Why is Blue Mage a more fun healer than WHM/SCH/SGE/AST

[MisterNublet]

The lack of damage to heal up is indeed there, but i dont see how making healers more into dps would solve/better the issue.
I did not choose to play healer because i enjoyed the dps buttons..I enjoy my healer toolkit(healer skills) and i want to use them.

Yoshi-P has already stated that they will never increase the healing demand required of the healers.

I mostly do DF/PF and get in groups with new and random ppl, so i stil get to use my heals for now at least...
But when i do get an experienced group the dmg output is close to zero.. and you end up beeing a green dps.

Which is why people are asking for more dps buttons to press when we do get groups of experienced players so we're not pressing one single button for 95% of the time.

The "I only play healers to heal" players already ignore their damage buttons, so nothing will change if they add additional buttons to press for those who want something to do.

[Striker44]

And what does that say about their vision of class design

Why is it more fun (for you)? Because it's your personal opinion, which shockingly, we're all allowed to have our own.

What does it say about class design? Absolutely nothing. For example, BLU is one of the few classes I personally just find myself unable to really get into, while I love playing SCH and enjoy WHM enough to use it as a second healing class (but on the other hand I'm not a fan of SGE or AST).

[Kes13a]

can we ask why a different forum poster is a better troll than you are?

never a huge fan of blu since they were a flavour of the month thing and rather OP. they tend to be better at DPS too from what I can see. there is a reason they are a limited class. like you are a limited troll.

maybe one day they, like you, will become better rounded

[Sebazy]

Now I'm not on mobile, I can clarify a few more things regarding my previous point.

Again, to be clear here: Suggesting that a more complex DPS kit will increase pressure on healers to DPS is patently untrue and there's prior history and facts to back that up.

Our damage kits are close to as simplistic as they have ever been, yet we are under *FAR* more pressure to deal damage than we ever were in the past and it's only ever gone up as time went on.

The only thing that causes genuine MP issues for us now is raising.

Tank healing requirements are lower in average endgame content now than they were at the start of ARR in Sashtasha.

Crits on tanks aren't a thing anymore.

Untelegraphed tank busters aren't a thing anymore.

Bosses tend to spend inordinate amounts of time standing around casting huge long flashy animations whilst doing absolutely nothing else.

Cleric Stance and it's inherent risks are long consigned to the history books.

A significant portion of Savage and Ultimate's difficulty is centred around beating enrage, and many enrages are mathematically unbeatable without healer DPS.

THESE are the reasons we are expected to deal damage.

The complexity of our damage kit isn't the factor that some people make it out to be. That's just fear mongering at best and idiocy at worst.

[Zeastria]

Yoshi-P has already stated that they will never increase the healing demand required of the healers.

Which is why people are asking for more dps buttons to press when we do get groups of experienced players so we're not pressing one single button for 95% of the time.

The "I only play healers to heal" players already ignore their damage buttons, so nothing will change if they add additional buttons to press for those who want something to do.

It will not stop me from voicing my opinion(s) though :P
There are ways to improve the damage abilities without adding new ones too..
which i kinda touched upon - if you read my previous replies.

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I simply share my opinion(s) on the matter, despite of what other may think/say about it..
For im not here to please or seek approvement/validation from others.

We all have the right to speak our minds,
opinions aint facts ..they are opinions
We all have different opinions and ideas of what we want healers to be.
None of them (opinions) are outright wrong or right in that sense.

[Renathras]

Like i find playing DPS jobs boring and repetitive to play--> but that does not mean that dps need to be reworked or is bad.

This.

It's all subjective. Healer main in every MMO I've ever played. The only DPS Job in this game I find fun to play is SMN, which is the one that everyone rags on. Different people like different things. Though if I had to say which I liked best, it'd be ARR healers if they DIDN'T have Cleric Stance. I think the problem with modern healers is threefold:

1) They do WAY too much healing with oGCD weaving, meaning that most of your GCDs are on damage spells, Glare/Broil/Malific/Dosis.

2) Their healing kits are pretty diverse (even SCH/SGE feel pretty different when using their GCD heals and some of their oGCDs; Eukrasian Prognosis feels more responsive and zippy than Succor, Recitation+Adlo+Deploy feels different than Zoe+Eukrasian Prognosis, etc), but they all have basically the same DPS kit with just a bit of wiggle, meaning (1) becomes really annoying and there's no escape from it if you don't like it since not even one healer Job has something else you could swap to to get away from Gloifis spam. Some people DO like it, but others don't and have no outlet.

3) Encounter design just doesn't require much healing, and high end encounters have high spikes of near-lethal (or outright lethal if not mitigated) damage. Instead of a steady healing you can address or occasional spikes, it's large downtimes of no healing followed by massive spikes all at once that you couldn't GCD heal through if you tried, so you have to use all your oGCD tools...which brings us back to (1).

Contrast ARR and honestly HW, and also SB (for WHM specifically) where we didn't have so many oGCD tools, so healing was more methodical and reactive (even from the Barrier SCH and nAST), and where heals took up more of your free GCDs by far than they do now. The only somewhat able oGCD (and Macro with Embrace) healer an ARR and HW was really SCH (WHM didn't have enough oGCDs in HW to heal from just those), and damage from encounters was also more consistent over time.

So it's a combination of healer design, encounter design forcing the most boring part of healers to the forefront instead of it being the side dish, and that most boring part also being the single thing (other than a raise and basic single target Cure1/Physic/Benefic/Diagnosis) that is consisted across all the healers meaning no alternatives if you dislike it.

[Renathras]

If healers got more DPS spells...

Ultimately, a lot of healers don't like damage dealing. Some it's a mental thing ("Do no harm"), others it's just that they don't find consistent rotational performance engaging or fun. It's like contrasting a drummer or bass player that keeps a consistent beat and often pattern for a whole song to a lead guitarist, pianist, etc that will do solos where they just rock out. Even among DPS Jobs, there's a spread from the rock-rigid consistent DRG whose rotation is pretty much the same every time to the high proc DNC whose rotation between any pull and another will likely always be different due to the RNG.

For healers that don't care for DPS rotations, a consistent 1-3 button damage "rotation" is preferable, since they'd rather focus on the fight and healing. The problem is, the game doesn't have enough HEALING to make that really fun. This is the crux of the "more healing" or "more damage buttons" disagreement.

On the other hand, there are some healers that DO like damage rotations, but don't want to play DPS Jobs for whatever reason. I'm not saying they "aren't real healers" or anything, and their reasons can be varied. Sure, there's the "want faster ques" people, and there are people that prefer a more Support role to a Healer one and try to shoehorn healers into that in games that don't have a true Support role, but there are also some that do enjoy healing and aiding their allies, but also like damage rotations.

The issue is, if you change all healers into more damage button/rotation Jobs, then it alienates the former group in service to the latter. And if you don't, it alienates the latter in service to the former. It's one reason I support something I call the "The 4 Healers Model", which is basically "We have 4 whole healer Jobs, why not have some in column A and some in column B, that way everyone can pick the one they like?" Though that gets pushback from people who want EVERY Job to be for them, it's a pretty measured compromise.

But, ultimately, the problem is with encounter design (and to an extent, ilevel scaling). If encounters don't require healing, then everyone WILL be DPSing, like it or not. Even those content with the slimmed down DPS rotation are going to be somewhat bored because they really want to heal (the Sylphie "I just want to heal" isn't satisfied when there's little healing), and those who want more damage are bored because the rotation is boring.

But more damage buttons doesn't fix that problem. It only papers over it. A healer Job with a more complex damage rotation isn't changing the fact that the encounter doesn't require actual healing, it's just jingling shiny keys over to the side to distract you from it. And that distraction only even works on the people that want the more DPS buttons, so it double alienates those who want to do actual healing as their gameplay loop.

.

Personally, I think just adding DPS buttons would ruin the Jobs AND the role, since it would mean we aren't going to address the actual issue (as I say here and in my post above). Worse, it makes the healers into DPS Jobs, and at that point, why even have healers? Just give RDM Vermedica and SMN permanent Everlasting Flight and make one of those two Jobs a mandatory party spot and you've done the same thing.

I think the solution is addressing the encounter design first, and secondarily, diversifying the healer kits. For example, WHM can work like it does today with less oGCDs and more focus on GCD heals (damage refunded by Misery for all their GCD heals would mean they can actually...you know, use them), SCH can have more damage buttons and have its oGCDs shifted to more abilities for Eos (so they're kind of a support team of damage SCH and healing Eos), SGE can have a lot more Kardia stuff and a damage rotation so that it's more like a Disc Priest or RIFT Chloromancer healing through dealing damage, etc. Then players can pick the one they like, and encounters will actually require using them.

[Renathras]

Itll mostly solve the healers being bored issue, because theyd have more to do than spam 1 skill.

An obvious bandaid fix for sure tho

Only with those who like damage dealing. Which aren't all healer players.

For the others, it makes the situation worse.

And for those who do like damage dealing, it probably won't really solve things long-term. The underlying problem of low healing requirements in encounters and too much oGCD healing leading to GCDs used for damage will remain. And the damage rotations are unlikely to be more complicated than SMN or WAR's are today, meaning it wouldn't really fix the boredom long-term, at least not in any implementation SE would likely use (again, SMN/WAR level rotation), for the people who actually want a meaty damage rotation.

ARR WHM had 3 dots, 1 nuke, 1 AoE, 1 OGCD

Three DoTs?

It didn't get Aero 3 until HW, and it could only use Thunder for 2.0. It was removed in 2.1. In other words, not for most of the expansion, and not for the raid and extreme encounters. I didn't even know it ever had it until you mentioned it once, and I've been playing since 2.3. I looked up the history to see that it was just from 2.0 to 2.1, a period of...from 27 Aug 2013 to 17 Dec 2013, so a period of about 3.75 or so months.

EW WHM has 1 dot, 1 nuke, 1 AoE, Misery and 1 OGCD

Mhm. We traded 1 DoT for Misery. A pretty good trade, imo. Misery feels a lot better to use, and when fighting enemies with lower health, actually has a noticeable (that is, visually apparent just looking at their health bar) effect vs Aero 2.

But there were a lot more changes. We didn't have Tetra, Asylum, Assize, or Lilybell for healing. We didn't have Temperance to boost healing and mitigate damage (we had Pro-Shell, but that was baked in as baseline encounter tuning assumed everyone had it). We didn't have instant cast Solace/Rapture. Or instant oGCD Benison to shield, Aquaveil to mitigate, or Plenary to boost Ratpure, which again we didn't have. Nor did we have Thin Air.

We had Cure 1, Cure 2, Cure 3, Medica, Medica 2, Regen, and the long CD oGCD heal Benediction with its (to this day) janky delay, and also a GCD cast barrier in Stoneskin. Our HoTs lasted a full 30 seconds. We had Divine Seal to boost the power of our GCD heals, and we used Presence of Mind as a healing tool since all our heals being GCD meant it actually mattered sometimes. That was the healing kit.

When you needed a lot of healing, you didn't pop PI and Rapture. You had to cast Medica 2, then Medica, then Medica. You might find rare uses for Cure 3 (which had like half the radius it does now) when the party could stack. You didn't have tons of MP so you couldn't devote a ton of casts to Stone/Aero casts. You did a lot of healing with Medica 2 and Regen, and used Stoneskin (which had a 3 sec cast time originally, so had to lead attacks) to deal with things like tankbusters.

Encounter damage was in smaller amounts, but more constant (e.g. raidwide damage for 25% of players' health every 10 seconds instead of raidwides for 100% every 45; random crits on Tanks, etc), and oGCDs were in short supply, meaning heals were actual breaking into your GCDs as your go-to heals, not your "I or someone else screwed up and I'm out of oGCDs", considering WHM had only Benison as a oGCD heal and it was generally reserved for emergencies.

SOMEhow, we didn't need insane healing requirements back then. So clearly, the healing requirements don't need to be insane. The issue is our oGCDs are too powerful AND too numerous. You looked at ARR and WHM's damage spells. How about we look at oGCD heals instead?

EW WHM oGCD heals: Benediction (1/180 sec), Tetragrammaton (1/60 sec), Assize (1/40 sec), Asylum (1/90 sec), Divine Benison (1/30 sec), Plenary Indulgence (combined with Rapture, 1/60 sec), Lilybell (1/180 sec), with Aquaveil (1/60 sec) and Temperance (1/120 sec) boosting defense of the target, and not counting Thin Air. (Or Presence of Mind and Swiftcast, but they had that in ARR, too).

ARR WHM oGCD heals: Benediction (1/180 sec), with Divine Seal (1/90? which was Temperance without the mitigation) (and again, PoM and Swiftcast).

That's it. Benediction. Divine Seal buffed GCD heals (so wasn't oGCD in the sense of an oGCD heal), and PoM/Swiftcast also modify GCD heals, and only one of those was instant (Regen) vs now (Solace, Rapture, AND Regen).

The issue could just as easily be described as "we need to remove oGCD heals" as it can be "we need one more DoT".

EDIT:

Sorry for the length, I am trying for shorter posts:

The "I only play healers to heal" players already ignore their damage buttons, so nothing will change if they add additional buttons to press for those who want something to do.

This lie needs to die. It kills any constructive discussion.

People who only want to heal also don't want to be BAD. Meaning they do try to upkeep their DoT and fill empty GCDs with damage spells. As long as people keep parroting this line, it prevents any serious discussion. The idea "I don't like to DPS/I like to heal" means "I refuse to hit any DPS buttons" is an outright lie. I don't find DPS rotations engaging or fun. I find them boring at best and tedious at worst. But I do them. I'd rather those dead GCDs be filled with heals. Right now, the only healer that does this is WHM (since Solace/Ratpure are GCDs), and it's also my favorite healer and one generally liked by people that enjoy healing and not damage dealing. The damage kit is slim and it refunds (Lily) GCD healing with Misery so it's not a loss to use them.

"I only play healers to heal" players DON'T ignore their damage buttons.

This is why they oppose more being added; they don't like them, but they feel forced to engage with them, and do so all the time.

[Reap00]

And what does that say about their vision of class design

It isn't a more fun healer then the jobs you listed. That is your opinion. Your opinion is only important to you. I do not agree with your opinion at all. Welcome to reality.

[Noumenon]

Yoshi-P has already stated that they will never increase the healing demand required of the healers.



Which is why people are asking for more dps buttons to press when we do get groups of experienced players so we're not pressing one single button for 95% of the time.

The "I only play healers to heal" players already ignore their damage buttons, so nothing will change if they add additional buttons to press for those who want something to do.

And of course these Sylphies are incredibly loud on the forums, sometimes they even post three essays in a row.