Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[Banriikku]

"Healing is stress/Healing is hard/... for newer players..." These are excuses that missing the point what problems new players are facing and missing the point what long term healers are facing. It feels as if most of the time people that make statements like "make healing more" dont know what this means. Look at WoW this is the direction we would go. Healing needs bee more like a interaction of the toolkit. At the moment we have disconnected healing spells and extrem strong OGCD and an extrem "in favor of DPS"-Meta for all Jobs. Healing is not hard. It is objectively not, many dps or even tanks are more complex, more demanding, etc.. I wish the healers would get more interaction with their toolkit and a simple dps-rotation or a debuf/buff mechanic. I play Sage in Savage and i can tell you, i cast on "Tony Savage" only pre pull 3 shields and after that not a single GCD heal, my cohealer (a whm) never cast a a GCD in this fight. For "Hippo" the same, for "Orange Hell" is use once a GCD in the fight- These are savage fights this should not be a thing, i use 95% of my GCD in Savage for DPS aka "1-1-1-1-1 party".

[AnotherPerson]

As a non-healer, that seems to be the differentiating factor between healer and other roles.

Another poster said:

If that's the case, why not change it so that healer gameplay does make use of GCD heals as part of the core rotation?

One way for that to happen and still adhere to the devs' desire to not stress the healers might be the BLM approach.

OGCD healing spells - very few (one or two), single target and AoE, very powerful, but on long cooldowns (no interaction with MP), used mainly for emergency rather than core rotation
GCD healing spells - core rotation, very weak to avoid overhealing and forces the use of the full rotation, single target and AoE, no MP costs, replenish MP when done in proper rotation
Offensive spells - more than OGCD healing spells but fewer than GCD healing spells, massive MP costs so you still spend more time on healing to replenish MP

And then you can have other extra bits to differentiate between the healer jobs as well as the core rotation itself be very different from job to job.

That's a terrible idea. Not only does this punish healers who aren't as good, it makes solo instances on healer immensely difficult - and at the same time, makes them take forever to defeat the enemies because of how weak your actual healing is + how expensive your offensive spells are. The goal is always to make the game more accessible. Forcing healing does nothing to solo instances and does nothing to making the game more accessible to players of varying skill levels.

The only reason why people can be bored of the current healer design is exactly because healers are very powerful + have an abundant of healing power, but have nothing to do as a result when there's no healing necessary. You don't want to nerf this aspect of healing because this affects accessibility level of varying skill levels. Similarly, the toolkit is tuned when you have a blind run and actually need the healing power to save everyone, but isn't applicable for the majority of the game after people familiarize themselves with the mechanics and have done the duty enough times to know how to dodge the AoEs.

This duality makes the healing toolkit fine, but lacking things to do when there's no healing required. As a result, it's better to introduce something that also works towards engagement when no healing is required (ergo DPS skills).

[Teno]

This BLM equivalent simply isn't feasible though. Healing simply isn't required enough to ever justify sitting in what is essentially your "Astral Fire" phase. And if you were to compare it to Umbral Ice. Well, BLM barely stays in that phase for more than 2-3 GCDs. Which is far too volatile for a healer. Hence why Cleric Stance died. You can't have a healing kit that is primarily inaccessible nor do the current encounter designs support a GCD healing focused gameplay. You'd be spending the vast majority of your time doing precisely nothing.



Healers contribute far too much damage nowadays for this to be acceptable. Even in a dungeon, it'll slow things down. With higher end content like Savage, it's downright griefing to not DPS considering both healers combined to equal more than a Samurai's DPS. The whole reason healer DPS was simplified from HW days is due to players being too afraid to DPS in lieu of being unable to heal. The devs will never implement any system that makes healing inaccessible like the days of Cleric Stance. Which is essentially what you're asking for.

DPS contribution from healers is more than PERFECTLY fine, we have been strong green dps since ARR, and that's basically what healers have always been and why people are drawn to them. What we need is a more complex rotation to reward more competent players.

But this probably won't happen since it's the opposite of what SE wants, and I guess they managed to avoid that with a one button spam gameplay. Healers are a snooze fest and people play them because they're ridiculously easy and you can semi-afk even in savage.

[Deceptus]

DPS contribution from healers is more than PERFECTLY fine, we have been strong green dps since ARR, and that's basically what healers have always been and why people are drawn to them. What we need is a more complex rotation to reward more competent players.

Healer DPS and Tank DPS have been roughly equal for a while. Not perfectly equal, but generally. But yeah, difference is, they have loads of buttons to make that happen and we have basically 1 with a 30s dot as well.

Someone elsewhere showed that a WHM would press Glare just about as many times as a PLD would auto attack during a trial run.

Really puts things into perspective.

[Punslinger]

Serious question. How is a 1-2-3 that it not interrupted by other GCD abilities different from from 1-1-1?

Let's take a look at GNB's 1-2-3. Each ability does something different, and the 2 and 3 interact with other parts of GNB's kit. The 1 is just a basic attack. The 2 gives you a self-heal and a shield, which can be passed to a party member via Heart of Stone. Need to shield someone who's about to eat damage? 1-2-HoS-3. The 3 gives you a cartridge which can be spent on Burst Strike or a Continuation Combo.

1-2-3 is not the endpoint of what a healer DPS rotation should be, and people who pretend like it is are trotting out a strawman more obvious than the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. It's a starting point. If each ability does something different, and interacts with the rest of the healer's kit in different ways, or creates resources that can be spent to fuel the eleventy dozen oGCDs Square keeps giving healers (such that using them requires some actual thought, as opposed to mindlessly mashing whichever one is off-cooldown and closest to the 1 key), or branches to different combos (like SAM's 1-5-6-1-2-3-1-4 sequence to proc all three Sen), then healer DPS can be made more interesting, and more rewarding, and better integrated into each healer's kit.

Because the way I see it, unless you completely remove GCD healing abilities to make healers play more like tanks, a 1-2-3 wouldn't work well.

That's...basically how healers are already. Good healers avoid GCD heals like the plague. And Square keeps adding oGCD heals nonstop.

Across four expansions, literally the only GCD heals that have been added to existing jobs are WHM's Afflatus lily heals. Every new WHM heal in HW was an oGCD. Every new SCH heal in HW was an oGCD. Every new WHM, SCH, and AST heal in SB was an oGCD. Every new SCH and AST heal in ShB was an oGCD. Every WHM, SCH, and AST heal in EW is an oGCD.

In seven years, AST has gone from having exactly one oGCD heal, Essential Dignity, to having eight oGCD heals: Essential Dignity, Celestial Opposition, Earthly Star, Celestial Intersection, Horoscope, Collective Unconscious, Exaltation, Macrocosmos. (And that count excludes Lightspeed, Synastry, and Neutral Sect.)

Healers already play exactly like tanks: whale on the boss for most of the fight, occasionally slap a mitigation/healing oGCD as needed. But tanks are allowed to have actual DPS rotations, and healers, for some unfathomable reason, are not.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

If you want a more engaging experience, play Duty Finder in the evenings. I've never had to pop more heal CD's as I have doing that.

[Ixon]

Healers already play exactly like tanks: whale on the boss for most of the fight, occasionally slap a mitigation/healing oGCD as needed. But tanks are allowed to have actual DPS rotations, and healers, for some unfathomable reason, are not.

Agree with the exception that both DPS and Tanks arguably play the exact same way in any content, whilst Healers do not. Whether I am in a dungeon, or a trial, or in savage raiding, I do about the same thing every time. I have a rotation that may need a minor tweak here or there, but I am still popping mitigations for tank busters, AoE's and Auto's. I MAY toss out a single target to someone who steps in the bad now and then, but that's about it. DPS have their optimal rotation that once they have got down, doesn't really change that much either, regardless of the content. Healers, on the other hand, vary more based off the players that they are matched with.

If a group is bad, the healers are the MOST affected. If I am a dps in a bad group, almost nothing changes, I just try to do as much damage as possible. If my group is bad an I am a tank, maybe I need to be more cautions of my cooldowns, throw one out one of them on an ally if needed, but other than that I try to do as much damage as I can. However a healers whole game plan might change. Bad tanks might need GCD heals if your kit runs dry, people will need to be scraped off the floor. When it comes to 8 man content more often than not a healer has to compensate more for a bad healer than a tank has to compensate for another bad tank, or dps for bad dps. This affects how they can structure healers more than tanks or dps, and personally that's where I see the disparity.

Again(I always have to repeat this -_-), I DO think healers could use more DPS options, as long as there is an understanding of why they are different, and why they need to be different. Sure these cases don't matter for statics and fights you know like the back of your hand, but until they change it, you have to balance for all content and all players.(Side note, most healer upgrades are oGCD imo because a LOT of healers HATED GCD heals, and still do, why add more what the community avidly avoids?)

[Banriikku]

Again(I always have to repeat this -_-), I DO think healers could use more DPS options, as long as there is an understanding of why they are different, and why they need to be different. Sure these cases don't matter for statics and fights you know like the back of your hand, but until they change it, you have to balance for all content and all players.(Side note, most healer upgrades are oGCD imo because a LOT of healers HATED GCD heals, and still do, why add more what the community avidly avoids?)

Simple answer to that : Because damage meta and if you are using GCD healing you are punished... SE created the meta but the community is at fault ? I disagree, healing is binary and SE created this. I have no benefit for keeping the party above the needed threshold and all that matters is dps, nothing else. If we had debuffs/buffs or healing meant something beyond reaching a certain number then i would agree. But healers dont get a "healer mount" because the world would collaps and burn and for the same reasons we dont get anything for dps or debuff/buff. "Healers having fun ? Not in my game "- SE Dev

[Liam_Harper]

If a group is bad, the healers are the MOST affected. If I am a dps in a bad group, almost nothing changes, I just try to do as much damage as possible.

Unfortunately that just boils down to "no you can't have fun with your role, because you have to babysit the group incase they mess up". I pick up a class in an MMO to engage with it and have fun. In the case of healer, that's constantly supporting the team. Not to be a standby babysitter.

There's also the fact that even if dps was far more engaging, the same rules apply as always. Stop dps if you have to hardcast heal. If everything goes messy, you switch priorities. I'll never understand this idea that engaging dps is going to tax new players, you don't have to use it if everything is going chaotic. It's for downtime.

[Ixon]

Simple answer to that : Because damage meta and if you are using GCD healing you are punished... SE created the meta but the community is at fault ? I disagree, healing is binary and SE created this. I have no benefit for keeping the party above the needed threshold and all that matters is dps, nothing else. If we had debuffs/buffs or healing meant something beyond reaching a certain number then i would agree. But healers dont get a "healer mount" because the world would collaps and burn and for the same reasons we dont get anything for dps or debuff/buff. "Healers having fun ? Not in my game "- SE Dev

SE didnt create the damage meta though, the players did. If you look back in history, damage has been the name of the game since Gordias, where the DPS check of specifically Faust was so intense that people were having their healers DPS just to help. From then on it was on a path that couldn't change back.

Rumors become stated facts that spread like wildfire. If you were a tank not in STR gear or not tanking in OT stance, you were bad. If you were a healer not DPSing, you were bad. If you GCD'd as a healer, you were bad. These aren't made up, and were real stigmas that took root back in HW. Then there was the fact that SE did NOT want to enforce healer DPS, as they knew it was a point of contention till they accepted the communities desire to be green DPS in ShB. Though in order to try to appease both the people who wanted to DPS and those that didnt as a healer, they made the DPS simple and approachable so there wasnt a main deterrent from their main job of being a healer.

Y'all can keep playing the victim card and shake in your boots at Big Bad Yoshi no wanting fun, but where healers are now is a by product of a thought process that started in HW and one that the dev team is still trying to get right. Yes, we all feel sorry for every person who chooses a healer and I commend then every instance cause it must be rough.