A summary of healer issues

[KDSilver]

Or have absolutely ZERO clue how to use all of their kit, and will stand there and do nothing but cast Cure II and run out of mp.

I think that's one of the current problems we have.
Devs also redesign healer gameplay based on :

- non-healer player who fear for their life anytime they see 1000 HP missing
- Very least experienced healer who mostly heal with cure II/medica, running out of MP and saying that healing is hard
- non-dpsing healer who see this as a sin because they think you'll never be able to catch up people mistake if you use your oGCD and DPS (relied to p.2)
- non-healer player blaming healers for a death they had that is actually a mechanic fail, but putting the blame on healer because you saw them casting a DPS spell sounds more logic to them

Instead of creating a gameplay experience where most can find their fun (where the least experienced player can /ignore if they want because of their own mentality or whatever), they decided it'd be a good idea to dump everything down to appeal these players.
There is less and less this learning curve and this "freedom" of choice.

They didn't hesitate to put a "job efficiency will vary with player experience" on the tank slides when introducing gunbreaker, but for reason, this doesn't apply to healer.
And as long as ignorant people will state that "healers are really stressful and complicated to play" while also refusing to actually play them using their full toolkit, we'll hardly see any real changes. And it almost start to feel really depressing to watch.

We see our tool being taken away and being told to "get use to it".

Thank you really.

[Deceptus]

I think that's one of the current problems we have.
Devs also redesign healer gameplay based on :

- non-healer player who fear for their life anytime they see 1000 HP missing
- Very least experienced healer who mostly heal with cure II/medica, running out of MP and saying that healing is hard
- non-dpsing healer who see this as a sin because they think you'll never be able to catch up people mistake if you use your oGCD and DPS (relied to p.2)
- non-healer player blaming healers for a death they had that is actually a mechanic fail, but putting the blame on healer because you saw them casting a DPS spell sounds more logic to them

Instead of creating a gameplay experience where most can find their fun (where the least experienced player can /ignore if they want because of their own mentality or whatever), they decided it'd be a good idea to dump everything down to appeal these players.
There is less and less this learning curve and this "freedom" of choice.

They didn't hesitate to put a "job efficiency will vary with player experience" on the tank slides when introducing gunbreaker, but for reason, this doesn't apply to healer.
And as long as ignorant people will state that "healers are really stressful and complicated to play" while also refusing to actually play them using their full toolkit, we'll hardly see any real changes. And it almost start to feel really depressing to watch.

We see our tool being taken away and being told to "get use to it".

Thank you really.

Sadly this has happened on more than one occasion, I usually heal but when I tank I see healers with <50% MP and remind them Lucid Dreaming exists folks.

The only problem I have now, is healers who dont heal at all.

Honestly, with the amount of self heals and shields that tanks and dps (sorry MCH/BRD) have now, healers don't have much to do.

Can do doesn't hurt but just know that by putting in general discussion anyone could join in discussion rather than people who are more likely to be invested in healers especially long term, it's a toss up if will get noticed as much too and if mods would just move it here anyway but more eyes/awareness can be very beneficial.

The few times I've put healer related stuff in General it's been pretty poorly received. For some reason Non Healers have a massive hatred toward healers and I don't know why.

[JazihStar]

ive noticed that to. They have given most classes multiple ways to self heal but then also pushing for healers to only heal then you add scholars fairy auto heal and the astro/whm dot heals so if you have a good team that use there kits you rarely need to heal just the refreshing the shields n dots it is rather confusing on what there actually doing itl be interesting to see what crazyness they have planned next

[FoxCh40s]

Sadly this has happened on more than one occasion, I usually heal but when I tank I see healers with <50% MP and remind them Lucid Dreaming exists folks.



Honestly, with the amount of self heals and shields that tanks and dps (sorry MCH/BRD) have now, healers don't have much to do.




The few times I've put healer related stuff in General it's been pretty poorly received. For some reason Non Healers have a massive hatred toward healers and I don't know why.

You think that's bad? Try even mentioning that shit on the Reddit page for 14. You'll have people arguing over f***ing semantics and telling you how wrong you are, while asking for your logs, never posting theirs, demonstrating zero understanding of healing (only knowing names because google is thing), thinking that because FFXIVMOMO said healers are fine it's all guchi.

The sheer amount of disdain for the Healer community and absolute disgraceful way they treat us will come to a full head next expansion, mark my words.

[elioaiko]

You think that's bad? Try even mentioning that shit on the Reddit page for 14. You'll have people arguing over f***ing semantics and telling you how wrong you are, while asking for your logs, never posting theirs, demonstrating zero understanding of healing (only knowing names because google is thing), thinking that because FFXIVMOMO said healers are fine it's all guchi.

The sheer amount of disdain for the Healer community and absolute disgraceful way they treat us will come to a full head next expansion, mark my words.

While I think he's a really good raider, I do believe people don't really have another influencer to watch healer-related content for. Most of the popular influencers are either tank or dps mains. There're some out there of course but very under the radar.

The lack of this in turn causes people to kinda of grow a mindset where if it makes raiding numbers better, then it's okay. Which is not okay personally, because at the end of the day, it's still a video game and having with your favorite job and role is top priority for me regardless of the numbers.

Unfortunately, I suppose that for example AST in its current state is balanced beautifully in a raiding sense because now their buffing mechanic is more consistent rather than straight RNG. Or maybe complacency is what we're used to since SE has never seem to fix any of the major issues.

I guess that's where a problem lies in the community. Where the gameplay and lore of a healing job is secondary to its raiding potential. And yes, while I do raid and think AST's new cards are better for numbers, I still prefer SB AST.

Why? Because the old system had way more thought put into it. Yes, RNG utility is not useful because you can't rely on it and since Balance existed, it was the only card people preferred because more dps = faster kills. I would have rather SE marry this new card system with the old one for a happy medium. Perhaps, keep Divination and remove dps cards altogether.

I do believe 6.0 will either make or break the healing community. Be it another excuse for why we can't get another healer and the white knights can defend yet another xpac of adding more healing and removing more identity for balancing them by literally having them become copies of each other more and more.

I do want to believe that they'll give us something for being neglected as we are, although their record doesn't show anything positive thus far. We'll see but my expectations are already low.

[Semirhage]

I agree with most of the sentiments expressed in both the OP and this thread in general.
That said, I'll hop on a soapbox as a (former) evil mustache-twirling WHM enthusiast, whose only goal in this veil of tears is the sweet delicious suffering of AST and SCH mains. (I kid, I kid)

There are a lot of things I've wanted for several expansions now. Much of it boils down to Balance and Fun.

Balance:
Based on the usual direction of the endless maelstrom of discussion over what exactly "balance" means on these forums, I feel I need to explain what *I* mean by balance, and I'll have to jump back to the last two expansions to do it. No, I don't mean total DPS numbers need to be within X% of one another or all is lost. No, I don't mean that the world is coming to an end if my class doesn't get this or that skill. No, I don't think being whatever percentage below the meta speed pick makes a class broken and unviable, never to darken a party slot again. What I mean by balance is that I don't want the straight return to the healing world of late Heavensward or Stormblood I've seen several people around the forums suggest. Perhaps it's a mite unfair if you have three jobs in a role, and two of those jobs have strong personal damage, powerful healing, mega shields for any occasion, breezy mobility, infinite MP, a Batman toolbelt of buffs, and a variety of debuffs, while the third has like...maaaaybe half that list on a good patch, with notably fewer spells to boot. Heck, I'm not even saying jobs shouldn't have all of those cool things (though having explicit weaknesses can be fun too!), just that there's something that smells funky when your job has enormous holes in its list of capabilities, and that list of holes is much smaller on other members in your role, without commensurate weaknesses to compensate.

I can't speak for others here, but that's what I mean when I say the healer role was "unbalanced" in the past. Not that WHM wasn't in the speed meta. When my job has almost no unique capabilities. When my kit overlaps with the other two, and they're still pretty competitive in those areas or even outshine what I'm capable of, making that lack of uniqueness even more stark. When the other two have not just extra spells, but entire CATEGORIES of abilities that I don't, on top of being pretty great at basically all the things that I do. All three of those things came together and turned me into a chronic forum complainer since late-Heavensward. It really highlighted for me then (and ever since) that WHM's tools don't really do much outside increase health and do direct damage. In a series with so much inspiration to draw from that it makes one's head spin to think of all the possible things a designer could stem creativity from. I'm not making a statement about any single issue; the list is only elevated from "annoying" to "problem" when the items occur together. I'm Mad On The Internet that White Mage has been painted into this stupid corner where it's not allowed to have practically ANY meaningful gameplay loop outside Simplistic Ally Health Up Button and Vanilla Enemy Health Down Button because **reasons**. Of COURSE something's going to crop up when this weird design restriction applies to only one of several job choices.

Fun:
People have different definitions. I finally threw my staff in a woodchipper because I was done with it. I want an expansion where I look forward to an exciting list of changes. Not one where I'm bracing for the massive laundry list of abilities they're snatching away from me to clear the road for it. Could they maybe please, please stop nerfing Holy? Stop inventing new and creative ways to slowly grind Fluid Aura down into a functionless emote? Making downtime duller and duller with each expansion? Taking old abilities away, reducing their potency, and reskinning them as "new"? Shuffling abilities off into role skills? Job lore that hints at a mysterious civilization past, but in practice is often "Someone has reported a stinky patch of ground. Clean it!" I'm not even talking on a class balance level or comparing battle scars with AST or SCH with this whinge. It doesn't feel good as a player when over time your job's list of uncalled-for potency reductions and skill slashes grows longer than the list of changes you find fun. White Mage is literally the only job in this entire game for which I've seen multiple serious suggestions that it "remain" a casual job. That Netflix-'n-Snooze Mage is the natural order. The Sylphies need a haven with an ankle-height skill ceiling that "should" be as close to a limited job as possible, pruned down to little more than Cure, Medica, and Glare (and Glare is a topic of fierce debate for the next prune, because doing damage ruins the Fairy Princess Healer dream). I exaggerate there, but it's a sentiment that gets me fired up every time I see it. I have no interest in the job aesthetic of Scholar or Astrologian. Can it maybe, in some timeline, be possible that all THREE healers have interesting stuff to do, with their own niches, with their own choices to make, with their own different ways of filling their downtime? I'm talking something that feels good and impactful, not yet more busywork like "lol let's mash the Medica button over and over and over and over again because that's not like Glare spam at all". A suggestion like "we should keep {insert DPS class here} dull because we need a braindead simple damage dealer that mashes 2 buttons for 90% of an encounter to appeal to all tastes" would be laughed out of the room. I quit this role not just because I was disappointed with Shadowbringers' treatment of healers, but because it's been made clear to me patch after patch, expansion after expansion that my favorite flavor of job is not the premiere Dumdum Healer for Beginners by accident; that (Regen Aero Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Stone Aero Tetra Stone Stone...) is the GOAL. The job designers are so out of touch with how healing works in their own game that this dreadful gameplay loop is what they've got for us.

Here, have this (somewhat) simplified script:
If tank doesn't have regen, use regen
If one person's health goes down below comfort zone, counter it with one of several functionally identical One Person Health Up spells, in a relatively static cooldown priority order.
If 3+ people's health go down below comfort zone, restore it with one of several functionally identical All People Health Up Spells, in a relatively static cooldown priority order.
If multiple enemies exist, stand in them and Holy
If one enemy exists and they don't have (WHM Bot DoT), (DoT) them
(Generic WHM spam spell) closest thing

What I see is a decision "tree" that is a straight line. Would YOU, faceless reader, have fun playing Semirhagebot for six years? Because the engagement wore thin for me. I'll admit that my personal burnout with this no-growth-allowed job was a strong factor in my decision to quit healing. And simply returning to the glory days of AST and SCH dominance wouldn't create many more lines in Semirhagebot's code.

I don't say this next bit to minimize the things that Astro and Scholar enthusiasts have strong reason to be angry about or turn these design decisions around make it "all about me", but from one perspective? Squeenix is -so bloody dedicated- to making sure White Mage has no niche, no identity, no further entertainment to offer outside of spamming simplistic spells with little to no synergy or skill cap that they would rather throw out what fun design they had in the other two healers than give WHM an actual complete kit. Afflatus Misery was too little too late for me. The "WHM can stay the boring healer, that's its identity!" crowd can bite me.

If you love the current iteration of White Mage, good for you. My poor 1 key begged for its life after job changes were announced.

[elioaiko]

[QUOTE=The "WHM can stay the boring healer, that's its identity!" crowd can bite me.[/QUOTE]

Exactly this, WHM has had its kit basically snatched and simplified to the point where it's far too easy to even play.

WHM should at least have some complexity to it, being the "easy healer with big heals/damage isn't cutting it anymore" because the amount of heals it has isn't even required/redundant and it's dps options are barebones with the exception of Misery.

[Recon1o6]

Its always been a turn off for me that WHM was simple and had pretty much everything stolen from it. Until shb happened and I had to retrieve my dreadwyrm cane from my saddlebag, where I'm 90% certain it was part of my fishing tackle.

Whm doesnt need to be the simple introductory healer- we have sodding conjurer for that. White mage should get something to give it more challenge to play in line with the other healers and for me personally the most difficult mp restoration after rdm in accordance with lore

[Sloprano]

OP, that's a well thought-through list, in any sensible existence something like this would garner the eye of the supervisors, in where they realize basis for any relationship is talking to each other, an actual community manager would materialize to share their thoughts, drag in the healer designer to defend their design decisions and invite discussion so we might understand where they come from and where they are going, and in return they understand our want to be able do more like any other job in game with scripted sequences. In where we find common ground that would ultimately find it's way into the game.

Ah, to dream the impossible. To reach the unreachable stars. Where things isn't hold back by risk-free design by commitee.

So what constitues playinger a Healer for me?

Gave it some thought and for me it's:

Pacing, tension and validation.

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First up: Pacing is the highs and the lows. The bitter struggle and the sweet release. The frantic and the calm. The ramp up and slow fall down. Dungeons has this down to an exact science: Pack Pack Boss, Pack Pack Boss, Pack Pack Boss, We will We Will Rock you. Where difficulty goes a bit up, peaks at boss, then goes pause and repeat. Then closer each encounter has it's pacing with it's tankbuster, unavoidable and avoidable slash mechanic: When boss telegraphs like Cooke and Wheatstone you move or resolve it then we enjoy a small break for a snickers and some free shots at kicking their shins. Now these scripted hallways has been like this since forever. To alliviate repetition, you have paced skillsets, or rotations.

We don't have any. We are stuck spinning our wheels, rotating at a speed of two and a half seconds. Only ramp up I have is the Fey Gauge and you can't release your sticky green load all over the mobs for a thrilling conclusion. It just sits there squatting at 100% on your HUD like a roommate who never gets a job.

An actual spread skillset with interesting abilities you can bounce of each other or paradigm shifts like Cleric Stance lends itself to a dynamic difficulty, which was very welcome since as we've established every fight will always be the same, this lends itself to a kind of tension.

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Now Tension lives next door to Pacing and sometimes jumps the fence to help with DIY projects. While mostly found in horror games, I had the same sensation from walking the streets of Silent Hill 2 to both when creeping around the corners at Floor 187 or when both Alliance A and B, my cohealer and my four dps all die in Ridorana. When I was learning Twintania and learning to time Cleric Stance and place Eos to help out where I could, or when the level 45 Scholar, ink still wet on their codex pages went boldly into Garuda normal and had to hardress dps and tank something like six times and still pull through somehow.

Heart beats faster, your senses are heighting, you go on instinct and skill alone. Shoulders tense up, eyes bulge. You are in the zone and you manage to keep the party together long enough to win. Then you settle down and relax.

That is exciting. That is edge-of-your seat without falling of, because I believed in my skills, and neither the game suddenly rushing to my aid and just auto-resolve everything that pushes my buttocks so far back into the seats the chair explodes.

Before, it didnt matter and I didnt care at all the mobs followed the script to a fucking tee. Because my job had unlimited potential the way of a built-in difficulty slider: I could go in, only do the bare necessities and get my tomes without any fuss. Then when I wanted to have fun and grow as a Scholar I pushed myself to manage dots, manage the fairies, use Selene and stay in Cleric Stance long as possible. You could say this was thinking like a dps, which lended itself to a sense of Validation.

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Validation. Or even purpose. Right now, what is our purpose? To press a cooldown after the boss telegraphs. And just like tanks, seems to only exist to check if we're awake. And like a snooze button, is completely trivialized with the press of a button. And late for work.

Of course, there's when everyone mucks up and dies like flies. Ive read several voices that are similar to my own: When shit hits the proverbial fan and that shit murders all your party you finally get a chance to use all of these skills, both on the hotbar and inside you. But I don't believe SE is sharing that sentiment how they are using that one savage-looking basket they put all their job focus eggs.

A usually timid WHM friend admited they enjoyed E5S a whole lot more when things were going wrong: Someone get serverticked on the horse charge, someone might have their little toe in an aoe or just one inch too close to the wrong player during chain lightning. That meant he had stuff to do. The absolute awful part about all this is that he puts himself on the line: Spends swiftcast, stands still for eight seconds to ress, spend all that Glare-MP on getting us all up and trucking again and the game just spits in his face for it when we JUST barely recover from all the deaths, scramble into the dance-routine mechanics and then still wipes at 2.1%.

SE, you loveable pinhead, here someone is playing your beloved "HEALERS ONLY HEAL"-stereotype, bringing everyone back from the brink and you fuckers ignore all his effort. Remember tension above? The worst you can you do in a tension-heavy game is to kill the player, because then all tension is lost. In the same way, what gives me tension as a healer goes against the set script of the game. So when during general rehearsal, one actor fumbles their line, the director caps them in the knee and when I break character to go and help them up before going back on script the very same director just drops the stage lightning on top of all of us.

In short: Nothing we do as healers are confirmed as helping in the same place we are balanced. It's such a put-on-brain-the-wrong way in the morning kind of approach to dealing with this kind of encounter. If we chose to defer from just pressing cooldowns or not jumping the moment someone dies then we are somehow playing it wrong. I don't feel validated when all Im here for is to press a cooldown the exact same time every time, something that could easily been replaced by buffing Second Wind to 2000 potency and lower cooldown.

In summary: Pacing of a job lends itself to an increasing amount of tension. The tension and dealing with tension lends itself to a feeling of validation. The validation leads to job satisfaction.

Right now only place I feel validated is when everyone around me dies and the very same fights the jobs now are balanced for does not recognize this work in any way.

[Sloprano]

I can't speak for others here, but that's what I mean when I say the healer role was "unbalanced" in the past.

You know, when our esteemed Director made claims to "balance" healers, a tiny small hope inside me burned that this didn't meant the obvious "we'll make them all the same for savage", but actually built them up from the ground up again.

Something as radical as being fun from the word "go": Have a solid core for healing and damage at level 15, and when you get your job stone it really gets fucking going. With the simple wish that the job was already complete by level 50 and from there on, gave you either more to do or made you rethink existing skills.

Because, as you say, seeing it in balance for distribution of skills and having shit to do, it was really fucking skewed back in 2013:

* When I finally got the job stone for the very WHM job I started this game for I found myself just pressing Stone II and refreshing aero.
* While the level 17 class I ran back to had two pets, two dots, virus, Aetherflow and Energy even before entering Satasha. And all this carried over when I unlocked Scholar.

For me it wasn't even a competition. And the years have been anything but kind.

That was my big prerogative for never bothering with WHM and AST in any capacity, because I didn't find they enjoyed having a base like Arcanist. Something I think they should. Not identical, but their own foundation of just satisfying stuff they can keep themselves busy with when no healing needed, of which there has always been and I'm super sure always will be a ton of, and that, if chose to, could start weaving in even when healing.

I know SE keeps saying they don't fucking bother with Lore when making new skills but they should really start doing that again. Bring back fucking classes as bases again and jobs to stand on them. Bring in someone who cares. Because this malarky of tuning jobs to the role instead of their name, theme and lore is ass-backwards when the importance and purpose of the role is reduced to pressing a cooldown now and then.