Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[ItMe]

To be honest, I think I'm seeing more "bad" healers anymore BECAUSE of how accessible they have become. The ones who decided to pick up the role and tough it out prior to Shadowbringers were usually the healers I'd want in my party, because they were largely forced to learn to get much of anywhere, because mediocre play really didn't get them very far. Far enough I suppose, but they were quickly sorted in Extreme, Savage and up. Now? Anyone with even just half a brain cell can pick up a healer and heal, but that doesn't make them better if they keep eating mechanics they shouldn't be. There has always been bad players in any job of every role, that much is true. But I think some of that comes down to how easy it is to pick up a job and go on a dime.

I wonder how different things would be if you could only enjoy gear progression and raise your ilvl by playing the job you're gearing up.
Tomes let you gear anything, and the coffer system they use in Savage now is very friendly but just exacerbated this.

If it were harder to gear up your side jobs I wonder how many sub-par part time healers (guilty) would disappear (not that I think this would necessarily be a good thing).

[Vahlnir]

I wonder how different things would be if you could only enjoy gear progression and raise your ilvl by playing the job you're gearing up.
Tomes let you gear anything, and the coffer system they use in Savage now is very friendly but just exacerbated this.

If it were harder to gear up your side jobs I wonder how many sub-par part time healers (guilty) would disappear (not that I think this would necessarily be a good thing).

It's hard to say, really. Personally, I don't see gearing being part of the problem. It doesn't matter what job someone is gearing up. They could have the best gear in the world and still be...well, sub par. This isn't a healer only issue. It can happen with any job in any role. I think the healer changes made with Shadowbringers are responsible for what we are seeing now. It just took some time to manifest, and even longer to show itself semi regularly as some long time healers have abandoned the role while new healers take their place. Maybe eventually things will even back out. Time will tell. I think addressing what healers have been complaining about since Shadowbringers launch would go a long way. Sadly, any big changes will likely be made only at the start of the next expansion, provided any changes are made at all. It's just going to be a bit of a bumpy ride until then for everyone.

[ItMe]

It's hard to say, really. Personally, I don't see gearing being part of the problem. It doesn't matter what job someone is gearing up. They could have the best gear in the world and still be...well, sub par. This isn't a healer only issue. It can happen with any job in any role. I think the healer changes made with Shadowbringers are responsible for what we are seeing now. It just took some time to manifest, and even longer to show itself semi regularly as some long time healers have abandoned the role while new healers take their place.

Right on.
They're more approachable so people feel more comfortable using difficult content to push themself and train above their weight class... and because gear is so accessible they've got the ilvl to make it in to things they should be working up to.

[Recon1o6]

gearing makes a notable difference. The more you gear, the less you need to heal and more time is spent spamming broil/malefic/glare

its a contributing factor to why healers atm are bored. Our downtime increases through gearing and skill at a fight. What do we do? press 1 key for most of it

[ForteNightshade]

Right on.
They're more approachable so people feel more comfortable using difficult content to push themself and train above their weight class... and because gear is so accessible they've got the ilvl to make it in to things they should be working up to.

To be honest, I doubt it would have any real impact. Say you could only obtain i530 from Savage and there weren't any tome alternative. i530 is Savage exclusive. Adding to this, they made it so loot was personalized and only gave you gear for the job you played. I suspect the former would not only anger a lot of people but disincentive Savage for a good chunk of them. While the latter just means now people go on undergeared jobs in PF. The one benefit of the current loot system is you can play you're higher geared job for an easier clear. If I can only gear Dragoon by playing Dragoon. Then I have no reason to play my BiS Warrior even if the drop needs a tank.

[Masked-dingus]

To be honest, I doubt it would have any real impact. Say you could only obtain i530 from Savage and there weren't any tome alternative. i530 is Savage exclusive. Adding to this, they made it so loot was personalized and only gave you gear for the job you played. I suspect the former would not only anger a lot of people but disincentive Savage for a good chunk of them. While the latter just means now people go on undergeared jobs in PF. The one benefit of the current loot system is you can play you're higher geared job for an easier clear. If I can only gear Dragoon by playing Dragoon. Then I have no reason to play my BiS Warrior even if the drop needs a tank.

I think i would enjoy trying things that way, like if there was a clear separation between tome gears and savage gears, i tend to think that rather than trying to make everything accessible for everyone ( wich is probably helping the fact that people wanting harder stuff, points fingers at the more casual ones ), this game should have content for every type of player, and understand that it's ok for a player to tell himself '' ok savage is too hard for me, then i'll focus on other content ''

I don't think they should me hooegeinizing everything the way they, it creates more issues than solving some, but that's only my personnal thought

[Recon1o6]

looking back at this thread, healers definately need looking at, overall though, the entire job design philosphy needs to change. Away from homogeny and balance, more towards uniqueness and fun
Other than pld and blm, every other job has been base breaking at best till 5.4 monk

Jobs almost universally have 3 or more of the following: clipping problems, poor levelling, weak/nonexistent utility, low skill ceiling, excessively homogenised playstyles, key/iconic job skills deleted, actions bumped up an absurd amount of levels, most new abilities only returned/edited old ones, excessive spamming

or if you want some specifics

Bard won't get their songs back "because they would be unbalanced"- a core part of its identity and playstyle for years is unbalanced?
Dark extremely homogenised to the point of playing almost completely like another job "so we could balance it" built with paladin's mistakes from HW. Devs apparently happy with it
Summoner is such a clunky if powerful mess that its getting looked at again for 6.0
Scholar having a key part of its kit, energy drain removed at launch- a core part of its kit, for balance and "pure healer" mentality that doesnt work
Monk taking years to get to an acceptable state at 5.4 because dev stubborness over GL
Machinist had ping problems and an unfun gauge. So they added a second gauge and more spam resulting in a broken base
Whm still hasn't had its problems from Hw fixed and has major clipping issues

[Dogempire]

It still amazes me that Healers doesn't have abilities to help that party stay alive. Look at some common raid mechanics. Why not give healer a ability to reduce knockback or increase movement speed? Stuff like this would help reduce death which, if you think about it, is the role of a Healer.

I'd rather they gave something like that to ranged jobs considering they're also suffering from having their support utility removed but still have the lowest damage

[EtherRose]

It still amazes me that Healers doesn't have abilities to help that party stay alive. Look at some common raid mechanics. Why not give healer a ability to reduce knockback or increase movement speed? Stuff like this would help reduce death which, if you think about it, is the role of a Healer.

I can't take you seriously as i hope this comment is sarcastic. "Don't have abilities that help keep the party alive". What? I guess healers don't heal anymore in general. All healers have esuna and rescue. White Mage has Temperance. Scholar has Adloquium, Succor, Fey Illumination and Sacred Soil. Astrologian has Card Buffs, Aspected Benefic, Aspected Helios, Divination, etc. The skills listed above are DMG Reduction, DMG Buffs**(Astro), shields and you guessed it, healing. Which keep the party.... alive.

Reduced Knockback and increased movement speed? Each job has an immunity skill for knockback and we all have sprint.

[GrimGale]

I can't take you seriously as i hope this comment is sarcastic. "Don't have abilities that help keep the party alive". What? I guess healers don't heal anymore in general. All healers have esuna and rescue. White Mage has Temperance. Scholar has Adloquium, Succor, Fey Illumination and Sacred Soil. Astrologian has Card Buffs, Aspected Benefic, Aspected Helios, Divination, etc. The skills listed above are DMG Reduction, DMG Buffs**(Astro), shields and you guessed it, healing. Which keep the party.... alive.

Reduced Knockback and increased movement speed? Each job has an immunity skill for knockback and we all have sprint.

I think he is referring to abilities to counter one-shot mechanics.