A summary of healer issues

[Deceptus]

I still have absolutely no idea how FFXIV went from having some of the best designed healers in the genre (HW/ARR), to having literally the worst possibly designed healers. Like, what the heck? How did we -get here-? What kind of cognitive dissonance does the dev team have with the playerbase?

Dumbing down the game in the name of "accessibility". It happens when you design by committee to appeal to the masses.

[Absurdity]

They are copying WoW without realizing WoW doing what WoW does earned them 10+mil players.

The problem is that they're not copying what earned WoW 10+mil players but what made them lose those players again, a.i. severe homogenisation, simplyfication for the sake of broader appeal, removal of class sinergy and ability pruning with no satisfying replacement.


It's almost funny to see that while the WoW devs realized the more engaging design of XIV's healers was a thing worth implementing the game that popularized this design instead wants to go back to a design from 16 years ago.


I can't wait for when we have to spam different ranks of Cure 24/7 like we're back in Molten Core /s

[ty_taurus]

Am I the only one who feels PVP AST is infinitely more fun than PVE AST?

Minor Arcana is just draw, but reduced to 2 cards for melee and ranged. Not an improvement, but it's literally just Draw without the unnecessary complication.
Celestial Opposition actually has a unique and interesting application and isn't just another heal.
The identity of Malefic and Benefic making your next hardcast of Malefic/Gravity/Benefic/Benefic II/Helios instant is very interesting and makes you think about how you approach healing and DPS, and which you're going to use the instant cast on.
Neutral Sect changing Benefic and Helios into their aspected forms makes the effects feel more special.

I'm not saying we need to replicate this completely, of course. We don't want to just drop the main arcanum cards, Earthly Star is one of the most interesting healer tools still available, and Horoscope's animation is too good to lose.

[Morningstar1337]

Am I the only one who feels PVP AST is infinitely more fun than PVE AST?

Minor Arcana is just draw, but reduced to 2 cards for melee and ranged. Not an improvement, but it's literally just Draw without the unnecessary complication.
Celestial Opposition actually has a unique and interesting application and isn't just another heal.
The identity of Malefic and Benefic making your next hardcast of Malefic/Gravity/Benefic/Benefic II/Helios instant is very interesting and makes you think about how you approach healing and DPS, and which you're going to use the instant cast on.
Neutral Sect changing Benefic and Helios into their aspected forms makes the effects feel more special.

I'm not saying we need to replicate this completely, of course. We don't want to just drop the main arcanum cards, Earthly Star is one of the most interesting healer tools still available, and Horoscope's animation is too good to lose.

WHM also has some interesting PvP effect, such as Solace having a Regen effect attached

That said I wouldn't mind seeing Phantom Dart, and Abridged in PVE. But I don't wanna lose the sect stances and their icons/animations which I fear the lockout of the apsected skills behind Neutral as wel as its current effect would probably entail.

..Though now that I think of it, the Sects changing Helios to Aspected Helios might be interesting and I can see it happening to Benefic if they are willing to have the Sects affect Malefic as well (Like the two skills being as symmetrical as possible)

All that said the healer PVP chances were a result a of a lower skill cap and translating the PVE mechanics, the Cure/Benefic 1 trait is likely the basis of Abridged in the first place

[ty_taurus]

WHM also has some interesting PvP effect, such as Solace having a Regen effect attached

That said I wouldn't mind seeing Phantom Dart, and Abridged in PVE. But I don't wanna lose the sect stances and their icons/animations which I fear the lockout of the apsected skills behind Neutral as wel as its current effect would probably entail.

..Though now that I think of it, the Sects changing Helios to Aspected Helios might be interesting and I can see it happening to Benefic if they are willing to have the Sects affect Malefic as well (Like the two skills being as symmetrical as possible)

All that said the healer PVP chances were a result a of a lower skill cap and translating the PVE mechanics, the Cure/Benefic 1 trait is likely the basis of Abridged in the first place

Honestly, I feel like we've gone from having HoTs and Shields being more exclusive to them being all over the place, which I think is adding to the lack of healing demand in newer content. I feel like the healers might be best off simplifying their tools, and when I say "simplifying," i mean finding their core identity in both DPS contribution and healing and adjust or remove tools that bleed into other healer kits. Thin out the pool a little and leave some room for creative ways to expand on the way that they interact with their tools rather than just plopping more heals on top of what we already have.

There are honestly a few ways of adjusting the sects to not be stances, but ways to influence your heals that I'd like to prototype myself if I could, just to get a concept of what those would feel like. It could be an awful idea or a great one.

[Maltothoris]

Honestly, I feel like we've gone from having HoTs and Shields being more exclusive to them being all over the place,

It was already being blurred to begin with Heavensward since even though it was a shield class, Sch had the best regen in embrace and the best ogcd aoe regen in Whispering Dawn. They tried so hard with noct sect in 3.4 when it got major buffed in so many places but the balance card change that patch made all of those changes mean nothing.

[Recon1o6]

Is anybody else frustrated at the fact in bozja and eureka we can use stoneskin, protect, shell, reflect, bravery and something similar to eye for an eye but not in the rest of the game?

[MOZZYSTAR]

I love you, OP. ;-;


10/10 100% constructive comment

[Casti_EL]

As a casual player who played all healer classes up until around 3.4 was released (and then took a long break from the game) I'm quite saddened to see the current state of the healer classes upon my return a few months back (and don't get me started on Summoner!).

It feels like they've been really dumbed-down/simplified and lost what made them unique and fun to play, I almost wept when I realised that Eos and Selene had no differences aside from their looks, nearly choked when I saw what had happened to the AST card deck, and still wondering when did White Mage stop borrowing from nature and go full on light-mage (is it some sort of remnant to what happens in ShB?).

You've all pretty much covered it already for suggestions so won't go repeating it but SE for the love of all things healer, please do something about them!

[Raikai]

WHM:
- Lily dps spender, so we can dump excess lilies when there's nothing to heal

SCH:
- Streamline faerie x seraph a bit... There's way too many faerie-related buttons
- Not related to gamelpay, but let us glam our faeries into pixies or moogles

AST:
- Make the major arcana once more have their old effects... Switch the old TP one for a fast movement buff;
- Minor Arcana, in the lorebook, is represented more or less by suits of playing cards (I believe they are 1 to 7 then Lords, then Lady). Would be cool if when using Minor Arcana we could randomly draw one of those and the damage would be huge if a Lady was drawn, and mediocre if a 1 was drawn. The aspect of the card depends on which major arcana you replaced.
- With the inlcusion of a fourth healer, I think it's time for AST to lose the whole Shielding/Regen stances and get a thing unique to their own. This mechanic always felt very band-aid-y to me.