Final Fantasy XIV’s healer problem and how it’s kind of unsolvable

[Crushnight]

Sure I can. I can continue to do this until someone provides a link to a source where the devs made the decision to change this. You can post fflogs all day. None of them are an official statement from the dev team that they have reversed their decision. As I said before, it is what it is. You lot need to understand, my agrument isn't that healer DPS isn't required to clear savage, so you can honestly miss me with that nonsense. My argument is that the devs stated that healer DPS is not factored into DPS checks. This is a fact, not an opinion, and I provided the source. It could have been made in 2011 and it still would be true.

Now, if this is no longer the case, and the devs did indeed start factoring healer DPS into the DPS checks, feel free to provide the source link. If you can do so, then it will effectively invalidate the previous links. Quite honestly though, I grew sick of this argument back in 2015; it actually doesn't have a whole lot of relevance anymore because healers actively DPS now, and the problem back then was them not doing it. Your precious fflogs should be a testament to that, if a testament to anything. Do the devs even use that data for anything?

I would much rather get back to the crux of the healer problem which is our downtime. Anyone else?

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/AzjDg...pe=damage-done

Number 1 ranked log for Shiva Savage at time of posting this

If you take out the whm (9919.7) and Ast (7902.6) from the overall dps (101607.8) you get 83785.5

Shiva Savage Dps requirement is between 84k-85k

No healer dps means you fail.

These are the best of the best players the devs do not expect everyone who does savage to be at that level of play they expect higher than those doing extremes but not cream of the crop elites.

The dev team with this fight prove Yoshi P's statement no longer stands for Savage level content and above.

[Deceptus]

The dev team with this fight prove Yoshi P's statement no longer stands for Savage level content and above.

Or Yoshi can still make that statement and simply be completely disconnected from the battle design team. Wouldn't be the first time he's been extremely wrong (healers come to mind).

I do remember those threads, and I believe I participated in them. If you were a dev who couldn't read or speak English, would you have 467 pages translated and wade through it all? I doubt the devs have time for that.

Not our issue. They are a global company and if they can't have reps check in from time to time to do spot checks that's terrible business practices. Issues always get worse when they're left to fester.

We also recently learned that the Japanese community is discontent with healer design and changes as well, and it is also highly unlikely that those threads reach the devs ears either. For all we know, their attitude could be complacent, or highly concerned, but it is a very safe assumption that they know many of us are not happy.

The main problem is we don't know what they're thinking because they refuse to talk to us healers. About anything.

[Rivinhal]

Sure I can. I can continue to do this until someone provides a link to a source where the devs made the decision to change this. You can post fflogs all day. None of them are an official statement from the dev team that they have reversed their decision. As I said before, it is what it is. You lot need to understand, my agrument isn't that healer DPS isn't required to clear savage, so you can honestly miss me with that nonsense. My argument is that the devs stated that healer DPS is not factored into DPS checks. This is a fact, not an opinion, and I provided the source. It could have been made in 2011 and it still would be true.

I mean think about this logically... The data we're citing is recent. And the statement you're citing is from years ago. What else was different about the game at the time of that statement?

The reality is that actions speak louder than words. And the fact that healer DPS is 100% required for savage DPS checks at even the highest level of play is pretty indicative that the statement you're citing from 5 years ago is out of date. Their philosophy has changed. Maybe it hasn't changed in regards to all content, I think we'd all agree on that, but it clearly has changed in regards to high-end content. It's very clearly being factored in there. Pretending it isn't just feels a bit silly, especially considering the circumstances.

I don't understand why this is such a sticking point tbh.

[Videra]

Sure I can. I can continue to do this until someone provides a link to a source where the devs made the decision to change this. You can post fflogs all day. None of them are an official statement from the dev team that they have reversed their decision. As I said before, it is what it is. You lot need to understand, my agrument isn't that healer DPS isn't required to clear savage, so you can honestly miss me with that nonsense. My argument is that the devs stated that healer DPS is not factored into DPS checks. This is a fact, not an opinion, and I provided the source. It could have been made in 2011 and it still would be true.

Now, if this is no longer the case, and the devs did indeed start factoring healer DPS into the DPS checks, feel free to provide the source link. If you can do so, then it will effectively invalidate the previous links. Quite honestly though, I grew sick of this argument back in 2015; it actually doesn't have a whole lot of relevance anymore because healers actively DPS now, and the problem back then was them not doing it. Your precious fflogs should be a testament to that, if a testament to anything. Do the devs even use that data for anything?

I would much rather get back to the crux of the healer problem which is our downtime. Anyone else?

I mean, you're very wrong - and insistent on standing by an outdated statement from 2015. Yes, it does matter that it's an ancient statement. There's a cognitive dissonance between Yoshi-P, the battle team, and the player base at large. You can quite literally argue until the cows come home that the game director said healer DPS isn't factored in once, therefore it isn't, but the data you are being presented with proves that very wrong. Yes, I'll admit, healer DPS isn't factored in for all content - but clearly it is for savage. And you're acting like healers can or should be able to half-AFK healbot through it.

As to the crux of the discussion - Healer downtime is literally just boring right now because for two of the classes it's been reduced to mashing one button and another every 30 seconds. Every healer has lost DPS tools, WHM just feels the least bad because it at least has assize and Misery - even if Misery is a loss to use. FFXIV's healers will never have more to heal outside of Ultimate Content, because SE isn't willing to try to shift to triage healing. They can't without a major overhaul of every game system. So the obvious solution here is to make the DPS uptime of healers - which is a lot - more stimulating. A means of doing this is quite literally just scooting on back to the old style of each healer in Stormblood, because two out of there lost more than simple DPS.

Scholars lost their faerie management, Astrologians lost their card management. Both were key parts of their playstyles, and I'll admit I'm more familiar with the former. Playing SCH was like managing two characters, and at a high level, it was very rewarding.

[Sylve]

I'm aware of the quote, but actual statistics prove it wrong. Maybe back when the quote came out, 5 years ago, it was correct, but it is literally no longer the case. Even in current Shiva, you need around 85-86k rDPS to clear e8s, running with the 4 best DPS and 2 best tanks in the world, all bis, all playing perfectly, you'd be just shy of making that check, you would hit enraged if healers did not DPS. Maybe you would make it if you got super lucky on crits/direct hits/crit direct hits, you might be able to JUST squeak by. There is no conceivable way that the fight was not intended to have healers DPS, regardless of what Yoshi-P says

Are you sure about that?

FFLogs currently shows the maximums (Using rDPS, not aDPS) as being between 17k and 19k for the DPS jobs. Tanks sit at 10.5k~.

Lets take the 4 random jobs 'best' performers - RDM (18.2k) + DNC (17.9k) + MCH (17.1k) + DRG (18.4k)
Now lets take any two Tanks and do the same - PLD (10.7k) + DRK (10.5k)

Adds up to 92,800 rDPS.
We haven't even added Healer DPS yet. Following the same rules as above, lets take SCH (11.5k) and WHM (11.9k) and throw that in the mix which takes us to a grand total of 116,200 total raid DPS.

And according to you, we only need 85 - 86k to clear Enrage. Which means, taking 4 of the best DPS players and 2 of the best Tank players crushes the minimum to beat Enrage.

Then when those publish clear videos and other people see the healers DPSing, they might think that healers need to be DPSing even though its a situation that only arose because their clear would have otherwise been impossible.

He very clearly says in this interview that Healers are only required to DPS when parties are trying to make clears happen without meeting the developer intended party average ilvl. These clears happen because extremely skilled players use unusual strategies, like having Healers push as much DPS as possible, to make a clear happen before meeting the gear requirements as intended.

I would welcome an explanation from you if any assumptions i made in the first half of this post is incorrect. But based on the data provided by FFLogs and the terms laid out in the post i quoted from you, Yoshi was accurate back then and remains so today.

[Seraphor]

Are you sure about that?

FFLogs currently shows the maximums (Using rDPS, not aDPS) as being between 17k and 19k for the DPS jobs. Tanks sit at 10.5k~.

Lets take the 4 random jobs 'best' performers - RDM (18.2k) + DNC (17.9k) + MCH (17.1k) + DRG (18.4k)
Now lets take any two Tanks and do the same - PLD (10.7k) + DRK (10.5k)

Adds up to 92,800 rDPS.
We haven't even added Healer DPS yet. Following the same rules as above, lets take SCH (11.5k) and WHM (11.9k) and throw that in the mix which takes us to a grand total of 116,200 total raid DPS.

And according to you, we only need 85 - 86k to clear Enrage. Which means, taking 4 of the best DPS players and 2 of the best Tank players crushes the minimum to beat Enrage.

Are you saying that only the 6 top tank/dps players in the entire game, on their best day, are expected to be able to clear the current savage at ilvl?
Then how is everyone else supposed to clear it without healer damage?

Regardless, this post adequately explains it. Your numbers must be off, because this is the current best performance of E8S and it wouldn't have been able to make it without healer damage.

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/AzjDg...pe=damage-done

Number 1 ranked log for Shiva Savage at time of posting this

If you take out the whm (9919.7) and Ast (7902.6) from the overall dps (101607.8) you get 83785.5

Shiva Savage Dps requirement is between 84k-85k

No healer dps means you fail.

These are the best of the best players the devs do not expect everyone who does savage to be at that level of play they expect higher than those doing extremes but not cream of the crop elites.

The dev team with this fight prove Yoshi P's statement no longer stands for Savage level content and above.

[AdamFyi]

Using rDPS, not aDPS

Dunno where you’re getting those numbers from but the current highest numbers on my end for the roles you listed are:-

– Rdm (16.1k)
– Dnc (15.2k)
– Mch (15.3k)
- Drg (15.9k)
– Pld (9.4k)
– Drk (9.3k)

Which amounts to 81.2k total rDPS but will be lower once you take out the healer damage that is already included in those totals. Grabbing a random party that has that exact composition, you remove about 0.672k rDPS from the healers which amounts to 80.5k total rDPS. Looking at the same logs, dropping healer DPS completely drops this group’s combined total to a whopping 79.9k rDPS. These are well below the required DPS check from the encounter. It’s mathematically impossible to clear with those numbers.

[Liam_Harper]

I would welcome an explanation from you if any assumptions i made in the first half of this post is incorrect. But based on the data provided by FFLogs and the terms laid out in the post i quoted from you, Yoshi was accurate back then and remains so today.

https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statisti...ny&dataset=100

Where are you getting 17-19k? I see 14.8-16.8k at absolute max percentile with tanks at 9.3-9.5k.

I don't see why we're still quoting an ancient post from Yoshi. He's a nice guy and all, but he's not an encounter designer. Clearly his vision for the game and what his team are creating are two different things. His team are perfectly aware if they don't account for healer dps in enrage timers, even two subpar healers who can fit a Glare every 5 GcD's and keep Dia up would completely trivialize the fight.

[AdamFyi]

I don't see why we're still quoting an ancient post

We strangely do have a response from him from an interview from last year. Source

――ヒーラーなんですが、学者の攻撃の手数がかなり減ってて、賛否が分かれそうな調整だなと感じました。ヒーラーの調整の方針を改めて教えていただけますか。
Q: On to the Healers, Scholar seems to have lost a lot of DPSing abilities, we feel like this will be an adjustment where opinions will vary a lot. Can you go into detail on what the thought process was while deciding on changes needed to balance the Healers?


吉田氏： ヒールを極力せずに攻撃に回すというのが、ヒーラー本来の遊び方とは違うだろうなというところがあって、今回それぞれの特徴は活かしたまま、改めてヒーラー3ジョブの横並び調整を行ないました。もともとコンテンツのクリア自体はどのヒーラーを使っても差が出ないんですが、学者だけが極端に攻撃に寄っていて、プレーヤーのフィードバックが火力の出やすさ出にくさにどうしても寄ってしまうので、まずはきっちりとヒーラーの役割を再定義して、横並びに調整したうえで、それぞれの攻撃の仕方で特徴をつけようという風に変えました。巴術士から学者と召喚士が分かれることによって残っていた弊害部分を今回整理したことが大きいですね。単純に学者の火力を下げたいというわけではなく、ヒーラーとしてバランスを取ろうとしたと考えていただけると助かります。
Yoshida: We believe trying to heal as little as possible and DPSing instead isn’t what a Healers role should be, so we adjusted all 3 Healers to be more balanced while keeping their original characteristics alive. Content can be cleared on any of the Healers, but Scholar in particular had a much bigger toolkit for attacking and player feedback on Healers always focused on the ease or difficulty of putting out DPS numbers. This is why we wanted to precisely redefine the role a Healer has while balancing all 3 and then giving them characteristics through their attacks. A big part was that we sorted out the remainders you had as a Scholar from being an Arcanist first. Please try to look at the changes as us trying to balance Scholar as a Healer and not just trying to lower the DPS output of a Scholar.

In the end though, they did achieve what they wanted. There is actually slightly more healing to do this expansion, but it’s completely offset by the fact that they gave healers absurdly powerful ability healing tools too. The ease of difficulty for dpsing was also mentioned so hmm..

[Sylve]

https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statisti...ny&dataset=100

Where are you getting 17-19k? I see 14.8-16.8k at absolute max percentile with tanks at 9.3-9.5k.

I don't see why we're still quoting an ancient post from Yoshi. He's a nice guy and all, but he's not an encounter designer. Clearly his vision for the game and what his team are creating are two different things. His team are perfectly aware if they don't account for healer dps in enrage timers, even two subpar healers who can fit a Glare every 5 GcD's and keep Dia up would completely trivialize the fight.

Forgot to set it to Shiva alone. Those numbers from Edens Verse (All Bosses). I did say i welcomed pointing out where i messed up lol. Thanks for being civil ^^

Using the log posted though, removing the Healers puts the raid total at 81,939. So that party would only have needed to find an extra 3k~ or so DPS from the other 6 members of the party. Which equates to 500 dps per person.

Given that log is from May 3, they would almost certainly have better gear by now. Hell, even just fine tuning their play could net them that extra per person.

Are you saying that only the 6 top tank/dps players in the entire game, on their best day, are expected to be able to clear the current savage at ilvl?

Is that not the purpose of Savage? To BE that final challenge that requires you to put your best efforts into?