Dawntrail Healers need a rework

[ty_taurus]

Off topic, what would you rate Dragoon as it is now? Just curious.

I agree with Snow that no job really reaches a 10. I think back to past versions of the jobs as well, so some of the jobs during Heavensward might've hit a 10 for FFXIV, which is why I think none currently reach that level, but as for EW jobs:

10 - N/A
9 - N/A
8 - Ninja, Black Mage
7 - Dragoon
6 - Monk, Samurai, Bard
5 - Machinist, Red Mage, Gunbreaker
4 - Dancer, Reaper, Dark Knight
3 - Summoner, Warrior, Paladin, Astrologian
2 - Scholar
1 - White Mage, Sage

There are a bunch of jobs I'm only somewhat familiar with, and I just sort of ran that up quickly, so I might move things if I think about it some more. Even now, I'm going back to it a bunch of times and moving things around a little. Not all jobs in the same ranking are equivalent to each other for the record, and some are where they are for different reasons. Black Mage, for example, actually has one of the simplest DPS rotations, but is made really challenging by the unique nature that the game is constantly kicking you out of your rotation. You have to know when you need to move ahead of time in order to play Black Mage effectively and plan your mobility resources around that accordingly. Astrologian is mostly a 1, but its buff window burst is very physically demanding to perform on your fingers. Paladin is a little more complex than Warrior, but I don't think that's enough to push it into a 4 at the moment. Dark Knight's complexity is over-hyped I feel. Its just got a bunch of weaving in its burst, and is otherwise very straightforward. Your action order doesn't really matter. I don't know, I'm iffy on some of those still.

Dragoon I'd say has more to its skill ceiling because it has a lot of different cooldowns to keep track of that are really easy to desync until you get really good at the job.

[ASkellington]

Honestly, looking at the arguments on the healer forums lately, I have to ask, "Why are we settling for just one aspect?".

More than one single aspect has to change to truly fix healers:
1) Healing requirements and healing kit bloat
2) Lack of kit interactivity and uselessness of MP
3) Barebones damage kit and lack of skill ceiling
4) Encounter design

We're going to need all of this to change for healers to actually feel like they matter again, anything less is just a band-aid and nothing but temporary satisfaction.

We're settling for one because SE doesn't want to put in the effort to fix all of it.

Of all of it 1 and 3 are the easiest to fix. More dps options and a reduction of oGCDs on short recast timers that cost 0 mana either by giving them a high MP cost or a longer (as in Benediction/Macrocosmos') recast relative to the potency of the skill in question. They are quite literally remove A heal and replace with B DPS/Buff and tuning potency and the Recast Timer number. Thus the more likely to happen and thus what people want to see and advocate the most for because "SE can easily do it, so why don't they?"

The bigguns are 2 and 4. Mostly 4. For some stupid reason they don't want healers to have to heal large amounts of damage. To which I will say, then what the hells do we have this huge selection of heals for? Certainly not in normal dungeons either.

I can't even say for some stupid reason - they don't want a party to deal with bad healers, so they tune damage to where anyone spamming an AOE heal or a HoT is fine and don't really need to learn their kit, while also making it so tanks and DPS can heal as well.

The latter is fine if there is high amounts of damage incoming or if their heals are sparse and high cost in either MP/Class Resource/Recast, so we can skip that over.

The problem with the former is unnecessarily long wind ups, Raidwides and TBs coming at EXACTLY the same and oGCD is off CD, autos not hitting hard on a tank, no spot healing, no damage output that tests the knowledge of a healer to know when to hold a CD if they can or how to work without having X ability up because its been used on Y mechanic.

And 2? HA! Good luck trying to get either kit interactivity OR MP management. The former they actively avoid and the latter I can see getting pushed back by players.

[Katish]

I agree with Snow that no job really reaches a 10. I think back to past versions of the jobs as well, so some of the jobs during Heavensward might've hit a 10 for FFXIV, which is why I think none currently reach that level, but as for EW jobs:

10 - N/A
9 - N/A
8 - Ninja, Black Mage
7 - Dragoon
6 - Monk, Samurai, Bard
5 - Machinist, Red Mage, Gunbreaker
4 - Dancer, Reaper, Dark Knight
3 - Summoner, Warrior, Paladin, Astrologian
2 - Scholar
1 - White Mage, Sage

There are a bunch of jobs I'm only somewhat familiar with, and I just sort of ran that up quickly, so I might move things if I think about it some more. Even now, I'm going back to it a bunch of times and moving things around a little. Not all jobs in the same ranking are equivalent to each other for the record, and some are where they are for different reasons. Black Mage, for example, actually has one of the simplest DPS rotations, but is made really challenging by the unique nature that the game is constantly kicking you out of your rotation. You have to know when you need to move ahead of time in order to play Black Mage effectively and plan your mobility resources around that accordingly. Astrologian is mostly a 1, but its buff window burst is very physically demanding to perform on your fingers. Paladin is a little more complex than Warrior, but I don't think that's enough to push it into a 4 at the moment. Dark Knight's complexity is over-hyped I feel. Its just got a bunch of weaving in its burst, and is otherwise very straightforward. Your action order doesn't really matter. I don't know, I'm iffy on some of those still.

Dragoon I'd say has more to its skill ceiling because it has a lot of different cooldowns to keep track of that are really easy to desync until you get really good at the job.

Ah thank you for your opinion, as I mentioned thinking of trying DRG...but everything looks scary at first looking at it with the button presses XD. But I guess that's just what looking at things at first glance at max level makes you think...Well I'll try it today and see if I like it.

[Zeastria]

That's not how facts work, I said below pressing buttons might make not be your cup of tea, but then why play (that portion is argumentative). Pressing buttons is mmo core design though, so it would make sense you would want to press them regardless of job. So I don't understand the reasoning to fight that...
This is power-creeping and is why healer buttons should be pruned (which again I brought up recently). But regardless, this will always be a thing as of how our gear functions progressively and is just proving my point that I made previously.

Pressing buttons is same - but the gameplay is not.
Also we have low healing req( damage output) in current content also (level 90) - even with minilvl.

Here is the thing:
We have two extreme desires for healers:

A) Wants more dmg skills,depth,rota..ect.
B) Wants higher heal req ( more healing)
(You have those who are at middle too, but for simplifying we speak about the 2 extremes)

The solution is to first solve the dmg output,
then somehow meet at the middle with the dps..
- Something that can work for both!...
(that both can tolerate enough).

[Shurrikhan]

Off topic, what would you rate Dragoon as it is now? Just curious.

Just to supply another reference point, though all just off of EW iterations...

10 - N/A

9 - N/A

8 - Monk highly optimized in what little content creates downtime or damage amp windows (even if from just having adds at above the lowest non-CD AoE-trumps-ST mob count) as to force a non-looping rotation or playing at a GCD tier that cannot fully loop its rotation, BLM among extreme movement requirements or odd GCD tiers

7 - Ninja (though from tightness, not actual decision-making, of which there is virtually none), Bard if there's a reason to vary song order for once

6 - Dragoon with exploitable delayed oGCD AoEs, BLM, Samurai with bits of downtime that may force a change in rotational loop, Dancer if there were reasons to swap around Closed Position (between burstier bursts on one and higher lulls between bursts on another)

5 - Dragoon, Samurai, Bard, Reaper with greater than normal value for a Double Shroud, Paladin if there's something to leverage its range for, Red Mage if there are adds to exploit, Gunbreaker in content that can encourage desync (such as for holding DD for AoE), Astrologian if best Melee/Ranged card recipient varies with timing

4 - Dancer, Bard, Red Mage, Gunbreaker

3 - Astrologian, Paladin, Machinist, Dark Knight, Reaper

2 - Warrior, Scholar, Summoner, White Mage if there's a Misery-cleave opportunity that's not aligned with the minute interval and there's actually enough healing required to get value out of Regen sometimes but not all the time

1 - White Mage, Sage

[Aravell]

We're settling for one because SE doesn't want to put in the effort to fix all of it.

The concern about settling for one thing is that SE then has a reason to say "Alright, job's done, we can ignore them now.". I think if we want to push for change, we need to push for good change that actually benefits the role in the long-term.

I don't think we should care about their workload, they asked for feedback, we should provide feedback, there's no need to be concerned about how much work it would take or what their current stance is.

Obviously, I understand that they might not be able to work out all the issues all at once because the work is going to be a lot after 4 years of neglect. But I feel if we lay out the issues and push them on it, we can probably get the gradual change that we need for the health of the healer role.

[ty_taurus]

Ah thank you for your opinion, as I mentioned thinking of trying DRG...but everything looks scary at first looking at it with the button presses XD. But I guess that's just what looking at things at first glance at max level makes you think...Well I'll try it today and see if I like it.

Keep in mind these are about skill ceiling, not necessarily floor. I don’t think Dragoon has that high of a floor. The biggest concern there is just not jumping to your death really. It’s GCD rotation is very simple actually, just long. And the thing I mentioned about weaving is not going to be the make or break of your ability to clear or anything. But if you want to master dragoon, you need to get really comfortable with all its cooldowns and feel comfortable with their different timers. Life Surge timing was the thing I probably had the roughest time with while just leveling the job.

[Supersnow845]

The concern about settling for one thing is that SE then has a reason to say "Alright, job's done, we can ignore them now.". I think if we want to push for change, we need to push for good change that actually benefits the role in the long-term.

I don't think we should care about their workload, they asked for feedback, we should provide feedback, there's no need to be concerned about how much work it would take or what their current stance is.

Obviously, I understand that they might not be able to work out all the issues all at once because the work is going to be a lot after 4 years of neglect. But I feel if we lay out the issues and push them on it, we can probably get the gradual change that we need for the health of the healer role.

I mean it’s a good philosophy to have but when have square put in one iota of effort when it comes to healers

The community had to ban the casual favourite healer from savage to force their hand on misery changes and SGE is basically just the redressed “this is the rework where we finally delete energy drain” they were going to give to SCH

If viper is anything to go by based on its actions they can’t even bring themselves to care about melees anymore and we are a distant 6th behind the other 4 roles and the damn crafters at this point

[Katish]

Pressing buttons is same - but the gameplay is not.
Also we have low healing req( damage output) in current content also (level 90) - even with minilvl.

Here is the thing:
We have two extreme desires for healers:

A) Wants more dmg skills,depth,rota..ect.
B) Wants higher heal req ( more healing)
(You have those who are at middle too, but for simplifying we speak about the 2 extremes)

The solution is to first solve the dmg output,
then somehow meet at the middle with the dps..
- Something that can work for both!...
(that both can tolerate enough).

The issue with the latter is that raising the damage taken is argumentative on just how much it should be raised (although I agree it should be raised), but even should it...tanks can self heal and other classes can mitigate/heals...then there's the complexity of taking into account gear score and having to do that with ALL content...which even then does not futureproof it. Adding DPS buttons to add button pressing makes you objectively do more, and since DPS on healers is objectively 1 button press and another button every now and again, it should be mended. As for removing healing skills for equilibrium purposes, it helps cull the tools giving a more focused mindset on which healing tools should be used, creating complexity in healing, after that they can give the effort to trying to understand where the meaningful heals should be addressed. Class designs are much easier as they are every expansion or even pre-expansion and are easier to implement than reworking an entire system. Blue mage, if you haven't already tried already, holds the key for engaging healer gameplay imo; which I think deserves to be looked at in terms of figuring future healer gameplay.

...

Thanks for your opinion :3. I have decided to try it at the very least.

[ASkellington]

The concern about settling for one thing is that SE then has a reason to say "Alright, job's done, we can ignore them now.". I think if we want to push for change, we need to push for good change that actually benefits the role in the long-term.

I don't think we should care about their workload, they asked for feedback, we should provide feedback, there's no need to be concerned about how much work it would take or what their current stance is.

Obviously, I understand that they might not be able to work out all the issues all at once because the work is going to be a lot after 4 years of neglect. But I feel if we lay out the issues and push them on it, we can probably get the gradual change that we need for the health of the healer role.

We've long since laid out our issues. If they want to see them they can look.

They don't want to and I'm tired to trying to talk to a direction who has yet to apologize for this level of BS basically boiling down to you want higher healing "Go Play Ultimate".

That's the stance they're taking. Its the wrong stance, but they haven't budged in 2 expansions. They won't increase healing requirements and fix healers so they have diverse healing styles to make healing fun engaging and of different skill levels? The very least they could do is give Healers the Tank treatment and give us a more indepth DPS rotation. Would I be HAPPY with just that? No. Will I take it if that's all I can get? Yes.

That's the very LEAST they can do.