A summary of healer issues

[Roeshel]

I disagree. Enjoyment is king, but balance, or lack thereof, can impact that. And for each person, the degree of this impact is different. This is the dilemma in game design; each person has their own criteria.

On the other hand, your statement reads odd to me; making it seem like you would rather play a balanced game you are lukewarm on than an unbalanced one you otherwise enjoy. After all, I would not spend any time on a game that I did not enjoy, even if it is the most balanced.

Did you mean your enjoyment comes mostly from balance? How do you feel about the game's need to add new jobs each expansion, since that mere act makes things less balanced? Don't mean to sound aggressive, it's just this idea is truly baffling me.

Games are business and what gets most people satisfied is king aka balance. Adding more jobs is not directly related to imbalance. GNB is a new job but that's finely balanced. The dmg dealt is roughly the same as the dmg of the other tank jobs so GNB is only adding variety to the tank class.

What I enjoy is having relevant DPS as a healer and SE is probably going to continue going in that direction. I don't like healing that much but I like the option of having access to heals.

I'm a healer that wants to be useful. Damage is useful. Overhealing is useless. Simple as that.

This makes the strongest damage dealers the most useful healers which is why healer's dps should be greater than that of a DPS and tanks. This is how the game operates and we are getting there. Healers in HS and SB were the weakest damage dealing class in the entire game. In Shb, we are surpassing tanks in raids not only in rDPS but with sheer DPS numbers as well with our 1 button spam. In Endwalker we will most probably be closing the gap in DPS numbers with actual DPS roles if they expand our DPS kit.

We are also getting a healer that augments their own offensive spells which makes them less of a support class and more of a DPS class that also happened to heal.

[Deceptus]

Games are business and what gets most people satisfied is king aka balance. Adding more jobs is not directly related to imbalance. GNB is a new job but that's finely balanced. The dmg dealt is roughly the same as the dmg of the other tank jobs so GNB is only adding variety to the tank class.

All the tanks are balanced as in each one is damn near a copy of each other. Are they fun? Maybe, maybe not

Same goes for healers right now.

[Lyth]

Having every competent group run a mandatory WAR and SCH across three 'expansions' was far, far worse. You can forget copies, everyone literally was playing the same job. At least we currently get to choose the aesthetics that we like. That's progress.

[Sebazy]

GHealers in HS and SB were the weakest damage dealing class in the entire game.

It's worth noting that there's pretty important caveats to this. In single target healers were indeed a good way behind. But in AoE, healer DPS was seriously underestimated back then, laughably so at times.

At the very start of HW I could out AoE any DPS except a SMN in neverreap on Scholar pulling 1000dps+ on trash. In Stormblood I never figured a means to reach the same silly numbers but for the most part I'd be right there with a well played DPS' numbers on trash still routinely beating decent players if they weren't on a particularly strong AoE job.

Also keep in mind that it's very possible for them to add extra depth to our DPS without inflating the numbers by simply tuning the potency back down or even using the stat crunch as a means to camouflage how our damage scales with MND relative to DPS jobs and their mainstat.

[Irenia]

Games are business and what gets most people satisfied is king aka balance. Adding more jobs is not directly related to imbalance. GNB is a new job but that's finely balanced. The dmg dealt is roughly the same as the dmg of the other tank jobs so GNB is only adding variety to the tank class.

What I enjoy is having relevant DPS as a healer and SE is probably going to continue going in that direction. I don't like healing that much but I like the option of having access to heals.

You know... you just contradicted yourself.

Imagine the healers were rebalanced so that none of them could contribute an appreciable amount of damage in raids, yet have the same amount of downtime as they do now. Just give the people who don't like dealing damage everything they want in this regard. They would be balanced, yes, but by your own admission, you would not like this.

Therefore, Balance is not king. Something else is.

I'm not saying that balance isn't important. But it comes into play later, once a good foundation is set. Because while balance does nothing on its own, unbalance can kill enthusiasm, generally through community pressure in this game. But balancing without considering what brought people to your content in the first place can do the same.

[Roeshel]

You know... you just contradicted yourself.

Imagine the healers were rebalanced so that none of them could contribute an appreciable amount of damage in raids, yet have the same amount of downtime as they do now. Just give the people who don't like dealing damage everything they want in this regard. They would be balanced, yes, but by your own admission, you would not like this.

Therefore, Balance is not king. Something else is.

That's not balance. This is making one class equally useless in the game. Uselessness is not something balancing can bring. This is also the main reason why a healer's total DPS output is not more than that of an actual DPS job. This would have made DPS jobs completely useless, can't say that I don't prefer it that way, but it is unrealistic. It can only become a possibility when DPS jobs become something more than a class that deals damage. Currently, there is nothing that makes a DPS job valuable other than DPS. The only difference between a ranged melee and magical DPS is LB and aesthetics. Rotation is something you learn by heart and unlike healers, even if something goes wrong with your party members, you keep on DPS-ing because you have nothing else to do. The exception from this rule is the SMN because they can raise and the RDM because they can raise and heal.

[Irenia]

That's not balance. This is making one class equally useless in the game.

Exactly. Equally useless, therefore balanced.

It seems that we are using different definitions of "balance". I have a rather strict one, and it goes like this. Decide what quality you want to measure, and what objects you want to measure. Measure them, and compare the difference(s). The less of a difference there is, the more balanced they are in that respect. This entire time I was measuring "DPS" between "healer jobs". If the healer jobs all did 20 dps, that would be balanced. If they all did 3000 dps, that would also be balanced.

As such, let me clarify and repeat that dps balance amongst healers (or tanks, or dps) is important, but does not bring value on its own. You mention jobs being useful, which does bring value. Amusingly, this is done right now by making sure damage bewteen healers, tanks, and dps are unbalanced in favor of the DPS, which you agree is a good thing. This imbalance is a choice made when designing the jobs, and these conscious choices make all the difference in the world. Things like "usefulness" are a bit nebulous though; I'd argue that role usefulness is unbalanced in favor of Tanks at the moment.

Still, regardless of balance or imbalance, what's most important is how players feel about a job. Usefulness is a part of it, yes, but so are other intangibles like aminations, rotations, glamour, story, so on, and so on. That was what I was trying to impart - there are many things that go into this, and not one of those things are king. Enjoyment, or rather, the combination of it all is king. And the thing is, you can't exactly measure that, since each person values things differently.

You mentioned earlier that Balance brings in the business. I believe certain imbalances hurts business, like dps within the healer role. But what brings in the business in the first place has little to do how jobs stack up against each other.

[Recon1o6]

unlike the majority of the members of the forums here, I had to sleep because the live letter was 3am for me

Good fucking grief its a good thing i did. Otherwise i would have been too annoyed to sleep.


2 years we pointed out how 1 button dps and pure healing is a terrible design and they doubled down on it. I'll do a breakdown later. Looks like I'll be sticking to dancer and rdm for my healing and buffing.

[SpiralMask]

I'm just depressed at this point. at least SMN looks fun enough to fall back on!

[Jirah]

Impressive how the devs ignored this for a 3rd expansion in a row. It isn’t even a hard thing to fix just give each healer some damage variance , SCH gets its old dots back, have AST and WHM get proc based skills but not overbearing to drown out their role responsibilities. They are really delusional to think healers are that vital as content gets hilariously easier and more scripted making the “healers need to heal” argument completely miss the mark