How MUCH healing can non-Healers do?

[Post]

I challenge the notion that healers by and large didn't use Cleric Stance before HW.

Perhaps you meant strictly in raids, but recall that Cleric Stance wasn't the +5% damage for 15sec cooldown that it was made into in SB but rather a 10% damage increase AND flipped your INT/MND attributes, meaning you'd be increasing your damage (and reducing your healing) by an order of magnitude.

A healer leveling outside of groups during ARR and HW (FATEs, solo duties, general quests while on the MSQ) would do trivial damage without Cleric Stance. As for in groups, most of these players would have learned how important it was to dishing out reasonable amounts of damage because of how much more combat you had to do while leveling in ARR and HW to progress through the MSQ due to the differences in experience gains.

It was absolutely a necessary healer dps tool in ARR and HW (warranting being included in all number of actions comparisons), and it was only removed in ShB as it was basically made obsolete with the changes entering SB.

The idea behind its removal at the time was that many players felt that being locked out of non %ile healing, which was all but removed entering HW (only Benediction remained after Lustrate was changed entering HW), made its use feel 'clunky' at worst or 'daunting/difficult' at best, so they simply made healers deal damage based on their MND values entering SB.

Cleric Stance dancing was something that you did once you handled the heals, and it was a little flashy 'alright, time to dish out the damage' moment, and regarding Amiable_Apkallu's point about how the game making you 'feel' decisions reflexively, getting screwed over by healing that you suddenly had to do if you entered at a bad time would make you remember not to use it at that point in the fight. Or just not use it at all out of fear, in some players' cases.

Not that it's pertinent to the discussion, but I felt like its removal was akin to how many SAMs feel about 6.1's removal of Kaiten, in that it went from being the "thing that you do, the flourish before you do the cool, rewarding thing" to just gone, replaced with nothing.

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I wanted to say, I like this thread because I think it's an important discussion.

I think it's worth thinking about healers (and all jobs, frankly) in the context of more than just Savage floor 4s and Ultimates, because I find it very silly how easily a group of 1 tank and 3 dps can complete a so-called 'expert' dungeon. Really, none of the dps need to even know how to manage their own defensive tools or self heals for that group to succeed either, it can pretty much just be handled by the tank.

I would even go so far to say that right now, tanks are more well designed healers to play than healers in most content because all of them are capable of saving others' lives without interrupting their damage, where jobs like SCH and SGE have to sacrifice dps for GCD shielding for most content in the game to save a dps that's rolling in vulnerability from an incoming one-shot, DRK are at least equally compensated for applying a shield with The Blackest Night that's consumed fully, and WAR, PLD and GNB basically lose nothing to use their self/co-tank mitigation cooldowns on that player. I think it's more fun to save the dps, even as a healer that loses its personal damage to do so, but I think it's hard to argue that their design fits the current version of the game as well as the tanks do, regardless of how fun that design is or isn't to play.

Previous posters are right in that it's not something that can easily be addressed by changing one aspect of the game, because so many different aspects have come together to create the situation. I also think that the notion of adjusting the healer dps rotations to be more interesting again does seem to be the 'path of least resistance' to trying to triage the situation a bit, as it wouldn't impact as much of the other game areas like wholesale cutting off some oGCD healing tools that certain encounter incoming damage are balanced around existing.

[Renathras]

I challenge the notion that healers by and large didn't use Cleric Stance before HW...

Which is why I very specifically said "By WHM" and in the context of group content.

Soloing, absolutely. But not "Cleric stance dancing". Leveling WHM (I joined the game in 2.3 with CNJ as my starting Class and WHM as my first Job to 50), you'd jump into Cleric and LEAVE IT ON. You might drop out in between fights to heal yourself, or if you pulled too many things have to drop out for some Cure 2, but that was rare. In party content, as Tanks didn't have as many CDs, DPS didn't get their AOE abilities until in the 40s, and most people didn't have a good handle on their rotations yet, you did have to devote a lot of GCDs to healing, and so weren't in Cleric often then, either.

It wasn't part of the rotation, and wasn't something done much outside of high end groups or in farm content (by high end groups). It was absolutely done by hardcore players, but not by a lot of others. Again, period videos from 2.1-2-5 show WHMs clearing Extreme Trials (which at the time were very difficult) and Coils (which were arguably on par or more difficult than current Savages, at least compared to the more limited kits the Jobs had at the time) either not using Cleric at all, or using it very little. Conversely, while SCHs used Cleric, they had the opposite situation where they'd generally go into Cleric and then just STAY in it.

There wasn't a dynamic "dancing" in and out of stance except by very high end players until HW. In HW, using Cleric became more mainstream, though it still wasn't done by a lot of people, and even where it was used, it was used a lot like in HW, just a bit more liberally switching into and out of it.

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I agree it's a good discussion to have, though.

The problem with Tank design is that Tanks have so much self-sustain (and in 4 mans, should be the only ones taking damage) AND party healing, and their party healing is mostly free. WAR is the worst offender in that Nascent STILL heals the WAR for the same amount as the target, they just don't get the defensive effect, but in AOE situations where they can do their 1-2 AOE rotation and heal 100% every other GCD, they don't even need it. The healing is free and costs nothing or very little to use for most of the Tanks, so they use it. The only exception to this is Clemency...which is "bad" to use because of the tradeoff and so is held for emergency use. If all the Tank heals worked more like Clemency, as an opportunity cost, then we wouldn't have 4 mans that need no Healers. Or, at least, it wouldn't be quite as bad as it is.

Add to that a lot of DPSers have the same thing with the exception of Vercure - compare Curing Waltz to Vercure; Waltz has zero opportunity cost, it's an oGCD weave you throw in during damage and keep doing your rotation with no downtime or loss of DPS, and is a 600 Potency (300 from you and 300 from your Dance Partner) AOE heal. While it can't be spammed, that's well more powerful than Vercure and AOE... - again leading to the case of not needing a Healer.

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My biggest problem with the Healer damage "solution" is that it doesn't ACTUALLY fix the problem.

The core problem, I think, is that Healers aren't needed in content because the Trinity is being devalued and the game is being pushed into being more of an ARPG. That's what leads/has led to Healers falling back on their simple damage "rotations" and being bored. It's also bad for the game on the whole in a more meta sense as it devalues the Trinity and is nudging the game into being more of an ARPG where players just dodge mechanics, self-heal, and clear content without needing roles. Ex5, for instance, has been cleared with a solo Healer, but that's not the worst part: IT HAD NO TANK, either. It was 1 Healer + 7 DPS clearing an Extreme fight at level while current. Because the Tanking requirement (mitigation/defenses) is so low that between the lone Healer and the 7 DPSers with all their healing and mitigation, a Tank wasn't even needed to clear the content.

This is a problem that's spreading from JUST being a Healer problem to being a whole game problem.

And just giving Healers a few more damage buttons doesn't fix that.

If it did, I might be all for it, but to me, that's like treating someone with a metal pipe jammed through their head by giving them an Advil instead of...emergency surgery to remove the pipe jammed through their head.

Indeed, one of the reasons I'm so adamant about this point is because I'm worried about the direction of the game - devaluing the Trinity system - and that giving Healers DPS as a band-aid not only won't fix the problem, it'll shove us more into being an ARPG, which is the problem to begin with. It'll exacerbate the problem - at least if done in vacuum without healer/damage/encounter changes - not fix it.

At least, that's my concern.

[Post]

No man, WHM was half the healers in ARR. I'm sure you coulda guessed out by my description of Cleric Stance, but I joined in 2.1 as a CNJ, it took me one dungeon to realize that I could heal my tank to full HP with 2 Cures and that I only needed them to be able to survive 2 GCDs for the 5 seconds of Cleric Stance's lockout for the group to benefit from me using it.

And again, it wasn't a pitiful amount of damage. I don't have any screenshots or numbers or anything, but Cleric Stance would straight triple your damage output at least. In that way, it absolutely was 'part of the rotation.'

As you approached the 40s you absolutely would be in Cleric Stance more often, as you get Regen at 35 (not as important nowadays but it lasted longer and was stronger relatively to other heals in your kit then, especially with MP as a concern), as PLD got Sentinel at 38, Shield Oath at 40 and Bulwark at like... 44? WAR actually got Vengeance at 38 and Holmgang at 42. WAR generated tons of HP back then when they had TP and Bloodbath, which was 50% of the time. Actions like Flash and Shield Swipe played a large component in reducing damage incoming due to the Blind and Pacify, when PLD didn't have any aoe damage rotation. Holy trivialized dungeon trash even moreso then than it does now (waaaay higher relative damage compared with the group overall and a 6 second stun). For bosses, Rage of Halone and Storm's Path also straight reduced incoming damage by 10%.

If a healer didn't use Cleric it's not because they were consciously dealing damage without it and recognizing it as an alternative or near equivalent to Cleric, it's because they were horribly misinformed or intimidated by the prospect. The difference is that most of the dps check tuning wasn't such that you NEEDED a healer to be dpsing for most fights. That's an important distinction. Read: I'm not saying WHM stayed in Cleric all the time, I'm saying if there was ever a point where they had 2 GCDs available to deal damage, then they should have done it in Cleric Stance, because it would be hugely wasteful of their MP and the opportunity cost of missing damage otherwise.

Gordias in HW was the first time that dps tuning was extraordinarily tight, but that also didn't occur in a vacuum. Players were also contending with the fact that all Jobs across the board became much more difficult to play with the new expansion, so the more healers could put out the better. BLM as a quick example went from the easy dps job to probably the most punishing with the advent Enochian being required to cast your basic nuke, Fire IV not refreshing Astral Fire and needing timely Blizzards IV to refresh Enochian.

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Regarding group survival without a healer, it's important to consider the other half of the equation.

One of the major differences with all content from ShB onwards is that incoming tank damage is much lower and more predictable. Crits are gone. Most normal enemies in dungeons and bosses do not have the 'midbuster' type of attacks anymore, the ones that just have a special name and animation and just deal extra damage on the tank, like a weaponskill between auto attacks. These attacks also did not have cast bars, so they would just come out and whack your tank who probably wouldn't have mitigation up unless they were familiar with an encounter and knew it was coming.

Additionally, bosses usually stop auto attacking during casted actions now, which is a huge amount of damage reduction overall, especially as bosses have tended to gain more mechanics relative to fight durations. This was probably done to prevent the old tankbuster-auto-> tank's dead combo, but seeing as tankbusters on the whole do much less damage it was a multi-faceted problem that they attacked from two directions and thus over-corrected.

How often do tanks die, really? Mostly in trash pulls in my experience, because that's the most damage that they take. Nothing else really can contend. But, seeing as that's the most common place that players died from damage that wasn't avoidable, and it's by and large reduced from bosses in all parts of the game, more of the game's damage is avoidable so the healer's role is less important.

I think they could make more damage unavoidable if they let every job rez, too. Maybe at least like BLU's rez, or just like how Criterion does it. This would be less of a burden for newer healers to shoulder as their death wouldn't immediately mean the group is doomed, and it would also mean that they couldn't just clear the fight anyways when that new healer dies early because they're superfluous when tanks can heal as well as they can. I think that you can recover from death is a good thing that they should lean into in this game, not away from.

[Renathras]

No man,...

We both started in ARR, and about 6-8 months apart. Yes man.

Again, I'm not saying literally no one did it. I'm saying not nearly as many people did it as folks now insist, and even the people doing it, often were toggleing/"dancing" in and out of Cleric. Again, we have video recordings from that time on YouTube posted to this day of people playing how they played at that time or in HW.

Aside: I miss having more than 10,000 MP. Weird thing, but...something about having the static value from level 1-90 on any and all Jobs just is weird...

Pharos Sirius, 7 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IielDfs2bto - WHM not "dancing" in and out of Cleric. Uses it against the Construct and just sits in it while casting Aero then Stonespam. This was even into HW. (Also: Still love the music in this dungeon. It's also nice just seeing people do a chill dungeon run instead of a wall to wall quick tome grind. It's also seeing the cute little baby Asylum bubble back before it grew up. ) This is what most dungeons I saw leveling as PLD looked like, btw.

Titan Extreme, 9 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK1fOsCLXxY - Notice both the WHM and the SCH aren't using Cleric. (Also: That BRD with just "33" health after the ultimate! o.O)

The title should speak for itself on this one:

BG vs the Binding Coil of Bahamut - Turn 5 / World 1st Twintania Kill! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDJde_SZfNw - Can you count how many times the WHM and SCH "danced" into and out of Cleric? OR DAMAGE SPELLS at all? It was a seriously different game back then. A Healer playing at all like this now would be kicked from the party/static, and this was...the world first kill. Wrap your head around that one!

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EDIT:

Oh, to be clear, I do agree with the OTHER part(s) of your post. I just don't agree with the Cleric part.

Well, except not sure about every Job resing. There are...a LOT of implications that go into that, not to mention SMN and RDM's damage would have to be considerably boosted without the "they can also res!" thing going for them. And being able to do it once per 5 mins is honestly just as good almost all the time as SMN's version, at least. Now, maybe it'd be different if it was like the BLU spell that KOs the BLU to raise someone to full MP and HP...but that would still be kind of wonky.

The rest we find solid agreement on. Mhm.

[AmiableApkallu]

Regarding group survival without a healer, it's important to consider the other half of the equation.

One of the major differences with all content from ShB onwards is that incoming tank damage is much lower and more predictable. Crits are gone. Most normal enemies in dungeons and bosses do not have the 'midbuster' type of attacks anymore, the ones that just have a special name and animation and just deal extra damage on the tank, like a weaponskill between auto attacks. These attacks also did not have cast bars, so they would just come out and whack your tank who probably wouldn't have mitigation up unless they were familiar with an encounter and knew it was coming.

Additionally, bosses usually stop auto attacking during casted actions now, which is a huge amount of damage reduction overall, especially as bosses have tended to gain more mechanics relative to fight durations. This was probably done to prevent the old tankbuster-auto-> tank's dead combo, but seeing as tankbusters on the whole do much less damage it was a multi-faceted problem that they attacked from two directions and thus over-corrected.

+1. I've come to imagine that a return to the old ways would be helpful, even if I did start FFXIV when post-ShB was current.

[Teno]

This again ? Stance dancing has been part of FFXIV since the start, no endless debate needed. Some people realized it later than others since many came in with the traditional/wow gameplay in mind (and that was even before wow heavily pushed healers to dps in m+ for instance), but they quickly adjusted. It took me the first 30 levels and boredom because this red button was quite enticing back in the day to realize that.

This reminds me of the tenacity tanks. I don't know what kind of uphill battle you're trying to have.

Also back to the original topic really, I don't know why a certain amount of heal over a set period of time would matter in any way in this game. Either you survive and keep dpsing, or you lose.

[Post]

I think the idea behind the thread is that all roles have been given so many survival tools that the healer's 'niche' is basically superfluous in the majority of the battle content, with the hopes that either decreasing those tools effectiveness or increasing the average unavoidable damage across the board that this situation would make healer a good choice.

It's been a pretty steady decline of incoming damage since like 3.4 where they consciously tried to make extremes and savages easier, and a steady increase of a healer's tools since HW when they introduced AoE instant heals for all of them. It didn't help that they shifted so many of the damage mitigation tools off of healers to other jobs in StB, but people were solo healing a12s at least before that. Not sure about a8s when it was current, that would probably be tougher.

As it is, the main reason to bring a healer to most duties is that the queue requires them. In Extremes and Raids (and even Ultimates) the main reason is that certain mechanics target two healers, and the encounter is more predictable as a result. The central idea is that the reason to bring a healer has not been 'incoming damage is not survivable for a party without one/two healers.'

[ForsakenRoe]

It's been a pretty steady decline of incoming damage since like 3.4 where they consciously tried to make extremes and savages easier, and a steady increase of a healer's tools since HW when they introduced AoE instant heals for all of them. It didn't help that they shifted so many of the damage mitigation tools off of healers to other jobs in StB, but people were solo healing a12s at least before that. Not sure about a8s when it was current, that would probably be tougher.

Yeh, one of the big factors in why we push for 'more interesting downtime' isn't just 'we want to DPS more' or whatever, it's that for the past 6 years or something, Tanks have gotten more and more tools to reduce damage taken or selfheal, DPS have gotten more and more tools to reduce damage taken or selfheal, healers have gotten more and more tools to reduce damage taken to the party or to heal in general, but damage dealt to the party has not gone up in accordance with these changes. If the dev team has spent 6 years pushing in the direction we've been going (the ratio of healing/mit tools versus damage taken constantly swinging more and more towards 'we have too much answers to the damage'), they're very unlikely to turn on a dime and change it all up. So the 'make downtime interesting' argument is not necessarily the 'ideal solution', as it reinforces the fact we don't heal all that much (and therefore probably shouldn't be called healer, instead support or something), but it's the 'least intrusive' to the current format

As it is, the main reason to bring a healer to most duties is that the queue requires them. In Extremes and Raids (and even Ultimates) the main reason is that certain mechanics target two healers, and the encounter is more predictable as a result. The central idea is that the reason to bring a healer has not been 'incoming damage is not survivable for a party without one/two healers.'

'What is your name'
'Samantha Redgrayve'
'And what is your role in this raid?'
'To exist and force Venom Squall to target me instead of going to a random DPS'

Sad that a lot of Savages are surprisingly solo-healable, if not for mechanics like the aforementioned