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

[Averax]

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.

TBH, i really don't understand the people who's idea of enthralling healer dps is simply to add more dots to it. Applying and maintaining dots has never been engaging gameplay for me. It's different if they proc something more exciting to use.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Gemina]

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.

That comment is not to be taken as official. That's just my own personal view formulated from my observations while playing with other healers. I don't believe SE wants to punish their healers, but they also don't want other players to suffer due to the negligence of the game's healers. Healers are responsible for contributing to the DPS pool, but they are not DPS jobs and SE cannot approach them the same way. They have a primary responsibility to cleanse, heal, and raise fallen players, and it is no doubt a challenging task to design healing in a way that allows them to do damage, but also be paying attention to their comrades. The decision to simplify DPS skills for healers was not to cause them misery, and we need to stop thinking that way. For that, I would like to withdraw that statement. It was not meant to make you feel punished.

[Raikai]

It would be nice if we had options to begin with... For example, I don't mind AST's dps rotation because the cards "minigame" is already fulfilling in regards something else to do, and it adds to the dps by buffing others. So, I'd love if they had, let's say, WHM and SGE reaching that "healer dps quota" by just having more complex dps rotations. AST and SCH reaching that quota by buffing its allies and debuffing the enemy respectively while keeping simple dps buttons... Of course the latter would need to have some kind of makeover to make this debuffing process as interesting as Cards.

but also be paying attention to their comrades.

And paying attention to the encounter mechanics which is already a huge deal, especially on Savage and above. Healers have the most difficult job there because they need to complete the encounter mechanics for everyone's survival, not just their own (like DPS and Tanks by some extent). On top of that, keep up with the healing, rezzing and optimizing their dps.