FFXIV Criticisms

[MsSideEye]

Ah yes tell us all the important plot details that happen 2.1-2.3 that are so vital and important to the story and why they need to be 38 quests worth. Explain how this entire plot couldn't be covered in 5 quests lol.

2.1 Alone is the moving from the Waking Sands to the Rising stones, the introduction of Great King Moggle Mog (May his pom always be fluffy), the WoL's first proper introduction to Elidibus, and the character moment of meeting Milfina's mom...

That's a LOT of content that can't be squeezed into a single quest or two, and that's not even with me talking about some of the bigger things from the other patches, such as Yugiri's introduction and involvement. You clearly have no idea how to tell a story if you think all that could be cut down in the way you're thinking.

Also add the part where this story is more important to the MSQ than coils, which is the point about the double standard. Coils is far more relevant to the MSQ and is optional content.

Coils is important more from the aspect of us getting to know Alisaie better, but otherwise a lot of what coils is comes down to giving 1.0 players closure. And that's how most of the Raids are in the game, side content that expands and enhances, but outside of Crystal Tower isn't necessary. The only thing that would even draw the players to that is the same hint that every end of expansion gets, where we get a big flag waving in our face saying 'HEY MORE STORY HERE'.

You can't always get away with saying "this argument is so bad it's not worth pointing out where", at a certain point it just seems like you're trying to defend for the sake of it. I like XIV, and I agree with your takes a lot but ARR is a legitimate gripe that shit is bad dude and not worth defending. Let alone, we're talking about the WORST part of ARR here, I have never seen anyone unironically defend 2.1-2.3 that shit is almost universally panned as an unnecessary slog. People didn't even like it when ARR was current, granted it was even worse back then lol.

A lot of things can be made to help streamline ARR a bit more. A bit more use of linkpearls, a shift in where they point players towards content, even the occasional removal of a quest or two. But you've got no idea what you're talking about if you think over three patches worth of content, bloated as it may be, can be trimmed down so heavily and yet have the same meaning and impact it does right now.

[Arlette]

To further supplement MsSydeEye's argument about Coils (As much as I like them) being just something for mostly 1.0 players, a lot of it makes no sense if you started in 2.0. As somebody who didn't play 1.0 but is a Final Fantasy (the franchise) nerd, learning about Bahamut got me hyped but that's because I know Bahamut from the series. I'm actually a little bummed out that they used him as the thing for the revamp of 1.0 into 2.0 event and removed him from the plot entirely after Coils due to how iconic he is.

The importance of Nael, the whole lead up and reveal of her, left me wondering who the hell this is and why I should care about her. I had very little attachment to Louisoix as well, as much as ARR wants you to pretend to care about him. I cared about Alphinaud getting closure for his grandfather, not whatever fate befell the dude from the one cinematic I saw. I was more excited to see the Phoenix, again because I'm a FF franchise nerd, than knowing that Louisoix BECAME the Phoenix.

The only important part of Coils, as many have pointed out, is Alisaie's proper introduction. I would like them to figure out some way to go back and revamp them exclusively for that alone. And to re-record the Coils voice lines for Alisaie because holy shit. I feel similarly about ARR/Coils as I do the FFT/12 and the Return to Ivalice series. Where it's mostly just fanservice for those games' fans and I think it failed to make me want to care about it within the confines of FF14. At least for Nier they bothered to make me care ENOUGH (Not that the Nier series was amazing storywise or anything) about what its ramifications mean for Eorzea that I was curious what happened next.

Just for the record I never said ARR was perfect or amazing. I think I gave it a 6/10 in the past when talking about it, and that still feels about right. My one and only hardline on the subject is that I think just providing an option to skip it (paid or otherwise) is stupid because there are necessary things it sets up. Even more minor things like Thancred's love for Minifilia or Moenbryda and Urianger. Meme about Moenbryda all you want but Urianger's scene in Endwalker is one of the best things in the game imo and that doesn't hit as hard if you don't know who she is. Things that in the moment aren't super big but all add up to characterization for the Scions.

The explanation of how the Ascians work is another one that pops into my head.

I do not know what the right answer is for the fix for the problem I wholeheartedly agree exists about ARR and player retention, but the ones offered so far do not seem to be the right ones.

[Ghost of Cow]

I dunno, even just the resolution of the Calamity plot line alone seems pretty important. With all the talk of the Calamity that goes on in ARR, the references to Bahamut, the mystery regarding peoples memories, the permanent effects on the world, etc. Saying, "Well, the story can move on without that resolution, so no biggie" feels strange.

It's not *wrong*, the story certainly does move on without it, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. Hell, they made Crystal Tower raids mandatory after the fact just for the introduction of G'raha.

Bahamut just disappearing with no explanation is like...I dunno, like if the Ascians just disappeared one day without explanation and we moved on to Dawntrail. You could then argue, "Well, the Ascian plot is over and we're moving on, it's not important to the future of the story to find out what happened." but that seems weird!

[Xeenith]

I dunno, even just the resolution of the Calamity plot line alone seems pretty important. With all the talk of the Calamity that goes on in ARR, the references to Bahamut, the mystery regarding peoples memories, the permanent effects on the world, etc. Saying, "Well, the story can move on without that resolution, so no biggie" feels strange.

It's not *wrong*, the story certainly does move on without it, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. Hell, they made Crystal Tower raids mandatory after the fact just for the introduction of G'raha.

Bahamut just disappearing with no explanation is like...I dunno, like if the Ascians just disappeared one day without explanation and we moved on to Dawntrail. You could then argue, "Well, the Ascian plot is over and we're moving on, it's not important to the future of the story to find out what happened." but that seems weird!

well there is that whole "5 years later...."
so yeah, you could think as a new player than the marvelous video with bahamut has all events linked to it completed & done with.

[Grinning Serpent]

So apparently there's some dumb "FFXIVHealerStrike" thing on the OF? I get that people aren't happy with the state of healers, but...

But it does raise the inevitable question of what will SE do? Few people are *happy* with the way healers work right now, and while I'll probably main SCH into DT, I'll readily admit that healing goes from very fun to very boring as you move from "progging" into "10th reclear" territory because it honestly feels like SE has designed healers into a place where they are babysitters - if idiots are dying to things they shouldn't die to, you have things to do. If everyone is playing well, you are... largely superfluous. Hell, a group cleared TOP with 3 tanks and 5 DPS *on content*.

So you have to make a decision to either stick with how things are, where you are a glorified babysitter, and expand the DPS rotation and probably bump their total DPS contribution up to where tanks sit. Probably keep one single target and one AOE GCD heal for safety's sake and, just like tanks, make literally everything else about healing be oGCD based - see problem, press button, go back to DPS.

Or you go the other route and force healers to stop seeing their GCD heals as a grave sin, and instead something that will be regularly used during prog and while gear levels are low, and still see some use once you have your bis. That then leads into a question of how to tune and design encounters...

Personally, I'd like to see them step back and pull ideas from ARR and HW, where things were a bit more woolly and not everything was really set in stone. Titan does minibusters before his tankbusters, and neither are telegraphed - you have to count autoswings (or memorize the script since his swings aren't random.) I'm told Nael and Bahamut are full of stuff like this, though I've never done them except with BLU groups.

Basically, a subset of encounters per raid zone (the entire 12-floor zone, not just each tier) might have bosses who lack really complex puzzle-solving mechanics and instead just have them machine-gunning out relatively simple mechanics in a semirandom order, with occasional intermission phases where some puzzle-solving might happen. As a very rough example, imagine something akin to E11S where you see all three elements in (random) order one by one in phase 1, and phase 2 immediately starts with Cycles of Faith and he just keeps doing Cycles throughout the fight, with occasional breaks to do some of his other stuff (right of the heavens and such.) Damage comes in hot and heavy and which set of mechanics he'll be doing is randomly determined (although you know he will do each once, so after the first it's a 50/50 of which comes next.) Because he pops his raidwides between each set of mechanics, the raid needs constant healing, and he's also doing tankbusters, stacks, etc. The entire idea is that you simply exhaust the raid's resources to the point that healers *have to start GCD healing or people will die.*

Or you could do a straight up "Patchwerk with extra steps" fight. Single boss and he just *pummels* the tank. He swings fast and more often, and he mixes in a minibuster every so often. There is no proper tankbuster in this fight, he just slaps the absolute shit out of the tank and tank swaps will happen because the current tank simply doesn't have any/enough mit left to keep going. He mixes in proper raidwides and your usual stack/spread type stuff to ensure everyone's taking damage, probably more frequently than in more puzzle-oriented fights. Every so often (maybe every 20 or 30 seconds), he pulls one of several tricks out of a bag he has and applies it. Maybe his next minibuster hastes him for 20 sec, meaning the tank will need *even more* attention or maybe even have to invuln. Maybe he throws a knife at a randomly selected DPS for moderate damage (50-70%) and applies a significant vuln up on them (like 20-30%) for 20 or 30 sec, meaning that if a raidwide is coming up, this person very well might die if not protected/shielded. Maybe he drops a puddle that expands, forcing the tanks to move him (and melee to probably lose uptime during the move.) Maybe it's a light raidwide that has a 50% per person to apply a cleanseable Slow, meaning healers might have to dust off their esuna buttons. Maybe it's a powerful debuff/raidwide with an interruptible cast, so your tanks and ranged need to be ready to interrupt.

There are *so many* little ways to increase damage taken and force healers to stop mindlessly mashing 1, and with some randomness it could alter how the fight proceeds. You don't want too much randomness, so I'd say that the boss can never do the same thing twice in a row. But like... it's an idea, anyway. Something to make raids less of a slog to reclear, as ShB already had some fights that were pretty bad on reclears and EW was just miserable. They have so much creativity in Alexander and Omega and the good fights in Turns. I'd love to see them exercise some of that creativity again.

And make healers have to friggin heal sometimes!

[TidalConflux]

So apparently there's some dumb "FFXIVHealerStrike" thing on the OF? I get that people aren't happy with the state of healers, but...

The healer strike is doomed to fail because its a bunch of people who have already bought Dawntrail, who will remained subbed to Dawntrail, who will continue to play the game...choosing just not to play healer.

It literally does nothing but be performative while also giving the people who create the design decision you dislike more money.

[NatePsy]

The healer strike is doomed to fail because its a bunch of people who have already bought Dawntrail, who will remained subbed to Dawntrail, who will continue to play the game...choosing just not to play healer.

It literally does nothing but be performative while also giving the people who create the design decision you dislike more money.

While they will still be subbed and playing as you say, however if a sizeable portion decides not to heal, that affects queues and content in general, no?

[TidalConflux]

While they will still be subbed and playing as you say, however if a sizeable portion decides not to heal, that affects queues and content in general, no?

They have a discord - its 217 people on that discord with the first post of the thread getting 267 likes. So unless the game has less than 10,000 players, this really isnt doing much. But I believe some bigger content creators have covered it recently, to some mixed results.

Additionally, two DPS jobs just came out. So people may slot into healer for quick queues - essentially where does this really affect?

[minteK917]

They have a discord - its 217 people on that discord with the first post of the thread getting 267 likes. So unless the game has less than 10,000 players, this really isnt doing much. But I believe some bigger content creators have covered it recently, to some mixed results.

Additionally, two DPS jobs just came out. So people may slot into healer for quick queues - essentially where does this really affect?

It has no effect lol. My guess its also no lifers from Aethers as well, Im on crystal data center the rp center. Nobody gives a shit lol. Healers have been superfluous in easy content for multiple expansions now. Both Paladin and Warrior could run with 3 dps. Whats funny about this non sense now, is that this only came about because the very first story dungeon was cleared with no healer in the media tour lol. We have no idea if this is true for later content or even hard content.

We have to actually see the final numbers, the easy fix is to bump healer dps to be the same as tanks. Its... kinda antithesis for healers to whine about 2 tanks being unique enough to solve fights differently then the strick 1-3-1 or 2-4-2, while everyone also whines they dont like homogenization of jobs. Yes warrior takes more damage on paper but heals a shitload. Paladin can heal everyone in the raid and sustains it for a loss in dps... but still keep their dps above a normal healer in some fights.

You want to fix you being bored as a healer, ask to be like astrologian, but differently, also not all 4 healer needs to be like that, its okay for the white mage to be the 5iq healer and spam 1 button for single target and 1 button for 1 aoe. Again these players always speak out of two mouth. We want not all jobs to be the same, also it sucks when some jobs arent doing the normal things the same as every other.

The game is the most popular as its ever been.... I wonder why? Player retention is way higher now. If I just go by my own server, end of shadowbringer 2 months before Endwalker, Limsa was so empty I could load all players near the main aetherite. In endwalker I cant, theres always 100+ players sitting around it.

[Polgara]

Healer's will never be "fixed" in the way requested as long as that content requested is story-gated; If they made healers mandatory in their full toolkit the middling players would more file into trusts, and the thing is there ARE players who find even roulette content challenging. It's people who need harder content but won't do harder content, there is a very missing niche between roulettes and savage, but I doubt that niche will be filled in DT. I definitely sympathize with the missing challenge gap, but without an adequate content state (this is where open exploration zones can fill that niche really well, but IMO bozja allowed people to just self-sufficient their way through it easily).

People want social content that isn't "bust your ass" where healing is participatory. WoW fills that niche much better with how their content is filtered, but honestly it turns the content immensely repetitive, so while something like a mythic+ system for 4 mans could work, I feel it would suck more development time than it's worth, when harder content does exist for these people (no shame in clearing only turns 1-X if 4 is too hard, you pay to play so find what you engage with as fun).

[zealo]

While they will still be subbed and playing as you say, however if a sizeable portion decides not to heal, that affects queues and content in general, no?

Sizeable is pushing it real hard when we’re talking people who care enough about things to even be on the official forums ranting to begin with.

A couple hundred people ceasing to play healers is nothing.

[La]

Healer's will never be "fixed" in the way requested as long as that content requested is story-gated; If they made healers mandatory in their full toolkit the middling players would more file into trusts, and the thing is there ARE players who find even roulette content challenging. It's people who need harder content but won't do harder content, there is a very missing niche between roulettes and savage, but I doubt that niche will be filled in DT. I definitely sympathize with the missing challenge gap, but without an adequate content state (this is where open exploration zones can fill that niche really well, but IMO bozja allowed people to just self-sufficient their way through it easily).

People want social content that isn't "bust your ass" where healing is participatory. WoW fills that niche much better with how their content is filtered, but honestly it turns the content immensely repetitive, so while something like a mythic+ system for 4 mans could work, I feel it would suck more development time than it's worth, when harder content does exist for these people (no shame in clearing only turns 1-X if 4 is too hard, you pay to play so find what you engage with as fun).

Bad players tend to prevent forward progress. There needs to be more to a healers DPS kit when they spend the majority of their time DPSing with their one button, than they do healing completely harmless damage with OGCDs. So much so they do whatever they can to never hard cast heals. Honestly, only game I've ever played where healers don't want to do their job. Mechanics kill people, not a lack of healing or mitigation. Minus wall to walls with social players who don't wanna bust their ass. Why give healers MORE mitigation, or a huge spell at level 100 that lets them do a ton of shielding/healing? They don't NEED that. Bad players won't use it. Good players don't need it.

I think it's entirely possible to adjust healer kits, adjust damage output, and remove a bit of skill ceiling in the form of all these shields for pure healers and dmg reduction/mitigation that should belong to tanks, and create a scenario where it is better. Where some things feel challenging while something like a dungeon feels much the same. Even if that wasn't the case none of it changes the fact that healer is not in a good state, and it never gets better, but people will still defend its shitty state with something like "this isn't WoW"

[minteK917]

Bad players tend to prevent forward progress. There needs to be more to a healers DPS kit when they spend the majority of their time DPSing with their one button, than they do healing completely harmless damage with OGCDs. So much so they do whatever they can to never hard cast heals. Honestly, only game I've ever played where healers don't want to do their job. Mechanics kill people, not a lack of healing or mitigation. Minus wall to walls with social players who don't wanna bust their ass. Why give healers MORE mitigation, or a huge spell at level 100 that lets them do a ton of shielding/healing? They don't NEED that. Bad players won't use it. Good players don't need it.

I think it's entirely possible to adjust healer kits, adjust damage output, and remove a bit of skill ceiling in the form of all these shields for pure healers and dmg reduction/mitigation that should belong to tanks, and create a scenario where it is better. Where some things feel challenging while something like a dungeon feels much the same. Even if that wasn't the case none of it changes the fact that healer is not in a good state, and it never gets better, but people will still defend its shitty state with something like "this isn't WoW"

I already said the normal fix, all healers, beside probably white mages needs either their dps or utility changed. Astro seems to be the correct way they have more to do outside of damage. In the form of buffing. That could be a more often thing, essentially make them the healer version of dancer.

White mage can remain the 111111, 222222 healer. Its fine to have one.

Sage, already do get way more dps buttons in dawntrail, so they can take that direction, be the straight nuke healer with more dps buttons and high personal damage.

Scholar, not sure they were the dot healer in stormblood. Either go back to that or find another dps niche. Mabye fairies could be controlled for dps like a mini summoner.

The story dungeons arent going to get harder, everyone needs to be able to finish the story, these dungeons only purpose are msq and leveling.

[Grinning Serpent]

Healer's will never be "fixed" in the way requested as long as that content requested is story-gated; If they made healers mandatory in their full toolkit the middling players would more file into trusts, and the thing is there ARE players who find even roulette content challenging. It's people who need harder content but won't do harder content, there is a very missing niche between roulettes and savage, but I doubt that niche will be filled in DT. I definitely sympathize with the missing challenge gap, but without an adequate content state (this is where open exploration zones can fill that niche really well, but IMO bozja allowed people to just self-sufficient their way through it easily).

People want social content that isn't "bust your ass" where healing is participatory. WoW fills that niche much better with how their content is filtered, but honestly it turns the content immensely repetitive, so while something like a mythic+ system for 4 mans could work, I feel it would suck more development time than it's worth, when harder content does exist for these people (no shame in clearing only turns 1-X if 4 is too hard, you pay to play so find what you engage with as fun).

But expanding healer DPS kits means healer DPS will go into the toilet for these garbage players, even more than it already is. And make things harder to achieve decent DPS for on players who know that they at least shouldn't be healbotting all the time.

Honestly the only long-term fix is to gradually and steadily increase the difficulty of MSQ content and dungeons because both ends of the healer issue stem from how unforgivably shit the average player is at the game. And fault for *that* lies primarily at the feet of SE. As long as the increase in difficulty is gradual and properly paced (and with like 300 hrs of MSQ, you have plenty of space to do that), there won't be any perceivable spikes - it's like boiling a frog. Things are getting tougher all the time (accounting for increased potency and stuff), but it's slow and gradual enough that you don't realize it.

Maybe JP players are super anal about things but on NA, people largely just shrug and go again if you wipe in normal content. No one treats dying or wiping as some grave failure, except maybe if they're very new (and then they learn that people don't really care, so they stop caring too.) As long as tangible progress is being made, people have fun. I spent 2 full lockouts (almost) in a Golbez Ex prog group with a few very... not good players, but everyone was chill and eventually the weaker players memorized mechs enough that they weren't killing us, and we cleared. Cheers all around. We lost a few people here and there when we'd take bio breaks, but that's normal anyway. The idea that people would explode and become toxic assholes if failure was only 80% of the time instead of every time is completely unfounded - you only see that shit in CC and FL.

I don't think normal content should ever be "hard" but there should be penalties for failure and bad play. Damage from bosses should be higher - tanks don't even need to mit tankbusters in dungeons, they only take like 50% at most. Partywides should apply a bleed dot or some other effect, similar to raids (just less dmg, proportionately, since you only have 1 healer.) The final boss of dungeons should have a soft enrage - after X minutes, gain a stacking haste/dmg buff until eventually the party simply cannot sustain vs the outgoing damage. This is less "fuck you" than a traditional enrage, but still shows that DPS is important.

Couple this with adding tutorializing to the job quests, and make job quests mandatory for MSQ progression (such as requiring your lvl 30 job quest and job stone before you can enter Titan, which makes sense anyway since we're told he's a menace and it would make sense that they want to power up the WoL as much as they can) through HW. Rearrange job quests to require the use of tools gained since the last one, teaching how they work and how to utilize them. *Some* job quests do this already. Healer job quests would *require* the player to deal moderate DPS while keeping allies alive, for example; tanks would have to pick up mobs, maintain aggro on multiple mobs at once (AOE buttons), and need to do moderate DPS; DPS would need to avoid the bad, need to make use of bloodbath/second wind/personal mits to survive incoming damage, relevant melee classes would learn and be tested on proper positionals, etc.

And more than anything, class ability distribution must be reorganized in a way that makes sense and promotes organic learning. Core filler first, then add in job gauge and a spender for it, sprinkle oGCD's in throughout this process, get your first Big Button at 50. Look at how MNK is right now (other than the cursed thing where you don't get your 2nd AOE button until 45, after you have already gotten your 3rd AOE button, so you have to AOE-ST-AOE before 45... small indie company right?) as a perfect example. You have all of your filler at 50, your chakra gauge and both ST and AOE spenders, and the basic version of Perfect Balance. At 60, you have Beast Chakra so now you're using PB to build combos. Fire buff, Brotherhood, etc through to 70, and it's trait upgrades and random oddball stuff like wind stance after that.

Every class should be patterned like that, and I think it's honestly inexcusably bad project management that it isn't already. It would be nice to just go "well if you don't want to put effort in, do duty support," but we still can't duty support MSQ-required trials, and as others have said, that mentality would lead to a major depletion in Duty Finder player counts, something SE surely don't want.

[Ghost of Cow]

But expanding healer DPS kits means healer DPS will go into the toilet for these garbage players, even more than it already is. And make things harder to achieve decent DPS for on players who know that they at least shouldn't be healbotting all the time.

You could make that same argument for every job, but that's really not a reason to have everyone's DPS rotation be 111111.

[Grinning Serpent]

You could make that same argument for every job, but that's really not a reason to have everyone's DPS rotation be 111111.

Except healers have more going on than any other role, and when they fuck up it's unmistakable because people die. We already have players that can't handle healing as it is, increasing difficulty of the DPS rotation will just make those players even less capable of contributing than they already are.

Like that is quite literally why the DPS rotation for healers hasn't changed in so long.

[Skildar]

Except healers have more going on than any other role, and when they fuck up it's unmistakable because people die. We already have players that can't handle healing as it is, increasing difficulty of the DPS rotation will just make those players even less capable of contributing than they already are.

Like that is quite literally why the DPS rotation for healers hasn't changed in so long.

this makes no sense to me as I'm coming from WoW where the healer's job is very engaging, has a real dps rotation, procs to react to and heal mechanics that weave into each other.

I know it's different games and different philosophies but it will not alienate the players of lower skill or investment to have a dps rotation as a healer. Especially when looking at the rotation expected of tanks, which is very basic while tanking is a harder job than a healer when they have to anticipate damage instead of reacting to it.

[Grinning Serpent]

this makes no sense to me as I'm coming from WoW where the healer's job is very engaging, has a real dps rotation, procs to react to and heal mechanics that weave into each other.

I know it's different games and different philosophies but it will not alienate the players of lower skill or investment to have a dps rotation as a healer. Especially when looking at the rotation expected of tanks, which is very basic while tanking is a harder job than a healer when they have to anticipate damage instead of reacting to it.

???

Tanking is the easiest role in the game by a mile. Everything you react to has a cast bar, your responses are all oGCDs, and your responses are also pretty much binary. It'll gain some of its difficulty back in DT with boss hitboxes being much smaller and presumably bosses not automatically resetting to mid every 30 sec, but even then it's still going to remain the easiest role.



I realize WoW has a lot more going on for healers, but the WoW playerbase as a rule is also much more used to being challenged. In fact, all forms of gameplay at the end of the game are essentially based around it - you're pushing rank in arenas, keystones in M+, or moving from one difficulty tier of raid to the next.

As I mentioned above, and even Yoshida has admitted to here and there, the playerbase in XIV has been given expectations to never be challenged unless they specifically ask for it. It's why people pitched temper tantrums over Into the Cold, a solo duty that actually required the player to think for themselves and engage with the game without a magical GPS or hand-holding - it's not a difficult or complicated solo duty, mind, it's just not your typical autopilot type of thing. And remember, they added options for easy and very easy (but not hard or very hard) to solo duties because some folks were struggling with the normal difficulty.

The average player in XIV is frankly horrible at the game. And while some of that is their fault, you always have to own your own mistakes and errors, SE has also had a policy of sanding down points of friction, and without those little points of chafing and friction, people never get spurred to learn and improve (nor are there any resources worth a shit to help players learn in-game, but the same is also true of WoW...)

Worth noting, healers in WoW also have to fucking heal in between adding supplementary DPS. Due to the differences in systems (fast spammy GCDs vs slow GCD with oGCD's) it's difficult to make direct comparisons, but a WoW-style setup would involve a lot more GCD healing and healers needing to identify whether they should be using a GCD on healing or damage at a moment's notice.

I think healer kits should shift away from oGCD's solving everything and more towards GCD healing being normal and expected, and having some kind of incentive to use them. I think GCD heals should power up GCD damage abilities/unlock oGCD damage abilities (whether a gauge, stacking buff, whatever) and vice-versa. Imagine WHM lily gauge was slowed down to 30 sec, but your 2nd and 3rd "glare combo" abilities when used in a combo reduced the charge time by 1 sec and 2 sec (3 sec per 3-GCD cycle.) Meanwhile make the blood lily granular (or add some other DPS mechanic), and every time you toss out a GCD heal, it adds a little bit of charge (while lilies continue to add large amounts of charge.) Though I love the idea of WHM and BLM sharing multiple concepts like Dia getting a Thundercloud proc, Glare getting Firestarter procs, etc so you could apply "GCD heals charge your DPS buttons and GCD DPS button charge your heal buttons" to another healer instead.

[Xilurm]

I like healers as they are now. You feel like a god as a healer tbh, on low difficulty content at least. Just spam Holy or Glare and put on a couple of regens and you're good to go.

[Fasruhdah]

Expansion is not available on amazon because square enix continues its practice of being an adversary towards its customers. Cannot use my discover card because too many 3rd party tool users were getting hacked and doing chargebacks. They got banned from multiple large payment processors. Cherry on top is that they required my phone number on their own store before they would process my payment. I decided to opt out for now; no thanks Jose'. How does the game expect to survive with antics like these? Square Enix is down 70% in profits from the prior year and I doubt the paid shills (which they really need to cut back on given their losses - but I bet the astroturf central Reddit loves them paychecks and under the table payments) and hardcore fans are going to keep the game afloat for another expansion. It feels like there is very little problem solving taking place at the developer end. I may wait to buy the expansion until I see something new and refreshing to try out in the game. I don't want to give them my phone number given their reputation with the payment processors.