A summary of healer issues

[Connor]

Ah now i understand. In your first comment i quoted you talked about large scale reworks.

Completely agree. They could give us the second DoT back in 6.5. Not much change in play but a welcome one.

In fact i would give all healers a second DoT (maybe with lower potency but longer time) and a AOE DoT that shares a timer with one of the other DoTs for trash. Reuse old symbols and animations and voila.

Yeah, i meant more that there could’ve been ‘between-expansion’ changes that at least make the issues a bit easier to deal with until they can do the bigger ones with expansions.

I get that it would be too weird for them to make change rotations or add a bunch of new skills etc, especially when people are still doing savage/ultimate where proper rotations and the like make a real difference.

But at the same time, one of the most common things I’ve seen people asking for is ‘return healers to Stormblood’. Naturally it would be a bit much to revert their entire kits, but things like giving back old DoTs could still help address those issues a bit, while also making it clearer they’re aware people have them. We’ve seen with Machinist’s Dismantle that it is possible for them to return pre-existing abilities. And even if they didn’t want to return the DoTs themselves, personally I think there’s a good amount of non-offensive options they could choose from as well. Like Scholar’s Eye for an Eye (whether or not it’s affected by Deployment), White Mage’s Stoneskin, or Astrologian’s Disable. Granted two of those were oGCD, but it would at least somewhat address the ‘we have too much powerful/direct healing relative to the content’ issue many healers have

[BRVV]

Yeah, i meant more that there could’ve been ‘between-expansion’ changes that at least make the issues a bit easier to deal with until they can do the bigger ones with expansions.

Indeed. Making those small changes in patches and awaiting player feedback is a great way to test the waters so to speak. Sadly, since they don't do this with healers, i think we won't get meaningful changes for healers in 7.0.

[IDontPetLalas]

Yeah, i meant more that there could’ve been ‘between-expansion’ changes that at least make the issues a bit easier to deal with until they can do the bigger ones with expansions.

I get that it would be too weird for them to make change rotations or add a bunch of new skills etc, especially when people are still doing savage/ultimate where proper rotations and the like make a real difference.

But at the same time, one of the most common things I’ve seen people asking for is ‘return healers to Stormblood’. Naturally it would be a bit much to revert their entire kits, but things like giving back old DoTs could still help address those issues a bit, while also making it clearer they’re aware people have them. We’ve seen with Machinist’s Dismantle that it is possible for them to return pre-existing abilities. And even if they didn’t want to return the DoTs themselves, personally I think there’s a good amount of non-offensive options they could choose from as well. Like Scholar’s Eye for an Eye (whether or not it’s affected by Deployment), White Mage’s Stoneskin, or Astrologian’s Disable. Granted two of those were oGCD, but it would at least somewhat address the ‘we have too much powerful/direct healing relative to the content’ issue many healers have

That sounds like a very reasonable approach, as you say it would at least acknowledge the feedback, while not disrupting the content where even small job changes can potentially affect a group's ability to clear. I wish SE had this sensible approach.

[ForsakenRoe]

I wish SE had this sensible approach.

Best we can get is 'completely rework how cards work (again) and if it turns out to be bad/not fun/clunky/any negative descriptor, then we say 'sorry, we can't do major reworks outside of expansions you'll have to wait till next expansion'', take it or leave it, apparently

I would love to know where they got the idea that people wanted the current cards and over-focus on the 2min burst window

[Allegor]

I would love to know where they got the idea that people wanted the current cards and over-focus on the 2min burst window

Minmaxers, probably. Something something 'fishing for Balance isn't fun'... as if fishing for the proper seals was any better. If it wasn't because the seals are such a dumpster fire, I'd say the fishing issue got worse (and don't get me started on that obnoxious ranged/melee split, ugh)

*EDIT*

I apologize then, minmaxer wannabes would sound more accurate then? whoever they were, it's clear the devs listened to people who didn't want rng in a class whose entire identity is based on manipulating rng

[Shurrikhan]

Minmaxers, probably. Something something 'fishing for Balance isn't fun'... as if fishing for the proper seals was any better. If it wasn't because the seals are such a dumpster fire, I'd say the fishing issue got worse (and don't get me started on that obnoxious ranged/melee split, ugh)

Why would min-maxers care that Balance fishing "isn't fun"? Heck, for them of all people, those trickle-down of factors and weights to determine the best gamble for a given moment and ideal situations in which to spend Redraws probably was fun. It's those who didn't understand how to game that RNG who more likely disliked it.

The actual min-maxers were plenty aware that "Balance fishing" was an oversimplification, and already knew how to make the best of that situation. At most you could say that they maybe complained that while Spear, Arrow, Ewer, and Spire all played a role directly or indirectly, Bole never did because the mitigation requirements were just never high enough to need it.

Balance-fishing wasn't about just Balance. It simply had a best option each based on the availability of Spread, whether Expand was already up, time until next "raid burst", number of Redraws remaining (which had a best time in which to be used), and the difference between your highest (raw) DPS party member and your party average.

[Absurdity]

Why would min-maxers care that Balance fishing "isn't fun"? Heck, for them of all people, those trickle-down of factors and weights to determine the best gamble for a given moment and ideal situations in which to spend Redraws probably was fun. It's those who didn't understand how to game that RNG who more likely disliked it.

That's why I facepalm every time someone tries to blame all those oversimplifications on the people who optimize to min-max fights.
I can't speak for all of them but for me the fun came from having to deal with a jobs nuances and work around those minor inconveniences to squeeze some more performance out of it. I was never a 99th percentile player but it was still fun to strive for that.

So I highly doubt we were the people asking for all of these changes, what would be the fun in trying to reach for the peak when said peak is a slight bump in the flat plain you're already standing on?
Instead the oversimplification in the last two expansions completely killed my desire to min-max in the first place (and eventually my desire to do savage at all), especially when my performance is more reliant on crit RNG than it is on the decisions I make during the fight.

[ForsakenRoe]

Why would min-maxers care that Balance fishing "isn't fun"? Heck, for them of all people, those trickle-down of factors and weights to determine the best gamble for a given moment and ideal situations in which to spend Redraws probably was fun. It's those who didn't understand how to game that RNG who more likely disliked it.

We still have RNG in the job, just that it's crit RNG now (which cannot be controlled/influenced unlike the cards). The minmaxers/hardcore/whatever should understand that no matter what you do, there's gonna be RNG of some sort that will screw you and your parse, and fighting around that to get a good parse is the whole point of optimization, that's where the fun in the act is. I would assume it's the dunning-kruger midcore, who think they're better than they are, who wanted an easy scapegoat for why they aren't actually parsing 99s (it's cos I got bad card draws and it made the killtime bad) that complained enough to get the cards dumbed down to this state. But I also blame SE for not putting any thought or care into the fix, instead just throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and the bath, and the sink for good measure. There's so many ways they could have 'tweaked' the old cards such that the 'unique effects per card' remain (for flavor/job identity), but also have them be easier to balance.

And I've said several times, if I had to put my finger on the one main reason the old system couldn't be balanced, it was not The Balance (the card), it was the Expand effect of Royal Road. Because the AOE modifier changed the card comparisons from 'this one is 10% damage, this one is 0% damage (bole for example)', to 'this one is 5% damage for everyone (40% total), this one is still 0% (bole again)'. Keeping the cards single target and adding Divination in SHB as the 'big AOE burst window' would have 'fixed' the card balance most of the way, after that it'd just be small number tweaks, and adding damage to the cards that didn't provide damage to make them competitive. Like, we hear about how people used to go 'oh no Bole sucks it's just mit and you can't even predict when you'll have it', okay just throw an extra effect on it so that whoever has Bole reflects damage when they're hit, with competent balance (asking for miracles I know) it's equal to Balance in terms of damage and the Mit is a nice bonus on top that rewards the AST for using it on a relevant role (eg Tank)

Though I shouldn't be saying anything since I've turned to complete garbage at the job in the few months since Asphodelos. I blame playing WHM. Seriously, the longer I play WHM it feels like I get worse at the game, not better

But since it’s also healer dps, it wouldn’t technically matter for completion of content, since outside of Savage content the only gain one really makes from higher healer dps is slightly quicker clear times.

Didn't you know, if the healer chooses to use the 320p Glare instead of the 350p Water, then the party won't have enough damage and will hit enrage, because the WHM lost 120p per minute /s