Healer Changes Straw Poll from Reddit

[Kurando]

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Pretty much this. Unless it's an official poll were every single player gets involved then you really should take polls you find through 3rd party mediums (Reddit, Discord etc) with a grain of salt as it does not show a true representation, with bias playing a big role. Content/happy players have less reason to complain and even then it would get drowned out by those on the other side of the spectrum so SE will be cautious when trying to establish which group is actually the "majority".

[Deceptus]

It's not really representative though; The vast majority of the playerbase does not frequent the forums or reddit. Furthermore the people who are upset at the healer changes are a lot more likely to seek council from people who share their opinions, meaning that any poll you put out is going to have a natural bias to it to begin with. Very rarely is a poll unbiased, and you should always consider bias factors when analyzing data.

Pretty much this. Unless it's an official poll were every single player gets involved then you really should take polls you find through 3rd party mediums (Reddit, Discord etc) with a grain of salt as it does not show a true representation, with bias playing a big role. Content/happy players have less reason to complain and even then it would get drowned out by those on the other side of the spectrum so SE will be cautious when trying to establish which group is actually the "majority".

That's not how polls work. You try to avoid selection bias by trying to get as many people as you can from a wide variety of sources. You take the data that people give you. You can't just say, I don't agree with the result, lets discredit those who participated.

That's why I said with the number hitting 900+ respondents (now 1000+), it was statistically valid. At 1026, it would have 95% confidence interval at +-3 % deviation which any pollster would LOVE to have.

[ty_taurus]

I expected that result. There are three opposing camps regarding a healer's role in a party.

Those who want to contribute to a group's overall damage by weaving offensive spells between their heals, those who feel a healer's role is only to heal, and a minority who wish to contribute by casting buffs/debuffs and healing with a minimum of personal dps.

My personal belief is the last one. Healer's should support the party.

A party already has their damage dealers and tanks. Tanks need to do damage along with their enmity spells to keep threat.

Damage dealers should focus on own dps and the party's while watching their own enmity.

Healer's are the glue and support of the party. They keep the whole effort working so it succeeds.

Instances should not be balanced around the maximum damage a healer can do along with the rest of a party.

Here's my issue with the healer changes... (not necessarily your statement, but I want to build off it)

The line I've bolded has literally never been the case for Final Fantasy XIV. The team has stated several times that healer DPS has never been and probably never will be taken into consideration. We live in a sytem where healer DPS is 100% optional. The reason healers can DPS in the first place is because all instances must have downtime between waves of damage received by the party. This isn't designed for Healers to go on the offensive, but to allow room for error. When a healer doesn't perform optimally, or gets overwhelmed for whatever reason (DPS not dodging AoEs, the Healer is new to the trial, etc.) they require moments to breathe and catch up. If we didn't have those break periods, raid content would be ruthlessly punishing on healers, threatening to end a raid at the smallest misstep.

Not every healer or group is going to fall behind though. Many skilled healers will be able to keep up with what's going on. This naturally turns those break periods into moments where you have nothing to do because you're all caught up. You don't have to DPS at this point, as the game certainly doesn't require that you do, but the fact is that you can if you want to. Again, it's been entirely optional.

Neutering Healer DPS doesn't actually make it easier for the healers that don't want to participate because that DPS has never been expected of them in the first place. All it does is punish those of us who do want to be able to participate in DPS, i.e. those of us who want to do more than what's expected of us--to do more than the bare minimum. It's not fair to dumb it down to a bland and boring button spam because it doesn't help anyone. For someone like you who doesn't want to DPS, not having DPS tools doesn't help you, and having DPS tools doesn't hurt you. What matters is how content is designed.

Healer DPS shouldn't be this brain-meltingly boring spamming of a single spell. It shouldn't be a full on DPS rotation either. It should be a small and simple, yet engaging system that rewards players who want to do everything they possibly can at any given moment. Stormblood Scholar's DPS set I think was a pretty good example: You manage a couple DoTs, Shadowflare, and Energy Drain along with your Broil casts, + Ruin II for weaving through abilities. It's not Mudras. It's not building up Greased Lighting. It's a simple handful of tools that have enough intricacy to make your break periods more engaging should you chose to DPS.

[Yulja]

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I can only agree here.
If some Healers don't want to DPS or can't DPS because they are new or w/e reason, but if other Healers want to DPS in the downtime and even in the FFXIV Lore of the Healers DPS is mentioned there, why should they deal damage without fun? Why should they suffer and get something boring? Even if it is designed for new Healers or for Healers who can not multitask that good, why punish the others who can?

And why do they even cut the Support style from AST if they already cut the DPS skills? How come job designers do such things to Healers but a DNC job comes which is pretty Hybrid? That makes no sense to me.

Also I am a bit confused about the Poll because I think OP you should have had mentioned the changes in this thread because it could be that some people vote "yes" without even knowing what is going on or w/e. Though the Poll shows that more people are unhappy and SE should consider this.
I hope SE is doing something and talking to the Healer playerbase atleast once. Maybe the designers with the ideas.

[Myrhn]

How can i vote if I haven't play the changes?

[Yuyuka3]

How can i vote if I haven't play the changes?

By looking at them and using your brain to think, that's how.

[EaMett]

Honestly this could be full of non healer mains. Not really worth much without more info.

[Gula]

By looking at them and using your brain to think, that's how.

Fur looks weird until you know how it feels. Did ARR teach you nothing? Feel. Think.

[Yuyuka3]

Fur looks weird until you know how it feels. Did ARR teach you nothing? Feel. Think.

I don't have to play it to be able to tell that WHM will pretty much play the same as now, with almost no of it's flaws addressed. I don't have to play it to be able to tell you that taking existing skills (Cure II, Medica), tweaking them up a bit, and then giving them back in addition to the ones we had since the beginning is horribly lazy; as is taking a skill away (Largesse, Protect, Stoneskin, etc.) just to give it back at a higher level. You really see nothing wrong with that? Are you blind?

[Arcalithe]

Speaking as a new player who fell in love with AST and WHM, I'm a little wary of them messing with my cards, but I do like that I'm getting Holy magic spells for DPS on my WHM. Fight light with light!