Fixing healers are much harder than you think

[Tunda]

Off the top of my head, MNK, SMN, PLD and SAM all got reworks in EW, either at the start or during the expansion itself.

If those 4 can get a rework, what's stopping SE from reworking the 4 healers?

Healer role is more important that any regular dps

Healer is the most important role in the game.. changing 1 means changing all and make sure content is relevant or we will see what we see today

[Supersnow845]

Healer role is more important that any regular dps

Healer is the most important role in the game.. changing 1 means changing all and make sure content is relevant or we will see what we see today

The healers are already a travesty of balance, WHM brings literally nothing to the table and SCH is the best at literally everything

Why are you acting like we can’t alter the sacred balance without uprooting everything, the existing balance is already hot trash, they can’t make it any worse so there is no downside to changing even one of them at a time

[Tunda]

I wonder... if the budget allocated to the "graphics update?" were instead put into job design. This mess could have been prevented

Job changes are more important than graphics.. I appreciate both but I am a gameplay enjoyer

[Tunda]

The healers are already a travesty of balance, WHM brings literally nothing to the table and SCH is the best at literally everything

Why are you acting like we can’t alter the sacred balance without uprooting everything, the existing balance is already hot trash, they can’t make it any worse so there is no downside to changing even one of them at a time

If think that's easy why game can't figure out healers and tanks.. making all of them the same with almost 80% same job with different icons and weapons

[Keldion]

There are several ways to address the healer problem. Here's an incomplete list that I brainstormed in a few minutes.

1) Reevaluate tank and DPS abilities with a bias against raw healing throughput. Propotional mitigation (-X% damage taken) and shields is generally better for balance over raw healing numbers.
2) Increase the amount of required healing. Must be done carefully, or you turn healing into a game of whack-a-mole.
3) Adjust healer cooldown strength. As you get more and more buttons, it becomes exceptionally trivial to top off player health pools. At that point, how can healers feel like they're getting a satisfying challenge?
4) Experiment with different encounter models.

To use examples from World of Warcraft: Loatheb, Valithria Dreamwalker, and Malkorok all featured unique twists to healing.

Loatheb was relatively basic. The boss dealt low to moderate damage over time but negated all heals for 17 second intervals, then allowed a 3 second gap for burst heals before the healing-blocking aura returned.

Valithria was based on healing a friendly NPC to full health, so the healer throughput takes over the traditional "bring boss to 0 HP" victory condition. DPS and tanks are tasked with killing waves of spawning enemies from start to finish.

Malkorok functioned similar to Loatheb, but converted raw healing into potent shields that were necessary to counter the boss's predictable cadence of high to overwhelming damage.

I don't want Square to copy these encounters to the letter, but to use them as a source of inspiration.

[Rithy255]

Off the top of my head, MNK, SMN, PLD and SAM all got reworks in EW, either at the start or during the expansion itself.

If those 4 can get a rework, what's stopping SE from reworking the 4 healers?

PLD - Just made the class more boring, didn't really make it better outside of making it more of the same you get with other tanks (Veil, bulwark changes welcome, Divine might is a cool concept).
Sam - This was not a rework they removed Kaiten and made midare crit/dh this isn't a rework
Smn - I mean i shouldn't have to explain why this rework is bad, despite being popular it has casued a lot of caster balance issues just by it's design and it doesn't really feel like a great example to show how reworks can make jobs more "intresting"
Mnk - only rework that was somewhat fun, but it got another in 7.0 lol where you just press what lights up now.

I'm pretty worried that any sort of healer rework would miss the mark by the rework track record. well I would be but they reworked ast already and i can't stand playing it even giving it a fair try.

[Silver-Strider]

PLD - Just made the class more boring, didn't really make it better outside of making it more of the same you get with other tanks (Veil, bulwark changes welcome, Divine might is a cool concept).
Sam - This was not a rework they removed Kaiten and made midare crit/dh this isn't a rework
Smn - I mean i shouldn't have to explain why this rework is bad, despite being popular it has casued a lot of caster balance issues just by it's design and it doesn't really feel like a great example to show how reworks can make jobs more "intresting"
Mnk - only rework that was somewhat fun, but it got another in 7.0 lol where you just press what lights up now.

I'm pretty worried that any sort of healer rework would miss the mark by the rework track record. well I would be but they reworked ast already and i can't stand playing it even giving it a fair try.

I was arguing more that it's possible to rework 4 jobs, not that the reworks themselves were good. If they want to make the jobs even more crap than they already are, then it just means I'll be doubling down on my decision to play MNK this time around

[ThorneDynasty]

It's not even the graphics update - Maybe they might consider hiring just one more fresh eyes on the job design team instead of making such evergreen content as the Island Sanctuary the big selling point for the patch cycle?

That had to be quite a few manhours invested in attempting to bandwagon on a video game trend FF14 was obviously never going to fulfill. But it's harder to market solid QoL updates instead, or so the executives will see it. I can just dream that the second dye channel being the one thing that got a proper cheering applause during the DT promotions might open their eyes a little.

[Ayer2015]

I have been thinking how could square enix fix healers in the long run..

The issue is you HAVE to change the kit of 4 classes at once to do a proper change or all of them will be a copy cat of each other

I don't really agree. Base line, healers only need Cure, Medica, Raise, and Esuna to fill the base requirement to heal. Everything outside those skills, and their equivalents, can be customized and adjusted to the specific jobs flavor.

[rawker]

It's not even the graphics update - Maybe they might consider hiring just one more fresh eyes on the job design team instead of making such evergreen content as the Island Sanctuary the big selling point for the patch cycle?

That had to be quite a few manhours invested in attempting to bandwagon on a video game trend FF14 was obviously never going to fulfill. But it's harder to market solid QoL updates instead, or so the executives will see it. I can just dream that the second dye channel being the one thing that got a proper cheering applause during the DT promotions might open their eyes a little.

Hence, more resources, specifically money, had to be invested more onto designing the jobs as it is what's retaining players. Graphics is nothing if the experience is crappy