A summary of healer issues

[Renathras]

I think there's a misunderstanding going on here. Overwatch refers to their characters as Tank, Healer and Damage because Blizzard has a history of making an MMO. But the Healer could just as easily be called 'Support'. The Tanks could be 'Defender' or 'Guardian' or whatever synonym. Getting hung up on what 'being a support vs healer is' doesn't really get us anywhere.

This is an argument of semantics, and one that is arbitrary. A “healer” is any “support” that restores HP. “Support” characters/classes have low overall damage in exchange for brining utility—non-damage related effects that make encounters easier: healing, mitigation, crowd control, mobility, cleansing, dispelling…

They're relevant because they're distinct. It's like Tank and DPS. All Tanks in pretty much all games with a role system do DPS. Have rotations (or what in that game passes for one), etc. But they do less DPS, tend to have simpler rotations, but have more defensive (and often agro-generating) abilities, and thus slot into a different part in a party.

Look at Everquest Cleric vs Everquest Enchanter.

Clearly the two are not the same. There is very much a distinction. Calling them both "Healer" or both "Support" would be akin to calling a Tank "DPS" or a DPS "Tank" (hey, every DPS can tank at least for a little while! Sometimes "little while" means "one hit"). At that point, you may as well not have names or categories at all.

The difference isn't just "fills HP" and "does other things that are non-damage related"; again, Tanks and DPS must be the same role if we're using definitions that broad. Healers provide mitigation and recovery to party members, Support provide battlefield control (which is why Pantheon is using Control for the name of their fourth role, since they recognize that "Support" in their context can also include "Debuffing", which isn't very "supportive"; the role is more focused on control). It's a similar distinction like that which exists between "tactics" and "strategy", two words that initially seem similar, but are actually talking about completely different things that only seem similar to the uninitiated.

I will note that players who would prefer a Support playstyle often try to make this argument that they're the same - it would benefit them if we kept only three roles if one of the three was the one they'd rather play - but that doesn't make the two identical or just a difference of "semantics". A doctor dressing wounds in a combat situation and a logistics truck bringing in a supply of fresh ammunition are both "supporting" the front line troops, but they're obviously not performing anywhere near the same service, and one wouldn't expect the latter to do the former nor the former to do the latter.

The solution is clearly NOT to rename the entire role to Support.

The solution, honestly, is to institute an actual Support role. Besides, you can argue we use very little of our healing kit, but we use even less support, and all support spells in the game that aren't on DNC and BRD are also oGCDs: Chain Strat, Divination, Draw/Play are all oGCDs. At that point, you might as well rename your Support into DPS, if you're using the metric of "what do most of your GCDs do?" You'd also rename Tanks DPS, and the entire game would just be DPS. At that point, it'd be GW2, and then everyone would quit FFXIV to just play GW2...because it actually has the Trinity roles. XD

.

At its core - I've said this here before and been attacked for it, even though I wasn't the one that made any demands or anything related to it (that was Semi) and I didn't say it in any way disparaigingly - the problem is that the Trinity is a gimped Quaternary, and FFXIV encounter design isn't made to work with either. Tank, Heal, Support, Damage. Changing the names of the middle two doesn't fix the problem, and more poorly reflects what's happening (AST is the only arguably Support of the four; SCH has only Chain Strat, a 2 min oGCD, and WHM and SGE have no support abilities). But people still very much like that type of gameplay. I pointed out before that the Pantheon MMO polls routinely find between 20-30% of players want to play the Control/Support role (Enchanters, Bards), and in games without Support, try to find the "best fit" for themselves among DPS or Healer (and sometimes Tank) classes. In FFXIV, I'd wager PLD, AST, RDM, DNC, and BRD are favorites of those types of players.

The answer is for a game to actually embrace that. Pantheon seems to want to, we will see how it pans out if they ever get out of pre-Alpha...

Which, just like "make healing more demanding/interesting", would require a change to encounter design - something I fully support, obviously - so all paths to a lasting solution go through "change encounter design".

So we have a "Healer" class design, a DPS heavy Encounter design and with the flaw that support with utility will break it very fast so only DPS support will work properly
If we have this, then changing the current healer classes to support (aka dps with heal options) or "full heal" will not help or change it. In the end that means the encounter design is flawed and needs changes before we even can touch classes ?
Also does this mean "holy trinity" is not properly used in FF14? Because all this problems seem to stem from the idea of "holy trinity" but with a terrible execution.

Yes.
And...Yes.

...

I mean, solo Deep Dungeon runs are "difficult content", and CC there is pretty relevant. But I don't mean JUST crowd control.

I think once an expansion is over, overgearing is fine. During an expansion, it's limited based on the gear/ilevel inflation over the course of that expansion. If the overleveling is too much, it means the intra-expansion gear inflation is too much and needs to be reigned in. Once the expansion is over, there's no reason to insist the content maintain that, especially since players generally don't want it. Again, who here REALLY wants to do Aurum Vale circa 2013? A lot of people may be quick to raise their hand, but don't forget to add "...every day in roulette" to the end of that question. Maybe you still want to, but I would wager a majority - and I will actually use that term here as I think it does apply correctly - would really rather not do that.

Personally, I'm not a fan of "gotta go fast". Every time I suggest Tanks don't need to double pull here or on Reddit, though, I get downvoted into oblivion. CLEARLY the playerbase - including present company - have spoken on that issue, and people don't want slow/long runs of routine content (e.g. anything you do for tomes/roulettes). You have things like Criterion trying to break out of that, but those have been a total failure. "The rewards aren't worth it" is another way of saying "We don't want long content for the sake of long content; we only want it for rewards".

Me personally, I still love OG Blackrock Depths with the NPC bar inside the instance and the entrance to a raid tucked away in a dungeon the size of a Capital city...but apparently, I'm an old fossil MMO player. God forbid someone wants a dungeon craw to feel like crawling through a dungeon. <_<

I do agree with your last point, though; that content really needs to allow (and arguably require) Support (as well as Healing and Tanking) to make it valid. Heroics in Burning Crusade REQUIRED crowd control. You just couldn't do it without. Of course, this made DPS that could do it must-have (and those that could not, sidelined), so that's not so good. But one could argue that's because WoW didn't have a full on Support fourth role. Everquest was in the baby days of MMOs, and so wasn't exactly...designed...well; but games since that tried to carry on that style were. Granted, larger party sizes. In a 6 person party (also what Pantheon is going for), your party is 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 1 Support, 1 DPS, and 2 flex roles that you can fill to taste (or with whoever's available in /shout or /general); another Tank for extra defense, another Healer for extra safety, maybe one of each for a party that will be slow but more or less guaranteed not to wipe unless everything goes wrong, or maybe you carry 2 more DPS if you're camping a relatively safe area and just want to grind out levels quickly, or another Support for more control of situations in dangerous areas, etc.

You really need at least a party of 5, and ideally 6, to have another Role. And then you need to full on develop it. Then you need to design content to where it's expected you'll have at least one of each role in the party.

Semantic ? No, i try to make the diffrence clear:

You're perfectly clear. I'm not trying to start a fight, but I think the issue is there are a lot of people that prefer a Support playstyle that want FFXIV to have it, feel that FFXIV will only have three, and so want one of them (Healers) converted to their preference (Support).

The distinction is crystal clear and everyone in this discussion knows the four roles because it's part of MMO history. Everquest had them, WoW for YEARS talked about/flirted with adding them, most MMOs with a Trinity, when the devs are asked "If you ever added a fourth role, what would it be?" would answer "Support", and Pantheon, an MMO in development, is outright making the fourth role (they're calling it Control but recognize it as Support as well), is trying to follow after EQ's footsteps.

Anyone this deep in the weeds as we are here knows what the distinctions are. Some people just want to try and blur that line so they can get more of what they want. But it's not a failure on your part to explain, it's that some people don't want to accept the difference that we all know exists. It's the difference between knowledge and belief, where someone can know a thing, but refuse to believe/accept it if it causes them issues with their worldview or desires.

But in either case, you're right; whether we call it Healer or Support, or add both, the issue at the core is encounter design.

FFXIV already has a borderline Support role, it's the Ranged Physical (less MCH since the rework in ShB), and arguably RDM.

Granted, even there, they don't have to be absolutely solidly cut. In EQ, Shaman were healers that also had some buffing/debuffing. Paladins were tanks with some healing. Rangers were damage dealers with some (token) healing, and so on. Pantheon's classes seem to have 4 in each role (more or less) with each having a bit of a subrole they can shift to in a pinch. Of the Healers, Cleric has strong heals and barriers, and seems like it can do some Tanking, Shaman HoTs with some ability to dabble in Control, Druid seems like it's going to be a technical class like ARR SCH (complete with a pet of sorts), but be able to do decent Damage. Its other roles likewise seem to be similar (like Rogue is a DPS but can swap to a more Control posture at the cost of doing less DPS). Granted, pre-alpha, so take of that what you will, but EQ's versions were kind of like that as well.

...but someone above mentioned how these things can be a spectrum, and it is entirely possible to make that work as long as the game's encounter design and class design are made with that as the goal.

[ForsakenRoe]

FFXIV already has a borderline Support role, it's the Ranged Physical (less MCH since the rework in ShB), and arguably RDM.

Couple of people I've talked to said something similar actually. If they were to implement a Support role, it'd actually help fix the disparity in the DPS classes right now (apparently). What they said was to split the DPS not based on melee v ranged v caster, but selfish and support. So I guess you'd have NIN DRG BRD DNC RDM SMN moved to this new 'support' role, and the others double down on being more selfish. It'd at least open up the opportunity for interesting class design ideas I guess, like SMN getting additional support based summons, like Carbuncle applying a reflective barrier to bounce damage back, or RDM getting it's En-spells from 11 back. I don't think it'd go down well this point into the game's life though

IDK if I agree with the idea as I've not put much thought into it, DPS classes aren't exactly my thing

[Renathras]

Couple of people I've talked to said something similar actually. If they were to implement a Support role, it'd actually help fix the disparity in the DPS classes right now (apparently). What they said was to split the DPS not based on melee v ranged v caster, but selfish and support. So I guess you'd have NIN DRG BRD DNC RDM SMN moved to this new 'support' role, and the others double down on being more selfish. It'd at least open up the opportunity for interesting class design ideas I guess, like SMN getting additional support based summons, like Carbuncle applying a reflective barrier to bounce damage back, or RDM getting it's En-spells from 11 back.

Yeah, something like this. I've seen various takes on it, but generally BRD, DNC, and RDM make the Support list, with various other candidates (NIN, AST, and SMN are the next runners up, for example). MOST of these Jobs (RDM aside) are already balanced around this idea of bringing support leading to lower personal DPS. BRD and DNC completely rely on that, as does AST.

I think the general idea/pitch is that it fills the 4th party slot in 4 mans (being 3-6 Jobs, it would obviously have the representation to be worth that), and 1 or 2 slots in an 8 man party (1 a given, with the second being one of your choices for the 4th DPS flex slot like we have now). BRD has been "arguably Support" since ARR, if not 1.0. I think BRD could use Protect at one point, even, and used to use the Healer LB3. For all of FFXIV's life, it was treated as a de-facto Support by players. MCH when introduced had some support abilities with the Turrets (for the life of me I can't remember it now, but I remember it being a thing then), further cementing "Ranged Physical" as the Support role of the game.

And, as you say, it could open up a decent chunk of Job changes and gameplay styles, like SMN having various support Summons, like FF games tend to have between buffing/defensive/haste/etc Summons balancing out the offensive ones in a lot of iterations of the Job. Offhand, Tactics had 2 healing, a shield one, and something else. FF9 Eiko had Carby for all three barrier types (Reflect, Protect, Shell) and also Haste (changed based on what accessory she had equipped), etc.

It would also help out a lot of the players that really do yearn for that playstyle. I don't think it's coincidence that a lot of the players who want Healers to be Supports tend to main (or speak highly of) DNC and RDM. I think it's a design fault that SE doesn't decide to actually embrace that. RDM, for example, is the perfect vehicle for "DPS that throws support heals" due to its nature and lore, which is what a lot of people asking for Healers to become Supports are genuinely asking for. Granted, the encounter design would need to be changed so that HEALING ACTUALLY MATTERS, but if RDM had, for example, Vermedica (at a 1000 MP cost so they couldn't just outright replace a Healer as they'd OOM rather quickly), it would give RDM's the ability to stand in for Healers in a pinch or support healing in situations that actually demanded it.

...that does, of course, require encounter design to actually demand it.

Likewise, BRD and DNC getting stuff like combat Pelaton and enemy debuffs.

I dunno, I think it's something worth considering, at the very least.

[Shurrikhan]

Couple of people I've talked to said something similar actually. If they were to implement a Support role, it'd actually help fix the disparity in the DPS classes right now (apparently). What they said was to split the DPS not based on melee v ranged v caster, but selfish and support.

I really don't think theirs is at all a solid claim.

Neither support nor selfishness have a consistent complexity factor. Nor is the one necessarily harder than the other, especially in any context with both.

Without automatic sync, an exploiter would have to play around buffs just as much as a single-target buffer would want to play around that exploiter. Takes two hands to clap, and buffer and exploiter each have only one function hand, so to speak.

Limited range is consistently an additional factor of difficulty compared to unlimited range, even if to variable/contextual effect. Having cast times is consistently an additional factor of difficulty compared to not have cast times, even if to variable/contextual effect...

...But as long as you have a buffer, getting buffs out before potency and getting in potency after buffs... are just mirror images of each other.

Pseudo-exceptions: If you have single-target, unsynced buffs but a large disparity in average potency to be dealt within n seconds, the buffers decision can be made much more immediately and automatically, while the exploiter's decision (e.g., when to spend gauge and procs) can be a bit more tracking-heavy. Of course, if that best recipient varies, then the buffer will usually have more to be aware of, while the exploiter need only bank as able and up to the point they'd waste larger raid cycle potential.

[Aravell]

So I guess you'd have NIN DRG BRD DNC RDM SMN moved to this new 'support' role, and the others double down on being more selfish.

I don't think turning NIN back into a support would go down well with the current NIN players, most of them seemed to be thrilled when the Trick Attack changes occurred since they want to do more personal damage. NIN has also been stripped of a majority of their support abilities, in fact, MNK has 1 more than NIN atm. NIN's Mug against MNK's Brotherhood + Mantra.

MCH when introduced had some support abilities with the Turrets (for the life of me I can't remember it now, but I remember it being a thing then)

MCH had Hypercharge, which made the Rook turret give phys vuln and the Bishop turret give an AoE magic vuln. They also had Promotion, which stopped all turret autoattacks to pulse a restoration wave for TP (Rook) or MP (Bishop).