What makes a job fun to play? Some ideas for healers

[Anhra]

Personally, i think the most unusual/complex designs that arent able to normally win in a straight forward approach are the most enjoyable for me, since those add another layer of difficulty.


But overall, fun is subjective. On the matter of Healers, i think a great solution would be to carry over their PvP Job identity into PvE.

For Scholar i suggest:
-remove all regular Healing abilities and only give SCH Adlo,
a Melee range Channeled Heal that increases in potency over time(the one which you sometimes see in the MSQ during cutscenes when someone wounded gets healed from closeup),
Excog (providing a Shield) and Sacred Soil, thats it. The majority of its kit should manipulate said skills like emergency tactic turning any into AoE ( Protraction for example, turns into Sacred Soil).

For Dps Skills, remove Broil and Art of Dabbing and replace both with Dots of different magnitude and timer, return Bane (and make it upgrade into Bane 2 at some point which will also deal additional damage later on depending on DoTs on target), a Skill to make all DoTs "explode" on a single target for the full duration inmediately (long CD), a way to manipulate Sacred Soil into Shadowflare and rework Energydrain into a Channeled Ability where it weakens Enemies dmg, deals slowly increasing dmg and saps Mana.

The Fairies should be both Different from one another, where Eos supports healing abilities and Selense offensive ones (said Fairies CAN also be the trigger to change certain Skills as mentioned above).
Fairy controls should be changed in a way where they are placed like totems (like Liturgy of the Bell from WHM), BUT can also be placed on allies/enemies, where they Follow the target for the whole duration.

As for Seraph, imo it should be removed. It is just a nuisance in design and makes SCH look like a pseudo SMN from 5.0. Seraph is also never mentioned in SCH Lore and i think Eos and Selene should carry more weight instead.

On a sidenote, Inspiration for SCH can also be drawn from the Nu Mou, since they both have alot in common and fit themewise.

[Xelanar]

I could overlook the bland, streamlined gameplay healers have, if there was actually something to heal. My main issue with healers is, they spend most of the time during a fight not actually healing. Instead they keep pressing one single button all day long.

So I guess my fix for healers would be future encounters being more heavy on healing - specifically something more than AoE heal spam festivals. Something more single target healing focused that actually keeps me on my toes. More Esuna, more heavy single target damage on party members other than tanks. I would love that.

[GrimGale]

-Jobs in FFXIV are designed around gameplay-loops: Rotations.
-Performing your rotation correctly rewards you with extra damage, utility or a satisfying animation that stands out from the rest.
-Giving the player a sense of power, by ensuring the feedback they get from their actions feels like it matters. When using your skills looks like it barely makes a difference, it only accentuates the sense of powerlessness. (i.e: barely noticeable matematical increases to damage for example. If you made the animation for Fall Malefic become turbo-charged when you're under the effect of Astrodyne, that'd make AST feel much more satisfying, even if the damage increase was actually minimal.)
-In case of healers specifically, make other players feel the effects of your support skills. Expedience is great in that sense, it truly feels like you are being supported when your character is suddenly empowered by the speed buff, as opposed to the cards where you can't barely tell what the effect is, unless you have some damage tracking mod.

[Dzian]

-Jobs in FFXIV are designed around gameplay-loops: Rotations.
-Performing your rotation correctly rewards you with extra damage, utility or a satisfying animation that stands out from the rest.
-Giving the player a sense of power, by ensuring the feedback they get from their actions feels like it matters. When using your skills looks like it barely makes a difference, it only accentuates the sense of powerlessness. (i.e: barely noticeable matematical increases to damage for example. If you made the animation for Fall Malefic become turbo-charged when you're under the effect of Astrodyne, that'd make AST feel much more satisfying, even if the damage increase was actually minimal.)
-In case of healers specifically, make other players feel the effects of your support skills. Expedience is great in that sense, it truly feels like you are being supported when your character is suddenly empowered by the speed buff, as opposed to the cards where you can't barely tell what the effect is, unless you have some damage tracking mod.

This or to summarise in a single word "Impact"

If you want to make a job fun make it feel like the buttons you press actually feel like they do something.. the problem XIV has is so much of it feels weightless and has no impact... what the f does shinten do? nothing! it exists solely as a busy button..

what the F does bloodletter do? again nothing! it exists solely as a busy button mash it mash it mash it... they carry no weight or impact. they exist solely to keep WoW players from getting bored between gcds..

same with soo many skills and buttons.

I Still much prefer the combat in 1.23. slower yes, but when you pressed dragon kick or butchers block or something the boss bloody knew about it...

[GrimGale]

This or to summarise in a single word "Impact"

If you want to make a job fun make it feel like the buttons you press actually feel like they do something.. the problem XIV has is so much of it feels weightless and has no impact... what the f does shinten do? nothing! it exists solely as a busy button..

what the F does bloodletter do? again nothing! it exists solely as a busy button mash it mash it mash it... they carry no weight or impact. they exist solely to keep WoW players from getting bored between gcds..

same with soo many skills and buttons.

I Still much prefer the combat in 1.23. slower yes, but when you pressed dragon kick or butchers block or something the boss bloody knew about it...

I think having "filler" abilities is fine. I'd rather click something simple that does minimal damage or has smaller effects than stand idly in combat waiting for my big significant buttons to be available again. It's also gives perspective to fights, where you have to have a priority system in mind and use your brain to decide what to press next. It's a mimimum.

My problem with "filler" abilities and spells is when they become 70% of what you use (even more, sometimes). Broil, Glare, Malefic and Dosis are all "filler" spells that you use between healing. The problem for healers is that they quickly become the bulk of what you cast and that is not fun. Weaving is fine. But when your GCDs are entirely comprised of repeats of a single spell, that's terrible. It feels repetitive even if you're technically weaving things into those buttons.

[Mapleine]

Please no Heavensward meme, I'm so tired of it and it would only make things worse. Heavensward had a few things I miss but it felt like garbage in so, so many ways and is the opposite direction the game should be going.

Servers would probably empty out if combat was rolled back to Heavensward.

Look, I just want a fun, compact and interactive healer kit.

Good job identity, rewarding to use. WHM in PvP kinda has this. I don't care what healing even is as long as it isn't spamming a filler spell for the entire fight because the role literally isn't real beyond a few pointless role checks.

[Gemina]

Healing for me is only fun and engaging when I know that a fight will require a watchful eye. IOW, the higher the likelihood that players will fail mechanics, the more fun it is as a healer. Players don't necessarily have to fail the mechs, I just need to know that the fight requires for players to pay attention.

It is really important that I mention that, because ultimately it does not matter what they do with their kits so long as the aforementioned is provided in an encounter.

[GrimGale]

One of the easiest things they should improve on is Visual feedback on Support abilities:

Currently, it is very hard to feel the impact of damage buffs/debuffs. Unless you have damage tracking software, the support abilities healers use provide very little feedback. What I mean is, in terms of feel, the game doesn't change much for an AST that has just used Astrodyne or Divination, or a SCH that has just used their Chain Stratagem on an enemy. The boss will still jiggle in the same way when its hit under Chain Stratagem, or the DPS will still look like they are just hitting things normally under a card.

It's very frustrating to see those supposedly signature abilities that have flashy animations only ring for a moment and then dissapear into numerical buffs that have a barely visually perceptible effect, beyond bigger damage numbers. To be clear I am not advocating for augmenting the potency of those buffs, just for their visuals to feel impactful.

For example, imagine if under Presence of Mind or Astrodyne, your Glare/Malefic spells had their animations changed or augmented with a screenshake and some additional particles, making them "feel" empowered. Imagine if the bosses flinched much more severely (Or grunted in pain) everytime anybody landed a critical strike under Chain Stratagem. Image the AST cards creating an elemental glow on the character weapons, adding some elemental particles to their attacks when under their effect.