Healers need an overhaul

[Haventale]

I am so sick of the “bwut the newbwies mwight fwind it hard if we added more dwamage skills.” Like god damnit, if you’re finding something you’re doing too hard, then go back to something easier and practice. If you can’t heal EW dungeons, then go practice ShB ones until you’re comfortable, etc.

Why the hell do SO MANY people have NO desire to learn, practice, and improve? Why do even the devs themselves think that everyone is incapable of getting better at the game? Why do they think that everyone is like, born into a static/unchanging skill level or something? It’s an insufferable excuse for actively refusing to design even remotely decent healers in an mmo. Ever since ShB I’ve honestly been wondering why this is even a trinity mmo anymore, when the devs just don’t give a shit about 1/3 of the roles.

[Nizzi]

I am so sick of the “bwut the newbwies mwight fwind it hard if we added more dwamage skills.” Like god damnit, if you’re finding something you’re doing too hard, then go back to something easier and practice. If you can’t heal EW dungeons, then go practice ShB ones until you’re comfortable, etc.

Why the hell do SO MANY people have NO desire to learn, practice, and improve? Why do even the devs themselves think that everyone is incapable of getting better at the game? Why do they think that everyone is like, born into a static/unchanging skill level or something? It’s an insufferable excuse for actively refusing to design even remotely decent healers in an mmo. Ever since ShB I’ve honestly been wondering why this is even a trinity mmo anymore, when the devs just don’t give a shit about 1/3 of the roles.

I'm honestly just convinced the devs are the types of players who get REALLY upset when they wipe and immediately blame it on the healer and then think "I didn't see that healer casting Medica/Helios/Succor at all! They just want to DPS! This is ridiculous, don't they know they're supposed to heal?!" rather than any altruism towards "the baby healers."

[ForteNightshade]

I'm honestly just convinced the devs are the types of players who get REALLY upset when they wipe and immediately blame it on the healer and then think "I didn't see that healer casting Medica/Helios/Succor at all! They just want to DPS! This is ridiculous, don't they know they're supposed to heal?!" rather than any altruism towards "the baby healers."

I liken it more to an overprotective parent because I genuinely believe they have good intentions. Just based on interviews and Live Letters throughout the years, they often seem concerned to hear players struggling in any way whatsoever. We've seen it with Ultimate, where they seemingly don't even want to design fights of this scale because of their difficulty. I wouldn't be surprised if they see players failing mechanics and wiping several times as a failure on their part. Occasional wipes, especially day one are okay but I don't think they like seeing it more than the initial moment.

Of course, this is all conjunction. I've just long held that belief based on how much more excited they seem talking about content like Diadem, Bozja or Island Sanctuary than anything battle related. In the case of the latter, Yoshida admitted a lot of the dev team plays Harvest Moon, which Island Sanctuary is inspired from. Very few of them raid, let alone at a decent level.

Nevertheles, the broken road is paved with good intentions.

[QooEr]

I am so sick of the “bwut the newbwies mwight fwind it hard if we added more dwamage skills.” Like god damnit, if you’re finding something you’re doing too hard, then go back to something easier and practice. If you can’t heal EW dungeons, then go practice ShB ones until you’re comfortable, etc.

it also makes little sense because if you actually pay attention and look at how a new healer is playing, youll see that they dont wipe because of failing to dps. new healers don't know how or when to heal. it has nothing to do with dps. they'll use cure 1 and let the tank drop cuz theyre not using bene/asylum/tetra/assize, theyll randomly cast succor when only 1 person is low on hp and let them die to a raidwide, they'll fail to use mitigation on someone with a vuln stack, etc. only a way more experienced healer that starts to take risks lets people accidentally die to unavoidable damage because maybe they thought the heal they used was enough, or maybe they were a bit late on the press, but by that point that healer is no longer a newbie and they can recognize their mistake.

and that's OK. its a learning experience. however its all tied to situational awareness and the sheer amount of healing buttons there are. why was the solution then to get rid of dps skills when they werent the culprit?

they should instead get rid of weak and useless healing skills. if you want people not to fail youre better off removing the bad options. why is cure1 still even a thing when its probably the biggest reason new healers let tanks die? why do they nerf scholars fairy every expansion when its a safety cushion? why do they keep adding more ogcd heals when newbies never even touch those? they should instead make dps reward players with healing so people feel safer.

they removed none of the newbie pitfalls and all of what made mastery rewarding.

[ty_taurus]

it also makes little sense because if you actually pay attention and look at how a new healer is playing, youll see that they dont wipe because of failing to dps. new healers don't know how or when to heal. it has nothing to do with dps. they'll use cure 1 and let the tank drop cuz theyre not using bene/asylum/tetra/assize, theyll randomly cast succor when only 1 person is low on hp and let them die to a raidwide, they'll fail to use mitigation on someone with a vuln stack, etc. only a way more experienced healer that starts to take risks lets people accidentally die to unavoidable damage because maybe they thought the heal they used was enough, or maybe they were a bit late on the press, but by that point that healer is no longer a newbie and they can recognize their mistake.

and that's OK. its a learning experience. however its all tied to situational awareness and the sheer amount of healing buttons there are. why was the solution then to get rid of dps skills when they werent the culprit?

they should instead get rid of weak and useless healing skills. if you want people not to fail youre better off removing the bad options. why is cure1 still even a thing when its probably the biggest reason new healers let tanks die? why do they nerf scholars fairy every expansion when its a safety cushion? why do they keep adding more ogcd heals when newbies never even touch those? they should instead make dps reward players with healing so people feel safer.

they removed none of the newbie pitfalls and all of what made mastery rewarding.

Something I've been saying for a while is that GCD healing is often used as a clutch for new or learning healers, yet they take away your DPS, eat through your MP, and don't even heal as good as OGCD heals do typically. GCD healing could afford to be far stronger to act as a safety net for inexperienced healers while skilled healers will continue to avoid them so long as they're a loss to your DPS. You could give Helios a potency of 2000 and good AST players will still use it as a last resort because if you can get through content using OGCD heals and keeping up your damage, you'll still perform better than an AST who stops to cast Helios. Not saying that's the exact solution, but you get the idea.

[Wanzzo]

I agree with Lestat.

I remember when it was necessary to reposition the fairy to prevent her from dying in combat.

Now, not even the AST cards make as much sense as before, just now knowing the color around the card to know what each card does...

I miss this kind of complexity as it was before, but I understand the reason for the changes. The game has become more friendly to newbies and casual gamers.

However, there is a side effect of this decision on other players like us.

I feel like they pushed the changes to something too simplistic. There must be a balance between the opposites and they need to understand what that point is for healers. Or else, they should expand the scope of construction possibilities of each healer job (perhaps non-linear variations beyond lv90?).

[SargeTheSeagull]

I had a minor thought after playing SGE in PvP. How cool would it be if PvP pneuma replaced eukrasian prognosis, panhaima, and pneuma in PvE. If pneuma gave everyone panhaima, was on a 30 second cooldown, you could consume panhaima with pepsis, and maybe if it had two charges I think that could be a lot of fun and would make sage feel more unique. Yeah, I’m on hopium but it’s fun to think about.

[GrimGale]

I've been playing WoW lately, and honestly healers in that game are such a breath of "fresh" air. Even thought WoW healing has a "sustain" based design, meaning you are mostly expected to constantly be casting healing spells to slowly fill up the health bars, the healer kits are designed with Downtime in mind. You have Procs, small rotations and even Damage/healing synergies. Also CC is quite important in the harder Dungeons. It really makes the 1 button spam of FFXIV's healer extremely bland and boring in comparison.

[SargeTheSeagull]

I've been playing WoW lately, and honestly healers in that game are such a breath of "fresh" air. Even thought WoW healing has a "sustain" based design, meaning you are mostly expected to constantly be casting healing spells to slowly fill up the health bars, the healer kits are designed with Downtime in mind. You have Procs, small rotations and even Damage/healing synergies. Also CC is quite important in the harder Dungeons. It really makes the 1 button spam of FFXIV's healer extremely bland and boring in comparison.

Dude same. I tried disc priest bc I heard a lot of people say it was similar to sage. I WISH sage was designed like disc priest. That basic design of “75% if your healing is done through constantly dealing damage” would translate so well to 14 it’s ridiculous. Just makes sage feel like a giant missed opportunity

[LestatXero]

There are so many options they could open up healer DPS rotations with, but taking your idea, it's a no-brainer:

* AST - cards proc DPS spells.
* SGE - have more heal abilities generate addersting and have more spells to spend addersting on.
* SCH - bring back Miasma/Bane, maybe have a regen associated with it.
* WHM - Just give them more nukes. Quake, Tornado, Flood. WHM go kaboom. WHM don't need heal tie-ins.

OMG, I LOVE this idea! It's simple, ties healing into DPS for at least some of the jobs, and would provide a unique job identity for each of the healers. I especially like the idea of giving White Mage more nukes that tie back to their elemental origins which SE has moved away from in recent years. I always feel so jealous when I take Y'shtola as a Trust and see her casting powerful White Magic offensive spells that I never got the chance to learn even after playing the Job for the past 8 years.