Hello Yoshi-P

[LeonKeyh]

Thank you for writing this.

I am going to lose it if I have to write this explanation one more time to yet another person who lacks many fundamental skills of a decent healer main player.

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).

[Nizzi]

Personally I would want SCH to get its old DPS kit back, not just because I am a SCH enjoyer but because DoTs are good design for healers and losing a DoT playstyle for healers has been a travesty. SE knows that healers are focused on DPSing so they keep giving a ton of oGCD bloat so we can DPS more while also saying "whoah hold on, not going to increase the DPS buttons because you need to heal!" but if say;

SCH has several strong DoTs (Bio, Miasma, potentially a third like Shadow Flare), weak filler (Ruin/Broil)
Replacing a Broil with a GCD heal isn't as much of a loss, and incentivizes using them instead of tunnel visioning DPS.

Right now all healers have:
One weak DoT, bulk of damage from their filler, results in healers avoiding GCD heals like the plague and it being a massive loss if you ever have to use them.

One healer (preferably SCH) having the old SCH style of weak filler DPS + strong DoTs is a great design for an overall kit in a proverbial world where we're cutting down on oGCD bloat, because we know they aren't going to get rid of GCD heals and we don't want healers to be punished for doing their jobs. In a world with less oGCD healing, GCD healing becomes more necessary so old SCH's DoT based gameplay fits perfectly so the player can drop filler spam while knowing that they're still contributing to the fight via their DoTs.

It's just infuriating that SE isn't able to understand something that they previously seemingly understood.

[LeonKeyh]

You can do some pretty cool things with DoTs too that SE really hasn't explored.


SCH's 3 DoTs could have varied durations so you really have to pay attention to them

Or, you could do something interesting. Using Bio, Miasma, and Shadow Flare:

Shadow flare could, in addition to being a DoT, increase the damage the target takes from DoTs. But Bio and Miasma can't be on the same target at the same time or they "explode" for a small amount of damage. Also, when "Bio" runs out it puts another debuff on the enemy that increases damage done by Miasma, and vice versa.

Gameplay would be keeping up Shadow Flare the whole time and swapping between Miasma and Bio for the second DoT, Bio would make Miasma do more damage once it runs out, Miasma would make Bio do more damage when it runs out. It's similar overall to Reaper's gameplay.


DoTs CAN be fairly interesting, it's been done before. I know that in DR last expansion the debuff/buff limitations caused a lot of problems, but just limit the number of players in the content. It really feels like some design decisions are based on a small amount of content.

[VentVanitas]

You can do some pretty cool things with DoTs too that SE really hasn't explored.

Seeing what Blizzard does with Affliction Warlock then looking back at FFXIV even at its peak with DoTs makes me weep.

[Absurdity]

Seeing what Blizzard does with Affliction Warlock then looking back at FFXIV even at its peak with DoTs makes me weep.

One of the big limiting factors to DoT gameplay is unfortunately the fundamental design behind DoT effects in XIV. Dots deal their damage every server tick, which is 3 seconds, and there is no way to speed this up.

No matter what they do about DoTs it will always feel a bit lackluster compared to WoW's affliction lock where you could have DoTs tick every second, sometimes even faster with abilities like Malefic Grasp and stacking Haste, filling your screen with damage numbers everywhere.

[ASkellington]

You can do some pretty cool things with DoTs too that SE really hasn't explored.

AST could have its Time Mage elements back instead of being stripped of them and either Dilate (extend) or Quicken Combust (or whatever extra DoT) you wanna give it.

SGE could get DoTs that actually interact with Kardia (cause I swear to god it feels like it doesn't right now) and passively heal the party so there is incentive to pop them both (also assuming they get more than one)

WHM? Idfk. Maybe give them a thorn's dot that inflicts a debuff on the enemy that weakens it and gives more damage to the party on top of... Aero 3 was the lost DoT right?

Back onto the topic, yes, YoshiP has 0 idea about how healers actually plays, needs to accept that and take a deeper look into them. ..And probably combat design for Savage Tier at least. I want heal checks dammit!

AND NO. DOOM HEALING TO FULL DOES NOT CUT IT. Give me... Does Ultima's heal check in Orbonne count as an Ahk Morn? Since its consistent damage over a period of time? W/e. Give me more random damage on the party pls that isn't avoidable.

We have TWO HEALERS in raids! We should be getting mechanics for BOTH of them to heal through

[Mortex]

AST could have its Time Mage elements back instead of being stripped of them and either Dilate (extend) or Quicken Combust (or whatever extra DoT) you wanna give it.

SGE could get DoTs that actually interact with Kardia (cause I swear to god it feels like it doesn't right now) and passively heal the party so there is incentive to pop them both (also assuming they get more than one)

WHM? Idfk. Maybe give them a thorn's dot that inflicts a debuff on the enemy that weakens it and gives more damage to the party on top of... Aero 3 was the lost DoT right?

Back onto the topic, yes, YoshiP has 0 idea about how healers actually plays, needs to accept that and take a deeper look into them. ..And probably combat design for Savage Tier at least. I want heal checks dammit!

AND NO. DOOM HEALING TO FULL DOES NOT CUT IT. Give me... Does Ultima's heal check in Orbonne count as an Ahk Morn? Since its consistent damage over a period of time? W/e. Give me more random damage on the party pls that isn't avoidable.

We have TWO HEALERS in raids! We should be getting mechanics for BOTH of them to heal through

Give white mage a dps rotation we’re we use all the astral elements like water, wind and earth. It’s insane how generic boring glare is. And sage his dot interacts with kardia but only once for the 170 potency hit if you apply the dot, afterwards it does nothing. Scholar should be a debuff master, we’re you weaken the boss or strength the group depending on the situation. Like the job is a battle tactician and not a whatever it is now. Give astro back time magic and make it for example that you can place a heal or effect in “stasis” so you use it when you need it or make it so you can speed up a dot or hot so it deals the full potency instead or other cool stuff.

Like these Job have so much potential it’s insane how under utilized this potential is.

Like every job except healer has a really heavy skill ceiling for optimization and then there is the healer role we’re getting better means hitting 1 button more.

[glamazon]

Want to change healers for the better? Make it mandatory all devs play healers and you’ll see how fast things change for the better once they experience mind numbing unsatisfying gameplay

[Thoosa]

I think their plan is to eventually blur the lines in the holy trinity (or remove it altogether) to try and appeal to the most people as possible, plus because they have so many jobs now, it would probably make balancing easier, because I don’t think they have a big budget or big developer team?

There’s also something someone might have said, that they don’t want to put all the pressure on healers, so that’s why healer’s dps buttons are very little and why they have crazy ogcd healing buttons, and why they’ve given raises to dps jobs.

However with this “healers must dps” mantra, they’ve ended up creating a mind set of “oh I must dps as much as I can and heal only in emergencies” and it’s created the “healer parse” culture and a really boring 1 1 1 1 role where you’re barely healing and bored out of your mind pressing 1 1 1 1. Also for bad healers, they get 1 1 1 1 tunnel vision whilst their group is dying all around them because the mindset isn’t heal first.

*grumbles about scripted incoming party damage which makes healing really boring*

Healers are neither dps jobs first, with healing buttons, or healers first, with dps buttons. They’re no longer a defined thing as part of the trinity.

[IDontPetLalas]

I think their plan is to eventually blur the lines in the holy trinity (or remove it altogether) to try and appeal to the most people as possible, plus because they have so many jobs now, it would probably make balancing easier, because I don’t think they have a big budget or big developer team?

There’s also something someone might have said, that they don’t want to put all the pressure on healers, so that’s why healer’s dps buttons are very little and why they have crazy ogcd healing buttons, and why they’ve given raises to dps jobs.

However with this “healers must dps” mantra, they’ve ended up creating a mind set of “oh I must dps as much as I can and heal only in emergencies” and it’s created the “healer parse” culture and a really boring 1 1 1 1 role where you’re barely healing and bored out of your mind pressing 1 1 1 1. Also for bad healers, they get 1 1 1 1 tunnel vision whilst their group is dying all around them because the mindset isn’t heal first.

*grumbles about scripted incoming party damage which makes healing really boring*

Healers are neither dps jobs first, with healing buttons, or healers first, with dps buttons. They’re no longer a defined thing as part of the trinity.

I think you may have missed a few stereotypes, or excuses for bad designs,, but probably not.

Let's check them off:

1- they don't have a big enough budget - not my problem
2- they don't have enough designers - definitely not my problem, this game is successful, they keep adding jobs, they should able to to have a dedicated designer as the game grows
3- bad healers let people die because they keep hitting 1 too often. Umm, no. bad healers are bad for many reasons, including being AFK, including NOT DPSing. People can also die such as (DPS) because they stand in the bad to0 much.
4- healers need a "heal first" mindset. Partially true on that one but again damage being scripted, not so much, true in that people make mistakes.

Finally, to your last statement, a healer in FFXIV (for myself) should have more heals and utility than a tank or a DPS, but do less DPS as a consequence than a DPS. Whether than ends up being 14 utility skills and 10 DPS skills - just throwing that out OR 16 utility and 8 DPS - whatever- as long as the end result works well (those are just random numbers)