A summary of healer issues

[ty_taurus]

There's something that's been on my mind this morning that I wanted to talk about in regards to the population of healers throughout the expansions we've seen pop up in a few different discussions from time-to-time. Basically, it's been brought up that there is a higher population of healer players now than there was during Stormblood, but also less than during Heavensward. The question is about what this information is actually telling us in relation to how players have responded to healer job design across the expansions. If the reason why people level healers was exclusively about what jobs players enjoyed, than it would make sense that the state of Endwalker's healers would be seen collectively as better than Stormblood's, but it's not the only factor.

What's really interesting about Shadwobringers particularly, where the number picks up from the dip it experienced in Stormblood, was the introduction of Role Quests with more interesting lore than any of the Job Quests had displayed before. I for one had never even unlocked the tank jobs up until Shadowbringers with the Role Quests as my primary reason. I also was doing it to unlock the Amaro mount which required I level every job to 80. Now that I keep up with all jobs, I'm also gradually collecting all the relic weapons (since there's nothing else I care to buy using tomestones) so it's very likely that I've counted toward the total number of tank players in recent census data despite the fact that I have never once queued as a tank for any group content at all, not even for leveling. I leveled all of them using Squadrons, Frontlines, Beast Quests, Trust Dungeons, and Wonderous Tails. I count toward the healer data as well despite refusing to ever queue as a healer for group content specifically because of how unhappy I am with their gameplay.

All of this is very anecdotal, but my point is that there are other driving forces to why someone would level a job other than because they enjoy playing as that job, more now than there was during Stormblood. Leveling has also become easier than ever. In other words, the actual percentage of players who actively play healer is undoubtedly lower than the total population implies, but without knowing by how much, how can we really say that there are more active healers now than during Stormblood?

[Aravell]

All of this is very anecdotal, but my point is that there are other driving forces to why someone would level a job other than because they enjoy playing as that job, more now than there was during Stormblood. Leveling has also become easier than ever. In other words, the actual percentage of players who actively play healer is undoubtedly lower than the total population implies, but without knowing by how much, how can we really say that there are more active healers now than during Stormblood?

I think the dip in Stormblood being used to explain that healer players don't like that direction is wrong. I'm almost 100% sure that the dip at that point was due to the fact that the most popular healer, WHM, was destroyed with the lily system. You do raise a good point about the role quests, some people would level a healer just for that, which would bring me to a point that I would like to make, how many of those endgame healer players in the data are people who level exclusively on SMN and get a free max level SCH?

[ty_taurus]

I think the dip in Stormblood being used to explain that healer players don't like that direction is wrong. I'm almost 100% sure that the dip at that point was due to the fact that the most popular healer, WHM, was destroyed with the lily system. You do raise a good point about the role quests, some people would level a healer just for that, which would bring me to a point that I would like to make, how many of those endgame healer players in the data are people who level exclusively on SMN and get a free max level SCH?

I believe the number is based on if you have a weapon of a certain ilevel or higher, which you would get if you obtained that job's relic weapon. I believe it was ilevel 615 or higher prior to 6.4, but I could be completely wrong.

[vetch]

All of this is very anecdotal, but my point is that there are other driving forces to why someone would level a job other than because they enjoy playing as that job, more now than there was during Stormblood.

Global pandemic lockdown.

[ty_taurus]

You know, something occurred to me earlier that I’d be very interested to know the answer for. I really wonder what the healer population would look like if FFXIV did not feature the ability to change jobs and you were locked into your choice. That would completely eliminate non-healer mains from ever filling that role, and likely would’ve forced out former healer mains that swapped to DPS or tanks.

[Shurrikhan]

You know, something occurred to me earlier that I’d be very interested to know the answer for. I really wonder what the healer population would look like if FFXIV did not feature the ability to change jobs and you were locked into your choice. That would completely eliminate non-healer mains from ever filling that role, and likely would’ve forced out former healer mains that swapped to DPS or tanks.

I'd guess that the number of healer parses and standard composition parses would drop significantly but not to the point of a crises, while the portions of each healer job relative to each other wouldn't really change (except slightly insofar as it became known ahead of time that the likes of AST would be underpowered or the likes of WHM would likely become overpowered in the upcoming expansion based on the pre-patch notes / job guide website changes).

snip

Aye. Again, I basically see the heirarchy of available/maximal complexity in that regard...

Least: Hard CDs
(These days there's scarcely really even a difference between 1-charge and multi-charge, as you just bank as able until the raid buff window, effectively acting like you have only 1 charge until then.)

-Mid-: Soft CDs
(This would be like "Deals 65 potency. Additional Effect: Deals up to 650 additional potency based on charging time, which has a maximum of 30 seconds." [Read: Dia in single-target.])

-Most: DoTs
(They do everything soft-CDs do, but also have additional complexity in multitarget situations that are not yet mass-AoE situations and require TTD (time-til-death) estimation.)

And yeah, plugins have for quite a while now provided (highly filterable, even) Enmity List DoT trackers and the ability to place a mock-cooldown (standard darkening and wheel) or [further-]charge (ring, no darkening) indicator over DoT actions to reveal the time until their respective durations end on your current target if one is selected and hostile, last target if not.

There's no reason the base/default game couldn't steal that idea for use by everyone who wants that functionality.

[Shurrikhan]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "(soft) CDs"?

We've been over this term a few times already in the past months, but you need look no further than the prior post:

Soft CDs
(This would be like "Deals 65 potency. Additional Effect: Deals up to 650 additional potency based on charging time, which has a maximum of 30 seconds." [Read: Dia in single-target.])

A soft CD is a CD that can, at proportionate penalty, be used early.

[Renathras]

A soft CD is a CD that can, at proportionate penalty, be used early.

Not sure I've seen that before. Does it have a recharge? Is there any ability in the game right now that works like that?

[TheDustyOne]

Not sure I've seen that before. Does it have a recharge? Is there any ability in the game right now that works like that?

Pretty much every DoT ever (except Circle of Scorn, Sonic Break, etc), full potency after whatever duration, and can be applied early. What makes DoTs a "soft" CD is that it's not a cooldown but you want to wait similar to a cooldown.

Abilities like WAR Storms Eye and RPR Death's Design (can't remember the actual skill name, just the status) are also soft cooldowns.