Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[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.

[LalaRu]

...you won't change any of these because the playerbase at large wouldn't be able to handle it...

Seems a legit reason.
You know, between all raiders playing FF, there is some casual now and then, here and there.

Appealing hardcore raiders, casual players, and everything in the middle at the same time, is just not possible and thinking it can be done is quite foolish. Best course of action is doing things that are the best for the majority, and best for the game itself.

Yes, errors can happen and happened in the past (story locked inside savage [Coil], noct sect made useless [AST rewamp], too much hard MSQ battles [Steps of Faith]) but nothing has left unaccounted and things so far have been corrected.

So far, devs done a great job giving us a game that still rocks hard even after 10 years. I will be very careful before going all out yelling about them doing everything wrong.

[SturmChurro]

They tried to put more focus on healers actually healing instead of dpsing without actually messing with the damage received much to actually matter, so they have less to do in their down time than they did before. It was a...questionable decision to say the least after we got to see this increase in damage taken. It really isn't much different from before. The only difference between then and now is that healers are bored since SCH and AST don't have much in the way of dps spells in their toolkits while WHM is all like "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD LILY!"

Pretty much.. In the majority of content I barely have to heal. My OGCD cover most everything. Literally no point in casting things like cure 2, unless the group is really failing miserably doing mechanics. Most of them are completely worthless. Most of my WHM gameplay is pressing 1 over and over and over, literally.

[tdb]

I really can't overstate how bad OP's ideas for healers are. If there's something wrong with the dev's healer design mentality, it's EXACTLY trying to get healers to spam heals all the time rather than allowing them to have their own fleshed out DPS mechanics. Spamming cure at tons of random/extremely frequent incoming damage is just as bad as spamming glare for an entire fight and primarily using ogcds at set points, in fact it's even worse because it completely removes the ability for healers to plan when to hold/unload their ogcds and contribute to group DPS, instead leaving raw gcd healing to completely overtake their gameplay.

The problem with SCH is exactly how hard they gutted their DPS abilities, encouraging more physick spam is precisely the wrong way to try and fix them.

I'm not sure why you seem to think that "almost no need to heal at all" and "cure spam" are the only two options. I still remember how back in Stormblood Medica II was worth keeping up a lot of the time, I used strategically timed Cure IIIs to heal the party half a second after a boss's big AoE attack landed, and Medica I was a useful AoE heal when the party was more spread out. Now I mostly use Afflatus Rapture and Assize. Medica II is still occasionally useful if both of those are in cooldown. Medica I and Cure III have all but joined Cure I in the button bloat category.

[QooEr]

I'm not sure why you seem to think that "almost no need to heal at all" and "cure spam" are the only two options. I still remember how back in Stormblood Medica II was worth keeping up a lot of the time, I used strategically timed Cure IIIs to heal the party half a second after a boss's big AoE attack landed, and Medica I was a useful AoE heal when the party was more spread out. Now I mostly use Afflatus Rapture and Assize. Medica II is still occasionally useful if both of those are in cooldown. Medica I and Cure III have all but joined Cure I in the button bloat category.

ikr? its like people already forgot what healing used to be like in the past.

[Recon1o6]

Healers are bored

Where's our playstyle and identity variation? Gone
Where's the dps buttons we used to have and effectively switch between throughout every other year? Gone
Where's the strategic healing and higher incoming output players have been asking for years about? still waiting...

We are not curebots! From legacy to shb healers did dps and healing and it was held as a gold standard for healers to the point other mmos were copying it.
Trying to force us into being curebots without upping healing requirements is just making people angry and bored. Its why healers are the lowest played roles this expansion

look at all these damn threads
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Forums-as-well.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-the-ground-up
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-healer-issues

[Semirhage]

I'm not sure why you seem to think that "almost no need to heal at all" and "cure spam" are the only two options.

They're not. But Cure spamming *is* the playstyle consequence of the "pssssh just gut oGCD heals and force us to spend the majority of your GCDs healing" suggestion gestalt that's made its rounds on the forums. I mean, think about it: your oGCDs are mostly destroyed, and Medica 2 is already ticking. You're spamming something here, whether it's Cure/2, Medica, or Cure 3.

Healer GCDs quickly hit a dead-end spammy non-rotation after exhausting a few fire and forget spells in both halves of their kits, and it'll become quickly apparent if design spends too much time forcing you to lean on either one. That's the caution I personally give to anyone who thinks swapping an 80% damage uptime for 80% healing will "fix" things.

[Liam_Harper]

"We want you to use AF to oGCD heal more"

Enix: (After putting all the fairy skills into the oGCD kit, increases the dps tax to weave the increased number of oGCD's with Ruin II to 90 potency). Genius.

SCH changes are a prime example of why they need a dedicated healer designer. They're trying and you can see the intention, but they just have no clue how healers function at endgame because they don't play them. SCH mains are absolutely going to play like before, only using AF heals when strictly necessary because Energy Drain is needed to offset that Ruin II tax double weaved with fairy heals, it's still 100 potency on Bio refresh and it's a significant MP gain.

[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.

[Absurdity]

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.

Let's disregard the fact that you need damage spells to get any solo content done.


Their own encounter design DOES NOT WORK with their idea of "pure healers", simple as that.
Unless they want people to literally stand there for 60-80% of a fight and DO NOTHING.

Now someone is gonna say "but what if they increase healing requirements in savage?".
That still leaves you with the remaining 90% of content where you DO NOTHING for over half of the fights.