for practice.

People being expected to know the correct rotation is exacerbated by the highly choreographed fight design present in the game. Yellow dead voidsent guy never casts anything but cursed echo first, wall hephiastos always casts natural alignment 1 from 35 to 40 seconds into combat, hippocampus always finishes the cast for water slide and becomes untargetable at 4m19 into the fight. When you can set your clock by the boss, all competitive improvement is rote learning.

Largely people don’t care if you’re not doing the correct rotation as long as you’re not standing around like a pudding or demonstrating a severe lack of reading comprehension; casual content barely demands consciousness. it simply does not make sense to sacrifice the possibility of nuance on whichever job to appeal to those who are unlikely to bother with content where it will matter.

[Azurarok]

Guilty of that for staying in my ley lines 2 minutes into the Byregot fight last night. I used manaward and addle though!

And like I said I do understand that keeping the party alive matters more for dps than you losing a glare. It's just that the trade-off doesn't feel great. It also makes the role as a whole largely a test of your reflexes and how much you can keep the party up with just oGCDs and lilies.

My impression is that the dps options were removed between SB and StB to discourage healers from attacking so they can focus on healing more, and it's kind of the only solution when attacking and healing is largely mutually exclusive. I doubt we'd ever really get out of the one-button dps setup as long as that design keeps up.