Delete rescue from the game.

[AmiableApkallu]

I do admit it would also be nice if we get a Square Rep giving us some form of plan they have decided to take too.

I don't think they participate in the forums in that capacity. My current go-to for their thinking is this interview from 2021:

Yoshida: So I totally understand that those healers that have a very high player skill level and they've really mastered their jobs go into these different raids or battles and when they do have some downtime between their heals they do cast more offensive spells. of them desire to have more technical aspects of it so they are more active and I totally understand that sentiment. But of course the basis of a healer is to heal so I think the development team and I have this thinking of getting that sense of exhilaration from doing really good heal work.

That being said I don't think we would do any sort of dramatic addition of offensive skills moving forward. By having these offensive abilities some players, like new healers, might feel pressured like “oh do I have to have good DPS while I' m healing?” or some players might be aggressive like “oh hey you have an offensive skill in your kit, why don't you use it?” and I don't think that's optimal either.

But of course we do have the new job, Sage, which will allow for this unique gameplay where if you land an attack it heals at the same time. Or if there's like a particular barrier ability that you cast and once that's depleted it increases the resource which could lead to an attack which is very unique. I think players would be interested in trying that out for sure.

The higher the player skill of a healer and raid player, the more he wants to attack in his spare time. When it comes to that, I want to make more technical use in attacks, well, I understand the feeling. However, if anything, the base is a healer, so after all, we want to make the attack of the content side more intense, and first of all, we want to make it fun by doing good heel work.

That's why I don't think I'll do anything like adding attack methods or attack rotation to healers more violently. Because of that, new healers and newbies think, "I'm a healer, but I have to attack." I don't think it's a very good thing to do because it's just a matter of attacking after that, honestly.

However, even with that said, the new barrier healer called "Sage" this time will heal you when you attack, and when the barrier you put up disappears, you'll get attack resources and want to attack more, so I think it's a bit of an interesting job. So, I think it would be great if people like that could try Kenja once.

[ForsakenRoe]

Yoshida

I'm so exhilarated when Aionagonia casts and I do the 'really good heal work', and make the quick decision to use Rapture instead of... actually no wait, everything is solved by using Rapture when you're in WHM town.

Its the same reasoning we've debunked a million times, it's like an 'anti-strawman' argument. Or a 'please wont someone think of the children' situation maybe. A hypothetical new player is going to be bullied out of the game by a hypothetical veteran, for not using hypothetical new damage skills. I'm not discounting that some people might have that experience. But the frequency of that occuring in casual content like an EX roulette would be miniscule. It's more likely a DPS will get called out for using singletarget in a pull of 9 mobs. Plus, there's a report button for a reason, if someone's a dickhead about a healer not doing damage, the healer can report them. Don't make me break out the watermelon analogy again.

Yoshi-P redesigned this game and took MOP as inspiration. But MOP was 10 years ago, it's time to move on, even WOW abandoned 'healer only heals' mentality

edit: also, what does he mean 'you break the barrier and that gives a resource that leads to an attack, very unique' DRK had TBN in STORMBLOOD and breaking it gave exactly 1 Bloodspiller of gauge, what was he even on about lmao

[AmiableApkallu]

Yoshi-P redesigned this game and took MOP as inspiration. But MOP was 10 years ago, it's time to move on, even WOW abandoned 'healer only heals' mentality

This kinda feels like a case of Anime Healers vs. MMO healers, which, hilariously enough, brings us back to the complaint in the original post: "We go at my pace, Mr. Tank, not yours."

[Renathras]

I make and remake healer theorycrafts all the time. I've shared a few, but it's just not something people really care to read about.

I'm not sure that's true. I think we all like theorycrafting. The problem is (A) that some theorycraft threads are really involved (I think I've told you in a few before I'd have to spend some time just to wrap my head around what's happening - I recall a letter from C.S.Lewis to a young schoolgirl asking for advice, and in one segment, he mentioned being detailed in your description of things "Because while the image may be perfectly clear in your mind's eye, your reader does not innately see what you see" - it is kind of hard to put together all the moving pieces, especially new ability names and mechanics), and (B) we all know the Devs aren't reading them (most likely), so it kind of has that "screaming into the void" feel after a while. (...not that the rest of these discussions do not... <_<)

I think all, or at least most, of us like coming up with ideas and stuff. We've just seen most of each other's stuff at this point and know none of it's going anywhere anyway.

...

Ah, there, that's the full quote.

To this day, I feel they missed the train on SGE. They could have really flexed on Kardia and made SGE "heal by doing (a) DPS (rotation)" and made it work. If they can have a rotation as simple as SMN, having that proc heals every step with some back-up heals should have been easy. I will never understand why they didn't give it something like WAR or SMN's core rotation at the least, but...here we are.

Incidentally (Anime vs MMO healers) I think that's why we should have all types of Healer Job. We have four of the things, no reason to make them all near-identical.

[Tigore]

Funny thing is, my recent conversation with Waxsw pretty much already supports your C.S. Lewis point, Renathras. Seeing the posts as they were, I was reiterating what I was trying to decipher to ensure we understood each other completely. At that point, I did ask how he would fix the Sage class, so I wasn't going to let him down by running away. I do agree that the 4 healer classes we have should be differentiated enough to feel like a new style each. Some might go so far as to say we might as well only have 2 if the differences aren't enough.

I accidentally did miss Sebazy's point on what their melee healer would be. Also looks interesting that it borrows the RDM idea of transitioning between melee and range. Except it works the opposite way. The healer prefers to stay in melee range and builds up a finisher that can be used at range if they wish. I may not have been in the current raid settings in Normal very much, but I definitely understand the huge melee box from our 7th box. Only something like half the back circle is out of melee range with about 80 - 90% of the total arena being in melee range >.> Even one of the FC members attending a static commented on the devs just not trying anymore with the melee vs. range balance.

@ForsakenRoe

As for the "unique" shield breaking mechanic, Yoshida probably just meant when you compare against the other 3 healers. It kind of works has a small difference from DRK TBN being more spammable. However, I am not trying to white knight the devs and Yoshida either. If we have indeed put our hearts into reaching out to them already, the onus does then switch to them to communicate back. Especially if they seem to know we are unhappy with the similar DPS models and are working on it. I have noticed the news for them re-working AST at least. The interview kind of looks like it says they are dipping their toes in the water with the implementation of the Sage class. He seems concerned that he may accidentally "bully" new players into using the DPS spells, but I don't know where that came from. If the majority of the players want the old Heavensward DoT Mage Scholar back that actually used to exist ... I don't remember new Scholars back then feeling forced by Yoshida to use those spells ... unless I am missing something here ... There are already no enrage timers in about 90% of the mandatory story content and the rest of the 10% tends to be an intermission phase that usually doesn't hit that point unless players aren't even trying to respect the mechanics. cough Titania comes to mind. It's pretty much just Savage and Ultimate where the enrage timers are tight enough to actually encourage everyone to optimally use their DPS buttons and not die. More of the latter of course.

[AmiableApkallu]

The interview kind of looks like it says they are dipping their toes in the water with the implementation of the Sage class. He seems concerned that he may accidentally "bully" new players into using the DPS spells, but I don't know where that came from. If the majority of the players want the old Heavensward DoT Mage Scholar back that actually used to exist ... I don't remember new Scholars back then feeling forced by Yoshida to use those spells ... unless I am missing something here ...

I maybe should have posted the question that Yoshida was responding to:

Mrhappy1227: Healers in Final Fantasy XIV often discuss how often they are casting DPS spells despite being healers. Often nicknaming jobs like White Mage a “Glare Mage” as an example. The Media Tour build has some new healing skills that also have damage components to them. Has the team taken any feedback from the players on improving interactivity with the healers? Whether that be more interesting DPS skills or more prominent healing requirements.

My takeaway is that SE has heard "the usual complaints", and that they're choosing to design healers and content the way they are anyway.

I kinda think it comes down to, at least in part, that old meme, "Healers adjust." DPS can vibe to their rotation and not react to how the rest of the party is performing. Tanks can vibe to their rotation and mostly not react to how the rest of the party is performing (maybe they keep an eye out for someone who needs a spot mitigation/heal). Healers have to contend with everything from dragging clown fiestas kicking and screaming across the finish line to being (almost) superfluous in parties that can do mechanics perfectly while blindfolded.

And the way I see it: Healer design and philosophy seems to focus on the "clown fiesta" end of the spectrum. The complaints focus on the "being superfluous" end of the spectrum.

[Renathras]

...

It's all good, my man. I learn/think of new things all the time. It's one reason I stick around here even with quite a bit of toxicity because sometimes someone will say something and I'll think "Huh...yeah, that is pretty true, honestly". Like the melee Healer concept in general has long been a "we can't have that because encounter design", but...thinking about it, it seems more doable than it initially might seem. As for the Yoshi P thing...

My takeaway is that SE has heard "the usual complaints", and that they're choosing to design healers and content the way they are anyway.

I kinda think it comes down to, at least in part, that old meme, "Healers adjust." DPS can vibe to their rotation and not react to how the rest of the party is performing. Tanks can vibe to their rotation and mostly not react to how the rest of the party is performing (maybe they keep an eye out for someone who needs a spot mitigation/heal). Healers have to contend with everything from dragging clown fiestas kicking and screaming across the finish line to being (almost) superfluous in parties that can do mechanics perfectly while blindfolded.

And the way I see it: Healer design and philosophy seems to focus on the "clown fiesta" end of the spectrum. The complaints focus on the "being superfluous" end of the spectrum.

Basically. If you played in ARR or especially HW, you'd know it for sure, but if not, the short version is there used to be an ability called Cleric Stance. Some people loved it. Some people hated it. What it did was swap your Mind and Int values (back then all attack magic used Int, even on Healers) and then further cut any healing you did by 20%. What this meant was a WHM could hit it and their Stone/Aero spells would hit 3x or so as hard, but their Heals would only heal for something like 20% or less. And it had a 5 sec CD (like how Tank stances used to), so if you went into it and then the Tank took a couple crits to the face, YOU COULD NOT HEAL THEM (not well, anyway), which led to lots of wipes and lots of Healers getting bitched out.

Some high end players loved this because they loved "dancing" in between the stances...though in practice they really didn't "dance" much. At the time, SCH's Lustrate was a flat 25% heal (no matter what your HP was) and Eos spells ignored the Cleric nerf to Mind. So SCH would basically just sit in Cleric 99% of the time. WHMs, on the other hand, often didn't go into Cleric because the only ability they had that could do that was Benediction, which was basically the same as today (full 100% HP heal, long CD). So there was far less "dancing" and more "SCH players get to feel like badasses", which is why you often see SCHs talking up the glory days of HW far more than WHMs.

On the other hand of things, casual healers that would maybe use Stone and Aero some and didn't feel comfortable locking themselves out of healing, so they'd often not go into Cleric much or at all outside of soloing. But if they were doing 4 mans or 8 man ques with high end players, the high end players would bitch at them for not using Cleric and doing more damage. CONVERSELY, when high end players did casual content and hit Cleric at a bad time (because of the 5 sec lockout) or let people's health fall a little too low before getting out of Cleric to heal them, causing a wipe, THEY would get bitched at.

So everyone was badmouthing everyone, and new players looking at the whole mess stopped deciding to play Healer and went DPS instead, making ques get the worst they've ever been (people will tell you ShB is when Healer was the most in need, but that's not actually true; it WAS highly in need, but it wasn't as bad as it was in the Cleric era)

Basically, new people weren't picking up Healing because they were terrified of Cleric, and the hardcores and casuals were at each other's throats over doing damage or not doing damage, using Cleric or not using Cleric.

I feel like the Devs really don't want a repeat OF THAT, and I think that's the reason they refuse to move to the "more damage" side. Not to mention they made all healer damage use Mind anyway, so Cleric itself is no longer useful.

.

Those logs, are numbers, there is absolutely nothing subjectve in numbers, both almost copies 1 to 1, similar casts, similar cpm, similar % of total actions... there is absolutely no argument that can deny it.

No, I'm not saying they're mechanically similar - if we ONLY look at their number of nuke casts...which IS significant because they are used so much but is also NOT the entirety of what goes into playing Jobs - I'm saying whether that feels different to people or not IS subjective.

To you, WHM and SGE feel identical, right?

To me, they do not. WHM's rotation is more broken up by Afflatus abilities and SGE's is not, while SGE has oGCD weaves and high Karachole uptime and WHM has nothing at all similar to that. Then there are the aesthetics. SGE attacks are sharp and fast, quad lasers that lance out and burn into an enemy. WHM's are more...I'm not sure the best descriptor, but circuitous, perhaps. Several small light sparks fly out and trace arcs towards the target, several in the middle form a bit of a spiral attack while those outside arc around the target then come back in for a second strike after the first have landed, but if feels more of a spirit attack.

Those FEEL different to me (and many other people), and are mechanically different, too, but they do not FEEL different to you.

That is what I mean about the FEEL being subjective.

And even if we look at the raw numbers of all their GCD attacks and only look at attack spells (whether or not we count Afflatus Solace/Rapture as that), they're not identical. Assize works nothing like Plegma, which isn't used like it. Misery and Toxicon are not at all alike.

The numbers do not lie, which is why I said nothing about the NUMBERS. I was strictly referring to the argument of FEEL. Feel is like taste, or even hearing and eyesight. No two people are exactly the same in what they feel. As for Ty's poll - I feel like the 5s actually count against your argument. Most people see 5 and think "middle" (I did) not realizing no 0 matters. I suspect if there was a 0 added, some of the 1s might drop to 0, but the 5s would stay 5s, so the average might not change as much as you'd think. Personally, I'd do 1-5 since that allows strong dislike, dislike, neutral, like, strong like. 1-5 people see 3 as neutral, but it allows some gradient in like/dislike. 0-10 can as well, with 5 again being the middle-point, but you start getting into a lot of overlap. Like what's the difference between a 2 and 3 in a scale of 0-10? There are some "deadzone" numbers that aren't good at capturing actual feeling well and some of the extra granularity is lost. A number of Jobs almost had no 4s, but had a lot of 5s and 3s, but what's the difference really. It creates a lot more subjective issues and people going "well, I fall somewhere in here...I'll just pick this one". 1s, 5s, and 10s are pretty understandable, and 9 is often see as "not perfect, but close", but there are some ranges that are kind of...iffy.

But at any rate, if there was 0-10, 5 would have a bit more meaning.

SCH's core identity wasn't gutted. It's core identity was always "heals using Aetherflow and Faerie abilities", which is true today as it was then. It's core DAMAGE ROTATION identity was gutted, however, but when I first picked up SCH in ARR, I wasn't thinking "Yeah, I want to play the DoT mage with some oGCD heals!" I was thinking "I've got WHM at 50 and when I get a SCH co-healer in Praetorium, I like they can make that shield field on the ground. I think I want to level that." Like, legit, the reason I leveled SCH in the first place was because Sacred Soil both looked cool and I loved the concept of making a protective field for my allies along with the barriers from Succor/Adlo (WHM had Protect and Stoneskin at the time, which I loved, but both of those got the axe...

It's more how people played and focued on it. I played SCH like I did WHM until SB when I really started delving into the game mechanics. I remember watching a video that explained what an Action/oGCD was and that it was different from a Spell/GCD. That was around 4.3, I guess? Until then, I just thought of them as "cast time" and "instant cast", and used things like Tetra for emergency healing because there was no delay to the effect (Benediction is, to this day, STILL strange in that it has a slight delay, which Rescue inherited for some god unknown reason...)

And something I don't think the "high end players" of this game realize is...that's the norm. You might be thinking "man, you were just BAD" (except WHM played that way, and I mained WHM, so it actually was fine since WHM had so few oGCDs back then anyway), but what you don't realize is: That's the normal. It's why a scrub like me can get high Blue in 4 and 24 mans (where we're comparing against almost the entire playerbase) because I know how to keep my GCD running and know how to weave oGCDs. It's not because the skill ceiling is low - I get Gray/Green in Savage, Green/BARELY Blue in Extremes; you "skilled" players are easily able to get higher skill expression out of the Jobs - it's that the game doesn't explain these concepts and so the general playerbase legitimately doesn't know about them. (NOTE for reference: I don't run any stuff, I just look my name up now and again on the forbidden site out of curiosity)

It's why I point out how a lot of proposed changes for high end players can and will affect the average player (a 45-55 in 24 mans is what the average probably is) since I don't think high end players actually understand that. It's like trying to talk physics to Stephen Hawking, he may not even be CAPABLE (prior to death, I mean) of dumbing his own mind down to the level of the average person. When someone gains a high level of mastery, it's a rare person that can remember what it's like not having it or what it would be like to one who doesn't.

Note you even made the point: "go to any savage fight you want" - the thing that less than 30%, if that, of the player base even attempts.

.

Not sure what else I wanna comment on, though one thing that jumps out at me is pointing out that MP isn't an issue for SGE because Dosis is 400 MP. If they're casting 900 MP Eukrasian Diagnoses or 1000 MP Eukrasian Prognoses, that changes a bit. It doesn't seem like a lot, but trade out 400 MP spells for 500 MP ones and your MP economy starts to decline. The more of them the more this changes. WHM had bad MP economy until the Misery change, which saved them 4 Glare casts (vs non-damage neutral Misery) per minute, which is 1600 MP. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but that was a difference between some Piety WHM being unviable and 0 Piety WHM now being fine.

And I'd note that the single biggest/most consistent complaint aside from "more DPS abilities" on the long form survey was people complaining about Healers doing so much DPS and GCD heals being a "damage loss" discouraging their use. It seems like a large chunk of the healer community WANT to cast GCD heals and that be a core part of their playstyle. In WoW, for example, I liked Resto Druid because a lot of the playstyle was keeping a steady stream of HoTs ticking across the entire raid. Some people really enjoy that kind of gameplay, and the hyper-focus on "any GCD heal is bad" is actually detrimental to the game and something a large swath of the healing community actually DOESN'T like.

It's also a reason that WHM Lilies/Misery is so well received, because it effectively lets you use Cure 2/Medica without penalty, at least occasionally.