Hello Yoshi-P

[Saefinn]

Play Savage/Ultimate if you want "engaging" contents for healers.

1) People have found that it doesn't improve for Savage/Ultimate, the content is harder, but you still have the exact same problem, especially once you've learned the content. (arguably, it's the content and not the healing that's engaging)
2) As a semi-casual player, I'm not doing Savage/Ultimate clears, Savage is something I'll rarely do, because it's not something you casually do and I'm not interested in doing it most of the time.
3) Savage/Ultimate represents only a small portion of the game's content, shouldn't the content be engaging overall? I can at least use my full kits at DPS & Tank and whilst I realise given the nature of healing I'm not going to be able to use my full kit all the time, but a compromise needs to be had so it doesn't feel like a single button spam. Something needs to break the monotony.

It doesn't help that, in general, people are not great at verbalizing issues. From the perspective of these players, the "Healer Revamp" crowd are misconstrued as these "elitists" that want the healer's difficulty to increase three fold, "force" healers to DPS in all content, and make the kit 10x more complex just for the sake of complexity.

BUT, that's not the argument at all. Most healers would be happy with something other than 2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2. "Casual" (in quotes, because I am absolutely a casual player but definitely don't see myself in that group) players enjoy playing a job they know that is easy and they don't want someone coming in and "changing it for the sake of changing it." Despite the fact that PLENTY of things can be done to make the healers more fun for EVERYONE.

Many of these casual people refuse to DPS anyway, so I'm not sure why increasing the complexity of the DPS kit would be something that they would be adamantly against (unless what they're actually against is the decrease of complexity of the healer kit and if that's the case, it sounds like they like complexity and should be trying to DPS).

Pretty much, I'm a semi-casual and WHM co-healer is a semi-casual, we're far from the elite types, we're just experienced healers. All we want is for the experience to be engaging. We're not asking for being a healer to be difficult or overly complex. We think what we had back in 2.0 and 3.0 were good (though I think 2.0 SCH was better as it was not OP), but WHM was in need of more love. The game evolves, sure, but healers haven't evolved with it. The way healers have evolved is to handle a much higher healing requirement, but the content hasn't increased healing requirements.

I don't think embracing the DPS downtime more would make the classes any less accessible either. You're right that many don't DPS anyway and DPS is optional for the vast majority of content so those people can do what they like with their DPS, but it is what most healers end up doing for the majority of their time, regardless of whether they want to DPS or not, it's what we have to fill the space.

It feels like the perception is that more healing skills = more healing focus, fewer DPS skills = less DPS focus, which isn't true because it means less healing required with only a monotonous DPS left to fill the time.

To me the ideal situation would be where you're healing 70% of the times and DPSing 30% of the time, but if I'm going to have to deal with a weighting of 30% healing and 70% DPS, then give me more in the DPS department. If they don't want us focusing on DPS then change the weighting. If you can't do that because of accessibility then give us more to do that isn't healing that isn't required for newbies or less skilled healers. Otherwise they can't expect experienced healers to enjoy the experience.

[LeonKeyh]

Pretty much, I'm a semi-casual and WHM co-healer is a semi-casual, we're far from the elite types, we're just experienced healers. All we want is for the experience to be engaging. We're not asking for being a healer to be difficult or overly complex. We think what we had back in 2.0 and 3.0 were good (though I think 2.0 SCH was better as it was not OP), but WHM was in need of more love. The game evolves, sure, but healers haven't evolved with it. The way healers have evolved is to handle a much higher healing requirement, but the content hasn't increased healing requirements.

I don't think embracing the DPS downtime more would make the classes any less accessible either. You're right that many don't DPS anyway and DPS is optional for the vast majority of content so those people can do what they like with their DPS, but it is what most healers end up doing for the majority of their time, regardless of whether they want to DPS or not, it's what we have to fill the space.

It feels like the perception is that more healing skills = more healing focus, fewer DPS skills = less DPS focus, which isn't true because it means less healing required with only a monotonous DPS left to fill the time.

To me the ideal situation would be where you're healing 70% of the times and DPSing 30% of the time, but if I'm going to have to deal with a weighting of 30% healing and 70% DPS, then give me more in the DPS department. If they don't want us focusing on DPS then change the weighting. If you can't do that because of accessibility then give us more to do that isn't healing that isn't required for newbies or less skilled healers. Otherwise they can't expect experienced healers to enjoy the experience.

I DEFINITELY get the idea of wanting to heal more. That seems fairly ideal for a role called...healer. However, it's unrealistic at this point (IMO) and I feel like requesting it is too easy for SE to ignore. Increasing the amount of healing required is going to be a HUGE undertaking including revamping most encounters and trying to rebalance all of the different abilities.

That's why generally people lean towards a more interesting DPS kit. They can fairly easily make a DPS rotation do an average of whatever Glare/Dia would do in the same number of button presses. Honestly, I'd rather have something "different", namely having the healers lean into a "support" role. I like the idea of indirect DPS like AST's cards and I feel like giving healers more abilities to increase the damage of other players would make the role distinct while also giving them more to do. I would say WHM/SGE would get a bigger DPS kit and SCH/AST would be focused on support more.

But, it seems unlikely anything would change unfortunately.

[Saefinn]

I DEFINITELY get the idea of wanting to heal more. That seems fairly ideal for a role called...healer. However, it's unrealistic at this point (IMO) and I feel like requesting it is too easy for SE to ignore. Increasing the amount of healing required is going to be a HUGE undertaking including revamping most encounters and trying to rebalance all of the different abilities.

That's why generally people lean towards a more interesting DPS kit. They can fairly easily make a DPS rotation do an average of whatever Glare/Dia would do in the same number of button presses. Honestly, I'd rather have something "different", namely having the healers lean into a "support" role. I like the idea of indirect DPS like AST's cards and I feel like giving healers more abilities to increase the damage of other players would make the role distinct while also giving them more to do. I would say WHM/SGE would get a bigger DPS kit and SCH/AST would be focused on support more.

But, it seems unlikely anything would change unfortunately.

Oh I agree, it's unrealistic at this point, because making meaningful changes in that respect would be a monumental job.

The stance I take is that they should:
- Give us more to do in our downtime IE: DPS because the game isn't designed to value anything else we could be doing.
- Increase the healing requirement in a meaningful way for future content.

But it is unlikely to change because they've pretty much said as much. But if there is any optimism it's that they were the same way with MCH and MNK and eventually they got positive reworks. That said, I'm not holding onto any such optimism until evidence shows that it could go that way. And it's why I'm worried by the announcement of 7.0 changes for AST because if they've singled out AST over the others, it feels like they're probably going to go after the cards, which is about the only thing keeping me playing a healer role, as it's more than a Broil/Glare/Dosis spam, it's not much, but it breaks up the monotony in my down time, but I like the healing kits of all healer jobs...when I get to use them. And I can get enjoyment out of SGE if I purposefully play it badly as now that I've gotten good with it, I have to (which I know when SGE came out was my fear and hope I wouldn't get to).

[Absurdity]

I disagree that Ultimate is poorly designed content, the low clear rates are because it's just as much an endurance fight as it is a mechanics dance, requiring you to stay highly concentrated for 15+ minutes straight is simply something that very few people in this game can do.


What they definitely aren't however is a healing challenge. You heal just like you would in any other content, the challenge is surviving the hits in the first place which just comes down to proper group mitigation and execution. That's a party wide responsibility and not a challenge specific to healing, there is no outhealing a oneshot.

[Katoar]

I was talking about the play rate. It is a different metric from clear rate. The number of people trying to get a clear is very minuscule. One can try to gather players using party finder but the chances of successfully forming a party are negative. If one goes around to ask people who have cleared an ultimate, they will be directed to ERC Discord (if you play on european servers) most of the time with people telling you to go find a static from there. The game on its own does little to support and encourage clearing of an Ultimate content. Players get to meld one extra 36 stat Materia for 605 ilvl weapon and obtain a new shiny weapon for glamour and a legend title.

The content offers little to no replayability. One who has cleared and farmed afterwards obejctively has no reason to ever dive into this content with other players who have not.

Ultimate is the most invasive content of one's personal space. Because you have to play with 7 other people you have to schedule raid sessions and if you cannot or do not feel like playing you are ruining the raid session and halting the collective group progress. They might or might not find a sub or they may decide to disband if one person is leaving for good because of real life matters and the teamwork between the rest of the static was already lacking. Human communication, interaction and organization is probably the hardest part of clearing an Ultimate and this is why I think the content is poorly designed. The game should be doing all of that instead of you but the current structure cannot make that possible.

[ServerCollaps]

many heals cant even manage normal content. If you make healing any more difficult as it is right now, even expert dungeons and nm trials will turn into huge fiestas.

Do extreme, solo heal them or raid ults if you want some "challenges"

[GoatOfWar]

many heals cant even manage normal content. If you make healing any more difficult as it is right now, even expert dungeons and nm trials will turn into huge fiestas.

Do extreme, solo heal them or raid ults if you want some "challenges"

So? A lot of dps can't dps. Do we need to turn dps jobs into 1 button jobs too?

[Silver-Strider]

many heals cant even manage normal content. If you make healing any more difficult as it is right now, even expert dungeons and nm trials will turn into huge fiestas.

Do extreme, solo heal them or raid ults if you want some "challenges"

There are tanks that never pop any mitigation and DPS that freestyle their rotation so poorly that I, as a Healer, will outDPS them. So why are Healers the exception to the rule? Any half decent Tank can literally carry a group of people thru pretty much every 4 man content with nary an issue, I know because I've carried many a group as a PLD when the healer died and I would never in a thousand years say that I am a great tank. WAR can literally solo an 8 man boss and GNB isn't exactly a slouch in being able to keep teammates up in a pinch so this type of argument is a crock. Bad players exist in every role. That isn't an excuse for keeping the skill ceiling for an entire role as low as humanly possible, especially since the role in the past was much harder to do.

[Sebazy]

many heals cant even manage normal content. If you make healing any more difficult as it is right now, even expert dungeons and nm trials will turn into huge fiestas.

Do extreme, solo heal them or raid ults if you want some "challenges"

And here's the problem. Actually solo healing extremes and upwards can be problematic.

It invalidates logs therefore that's one group of people who won't want to do it right away. Some fights have mechanics that are specifically designed to use two healers as stack points, having a single healer means that second marker is going to go somewhere random, that's always great fun to adjust for. Not to mention, I can't simply queue for anything to solo heal it without getting a premade.

So no, it's not just as simple as 'lol go solo heal them then'. Not even close.

As for your opening point. You are absolutely right, there are indeed many heals that can't handle normal content. Do you know why that is? Because this game will merrily let you waltz right up to the end game and start dipping your toes in Extremes and Savage whilst you barely manage to press more than a few buttons a minute.

There is absolutely NO difficulty curve that makes any kind of sense anymore. ARR had a proper legitimate curve but that got thrown in the gutter when SE lost their nerve over Pharos Sirus. Even classic HW and SB spikes fall flat now thanks to ilvl scaling and stat inflation. Meanwhile solo duties literally roll over and play dead for you and god forbid someone dares to try to coaxing some kind of skill or effort out of you in a full party MSQ duty.

The end result, people play right the way through the game paying more attention to their Netflix than the actual gameplay itself, then wonder why they randomly hit a wall the moment someone else isn't there to carry them.

[ForteNightshade]

As for your opening point. You are absolutely right, there are indeed many heals that can't handle normal content. Do you know why that is? Because this game will merrily let you waltz right up to the end game and start dipping your toes in Extremes and Savage whilst you barely manage to press more than a few buttons a minute.

I want to emphasis this by highlighting the current 24 man: Aglaia. I have healed it in base i580 gear without pressing a single heal outside of Addersgall for MP. Nearly 550 casts were spent on a single button. Which, by the way, was more than double every other button I press combined. I could have quite literally AFK'd to make dinner and my co-healer wouldn't have noticed a difference. And this wasn't me chadding them either. The content is simply so laughably undertuned it doesn't necessitate two healers whatsoever. You barely need one.

At the Savage level, I've been practicing Sage and cleared both P1S and P2S with only a single GCD shield between both fights. P1S does so little damage, I'm actually trying to find spots for abilities like Pneuma because my kit is so bloated with oGCD heals, I don't even need to use all of them. Dragonsong has scarcely few "healer checks" despite being a near 19 minute encounter. 95% of the time people are dying to mechanical error or forgetting mitigation not due to healing.

This game's difficulty curve is all over the place and horrendously inconsistent. Ultima Unreal does more damage than P1S. Which is insane considering he's meant to be significantly easier.