How to easily have healers dps engaged ( yet another thread)

[Supersnow845]

Where to begin?.

I love how you just make the statement oh yes things have changed, what things, oh you know things, the healer role is exactly the same as it was in 5.x and has received no major changes other than SGE which didn’t move the dial on anything, the same classes are still meta, the same skills are still used, all we got was like 1.5 new souls per healer, so you know data from ShB can be used because it shows exactly where there was a turning point in healer design

And no you can’t just go “yeah but you were annoyed because your main got lobotomised, but MCH mains don’t see a problem with new SCH so it’s all fine”, job satisfaction crashing after a major change is the cleanest way of showing a change was unpopular, and the fact that it didn’t recover from 5.0-5.25 shows it was a sustained bad decision

And no adding those points up says absolutely nothing because you are counting people multiple times, 750k or so people have SCH at level 90, about 850k or so have PLD at 90, adding all 4 healer bars together and going “see look at all the healers” is not how you interpret that data because then it all comes down to (as you even said in your “interpretation”) how many jobs are within the role

And I said “kinda okay” with the caveat that raids don’t work without healer mains and that data is not a good look for healers, there is little to no data for endwalker I’ve found the most up to date data there is, but if you want to wave that away as “old data” when none of the healers have functionally changed in any meaningful way (no you pre-empting that argument doesn’t invalidate it) then go ahead, it’s obvious that you don’t really care what I have to say

On the subject of expedient if you actually believe that people were clowning on the skill and not how square chose to display it then that’s a reading comprehension issue

[Azuri]

See this?

Don't do this again.

Ever.

I will not be kind the next time you do it.

(And you call me toxic and aggressive? Seriously: Don't do this again.)

There's a saying in the military: An army marches on its stomach. What this means is that without logistics, all wars are lost causes. Your argument here is essentially if you aren't a front line rifleman, you aren't contributing to the war effort and you aren't needed. Yet an army of only riflemen will lose every war. The fact you have a child's level of understanding of this topic is obvious, but if you press this button again, I'm going to be much more...direct...in slapping it down. This is thrice you've now done it, and Thrice Comes Ruin.

Woah, look at the badass over there. A badass who averages 60-70% GCD uptime. Sorry, lad, but someone who does nothing for a third of the fight doesn't get to talk about "understanding of the topic".

You are getting carried by your groups. End of story.

[Renathras]

And that would be worse how exactly?
We currently get 3 free stacks and then avoid the skill like the plague in a 10min fight. I never claimed it would fix all issues but if "too op" really is your only concern, I provided a very simple and very effective fix - limit it by MP cost that are too high to make it spammable. That's all. It would certainly be better than what we currently have and even offer a little bit of a skill ceiling. Having something to optimize isn't a bad thing.

Fair enough.

There probably are some solutions to be had. I guess the important thing is just to bring up options and see if anything sticks out as a good solution to employ.

A really easy way to fix the issue with Toxikon while making SGE more fun to play would be firstly to either buff Toxikon to double Dosis potency or have it combo into another Dosis potency OGCD attack used right after Toxikon.

From there, simply reworking how Addersgall/Addersting are obtained slightly. Instead of generating normally over time, SGE gets a new DPS button that generates 1 Addersgall and 1 Addersting, has a 20 second cooldown on the GCD, and has 2 charges. Then whenever you activate Kardia healing, your gauge increases by 2. When your guage is 50 or higher, your next E. Diag or E. Prog grants 1 Addersting. The Addersting generation on E. Diag breaking is removed.

One argument I've seen is changing Rhizo to generate Addersting (and either making it a 60 sec CD or giving it 2 charges). And, honestly, it's one of SGE's most lackluster abilities, so having some extra function there might be just what the doctor ordered.

EDIT:

I love how you just make the statement oh yes things have changed, what things, oh you know things,

I can go into more depth, if you like? Off the top of my head:

- 1.5 spamcast to allow more weaving
- Differentiation into Pure and Barrier Healers (for whatever that's worth in practice)
- The removal of a spec (nAST) and addition of a new Healer Job (SGE)
- The new capstone abilities, particularly Expedient
- SCH pet changes, both in terms of potency and responsiveness
- Ability/Button changes (like Consolation being merged with Seraph)
- Tuning changes (like Misery being DPS neutral, which wasn't true in 5.X nor in 6.0)
- Party changes that affect Healers (like tank active mitigation abilities)
- All of the new abilities added overall as well as charge gains on existing abilities (Benison, Aquaveil, etc)
- Encounter design changes and how they work with these abilities (for example, more short pulses of multi-hit damage; the addition of strong bleed debuffs)

That's just a few things off the top of my head that might make zero difference to you, but we're not talking about just you, we're talking about every healer in the game collectively. Indeed, note how SCH is at the bottom of the list in satisfaction in the 5.0 poll, but is 7th most played and most played healer in the 6.2 JP data. While the latter is of "main" so we don't know if they're all satisfied, it's probably reasonable to assume people picking it more means they don't HATE it, and it is more played by the JP base than the others. The data you provided seems to indicate there's been a change over time.

The healer role is not, it seems, "exactly the same as it was in 5.x" unless you squint so hard that a WHM looks like a SAM. You do the same thing you accuse me of, btw, insisting there were no changes, pointing out some things that changed, but insisting they didn't really do anything.

And no you can’t just go “yeah but you were annoyed because your main got lobotomised,

I'm curious what argument you think I'm making?

I'm not saying you can't be annoyed or that feelings of annoyance aren't valid.

I'm saying that those feelings do not persist to players who started or picked up a Job after the change and don't have that emotional attachment to its previous form. There are many cases of irl things where people who are with it when there is a change hate it, but new people who are introduced to it after the change love it.

job satisfaction crashing after a major change is the cleanest way of showing a change was unpopular,

WITH THE PEOPLE who didn't like the change or liked the prior state. You know as well as I that many of those players stopped healing while we also have literally millions of new players, including hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, new healers. You think all of them identically share that opinion? What is your basis for that belief?

and the fact that it didn’t recover from 5.0-5.25 shows it was a sustained bad decision

This, on the other hand, is a decent argument. The problem with it is, it's also 3 years old. DO we know that it didn't recover after 5.25? No. DO we know it was a sustained position? No. So we don't know it was a sustained bad decision because we don't have the data to support that.

And no adding those points up says absolutely nothing because you are counting people multiple times,

O...kay. Let me ask you this question:

When you shared that data, what did you think it showed? That is, what were you trying to prove with it?

And I said “kinda okay” with the caveat that raids don’t work without healer mains

(...this exact same argument can be made for literally all mains...)

there is little to no data for endwalker I’ve found the most up to date data there is,

This does seem to be the case from me searching to see if there's new data as well. Kind of unfortunate since I'd like to see if those trends have held up or not. I suspect they have not, but data is needed to know one way or the other.

it’s obvious that you don’t really care what I have to say

That can't be obvious - because it isn't true.

I actually do care what you have to say. I disagree with a lot of it, but that doesn't mean that I don't agree with any of it, nor does it mean I don't care.

On the subject of expedient if you actually believe that people were clowning on the skill and not how square chose to display it then that’s a reading comprehension issue

If you were on this forum OR Reddit OR most any FFXIV Disc OR in the comments of any FFXIV content creator's YouTube videos - you know that people were clowning on the skill.

There were people, to their credit (not to toot, but I was one of them), pointing out that it might be a sleeper skill that would turn out to be really good. My own position was that SCH was the most powerful (clunky as all hells, but powerful) healer in ShB and likely would be in EW, despite all the shiny new toy SGE hype and people talking down SCH.

...but there were a LOT of people clowning on not only Expedient but SCH, insisting the Job was a total mess, and moreover, that no one would be playing it in 6.X with SGE there to move to instead.

Those people absolutely existed, and it wasn't a "reading comprehension issue", and I suspect even you know that.

I can use other examples of the community feeling one way but those views changing, if you don't like that one, but I suspect you realize the truth of my argument there and just don't like it...

THAT SAID:

I don't mind good discussions. If you have more data, we can talk about it, and I actually do enjoy those conversations and comparisons. As I've said a couple times now, my issue is the hyperbole and overstatement of claims. It prevents any serious discussions or solutions because the absurdity of the positions. And there's legitimately no reason for it.

You don't need to claim that 90% of people hate healing and the role is on its deathbed...to note that there are problems with the role and Jobs in it and they need changing. It could be that only 10% of people dislike the role and it's middle of the pack in terms of popularity, and that could already justify working on changes. There's no reason to overstate the case at all.

Woah, look at the badass over there. A badass who averages 60-70% GCD uptime. Sorry, lad, but someone who does nothing for a third of the fight doesn't get to talk about "understanding of the topic".

You are getting carried by your groups. End of story.

This, I will dignify with no further response other than pointing out it's a TOS violation. Good job, "lad". (I bet you think pressing oGCDs is "nothing" too, as if the buttons magically push themselves...)

[Videra]

Literally just give WHM Aero 3 back, give SCH its old hard-casted miasma, targetted embraces, shadowflare, and bane back. And give Sage DPS positive toxikon or a thundercloud-esque proc for phlegma. Job done.

[T-Owl]

See this?

Don't do this again.

Ever.

I will not be kind the next time you do it.

(And you call me toxic and aggressive? Seriously: Don't do this again.)

There's a saying in the military: An army marches on its stomach. What this means is that without logistics, all wars are lost causes. Your argument here is essentially if you aren't a front line rifleman, you aren't contributing to the war effort and you aren't needed. Yet an army of only riflemen will lose every war. The fact you have a child's level of understanding of this topic is obvious, but if you press this button again, I'm going to be much more...direct...in slapping it down. This is thrice you've now done it, and Thrice Comes Ruin.

You are literally threatening me here. Thats an implicit threat. Like, maybe don't threaten people if you want others to take your whole "I want to support others"-Attitude seriously and not consider you toxic and unhinged?

Again, as I've said before, hyperbole kills these discussions.

It's absolutely hyperbolic to say the healer role is dying, or is even the least popular in the game. It is absolutely hyperbolic to use extremely dated surveys that don't capture the current moods at all to make that case.

Healing may not be in the best place, but it's hardly in the worst, much less "dying". Indeed, subjectively by reading around the webs, it seems the Caster role is the one in most need of change, and the Job in the game in most dire straights is MCH. Criterion Dungeons (which don't allow combat raise) are going to quickly show SMN and RDM being underperformers since so much of their balance is based on them having a combat raise. And MCH is already doing fairly abysmally across various metrics. There's also a real fear that WAR may dominate the tanking scene in Criterions.

These are all upcoming major concerns, and some of them are reflective of current concerns (e.g. the SMN/RDM low damage numbers) as-is.

Having played multiple MMOs my whole life, the only reason to like FF14s healers really is either enjoying the idea of dpsing while healing because FF14 made it mainstream before WoW and still has a higher DPS focus than WoW, the superficial animations without regard for gameplay or never having played any MMO before and having no point of comparison what proper healer gameplay looks like. I mean, again, look at WoW. Can you make up any explanation how FF14s healer design is not objectively shit compared to what its biggest competitor came up with in terms of their healer classes, healing styles and healing gameplay?

[Conchoidal]

Fair enough.
I'm saying that those feelings do not persist to players who started or picked up a Job after the change and don't have that emotional attachment to its previous form. There are many cases of irl things where people who are with it when there is a change hate it, but new people who are introduced to it after the change love it.

WITH THE PEOPLE who didn't like the change or liked the prior state. You know as well as I that many of those players stopped healing while we also have literally millions of new players, including hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, new healers. You think all of them identically share that opinion? What is your basis for that belief?

Honestly I think it's a bit unfair to completely discard the opinions of the veteran players who truly have a passion for this game to have played it and engaged with the community for years in favour of newer players who have no real "loyalty" to the game or community and might leave once another shiny new MMO comes out. FFXIV doesn't have new players because of current healer design, it has it in spite of it. We will lose these new players very quickly if jobs are continually homogenised and sterilised.

[Conchoidal]

Also, on the point of "1.5s cast times being an improvement", its the laziest solution to a problem SE introduced themselves in SHB. Scholar, despite having many oGCD abilities, had 2 dots with instant casts and could execute fairy abilities whilst casting. WHM's primary dot was 18s, providing more weave space for their few oGCDs and clipping occasionally was less punishing for casual players. AST was unique in having a fast cast Malefic (in later SB patches), allowing them to weave their cards and plethora of oGCDs. Reducing all cast times to 1.5s and giving a trait unique to AST to all healers, despite making the jobs much better in the current design space, just makes jobs even more boring since there's even less of a reason to use movement tools.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Also, on the point of "1.5s cast times being an improvement", its the laziest solution to a problem SE introduced themselves in SHB.

This is what I thought too.

Healers, by proxy, are also 'spellcasters' so it's not rocket science to expect them to be less mobile vs their physical ranged/melee counterparts. Having 2.5s cast time was a gameplay nuance that also adds plenty of room for personal improvements such as:

• WHM's lilies required more thought to use effectively back then in order to keep that GCD uptime rolling as close to 100% as possible. WHM mains would normally try to use their lilies at places where they can benefit from the healing values, the mobility, & extra weaving space it provides outside Dia refresh. Regen was also a viable but less desired option. They could've expanded these such turning Assize into 2 charged GCDs, letting Assize unlocks access to a new spell like Tornado which should be an instant GCD on cooldown. Heck, I think PvP's Afflatus Purgation could've been turned into instant GCD as well in its hypothetical PvE iteration except still DPS neutral & axe out that self damage buff on 2m cooldown.
• SCH could've access at least two instant cast DoT, one being a gain but diff timer vs Biolysis, and another being neutral but shorter DoT.

AST was unique in having a fast cast Malefic (in later SB patches), allowing them to weave their cards and plethora of oGCDs. Reducing all cast times to 1.5s and giving a trait unique to AST to all healers, despite making the jobs much better in the current design space, just makes jobs even more boring since there's even less of a reason to use movement tools.

Personally I liked AST being the only 1.5s spellcaster back in ShB. Sure it was also 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 but it has different feel if that makes any sense.

[T-Owl]

Honestly I think it's a bit unfair to completely discard the opinions of the veteran players who truly have a passion for this game to have played it and engaged with the community for years in favour of newer players who have no real "loyalty" to the game or community and might leave once another shiny new MMO comes out. FFXIV doesn't have new players because of current healer design, it has it in spite of it. We will lose these new players very quickly if jobs are continually homogenised and sterilised.

We have to also consider, a great portion of new Players also comes from World of Warcraft and I can't see many of them staying engaged with the healer design of this game in the long run, compared to what they knew. WoW Healers are much more diverse and complex in terms of their different playstyles than they were at any point in FF14. Somebody who played Discipline Priest in Wow and jumps to Sage in FF14 because its advertised as similar will probably have a rough awakening after the first honeymoon phase. And that isn't really a process that only affects veteran. I only took up FF14 healing seriously in Endwalker, before I just leveled Scholar once during Stormblood. By just knowing that I am supposed to dps most of the time and use ogcd heals before casts I could already start with a hugh dps uptime and it took me mere months until I was burned out of the role due to the 1 button spam. And I played main heal in most mmos outside off ff14.

And lets be honest, the Honeymoon Phase For WoW Refugees should be about over at this point and you can see it by complaints over issues like job balance getting louder. People start to be done with the MSQ.

[Supersnow845]

This is what I thought too.

Healers, by proxy, are also 'spellcasters' so it's not rocket science to expect them to be less mobile vs their physical ranged/melee counterparts. Having 2.5s cast time was a gameplay nuance that also adds plenty of room for personal improvements such as:

• WHM's lilies required more thought to use effectively back then in order to keep that GCD uptime rolling as close to 100% as possible. WHM mains would normally try to use their lilies at places where they can benefit from the healing values, the mobility, & extra weaving space it provides outside Dia refresh. Regen was also a viable but less desired option. They could've expanded these such turning Assize into 2 charged GCDs, letting Assize unlocks access to a new spell like Tornado which should be an instant GCD on cooldown. Heck, I think PvP's Afflatus Purgation could've been turned into instant GCD as well in its hypothetical PvE iteration except still DPS neutral & axe out that self damage buff on 2m cooldown.
• SCH could've access at least two instant cast DoT, one being a gain but diff timer vs Biolysis, and another being neutral but shorter DoT.

Personally I liked AST being the only 1.5s spellcaster back in ShB. Sure it was also 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 but it has different feel if that makes any sense.

It also removed energy drains function of being a refund to using ruin 2 to generate weave space for fairy heals and turned it into a generic damage button that consumes healing resources since clipping ED into broil casts was a DPS loss but you didn’t get enough biolysis refreshes to spend every aetherflow on ED before you refreshed ED

It’s why to me WHM feels worse in 6.x, sure the misery changes actually make it a better healer but having a healer who’s primary healing is lossless GCD healing with few oGCD’s but also a weave spot in every glare and a cast animation obviously designed for 2.5 second casts just makes the class feel disjointed and weird to me, sure clip mage had its own problems but having lily’s be integral to weave space generation you attempted to pair with movement times rather than just fancy 2 minute burst damage dumps and downtime spenders really made it feel like WHM had an identity around its turrety cast style that felt good to fully optimise