Optional, yet better solution for Healing roles

[LanFangHua]

Playing as an Astro since the Heavensward expansion, seeing this beautiful class complex card system getting butchered and the class becoming a White Mage clone on the next expansion, made me think a lot about the state of healing and its problems.

A special question came to mind... "what made astrologian so fun for me to play?".
Well, the awnser was easy. I was a healer, I liked to heal, but even so, that wasn\\'t enough. Turns out that healing is not enough for a healer to have fun, since, this is exactly what we are doing right now. Just healing and our 2 button dps still feels like we can get no satisfaction from it. Even expanding our dps rotation, solely, would not get rid of that feel still.

Buffs, not dots, seems to be the awnser. Think about it!

Why is a class like dancer so popular and fun to play? One of its features is that funny mini game that they have, that buff allies.
The entire identity of healers is support. Why not base their design to be flexible between those two?
They had it with astro, until they got rid of it.

Like old Astro cards, there was one who recovered mana or stamina. Right now in the game, even as a melee class, we have a mana bar, that as a monk, we don\\'t even use. Why not make the classes rely more on each other? Some healers are thankful for Mantra (which increases healing potency)
Why not make it so they also rely on their healers more for their mana and not only dps boost? Replace the "mana" bar for a stamina bar for those classes who don\\'t use it.

As healers we want to feel useful and, in my opinion, a huge part of the fun was to manage and help in whatever you can.
I kind of not agree with the direction in which this game is going, making each class more and more selfish and solely focusing on damage and less on utility. A middle ground should be found.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Garnix]

Creating dependency between players for MP management is basically the same thing as the synergy that we had in the party for enmity management before Shadowbringers.
They won't go back to this type of design.

Regarding "Buffs, not dots, seems to be the awnser."
I agree and disagree. I personally think they should diversify healers a bit on this aspect.
I don't know, they could have one healer focus on direct damages, one focus on DoTs, one focus on buffs, and one focus on a DPS resource management or something like that.
As I said in another thread, one of the main issues with healer is that they all have Glare and Dia as filler spells. If you give them all a second dia, it doesn't make anything better IMO.

[BooPoo]

I personally think they should diversify healers a bit on this aspect.
I don't know, they could have one healer focus on direct damages, one focus on DoTs, one focus on buffs, and one focus on a DPS resource management or something like that.

Yes.

10000000chaaarss

[Gemina]

I think that it is quite commonplace for someone's "solution" to healing is to go back in time. I get it. You enjoyed AST back then, and I think it is always easier to recall the positive especially when nostalgia comes in. If you turn over some mental stones though, you might recall that there were a TON of problems with healing back then. The gripes were non stop, and it was late in SB that the devs told us they were looking into healing. AST was crazy broken back then. This wasn't because of their cards per se, but because of their utility. AST back then quite possibly had more utility by itself than all of the current jobs in ShB combined.

I think from their perspective they did fix/balance healers. They intentionally made healer DPS the way it is. I have no doubt that they encourage healers to contribute to the damage pool, but they want healers focused on repairing damage. I am quite positive that when healers tunnel vision, or leave dead players on the floor, it drives these guys nuts. It could even be possible that players doing that yesteryear is what lead to healer DPS as is today.

My question for you is, if a huge part of the fun was to help with whatever you can, then what's the problem? There is nothing stopping you from doing that now. Losing job synergy was this dev team's response to players having particular compositions in endgame, and they want all jobs to be relevant. In order to do that, they all have to have selfish mechanics with their skills and a certain amount of homogenization within their respective roles.

In close, I feel we ARE on the middle ground. The game, generally speaking is put together quite well, and it is very enjoyable to play in the various content it offers the playerbase. But there are areas to improve, and this is a good thing; as this team should always be aiming to improve the game. However, their idea of improving the game is not by going backwards. They have other aspirations.

[GrimGale]

I think from their perspective they did fix/balance healers. They intentionally made healer DPS the way it is. I have no doubt that they encourage healers to contribute to the damage pool, but they want healers focused on repairing damage. I am quite positive that when healers tunnel vision, or leave dead players on the floor, it drives these guys nuts. It could even be possible that players doing that yesteryear is what lead to healer DPS as is today.

If that's the case then its a horrible solution.

"SOME healers tunnelvision, therefore we should make ALL healers pay for that."

They would never approach "ice" mages that way, they would not approach floor dragoons that way.
DPS get constant reworks to streamline and maximize their engagement. (Arguably I know, but at least they give them attention), while healers and maybe tanks see their kits dumbed down to their barebone buttons.

They want us focused on healing damage and yet they barely give us damage to heal.

[NobleWinter]

Im not understanding what you mean by middle ground. What exactly are healers in the middle of? Did we have extreme dps rotations before and now we're halfway between that and no dps at all? We currently have healing kits bloated beyond belief but having tools to prevent wipes and deaths doesn't automatically make anyone a better healer or cause tunnel vision to cease. Duty Finder abounds with healers completely clueless how to use their kits and willfully using them wrong even after all the helpful tips you could possibly offer. The state of healers and the gradual transition of skills doesn't seem like any kind of middle ground so much as a general dumbing down. Healer dps is easier than ever. Instant burst healing options are available to every healer too. Its just all around easier, but it definitely doesn't address the general lack of skill, effort, or attention from the player base. The one thing we need more than anything is grades or ratings at the end of duties to gauge performance. If a healer who stands around doing nothing until they need to heal got an F rating for participating in a duty they would know that more is required of them. If leaving people dead for extended amounts of time affected our healer rating more people would hardcast a revive. If managing MP well part of the rating Lucid Dreaming would be pressed on cooldown by anyone trying to get better scores. Maybe tie Achivements, Minions, and Mounts to high acores to encourage better play. A lot of people claim to be great players because they complete duties but without any kind of feedback bad players will always be bad players no matter what happens to the toolkit.

[Aword3213]

If that's the case then its a horrible solution.

"SOME healers tunnelvision, therefore we should make ALL healers pay for that."

They would never approach "ice" mages that way, they would not approach floor dragoons that way.
DPS get constant reworks to streamline and maximize their engagement. (Arguably I know, but at least they give them attention), while healers and maybe tanks see their kits dumbed down to their barebone buttons.

They want us focused on healing damage and yet they barely give us damage to heal.

is it "pay" ,or rather, punishment if the current dps contribution from the healers meets the desired goal set by developers?

Let's say they want healers to contribute 20% of total dps in a fight. They can either make healers do dps rotations to achieve that, or give healers that 1 button spam to meet the same goal. I definitely prefer the former, and I believe most people here in this forum would choose the same. Unfortunately, the developers chose the latter. Maybe developers don't see it as punishment, but as a reward for having to heal the party.

The problem I have when I see threads complaining about jobs are not about reasons, because I agree with them mostly, but the perspectives of view. Like many people want SE to fix WHM, SCH, DRK, etc. However, if a job is working as intended, then apparently there's nothing for developers to fix. Is it punishment if it was designed as a reward? I know some people like 1 button spam because they can still contribute sufficient dps without worrying about rotations. I think our complaints about jobs are no longer about the kits themselves anymore, but the perspective of how the roles should be played.

[Misutoraru]

Buffs, not dots, seems to be the awnser. Think about it!

Have my support
AST is the first Heal role I am interest in, have it go through MSQ from HW to SB, i enjoy my ability to buff teammate, managing my MP.
HW AST is definitely the most enjoyable AST I have ever play. I don’t care if they add more dps skill on SCH. But out identity as AST have been the ability to buff our teammate when we first introduce to FFXIV

[Sebazy]

I keep suggesting this repeatedly. Diversifying the jobs within the role makes so much sense to appease the different angles various people want healers to go in and it fits right in with the lore and history of the jobs. IMO the big holdup is that SE are somewhere between being unwilling or unable to put the time and effort into implementing and tuning something like this. Healers have historically been rushed with far too little testing and tuning done for expansions and I’ll be surprised if Endwalker changes that (Sadge allowing).

[GrimGale]

is it "pay" ,or rather, punishment if the current dps contribution from the healers meets the desired goal set by developers?

Let's say they want healers to contribute 20% of total dps in a fight. They can either make healers do dps rotations to achieve that, or give healers that 1 button spam to meet the same goal. I definitely prefer the former, and I believe most people here in this forum would choose the same. Unfortunately, the developers chose the latter. Maybe developers don't see it as punishment, but as a reward for having to heal the party.

The problem I have when I see threads complaining about jobs are not about reasons, because I agree with them mostly, but the perspectives of view. Like many people want SE to fix WHM, SCH, DRK, etc. However, if a job is working as intended, then apparently there's nothing for developers to fix. Is it punishment if it was designed as a reward? I know some people like 1 button spam because they can still contribute sufficient dps without worrying about rotations. I think our complaints about jobs are no longer about the kits themselves anymore, but the perspective of how the roles should be played.

Devs have given themselves enough design space to allow almost anything, considering the healing requirements for most content.

How healers should be played is a matter of optimization and common sense based on the system the devs have made. It's not a matter of capricious gamers wanting to enforce some sort of imperative dps model they have just made up.

I agree that meta and number crunching can be detrimental to "fun".
But the opposite is also true. If your abilities become so tediously inconsequential that you barely need them or barely feel the need to use them, that also kills the fantasy of a role or a class.

We healers want to feel useful. We want to feel like our position matters. We want the other players to acknowledge our contribution, something that is becoming rarer in this particular role as the importance of healing and support keeps getting diminished so to allow anybody an easy access.

One button spam is just the consequence of this need for ease of access. I don't think devs want healers to focus on healing.

I think they just want them to be easy.