General overview
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"Will this post add anything new to the Healer discussion?"
In Heavensward, playing through an encounter as a Healer was much more interesting, satisfying, and fun.No.
"Then why are you posting it?"I don't know. Maybe some delusional part of me thinks that if 100 apes bang 100 pots with 100 spoons in 100 different forum posts, then maybe 1 Job or Encounter designer will actually receive and comprehend the feedback.
"Have you previously enjoyed the Healer role in FFXIV?"Yes. I joined FFXIV during Heavensward Patch 3.05, and I very much enjoyed the Healer playstyles at that time. I felt that there was a good balance between party damage to heal, and personal DPS activities to manage and focus on. It wasn't perfect, but everything since Stormblood Patch 4.00 has been a steady, constant, and dramatic decline in quality and enjoyability.
"Do you enjoy the Healer role in Shadowbringers?"No. This is the worst that Healing as a Role or as individual Jobs has ever been. This is the first expansion for FFXIV in which I have pretty much refused to use any of the three Healer Jobs for pretty much any content, at any level of the game. They just aren't fun any more.
"Cleric Stance"
Simple and elegant healing designs
Interesting rotations
Healers are functionally annoying to use. Even at the mechanical level, it's just irritating to Heal.- All Healers juggled "Cleric Stance", which was actually a fascinating and rewarding feature to master, and gave FFXIV Healing a distinct style compared to other MMOs.
- Now, FFXIV Healing doesn't feel distinct or interesting at all. It feels like a very bland, generic imitation of stereotypical MMO healing, except with less to do, less reward, less interesting situations, and basically it's like if you looked at a World of Warcraft healer at level 10, and declared the entire class was finished.
- Maybe "Cleric Stance" itself was too punishing for too many players, or something, I don't know, but I miss having that level of attention and engagement with the Healing Jobs.
- In Heavensward, Healers mostly had enough CDs / OGCDs to do their role. It was efficient and interesting, and the tools received — like "Indomitability" and "Assize" — felt unique, satisfying, and like they were filling interesting new places in the toolkit, and serving distinct new purposes.
- Now, Healers are flooded with redundant, superfluous, annoying CDs / OGCDs — like "Fey Blessing" and "Celestial Opposition" — that mostly just do the same thing over and over and over again, cluttering keybinds with actions that really don't matter, and exist just to visually fill up your Actions list.
White Mage...
Scholar...
Astrologian...
To be clear:- Balanced maintaining "Aero 1", "Aero 2", and "Aero 3", and these offered a variety to the combat cadence with their different timers and cast-times, and also caused a visual variety in the rotation that was fun to watch.
- Could also position to exploit "Fluid Aura" for extra damage, and get to see Water magic on their screen.
- Now, White Mage just slams its forehead against "Glare" and sometimes presses "Dia". It's such a huge step down in interest, and satisfaction, and even just visual entertainment and flavor.
- Balanced maintaining "Shadow Flare", "Bio 1", "Bio 2", "Miasma", and even cross-class "Aero 1", and these offered a variety to the combat cadence with their different timers and cast-times, and also caused a visual variety in the rotation that was fun to watch.
- On top of this, Scholar could aggressively "Energy Drain" for a sense of payoff that is distinctly lacking in the current design. Furthermore, even if a Scholar was hypothetically pouring all "Aetherflow" into healing actions, the base rotation was complex and interesting enough to still feel engaging.
- Now, Scholar just slams its forehead against "Broil 3" and sometimes presses "Biolysis". "Energy Drain" feels limp and unsatisfying, and in situations where "Aetherflow" needs to be diverted into healing actions, the emptiness of the base rotation becomes glaringly obvious. It's a dramatic step down in interest and satisfaction, and doesn't even feel like the same Job any more. It just feels like a White Mage wearing a mortarboard.
- At least still juggled "Combust 1" and "Combust 2", with their different timers and cast-times, as well as managing "Cleric Stance", optionally adding in "Aero 1", and having a more engaging and interesting "Card" system.
- However, I think Astrologian probably has the best case for not wanting to time-warp back to Heavensward, since it suffered from an awkward and crippled toolkit for a long time, and additions such as "Earthly Star" in Stormblood , aggressive improvements to its ability to solo-heal (such as "Celestial Intersection" in Shadowbringers) and its ability to sustain MP, and the addition of easy weaving with a 1.5s-cast "Malefic", have overall made Astrologian more comfortable to play over time.
- At the same time, Astrologian's core rotation has become worse and worse, its OGCDs have become increasingly cluttered with superfluous junk, and its "Time" elements and Buff/Support design have either been deleted entirely, or turned into a limp and unsatisfying obligate chore.
Not everything was better in Heavensward. There were plenty of weird gaps in toolkits, bizarre design issues like the Accuracy stat, or clunky actions like "Stoneskin" that were interesting, but so awkward to use that they didn't really need to exist in the form that they did.
But despite all of that, I actually enjoyed playing a Healer in Heavensward, so... overall, I think that it was a much better period of design.
But despite all of that, I actually enjoyed playing a Healer in Heavensward, so... overall, I think that it was a much better period of design.
Movement
Actual Healing is frustratingly uninteresting.Movement is obnoxiously punishing to White Mage and Scholar, necessitating annoying exploitation of the "slidecasting" pseudo-mechanic.
OGCD weave space"But you have Ruin 2"
Yes, and Melee DPS Jobs can technically stand at 15y range and spam their 100-potency ranged attack. But that's not a satisfying or fun way to play. I'm talking about what it feels like to try to play a Healer that is trying to maximize their performance on a given encounter.
"Just reapply your damage over time effect"In many cases it is literally more DPS to just cast nothing while moving, than to waste a GCD overwriting a DOT that was recently applied, especially if it was on-time and caught various party damage buffs. Also, deliberately overwriting a DOT early feels awful from a gameplay perspective. This is not a solution.
White Mage and Scholar are also overloaded with OGCD actions at this point, many of which are superfluous, extraneous, or redundant clutter. But they lack the ability to comfortably weave all of these actions in the very limited available instant casts that their rotations now have, being dominated heavily by hard-cast "Glare" or "Broil 3" spam.
Targeting clutterAstrologian, on the other hand, spends way too much time micro-managing annoying generic support buffs that require constantly de-targeting and re-targeting the enemy.
White Mage and Scholar also suffer this on a lesser level, due to FFXIV's clunky targeting system, and hostility to functional macros.
In all cases, Healing feels like an immense, tedious, sluggish, chore. It feels like it has more in common with making Excel spreadsheets at a desk job, than playing a game for enjoyment.
FFXIV is hostile to Mouseover macros and has a primitive, annoying targeting system for Friendly actionsWhite Mage and Scholar also suffer this on a lesser level, due to FFXIV's clunky targeting system, and hostility to functional macros.
In all cases, Healing feels like an immense, tedious, sluggish, chore. It feels like it has more in common with making Excel spreadsheets at a desk job, than playing a game for enjoyment.
FFXIV doesn't allow Mouseover macros to utilize the action queue system, making them completely pointless or counter-productive for GCD actions, and most actions in general.
This feels awful coming from other MMOs, such as World of Warcraft, where you can easily and effortlessly cast on Friendly targets by mousing over their Party frames, and thus not need to constantly drop your primary target by clicking back and forth to the Party frame to apply beneficial effects.
As FFXIV continually increases the number of party-targeted effects given to Healers, and the frequency of their use, this is becoming more and more clunky and awkward to deal with, and it's another factor that puts me off playing Healer. I would much rather just say "Forget it." and go play a DPS, so I can keep the enemy targeted the entire time, instead of constantly having to click away, retarget, click away, retarget... It's a terrible user experience.
This also contributes to Astrologian being an absolute mechanical chore to play, especially when the player is sometimes pressured to double-weave OGCD actions targeted on two different party members while also making decisions about randomized aspects of those actions.
This feels awful coming from other MMOs, such as World of Warcraft, where you can easily and effortlessly cast on Friendly targets by mousing over their Party frames, and thus not need to constantly drop your primary target by clicking back and forth to the Party frame to apply beneficial effects.
As FFXIV continually increases the number of party-targeted effects given to Healers, and the frequency of their use, this is becoming more and more clunky and awkward to deal with, and it's another factor that puts me off playing Healer. I would much rather just say "Forget it." and go play a DPS, so I can keep the enemy targeted the entire time, instead of constantly having to click away, retarget, click away, retarget... It's a terrible user experience.
This also contributes to Astrologian being an absolute mechanical chore to play, especially when the player is sometimes pressured to double-weave OGCD actions targeted on two different party members while also making decisions about randomized aspects of those actions.
In a game like World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic, I don't really care if a lot of my time isn't spend doing damage, because the GCD Healing rotations are actually interesting, and Healing itself is challenging. I feel like my presence as a Healer, and my action choices, make dramatic differences, and if I choose my Healing GCDs wrong, there are obvious negative consequences.
Therefore, "Healing" is an actual game in other MMOs. In FFXIV, "Healing" is a pathetic afterthought that's tacked on to encounters to remind players that they have an HP bar... sometimes. It feels awful.
"But if we make Healing too demanding, then players will be sad when something goes wrong!" ...Yeah... that's... what happens when you lose at a game?? It's okay. The "Healing" logic in FFXIV's design is similar to arguing that all Pure DPS Jobs should only have 2 buttons in their rotation, because it's too upsetting to players when an encounter Enrages. Like...
World of Warcraft is brutally more demanding on Healing requirements in its content, yet the Healer role is still popular and in abundant supply. So, I do not think that Healing requiring actual attention, and frequent, active GCDs, and having a chance for actual failure, is actually a detriment or deal-breaker or turn-off for the vast majority of players that gravitate toward playing a Healer Role.
The problem with making a system where GCD heals are unnecessary and everything is crammed into bloated and overloaded OGCD Healing Ability arrays, is that GCDs are the "heartbeat" of a player's rotation. If there's no or low reason to use Healing GCDs, then you don't feel like a "Healer", you feel like a "DPS with Some Support Heals". You're spending most of your rotation's "clock time" casting... not Heals.
In the past, that was "okay", because FFXIV took the "DPS with Some Support Heals" idea, and really ran with it, with "Cleric Stance" and actually somewhat-complex Healer DPS rotations. It felt engaging and rewarding, even if it was weird. And the weirdness felt good, too, because it was something different in a sea of standardized MMO healing designs.
Now... it's just... it's nothing!! Ahhhhh, it's so frustrating!! How can you not see this as developers?? JACKIE CHAN MEME You took away almost all of the aspects that made filling time with Healer Damage interesting. And then you still didn't design GCD Healing to be interesting... or even necessary!!
So now Healers have nothing interesting to do with their GCD time. They still don't need or want to use GCD Heals. And if they're not using GCD Heals, then... they're... spamming "Glare" or "Broil 3". So all you did, was take away the one thing that made Healers interesting, and replace it with... nothing. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
Like!! Okay!! Practicing and mastering an encounter as a Healer, used to be rewarded by opening up more and more time to fit all your Damage GCDs into the rotation, trying to tighten it up to be completely clean and not drop any DOTs or miss any refreshes or lose any unnecessary "Cleric Stance" time. So, as you got better as a Healer, and better at judging where you could safely drop Healing GCDs, you were rewarded with more fun and satisfying Damage gameplay pay-off.
Now, your reward for figuring out where you don't need Healing GCDs is... you can cast "Broil 3" seventy-two times, instead of sixty-seven times. It's like completing a complex spreadsheet, sending it off to your manager, and being told "Great job, congratulations, as a reward, you can go get an extra styrofoam cup of water from the water cooler".
Whereas, in Heavensward, you'd complete your spreadsheet, and then your manager would break open the door of their office with a somersault while wearing nothing but a fundoshi, as confetti and a mirrored Disco ball descended from the ceiling, and he would scream at the top of his lungs "GREAT JOB, CONGRATULATIONS, AS A REWARD YOU CAN GO RIDE JET SKIS THROUGH SHARK-INFESTED WATERS WHILE RE-PLACING 'SHADOW FLARE' EXACTLY ON TIME".
...okay... I'm done having a breakdown, but seriously, this design direction frustrates me so much. You can't decide what to do with Healer Jobs, so you just... don't do anything at all. And make their players barely get to do anything at all. It's like amputating all of someone's limbs because you "love" them, and don't want them to risk bumping into a sharp corner.
No wait, actually, I also want to point out the irony that many Healer Classes in World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic, despite having much more demanding and engaging GCD Healing requirements and rotations, also have more complex, depthy, and rewarding GCD/OGCD Damage rotations than any Healer in Shadowbringers.
Heal Actions are becoming bloated and over-loaded. It's not exciting to level up as a Healer any more.Therefore, "Healing" is an actual game in other MMOs. In FFXIV, "Healing" is a pathetic afterthought that's tacked on to encounters to remind players that they have an HP bar... sometimes. It feels awful.
"But if we make Healing too demanding, then players will be sad when something goes wrong!" ...Yeah... that's... what happens when you lose at a game?? It's okay. The "Healing" logic in FFXIV's design is similar to arguing that all Pure DPS Jobs should only have 2 buttons in their rotation, because it's too upsetting to players when an encounter Enrages. Like...
World of Warcraft is brutally more demanding on Healing requirements in its content, yet the Healer role is still popular and in abundant supply. So, I do not think that Healing requiring actual attention, and frequent, active GCDs, and having a chance for actual failure, is actually a detriment or deal-breaker or turn-off for the vast majority of players that gravitate toward playing a Healer Role.
The problem with making a system where GCD heals are unnecessary and everything is crammed into bloated and overloaded OGCD Healing Ability arrays, is that GCDs are the "heartbeat" of a player's rotation. If there's no or low reason to use Healing GCDs, then you don't feel like a "Healer", you feel like a "DPS with Some Support Heals". You're spending most of your rotation's "clock time" casting... not Heals.
In the past, that was "okay", because FFXIV took the "DPS with Some Support Heals" idea, and really ran with it, with "Cleric Stance" and actually somewhat-complex Healer DPS rotations. It felt engaging and rewarding, even if it was weird. And the weirdness felt good, too, because it was something different in a sea of standardized MMO healing designs.
Now... it's just... it's nothing!! Ahhhhh, it's so frustrating!! How can you not see this as developers?? JACKIE CHAN MEME You took away almost all of the aspects that made filling time with Healer Damage interesting. And then you still didn't design GCD Healing to be interesting... or even necessary!!
So now Healers have nothing interesting to do with their GCD time. They still don't need or want to use GCD Heals. And if they're not using GCD Heals, then... they're... spamming "Glare" or "Broil 3". So all you did, was take away the one thing that made Healers interesting, and replace it with... nothing. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
Like!! Okay!! Practicing and mastering an encounter as a Healer, used to be rewarded by opening up more and more time to fit all your Damage GCDs into the rotation, trying to tighten it up to be completely clean and not drop any DOTs or miss any refreshes or lose any unnecessary "Cleric Stance" time. So, as you got better as a Healer, and better at judging where you could safely drop Healing GCDs, you were rewarded with more fun and satisfying Damage gameplay pay-off.
Now, your reward for figuring out where you don't need Healing GCDs is... you can cast "Broil 3" seventy-two times, instead of sixty-seven times. It's like completing a complex spreadsheet, sending it off to your manager, and being told "Great job, congratulations, as a reward, you can go get an extra styrofoam cup of water from the water cooler".
Whereas, in Heavensward, you'd complete your spreadsheet, and then your manager would break open the door of their office with a somersault while wearing nothing but a fundoshi, as confetti and a mirrored Disco ball descended from the ceiling, and he would scream at the top of his lungs "GREAT JOB, CONGRATULATIONS, AS A REWARD YOU CAN GO RIDE JET SKIS THROUGH SHARK-INFESTED WATERS WHILE RE-PLACING 'SHADOW FLARE' EXACTLY ON TIME".
...okay... I'm done having a breakdown, but seriously, this design direction frustrates me so much. You can't decide what to do with Healer Jobs, so you just... don't do anything at all. And make their players barely get to do anything at all. It's like amputating all of someone's limbs because you "love" them, and don't want them to risk bumping into a sharp corner.
No wait, actually, I also want to point out the irony that many Healer Classes in World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic, despite having much more demanding and engaging GCD Healing requirements and rotations, also have more complex, depthy, and rewarding GCD/OGCD Damage rotations than any Healer in Shadowbringers.
You keep pumping more bland, "pure" Healing actions into the Healing Jobs. I don't like this.
I liked in Heavensward that Healers received a lot of new tools that either directly improved their damage capabilities (such as "Aero 3" and "Assize"), or gave them new ways to avoid wasting GCDs on healing (such as "Indomitability" and "Asylum").
This felt really satisfying, and it felt like the devs understood and respected Healer playstyles, and were tailoring improvements to make these Jobs feel cooler and stronger and more fun to play.
Then, from Stormblood onward, it's been a downhill slide, and I find myself feeling completely disappointed every time I see new Healer Action lists, as it is just a list of things that I obviously don't need (Stormblood's "Plenary Indulgence"??????) that are being tacked on for no reason other than the Job designers having absolutely no idea how they can possibly add anything new to Healers that already have all of the Healing tools that they actually need.
And no, getting "Broil 4" and "Biolysis 2" is not going to make me any more excited. That's lame, and you know it, devs. Don't try to pretend this is interesting at all. If a Dragoon saw that their next action was "Chaos Thrust 2", and it's just "Chaos Thrust" but it does 50 more potency on the initial attack and shoots out slightly brighter flowers, they're not going to be excited, they're going to be disappointed. Apply that same logic to Healers.
"What do you want from future versions of the Healer role?"I liked in Heavensward that Healers received a lot of new tools that either directly improved their damage capabilities (such as "Aero 3" and "Assize"), or gave them new ways to avoid wasting GCDs on healing (such as "Indomitability" and "Asylum").
This felt really satisfying, and it felt like the devs understood and respected Healer playstyles, and were tailoring improvements to make these Jobs feel cooler and stronger and more fun to play.
Then, from Stormblood onward, it's been a downhill slide, and I find myself feeling completely disappointed every time I see new Healer Action lists, as it is just a list of things that I obviously don't need (Stormblood's "Plenary Indulgence"??????) that are being tacked on for no reason other than the Job designers having absolutely no idea how they can possibly add anything new to Healers that already have all of the Healing tools that they actually need.
And no, getting "Broil 4" and "Biolysis 2" is not going to make me any more excited. That's lame, and you know it, devs. Don't try to pretend this is interesting at all. If a Dragoon saw that their next action was "Chaos Thrust 2", and it's just "Chaos Thrust" but it does 50 more potency on the initial attack and shoots out slightly brighter flowers, they're not going to be excited, they're going to be disappointed. Apply that same logic to Healers.
Well, first of all, you could basically raze the current Healer designs to ash using Allagan Nuclear Weapons or something, and I would miss... barely anything. They've become so bland and awful that it's becoming difficult to follow the "say something nice" rule. But I'm trying to be constructive here, so:
Significantly more interesting rotations.
"You are a very negative person, and I don't like you!"Significantly more interesting rotations.
Add back something like "Cleric Stance".
Give Healers significantly more interesting Damage GCDs.
Give Healers significantly more interesting OGCDs.
Reduce or remove annoying, redundant "Healing clutter" in Healer Job OGCD space.- I'm not saying that you need to literally add back "Cleric Stance", with its Healing penalty and so on, if you think that's too traumatizing for some players.
- Instead, I'm saying that I want something with a similar level of depth and planning and reward. This doesn't have to be super-complex, but please... something.
- For example, you could have an OGCD. Let's call it "Pope Stance".
- "Pope Stance" has a 30-second cooldown and a 10-second duration.
- While "Pope Stance" is active, your primary attack spell (eg, "Glare") deals 50% more damage, but you can't cast Healing Spells (ie, healing GCDs; Abilities are still allowed).
- This rewards you for knowing when you can safely stop and turret for a little bit, and also rewards you for not popping "Pope Stance" when you're about to reapply a DOT and waste some of your "Pope Stance" on an unbuffed GCD.
- (Look, this probably sucks and has lots of issues, I'm just trying to provide an example of something that adds gameplay interest and some minor amount of decision-making and a sense of encounter mastery).
- Okay, so maybe the FFXIV Combat System doesn't handle having every player applying 3-5 DOTs to the target constantly. Maybe you think that's too much clutter in players's HUDs. Maybe you think this gameplay feels too much like annoying maintenance. So maybe we don't need to go back to maintaining 5 dots on Scholar.
- ...But you have to give Healers more than "spam Glare/Broil 3 and press Dia/Biolysis sometimes".
- In the past, DOT timers served as an effective "cooldown" on GCDs. But with Shadowbringers, you now have GCDs with direct cooldowns. So you could bring back a lot of interesting actions, or their spiritual equivalents, as direct attacks:
- "Shadow Flare". Make it a GCD with a 30-second cooldown. I liked casting "Shadow Flare". Give it back. Or something equivalent. And no, not as an OGCD, like in Stormblood. That was less fun. I want to cast a dark puddle onto the floor. I liked doing that.
- "Aero 3". You could bring back the satisfaction of the cast and animation, but as a 25-second cooldown instead of a DOT.
- "Stella" could return as an analog to Machinist "Drill", something Astrologian launches every 20 seconds to cause a satisfying spike of damage.
- ...etc...
- Or, you could just give some DOTs back. Summoner still has two DOTs. Perhaps Healers could actually handle such a heavy burden, as well.
- OGCDs that I like pressing: "Fluid Aura", "Energy Drain", "Earthly Star", "Assize". I like shooting magic into the darkness. I like pressing a button and seeing damage numbers pop up. I like actions that feel like I'm interacting with the enemy, and contributing to the conflict on-screen.
- OGCDs that I don't like pressing: "Fey Blessing", "Celestial Opposition", other stuff that's blatantly just filling space on my hotbars as redundant clutter that all does basically the same thing, because the Job designers were afraid that the Action panel looked too empty after slaughtering most of a Healer's DPS tools. But here's the thing: my Actions list still feels empty, it's just empty in more annoying ways.
- I would like Healers to be much more like Tanks, where the rotations are overall quite similar to Pure DPS Jobs, with a healthy mix of "CD GCDs" and "CD OGCDs", but streamlined and simplified SLIGHTLY to allow mental bandwidth for their obligated "support" tasks.
Each Healer has way too many unnecessary and superfluous Heals that just clog up the OGCD weave space with annoying buttons that didn't need to be added. Please compress and streamline this pointless clutter, like (mutilated) "Celestial Opposition", and "Fey Blessing", and so on.
Make a decision about whether FFXIV Healers are "True MMO Healers", or "DPS with Supporting Heals".The current system tries to put its feet in both wash-basins simultaneously, and the result is that it's terrible at both of them. (this metaphor failed, but you know what I'm trying to say)
If you want FFXIV Healers to be "True MMO Healers", then actually look at the way games like World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls Online, and so on, handle Healing Roles and Classes. Look at the depth and variety of their GCD actions, look at their OGCDs, look at their Traits and Effects and Buffs and so on, look at the way Encounters are designed and the way that Healing classes interact with them.
If you want FFXIV Healers to be "DPS with Supporting Heals", then click the "Undo" button several hundred times on what you've done to their DPS rotations since Stormblood, and allow Healer players to actually feel engaged and challenged and interested during the long, looooooooooooooooong lull periods in-between relevant damage events in FFXIV encounters.
If you want FFXIV Healers to be "True MMO Healers", then actually look at the way games like World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls Online, and so on, handle Healing Roles and Classes. Look at the depth and variety of their GCD actions, look at their OGCDs, look at their Traits and Effects and Buffs and so on, look at the way Encounters are designed and the way that Healing classes interact with them.
If you want FFXIV Healers to be "DPS with Supporting Heals", then click the "Undo" button several hundred times on what you've done to their DPS rotations since Stormblood, and allow Healer players to actually feel engaged and challenged and interested during the long, looooooooooooooooong lull periods in-between relevant damage events in FFXIV encounters.
Yes okay that's fine, however, I used to enjoy playing all three Healer Jobs, and now, I don't, and you would literally have to pay me money to log in and spend my free time playing any Shadowbringers Healer Job, because they feel like boring desk work at this point, not a fun game.
If I come across as overly negative here, it's because I'm extremely frustrated and disappointed with the state that you have allowed the Healing Jobs to decay into, and the seeming complete lack of understanding on the developers's part about why players don't like this design.
And now, you're adding a fourth Healer in Endwalker, while not signaling any overt understanding of the problems with Healers in Shadowbringers. This... genuinely worries me, because I feel like the current state of Healers does not give me confidence about the design and gameplay that Sage will receive.
If I see the press previews for Sage in August or September or whenever, and I see that Sage has exactly this as its DPS actions:
...then I'm probably just going to "Imma Head Out" Spongebob Meme for Healing in 6.00, because you're not listening at all.
If I come across as overly negative here, it's because I'm extremely frustrated and disappointed with the state that you have allowed the Healing Jobs to decay into, and the seeming complete lack of understanding on the developers's part about why players don't like this design.
And now, you're adding a fourth Healer in Endwalker, while not signaling any overt understanding of the problems with Healers in Shadowbringers. This... genuinely worries me, because I feel like the current state of Healers does not give me confidence about the design and gameplay that Sage will receive.
If I see the press previews for Sage in August or September or whenever, and I see that Sage has exactly this as its DPS actions:
- "Stab You With Nouliths", 2.5s cast, 2.5s recast, 100 potency.
- "Stab You With Nouliths Mastery 1". Upgrades "Stab You With Nouliths" to "Stab You With Nouliths 2".
- "Stab You With Nouliths 2", 2.5s cast, 2.5s recast, 200 potency.
- "Stab You With Nouliths Mastery 2". Upgrades "Stab You With Nouliths 2" to "Impale You With Nouliths".
- "Impale You With Nouliths", 2.5s cast, 2.5s recast, 300 potency.
- "Ow, I'm Bleeding From Being Stabbed By Nouliths", Instant, 2.5s recast, 50 potency. Additional effect: Damage over time. Potency: 30. Duration: 18s.
- "Ow, I'm Bleeding From Being Stabbed By Nouliths Mastery 1". Upgrades "Ow, I'm Bleeding From Being Stabbed By Nouliths" to "Ow, I'm Bleeding From Being Stabbed By Nouliths 2".
- "Ow, I'm Bleeding From Being Stabbed By Nouliths 2", Instant, 2.5s recast, 60 potency. Additional effect: Damage over time. Potency: 60. Duration: 18s.
- "Ow, I'm Bleeding From Being Stabbed By Nouliths Mastery 2". Upgrades "Ow, I'm Bleeding From Being Stabbed By Nouliths" to "Seven Hells, I'm Hemmorhaging From Being Stabbed By Nouliths".
- "Seven Hells, I'm Hemmorhaging From Being Stabbed By Nouliths", Instant, 2.5s recast, 120 potency. Additional effect: Damage over time. Potency: 60. Duration: 30s.
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