#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[ForsakenRoe]

Too bad, it already happened in South Korea (at NCSoft and Kakao Game HQ) and China. (even worse for China, since a player even assaulted with a knife MiHoyo/Hoyoverse founder in their Shanghai HQ because of an update for one of their game XD)

OSRS was born of a 'strike', where a massive amount of the playerbase quit when Jagex forced an update to the game that changed how combat worked, and made the game 'unrecognizeable' to some players. As of this very second, OSRS has about 7x the concurrent players that RS3 does

The issue and misunderstanding of this whole topic, is the conflation of three groups of players, into two groups, to suit each side's narrative. We have 'people who want to see changes to the Healer role', 'people who want Healers to stay how they currently are', and 'people who are just here to press their buttons man'. Say that these groups make up 3%, 2% and 95% of the Healer playerbase respectively. The 3% is going to say that the 95% belongs with the 3%, or shouldn't be a factor in the discussion. The 2% will use the 95% as a justification for their stance, saying 'see, if only 3% of the playerbase 'want changes', then 97% of the playerbase 'doesn't want changes''. When in reality, the 95% would take the changes in stride if they were implemented, and would continue as normal if no changes were implemented. We don't count 'didn't vote' in elections and such, after all. But I expect that SE will choose to lump the 95% in with the 2%, because that suits the design they want to go with: one where the minimum amount of work is applied to keeping the Healer role functional in content, and thereby reducing development costs (which means saving money)

One thing that does strike me, when it comes to the 'undecided' players, is that many times that a 'hype' action has been shown for Healers, it's been an attack. Aero 3, Misery, Purgation in the 6.1 PVP rework trailer snippets, people get more excited for attacking actions than defensive/healing actions on average. What this tells me, is that a modest rework to Healers that surgically applies 'small changes, with big impact on gameplay', would go down very well with players, provided that it just looks cool. For example, SE could add some new healing actions to WHM, and I'm sure that some people would be excited about that. But I think that the playerbase would be far more excited if said WHM were to end off the Job Action Trailer section by blasting the enemy with Quake, Flood and Tornado. Or a SCH applying several DOTs, maybe dropping a Shadowflare bubble, and using Bane to melt an entire pack of enemies. Or how about SGE, who could have a couple more attacks added, such that they start to grow into the 'Heal allies by dealing damage' identity that was originally implied they'd have?

Let's take an example. If we magically had, with no devtime/financial cost, a completed 'rework' for WHM with the following adjustments/additions:

- Add a trait that upgrades Cure1 to Cure2 (retaining the MP cost of Cure1)
- Add a trait that upgrades Medica1 to Medica2 (by frontloading a tick of the HOT into the on-cast potency)
- Add a trait with the effect 'When you have Medica2's HOT active, Cure3's MP cost is halved'
- Rework 'Freecure' Trait to the effect 'You have a 15% chance upon casting Stone, Water (or any upgraded version), or Cure2, to make the next Cure2 cost no MP'
- Add an additional effect to Thin Air, wherein it makes the spell instantcast, in addition to costing no MP
- Reduces Aero/Dia's duration to 12s, rescaled potency as needed for balance
- New action, Water (upgrades to Banish), dealing 40p more than the current Stone/Glare (At max level, this would be 370p)
- New gauge that goes from 0-100, charged by casting any non-Lily spell (amount depends on spell, with healing spells granting a lot more gauge). Damage rotation on a dummy (no healing used) gives about 55-60 gauge per minute
- New action, Blessing of the Elementals, which costs 50 of the new gauge. AOE heal GCD, 500p, gives 500MP on use, and adds 3 'Petals' to the gauge, one Wind, one Earth and one Water
- New action, Quake, replaces Stone/Glare on the bars when an Earth Petal is in the gauge (saves hotbar space). Is also AOE with 50% dropoff, for dungeon/add phase reasons
- New action, Flood, replaces Water/Banish on the bars when a Water Petal is in the gauge (saves hotbar space). Is also AOE with 50% dropoff, for dungeon/add phase reasons
- New action, Tornado, replaces Aero/Dia on the bars when a Wind Petal is in the gauge (saves hotbar space). Is also AOE with 50% dropoff, for dungeon/add phase reasons, and applies DOT to all targets hit (at 50% potency)
(the potency of Quake, Flood and Tornado, add up to the same potency as 'Glare, Glare, Banish, Dia' (or lower level versions, at lower levels), and so they make Blessing of the Elementals 'damage neutral')
- New actions, Stoneskin and Graniteskin, Lily Spells that apply a ST/AOE Barrier (weaker than SCH/SGE barriers, but damage neutral thanks to Misery). They do not heal, but do trigger Plenary Indulgence
(Lily Gauge unlocked at level 30 with Stoneskin)
- New actions, Afflatus Bastion and Afflatus Sanctuary, potency upgrades and new light VFX for Stoneskin/Graniteskin at the level 70ish range
- Learn levels of Plenary Indulgence and Afflatus Rapture swapped so that you have Rapture in level 70 content like UCOB/UWU
- New action, Afflatus Tragedy (or Melancholy, or some such sad name), lower level version of Afflatus Misery (to get players into the whole 'damage neutral healing' thing sooner)
- New action, Divine Seal, a lower level version of Temperance (which upgrades to Temperance) which provides the Healing Magic boost, but not the mitigation
- New action, Protect, a lower level version of Plenary Indulgence which gives 5% mitigation for 10s to allies. When upgraded to Plenary, Plenary inherits this 5% mitigative effect

I think a lot of people would go for such a design, especially when the question asked is 'do you prefer this design, or the current design'. Everyone would have their own reasons, of course. But such reasons could include:

- Very hotbar-space-efficient. It'd require only 2 more hotbar slots (because of the upgrade traits for Cure/Medica saving 2 slots). If that's too much still, Stoneskin/Graniteskin/Bastion/Sanctuary could be pruned out of the design
- It is incredibly mobile. More of its attack rotation is instantcasts than not (helps casual players keep their damage going)
- The vast majority of the changes are healing or mitigation related
- The damage loss of not pressing the new button, Banish, is so low that it is impossible for it to be the reason an enrage occurs
- Aero/Dia rescaling of duration/potency makes the button feel more 'bursty' despite being a DOT, and serves to differentiate it from the other healer DOTs in gameplay feel
- Actually gives WHM an identity in its gameplay, of 'compile multiple damage refund attacks, unleash them all in raidbuffs for massive ADPS'
- Gives WHM more versatility in how it handles mitigation tasks (by allowing it to actually participate), potentially allowing for 'barrier check' mechanics to return even in 4man content (Vulcan Burst on Ifrit, Photon in A11S/TEA, etc)
- Makes WHM incredibly good at raising party/recovery (due to being able to throw out 3 instantcast Raises in a row if needed)
- With the addition of more add phases in Savage (M6S), having long-range options for AOE (Quake, Flood, Tornado) would help keep damage rolling during such phases even at distance (eg the WHM is marked by the Jabberwock)
- It would look cool

But the issue is, I can't convince people alone that such a design is better than what we have, because hardly anyone (in relation to the size of the entire playerbase) is going to hear about this pitch. But, if SE were to offer current WHM, and this WHM, side by side, and ask players 'which do you prefer' in a PTR style environment, I have difficulty believing that the majority of players would vote for the current WHM. Mostly because the above would be 'current WHM, but it has more of everything, more attacks, more healing actions, more mitigative options it desperately needs'. And why wouldn't we as players want more?

[Gwenkatsu]

But, if SE were to offer current WHM, and this WHM, side by side, and ask players 'which do you prefer' in a PTR style environment, I have difficulty believing that the majority of players would vote for the current WHM. Mostly because the above would be 'current WHM, but it has more of everything, more attacks, more healing actions, more mitigative options it desperately needs'. And why wouldn't we as players want more?

I have to agree and disagree at the same time.

Yes, most people on the PTR would agree - which is directly related to the kind of demographic that visits a PTR (or even knows that one exists, and how to reach it).
No, people in the wild would disagree, when they have to relearn their favourite healer role from scratch (yes, there are people that like White Mage /shocked picachu face/ ).

Take me for example. I didn't even read that change list of yours, as it was much too long for my liking. I would not be happy when I had to figure out all this changes through my tooltips when a new patch drops.

Make it a new job, and I would definitely give it a closer look. Throw my favourite healer in the shredder, and I will be very unhappy.

[Supersnow845]

I have to agree and disagree at the same time.

Yes, most people on the PTR would agree - which is directly related to the kind of demographic that visits a PTR (or even knows that one exists, and how to reach it).
No, people in the wild would disagree, when they have to relearn their favourite healer role from scratch (yes, there are people that like White Mage /shocked picachu face/ ).

Take me for example. I didn't even read that change list of yours, as it was much too long for my liking. I would not be happy when I had to figure out all this changes through my tooltips when a new patch drops.

Make it a new job, and I would definitely give it a closer look. Throw my favourite healer in the shredder, and I will be very unhappy.

Though to be fair all of the healers have been sent through the shredder multiple times so (and I know this isn’t what you are are necessarily arguing you are simply replying to forsaken implying the vast majority of people don’t lean either way) the current iteration likely doesn’t have many more people specifically attached to it than any other

Like if I suggested the return of aero 3 would you support that? It is WHM as much as Lily’s are for example

[Gwenkatsu]

If such changes were added, you're saying you'd flat out refuse to read the tooltips to learn how it works?

I would not be happy when I had to figure out all this changes through my tooltips when a new patch drops.

Please don't put words in my mouth. TYVM.

[Nero-Voidstails]

we should #anti warrior

[klu]

Too bad, it already happened in South Korea (at NCSoft and Kakao Game HQ) and China. (even worse for China, since a player even assaulted with a knife MiHoyo/Hoyoverse founder in their Shanghai HQ because of an update for one of their game XD)

I'm not sure this counts as a win, and I'm not sure it counts as player cooperation.

[Supersnow845]

Like I said WHM relies more heavily on its partner than just about any other pair of classes. WHM is good at pure healing which is basically never needed and bad at mitigation which is always needed. Having to heavily rely on the shield healer doesn’t make it viable, it just increases the stress on the shield healer. WHM simply doesn’t have enough mitigation to compensate for the fact that healers in this game are basically glorified mitigators.

AST gets 3 mitigations per 2 minutes plus an ability to spam shields, WHM gets 2 and they both HAVE to near overlap for some ungodly reason, it’s mitigation capabilities are weaker than some DPS classes and more rigid than any other class in the game (every other class has at least one mitigation on a shorter CD than WHM)

AST and the shield healers simply do not struggle with throughput enough to warrant WHM having so little in the way of useful mitigation in the 1 in 10,000 chance that WHM’s higher HPS might save a run over AST who near equals it in HPS. Thats why I drew the comparison to double regens, because they show that WHM has a deficit. Double shields were meta basically all of EW and only aren’t now because AST is so ridiculous on the damage front. Double regens on the other hand are a meme comp, and AST has basically twice the functional mitigation of WHM. Anecdotal I know but I don’t know a single shield healer main who actively wants a WHM over an AST, hell half of them want the other shield healer over WHM

It’s just very hard to see if you haven’t seen it from the shield healers side that WHM is very good at making you think you are contributing while in reality you are just making the shield healers job harder, doing 80% of the “work” AST does forcing the shield healers to do 120% to keep up

And this isn’t even actually WHM’s fault, it has strengths but square refuses to design encounters to play to them. I’d rather square ups damage to make WHM’s contribution more useful over making it a pseudo shield healer like AST, but until they do that WHM just doesn’t bring anything to the table

[Kohashi]

Like I said WHM relies more heavily on its partner than just about any other pair of classes. WHM is good at pure healing which is basically never needed and bad at mitigation which is always needed. Having to heavily rely on the shield healer doesn’t make it viable, it just increases the stress on the shield healer. WHM simply doesn’t have enough mitigation to compensate for the fact that healers in this game are basically glorified mitigators.

what?????? What 3 mits/ 2 minutes? Are you counting CU twice?

Also, I have NEVER seen 2 AST in a party in high-end content, just the same way I have never seen 2 WHM, why would you even want or measure the class design on such a flawed premise? What's even the point of it?

I am seriously debating wether you ever did any high content where you weren't severely overcapped for it because it sounds to me that way.

The reason why AST has "3" mitigations is that it severely lacks burst heal, while WHM does not, so it needs to buy time for the regen or spells, to reach its full potential.

As for the :

It’s just very hard to see if you haven’t seen it from the shield healers side that WHM is very good at making you think you are contributing while in reality you are just making the shield healers job harder, doing 80% of the “work” AST does forcing the shield healers to do 120% to keep up

Their entire existence, AST or WHM, is to fill in gaps. AST or WHM will always be secondary and in the background, while shields are the main healers. Even if you are AST, will will NEVER be the main healer. You exist to provide HP and restore whatever is left after shield healers did their stuff for the mechanic. Both AST and WHM do that just fine and approach the issue differently. It doesn't mean AST or WHM are useless just because they are in the "background". Each has to do their role equally to provide.

[ForsakenRoe]

what?????? What 3 mits/ 2 minutes? Are you counting CU twice?

Also, I have NEVER seen 2 AST in a party in high-end content, just the same way I have never seen 2 WHM, why would you even want or measure the class design on such a flawed premise? What's even the point of it?

I am seriously debating wether you ever did any high content where you weren't severely overcapped for it because it sounds to me that way.

The reason why AST has "3" mitigations is that it severely lacks burst heal, while WHM does not, so it needs to buy time for the regen or spells, to reach its full potential.

Their entire existence, AST or WHM, is to fill in gaps. AST or WHM will always be secondary and in the background, while shields are the main healers. Even if you are AST, will will NEVER be the main healer. You exist to provide HP and restore whatever is left after shield healers did their stuff for the mechanic. Both AST and WHM do that just fine and approach the issue differently. It doesn't mean AST or WHM are useless just because they are in the "background". Each has to do their role equally to provide.

Doing a run where you have two of the same healer would be quite the meme. But I have seen logs for such runs uploaded, so clearly some people try to take on the challenge. It is quite undisputable IMO, that if you were to try for whatever reason, you'd have far more success/be able to clear far more, with less overgearing required, with 2 ASTS than you would with 2 WHMs. Being able to rotate between 4 total CU uses per 2mins, plus having 40s of uptime on Neutral Sect, and 2 Sun Signs between them, means that AST simply has far more versatility in how it mitigates. And that is the crux of WHM's issues. The lack of mitigation options means that the SCH or SGE is forced into using a more rigid plan of where to use what. With an AST in a coordinated environment, the SCH/SGE has the potential to say 'okay, you can CU this, which frees me up to move my stuff from here, to this part instead'.

Only sometimes, is 'AST/WHM there to provide HP and restore what is left after shield healers do their stuff for the mechanic', because sometimes, the shield healer ends up doing the HP restoration too. For example, I have a couple fo reclear logs that end up looking like this:



This isn't me getting chadded either, I got a purple here. SGE just happens to fart out healing with every button it presses, even if it doesn't want to heal at that moment. Kerachole, for example, is a larger portion of my HPS because of the attached regen, than the mitigation aspect of it.



Here's one from M8S, where me and the cohealer both were pretty equal both on damage and on healing parse, the amount of actual healing is alarmingly close considering Pure Healers are meant to be the ones that handle it more. It is also undeniable that the amount of tools that a double Pure comp has would not let a party clear the fight (probably even with more gear), but a SCH/SGE has enough throughput, even when in minimum ILVL gear, to get through the HPS checks of the fight. Because this game is entirely comprised of mit checks, even things that look like HPS checks, like the 8hit stack marker, are actually mit checks in disguise. SE needs to come up with a way to incentivize pure healing throughput more, in a way that can't be affected by mitigation being applied

fair

Also, what optimisation? Those 2 spells are reskinned versions of atonement, nothing else. You still execute them in the same order.

Atonement is 460p, Supplication 500, Sepulchre 540p. The Holy Spirit proc is also 500p. Ideally, you'd want to put the harder of the hits into your FOF window, which means trying to avoid having Atonement itself be in there