Why is Blue Mage a more fun healer than WHM/SCH/SGE/AST

[Renathras]

If healers got more DPS spells...

Ultimately, a lot of healers don't like damage dealing. Some it's a mental thing ("Do no harm"), others it's just that they don't find consistent rotational performance engaging or fun. It's like contrasting a drummer or bass player that keeps a consistent beat and often pattern for a whole song to a lead guitarist, pianist, etc that will do solos where they just rock out. Even among DPS Jobs, there's a spread from the rock-rigid consistent DRG whose rotation is pretty much the same every time to the high proc DNC whose rotation between any pull and another will likely always be different due to the RNG.

For healers that don't care for DPS rotations, a consistent 1-3 button damage "rotation" is preferable, since they'd rather focus on the fight and healing. The problem is, the game doesn't have enough HEALING to make that really fun. This is the crux of the "more healing" or "more damage buttons" disagreement.

On the other hand, there are some healers that DO like damage rotations, but don't want to play DPS Jobs for whatever reason. I'm not saying they "aren't real healers" or anything, and their reasons can be varied. Sure, there's the "want faster ques" people, and there are people that prefer a more Support role to a Healer one and try to shoehorn healers into that in games that don't have a true Support role, but there are also some that do enjoy healing and aiding their allies, but also like damage rotations.

The issue is, if you change all healers into more damage button/rotation Jobs, then it alienates the former group in service to the latter. And if you don't, it alienates the latter in service to the former. It's one reason I support something I call the "The 4 Healers Model", which is basically "We have 4 whole healer Jobs, why not have some in column A and some in column B, that way everyone can pick the one they like?" Though that gets pushback from people who want EVERY Job to be for them, it's a pretty measured compromise.

But, ultimately, the problem is with encounter design (and to an extent, ilevel scaling). If encounters don't require healing, then everyone WILL be DPSing, like it or not. Even those content with the slimmed down DPS rotation are going to be somewhat bored because they really want to heal (the Sylphie "I just want to heal" isn't satisfied when there's little healing), and those who want more damage are bored because the rotation is boring.

But more damage buttons doesn't fix that problem. It only papers over it. A healer Job with a more complex damage rotation isn't changing the fact that the encounter doesn't require actual healing, it's just jingling shiny keys over to the side to distract you from it. And that distraction only even works on the people that want the more DPS buttons, so it double alienates those who want to do actual healing as their gameplay loop.

.

Personally, I think just adding DPS buttons would ruin the Jobs AND the role, since it would mean we aren't going to address the actual issue (as I say here and in my post above). Worse, it makes the healers into DPS Jobs, and at that point, why even have healers? Just give RDM Vermedica and SMN permanent Everlasting Flight and make one of those two Jobs a mandatory party spot and you've done the same thing.

I think the solution is addressing the encounter design first, and secondarily, diversifying the healer kits. For example, WHM can work like it does today with less oGCDs and more focus on GCD heals (damage refunded by Misery for all their GCD heals would mean they can actually...you know, use them), SCH can have more damage buttons and have its oGCDs shifted to more abilities for Eos (so they're kind of a support team of damage SCH and healing Eos), SGE can have a lot more Kardia stuff and a damage rotation so that it's more like a Disc Priest or RIFT Chloromancer healing through dealing damage, etc. Then players can pick the one they like, and encounters will actually require using them.

[Rithy255]

Ultimately, a lot of healers...

Even if healers Don't want to do damage its been apart of the classes for the entire games life span, That will never likely change, in fact it really can't unless you remove DPS fully which would make healer really boring, as one of the core fundamentals of healer is to balance healing vs Damage, that's what makes them engaging in the first place, I don't think healers would be fun at all if you were spamming a aoe heal spell or your single target heal spell either.

What makes good healer design (to me) Would be having you GCD heal a lot more then current healers do but also having extra DMG skills such as a Proc, Such as a varying different DOT from another healer (not all just 30 seconds), Having a full on rotation isn't really needed, but I'd like one healer to be more "rotation focused" maybe?

I think healers Should appeal to all types of players, Like I have said before I generally gravitate to the more "supportive" roles but I also like having a interesting Damage mechs, I don't want to play a "heal only" who just spams heals in a game, I get others may want to do healing only, I want to play someone who supports their team but also brings out some of my own offensive power, the only semi role like that is Tank currently in a sense.

Tanks are actually a good example, of roles that have a set purpose, with some utility but are also DPS, I don't think healers need to have anything even close to tanks, but y'know i personally would make rather have some more offensive capabilities on healers.

I think the most important changes are encounter designs though, I 100% agree that healers would be way more fun if they actually had to heal a lot more, I just think the reason why healer would be more fun is because you're trying to balance your damage and healing, trying to do your best at both.

Healers generally need less OGCDs, more outgoing damage first and foremost, I really agree with that sentiment, but i think healers would kinda be neat if they add more to do offensively aswell (Again not to say that should be the design for every healer)

I also think Astro as it is Doesn't and shouldn't get more DMG options as card balancing is already hard enough, with White Mage/scholar I wouldn't ideally want anything too drastic nor would i want a combo rotation. Sage could ideally have more.

I don't want to upset people who already enjoy current healer, this is just my perspective on the role and why I personally just feel like it isn't fun for a lot of people, DMG buttons don't solve everything I think at least we can agree on that.

[Renathras]

Even if healers Don't want to do damage its been apart of the classes for the entire games life span,

Yes and no. People say this, but for most of ARR, WHM play did not revolve around damage dealing. And due to having to use GCD heals with MP costs, they often would refrain from DPSing due to concerns of running out of MP and being unable to heal, or being locked into Cleric at bad times. This was still prevalent in HW in the non-raid community, to a point that Cleric was removed entirely and healer DPS was reworked to have very low MP costs (equal to Cure 1; that wasn't always true) to be sustainable and low risk.

Hyperbole is hyperbole - having actual healing to do and Enrages not tuned for large healer damage contributions would fix that problem without "remove DPS fully" being necessary at all. The "core fundamentsals" of healer are not "to balance healing vs Damage". That's a relatively new feature. It wasn't true in old school MMOs of the 2000s, nor was it true in 2013 with ARR WHM.

What makes a good healer design to you, as listed, makes a terrible one to me. I HATE DoTs in general unless they do something important with the kit, and I generally dislike procs unless the UI is designed to clearly display them. Go look at videos of a WoW healer and you'll see the light arc graphic that appears in the middle of their screen with various things proc making it extremely clear. That's with the native UI (though some people use add-ons to do even more). FFXIV, on the other hand, you get a tiny icon that drifts down your screen that's invisible with all the spell VFX going on, and sometimes a tiny icon by your character name in the top right corner added to the 10 other buffs/debuffs you have at any given time in no particular order or location, and something on your bar (possibly your inactive bar if using controller crossbars) has a yellow border appear around it. Imagine, for example, if RDM had the right half of their Mana gauge catch on fire if you had a Verfire Ready proc. That would be visible and easy not to miss, vs the little icon we have now.

And DoTs suck. I will never understand some people being married to them.

BUT: "4 Healers Model" - the solution is right there. Build healers different ways. Give SCH more DoTs, give SGE a proc based rotation like RDM, leave WHM alone. BAM! Now everyone has a healer they can enjoy.

We don't all like all things. Imagine using your argument for any other role. Do you think BLM Should appeal to all types of players, even those that like no-cast time SMN? Do you really? Do you think NIN should appeal to players that like a slow and relaxed rotation, or a rigid rotation on rails like DRG? Do you think DRG should appeal to players that like simple rotations with some procs like DNC?

Different Jobs will appeal to different players. There is NO WAY to make a Job that appeals to everyone. And for some reason, healer is the only role where people insist this must be true. No one making that argument about healers is demanding BLM be playable like SMN.

Under the 4 Healers Model, you would play SCH or SGE and I would play WHM or AST, and we'd both be happy. Under your idea that every healer should appeal to you, you have your pick of all four while people like me have to leave the game. That's not cool.

Which, to circle back to your original point, was how the game was original built. Back in ARR, SCH balanced damage vs healing, WHM was much more healing focused. And everyone was happy.

But yeah, we can agree DMG buttons don't solve everything. I wish we could also agree that different people like different things and no Job CAN appeal to all of them at once. What's that saying, "You can please some of the people all of the time, and sometimes all of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time"?

[Shurrikhan]

And due to having to use GCD heals with MP costs, they often would refrain from DPSing due to concerns of running out of MP and being unable to heal

Often? No. Not even close.

The "core fundamentsals" of healer are not "to balance healing vs Damage". That's a relatively new feature.

Not wasting time idling or overhealing is not a relatively new concept.

Different Jobs will appeal to different players. There is NO WAY to make a Job that appeals to everyone. And for some reason, healer is the only role where people insist this must be true.

No one has insisted that every job, let alone any job, will appeal to every player, let alone that healers uniquely need to do so.

The disagreement has always been, ultimately, just about...

1. the height of skill ceiling available to jobs
   
   
2. whether job design should be based (A) organically on their core mechanics, as allowed to expand whichever way makes sense and would ultimately feel complete and distinct in practice, or *(B) pre-allotted based on categories that you,specifically, had pre-determined must compose the different clusters of player preferences, and
   
   
3. whether identity comes primarily from (A) the feel of a job in practice as resultant from the unique extent of gameplay available within different types of play or (B) from barring access to other jobs from having virtually any gameplay in the category that another job possesses in excess of the role's necessarily shared elements (minimum sustain per minute and average rDPS requirements, a basic ST-filler, AoE-filler, spender, DoT).

At the crux of which... is this:

We don't all like all things.

To which others might answer, "Then don't do those things, but that shouldn't preclude a kit from carrying some amount of them if it would nonetheless fit that job. Spend your time and attention on other aspects; unless you're min-maxing well above what's required of any content save maybe ultimate, there is zero need to use every single skill, or even every sub-category of skill."

Else, the distinction is less between what we want in our job for ourselves, but the limit of what we want in our job / what little other users of our job should be allowed to play with.