A summary of healer issues

[Silver-Strider]

There was a crappy P2W MMO made by X-Legend(Aura Kingdom) that did exactly this with it's Bard class. Using healing spells would augment and strengthen your next DPS spell(a max of 3 stacks) while using healing spells would augment and strengthen your next DPS spell(Max of 3 stacks.)

It's kinda sad to see that an awful P2W MMO had somewhat more engaging healer gameplay than what we have.

At this point, BLU is the most engaging Healer in the game.

[Recon1o6]

At this point, BLU is the most engaging Healer in the game.

its not even ironic, its true.
Once in a while a blu party pops up and I play blu healer and its fun. Especially the time i solo healed a blu party as blu healer vs omega v3. That was an absolute blast and pushed my rusty healer skills to the limit.
I probably could have done better but I still dont have strotram :P

I haven't met someone whose done BLU healer yet that dislikes it vs the current healers

[Deceptus]

At this point, BLU is the most engaging Healer in the game.

It really is.

Covers all the healing basics.

Has buffs and debuffs for the group

Robust damage options.

Their only downside is the LONG CD on rez. Personally I think it should be removed with the healer mimicry.

[Silver-Strider]

It really is.

Covers all the healing basics.

Has buffs and debuffs for the group

Robust damage options.

Their only downside is the LONG CD on rez. Personally I think it should be removed with the healer mimicry.

Honestly, if BLU wasn't handicapped into being 10 levels below cap, I could say I would do end game with BLU as a Healer. Rez being 5 minutes is a bit of an issue for Prog but I'll take a tougher prog over the snore fest that is current healer design.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Snip

I was a DPS Bard main in that game's private server. Their core mechanics at the time I quitted was still clear as day.

DPS kits consist of:

1. Glaroilfisis equivalent, instant cast with low cooldown. This is what they spam to murder everything in addition to keep a -def% down at all time.
2. DoT nuke: useless, as is any DoT in that game (it scales very poorly as the game grows older).
3. Instant AoE stun around caster. Semi spammable making them an exceptional monster at stun locking packs of dangerous mobs in nightmare contents. No other jobs that is better for this duty other than Bards.
4. Casted frontal AoE (Spec locked): moderate damage. When fully charged they place a crucial debuff for a short period of time. Doesn't see much use anywhere but nightmare content.

Each of these spells generate 1 stack of buff to next healing spell potency & the effective range. In FFXIV the equivalent buff would be somewhere like 10% healing magic potency & 3 extra yalm every stack. Stacks up to 3 times. This means the single target heal spell can turn into an AoE healing spell. One use of healing spell consumes one of these stacks.

While the healing kits consist of:

1. Single target strong heal. Moderate cast time, almost guaranteed to heal anybody to full. Also spammable. With the right spec this also increases whoever affected with extra damage buff.
2. Instant moderate heal with small cooldown. With correct build this will also heal just enough to near full health without sacrificing DPS. With spec buff they gain a percentage based damage mitigation for next few attacks. Super handy in nightmare contents.
3. Slowcast partywide moderate heal. This is a Medica equivalent. Very low in priority for their impracticality, weak potency, and weak spec buff which reduce damage taken insignificantly. This is usually what gets somebody killed for their many downsides.
4. Instant strong partywide heal (Spec locked): this comes with a buff that grants a short window of death immunity one time. To counter-balance this they have a very long cooldown.
5. Partywide regen. Our equivalent of SCH's whispering dawn but with attached damage buff that stacks up to 3 times. It's free damage, they are required to keep this up all the time.

For each healing spell used, they generate 1 stack that buffs their next DPS spell. In FFXIV the equivalent buff would be an increase to damage dealt by approximately 10% each stack. Stacks up to 3 times. Like their counterpart, 1 use of DPS spell will consume 1 stack.

There are no MP in the game so mana management is nihil. Timing the usage of those mitigations, keeping up free damage buffs, and/or death immunity are best thing I could think of any 'management' from the gameplay.

The game however includes secondary job into the mix so that game has far more customability compared to... here, where everything are streamlined. By the time I quitted the game, DPS was a king. Pure healers builds are 99.99% deadweight, period. DPS Bards are tanky enough to survive extended pressure in the absence of dedicated tanks (but obviously cannot be a main tank). They deal respectable amount of damage and can sometimes snatch aggro away, or even keep it against other jobs for a while. Subjobs were never picked to increase the Bard's healing capabilities, because they never needed anymore than what they have. Instead everything are funneled to either boost overall party's damage or their own. The main joy of Bards mainly comes from nightmare contents (that would be FFXIV's equivalent of Unreal/EX/Savage contents). The difference is, number of time they press their heal buttons are about the same as they spam their main dps button due to how much frequent the damage spikes are. There's also that kind of 'pressure' of something's bound to go wrong real quick if I stop upkeeping the damage mitigation.

Unbalanced? Definitely. More depth? Absolutely.

[Anhra]

There was a crappy P2W MMO made by X-Legend(Aura Kingdom) that did exactly this with it's Bard class. Using healing spells would augment and strengthen your next DPS spell(a max of 3 stacks) while using healing spells would augment and strengthen your next DPS spell(Max of 3 stacks.)

It's kinda sad to see that an awful P2W MMO had somewhat more engaging healer gameplay than what we have.

I would even say that EVERY MMO ive come across so far in my life has had better designed Healers (and tanks) than FFXIV, which is weird since one would think at first that a pay2play game should have in theory a more fleshed out game in every aspect compared to free2play.

Personally, i think casters and healers should be reworked from the ground up, in a way, where all Spells in the game are out off the GCD, and they all have their own clock ticking even if it is just 5 seconds. A change like that would tremendously improve their side of healer gameplay since it would allow designwise, alot more freedom instead of making them all feel the same.

[Recon1o6]

While I would say that overall the changes this time around were better than shb, that isn't much of a bar to beat. Nevermind that they were built ON the mess that was shb changes. Plus some jobs literally didn't get any meaningful changes or major issues addressed (like drk and mch ping reliance)

One consistent thing though, healers got shafted again. sigh I'll look forward to when healer in need explodes when savage launches since WHM and SCH are dead on arrival. Astro isn't much better and Sage's novelty will wear off once everyone realises its just 5.0 sch with embrace macro built in.

Oh sure but we got heal boosts! thats what healers wanted right? /s

Our healing was busted as it is, and now 3/4 tanks have ridiculous healing. What more will it take for the devs to notice the glaroilifisis spam and improve healers? Perhaps a bribe to head office?

[CrimsonGunner]

Right now ast beats whm in every single category.

Has shield,has more ogcd heals ,has heals that are strong as whm. Ast identical heals to whm such as benefic and helios not only cost less but even casted faster and lastly have better mp management and tools then whm.

in terms of healing alone, ast beats whm completely and that ignoring his cards and dps aspects they have. So whm will be a rare breed i believe as ast was at 5.0

[Semirhage]

I wouldn't count on it. WHM could have 30% less output than all of the other healers and it would still be one of the most popular jobs in the game. Only healer you can level from 1, most brand recognition, and "BuT i LoVE HOw SiMPLe It IS" would still lock its popularity at the top. Cure and Medica could have 300 lower potency than Benefic and Helios and the community would call it "The Pure Raw Straightforward Powerhouse Healer".

[Saraphin]

I wouldn't count on it. WHM could have 30% less output than all of the other healers and it would still be one of the most popular jobs in the game. Only healer you can level from 1, most brand recognition, and "BuT i LoVE HOw SiMPLe It IS" would still lock its popularity at the top. Cure and Medica could have 300 lower potency than Benefic and Helios and the community would call it "The Pure Raw Straightforward Powerhouse Healer".

i play WHM...not because it's a "pure healer" but because it is simple, i've found it complex enough that it's not faceroll in some content, but...partly because...if you've got sound effects on..the thunk of a staff at melee range is utterly satisfying. Is it worse than others? yes. does it struggle in some content? Yes. Will I stop playing it? nope. I've tried SCH...i don't do well. at all. and WHM is not "The Pure Raw Straightforward powerhouse" anymore. most of it's niche has been taken away and i don't do savage content, EX content only with friends, so..i'm not looking for speed runs. Looking at AST and WHM side by side...i'm going to seriously hope that they do change thin air back to how it was before especially with how the MP Economy game is going.

We'll have to see how it goes, but we know that WHM will get...sorted enough to make it not a wreck in by 6.3 and hopefully NOT a ton of screaming and yelling from other healer mains.