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

[Crushnight]

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.

Can tell you now, no self respecting Ast wished their dps rotation would be given to Whm and Sch, Ast may have had something to keep it busy to slow down the monotony but Whm certainly didn't and still doesn't, while Sch had it's thing that keeped it busy removed.

I still can't forget that Sch had the best pet system(responsiveness etc) back in SB and they actively made it worse in ShB rather than improving Smn's pet system to be on Sch's level.

[Recon1o6]

even ast's wanted their rotation improved. Remember we had 2 dots and 2 attacks and gravity back in hw (Combust 2 had a cast time and Combust 1 was separate and instant) and in SB we got lowered to 1/1 but gained lord of crowns and earthly star as ogcd attacks. Now we have 1 of each and gravity

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.

Really? lets examine the evidence.

No player asked for the excessive homogenisation in shb
No monk demanded a broken job or more useless clutter. The devs ended up going back to square 1 in 5.4 because they never thought about what players actually want from monk.
No white mages wanted to get reduced to chucking rocks in sb, nor have their elements removed in shb turning them into a pure healer
No scholar asked for selene to get deleted and their dots removed and shields neutered, turning them into a pure healer
No astro requested their time magic deleted, cards reduced to requiring a parser, all balance cards and come 6.0 nocturnal deleted, turning them into a pure healer white mage with a coin flip
No dark knight asked to be turned into warrior in shb nor all the good uses of dark arts in hw removed in sb
No dps asked for bard to get neutered and machinist still has ping issues
Not a single person every expansion asks for skills to be moved higher in the levelling tree with a new coat of paint leaving an increasingly large amount of levels a chore.
Nobody asked for SHB to be easier and "accessible" given SB was widely seen as very easy with barely any challenge outside of suzaku TGcid and tsuki
No player asked for glamour to still favour tanks by miles

[IceBlueNinja]

even ast's wanted their rotation improved. Remember we had 2 dots and 2 attacks and gravity back in hw (Combust 2 had a cast time and Combust 1 was separate and instant) and in SB we got lowered to 1/1 but gained lord of crowns and earthly star as ogcd attacks. Now we have 1 of each and gravity

gravity while being fast I wish it had something like slow or heavy. holy has stun and you dont have to look at something to use it. art of war is spammy and can be use while moving which is nice while tank pulls entire room It be nice if they touch up gravity. I tend to no lies be less willing on using gravity vs art of war or holy, also kinda why I miss old old speed where all spells was 50% less which made even res less taxing sure our spells are less expensive now yet at times I feel it was better off keeping old light and simply have draw giving 10% MP back and reduce draw cd to about 15secs would be better vs spell reduce mp cost. Example old light speed would put aspect helios 500 dirunal to 250 vs the flat 400 of this asp helios we have now. It kind feels some how we got cheated yet its at the same time its still working out fine currently for me lol. Even before mp reduction came I never really had a issue managing mp unless a very bad run/prog and needed intense chain heal/res.

[NorthernLadMSP]

The devs don't care about healers at all. It's so obvious. I literally just got an email asking me to vote for my favorite Endwalker reveal (from stages to male Viera to the new raids). Sage isn't even an option. Oh, but you can bet Reaper is.

[Maltothoris]

The devs don't care about healers at all. It's so obvious. I literally just got an email asking me to vote for my favorite Endwalker reveal (from stages to male Viera to the new raids). Sage isn't even an option. Oh, but you can bet Reaper is.

This was relation to the digital fanfest and SAGE was revealed before that. However, the fact they didn’t release a poll after that announcement is kinda telling.

[technole]

SHb will end where all three healers ended up the most balanced it has ever been in this game. Let's go back a little bit where White Mage was laughing stock of the community at the end of HW and beginning of Stormblood with the atrocious confession stacks tied to Cure/Cure II. Astro just kept getting its peg lowered since the HW buff, but it was never in a bad position, MP getting tied to cards was something we always wanted from day one and that allowed fixing party memes. Scholar had QoL things, but it was never in a poor state.

With that they upped the ante on end-game savage healing this go around. If you were a healer you had your pick of raid groups to join, raid ads everywhere looking for a healer. E12S party finders always had the healer slots last to fill, some waited hours. People just didn't want to heal or should I say learn to heal that fight. It's a handful, but fulfilling as well.

There will likely be a healer resurgence in 6.0, people always want to try new jobs and sometimes make a drastic main change

Of course be prepared for the usual a lot of subpar healers too since they are changing the meta with pure/barrier healing and how they want healers to do more. When Dark Knight arrived a lot of red DPS that were not good at the game tried to tank, with mixed results.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Yah SCH plays so boring now...I actually hate it. Went from my favorite to worst. The ridiculous notion of a "pure healer" needs to go away forever. We waited. We tried it. It sucks.

Yep, this 100%. It was always my favorite job in the game, and I barely play it anymore.

[Eclesis]

Yeah it doesn't have to be DPS, the point is agency - something you do proactively on your own rather than reactively when someone loses HP, whether that was SCH's dot management or AST's cards back in SB; WHM needed more in this department, not less. Unlike the current cards SB cards allowed you to choose how to play on your own initiative, rather than having the system insist you do certain things like buff that guy who stood in the fire and died 3 times because they're the only ranged (with a buff which, TBH, is completely unnoticeable and irrelevant unless you're running a parser, outside of racing DPS checks in Savage). Having some degree of agency in how and when you do things, and being able to see the results, makes cleaning up after goofs tolerable. Merely being a passive healbot DPS accessory should not be the sole focus of the job.

[NYCLouisGamer]

...Unlike the current cards SB cards allowed you to choose how to play on your own initiative, rather than having the system insist you do certain things like buff that guy who stood in the fire and died 3 times because they're the only ranged (with a buff which, TBH, is completely unnoticeable and irrelevant unless you're running a parser, outside of racing DPS checks in Savage). Having some degree of agency in how and when you do things, and being able to see the results, makes cleaning up after goofs tolerable.

The invisible nature of AST cards. We don't talk about this nearly enough. I would love some sort of persistent visual effect when a person has a card played on them, along with a noticeable game effect. It can be utility or some sort of buff other than direct damage. Cool new strategies open up if you can look at the battlefield and see who has a card on them and the nature of the card, just by looking at their character. Maybe a hasted character glows green or defense-up character glows blue? Imagine a gauge that pops up on the screen when an Astrologian alters time & space by playing a card on you.

If a banned parser is needed to appreciate receiving AST cards, something is very wrong.

[Eclesis]

If a banned parser is needed to appreciate receiving AST cards, something is very wrong.

Exactly this. Even if there were an official parser if the only feedback you get from your action is a number then it's unsatisfying from a gameplay "feel" POV. Certainly it has no right to be a core job mechanic, something more like a fire-and-forget button like Battle Litany or Mantra (see also: current BRD).

The core gameplay design for DPS jobs in this game is "if you do your job right a Cool Thing happens"; healers are missing that, it's just more Make Health Bars Go Up. Even "simple" RDM, if you do your melee combo right you get to cast Verflare/Verholy. If you balance your mana right it goes up faster. Things you can see and feel without a number telling you so. I don't touch healers anymore but I can tell when I get a card buff on a DPS job, I can even tell what card it was from the sound effects that I still remember from 2 years ago. And it doesn't matter because it makes no discernable difference to my gameplay experience whatsoever. From a DPS POV, in SB if you got a Spear on BRD or Arrow on BLM you def. noticed the effects. Certainly you noticed old Ewer, even Spire. Now? Ehhh. Where's the satisfaction in handing out buffs that are imperceptible to even the recipient, much less to you?