A summary of healer issues

[VentVanitas]

Rather than quit the game, if healers don't change in 7.0, I'll probably just not level them anymore, not even for the role quest. I'll clog up the duty finder with more DPS. In fact, I'll put in requests to be able to clear the role quest as a DPS since healing isn't fun.

And I recommend anyone unhappy with 7.0 changes when they come around do the same. If nothing changes, then just cloud up the suggestions tab in-game with requests to clear the healer role quest as a DPS instead for a more fun and engaging experience.

I already didn't level my healers to begin with in EW, they're only at 90 now because of PvP xp. I am 100% not touching them if 7.0's job design philosophy is the same.

[ForsakenRoe]

Gotta also make sure to, if given the opportunity to ask a question at a live Q+A eg fanfest or PAX, to swap your 'prescreened' softball question about 'will we ever get to see Emet's house in Amaurot' or whatever, to something as PR-damaging as the infamous 'is this an out of season April Fools joke' from the Diablo Immortal announcement. They'd start paying attention pretty damn fast if the situation was making them look bad to investors. I'd have done it myself but I got filtered by lottery (ultimate)

Maybe I should go back to being a tank main too, we should ditch the role and SE can watch the clear rates of Savage plummet as all the 'fed up skilled players' leave and all that's left are the people who couldn't hack it when Abyssos showed up with it's heightened HPS (but actually mainly mit) requirements

[ty_taurus]

Something that could be interesting as well would be getting a discord server going of healers in favor of DPS and setting up events where everyone mass queues as DPS for the same roulette over and over, clogging up the roulettes. You’d need a lot of people to make that happen though.

[ForsakenRoe]

Something that could be interesting as well would be getting a discord server going of healers in favor of DPS and setting up events where everyone mass queues as DPS for the same roulette over and over, clogging up the roulettes. You’d need a lot of people to make that happen though.

That already seems to happen, it's called 'daily reset'

[Payadopa]

When it comes to healing, I'm not really sure that these changes are because of people screaming about high end balance, but rather I think they're based on people screaming "MY HEALER ISN'T HEALING ME AND IS ATTACKING! WTF I DIED BECAUSE NO HEALS?? FIX ITTTTTTTT" which is a persistent complaint from tank/dps players in both casual and high end content, even if it's not often times why people are dying.

Oh yeah, I'm not saying it's the only reason, but also a contributor. I know these forums don't like if you say that. lol You're supposed to only go against the devs who clearly don't understand their own game. I'd say the truth lies somewhere in-between.

I certainly remember number-minded players saying that if you don't fish for balance you're doing it wrong. Or that if you use the 'wrong' fairy you're trolling or whatever. Full disclosure, I'm raiding myself, so that's essentially my crowd. lol And guess what? Cards were all turned into balance and both fairies are the same now. It doesn't take rocket science to see where this idea came from. But, just to reiterate, I do agree with a lot of what's being said here. Like healers being the ones who are there so others can have fun (in low level content. As an AST main I enjoy savage).

For what it's worth I was pleasantly surprised by the healing requirements for Barbs ex. So there is that.

[Aravell]

I certainly remember number-minded players saying that if you don't fish for balance you're doing it wrong. Or that if you use the 'wrong' fairy you're trolling or whatever. Full disclosure, I'm raiding myself, so that's essentially my crowd. lol And guess what? Cards were all turned into balance and both fairies are the same now. It doesn't take rocket science to see where this idea came from.

If you look back at that time, I can guarantee that almost every complaint about not getting The Balance and the SCH not using Selene all came from DPS mains. The rdps metric didn't exist back then, so the only way to get the funny number on the funny number site is for an AST to feed you The Balance. I personally remember a lot of DPS mains whining about not getting The Balance, but I most certainly have never seen any AST main worth their salt complain about the cards.

This shows that the card changes aligns with their aim of making sure the DPS players have as much fun as possible, regardless of what this does to the healer role.

[ForsakenRoe]

If you look back at that time, I can guarantee that almost every complaint about not getting The Balance and the SCH not using Selene all came from DPS mains. The rdps metric didn't exist back then, so the only way to get the funny number on the funny number site is for an AST to feed you The Balance. I personally remember a lot of DPS mains whining about not getting The Balance, but I most certainly have never seen any AST main worth their salt complain about the cards.

This shows that the card changes aligns with their aim of making sure the DPS players have as much fun as possible, regardless of what this does to the healer role.

The Selene complaints were definitely from DPS mains, but not for 'not using Selene', it was 'using Selene made me run out of TP and now I can't press my buttons'. And if you said 'press Purification' to a monk in this situation, they'd say 'but that's dps loss'

Same with Arrow, caused people to run out of TP too fast, makes their gameplay feel janky because their GCD is delayed a bit to wait for a TP tick, leading back to the point: it affected the DPS main's enjoyment of the game, so it had to go

Side note, did you know that WOW healers now have more variety in buffs they can give their allies than we have here? Once upon a time I remember people bragging about how cool it was that AST was a healer that had a big focus on giving out buffs to allies as well as doing regular healing stuff. Now it's all just flat damage increases, meanwhile Holy Paladin's able to give out 'Multistrike as additional holy damage', 'Restore 15% max MP over 30s (healer only)', 'Healing dealt increased by 15% and healing received increased by 30%' (great for tanks since their selfhealing tools will doubledip), and 'CDs restore 30% faster' (and this one affects stuff that's already on CD because somehow a game first made in 2004 managed to iron that jank out, and this one couldn't). What do we have, flat damage increase, with 'party wide flat damage increase' as our big 2min moment. Dull as dishwater, and by the looks of it, designed for people who like to drink the stuff

[GrimGale]

The Selene complaints were definitely from DPS mains, but not for 'not using Selene', it was 'using Selene made me run out of TP and now I can't press my buttons'. And if you said 'press Purification' to a monk in this situation, they'd say 'but that's dps loss'

Same with Arrow, caused people to run out of TP too fast, makes their gameplay feel janky because their GCD is delayed a bit to wait for a TP tick, leading back to the point: it affected the DPS main's enjoyment of the game, so it had to go

Side note, did you know that WOW healers now have more variety in buffs they can give their allies than we have here? Once upon a time I remember people bragging about how cool it was that AST was a healer that had a big focus on giving out buffs to allies as well as doing regular healing stuff. Now it's all just flat damage increases, meanwhile Holy Paladin's able to give out 'Multistrike as additional holy damage', 'Restore 15% max MP over 30s (healer only)', 'Healing dealt increased by 15% and healing received increased by 30%' (great for tanks since their selfhealing tools will doubledip), and 'CDs restore 30% faster' (and this one affects stuff that's already on CD because somehow a game first made in 2004 managed to iron that jank out, and this one couldn't). What do we have, flat damage increase, with 'party wide flat damage increase' as our big 2min moment. Dull as dishwater, and by the looks of it, designed for people who like to drink the stuff

Okay to be fair, if we're gonna include "Healing increases" as counting towards buff variety, healers in FFXIV do get a bit more than flat DPS increases.

AST's Exaltation and Collective Uncounscious give a buff that reduces damage.
WHM's Temperance applies a buff that reduces damage taken by partymembers and increases the potency the caster's healing. Asylum increases healing done.
SGE's Krasis increases healing recieved, Holos mitigates, same as Kerachole and Taurochole.
SCH's Dissipation increases healing action potency, Chain Stratagem increases the crit rate recieved by target, Whispering Dawn is a magic mitigation plus healing done and Expedient increases speed and mitigates.

So with all four healers we have: More damage done, Less damage taken, More crit done, More healing taken/More healing done and Movement Speed up.

Obviously this isn't much. These support actions are as barebones as they can be: Simple numerical increases/decreases, with the unique exception of Expedient which grants Movement speed.

[Iedarus]

SCH's Dissipation increases healing action potency...

Healing magic potency. A button so anti synergistic it anti synergizes with itself. That's why it's just a glorified Energy Drain button.

[ForteNightshade]

If you look back at that time, I can guarantee that almost every complaint about not getting The Balance and the SCH not using Selene all came from DPS mains. The rdps metric didn't exist back then, so the only way to get the funny number on the funny number site is for an AST to feed you The Balance. I personally remember a lot of DPS mains whining about not getting The Balance, but I most certainly have never seen any AST main worth their salt complain about the cards.

This shows that the card changes aligns with their aim of making sure the DPS players have as much fun as possible, regardless of what this does to the healer role.

You were in different circles then. I know several players of varying skill levels who despised the old card system because it essentially boiled down to "Balance fishing". This opinion is especially prevalent in the speed kill community as Balance was king. A lot of people also disliked how certain cards were worthless. Bole, for example, was never worth using as you were never going to rely on inconsistent mitigation. It's no different than current Lady, which every Astro hates drawing. With all that said, I do think they could have done a better job adjusting the system than scraping it entirely. I, personally, liked old Astro a lot more than every other iteration.

Alas, the old Astro would never work in today's landscape. Arrow would completely destroy nearly every job, Spear is just a baby balance that would be even weaker due to the insane value of the two minute meta, Ewer and Bole are both worthless and we'll assume Spire would be turned into a Direct Hit boost given TP is no longer a thing. Which would just be an even weaker Balance. So old Astro would be even more of a "Balance or bust" job today than ever before. That's the problem with FFXIV's design philosophy. Damage is overwhelmingly the best option. Anything that sacrifices damage for resources or defensive benefits seldom has any value.