A summary of healer issues

[Renathras]

I visited the healer forums once. It was an echo chamber of salt. And when I dared speak my own opinion about how I liked healer as it is now, they got extremely vitriolic. So why would I pay attention to anything other than general discussion, which has arguably less vitriol.

This is a pretty unfortunate truth about the Healer forum. But I think it's why it's that way. I'm like the only person that consistently pokes the bear in there by having a different opinion. Most other people come in, get absolutely dumped on, and leave. But because they do, the majority thinks they represent everyone and keep doing it. When I point out they drive people away, so they aren't a true majority, they're a toxic echo chamber, they just...well, dump on me more, but I'm used to it at this point, I guess? XD

We really could use more dissenting voices in there, though.

EDIT:

It has less vitriol because the more acidic users left. This place was literally Dead Ends’ Judgment Day a year ago.

It's...still pretty bad.

[OdinelStarrei]

This is a pretty unfortunate truth about the Healer forum. But I think it's why it's that way. I'm like the only person that consistently pokes the bear in there by having a different opinion. Most other people come in, get absolutely dumped on, and leave. But because they do, the majority thinks they represent everyone and keep doing it. When I point out they drive people away, so they aren't a true majority, they're a toxic echo chamber, they just...well, dump on me more, but I'm used to it at this point, I guess? XD

We really could use more dissenting voices in there, though.

EDIT:



It's...still pretty bad.

Dude, what are you talking about? If you go to NASA, try to proclaim that the world is flat, and that everyone who doesn't agree is stuck in a toxic echo-chamber for calling you out, you're not portraying ANY side properly.

Having a different opinion from the majority does not inherently give said opinion more individual value. There is no debate left to be had, nor is there any need to be one! Who gives a shit if they are pushing people away from this miserable cesspool, particularly when we're a pointless minority anyway? The design of the entire combat system is not going to bend to appease some over-dedicated players on the forums. Nothing they do matters! If the developers would come on here and directly tell each and everyone one of us thanks for the money, now get out and stop asking for the SAME things we've been asking for four years, they would if they didn't have the PR fallout to worry about.


Healers are NOT changing! Tanks are NOT changing! The reality that that Class forums want for this game will NEVER happen! Our "opinions" are WORTHLESS. Why isn't that simple fact good enough? There is no need for a dissenting voice for players who are CONVINCED Square Enix has wronged them! The reality and hopelessness of the situation in their minds is loud enough without chucklenut #67032 saying "Actually it's fine, your experience is irrelevant". Just let us be miserable!

Now, all that said, I also know where you are coming from about being the jaded old guard of a game who has witnessed the very fundamentals of the game you love, change into something you despise. I am genuinely sorry that happened. It sucks. I wasn't around pre Shadowbringers, so i dont know what the game was like back then but im very sorry you seem to feel like youve had a hobby that you love taken away from you. I dont want that for you or anyone. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't here for it. I regret that what I want for the game doesn't match up with what so many others do. But im still here for it.

I'm going to keep this for reference for every single time I think about coming back here, and try to get as many of my miserable friends that are left out of this game as possible. I am so sick of seeing them so unhappy. Our game is gone. At the very least, you acknowledged there were losers in this. Goddamn, I lost so much. I should have never started playing FFXIV.

[ty_taurus]

Can we get the Cliff Notes version and I personally like my healer.

In short:

Healers are too similar to one another, and the better you get at healing, the worse the gameplay feels for many players as the reward for managing your healing better is largely spamming 1 button, the antithesis of MMORPG gameplay. Our healing abilities are excessive in both strength and volume in comparison to how much damage we take in this game, but we also can't increase the amount of damage taken by that much or it becomes very difficult for new or learning healers to survive.

Many dedicated healer players want healers to have modest, yet rewarding DPS spells and abilities that puts them around the same level of DPS depth as the tanks so that when there is nothing to heal, there's a gameplay loop for them to engage with. Since the vast majority of content in FFXIV does not have enrage mechanics, it also doesn't mean that those newer or learning healers have to prioritize optimizing those additional DPS tools, allowing healers to play at the pace they're comfortable in, but always have some kind of engaging gameplay factor regardless of skill level.

[Renathras]

Oh good gosh, this is long.

Meh.

THE POWER OF EDIT!!!

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Respectfully, that's not a summary.

This did make me chuckle. You get a Like from me, friend.

You... uh.. you might not realize this, but while he's a troll on the forums and have multiple alts, he actually is one of the more accomplished high-end raiders who also happens to parse like a monster (better than most players too). It isn't all the time he drops pretense when trolling, but when he does have a serious conversation, you realize he is also aware to the issues that plague FFXIV gameplay.

I don't frequent General too often, and I don't track people's alts, sorry. There's no way for me to know any of that offhand.

Unsurprisingly, really.

It kind of is, but it may be the kind of people we are.

I've never had tremendous animosity towards people I disagree with. If people like OR dislike a thing, I may disagree with them, but I can accept their position. I only get irate when people try to take things from other people or attack other people's legitimacy/legitimate feelings. Like look at the PLD rework. There are some good threads where someone came out the gate swinging with how horrible it was, but also a ton of posters saying how there were good things about it or even that it was better on the whole. While some people had strong feelings, both sides of the argument were represented, and LARGELY people accepted other people's feelings, even while arguing/debating over the points. Ideally, this is how everywhere should be and good discussions would be had.

You don't get that with the Healer subforum. Like, at all. You don't get that in the DPS subforum in only two specific areas - ALMOST universally, people that like the Kaiten removal are attacked (though there are at least some people able to make the argument), and there's a lot of vitriol towards people that like New SMN (but again, enough people making the argument that they're still able to). The Healer subforum reached some kind of critical echochamber mass to where it really doesn't allow for those kinds of discussions at all. Even in the DPS forum, people can be somewhat cordial to those who disagree on those two issues. More than the Healer forum is to those who like current healing, anyway.

Dude, what are you talking about? If you go to NASA, try to proclaim that the world is flat, and that everyone who doesn't agree is stuck in a toxic echo-chamber for calling you out, you're not portraying ANY side properly.

The world not being flat is a fact. Whether one likes or doesn't like Healing right now is an opinion. It's absurd comparing the two.

It'd be more like going into an agnostic convention and saying "I have no proof god exists, but I can submit for the sake of argument it's possible", which would be met with disagreement "Well, I have no proof god exists, and I submit that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence". But that's different than the response you'd get if you went to either an atheist or theist convention - the latter two being good representations of echo chambers on the matter.

And why people say it's toxic is it's not just people saying "you're wrong", it's people who will personally attack your CHARACTER for not hating the current implementation of Healers. Either your judgement and ability to understand, or that they just get frustrated you won't submit to their position and so start lashing out unfairly, complete with putting words in your mouth you didn't say or even outright lying about you.

Having a different opinion from the majority does not inherently give said opinion more individual value.

That's the point, they aren't a majority. They're only a "majority" because it's a toxic echo-chamber that literally runs anyone off who disagrees with them. It's only like 12-15 people that do it, too, if that. They have the illusion of a majority simply by virtue of running off any dissenting voices except the most abjectly stubborn.

Anyway, that's not the point of this thread, so I won't go on about it. But the reason people "give a sh--" is because it means most discussions in there aren't productive, which is why people don't frequent it to talk about healing issues. That's why it's important. I was agreeing with the person who said the same and that as the reason she didn't go in there when someone asked her why she hadn't been in there and seen the discussions. That's why it's relevant. Because at this point we basically need a completely separate "Healer Forum - For people who DON'T hate Healers" to have meaningful and thoughtful discussion on the topic. Well, or doing it here in General.

I do agree that it's probably not going to change anything, though.

As to your last point:

It's one reason I'm a fan - and constantly advocate for - what I call the "Four Healers Model". Which, in a nutshell, is "We have four Healer Jobs...why should they all play so similarly? Give SCH some Dots back, give AST some Cards, WHM...is honestly better now than it's ever been so leave it alone, and make SGE a Disc Priest or something - bam, everybody wins."

SUPER nutshell. I think Misshapen Chair made a similar argument in one of his videos, the "Healing In FFXIV Is Not Fun" one.

Glad you're enjoying it. Outside looking in, I have a few healer friends that raid and I've seen the conversations from strangers. Seems like their main criticism is that the dps rotation is only 2 buttons, and one is a DoT. I completely understand their gripe as that sounds less fun than having a more complex kit. Something that was present in the past for healers.

Not as much as it seems, though this depends WILDLY on which Healer we're talking about. For example, AST has more or less always had the same DPS rotation it has now. WHM's ShB/EW rotation is more complex (yes, it is) than WHM's SB rotation was, and requires more DPS GCDs per minute than SB's did, considering you have to use 3 Solace/Rapture (GCDs) to generate a Misery, which is DPS neutral on the whole and DPS positive in buff windows over Glare. The super short version is ARR WHM had to press 9.333... non-Stones per minute, SB WHM pressed 5.833..., and ShB/EW WHM presses 6. So in a rough sense, WHM now has a comparable "rotation" to what it did in EW (slightly less Glarespam, actually), and moderately less than ARR (due to Aero 1's super short duration back then), but it's not super duper dissimilar.

In practice, ARR WHM cast Aero 1 6 times per minute and Aero 2 3.3... times per minute. Note Fluid Aura was not on the GCD, so we'll set that aside FOR THE MOMENT. This is a total of 9.3 non-Stone casts. (Blizzard 2 would have competed with Holy, but as we all know - it didn't, and so doesn't count. That'd be like counting Physic as a heal since you could cross-class it.)

In practice, SB WHM cast Aero 2 3.333... times per minute and Aero 3 2.5 times per minute. This is a total of 5.833... GCD casts per minute that weren't Stone IV.

In practice, EW WHM casts Dia 2 times per minute, 3 Afflatus (Solace/Rapture) per minute, and 1 Afflatus Misery per minute. This is a total of 6 GCD casts per minute that aren't Glare III.

So there's your comparison. And looking at AOE, ARR was Holyspam, SB was Aero 3 2.5x per minute + Holyspam, and EW is 3 Solace/Rapture + 1 Misery + Holyspam.

SCH, on the other hand...yeah, SCH got hit hard. People mention the loss of the DoTs, but it's more than that. Broil IV being a 1.5 sec cast means no Ruin 2 for weaves, which was at least something different to hit as part of your rotation. SB and HW SCH also had (depending on how you count) 3-6 total DoTs (though Shadow Flare was an oGCD with a CD for the latter part of that). Even in ARR, it had its own Bio and Miasma and Shadow Flare (back then, a GCD) along with Cross-Classing Aero.

So it's more accurate to say that it was present in the past for SCH.

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You obviously care a lot about this topic to invest so much thought into it.

But...I have all healers level 90 and find them all fun in the content I do. Sorry.

Oh, I'm with you. It wasn't my post. It was posted in the Healer subforum, which is kind of a toxic echochamber of salt. I was curious how a more general audience would feel about it since in there, they were all saying I was wrong for liking Healers like they are today. I'm with you, I find them fun and enjoy them.

So for us, who had our loved jobs reworked or outright removed from the game, midcore combat and exploration content deprioritized, and a dedicated push towards non-combat, socializing and RP on the surface. Not saying those things are wrong, just saying they happened. People deserve to be happy if that's stuff they enjoy. I already left, no need to go over that bit.

I think this depends on the player.

I've been playing since ARR (2.3, I think), and I still enjoy the game. Granted, I'm playing on a Job that has only improved over that time but hasn't changed SUPER much from what it always was, but I think this depends mostly on the person. I'm not sure what the answer is, though...

I DO absolutely think that the content droughts in EW have shown how important it is to have a Eureka/Bozja type content for people to mill about in when patches are getting long in the tooth. Island Sanctuary ain't it, and Criterion wasn't, either. Orthos is nice, but isn't really solo-friendly (that is, you can't do the higher floors quing solo) like Eureka/Bozja where where you could just form groups inside.

Translation- I posted this in the job forum and got feedback in many cases wasn't what I wanted to hear. So I am bringing this to the general aka "anything goes' forum . Let's get feedback from botanists now, why not - forget the healers.

1) I didn't post this in the Healer forum, someone else did.

2) You and others in there point to it and how many likes it got there of proof of how it's right and I'm wrong about everything, even though that subforum actively repels anyone with a differing opinion - and as you can see from this thread, I'm NOT the only one telling you that.

3) I posted it here to see if a general audience that isn't part of YOUR echochamber agrees or not. So far, it's looking like a lot more disagreement when you and your fellows insisted there was none. Very interesting, that...

White Mage, Sage and Warrior are tied for the most popular jobs in all of FFXIV right now (although Dark Knight takes Warrior's place in raids specifically).

In high-end content, White Mage is the most popular job in all of FFXIV, more than tanks and DPS, it has been for a long time and it's not even close. So this just isn't true!

...

Pretty much hit the nail on the head. Add in SMN and DNC and you have the most popular Jobs in the game right now in your list.

Like many of the other jobs, they took too many tools away from the healers.

Yoshida may want to consider bringing some skills back just to test the waters again. We have different players now compared to HW/SB.

Somewhat agree with this. Some stuff like Protect or Stoneskin would be cool to see back.

Thing is nowadays tanks are so OP that they barely need heals in dungeons lately, hell I have seen bosses over 50% HP being taken down with the healer dead.

Instead if there was more unavoidable damage to actually HEAL in dungeons/raids, then healing jobs could be more engaging, not silly ideas like add another attack to healers kit. If you like to do damage go play a DPS, the healer job is to HEAL, contrary to popular opinion I think our attacking skills are enough.

Largely agree, though I think it's more complicated than that. But in a general sense, yeah.

AT this point they should just remove dps abilites on all healers,
add massive amount of dmg on every content ( remove selfheal from dps/tank).. i mean dmg 24/7 --> so all that healers do is to heal/buff/mid..
So the dps wannabe healers can go back to dps ..and cry there.

Maybe. You need at least one damage ability to clear solo content, though.

Healers, just as tanks and DPS, are homogenized because you are able to play every class.

...

I personally love playing healer. I switched to being a healer main after almost 2 years of DPS because I found it more engaging. I actually have to pay attention and it matters more if I know the fights. I honestly have no idea where this "healers don't have to heal and they're optional" comes from. Because let me tell you, 90% of DF groups I get, the party eats avoidable damage like it's candy. Human error happens. Often. So how is it these people say they never have to heal?

...

Largely agreed.

I will say that people complain about Tank homogenization. DPS are just now complaining about it because the 2 min meta has homgenized them somewhat. One of the issues is that we have so much homogenization because people have literally asked for it ("Why does Job X get Y and my Job doesn't?! Give me that ability, too, Yoshi P!!"). So that is kind of a thing besides just Healers. It's just most noticeable in the Healer DPS kits since they all are mostly DoT + Nuke + oneotherthing.

That said, I am constantly confused by people that say they have nothing to heal, considering my DFs pretty much always give me plenty to heal, and my Extreme/Savage PF groups do as well. Largely I enjoy Healing right now, but I AM in favor of the Four Healers Model so that people who don't could also have some Healing Job(s) they enjoy.

Pretty much posting anything healer related to the General forum is going to get a tepid response. Most players simply don't care how badly designed healers are.

Now, remove a single button from Samurai and it's the end of the world.

Eh, maybe. Maybe not. Only one way to find out. We've already got 6 pages, so it's not TOO tepid.

Can we get the Cliff Notes version and I personally like my healer.

I like mine, too. And for a Cliff Notes version, I think Ty got it more or less right. Note that this IS NOT my position. I'm just cross posting it from the Healer Forum because I was told by the echochamber there that everyone agrees with it and I wanted to see if EVERYONE agreed with it, or just everyone in their echochamber, as those are two very different things.

In short:

Healers are too similar to one another, and the better you get at healing, the worse the gameplay feels for many players as the reward for managing your healing better is largely spamming 1 button, the antithesis of MMORPG gameplay. Our healing abilities are excessive in both strength and volume in comparison to how much damage we take in this game, but we also can't increase the amount of damage taken by that much or it becomes very difficult for new or learning healers to survive.

Many dedicated healer players want healers to have modest, yet rewarding DPS spells and abilities that puts them around the same level of DPS depth as the tanks so that when there is nothing to heal, there's a gameplay loop for them to engage with. Since the vast majority of content in FFXIV does not have enrage mechanics, it also doesn't mean that those newer or learning healers have to prioritize optimizing those additional DPS tools, allowing healers to play at the pace they're comfortable in, but always have some kind of engaging gameplay factor regardless of skill level.

With one caveat: The quoted OP directly asked for the amount of damage taken to be increased. This is Ty injecting a bit of the Healer Forum echochamber here where the OP here did not. See point (2) in the OP where the solution proposed was to increase the damage, the very thing Ty and the Healer Forum regulars oppose. (I don't mean this as a dig at you, Ty, the rest of your summary is correct.)

.

It's also why I'm big on the Four Healers Model, since that would accommodate both types of players. I think Misshapen Chair DID do a good video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbWubxOTUWU

His own proposed solution being very similar to mine, though a bit more...colorful:

Give SCH players 2 DoTs, make one of them a Hardcast, and give them Tri-Disaster and make Aetherflow reset the cooldown of said Tri-Disaster. Let WHM stay exactly the same so that we can meme on it for being the baby healer. Bring back Nocturnal AST. Bring back AOE DoTs. And make SGE have some wack-a-- over complicated DPS rotation that baffles people's minds...and see if they embrace it or not.

If someone complains that they need to be rewarded with more DPS for their complicated Job; simply tell them that the reward is being able to have fun, and not being bored out of their ----ing minds. Shut the ---- up about a whole 2% DPS variance.

While his position is more from a jaded perspective while mine is more from a hopeful and inclusive one, I think the agreement is valid.

[ty_taurus]

With one caveat: The quoted OP directly asked for the amount of damage taken to be increased. This is Ty injecting a bit of the Healer Forum echochamber here where the OP here did not. See point (2) in the OP where the solution proposed was to increase the damage, the very thing Ty and the Healer Forum regulars oppose. (I don't mean this as a dig at you, Ty, the rest of your summary is correct.)

I, and many others do not oppose increasing damage dealt entirely. I've regularly talked about wanting to see more frequent instances of damage, but there is a limit to how much damage we can reasonably add to all levels of content. The point I and several others have made is that the only way to increase damage dealt to the party enough to actually forced the advanced healer players into healing more than they attack would completely overwhelm entry level, beginner level, and probably intermediate level healers, and that's not what we want. We don't want healing to be a punishingly ruthless role that tosses newbies into the meat grinder.

[AnotherPerson]

I, and many others do not oppose increasing damage dealt entirely. I've regularly talked about wanting to see more frequent instances of damage, but there is a limit to how much damage we can reasonably add to all levels of content. The point I and several others have made is that the only way to increase damage dealt to the party enough to actually forced the advanced healer players into healing more than they attack would completely overwhelm entry level, beginner level, and probably intermediate level healers, and that's not what we want. We don't want healing to be a punishingly ruthless role that tosses newbies into the meat grinder.

Not to mention... once a couple of months roll by and people just get better gear, they outscale the level sync because SE keeps on designing content with a high max ILVL sync to said content. Ultimately, you end up back to the same place as you were before they increased damage with healers needing only a very small portion of their healing toolkit, making healers unfun for that said content again later as everyone also gets better gear.

Happened to Shadowbringers, Happened to Endwalker. It's pretty much inevitable increasing damage dealt doesn't work in long term without making some players unable to keep up with the damage.

[Maltothoris]

With one caveat: The quoted OP directly asked for the amount of damage taken to be increased. This is Ty injecting a bit of the Healer Forum echochamber here where the OP here did not. See point (2) in the OP where the solution proposed was to increase the damage, the very thing Ty and the Healer Forum regulars oppose. (I don't mean this as a dig at you, Ty, the rest of your summary is correct.).

WEll there is one thing that you keep forgetting yourself. The damage and fights are scripted. It has always been like this ever since ARR, the only difference back then was the phase pushes were based on percentages instead of the timeline that it is now. Take TOP for example, looper tower always does 32-34k on dps and healers. I don't need to heal them to full they just need enough hp which one gcd and ogcd is all that's needed. In Panto I am always going to get hit by 3 stack lasers and one solo missle. I legit only need to use 2 gcd heals on top of my lilybell and thats all the gcd healing I need to do for all of p1.

[AmiableApkallu]

On the subject of increasing damage dealt, I imagine that a return to the old ways could help (I started when post-ShB was current, so I can't speak from experience):

IMHO the easiest solution there is to lean more on auto attacks persisting through casts with the ability to crit whilst also giving bosses short cooldown non-telegraphed tank busters and cleaves again.

Kaliya from Coil T11 during prog was a great example of how bosses should hit. It wasn't the hardest hitting boss of the time, but you needed both tanks to soak those cleaves initially and it was nothing like as predictable as what we have now because the bulk of the damage didn't have a huge long telegraph announcing it's arrival.

https://youtu.be/1WwRDVQotgo?t=15

Crit auto attacks and untelegraphed/no cast bar tankbusters were a decent way to keep healers on their toes and pay attention to tank health—versus just ignoring it for the majority of a fight. I wish they’d bring those back. I think there may still be a few busters that aren’t indicated by a cast bar, but they are few and far between. A lot of the Savage bosses only do two or three busters an entire fight, and they are all usually immuned by the tanks. Maybe upping the frequency could help that as well.

[ASkellington]

Eh. Read my quote. Sums it up.

[Deceptus]

In short:

Healers are too similar to one another, and the better you get at healing, the worse the gameplay feels for many players as the reward for managing your healing better is largely spamming 1 button, the antithesis of MMORPG gameplay. Our healing abilities are excessive in both strength and volume in comparison to how much damage we take in this game, but we also can't increase the amount of damage taken by that much or it becomes very difficult for new or learning healers to survive.

Many dedicated healer players want healers to have modest, yet rewarding DPS spells and abilities that puts them around the same level of DPS depth as the tanks so that when there is nothing to heal, there's a gameplay loop for them to engage with. Since the vast majority of content in FFXIV does not have enrage mechanics, it also doesn't mean that those newer or learning healers have to prioritize optimizing those additional DPS tools, allowing healers to play at the pace they're comfortable in, but always have some kind of engaging gameplay factor regardless of skill level.

Very well summarized