The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[Renathras]

I guess my main concern...

I think at the end of the day, this depends mostly on us, the playerbase.

As I said, the super hardcore min-maxers are gonna min-max always. They do so now. A min-max, world first party's tank isn't a PLD main or a GNB main. They're a "tank main". They have all four tanks, they have all the BiS gear for all four tanks, and they even swap their materia (if necessary) between fights if they switch to a different tank or need to swap out something to get to a critical threshold of skill speed or whatever. That level of top play is like the World Series or Superbowl. Those people are doing whatever it takes to win. Split clears, omni-mains, whatever. There's no way to out-engineer them. They invented split clears to out-maneuver lockouts and have enough alts (also max level and well geared) to pull it all off.

...then there's the rest of us.

Most of the rest of us kind of go with what we have. If you have a SCH/SGE in your static or friend group...well, if you're more casual and more friends, you go with SCH/SGE. If you're in a more hardcore group, you probably include in your rules that you're recruiting "1 Pure and 1 Barrier Healer", and those are their jobs in the party. Maybe they work out among themselves that one will play AST if this fight needs it and the other might play WHM if that fight needs it, but the point is, your group establishes those guidelines when it creates itself.

As for PF, I doubt there will ever be a shortage of Dedicated Healers simply because most people will consider them easier. Again, look at those Lucky Bancho numbers. There are roughly (not QUITE, but roughly) as many WHMs as both SCH and SGE together. And SGE is arguably an "easy" healer (as contrasted with SCH and AST) and is the second most popular everywhere but JP where SCH is second and SGE third but pretty close behind it. Despite AST/SCH being meta, it hasn't taken over the game, and there are no shortage of WHM and SGEs (the non-meta picks) in PF. My FC's main Static that drafts me as a sub healer from time to time has a SGE and WHM, and when I sub in, it's usually for the WHM player, so I play WHM (since I hate AST) to fill the other sub-role.

I'm not saying it does nothing at all, but I don't think there will ever be a shortage of "the easier thing that more people play in the live game right now". And this has always been true. I think even in SB WHM was the most played healer, despite it very clearly sucking.

Though for the record - if you're challenging Week 1, isn't that the time you would actually enjoy flexing to a Dedicated Healer? When Healing is actually challenging to you and not boring?

Anything could happen, but given the game's history, how it's worked in the past, and how the playerbase plays now, I don't think that's really a concern. And after week 1 or 2, it wouldn't matter anyway, like as not. Groups that know the fight and avoid all damage that is avoidable could PROBABLY be 2x Support healed if their party really wanted to push that. Ones that want more of a safety buffer would keep the Dedicated/Support the whole tier. Again, what this allows is options for the party to choose how they want to do things, which I think is generally a good thing.

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Oh, I always use Recouperate (the self HP restore) on myself. If I need Cure 2 on myself because I'm out of Recouperate, Cure 2 is likely not going off in time and I'm dead anyway already. I've saved a lot of people with Cure 2. It's useful to find something like an ally DRK and follow about 30 yards behind them, using Cure 2 and Aquaveil on them and watching them destroy enemy packs. 10k heal instant cast already exists, I think, that's on AST with Benefic. I think it's 5k scaling up to 10k, and with a 4k HoT. And you can dualcast it since AST has that dualcast mechanic.

I don't play CC, just Frontlines, so melee range is OFTEN (though not always) a death sentence. The only time you can us Seraph and not get instagibbed is if a tank on your team pulled a lone enemy into your team's ranks, or on Shatter, you can sometimes get away with using it on the ice crystals (though sometimes the enemy will try killing you then, too). The problem is the healers have WAY too low HP in PvP for melee. SGE is the worst of them all. I think it has lower HP than any other Job, and I'm not sure why. The worst part about Seraph is the one time I would want to use it - when I'm Heavy/Bound - it can't be used. The one time it WOULD be useful, it CAN'T be used!

The problem with "almost half an HP bar" is (a) that depends on the Job (melee all have stubbornly large HP pools) and (b) unless LB is up, that's ALL of your damage potential, meaning if you don't get the KO, the enemy lives. Maybe CC is more coordinated, but in Frontlines, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten someone below 10% and my team just...lets them run away and potion. And if it's a NIN or something, no way I'm keeping up with them on WHM, lol Agree with Miracle, though, and that's how I use it. That or to just get some annoying enemy off my team. Like the enemy WAR that gapcloses into our party to stun and lock people down trying to attack the Ice on Shatter, slap them with a Miracle and they're unable to do, freeing pressure from the team (and often allowing people to delete the WAR)

The Regen on Purgation is HUGE. Man, if you aren't using that, you're missing out. That's like saying a SCH using Adlo on their party (or Bio on the enemy party) most wouldn't notice. You might be right that people don't actively notice it, but that's how force multiplier powers work. The sustain is actually pretty significant. Something like 1/4th to 1/2lf of your team's health over the duration, and it's AOE and passive. That's huge for survivability, which in turn means your allies having more staying power to kill more bad guys.

Problem is, CC (and PVE to an extent) is a very offense-oriented gamemode. So everything I think, I'm thinking about how it affects my offensive capabilities.

Agree we do think differently. Frontlines is offense-oriented as well, but like the PvE calculation of "Should I cast Glare or should I cast Raise on the dead DPS?", keeping allies alive means more damage to the enemy. And while Frontlines are offense-oriented, they are not always DAMAGE oriented. Take Seal Rock, for example. While kills get you points, the SS rank tomealith gives you more. If you can keep the tank at the base of the tomealth alive with healing and defensive buffs (or offense down from Spread-Bio), then your team is racking up points to win without necessarily even having to get kills. In practice, keeping your party alive DOES translate to more kills, too, mind you.

PvE is also offense-oriented, but also objective oriented. Every mechanic is an objective. Most content (not all, but most) does not have a super strict damage requirement - not one that makes any standard comp unviable, anyway. That is, if your DPS are all parsing green, you could probably clear fights even if your tanks and healers are parsing gray. Some things more than others (Ex5 has an especially lenient DPS check as long as you smartly prioritize adds in the add phase) such that, if you meet the general objectives (mechanics without deaths or damage downs), you can generally clear the damage check Enrages in this game without too many issues. A lot of PF wipes aren't people not doing enough damage. They're people with Weakness because of failing mechanics. It's why once PF groups stop having deaths and everyone does the mechanic right, you tend to get clears. Again, this isn't true in all fights, but it's true in most.

EDIT: Hm...I dunno, I just find it very limited being single target and SGE having no Deployment Tactics-like mechanic. Krasis, that is. SCH with Recitation and Protraction makes sense because I can Spredlo the super shield it generates with Adlo. SGE doesn't have that, so I tend not to think of it that way. Though I guess I DO use Zoe like that. I also often use Zoe with Pneuma because...it's a frankly absurd amount of healing. 600 + 50% is a 900 potency AOE heal for the entire party. It's like party-wide Cure 2 that also shoots a big flashy laser that...well...only does 1 Dosis worth of damage, but it still looks pretty. Party Cure 2 is just bonkers. It's actually stronger than that, since Cure 2 is only 800 potency (1/8th or 12.5% stronger). Pneuma is the same heal as Cure 3 (though DPS neutral), but with Zoe, it's probably the most powerful bulk heal in the game. AST may have something crazy, but I don't know that WHM or SCH have, under self buffs only, anything to match that level of raw healing. MAYBE Fey Illumination + Recitation + Indom on SCH.

WHM can provide more healing via sustain, and Cure 3 + Assize weave does a bit more (1,000 partywide), but requires Assize being up.

Needless to say, pairing Zoe with Pneuma can generate some nice results.

Though I didn't think Krasis boosted Kardia/Soteria healing. I guess I hadn't considered Dosis' healing to be classified as a "healing spell" as I thought the Kardion effect was kind of its own thing. But if so, that's amazing. Going to have to keep that one in my back pocket now.

[ForsakenRoe]

EDIT: Hm...I dunno, I just find it very limited being single target and SGE having no Deployment Tactics-like mechanic. Krasis, that is. SCH with Recitation and Protraction makes sense because I can Spredlo the super shield it generates with Adlo. SGE doesn't have that, so I tend not to think of it that way. Though I guess I DO use Zoe like that. I also often use Zoe with Pneuma because...it's a frankly absurd amount of healing. 600 + 50% is a 900 potency AOE heal for the entire party. It's like party-wide Cure 2 that also shoots a big flashy laser that...well...only does 1 Dosis worth of damage, but it still looks pretty. Party Cure 2 is just bonkers. It's actually stronger than that, since Cure 2 is only 800 potency (1/8th or 12.5% stronger). Pneuma is the same heal as Cure 3 (though DPS neutral), but with Zoe, it's probably the most powerful bulk heal in the game. AST may have something crazy, but I don't know that WHM or SCH have, under self buffs only, anything to match that level of raw healing. MAYBE Fey Illumination + Recitation + Indom on SCH.

WHM can provide more healing via sustain, and Cure 3 + Assize weave does a bit more (1,000 partywide), but requires Assize being up.

Needless to say, pairing Zoe with Pneuma can generate some nice results.

Though I didn't think Krasis boosted Kardia/Soteria healing. I guess I hadn't considered Dosis' healing to be classified as a "healing spell" as I thought the Kardion effect was kind of its own thing. But if so, that's amazing. Going to have to keep that one in my back pocket now.

Yep, you're right that Kardia heals aren't a healing 'spell', but since Krasis says 'healing actions', it affects everything. GCDs, OGCDs, Kardia, incidental selfhealing from Souleater/Path/BrutalShell/HolySpirit, etc. Week 1 WAR in P7S was hilarious, as you could just Krasis-Soteria them for the TB bleed, and their '2700 total potency' Equilibrium would handle it almost all on it's own. I do Krasis Physis Kerachole on every pull, so the Physis regen is buffed by Krasis, and the Kera regen by both. I'm aware of the whole Zoe-Pneuma thing, but there's also times I'll use it on E-Prog during, well, prog, for a bigger safety shield. As for what other classes can do to match it, Cure3+Plenary is 800, and you can get 4 of them in PI's 10sec window. Without losing DPS, charged Star is 720, and PI Rapture is 600, so those are 'equal to Pneuma' at least. Macrocosmos is Macro, and instantly detonating Lily (while being a complete waste) would be 1000. SCH is unique I guess, in that it's not actually so great at recovering lost HP, instead being VERY good at making sure it wasn't lost in the first place. The point of the pic is to show, 'this is how little I need to complete an EX', and I don't mean in an ego sense, I mean 'we need to stop giving healers more healing tools every expansion, because we just don't need them all'. In higher content, yeh I'll use more of them. Heck, Pepsis gets used (sometimes) in P8S like, once, for a HPS check. But if we go to next expansion, and we have 3 more healing skills added, chances are that'd just mean 3 more red X's on the pic.

As for whether I'd be willing to flex in the week 1 hypothetical, it depends on the balance. I'm assuming HPS total required would be the same as now, just redistributed from the 'supports' to the 'dedicateds', in which case, probably not. I didn't find stuff like JWaves interesting, cos my job there was to press Medica a lot, and then when it got to 5 stacks, press Temperance and start using Cure3 instead. Instead, rationing out multiple CDs for Dominion's 3 waves of damage, factoring in other people's mits, having to think 'the DRK can't get this with Missionary, because it's physical', etc, feels a lot more interesting to me. If they ever bring back stuff like 'actually managing your MP economy', maybe, but that'd require them to make Piety not-trash

[Renathras]

Yep, ...

That's really cool. I had it in my head it was like Dissipation or something. I'm going to have a lot of fun with that one now. And yeah, I use it for shields some, too. I guess it's Zoe that's only spells. Though it's still unfortunately single target...but that's still god to know. Might have some fun with it.

Yeah, I feel like there are a lot of things they need to address in 7.0. Setting healers (alone) aside for a moment and looking at the game as a whole, I mean. The overall combat system with the 2 min meta is causing all kinds of problems and people seem to universally either hate it or (those that don't) not care and wouldn't mind its removal. I haven't seen a TON of people praising it, and even the people that kind of like it (for it supposedly being an improvement over ShB in terms of coordination) often are still willing to admit it's caused a lot of problems.

Going further, stats are just wonky. Giving a BLM spell speed is actively screwing them up. Giving anyone skill speed throws off their rotation and causes them to have to do weird stuff like add another filler (which can cause issues with combo classes) to avoid abilities drifting to the left/early out of buff and burst windows or mechanic alignment. Crit feeds into Crit chance AND Crit damage, meaning the more Crit you have, the more Crit you want, and it affects all output (healing and damage). This makes it better than the other stats that do so but only scale linearly like Tenacity (for tanks) or Determination (for everyone else). [EDIT: It already caused problems with Crit buffing abilities vs Jobs with attacks that are automatically Crit/Crit-Direct Hits, requiring THAT to be tweaked.] Further, there's also Direct Hit, which is basically Crit by another name that doesn't scale as well and only affects damage, not healing.

This creates a meta in where Spell Speed and Skill Speed buffs are not desired or even detrimental and their materia are only used to hit specific thresholds, and where Crit simultaneously devalues Determination, Direct Hit, and Tenacity. And in all of that, Piety is, while still a "to taste" stat on healers (as well as Spell Speed), a "You can meld this to taste...but any you get over what you absolutely NEED is a waste."

It limits both potential buff options (party synergy) and gear choices, and also makes a lot of stats seem entirely useless. Like why do we even HAVE Tenacity materia at this point? Or Skill Speed? They could just natively balance the Job abilities or gear to have the right amount or make remove the stats entirely balancing rotations to fit the 60/120 mold and be done with it.

Healing aside, there are a lot of things they kind of need to start looking at, and 7.0 or 8.0 would probably be the best time to do it.