Healers need an overhaul

[currentlemon]

So here was something found on the reddit ffxiv discussion. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...ts_on_nerfing/

Again just kind of echoing obstacles in the way of some people trying to play healer.

Jesus Christ. There was stuff that I didn't even know about until it was mentioned on that reddit post. And what they said is only scratching the surface when it comes to the plethora of healer issues.

[Floortank]

Like, in what world is a 1-button spammed DPS rotation okay for ANY JOB in PVE content? Well, after playing this game for 8 years now and weathering all the various changes to the jobs I honestly think we've hit the point where healers seriously need to be redesigned.

I believe that by redesigning healers to have simple DPS rotations not unlike tanks that more people will be attracted to the role which will boost the overall health of the game. This can be done in two steps: consolidate useless healing actions and add simple rotations that easily tie back into healing. Consolidating actions is very simple to begin with: there's no need for a cure 1/2 or a medica 1/2 when these abilities should simply evolve into higher forms. All the healers have redundancy in their healing kits that could be streamlined to make room for a few DPS buttons which could even add some of these abilities back in some way, shape, or form.

So you want to go from one direct attack spell to one direct healing spell?

Your request is non sensical. Tanks have a DPS rotation because all of their actions generate enmity, a calculation based on DPS. A healer's damage just does damage, not healing. The best you're gonna get out of a DPS rotation on a healer is pulse AOE heals and resetting oGCD heals, which is exactly what you have now at no actual requirement other than time. Reducing your direct casted spell load by making you all the same sort of AOE hot healer will make you all the same, not unique from one another.

You don't know what you're asking for.

[Rilifane]

Sigh... voice my opinion and FFLogs is tossed at me...

Airight... I'll go back to lurking and keep my head down, I'll let the 96%+ DPS up time people talk.

Is that all you take from it?
It wasn't even an insult, just a bit of information to prevent a very common mistake: mixing up fflogs "active" with actual uptime. I've seen countless people think they're close to 100% uptime because they thought that's what the "active" part meant but xiva is the tool to go with if you want to take a closer look at how you performed and where you could improve if you want to.

You make it sound as if someone tore you apart over logs and told you to not even post here but there were some good points and a bit of information that's easy to miss. Nothing was "tossed at you". You interpreted something wrong judging by your "96+ dps uptime" (which you mentioned first) and that happens and now you know which tools to use to get the correct information if you want to. Nothing keeps you from posting here.

And the main problem with not being able to heal more isn't that you're forced to dps and do huge dps numbers but rather that there simply isn't more to heal. Just look at p6s and the laughably long gaps between damage. Most raidwides have at least 30s between them with several cases of 60s and even close to 90s. What else can you do but spam dps? There is literally nothing to heal, that's why you can't heal more.
And right now you can still sit well below the dps uptime you mentioned and your group clears just fine.

[GrimGale]

I honestly don't mind having to combine Healing and DPS as healer. Planning your oGCD usage to maximize healer dps gives healers a layer of coordination that makes the gameplay interesting.

That being said, the actual mechanics of dps are incredibly boring, stale and repetitive.

I've cleared P7s, where there is heavy aoe damage on the party.

In an 11 minute unoptimized fight, I spent 7 minutes casting Dosis. Literally, just 170+ GCDs just pressing this one spell, over and over and over.

My Co healer had 160+ casts of glare, so I wasn't dumping healing on them.

With such generous healing downtime, Healer DPS kit could stand to at least not be as repetitive as it is.

[AnotherPerson]

So you want to go from one direct attack spell to one direct healing spell?

Your request is non sensical. Tanks have a DPS rotation because all of their actions generate enmity, a calculation based on DPS. A healer's damage just does damage, not healing.

News flash, tanks don't need a DPS rotation to generate enmity. They can lose all their combo skills, job gauge skills that do damage, and then make their single attack skill generate enmity x 100 by the virtue of tank stance. One AoE skill does the same, with x100 amplification on aggro. Rebalance damage to be the average of their combo damage and the single skill will upgrade overtime via traits like healers do. One Single Target attack skill. One Ranged attack skill. One AoE attack skill. That's all they need for enmity control.
Still not enough? Give multiple charges to Provoke and AoE Provoke. There, problem solved. If you still have issues with enmity, please consult a guide on how to keep uptime and press your attack button more since everything is now simplified to bare bones. Job gauge doesn't need damage because your role is a "Tank", not a "DPS". They can be replaced with tank mitigations instead and have gameplay that is fit for a tank.

This is healers in a nutshell, and it's ridiculous to assume a tank who only presses 1 button to maintain aggro and press their 30 other mitigation buttons is fun gameplay. FFXIV doesn't have that much damage that requires perfect healing uptime -- which also translates to tanks not needing 30+ mitigations per tank to function in the same vein. This game challenges players more heavily by doing mechanics. Consolidating the number of GCD heals to create more DPS skills for each healer isn't going to affect the big picture when 3 out of the 4 healers rely heavily on oGCD healing in the first place.

[Banggugyangu]

I like these ideas, but I have said for a while that I think free cure should be reworked to 1: have a small proc chance from damaging spells, and 2: turn the next GCD heal into an oGCD. This would solve 2 problems. 1: free cure trap would no longer exist, and 2: WHMs lack of oGCD heals would be solved.

[Deceptus]

Jesus Christ. There was stuff that I didn't even know about until it was mentioned on that reddit post. And what they said is only scratching the surface when it comes to the plethora of healer issues.

If only upvotes mattered. . . Nah, why not just ignore the userbase trying to assist with improving the game. And then they wonder why healers are leaving in droves.


The Healer Double Standard (From 2019)

Expanding a little on my comments about SE needing to hire a healer designer. (from 2019)

A Summary of Healer Issues (From 2020)

If you want Engaging Content, play Ultimate (2022)

[RyuDragnier]

It goes deeper than that, its one of the biggest problems being a healer: you are ALWAYS last in the loot queue and it is demoralising as hell. All that hard work and you get naff all until you get your tokens

My static bypassed that with a lootmaster rule. Everybody gets 1 drop, then it rotates. We /random, and if you win a piece, congratulations, you can't roll on another one (upgrade items have a different count) until everybody else gets a piece (from any floor). So we have ended up in a situation where the healers one time were the first ones BiS, with the ranged/caster DPS and tanks right behind them and the last two to get BiS were the melee. Note that if we find ourselves far too close to the enrage with a clear despite a near perfect run (as what happened just this week with P7S), we'll modify that rule for the one time and only DPS can roll on the loot for that fight.

[AnotherPerson]

If you want Engaging Content, play Ultimate (2022)

Fixed that link for you

[Recon1o6]

My static bypassed that with a lootmaster rule. Everybody gets 1 drop, then it rotates. We /random, and if you win a piece, congratulations, you can't roll on another one (upgrade items have a different count) until everybody else gets a piece (from any floor). So we have ended up in a situation where the healers one time were the first ones BiS, with the ranged/caster DPS and tanks right behind them and the last two to get BiS were the melee. Note that if we find ourselves far too close to the enrage with a clear despite a near perfect run (as what happened just this week with P7S), we'll modify that rule for the one time and only DPS can roll on the loot for that fight.

unfortunately your static is in the minority here, most gear up dps, then if its not bis then tanks to the point its an unspoken rule

I've been in and out a number of statics over the years and despite asking, each time its me and the other healer who gets left behind.