A summary of healer issues

[ty_taurus]

Has anyone actually given any actual, proper reason why adding in extra damage spells to healers to make downtime more interesting will suddenly make new/casual players suddenly unable to clear the content that they do yet?

We actually have video evidence of the opposite: A relatively casually-seeming player somehow managing the impossible task of clearing a dungeon during Heavensward as a Scholar. They had far less healing resources to work with, yet also had to deal with the incredibly unforgiving and anti-beginner-friendly old Cleric Stance, and was able to do so while still remembering to do things like keep Shadowflare up, apply DoTs, and keep the party alive even if they idled quite often. All on controller too.

Another dungeon as well with level 60 Scholar. Makes me wish I could go back in time. Here's a WHM example managing Aero, Aero II, and Aero III as an additional bonus.

[Zeastria]

I really don't see how they're being rude or trolling. They're valid points and Ty is bar none one of the most tame people on the forums I've seen.

Those res macro's are not exclusive to just healer resurrections. It would still functionally be the exact same for SMN and RDM both with and without swiftcast

The damage output in normal content is not high enough to cause such healing strain unless you have party members constantly eating aoe's and the dirt off the ground. You, as a healer, can only do so much to keep someone alive. It is the individual's fault for dying to such methods unless someone is bringing aoe's to said individual or reasons out of their control (such as the tank being dead and they get aggro, wipe mechanics, etc).

You have an insurmountable amount of tools at your disposal for healing others, so much to the point of high-end play even some Ultimates are being solo healed.

The complaint is, during healing downtime, there is not enough dps tools to keep playing them actually interesting. You have one single spell and a DoT (outside of the other damage cooldowns healers have...which are generally used on cd). That is about as uninteresting as it gets.

There are more methods of adding this in than just "here have one or two more dots" or "here's a combo action for your main spell".

One of the best examples of a method that could be used is the blood lily system for White Mage. You use healing actions (or hell, even your main damage spell), it builds up to something, or it unlocks something else. This something else is a damage action.

Idk if you read my prev replies... but i did state that i too find DPS for healers kinda bad ( how it's designed)..but at the same time i don't desire more dps buttons to press..(to many keybinds dosnt do it for me, and more buttons does not = more fun)
I think toggle and alteration of skills ( kinda like how they did SMN) could be an solution to the 111 spam.. it allows for more skills, yet at no cost of keybinds! as you kinda mentioned there..
Or they could reduce some of the heal abilites (looking at all the aoe heal abilites that does almost the same but diff cd) and put in skills that does both heal/dps at the same time..

[NobleWinter]

We actually have video evidence of the opposite: A relatively casually-seeming player somehow managing the impossible task of clearing a dungeon during Heavensward as a Scholar. They had far less healing resources to work with, yet also had to deal with the incredibly unforgiving and anti-beginner-friendly old Cleric Stance, and was able to do so while still remembering to do things like keep Shadowflare up, apply DoTs, and keep the party alive even if they idled quite often. All on controller too.

Another dungeon as well with level 60 Scholar. Makes me wish I could go back in time. Here's a WHM example managing Aero, Aero II, and Aero III as an additional bonus.

Omg I I miss having all those Heavensward dots so much. That first Scholar video was a little cringe watching them hit physic over and over while ignoring Whispering Dawn and Aetherflow tho. I'm so glad I found the forums by then and learned how to heal more efficiently from them. I can only hope they roll back the healer simplification for DPS cause this kind of gameplay is why I fell in love with healing in 14 and also why I want to unsubscribe currently.

[Nizzi]

I don't know why people continue to entertain people who don't do Savage/Ultimate saying that "Savage/Ultimate is so hard, that's why healers can't have more DPS buttons because they can't focus on more than one thing."

It is an entirely ahistoric view given healer kits in previous expansion and an opinion that has no basis in reality. SCH had more DPS buttons when UCoB and UWU were on content; and not a single time when doing DSR on SCH did I ever think "oh gee i sure am glad i only have to spam broil! my tiny stupid dumb dumb moron brain couldn't handle this super hard encounter if i had more than broil!"

Jobs should not be designed for the lowest common denominators, especially when they aren't even doing the content that requires you to have an actual understanding of how to properly play your job.

[ty_taurus]

Omg I I miss having all those Heavensward dots so much. That first Scholar video was a little cringe watching them hit physic over and over while ignoring Whispering Dawn and Aetherflow tho. I'm so glad I found the forums by then and learned how to heal more efficiently from them. I can only hope they roll back the healer simplification for DPS cause this kind of gameplay is why I fell in love with healing in 14 and also why I want to unsubscribe currently.

The fact that their gameplay is far from perfect is exactly my point too. A select few keep bringing up “but it’s too hard.” “I need to focus on healing.” Okay then focus on healing. In that first video where they are not managing their aetherflow, not using cooldowns effectively, dropping DoTs, idling, stopping casting to complain about their tank, etc… they have a Sophia weapon, so clearly they were also able to clear extremes at their skill level.

No hate to that player of course, but HW was when the game was at its hardest, yet a player with a lot of room for improvement could still manage to clear extremes despite having a much larger DPS library and old punishing Cleric Stance. Having DPS actions will not prevent the novice healer from clearing anything.

The only thing that you lose is the ability to parse purple without even trying. Oh no, the tragedy…

[AmiableApkallu]

I quite literally have wiped due to not having enough mitigation in the first tier of this savage when I was running PF as a SGE because of DPS not using Feint/Addle. Savage content is a group effort, so I don't really care if you're a tank, DPS, healer, crafter, gatherer, blue mage, whatever... you should be paying attention to your team. Perhaps I could've blown all of my cooldowns/barriers, but then I wouldn't have had them for later mechanics.

Savage content (on launch) is quite literally not a "it'd be nice if…" situation.

Finding the order in which to push your buttons while under the stress of mechanics is the definition of cooldown-based MMO gameplay. Any job that denies the player that functionality is designed antithetically to the genre that it's in.

Jobs don't exist in isolation. They exist within a combat model. The two have to work together. You want jobs to change to fit the current combat model? Fair. I merely pointed out an alternate take, that the combat model should change to fit the current jobs. And really, that's a change that would benefit everyone, not just the healers, because if it is really about "the stress of mechanics", then let's see how everyone does when there's enough randomness that they can't plan out all the possibilities in advance.

I mean, the combat model, with all of its predictable scripting, is boring. Piling on more DPS buttons to push will certainly give healers an opportunity to expend more of their attention span and effort, but, my two cents, is unlikely to actually do anything about that boredom unless you introduce BLM-like failure states that are recognizable in all content (which is something that most all of the jobs lack).

[Mimilu]

We actually have video evidence of the opposite: A relatively casually-seeming player somehow managing the impossible task of clearing a dungeon during Heavensward as a Scholar. They had far less healing resources to work with, yet also had to deal with the incredibly unforgiving and anti-beginner-friendly old Cleric Stance, and was able to do so while still remembering to do things like keep Shadowflare up, apply DoTs, and keep the party alive even if they idled quite often. All on controller too.

Another dungeon as well with level 60 Scholar. Makes me wish I could go back in time. Here's a WHM example managing Aero, Aero II, and Aero III as an additional bonus.

It still blows me away that Heavensward was 6-8 years ago and how much the game has changed. (●´ω｀●)ゞ

[ty_taurus]

Savage content (on launch) is quite literally not a "it'd be nice if…" situation.

Right, DPS players focusing on the party is only really a requirement for Savage and up… just like healer DPS optimization. That’s the point.

Jobs don't exist in isolation. They exist within a combat model. The two have to work together. You want jobs to change to fit the current combat model? Fair. I merely pointed out an alternate take, that the combat model should change to fit the current jobs. And really, that's a change that would benefit everyone, not just the healers, because if it is really about "the stress of mechanics", then let's see how everyone does when there's enough randomness that they can't plan out all the possibilities in advance.

I mean, the combat model, with all of its predictable scripting, is boring. Piling on more DPS buttons to push will certainly give healers an opportunity to expend more of their attention span and effort, but, my two cents, is unlikely to actually do anything about that boredom unless you introduce BLM-like failure states that are recognizable in all content (which is something that most all of the jobs lack).

So rather than adjust 4 jobs, you feel it’s the more logical solution to rework the entirety of this game’s 10+ years of content to make the existing healing kits work better? Rather than fill a hole in the road, we’re just going to build a new road without the hole?

[Silver-Strider]

It still blows me away that Heavensward was 6-8 years ago and how much the game has changed. (●´ω｀●)ゞ

If you told me that Healer gameplay would devolve into a Shell of a role back then, I'd have chalked it up to Tinfoil hat conspiracy. How naïve I was.

[Semirhage]

Jobs don't exist in isolation. They exist within a combat model. The two have to work together. You want jobs to change to fit the current combat model? Fair. I merely pointed out an alternate take, that the combat model should change to fit the current jobs. And really, that's a change that would benefit everyone, not just the healers, because if it is really about "the stress of mechanics", then let's see how everyone does when there's enough randomness that they can't plan out all the possibilities in advance.

I mean, the combat model, with all of its predictable scripting, is boring. Piling on more DPS buttons to push will certainly give healers an opportunity to expend more of their attention span and effort, but, my two cents, is unlikely to actually do anything about that boredom unless you introduce BLM-like failure states that are recognizable in all content (which is something that most all of the jobs lack).

Which is a fair point!

However.

What are you going to do about skill gaps? There will always be one, and it'll always be larger than you estimate. One person will struggle bus their way through an Extreme. Another will breeze through it. Same with Savage. This is normal, because you can't tune an encounter to be played absolutely perfectly (or even close to it) and expect most people to even attempt it. What's the upper quartile of that list of people going to do when they've mastered their healing game? What's a new player practicing their skills going to look forward to? Spamming Glarebroileficosis. Spamming Glare isn't fun. It's not a suitable reward for mastering your class. Even if you shake up encounter design to make healing more dynamic and fun, the reward for being good at it still sucks donkey balls.