#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Azurarok]

It's cus other roles don't have sacrificeless heals besides clemency. Normally in MMOs with a trinity system it's balanced around healers having sacrificeless heals or way stronger healers than other roles that have them in ff14 that's just not the case with a lot of DPS and Tanks, I can only really think of clemency and vercure and even with vercure you can use it to get an instant cast attack so it's not that sacrificeless.

Not quite on topic but also I really don't like how the current healer design just turns your basic healing spells into last resort tools by giving you more and more oGCDs instead of giving you ways to make them sacrificeless. No other role goes out of their way to turn the better part of your lv50 kit into something you never want to use

[Bobby66]

It's cus other roles don't have sacrificeless heals besides clemency. Normally in MMOs with a trinity system it's balanced around healers having sacrificeless heals or way stronger healers than other roles that have them in ff14 that's just not the case with a lot of DPS and Tanks, I can only really think of clemency and vercure and even with vercure you can use it to get an instant cast attack so it's not that sacrificeless.

Oh I know that, my point was more would the removal of sustain from other roles and things like group utility being baked back into healers be enough to add more use to healers.

[ApolloGenX]

After playing healers through multiple MMO’s, THIS is where I’m at with ffxiv healers. Thanks SQE

Yup, same. Love healing in other games.

[Ramiee]

Not quite on topic but also I really don't like how the current healer design just turns your basic healing spells into last resort tools by giving you more and more oGCDs instead of giving you ways to make them sacrificeless. No other role goes out of their way to turn the better part of your lv50 kit into something you never want to use

In general FFXIV older heal kit lacked oGCDs because the system was designed around Healers balancing damage dealing and healing as seperate gameplay, SCH had dots because you were managing your fairy and its positions to hit the range of as many people in your raid as possible for abilities you would still GCD heal but your fairy was doing far more work on average, WHM had lots of hard cast heals so they had a few long CD attacks as well as two dots you werent controlling a pet so your balancing act of damage and healing was more about timing, AST is the most similar to current healers but thats mostly because AST was the only true buff oriented Healer so you were managing an entirely different system and maybe even shielding or pure healing depending on your comp. The old healer kit was well designed in that way, there were some odd choices, cleric stance will always be controversal but overall the pre-50 healing kit made sense in the context of healers main system of them all being damage dealing casters who had to balance heals.

WHM system with Lilys is a good compromise for GCD heals in the current game design. Bringing up WoW like I usually do, heals in that game are rarely sacrificeless too but this is normally because healers in wow have assize like DPS options, heals usually used as general regen for constant damage that also act as ways to deal damage, hell the Evoker healer spec is all about positioning yourself to have your damage cast land on both your party and the enemies because the enemies take damage while they heal your party members. Though I prefer seperating damage dealing and healing if CBU3 won't backdown on healers having a kit filled with a bunch of heals, they need to combine damage dealing and healing together at least on certain healers like WHM and SGE.

[Kes13a]

I mean, even just cleansing debuffs is actually easier with a DPS. Healers crying in the corner in cast times while Bards pop off Esuna at no cost to themselves whatsoever. You’d think healers would be the ones to perform such a quintessential ‘healing role’ more easily, but apparently the devs think otherwise lol. And I mean, there’s a cool-down sure, but how often do more than one person mess up a mechanic every 45s and even end up debuffer in the first place.

It’s bad enough healing itself is essentially being taken from us, but even the most basic healer tasks like removing debuffs or buffing/supporting party (+debuffing enemy) have largely been simplified and minimised to the extent that they can almost entirely be dealt with through dps support abilities..

Like, Yoshi plz we literally have nothing left, healers need something to do. You have to leave us something lol

not to mention that the ENTIRETY of our 90-100 role quest.. was using Esuna

surprised Viper didnt get that, but I guess that would have made it "busier"

[AmiableApkallu]

The best players in the world are always going to be capable of doing things that the other 95% of players can't.

I do not get why anyone feels threatened by this.

So, here's what happens.

Modern-day extremes, savages, ultimates... these are all highly-scripted fights. If someone, anyone, tells you exactly what to do, then the only thing you need to clear these fights is to have the ability to follow instructions without fail. (It turns out actual humans are quite fallible.)

Now, at least on Crystal, there are not a whole lot of folks cited as the originators of "what to do." I can count them on one hand. If I'm being lazy, I'd say, "go watch a Hector or MTQ vid."

The moment any of these very few "content creators" deign to say, "hey, replace your healers, and you've got an easier, faster clear," that's the moment healers get locked out in Party Finder.

And that isn't some hypothetical. Before Dawntrail released, I saw many-a-Party-Finder-listing for Endwalker's EX2 ask for only one healer and one tank. It turns out that the second healer stack in that fight would fall back on a tank if there was only one healer, so, if you had only one tank and one healer, you still knew exactly how to stack. And six DPS vs. four makes a big difference in how long it takes to clear the fight, which makes a big difference when you want to farm the fight.

So, yeah, if you actually want to play a healer, if you actually care about healers and how they play... these healer-free clears matter.

[Rolder50]

And that isn't some hypothetical. Before Dawntrail released, I saw many-a-Party-Finder-listing for Endwalker's EX2 ask for only one healer and one tank. It turns out that the second healer stack in that fight would fall back on a tank if there was only one healer, so, if you had only one tank and one healer, you still knew exactly how to stack. And six DPS vs. four makes a big difference in how long it takes to clear the fight, which makes a big difference when you want to farm the fight.

I do think it's amusing that the only actual reason groups have two healers is because they force it on you with how mechanics target.

[Sivante]

So, yeah, if you actually want to play a healer, if you actually care about healers and how they play... these healer-free clears matter.

Agreed. Much like the only reason dungeons don't get obliterated, is synced level and synced iLvl. Much like you only need two tanks if the mechanics demand it (dual tank busters, tank swaps, mob separations), it all boils down to what is forced. Really, I think this highlights a problematic feature of ff14 that people neglect to give proper attention to.

Things are only hard because they are forced to be hard. Gearing up quickly would be easy, but the drip feed forces you to do it slowly. Relics would be easy, but tomestone requirements exist to make it hard, to make it take longer. The mechanics of fights are easy, save for when they force them to be hard. There little subtlety of nuance in how FF14 has been built in this regard: And there is even less trust in the player-base. This led to a team that builds things not by created things with depth and subtlety and balancing, growing with the community. Instead it created a team that treats forcing situations, forcing balance, as a crutch. They do not know how to make an ultimate that requires healers, save to introduce things that force it. Two tanks? Force you into it. DPS? Force you into it.

The balancing of FF14 for a long time now has not been about balancing classes, or even balancing a basic trinity principle - those things were abandoned. Instead it was replaced by forcing things. Extreme can be done without tanks? Add a few tank busters or a mob separation. Savage can be done without healers? Add a Forsaken mechanics, or mass AOE's, or regular raid-wides. DPS is too forgiving? Add an enrage. These are not elegant solutions, they are forced ones.

It will not change, because at this point to create real class balanced would be such a herculean effort that it would unravel the balance of ultimates and savages. It would destroy the things FF14 swears they won't touch. Can you imagine a Healer fix that would not interact significantly with Ultimates? A tank correction against hostage-holding roullettes, that would not impact them? If we leaned harder into the trinity of Healers only heal, tanks only tank, and DPS only DPS, then having 4 DPS on the team would make things so much easier as their damage skyrockets past the benchmarks of previous content.

Doom and gloom as it is to say it, I do not think these problems can be fixed. I think the next Final Fantasy MMO is more likely, than seeing a meaningful rebalancing effort correcting FF14's current classes, class balances, and correcting the trinity. I think that's why Healers haven't been 'fixed' yet, why Tanks continue to solo things, and I think CS3 is aware of these things: Not in negligence to correct it, but in impotence to do so.

I would love for CS3 to prove me wrong. But I'm very comfortable in saying, currently, I do not see SE sparing the resources, funds, and time it would take to give FF14 the total overhaul necessary to repair these mechanics on an engine over a decade old. I think it far, far more likely they begin to build a new MMO, and simply abandon FF14 to its current trajectory while giving verbal apologetics and hollow promises about 'look forward to it!'s and 'We're going to fix [x] wait and see's.

I've seen too many of those promises, yet we keep ending up standing at this cross-roads.

They will not fix it. They will drip feed story, systems, releases, and drip feed reward rates. Low drop rates, high attention requirements, and weak rewarding will continue, alongside Healer replacement. Pallative care. All the serious attention had gone else where, along with senior dev staff, senior director attention, and all those who hold expertise enough to have made meaningful change.

Just my 2 cents on it: Yes I recognize it's all depressive and the like but hey, some people like the game in this state and I encourage them to keep enjoying it.

[Supersnow845]

14 is trapped in the problem of the fact that it’s an MMO made for people who don’t like MMO’s so it can’t fall back on a lot of the old MMO design decisions that retain sub numbers

For example in RuneScape they don’t need to drip feed you gear because they can introduce a new skill that gives 40k experience per hour and level 99 is 13 million experience so they’ve just roped you in for another 6 months (seriously I swear I was the only player who ever liked divination as a skill)

In 14 people don’t like grinding so to hold subs over the months they have to artificially gate you from otherwise easy to obtain items because otherwise it reveals how hollow the endgame is

[Ayalu]

Well considering if they hold onto there plans with the "no more leveling" and there supposed focus on class design next expansion they will have to break the current systems and tbh i am all for it.
With Shadowbringer they made massive changes in Class design so its not impossible they do it again.