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

[MisterNublet]

Removing oGCD heals will have healers trying to "Chad" one another. Healers will try to hold out long enough on GCD heals to see if the other one gives in and gives up DPSing to GCD heal while the other is free to continue DPSing. This is because damage output is so damn low that it can be healed by a single healer, and they've already stated that they'll never increase the damage output in this game.

Removing oGCDs in this game will not work.

[Shurrikhan]

The issue could just as easily be described as "we need to remove oGCD heals" as it can be "we need one more DoT".

Neither is a necessity, though; both are tangential. There merely needs to be something that gives a greater sense of urgency.

Frequent DoTs did this, especially in the context of higher relative healing requirements (with a far higher portion of GCDs spent healing) and MP being more of an actual mechanic, largely because it broadened the interaction and implications of each GCD's decision by giving disproportionate reward for making room for an attack on particular GCDs (with linearly increasing opportunity cost for being too early or late).

Having risk of either end of, say, using Regen (high damage intake, so the target might die in the next 2 GCDs if using it; and/or, Regen might overheal) or not using Regen (MP inefficiency; and/or might not be able to keep up with Cure II spam if overspending oGCDs later, without the tick or two of Regen atop said spam, when the boss tank-buster-flurries the tank) likewise does this, but getting that alone to a critical mass, so to speak, requires a far, far higher skill floor than arriving at that level of interactiveness from both damage opportunities and nuances in the timing and efficiencies of heals alone.


Some other food for thought:

• The more involved healing is, the more engaging the woven damage opportunities tend to be as long as they have at least something of frequent timing-dependent value (i.e., beyond just popping it under once-per-minute or -per-two-minutes raid buffs).
• The more imbalanced the healing options are, the less interactivity/co-consideration they can tend to have. You want risk and reward to be in contextual balance. If something like Medica II is just straight up better than something like Cure II in virtually every way and in virtually every situation, it becomes very difficult
• The more MP matters, the harder it becomes to allow for nuanced ability usage while those abilities remain MP-free except where they allow Cure I equivalents to suffice where Cure II equivalents would otherwise be necessary, etc. It may therefore be better to give them at least a cost that is wholly sustainable but reduces the incentive to use them on CD just to keep up one's overall MP-efficiency.

[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"?

[Renathras]

Why can't that model be applied on the healer jobs.

It's not fun to everyone.

You know why those rotations are 'not fixing the boredom long term' for SMN and WAR?

Because some people will not be happy unless they have a full on DPS rotation. And considering some people won't be happy WITH one, we're at an impasse. Hence 4 Healers Model as the solution.

It's a complicated problem, but that's my point: More damage buttons isn't the solution. It doesn't solve the problem. At best, it papers over it and kicks the can down the road, but with a very real risk of making it far worse.

IMHO it's much more complex than either of the above.

This I could not agree with more.

That's why I say the solution has to be holistic.

Encounter design, Job design (4 Healers Model), diversifying the healer Jobs so they aren't so similar to one another, etc. The ultimate solution requires a lot of work and effort.

I think encounter design is the biggest of these, since it limits everything else. Body checks and pass/fail mechanics mean the only kind of healing that makes sense is lots of quick burst healing and/or "anything that fills the party to 100% over the next 30 seconds", neither of which make for good gameplay longevity or Job design directions. Once that sacred beast can be tackled, however, then the door is open to actually fixing things across the board. The healer heal kits are already diverse, so half the work is done there. And for damage kits, between healers now (I really DO like WHM), their past incarnations to draw from (e.g. SB SCH), and other Jobs we could pull some ideas from (MCH or RDM or DNC would all be interesting things we could lean SGE into), there's plenty there to draw from to make something interesting, so it's not like they have to come up with something completely from scratch anyway.

As for your last point: It's still less audacious than speaking for all healers. The point still stands: Most people that prefer healing don't refuse to engage with their damage kit. You know me, you know I hate it. I still DO IT. You've looked at people capturing me on the forbidden site and that I cast plenty of damage spells and don't sit on my hands or spam Cure 1 when no healing is needed. Ignoring or marginalizing people into camps of "People who won't press damage buttons at all anyway" vs "People who love all kinds of damage buttons" is very clearly leaving out a large spectrum that exists in between them. I'm not saying that spectrum is the majority, but it's more than just me, and hyperbole being used to throw people into extreme camps isn't a good foundation for a discussion or compromise anyway.

[IDontPetLalas]

It's not fun to everyone.


Because some people will not be happy unless they have a full on DPS rotation. And considering some people won't be happy WITH one, we're at an impasse. Hence 4 Healers Model as the solution.

It's a complicated problem, but that's my point: More damage buttons isn't the solution. It doesn't solve the problem. At best, it papers over it and kicks the can down the road, but with a very real risk of making it far worse.

This I could not agree with more.

That's why I say the solution has to be holistic.

Encounter design, Job design (4 Healers Model), diversifying the healer Jobs so they aren't so similar to one another, etc. The ultimate solution requires a lot of work and effort.

I think encounter design is the biggest of these, since it limits everything else. Body checks and pass/fail mechanics mean the only kind of healing that makes sense is lots of quick burst healing and/or "anything that fills the party to 100% over the next 30 seconds", neither of which make for good gameplay longevity or Job design directions. Once that sacred beast can be tackled, however, then the door is open to actually fixing things across the board. The healer heal kits are already diverse, so half the work is done there. And for damage kits, between healers now

snip

What, "is not fun" to everyone? If it's not fun to heal on a blue mage- then that's completely optional. If it's not healing and doing damage when queuing on a healer, then as has already been pointed out ad nauseum- that's not an unreasonable request. The degree to which a healer does damage should (and does) vary according to the difficulty of the content.

It's don't understand why you've brought up the subject of requests that have been repeatedly debated and have shown to be disproven - namely that "full on DPS rotations" have be requested. That has not been the case. THAT, ironically, is hyperbole.

Instead, you're talking about "ignoring or marginalizing people" when you don't seem to understand that in any product it is normal to talk about customer segments , since they do exist, and FFXIV healers or any job does have its segments. I won't quantify them, or judge them but there are healers who won't hit a single damage skill and you yourself refereed to them in a prior post- as RPs who don't believe in in damaging creatures. Just as there are new healers, or easily stressed healers, veteran healers, etc.

Finally, I seriously think you've underestimated the scope of the healer job design changes. Aside from disagreeing with some of your points, there's a third element that I don't even see being considered which is the effect of changes on other jobs, or vice versa (i.e. what changes should be applied on other jobs in light of healer changes).

[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.

[Astrahime]

BLU lacks instant heal abilities, doing Pom Cure feels like hardcasting cure 2 most of the time. Would be nice if they added something instant. Tanking on BLU is very difficult due to how squishy it is.

It isn't an issue if you're doing it right. Use Diamondback more, and remember to tank swap because Ifrit EX is not supposed to be done with only one tank.