Healers need other ways to contribute to party DPS instead of boring filler spells.

[MontyChamberlain]

And I say this as I think of how repulsed I always am at noticing my co-healers in most fight content doing the absolute minimum required of them (i.e. not spamming Stone/Broil/Malefic like any decent healer does). Some of this may have to do with their lack of skill, but a lot of it has to do with how healer damage is structured.

Most damage in this game - raid-wide, single-target, or tank-focused - is predictable. Most instances do not have variable damage numbers and do not require the healer to babysit a particular party member or more in case something unpredictable kills them. Even when a boss randomly chooses a target (Prey in O7S, for example), the game provides healers with enough time to plan their healing and then go back to spamming their mind-numbing, filler damage spells. Aside from making sure a party can survive damage at certain points in a fight, the only way a healer of any job can contribute to the success or faster kill of a fight is by spamming a boring damage rotation.

As for actual healer damage roations, all 3 healers share some common things to contribute to party damage. A single-target damage-over-time, instant-cast spell, a single-target "filler" bare damage spell, an AoE spell, and 1 or 2 other nuanced abilities that can also do damage (Assize, Earthly Star, Energy Drain/Ruin II). Aside from the last set of abilities I mentioned, these damage spells do nothing but...damage. They do not interact with the healer's kits, and they are simply there. To a new healer who is learning the healing paradigm in FFXIV, this does nothing to teach them how fights are structured. Damage spells have no cohesiveness with the rest of a healer's kit, so how is a new player supposed to figure out that a healer is actually a DPS with a boring rotation who is supposed to heal at specific points in a fight? I say this unironically because that is how a healer feels to play currently.

That's why, SE, in order to make healers more interesting, a healer needs a way to contribute to raid DPS without resorting to their own personal DPS. Astrologian almost hits that mark - they can choose who to use Balances on if they don't Royal Road them - but outside of that, they still resort to spamming Malefic over and over most of the time.

White Mage, for example, should have buff spells like Bravery, Faith, or Haste (if Time Mage doesn't make a future appearance) to make up for the actions it lost with the Action Role system. All healers in the first place shouldn't have to spam a singular spell in order to perform better. They should have varying means of party DPS contribution that still shows skill expression whilst emphasizing supportive/healer capabilities.

[Jaelommiss]

I agree with your premise, that healer dps is dull and boring, but not your conclusion. Don't take this to mean that I wouldn't love to see support abilities, because I would. I just disagree that it's the only way to make non-healing time more engaging.

In most fights I heal, I spend less than half my time healing. Lets call it 40%. A ten minute fight will give me 240 GCDs (assuming 2.5 second GCD). 96 will be spent healing. 144 (six minutes) will be spent on other activities.

Right now I have two choices for those 144 GCDs. I can either stand around and do nothing (lazy and bad), or contribute damage. As you outlined, contributing damage is a rather mind-numbing affair for healers. As a WMH I Aero III, Aero II if it's a single target, then spam Stone IV or Holy until I need to heal someone (and that can be a while if I Divine Benison and Asylum the tank during the Aero II recast).

Connecting damage spells to healing would do a lot for making it more engaging. A WHM's Freecure currently triggers off of Cure. I'd change that to a lower (5-10%) chance on Stone. I'd also add something similar to the BLM Thundercloud to Regen and Medica II ticks that restore HP (a tick that fully overheals doesn't count), but gives an instant and enhanced Aero III. With these two changes dealing damage now enhances healing capabilities and vice versa. Relying on procs requires us to pay a little bit more attention.

Next up I'd break the default spammable damage spell into a simple 1-2-3 combo. Stone IV becomes Stone I > Stone II > Stone III. First spell is a standard low potency spell (let's start with 150). The second one will deal a bit more damage (200) and provide the healer with a short duration buff (next paragraph). The third one will deal heavy damage (400) and upgrade the buff. 150+200+400 deals the same amount of damage as three 250 potency Stone IVs do, but require the healer to bit a little bit more engaged. The healer will do their best only if they can secure themselves three GCDs where they don't need to heal. This idea might get backlash for being a bit too similar to the old Cleric Stance.

The healer's buff from doing their combo would have two steps. The first buff, from the second attack in their new combo, provides a small bonus. The upgraded buff, from the third attack, would be a more powerful version. The buff itself could be anything. Some ideas include: -10/20% casting time for 15 seconds, +10/25% healing done by next healing spell cast in 10 seconds, next healing spell within ten seconds deals damage to all enemies within 5-yalm radius of target equal to quarter/half amount healed, +1/2% damage done by all allies within 20-yalms for ten seconds. The combo could apply a debuff to the enemy instead, such as -5/10% damage done for ten seconds, or increased damage taken. Having different combos to apply different party-wide buff could also work. The numbers are entirely hypothetical in order to illustrate the concept.

I'd consider adding a pair of new resources for healers. I'll use WHM to illustrate what I mean. Let's update the existing Lily mechanics for this, and add a new one, Belladonna. Both of them stack up to three. Belladonna is gained by casting Cure I and Cure II (how Lily used to be gained). Lily would be gained from casting Stone (probably the one that ends the combo. Would need playtesting). When you use Tetragrammaton all Lily stacks are consumed, and you heal an additional +33% for each stack you have. The unimaginative way to use Belladonna would be to create an oGCD damage ability to mirror Tetra, but I like to think that we can do better than that. Instead, let's create an oGCD buff that will increase an ally's direct hit chance by 5% for each Balladonna that you've got. I'd spitball a duration of 20 or 30 seconds. Again, this isn't a terribly complex set of abilities, but it would do a lot to tie healing and damage together.

I think that a lot of fun could be had with channeled abilities that stop if you move or take any other actions (see AST Collective Unconscious). Instead of a defensive CD, however, we could make them offensive. These would need to be powerful to make up for the opportunity cost (that is, not doing anything at all for the duration). Optimal use will require planning and skill in order to prevent mechanics interrupting it. I think that stacking benefits would be a great way to reward skillful play: the final tick's impact is immense, but can only be achieved by a skilled healer.

At the simplest we could have a direct damage ability: single target, twelve seconds channeled, 150 Potency per tick, +150 per tick. The four ticks would be 150, 300, 450, 600, dealing more damage the longer you stand there and channel. That's 1500 Potency in total.

In line with the OP's remarks, would could go the buff and support route. Similar to the last one, we'll use stacking bonuses. This one applies to a single party member, giving them a stacking +30% damage buff every tick that lasts for four seconds. If we stick with a twelve second channel time, the player will get up to +120% damage. That sounds like a lot, but we have to keep in mind that we're giving up five GCDs (1250 Potency if used for Stone IV) for them to get an average of +60% damage. We could instead make it an aoe version that gives all allies within 20-yalms a stacking +10% damage done.

A more defensive one could turn damage dealt into shielding. The channel would last ten seconds. All damage that the party members deal during those ten seconds is added up, and at the end each player gets a shield equal to the damage they dealt. Alternatively, the entire sum could turn into a party-wide shield. A conversion ratio could be used to ensure that the ability is in line with game balance.

Balancing abilities like this WRT opportunity cost is incredibly difficult. A healer who stands idle when not healing has zero opportunity cost. Someone who tosses out Stones regularly but doesn't make much effort to weave oGCDs and regularly overheals just to be careful will have a moderate opportunity cost. A healer who actively minimizes their healing in order to throw as many Stones as possible and who will use their oGCDs only while waiting on an instant spell's recast will have an incredibly high opportunity cost. If a channeled ability is balanced around the second healer, the third will find it inefficient and never use it. If it is balanced around the third healer then it still won't necessarily be a good idea to use it if it's a party buff and other players are below par. This is a concern with all buff abilities, but is especially important for a long channeled ability. A big bonus of the current damage system for healers is that they are responsible for their own capabilities and can meaningfully contribute even in a party of lolDRGs and derpknights.




I think that implementing any or all of these changes would make playing a healer far more engaging. Instead of simply applying dots and spamming a single damage ability, healers would need to utilize a basic combo, use both healing and damage spells to enhance one another, manage a new resource, and maintain their own short term buff. Currently a healer focuses on adding damage spells whenever they get an opportunity to. With my changes a healer's damage would be far more dependent on creating opportunities where they have long enough to complete their entire combo.

[Elamys]

SE claims they don't really want healers to DPS in this game, and that they don't design content with healer DPS in mind. So it's highly unlikely we'll see any changes to the basics of how healers DPS.

I think either way something is going to have to give. SE needs to either make healer DPS a legitimate, supported thing with the abilities to reflect it, or they need to make the actual healing part take up more of your time. This whole setup of "you heal for a little bit then spam Stone/Broil/Malefic because there's nothing else to do" is getting really really old.

I would personally rather they go the second route, because I signed up for healer, not for Green DPS.

[RopeDrink]

I may be one of few who actually enjoy that. Without throwing shade on a certain demographic, as a WHM it's not exactly difficult to contribute to both corners of the spectrum, hence my motto - "I'm not here to heal you, I'm here to keep you alive". Not required? Then it's not exactly difficult to add to the other side of the coin. I love sticking to tanks like glue, unloading QC-Holy into full AIII, Holy, AI's or Stones and just peppering targets with heals inbetween as required. It's not the most enthralling part of the Healer life, but it's enough for me. I'd most certainly be smashing my head off the nearest wall if we didn't have those things and our only option WAS literally to stand around, dribbling all over a bib while everyone else is smashing their DPS buttons. The fact people choose to do this anyway boggles my mind for multiple reasons, but we won't get into that.

[Elamys]

I may be one of few who actually enjoy that. Without throwing shade on a certain demographic, as a WHM it's not exactly difficult to contribute to both corners of the spectrum, hence my motto - "I'm not here to heal you, I'm here to keep you alive". Not required? Then it's not exactly difficult to add to the other side of the coin. I love sticking to tanks like glue, unloading QC-Holy into full AIII, Holy, AI's or Stones and just peppering targets with heals inbetween as required. It's not the most enthralling part of the Healer life, but it's enough for me. I'd most certainly be smashing my head off the nearest wall if we didn't have those things and our only option WAS literally to stand around, dribbling all over a bib while everyone else is smashing their DPS buttons. The fact people choose to do this anyway boggles my mind for multiple reasons, but we won't get into that.

DPSing while healing was more satisfying in HW when you had more spells to deal with and you had to find a good time to pop cleric stance on. Now it's just meh.

[RopeDrink]

Of course, but you have to work with what you're given. All the years spent as a PvE & PvP Shadow Priest in WoW before I even joined the FF club made it so that Cleric Stance as a principle was no-brain easy for me - never had issue with it. Whether it spiced things up was dependant on the individual. I liked walking that line but I could understand why others felt it was more burdensome. SE's response was to keep us somewhat on-level with old CS activation (minus some damage) but allow us to do it all the time. Less exciting? You decide. I won't say I like one or the other better or worse, but I will say I'm not tired with the current formula as there is usually more than enough variation between roulette groups to keep things different. It'd be a bit different in a static where you can pretty much predict everything from the get-go and know you're in for same-old-same.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

SE claims they don't really want healers to DPS in this game, and that they don't design content with healer DPS in mind. So it's highly unlikely we'll see any changes to the basics of how healers DPS.

I think either way something is going to have to give. SE needs to either make healer DPS a legitimate, supported thing with the abilities to reflect it, or they need to make the actual healing part take up more of your time. This whole setup of "you heal for a little bit then spam Stone/Broil/Malefic because there's nothing else to do" is getting really really old.

I would personally rather they go the second route, because I signed up for healer, not for Green DPS.

While I thoroughly enjoy the concept of healers contributing damage compared to simply being heal bots, SE went too far in the opposite direction in their pursuit to make everything easily accessible. To emphasise this point to someone arguing healers need to stop being green DPS, a friend and I purposely queued into Phantom Train Normal and elected not to touch a single DPS ability. I even ran out of range before using Assize just to assure the only time I ever did any damage was to kill my ghost. I was literally useless. At no point in the entire fight did either of us require a second healer. The damage proved so laughably low, I could have gotten up and made lunch and no one would have realized. We promptly played normally on a second run and both spent approximately 80% of our time DPSing. That is utterly absurd. I know Sigma Normal is somewhat dated, but this were possible on day one.

Yoshida has gone on record lamenting how Warriors refuse to use Defiance. Much in the same capacity as healers, I say, "Give them a reason to care about something besides damage."

[Elamys]

While I thoroughly enjoy the concept of healers contributing damage compared to simply being heal bots, SE went too far in the opposite direction in their pursuit to make everything easily accessible. To emphasise this point to someone arguing healers need to stop being green DPS,

well, yeah, that's not good either. the problem is there's going to need to be a real shift in either how damage is dealt in this game (unlikely to happen) or how SE approaches healers to DPS (also probably not going to happen). My preference would be the first, but since it seems unlikely at this point that they want to even touch this, I'm just assuming we've got another expansion full of boring healing coming up.

Not here to say healers shouldn't DPS or that it should even be completely removed from the game entirely (I used to get a lot of satisfaction out of maximizing my DPS uptime), just that the game needs to really look at healers more.

[Selvokaz]

The fact that AST don't have spells that invoke various arcana to debuff enemies either single target or multiple targets is baffling to me. They have arcana to buff party members but can't do the opposite to the enemies? Weird. Where the opposite of the normal arcana happens to a enemy or all enemies depending on what royal road effect you have. You could simply have a new ability called reverse arcana to achieve this. Now the AST has another way to contribute to the party's dps without it needing to be dps herself.

Why can't white mage learn a new chain of spells that invoke the forest spirits/elements to debuff various stats like str, intelligence, and so on. We know the stats must exist for the enemy as DPS Casters have a role action that lowers intelligence.

Scholar seems the most busy healer since it comes with a lot of utility from arcanist base class. So I doubt it needs much.

[Grimoire-M]

A good idea for an AST spell that puts debuffs on enemies is to take a hint from Tarot readings. I actually drafted an ability like this in Heavensward as something I wanted to see, so I'll throw it up here with some slight edits (just to spire/ewer, since they had the old virus anti-body effect).

Reverse: Ability - Instant, 60s Cooldown, 0y Range
Alters a drawn card's base effect to apply a debuff to enemies when used. Reversed cards may be spread. Royal Roading a reversed card applies the same effect as the original card.
The Bole, Reversed - 10% Vulnerability Up for 15s.
The Balance, Reversed - 10% Damage Down for 15s.
The Ewer, Reversed - Reduces Int & Mnd by 10% for 8s.
The Spire, Reversed - Reduces Str & Dex by 10% for 8s.
The Arrow, Reversed - 20% Slow for 12s.
The Spear, Reversed - Blind for 12s.