A summary of healer issues

[Semirhage]

I continue to say they weren't overpowered so much as their kit was REALLY well designed. By that I mean they had an answer for everything and the other two jobs didn't.

We definitely disagree there. I think being good at everything is one of the key definitions of overpowered. Being good at everything and defining one job as "the smart one", thus hogging basically all future design space is oppressive to the role.

And instead of nerfing Scholar I long advocated for bringing the other two up which is what they eventually did. All the healing roles are essentially clones of each other with a small flavor built in.

Did they? They nerfed the crap out of Scholar and AST, then buffed AST again. WHM wasn't "brought up" anywhere. It's still the worst of the three healers, still brings nothing unique to the table, still has effectively no identity other than being the dumdum class for babies.

Seems with all that shuffling around and nerf bat beating they did the overall pecking order changed little for it. Despite all the bellyaching Scholars do about their job, they do still have ONE thing going for them- they're STILL more meta than trashcan WHM, after all of those ridiculous nerfs.

[ty_taurus]

engagement is always better than balance, since balance can be changed and accounted for through battle design and potency adjustments- hence midas preferring whm despite ast being numerically superior. Balance is also changable very quickly by potency tweaks and cast time edits that can be done in a patch

A lack of engagement is why healers have spent the past two/four years (delete depending on healer of your choice) trying to get changes, healers being rare in df, pf, statics and what few there are remaining are generally low skill.

6.0 is nothing like hw astro. Cards are all the same, no buff timer extensions, cast times are equal, bare minimum damage buttons, no skill ceiling at all, no mp management and no noct sect

This is actually such an important statement. Ultimately, every patch has a finite amount of resources that can be used to add content to the game, and it's the producer's (Yoshi-P's) job to allocate those resources in the most effective manner possible. In order to maintain the rhythm of content that we have released in each patch, it's become quite clear that the bulk of resources that are allocated to job design happen at the start of an expansion. The patches in-between are far more limited in the kinds of things they can do. Adding something like Monk's new masterful blitz, for example, was something they couldn't afford the engineering of mid-expansion, which is why all they did partway through Shadowbringers was sterilize Monk.

Thus it's far more important to ensure that each job has an engaging playstyle before going into an expansion even if it's poorly balanced because changing values like potencies, MP costs, recast times, etc. are much easier to do and can do a lot of good work at restoring balance. We also don't have much raiding right at the start of an expansion anyway, and they can do some number balancing by the time Savage comes out to calm the balance mob.

And honestly, I think we are too demanding of balance as a community anyway. I think each job should have something of value to offer, but FFXIV has almost always had enough of a balance between each job that none were deemed "unplayable," and the few times we did have an emergency situation, it was pretty swiftly rectified anyway. Sure WHM was still the worst healer in ShB, but its MP economy gave it something it could better than the other healers, and while not a major benefit, it does add a layer of ease to prog and general healing that can be appealing. Thus we didn't really see much of the healer balance mob across 5.X (most of us had our pitchforks sharpened for other reasons).

[Recon1o6]

Currently pondering how to update it when 6.0 launches

Should lack of damage buttons still be top of the list, or should I reword it to "Lack of engagment when there is no need to heal"

[Sebazy]

I think citing a lack of engagement in downtime is a better way of wording it.

It's not set in stone that we *need* DPS skills alone, at least not across the role as whole. There are certainly other routes that can be explored

[GrimGale]

I think citing a lack of engagement in downtime is a better way of wording it.

It's not set in stone that we *need* DPS skills alone, at least not across the role as whole. There are certainly other routes that can be explored

Agree- I think the general criticism is Glare/Broil/Dosis spam is bad- As to how to fix it, more DPS buttons is only one of the solutions. More healing requirements could be another one (But as stated around here, that would put more pressure on new healers and its a no-no for SE). The third avenue would be giving all healers support buffs/debuffs of frequent use to break the nukespam.

[Recon1o6]

See the issue with more healing requirements and buffs/debuffs is that they would only see use in party play. It would do nothing ot curb the mindless glarebroilmaleficdosis spam in the overworld, msq duties, deep dungeon and field instances (bozja and eureka) and the huge volume of levels before you get those buffs/debuffs (given SE likes to backend the levelling process)

Given SE won't up the healing requirements even though they really should, that leaves us with buff/debuff and dps buttons. And damage buttons are both the biggest complaint ("Where's aero 3, wheres my shadowflare?") and the easiest to add (since there's too many healing buttons, they can cut/merge some if they need space. Which they don't especially whm)

I don't advocate one to the exclusivity of others, but a mix of the three would be best. In priority
1. More dps buttons first. Its easy to add, doesn't change anything about encounters for SE but makes players happy
2. More healing required. There's different way they can do this: higher frequency, higher numbers, more randomness, more targeted mechanics. Of these targeting is the nearest we will get.
3. Buffs/debuffs. The issue with this is that the buffs need ot feel notable when they have been given, otherwise its just aesthetics, espcially when you drop them on yourself when doing the aforementioned fates, msq, bozja etc also, SE doesn't like job synergy

[Renathras]

I typed up a thread, but apparently, posts can only be 3,000 characters, not 12,000, which was what I ended up with just addressing your bullet points.

So the super short version:

You're wrong.

You speak for high end players, theorycrafters, people ruled by parses/FFLogs, and those that follow what the above players tell them to think.

The vast majority of the player base disagrees with you. Even your aesthetic choices are subjective and not agreed on. For example, I hated WHM being a Geomancer. It was stupid. White Mages don't traditionally have anything to do with nature magics, that's generally BLMs or Blue Mage/Enemy Skill mages. I much prefer WHM getting back to Light Magic and dumping the nature stuff.

I also love having a streamlined DPS kit I can do that takes the minimal amount of concentration away from my primary duties of healing and correctly performing mechanics. I hate involved and complex rotations - if I liked those, I'd play a DPS Job. I prefer healing and supporting my party.

Other than "ignore everything the OP said", the only change I'd like for WHM is Aero/Dia to be replaced with Ruin 2 (but WHM version) - a direct damage instant cast to use for oGCD weaving or movement.

Though I did agree with you on exactly one point:

Point 9.

Healers need gear that isn't designed for female characters and clearly shows it. Looking at you, Eden 1-4 dress! Though we did get the Ronkan chain mail and Bozja overcoat, so...those are okay. Also be nice of some official artwork of healers, from time to time, weren't ALL women...male characters (and players) play healers, too!

[Renathras]

Eh, I don't mean to be so harsh. I just hear this complaint ALL THE TIME, but by people that seem not to play most of the game or don't understand how people who don't think like them want to play the game.

IMO, they should make SCH have the DPS kit and pet management (basically return it to SB SCH), AST the buff kit, keep WHM like it is (swap Dia for Ruin 2 and call it a day), Sage heal by doing damage with some kind of DPS rotation (thinking Chloromancer from Rift or something), balance them to all provide the same overall raid damage, then let people play the one they like best.

That's probably the best solution, honestly, as it gives everyone what they want.

[Semirhage]

Sylphies have the same two or three arguments that get rebutted over and over and over and over again, but here we are 8 years later with "I pLaY A HeALeR To heAL" and "HeALErS ShoULd heAL ONLy" and "DoWNtiME Is SomEThInG OnLY pInK PaRSErS haVE".

If you don't have so much downtime in at least dungeon-level content and below that you're bored with spamming one button over and over again, it's because you're either awful at healing or you're so unlucky that you've managed a broken-geared tank in every single roulette.

[Sani2341]

You speak for high end players, theorycrafters, people ruled by parses/FFLogs, and those that follow what the above players tell them to think.

You sure?
Because at least as far as i am concerned, that's clearly not true. The few times i do an ex trial and get parsed by someone i barely get into a green parse as heal and already have 50%+ broil casts. And, at least subjektivly, that percentage only goes up in content i do more regulaly like alliance raids treassure maps and Dungeon roulettes.

And we had so much more variety of buttons to press in sb, and even some decision making that was cut out (old ast cards, sacred soil or shadowflare).

So no it defenitly is not just high end players, there's at least one (and probably a lot more) long time healers that want the Engagement and variety they had back in the day back.