The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[fulminating]

I'd agree about 80% of the way, if only "asking for fun over balance" didn't nearly always translate on the forums to "AST and SCH should be fun to play and WHM sucking is a price we should all be willing to pay for it".

Ast and sch should be fun to play. White mage needs redesigned to be fun because it's made for a non-existent game, and no amount of papering over those cracks will address the fundamental issue. This is not remotely helped by all healers being made to fit the white mage mold, when everything is WHM+, WHM alone can only feel lacking.

[Semirhage]

Ast and sch should be fun to play. White mage needs redesigned to be fun because it's made for a non-existent game, and no amount of papering over those cracks will address the fundamental issue. This is not remotely helped by all healers being made to fit the white mage mold, when everything is WHM+, WHM alone can only feel lacking.

I agree. Which is why I continue to narrow my eyes whenever I see the suggestion that WHM is "nearly perfect", "just a few tweaks away from being really great", etc. I've seen that take aaaaaaaall throughout Shadowbringers and Endwalker thus far, and I couldn't disagree more. If current healer design is boring and embarrassing, it's boring and embarrassing no matter which three-letter acronym describes it.

My somewhat less popular take for the fictional landscape after all of the healers are "fixed" is that AST and SCH have been meta for a brief, fleeting ten straight years. It's okay to not be the most powerful, most fun, most flexible, best healers in the game for five minutes.

[Desna]

So summing up what I'm seeing across many threads beyond just this one.

1) Healers are suffering an identity crisis where they're all feeling lacking in a firm commitment by design to actual roles in the game. Healer, Tank, DPS are starting to bleed into each other instead of staying distinct identities.

2) Pure Healers (WHM, AST) are showing a lack of interest by the designers because healers as a role have no representation on the design teams, the designers don't Main healers, don't appreciate them or what they do and have even now reached a point where they have the game set so raids can function without a healer at all, content can be cleared without a healer so the whole ROLE has been disenfranchised and that's producing Healer mains scrambling to play TWO roles (Healer and DPS) at the same time to stay relevant and useful. This causes ridiculous amounts of confusion and frustration among the people Maining Healers.

This disenfranchisement has resulted in the jobs becoming hodge podge messes of buffed and nerfed skills that are outdated for current gameplay and clunky poorly designed functions in the classes that make them even more confusing and less enjoyable to play because of the clutch grinding playstyle they require to get through a raid or dungeon. Buffing and nerfing is not fixing. Some skill sets are just in need of updates so they work better.

In a nutshell, for our beloved designers. Please...restore class/role integrity and identity. Make a role (Healer, Tank, DPS) distinct and make sure it is NEEDED and can not be left behind in current content. Do not ask a role to fill another role on top of it's own because then...we end up where we are now...with Healers pulling their hair out trying to be DPS AND Healers at the same time and everyone upset because...that just can never work out well, there is no way to balance it without making healing classes god-like overpowered and OP classes are BORING, unchallenging and always always fail in every MMORPG that lets them coast along for long. Distinct roles...please...quit muddying the waters. Hire some healer mains, not just raiders either, find some people who run those roulettes and MAIN Healers and play them more often than anything else. Get Healers represented on your design team. Stop saying you should and you need to....do it, show us, your fan base and loyal players...that you're going to give more than lipservice to this. If you really cared? You should have DONE it by now, this problem isn't getting better. You have teams running without healers now and it never should have reached that point.

[ty_taurus]

2) Pure Healers (WHM, AST) are showing a lack of interest by the designers because healers as a role have no representation on the design teams, the designers don't Main healers, don't appreciate them or what they do and have even now reached a point where they have the game set so raids can function without a healer at all, content can be cleared without a healer so the whole ROLE has been disenfranchised and that's producing Healer mains scrambling to play TWO roles (Healer and DPS) at the same time to stay relevant and useful. This causes ridiculous amounts of confusion and frustration among the people Maining Healers.

I think a better way to explain this point is that the game is constructed to support a combat healer role--a role that is meant to juggle a combination of offense and healing--however, the healers we have are designed as if the game's content is designed for heavy healing output as if it were more in the vein of WoW, and that offense is an insignificant portion of healer gameplay.

In truth, it's the opposite. Content is designed with damage being entirely scripted. The game delivers to the player windows of avoidable damage, windows of unavoidable damage, and windows of no damage. These dictate when the healer needs to prioritize recovery or offense, and the windows of offense are significantly larger than the windows of healing. This is not bad design. Not every gamer may like this, but no game is meant to be liked by everyone. It's just a choice. The problem is the refusal to build healing jobs that support this design.

[elioaiko]

Ast and sch should be fun to play. White mage needs redesigned to be fun because it's made for a non-existent game, and no amount of papering over those cracks will address the fundamental issue. This is not remotely helped by all healers being made to fit the white mage mold, when everything is WHM+, WHM alone can only feel lacking.

They should and they were! They just needed to commit to it and redesign WHM to actually fit the game's design. They could have easily rewarded balancing drawing aether from the earth to fuel the heal/damage with nukes or stacked healing.

It's sad how the devs just think that one button spam is okay for combat that relies on meeting a dps check.

[Bobby66]

Issue I have noticed is for some reason the community as a whole in FFXIV is deathly afraid of raising the skill ceiling.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Issue I have noticed is for some reason the community as a whole in FFXIV is deathly afraid of raising the skill ceiling.

Yo, I’m highly insecure if that co-WHM can heal and GLARE nonstop. The latter shouldn’t be allowed!! They are healer, like me!! I should be able to get my savage glam by spamming Medica II to oblivion!!! It’s my god-given right!! We should be equal! I also don’t like that SCH who let their Eos & regens heal passively!! That’s cheating!!

/s

[Bobby66]

Yo, I’m highly insecure if that co-WHM can heal and GLARE nonstop. The latter shouldn’t be allowed!! They are healer, like me!! I should be able to get my savage glam by spamming Medica II to oblivion!!! It’s my god-given right!! We should be equal! I also don’t like that SCH who let their Eos & regens heal passively!! That’s cheating!!

/s

We must be a voice for the voiceless, let us carry the message that heals are not only viable but equal. Some may even argue we add more complexity because our healing only style requires everyone to perform that much better.

[ty_taurus]

snip.

Apologies I’m on the phone so had to shorten the quote.

Saying that an idea is bad because the designers shifted away from it it is flawed logic, especially considering combat healers are well liked in other games. In HW, they also changed ranged DPS to have cast times, so that means mobile ranged DPS design is objectively bad design, yeah?

And I’m not really sure what Cleric Stance has to do with anything. Is that the only conceivable way combat healer could ever hope to be? Or was that just one poorly executed punishment system, and having an actual selection of DPS tools is a concept that’s entirely different from that?

Yes, the problem is that SE carved a circular hole and is trying to force a cube through a hole that’s too small. The hole is too small for the square and that’s a problem. The square is too large for the circle and that’s a problem. Both are entirely valid shapes on there, but fail to accomplish what the other shape is trying to accomplish.

[ASkellington]

Apologizes I’m on the phone so had to shorten the quote.

Saying that an idea is bad because the designers shifted away from it it is flawed logic, especially considering combat healers are well liked in other games. In HW, they also changed ranged DPS to have cast times, so that means mobile ranged DPS designed is objectively bad design, yeah?

And I’m not really sure what Cleric Stance has to do with anything. Is that the only conceivable way combat healer could ever hope to be? Or was that just one poorly executed punishment system, and having an actual selection of DPS tools is a concept that’s entirely different from that?

Yes, the problem is that SE carved a circular hole and is trying to force a cube through a hole that’s too small. The hole is too small for the square and that’s a problem. The square is too large for the circle and that’s a problem. Both are entirely valid shapes on there, but fail to accomplish what the other shape is trying to accomplish.

Another way to say this:

The problem with healers is that the combat design does not match the current healer tool kit (too little damage despite all the healing tools they have).

There are two solutions to the problem -

1. Fix combat design to match healer tool kit (increase damage across the game from lv15 dungeons to level cap)
   
2. Fix healer tool kit to match current combat design (decrease healing tool kit and replace with buffs/debuff and/or dps)

Option #2 is avocated because option 1 is not possible without either making A Realm Reborn Reborn or the devs saying 90+ content from now on is actually challenging and to hells with the rest of the game.