#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Hallarem]

So when does the strike start?

[Obi-one]

So when does the strike start?

when everyone becomes WAR main

[klu]

So when does the strike start?

When players of online games coordinate (lol) actions that will actually effect real life measurables (lol) instead of larping slacktavism in forums and social media for headpats.

So, never.

[Nero-Voidstails]

we should #anti warrior

[Lorika]

When players of online games coordinate (lol) actions that will actually effect real life measurables (lol) instead of larping slacktavism in forums and social media for headpats.

So, never.

Too bad, it already happened in South Korea (at NCSoft and Kakao Game HQ) and China. (even worse for China, since a player even assaulted with a knife MiHoyo/Hoyoverse founder in their Shanghai HQ because of an update for one of their game XD)

[ForsakenRoe]

Too bad, it already happened in South Korea (at NCSoft and Kakao Game HQ) and China. (even worse for China, since a player even assaulted with a knife MiHoyo/Hoyoverse founder in their Shanghai HQ because of an update for one of their game XD)

OSRS was born of a 'strike', where a massive amount of the playerbase quit when Jagex forced an update to the game that changed how combat worked, and made the game 'unrecognizeable' to some players. As of this very second, OSRS has about 7x the concurrent players that RS3 does

The issue and misunderstanding of this whole topic, is the conflation of three groups of players, into two groups, to suit each side's narrative. We have 'people who want to see changes to the Healer role', 'people who want Healers to stay how they currently are', and 'people who are just here to press their buttons man'. Say that these groups make up 3%, 2% and 95% of the Healer playerbase respectively. The 3% is going to say that the 95% belongs with the 3%, or shouldn't be a factor in the discussion. The 2% will use the 95% as a justification for their stance, saying 'see, if only 3% of the playerbase 'want changes', then 97% of the playerbase 'doesn't want changes''. When in reality, the 95% would take the changes in stride if they were implemented, and would continue as normal if no changes were implemented. We don't count 'didn't vote' in elections and such, after all. But I expect that SE will choose to lump the 95% in with the 2%, because that suits the design they want to go with: one where the minimum amount of work is applied to keeping the Healer role functional in content, and thereby reducing development costs (which means saving money)

One thing that does strike me, when it comes to the 'undecided' players, is that many times that a 'hype' action has been shown for Healers, it's been an attack. Aero 3, Misery, Purgation in the 6.1 PVP rework trailer snippets, people get more excited for attacking actions than defensive/healing actions on average. What this tells me, is that a modest rework to Healers that surgically applies 'small changes, with big impact on gameplay', would go down very well with players, provided that it just looks cool. For example, SE could add some new healing actions to WHM, and I'm sure that some people would be excited about that. But I think that the playerbase would be far more excited if said WHM were to end off the Job Action Trailer section by blasting the enemy with Quake, Flood and Tornado. Or a SCH applying several DOTs, maybe dropping a Shadowflare bubble, and using Bane to melt an entire pack of enemies. Or how about SGE, who could have a couple more attacks added, such that they start to grow into the 'Heal allies by dealing damage' identity that was originally implied they'd have?

Let's take an example. If we magically had, with no devtime/financial cost, a completed 'rework' for WHM with the following adjustments/additions:

- Add a trait that upgrades Cure1 to Cure2 (retaining the MP cost of Cure1)
- Add a trait that upgrades Medica1 to Medica2 (by frontloading a tick of the HOT into the on-cast potency)
- Add a trait with the effect 'When you have Medica2's HOT active, Cure3's MP cost is halved'
- Rework 'Freecure' Trait to the effect 'You have a 15% chance upon casting Stone, Water (or any upgraded version), or Cure2, to make the next Cure2 cost no MP'
- Add an additional effect to Thin Air, wherein it makes the spell instantcast, in addition to costing no MP
- Reduces Aero/Dia's duration to 12s, rescaled potency as needed for balance
- New action, Water (upgrades to Banish), dealing 40p more than the current Stone/Glare (At max level, this would be 370p)
- New gauge that goes from 0-100, charged by casting any non-Lily spell (amount depends on spell, with healing spells granting a lot more gauge). Damage rotation on a dummy (no healing used) gives about 55-60 gauge per minute
- New action, Blessing of the Elementals, which costs 50 of the new gauge. AOE heal GCD, 500p, gives 500MP on use, and adds 3 'Petals' to the gauge, one Wind, one Earth and one Water
- New action, Quake, replaces Stone/Glare on the bars when an Earth Petal is in the gauge (saves hotbar space). Is also AOE with 50% dropoff, for dungeon/add phase reasons
- New action, Flood, replaces Water/Banish on the bars when a Water Petal is in the gauge (saves hotbar space). Is also AOE with 50% dropoff, for dungeon/add phase reasons
- New action, Tornado, replaces Aero/Dia on the bars when a Wind Petal is in the gauge (saves hotbar space). Is also AOE with 50% dropoff, for dungeon/add phase reasons, and applies DOT to all targets hit (at 50% potency)
(the potency of Quake, Flood and Tornado, add up to the same potency as 'Glare, Glare, Banish, Dia' (or lower level versions, at lower levels), and so they make Blessing of the Elementals 'damage neutral')
- New actions, Stoneskin and Graniteskin, Lily Spells that apply a ST/AOE Barrier (weaker than SCH/SGE barriers, but damage neutral thanks to Misery). They do not heal, but do trigger Plenary Indulgence
(Lily Gauge unlocked at level 30 with Stoneskin)
- New actions, Afflatus Bastion and Afflatus Sanctuary, potency upgrades and new light VFX for Stoneskin/Graniteskin at the level 70ish range
- Learn levels of Plenary Indulgence and Afflatus Rapture swapped so that you have Rapture in level 70 content like UCOB/UWU
- New action, Afflatus Tragedy (or Melancholy, or some such sad name), lower level version of Afflatus Misery (to get players into the whole 'damage neutral healing' thing sooner)
- New action, Divine Seal, a lower level version of Temperance (which upgrades to Temperance) which provides the Healing Magic boost, but not the mitigation
- New action, Protect, a lower level version of Plenary Indulgence which gives 5% mitigation for 10s to allies. When upgraded to Plenary, Plenary inherits this 5% mitigative effect

I think a lot of people would go for such a design, especially when the question asked is 'do you prefer this design, or the current design'. Everyone would have their own reasons, of course. But such reasons could include:

- Very hotbar-space-efficient. It'd require only 2 more hotbar slots (because of the upgrade traits for Cure/Medica saving 2 slots). If that's too much still, Stoneskin/Graniteskin/Bastion/Sanctuary could be pruned out of the design
- It is incredibly mobile. More of its attack rotation is instantcasts than not (helps casual players keep their damage going)
- The vast majority of the changes are healing or mitigation related
- The damage loss of not pressing the new button, Banish, is so low that it is impossible for it to be the reason an enrage occurs
- Aero/Dia rescaling of duration/potency makes the button feel more 'bursty' despite being a DOT, and serves to differentiate it from the other healer DOTs in gameplay feel
- Actually gives WHM an identity in its gameplay, of 'compile multiple damage refund attacks, unleash them all in raidbuffs for massive ADPS'
- Gives WHM more versatility in how it handles mitigation tasks (by allowing it to actually participate), potentially allowing for 'barrier check' mechanics to return even in 4man content (Vulcan Burst on Ifrit, Photon in A11S/TEA, etc)
- Makes WHM incredibly good at raising party/recovery (due to being able to throw out 3 instantcast Raises in a row if needed)
- With the addition of more add phases in Savage (M6S), having long-range options for AOE (Quake, Flood, Tornado) would help keep damage rolling during such phases even at distance (eg the WHM is marked by the Jabberwock)
- It would look cool

But the issue is, I can't convince people alone that such a design is better than what we have, because hardly anyone (in relation to the size of the entire playerbase) is going to hear about this pitch. But, if SE were to offer current WHM, and this WHM, side by side, and ask players 'which do you prefer' in a PTR style environment, I have difficulty believing that the majority of players would vote for the current WHM. Mostly because the above would be 'current WHM, but it has more of everything, more attacks, more healing actions, more mitigative options it desperately needs'. And why wouldn't we as players want more?

[Gwenkatsu]

But, if SE were to offer current WHM, and this WHM, side by side, and ask players 'which do you prefer' in a PTR style environment, I have difficulty believing that the majority of players would vote for the current WHM. Mostly because the above would be 'current WHM, but it has more of everything, more attacks, more healing actions, more mitigative options it desperately needs'. And why wouldn't we as players want more?

I have to agree and disagree at the same time.

Yes, most people on the PTR would agree - which is directly related to the kind of demographic that visits a PTR (or even knows that one exists, and how to reach it).
No, people in the wild would disagree, when they have to relearn their favourite healer role from scratch (yes, there are people that like White Mage /shocked picachu face/ ).

Take me for example. I didn't even read that change list of yours, as it was much too long for my liking. I would not be happy when I had to figure out all this changes through my tooltips when a new patch drops.

Make it a new job, and I would definitely give it a closer look. Throw my favourite healer in the shredder, and I will be very unhappy.

[Supersnow845]

I have to agree and disagree at the same time.

Yes, most people on the PTR would agree - which is directly related to the kind of demographic that visits a PTR (or even knows that one exists, and how to reach it).
No, people in the wild would disagree, when they have to relearn their favourite healer role from scratch (yes, there are people that like White Mage /shocked picachu face/ ).

Take me for example. I didn't even read that change list of yours, as it was much too long for my liking. I would not be happy when I had to figure out all this changes through my tooltips when a new patch drops.

Make it a new job, and I would definitely give it a closer look. Throw my favourite healer in the shredder, and I will be very unhappy.

Though to be fair all of the healers have been sent through the shredder multiple times so (and I know this isn’t what you are are necessarily arguing you are simply replying to forsaken implying the vast majority of people don’t lean either way) the current iteration likely doesn’t have many more people specifically attached to it than any other

Like if I suggested the return of aero 3 would you support that? It is WHM as much as Lily’s are for example

[ForsakenRoe]

Take me for example. I didn't even read that change list of yours, as it was much too long for my liking. I would not be happy when I had to figure out all this changes through my tooltips when a new patch drops.

Make it a new job, and I would definitely give it a closer look. Throw my favourite healer in the shredder, and I will be very unhappy.

I would assume that an amount of changes like this, especially considering it'd require UI work (to implement the new gauge element) would be an expansion update, not a random patch. I'd say that this amount of changes is pretty on par with what other jobs sometimes see with expansion changes. SMN and MCH are prime examples, the amount of changes they received for their 6.0 and 5.0 reworks respectively is larger than what I listed for the hypothetical WHM. Or how about the 6.3 PLD rework, that one's a good example, because that happened in a patch instead of an expansion:




A lot of these are just potency tweaks, sure. But it undeniably shook up the rotation, how certain actions functioned, how they interact (eg FOF granting access to Goring Blade instead of it being a DOT in a combo), and even added back an old button. And so people had to read their tooltips, to learn how the job now works. I would posit that the WHM ideas I posted, are quite comparable in scope to this: they are both reworks of a sort, after all. If such changes were added, you're saying you'd flat out refuse to read the tooltips to learn how it works? Would you try to play it as you previously were before the patch, out of protest? Because I hate to disappoint, but thanks to the potency system, it's possible to make the potencies add up such that doing so (playing as if the patch never occured) would be perfectly functional. You'd still be able to clear things, just as previously, perhaps even more effectively by making certain things more powerful.

For example, the suggested trait for Cure3 that you say you didn't read. 'When you have Medica2 active on yourself, the MP cost of Cure3 is halved'. So you would have more MP to work with in spam-healing scenarios. Is that, making Cure3 more accessible to use without fear of bottoming out on MP, 'throwing WHM into the shredder'? How about the bonus effect addition for Thin Air that you apparently skipped over, wherein the free spell is also instant cast (yes even Raise), is making WHM stronger at raising party members 'throwing it in the shredder'? Raising allies, hitting massive Cure3's, using Protect to reduce damage to allies, these are things that are as WHM as it gets IMO. Is giving WHM more gameplay like that of a WHM from older games, 'throwing WHM in the shredder'? I think we have very different perceptions of what a WHM is

I think that another thing that doesn't get considered, is that we're level 100 in our Jobs. We already went through the tutorial of levelling, so all these changes at once look scary to some. But a new player would have an even easier time adjusting, because they'd get given each part of the 'changes' over time, instead of all at once. And thanks to some of the changes literally being just 'hey what if we had a lower-level version of this action, so that new players get extra tools to play with while levelling, and they get to learn good habits that are useful at endgame (eg prioritizing using damage neutral healing via Lilies over MP spells) as they level so they build muscle memory', the levelling process would be more interesting to said player, which might go some way towards player retention for the role. Plus, it'd help make lower level roulettes for experienced players more interesting. For example, there's a 12 level gap (18-30) where you don't learn any new Job/Class actions, just Role Actions (Lucid and Swiftcast)! Very engaging for a new player, I'm sure. But with those lower level versions of existing actions, we'd be able to add stuff to break up that 12 level gap

You are kind of correct, in that yes, it could be added as a new job instead of as an update to an existing one. But that comes with additional issues, such as requiring more dev time for creating VFX, sounds, character animations, etc. When I first came up with those ideas, one of my main guiding principles was to keep devtime/implementation time requirements as low as possible, by minimizing the amount of extra buttons added, reusing existing VFX for things (eg the whole Water line already exists ingame as enemy attacks), etc. And besides all of that, if it were a new job, I think it's pretty obvious what would occur. People would see this cool new job, which would have more healing output than WHM, more mobility than WHM, more mitigation options than WHM, a more fun damage rotation than WHM for levelling/dungeon trash/whatever. It would be, by design, 'WHM but better' in every metric, and they'd ask the simple and painfully obvious question: 'Why wasn't this an update for WHM?'

[Kohashi]

snip'

I think the PLD rework was nice. It made more sense and was a lot less janky. The rotation was very different, sure, but classes change rotation every few levels when leveling, for example, anyway.

I still don't know why SE should really change WHM. What's wrong with having a pure healer that is simple, intuitive, and straight to the point?

Not everything has to be a thesis for string theory and a million interactions and things to keep track of to be "interesting".

I do however, agree that they should rethink in some way to make synch down to low levels a lot more engaging and interesting. Because classes are done to function best at max level, synch down feels like garbage.

I don't know what solution they could implement, to allow to still keep low-level content relevant and also just not slap a sync similar to GW2 for example.