Dear Square Enix, do something with GCD healing please.

[Saefinn]

Seems like healers really need 1 hard fight where they have to heal 98% of the time with almost no opportunity to dps because you would run out of MP otherwise. I think then the complaining about more effecient heal skills that basically do the same, would vanish.

I don't think they would. It's just one fight. And not everybody would be able to do that fight, because I would say it'd highlight the problem with the approach the devs are trying to take.

For people on the high end to find the role engaging with the current design philosophy, those on the low end suffer. Because they would have to up the incoming damage to a degree the high end players are more engaged. The problem is, experiences still do their daily roulettes, they still do solo content, they still do normal raids and alliance raids and heck, your semi-casuals don't do Savage and EX that often.

We've already given lots of feedback on the healer forums on how they could avoid that problem whilst still giving high end healers an engaging enough experience where the lower end healers aren't suffering. But they have said they won't do it.

Really and truly all they need to do is:

1) Increase the healing requirement on content where it is necessary, so where you'd expect to be challenged more.
2) Accept healer downtime is a thing and mitigate it by given them more to do in that downtime.

Sadly point 2 is the thing they're refusing to do beyond what they already have for SGE & AST, which are steps in the right direction. With the devs refusing to give a better DPS kit, they only thing they can do is make the healing requirement consistent enough to keep it engaging enough to not fall into a single button spam. The balance I felt leveling SGE was practically there IMO, but everybody was undergeared and I had to work harder to get people to full and everything is still new to people. It's when people get better at the content and better geared we see that pressure on the healer get lighter and lighter, whereas I would prefer if it remained at that level. Point 2 however, acknowledges this is an eventual inevitability and gives us something to compensate and if point 1 is adhered to, then there will always be content that is engaging for those who want that challenge to their healing without it impacting people in easier content.

[SnowVix]

You know something, I'm not completely against healers doing some damage during an enrage timer, but the whole fight isn't that is it?

Yes, the whole fight is an enrage timer. The enrage timer doesn't start at the 3x raidwide into longcast, that's just the timer hitting the countdown part.

[Pandatwin]

I think the ultimate flaw in healer design in FFXIV that has lead to the issue at hand is that oGCD healing is only ever gated behind time. All resources that are required for oGCD heals, be they lilies, aetherflow, addersgall or general cooldowns, only require a set amount of time to pass before they're usable again. This is bad as it requires nothing from the healer in order for them to get these resources back again, leading to very boring downtimes spamming the same DPS button.

A solution to this would be to have healing resources be generated by specific GCD actions like DPS classes. For example: in order for a White Mage to gain a lily they have to use a set combination of GCD skills to plant, nourish and bloom the lily. These GCD skills should deal the same damage as Glare to not punish their use, but have an increased MP cost to balance overhealing.

This solution would make healer rotations not only exist, but need to be performed at a certain level to heal optimally. It emphasizes the fact that healers need to contribute to group DPS without being a 1-button spam. It also reintroduces MP as a limiting resource that would require careful management in order to succeed. It would require an overall skill increase in healers, but I think that's something most of us want here.

[Commander_Justitia]

. It would require an overall skill increase in healers, but I think that's something most of us want here.

except the devs

I wonder if they still play their game and see how trivial former semihard content has become and be like "yes that is fine, we want more players feel good about their performance, so we made everything a faceroll" idk hope they see the direction this game is heading, it already is since 2+ years