#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[KernCadfan]

How people want to fix the healers varies by person to person because we all have different ideas of what’s wrong with the healers and that’s fine, the intention was never to present an alternative design for healers that we wanted them to implement it was simply to finally get them to notice we are sick of the current healers and refusing to change them isn’t doing anything for the game as a whole. We simply want them to be more open to feedback when it comes to changes

Oh, okay, that makes more sense than the rhetoric flying around in-game that makes the healer strike out to be something more concerted than merely getting devs to switch up their methods. I started reading the thread, but about 20 pages in I was met with such conflicting standards of what the healers should be that I was honestly confounded. Considering this is over 900 pages long, I didn't think it was feasible to read all of that, so I just skipped to the final ten, but that simply left me more confused about what the actual goal was... but it seems the strike is more general discontentment than an actual strike in its truest and rawest form... I don't really notice it, outside of people talking about... I do wish healers would be re-tooled because I too miss the early days of ARR... but that's because of class feel. I dropped my DRG because it stopped feeling like a dragoon... That's one thing I like about Picto, it actually *feels* like a Final Fantasy 6 Pictomancer...

Which I suppose is why I wonder if a classical bent isn't a better way to clarify to the devs what the problem was... I tried playing WHM when returning to the game, and I completely hated what I was playing because WHM just doesn't feel like WHM, so I stopped healing... I don't mind it being hard, but I want it to feel like what it is, even if it is just the ARR standard, and not the classical standard.

[Lyth]

...

The problem with support design is that most skill checks are pass/fail. Once you are capable of passing that check, there isn't really anything else that you can offer as a player outside of optimizing your DPS. That may seem challenging to you as an individual, but when you look at the subset of healers participating in a given content level (i.e. Savage PF or Dungeon Roulette DF or whatever you're specifically interested in), you'll find that everyone who shows up can do the check to the same level of competency, leaving little in way of differentiating skill.

This is coupled with the fact that there are numerous redundancies in place to ensure that you meet those support checks collectively as a group. Even if your healer dies, your tank can just take over and shield/heal the group while keeping themselves up. Even if your tank dies, there's a second tank waiting to replace the first one. Classically, the design would be if your healer dies, your tank goes down nearly instantly after, and then the boss oneshots everyone else with a chain of autos.

Modern design breaks this interdependence, such that everyone is playing a single player game. The end result is that supports are less valuable, and DPS are much more valuable. Healers are hit the hardest by this because they're the most support-orientated role in terms of action counts (to the point that they have very few actions in their damage rotation), but a lot of that support functionality is cross-covered on other roles to the point that none of it is truly 'essential'.

Broadly speaking, there are a few commonly suggested directions. The first is that we give healers more engaging damage rotations, so that once you pass the base healing check for a fight you have room to optimize. A second is that you change the job balance and fight design such that those pass/fail skill checks become more healer dependent and less open to cross-compensation from other roles (i.e. increase outgoing damage, decrease self-sustain and access to raise on other roles). A third is that you develop the support functionality of healers in other ways that lends itself to optimization, such as movement tools and speed boosts. There are a lot of different opinions on this, which makes it difficult to get a consensus.

I'll also say that what you're seeing in this thread is actually just the natural consequence of the game's current design direction. If there's no skill-based value in playing a healer, then people move over to roles where their skills will be better appreciated. Those who can make the switch to DPS will switch. What you're calling a strike here is really just people openly acknowledging that they don't have to be locked into playing a role that isn't valued. Supports are probably more likely to consider themselves to be 'career tanks' and 'career healers'. But once you make that switch, you're much less likely to come back. And a trinity design game cannot afford to lose those players.

[KernCadfan]

I'll also say that what you're seeing in this thread is actually just the natural consequence of the game's current design direction. If there's no skill-based value in playing a healer, then people move over to roles where their skills will be better appreciated. Those who can make the switch to DPS will switch. What you're calling a strike here is really just people openly acknowledging that they don't have to be locked into playing a role that isn't valued. Supports are probably more likely to consider themselves to be 'career tanks' and 'career healers'. But once you make that switch, you're much less likely to come back. And a trinity design game cannot afford to lose those players.

I really do wonder sometimes if all the flashy aoe's are just a way to artificially nail players, thus making healers more required to heal. I am a casual though, so I'm not talking about a well oiled machine, like a static party... but rather parties that aren't always on the same page on new content. Instead of focusing the meanchics and gameplay so that the bosses are naturally difficult, we're greeted with just surface layer "toe was barely touching the aoe" vul stack nonsense which has gotten worse over the years. The game is strangely both mindlessly simple, but also incredibly unforgiving for those with latacy and lag spikes, or those who had trouble before the new graphics update (like myself), who now have an even worse time staying out of "bad" because of it...

We can't afford to lose healers, but you hit the nail on the head that there is no skill based value in being a healer. It is a foundational issue in the game that I could say for just about every class. Yes DPS is highly valued because we won't kill the enemy otherwise, but I would very deeply argue the level at which that value can be measured has decreased drastically by the job gutting and modernization under the idea of "jobs for all" as the devs would view it... I don't want jobs accessible for all. I want jobs finely tuned so that a player entering into that job zeroes in on that job in a pragmatic and realized way. Our mains are our mains for a reason, after all.

I recall a time when being a good dragoon (not the floor tank) made a player highly prized due to positional attacks and the rotation of those attacks being somewhat difficult. There was a very real skill involved in being a good dragoon. It was not easily achievable, hence the run-on floor tank joke. I loved my DRG very deeply because it was my main, I learned it, struggled and achieved.

I felt the same for my old WHM. I miss that WHM. Healing is no less difficult for me dispite their "improvements", in fact I'd say they actually made it harder in some respects... but without the "feel good" feeling of accomplishment after the instance is over... I miss that feeling... for now Pictomancer offers that, but I know its day for getting gutted will come... and it will be a sad day indeed.

[Maltothoris]

Now that more peeps are geared, ssome things hit reqlly weak now. It was to be expexted sure but today did the expert today on the fair dungeon and if you take the damage from the final boss' aoe, you get the dot tick unless you shield it to prevent damage. The tank did sio and I did holos and panhaima and we got no dot.

It is sad when things lile fusefield and bombarian special are expections and not the norm.

[Aravell]

It is sad when things lile fusefield and bombarian special are expections and not the norm.

Speaking of Fusefield, that mechanic really shows that a lot of the healer players now can barely even handle a modest healing check. The general skill level of the healer role is at an all-time low because no regular content actually trains people to be good at planning their healing.

[Silver-Strider]

Speaking of Fusefield, that mechanic really shows that a lot of the healer players now can barely even handle a modest healing check. The general skill level of the healer role is at an all-time low because no regular content actually trains people to be good at planning their healing.

That wouldn't even be all that much of a problem if they made the toolkits actually more engaging to interact with in any meaningful capacity. Right now, Healer toolkits are practically automated in that, there are few, if any, ways to interact with your skills. Tetra, Essential Dignity, Holos, Whispering Dawn. etc are all just fire and forget with no real interaction with any other part of your toolkit for the most part. Wouldn't it be better to create at least some level of feedback loop that made Healing more involved than just use whatever is off CD to solve the next Raidwide?

Let's take WHM as an example.
What if Tetra granted a Lily upon usage in addition to getting 1 every 20s? What if Divine Benison lowered the CD on Tetra by 15s on breaking/expiring? What if Misery lowered the CD of Benediction and Lilybell by 30s on usage?
This makes the Lily System much more flexible in its usage as not only do you now have a means of earning more Lilies throughout a fight, but it also grants you additional healing potential thru the CD reductions on Benediction and Lilybell.

Obviously, there is also the matter of how to make players actually engage with this system. The Lily System doesn't even get learned until 52 when you unlock Solace but by then, the game has screwed up by forcing players to believe Freecure is a valid strategy. That just means that the levels that we unlock some skills would need to be addressed.

Let's lower Solace and Rapture to be unlocked at Level 15.
At Level 20, we learn Tetra (if AST can have ED at 15, Tetra at 20 shouldn't be off the table)
At level 25, they reintroduce Stoneskin as low level Divine Benison.
At 60, we learn Misery because the level 60 Capstone is now vacant.

So now, by level 60, we have a solid Feedback loop of Tetra giving a Lily, Stoneskin lowering the CD on Tetra and Misery lowering the CD of Benediction. There's more room for improvement (*cough*axe freecure*cough*), but if we at least had these tools earlier to learn them, it would go some ways to improving lackluster healer players, at least in regards to their healing capabilities.

[Alice_Rivers]

At least hold off on the lilies until you have your WHM soul stone since it's supposed to be a WHM thing, not a CNJ thing... I could see Stoneskin coming back in the CNJ level range though and upgrading to Benison sounds good. Also how is freecure still a thing?

[AmiableApkallu]

Also how is freecure still a thing?

Who are these mythical people that look at a 1 in 7 chance of triggering a proc that lasts 15s and go, "YeS, tHiS iS wOrTh It"?

[Silver-Strider]

At least hold off on the lilies until you have your WHM soul stone since it's supposed to be a WHM thing, not a CNJ thing... I could see Stoneskin coming back in the CNJ level range though and upgrading to Benison sounds good. Also how is freecure still a thing?

I'd argue that whatever distinction may have existed for Class/Jobs is well and truly dead at this point. CNJ as a class was supposed to focus on Earth/Wind/Water magic but they don't even have a Water Spell with Fluid Aura gone. Now, Aqua Veil is the only water skill and it's learned as a WHM so why kneecap the class anymore than it already is just for a bygone distinction that even the Devs have long since abandoned?

[Alice_Rivers]

I'd argue that whatever distinction may have existed for Class/Jobs is well and truly dead at this point. CNJ as a class was supposed to focus on Earth/Wind/Water magic but they don't even have a Water Spell with Fluid Aura gone. Now, Aqua Veil is the only water skill and it's learned as a WHM so why kneecap the class anymore than it already is just for a bygone distinction that even the Devs have long since abandoned?

I fail to see how reintroducing a mit/shield to the level 15-30 range and bringing lilies down to the level 30-50 range would "kneecap the class anymore than it already is", pray explain how that logic works.