[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Val the Moofia Boss]

New Luck Bancho Census is out.

Look at the level 1-59 and 60-69 job brackets for the Crystal Datacenter:

• 1-59: 217,312 DPS vs 36,815 healers

• 60-69: 44,759 DPS vs 5,614 healers

The healer shortage is abysmal. This helps explain why duty support was added. It's a bandaid. "We know healers suck and nobody wants to play them. No, we're not going to do the obvious thing and fix healers so that they are fun to play and people want to play as them. We're going to give you AI party members who heal for you." Maybe one day the FFXIV devs will wake up and fix them, but given what just happened to tanks last expansion and what just happened to samurai and summoner, it seems like the XIV devs aren't very interested in making their game's combat engaging.




For endgame healers (equipped weapon level 560 or higher), Sage and White Mage are the most popular.

• Sage: 5,928 = 34%

• White Mage: 5,769 = 33%

• Astrologian: 2,845 = 16%

• Scholar: 2,923 = 17%

Sage and White Mage are individually, twice as popular as Astrologian and Scholar combined!




Interestingly, Reaper is now far and away the most popular DPS job at endgame. I've heard good things about it, so I might switch to it. This census was taken before 6.1 went live so the percentage is going to be even higher next time. Should probably enjoy it while I can before it gets gutted too. Hardest part will be finding a glamour that looks decent on a Lalafell.

[eschatological]

Reaper is flashy, but pretty braindead gameplay wise.

I put my bid in for my house. I was the 4th bid at the time of bidding. Let's see if I can roll them bones.

Does anyone know if there's any in-game calendar of housing lottery periods vs. claim periods? Or do we have to figure it out ourselves every time?

[zealo]

Man, I can't believe you can't skip Castrum/Praetorium cutscenes in Duty Support. They're still worth doing for poetic farming, but being forced to sit through cutscenes when you are the only player there seems like a weird decision.

Still a massive improvement from before.

They cut a solid 20 minutes from the average run time of Prae with this patch, alongside making the instances themselves a much less jarring experience for first timers.

[StrawberryZebra]

The healer shortage is abysmal. This helps explain why duty support was added. It's a bandaid. "We know healers suck and nobody wants to play them. No, we're not going to do the obvious thing and fix healers so that they are fun to play and people want to play as them. We're going to give you AI party members who heal for you."

I know I've said this before, but the issue in my opinion is that healers have about 6 different versions of the same core skill all with slightly different secondary effects. As much as this is going to be an unpopular opinion, I think they need a prune to free up some space for more unique and interesting skills and diversify healers even further.

Sage and White Mage are individually, twice as popular as Astrologian and Scholar combined!

I think the biggest reason for this is Console players. Astrologian and Scholar are both busy, button heavy jobs and trying to play them on a controller would be an absolute nightmare.

[Lane]

Edit: Forgot to mention the plot I wanted in Ishgard ranged between 12-32 bids on it when I checked last night. There was probably no way I was ever going to get it, so it's a good thing I settled on an apartment. Having said that, the same plot in the FC-only wards I looked at only had 0-2 bids on it. I probably would've been tempted to bid if I had a personal FC.

Interestingly, Reaper is now far and away the most popular DPS job at endgame. I've heard good things about it, so I might switch to it.

I switched to RPR when DNC was in such bad shape. I didn't think I'd like it, but it's a lot of fun.

As for the census, I play on Crystal and more often than not roulettes are tank in need, so I'm surprised the shortage is healers.

I know I've said this before, but the issue in my opinion is that healers have about 6 different versions of the same core skill all with slightly different secondary effects. As much as this is going to be an unpopular opinion, I think they need a prune to free up some space for more unique and interesting skills and diversify healers even further.

I agree with you. I've felt overwhelmed with abilities for every one I've tried. Maybe I could figure it out if I wanted to play a dedicated healer, but healing never became fun for me so I only heal trusts where they avoid mechanics and it doesn't matter if I ignore half the toolkit.

I think the least they could do as far as DPS is give them a combo button like they did GNB. I'm not bothered by spamming 1, but it'd be nice if the sounds and visuals had some variety.

[KrayZ33]

In my opinion, healers should be full blown support units by now with their own (small but proper) DPS rotation.
Even in P4S and any X4S before that, there hasn't been anything like a proper hps check. Even Birb this tier doesn't really have one. You just spam your shields and everything is fine.

The only relevant healing spells is Macrocosmos(? I can't remember the name) and then some instants and AoE heals.
If Scholar had the DPS set from "back in the old days" it would already be much more fun to play.
A simplified DPS rotation is fine, but add more buffs/debuffs/utility alongside it.

[Darkarath]

I think the biggest reason for this is Console players. Astrologian and Scholar are both busy, button heavy jobs and trying to play them on a controller would be an absolute nightmare.

Really? Do not scare me. I am a free trial player, scholar level 54. Never healed in more than 10 WoW years, could not get into it, but I am really enjoying it in FFXIV, and I am playing in a PS4 Pro with controller.

For now it is ok, but I definitively inclined to think that button bloat is a thing. I just hope to keep enjoying healing when I am at max level (probably months from now, as I will play the free trial until I squeeze everything from it).

BTW I love the AOE attack of scholars. I clean groups of mobs pretty fast while I do not have to care about my life, as my faithful PET is healing me all the time. I guess that is faster with a DPS class but for now I am just playing scholar. Although I am close to Heavensward MSQ now, and the first thing that I want to do is try MCH, as I read that it does not have the button bloat issue.

[dope_danny]

I think the biggest reason for this is Console players. Astrologian and Scholar are both busy, button heavy jobs and trying to play them on a controller would be an absolute nightmare.

I doubt it. I've been playing on console since launch and theres few jobs that have had less buttons than most healers. Compared to stuff like Samurai or Dragoon they have never been as bad.

It feels less like the changes were less to cut down on buttons and more to try and make all the heal jobs a bit more homogenous since around stormblood it tipped overwhelmingly towards white mage for none raid content purely for ease of use and they thought the answer was to make everything else super basic too and for people who loved jobs like astrologian they basically had to relearn a less dynamic, less interesting version of the class because of it.

Like its no surprise Sage has overtaken scholar and astro as the more popular healer even when in many cases it can perform worse because it feels more complex and like an actual job rather than a healer turret that spends most of a fight doing one move.

[eschatological]

I just find the DPS "rotation" as healers to be boring as fuck, because it's generally 2 buttons. That wouldn't be a problem if FFXIV didn't insist healers should be DPSing and there's no real heal checks.

Healers have so many buttons I just never use if I have a halfway competent tank. Lots of emergency buttons that you have to parse out in your mind as not needed generally, because there's not often an emergency.

[Cosmic Janitor]

The plot I bid towards suddenly went from 4 to 8.. geez. What a genius move of squeenix to reserve a pitiful 6 wards for private buyers. I've browsed through some of the FC wards and there are tons of plots without a single bid on it. I mean what kind of scrooge would buy a smal plot for an FC anyway..?

Edit: Obviously my 16.5% chance didn't amount to anything. :/

[The Offbeat]

The plot I bid towards suddenly went from 4 to 8.. geez. What a genius move of squeenix to reserve a pitiful 6 wards for private buyers. I've browsed through some of the FC wards and there are tons of plots without a single bid on it. I mean what kind of scrooge would buy a smal plot for an FC anyway..?

A newcomer to the game, new fc, people who don't know how to make all that much money etc, Plenty of reasons.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Oh my, tons of people saying their lottery bugged and ticket 0 won, I guess those are the ones where you have multiple participants, but it also reads "there were no participants in the lottery" when checking the results.

[Dakhath]

Lost to a guy that bid about 30 mins before the drawing, that's how it goes sometime I guess.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Lost to a guy that bid about 30 mins before the drawing, that's how it goes sometime I guess.

Well, I'm not surprised. I saw a bunch of people that ran around in the last hour and checked where they had the best odds of getting a plot. I probably should have done the same..

[Lochton]

Lost to a guy that bid about 30 mins before the drawing, that's how it goes sometime I guess.

Lost to the machine, '0'. I was the only participant..

[The Offbeat]

Even with the fuck-up, it's still a better system than we had before.. now I just hope they keep tuning it and maybe let a few more wards allow personal housing, or maybe 12 fc only, 6 mixed, 6 personal.. or something along those lines. I can't math atm.

[dope_danny]

Welp i was 6 and 5 won. This is fine. Maybe next housing district in 2025 i'll try again.

[RampageBW1]

I am finally doing the Sorrows of Wherylt quest line, and I am wondering if I finish this questline, do you think it'll have Gaius show up during a NG+ playthrough of Endwalker prior to heading out to Ultime Thule, or does NG+ only show you things you had access to when you first went through the storyh you are reliving?

[eschatological]

I won! It was only a t2 small, so only 3.5m, but not bad for starting the game in December.

Plot 49 if anyone is interested in the kind of plot I won/the views.

[StrawberryZebra]

I've felt overwhelmed with abilities for every one I've tried.

Scholar is my go-to healer job. It's got 5 different AoE heal skills. I do appreciate that if you're new to the job that can be overwelming and confusing, as soon as you realise that it doesn't matter which one you pick provided you use one of them when you group has taken damage you're doing everything you need to.

I generally feel underwhelmed about my choices because they're all pretty meh. I'd much rather trim the fat and replace it with some more fun, unique skills like Expedient instead.

I doubt it. I've been playing on console since launch and theres few jobs that have had less buttons than most healers.

I didn't mean the number of skills you have, I was meaning more the amount of controller buttons you need to press at times to get everything where you need and want it to be. Astrologian in particular, where you want to weave a card use in between offensive GCD's and need to mash your way through the target lists to get to where you need to be. When I say its a "busy" job I mean you spend a lot of time switching between friendly and enemy targets to weave your oGCDs in properly. You're not pressing a lot of ability buttons, but you're spending a lot of time hitting the shoulder buttons and clicking the UI to get the results you want.

Scholar has a lot of switching targets back and forth too, though less than Astrologian. It makes up for it with pet management - I've got a lot of keyboard real-estate bound up to moving my pet around and making sure it doesn't ghost cast.

White Mage and Sage on the other hand have less to weave in, and the ones they do have are predominently position based AoE ones. They don't need to be switching targets too often to be performing well. That seems so much easier to play with a controller - You stand in the right place and press the button to get the effect. No bouncing around targets or faffing about with the UI required.