Healer job components ranked

[tinythinker]

Players who post here on the Healer Roles forum have repeated their concerns and complaints over and over, and sometimes talked past each other or used similar terms to mean different things.

The following order does not reflect importance or priority and you might have made a different list, but go with it please:

1. Overall healing potency potential of a job
2. Available frequency (either by number or length of cooldown) of OGCD healing spells
3. Helpful mana management tools
4. Number of buttons to press (regardless of their effect)
5. Great animations and sounds for spell effects
6. Mobility while healing
7. Needing to think and decide frequently (often on the fly) about how best to respond proactively or reactively to situations in group content
8. Having more things to do when not healing (even those things aren't especially complex or challenging to understand or use)
9. [Contribution to] high DPS numbers
10. A strong sense of job identity/distinction from other healer jobs

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For all healing in general in FFXIV, how would you order these things from most important to least important to you?

And for your favorite healer (or each of the healers if you want), what do you think should be the priority for developers from most important to least important?

[Liam_Harper]

Not the most accurate since some are fairly close, but I guess:

7. <most>
1.
9.
8.
2.
3.
6.
10.
5.
4. <least, but that does NOT mean I like the current 2 button dps>

[Sabrenn]

Generally:
10 - why have more than 1 healer job if they all play the same.
7 - you know... healing.
8 - bio broil broil broil broil broil ruin 2 energy drain whispering dawn broil broil broil broil broil... (need i say more?)
4 - astro to place 1 card is a ridiculous amounts of steps for a healer. bring back royal road.
3 - whm has it too easy, ast has it awful (on nocturnal at least), sch is fine.
1 - healing is overpowered at the moment, if we had lower potency, the reduction of dps spells would make sense.
2 - ogcds are too available, they should be used as burst healing tools but instead are just used over the length of a fight instead of gcd heals.
9 - it's nice, but it should stay an added bonus.
6 - again, it's nice but it's not important. that's what swiftcast is for.
5 - it's again nice but i don't care if i look amazing if the job plays badly.

Current priority for AST:
4 - see above.
3 - see above.
2 - too much ogcd bloat on top of cards, make the spells more important instead.
8 - too many things to do when not healing, should be more healing.
1 - see above.
10 - bring back time magic, it was unique.
9 - should stay an aspect of ast's unique card system.
7 - ast is the best at this out of the three and it should stay that way from a lore perspective.
5 - ast has nice animations already.
6 - ast has it the best out of all healers.

[Truen]

1. Overall healing potency potential of a job
9. [Contribution to] high DPS numbers
10. A strong sense of job identity/distinction from other healer jobs
7. Needing to think and decide frequently (often on the fly) about how best to respond proactively or reactively to situations in group content
2. Available frequency (either by number or length of cooldown) of OGCD healing spells
4. Number of buttons to press (regardless of their effect)
3. Helpful mana management tools
8. Having more things to do when not healing (even those things aren't especially complex or challenging to understand or use)
5. Great animations and sounds for spell effects
6. Mobility while healing

I want to have a job that's capable of putting up decent dps and enjoy the stress between balancing heals and dps rotations while in a group. The best way to make me bored as a healer is to force me to overly focus on just healing while mashing 1 button forever like I'm doing now. And, I really value job originality and loathe homogenization of job design. I love the backstories and differences between jobs in this game...watching that get stripped away in 5.0 was hard.

[AnotherPerson]

10/1 - Job Identity and Healing potency are not mutually exclusive - if there's barely difference in job identity, any why would you bother to have separate jobs? Likewise, there should be a sembalance to healing potency with what they can do that can still match up to everyone else in their own way where it falls within their job identity

3 - If you have no mana management, then clearly everything else doesn't matter. Healing potency potential means nothing if you have no mana to use it. ASTs especially.
2 -Mana management tools & OGCD healing spells are also not mutually exclusive since both are important to controlling mana.

7/4. The number of buttons to press and the amount of thinking required changes a healer's gameplay drastically during execution.
8/9. This should be taken into consideration only after gameplay is fun. The first couple are overall healer requirements to a job & playstyle to exist and function. DPS shouldn't be a primary focus for a healer, but it also shouldn't lose emphasis because of downtime and variety in the kit of a healer. Simply put, this solidifies the feeling of a fun playstyle by expanding what it can do in downtime.

6. For mechanics after starting to consider gameplay of the healer and taking into consideration of OGCD abilities
5. This has nothing to do with gameplay and is an aesthetic choice. This can always be adjusted so the impact of the effects go through, but the if effects and gameplay are all lacking initially, then this would be the worst to have as its primary focus.

[tinythinker]

10/1 - Job Identity and Healing potency are not mutually exclusive - if there's barely difference in job identity, any why would you bother to have separate jobs? Likewise, there should be a sembalance to healing potency with what they can do that can still match up to everyone else in their own way where it falls within their job identity

3 - If you have no mana management, then clearly everything else doesn't matter. Healing potency potential means nothing if you have no mana to use it. ASTs especially.
2 -Mana management tools & OGCD healing spells are also not mutually exclusive since both are important to controlling mana.

7/4. The number of buttons to press and the amount of thinking required changes a healer's gameplay drastically during execution.
8/9. This should be taken into consideration only after gameplay is fun. The first couple are overall healer requirements to a job & playstyle to exist and function. DPS shouldn't be a primary focus for a healer, but it also shouldn't lose emphasis because of downtime and variety in the kit of a healer. Simply put, this solidifies the feeling of a fun playstyle by expanding what it can do in downtime.

6. For mechanics after starting to consider gameplay of the healer and taking into consideration of OGCD abilities
5. This has nothing to do with gameplay and is an aesthetic choice. This can always be adjusted so the impact of the effects go through, but the if effects and gameplay are all lacking initially, then this would be the worst to have as its primary focus.

No one said any of them are completely separate, but if you have to pick one at a time it shows which matters more. Some can be hard to choose, of course, but I can still see the outline of your preferences and I'm not worried if some get paired. Just trying to illustrate the different priorities people have and to see which are more common

[Metsonm]

7. Needing to think and decide frequently (often on the fly) about how best to respond proactively or reactively to situations in group content
10. A strong sense of job identity/distinction from other healer jobs
8. Having more things to do when not healing (even those things aren't especially complex or challenging to understand or use)
9. [Contribution to] high DPS numbers
4. Number of buttons to press (regardless of their effect)
5. Great animations and sounds for spell effects
1. Overall healing potency potential of a job
2. Available frequency (either by number or length of cooldown) of OGCD healing spells
3. Helpful mana management tools
6. Mobility while healing

Ordered from most to least important to me, personally. Mainly I just want a little more to do overall: potency itself isn't that much of an issue since I feel healing is really overpowered as is, and as DPS is everything in the game I'd rather high DPS potential than high HPS potential until fight design is changed. Mobility isn't really a factor for me: planting myself and optimising for movement when needed is interesting. Then the other main issue is that healers are getting pretty samey.

[Recon1o6]

This is actually an important question and I would respond to this slightly differently as each job had I not hung up my Cane, Book and Globe
What I find crucial to any class in any game, is that its fun and does its job effectively while being different enough to not just be an extension of another job.

From most ot least. But even the ones towards teh lower side are still important, just less so. This is generally

10. Strong sense of distinction. No point being separate if it functions identically
4. Buttons to press that have a purpose. This keeps things engaging once the mechanics have been learned.
8. Having things to do when not healing. The only reason this beats out 7 is because of frequency. Solo and dungeon gameplay are a larger part of the game than 8 man content.
7. Deciding what to do on the fly and how to react. This is what makes healers good or bad as well as providing engagement. Good healers can make decisions more effectively to support the party whereas poor healers won't. In addition new healers will also learn as time goes on to respond better.
3. Mana management. It matters not if all the tools in the world are at my disposal if I can't cast anything. Its good to tie this to lore and differentiate healers
2. OGCD frequency. Its important part of the healer kit though each healer would be different. It can be used to raise or lower skill cap in healers.
5. Great animations and sounds. If our job is fun, then this will be added bonus and can be used to distinguish the healer and tie them to their lore.
1. Overall healing and 9. Dps contribution. These can be changed easily anytime the devs want. On the condition it meets minimum requirements (ie its not a 15 minute slog for a solo battle, it doesnt have to run on all cylinders for a dungeon pack etc)
6. Mobility. This is something that can be practiced, but imo each healer will have different amounts of mobility. Providing its enough to not be a hassle that is


For WHM I have always envisioned it as the simpler healer. Potent up front and regen heals, Earth/Wind/Water/Light magic, simple but relatively deep mechanics. Middle damage of the trio and tied to their lore is they need to be careful with their mp
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Ast is a buffing and flexible healer. Stars and time magic are its theme. Its mechanics are the most complex in decision making and its damage is lower to make up for its potent buffing and support. Its middle of the road between SCH and WHM for heals being split between shields and regens

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SCH is the combat medic. High damage mechanics and a bucket of ogcds and a fairy pet to help with the healing. Its focuses on debuffs and dots with a lot more thought going into its shielding style of healing. As a combat medic it can plan periods to regain mp most effectively

Can we have carbuncle heals yet please?

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