#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[ZephyrMenodora]

Honestly I feel like I started to enjoy the healer most when I stopped caring what other people wanted from me and just started doing what I thought was fun. Obviously I don’t mean being an active menace to the party. I just mean like, I will use Fey Illumination to buff magic defense and/or healing. Is it useless because it doesn’t affect gcds? Is that going to stop me? lol. I will not hesitate to Physick a bitch (and use Lustrate in the oGCD window lol). Excogitation? Excogi-nothing!

Disclaimer: do not try this at home (?)

I have decided that I will overheal and people can just deal. I am in love with my Medica 3 animation and it makes me happy to use it.

Most dps actually dont even care - they like knowing they have a little regen every once in a while "just in case". Haven't had a single complaint in DT and in general compliments.

Optimized play in a vaccuum vs. what other casual players like (security) can be quit edifferent.

[Somnolence]

I have decided that I will overheal and people can just deal. I am in love with my Medica 3 animation and it makes me happy to use it.

Most dps actually dont even care - they like knowing they have a little regen every once in a while "just in case". Haven't had a single complaint in DT and in general compliments.

Optimized play in a vaccuum vs. what other casual players like (security) can be quit edifferent.

Well recently I did alliance raid as a tank and one of the healers was putting regen on me on CD. I was not the alliance tank so was not receiving any damage.

I wonder what exactly was going on in this healers head, was such gameplay some weird healer role RP?

Well, people like that don't have any issues since they don't live in the same reality as us.

[ayolol]

Honestly I feel like I started to enjoy the healer most when I stopped caring what other people wanted from me and just started doing what I thought was fun. Obviously I don’t mean being an active menace to the party. I just mean like, I will use Fey Illumination to buff magic defense and/or healing. Is it useless because it doesn’t affect gcds? Is that going to stop me? lol. I will not hesitate to Physick a bitch (and use Lustrate in the oGCD window lol). Excogitation? Excogi-nothing!

Disclaimer: do not try this at home (?)

this is so based btw

[ForteNightshade]

So on WHM, what spells do you want removed and how would you replace them to add DPS?

Since you brought up, White Mage, a job that really doesn't have any hotbar space issues whatsoever, I'll still make suggestions on how to clean it up.

- Merge Medica and Rapture. You scarily ever need the former nowadays, and the Lilies system on the whole should be introduced much faster in the leveling process than it is. Alternatively, you could have Rapture replace Media on your hotbar should you have a Lily charge. Which would be my suggestion for Solace and Cure II.
- Plenary could be removed entirely given how minimal it's impact is. I'd argue Aqua Veil and Benison could be compared in some fashion with a third charge added

That right there takes off potentially four buttons. Regardless, this myth that controller users are struggling with hotbar space really needs to die. They aren't. In fact, they have more convenient options through the cross/w hotbar than keyboard users do. People need to stop shoving 10 mounts and 50 minions on their bars then complain about space.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Since you brought up, White Mage, a job that really doesn't have any hotbar space issues whatsoever, I'll still make suggestions on how to clean it up.

- Merge Medica and Rapture. You scarily ever need the former nowadays, and the Lilies system on the whole should be introduced much faster in the leveling process than it is. Alternatively, you could have Rapture replace Media on your hotbar should you have a Lily charge. Which would be my suggestion for Solace and Cure II.
- Plenary could be removed entirely given how minimal it's impact is. I'd argue Aqua Veil and Benison could be compared in some fashion with a third charge added

That right there takes off potentially four buttons. Regardless, this myth that controller users are struggling with hotbar space really needs to die. They aren't. In fact, they have more convenient options through the cross/w hotbar than keyboard users do. People need to stop shoving 10 mounts and 50 minions on their bars then complain about space.

No thanks. I have situations where both of these are useful.

Adding to explain - I like being able to decide if I want to use a Lily immediately. If I'm under no pressure I'd rather save a Lily and Medica, especially if I'm mostly using Lilies on the MT. It's a micro-decision that sometimes does not mean much, but having an insta-cast lily and saving it for moving vs. hard-casting is a decision I want to be able to make for myself.

I am fine like many if they just upgraded Cure1 into Cure2. I can't think of any situations lately where Cure1 is worth the time to cast over doing anything else at all.

[Wildheaven182]

From what I hear, DT dungeons and such are pretty okay in terms of damage output and difficulty, giving healers more to do in general most of the time.

One issue is more about old content being left in the dust even though it's the majority of content that gets ran due to levelling different jobs and new players. Pre shadowbringers, the game is not much more than fighting striking dummies.

This is an issue too, because the game does not teach players how to be good at the game as they play it. Honestly, menphina's earring makes levelling new jobs way too fast. You can't learn the job as fast as you level it, but this is to cater to nolifers, raiders, and also to shift focus away from old content saying hey look at the new rides at the theme park.

That's why there are unskilled players who get to level 50 and don't even understand they need to press buttons in an order they light up in. At level 60 players still don't even understand not to stand in aoe indicators. At level 70 the difficulty suddenly ramps up, and then ramps up more at level 80 and mid 90s, though the endgame lvl 90 content is back to striking dummies like the alliance raids, aetherfront and lunar subterrane.

No one thinks there should be a lot to healer dps additions, just that there should be a little more, and it should never punish or disincentivize returning to casting healing. Adding a stack building mechanic to glare for another attack, a second unique dot like a whirlwind aoe you place on the ground, and maybe cleric stance at a high level like lvl 100 aren't going to break the game, and aren't necessary to optimize or even use to be able to clear casual content. That healer can do nothing but heal and glare and be just fine and no one will care that a dungeon takes one minute longer (except xeno).

Honestly when I heal, I doze off and space out or have to have something to watch on too and I drop tanks and dps I could have saved just because I'm bored, and then someone gets hit by an aoe at full hp, but because they have 1 vuln stack, they take 80% of their hp as damage and then die before I wake back up. The content being too easy breeds a lack of skill AND a lack of reason to try AND a lack of attentiveness.

Everyone agrees, DPS jobs are for if you want to dps. We say many times, we do not want to dps on healers. We want to be casting healing 90% of the time, not glare. But that also doesn't mean we can't have more than 1 button to press for that remaining 10% of the time. Every aspect of the role should be engaging, fun, and meaningful.

[Wildheaven182]

And lastly... this is a video game. If someone lacks the skill to complete a piece of content, they're going to be stuck on it. And this is an MMO, which means you're going to have to work together and communicate when difficulty comes up. If a healer is dropping the party because they get too distracted trying to DPS, it's up to you to communicate kindly that this is difficult brand new content, and maybe they should just focus on healing alone for now. In that way, wiping is as much the entire party's fault as it is the healer's fault.

It may be rough, but no video game can cater to the lowest common denominator 10% of players and expect to succeed while ignoring 90% of midcore casuals. If they really have trouble completing content, there's something for them too, the trust system.
The issue is, the complete lack of any difficulty until lvl 70 breeds unskilled players, whereas if they introduced challenge more gradually, these players would be more skilled by the time they get to lvl 95 content.

[ForteNightshade]

No thanks. I have situations where both of these are useful.

Adding to explain - I like being able to decide if I want to use a Lily immediately. If I'm under no pressure I'd rather save a Lily and Medica, especially if I'm mostly using Lilies on the MT. It's a micro-decision that sometimes does not mean much, but having an insta-cast lily and saving it for moving vs. hard-casting is a decision I want to be able to make for myself.

I am fine like many if they just upgraded Cure1 into Cure2. I can't think of any situations lately where Cure1 is worth the time to cast over doing anything else at all.

... where? Medica II is a 250 base potency heal with a 150 regen tick over the span of 15 seconds. A single tick puts the total potency between the two at equal value; with Media being 400. All with only 100 MP difference. In the event you need a non-Lily GCD heal, Medica II is the far superior choice in 99.9% of scenarios. With the upgrade to Medica III, Medica is pretty much the AoE equivalent of Cure I.

[ZephyrMenodora]

... where? Medica II is a 250 base potency heal with a 150 regen tick over the span of 15 seconds. A single tick puts the total potency between the two at equal value; with Media being 400. All with only 100 MP difference. In the event you need a non-Lily GCD heal, Medica II is the far superior choice in 99.9% of scenarios. With the upgrade to Medica III, Medica is pretty much the AoE equivalent of Cure I.

In situations where I have Medica 2 already running, and the party is taking a lot of damage and I am either out lilies or want them for something else that may happen in the near future.

Whether I need to move or not matters too.

Or if I have Misery up, and I can't take the time to use it yet because I need to heal, and would rather use my lily after I can cast it.

[ForsakenRoe]

The problem is none of you are offering no solutions, just complaints.
You need to be able to access any DPS added on the main controller cross hotabar and the upper one. Every slot is already used.

So on WHM, what spells do you want removed and how would you replace them to add DPS?

Objection: Asked and Answered!

To the first point, of cross hotbar slots: You have far more access to hotbar slots via controller, compared to trying to bind the same amount of keys on PC. To reach the controller's easy-to-access 64 hotbar spots, KB/M would need a total of 5 and a bit hotbars. So, no modifier, CTRL, SHIFT, ALT, and then two more bars with some combination of those modifiers. You might want to look at your setup again if you're struggling to access some of your hotbar space. Additionally, while WHM might fill your hotbars (it doesn't, you have far more space, you just might not be aware of it), what do you do for something like SCH, which has more buttons than WHM? Do you just leave stuff off? What stuff did you leave off, useless crap like Repose, or actually useful things like Fey Blessing/Illumination?

To the second point, of 'you're not offering any solutions, just complaints', it's all well and good trying to hit people with the 'what's your solution' gotcha when you expect they have no background in game design and have to respond with 'well idk, I'm not a game developer', but unfortunately, some of us DO have backgrounds in game development. So, once again for the god-knows-how-many-times time: 'How I would change WHM so it is fun to play in all content and not just the hardest 5 fights per 8 months'.

Or, if you don't want to actually click a link because you were hoping to instantly win the argument, here's the cheatsheet. Bear in mind this was written before DT details were out (Hence Glare being assumed to be 310p):

* Dia reduced to 12s, potency reduced to compensate (I have it at 150p, plus 70p per tick, for a total of 430p)

* New action, Water, learned at level 15. This is an instantcast GCD with a 15s CD, and scales in level alongside Stone. Upon learning Glare, this upgrades to Banish. It is always 40p stronger than your current Stone/Glare potency.

* A 0-100 gauge is added, the Nature's Vigilance gauge. Casting any spell that doesn't consume Lilies fills the gauge (healing spells fill it far faster). Upon reaching 50 or more gauge, you can cast...

* New action, Blessing of the Elementals, learned at level 50. This is a GCD which heals the party for 500p of healing (more than Rapture/Medica, less than Cure3), and restores 500MP.
It also grants a Petal of each Natural Element, allowing...

* New action, Quake. Consumes a Petal of Earthen Ire, and replaces Stone/Glare on the hotbar while a Petal is active (like WAR's Inner Chaos/FellCleave). Deals 100p more than your Stone/Glare.

* New action, Tornado. Consumes a Petal of Wrathful Winds, and replaces Aero/Dia on the hotbar while a Petal is active (like WAR's Inner Chaos/FellCleave).
Deals 30p more than your Aero/Dia, and 20p more DOT potency per tick (total 110p higher)

* New action, Flood. Consumes a Petal of Raging Rivers, and replaces Water/Banish on the hotbar while a Petal is active (like WAR's Inner Chaos/FellCleave). Deals 100p more than your Water/Banish.

* Quake, Tornado and Flood's potency totals up to be 4 Glares worth of potency, in 3 GCDs. This causes the three spells to function as a 'refund' for the lost GCD due to casting Blessing of the Elementals.


In total, due to the hotbar-swap effect of the Petals consolidating Quake/Tornado/Flood, this would take only two hotbar slots. And by having Cure upgrade to Cure 2 (MP cost 500), and Medica upgrade to Medica 2 (MP cost 1000), that two hotbar slots becomes zero. Any extra hotbar space allowed (eg, since SCH has as many buttons as it does, WHM being allowed to go up to that many but not over) would in fact not be dedicated to more damage buttons with my design, but more healing, ironically. I would add a Lily spender, ST and AOE versions (2 hotbar slots used) that apply a Barrier to the target/Party. Introduced at lower levels so that the Lily Gauge can be introduced at level 30 instead of 52, I would bring back Stoneskin, and Stoneskin2 (now named Graniteskin). In the 70s, I'd then have them upgrade to Afflatus Bastion, and Afflatus Sanctuary, to keep with the Afflatus naming. These barrier Lily spenders would additionally allow for the WHM to have something 'useful' to dump Lilies on when preparing a Misery, rather than 'wasting' them on pure overhealing. I would introduce many MANY 'lower level' versions of things, such as Protect (raidwide mitigation on a 60s CD, upgrades to Plenary which inherits the Protect effect in addition to its current effect), Divine Seal (Temperance's healing magic boost without the mit, upgrades to Temperance), or Afflatus Tragedy (lower level version of Afflatus Misery, teaching players about how Afflatus spells are damage neutral to use).

By doing the 'main' changes listed here (just Water, BOTE and the associated Gauge), our gameplay loop per 2 minutes goes from:

36 Glares (now 33 thanks to Glare4)
4 Dias
6 Solace/Rapture
2 Miseries

TO:

18 Glares (now 15 thanks to Glare4)
8 Dias
6 Banishes
6 Solace/Rapture/Bastion/Sanctuaries
2 Miseries
2 Blessing of the Elementals
2 Quakes
2 Tornados
2 Floods

How about a diagram? They say 'a picture is worth a thousand words', so, here's a pie chart showing what we used per 2 minutes at the time (Endwalker), and how that changes with this design. To convert these diagrams to Dawntrail-mode, subtract 3 uses from Glare on each pie chart and allocate them to a new slice called Glare 4



See how much healthier the ''Abilities You Cast Per 2 Minutes' Distribution' looks in the second picture? It looks like an actual MMO class' CPM breakdown! Additionally, since Dia, Banish, Tornado, Flood, Blessing of the Elementals, all Lily spenders AND Misery are instantcasts, this means that WHM would have completely free mobility for over half of its damage rotation, which makes the design incredibly casual/newplayer friendly. By giving Quake/Flood/Tornado 50% damage falloff in AOE, and having Holy generate Vigilance gauge, this also allows AOE gameplay (eg. Dungeons) to go from one button (Holy) to FIVE (Holy, Blessing of the Elementals, Quake, Flood, Tornado). This would make even the lowest level gameplay, of doing roulettes for tomes, feel much more satisfying.

Optimization players would enjoy finding ways to rig their healing cooldown timings, such that they can use Blessing of the Elementals as the last two GCDs before going into the Raidbuff Window, thus allowing them to get the 'refund' via Quake Flood and Tornado inside raidbuffs (as we do with Misery currently). Said Raidbuff window might look something like: POM > Flood > Tornado > Quake > Quake > Misery > Flood > Tornado.

Casual players would enjoy this design equally, I believe, as they would not only have less 'punishment' from playing 'incorrectly' from certain changes (eg spamming Dia for movement is less DPS loss in this than it is ingame), I believe they would enjoy the VFX and 'power' feeling of the new actions, such as using Quake/Tornado/Flood to decimate dungeon packs. Even a 'I heal only, no damage' player would enjoy the majority of this design, as it adds ONE damage button bind (Water/Banish), and THREE healing binds (BOTE, Afflatus Bastion, Afflatus Sanctuary). It also makes the levelling process feel a lot more 'filled out' with more actions available at lower levels, which also helps veteran players who are doing their 1000th roulette and get Aurum Vale again

All of this, and it all stems from just two hotbar slots (Water, and Blessing of the Elementals). So if anyone wants to try the tired 'well I don't see you coming up with a solution', I did and I have. I could write as much as is in this post, twice over, for each of the four healers, because I want to see their gameplay improve from where it is currently. I've written designs for all four of the healer jobs, given them a 'rework' that emphasises their identity more via their gameplay, each of the healers in said designs is differentiated from one another in how they heal AND how their damage rotations function. I could talk for DAYS about how Healer design could be improved. And I'm some unpaid goob on the forums, not SE's job design team, so...