A summary of healer issues

[Absurdity]

like how bad does SE think their players are at the game that they need that

Not really new that they think we're all drooling on our keyboards.

[BRVV]

Not really new that they think we're all drooling on our keyboards.

"15% chance for a stronger heal!? *thinking* that's... a one in a... uhh... anyway better spam Vita!" - If curebots would gain conciousness

[Shurrikhan]

It's like that with all the healers.

Embrace? Excog? Sacred Soil? Sorry, party only. Pls spam Lustrate on the ally...

On the other hand, I get it. Alliance raid fights usually use only one tank. Imagine how hard bosses would need to hit to not be trivialized by 6 healers' worth of mits and shields and free healing. Sprouts would be bursting into flames.

Alliance Raids make me simultaneously wish that Healers' AoEs themselves were kept more in check and that the encounters regularly gave players more reason to be spread out -- especially, as parties.

For instance, I'd kind of like it if AoEs were at least partially a split-heal, so their 4-man and 8-man values were far tighter (faintly increasing their use cases in 4-mans and greatly decreasing how redundant they make ST heals in 8-mans), but I'd also like for it to affect allies regardless of whether they're in your party (or even in your alliance). Similarly, I'd like it if, say, Sacred Soil could only affect up to 8 players at a time and prioritized party members, but wouldn't constraint itself to just party members.

If 100% XP was no longer guaranteed for whoever claims the first point of Enmity against FATE mobs (which should probably happen regardless, as not to incentivize HoTing every player near add spawns to steal credit), that might well be feasible.

[Silver-Strider]

Ngl, that's partially why I hate the melee/ranged division lol. When your entire party minus the tank are ranged, and you keep getting Arrow, Balance and Spears...

If only those cards had different effects
Or if there was some way to change those cards to have different properties, like extending the duration of the next card
Or if you had 3 chances to change the card to a different card.

Shame really.

[Marxam]

If only those cards had different effects
Or if there was some way to change those cards to have different properties, like extending the duration of the next card
Or if you had 3 chances to change the card to a different card.

Shame really.

the irony is that they fixed Undraw by making MA active every time you drew a card. It effectively replaced Undraw because you can always ditch a card for a lady/lord. Draw was also effectively on a 1 min cd, despite being 1 charge, since you had to RR. Now all we got is a jank version of MA and 2 charges of Draw which only acts as busy work for the sake of busy work and offers no synergy outside of just being a 30 sec ogcd.

[Allegor]

the irony is that they fixed Undraw by making MA active every time you drew a card. It effectively replaced Undraw because you can always ditch a card for a lady/lord. Draw was also effectively on a 1 min cd, despite being 1 charge, since you had to RR. Now all we got is a jank version of MA and 2 charges of Draw which only acts as busy work for the sake of busy work and offers no synergy outside of just being a 30 sec ogcd.

Honestly, that's pretty much how current AST feels. The entire card system (Draw, Play, Redraw, Undraw, MA, Astrodyne, the gauge and cards themselves) could be deleted and replaced with a single button that works like DNC steps and nothing would change. Job identity™ is the only thing keeping AST from being "WHM with a buff button"

Same with SGE and SCH since we're at it. Sure, all healers have their differences, but when aesthetics is the major differenciator between them, something's wrong.

[vetch]

I'm not re-scanning 145 pages, but if no one's mentioned recently that healer queues are still faster than tank queues even when the roulettes have shown 'tank in need' for 10 minutes straight, I'm mentioning it.

Not to be all 'I play healer for faster queue times instead of any job satisfaction' but if I'm doing everyone a favor by playing the role that's actually in need, then I want my bonus gil and XP. Undo the tank bias on the role-in-need calc that CBU3 added in all those years ago back when tanking took skill.

Achievement mounts would also be nice.

[SenahPanipahr]

I'm not re-scanning 145 pages, but if no one's mentioned recently that healer queues are still faster than tank queues even when the roulettes have shown 'tank in need' for 10 minutes straight, I'm mentioning it.

Not to be all 'I play healer for faster queue times instead of any job satisfaction' but if I'm doing everyone a favor by playing the role that's actually in need, then I want my bonus gil and XP. Undo the tank bias on the role-in-need calc that CBU3 added in all those years ago back when tanking took skill.

Achievement mounts would also be nice.

I didn't main Healer to help others, but because often it was the only role that would fire within any reasonable amount of time at the hours I was able to play.

Some Return to Ivalice queues I gave up on after reaching nearly 2 hours queuing as a Healer, so I don't even want to think what my experience would be like if I was doing that as a DPS. For this reason I've been a Healer for 90% of questline runs of pre-EW raids, trials, and alliance raids; and while they're fun enough when you're new despite the limitations of the role, it's not very fun feeling forced into it, and I say that as someone who loves the "fantasy" of playing a Healer.

I dearly hope CBU3 don't respond to the continued drought of people willing to suffer the role by doubling down on its simplification and homogenisation, but I'm worried given the general direction of recent development.

Honestly, I'm not even sure FFXIV's green DPS jobs would be considered Healers in many other games, but rather Supports. I wish they'd even just look to their previous work in FFXI, which didn't have hard roles like in FFXIV, but Healers ... well, healed, and thanks to the sub-job system could access an Actually Interesting Array of Abilities to use during any downtime.

I'm going to cut this post short because I can feel the angst coming through in my writing, but gods, it's so hard to not get a bit despondent about where things are headed between the general trend and the responses from Yoshi-P I've read on the topic (which if nothing else are confusing, given he has plenty of history playing MMOs).

[ForsakenRoe]

Honestly, that's pretty much how current AST feels. The entire card system (Draw, Play, Redraw, Undraw, MA, Astrodyne) could be deleted and replaced with a single button that works like DNC steps and nothing would change. Job identity™ is the only thing keeping AST from being "WHM with a buff button"

Same with SGE and SCH since we're at it. Sure, all healers have their differences, but when aesthetics is the major differenciator between them, something's wrong.

I don't remember who said it (my guess is Semirhage, apologies to the real poster if I'm misremember) but someone said that they could add Bravery to WHM, which is 'single target, 6% damage buff for 15sec, 30s CD', functionally identical to the cards we have now, and it really made me think 'wow, the cards are THAT hollow and bland now, huh', normally I'd say it's not good to be that reductionist about things but when SE has reduced the job's primary 'job thematic mechanic' to be... that, how can I do anything but agree with the assertion

[Deceptus]

I don't remember who said it (my guess is Semirhage, apologies to the real poster if I'm misremember) but someone said that they could add Bravery to WHM, which is 'single target, 6% damage buff for 15sec, 30s CD', functionally identical to the cards we have now, and it really made me think 'wow, the cards are THAT hollow and bland now, huh', normally I'd say it's not good to be that reductionist about things but when SE has reduced the job's primary 'job thematic mechanic' to be... that, how can I do anything but agree with the assertion

Bravery - Physical Damage increase by X%
Faith - Spell damage increase by X%
Protect - Physical damage down (mitigation) by X%
Shell - Spell damage down (mitigation) by X%

Simple, straightforward, based in Final Fantasy lore support skills healers should have. Take stuff like Feint / Addle / Tactictian away from DPS. Let them worry about DPS, not mitigation.

Split them between the shield and regen healers to try to incentivize bringing both.

It would also get mitigation off of DPS and incentivize brining healers in content.