#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Kes13a]

I was thinking transparency would help as well. Like a "we see you want more DPS options, but no because x".There's too much looking at statements from years ago, or vague "we are thinking about jobs",, or player theories They should talk about healers honestly and openly, even if they think players won't be thrilled with the answer.

agreed. I mean lets face it, the overall impression is that they are phasing out healers. and thus far.. SE is silent. which isnt a great thing in this case. few are going to be willing to fork out money for expansions over the long term if that feeling persists

[Isala]

agreed. I mean lets face it, the overall impression is that they are phasing out healers. and thus far.. SE is silent. which isnt a great thing in this case. few are going to be willing to fork out money for expansions over the long term if that feeling persists

I've already had friends who have taken a look at healer design, went "Still more of the same. Nope. I'm out." and just aren't coming back. The last thing the filler arc expansion needed was to have the same garbage Job Design that we've had for years.

[rawker]

At this point of the game, there will be some jobs who needs some nerfing.

[MagiusNecros]

Nerf Warrior

[Amity_Roji]

I've been thinking more about the concept of role identity for healers in FFXIV compared to other MMOs I've played over the last 20 or so years and I think I've come up with some points that haven't really been thoroughly discussed here yet. I've spoken before on the problems with healers and what healers should be in this thread, but there's a gap between "What's wrong with healers/what should healers be?" and "What are scenarios in FFXIV that illustrate how healers in this game differ from healers in basically every other MMO?" So, here's some illustrative questions.

Healers:

1. Do you regularly spend more time healing your party than DPSing?
2. Have you ever died to a mechanic because you were desperately trying to heal someone?
3. Do you frequently feel like you need to make a conscious choice on whether or not to cast a healing spell, knowing there would be repercussions if you chose poorly?
4. Do you frequently feel you need to carefully manage your resources (MP, class points, etc.) to prevent your party from dying?
5. Have you ever failed an encounter because your party lacked enough healing output despite your party not failing critical encounter mechanics (e.g., a "healer gear check")?
6. Do you commonly have a non-healer in your party sacrifice DPS in order to prioritize your safety?
7. Are you ever concerned that your healing may accidentally draw threat/aggro, leading to your death and/or a party wipe?
8. Do you feel like a vital member to the overall encounter effort instead of just someone to "clean up others' mistakes"?

Every one of these things is extremely common for healing roles in other MMOs, but I'm guessing they're not for most of you (they certainly aren't for me).

That's a big problem IMO.

[Loggos]

1. Do you commonly have a non-healer in your party sacrifice DPS in order to prioritize your safety?

Could you elaborate on that point? What are the mechanics in other games that lead to DPS being a threat to healers' safety? (It sounds interesting, I can't reallly picture/know any concrete mechanics like that.)

[Amity_Roji]

Could you elaborate on that point? What are the mechanics in other games that lead to DPS being a threat to healers' safety? (It sounds interesting, I can't reallly picture/know any concrete mechanics like that.)

It's usually not a "concrete mechanic," but an event that can happen in encounters. Some that come off the top of my head:

• Abandoning DPS on the boss to CC/kill/otherwise deal with add(s) troubling the healer, separately from a designed mechanic to do so (i.e., boss goes invuln and adds spawn)
• Using a protective ability on a healer as they're too squishy to survive a mechanic
• Assisting a healer in escaping a positional threat
• Having a situation where you can eat a mechanic to keep it from hitting the healer, sacrificing yourself to keep them alive

[Rolder50]

It's usually not a "concrete mechanic," but an event that can happen in encounters. Some that come off the top of my head:

• Abandoning DPS on the boss to CC/kill/otherwise deal with add(s) troubling the healer, separately from a designed mechanic to do so (i.e., boss goes invuln and adds spawn)
• Using a protective ability on a healer as they're too squishy to survive a mechanic
• Assisting a healer in escaping a positional threat
• Having a situation where you can eat a mechanic to keep it from hitting the healer, sacrificing yourself to keep them alive

A few examples come to mind in WoW with their newer Evoker class. You can pick up and move someone ala Rescue but it moves both of you to a target destination. Sacrificing personal DPS to help because of course you can't be casting while doing that. Then you have a spell that allows you and a target to cast while moving for a short bit, and is often used on healers so they can move for mechanics while pumping heals.

[IDontPetLalas]

It's usually not a "concrete mechanic," but an event that can happen in encounters. Some that come off the top of my head:

• Abandoning DPS on the boss to CC/kill/otherwise deal with add(s) troubling the healer, separately from a designed mechanic to do so (i.e., boss goes invuln and adds spawn)
• Using a protective ability on a healer as they're too squishy to survive a mechanic
• Assisting a healer in escaping a positional threat
• Having a situation where you can eat a mechanic to keep it from hitting the healer, sacrificing yourself to keep them alive

How far back are you going? Because I've played in multiple games, if you're in a game where the healer is dedicated to healing, then if they sacrifice DPS, then they simply aren't so fragile. If anything, I was able to stand there and take quite a bit of damage, my gear had at least as much magic defense in one case but considerably higher physical defence, the casters took the most damage. If I was responsible to keep a party alive I had the tools to do so, I had more than enough "protective abilities" as long as the DPS were using their skills- and they didn't typically have much utility.

In more complex cases, we had multiple parties, each with a tank, healer and DPS to handle mini-bosses while raiding in at least one game but they weren't "troubling the healer", they didn't specifically target healers, if necessary I could even keep myself up. It would be more an issue of "save the DPS" - they would be more likely to have run to me with something chasing them.

[Amity_Roji]

How far back are you going? Because I've played in multiple games, if you're in a game where the healer is dedicated to healing, then if they sacrifice DPS, then they simply aren't so fragile. If anything, I was able to stand there and take quite a bit of damage, my gear had at least as much magic defense in one case but considerably higher physical defence, the casters took the most damage. If I was responsible to keep a party alive I had the tools to do so, I had more than enough "protective abilities" as long as the DPS were using their skills- and they didn't typically have much utility.

That's fair in a lot of cases. I think back to OG WoW raids like UBRS, where healing was so prioritized you'd have Paladins wearing cloth and people prioritizing their survival because if your healers went down you were completely screwed. Another example is the Logistics role in EVE Online, where in PvE content (such as Incursions) if a logi ship is aggro'd the entire group will immediately stop what they are doing and focus all attention on saving the logi as they're the only thing keeping their ships from returning to their natural state as minerals floating in space. Granted that's not a "traditional MMO" but the role and its place in the game still stands.

In more complex cases, we had multiple parties, each with a tank, healer and DPS to handle mini-bosses while raiding in at least one game but they weren't "troubling the healer", they didn't specifically target healers, if necessary I could even keep myself up. It would be more an issue of "save the DPS" - they would be more likely to have run to me with something chasing them.

I see what you're getting at here - and agree to a certain extent; shades of OG Illidan - but at the same time the fact that your sub-party required a healer to function autonomously means there was a priority placed on healing.

Or, let's use an example from FFXIV to illustrate a difference - the Althyk/Nymeia fight in Euphosyne, one of the few fights in FFXIV where legitimate off-tanking is required. In many other MMOs that off-tank would need a dedicated healer to keep them up. In terms of encounter design this wasn't done to give that healer a super-engaging thing to do - they're only keeping one guy up after all - but to remove one healer from the healing pool for the rest of the raid. The off-tank healer would have to heal enough damage (or carefully manage their resources) to keep that guy up, and as a result they would rarely if ever be able to assist the rest of the raid who now has one fewer healer to keep everyone else alive. This is what made these kinds of fights entertaining - everyone had a dedicated purpose that required their full attention and if people failed at their jobs you weren't successful.

In FFXIV? Maybe you toss a regen on the off-tank. Often your AoE healing for the rest of the raid is enough to keep the off-tank up. Commonly they're able to keep themselves up and require no attention at all.