Quote Originally Posted by Connor View Post
Isn’t this ignoring what me and BRVV discussed immediately after that post? That doesn’t seem fair

Of course it’s true that no change can literally have 0 effect on players, unless they change nothing. But at the same time smaller-scale changes that work to acknowledge the issue and assuage the concerns people have can be implemented in a way that doesn’t penalise players who are don’t want the added complexity. Like if White Mages got Stoneskin back. It’s a nice tool and it’s fun to use (for me anyway), it actively helps newer players by supporting them through mechanics they may otherwise not have survived, and most importantly the content can be completed regardless of whether you use Stoneskin, or let Regen heal them up, or shield with Divine Benison etc.

Similarly with returning things like Miasma / Aero III - given how healer dps is right now, if they added them back into the game and a player just focused on using Glare / Dia, they’d still come out with ‘acceptable’ dps amounts. It would just mean that if a player did want to play more optimally, they could put out slightly more damage. 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.

Of course there’d be the misinformed people who watch like a hawk for healers to make mistakes, ‘why aren’t you using Aero III you Sylphie’, ‘you slipped Miasma at 4 instead of the moment it hits 0, you deserve the Tonberry Plague’ etc. But all they’d be doing is showing their own ignorance of the game’s mechanics, because outside of savage it wouldn’t penalise healers for not engaging with those aspects of the job

As for adding damage abilities purely for the sake of damage and not to actually give the job options, I feel a good compromise is to follow PvP and have healer’s offensive abilities provide supportive effects. Like Gravity inflicting Heavy (wouldn’t work in PvE of course lol), Biolysis reducing damage dealt, Holy’s PvE Stun effect. By having a healer’s offensive actions also work to support the party in some way, it means that even should healers get more damage abilities they serve more purpose than simply padding out the dps ‘rotations’, and those supportive effects can also work to relieve some of the healing pressure
To add to the above (change and its effects) , I would also say that change does not affect everyone equally. I doubt that those players who are in Savage and Ultimate content would be as interested or as affected in general as those who do normal (< Extreme) content. For example- a certain percentage of those doing casual content may not use changes that they don't like , or may not even apply them because they're not aware of them - whereas that's not really not likely to happen at other levels.