#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[ForsakenRoe]

After almost every dungeon I finish as heal, it feels like I was only there as a safety net that didn't need to be used.

Like, wow, this role is just an accessory now and the devs don't even care.

I don't mind being a 'safety net that doesn't need to be used', what I mind is that if the safety net doesn't need to be used, my gameplay is awful. In a dungeon pull, my job is 'keep the party alive, and then spam one button to help deal damage (Holy/AOW etc). If my 'safety net' of healing isn't needed, then the first half of that isn't my problem anymore (keeping party alive), and so I'm left with 'spam Holy/AOW on loop until enemies die'. Tanks get to use things like Decimate/Holy Spirit (gauge spenders), IR/Req/Bloodfest/Delirium, big impactful AOE bursts like Lionheart combo or Confiteor combo or that new Big Axe thing WAR has. As WHM, we have Misery (if we prep it before the pack so it's not always there), and POM, which for 4-5 years was 'the same button spam as before, but now it's a bit faster'. At least we get Glare 3 now I guess

I just want to have engaging gameplay, even in the times where I don't have to heal. I know I'm a Healer, I'll Heal when it's needed. But SE can make 'healing' as engaging as they like, it doesn't change the fact that when we don't have to heal (and there will ALWAYS be times we don't have to heal, the game's built that way), we have too little to fill that time with. I don't just want my healing kit to be engaging, I want my ENTIRE kit to be engaging. That means having more actions to use than just Biolysis once every 12th GCD (this is not hyperbole) and Broil spam for the other 11 GCDs. Even in something like Savage or Ultimate, places in the game where the healing is meant to be 'at its hardest', we still spend like more of our GCDs on damage actions than healing actions, because we just don't need all that healing. And I doubt SE's going to be reworking the healing paradigm of 11 years of past content to make it work with a new healing design direction (plus think of how much dev time/QA would be required to make sure things are still clearable after such an update), so 'rework how healing works' is probably off the table as far as solutions go

Also, a lot of chatter comes up about 'this would make Ultimates too hard', we had more complexity in our kits in SB (eg still having Miasma on SCH), and not only did people clear Ultimates back then too, UWU had the second-shortest World First speed (and if you look at the top 3, top 5, etc, you see that TEA is shortest only because of TPS clearing 3 days before everyone else, for most groups it took 6 days to UWU's 5). But it's also a self-fulfilling cycle that SE has landed themselves in. The perception that 'Ultimates would be too hard if the jobs were more complex' only has any legs as an argument, precisely because SE removed that job complexity and moved it into 'encounter complexity'. But look at some of the Savages we've had since SHB came out. Look at something like E7S, or P7S (why is it the 7s), those fights sucked to prog as a healer. P7S was especially awful, because it was 6mins of nothing, followed by 'you died to Inviolate Purgation, go again', over and over, because all of the 'encounter complexity' was backloaded into the final 4-5 mins of the fight. Because the design of raiding was shifted to 'job easier, encounter more mechanically demanding', if the encounter can't live up to that expectation (and not every can, some fights will just be stinkers there's no avoiding it), there's nothing in the job kit that can gloss over how 'meh' that fight is. Contrast that to something like O6S which, while nothing really happened in that fight, we didn't mind as much because we still had some meat on the job kit's bones

Meanwhile, SE tried to add a little bit more 'encounter complexity' in normal mode stuff with M2 (Alarm Pheromones), or M3 (Lariats), or even something like King Nogg guy (Deadwalk), and a massive influx of complaints threads on the forums and Reddit about 'this is too hard' popped up compared to previous expansions. How can we solve 'players who got more skilled at the game are finding lower-difficulty content like EX roulette boring' by increasing encounter complexity, when so many people don't WANT more encounter complexity in that content? IMO, by making the Jobs themselves have more (optional) complexity, and balancing those extra 'optional' complexity avenues via potency balancing, such that ignoring them is a minimal loss of damage (such that optimization requires it, but regular play, even 'first clear of Savage', doesn't require it). Example, if you make SCH have 3 DOTs, and give them potencies like this:

Broil: 310
Biolysis: 350 (30s)
Miasmalysis: 340 (24s)
Shadowflare: 320 (15s)

Then ignoring all three DOTs entirely, and just casting Broil instead, would lose you less than two Broils, per 2min window. The majority of 'issues' that people bring up as rebuttals, are only issues because SE has designed us into such a corner on things. In this case, the assertion that 'no because if you skip applying your DOT you would cause enrage' is only true in the current form of the game, because SE has made the DOT's potency be '250% of the filler GCD's potency'


oops I ranted a bit

[Moqi]

My biggest gripe is that their issue seems to be that they don't want to give us more DPS tools because they think it'd be too intimidating/distracting and take away from healing. I don't even disagree entirely with that, the problem is that because they homogenized all jobs to be "build resources with 123" => "spend resources on big attack", they can't think of anything else so they don't do anything.

Give us stances, proper MP management, (im)mobility perks... There are all kinds of things they can do without touching the basic 111 (or healing resources) too much that people can chose to engage with if they want and doesn't take away attention from healing when needed.

Best they can come up with is a button that turns into another button to press which is exciting for no one because anybody who wasn't using PoM before won't now either and everyone who's always used it just presses the same button more frequently.

Also, if you're going to have us press 111 all the time at least turn into a nice 3 spell combos now that you finally discovered the technology for it. At least it'll be more interesting visually.

[Alice_Rivers]

I still stand by my previous statements that I want to be healing first and foremost, it doesn't have to be every GCD, it doesn't even have to be 90% of GCDs, as long as I'm healing more than I'm dps-ing. Whether that comes in the form of a tank sustain adjustment, a content balance and/or design change or both, I don't much care. Changes to healer DPS can come later, if they're really needed at all, I think too many people are focusing on the dps side because dps is 90% of what we do due to the game's design and balance and forgetting that we should be healers. I believe that if we were made to feel like healers instead of third class dps then the dps filler wouldn't matter because it'd be filler.

[Jojoya]

Healed a LFR raid in WoW last night for the first time in 8 years. Was nice to have to be on the ball with healing again instead worrying more about how much damage I was dealing. Lots of raid wide damage going out and some large damage spikes on the tanks that had to be healed by the healers because WoW tanks haven't been handed the magic "I auto-win" card.

Just a shame the game still has a lot of other problems like needing Renown levels to progress story and the end game gearing mess (and the bugs, omg the bugs, I've run into more bugs in 2 weeks of WoW than I think I've encountered in the entirety of my FFXIV experience).

To FFXIV developers: I know you're in a rough position. You have to balance the healing experience the JP player base is used to and expects against what the rest of the player base is used to and expects.

But.

We're healers because we want to heal. That is our purpose. That is what brings us enjoyment in a game.

By taking the need to do any real healing away from us, you're leaving us feeling useless and dissatisfied.

You fear that healing might be too stressful for us. It's not. It pushes us to excel. When we actually need to be healing consistently we feel like we make a difference instead of just being carried along in the party's wake in case of "oopsies".

You say that some of us should be stepping into more difficult content if we want to heal. There is no midcore content for us to step into outside of a single EX each patch. For some of us, Savage is outside of what we can do.

A player cannot learn how to heal when there is almost nothing to heal in Normal content. Where will tomorrow's Savage healers come from as today's disappear from normal attrition?

You've learned a lot from WoW in the past. Go back to it again to learn again how to properly fit the healing role into encounter design. I had so much fun last night being a real healer again. I just wish it had been happening here instead of there.

[Kes13a]

Healed a LFR raid in WoW last night for the first time in 8 years. Was nice to have to be on the ball with healing again instead worrying more about how much damage I was dealing. Lots of raid wide damage going out and some large damage spikes on the tanks that had to be healed by the healers because WoW tanks haven't been handed the magic "I auto-win" card.

Just a shame the game still has a lot of other problems like needing Renown levels to progress story and the end game gearing mess (and the bugs, omg the bugs, I've run into more bugs in 2 weeks of WoW than I think I've encountered in the entirety of my FFXIV experience).

To FFXIV developers: I know you're in a rough position. You have to balance the healing experience the JP player base is used to and expects against what the rest of the player base is used to and expects.

But.

We're healers because we want to heal. That is our purpose. That is what brings us enjoyment in a game.

By taking the need to do any real healing away from us, you're leaving us feeling useless and dissatisfied.

You fear that healing might be too stressful for us. It's not. It pushes us to excel. When we actually need to be healing consistently we feel like we make a difference instead of just being carried along in the party's wake in case of "oopsies".

You say that some of us should be stepping into more difficult content if we want to heal. There is no midcore content for us to step into outside of a single EX each patch. For some of us, Savage is outside of what we can do.

A player cannot learn how to heal when there is almost nothing to heal in Normal content. Where will tomorrow's Savage healers come from as today's disappear from normal attrition?

You've learned a lot from WoW in the past. Go back to it again to learn again how to properly fit the healing role into encounter design. I had so much fun last night being a real healer again. I just wish it had been happening here instead of there.

Thank you. no offense but for a time I thought you had drunk too much of the company koolaid

I completely agree. question if I may, have you been in WoW long? the reason is the WoW devs recently basically said they need to re-examine the tank/healer dynamic and tanks should NOT be immortal. do you think they have already implemented some of those changes?

I hope they learn.. something, anything.. at this point, because you are right, I main a healer because I want to heal. assist with DPS sure, if I can, but why have a bunch of healing options if I never use them. all any of us want is to have fun in a game.

[Ellona_Andrivari]

I checked out of this thread for a while but has it changed at all from people who don't do savage and ultimates complaining healing is boring still?

[Maltothoris]

I checked out of this thread for a while but has it changed at all from people who don't do savage and ultimates complaining healing is boring still?

Its still boring even then. (From a player who does savage , ultimatee and even criterion savage)

[Aravell]

My biggest gripe is that their issue seems to be that they don't want to give us more DPS tools because they think it'd be too intimidating/distracting and take away from healing.

The funny thing about that is having only 1 singular filler button hold most of our damage means people are even more likely to get distracted from healing.

Someone gets hit by something unavoidable? "Let me just weave an OGCD after this cast"
No OGCD available? "Well, I guess that guy's dead"

Having more tools (short CDs/DoTs) with damage spread out across them means that we have more free space to heal.

I still stand by my previous statements that I want to be healing first and foremost, it doesn't have to be every GCD, it doesn't even have to be 90% of GCDs, as long as I'm healing more than I'm dps-ing. Whether that comes in the form of a tank sustain adjustment, a content balance and/or design change or both, I don't much care. Changes to healer DPS can come later, if they're really needed at all, I think too many people are focusing on the dps side because dps is 90% of what we do due to the game's design and balance and forgetting that we should be healers. I believe that if we were made to feel like healers instead of third class dps then the dps filler wouldn't matter because it'd be filler.

We actually did heal a lot more back in Heavensward, the time where everyone agreed that the job kits were at maximum complexity in the game's lifetime (not you PLD).

It's not an 'either or' question, we can have both, we used to have both.

[Supersnow845]

I checked out of this thread for a while but has it changed at all from people who don't do savage and ultimates complaining healing is boring still?

Ah the pendulum has swung back to being casuals who don’t do savage

How long till it swings back again to we are elitists out of touch with the casuals. Anyone wanna take bets

[Alice_Rivers]

We actually did heal a lot more back in Heavensward, the time where everyone agreed that the job kits were at maximum complexity in the game's lifetime (not you PLD).

It's not an 'either or' question, we can have both, we used to have both.

I didn't say we can't have both, I'm just saying that we should prioritise healing and then work on dps if we still want it.