Healer changes

[IDontPetLalas]

I think healers need more kit interactivity (both for heal and dps) and rewards.
Just increasing incomming damage and making curebots instead of glarebots would be pointless.

Look at DPS casters : spells procs for instant casts/upgraded versions ; dots procs ; more complex/interesting job specific ressource and use. Even SMN with it's 2 button gameplay has a kind on "stance rotation" that could be made into something.

Just copy/paste :
-blm kit on whm with cure/glare instead of ice/fire
-rdm gauge on sge sith shield/dps instead of light/dark
-smn summon rotation on sch (with fairies with regen/shield/dpsbuff/mitig specs)
-ast is already busy, so possibly rdm dualcast could help them

If anything I would much rather draw inspiration from the PVP actions, some of them are somewhat similar to your idea- but they are better- as Rina just said in the post above you for example, AST has some really nice design changes, double cast is very powerful and applies to gravity, malefic, aspected benefic, and unless I'm wrong macrocosmos.

[Saefinn]

Ultimately it'll boil down to two options:
- Increase healing uptime
- Improve healing downtime

Given performance in this game is measured by rDPS, improving the healing downtime ultimately is a DPS goal. Increasing healing uptime means we can make full use of our healing kit more, because the content doesn't match our kit. Increasing healing uptime in a meaningful way would be a massive undertaking IMO, because it's not just a case of potency adjustment but one of mechanics.

I favour a combination of the two options. They can increase healing uptime in content where it's sensible to have a higher difficulty spike and healers should have to react to healer-specific mechanics. But, it's not viable to do this for all content, especially if you want it to be accessible. That's where having better DPS options comes in, because experiencec healers can break up the monotony and it's a reward mechanic for being a good healer. But it is a secondary objective that's not needed for the vast majority of content so your newbie healers and less skilled healers don't have to focus on it. And in a way, it helps resolve the "we should heal more" and "we should have better DPS options" debate, whilst I would like to use my full healing toolkit in all content I do, I know a compromise is needed for accessibility, but we need a compromise coming the other way of "give experienced healers something to do" and DPS is the way of doing that whilst respecting the game's existing design. Alternative options technically exist, like SW:TOR has, such as different forms of crowd control or like FFXI has and that's have a variety of buffs and debuffs, but these don't have much use in FFXIV's design unless those buffs and debuffs affect DPS, like AST's.

I also feel there is another problem in understanding exactly how the healer balance affects things. One perception I've seen and I think perhaps the devs share (judging by their choices) and that's "more healing actions and fewer DPS actions means less DPS focus, more healing focus" when it's actually the opposite unless the content is adjusted to match, which it isn't. There is also the complaint people have of "healers who don't heal", however, I am convinced current healer design makes that problem worse, not better. It used to be we could blame Cleric Stance and then it seems it was perceived maybe the DPS toolkit gives too much to focus on. And now with a barebones DPS kit I think I am seeing the complaint more. And I attribute this to tunnel vision, because I know I've experienced it and found other healers who have experienced it, it's those moments where people go "oh shit, I forgot I was the healer". There's two culprits for tunnel-visioning, one is the monotony of a mostly single-button spam, because repetition does that and the other is a low healing uptime.

With regards to tank healing, although my natural response as an exasperated healer main was "really? So I heal even less now?" But I don't think we should scapegoat the tank changes, especially as I know WAR's love Bloodwhetting and I actually thought of Living Dead's changes as positive ones, because a) it makes it more viable for DRK to use more and b) it removes Living Dead from the equation in healer discussions (as an advocate for more shield healing and less pure healing on shield healers, this was an issue). And it's not the real problem or the core of the problem here.

[deadman1204]

Ultimately it'll boil down to two options:
- Increase healing uptime
- Improve healing downtime

There will never be more demand for healing. The Devs view the job of the healer to facilitate everyone else playing. Therefore, nothing can be so hard that most healers cannot enable everyone else to play.

Notice how I wrote that - the healer isn't there to have fun, its there to make sure everyone else can have fun.

[Saefinn]

There will never be more demand for healing. The Devs view the job of the healer to facilitate everyone else playing. Therefore, nothing can be so hard that most healers cannot enable everyone else to play.

Notice how I wrote that - the healer isn't there to have fun, its there to make sure everyone else can have fun.

I doubt they will either, nor improve healing downtime, because they've pretty much said as such. And we are pretty much at an impasse, so unless the devs give leeway on this, then we're stuck where we are. If there's any optimism to be found, they eventually listened on MNK and MCH, however, as it stands, it's not hopeful. Which is frustrating, because giving better DPS options could alleviate a lot of the complaints about boredom because a) less experienced/confident/skilled healers don't have to do it and b) it gives something experienced healers to do when they have low healing uptime. It's a remarkably simply solution that offers so many benefits, but it seems they refuse because they don't want people to pressure said people into DPSing and that being too complicated, yet the current ToS and their clarifications would pretty much make people who try to enforce certain playstyles (like that) reportable anyway. And heck, they could do a hall of the intermediate to help teach healers more, including their philosophy, like "DPS is optional, but here's how you can practice managing it if you have the opportunity".

[MPNZ]

I'm going to just post a quickie

The best and most trusted players you know require minimal healing to no healing, which leads to extreme boredom. Especially past progression stages in high-end content. Duty Roulette is a wild card with older dungeons regularly have players that will not use CDs and literally run AV in lv1 glamour gear, which leads to random frustration and difficulty spikes between levels 41-50. AV is still on of the hardest dungeons because of this. Sitting still for six minute during a boss fight with zero incoming damage isn't hard to find in several EW, and more of them should have been like the Magus Sisters, IMO

Other notes: WHM is uncomplicated to an extreme since 2.0, AST is only engaging by being the most busy, SCH is the least tactical, and SGE just looks interesting from far away. The removal of nature based spells leaves WHM aesthetically boring and ignores it's lore too. AST lost so much of it's lore, potential, and nuance in favor of simple balance fishing, which was not helpful in AV or salvaging runs. And, since AV absolutely loves me: Balance was the second worst card to draw in the first room and for under-geared or DPS-geared tanks, which DPS are usually just not aware of at all. Basically, everything about healers feels like they're designed for non-support DPS numbers and low-skilled or new player carrying. 5.0 was just the worst, and most healers need to be completely remade at this point

It's hard not to be frustrated about HLR design, and the shortage of healers for two expansions is the result of the dev team's design philosophy. The early warning signs were literally the Physical-ranged classes, and the design calls for literally a negative skill-ceiling

[Doragan]

Glare spam is boring. It doesn't help that Glare/III looks really bad. Stone IV was legit was one of my favorite animations in the whole game. I wish we would've kept it, because not only this doesn't feel powerful when the potency is, but it looks, and feels very boring as well. Honestly, going from impactful stone crushing to a feeble light wasn't a good idea at all.

DoT uptime and Pet management was fun. Alongside old cards,it gave me a sense of accomplishment that no other game ever did. Using Silence on Ultros during o7s felt really engaging to me. Being able to Esuna everyone, outside of GCD/oGCDs. It was something to keep you engaged outside of DPS and heals, and it was incredible. Bane during dungeon was so good.

Despite their problems, I was rather satisfied about the state of the jobs in HW and SB. They all played differently. You could stat them differently as well, and more importantly, they felt distinct from eachother. Noct. AST was very different from SCH. if you didn't like how one played, you had an alternative.

Now they all feel the same. One nuke. That's really about it. And it's boring for every healer job. The coat of paint really doesn't matter.

That was a terrible decision. People that weren't using the DPS tools at the time, still aren't using them, if they're in the same playstyle. Therefore, there could be 30 DoTs to keep track of, or none at all, and these players would not care one bit. I do, though. People playing these jobs the most do care as well. I'm not saying that they should force 100% DPS uptime on healers with big kits, however they need to give us better gameplay than one button spam.
And I'm not asking for much personally. SB was good enough for me. I would like them to return to a similarly sized kit. 2-3 dots, bane, pets, real card management. And maybe a real job mechanic for White Mage. They're the most played, and frankly they deserve better than Stone/Glare spam anyway.

[SweetPete]

Well Astro is receiving major adjustments come patch 6.2 so I’m excited to see what they come up with since for now Astro is the least played healer. How are they going to draw us back to the job they destroyed in Shadowbringers/Endwalker. Major adjustments sound spicy. They said the same about summoner and oh wad it completely changed.