A summary of healer issues

[Rai_Takara]

Completely understand that, Healing and tanking can't have RNG as their base resource because you never know when a massive spike damage will kill your tank.

But the FFXIV devs, in their short sightedness, decided to make that the basis of a healer.

Same with damage and that's just not for healers, for every role. Consistency is king. Even things like direct hit crits are a problem which will presumably be fixed in 6.0 with their stat crunch.

[tikiwiki]

Same with damage and that's just not for healers, for every role. Consistency is king. Even things like direct hit crits are a problem which will presumably be fixed in 6.0 with their stat crunch.

I dont think you can fix high rolling crits unless they introduce pseudo rng but even then on classes lile dnc even with that if you crit no dances and crit your weakest hits itll still be a low roll even if theres a stat crunch

[GrimGale]

RNG with DH and Crits would be a problem for short encounters where getting 1 crit or Dh would make all the difference.

In 10+ minute encounters where we use several skills per minute said RNG in the dps is mitigated.

That being said, RNG during key moments, such as damage spikes can make all the difference. If a raidwide aoe or a tank buster would have saved you and your teammates by having 10% damage reduction, but your "cards" didn't grant you the mitigation when necessary then that's bad design.

[MintnHoney]

If a raidwide aoe or a tank buster would have saved you and your teammates by having 10% damage reduction, but your "cards" didn't grant you the mitigation when necessary then that's bad design.

Or just particularly bad luck, if that was all that the party had to rely on. Even when this could have been an issue, there were always other means to mitigate that particular issue (shields, abilities, even from other jobs). Based upon how Squeen designs their encounters, if ever one came to a point where that extra 10% damage reduction was required to save whomever, on top of all other mitigation options available, then chances are, you were not supposed to take that hit in the first place (those "niche" moments everyone likes to sneer about), there was a mechanic that was not satisfied (especially if the party tries and fails to skip mechanics), or the target in question has stacks of vulnerability (the leading underlying cause of death, in PUGs, in my experience).

Regarding RNG, if it was truly such a big problem, Squeen would have introduced abilities and/or traits that provided guaranteed Crits/DHs for a limited number of time or applicable skills/spells (e.g.: SCH's recitation) and plopped them onto jobs, either through role skills or through each jobs' individual kits, and just made the Crit and DH stats increase the amount of damage dealt by Crits and DHs (knowing them, though, it'd be at a rate of like... +1% per 1000 of each stat). Considering how much they love precisely planning their baseline and "choreography" for fights, it would make sense to limit the player for that reason alone; but since they haven't done this (yet), I don't think they factor in RNG as being nearly as much of a "problem" as players make it out to be.

[Yenrz]

Well, considering the changes to AST come 5.3, its seems devs have doubled down on their simplification of the healer role and have completely ignored nearly all the issues in this thread. RIP

[Banriikku]

Funny is now i have unlimited Mana as a AST but its not more fun... its just Malefic with cards and OGCD in between.
I am not sure how to fix but the cards are not impactfull at all. No tactic or decision just throw card at player=win.
Divination is just bland and more importantly even less impactfull than the cards itself.

I feel like WHM with a gambling addiction. Thats it.
The only healer that feels diffrent from WHM at the moment is SCH.

Scholar is not even boring its laking. In numbers the healers are close but the very moment a group effect like "reduced to 1 HP and heal up or they die" and its not fun as SCH.
No offense but a Shield for the mass damage and excog for the tank and last but not least the regen from the botly aka fairy and let the WHM handle the rest.

The shields are not strong anymore and only for "proging" good and even then we did it without and it was fine. AST with shields and neutral-sec is more than enough and AST also has the cards (more damage is always good).

And dont you dare to break your damage combo aka "number one".
The whole fairy situation feels like oh you are not like the WHM but your fairy is, hur hur hur...

The whm is the only healer that has a personality but after some time you get a little mad
with the "glaring" situation (damage rotation... yup its a bad joke).

Sorry for the salt but SE dont talk, dont consider any feedback (remember the time pre-realse SHB as we were told the healers are AMAZING and dev did it the long needed healer rework and you love the changes....marketing-blahblah),
and Yoshi said he loves the SHB-Healers and how they work.

[GrimGale]

Or just particularly bad luck, if that was all that the party had to rely on. Even when this could have been an issue, there were always other means to mitigate that particular issue (shields, abilities, even from other jobs). Based upon how Squeen designs their encounters, if ever one came to a point where that extra 10% damage reduction was required to save whomever, on top of all other mitigation options available, then chances are, you were not supposed to take that hit in the first place (those "niche" moments everyone likes to sneer about), there was a mechanic that was not satisfied (especially if the party tries and fails to skip mechanics), or the target in question has stacks of vulnerability (the leading underlying cause of death, in PUGs, in my experience).

Regarding RNG, if it was truly such a big problem, Squeen would have introduced abilities and/or traits that provided guaranteed Crits/DHs for a limited number of time or applicable skills/spells (e.g.: SCH's recitation) and plopped them onto jobs, either through role skills or through each jobs' individual kits, and just made the Crit and DH stats increase the amount of damage dealt by Crits and DHs (knowing them, though, it'd be at a rate of like... +1% per 1000 of each stat). Considering how much they love precisely planning their baseline and "choreography" for fights, it would make sense to limit the player for that reason alone; but since they haven't done this (yet), I don't think they factor in RNG as being nearly as much of a "problem" as players make it out to be.

It's hard to balance RNG in a way that feels impactful, but at the same time remains consistent. I don't think that's ever possible. If your RNG ability has such an impact that it changes the encounter drastically (By allowing you to skip mechanics, or survive things you otherwise wouldn't given a less lucky roll.), then that makes the RNG inconsistent.

On the other hand, there is a lot of satisfaction in making quick decisions with abilities that grant a surprise boost. Getting a Bole to mitigate that incoming Tankbuster can feel inmensely satisfying.

Highs were really high, but the lows were very low. Funny thing is a Redraw button with 3 charges would have fit old AST better I think.

[Liam_Harper]

We most likely will however, considering the lead time on the xpac (I presume that the moment the X.1 patch is live the next xpac is already worked on, the Covid delay gave them more time, yes but msot ofit was likely due to getting things back on track and making working from home feasable). The window of opportunity is shrinking and I kinda doubt they can get healer-dedicated staff until 7.0 unless they had already proven to get them before the expac reveals.

Sadly this is probably true.

But this would mean we'd get the same healer design going into 6.0 and from there it tends to be set in, they almost never do full role reworks. This would mean the new healer would be a 2 button dps, we'd still have very little to heal but they'd be convinced all we do is heal and would "helpfully" shove buckets of Det and Piety all over our gear sets. Remember we've had 0 communication in the form of "we have been listening to your feedback and plan to address this". The AST changes basically just removed MP as a resource and reduced APM a little. And this is the team starting work on 6.0 at this very moment.

It's quite worrying.

[GrimGale]

Sadly this is probably true.

But this would mean we'd get the same healer design going into 6.0 and from there it tends to be set in, they almost never do full role reworks. This would mean the new healer would be a 2 button dps, we'd still have very little to heal but they'd be convinced all we do is heal and would "helpfully" shove buckets of Det and Piety all over our gear sets. Remember we've had 0 communication in the form of "we have been listening to your feedback and plan to address this". The AST changes basically just removed MP as a resource and reduced APM a little. And this is the team starting work on 6.0 at this very moment.

It's quite worrying.

At this point what new abilities could they give Healers? Yet another healing spell? We have plenty of those. Are they going to remove certain skills only to give them back but with a fresh coat of paint?

What skills could they add for 6.0 that are not redundant for a 1 damage button 1 dot design.

Truly, they can only build up on damaging skills at this point, it's the only part of healers kit that is open to building up onto.

[NobleWinter]

Or they could just remove more skills than they give us like they did in Shadowbringers to make healing even more accesible. No more regens, ground targets, or spells. Healers have a trait that tops off party member hp to anyone within 20 yalms. Just be there.