I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[ty_taurus]

If only we had the incoming damage to handle like WoW and healers were like resto shaman or Druid - multiple dps buttons, and replace boring op OGCD heals with situational ground items and single target heals. We would be then busy with healing AND dps, and getting good dps in would then actually be a challenge. Don’t see it happening though.

I disagree on wishing FFXIV’s outgoing damage was like WoW’s. I don’t see the point in just copying the same formula. I like that FFXIV took a different approach. If I wanted to play WoW healing, then I’d just play WoW. That’s still an option for anyone who prefers WoW healing too.

FFXIV’s approach to damage and healing is not a bad thing; it’s an entirely valid design choice. The issue, though, is that healers are not at all designed in a way that compliments this system. This is in reference to both the total lack of consistent gameplay available to healers as well as the shear power and volume of their healing actions invalidating most content.

[ForsakenRoe]

From what I understand, WoW's outgoing damage patterns heavily shifted with Legion anyway, and became a lot more like FFXIV's ironically: occasionally there's small repeated raidwides going out to keep the healers healing, but there's also scripted 'You have to be ready to heal the hell out of this' that force CDs out of the team like Spirit Link, Aura Mastery, AMZ, etc. This shift allowed them to redefine the identities of healers in Legion, for example, moving Mistweaver and Holy Paladin into this idea of 'melee damage to help you heal', Discipline from 'PW:S spam' to 'build Atonement buff as the damage is about to go out, heal by doing burst damage window and transferring that damage as healing to all allies with Atonement buff', a 'setup phase' like that would never be able to exist in some previous forms of WoW raiding, there just wouldn't be enough time.

Also I was just looking at some random logs from Warcraftlogs, and even in Mythic there's gamers doing fairly even 50/50 split of damage vs healing, as some healers. Seems to depend on the spec, like Druids tend to have more healing related casts than Holy Paladins, but I guess that's part of the HPal design, they clonk stuff with a hammer to build resource. This idea that 'healers should heal' keeps getting pedalled, and I still don't know where it's come from. Because it's not Classic WoW, and it's not Retail WoW. So I can only assume it's 'the gap in between', Cata-WoD. But should we really be using that one timeframe as the basis for how 'healer' should be as a role, despite all the other examples where it's not like that? I don't sit around and not-shoot as Lifeline in Apex Legends, because 'shes a healer she should heal', people don't 'only heal' as healers in Overwatch (I dont play Overwatch), I didn't 'only heal' when I played Supports in DOTA, I wouldn't 'only heal' as a support in League if I were to play it. Why are there so many examples of 'healer' or 'support' where you do more than just 'keep team alive' that are discarded, but this one idea of 'healer should only heal' somehow keeps getting propagated without even a citation of which game made it THE gold standard?

[Semirhage]

Why would that, compared to anything else, be boring? Either I'm pressing a key to do something, or I'm pressing a key to do something. As long as that remains true, it doesn't matter what skills anyone has. Of its 1 or 5 keys, pressing a key = pressing a key.

This is the most asinine argument I've seen all week.

[Nadda]

Name two.

Had to look these up but Mind crush & Weaken mind. I was talking about Sage from SWTOR.

By that logic, should all the tanks and DPS also be reduced to a single DPS button, since all button presses are the same?

Because they have different philosophies in how they are designed to reflect the role they play? Tanks have DPS buttons but it's mostly mitigation. DPS has the most DPS buttons because that's their job

play through the WHOLE story, as a WHM. From level 4 to 90, their way to complete all those solo instances is to put up DOT, then spam Stone/Glare.

I know I may not be influential (didn't want you to think I forgot the context) but I have very much done that. Even back when I had to toggle cleric stance to DPS or heal. I still had fun and enjoyed my time. I came from WoW where you only ever have your one main, never felt the urge to branch out and when I tried they always felt a bit janky (started to branch out recently been leveling paladin been having fun)

So my first experience or really only experience for some time has been as a white mage. I've done everything as a White Mage for 6 years. I know I am ignorant of other things jobs do to their fullest extent but I enjoyed my time with White Mage.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]Tanks have DPS buttons but it's mostly mitigation. DPS has the most DPS buttons because that's their job

Excluding upgraded actions...

PLD has 20 (18 if you count entire Spellblade actions as one button) buttons related to offensive actions and 8 mitigation/utilities.
WAR has 17 (15 if you don't count Nascent Chaos actions) buttons related to offensive actions and 7 mitigation/utilities.
DRK has 18 buttons related to offensive actions and 6 mitigation/utilities.
GNB has 20 buttons related to offensive actions and 6 mitigation/utilities.

Add 7 role actions into mitigation/utilities section, still none of the 4 ever reach 50% of entire button counts. The closest we have is WAR that has a final count of 15 offensive vs 14 mitigation/utilities buttons.

How? Which tank specifically that has 'mostly mitigation'?

[ForsakenRoe]

Had to look these up but Mind crush & Weaken mind. I was talking about Sage from SWTOR.

Because they have different philosophies in how they are designed to reflect the role they play? Tanks have DPS buttons but it's mostly mitigation. DPS has the most DPS buttons because that's their job

MB on the Sage dots, thought you meant our Sage and I'll take the L on that misunderstanding. But the second part, if 'Tanks have DPS buttons but it's mostly mitigation' were true (it's not), why is 'Healers have DPS buttons but it's mostly healing/party mitigations' not allowed with a similar ratio? If Rein's counting is right and every tank has at least 15 'offensive actions', why are healers down at, what, 8? WHM has Glare, Dia, Misery, Presence of Mind, Assize, Holy. 6 total 'offensive actions' is nowhere near the 15 WAR has, and he's the 'simple ungabunga tank'. The double standard just doesn't make sense and it doesn't sit right with a lot of us, and why should it?

[ty_taurus]

This is the most asinine argument I've seen all week.

What do you mean? Are you telling me that that it actually matters what buttons you press, and that there is an ounce of thought that's supposed to go into them? I thought it was like playing the piano where you just press keys because no matter what song you're trying to play, you just press keys because keys are keys. Are you telling me there's a difference between the scales and Beethoven's ‘Moonlight’ Sonata?

[ForsakenRoe]

What do you mean? Are you telling me that that it actually matters what buttons you press, and that there is an ounce of thought that's supposed to go into them? I thought it was like playing the piano where you just press keys because no matter what song you're trying to play, you just press keys because keys are keys. Are you telling me there's a difference between the scales and Beethoven's ‘Moonlight’ Sonata?

Reminds me of a joke from the comedy duo classic, Morecambe and Wise, where Morecambe insists he can play a famous song, completely botches it, gets told by their guest (Andre Previn, very prestigious composer) that "You're playing all the wrong notes!", to which Morecambe stands up, grabs Andre by the collar and says, very calmly, "I am playing all the right notes. Just... not necessarily in the right order."

Maybe that's what some players want? To be able to press 'the right buttons, not necessarily in the right order' and still be applauded for their skill? Maybe the devs should look into making it so that, as long as you press the buttons that build the Sen in any order, you can still get the Sen for a Midare? Then the 'freestyle SAM' players will be vindicated at last!

[ty_taurus]

Reminds me of a joke from the comedy duo classic, Morecambe and Wise, where Morecambe insists he can play a famous song, completely botches it, gets told by their guest (Andre Previn, very prestigious composer) that "You're playing all the wrong notes!", to which Morecambe stands up, grabs Andre by the collar and says, very calmly, "I am playing all the right notes. Just... not necessarily in the right order."

Maybe that's what some players want? To be able to press 'the right buttons, not necessarily in the right order' and still be applauded for their skill? Maybe the devs should look into making it so that, as long as you press the buttons that build the Sen in any order, you can still get the Sen for a Midare? Then the 'freestyle SAM' players will be vindicated at last!

I think more people who argue against healer DPS simply want this game to be something it isn't rather than accept it for what it's meant to be or move onto a game that plays the way they want to. In a way, the devs have done this too, making the healing role into something not suited for their own combat system due to a rejection of the encounter design they created.

[Nizzi]

Well, I've been playing since Heavensward so please forgive me if I don't know about changes for Whitemages before that point but I've been a Whitemage main throughout.

But my Stone became Glare. My Aero became Dia. My Holy became Holier... I still have Assize from Storm Blood.
The only real DPS button I lost was Aero 3 (which is surely missed) but I also have Afflatus Misery now.

So I've had the same number of DPS buttons for the last 4 expansions.

Perhaps you're referring to Scholar or Astrologian?
Again I was open to examples of other MMOs to which to be referred. I want to know what exactly you're looking for.

I was referring to Scholar, yes, and HW or SB SCH is the perfect example of what I'm looking for. I don't want to play WoW or SWTOR, I want to play FFXIV with the job I want to play (Scholar) not WHM with a fairy, which is what SCH's DPS downtime has been boiled down to.
To say that you've had the same number of DPS buttons for the last 4 expansions is true, but you also need to consider what those DPS buttons were doing in past expansions.
In Heavensward, Aero II was 12s. In Stormblood, it was 18s. Now Aero through Dia are 30s, like every other healer DoT in the game. You are hitting Aero/Dia less than you were in past expansions every encounter by a significant amount, meaning that the way WHM plays has changed and has gotten more Glare-spammy because of this. Now you may say "well we're doing the same damage but its easier for new players so whats the harm" and then to that token why bother having anything to do? A good job enables players of all skill levels to be entertained and have something to work towards. The current paradigm doesn't have this at all. Your "reward" for playing better isn't a more satisfying gameplay loop, it's hitting Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dosis more. Riveting stuff.

But let's set White Mage aside for a second - I understand that there are more White Mage mains than any other healer job who are currently okay with healer downtime kits. I think that this, more than anything, is the biggest problem with the entire healing role and an outright failure and embarrassment towards FFXIV. There is no diversity in a role that used to have diversity within it. In fact, the homogenization is so bad that the first healer job this game has gotten in 6 years was a functionally worse SCH clone that has the exact same gameplay loop as the other 3 healers. It's ridiculous.
I don't believe that WHM is a well designed job and I'm very much in the camp that believes all four healers need to be given a higher skill ceiling with meaningful gameplay and optimization choices. However, I understand that Square Enix doesn't see it this way, especially when it comes to White Mage, for whatever reason. Why is there not diversity though? Why do we all need to be the exact "spam 1 button for most of your casts, apply 30s DoT and maybe have an oGCD to press on CD" like they are now? They didn't used to be this way. If I get tired of playing SCH for a bit and I want a different experience... I don't get that on any job in the healer role. 80% of my downtime is spamming that same button on all healers in between weaving a bunch of lazy, bloated oGCDs that don't do anything interesting other than "heals real good x3" and that's BORING.

Think of the options you had in Stormblood; if you got bored with WHM, you could go play SCH, which juggled more DoTs while juggling a 45s Aetherflow timer and managing their pet. Now SCH manages nothing more than WHM does because Lilies are on the same 20/60s cap cycle that Aetherflow is, and the petGCD was gutted so Eos is literally just a totem oGCD. If you didn't want to play SCH, you could play AST which offered cards to make you think about how to best effectively use them to help your team. Now AST's cards are all flat damage buffs, and there's no decision making because you're holding them for the 2m burst windows. It does not offer a meaningful gameplay difference from SCH, WHM or SGE.

This is what is so frustrating continuing to talk about this point. We don't need to show examples from other MMOs. We're not asking for something this game has never had or isn't designed to handle. We're asking for the way that this game used to be, at the very least. Why is healer the role people openly desire rejecting diversity in? Forget changing all 4 healers to be unique and different, we do not even have one healer that is unique and different on a meaningful level to where people can say "Oh you don't like Glare spam? Go play that."
The current state is Square's fault for creating a problem that didn't need to exist in the first place. I don't think Scholars would be complaining right now if their DPS kit was the same as it was in Stormblood, but they're sure as hell complaining that it's the same that it was in Shadowbringers.