A summary of healer issues

[GrimGale]

Something I'd personally add to my list of issues with the healers.

"Hello, I am {User in practically any thread on these forums}. The healer role has been butchered. It's in such an unacceptably bad state. All three healers play the same now, with really basic kits, a bunch of boring oGCDs that hardly interact with one another, and a one-DOT, one-nuke damage spam that makes up almost the entirety of their endgame skill ceiling.


Anyway, here is my five paragraph essay on why this is a horrible tragedy that befell Astro and Scholar detailing why they should be completely overhauled. Also when I'm reminded that White Mage exists my intro paragraph will receive a softer touch. Sparse kit? Overhealing? Unconnected oGCDs? One DOT and one nuke spamming as the entire endgame? Num num gimme more of that! It's just so unfair that White Mage design is in such a great spot with this exact state of affairs I just spent my intro bitching about. It's all fight design with WHM! The kit is great, just need better combat to make WHM really fun and/or interesting. But AST and SCH, they need overhauls to be fun. It's not fight design there. It's dumbed down and bland when AST and SCH have to deal with it. It's 'great design' when WHM does. No contradictions here! No idea why the devs think these opinions make no sense."

Who are you mad at, exactly?

I have never seen what you describe. Most suggestions about the three healers also include WHM getting an expanded DPS kit, going back to Aero III for AoE dotting, iconic elemental spells such as Tornado and Quake and most of all turning Fluid Aura into a useful spell.
There are also suggestions about getting back Protect, Shell and Stoneskin in some form or another.

It seems the general idea is to make WHM into a healer with an outstandingly powerful personal dps kit, while keeping the other two as buff/debuff healers with focus on raid increasing dps.

None of that seem to imply WHM must stay as a simple and easy healer.

[Semirhage]

Who are you mad at, exactly?

I have never seen what you describe. Most suggestions about the three healers also include WHM getting an expanded DPS kit, going back to Aero III for AoE dotting, iconic elemental spells such as Tornado and Quake and most of all turning Fluid Aura into a useful spell.
There are also suggestions about getting back Protect, Shell and Stoneskin in some form or another.

It seems the general idea is to make WHM into a healer with an outstandingly powerful personal dps kit, while keeping the other two as buff/debuff healers with focus on raid increasing dps.

None of that seem to imply WHM must stay as a simple and easy healer.

You're kidding right? I see it in practically every thread on this forum. "Keep WHM simple". "Keep it the straightforward one". "Don't give it complexity, I like it because it's simple". "My design idea has it stay the Pure Raw Healer". Go look at the General Discussion section of the forums for extra eye rolling. "Give AST and SCH their complexity back" + "WHM is great with just a few small tweaks" is all over the place. Check basically any thread.

[GrimGale]

You're kidding right? I see it in practically every thread on this forum. "Keep WHM simple". "Keep it the straightforward one". "Don't give it complexity, I like it because it's simple". "My design idea has it stay the Pure Raw Healer". Go look at the General Discussion section of the forums for extra eye rolling. "Give AST and SCH their complexity back" + "WHM is great with just a few small tweaks" is all over the place. Check basically any thread.

I will concede there are threads that seem to want to keep WHM "simple". As an example, quoting OP here:

10. The "Pure Healer" concept that was explored in Stormblood and forced upon all healers now is extremely unpopular and is unsuitable for FF14's combat system, lore and community

What do WHM's want?
White mage is job, it is ok for it to be simple, but it must not be a conjurer with larger heals. It must have more complexity
1. Return Aero 3, buff holy, and add at least a second damage button to both aoe and/or single target
2. Expand on the lily system outside of healing.
3. Give back the elemental earth/wind and add some water magic
4. Nerf the mp and healing potencies a little. WHM has practically infinite mp and its healing capability is extremely strong
5. Make it more complex than babies first healer. We have Conjurer for that
6. Include a trait ot upgrade Cure 1 to Cure 2
7. Give it some form of raid utility if damage is not going to be high
8. Give Quake, Tornado and Flood. Long time staples we really should have by now

OP does say it's "Ok for WHM to be simple"- But I would argue that doesn't mean OP wants WHM to be a job with no depth whatsoever. As an example, BLM is a "simple" class, mechanically- Rotation is easy to grasp and undestand and yet, it requires quite alot awareness and knowledge of encounters to push it optimally.

Still, considering the general consensus on what design problems healers have, I'd say, neither Scholars or Astrologians are your enemies.

[AC9Breaker]

I thought Quake Flood and Tornado where ancient level spells mostly associated with BLM.

[Mimilu]

I thought Quake Flood and Tornado where ancient level spells mostly associated with BLM.

Most people want them for XIV's WHM because they have/had Earth, Water, and Wind spells, versus BLM, which have Fire, Ice, and Thunder spells.

[MPNZ]

I thought Quake Flood and Tornado where ancient level spells mostly associated with BLM.

Aero is also a BLM spell, but WHM needs to be able to DPS for story content, and its lore in FF14 is tied to both Ampador and the elementals which makes them into a mixture of like of druid and priest archetypes. Though, because of the elementals influence it's not impossible to expand it with several elemental based-spells, but it's kind of hard to think of anything because of like DPS dominancey. And combat is better designed closer to platinum games combat standards instead of mobile gaming's tap-to-win designs. Though this does not mean that they should totally abandon lower skill levels as implement low skill floors with mastery rewarded through access to difficult areas, defeating stronger overworld mobs, or being way better at PVP. There is currently just way too little reward for several of the different MMO taxonomies, but combat design should not be pigeon-holed to play as almost carbon copies of one another regardless of ease of design and balace

[SpiralMask]

@grimgale: personally, while i'm fine with jobs having running a gradient of simple to complex, i think even a 'simple' job should have something to do when there's no healing needed.
SCH used to have their dot management (now removed), AST used to have their cards (now lobotomized), etc. it's still really weird that rather than giving WHM a downtime activity they took away the other two's for ShB

[SweetPete]

I know square loves to surprise us but I’d really like it if they created a test server for us to test the new skills so we can give feedback on gameplay and just if we like them or not. Instead of giving influencers and such time to test the jobs when obviously none of them are main healers and will just say they love everything SE does just to save face. They end up adjusting multiple jobs throughout the entire expansion which is not necessary if they got it right sooner. They can focus on other things. Job adjustments can be limited. I really hope they give this some thought. Our current healers are solid proof that SE, their own testers and even our lovely influencers have absolutely no idea what they talking about when it comes to healers. No shade just the truth.

[Absurdity]

I know square loves to surprise us but I’d really like it if they created a test server for us to test the new skills so we can give feedback on gameplay and just if we like them or not. Instead of giving influencers and such time to test the jobs when obviously none of them are main healers and will just say they love everything SE does just to save face. They end up adjusting multiple jobs throughout the entire expansion which is not necessary if they got it right sooner. They can focus on other things. Job adjustments can be limited. I really hope they give this some thought. Our current healers are solid proof that SE, their own testers and even our lovely influencers have absolutely no idea what they talking about when it comes to healers. No shade just the truth.

Even the influencers aren't really "testing" anything, they simply get an early look at it. People who got early access to the ShB jobs told SE for example that SCH not having Energy Drain isn't gonna work out. SE did nothing about it and look what happened? They had to put ED back in post-launch since yes, it did indeed not work.


SE's in-house testing quite obviously isn't enough and since they don't do major changes mid expansion unless a vast majority complain about it or it is literally unplayable they need more testing and, most importantly, more outside feedback prior to the design being implemented...or you end up with the current terrible healer design for 2 years and no hope for any changes since it is technically "functional".

[Deceptus]

Even the influencers aren't really "testing" anything, they simply get an early look at it. People who got early access to the ShB jobs told SE for example that SCH not having Energy Drain isn't gonna work out. SE did nothing about it and look what happened? They had to put ED back in post-launch since yes, it did indeed not work.

Lets also not forget that in the 96 questions asked across all "influencers", THREE involved healing, and those were hand waved away.