#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Rehayem]

Just a curiosity question. Considering it is unlikely they will change healers on release on DT right away, and from what I've heard they base a lot of their decisions on their own data, could refusing to play any healers for a time being bring their attention to the problem faster?

Isn't this how they deduced about MCH? Or MNK? I'm certain they have a way to have some sort of metric to keep track on most played > least played type of thing.

[Somnolence]

Just a curiosity question. Considering it is unlikely they will change healers on release on DT right away, and from what I've heard they base a lot of their decisions on their own data, could refusing to play any healers for a time being bring their attention to the problem faster?

Depends how they interpret the metrics. AST was changed and it was least player healer by a huge margin so I guess SE felt they had to do something.

Yet SMN is most played magic dps. Does this mean all magic dps should follow its formula?

[Zadood]

Just a curiosity question. Considering it is unlikely they will change healers on release on DT right away, and from what I've heard they base a lot of their decisions on their own data, could refusing to play any healers for a time being bring their attention to the problem faster?

Well, you see...

If the CBU3's data(I pretty much read it somewhere on the FFXIV sub, but I forgot which post) has some credibility, it stated that DRK is one of the most played job, but not the job most people main it.

People may not main healer, but they will still try it out of aesthetic reason... so... I wouldn't be too sure about that.

[Gullis]

Yoshi will see this and assume the strike is because healing is too hard, and buff tanks more

[Rehayem]

Yoshi will see this and assume the strike is because healing is too hard, and buff tanks more

Then have them remove healers completely, turning them into green DPS instead of whatever the crap we have now. At least then as green DPS there'd be more engagement.

[Pip_Chick]

I adding my name and all my alts (who are healers)!

I will finish the MSQ on SCH, cause that is my main job, which I love. But after that, I will officially join the strike. No group content as healer.
PvP is the only one I will still join as SCH because the design of the job is way better taken care of and more enjoyable than anything PvE!

What will make me drop the strike?
1. Give healers their DPS buttons back or focus on a different way to help the party (just look at the PvP kit for inspiration). For SCH I want my DoTs and the ability to spread them to surrounding enemies, we have more healing tools than we will ever need, and letting us have the DoT management back will help a lot with downtime when there is no one to heal.
2. As SCH give back the Faerie differences. You can make them as stances, ex Eos buffs healing, Selene buffs damage and Seraph buffs both.
3. Give me more reasons to engage with my kit by making the boss do more ongoing damage.
4. Nerf the tanks self-healing and the DPS self-sustain. It is absolutely ridiculous how many pieces of content, at all levels of difficulty, can be done without healers in the party because the tank and DPS have self-healing and shields.
5. Not everyone is a hardcore raider, some of us engage with more casual content. I would like to be able to enjoy the MSQ single battle instances, but it is a slog when playing healers. I would like to do the "Kill X amount of monsters" quests, without it being a slog! A better DPS kit will help with that!

[Loggos]

5. Not everyone is a hardcore raider, some of us engage with more casual content. I would like to be able to enjoy the MSQ single battle instances, but it is a slog when playing healers. I would like to do the "Kill X amount of monsters" quests, without it being a slog! A better DPS kit will help with that!

Oh yeah, that's a very good point that doesn't get mentioned enough. Solo questing, solo fights or doing fates on healer is terrible. So if you are a healer main through and through and would like to tackle all kinds of content you'll have a worse time than dps or tank (though tbh tank really dominates when it comes to solo content).

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Oh yeah, that's a very good point that doesn't get mentioned enough. Solo questing, solo fights or doing fates on healer is terrible. So if you are a healer main through and through and would like to tackle all kinds of content you'll have a worse time than dps or tank (though tbh tank really dominates when it comes to solo content).

Sometime in the past, there once exist a thread requesting for Yoshi-P to replay the MSQ as a healer (think it was AST IIRC) from lv1 to the end, without swapping at all. No helps, just solo healer queue.

Hoo boi… xD

[Merrigan]

On the rare occasions I get matched with a party good enough not to need a healer, I admit it can be pretty boring.

But isn't that a problem in itself?

The balance between casual, midcore and harcore players has always been a tricky one to strike, and you're right to point that out. A lot of people tend to forget that after X number of years in the game, certain things can't continue to be ‘difficult’. But if a role has no use apart from making up for the shortcomings of others, then the design itself is poorly thought out. Just imagine a buff class whose role is limited to triggering one or two powers that can only be activated if the other dps forget their buffs. That would be a stupid design. And the healer... Well, it almost fits that design.

[Jojoya]

But isn't that a problem in itself?

The balance between casual, midcore and harcore players has always been a tricky one to strike, and you're right to point that out. A lot of people tend to forget that after X number of years in the game, certain things can't continue to be ‘difficult’. But if a role has no use apart from making up for the shortcomings of others, then the design itself is poorly thought out. Just imagine a buff class whose role is limited to triggering one or two powers that can only be activated if the other dps forget their buffs. That would be a stupid design. And the healer... Well, it almost fits that design.

We're getting into differences between job design and encounter design.

What is the purpose of a healer? To heal. To repair damage taken whether avoidable or unavoidable.

The average player tends to take a lot of avoidable damage. It's not always skill at fault. Latency plays a big role and not every player has top of the line gaming rigs or superfast broadband connections.

If the player base in general is taking a lot of avoidable damage, then the encounter designers have to limit how much unavoidable damage parties take to reduce the chance of a wipe.

But that then leaves the healer in a group of skilled players with almost nothing to do because they're avoiding all that avoidable damage. Improving the DPS toolkit sounds like a good idea but then we run into what makes an appealing damage kit. Usually it involves retaining proper uptime on a rotation to maximize DPS. Now the healer has to decide whether to interrupt their rotation to heal someone or ignore them until they get to a safe spot in the rotation, hoping that they don't take fatal damage in the meantime.

You could say "well just make it so healing doesn't interrupt a combo" but then what becomes the point of having the combo? As others have pointed out, there's really no difference between hitting 11111211 and 12341234. You're hitting a button. The game calculates the damage done. What can make 12341234 different is failing to keep the rotation up and so losing damage.

Why am I a healer? Because I don't find 12341234 anymore engaging than 11111211. But having to keep track of 9 different health bars (1 boss which I want to help empty and 8 player that I want to keep full) is engaging to me, especially when I don't know when someone is going to screw up and I have to toss them a heal.

So the role is founded on others screwing up and that's intentional. It allows the party to continue to progress when otherwise it would have to start over again.