Why is FFXIV Tuned to Discourage Healing?

[NobleWinter]

Please no. Crowd control should be a almost exclusively a solo tool. A rare boss/raid exception would be fine, for example the old use of Heavy on the cyclopes in Turn 7 to fix them in place until they could be petrified; but it needs to be not a common dungeoning mechanic.

The biggest issue with crowd control is that damage breaks it. This means that if you want to use crowd control effectively, everyone has to switch to single target attacks. This is not something we should want in dungeons, ever. That leaves just boss battles, and you can't have a strict crowd control mechanic in a raid because then you have to bring a certain job for the CC. And since we can't require a CC, the mechanic needs to be manageable without it, so then why even bother with the CC.

Crowd control is not the answer to fixing anything, unless the question is about balancing solo survivability.

WHM Holy has a stun. It's Crowd Control and amazing for almost every reason you said it shouldn't be. It does not force anyone to use single target attacks. It works great in dungeons and it doesn't take away from raids/ boss battles. Scholar used to have a ton of crowd control from causing slow, silence, heavy, and magic damage/healing down through virus. Crowd Control can and HAS worked well in this game. The few examples of it we had on the healer role was great. Let's not pretend otherwise.

[Sebazy]

Try healing regular Titan and Copied on Crystal. The adventure never ends there. XD

Does it ever really start though? Assuming I get the MT in my group, I can do the bulk of the healing start to finish with Lilies and Regen, throw in Tetra and Rescue for the mistakes and it's all good. I'm typically pushing a 10 to 1 ratio of DPS vs Healing abilities in there, messy death filled runs make little difference mostly because of the way that mistakes are typically either lightly punished or an outright one shot death with very few examples falling in between.

I don't consider hard casting raises to be an adventure

[Saefinn]

Please no. Crowd control should be a almost exclusively a solo tool. A rare boss/raid exception would be fine, for example the old use of Heavy on the cyclopes in Turn 7 to fix them in place until they could be petrified; but it needs to be not a common dungeoning mechanic.

The biggest issue with crowd control is that damage breaks it. This means that if you want to use crowd control effectively, everyone has to switch to single target attacks. This is not something we should want in dungeons, ever. That leaves just boss battles, and you can't have a strict crowd control mechanic in a raid because then you have to bring a certain job for the CC. And since we can't require a CC, the mechanic needs to be manageable without it, so then why even bother with the CC.

Crowd control is not the answer to fixing anything, unless the question is about balancing solo survivability.

Depends on the CC, CC doesn't have to be broken by people attacking, there's a plethora of CC options, which some MMO's embrace more to a success, I used to love Dirty Fighting in SW:TOR, which was CC heavy and it is a similar sort of MMO to FFXIV and I think if design accommodated it, it's something that can work, it works relatively well for Blue Mage parties already. Sleep and Bind aren't the only forms of it.

Examples of CC in the FF universe:
Slow
Stop
Stun
Confuse
Charm
Blind
Amnesia
Silence
Zombie
Berserk
Petrify
Terror
Disease

[Inkpot]

WHM Holy has a stun. It's Crowd Control and amazing for almost every reason you said it shouldn't be. It does not force anyone to use single target attacks. It works great in dungeons and it doesn't take away from raids/ boss battles. Scholar used to have a ton of crowd control from causing slow, silence, heavy, and magic damage/healing down through virus. Crowd Control can and HAS worked well in this game. The few examples of it we had on the healer role was great. Let's not pretend otherwise.

Holy being great aside, crowd control has nothing to do with the mentioned problem. Crowd control is fundamentally a defensive technique not an offense one, if it had an offensive purpose it wouldn’t be called control, it would be a DPS ability. It would be no different from giving healers another healing oGCD, which they do not need.

[Hysterior]

Scholar used to have a ton of crowd control from causing slow, silence, heavy, and magic damage/healing down through virus

I still don't understand why some DPS have de-buffing skills (that they rarely use while as they have enough to do to keep their rotation up) while Healers don't anymore... give this and stuns to healers instead while DPS can focus on pewpewing more.
We can handle what gets stunned/silenced and what damage we want to decrease based on our other cooldowns.

[Saefinn]

Holy being great aside, crowd control has nothing to do with the mentioned problem. Crowd control is fundamentally a defensive technique not an offense one, if it had an offensive purpose it wouldn’t be called control, it would be a DPS ability. It would be no different from giving healers another healing oGCD, which they do not need.

It could be tied to a DPS ability like they were for SCH 2.0, even if it did damage it'd still be CC, just it's acquired a dual purpose.

But I think these kind of suggestions exist based on the assumption SE is moving away from balancing more complicated DPS rotations than we have got or that they are not going to reverse the decision on the DPS abilities they've stripped. But in fairness, there's a level of shooting in the dark due to the lack of communication.

I'm cool with anything that engages me well in my downtime, I think DPS is the most sensible solution, but they've already taken away anything that might make it a little interesting.

[RylaBee]

The biggest issue with crowd control is that damage breaks it. This means that if you want to use crowd control effectively, everyone has to switch to single target attacks. This is not something we should want in dungeons, ever.

I'm not gonna elaborate on why CC would not fit into FFXIV (they would have to completely overhaul jobs and dungeon content philosophy), but you are wrong if you think that CC is forcing people to single target.
You just need to apply it smart and have tank that knows how to pull and position.
That used to be elementary knowlegde in old MMOs, not so much in FFXIV - reason why dungeon runs in FF are very uninvolved compared to many other MMOs.

[Jollyy5]

Just kind of sucks that you end up wishing other players to perform badly to fully enjoy the job.

This is so very true, there isn't a single normal mode run where I didn't wish my co-healer to kick the bucket so that I could have something to do, and I only dabble in healing.

[YusiKha]

Why is FFXIV Tuned to Discourage Healing?

I imagine it's because
1) The game's server architecture is... Unfavourable.
Server ticks are long and AoE heals can take time to cascade to their full range, so high/frequent damage cannot be outputted without the chance of the game screwing you with unfortunate tick timing

2) The game was designed with console players in mind
Controller support is a very big part of that. This leads to issues with scrolling through the target menu, and to avoid that (otherwise we'd be getting these AST targetting complaints but for everyone) the developers try to limit single-target damage onto tanks, as tanks are at the top of the party list by default. There are mechanics that single out a DPS, but those are much fewer

3) Healing is the only skill floor in casual content
Very few duties outside of Ex/Sav/Ult actually have enrages, and so the only neccesity to actually completing content is for the healer to be able to keep everyone one person alive. As SqEn are designing casual content so that players of all skill levels can complete it, healing has to be as easy and forgiving as it can be.

[Sloprano]

Please no. Crowd control should be a almost exclusively a solo tool. A rare boss/raid exception would be fine, for example the old use of Heavy on the cyclopes in Turn 7 to fix them in place until they could be petrified; but it needs to be not a common dungeoning mechanic.

The biggest issue with crowd control is that damage breaks it. This means that if you want to use crowd control effectively, everyone has to switch to single target attacks. This is not something we should want in dungeons, ever. That leaves just boss battles, and you can't have a strict crowd control mechanic in a raid because then you have to bring a certain job for the CC. And since we can't require a CC, the mechanic needs to be manageable without it, so then why even bother with the CC.

Crowd control is not the answer to fixing anything, unless the question is about balancing solo survivability.

This reminded we got Repose, unlocked at level 8. I want to rake on the skill, but it serves no purpose because I'd rather be welcoming it. Imagine having Repose and Chain Stratagem along with Blind on Ruin 2, Slow on Shadowflare, Silence, E4E, Virus, Holy Stun, Knockback on Fluid Aura, when you delayed Spirits Within for it's Silence etc. They'd be complimentary, added to cc, or just "debuffs" on a job, not necessarily because they'd be useful all the time. Rather you came into a situation in the world, Eureka, dungeon, PotD when a group surprised you or the tank had died, you tell everyone to stop dotting and attack, hit Repose and have time to regroup. But now we have Repose along with skillsets that seem hypertuned to not have any nuance, it sticks out pretty bad.

If we can continue lumping CC along with Debuffs, I like to think Blue Mage showed us what can be done for all jobs: Giving all or some jobs additional debuffs on skills that reward timing and exploited oppertunities. Simple stuff like silence, pacify, stun, but also letting us play with Elemental resistances. This is just concerning the Regular-Duty tab, the kind you run and have run a hundred times, where the challenge is inconsequential or negligble, so instead you fall back on your skillset that is just an unlimited toolbox, or toybox, with ways to manipulate and wreck mobs.

Because it's what I grew up with on RPG and MMO jobs: They could have a tone skills not because they'd each be a perfect fit into a damage rotation, but instead it fit the job both lore, theme and "just fun to use." Imagine it as the "rule of cool" only materialized as a job skillset: Why should Scholar get Arcanist back and the funky stylish casting animation on it's skills and let them convert a full Fey Gauge into a massive fuck-off Fey Beam that heals friends on Eos and hurts and burns foes on Selene? Because it'd fit the job and be cool.

And with this I'd find both solo and group play that more gratifying.

This is so very true, there isn't a single normal mode run where I didn't wish my co-healer to kick the bucket so that I could have something to do, and I only dabble in healing.

Been having that thought too, keep thinking there is something inherently missing when my fondest memory from O12N was when I was only healer alive with no LB3 had to perform triage. What of instead that was an off-put moment where things went bad (or even myself stepped on the wrong aoe) that was off-change, and instead my fondest memory was that time I managed to top and shielf off the entire party, knowing a lull came so I managed to perform an imagined skillset where I managed to pull off a dot-management-minigame, summon both Eos and Selene, catch all mobs in a Delta triangle formed by myself, Eos and Selene, detonate it for burn damage but also serve as a mortar marker to a Nymian Grenadier that could shoot magical shells through space and time. Pull it off successfully and you get a short-window Active Time Event to high-five both Eos and Selene at the same time to replenish a portion of all Fey Gauge used.

With every step needing some timed button to pull off, the whole ordeal a challenge you barely can use when things are hectic and healing needed, but now you remember that one run fondly because you managed to accomplish all the while keeping everyone alive. I'd apriciate that more than now silently praying another human being in front of their monitor is a moment to slow to dodge an aoe so I have more to do.