Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[Selova]

The only way the design for healers will ever change from what it is is if they change the way damage is dished out during encounters. Yes ogcd's are way too potent, but the reason they are is due to how scripted all the damage is where you can literally plan out all your healing just from your oGCD's alone. Unless they start baking in pulsing or consistent aoe damage throughout a entire encounter healers will continue to stay the way they are. As much as I'd like to see healers change to the point where they can efficiently spend most of their time actually healing, re-designing how damage is presented in pretty much all group content to get healers to spend more of their time actually healing probably isn't going to happen anytime soon sadly.

[Niyuka]

They cant change it because the "i dont wanna DPS as healer" crowd would go mad for STILL having to push non-healing buttons, the "I want to look cool in the logs" crowd will go insane because they suddenly have to fix mistakes of other players to a larger extent, and the playerbase as a whole, used to a very simplistic playstyle, would just quietly quit over the increased difficulty of encounters.
You have to realize, the silent majority just leaves games, sometimes suddenly, and has them die. Happens all the time, and if it happens here, I dont think SE will give the game a chance to recover instead of just dumping it. Shadowbringers post-launch is proof that there are minimal ressources invested in comparison to earlier in the games lifecycle, we are nearing the end. A re-design that increases complexity is the opposite of what mainstream game design dictates.

[Johaandr]

i honestly dont understand the AST card design....
they could have make the old card system be used in COMBAT ONLY.
And prolly nerf balance back to 3.0HW > 5% buff.

As for Scholar. Bring back Aetherflow Quickened. If they want us to use more aetherflow bring this back even tho it prolly be used more for Energy Drain.

White Mage with annoying ogcds casts.

Meh i went for Machinist even tho they got wierder.

[lulunami]

No matter how you change the healer or damage output system, the fact remains that there will always be some healers that are much more efficient than other players. The better healers will map out their strongest heals in coordination with their healer partner, tanks, and rest of party to make it safe.

Let's take for example the potency nerf to Energy Drain on SCH. That will not make good SCH use Energy Drain less. The Energy Drains they were currently using were just a gauge dump because they already planned out Sacred Soil, Excog, Lustrate, or Indomiability usage relative to the damage and other defensive abilities available from the party. This is possible because of the scripted nature of damage.

If the damage or script has a slightly more random sequence, what would happen? SCH would maybe save 1 Aetherflow stack for a Lustrate or extra Sacred Soil? It would not change much.

Better healers will always be more efficient and get more casts and optimal resource usage. Please focus on designing healing fun to play again. Fun is what matters most!

[StrykerGaming]

They cant change it because the "i dont wanna DPS as healer" crowd would go mad for STILL having to push non-healing buttons...

The answer is quite simple to have both DPS and Heals available. Make 3 of the DPS powers off-cool down too. That way, healers can contribute to the a burn phase when required or needed and not having to worry about casting DPS spells when heals are called for. When I heal, I don't like to DPS because it requires casting time. I believe my suggestion would be a QoL improvement for all healers and team mates too.

[Recon1o6]

The answer is quite simple to have both DPS and Heals available. Make 3 of the DPS powers off-cool down too. That way, healers can contribute to the a burn phase when required or needed and not having to worry about casting DPS spells when heals are called for. When I heal, I don't like to DPS because it requires casting time. I believe my suggestion would be a QoL improvement for all healers and team mates too.

ogcd damage is an idea but on WHM it would exacerbate the current problem of not enough weaving windows to play smoothly.

That said the general idea of having heals and dps buttons is completely correct.

Not one of the "healers should only heal" crowd own up to the fact they need to do damage in order to clear their job quests or msq if they didn't deal damage.

[StrykerGaming]

ogcd damage is an idea but on WHM it would exacerbate the current problem of not enough weaving windows to play smoothly.

That said the general idea of having heals and dps buttons is completely correct.

Not one of the "healers should only heal" crowd own up to the fact they need to do damage in order to clear their job quests or msq if they didn't deal damage.

I healed all the time in other games and during any raid or dungeon I DPS'd during a burn phase on the boss(es). I did; however, keep my eye on my tank as they were keeping aggro and healed as necessary. Should this not be the same way for all healers in this game too? I know I follow the same method of play so far on my WHM and SCH. Buff w/regen or equivalent, single heal/hot, cleanse as required, aoe for everyone, and DPS. Rinse and repeat. However, I do not engage in DPS when we're dealing with mobs, especially when tanks in this game love to round up 6 to 9 plus targets to tank and smash. That gets a bit trying in low level dungeons when your sycn'd down to 2 healing abilities! LOL

[Dogempire]

I healed all the time in other games and during any raid or dungeon I DPS'd during a burn phase on the boss(es). I did; however, keep my eye on my tank as they were keeping aggro and healed as necessary. Should this not be the same way for all healers in this game too? I know I follow the same method of play so far on my WHM and SCH. Buff w/regen or equivalent, single heal/hot, cleanse as required, aoe for everyone, and DPS. Rinse and repeat. However, I do not engage in DPS when we're dealing with mobs, especially when tanks in this game love to round up 6 to 9 plus targets to tank and smash. That gets a bit trying in low level dungeons when your sycn'd down to 2 healing abilities! LOL

Honestly that's pretty much one of my issues with the healer changes, I never played AST but WHM had holy which (Correct me if I'm wrong and this is new to 5.0) also counted as an AOE stun, hence making it good to AOE dps as a WHM since you'd be giving your tank several seconds of 100% mitigation with the stuns, and SCH had bane which basically meant that you could throw all your damage over time skills on one mob, spread them to all mobs, and then focus on keeping the tank up while still contributing a lot of damage to the pull from your dots ticking.

WHM still has the AOE stun, but Scholar got bane taken away and replaced with Art of Ground Slap, which is a skill I hate so much because SE basically took away our fountain pen and gave us a crayon to write with instead.

[Gemina]

I have reached a point where I have just about exhausted all my arguments pertaining to this subject. I've tried to see the devs side of things, and I've tried to see the player's side of things. Trying to add any kind of rhyme or reason to their decisions such as: ED got nerfed, but Broil got an increase, and you are casting that far more often. Or to be happy that Energy Drain causes any damage at all, places me in the realm of the unreasonable.

The devs cannot be more clear about where they want their healers. They are not fans of the mentality that optimizes Energy Drain. I believe that hoping the devs will flip the switch on this thing is lost energy. They are basically double, perhaps even triple downing on their philosophy of the pure healer and the Holy Trinity. Don't kill the messenger. This is my observation; not how I feel. How I do feel is that we either have to ship in or ship out, and I don't contest either decision.

I have at least one job in each role at max level, and feel like each role is clearly identified in their responsibility in the group, with very little overlap. The overlap is necessary though so we can solo, and the devs try to limit the use of this kind of play in a group. When I say, "overlap" think of things like how DPS is more fun when the mob's attention isn't on you; or as a tank even though you can hurt the mob and it can't kill you, you still kind of wish a BLM or someone else was around to kill this damn thing just a little faster, and you definitely want a healer if you bit off more than you can chew. And as healer you kind of don't want to solo anything. Doing so literally eliminates 90% of your kit. The game does well to disguise just how much it encourages group play as a lot of players feel it is very solo despite the massive amount of time they spend in groups.

That is a little out of scope, but in short, the devs have healers and the other roles right where they want them. Not the other way around.

[Deceptus]

The devs cannot be more clear about where they want their healers. They are not fans of the mentality that optimizes Energy Drain. I believe that hoping the devs will flip the switch on this thing is lost energy. They are basically double, perhaps even triple downing on their philosophy of the pure healer and the Holy Trinity. Don't kill the messenger. This is my observation; not how I feel. How I do feel is that we either have to ship in or ship out, and I don't contest either decision.

While I understand they WANT a pure healer role, it literally can't be done in an MMO because healers have to be able to complete the MSQ as well as other jobs.

And you need damage to do that. Sometimes a decent amount of it.

But I guess that's why SE implemented that "easy" mode of the MSQ fights.