Healers need an overhaul

[Zebraoracle]

Man, playing other games always makes me miss Guild Wars 1's style of doing things... Ignoring the engagement of building your own build for a moment (because obviously that comes with a bunch of engagement)

Most skills had an energy (MP) cost, outside of specific ones such as signet abilities and adrenaline (rage) abilities.
Almost every skill had a cooldown of some sort, the only one I can think of off the top of my head that didn't was the elementalist's flare spell, which was a super basic one second cast no recharge damage spell.

Healers had to really think about the skills they brought. Sometimes they had a basic "main heal" spell, but not always, and every ability on their eight slot skill bar had a purpose (or at least should have a purpose).

Like, look at this: https://gwpvx.fandom.com/wiki/Build:...romise_Support
(you can mouse over abilities to see descriptions)

This monk build takes the assassin class as a secondary class and uses an elite assassin spell to generate energy and recharge skills, particularly the party-wide 50% block chance buff.

Alternatively, here's a ritualist healing build that focuses on energy management so the ritualist can reliably put out healing. Resource management is much more of a thing in GW1 than FF14, fwiw:
https://gwpvx.fandom.com/wiki/Build:...Songkai_Healer


The skills just generally feed off each other or have synergy within the build, unlike FF14 where most healing skills don't really have anything to do with each other outside of things like eukrasia, krasis, and zoe. I think that's one of the biggest issues people have with FF14 healing - the skills don't really have synergy. The damage spells don't really do anything with each other, the healing spells don't really do anything with each other and many of which are just reskins of the others. You don't have much in the way of resource management. You don't have creative/interesting ways to handle your healing through other means (such as the monk using an assassin skill to recharge all of their cooldowns).

[Raven2014]

First, I would recommend that you consider how large of changes you want to make and what arbitrary constraints that goal would already outstrip. You seem to be accounting for constraints that are just far more negligible than the sum or trend of what "pennies" would be necessary to get your "dollar" of healing changes. [See C and D, especially, and their seeming to try to salvage Piety.]

And here is the problem: I don't consider anything as "negligible". Let's say, if each marker can draw 1 color, consider this:

- If you have 1 marker: you can make 1 color.
- If you have 2 markers: you can make 3 color. (one for each, and a third one as a combination).
- If you have 3 markers: you can make 3(of 1) + 3(of 2) + 1 (of 3) = 7 colors.


The point is, when you remove one element from the set, you don't just simply lose "one" element, you also lose every subsets that contained that element. Like I said, I had pointed out many examples of extra element, and each and everytime you always dismiss it as "oh it's not meaningful, oh it's just a bloat .etc.". And maybe you are right, but only if you look at each element as if they're isolated in a vacuum.

Like I said, I played enough MMO to know there can be a lot more to healer play beyond just DPS and healing. And it's not because they have a ton of features that FF14 don't have. They simply kept the elements that FF14 used to have, but discarded. And because of that they can draw a far more colorful canvas. That's why I'm being particular critical about the binary track mindset exhibit by both SE and the people in this thread. With just 2 colors, all you gonna have is black, white, and a shade of gray.

Why not simply buff the cards nearer to their old value? That would make them more sensitive to party dynamics, of course, but (A) as they are on a fixed timer, they would not disproportionately bleed into a 2-minute meta and (B) awareness of one's party's dynamics is iconic to supportive gameplay, and of course to AST.

Sure, why not? Doesn't matter to me. Hell I'm pretty sure there gonna some balance issue there if oyu just took what I suggested and just blindly implement it. But again, the detail of the method here isn't the point. Make it rDPS, or personal DPS. I even gave option for (C) to either give a straight %buff or a haste buff. Those are irrelevant details. What I was trying to show is "there are ways to create depth beyond just adding button". You had repeatedly dismiss the extra elements (emity management, MP management, Cleansing .etc.) as busy work or bloat buttons and asked me to elaborate, so here is it. MP is simply being use as an example of how it can be something that be done dynamically, with at least a couple option, and not just "please remember to hit Lucid on CD".

There were only 2 consideration I kept in mind in the previous post.

- The change is strictly local to the healer, and will not affect other classes or the fight design themselves.
- It will not be necessary to add any extra abilities, rather just give the existing one more connection and depth. They're not meant to change the output (healing or damage), rather just make the path for a player to hit the max potential more involved and interesting.


But like I said, designing a game is a 5 digit salary job for people working in a team over months or even years to come up with a solution, don't expect a guy on the internet to do it in 30min for free.

The skills just generally feed off each other or have synergy within the build, unlike FF14 where most healing skills don't really have anything to do with each other outside of things like eukrasia, krasis, and zoe. I think that's one of the biggest issues people have with FF14 healing - the skills don't really have synergy. The damage spells don't really do anything with each other, the healing spells don't really do anything with each other and many of which are just reskins of the others. You don't have much in the way of resource management. You don't have creative/interesting ways to handle your healing through other means (such as the monk using an assassin skill to recharge all of their cooldowns).

Yes! 100 or 1000 times this!

I would much prefer to have a limited 5-6 skill that bounce of each others, that can be dynamically and thematically adjusted depending on built or even fights. Rather having 10 different skills that pretty much work independently that the only consideration is to press them on cool down.

[Deceptus]

I think you and I, and probably most here, are in agreement on that. Adding more buttons has always seemed, across more suggestions here, to be a means to an ends, not an end in itself, and most are wary of overburdening new healers in terms of their immediate responsibilities / more vital capacities.

The contrast has simply been on whether less immediately essential aspects, like an increased ceiling on damage optimization beyond improving effective healing efficiency, would increase learner stress more so than an excess of tools that are difficult to find a (especially, non-redundant) place/slot for (as per our glut of oGCD heals). The general consensus seems to be that an excess (variably defined, ofc) of healing tools both makes healing less intuitive and makes healing capacity harder to balance (since it creates that much larger a gap between those familiar with each of those tools and those still learning).

Just want to chime in on this specific point.

Adding more DPS options literally doesn't affect the people who don't want to DPS. They don't do it now, they won't do it no matter how many extra buttons get added.

And the higher content you play, quite frankly the more is expected out of you (for any role). That means optimization and better play. Don't want to make that improvement? Don't step into that content, or look for it only via the Duty Finder, because no one owes you a group.

Basically if the FFXIV devs refuse to add DPS options I hope they start adding more buffing / debuffing actions.

• Bravery (short duration physical damage increase)
• Faith (short duration magic damage increase)
• Protect (short duration party physical mitigation)
• Shell (short duration party magic mitigation)
• Virus (Enemy damage down)

[Shurrikhan]

Adding more DPS options literally doesn't affect the people who don't want to DPS. They don't do it now, they won't do it no matter how many extra buttons get added.

Agreed, especially given how quick communities typically are to single out "unique" role responsibilities first (sometime beyond their actual value towards long-term goals, wherein every role exists only to leverage what tools they have to complete the duty at the best equilibrium they can manage between reliability and speed).

Basically if the FFXIV devs refuse to add DPS options I hope they start adding more buffing / debuffing actions.

• Bravery (short duration physical damage increase)
• Faith (short duration magic damage increase)
• Protect (short duration party physical mitigation)
• Shell (short duration party magic mitigation)
• Virus (Enemy damage down)

This, on the other hand, I'm a bit more worried about, for a few reasons:

1. Job identity.

   As all jobs move their rDPS towards non-situational but indirect (pure damage, just not done yourself) means (a la Cards, Divination, and Chain Strategem), job distinctions get that much more blurred. No, I'm not a fan of WHM being a job whose identity is practically a lack thereof (slight hyperbole) and would be fine with them getting some utility, but I'd much rather that utility not simply be a more direct "Cards-lite", etc. I'd much rather, say, see more situational and virtually untaxed utility tools (such as oGCD single-target movement speed buffs, etc.) while keeping WHM rDPS firmly grounded in its direct damage.
   
   Bravery/Faith is basically the existing Cards mechanic as is (except that it applies to roughly equal halves of the job base, instead of 3/4s vs. 1/4 thereof with PLD and DRK being inherently screwed over).

2. (De)buff bloat.

   Admittedly, this works off the assumption that these additions, like their traditional forms, would have no CD. That, however, puts them at a narrow balancing point. If overpowered, they become a maintenance mechanic. Such maintenance mechanics tend to devolve into rather stale gameplay far, far more crippling to freedom to heal than any trio of DoTs, since they're applied across up to 8 allies instead of 1-3 enemies (AoEs outpacing DoTs thereafter), or else lose all target priority/selection by being applied via AoE buffs instead, equally gutting their available depth. Even if "perfectly" balanced, a spammable GCD Virus over a typical span of a boss's damage should prevent slightly less damage than filler healer (a Cure II-equivalent) would replenish, such that it becomes mildly obligatory in damage-dense periods and is largely wasteful otherwise.

3. Redundancy and the Role Action problem.

   Even if having balanced spammable fensive (de)buffs perfectly so as to reward timing and target selection, what exactly would, say, (a spammable, GCD) Protect accomplish that a gauge-based Aquaveil would not? Bankable but non-spammable tools offer similar flexibility while also having more impact available per cast. Moreover, they already follow the visual themes of those jobs, rather than using old generics.

None of that is to say adding more buff/debuff actions would be bad, but simply that --given the examples in question-- there are some points of concern.

[ThaCa]

They should just make all DPS greedy DPS with personal buffs and move the party Buffs to Healers to mitigate the boredom. Maybe some AST style spesific target buffs mixed in or basic boss Debuffs. Throw a few DPS skills or make it loop with proper mitigation and healing giving you big nukes and basic dpsing build big heal.

That would also allow for breaking down the 2 minute meta and make healers more proper supports and still have few buttons to do damage with during generic gameplay.

[Anxin]

Man, playing other games always makes me miss Guild Wars 1's style of doing things... Ignoring the engagement of building your own build for a moment (because obviously that comes with a bunch of engagement)...

I also miss Guild Wars 1's way of healing. I loved solo healing teams of 8 as a monk or a ritualist. The synergy of the skills, as you mention, made build planning fun. The AI of the enemies and the unpredictability of nearly every run made healing engaging. Contrast that with the scripted nature of FF14. You could almost write a bash keyboard script for each of the boss fights. Actually, I suspect you could write a coordinated keyboard script for each member of a static for many of the fights. Guild Wars 1 lacked that predictability even during the scripted moments of the game because of the simple AI mixing it up.

With the way healing works, we need perhaps 4 healing skills: a scaling single-target heal, a scaling AOE heal, an ogcd, and a shield/regen. The ogcd could even be dropped. This would free the rest of the buttons for buffing/damage rotations.

[Shurrikhan]

That would also allow for breaking down the 2 minute meta and make healers more proper supports and still have few buttons to do damage with during generic gameplay.

When we have an AST, we already bank what we can bank that would otherwise fall out of damage buffs for getting a Card. Chain Strategem is (within) the 2-minute meta and would have to be scrapped or rehauled.

Remove the "2-minute meta" altogether and everything works exactly as before, except with a slightly lower ceiling to gameplay. Now, instead of being rewarded for using skills at time X (which was usually on-CD) while banking what you can for 2-minute buffs or the healer buffs between them, you are rewarded for using skills on CD while banking what you can for 2-minute buffs or the healer buffs between them.

And, to even hold onto those two-thirds of complexity, every viable 8-man composition would need to have at least one (non-2-minute) buffer, which means making jobs like AST and SCH less unique (and thus SGE and WHM less distinct from them -- in more ways, of course, than just being inferior in their mitigation kit and rDPS, respectively).

Moreover, though, why would having only a few damage buttons be a good thing anyways? XIV's are largely the outlier among "healer" classes/jobs/specs across MMOs. Most have more offensive actions and non-curative agency available to them, and not just through shuffling their would-be DPS to another player in ACT to then be sorted back to them on fflogs.

[Zebraoracle]

So after mentioning GW1 and thinking about healing in other MMOs, I did a stupid thing today. I remade each healer with the idea of having eight spells each and three main passive traits. The idea behind this is damage in 14 is more consistent (no big raid wide that wipes you without mit and then nothing for 20 seconds, but rather smaller raidwides that need to be addressed and other mechanics that deal damage to single players/multiple players that need to be addressed), most abilities have cooldowns ranging from a few seconds to half a minute to a minute, and resource management is more of a necessity. The aim was to generate synergistic builds based off of the general concept behind each healer. I mostly went with in game spell names because I didn't want to spend time thinking of names, except for healer #5 where some of the spells I just... didn't name because the concepts don't quite exist in game.

Note that this was just for fun, isn't a serious recommendation, and obviously would need all sorts of balancing and whatnot for it to actually work, and obviously a lot of this would not work with how FF14's combat is designed.

Also, sorry for the multiple incoming posts, these take up a lot of space sadly...

White Mage - THE quintessential healer.

Trait - whenever the white mage crits, restore X% MP
Trait - each direct healing spell places a small HoT on the target based on the healing dealt
Trait - Healing spells empower the next damage spell and vice versa.


Cure - Basic heal, empowered guarantees crit heal with no mp cost
Medica - Party-wide heal, empowered doubles healing of passive HoT effect
Regen - Places a strong regen on the target, can crit and when it does its remaining duration increases by X, empowered doubles duration and increases potency
Asylum - places an AoE that grants a HoT to those inside the area and heals those inside whenever they suffer damage, empowered causes any healing done to a player inside the effect to be chained to all other players inside the area and split between them
Plenary Indulgence - Grants the white mage a haste buff, each single target heal grants the target a short duration and lesser effect of this and then heals them at the end of the duration based on the combined potency of their actions.
Dia - basic damage spell, empowered adds a short duration DoT at twice the potency
Glare - bigger damage spell, AoE, empowered gains a second charge immediately upon being cast.
Holy - Nuke, must build up gauge to use, gauge is gained based on the effective healing of any of the white mage's HoTs, empowered causes a massive heal to all players within a certain distance of the target

[Zebraoracle]

Scholar - The tactician that shields the party

Trait - whenever the scholar's barriers from spells that directly apply barriers expire or are broken, the scholar recovers X% or ½X% MP respectively
Trait - The scholar's direct, non-shielding heals grant the target a small barrier based on the healing done
Trait - Whenever the scholar deals non-DoT damage to a target, the target is marked, taking X additional % damage from the next damage it takes from any player.

Succor - strong heal, places a buff on target that mirrors a portion of any shield the scholar causes
Adlo - less powerful heal than physick, shields for double the amount healed. If energy drain grants a barrier, this spell becomes party-wide
Excog - places a large barrier on the target for a short duration, if the barrier is not broken the target receives a large heal, overflow damage of the attack that breaks the barrier is negated if a regular attack or reduced if a TB/raidwide.
Sacred Soil - places an AoE that grants all party members inside it a self-building barrier and % damage reduction. Barrier build speed based on spell speed and barrier strength based on duration of effect (so more speed = stronger barriers)
Deployment Tactics - for a brief period, the scholar's spells echo, repeating after a few seconds. Spells may echo more than once based on the scholar's spell speed.
Broil - Damage spell, target takes X% additional damage from players for a few seconds, if energy drain grants a damage buff, this spell deals AoE damage and the % damage bonus is increased
Shadow Flare - Places an AoE that deals damage to all enemies inside it. Any damage dealt to them causes a small DoT based on the damage dealt
Energy Drain - Damage spell, drains target's strength and applies it to the party based on the scholar's last cast spell - a healing/barrier spell grants the party a barrier, a damage spell grants the party a brief damage buff, in addition this spell empowers certain spells

[Zebraoracle]

Astrologian - The Time Mage/Fortuneteller (AKA, the Buffer)

Trait - Any direct damage or healing the astro causes is repeated X seconds later at a lesser effect
Trait - The astro's HoT tics increase in speed based on the astro's spell speed
Trait - The astro's direct heals place a buff on targets that cause a portion of the damage they take to be taken over a period of time instead
Trait - The astro plays a random card from their deck whenever they cast a targeted spell. AoE spells receive a lesser effect. The astro also has a chance to play the lord or lady card whenever one of the previous cards is played.

Balance - %damage buff/%damage debuff
Arrow - small haste effect/slow effect
Spear - crit and direct hit buff/suffer additional % damage
Ewer - attacks/spells/abilities heal the user/attacks heal target a small amount
Spire - reduces CDs by a small amount/applies a DoT
Bole - % damage mitigation/[honestly couldn’t think of anything right here and I’m tired of spending time on it]
Lord - deals damage around the Astro and causes a DoT
Lady - grants the Astro an MP regen


Benefic - Basic heal that applies an HoT based on the amount healed. Grants a stack of Foretold Fortune to the astro (repeated casts by the trait do not grant stacks). At X stacks, the astro may cast Divination.
Helios - Party-wide heal that applies an HoT based on the amount healed. Grants a stack of Foretold Fortune to the astro (repeated casts by the trait do not grant stacks). At X stacks, the astro may cast Divination.
Essential Dignity - heals the target more based on % missing hp. Grants a stack of Foretold Fortune to the astro (repeated casts by the trait do not grant stacks). At X stacks, the astro may cast Divination.
Collective Unconscious - the astro t-poses, placing a bubble around him, all allies inside the bubble gain a large health regen effect while the astro asserts dominance. Additionally, all allies share any astro buffs active on them (other HoTs, cards, barriers, divination) for the duration
Malefic - basic damage spell that applies a stack of Foretold Demise (repeated casts by the trait do not cause stacks). At X stacks, the astro may cast Gravity on the target
Combust - places a debuff on the target that deals damage after a certain period. applies a stack of Foretold Demise (repeated casts by the trait do not cause stacks). At X stacks, the astro may cast Gravity on the target

(continued on next post)