Healer Survey:

[Iedarus]

You don't even need to be a longtime veteran to know healing gameplay is highly questionable compared to other roles. Unless the devs want to change all the content to have more chaotic incoming damage, giving healers more dps options is the best thing to do. Though now I do fear they will give maybe one extra damage button on each healer and call it mission accomplished given how tone deaf they have been with job design in general.

[Allegor]

And it will be the exact same spell but with different visuals, because apparently it's not homogenization if they don't look the same.

[Deceptus]

I'm very curious as to how you came to that conclusion seeing that multiple responses specifically mention using tank rotations as a basis rather than DPS rotations as posed in the question. No one is asking for DPS rotations on the same level as the DPS role, and naturally, no one thinks its necessary or realistic, though several would still be completely fine with that, or they're interpreting the question as less literal than as its presented.

Because when you boil it down, tank rotations are basically what we have now as healers. We just have fewer buttons to do it.

Tank: Do your special tank attack every 30s, 123 for the remainder, could easily be condensed to 1 button (certain mods do this).

Healer: 1 dot every 30s, 11111111111 for the remainder.

[ty_taurus]

Because when you boil it down, tank rotations are basically what we have now as healers. We just have fewer buttons to do it.

Tank: Do your special tank attack every 30s, 123 for the remainder, could easily be condensed to 1 button (certain mods do this).

Healer: 1 dot every 30s, 11111111111 for the remainder.

You're suggesting that Dosis III, Eukrasian Dosis III, Phlegma III, and Toxikon II are in some way effectively the same as...
,
Keen Edge > Brutal Shell > Solid Barrel, Lightning Shot, Blasting Zone, Burst Strike, Sonic Break, Rough Divide, Gnashing Fang > Savage Claw > Wicked Talon, Bow Show, Continuation, No Mercy, Hypervelocity, and Double Down?

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Because when you boil it down, tank rotations are basically what we have now as healers. We just have fewer buttons to do it.

Tank: Do your special tank attack every 30s, 123 for the remainder, could easily be condensed to 1 button (certain mods do this).

Healer: 1 dot every 30s, 11111111111 for the remainder.

They are imho are not synonymous.

WAR's 1-2-3A/B, GNB & DRK's 1-2-3 generates resources. PLD's 1-2-3 unlocks Atonement & Divine Might (in which Atonement also breaks combo). In its simplest form they're already affecting next decision(s) whereas all healers do are pressing 1 button ad nauseam; there's simply no comparing between the two.

[brancinaed]

Yes, but a lot are saying what I'm saying:

[...]

This has been what I've been saying. If you've been saying the same thing, then it would be strange for so many people to attack my position if it's also their own...

Further, this would also strongly support my "4 Healers" position, as there are quite a few people that don't want more damage buttons, and a goodly number seem to think WHM and SGE are fine as they are and only SCH and AST (and encounter design) needs changing. This has literally been my position here for months...

For a while, the prevailing view here seems to be "the options are more healing or changing encounters or more DPS; they tried more healing in Abyssos and everyone hated it, there's no way to change encounters (insert argument about how all content must backdate across all encounters in the game for unspecified reason), so the solution must be more DPS buttons."

I've made different proposals, including less powerful/frequent oGCDs to require GCDs be used for healing more often, changing some (but not all) of the Jobs to give them more either buffing/support options or a few more damage options (SCH being the one I've leaned most heavily to giving more DPS buttons to), and changing boss encounters themselves to be more like Abyssos, but where it's on the Healers only, not where the Healers are reliant on the DPSers for mitigation checks.

Note that THESE seem to be the most common themes emerging, not "we can't change encounters and everyone hates more healing, so more damage". That seems to not be the most common position expressed at all. Many seem to actually LIKE the more healing in Abyssos and using GCDs for healing, and even dislike healing plan setups, something the posters here seem to think is the best part of the role.

[...]

Do you think bosses and minibosses should be doing more auto attack damage?

Dreadnaught are chunky for tanks. I think if tanks aren't taking much damage there won't be much GCD healing. I really enjoy healing heavy damage on tanks, though it can look scary. Many people complain about this type of unavoidable damage. However if much damage is avoidable then in good groups healers are left with little to do but press damaging buttons!



Instead of giving healers more damaging buttons I like the idea of damage buffs on shorter cooldowns. 120 seconds for Chain Stratagem feels lame after a while, because it's really not that strong. The cooldown should be 60 seconds. I feel giving healers more supporting tools plays into the role better.


The role action for healers Repose is unused except rarely in dungeons and deep dungeons. It could be removed in favor of a damage buff for all healers!

[Renathras]

- Even the ones that state they're satisfied with some of the jobs still say that the jobs get boring once a fight is learned.

SOME do.

Many do not, actually.

- Many more say that adding some more DPS options doesn't hurt either.

MANY do.

Many do not, though.

- I have seen 9 people in both threads say this total. In comparison, about 18 say a Tank rotation would suffice with the rest being indifferent to it. I don't see how that's "most"

Still working through the numbers and working out the best way to parse it right now. I'm starting by going through them all and marking their first question answer as Dissatisfied (includes Very), Very Dissatisfied (for further comparison), Satisfied (includes Very), Very Satisfied, and Neutral Satisfaction (many of these lean one way or the other, so trying to work that out without just having a dozen categories)

I'm skimming the other answers as I go, but focusing on the first one and then I'll go through and do the same for the second one, but I've already seen a handful say they'd quit Healers if given a rotation at all, and several say they don't want any additional DPS buttons. Many who DO want additional DPS buttons don't want ones they use all the time. The common word for that is "Situational", and examples are things like Aero 3 where you don't use it in single target at all (per the proponents) and it just gives you a second button to mix up in AOE. Very few actually say they want a DPS Job level rotation, and most of those even say it would not go over well. More than that say they would be okay with a Tank level rotation, and when I get to tabulating that we'll see which is bigger, but they don't seem to be an outright majority, either.

Honestly, the "4 Healers" solution is looking more and more fitting given the data...

Also, it's not just the encounter design they argue about.
There's a few that argue that job design is also lacking.

I didn't say it was. But even there the answers are not concentrated. For example, there are SEVERAL posts saying WHM and SGE are fine right now but SCH and AST need work, with many saying AST needs to be made SIMPLER and SCH needs to have Energy Drain stop consuming AF. Then you have the ones that think AST is the only fun one. I'm working through the best way to mark that down, but I think I'm going to have an "Enjoy JOB" "Dislike JOB" bracket tallying those results.

Among others.

I mean, I can quote individual people holding the contra position as well. But that doesn't do us any good since individual posts are anecdotes. What we need to see is the whole picture, hence tabulating the whole dataset.

When I'm done with it, I'll lay out exactly how I did it - so if anyone has an issue with bias or supposed bias on my part or how I'm doing it, they can bring it up then; I genuinely DO want to be fair and accurate about this - but don't get lost in anecdote. I could easily pull out three quotes saying they want Healers unchanged, as I've read that many (at least 3, I think 5) already saying just that.

I'm very curious as to how you came to that conclusion

At the time I posted that, the ones I had read through had that leaning.

Now there are too many for me to be sure either way, hence the Excel Spreadsheet I'm working through.

When I get to the DPS rotation part, I think the five categories (based on what I've seen so far) are going to be:

No change, Add 1 or 2 abilities/DoTs, Add a Tank or SMN level rotation (SMN has been mentioned a time or two), Add a full DPS rotation.

I might have to break this out by Job a bit, since A LOT of people feel like SCH should get its old DoTs back but A LOT also feel that WHM (and quite a few SGE) are good and should be unchanged. In fact, SCH needing to be changed seems to be the one thing that just about everyone agrees on.

Which is why I would be curious to segment the respondents (all optional) but hopefully some people would answer them all :
- are you a healer main?
- if so how long have you been healing?
- what content do you heal?
- which healers have you leveled?
- what levels are your healers?

While there is the odd really short post that doesn't even touch on the questions, I'm glad I went back and added the segment about mentioning if they were healer mains, omni-mains, or healer when necessary kinds of players. That prompt opens the door to where many are saying the content types they do in the long form responses, which I think is good, even if not everyone's doing it.

You don't even need to be a longtime veteran to know healing gameplay is highly questionable compared to other roles. Unless the devs want to change all the content to have more chaotic incoming damage, giving healers more dps options is the best thing to do. Though now I do fear they will give maybe one extra damage button on each healer and call it mission accomplished given how tone deaf they have been with job design in general.

Please feel free to take part in the survey and add your voice there.

I will say that what SEEMS to be a pretty widely held position IS just adding an extra button...so if the Devs did that, they wouldn't be tone deaf as they'd actually be doing what a substantial number of people seem to want...

Because when you boil it down, tank rotations are basically what we have now as healers. We just have fewer buttons to do it.

Tank: Do your special tank attack every 30s, 123 for the remainder, could easily be condensed to 1 button (certain mods do this).

Healer: 1 dot every 30s, 11111111111 for the remainder.

Agreed. I've made this argument before, comparing WHM to WAR and seeing that they're VERY similar (in single target) if you ignore WAR's 1-2. You have both Storm's Path (Glare) and a 30 sec reapply equivalent of Storm's Eye (Dia), you have an oGCD like Upheaval (Assize), you have a self-damage boost like Inner Release (Presence of Mind), and you have a big hitting attack like Primal Rend (Misery). Other than Fell Cleave (which is another form of spammed attack), and Infuriate (if WHM had a Rhizomata for Lilies, it would be that), WHM maps almost directly to WAR's single target rotation. And about that to its single target one, since you have Holy in place of Mythril Tempest, Assize in place of Orogeny, and Misery in place of Primal Rend, leaving Steel Cyclone (like Fell Cleave). The Infuriate boosted versions are just reskins, not separate buttons or abilities, and people here have already said they don't want just a flashier spell effect on the same button to give those extra points.

It IS simpler, but it's not MUCH simpler as WAR is doing the same thing with extra steps - and they aren't riveting extra steps. Pressing 1 then 2 before your 3/4 doesn't exactly spice up the gameplay for everyone. For some people, it does, but many consider that the same thing, as the PvP versions show they could be replaced with one button and no one would be the wiser.

...

I'm not CERTAIN, but it seems the majority responding to the survey kind of agree - they want more incoming, unavoidable damage, and many of them seem to want more SUPPORT/BUFF skills, not DPS buttons, per se.

But that's just me skimming through them as I go. I'm trying to tabulate the data into an Excel sheet, and part of the challenge in long for questions is figuring out exactly how to classify the answer. "I'm extremely satisfied with WHM, I kinda like SGE, SCH is clunky and I really don't like AST." "Okay...how do I classify THAT?!" XD

Which is why I'm trying to develop logical subcategories like the Like/Dislike Job section and so on. Get some real useful data. That's my goal, anyway.

[WaxSw]

Yes, but a lot are saying what I'm saying:

- They're satisfied with Healers THEMSELVES (or some of the Jobs, if not all), the issue is encounter design.

How can you say that when some of the top comments are stuff like or ?

Those aren't battle design complaints but complaints about how the jobs are a boring homogenized mess and quite the same thing goes for the rest of your "conclusions"

-The vast majority say they would like to have extra DPS actions and are from neutral to very positive about it, a lot of coments saying that they would be thrilled or they would play healers more if they recive that, they only said that it would not be realistic to have it to the same extent of dps, which is a trivial observation to anyone with minimal healing knowledge

-The majority of people who want change is in fact regarding their damage look at the same 2 images and using the most voted comment in ffxivdiscussion: and the majority are on the same line, in fact those who only want healing changes are the minority

-As said previously, JOB design seems to be the most problematic thing right now among those who are dissatisfied with the role.

There is no point to do a survey if all you're going to do is try to confirm an uneducated bias. There are issues with the encounters, I'm not denying that, but if the same problems are present from the most casual to the most hardcore of contents that encounter design is neither the only cause nor the main cause of those problems, that is job design which is the only constant.

[Renathras]

...

Because "anecdote is not data".

Top comment is irrelevant since it could just mean people dissatisfied are all upvoting each other while people satisfied are not. So votes aren't what count. What counts our the individual people responding.

If 5 people say they're dissatisfied, 10 people say they're satisfied, but each of those 5 dissatisfied posts has 5 upvote and each of the other 10 has only 1-2, that doesn't mean there are more dissatisfied people. It just means the dissatisfied people are more willing to promote their own view when they see it expressed by others. Right now, on the FFXIV (not the FFXIVDiscussion) thread, which I just finished getting through on Q1 (been busy with some irl stuff, so just doing it a bit here and there), the tally is:

Dissatisfied (Includes Very) 13
Very Dissatisfied 5
Satisfied (Includes Very) 19
Very Satisfied 5
Neutral Satisfaction 6
Total Responses: 38
[Note: This is just the FFXIV main subreddit, not the FFXIVDiscussion one, which seems to have more responses. Getting to that one...]

WHM is the most liked (9) with SGE second most (7), AST is a surprising third (6), and SCH is dead last (2)

I'm working through the other parsing stuff that I'm coming up with based on responses, but so far:

(8) want more DPS spells, but (2) want only situational ones, and (1) wanted ONLY one more per healer.
(1) wanted more healing spells, (2) wanted less, (2) wanted less oGCDs/healing plan focus
(2) wanted more Support spells
(2) dislike Energy Drain
(2) want more random healing (e.g. mini-tankbusters on DPS, unavoidable consistent raid damage)

These ARE NOT final numbers, as some others that I read said similar things before I got the categories written out (I'm developing sub-categories based on what I see a lot of people saying or when people say very specific things that make good data points, such as people saying they want more OR less healing abilities or more damage ones, etc), so I'm trying to work out a good way to capture all those views, then I'll go through the posts again and see if any were missed on the initial pass that fall into them.

The FFXIVDiscussion side of the house might be more negative, but a lot of them are very nuanced as well, and there are more of them. But I think I have the basic system down I'm going to use to score these going forward.

.

EDIT:

There is no point to do a survey if all you're going to do is try to confirm an uneducated bias. There are issues with the encounters, I'm not denying that, but if the same problems are present from the most casual to the most hardcore of contents that encounter design is neither the only cause nor the main cause of those problems, that is job design which is the only constant.

Also:

THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

I'm trying to be fair. You're using "well, the most upvoted post agrees with me, therefore it's what the majority wants!"

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Upvotes/downvotes ON THE INTERNET are the least useful, least trustworthy, least scientific method for determining what people actually think. People who have a strong opinion, especially strong dislike, are HIGHLY motivated to vote for responses similar to their own to get them more visibility.

But there's no way to tell of that upvote is from a person who posted further down if they're dissatisfied or not. If I count the upvote AND their post, I'd be counting them TWICE. There's no way to know if people are upvoting and posting, just upvoting, or just posting (which gives your own post one upvote automatically), so the vote system is completely useless to get a scientifically/statistically accurate measurement.

That's why I'm going post by post.

THAT is how you AVOID "try to confirm an uneducated bias".

The way to see what everyone thinks is to tabulate all the results, not to let dozens of people speak and then only listen to the two or three posts that are upvoted to the top.

[WaxSw]

snip

And I call bullshit on those numbers, just doing a quick review of the mainsub there are people who simply post long reviews about how they are dissatisfied without directly saying they are dissatisfied, a lot of them speaking for a purely casual perspective, there are also some answers that depending on how you take it can mean one thing or another as are very prone to bias. i.e:

or

or

(These two for example of people that seem dissatisfied without saying it directly)

Not only that but the amount of dissatisfied seem... odd considering I'm counting already 15 and according to you there are only 13 people, here's a short list that go well past the 13: NevermoreAK,Icecylee,Truen_,GamingNightRun,Cryo889,Nasgate,Adriebow(neutral about ast, positive whm, negative Sch/Sge), Kindonlinefriend,Aeee98,Trunks111,Rolder,SurprisedCabbage,RedmageCody,notColdReactive,TheBananaHamook

And this in the mainsub which is much more positive and casual about the game when those problems healers have are present for more experienced people, so we are talking about a population that in large may not be as relevant to the study as the one in xiv discussion which not only is a bigger sample of a population but actually may hold a higher statistical value as the % of people exposed to the role problems is higher there

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Upvotes/downvotes ON THE INTERNET are the least useful, least trustworthy, least scientific method for determining what people actually think. People who have a strong opinion, especially strong dislike, are HIGHLY motivated to vote for responses similar to their own to get them more visibility.

This is not true in the mainsub at least, its a place where usually negative opinions get downvoted or moderated to oblivion (hence why xivdiscussion, the shitpost sub or talesfromdf were created), for a negative opinion to be upvoted there more and not only that but having more upvotes than your value of dissatisfied people means that there is a higher population than the one that commented that is dissatisfied with the role (we have to take into consideration that downvotes are a thing too), its important to note also the difference between the most voted positive and negative because the most negative one is 15-18 while the most voted positive one is 4, which is a significative diference especially when the mainsub is taken into acount.