A summary of healer issues

[GrimGale]

@OP, for SCH on gameplay/downtime: i for one would be okay if SCH's old DoT management stayed gone (though honestly Bane would be a welcome re-addition) if they, say, leaned further into fairy guage management--more skills to gain and spend it (such as perhaps a return of selene's party buffs/pre-esunas as a guage action if she has to stay dead for whatever reason), that sort of thing--it was largely an afterthought in SB and is still pretty vestigial in ShB, when there's a lot of opportunity there if the devs are dead-set on their "healers aren't allowed to DPS for some reason" angle. or debuff options like damage down (think BLU's various utility debuffs like bad breath, magic hammer, etc)

I'll accept basically anything that gives them (and healers in general) SOMETHING to do when healing isnt needed.

A lot of people seem to echo the idea that SCH's gameplay should revolve around Fairy management. That could potentially be interesting, the problem is, if the fairy is then made to be just a healing system then it will become pretty much a pointless thing to manage.

Why would I bother to manage something that gives me more healing when the problem is there is not enough healing to be done?

You could say then, that such fairy design would allow you to DPS while she heals but if the SCH dps is going to continue to be even more Broil spam ad nauseam, I'd rather do something else.

[ty_taurus]

A lot of people seem to echo the idea that SCH's gameplay should revolve around Fairy management. That could potentially be interesting, the problem is, if the fairy is then made to be just a healing system then it will become pretty much a pointless thing to manage.

Why would I bother to manage something that gives me more healing when the problem is there is not enough healing to be done?

You could say then, that such fairy design would allow you to DPS while she heals but if the SCH dps is going to continue to be even more Broil spam ad nauseam, I'd rather do something else.

In my mind, the way to do this correctly is by taking away other sources of healing, nerfing them, or making them very expensive so that faerie management is the only way that you can optimally heal where other methods are for when you're failing to manage the faerie correctly and should take a massive bite out of your DPS potential. The hope with something like this would be that it would justify a more complex direct DPS system of some kind so that it's not there to enable Broil spam. Whether or not this will happen is a whole other conversation, and one with very little hope at the moment. But who knows? Maybe they'll prove us all wrong.

[Ultimatecalibur]

As a side note: why do they let us Deploy from people who dont have any shields on them? Ive accidentally wasted quite a few deployments from butterfinger moments and I cant help but wonder why it's even possible to do that.

no clue. you could bane targets without DoTs as well (at least as of stormblood, my SMN knowledge has waned pretty greatly from disuse this expac and SCH had it removed wholesale)

It is because the action can't know if a buff/debuff/dot is there until the server uses the action on the target. The client is pretty much blind to what effects are on other characters and enemies and only knows the effects are currently on you.

[Recon1o6]

It is because the action can't know if a buff/debuff/dot is there until the server uses the action on the target. The client is pretty much blind to what effects are on other characters and enemies and only knows the effects are currently on you.

there was also the small matter of bane once doing damage way back in the ARR days

[Recon1o6]

I am going to make a post soon showing the state of affairs for the healers of shb compared with endwalker once the job notes are out in 3 months time (damn that feels like an age away)

We can then play spot the difference

Edit: there's also a secondary reason- square enix has been hiding the patch notes for job changes this expansion, so its up to us to record it

[Truen]

The attitude was much the same before 5.0. Everyone said, "wait until the release..." And, well we had no choice but to wait. It then become very clear healers were just as bad as we expected. Going into 6.0--I feel it's either going to be just as bad or even worse. Sadly, build 4.0 healers (the best we've had so far) will never return so long as Yoshi is part of the discussion. He's worked hard to change healing healing into a homogenized, 1-dimensional affair.

[EthanMoonkin]

Great post. Commenting to increase thread activity and thus hopefully views from devs. I share almost all the same frustrations.

[Derio]

OP pretty sums it up very nicely. I choose to play WHM over the other 2 healers simply because WHM dps kit is slightly better than the others. AST and SCH just feel gutted and extremly boring.

I hope they do something but at this point I doubt it. Healers will still be spamming their one button ability. Not sure if JP players are happy with the state of healing.

[Deceptus]

The attitude was much the same before 5.0. Everyone said, "wait until the release..." And, well we had no choice but to wait. It then become very clear healers were just as bad as we expected. Going into 6.0--I feel it's either going to be just as bad or even worse. Sadly, build 4.0 healers (the best we've had so far) will never return so long as Yoshi is part of the discussion. He's worked hard to change healing healing into a homogenized, 1-dimensional affair.

For the past two expansions the same situation has played out:

1) It's just the patch notes, wait until you actually play it
2) It's just early access / beginning, wait until you hit max level
3) It's just max level, wait until you get gear
4) You're geared, but you're clearly playing it wrong.
5) 6-12 months down the road after tons of negative feedback, SE offhandedly acknowledges it and promises a "rework" for the Xth time at the next expansion.

[Liam_Harper]

The attitude was much the same before 5.0. Everyone said, "wait until the release..." And, well we had no choice but to wait. It then become very clear healers were just as bad as we expected. Going into 6.0--I feel it's either going to be just as bad or even worse.

I don't get what people who comment "wait until release" base it on either. There has been no sign at all that they've listened to the feedback or plan to make significant changes. The few comments they've made bring up concerns rather than relief.

-"We hear feedback that healers don't have enough to heal so we increased damage" - The result following this was e12s needed more healing but E9-11s were easy. Normal was mind-numbingly easy. Alliances were easy. EX was being solo healed.
-"We want you to use Aetherflow to heal more" - Changed nothing except increased Ruin II weave tax and made Dissipation a joke. Still nothing to heal.

AST reworks simply made AST ridiculously OP. Piety still worthless outside of prog. WHM still clipping. SCH pet still ghosting. Still no sign of a healer designer on the team. Sage showcase only had an aoe and single target nuke. No dev comment at all so far on making dps kits more engaging.

Where does the faith in the devs come from?