The healer issue? I really dunno what to put here.

[Raven2014]

The healer balance has literally existed in this form for almost as long as the game has existed, SCH and AST have always been giagabrained compared to WHM (and now SGE) and yet they only see even a little DPS net benefit at the absolute top end percentiles. You can be a rank 1 AST playing at rank 1 level but if your party is bad you are being out DPS’ed by a mid tier WHM.

Exactly ... so remind me, which healer that was supposed to get a big rework last expansion, but have to be put under more consideration to receive a bigger change this expansion? Oh right, AST. Why is that? I used to tell people if you want an interesting healer, AST exist. I gave it a try myself during the first tier of 6.xx savage, and while I played it relatively successful (low 90th) I was like ... this is too much work for shit reward. Now if I was the only one feeling that way, or if both the players and developers are fine with the "complexity doesn’t play into damage numbers" mindset like you claimed ... why do AST need a rework again? Just like always, these kind of discussion always contain a good dose of virtue signaling that completely devoid of reality.

And again, what wrong with "Green DPS". I said I'm fine with how healer is atm, but I won't mind if we get more option, I won't mind if we get more complex rotation if I mean more damage, and if you think that's not how the majority want than you're either ill informed or pretending. I main healers but I also play DNC, DRG, SMN and BRD and you know what, yeah they're fun, won't mind if my healers become a bit more colorful. Why not just be straight forward and honest about it, instead of keep side-step and misdirecting it like it's some sort of hidden guilt? This is like seeing someone try to justify why they like anime while there is nothing wrong with anime, just because people want to avoid the stereotype.

As someone note it before, the healer community actually united in the thought healer need to become more interesting, but divided in the how. The two main camps are:

- More punishing fight design that requires more healing.

- More DPS option to make the role more interesting.

I've been part of this discussion for years, passionate at the time. And you know which camp I hail from? The first one. That's why I'm fully aware how much of a minority I am in that debate. I used to go for 10+ pages of discussion being the only one advocating for more interesting heal against legions of healers want more DPS options. So you know, just be honest. I think the best chance to get what you want is to give to the developer straight of what you want and how you want, instead of keep dancing around these weird virtues. Again, saying you're ok with more complex rotation with same or less output is just straight up a bad take.

[Supersnow845]

snip

AST gets redone every expansion, the EW into DT AST problem wasn’t a “too complex for shit reward” because if it was then they wouldn’t have done the ShB to EW redo because that made AST both harder and weaker. You are using the DT rework as justification but then not looking at the apparent reasons for the other 3 reworks AST has gotten, they just simply don’t know what to do with AST

And I also have no problem with green DPS, I don’t have any sort of guilt behind it, I tailor my feedback because it’s obvious from the way they change healers that it’s an easier ask than upping healing (which I would prefer) because they simply refuse to stress healers at all

I have no idea why you think “just give the exact feedback you want with no compromise” is a good idea if you truly have been active in the healer forums, there is so much pushback you have to tailor your feedback at some point on compromise on points, after much debate on the healer forums I’ve come to realise it’s pointless being completely rigid on points

[Silver-Strider]

The two main camps are:
- More punishing fight design that requires more healing.
- More DPS option to make the role more interesting.

I'm in the camp that says that our toolkits are just hot garbage and are in desperate need of fixing.

Healing is no different than DPSing because they're both fire and forget. Our AoE heals cover for virtually everything this game throws at us and our ST heals are potent enough to do the same. There's no gauge to monitor, no resources to build up or maintain, nothing. Playing Ping Pong pong with health bars is no more engaging than the DPS race that are fights in this game and healers got the worst of both worlds because Health Bars don't ping pong so much as they follow a rhythm based on a script and DPS is funnelled down to a single button for 80% of your casts.

I would rather there be something more to each skill to actually have me thinking and engaging with them because right now, 9/10 time there's no point in GCD healing when our oGCDs do the same thing but better, with Addlo being the 1/10.

[CG1]

The last time healers had an engaging dps/kit rotation was in Stormblood, and then Shadowbringers happened.

[AikenDrum]

Hey, ShB had a well designed healer, DR RDM with savior and lost cures ^__^

Sadly, due to cover-up by SE, we never learned how many have perished by having their minds exploded after having to press an extra button or two every 30s while doing regular rdm rotation

[lolnotacat]

I only play healer because it's different from the other roles. Instead of relying heavily on a rotation to do their role (healing, not DPS), it's a group of skills and the best healers optimize those skills for the situation. I like that kind of strategic thinking, which is why the first couple weeks after a patch are the most fun -- it's when I get to actually heal while people learn encounters. As time has progressed, the job of healer has been dumbed down quite a bit, with SCH (in my opinion) feeling the most like old school healers with the large and varied toolkit. Now instead of relying on our varied skills, we usually can get away with casting an AOE heal and going back to pressing 21111111211111111 until the next raidwide damage goes off or someone screws up.

I get that most people won't agree with this, and I'm not suggesting it be brought back, but I actually liked healing when we had cleric stance. It required us to learn the fights and our party's quirks to optimize uptime while making sure we could still heal. It added the extra bit of sweat to the job when we were DPSing, and had to wait for a GCD to heal if someone messed up. And again, I don't necessarily think Cleric Stance should be brought back, but our roles should be more engaging and require us to think a bit more aside from "Dodge the bad, keep everyone topped off, and spam 11111111111."

[Naoki34]

I haven't been following this Healer Striker FFXIV drama too much, but I can say one thing for sure: SGE is as cheated as ever, and we now have plenty of tools for AoE to make dmg and thus heal the tank.

You can always Pull before a slow Tank or keep your party alive while waiting for the Tank to raise. And nobody takes any damage while still being able to heal well. Not as much as SCH or WHM, each in their own speciality, but it's still very cool.

Those who have problems with SGE, are those who treat with SGE as if they were still on their WHM, it does not work the same mitigation, you know?

[Supersnow845]

I haven't been following this Healer Striker FFXIV drama too much, but I can say one thing for sure: SGE is as cheated as ever, and we now have plenty of tools for AoE to make dmg and thus heal the tank.

You can always Pull before a slow Tank or keep your party alive while waiting for the Tank to raise. And nobody takes any damage while still being able to heal well. Not as much as SCH or WHM, each in their own speciality, but it's still very cool.

Those who have problems with SGE, are those who treat with SGE as if they were still on their WHM, it does not work the same mitigation, you know?

I don’t think people have problems with SGE playing it as “not WHM” people seem to have problems with the fact there is functionally no fact of raid design a modern shield healer should be balanced around that SGE actually beats SCH on

In the emerging DT balance WHM seems to have this problem competing with AST as well but SGE has had this problem since it launched and even after 3 buffs and a nerf to SCH it’s still behind SCH even in our trash non crit EX gear

[Sarevok_Thordin]

Healer Strike? I've had no issue getting healers at all.

[Raven2014]

Healer Strike? I've had no issue getting healers at all.

Yep, like I said as a healer I wish the strike is real so I can reap the benefit of my (highly demand) service, but nope still plenty to go around. It really shows the strike and its surrounding drama (amped up by certain streamers/influencer) is hardly representative of the player-base. Tanks never have a strike and you still have to wait for them.