What we want as healers: A coherent List

[Chajii]

And any additional button we get comes with an associated nerf to the buttons we already have.

[…]

Your attention should be on healing, NOT DPS. The reason green DPS keep wanting more DPS buttons is because they care about their high scores outside the game, not because it would make the job better.

While I can't speak for the others, here are a few points I personally want to point out.

I would like to see a few more DPS buttons on healers, it doesn't mean I want a higher damage output so I don't mind (more like please) nerf the current ones to adjust the numbers so that in total we healers do the similar amount of damage.

Yes I do agree healer should prioritise healing before concern about DPS, if keeping the party alive means you lose damage, you should lose those damage and heal; but beyond that, there are still plenty of downtime where no one needs any healing which we are mostly spamming 1 button now, having just a few more (not saying tons of) DPS buttons could make downtime phases feel more entertaining.

Let say SCH for example since I play it the most, asking for an extra AoE DoT to maintain, or a button to spread DoTs on 1 enemy to the others surely won't be too much, and the most important thing is that, if a new player were still learning the job, it is normal for them to heal more and does less DPS, having more DPS buttons doesn't mean you are forced to use them over healing, which healing should still be your first priority; but when you start getting good at the job and heal more efficiently, it would be more rewarding to able to have room from a few different DPS buttons than just spam 1 button for few more times.

I am not sure what others are actually asking for when talking about "more DPS buttons on healers" since most ppl don't give examples, but probably (I hope) not asking for something like the old Cleric Stance which if you pressed it the wrong time there was no return, hopefully not something that crazy.

[Aravell]

-Art of War is now a targeted AoE (Can we please discuss why the fragile healer is forced to go into melee range to AoE? Not very caster-like...)

.....

-Dyskrasia is now a targeted AoE

Hard disagree. I don't want to lose niche optimisations on 2-target large bosses like p1/2 of TEA and p6 of DSR just because someone thinks it's not very caster-like to be in melee range.

[Chajii]

Hard disagree. I don't want to lose niche optimisations on 2-target large bosses like p1/2 of TEA and p6 of DSR just because someone thinks it's not very caster-like to be in melee range.

Oh right how come I missed that one, please do NOT change Art of War, other than what Aravell has mentioned above, I also don't want to lose the niche optimisation between Lv46 and Lv53 where Art of War is a gain on one with auto attacks (as it has the same potency as Ruin I but instant cast so no delay on AA).

SCH has the highest AA among the healers so you should be in melee range for that whenever possible for optimisation, please don't try to take away our fun just because you don't want to do so.

[Burmecia]

Let me clarify this again: THIS LIST IS NOT MEANT TO BE SET IN STONE.

It is meant to serve as a group idea board so we have a coherent idea of what we want. I started this list somewhere in the happy medium between more healing requirements and more dps to reflect it. I'm not marching in here trying to say my way is superior; sure, I'll give my ideas, but I'm mainly doing this so Yoshi P can truly understand what we want.

I for one think this thread is commendable.

I respectfully think that some people participating in the #FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE are so anxious and feel so totally ignored they cannot engage with anything that looks like dissenting opinion, whatever the opinion haver's motive.
They don't all resist you, the other opinion havers. Some people want to see how robust your stance and respectful demands are, and opinions.
Of course it is not any random healer protester's responsibility to spar with any random troll who comes to raise chaos.
But when the troll is caught everyone should just STOP feeding them, but still, maybe continue talking to people and raise the awareness of your message.

I am not pro or anti, because I cannot be. I think the "easy to understand, bite sized" list in the main thread's op it too vague, kinda undetermined as if the writer was afraid to annoy someone. What, am I supposed to dislike self-sustain of non-healer jobs? Why point like that is even at the top of the list? Is it the most glaring problem here...?
Excessive oGCD heals part at least mentions the diminished dymamisim. That does sound kinda unfun... : (
--You see how the main thread's starter posts message echoes to people who haven't lived and breathed the healer dissatisfaction for "literal years". Unless support of people who are not insiders is not important. Then I guess just ignore me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, this thread looks great, not perfect but great =//= perfect. A lot of positivity and determination to the protesters! I might need to read into your ideas more, but I can see that you are doing this for the love of the healer role.

[fulminating]

Scholar's just about the least fragile caster if you're unnecessarily cautious and entirely capable of standing in mass trash pulls hitting art of war just fine if you keep an eye on the telegraphed aoes. There's no benefit at all to changing art of war to a targeted aoe besides making it really annoying when the thing you target is killed between the cast starting and being delivered.

[Iedarus]

Oh right how come I missed that one, please do NOT change Art of War, other than what Aravell has mentioned above, I also don't want to lose the niche optimisation between Lv46 and Lv53 where Art of War is a gain on one with auto attacks (as it has the same potency as Ruin I but instant cast so no delay on AA).

SCH has the highest AA among the healers so you should be in melee range for that whenever possible for optimisation, please don't try to take away our fun just because you don't want to do so.

Hard disagree. I don't want to lose niche optimisations on 2-target large bosses like p1/2 of TEA and p6 of DSR just because someone thinks it's not very caster-like to be in melee range.

Changed! Like I said, it was just a question of flavor. I actually didn't even know that AoW tech existed.

[EusisLandale]

Changed! Like I said, it was just a question of flavor. I actually didn't even know that AoW tech existed.

Things like that also help when you want to avoid being turned to face a target on cast and disrupting your movement if the mechanics call for it. Art of War and Dyskrasia may be a DPS loss over Ruin 2 and Toxikon as mobility tools, but they're also a gain over not casting anything at all to keep moving where you're trying to go when something's close enough. Oschon or the Antlion come to mind.

[Isilien]

I don't see it often, but I want Art of War to be a range casted spell. Scholar already has so many casted spells and it would make it on par with Astrologian. THere's also need for it to be in melee, unlike white mage and now sage.

[KisaiTenshi]

I am not sure what others are actually asking for when talking about "more DPS buttons on healers" since most ppl don't give examples, but probably (I hope) not asking for something like the old Cleric Stance which if you pressed it the wrong time there was no return, hopefully not something that crazy.

What I'm talking about is the "1-1-1-1" spam and players seemingly want a second button for a rotation, but what they don't realize is that either:
1) we lose the potency of both. So if an existing thing like Glare III (pot 330) is what we have, then the result is like Glare III (pot 190 ) + Stone VI (pot 140), the result being the same damage, but now it takes longer to do so.
2) we lose the DoT potency, so two dots would result in Dia going down to 35 potency and the Aero/Water Dot also being 35

OR

We see the recast time increased.

Like given what we've seen the developers do in the past, I will rather keep the minimum DPS kit as-is, boring as it is because a second GCD DPS would result in players neglecting healing entirely. Two "even weaker" DPS doesn't make it more fun, it just makes it feel you are dead weight. There is an explicit cap on the amount of DPS they want the healer doing, so regardless if that is 1 DPS or 10 DPS buttons, they don't want us "being a third DPS" in party content. Like you can even see this on the third party site, that the candlestick bars showing the range of DPS, all healers in raid content fall underneath the Tanks's DPS, and all the tanks DPS fall well under the DPS by quite a large gap. Healers and Tanks are capped. That assumes someone is playing the content as intended. For a healer to do "DPS" levels of damage, they would the potency doubled across the board, and adding an extra DPS button doesn't do that. Like even taking the 1 percentile (AST vs BLM) the AST is still only capable of doing 60% of the damage the BLM is capable of. So if the median DPS of healers is 7200 and the median DPS of Tank is 9500, and the dedicated DPS median is 15000. When you consider party composition of 5 DPS, 2 Healers and 1 Tank, The DPS is responsible collectively for 75% of the DPS, and healers 10%.

Hence my argument that "extra DPS buttons" aren't going to translate to "more DPS". It will if anything translate to less, as the recast time between two lesser-potency DPS will be collectively more. I'd rather have more DoT's, but I know what will happen, the two DoT's will have less damage collectively than the single DoT had before.

[AmiableApkallu]

What I'm talking about is the "1-1-1-1" spam and players seemingly want a second button for a rotation, but what they don't realize is that either:
1) we lose the potency of both. So if an existing thing like Glare III (pot 330) is what we have, then the result is like Glare III (pot 190 ) + Stone VI (pot 140), the result being the same damage, but now it takes longer to do so.
2) we lose the DoT potency, so two dots would result in Dia going down to 35 potency and the Aero/Water Dot also being 35

OR

We see the recast time increased.

The goal is to break up the 1-1-1-1 spam without significantly changing the total damage delivered over the course of an encounter.

An easy way to do that is to simply take the existing DoT; reduce its duration to, say, 12sec; and adjust its potency accordingly.

On SGE, you could then also reduce the cooldown on Phlegma from 40sec to 20sec and adjust its potency accordingly.

On WHM, you could then also give it "Water Splash", a spell (GCD) on a 15sec cooldown that's a mere 20 more potency than Glare.

Etc. etc.

At this point, relatively small changes would go a long ways.