A summary of healer issues

[Grimoire-M]

I've never understood why White Mage wasn't the buff healer?...I wanted Iconic Elemental Power combined with Unsurpassed Party Interaction.

I've never really associated White Mage as the 'buff character' across all FF games. It certainly has those aspects (ProShell), but it's never been the distinguishing factor the way it has been on classes like Bard or Dancer, or even within the mage category, Scholar, Green Mage, and Red Mage. And that's mostly due to Faith/Bravery being very late additions to the series in particular while those effects also have been traded across classes as much as they were across the White & Black magic Spell Lists themselves. Support Magic often fills out lower level spell lists that multiple classes have access to across the entire series, and sometimes lean on for their identities through secondary mechanics that White Mage itself doesn't get (hence the RDM/SCH association). I do associate White Mage with strong healing and strong caster damage at endgame (thank you Holy), but if I were to give it a unique identity that fits that theme, it would probably be through something like the Confession mechanic we got in the later half of Stormblood, but way more involved, where you get this additional healing resource that changes the context of your spells (Lily and non-Lily alike), and enables you to DPS in situations the other two straight up wouldn't be able to.

As an example of what I mean, here's a theoretical rework of Assize that uses Confession in the manner I'm talking about:

Assize: Deals damage with a potency of 400 to all nearby enemies. Additional Effects: Restores 5% of MP and applies two stacks of Confession to self and all allies in range.
Confession Effect: Upon receiving HP recovery or regeneration from the next Cure, Cure II, Medica, Tetragrammaton, Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Rapture, Regen, or Medica II cast by self, Confession consumes a stack for an additional heal. Potency: 200. Maximum Stacks: 4.
Cooldown 45s. Maximum Charges: 2.

Of course, the problem with "300 potency regen ticks*" and "Do I cast Medica or Cure III here?" is despite their theoretical ramifications SE still has to design fights that strain those resources mid-fight, not at the last minute pre-enrage. A rework like that needs even all healers to at least be using healing GCDs 20-35% of the time in end of tier speedclears to feel impactful. And I think that's why something like the above Assize rework just doesn't matter (and why I haven't bothered posting my full reworks of all three healers), even if it would be fun to juggle in theory. If SE isn't going to put some effort into easing off their item level scaling and amping up sustained damage accordingly, adjustments to any of the healer's kits in the name of chasing raw potency will consistently fall into that trap.

That's at least partially why I advocate for squishing the item level gaps we have each tier and want to add a significant healing potency increase to Piety. Those are vectors that directly target that problem, and also have the benefit of making gear and 'dead on arrival' content matter more, without actually requiring SE to change much on their end. If the gap between min-ilvl and BiS healing requirements is smaller, then actual skill expression matters more, or at the very least, you won't see Succor becoming irrelevant within a month.

[Irenia]

That will never happen; this dev team is obsessed with homogenization sadly.

Anecdotally, the reason for that is probably that myself and people I've spoken to don't identify themselves as a role. Rather, for example, they identify as a WHM that happens to be a healer, for example.

This is a bit personal too, as whenever I play SCH or AST, I don't really enjoy myself. I've been asked a couple of times to do it in pugs and statics and I hated it. Guess I just won't be able to pug if the pf strat calls for astro and sage to use their unique, unhomogenized tools, and I only enjoy white mage.

If SE wants to avoid having people feel like that, then I can see how this homogenization has come about. I wonder if they can avoid this situation, while also giving each job unique tools still... and how impactful can those tools be.

[Recon1o6]

Anecdotally, the reason for that is probably that myself and people I've spoken to don't identify themselves as a role. Rather, for example, they identify as a WHM that happens to be a healer, for example.

This is a bit personal too, as whenever I play SCH or AST, I don't really enjoy myself. I've been asked a couple of times to do it in pugs and statics and I hated it. Guess I just won't be able to pug if the pf strat calls for astro and sage to use their unique, unhomogenized tools, and I only enjoy white mage.

If SE wants to avoid having people feel like that, then I can see how this homogenization has come about. I wonder if they can avoid this situation, while also giving each job unique tools still... and how impactful can those tools be.

They absolutely can avoid these things. They could start by communicating with the playerbase again, a two way communication that is. Especially here on the official forums.
Then take feedback, and with official threads explain areas they are looking at, maybe get suggestions for alternatives, and then when the unfortunate happens, explain rationale and how they will improve later.
I'm not sure what happened but the devs stopped responding here sometime in late hw. Since then the game has notably slipped in several areas where it shouldn't have.

[Axxion]

Anecdotally, the reason for that is probably that myself and people I've spoken to don't identify themselves as a role. Rather, for example, they identify as a WHM that happens to be a healer, for example.

This is a bit personal too, as whenever I play SCH or AST, I don't really enjoy myself. I've been asked a couple of times to do it in pugs and statics and I hated it. Guess I just won't be able to pug if the pf strat calls for astro and sage to use their unique, unhomogenized tools, and I only enjoy white mage.

If SE wants to avoid having people feel like that, then I can see how this homogenization has come about. I wonder if they can avoid this situation, while also giving each job unique tools still... and how impactful can those tools be.

here is the thing with that. If you cant find a group then you will create your own.

[ForteNightshade]

Anecdotally, the reason for that is probably that myself and people I've spoken to don't identify themselves as a role. Rather, for example, they identify as a WHM that happens to be a healer, for example.

This is a bit personal too, as whenever I play SCH or AST, I don't really enjoy myself. I've been asked a couple of times to do it in pugs and statics and I hated it. Guess I just won't be able to pug if the pf strat calls for astro and sage to use their unique, unhomogenized tools, and I only enjoy white mage.

If SE wants to avoid having people feel like that, then I can see how this homogenization has come about. I wonder if they can avoid this situation, while also giving each job unique tools still... and how impactful can those tools be.

This is precisely the reason they don't place higher emphasise on role diversity. They don't want players to feel obligated to play jobs they aren't interested in even within their own role. It's hard to fault them either when looking back at Heavensward and Stormblood. If you were a White Mage, you were likely asked to play Astro incessantly, and had difficulty finding a static willing to accept you as a White Mage. Meanwhile, Dragoon players practically had a red carpet rolled out for them.

While that issue isn't nearly as prevalent nowadays due to rDPS, but if stronger job diversity created an imbalance, it would happen again.

[Irenia]

They absolutely can avoid these things. They could start by communicating with the playerbase again, a two way communication that is. Especially here on the official forums.
Then take feedback, and with official threads explain areas they are looking at, maybe get suggestions for alternatives, and then when the unfortunate happens, explain rationale and how they will improve later.
I'm not sure what happened but the devs stopped responding here sometime in late hw. Since then the game has notably slipped in several areas where it shouldn't have.

While I am not sure that actually communicating with the players would align the desires of all the healers that play this game, I would love to have someone from the dev team actually explain themselves. It beats trying to glean their intentions from their actions, of which I can't ever be completely confident.

Hopefully Friday we get something besides "look how pretty the new effects are".

here is the thing with that. If you cant find a group then you will create your own.

Indeed, and I did.

However, that has nothing to do with the schism that forms between those who aim for performance over all else, and those who don't have fun with that way of thinking. It at least seems to track how the community viewed AST cards and SE's shadowbringers response, for example.

[Roeshel]

Fun>balance because ilvl tends to make up for lower parse numbers.

Healers should be the strongest damage dealers in all content. Sounds fun to me. It highlights the uselessness of DPS players. But because Balance > Fun that will not happen untill the game is able to accommodate to such changes without making DPS players irrelevant.

[MintnHoney]

But because Balance > Fun

The funny thing is that, in the past, Yoshi-P and his crew would vehemently disagree with you. At least according to a particular slide.

Then again, what room do I have to trust what they say and write anymore, considering where we are now.

[VentVanitas]

The funny thing is that, in the past, Yoshi-P and his crew would vehemently disagree with you. At least according to a particular slide.

Then again, what room do I have to trust what they say and write anymore, considering where we are now.

Don't believe him and his lies.

[Irenia]

The funny thing is that, in the past, Yoshi-P and his crew would vehemently disagree with you. At least according to a particular slide.

Then again, what room do I have to trust what they say and write anymore, considering where we are now.

Hah.

While I still do think the team are trying to make the "best" game they can, their focus seems to have shifted as they have gotten more popular, and veteran healers are one of the groups who got lost in the shuffle.

I really hope they can make the role engaging for general high skill play for Endwalker. If the casual experience remains as sacred as it has been, then I wonder how much can actually be done.