Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[GrimGale]

This here is the reason me and my most active friend prefer to do raids, especially new ones, as healers. Two competent healers can save a run in a way no other role can. If the double healer queue is unbearably long I might switch to RDM so I can at least make sure raises are dished out in a timely fashion and occasionally help a little bit with heals (though a single healer is more than sufficient if people don't die too much).


Inept dps will result in a slower but successful run.

Inept tank will result in more work for the healer, but the run will succeed.

Inept healer will result in wipes and a failed run.

Okay fair enough. So your solution to attract competent people to the role is to dumb it down further so that people that are interested in getting better at it will essentially go somewhere else.

I will not be told I have to pay for other healer's incompetence when accounting for boring healer design. Some healer players suck, so let's turn every healer role into a healbot, that way will definitely get through encounters.

[Vickii]

Okay fair enough. So your solution to attract competent people to the role is to dumb it down further so that people that are interested in getting better at it will essentially go somewhere else.

I will not be told I have to pay for other healer's incompetence when accounting for boring healer design. Some healer players suck, so let's turn every healer role into a healbot, that way will definitely get through encounters.

I don’t think anyone is saying dumb it down further. We’re saying not to complicate it more. Why? Because as a community healers fail with what they have now more than tanks and dps do.

[Vickii]

I don’t think anyone is saying dumb it down further. We’re saying not to complicate it more. Why? Because as a community healers fail with what they have now more than tanks and dps do.

Also it comes back to the multi job thing and the FF player base in general.

In WoW you picked priest. Your job was to heal. That is literally all you did unless you picked another job. Almost all of your skills were based around healing, at least early on. You learnt how to heal and they gradually upped the difficulty etc.

In FF anyone who does a MSQ and buys gear with tokens can show up for a savage PF as a WHM. And this game puts so much more emphasis on that player succeeding than it does anyone else.

Yes someone can casually level a MCH and jump into savage. It may stop us clearing due to an enrage or something, but it’s not going to cause a wipe every mechanic. So why complicate the job until people can do it properly?

The only way it would be a good decision to make healing harder is if they make more competent off healers/readers so that you guys are less important. Then you’d be complaining about that.

[Thoosa]

That MCH dps who jumps into savage is equally able to ruin a pull as a badly as a healer can. So they repeatedly fail mechanics causing the healers to have to raise constantly, losing MP and losing party dps. Or the MCH repeatedly wipes the group due to punishing one shot mechanics (like failing to pick up orbs or hitting their spike on E5s, for example), or the MCH has no clue about their rotation and can barely produce the DPS to beat enrage, which is particularly tight at minimum ilevel.

Dumbing down healer rotations isn’t a solution to the problem. It’s about practice and knowing your job.

[tdb]

Okay fair enough. So your solution to attract competent people to the role is to dumb it down further so that people that are interested in getting better at it will essentially go somewhere else.

I never said I wanted healers to be dumbed down. I'd love for the role to be more engaging (in a sensible way, not the "I must constantly spam cure or everyone dies" way) because it's my favorite one to play. I'd also love it if the other roles got more responsibilities and better feedback of how they perform. Actual DPS checks and split phases even in dungeons. Tanks having to work for their enmity, boss fights with adds that don't die to three GCDs from the dps. But unfortunately a game this large has to cater for the lowest common denominator so those won't happen.

[Ceasaria]

The issue is not only their "pure healer" mentality, but many other problems like inconsistencies I will enumerate here :

- For designing the healers gameplay, now lore doesn't matter.
Mostly cards from AST are completely disconnected from quests. The essence of the fairy has been severely touched too. Same about the elemental powers of WHM.
Of course, lore was the reason to put Blue Mage as limited job convinced they couldn't do a real job...

- Repose was taken from WHM to put it in the role actions.
Why Sleep from BLM didn't receive the same treatment ?

- Fluid Aura is the best joke ability and remain in WHM kit because it's tied to a quest.
Can't they just rework it already instead of removing its substance bit by bit ?

- The whole AI issue with Fairy.
I just don't get it how SE went from the old system to this new broken system.

- Adjustments are done without taking into account lvl 1-79.
We just got the example of the recent changes to Energy Drain.

- Healer kits are done without taking into account solo content.
Look at the bunch of healing actions we have and will never use.

- Healers NPC are quite the opposite of Yoshida's vision.
They dps more than they heal (I wish they could use AOE dps)

- DPS have always the right to get "rework" during an expansion.
We have already 10 different dps, and it seems better to fix one dps instead of 1-2 among our only 3 healers.

- They acknowledged it was easier to add a 4th tank to balance them, but it wasn't the case for healers ? (one of the reason we didn't get a healer)
I can't understand their logic here (especially when we could have 2 HoT healers + 2 Shields healers)...Anyways, we will see at 6.0.


Now about the initial topic, it seems the best solution they found to make their healers jobs now is fitting them into their imaginary 'pure healer" philosophy while achieving a perfect balance (without watching below Savage content) with the homogenization despite losing fun, depth, lore, complementarity, uniqueness aspects of what the healers jobs was made at their geneses.

[AceofRains]

It's kind of hilarious, how they got BLU Healing close to what people want. It's an antithesis to the 3 current healing jobs we have and it's incredibly fun in comparison.
So, what i usually do. Throw a shield pre pull. Open with my Bristle'd SoT. Depending on the incoming damage i adjust number of Pom Cures/White Wind needed. Throw more shields for the incoming AoEs. Heal with White Wind or Exuviation after said aoes. If there's a really big magical damage incoming i can pop Magic Hammer + Addle for additional mitigation. In the really healing intensive fights (hello T13) where i have to use White Wind a lot, and need some MP i can look for some safe windows to use Blood Drain to regain MP. And there's 5 OGCDs on various timers which you can weave between Pom Cures / Sonic Booms.
So, all in all BLU Healer has 4 core GCD healing spells and a lot of damage OGCDs/utility stuff. And that's more than enough to clear Savage fights.
P.S. White Wind is incredibly busted, but eh.

I could go for a nerf on White Wind. Maybe like a hard 10-20 cooldown so that not every role will abuse it. I’m hoping the 5.45 new spells will add more tools that make White Wind less favorable on non-healers. I love when I’m healing as BLU and go to use a normal Exuviation or Pom Cure while the Tanks and DPS panic cast WW before I can get a basic heal out. Also, it would go a long way if they would make it when Angel Whisper is used on Healer, you can cast it before death for an auto-life effect. Transfusion would be soooo much better.

[Granyala]

The problem is not healer design.
The problem is encounter design.

The incoming damage is simply too infrequent and too much of it is avoidable in order to keep a healer busy.

I'd rather see them buff the encounters a bit than going the WoW route and making healers feel really weak by nerfing their output to the ground.
I hate that design.

[Endariel]

They should really leave only one ST heal, one AOE heal (with or without gimmicks) and 2--3 ogcds for heal. Everything else should be either dps buttons (for rotation) or buffs/debuffs.

Currently ast has 12 abilities related to heals + neutral sect
Whm 14 + temperance
Ast 16 (including faery + both tactics)

That's twice as much as mitigation buttons for tanks

[Ultimatecalibur]

The problem is not healer design.
The problem is encounter design.

The incoming damage is simply too infrequent and too much of it is avoidable in order to keep a healer busy.

I'd rather see them buff the encounters a bit than going the WoW route and making healers feel really weak by nerfing their output to the ground.
I hate that design.

This is the problem exactly. Both healers and tanks are victim of this. Sure you can now get 3948 Tenacity, but 10.8% mitigation isn't really going to change the spells being cast by the healer.

The rule of thumb is always be casting, but there is a problem when healers are spending more time casting dps spells than healing spells.

They should really leave only one ST heal, one AOE heal (with or without gimmicks) and 2--3 ogcds for heal. Everything else should be either dps buttons (for rotation) or buffs/debuffs.

That is far to few and would make them green dps more than healers.

A low cost standard st heal spell, a high cost spike st heal spell, a gimmick heal (i.e. regen/shield), an AoE gimmick heal spell, an AoE heal spell, st cleanse and a st raise are a solid core for healers.

The problem is that the high cost spike st heal spell has become the standard heal due to fight design and near infinite mp. Why cast Cure twice (or Cure+proced Cure II) for 900 (1100) potency worth of healing for 800 (400) mp when Cure II+Glare is good enough with 700 potency worth of healing and 300 potency damage and you won't run out of MP with the total cost of 1400.

Currently ast has 12 abilities related to heals + neutral sect
Whm 14 + temperance
Ast 16 (including faery + both tactics)

That's twice as much as mitigation buttons for tanks

The tanks have around 10 to 12 "mitigation" abilities (heals, shields and damage reduction) that vary between self and party, 2 or 3 stuns/interrupts, and 3 enmity abilities. All of which play into the role fantasy. The aount of healing focused abilities is fine.