#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[TheDustyOne]

I'm still confused by that cuz, I mean there's a lot of pages in this thread so its hard to follow, but last time I asked if this would be solved by giving healers more DPS buttons, I was told its not that simple, and I was told something about making healing "meaningful"

I really still have trouble narrowing down what healers truly want after 700 pages

There's 2 major issues; healers end up pressing a singular button over and over, and that their presence could largely be removed with little loss outside people standing in the orange.

You could fix the latter problem by nerfing or removing non-healer heals, although that brings in the ire of those who main those jobs for removing a tool they may enjoy, not an ideal fix. You could instead increase the amount of unavoidable damage that any piece of content does, but now you're at the mercy of people making sure they actually use those abilities rather than dumping all that responsibility on the healer, who may not be able to keep up with that extra damage that may be tuned for those extra heals from non-healers.

The fix for this isn't as simple as choosing one over the other, you'll have to take small doses of both; slight nerfs to non-healer heals (primarily WAR, followed by PLD), a slight increase in incoming damage (unavoidable damage in particular), and personally, a slight hit to tank defence (that's a discussion for another time).

For fixing the constant nuke presses, every oGCD used is a GCD heal not used, that GCD then gets spent on the primary nuke in its place, so it stands to reason that the less oGCDs we have access to, the more valuable our GCDs end up becoming, and the less we press the nuke. This has the problem of course of removing the heal potential that some older mechanics may have been tuned for, so we can't just remove oGCDs outright, but we could potentially nerf their availability with longer cooldowns or stricter resources.

Another fix for the constant pressing of the singular nuke is the ever popular DPS rotation; every healer gets a handful of unique attack spells that defines a playstyle rather than having them all copy-paste the nuke + DoT combo. This has its own issues in that some healers have very bloated kits as it is and may not have the room for more than 1 or 2 extra attack spells.

Like with the healing fixes, this likely needs a combination of both fixes; curb a handful of oGCD heals to make room for damage spells while also making the GCD heals more valuable in the process. This is a harder thing to fix as there'd likely need to be tests with older content to make sure those old heal checks can still be surpassed with any major changes to the healing kit.

"What healers truly want" is ultimately going to be very difficult because everyone has individual ideas and preferences on what they want; some are happy to just have an extra damage button or two, some just want more incoming damage to heal, while others want everything in between. You can't really "narrow down" what potentially thousands of players want; but you can pinpoint what they don't want, and we can at least point to the current healers and say "not that".

All this to say; yeah it's not simple fixes and people have different priorities in what they like about healers. You can blame Square for this after now 3 expansions of poorly designed healers.

[EponaTBHSMH]

All this to say; yeah it's not simple fixes and people have different priorities in what they like about healers. You can blame Square for this after now 3 expansions of poorly designed healers.

Thank you for this read, that makes some things a little clearer

[Jojoya]

Tank heals aren't the issue.
Enemy damage isn't the issue.

Even if you just fixed those two, what you'd end with is spamming Cure instead of Glare, or other jobs equivalents. It's still the same lack of actual gameplay.

To actually fix it, they'll have to actually give healers something more to do.

Why do we need more game play than we already have? It's more than what DPS get.

We need to heal someone? We have more than one single target heal to use. We need to heal multiple party members at the same time? We have more than one AoE heal to use.

We need to react to mechanics just as DPS do (or don't since we can always rez them if they try to greed and fail).

We need to watch the boss HP and cast bar to time our use of our more powerful cooldown when needed.

We need to watch party member HP, buffs and debuffs to know when healing is needed and how much, to know if Esuna is needed.

The exceptional healers are even watching where party members are standing so they can Rescue them if needed and available.

DPS game play already stops short of where healer game play does. Why aren't we hearing complaints about a lack of DPS game play?

The big difference between the two is that the DPS experience is generally consistent. They rarely need to alter their focus while the healer does frequently if not constantly. The healer experience varies depending on other in the party. Skilled players mean only needing to worry about unavoidable damage. One or more lesser skill players means needing to keep more constant watch on the party (is the less skilled player standing in mechanics, are they stacking on others when they should be standing apart so more party members need healing, etc.).

That is why SE has to use caution in designing healer responsibility in normal content. Not only does the healer need to be able to adjust to what the party is doing, different healers have different reaction times based on their own skill and familiarity with the content. That is expected in normal content that is meant for everyone while in more difficult content, players are already expected to understand how to play their job and react to mechanics correctly (outside of a short learning period when they first start working on the content progression). That allows SE to increase expected healer responsibilities in that content, theoretically creating a better game play experience for good healers.

[Kes13a]

DPS game play already stops short of where healer game play does. Why aren't we hearing complaints about a lack of DPS game play?

The big difference between the two is that the DPS experience is generally consistent. They rarely need to alter their focus while the healer does frequently if not constantly. The healer experience varies depending on other in the party. Skilled players mean only needing to worry about unavoidable damage. One or more lesser skill players means needing to keep more constant watch on the party (is the less skilled player standing in mechanics, are they stacking on others when they should be standing apart so more party members need healing, etc.).

That is why SE has to use caution in designing healer responsibility in normal content. Not only does the healer need to be able to adjust to what the party is doing, different healers have different reaction times based on their own skill and familiarity with the content. That is expected in normal content that is meant for everyone while in more difficult content, players are already expected to understand how to play their job and react to mechanics correctly (outside of a short learning period when they first start working on the content progression). That allows SE to increase expected healer responsibilities in that content, theoretically creating a better game play experience for good healers.

perhaps you can explain then, why War and Mnk now get .. an aoe heal?

in case you did notice, thats adding to the responsibility of both tank and dps to heal the group. When does SE decide to add Rescue as well? they already set the stage when Wuk did it as a warrior.

SE is certainly using caution to move more healing to other roles away from healers. I dont think its wrong to ask them what the heck they are doing with healers and expect some kind of answer. they have been fairly clear with intentions before.. why not now? Yoshi P has said he wanted to be more transparent about job changes, where is that transparency for healers?

I have said it before and I'll say it again, as a casual, I do expect some challenge in a game, I dont need to be fed baby food. I want a sense of accomplishment. If I wanted to be given everything I would play Warrior....

[Aravell]

If Savage/Ultimate raiders want to see jobs + normal content changed to make it more interesting for them, then the average player has every right to turn around and ask the developers to make jobs + Savage/Ultimate interesting for them. Is that what you want?

This line is incredibly stupid because you're implying that all jobs should only cater to casual players and high skilled players can just go pound sand.

Also, savage has already gotten much easier over time. While older savages were more execution-based, modern savage is mostly puzzle fights, so literally anyone can clear it if they know the answer to the puzzle.

So I don't know what else can be taken from us at this point.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

So I don't know what else can be taken from us at this point.

inb4 Bardam 2nd Boss (Savage) lmao.

[CaptainLagbeard]

From other threads... What I said for fixing WHM.

Keep Stone I to Stone IV as the primary attack spell, and just increase their potency through traits throughout the levels.
Make Glare I to Glare IV into a separate spell, one that requires stacks of Sacred Sight to cast as the way Glare IV currently does.
Entirely replace Freecure with a new trait with one that would grant a stack of Sacred Sight at about 30% proc chance on ever Spell cast.
Replace Planary Indulgence with Seraph Strike, make Seraph Strike cost 1 Lily to use and nourish the Blood Lily.
Because of a better alternative for nourishing the Blood Lily, Afflatus Misery's potency can be dropped as it no longer would have to be DPS neutral to Glare(or Stone with these changes).
Remove MP recovery from Assize, and add it to Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture.

WHM being the healer I've used the most so I rather let other people who have more experience with other healers specifically come up with fixes and additions to those.

[Aravell]

I think there is actually a way to fix OGCDs being so predominant while also not removing them.

Make the basic GCD heals like Medica or Succor completely MP free, so the only cost would be your GCD. Then add MP costs to every currently free tool, from Afflatus Rapture to Pneuma, with the strongest tools costing the most MP.

With that kind of design, while not forced to use GCD heals, you'd want to opt into using them to conserve MP for when you actually need your strong OGCD tools. It also wouldn't harm the less experienced players because they mostly GCD heal anyway.

[KisaiTenshi]

I think there is actually a way to fix OGCDs being so predominant while also not removing them.

Make the basic GCD heals like Medica or Succor completely MP free, so the only cost would be your GCD. Then add MP costs to every currently free tool, from Afflatus Rapture to Pneuma, with the strongest tools costing the most MP.

With that kind of design, while not forced to use GCD heals, you'd want to opt into using them to conserve MP for when you actually need your strong OGCD tools. It also wouldn't harm the less experienced players because they mostly GCD heal anyway.

That's changing how the healer design works.

What you are "supposed to do" in this game, is use only GCD's (for WHM that is Cure 1, Cure 2, Medica, Medica 2, Cure 3) until you actually need the oGCD (eg burst damage, tank busters) because you literately do not have the time to GCD cast, and can't GCD cast while moving. If a player is using only their oGCD's, they are likely not playing efficiently, especially when to access one oGCD you need to use Afflatus Solace (the oGCD version of Cure 2, which has no MP cost and has no cast time) before you can access Afflatus Rapture (the no MP cost OGD version of Medica.)

But this comes back to the entire way this game is centered on DPS. If this game was instead centered on Healing (maintaining party at full or near full health) or Tanking (Enmity generation and Damage mitigation) then DPS kits would actually be designed around the assumption that players would always try to minmax a glass cannon, meaning DPS would be squishy and easily one-shot killed if they are not wearing the BiS gear for the content. Not the case, clearly. Likewise if it was actually centered on healing (health), then the healer would have to figure out what debuffs each party member gets hit with and respond with the correct antidote action. Not a second redundant set of healing kits.

Two sets of healing kits pretty much sends the message to the player that fights can have up to three different consecutive burst damage situations.

No, I think a button de-bloat is in order. Stick Afflatus Solace on the Cure II button, and Afflatus on the Medica button, and when when the oGCD isn't available, stick the GCD in that slot so players don't have to check if the oGCD is available or not.

You can play the vast majority of the MSQ content using only the GCD's and Assize for MP, which tells you the intended way they want you to play. Because you can not rely on all oGCD's being available. You can also do the same with the expert dungeons and normal raids, which tells you just how much healing kit there is that we don't get to use because tanks and dps can just heal themselves. In Raid content, you're basically "not healing the tank" but rather trying to land heal bombs right after tank busters.

[Shurrikhan]

That's changing how the healer design works.

What you are "supposed to do" in this game, is use only GCD's (for WHM that is Cure 1, Cure 2, Medica, Medica 2, Cure 3) until you actually need the oGCD (eg burst damage, tank busters) because you literately do not have the time to GCD cast, and can't GCD cast while moving. If a player is using only their oGCD's, they are likely not playing efficiently, especially when to access one oGCD you need to use Afflatus Solace (the oGCD version of Cure 2, which has no MP cost and has no cast time) before you can access Afflatus Rapture (the no MP cost OGD version of Medica.)

There is no value in what one is "supposed to do" outside of what is incentivized.

No, I think a button de-bloat is in order. Stick Afflatus Solace on the Cure II button, and Afflatus on the Medica button, and when when the oGCD isn't available, stick the GCD in that slot so players don't have to check if the oGCD is available or not.

I could agree with making more efficient use of buttons, but this is not that. This is blocking use of Cure II/Medica until you've already wasted/spent your instant-casts that you just said should be saved for mobility. ???

You can play the vast majority of the MSQ content using only the GCD's and Assize for MP, which tells you the intended way they want you to play.

One can play most MSQ content using only a third your buttons. That doesn't make it the intended playstyle. If it were, they would have saved the development time and only given you that third of a kit.