Tinfoil Hat Time! A new Lens to Look at Healer Changes!

[NessaWyvern]

"Not enough people play tanks and healers, Dps Qs are too long because of it, let's make them more accessible!"
....
*people still mostly play dps anyway*
*tank and healers get bored and also play dps instead*

[Ruzha]

I think they're just dealing with higher expenses (servers) and deciding to spend their money in other areas of the game. They didn't make role quests instead of job quests to be user friendly, it was clearly to cut costs. They didn't solve the healer balance by thoroughly looking into the classes, they homogenized all of them instead. If you look around there are a lot of these little tidbits strewn around the place.
On the flip side the msq was super solid, thorough and had so many cutscenes. The zones are great, detailed and beautiful. The marketing was spot on and very present. The trailer was pretty crazy. Etc.
Just the woes of budgeting. Healers got the short end again, mostly because I suspect none of them play it in the first place. The absent are always wrong, and healer definitely weren't present during that meeting.

I really doubt budget had anything to do with healers. especially since all they really did was remove things that were fun and adjusted potencies. AST was the only class they really messed around with. it feels like they cut them down so the leveling field was the same in order to build them up again in the next xpac. I feel like I am playing 2.0 healers again.

[Gemina]

Here’s the thing, I’m almost positive none of the dev team mains a healer. I remember them saying they talked to other players (I’m sure the “big” youtubers) and that they found the healer changes positive. Thing is I’m ALSO POSITIVE that none of them main healer either, mostly tanks and dps. I really hope they start listening more or find someone who actually does play healer because as much as I’ve stuck with the role since the time I joined in 2.0 this is the first expansion that I found myself not having fun with the role.

The biggest youtubers I know of are Mr. Happy, MizzTech, Larryazur, Work2Game; and perhaps even Meoni, Grael Gaming, and ZeplaHQ. None of them main a healer. I am currently unaware of anyone being representative of the healer community on both west and eastern zones. I honestly believe we are at the bottom of the totem pole. Healer becoming the main adventurer in need was very accurately predicted.

[Risvertasashi]

-snip-

Despite the tongue-in-cheek tone of your post, I don't think you're wrong. Even looking at changes before ShB-

For example, SE buffed the duration of confession from 10s to 30s. Technically, this was responding to feedback. But if you were here and reading the forums in depth... it was the wrong feedback. Most consensus was that changes that amounted to MOAR HEALING wouldn't help WHM's standing. And it didn't.

But if you're a dev just glancing over the forums for ideas, you'll see stuff like that. Then maybe go "oh yeah we can do that np". And so we end up with those odd, kind of useless buffs.

The biggest youtubers I know of are Mr. Happy, MizzTech, Larryazur, Work2Game; and perhaps even Meoni, Grael Gaming, and ZeplaHQ. None of them main a healer. I am currently unaware of anyone being representative of the healer community on both west and eastern zones. I honestly believe we are at the bottom of the totem pole. Healer becoming the main adventurer in need was very accurately predicted.

It's also telling how rarely healers get any kind of mention at all in interviews. On the very rare occasion they do, it's nothing in depth.

And of course, the devs don't engage with us here on the forums. Does feel a bit like we're praying into the void at times... or most of the time really.

[SayNoToSteam]

I'm not saying drugs was involved in the healer changes but I'm thinking bath salts maybe magic mushrooms.

[Stol]

It seems like the idea might have been to clarify what they want the Healer to be. Focus on healing. The DPS are there for damage.

I'm not saying that's the right move, but it seems plausible to me. As a total non-pro player, but healer nonetheless, I've always tried to weave in as much DPS as the given tank's sturdiness would allow. Sometimes tanks are so solid that I can forget I'm a healer. But there have been a lot of times where I would be DPS'ing and then get yelled at by the tank to only heal. Or the opposite when people would say, "Healer, DPS more!"

There was always this uncertainty. The changes in Shadowbringers just might be the people at SE changing how healers play, with a more clear expectation.

[Inkpot]

It seems like the idea might have been to clarify what they want the Healer to be. Focus on healing. The DPS are there for damage.

I'm not saying that's the right move, but it seems plausible to me. As a total non-pro player, but healer nonetheless, I've always tried to weave in as much DPS as the given tank's sturdiness would allow. Sometimes tanks are so solid that I can forget I'm a healer. But there have been a lot of times where I would be DPS'ing and then get yelled at by the tank to only heal. Or the opposite when people would say, "Healer, DPS more!"

There was always this uncertainty. The changes in Shadowbringers just might be the people at SE changing how healers play, with a more clear expectation.

It seems like the idea might have been to clarify what they want the Healer to be. Focus on healing. The DPS are there for damage.

I'm not saying that's the right move, but it seems plausible to me.

The problem being, as most people hypothesized, they did not achieve this. Now there is simply less to do between oGCD heals.

No part of healing has become easier, either. If you’re lazy or new you can physic/cure/benefic, same as you did before. Milking good damage out of a healer is harder without dot-reliant damage because it’s 100% how many GCDs you get off, which requires positional skills and cost-benefit understanding of weaving. Solo content is boring and wards of totally new people from the classes overall.

[CaesarCV]

Another part I think was that maybe SE seemed to think that people weren't coming to the Healer Jobs because it was too hard. I have no idea where they got that idea precisely, but it was obviously wrong. The bigger issue for healers is that they're getting stale. Even if the healer changes had all been phenomenal, we'd still be on the downswing this expansion for certain. The fact of the matter is that class revamps don't bring people to a role. They can shift people around who are already interested in that role, but they won't bring in new people. New jobs on the other hand...they bring in people to a role, and some of them stick around. This hasn't happened for healers 2 expansions in a row. And perhaps the funniest thing is that SE seemed to have been gobsmacked by this, and were totally shocked as to why people might have expected a healer.

[RegularJoe]

I agree with the sentiments here. It really does seem like the changes to healers were done to please non-healers, or people who solely believe healers should only heal. The problem with this is that FFXIV is not that kind of game. The mobs don't pose too much of an issue, boss fights are more like a scripted dance, and healers are really good at healing. This leads to extreme periods of downtime, which is spent using damage spells. The only healer that feels competent and somewhat fun to play is WHM, and that's because WHM was the simple, pure healer to begin with. Most of all WHM changes were straight up buffs.

When you get the SCH and AST, who had other things on their kit, a lot of changes are a bit puzzling and lack synergy. Pets aren't pets anymore, they're healing cooldowns! Selene? Who's that? Oh, that Eos reskin... Instesd on improving on Selene's identity (of which they neglected in SB), they just made her a meaningless glamour option. We also loose Fey Carees because AoE cleanse is too OP, I suppose. SCH gets more heals, I guess, but SCH didn't need more heals. And now Aether Stacks are only used for healing, but half the time, there's nothing to do, because SCHs are really efficient at what they do: preventing damage, negating the need for extra healing. Sitting on Aether stacks is a waste, so I expend Aether just to reflow again because I need MP and build the fairy gauge, for more healing I don't need....

Why is Aetherflow restricted to in battle? Why can't AST benefit from prebuffing, with their seals being restricted to in battle? When everyone is more or less invincible, the best course of action is to stand in the middle of mobs, like a Tank, and spam your expensive AoE spell? Sure. Let's be psuedo WHM, but without that added stun. Both Gravity and Art of War costs more because reasons, while WHM has infinit MP and more MP regen tools.

All AST cards are now Balance, but with arbitrary minor differences of: this card give bonus dps potency to Tank and Melee, or this card gets bonus dps potency to Healers. Why this change? Just a slight hoop to jump for an extra 3% boon? Just make them all the same, because they are. Now I have to remember stuff like: Ewer goes to Range dps to get that sweet 3% bonus potency boost, but it has that spiffy new Lunar Seal for my party-wide Balance buff, of which I need 3 different seal types for maximum boost, is on a 3 min cooldown because reasons, and can't be built out of combat. What reason is there for this tomfoolery? Just give me my Balance-Spire Royal Road back at this point.

The seals also seem tacked on and offer no real distinction outside of arbitrarily punishing you from using 3 of the same seal-aspected cards on your party-wide Balance buff. The Arcana differences are also effectively meaningless in anything but name. Lord goes to Melee, Lady goes to Range. 8% Balance for all!

No one is having fun as a healer, except WHM, of which they actually deserve from being shafted for so long. But, it's just the consolation prize of simply being the least awful. SE didn't change much of their core, just changed potencies and MP costs. Now, WHM are the kings of healer dps and healing throughput. You just spam Holy and use you oGCD healing spells, if/when the tank stops being invincible.

I used to be a healer main for 2.0 and HW. SB kind of made healing a bit meh for me. AST got a great buff, and SCH did needed to be knocked down peg; WHM was okay. However, I just went full tank with healing on the side, because I was spoiled on HW SCH. However, Shadows is really pushing it on whether I even bother with healing unless I decide to do WHM. And I can't even enjoy Tanking because it's even easier and everyone wants to be GNB now, clogging up the Tank queues.

No one wants to be a healer, because they got shafted again, and Tank and DPS (yet again) gets a new job. This rebalancing was definitely worth it. Healers in need for all.

Sorry, this turned into a full-blown rant, but I'm really frustrated at how they messed this up 2 times in a row. No new healer class, and somehow expect non-healers to pick up healing. You attract potential new healers with shiny toys, not bewildering the ones who have been playing the healing game for years. Not everyone will stick, but you may catch a few new potential healers because they are more incentivized on trying the newest trend and it might resonate with them. Homogenizing Healers and Tanks makes it boring for people already playing Healers and Tanks. Those who don't Heal/Tank won't all of a sudden Heal/Tank because of some class changes, especially changes that result in previously fun classes being gutted out. All this does is make no one wanting to play that role, this we are where we are now: people leaving a small population pool to join the default larger one. On the tank half, at least PLD and WAR aren't DRK..

[EaMett]

I also feel like they don't check this forum at all. Just an impression. I've seen them react multiple times to stuff I originally saw posted on reddit but not here (like the whole Ascian mask theories from the trailer that YoshiP mentioned people were having). Maybe it's somewhere in the forums though.