Make healers DPS with four or five healing actions

[Sebazy]

If you want to play DPS with healing options please play not FF14 and make use of the trinity.

Isn't this exactly what healers boil down to though? Your class fantasy might differ, but when you look at the cold hard numbers, we are a DPS role in disguise and the key point here is that we are a terrible one at that.

FFXIV makes a mockery of the trinity right now, that much is undeniable. You can clear surprising amounts of content whilst completely skipping out of an entire role.

Compare that to FFXI where a typical team looking to grind exp or merits needs all 3 corners of the trinity to be at all viable. No tank? One single mob is going to tear your group to bits. No DPS? You're not killing anything anytime soon. No healer? You might be able to kill something with a little luck, but you're going to be sat for 5 minutes afterwards.

The most fun I've had healing in FFXIV in recent years has been when I'm not on a healer and as such have a dramatically weaker or more limited kit that I have to use with caution and thought. Thus why I agree with the sentiment of this thread. Strip our healing kit right back so that we actually have to think about how we apply it rather than just being able to endlessly Medica II the bad away.

[AmiableApkallu]

Personally, I’d rather see healers having to use a wider array of healing abilities, have the game throw more punishing debuffs and dots that require actions from the healers, even in casual content.

Bring it! But that said... how interesting and involved can you make that all when there are only three damage types?

When I first started playing FFXIV, I was kind of expecting to find elemental damage (ice, fire, wind, earth, water, etc.), maybe slashing damage, maybe piercing damage, so on and so forth. Alas, it was not the case.

[Shurrikhan]

Compare that to FFXI where a typical team looking to grind exp or merits needs all 3 corners of the trinity to be at all viable. No tank? One single mob is going to tear your group to bits. No DPS? You're not killing anything anytime soon. No healer? You might be able to kill something with a little luck, but you're going to be sat for 5 minutes afterwards.

Is that necessarily better, though? Granted, that may be an unnecessary extreme, but I much prefer when you actually can flex roles somewhat.

I like the actual Arms, Fury, Combat/Outlaw, Feral, Ret, Frost, etc., tanking utility/swaps from "DPS" specs, and tanks occasionally being able to drop some defense and go ham against suppressed enemies.

I like healers having a sort of dance in play with tanks where their combined output is far higher if they're each aware of when the other one wants to be free to hit their big damage buttons at full effect and can sync their other outputs around that. I like the occasional bit of damage being worth standing in for uptime, given sufficient awareness of your healer's free resources at that moment and incoming healing needs.

In other games, I like not necessarily needing a tank to take on a boss, though for that to be of interest in XIV, we'd need some way for DPS to hand off threat to, and take it from, one another.

I just dislike that (A) that the dispensability of roles is so uneven (only healers are fully able to be dispensed with) and (B) that the process of flexing those roles scarcely even creates any new gameplay.

Imagine, for instance, some manner of Savage Dungeons. Even there, I'd say... let me go without a tank in an extremely coordinated group, but it should definitely be far harder (far more responsibilities demanded of each player), with only said really solid team having any chance of beating the with-tank time on the likes of a Savage dungeon. In those settings, let me go without a healer, too, but there should then absolutely be downtime melee have to face, and additional tank and raidwide damage as a result of lost suppression from melee, such that each fight is a spicy race against time, in order not to die despite the lack of healer. Let me go without any DPS, but ramping damage from certain mobs should make that have plenty of risk, too, between newly enabled full pulls to try to make back some of that time. Those odd comps should approach the content noticeably differently, rather than just hitting their utility CDs basically on CD and that's it.

[Shurrikhan]

Bring it! But that said... how interesting and involved can you make that all when there are only three damage types?

When I first started playing FFXIV, I was kind of expecting to find elemental damage (ice, fire, wind, earth, water, etc.), maybe slashing damage, maybe piercing damage, so on and so forth. Alas, it was not the case.

I mean, we say there are three, but in effect, there's almost... less than one, in terms of interaction, especially given that only tanks have anything sensitive to physical/magical distinctions.

If it's physical, healers can affect it. If it's magical, healers can affect it identically. If it's "true"/"darkness" damage, then there's no gameplay available anyhow, since it can't be affected. So not only are there no distinctions in one's agency/gameplay (between manner A and manner B), but there might not even be agency/gameplay at all.

That's not to say I want otherwise identical barriers/mitigation that are split into "physical" and "magical" in the way that RDM is broken into (on-paper only) distinctions between "black mana" and "white mana", of course, but if, say, each had an actual undermechanic that could synergize with other effects (think "Stagger" from physical damage, "Suppression" from magical damage, etc.), then we might actually have something, even if just from those two types.

Ruin could supply both Stagger and Suppression, Broil [not just an upgrade, presumably, in this system] pure magical (and convert suppression into further burst damage); Stone would could supply hefty Stagger, while Glare and Aero would provide both, but to a lesser effect each, and Dia pure suppression; etc., etc. Add in some further control over damage dynamics so that healers could have more frequent but costly access to nukes and voila, you've wrapped in some support gameplay just off those two types of damage... even just from purely offensive sources.

[Renathras]

Not to muddy the waters, but I still think a healer job that predominantly buffs/debuffs through gcds would be super fun. I’d rather have limited healing options but lots of buffs/debuff, than a job that was a powerful healer or had powerful dps skills

Same.

Been thinking forever that AST would be more fun to me if it just dropped the Malific spam (used for soloing) and went ham on Cards. All Cards being GCDs but not having a CD so AST is just about constantly rolling buffs across the party and healing as necessary in between. It wouldn't be current AST, though, so I don't often suggest it because AST is the one healer I don't play and I don't want to rob the people who DO enjoy it of their gameplay. But if there was a way to make a healer that worked that way as a full time buffer/healer instead of support/dps, I think that would be a lot more fun.

Word.
But thats still not my point i want a healer support. BTW.: Why do any of you assume i dont want to DPS? Thats a hot take, i am a Lala i need some damage numbers in my fights even it means freindly fire.

It's a strawman people like to use against people that don't want healers turned into DPS Jobs with support heals only. "You don't want an involved DPS rotation? Obviously that means you don't want any dps buttons at all, right?!" It's such a ridiculous strawman, but gets trotted out and beaten to pulp all the time these days.

Also we were definitely green DPS back in HW, what with Alexander having strict enrages that forced healers to DPS, as well as SCH just doing absurd damage in dungeons, Holy stun still being a thing that made mincemeat of large groups, etc. We just had a better balance of healing requirements and DPS engagement during downtime.

Part of this is a semantics argument (is "green DPS" defined as "has a DPS rotation" or "presses even one damage button during an encounter"?), but part of it seems to be a lot of people who played SCH in HW and think that was the way all healers played.

SCH from early on (even ARR, I'd say) was a Support/DPS instead of an outright Healer. Think about how it worked. Lustrate was a flat 25% heal back then, so Cleric Stance didn't reduce it. Sacred Soil was a flat percentage damage reduction, so again, Cleric didn't affect it. And SCH could Cross-Class additional things like Aero and Blizzard 2 to give it even more damage skills that it didn't natively have (WHM could not Cross-Class Bio or Miasma and Holy was already a better Blizzard 2). As a result, SCH gameplay was typically not about Cleric Stance dancing dynamically between being a healer and being a DPSer. In practice, it activated Cleric and stayed in Cleric all the time, managing DoTs, using oGCDs that boosted its output, and spot healing with Lustrate (which ignored Cleric) and Soil mitigation, only dropping out of Cleric if it needed to cast a big shield on a tank/party member.

CONVERSELY, WHM has always been much like it is today. Only in 2.0 did it have Thunder. From 2.1 to 3.0, it had two DoTs (Aero 1 and 2) and Stonespam. It also didn't employ Cleric Stance as much (it might dip into it to apply the DoTs before coming out of it again), and a lot of parties used their WHM as "main healer" with most of the healing responsibilities as this was seen as the most efficient gameplay. MP was more limited at the time AND damage spells cost more, so WHMs would often cost few damage spells and instead maintain HoT uptime (back then, HoTs had longer durations and so were the thing more as an upkeep where we now do that with our DoTs). Stoneskin was a GCD cast spell which WHMs also made frequent use of as their tankbuster protection spell like we'd use Benison (oGCD weave between Glares) now. Fluid Aura wasn't used in most combat because it would throw things around and could cause wipes or cleaves. In HW, WHM gained Tetra, Assize, Asylum, and Aero 3.

In effect, in ARR, WHM was a main healer while SCH was a support DPS.

And the beauty of it was: THIS WORKED really well. The people that like being a support DPS with healing options loved the absolute hell out of SCH, and the people who liked being a full time healer loved the hell out of WHM.

HW broke everything.

SCH became insanely OP and has been part of the meta comp from then to the present in basically every tier. AST was released horribly underpowered and blacklisted until it was buffed through the roof, to the point WHM became the underpowered one and remained so until basically 5.0. HW was the worst expansion in the game's history in terms of balance, and for Healers this was as apparent as anywhere.

...but I guess my point here is, people remember what SCH was and tend to think that was how all healers were played...but it really wasn't. And WHM was in a bad way from around 3.2 to 5.0, with modern ShB and EW WHM being far better than SB and HW WHM was. But healers were not viewed as support/DPS or green DPS at the time, at least WHM wasn't. And when the argument picked up in HW, it became so divisive that the Devs just outright deleted Cleric Stance because of all the fighting it was causing in the community.

Then there are those of us who didn't like SCH's playstyle at the time and avoided it by playing WHM, who have always been mainline healers instead of supports, that are agitated at people trying to shoehorn the role into being "Support" instead of "Healer".

Personally, I wouldn't mind them making a formal Support role (maybe yellow icons?) as there are plenty of Jobs that could fit in such a category (RDM, DNC, BRD jump out right away), but trying to force all healers into that is wrong. I also don't mind "sharing" the Healer role with Supporters, which is what we did in ARR with WHM (Healer) and SCH (Support).

But we need to start being honest about that being what is being discussed. As long as people insist it isn't, we can't really make any headway.

[Sebazy]

HW broke everything.

SCH became insanely OP

Here's an old school spicy take:

SCH was always wildly OP throughout ARR, people were just blinded by Selene's seemingly huge but actually nigh useless haste buffs and didn't realise just how incredibly powerful Rouse+Whispering dawn was in enabling SCH to use it's superior MP economy for extra damage that WHM couldn't hope to compete with.

I literally sat entire instances in Cleric on SCH back in ARR because I could hammer enough HPS out of EoS and focus it where it was needed.

SCH was every bit as much of a healer as WHM was and in some cases had quite a clear advantage thanks to all the infirmity debuffs ARR used to throw around. Was it really a 'support DPS' when it was every bit as potent a healer as WHM was in reality? IMO I think it was just the superior job of the two with vastly more room for the top tier healers to really shine on it vs WHM that was forever having to pump the brakes.

The bigger problem for WHM in HW was that ARR added competition for the second slot, gone was the superstar SCH and it's mandatory comfort blanket pick up the pieces, now WHM actually had to earn it's raid spot and it was only a matter of time before it basically defaulted on that. Couple that with SE's then complete ignorance and lack of understanding towards healers back then and it was never going to go well IMO. SE just really didn't understand healers properly at that point.

Is that necessarily better, though? Granted, that may be an unnecessary extreme, but I much prefer when you actually can flex roles somewhat.

Aye, FFXI took it to too much of an extreme really. Having to sit in Jeuno because you didn't have the buffer necessary to enable your DPS to actually hit your target mobs was a prime example of things being taken too far.

WoW and Everquest 1 struck the balance just about right IMO. You could do group content whilst missing a part of the team but it was typically clearly subpar and a hinderance to do so.

[ty_taurus]

Here's an old school spicy take:

SCH was always wildly OP throughout ARR, people were just blinded by Selene's seemingly huge but actually nigh useless haste buffs and didn't realise just how incredibly powerful Rouse+Whispering dawn was in enabling SCH to use it's superior MP economy for extra damage that WHM couldn't hope to compete with.

I literally sat entire instances in Cleric on SCH back in ARR because I could hammer enough HPS out of EoS and focus it where it was needed.

SCH was every bit as much of a healer as WHM was and in some cases had quite a clear advantage thanks to all the infirmity debuffs ARR used to throw around. Was it really a 'support DPS' when it was every bit as potent a healer as WHM was in reality? IMO I think it was just the superior job of the two with vastly more room for the top tier healers to really shine on it vs WHM that was forever having to pump the brakes.

The bigger problem for WHM in HW was that ARR added competition for the second slot, gone was the superstar SCH and it's mandatory comfort blanket pick up the pieces, now WHM actually had to earn it's raid spot and it was only a matter of time before it basically defaulted on that. Couple that with SE's then complete ignorance and lack of understanding towards healers back then and it was never going to go well IMO. SE just really didn't understand healers properly at that point.

White Mage has always been lacking any sort of defining qualities, even during ARR. Having Medica II and Cure III was a solid perk to White Mage where Scholar only had Succor as a source of accessible AoE healing for pinch situations. But offensively, it has always lacked its own direction. You had Scholar's DoT focused gameplay, and White Mage's "Scholar, but less" rather than adopting its own direction. And although it had stronger burst healing potential, its MP economy was horrendous compared to Scholar.

Scholar had Aetherflow, a 60 second cooldown that restored 20% of their maximum MP plus any additional MP gained through Energy Drain, of which you could use 3 of per minute. Note that back then, Ruin was 80 potency while Energy Drain was 150, so ARR Scholar actually had the reverse situation that it currently has, where you'd rather use Adlo, Succor, or Physick to heal with rather than Lustrate unless absolutely necessary because ED was a bigger loss, on top of the MP it would provide. That really puts into perspective how much of a joke Sacred Soil was back then.

Meanwhile White Mage had Shroud of Saints, a 180 second cooldown. It was only marginally stronger than current Lucid Dreaming (80 potency over 15 seconds compared to LD's 55 potency over 21 seconds), but at triple the cooldown. And that was it. That was an era where Ethers were often essential in harder content, something a lot of healers probably don't even realize exist.

[Sebazy]

White Mage has always been lacking any sort of defining qualities, even during ARR. Having Medica II and Cure III was a solid perk to White Mage where Scholar only had Succor as a source of accessible AoE healing for pinch situations. But offensively, it has always lacked its own direction.

Holy should have been it's clear standout but SE bottled it.

It makes me wonder about how useful SE's own metrics and data gathering were on player throughput actually. They clearly saw SCH's damage potential thus Yoshida's infamous quote, but it makes me wonder if they actually had any clue how much healing was being done at the same time.

[ty_taurus]

Holy should have been it's clear standout but SE bottled it.

It makes me wonder about how useful SE's own metrics and data gathering were on player throughput actually. They clearly saw SCH's damage potential thus Yoshida's infamous quote, but it makes me wonder if they actually had any clue how much healing was being done at the same time.

Truthfully, I don't think the design team has a strong enough understanding of how healing actually works. It's been stated that the existence of FFlogs has brought to light metrics that even they weren't aware of, and that they have actually used that information to take into account changes. So I really don't doubt that they probably never had a way to measure healing throughput or even damage prevented metrics, and only looked at the surface level gameplay of Scholars casting heals infrequently while White Mages casted heals more frequently. It's actually really disheartened to know that role-defining changes very likely occurred as a result of misinformation, and something that they likely never really thought much about because it isn't in their comfort zones.

[Laerune]

I am not a fan of turning the healers into Dps, but I do understand that there is a lot of downtime for the healers with experience.

Simple solution would be to make healing more difficult, remove mana regen in combat, make enemies hit harder en remove options like being able to use ress spells in combat.