General Community Resistant to Healer Damage?

[SamRF]

Fair, but the main issue is that a lot of healers actually can't keep this or it works 50/50 thanks to factors different than just their skill (like mob hitting a bit earlier than they expected or latency issues). Also if the healer heals me only when my HP is extremely low to the point of raising the question "will I stay alive or not" - I won't accept the whining about Superbolide procking 0.5 second earlier than Benediction/another hard healing skill. Keeping tank alive isn't equal to "give them heart attack on every single pull", especially when we talk about things like roulettes done with random people whose skill in playing I don't know just as they don't know mine. I can completely ignore my HP when I'm with the healer I know because I trust them, but when you're with randoms - trust is a luxury.

Imo it's only fair to completely trust the healer until they have proven to be untrustworthy by letting you die. 1 death isn't that big of an issue and I'd rather give the healer a chance to have their fun and showcase their skill to fullest extend (in context).

[EaMett]

Imo it's only fair to completely trust the healer until they have proven to be untrustworthy by letting you die. 1 death isn't that big of an issue and I'd rather give the healer a chance to have their fun and showcase their skill to fullest extend (in context).

This. I was about to ask if I was the only one who essentially didn't concern myself too much with my health when tanking, until I die that is.

[Halivel]

Imo it's only fair to completely trust the healer until they have proven to be untrustworthy by letting you die. 1 death isn't that big of an issue and I'd rather give the healer a chance to have their fun and showcase their skill to fullest extend (in context).

Sorry, but in 13 years of playing MMO games I was proven too many times that trusting random people from the start is a bad idea. I won't care if my HP is like 20-30% out of max most of the time, but if I see that it is dangerously near to K.O., I'm not going to sit there thinking "oh maybe he'll heal me now, just a second later" when 8 out of 10 cases lead to the exactly opposite result if I don't use invulnerability skill.

Mind me, situations like this don't happen often to begin with, but when they do - in about 80% of cases the only outcome I see is that blindly trusting random people by default was a mistake. Soooooo nope, thanks, I learned the lesson from... countless mistakes I repeated because I had hope.

I don't mind wipes in general because when I enter the dungeon I'm ready to spend entire 90 minutes there, but I still stay on my opinion regardeless: if healer values dps higher than his party health, he's not suitable for being a healer. That's it. Outside of this, wiping won't make me mad or something, it just will prove that I wasn't wrong in not trusting to a pug (or that I overstimated my own capabilities in some cases as well). And I prefer being proven people were worth the trust and I was tensed for nothing, not the opposite. That said, I prefer being ready for the worst and then being surprised in a good way rather than going in a blind believe that everyone will give their all to be only dissapointed later.

[Saefinn]

Imo it's only fair to completely trust the healer until they have proven to be untrustworthy by letting you die. 1 death isn't that big of an issue and I'd rather give the healer a chance to have their fun and showcase their skill to fullest extend (in context).

Usually when I tank and Isee my health dropping low I'll watch what the healer is doing, if it looks like they know what they're doing, I don't worry and I just carry on without doing anything different. If it looks like they are struggling then I maay adjust my tanking. I might also observe their gear, because if they look like a high end raider, that give me an indicator that they're more likely in control and if the gear is low, I'll know I'm dealing with a lower geared healer. I also do the same with the tank when I'm healing them, because it might help indicate what I'm also able to get away with too.


But yeah, until the healer actually runs into trouble, I'd trust them. And 1 or 2 deaths or wipes is not a big deal.

[SamRF]

Usually when I tank and Isee my health dropping low I'll watch what the healer is doing, if it looks like they know what they're doing, I don't worry and I just carry on without doing anything different. If it looks like they are struggling then I maay adjust my tanking. I might also observe their gear, because if they look like a high end raider, that give me an indicator that they're more likely in control and if the gear is low, I'll know I'm dealing with a lower geared healer. I also do the same with the tank when I'm healing them, because it might help indicate what I'm also able to get away with too.


But yeah, until the healer actually runs into trouble, I'd trust them. And 1 or 2 deaths or wipes is not a big deal.

Yeah how I see it there's a difference between a healer letting your HP edge while spamming their GCD heal and one spamming their DPS. When it's DPS I'm assuming they know what they're doing and trust them while otherwise I might adjust, indeed going to depend on how the healer performs. Had very few encounters where healer just spammed dps while letting me die.

That's when I'm playing tanks other than WAR at least, being a WAR (at max lvl) you usually don't even need a healer so I'm not really worried regardless lol.

[Lersayil]

If a healer is truly capable of letting you drop to 150 HP before they heal you, and can do so consistently without letting you die, then they're an amazing healer. A healers job is to keep you alive, keyword: alive. As long as you don't hit 0 due to unavoidable damage, they did the healing part of their job well enough.

While I completely agree, it does require a measure of trust... uncharacteristic to a pug situation. Even if the healer is truly amazeballs, as a tank the first 10 or so times I drop below 25% my heart will skip at least 2 beats.

[Saefinn]

I found the complaint to be rarer, I get there are those who prefer more healing up time, which is fine, however the big problem is that healer DPS changes fail to address that. Healing focus is not determined by the ratio of healing and DPS spells, but in terms of what the content requires and how the spells handle it. For normal content the most engaged healing experience I've had in ShB was Blue Mage, and that had a very limited healing set and is not as efficient as SCH, AST or WHM and has a butt load of DPS abilities. The fact it was less efficient is why it was more engaging and meant you were more thoughtful about your healing and maybe used some CC to help mitigate damage.

But the game's design gives loads of room for healer DPS, not only that but its design encourages it and I think most accept this. And it is fine, because it doesn't have to do things the way other MMO's do it and in FF titles, it is not uncommon for healer jobs/characters to do more than heal. Having DPS fills the gaps, how engaging or complex that is does not affect healing focus, so i no reason to not have it be engaging.

In a way it is the least offensive way of making healers more engaging, you keep the skill floor low but raise the skill ceiling.

But once in a while we see people dislike healers DPSing, but they are rare. I think the bigger problem is people who focus too much on DPS and forget healing is their primary role and DPS is second.

Then they can determine how much healing focus there is by the content and the difficulty of that content.

[Shougun]

I think it's a good idea to have at least one healer that is more straight forward less scattered task (more boring basically to some people, yet calming and fun to others); although, I do also think there could be some more mechanics / perhaps a new job that fills in a void some healers want (I think an aggressive healer could be interesting but also I don't think it has to be offensive just more things to do to be optimal that also are found to be fun / interesting).

Something I thought might be fun with scholar and it's whole poison/disease vibe was that art of war had an inner radius (and the outer standard radius, making concentric circles). Where you'd have extra damage in the inner radius and with a new contagion mechanic you could use that inner radius had chance to spread through. With a combo system interacting with the new contagion effects (the ruins and aoe, interacting in non-standard ways to create new decision trees), to encourage playing different than 'standard' without adding anymore bloat buttons. Requiring situational awareness on a few levels, seeing who you want to hurt the most while hitting the rest of the group, watching the effects of your contagion spread and responding with the correct spell for best results. That was the short of it at least, there was a lot more written on the new contagion mechanic, creating ground zero zones, and the bonuses spells gave for broiling/lancing the debuff- to create a sort of situational monster composition awareness dance.

Back when we had bigger issues with the % buffs with AST, I had thought potency baked buffs could be interesting and well balanced. I used this concept in the aggressive dark healer thread a while ago, something like 'hemorrhaging spine' which causes the target to take extra damage UP TO x potency (perhaps with a debuff like slow AS/MS, obviously the slow doesn't work on bosses). In this way the damage is mostly done by allies but technically it's at your behest. Or maybe a healer could cast blinding radiance on an ally that causes them to deal damage over time in a radius around the target (with like every other interval an enemy may become temporarily pacified). Offensive support spells. In the thread was also a damage pet, one that did single target + debuff and one that did aoe + debuff- something that might mix up a dynamic a bit (debuffs creating a sort of cure effect, monsters that do less damage in a convoluted way really 'healing').

For AST, bit of a random aside but... lol, it might be something fun like creating a portal to space below their feet, and in a large radius around that center any player with an AST buff gets a concentric circle (making a sort of solar system like diagram), X + 1 solar tendrils leak out from the center hole in space and grab enemies (may grab one target, but they'll be splayed out then and curve back into the target for visual neatness), X = number of AST buffs (+1 so there is always 1), the circles that create the orbit on each buffed player will grow or shrink to match their position but the planet / star that represents them rides the circle and will orbit the room. Each completed cycle heals them (larger heals the further away but less often due to travel time, 1:1 calculation so no loss just different timings based on distance). If the AST stands on a player's orbit the orbit moves faster (thus healing more often- only for one player so no clever stacking of circles though, the orbit lines will have some give so you don't have to be pixel perfect). If standing on the sun your AST buffs last longer (or something else to help players who need to get their buffs in order). Using the correct buff (role type) on a player will heal them more, so randomly throwing buffs works but is not as rewarding as getting it right. At the end the sun clears the room with a nova, damaged based on hp restored from that spell specifically (up to X potency).

Also in that dark healer thread was monster cure concept, such that you could prevent damage from the source- like casting divine pacification might prevent the next 1000 potency for 10 seconds, more interesting if during that time you could bump up the prevention with other actions (glare or something boosting the potency prevented, in such a way you don't feel like you're abandoning your identity to prevent damage yet you're still getting to do other things). Huge problem if you created a whole healer that only did monster 'cures' lol (no control over what damage you stop- could be the floor dragoon collecting orange or could be your main tank, and if spammable would make things super EZ- hence should be oGCD with cooldown), but if it was an oGCD sort of concept and so long as it fit the healer's theme I think it would be fine (I made it divine here just cause, but originally it was for the dark cultist/eldritich-y sort of healer thread). There's also some potential interest in making damage or cure spells cross the barrier, turning your healing kit into damage or if an aggressive healer like the dark theme thread turning your offensive spells defensive (would be wise to avoid cooldown based heals though, so you don't get healers blowing all their healing cooldowns for those deeps and then the community hating that job because too many casual players never have their healing cooldowns ready for tank busters).

Anyway, I think it's good to have a healer that's a bit calm.. like it's probably a good to have a tank that way too, but I don't think it's bad to try and spice things in theme or add a new one that does it differently for that missing playstyle some may want. So like even whichever calm healer is picked could also get more support offensives (spells cast on allies) which I think is a good choice for that job. Means you don't have to tab to monster that much, can continue to "support", but also add more value and things to do outside of just keeping everyone 100%. AST does this with the cards a bit but I think it's, due to the randomness, a bit too chaotic for someone who wanted something calming and probably a bit too simple for those who wanted something really active/chaotic lol. Keeping in mind just adding a single simple oGCD cooldown spell is not 'that much' spice lol (like if it was just a monster 'cure').. so might want to design the spell with that in mind if that's it's purpose and particularly if the feel is the job is far away from spice city (depending on how far away the job is, something simple might be just enough of a cherry while other jobs might value some more 'more'). Like perhaps a healer spell prayer that adds a shield for a short duration, has a short but tangible cooldown (5-10s+) and low cost and ideally oGCD, damage prevented being stored in a gauge/buff- when cast on the enemy it'll smite them for that damage collected with a growth curve to encourage higher collections. Due to the short duration and cooldown well timed prevention can mean casting more powerful smites more often. To really make it require engagement, and /not/ just tank spamming the ability, you can have it prevent recastsing the spell on the same player in a row, so the healer has to think and time it at least slightly. Of course outside of dungeons perhaps may be casted on self so it doesn't feel bad when you're alone.

[Rasikko]

^That. The part about being a bad healer if youre not bored. Thats the kind of clashing I once got into with someone here. I personally feel healing is fine in both areas. Healing is balanced and there's plenty opportunities to DPS. I love gravity spam, and Malefic IV looks so cool. I just better not say any of that around here(oops).

[Halivel]

^That. The part about being a bad healer if youre not bored. Thats the kind of clashing I once got into with someone here. I personally feel healing is fine in both areas. Healing is balanced and there's plenty opportunities to DPS. I love gravity spam, and Malefic IV looks so cool. I just better not say any of that around here(oops).

I wrote that I like current AST more than I did in HW/SB in another thread yesterday. Weirdly I'm still not torn for this, but it's probably because the thread itself wasn't about healing in general.