#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[WaxSw]

That's a bit of a straw-man IMO. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are against it for that reason, but there are plenty who are like me, and don't want further role homogenization. The saying "If I wanted to DPS, I'd play a DPS." comes to mind. My concern is that if healers were given more damaging abilities, that will likely lead towards further role homogenization and removal of the trinity. If we're gonna go that route, I'd rather just play GW2. That game was designed around not having a full trinity and has a bad story (Thanks Dawntrail), but at least GW2 has good netcode.

This isn't to say IMO we can't have additional DPS abilities, but they should be subservient to healing. For example, someone mentioned an idea where Freecure procced a free GCD heal off of glare or random Dia ticks. Maybe Asylum could also have a damage tick added to it or Aetherial shift turns into a PVE Seraph Strike when targeting an enemy and consumes a lily. Obviously I'm just spitballing, but I think the priority should be to keep healers healing, and if we're gonna get more damage abilities, they should to facilitate our healing.

The game in its ARR/HW/SB era proves that argument wrong, we had as healers a much more extensive damage kit and not only the trinity was in a healthier state than post Shb but also the jobs within the role were the less homogenized they have ever been. DPS actions do not mean that healers stop healing, they are tools to reward efficient gameplay and extend healer utility from just healing (which in a game that has scripted mechanics, damage and a slow GCD like XIV they are very needed).

The problem with dps kits that are subservient to healing is just that... DPS is king. If the tool is a straight up dps gain (like assize, Missery or the asylim you mention) it will be used on CD regardless of the healing required in 99% of the situations and if to access the dps tool a healer may have to take dps losses, unless the gain justify it, it wont see use (your freecure proc for example would be largely ignored for example as cure 2 is not efficient and the Mp gain is not a real benefit).

[lolnotacat]

But that’s the thing, we don’t remotely have that now. Adding more DPS abilities to the healers isn’t homogenising the roles because the healers are already expected to spend 99% of the time doing DPS, it just makes the role less boring than it is now

I find DPS to be boring wether its spamming glare or a DPS rotation. The reason I started playing healers back in 2.5 is because they had toolkits, not rotations.

The game in its ARR/HW/SB era proves that argument wrong, we had as healers a much more extensive damage kit and not only the trinity was in a healthier state than post Shb but also the jobs within the role were the less homogenized they have ever been.

And the designers clearly don't have the same design philosophy and Ethos that existed pre-ShB, and it's likely not going to come back. I don't have faith that the design team will claw back the last 3 expansions, which means if they add more DPS skills that are designed like DPS jobs, it will likely lead to more homogenization.

DPS actions do not mean that healers stop healing, they are tools to reward efficient gameplay and extend healer utility from just healing (which in a game that has scripted mechanics, damage and a slow GCD like XIV is very needed).

I'd love for DPS being a reward instead of an expectation to come back to our gameplay style.

The problem with dps kits that are subservient to healing is just that... DPS is king. If the tool is a straight up dps gain (like assize, Missery or the asylim you mention) it will be used on CD regardless of the healing required in 99% of the situations and if to access the dps tool a healer may have to take dps losses, unless the gain justify it, it wont see use (your freecure proc for example would be largely ignored for example as cure 2 is not efficient and the Mp gain is not a real benefit).

DPS being king is going to be the problem no matter what situation we find ourself in unless the design philosophy changes. As I mentioned, that was spitballing, but with Freecure example, that would definitely work better if healers had the slow GCD you previously mentioned, no? I'd love to some of the OGCD heals to be removed and make the role a bit more tactical. I started playing in 2.5 and loved having to time my skills and the risk involved with stance dancing and dropping some tactically placed stoneskins.

[Aravell]

That's a bit of a straw-man IMO. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are against it for that reason, but there are plenty who are like me, and don't want further role homogenization. The saying "If I wanted to DPS, I'd play a DPS." comes to mind. My concern is that if healers were given more damaging abilities, that will likely lead towards further role homogenization and removal of the trinity.

The damage kits of every healer is already largely homogenised as it is right now, all of them have a DoT and a filler with no interaction with the rest of the kit.

Also, the role homogenisation and removal of the trinity is already happening right now, and it has nothing to do with a healer's damage kit.

All these can be solved if the team at least put in some creativity again.

[Galvuu]

My concern is that if healers were given more damaging abilities, that will likely lead towards further role homogenization and removal of the trinity.
(...)
This isn't to say IMO we can't have additional DPS abilities, but they should be subservient to healing. For example, someone mentioned an idea where Freecure procced a free GCD heal off of glare or random Dia ticks. Maybe Asylum could also have a damage tick added to it or Aetherial shift turns into a PVE Seraph Strike when targeting an enemy and consumes a lily. Obviously I'm just spitballing, but I think the priority should be to keep healers healing, and if we're gonna get more damage abilities, they should to facilitate our healing instead of just adding button bloat so we have more things to press.

There are like three different points baked together in this post.
A more robust dps kit can exist regardless of a healer's healing kit and the need to use it. How much a healing kit shines/is necessary comes down to encounter design. If there's a tough healing (not mitigation) check, you need to use your healing kit to deal with it regardless of what that job's healing kit looks like.
Further, the healers dps kit only leads to homogenization (compared to tanks and dps) depending on how it's implemented. Between procs that interact with the healing kits- like you're mentioning in the post- and healers being the jobs juggling the most dots with different timers (HW SCH had even more of this than HW SMN, funny enough), there's plenty of design space to make them different from the other roles and different from each other (though I doubt SE has the creative juice to pull this off).
Lastly, how significant that damage contribution is depends on number tuning. It's always going to be desirable by nature of XIV's core gameplay loop, but I actually think you could axe tank and healer damage by some % and then put more emphasis on the role's responsibility in the trinity. This last point aside, I think the role needs more than spamming 60% of a single gcd without interaction to thrive, regardless of number tuning.

My point is that I believe a more in-depth and interactive dps kit, on its own, neither leads to homogenization or to forcing the healing part of the kit to take a backseat. These things can be designed to be synergistic and not antagonistic.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Healers do need the ability to deal damage to get through the MSQ... As you are expected to deal damage in various quests, which unironically punishes healers under the current design of things...
And they can't seem to figure out why people don't want to play a healer all that much...

If they gave healers a big nice boost to damage, past (and current) fights would likely lose some difficulty, but if they can then proceed to design fights where all 8 members of the party contribute that might lead to better designed fights.

[Aravell]

Healers do need the ability to deal damage to get through the MSQ... As you are expected to deal damage in various quests, which unironically punishes healers under the current design of things...
And they can't seem to figure out why people don't want to play a healer all that much...

If they gave healers a big nice boost to damage, past (and current) fights would likely lose some difficulty, but if they can then proceed to design fights where all 8 members of the party contribute that might lead to better designed fights.

To solve the solo problem, they don't actually have to purely buffs healers and ruin the old fights.

I've seen before that the gap between healer and tank damage output is 30%, so let's use that. If they boost healer damage by 15% and nerf tank damage by 15%, they can meet in the middle and not destroy the balance in older content. Then they can just adjust MSQ enemy HP and they'll be good, pretty much.

[Alice_Rivers]

I'm mostly against more damage buttons for three reasons:-
1: I want the devs to focus on increasing the need for healers in normal content.
2: I don't have space on my hotbars as is for new buttons.
3: I don't really trust the devs as is to increase the number of damage buttons AND the requirements for healers.

[Connor]

Didn’t they say there was an ability cap on jobs? How are they going to add a bunch of dps skills that are enough to create a ‘damage rotation’ without also gutting the healing toolkit to make room for them? And if they do then who decides what we lose? Are healers gonna lose a bunch of oGCDs? Lose their gcd heals (most players would absolutely love that lol)?

Like assuming Scholar gets Miasma and a third DoT what do they replace? Protraction? Excogitation? Seraphism? Lustrate? Physick? Honestly I like Protraction but apparently you’re not a ‘real scholar’ if you don’t want it immediately deleted for another gcd dot lol.

[Supersnow845]

Didn’t they say there was an ability cap on jobs? How are they going to add a bunch of dps skills that are enough to create a ‘damage rotation’ without also gutting the healing toolkit to make room for them? And if they do then who decides what we lose? Are healers gonna lose a bunch of oGCDs? Lose their gcd heals (most players would absolutely love that lol)?

Like assuming Scholar gets Miasma and a third DoT what do they replace? Protraction? Excogitation? Seraphism? Lustrate? Physick? Honestly I like Protraction but apparently you’re not a ‘real scholar’ if you don’t want it immediately deleted for another gcd dot lol.

SCH has bloat that could go decently effectively

Fey blessing doesn’t need to exist in its current form, protraction could be baked into recitation as a “protraction ready” when you apply a skill that is buffed with recitation to a single player. Physick has long lost its single tiny niche case of why you’d ever use it over just using adlo, fey union could be slightly reworked to just put it back on the pet GCD alongside embrace and movement buttons so you can put it on the pet hotbar,

Getting a little more saucy whispering dawn and illumination could be a single button (not my favourite but others have suggested it). Aetherflow could either a) transform into a new DOT or damaging ability similar to baneful impact or otherwise combine it optionally with energy drain

That’s just a few suggestions, SCH’s buttons all have a decent purpose individually but there is definitely options where 2 seperate oGCD’s could just be one button

[LynxDubh]

Didn’t they say there was an ability cap on jobs? How are they going to add a bunch of dps skills that are enough to create a ‘damage rotation’ without also gutting the healing toolkit to make room for them? And if they do then who decides what we lose? Are healers gonna lose a bunch of oGCDs? Lose their gcd heals (most players would absolutely love that lol)?

Like assuming Scholar gets Miasma and a third DoT what do they replace? Protraction? Excogitation? Seraphism? Lustrate? Physick? Honestly I like Protraction but apparently you’re not a ‘real scholar’ if you don’t want it immediately deleted for another gcd dot lol.

To list off a few that could go from endgame spreads:

WHM - Cure I and Aquaveil can be absorbed into Cure II and Divine Benison respectively. Medica converting to Medica II or Cure III is one I've heard as well, but I'm iffy on that one personally.

SCH - See SuperSnow's post above. Also, they could Overwrite Summon Fey with Summon Seraph, it might be a pain for certain macros that let you change your summon glam, but it's an option.

AST - Benefic I, Horoscope, and Synastry (as much as I would personally hate it if this one was lost) could all safely go. And Celestial Opposition could be reworked if needed. I'd hope we'd get buff management back if we were to replace anything on AST though Like Time Dilation and Opposition's old effect.

SGE - Pepsis (the vestigial twin of Emergency Tactics). Other than that SGE is much better on buttons and would only need some tweeks like adding something to make Psyche more interesting.