#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[ForsakenRoe]

If you played enough MMOs you know Healers and tanks will always be in shortage, no matter how complex or fun or amazing the class/role design is, it will never be as popular as a dps. In short, that means, the entire point they made is useless.

What are you trying to say? That SE shoudn't bother trying to make the healer role fun/amazing, because 'DPS will always be more popular'? Additionally, there's a difference between 'Healer (24% pickrate) is not as popular as DPS (54%)', versus 'Healer (12% pickrate) is not as popular as DPS (62%)'. In both examples, the statement 'Healer is not as popular' is true, but in the former, the number is much closer to the right balance, because we need 2 DPS in a party and only 1 Healer. DPS is MEANT to be more popular, the game's designed that way. If Healer were as popular as DPS, or more, then we'd have dungeon queues grind to a halt because there's not enough DPS in the queue to serve all the Tanks and Healers.

"but it's hard to draw concrete conclusions from this since that could all be artifacts of the data ". Yes, I get it you enjoyed HW design but guess what.. it's GONE.

I'm fully aware that HW is gone. I don't actually want HW though, I'd prefer something more like SB. Far more accessible for casual players, far less punishing, still gave us depth to chase. The 'best combined healer run' of O12S still had some GCDs in it, because optimizing a fight to be clearable with 'zero healing GCDs used' was something to aspire to but never truly achieve, now it's commonplace. But since you imply I didn't read:

So if these numbers are to be believed, HW actually had...

I did already quantify the numbers as 'maybe they have merit, maybe they don't'. I dunno if they're real or not. Only way to know for sure either way is if SE were to give us the data themselves. Until then, estimations done by third party sources such as FFXIV Census, or Lucky Bancho, are all we can go on. On which note...

As for the 5% it's just plain garbage with 0 verifiable data, however, if you go on the lucky banjo website that also holds the census and class/role distribution you will find out that is entirely not true.

'Lucky Banjo' (lol) is a third party as much as FFXIVCensus, and if one can be used as a citation (as you are here), then the other (the FFXIVCensus numbers I quoted previously) can be too

Lastly, I've seen some Vanilla WOW census data (which is a lot easier to get because they have addons for such things) from around a month ago, saying that for a lot of PVE servers, Paladin (which the majority of players will play as a healer) and Priest (which is played as a healer) have a higher playrate at max level than Rogue (a DPS) and Warlock (a DPS). On the Horde side where they have Shamans instead of Paladins (but are also played mainly as healers), they too are incredibly popular, and have not only higher pickrate than Rogue and Warlock, they're equal pickrate with Hunter, and are a very small gap behind the pickrate for Mages, of all things. But maybe Vanilla WOW doesn't count, because it's too old, or because back then there was more reason to bring a specific class (eg Rogues are needed for the Suppresion Room in BWL, or Hunters are needed for Tranquilizing Shot despite having lower damage than some other classes), so it's not apples to apples. But I'd also posit that maybe Vanilla WOW is a good example actually, precisely because it's been out for over 20 years, people know that the DPS specs for Shaman are not so great (doing like, 25-35% of the damage of an equally geared DPS Warrior), and so the vast majority of people who decide to play a Shaman go in knowing that they'll be healing at endgame

I'd also estimate that more players play certain Healers here, than certain DPS (eg I expect there's more WHMs than BLMs). The issue is that we have 4 Healers, and 13 DPS. But, if SE releases a new healer (to eventually try to have 7/14 and have the Healer/DPS ratio of 1:2 that the DF format asks for), the addition of Healer jobs won't take from DPS numbers enough, instead it'll be mainly already established Healer players, swapping within the role. Maybe if SE were to add a proper 'DPS focused Healer', that is, one with an actual rotation, they'd actually capture some of the players who usually go for a DPS. Giving the playerbase four Healers (or five in the future maybe), that all have the core damage rotation of 'refresh your DOT twice per minute, then press <filler spell> to fill', doesn't attract as many players to the role as could be attracted by having the Healers have different gameplay designs.

[Maltothoris]

Honestly I'm not sure if they want to add more healers or if they can. If I remember, they want all healers to be magical which kind of rules out physical healers. Plus we have the pure/barrier dichotomy which would veeate an imbalance in the role.

[TheDustyOne]

Honestly I'm not sure if they want to add more healers or if they can. If I remember, they want all healers to be magical which kind of rules out physical healers. Plus we have the pure/barrier dichotomy which would veeate an imbalance in the role.

Honestly, a physical/magical (or melee/ranged) dichotomy sounds more interesting than what we have now. I don't expect it to happen considering that pretty much most fights are designed with healers being ranged, but an attempt at a "sometimes melee" healer akin to what RDM is for casters would be neat. Square just needs some inspiration and to be able to take some risks in job design.

[Supersnow845]

Honestly at this point I’m more leaning towards them even regretting RDM being partially melee because they seem to suck at designing mechanics that allow RDM the flexibility to actually do its melee combo when it needs to

If you really want to gold parse RDM you really want a melee spot but to facilitate that you kinda need a BLM/PCT but then you’d get more benefit out of giving the melee spot to them anyway

[TBerry]

What do you mean? Since the launch of Dawntrail, and the creation of this thread, multiple content creators, the so called 'influencers' (who SE gives special access to for the sake of generating additional hype around the game's release) have made videos on the topic of the state of Healers in the game. Some of them have said they support the strike's points, some say 'the strike isn't the way to go about it but the points they raise, I've noticed too', some say we're stupid for even trying. But what used to be criticism that was confined to the Forums (and mainly the Healer Role section) has now spilled out of containment. These kind of videos are surely on SE's radar now. With Dawntrail's release, and the lie put to the constant whiteknight retort of 'just wait till launch, there's gonna be so much healing to do that you won't have time to DPS, that'll solve your issues', the dam has burst. And with DT's story being so... divisive, there's really very little that people can use to deflect and defend the state of the role with.

Something needs to change, and SE should be fully aware of that fact by now. It's tragic that it took like... 5 years for the message to hit the mainstream like this, because it means a lot of time has been lost that could have been used to course correct, but we've got to play the hand we're dealt (that saying is now even more apt, since they've now deleted Redraw from AST). Maybe the 'encounter design changes' in 7.2 will be the magic bullet that fixes the Healer Role and everyone lives happily ever after. But I doubt it'd be able to be so all-encompassing, it wouldn't affect any old content (so doing roulettes means a 99% chance of 'the problems come back'), etc. So, waiting game it is

What has Squarfe Enox done?

Also I did one of the Mhach ally raids yesterday and I sustained myself for the most part.
On the first boss I had to remove effects thrice with Warden's Paean.

[Kohashi]

Honestly at this point I’m more leaning towards them even regretting RDM being partially melee because they seem to suck at designing mechanics that allow RDM the flexibility to actually do its melee combo when it needs to

If you really want to gold parse RDM you really want a melee spot but to facilitate that you kinda need a BLM/PCT but then you’d get more benefit out of giving the melee spot to them anyway

xd!!!!!!!!!!!!

Knowing how to manipulate RDM resources and adapt based on whether you have to resolve a mechanic while also being during the 2-minute burst or not is part of the class mastery and difficulty. Not every burst comes with mechanics to do. Otherwise, you can delay your melee combo. SE gave RDM Grand Impact, Prefulgence, and Vice of Thorns, in addition to the already available ranged mechanics.


@ForsakenRoe
Lucky Banjo does however post the methodology how he approaches the entire research and how he obtained the said numbers. Both Census and Banjo simply take the database made available by SE through Lodestone and correlate the data with the help of certain filters.

Census is a lot more basic and from what I see, it's just a bunch of numbers of created characters still present in lodestone but nothing beyond it (which makes sense since it is a census). In any case, the numbers are approximate because some profiles are hidden.

As for WoW healers being incredibly popular, a dozen recent posts and data contradict your claim. Perhaps the healing spec of the Paladin is more popular than other specs but it doesn't mean healers overall are popular. Tigore did comment on it and his estimation and take on it sounded a lot closer to reality and in line with what I have also found than what you say.

I have a very basic understanding of WoW (I never really played it) and I had to do a bit of research on which specs are considered healing (lol) to see if the WoW player base claims/posts held any truth or if it was also skewed by personal perception as it is in some post in FF14 forums.

Other factors skew the pick and progression of playing/ staying a healer in WoW the same way FF14 also has its own additional variables but that wasn't the point of the discussion.

In any case, I am not saying the design cannot improve overall, but saying it needs to change or else, or that this forum represents the majority is just simply grossly out of touch with reality. At the end of the day, it's their game, their vision, you have the privilege of playing this and they don't owe you anything. It's up to you if you want to stay or find something that better aligns with your idea of fun. Every single game that tried to fundamentally change based on a very vocal minority found its fast demise.

[Supersnow845]

Their vision was 1.0

That’s always been the stupidest logic

14 is literally the exact refutation of your following point, if the developers just went “fuck your we made this game play it or leave it” the game would have died in 1.0

[SXTC]

Everyone just goes dps because they know healers and tanks get abused when they fail more then once

[Mimilu]

Everyone just goes dps because they know healers and tanks get abused when they fail more then once

A healer doesn't have to fail at all to get blamed for a DPS or tank's mistake. ꉂ (´∀｀)ʱªʱªʱª

[Kohashi]

Their vision was 1.0

That’s always been the stupidest logic

14 is literally the exact refutation of your following point, if the developers just went “fuck your we made this game play it or leave it” the game would have died in 1.0

The main difference is that the devs listened to what the majority said, and you ain't in that category for sure, even if some might share your sentiment.