#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Khutulun]

I'm honestly impressed by the amount of posts in this thread dedicated to talking down healers and the concept of the healer strike. As someone who doesn't play healer, and just plays DPS & Tank, it's pretty visible that the healer role is 100% borked. Playing GNB for DT, I've had a few instances in boss fights where the healer throws a Band-Aid at me and I'm sitting there thinking "why did you even bother, I'm going to heal all of that damage to myself in two seconds with my own toolkit, I don't need you". I've had other times where I spend arguably more time healing the healers and keeping them alive than they do me. There's been other times as well where the healer dies to the first mechanic and we just clear the boss without them... why can we even do that? Why can we do that in expert dungeons? Healers honestly feel optional, they're only there to bubblewrap everyone's favorite 16 year old sprout little Jimmy- who forgot not to stand in the radioactive orange juice for the 4th time today. Can't even claim the healer is there to rez little Jimmy, because that jobs belongs to Summoner (who has eaten so much glue that they pretend to be a healer by constantly pressing the same button to attack) and the foreign contractor we hired: Red Mage (who will be replacing all healers by 9.0 when we finish our outsourcing plans). The only other purpose healers seem to have is being the target for blame when the party wipes due to failing mechanics.

On a different note, I do think the Healer related design problems extend to other roles in their own ways. Kes13a stated the elephant in the room: FF14 jobs need to get more fun. Healers have it worst with their absolute tiny amount of damage buttons and overly bloated healing kits- but the other classes honestly have similar problems. I look at the current job roster and think to myself "why is it that you all operate off of 2 min bursts, why is it that around half of you also use nearly the exact same meter mechanic, how is it that you all manage to feel almost exactly the same to me". Feels like the "healerstrike" should be more of a "funhaverstrike".

[Kes13a]

I'm honestly impressed by the amount of posts in this thread dedicated to talking down healers and the concept of the healer strike. As someone who doesn't play healer, and just plays DPS & Tank, it's pretty visible that the healer role is 100% borked. Playing GNB for DT, I've had a few instances in boss fights where the healer throws a Band-Aid at me and I'm sitting there thinking "why did you even bother, I'm going to heal all of that damage to myself in two seconds with my own toolkit, I don't need you". I've had other times where I spend arguably more time healing the healers and keeping them alive than they do me. There's been other times as well where the healer dies to the first mechanic and we just clear the boss without them... why can we even do that? Why can we do that in expert dungeons? Healers honestly feel optional, they're only there to bubblewrap everyone's favorite 16 year old sprout little Jimmy- who forgot not to stand in the radioactive orange juice for the 4th time today. Can't even claim the healer is there to rez little Jimmy, because that jobs belongs to Summoner (who has eaten so much glue that they pretend to be a healer by constantly pressing the same button to attack) and the foreign contractor we hired: Red Mage (who will be replacing all healers by 9.0 when we finish our outsourcing plans). The only other purpose healers seem to have is being the target for blame when the party wipes due to failing mechanics.

On a different note, I do think the Healer related design problems extend to other roles in their own ways. Kes13a stated the elephant in the room: FF14 jobs need to get more fun. Healers have it worst with their absolute tiny amount of damage buttons and overly bloated healing kits- but the other classes honestly have similar problems. I look at the current job roster and think to myself "why is it that you all operate off of 2 min bursts, why is it that around half of you also use nearly the exact same meter mechanic, how is it that you all manage to feel almost exactly the same to me". Feels like the "healerstrike" should be more of a "funhaverstrike".

yeah, you can see a lot of the base problem in other jobs, you just dont NOTICE as much because they are busier. healer its obvious because... not much to do either way. 2 button dps or heal something that doesnt happen often after the 2 week honeymoon

fun is important, this is a game after all and what we pay for is entertainment, which seems to be in short supply lately

[Aravell]

yeah, you can see a lot of the base problem in other jobs, you just dont NOTICE as much because they are busier. healer its obvious because... not much to do either way. 2 button dps or heal something that doesnt happen often after the 2 week honeymoon

fun is important, this is a game after all and what we pay for is entertainment, which seems to be in short supply lately

That's what happens when the developer over-emphasises balance over all else. It's one thing for players to optimise the fun out of the game, it's another thing for the developers themselves to balance the fun out of the game.

All the non-standard stuff we had, was it good for balance? Debatably no. But was it fun? Yes, it was. It was fun to find new and interesting ways to play jobs, having all alternate ways to play a job removed in the name of chasing the perfect balance just sours the whole experience of the game.

[Kes13a]

That's what happens when the developer over-emphasises balance over all else. It's one thing for players to optimise the fun out of the game, it's another thing for the developers themselves to balance the fun out of the game.

All the non-standard stuff we had, was it good for balance? Debatably no. But was it fun? Yes, it was. It was fun to find new and interesting ways to play jobs, having all alternate ways to play a job removed in the name of chasing the perfect balance just sours the whole experience of the game.

I agree. and as I said before pages ago, balance is a fools pursuit and only useful in pvp games.

if I am playing a job I think is fun, I personally dont care if another job does something better. their pursuit of this "balance" their need to copy and paste to new jobs to appease a section of the playerbase, I dont see it ending well for any jobs in the game, healers just are suffering first because they dont care or play healers

[Isala]

I agree. and as I said before pages ago, balance is a fools pursuit and only useful in pvp games.

if I am playing a job I think is fun, I personally dont care if another job does something better. their pursuit of this "balance" their need to copy and paste to new jobs to appease a section of the playerbase, I dont see it ending well for any jobs in the game, healers just are suffering first because they dont care or play healers

Honestly, I feel like healers were the canary in the coal mine, so to speak, once ShB happened. That should have been a BIG warning of what was to come. Now we're seeing it with the DPS and Tank jobs too. Even BLM got gutted for some reason. I cannot fathom how SE feels like ripping away any form of skill from Jobs is a good design decision. Gap closers lost their damage because "It's too hard." They strip out positionals because those are "too hard". Meanwhile, the vast majority of players I have met in the decade I have played this game seemed to handle them just fine, or just didn't bother to engage with them in the first place. And the question remains, why are we catering to the latter? If someone is just going to not do something, why is that the kind of player you are designing for? They're not going to engage with your Jobs, no matter how much you destroy them for everyone else.

[Rolder50]

Gap closers lost their damage because "It's too hard."

I agree with everything except this. I think it's pretty stupid to have gap closers be a part of your DPS rotation where you just use them during cooldowns and gg. Much prefer them being used to, you know, close gaps when needed. Game needs more pure utility in general, imo.

[Khutulun]

If balance was their goal, they've yet to succeed on that front... even if we ignore the healer element of the problem- i.e. the role that is borderline unneeded in most content. Despite how little uniqueness any one job has inside a role, there's still a clear hierarchy of "this job is clearly better than the others".

I do respect their attempts though. It does seem like this game is better balanced than my experiences with GW2, and looking at WoW tier lists whenever they're slapped onto my face while browsing a Discord channel... seems more balanced than there too? Unfortunately, MMOs (like strat games or resource management sims) is a spreadsheet number cruncher when it comes to the hardcore community- bigger numbers, values, utility go brrrrrrrrrrr. I think it's impossible to not have winners and losers when it comes to balance. Might as well be risky and make the game more fun and bizarre, especially when your game has automated queues for regular content and the ability to play EVERY JOB on the same character.