Healer kit adjustment idea, 40% dps to 60% heals/utility

[IDontPetLalas]

It doesn't really matter, in the sense that I wouldn't want to be in a game where I would consistently spend 95% of my time healing. I have no issue whatsoever when a specific party needs that, but not if all encounters and the job design do so.

That was part of FFXIV's appeal, as well as other games where I had a healer- I had specific encounters that I had intense periods to heal through however I also had the flexibility to contribute in other ways. I wasn't locked into "push the health bars to the right".

[Connor]

With respect, I think this misdiagnoses the problem. I think it's perfectly fine if some players want to min-max their DPS as a healer; I'm in no way opposed to that, more power to them. The issue is simply that there's not enough damage hitting the party. In normal content boss fights, it feels like my time as a healer is spent 25% healing and 75% DPSing. That's not an issue with min-maxing (especially since I'm not min-maxing), that's an issue of there not being enough of a job to do. As a non-min-maxy player, I want 80-95% of my time to be spent healing. If the min-maxers can shave some of that off to deal even more damage, I think that's cool. But they should be doing more damage because they're just that damn good at healing, not because the healing requirements are on the floor.

I know this is possible to achieve because it's what I experienced in Heavensward. My hope is that we can closer to that again.

The point I’m making though is that they simply cannot do ‘80-95%’ healing because of the way the game is designed. They’d have to completely rework the entire battle system from the ground up to be more focused on triage and survival than timed burst heals. That’s why people ‘min-max’ dps in the first place - the game simply is not designed for healing to be a full-time job. If it was, then you’d just end up running into the ‘Won’t somebody please think of the newbies?!’ thing all the time.

Healing by definition can only ever be a limited requirement. That is to say, there’s always going to be a point where you’re ‘done’ healing’. There isn’t a point where you’re ‘done’ needing damage, unless the boss is dead, in which case nobody needs anything anymore lol. It’s because FFXIV is designed in this way that they simply cannot have ‘80-95%’ of a healer’s time spent on healing, because they’d have to make healing requirements astronomically high to make us heal that much.

I levelled Astrologian in Heavensward first and I can’t think of any times where I had to spend literally ‘80-95%’ of the time on healing. I mean, you simply couldn’t spend that much time healing because of Cleric Stance sectioning off your healing/dps. Even on initial release when they majorly under-tuned it’s healing it didn’t really bother me much (not that I wasn’t thankful when they buffed everything lol) And that’s from the experience of a casual player - I’ve never been much of a min-maxer and barely do raids. But even still, in raids and stuff you needed to be healing even less than normal, otherwise you’d hit enrages (which I do remember being particularly tight at the same time).

Really it wasn’t particularly higher or lower than what we have now, we just didn’t have so many oGCDs and the mechanics weren’t specifically designed to be answered by them in the way they are (i.e Lilybell / Panhaima / Seraph / Macrocosmos having Harrowing Hell and Styx exist just for them). But then, we did still have things like Assize, Benediction, Indomitability and Emergency Tactics, so it’s not like you were GCD healing all the time.

I agree that we had a much better ratio of GCD/oGCD Healing back then, but even that early in the game it was still at least 50/50 between damage and healing. Again it’s simply an unfortunate part of game design that’s kind of become intrinsic rather than intentional. And I don’t think it’s great either; personally I’d love to be healing more than 80% of the time. But at the same time, sometimes you have to accept that things simply are what they are.

[ForsakenRoe]

I have had recent ish experience of '85-90% of my time is spent on healing', in another game. It is not fun. It is VERY stressful. I was able to keep up with the requirements (barely) but I would never expect that to be the 'regular gameplay' of the role. It is one of the biggest examples of 'you think you do but you don't' that I have ever had to go through. I'd say 'screw it, lets try it so people can realise how much they 'think they want it but they don't'', but the issue with that is that the role would be dead, actually in the grave, within a month. You think Abyssos did damage to the role's population, this would bury it, and the emergency backpedal that would come might not even get enough people to come back

If my terminology is leading us to envision different games, I'll simply clarify by saying that I liked what healing looked like in non-Savage/EX content back in Heavensward, and that's the vibe of what I'd like to see again.

Same, but that would also mean having back the other side of HW: the damage kits. Returning to HW's healing kits and fight healing requirements, without changing the damage kits, would be exceptionally hollow gameplay even by today's standards

[AmiableApkallu]

As a non-min-maxy player, I want 80-95% of my time to be spent healing.

I'm curious: How would you answer these questions that I posed previously?

Because it's worth noting that if you're spending 19 out of 20 GCDs (95%) on healing that's required by mechanics, that leaves you a mere 1 out of 20 GCDs to help the party recover from mistakes -- which means the entire party has to play to a certain degree of perfection.

[LilimoLimomo]

It doesn't really matter, in the sense that I wouldn't want to be in a game where I would consistently spend 95% of my time healing. I have no issue whatsoever when a specific party needs that, but not if all encounters and the job design do so.

That was part of FFXIV's appeal, as well as other games where I had a healer- I had specific encounters that I had intense periods to heal through however I also had the flexibility to contribute in other ways. I wasn't locked into "push the health bars to the right".

Thank you for sharing this perspective with me; I was genuinely unaware that players like this existed! So I was not taking players like you into consideration with my ideas, which is a huge flaw! You're valid, and even though I want to heal more than you do, I want us both to have good experiences. This is something I'll have to think on, but again, thank you for simply sharing a perspective that I hadn't realized was there!

[IDontPetLalas]

Thank you for sharing this perspective with me; I was genuinely unaware that players like this existed! So I was not taking players like you into consideration with my ideas, which is a huge flaw! You're valid, and even though I want to heal more than you do, I want us both to have good experiences. This is something I'll have to think on, but again, thank you for simply sharing a perspective that I hadn't realized was there!

Well - and I mean this quite genuinely- I am honestly rather surprised, unless you're new to healing and/or MMOs. it isn't a new direction, there's quite a variety both in the types of people that are attracted to the role and to the job direction over an number of games over, let's say- the past 20 plus years.

I won't dispute at all that some people just want to heal, and they may find their niche in some games, or even some content in a specific game. In other games it's perfectly normal for healers to spec into DPS, heal, or a hybrid and people will then go and do the content that they want to do.

[Naoki34]

You could keep complaining, but basically Yoshi-P made healers unfit to dps as before, so that healers who didn't want to dps would be annoyed by those who wanted to oblige them. All that's left is to try and convince Yoshi-P otherwise. And it's been a few extensions already.
He only put in the minimum so that Main healers could do their MSQ.

[lennit]

i would rather 10% dps and 90% heal , so a team need a healer to stay live and a healer need a team to killer shit for them. but since they made tanks independent , turn all the healer in to mages with more dps and tell all the tank to heal themselves. i given up on healers because there not the healer i wanted it to be. there a complete mess. there nothing more then a raising class. because players get 1 shot and tank healing themselves

[ty_taurus]

Thank you for sharing this perspective with me; I was genuinely unaware that players like this existed! So I was not taking players like you into consideration with my ideas, which is a huge flaw! You're valid, and even though I want to heal more than you do, I want us both to have good experiences. This is something I'll have to think on, but again, thank you for simply sharing a perspective that I hadn't realized was there!

FFXIV, even during the ARR and HW days, left room for healers to be offensive as they saw fit. Things were more volatile back then. MP management was more cutthroat, enemies could crit, tanks had significantly less survivability, Cleric Stance was a thing, etc. DPS felt more optional, yet rewarding to master. That was what FFXIV healing was built on, whether intentional or not. It just took the community time to fully realize that. That is the type of healing style that this game has always subtly promoted.

That said, I do see value in trying to create a playstyle for the healers that want something more like traditional WoW, at least tangentially. The thing is, every healer needs to still provide a competitive amount of personal damage, or the healer that doesn't will be ostracized over the balance concerns. What I have talked about in the past, is creating an engine-building healer out of Astrologian who, in a group setting, focuses on setting up healing and support skills with their GCD while passively generating personal DPS that you either trigger later when you attack with Malefic, or a party member triggers for you with their own attacks, so that you don't have to attack. You'd spend your GCDs setting up your library of actions to utilize later. I've seen that making the cards GCD is not the route others would like, so I've bounced ideas around in my head about other ways to go about it. But I think that core concept of a healer who spends their GCDs building their heals and support tools to use later while passively generating DPS is what a player like you might be able to enjoy in FFXIV's hyper offensive environment.

[Niroken]

I see people wanting 80%+ healing in content and I have to ask... do you want it in all content? Because if your healing the same amount in a 4 party dungeon as Ultimate then I can already see issues. The need for high healing percentage also increases the personal responsibility which tends to push people away from a role, just look at tanks.

I would also like to note that having more healing doesn't mean you will be making healing engaging content. Swapping Glare with Cure ends up doing the same thing.