The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[AnotherPerson]

WHM reached the compromise position in ShB - as I think we can all agree at this point, SB WHM sucked.

Is this not more or less what I've been proposing this entire time? Return SCH and AST to their SB kits (including nAST), and WHM should probably be "ShB WHM + Aero 3". Granted with their EW abilities tacked on and SGE in the game. This would give us a simple healer more or less as it is today with the only big difference being DoT cleave for AOE and macroing Cleric Stance onto Presence of Mind (WHM), a DoT and plate spinning healer (SCH), not one but two buff healers (dAST and nAST for both Pure and Barrier healing spots), and a semi-WHM equivalent barrier healer (SGE). I think that is the ideal solution.

Indeed, when they were adding RDM at that time, I briefly considered it could be the next healer Job. It had White Magic (presumably some heals and a raise) while also having black magic (so substitute Stone, Aero 1, and Aero 2 for Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder). RDM would have fit into SB-era FFXIV healing model as a healer with no one really batting an eye if you think about it.

With all due respect, ShB WHM still sucked. It only sucked less because it was the only job that was uplifted because everyone kept complaining the job gauge still sucked, and the job gauge finally upgraded to get a DPS refund skill. However, if you look at the big picture, WHM gameplay still sucked even in Endwalker 6.0 and only finally got DPS Neutral lilies in later patches (finally making the gauge something you use instead of avoid or use as sparingly as possible). The problem still exists, however. Until lv 74, where you don't want to touch your gauge since regen is more potent than Afflatus Solace per GCD. Even Medica II is probably better than Afflatus Solace in most circumstances until you unlock Afflatus Misery. Doubly so if you need to pop a Confession before Medica II at level 70.

WHM is the only healer that takes until Heavensward to get their job gauge, which is ridiculous in its own right. At the same time, WHM is also the only healer that doesn't want to utilize their job gauge until lv 74. Just because WHM got improvements, it's a far outcry from actually being "good" when you look at its state as a whole. It's just serviceable.

[ty_taurus]

With all due respect, ShB WHM still sucked. It only sucked less because it was the only job that was uplifted because everyone kept complaining the job gauge still sucked, and the job gauge finally upgraded to get a DPS refund skill. However, if you look at the big picture, WHM gameplay still sucked even in Endwalker 6.0 and only finally got DPS Neutral lilies in later patches (finally making the gauge something you use instead of avoid or use as sparingly as possible). The problem still exists, however. Until lv 74, where you don't want to touch your gauge since regen is more potent than Afflatus Solace per GCD. Even Medica II is probably better than Afflatus Solace in most circumstances until you unlock Afflatus Misery. Doubly so if you need to pop a Confession before Medica II at level 70.

WHM is the only healer that takes until Heavensward to get their job gauge, which is ridiculous in its own right. At the same time, WHM is also the only healer that doesn't want to utilize their job gauge until lv 74. Just because WHM got improvements, it's a far outcry from actually being "good" when you look at its state as a whole. It's just serviceable.

The only thing that is genuinely a positive about WHM is that it's the only healer to offer an incentive to use recovery GCDs over DPS GCDs once you've learned Afflatus Misery; however, that does come with caveats. Like with what you stated, level 74 is far too high to actually gain access to your gauge mechanics, and there's no reason for Afflatus Solace to exist without Misery. Really, both of these should become accessible (while also scaling with your current iteration of Stone or Glare) in the ballpark of level 30. Additionally, there is a pressure to throw away lily heals to nourish the blood lily during all instances of downtime. I mentioned this before in my scribbles of ideas, but a really simple way to address this issue is to just give WHM a Meditate/Anatman for the blood lily. I normally don't like these types of actions, but I feel discouraging throwing away lilies unnecessarily and encouraging players to use them for actual healing is important in accomplishing this.

[ForsakenRoe]

Is this not more or less what I've been proposing this entire time?

You'll have to forgive me for assuming that, when you said your wish for healers is 'change 3, leave one as is', that meant that WHM would be completely untouched. Adding back Aero 3 (and not just as 'it does dia but in an aoe', but as 'a seperate second dot timer to manage') would be 'touching' it, right?

WHM is the only healer that takes until Heavensward to get their job gauge, which is ridiculous in its own right. At the same time, WHM is also the only healer that doesn't want to utilize their job gauge until lv 74. Just because WHM got improvements, it's a far outcry from actually being "good" when you look at its state as a whole. It's just serviceable.

Exactly, with SHB, if we were to assign 'out of 10' scores, we could say WHM went from a 2/10 to a 4/10, SCH from a 8/10 to a 5/10 and AST from a 8/10 to a 3/10 (cos its healing potencies on launch sucked bad). The fact WHM went up from a 2 to a 4 is an improvement yes, but it's still only a 4/10, there's a lot more work that needed to be done. It could have been eg a 7/10 if the only change was adding the better lilies and making the MP cost changes, but they counteracted those changes with 'oh also you are down to just one nuke one dot. Like AST, but without the Card system that partially justifies AST having that'.

[Renathras]

With all due respect, ShB WHM still sucked.

This is a personal taste thing, but no, it didn't. WHM in ShB was pretty fun to play, and most people loved the heck out of the Lily system and Misery. It even got to briefly stand in the meta comp here and there. I'm trying to remember for sure, but Misery was close enough to damage neutral that using Lilies for movement and downtime was still a thing. WHM overall felt good to play WHM was probably a 2/10 in SB and somewhere from 5-7/10 in ShB. It went from being borderline unplayable with systems that made no sense (e.g. Cure 1 and Cure 2 having a CHANCE to generate a Lily and place a Confession stack on the target for Plenary to pop into a heal) into actually being entirely DPS functional while more than capable of being an effective healer with good personal DPS.

6.0 actually made it worse because Glare got stronger and Misery didn't, so instead of Misery being worth 3 Glares, it became worth something like 2.5, making it a significant damage loss in most cases and counterintuitive to use. Aquaveil's all right, but Lilybell should really be a 2 min CD. Allowing it to be detonated early and making Misery truly DPS neutral were both good changes.

I do agree that the LEVELING makes no sense. At the VERY least you should get Solace sometime before level 50. Personally, I'd make Solace at level 30 (where PoM is now) OR 35 (where Regen is now) (in which case make Regen 30), Tetra or Presence of Mind at 50 (where Bene is now), the other of the two at 52 (where Solace is now), Benediction at 60 (where Tetra is now), Rapture at 70 (where Plenary is now), Plenary at 76 (Rapture is now), and probably make a low level oGCD "Stoneskin" as a weaker Aquaveil that upgrades to Aquaveil (or vice versa) at 86.

Could also swap Thin Air (58) with Misery (74) to let people start casting Misery early.

Imo, things like Thin Air, Presence of Mind, Plenary Indulgence, and Benediction are really "high level" abilities. Partly in their effects, but they're things you use more in high end gameplay like raids and stuff, but they're kind of pointless overkill in leveling dungeons. It would make far more sense to get Solace at 30 than PoM, and Tetra should be given earlier than Benediction - that's just a relic of ARR level cap being 50, not a logical progression of the modern 90 levels of curve. I've always felt the base/core rotation of Jobs should be established relatively early (by level 50 or 60) and then all the extra modifiers and oGCD CDs be sprinkled in (along with upgrades like Stone to Glare) after that. And I don't mean direct oGCDS - things like Tetra or MCH Gauss round should be early. I mean things with indirect effects. PoM does nothing on its own. Thin Air does nothing on its own. Plenary does nothing on its own. Those are modifiers used in optimal play rather than direct spells, which is what you need while leveling.

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You'll have to forgive me for assuming that, when you said your wish for healers is 'change 3, leave one as is', that meant that WHM would be completely untouched. Adding back Aero 3 (and not just as 'it does dia but in an aoe', but as 'a seperate second dot timer to manage') would be 'touching' it, right?

Well, keep in mind I AM thinking about it as "Dia but for AOE", not a second DoT to use in single target fights. Right now, Holy is 150 while Glare is 310, making Holy (approximately) damage neutral on 2 targets (a slight loss but for trash packs the Stun mitigation may make up for it; it would need to be 155 Potency to be damage neutral on 2 targets) and a DPS gain on 3. Likewise, making Aero 3 an AOE DoT of 30 potency for 30 seconds would make it do 300 Potency of total damage, slightly below a Glare. This would likewise be a SLIGHT DPS loss on 1 target while being a DPS gain on 2 or more, making it logically slot into AOE situations without changing the single target rotation.

I suppose you could do something like have Assize proc "Aeroga" or something where it does 150% damage all at once (instead of a DoT) so every 40 seconds you'd want to use it and that would also mean using it (just after Assize) during burst windows or something. But absent something like that, this would only be a change to the AOE rotations, which isn't so much a rotation as a one-button light show.

Though I do apologize/forgive you for that since I didn't make it clear (in either case, single or multi target) other than saying in passing I liked Aero 3 and wouldn't mind it back.

But I take it you agree with the rest (AST/SCH/SGE) being more or less what I've been proposing this entire time?

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I still don't see a reason to promote the "leave one healer as it is, change the others". I am listening, I can understand the motivations, ...

I think the problem is, "this affects those players who are interested in optimizing their gameplay" tends to ALSO affect those players who are not. The only way to do it is to make the gap trivial OR make it entirely unnecessary (e.g. such lax Enrages that no one cares about healers doing damage or not). As no one is arguing for either of those changes, there's no way to do this that won't affect those other people.

The only solution - absent that - which I can see would be to make one healer not require it. Then players on that healer simply don't have to worry about it, and no one will be blackballing them since they'll be doing the same general overall performance as the people who are pushing optimization playing the other Jobs.

Can you show me a case where this isn't so? Where the optimized difference is not trivial/unneeded AND people that don't want to optimize can play those Jobs in the same content (this includes Savage) and get the clears they can get in live right now AND where the community won't be blackballing them for not doing the optimal damage?

I don't think there's a way to achieve that. Do you?

And if there is not, then the only solution is to have one healer that does its optimal damage as it does now. As the Misshapenchair quote I gave earlier states, the people complaining about not doing enough more damage should be told that they're playing their more complex Job to be engaged and have fun because that was what they wanted.

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Further, if we did change 3 healers (and readded nAST), would this not attract more healers and help in retention?

I do recognize it means WHMs who want more complex rotations would have to switch Jobs, but it also means all AST/SCH/SGE who want simpler rotations would ALSO have to switch to WHM. If we changed all 4(5) of them to be more complex, it would mean all players of all healing Jobs who want simpler rotations while still clearing the content they do today would have to swap out of the role (probably to WAR) or quit the game.

Changing all the healers strips people of content they have right now entirely.

My personal position is that changes should always be made when they add to things but don't take things away. My proposed change might mean people have to swap Jobs, but it means everyone who has access to content today has an avenue to still access it while the healer role is opened up to more playstyles to attract and appeal to more additional players (or healers that play healer right now but are bored/want more from it). This means taking a BIT away from Paul but making Peter happier while not really taking from Paul as he's still able to do what he wants.

The position proposed by you guys actively strips some players of gameplay they are allowed to engage in today, and thus is taking away from Paul to make Peter happier at the expense of robbing Paul of the things he's doing today that make him happy.

[Shurrikhan]

The position proposed by you guys actively strips some players of gameplay they are allowed to engage in today, and thus is taking away from Paul to make Peter happier at the expense of robbing Paul of the things he's doing today that make him happy.

???? No. Not even close.

You're making the case that every WHM player [or those of whichever other job you'd chose to sacrifice] wants to have access only to the shallowest of kits and that --despite their being able to use as much or as little of a kit as they like-- they'd be somehow so perturbed by even seeing anything more than the barebone basics we have now that they'd lose out.

But you've provided no evidence for any of those claims or their underlying warrants.

You've provided no rationale as to why players would be unable to simply choose how much of a given kit to engage with and ignore what they don't.

You've provided no rationale as to why having a kit larger than one wishes to engage with significantly worsens a user's experience.

You've provided no evidence that most WHM players like being 'just basic' and that keeping the job low-ceiling would therefore be preferable over giving them more to work with if they so desire.

You've provided no evidence that people pick jobs for specifically being simple or having low ceiling (which is just a lack of anything more) over their vibe, flow, features, and/or aesthetics (which is the only way you'd be favoring the total healer population as a whole by screwing over WHMs [or whichever other job you'd choose to sacrifice]).

You are the one saying Job X must be shallowed out so some hypothetical player -can better pretend they're not spending less effort for the same result --sacrificing the one for a hypothetical sub-group, as opposed than even than many-- rather than their being able to do more instead doing only so much as is (A) needed in what content they're comfortable with and therein (B) comfortable for them.

You're asking to kneecap Paul specifically so others can use him as a disabilities role model, rather than just letting Paul choose not to run when it's neither necessary nor desirable.

The only solution - absent that - which I can see would be to make one healer not require it. Then players on that healer simply don't have to worry about it, and no one will be blackballing them since they'll be doing the same general overall performance as the people who are pushing optimization playing the other Jobs.

If, as you say...

the optimized difference is not trivial/unneeded

...then what would it possibly matter than WHM isn't likewise so trivial in its kit? Why does it have to be neutered if using a greater extent of its available tools, nuances, optimizations, etc., is unneeded?

It's not the "only solution." It's not even a solution whatsoever.

[Renathras]

???? No. Not even close.

Yes, yes even close. In fact, so close it's exactly true.

You're making the case that every WHM player [or those of whichever other job you'd chose to sacrifice] wants to have access only to the shallowest of kits and that

No I'm not, and have never in fact once made that case.

--despite their being able to use as much or as little of a kit as they like--

And still clear Savage?

But you've provided no evidence for any of those claims or their underlying warrants.

Why would I provide evidence for claims I have not made?

You've provided no rationale as to why players would be unable to simply choose how much of a given kit to engage with and ignore what they don't.

Yes, I have - because unless the damage difference between optimal and suboptimal play was trivial, they would not be able to clear higher end content unless they engaged with it. Something even some of you have said either on your own or in response to my questions. And some have either said in their opinion or in their "I even actually want that" desire, those players shouldn't be allowed to clear content - that they can currently clear in the live game - unless they change their gameplay to the new style. This is actively taking away content from people.

You've provided no rationale as to why having a kit larger than one wishes to engage with significantly worsens a user's experience.

Yes, I have - because not engaging in it removes their viability in content they can currently engage with, clear, and enjoy.

You've provided no evidence that most WHM players like being 'just basic' and that keeping the job low-ceiling would therefore be preferable over giving them more to work with if they so desire.

I've never made that claim. Again, why would I provide evidence for claims I have not made?

You've provided no evidence that people pick jobs for specifically being simple or having low ceiling

Again, why would I provide evidence for claims I have not made?

That said, I have in past discussions provided this evidence, and could again. Lucky Bancho numbers show that across all roles (not just healer) the most played Jobs in the game are the ones with the simplest rotations. While we would need more studies to absolutely prove it, this has been true over multiple Lucky Bancho censuses, to the point the general community analysis of those data agrees that it is highly likely players often do, in fact, pick Jobs based on ease of play and simplicity. This is especially true for alt-Jobs, but seems to bee true on the whole.

Not "always do". "often do"

over their vibe, flow, features, and/or aesthetics

I've never made this argument, either. Again, why would I provide evidence for claims I have not made?

In fact, I've explicitly acknowledged that some people would be upset having to change Jobs and have to ask themselves which is more important, aesthetic or gameplay they enjoy. But this is still better than your solution of changing all healers which means people that don't like your gameplay GET NOTHING and have to quit the game.

(which is the only way you'd be favoring the total healer population as a whole by screwing over WHMs [or whichever other job you'd choose to sacrifice]).

Again, this is an argument I've never made.

At no time have I argued to "screw over" WHM's or other Jobs. To my way of thinking, changing the Jobs is screwing them over. To my way of thinking, making 3(4) Jobs more complicated for you would be screwing over current SCH, dAST/nAST, and SGE players because many of us don't find you're preferred gameplay fun. All of us would be screwed and have to swap to WHM. If anything, my proposal is screwing over people by sacrificing SCH, AST, and SGE to you. From my perspective, the Jobs made more complex are the ones being sacrificed and screwed over.

...and my proposal is even willing to do that in order to make you happy. This seems to be something you're not getting.

To those who do not share your view, it's changing the healers to be more complex that is breaking them, screwing them, and sacrificing them. WHM, to us, would be the only healer NOT being sacrificed and screwed over. That is what you aren't understanding.

It would be a sacrifice - I'd be sacrificing SGE, AST, and SGE - just so you can have more fun. The only thing is, it means that at least people who don't enjoy your type of gameplay can still enjoy the content they're doing right now without losing out on it entirely.

...then what would it possibly matter than WHM isn't likewise so trivial in its kit? Why does it have to be neutered

It's not being neutered. Read above. It'd be the only not NOT being neutered. We'd be neutering SCH, AST, and SGE by making them needlessly complex so that you can have more fun. WHM would be the only true healer left for those that don't like your gameplay. WHM would be the only not-neutered healer.

if using a greater extent of its available tools, nuances, optimizations, etc., is unneeded?

Again: You're saying WHM's not casting anything but Glare could still clear Savage/Extreme without weighing down their party?

It's not the "only solution." It's not even a solution whatsoever.

It's not only the only solution that works, it's far far FAR better than yours.

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You're saying I say "all" this or "all those" when I say "some" or "many". My arguments fully admit some people would be losing out. The thing you're not admitting is that, under your proposal, more people would be losing out, and they'd be losing out more completely since they wouldn't have any way to do the things they can already do today as they do them today.

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Here's the October 2022 Job population summary, btw:



Note that outside of JP specifically for Tanks with DRK, every other region has WAR, WHM, SAM/RPR, DNC (though all Ranged are easy, I guess), and SMN (then RDM) as the most played Jobs of each role/sub-role. These are also known as the easiest to play.

Notice where the most difficult to play - arguably PLD (with its half-dozen cursed openers), AST, MNK and NIN, and BLM - are all the least played Jobs in each role.

Many of those have aesthetics people love (like PLD and BLM), yet are still the least played. This is highly suggestive players do, in fact, consider complexity/difficulty in Job decisions.

Original Reddit discussion thread on the topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus..._october_2022/

Do note, as I said above, that this is not 100% proof - one could argue there are secondary effects like some people might prefer a complex Job but play RDM for their utility to their raid group - but it's suggestive that at least a good chunk of the player base does, in fact, like easier and simpler Jobs.

And note this was people with ilevel >610/615 as of October 2022, so this is people playing high end content, not just people doing Normals or leveling or just having a Job they got to 90 in 6.0 and haven't touched since. Specifically, a 610/615 ilevel weapon equipped. So that would have been Savage Raiders and Extreme heroes with Barbie Ex weapons/clears.