Why is the healer class basically a one spell dps class?

[Deceptus]

You here when they added the Lily job gauge to White Mage in Stormblood and everyone trashed on it and the Lilies remained useless for almost the entire expansion even after loads and loads of people complaining how bad they were? They totally listen to feedback alright.

For anyone who doesn't know just how bad Lilies were for a huge portion of Stormblood: You had a 20% chance upon using Cure 1 or Cure 2 to generate one Lily. Divine Benison was locked behind getting at least 1 lily. Lilies were consumed upon using certain healing cooldowns and lowered their cooldowns by a percentage. People complained constantly how badly they were only to finally be changed late Stormblood. Plenary Indulgence was equally as bad but is a whole other can of worms.

Now you see why I have a pessimistic outlook on healer design, reworks and healer changes.

And then those same developers deleted SCH's energy drain without compensating elsewhere. Energy drain was the SCH stack dump when healing wasn't required and was used to build fairy gauge.

The devs have changed / added multiple systems without properly considering their ramifications or how they'll actually be played in game.

It seems to be a very whack-a-mole approach IMHO.

- Perhaps the most outright laughable example is when Yoshida openly acknowledged they weren't balancing Bard and Machinist with Piercing in mind despite Bard having such a massive power creep that even after nerfing Piercing by 50% going from Heavensward to Stormblood, it still remained the strongest DPS in Alphascape.

Even more laughable? In Shadowbringer press / media tour Yoshi-P said "He doesn't like taking away abilities from jobs" ( in relation to RDM)

Yoshi-P on Red Mages (2 part GIF):



Meanwhile on Scholar

[Maltothoris]

You here when they added the Lily job gauge to White Mage in Stormblood and everyone trashed on it and the Lilies remained useless for almost the entire expansion even after loads and loads of people complaining how bad they were? They totally listen to feedback alright.

For anyone who doesn't know just how bad Lilies were for a huge portion of Stormblood: You had a 20% chance upon using Cure 1 or Cure 2 to generate one Lily. Divine Benison was locked behind getting at least 1 lily. Lilies were consumed upon using certain healing cooldowns and lowered their cooldowns by a percentage. People complained constantly how badly they were only to finally be changed late Stormblood. Plenary Indulgence was equally as bad but is a whole other can of worms.

Now you see why I have a pessimistic outlook on healer design, reworks and healer changes.

Only correction I want to make sure was that Cure 2 was changed to 100 percent before release because the negative press that they got from the media tour concerning that and cure 1 to 50 percent chance but this made cure 1 moot so they changed that to 100 percent in either patch 4.05 or 4.07 think it was the earlier one. And bension got changed in 4.2 which was to me them admitting defeat to the whole lily system, Don't forget they never even changed the lvl 78 trait which was the 20 percent chance that a crit cure 1 or cure 2 would lower assize or asylum's cd by 5 seconds so you had a proc on a proc chance so basically 2-3 percent chance of it happening. Instead of trying to do anything with it they just outright super buffed assize to make up for it but too little too late and the same for the enmity changes that people were asking for 5-6 years at that point.

Of course given that fights were scripted, it still mean that the effect of the lillies were moot overall.

[ForteNightshade]

Why is there this attitude that devs don't know or can't design the game? Has it occurred to you that this is what the majority of players wanted?

Because of player feedback over the years, this is what the current game is a reflection of.

Because we have a litany of evidence they often ignore how the playerbase actually interacts with their systems or stubbornly cling to a job design nobody likes. Several others have highlighted the laughable introduction of White Mage's Lily gauge. So I'll provide some other standout examples.

- Monk was notoriously criticised throughout all of Stormblood; primarily the slow effect on Riddle of Fire, how useless Fist Stances were and the mess of RNG that was Charka stacks. Come Shadowbringers, they literally changed nothing despite citing Monk as their most improved job going into the expansion. The backlash was so immense, they buffed Monk to kingdom come and removed the slow on Riddle in five weeks. It took the playerbase outright refusing to play Monk before they finally listened. And the job is still a complete mess of broken ideas they've clung to since Heavensward.

- Dark Knight languished in obscurity for most of Stormblood due to being completely inferior to both its counterparts. It stood as the only tank without AoE mitigation whereas Paladin had two. All while Paladin dealt noticeably higher damage. Warrior, of course, remained King. In fact, it took them four years to finally end Warrior's reign as Godking super tank.

- Perhaps the most outright laughable example is when Yoshida openly acknowledged they weren't balancing Bard and Machinist with Piercing in mind despite Bard having such a massive power creep that even after nerfing Piercing by 50% going from Heavensward to Stormblood, it still remained the strongest DPS in Alphascape.

Suffice it to say... they don't have the best track record.

[Crushnight]

I have a gut feel that if devs added new content that forces healers to be more busy healing, using both GCD and OGCDs to heal, the playerbase is going to complain about not being able to dps as a healer.

Nah if they actually did that, the complaints would be.

"Content is too hard I can't handle the output on damage to the party"

Basically the people who struggle with 1 DoT and 1 nuke now would be the ones who be adversely affected except it's their primary duty not their secondary duty that is giving them trouble so they can't hide behind being a Selphie thinking they are doing a good enough job.

[Ayche]

Glare spam is economical.

Anyone can do the experiment of going to Bozja, chugging the Savior juice and slotting in some Lost healing spells. Then you go from CE to CE, acting as true DPS healer. And while an interesting experience, it can also be one of frustration because sticking to a strict rotation and being available on demand to heal the whole party with 1-2 GCDs of heals do not mix together. That is the key to it, Glare spam can be interrupted with no penalty at any cost, to save whoever just ate some raid mechanic to the face. So an "actual" DPS rotation does not fit into the healing lifestyle.

[AikenDrum]

Anyone can do the experiment of going to Bozja, chugging the Savior juice and slotting in some Lost healing spells. Then you go from CE to CE, acting as true DPS healer. And while an interesting experience, it can also be one of frustration because sticking to a strict rotation and being available on demand to heal the whole party with 1-2 GCDs of heals do not mix together.

What? This works brilliant on rdm.

[Ayche]

What? This works brilliant on rdm.

Isn't that because RDM does not really have a rotation, but priority rules it follows? So it can stop to do a healer duty and not lose as much as something like BLM would lose if they were interrupted for let's say 5 seconds or more.
But I cannot really speak for both BLM or RDM, I have not played both to max level.
I guess Summoner too could find a moment between Bahamut and Phoenix to do healing duty, but it would be kinda awkward to pop either and then realize that I need to go heal someone because they got hit by raid boss. If I am an actual healer, Glare is a Glare is a Glare. Since they are all equal in contribution, I do not need to worry about missing out on an extra glare.

[AikenDrum]

Isn't that because RDM does not really have a rotation, but priority rules it follows? So it can stop to do a healer duty and not lose as much as something like BLM would lose if they were interrupted for let's say 5 seconds or more.

hmm i dunno, planning rdm melee combo around healing isn't that much different to planning it around mechanics

[Kabooa]

hmm i dunno, planning rdm melee combo around healing isn't that much different to planning it around mechanics

You don't plan anyways.

If you're using savior, you're using lost cure 4 because it's an OGCD and is basically a full party heal per use.

[Liam_Harper]

Anyone can do the experiment of going to Bozja, chugging the Savior juice and slotting in some Lost healing spells. Then you go from CE to CE, acting as true DPS healer. And while an interesting experience, it can also be one of frustration because sticking to a strict rotation and being available on demand to heal the whole party with 1-2 GCDs of heals do not mix together. That is the key to it, Glare spam can be interrupted with no penalty at any cost, to save whoever just ate some raid mechanic to the face. So an "actual" DPS rotation does not fit into the healing lifestyle.

Why go to extremes to make an example? There is a massive difference between a full fledged dps rotation and spamming a single button. No one's asking to have a full heal toolkit plus an entire dps toolkit, but an in-between would be great.

There are plenty of ways to do it while being able to fit healing in. Combos don't have to break if you heal, look at how forgiving Dancer combos are for example. You can have several procs that could open weave windows that are ideal for oGCD healing. An extra DoT. A higher MP instant cast Glare/Broil for weave. Seraph Strike. More aoe. Lots of ideas they could try.

Their design philosophy wouldn't change either. If you just run Normal and MSQ, healbot and don't do much dps it doesn't even affect you, just do what you normally do. It's just something extra for the players who have learned the class.