A summary of healer issues

[Zeastria]

In my attempts to try and redirect the conversation on the other thread here since it's turning into the age-old argument about the healer coddling...



What I want is for the healing role to be treated with the same respects as the tank role. Tank players have modest DPS rotations, yes? And they have to multitask a lot. It's not just pressing mitigation tools, which isn't actually as simple as it sounds since, especially in harder cases, specific mitigation tools are important for specific situations just like with healer cooldowns, but tank players are also responsible for boss positioning (which has admittedly gotten easier with how much bosses teleport to the center of the room) and have entire mechanics that really only matters for them. P8S for example has the auto attack and Tyrant's Unholy Darkness. 95% of that mechanic is exclusively something that tanks engage with. Many DPS and healer players don't even know how to resolve those mechanics if they were in the tank's shoes. All the healer needs to do is heal the tank up after, which is probably the easiest healing requirement in the entire fight because there's nothing happening outside of those, as well as Flameviper mechanics in part 1.

What I mentally, literally cannot comprehend is why this is acceptable, but healers being treated the exact same way is "miserable" and "too much to focus on."

Can you please remove my Quote.... I get it- veteran players finds the game dumbed down and easy.. i too would felt the same if i had those yrs of experience..
but alas i have only played for 4 months..

Solution that would work for both parts: They could rework some of the jobs into more advanced/complex to please those who seek more advaced job..
but they need to keep some easy for us new players.. as we actually have to learn eveyrthing from zero...(not just the job itself)

[ty_taurus]

Can you please remove my Quote.... I get it- veteran players finds the game dumbed down and easy.. i too would felt the same if i had those yrs of experience..
but alas i have only played for 4 months..

Solution that would work for both parts: They could rework some of the jobs into more advanced/complex to please those who seek more advaced job..
but they need to keep some easy for us new players.. as we actually have to learn eveyrthing from zero...(not just the job itself)

I actually will argue that a healer rework that addresses many of the concerns veteran players have with healer design would actually make it easier for players like you to learn and get better, not harder. For example, many of your standard healing spells that you learn early tend to be the fall-back solutions when things get messy in a battle, but they're also your worst healing tools that drop your offensive momentum and chew through your MP despite being "safety nets" that can always be cast. I would want to see basic heals cost no MP at all, have stronger conditional attributes, and have shortened cast times. Additionally, I don't understand why there's this perception that if healers get more attacks, the novice to intermediate healer population will some how become incapable of clearing content when 95% of content in this game can be cleared without healers DPSing at all.

[Zeastria]

I actually will argue that a healer rework that addresses many of the concerns veteran players have with healer design would actually make it easier for players like you to learn and get better, not harder. For example, many of your standard healing spells that you learn early tend to be the fall-back solutions when things get messy in a battle, but they're also your worst healing tools that drop your offensive momentum and chew through your MP despite being "safety nets" that can always be cast. I would want to see basic heals cost no MP at all, have stronger conditional attributes, and have shortened cast times. Additionally, I don't understand why there's this perception that if healers get more attacks, the novice to intermediate healer population will some how become incapable of clearing content when 95% of content in this game can be cleared without healers DPSing at all.

My biggest issue with more advaced dps rotations is the fact that there is so many buttons and it's impossible to keybind all ..let alone get good feel when using said keybinds.
(Makeing the dps skills change after use can be an solution..as it would not req more space...)..

I pref 3-4 buttons as healer..mostly bc i hate jobs/classes in mmos that has many skills ( more skills does not = more fun,harder--it's just a bother)..
In ffxiv we do have 3-4 buttons BUT they have limited use;
- Like you can only use aoe when there is 3+mobs..
- The dot ability... becomes useless if targets dies quick(would be more useful if aoe-dot)..
That's why you're left with only 1 ability to spam..
More DPS button to press wouldnt solve that core issue..it wil only force you to press more meaningless buttons..

[ty_taurus]

My biggest issue with more advaced dps rotations is the fact that there is so many buttons and it's impossible to keybind all ..let alone get good feel when using said keybinds.
(Makeing the dps skills change after use can be an solution..as it would not req more space...)..

I pref 3-4 buttons as healer..mostly bc i hate jobs/classes in mmos that has many skills ( more skills does not = more fun,harder--it's just a bother)..
In ffxiv we do have 3-4 buttons BUT they have limited use;
- Like you can only use aoe when there is 3+mobs..
- The dot ability... becomes useless if targets dies quick(would be more useful if aoe-dot)..
That's why you're left with only 1 ability to spam..
More DPS button to press wouldnt solve that core issue..it wil only force you to press more meaningless buttons..

Can you define for me what a "meaningless" button is? If you don't know what a new button even does, how can you describe it as "meaningless?"

Also, if you find the need to use different skills as bothersome, that sounds more like you just aren't a fan of MMO gameplay? Would every job be better, in your opinion, if it was just 1 button like a hack-and-slash game?

Also, a rework to the healing role doesn't necessarily means adding buttons and not compiling existing ones.

[Zeastria]

Can you define for me what a "meaningless" button is? If you don't know what a new button even does, how can you describe it as "meaningless?"

Also, if you find the need to use different skills as bothersome, that sounds more like you just aren't a fan of MMO gameplay? Would every job be better, in your opinion, if it was just 1 button like a hack-and-slash game?

Also, a rework to the healing role doesn't necessarily means adding buttons and not compiling existing ones.

Meaningless buttons are:
-Exist only to create more buttons to press( but doesnt have further use or impact beyond that)
-Botton that are very similar to one another... Why have 3 abilites that is roughly the same.. but with diff dmg/cd?
-Situational based buttons: the type of skills you will forget you have, bc of how rare you use them..

Differnt abilites is not itself bothersome..
but it does become an issue when they become to many..
and often time many skills = many of the same skill.

[ty_taurus]

Meaningless buttons are:
-Exist only to create more buttons to press( but doesnt have further use or impact beyond that)
-Botton that are very similar to one another... Why have 3 abilites that is roughly the same.. but with diff dmg/cd?
-Situational based buttons: the type of skills you will forget you have, bc of how rare you use them..

Differnt abilites is not itself bothersome..
but it does become an issue when they become to many..
and often time many skills = many of the same skill.

So, let's break down a job like Red Mage and try to eliminate meaningless buttons as much as possible and see where we're at. If we were to remove as many buttons that are just different ways of doing damage or the same thing, we could reduce Red Mage to having the following skill set:

- Jolt II (Single target, Potency increased)
- Impact (AoE, Potency increased)
- Vercure (Singel target healing spell)
- Embolden (Party buff)
- Verraise (Raise spell)
- Magick Barrier (Party mitigation/healing buff)
- Addle (Damage reduction debuff)
- Sleep (Crowd Control for solo)
- Swiftcast (Remove cast times once)
- Lucid Dreaming (MP regen)
- Surecast (Knockback immunity)

That is Red Mage without any repetition in its moveset. Is this a better Red Mage?

[Zeastria]

So, let's break down a job like Red Mage and try to eliminate meaningless buttons as much as possible and see where we're at. If we were to remove as many buttons that are just different ways of doing damage or the same thing, we could reduce Red Mage to having the following skill set:

- Jolt II (Single target, Potency increased)
- Impact (AoE, Potency increased)
- Vercure (Singel target healing spell)
- Embolden (Party buff)
- Verraise (Raise spell)
- Magick Barrier (Party mitigation/healing buff)
- Addle (Damage reduction debuff)
- Sleep (Crowd Control for solo)
- Swiftcast (Remove cast times once)
- Lucid Dreaming (MP regen)
- Surecast (Knockback immunity)

That is Red Mage without any repetition in its moveset. Is this a better Red Mage?

I had healer in mind - when i talked about those buttons tho.
when it comes to DPS it's a different story ..bc as dps you can effort more buttons..

[Silver-Strider]

Meaningless buttons are:
-Exist only to create more buttons to press( but doesnt have further use or impact beyond that)
-Botton that are very similar to one another... Why have 3 abilites that is roughly the same.. but with diff dmg/cd?
-Situational based buttons: the type of skills you will forget you have, bc of how rare you use them..

Differnt abilites is not itself bothersome..
but it does become an issue when they become to many..
and often time many skills = many of the same skill.

Cure 2: 800 cure potency
Afflatus Solace: 800 cure potency
Tetragrammaton: 700 cure potency

Medica: 400 cure potency AoE
Afflatus Rapture: 400 cure potency AoE
Assize: 400 cure potency

Literally what you just described. Throw in Cure 1 and Cure 3 for good measure and that is 8 skills that are purely repetitive garbage.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Abilities such as Fey Blessing and Celestial Opposition are literal fluff and wouldn't be missed if they suddenly disappeared from our bars overnight. Other abilities such as Repose are close with very niche use in specific content and quest chains now.

@Zeastria:

Healer's kits are far too bloated with very samey samey abilities and cooldowns and the majority of it just isn't needed until you hit Savage. It'd be quite straight forward to cull the obnoxious fluff, merge a bunch of abilities into each other and adjust cooldowns to keep our overall throughput at the desired level.

It'd be genuinely interesting to see if it's possible to satisfactorily heal the last few Extremes with our complete kit but Medica II and Regen as the only heals. I'm somewhat confident it'd be doable, ugly but possible.

Regarding your initial point in the other thread. IMHO it's actually stepping up to and getting acclimatised with somewhat optimised play in Savage/Ultimate that ruins the healing experience elsewhere in the game. Once you start spreadsheeting cooldowns and coordinating with your co-healer to minimise wastage you really start realising just how little healing everything else actually requires and that's when the downhill slide begins.