Do you want healers to be reworked from the ground up?

[Limonia]

Hello!

From of the discussions about the state of healers and how they desperately need a rework:
Do you rather want to have the devs change the current system but keep the core system, or completely rebuild them from the ground up? Like, change everything about the healers, how they work, how they are played, their spells,...?

This is not meant to be about what kind of new features you would like to have, or your ideas, but the general concept of healers in FFXIV and if you want to keep it or rather want it to be changed completely.

With "core system" I mean generally doing DPS as a healer when no healing is required, and prioritizing oGCDs to heal unless they are not enough.
Not the ratio between healing and DPS, or how we have so few DPS options left and homogenized healing across all healers. Just the concept of DPSing and healing when needed, having healing buffs, having shields and regen effects, having resources like lilies or Aetherflow, things like that.

What do you think?

Personally, while I agree that there is a lot wrong with healers, like 1 button DPS, or that a lot of times you don't even touch a single GCD heal. I like the system of being able to do meaningful DPS as a healer. I also like having oGCD heals. It's fun to DPS and then quickly use an oGCD heal and go back to DPSing. Just not that that's all you are ever doing, especially not with how oversimplified and boring DPSing as a healer is, even though with every expansion less healing is needed and more time you do DPS.

I also like some of the core abilities of the healers and wish they rather get expanded upon instead of being made anew completely.

[Seraphor]

I think that ground-up rework was the 5.0 one. 6.0 should build on that. I think there's room to add to what we currently have to inject that needed diversity and to improve the dps skillset.

AST doesn't really need more dps skills, it has cards for that, which can and should be tweaked. (to what degree is the question)
WHM also isn't too bad, it's only lost Aero III (and gained Misery). It hasn't improved but it's also no worse than it used to be, WHM is WHM. It spams Glare and Holy, that's what it is.
SCH needs more though. It should get back either it's 2nd DoT, or an AoE DoT, so that it becomes the DoT healer again. At the very least. Some other skill to interact with their DoTs, to replace/upgrade Ruin II or Energy Drain would be good.

Really, if all healers gain an AoE DoT, and SCH gets one extra skill or and upgrade to an existing skill that interacts with it's DoTs, then I'd say healer DPS is in a good place.


As for healer kits. I agree that there needs to be some more focus on GCD healing.
AST's Horoscope is actually a decent mechanic now, and each healer has it's own 'burst healing' skill like Neutral Sect that only applies to GCD heals.
I don't think we can ever get away from instant oGCDs though and they do have their place, and can be used for optimisation, they just need to have their potencies knocked down slightly I think.

For specific upgrades, I'd like to see WHM gain some shielding capabilities through oGCD cooldowns. Bring back Protect or even Shell as an AoE Divine Benison.
Allow AST to swap Sects on the fly, but with say a 30s cooldown when in battle, instead of not at all.
Give Eos/Selene a single target Regen skill, or just make Fey Union a bit more accessible, and then all healers are in a more equal place regarding Shields and Regens, breaking that dichotomy and making room for a fourth healer that doesn't have to worry too much about whether it's a Shield healer or a Regen healer.

[ty_taurus]

Actually, I do think they should be reworked from the ground up, and specifically, they need to have a combat designer that understands how healing currently works in Final Fantasy XIV sit down, establish several points, and rebuilt each healer with a more defined focus on how they go about healing. Right now, all healers functionally heal with the same core methodology: Survive off OGCDs as much as possible to allow for as much DPS uptime as possible. Here are the points that I think need to be recognized:

1. What is each healer's core identity, and what defines how they approach healing and how they approach DPS.
2. We need to stop pretending that RDPS isn't a core responsibility to healing, and doing so only hurts the enjoyment of healing for many players. We can also design RDPS contribution to be approach differently to appeal to different playstyles, including ones for players that want to DPS less and support more.
3. Trim the fat on the widespread accessibility of Regens and Shields as they are kind of everywhere and what they do is essentially allow for significantly more DPS uptime.

For White Mage, what I think should be established is:
- An emphasis on equal balance of healing and direct DPSing where healing fuels DPS and DPS fuels healing. We currently already see this to some degree with the lily system and it should be expanded upon.
- Trim their usage of Regens and Shields and make them more focused on high potency healing largely through GCD healing.

For Scholar, what I think should be established is:
- Restore them to being the main DPS healer by giving them a more engaging direct DPS kit and not only retain the current mentality of OGCD priority, but strengthen that interaction by developing their resource management system to make it so that skilled players can generate more OGCD heals to maintain longer DPS windows.
- Trim their usage of Regens and emphasize their usage of Shields in ways that can be utilized to extend DPS windows by turning them into OGCD actions.
- Restore identity to both Selene and Eos in a way that doesn't make one superior to the other.

For Astrologian, what I think should be established is:
- Emphasize their identity as the support healer by giving them the ability to augment party DPS through GCD buffs instead of OGCD buffs, so instead of Malefic spamming, they are instead spending more time buffing allies.
- Trim their usage of Shields and redefine how their sect system should work. Give them opportunistic Regens and delayed healing effects to compliment their "time mage" elements.
- Rework their Cards once more in a way that retains their consistency, but also restores their lore and unique functionality in a way that feels controllable.

Healer 4 should focus on adopting a system different to what we have now. There are many options they can go in, such as a predominantly ground targeting healer, a drain healer, or perhaps a healer who's RDPS contribution is largely OGCD based.

[Liam_Harper]

and specifically, they need to have a combat designer that understands how healing currently works in Final Fantasy XIV sit down, establish several points, and rebuilt each healer with a more defined focus on how they go about healing.

I think this is the most important point. It's crazy that one role doesn't even have a dedicated designer who understands and exclusively plays that role and it shows. We need a healer designer who really knows what they're doing.

How to fix healers is a tricky point. I couldn't say how to do it for sure because I'm not a developer. There are so many points to consider, the battle system, general encounter design, overall player preference, how to make it easy for new players to pick up while having enough depth to engage veterans long-term.
Full reworks are delicate. Players tend to let their ideas and fantasies run away with them and get too convoluted or come up with things that sound nice on paper but when you put it all together it would clash or feel clunky in multiple ways. We aren't developers. You see people doing full remakes of WhM when its the most popular healer in the game, this makes no sense from a development perspective and they'd be better served taking what works, adding a little to it and polishing all the bad points.

I don't think healers are terrible at core. I like oGcd's to weave and like doing decent damage if I play well. For me, the two biggest issues are the lack of and frequency of damage in most content which means we rarely need to put the full toolkit to use, and the very simple damage toolkit, along with gameplay clunkiness like how ScH's minion plays and WhM's weaving.

[Ilyrian]

You'd need to rework the entire game to 'fix' healers.

[Limonia]

I don't think healers are terrible at core. I like oGcd's to weave and like doing decent damage if I play well. For me, the two biggest issues are the lack of and frequency of damage in most content which means we rarely need to put the full toolkit to use, and the very simple damage toolkit, along with gameplay clunkiness like how ScH's minion plays and WhM's weaving.

This is what I think as well. But I'm hearing so much talk about approaching healers in a completely different way and changing everything about them in the next expansion.
I hope they fix these issues, but leave the core gameplay the way it is.

Other people say healer DPS is fine as it is though...? I don't want to press almost only Glare all the time. Even in SB we had more, because Aero II didn't last 30s like Dia, and we had Aero III. That alone made it less boring already (also Miasma and Shadow Flare).

Some people want healers to be reworked to get away from DPS being mandatory. Removing most oGCDs so that you mostly use GCDs for heals. Some even want it the other way around, and wish for ALL healing being oGCD, while all DPS is instant cast. Some want SCH have a DPS rotation, but want WHM not to, just for the sake of being the easiest job in the game. There are so many ideas others have and most times I just think 'please no'. Fix what's wrong, get someone on the team who is knowledgeable about healers, but don't reset them completely. But there are so many opinions about healers...

[Urthdigger]

I wouldn't mind a total overhaul, so long as it was to reflect how healing is actually done in this game. No amount of reworking the class themselves could change how healing is approached, that's just how it's going to be in this mechanics-driven MMO. There's no way to have healers heal as their primary interaction in this system, so they should be designed to reflect that. Make satisfying DPS options, give us alternative ways to support, etc.

[Recon1o6]

I would argue that the dev's entire job design philosophy needs a rework in addition to the current pitiful state of healers. Healers are combat medics, not hp bots. Tanks are not just dps with the big numbers on defence and hp rather than potency. All jobs should be fun to play and unique and fit for their roles in the ff14 combat system.

On the dev side of things: minimum one dev dedicated to healer roles. Focusing healer design based on how the role plays, and not how the other roles perceive it. Take feedback even when it goes against what devs think. The players use the job day in day out. They can see what's wrong as they play the damn role. Healers are first and foremost combat medics and that will never change. When a healer gets more skilled they will dps more. This is an undisputable fact.
The aesthetics of the job needs to match the healer too and equal treatment be given with regards to glamours. Not every healer is a shy girl in a robe for goodness sake. Give armour, masculine gear, modern style trenchcoats etc

Healer dps/downtime must be an equal part of each healer's role as the healing kit themselves. Ideally, both the healing side and the downtime side of each kit would be completely unique and so would the playstyle. To wit:

WHM's healing kit would be based upon regens. Regen, medica 2, asylum etc. Its downtime would be elementalist style attacks in line with conjurer: stone, aero, water. Its playstyle would be based upon minimising mp usage through self buffs or lillies, and be rewarded for doing so in the form of concentrated barrages of spells akin to how nature devastates with natural disasters yet recovers over time.

SCH's are tacticians. Their healing kit would be focused more on shields and mitigation like eye for an eye. They work with the fairy to do this. Its downtime should be debuffing for damage and its previous gradual grinder through dots- weakening the enemy through attrition, followed with a precision strike like how tactics work. Its playstyle would ideally returned to what it was- planning and managing resources (aetherflow) and the fairy

AST adapt to fate, space and time. The healing kit is flexible shields or regens, but weaker than the other two, but with the ability to manipulate the length of the time they occur. Their downtime comes with reading the cards and how they will impact. A return to having different buffs, yet reading the cards will still grant a clearer picture of the future. Their playstyle is more casting spells and buffs, then sustaining them and knowing when to switch between regen and shields, healing and damaging.

If chemist was to come along

CHM would be about big numbers. Healing is triage, big chunks of hp, tactical healing. Impactful but expensive heals. Its downtime would be surgical in nature as well, with a short combo or procs about focusing on one target, weakening their offence and damaging them with critical hits or strong damage. Its playstyle would be about combining different effects to debuff or cure the party


tldr healing styles: 1 regen, 1 shield, 1 flex, 1 big numbers
tldr for downtimes: 2 offence, 2 status based. WHM does burst damage, SCH does slower damage, AST buffs, CHM debuffs

Finally all healers should have complete kits. No more of this going 2 years with a "baseline" kit.
Conjurer is the tutorial healer, all healer jobs should have full fun kits, levelling and maxed. No more of this removing abilities to readd them later.

[elioaiko]

I don't think they would do a rework from the ground up. It's unlikely they would or can change healing to have more GCD usage. While I want to heal more, it's in the way of supporting your team, not just healing. I hate the idea of a healbot and that's all you do. It's as boring spamming Glare.

I believe that 5.0 was their attempt at breaking down the shield/regen dichotomy, resulting in a bit of backlash. But I do think they'll build on it and potentially add back some missing things in 6.0.

WHM will either stay the same with a ST DPS lily spender, some some type of AoE shield. Hopefully some movement ability or tweak to their spam cast to make weaving easier.

AST will likely stay the same or see another controversial rework that will get buffed crazy. I can see the cards being changed again considering how bad they were received in 5.0.

SCH will either get some DoTs back or they'll get some new ones. Fairy will continue to be clunky and they'll remove Energy Drain again only to add back.

[ItMe]

Whatever happens, so long as AST's main spellshave a shorter cast time than a recast time, I'll keep playing it.
Being able to put an OGCD in after every malefic / benefic / gravity / etc. is what makes that class click for me.