Healers need an overhaul

[OdinelStarrei]

I don't understand, do people seriously not grasp why people are complaining? Or are they being deliberately contrarian?

Even when you completely ignore the complete lack of care healers have had, you guys are also acting being pretty damn revisionist. There was a time where this game DID have engaging healing kits, and engaging tank kits. That was a reality a lot of people are familiar with, and SE is too, considering how many times they have to backtrack things like Energy Drain, lilies and AST in general. Those times were not "the epitome of good class design", but the solution was not to completely trash the entire role because of the NATURALLY higher skill floor. Every single time someone comes in here and is like "Uhh, healing is fine actually!!!" you get the most insipid defenses.

There could have been a reality where WHM was fixed from the SB issues, and the rest of the healers didn't have all their direct offensive options nerfed down to AST levels with none of the associated CPM or support focus to compensate. Aero III existed. Miasma II existed.

You could write paragraph after paragraph after essay after log analysis after video analysis of the myriad of issues we're stuck with, but it really boils down to one simple truth.

Like everywhere else, instead of trying to placate both the less-skilled and more-skilled players of the healer role by having a reasonable skill floor and a reasonable skill ceiling for improvement if desired, they FORCED the skill ceiling down, so that if you actually want to push yourself in any way, you are limited by your job kit.

It isn't a matter of "iF yOu wAnt To DpS, pLaY a DpS!!!!" Man, until recently, it wasn't uncommon for healers to do MORE damage while having more to do with their multiple dots and healing kits than tanks! Who had/have ACTUAL(if really dumbed down) rotations and sometimes, even responsibilities that are not DPS related! Kinda debatable to be honest though, things are pretty bad across the board.

Expansions are supposed to expand on a game. All that Square Enix has been doing to healing and combat is remove things people like, and add nothing of substance in their place. They don't explain why they are doing this, outside of "trying to close the gap between players." Remember this???



Of course they are complaining. They are not rewarded or even acknowledged for their dedication and investment. If anything, they're actively scorned. Even if you aren't invested in the healing role, or in content that isn't completely braindead, it doesn't change the fact that the role refuses to return to it's roots, continues to devolve as time goes by, and has no one on the development team who is acting as an advocate for the concerns of the established healer players. Like, I don't know why healing isn't allowed to be fun outside of either the initial progression of the encounter, or when your team has the collective braincell of a plankton. Bad faith all around. But if you get rid of all the old healers, you might have brand-new healers who don't have the knowledge the role used to be really engaging, until they run into the same non-existent skill ceiling regardless of the content they run, and get infected with the same hopeless malaise everyone else who cares about job design has now. "Existential-crisis"? I'd say that's an understatement if anything. It's a slow heat death, where every bright spark of creativity and meaningful gameplay expression in the job kits are snuffed out by Square Enix. It is inevitable, for everyone, regardless of how hard we fight or in spite of any small win we get where SE tearfully and regretfully gives us an inch with a "difficult to prog" raid tier after raking us over the coals for several miles.

Don't worry, you have me for that. I don't feel bad about it. Because I feel like at this point I've seen every single angle on the Sylphie attack vector. I'm beyond over it and uninterested in a "good faith discussion" about it. Because there really isn't common ground. You see, every discussion in this vein starts seemingly neutral. I want X, they want Y, there's a vague attempt to describe a world where X and Y have their time in the sun. But push them on it even a little bit and they start stamping their feet and revealing what they actually want: not X. They don't want Y. They want -not X-. Suggest a skill ceiling and the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins.

These people don't want low skill floors. They want nonexistent skill ceilings. They don't want accessible content, not really. What they want is healing to be an easy path to free stuff. Paying attention to your job's resources is bad. Even the existence of a suboptimal-but-still-present GlareMedica2 rotation that could satisfy the zero interactivity isn't enough. They want the lazy no-thought gameplay to be the optimal gameplay. They don't want to climb the mountain before them. They want to bulldoze it down, walk into the rubble, and declare they're at the peak now. They want an easy job that they can be told they're masters of by dint of unlocking the job stone.

Prod literally any Sylphie who claims they sympathize with the desire for more complex gameplay and that's the tantrum you're going to get. Every single time.

Truth time. This is how I feel. I guess I am a slyphie...

It's inevitable. We've already lost. If you're at, close to, or even trying to reach the skill ceiling, you are worthless to Square Enix.