#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Aravell]

The people who are vehemently against more damage buttons are under the mistaken assumption that it would cause the casuals to have a meltdown and then transform into damage-hungry individuals who will let you die for another Glare.

But the truth is that most players will not care either way. People who spam Cure now are also people who spammed Cure back in HW.

The irony is that people are fighting to keep the current healer design when the older design is far friendlier to casuals or inexperienced players. Because damage was harder to do in HW with Cleric Stance and accuracy stats, very few people would expect the healer to do damage in regular content. But now, every healer has a very easy to keep up damage rotation (if we can even call this a rotation) and their filler spam spell has a hefty amount of potency, so now healers are under far more scrutiny to do damage instead of standing around, especially so because tanks no longer take sudden spike damage after they removed crit from enemies.

[GartredZW]

Also the fact that we've got people now who outright refuse to GCD heal.
What makes it works is that about 80% of the time, the game lets them get away with it. That's really why so many healers try to do that. It's the only skill expression left in the role.

[Aravell]

Also the fact that we've got people now who outright refuse to GCD heal.
What makes it works is that about 80% of the time, the game lets them get away with it. That's really why so many healers try to do that. It's the only skill expression left in the role.

Yes, the game allows healers to heal without ever touching their GCD heals in good runs. If people want to blame something for the healer refusing to use GCD heals and letting the party wipe, blame the design that allows it to be possible.

If a healer refused to GCD heal back in HW/SB, they'd be asked to stop chadding their cohealer or they'd be kicked.

[lolnotacat]

The people who are vehemently against more damage buttons are under the mistaken assumption that it would cause the casuals to have a meltdown and then transform into damage-hungry individuals who will let you die for another Glare.

That's a bit of a straw-man IMO. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are against it for that reason, but there are plenty who are like me, and don't want further role homogenization. The saying "If I wanted to DPS, I'd play a DPS." comes to mind. My concern is that if healers were given more damaging abilities, that will likely lead towards further role homogenization and removal of the trinity. If we're gonna go that route, I'd rather just play GW2. That game was designed around not having a full trinity and has a bad story (Thanks Dawntrail), but at least GW2 has good netcode.

This isn't to say IMO we can't have additional DPS abilities, but they should be subservient to healing. For example, someone mentioned an idea where Freecure procced a free GCD heal off of glare or random Dia ticks. Maybe Asylum could also have a damage tick added to it or Aetherial shift turns into a PVE Seraph Strike when targeting an enemy and consumes a lily. Obviously I'm just spitballing, but I think the priority should be to keep healers healing, and if we're gonna get more damage abilities, they should to facilitate our healing instead of just adding button bloat so we have more things to press.

[Supersnow845]

That's a bit of a straw-man IMO. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are against it for that reason, but there are plenty who are like me, and don't want further role homogenization. The saying "If I wanted to DPS, I'd play a DPS." comes to mind. My concern is that healers had more damaging abilities, that will likely lead towards further role homogenization and removal of the trinity. If we're gonna go that route, I'd rather just play GW2. That game was designed around not having a full trinity and has a bad story (Thanks Dawntrail), but at least GW2 has good netcode.

This isn't to say IMO we can't have additional DPS abilities, but they should be subservient to healing. For example, someone mentioned an idea where Freecure procced a free GCD heal off of glare or random Dia ticks. Maybe Asylum could also have a damage tick added to it or Aetherial shift turns into a PVE Seraph Strike when targeting an enemy and consumes a lily. Obviously I'm just spitballing, but I think the priority should be to keep healers healing, and if we're gonna get more damage abilities, they should to facilitate our healing.

But that’s the thing, we don’t remotely have that now. Adding more DPS abilities to the healers isn’t homogenising the roles because the healers are already expected to spend 99% of the time doing DPS, it just makes the role less boring than it is now

[WaxSw]

That's a bit of a straw-man IMO. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are against it for that reason, but there are plenty who are like me, and don't want further role homogenization. The saying "If I wanted to DPS, I'd play a DPS." comes to mind. My concern is that if healers were given more damaging abilities, that will likely lead towards further role homogenization and removal of the trinity. If we're gonna go that route, I'd rather just play GW2. That game was designed around not having a full trinity and has a bad story (Thanks Dawntrail), but at least GW2 has good netcode.

This isn't to say IMO we can't have additional DPS abilities, but they should be subservient to healing. For example, someone mentioned an idea where Freecure procced a free GCD heal off of glare or random Dia ticks. Maybe Asylum could also have a damage tick added to it or Aetherial shift turns into a PVE Seraph Strike when targeting an enemy and consumes a lily. Obviously I'm just spitballing, but I think the priority should be to keep healers healing, and if we're gonna get more damage abilities, they should to facilitate our healing.

The game in its ARR/HW/SB era proves that argument wrong, we had as healers a much more extensive damage kit and not only the trinity was in a healthier state than post Shb but also the jobs within the role were the less homogenized they have ever been. DPS actions do not mean that healers stop healing, they are tools to reward efficient gameplay and extend healer utility from just healing (which in a game that has scripted mechanics, damage and a slow GCD like XIV they are very needed).

The problem with dps kits that are subservient to healing is just that... DPS is king. If the tool is a straight up dps gain (like assize, Missery or the asylim you mention) it will be used on CD regardless of the healing required in 99% of the situations and if to access the dps tool a healer may have to take dps losses, unless the gain justify it, it wont see use (your freecure proc for example would be largely ignored for example as cure 2 is not efficient and the Mp gain is not a real benefit).

[lolnotacat]

But that’s the thing, we don’t remotely have that now. Adding more DPS abilities to the healers isn’t homogenising the roles because the healers are already expected to spend 99% of the time doing DPS, it just makes the role less boring than it is now

I find DPS to be boring wether its spamming glare or a DPS rotation. The reason I started playing healers back in 2.5 is because they had toolkits, not rotations.

The game in its ARR/HW/SB era proves that argument wrong, we had as healers a much more extensive damage kit and not only the trinity was in a healthier state than post Shb but also the jobs within the role were the less homogenized they have ever been.

And the designers clearly don't have the same design philosophy and Ethos that existed pre-ShB, and it's likely not going to come back. I don't have faith that the design team will claw back the last 3 expansions, which means if they add more DPS skills that are designed like DPS jobs, it will likely lead to more homogenization.

DPS actions do not mean that healers stop healing, they are tools to reward efficient gameplay and extend healer utility from just healing (which in a game that has scripted mechanics, damage and a slow GCD like XIV is very needed).

I'd love for DPS being a reward instead of an expectation to come back to our gameplay style.

The problem with dps kits that are subservient to healing is just that... DPS is king. If the tool is a straight up dps gain (like assize, Missery or the asylim you mention) it will be used on CD regardless of the healing required in 99% of the situations and if to access the dps tool a healer may have to take dps losses, unless the gain justify it, it wont see use (your freecure proc for example would be largely ignored for example as cure 2 is not efficient and the Mp gain is not a real benefit).

DPS being king is going to be the problem no matter what situation we find ourself in unless the design philosophy changes. As I mentioned, that was spitballing, but with Freecure example, that would definitely work better if healers had the slow GCD you previously mentioned, no? I'd love to some of the OGCD heals to be removed and make the role a bit more tactical. I started playing in 2.5 and loved having to time my skills and the risk involved with stance dancing and dropping some tactically placed stoneskins.

[Aravell]

That's a bit of a straw-man IMO. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are against it for that reason, but there are plenty who are like me, and don't want further role homogenization. The saying "If I wanted to DPS, I'd play a DPS." comes to mind. My concern is that if healers were given more damaging abilities, that will likely lead towards further role homogenization and removal of the trinity.

The damage kits of every healer is already largely homogenised as it is right now, all of them have a DoT and a filler with no interaction with the rest of the kit.

Also, the role homogenisation and removal of the trinity is already happening right now, and it has nothing to do with a healer's damage kit.

All these can be solved if the team at least put in some creativity again.

[Galvuu]

My concern is that if healers were given more damaging abilities, that will likely lead towards further role homogenization and removal of the trinity.
(...)
This isn't to say IMO we can't have additional DPS abilities, but they should be subservient to healing. For example, someone mentioned an idea where Freecure procced a free GCD heal off of glare or random Dia ticks. Maybe Asylum could also have a damage tick added to it or Aetherial shift turns into a PVE Seraph Strike when targeting an enemy and consumes a lily. Obviously I'm just spitballing, but I think the priority should be to keep healers healing, and if we're gonna get more damage abilities, they should to facilitate our healing instead of just adding button bloat so we have more things to press.

There are like three different points baked together in this post.
A more robust dps kit can exist regardless of a healer's healing kit and the need to use it. How much a healing kit shines/is necessary comes down to encounter design. If there's a tough healing (not mitigation) check, you need to use your healing kit to deal with it regardless of what that job's healing kit looks like.
Further, the healers dps kit only leads to homogenization (compared to tanks and dps) depending on how it's implemented. Between procs that interact with the healing kits- like you're mentioning in the post- and healers being the jobs juggling the most dots with different timers (HW SCH had even more of this than HW SMN, funny enough), there's plenty of design space to make them different from the other roles and different from each other (though I doubt SE has the creative juice to pull this off).
Lastly, how significant that damage contribution is depends on number tuning. It's always going to be desirable by nature of XIV's core gameplay loop, but I actually think you could axe tank and healer damage by some % and then put more emphasis on the role's responsibility in the trinity. This last point aside, I think the role needs more than spamming 60% of a single gcd without interaction to thrive, regardless of number tuning.

My point is that I believe a more in-depth and interactive dps kit, on its own, neither leads to homogenization or to forcing the healing part of the kit to take a backseat. These things can be designed to be synergistic and not antagonistic.