Where are all the healers?

[Vyriah]

(...)

Leveled RDM 70 Tuesday, got O3S kill with it Friday the same week.

I'm pretty sure you got more problem with your class than the fight itself.

[Asuras]

Leveled RDM 70 Tuesday, got O3S kill with it Friday the same week.

I'm pretty sure you got more problem with your class than the fight itself.

Not having any issues clearing but I thank you for elaborating on your l33tness.

[Vyriah]

Well, you're asking why people say it's easy. And I'm telling you can just level a job, sneak into a party and get a kill with barely geared DPS. I'm not specially good at this or anything, it's just really plain easier.

[technole]

*shrugs* Never needed it to be honest.

..
As for Diversion... eh, why does Diversion "lower other peoples' DPS"? It reduces enmity. Nobody should be pulling hate, ever, unless the tank is failing his job. This isn't FFXI where a MBing Black Mage might pull the mob off the tank. And even if they did pull hate, that's what Provoke is for.

That quote reminds me of a tank I played with that said they don't need Shirk for tank swapping, because they never needed it before Stormblood. So apparently living by that mantra it means they don't care about being the least bit optimal, and handing over a good aggro lead during a tank swap. All good raid tanks have that cross-role, it makes tank swaps even more smooth, like not having to change stance/use aggro combos as-aggressively than previously.

As for Diversion, Lakshmi Extreme and O4S Neo have mechanics that target #1 and #2 on the aggro list, it may not be both tanks if the other party members don't pull their weight and use aggro-dumps as necessary. Diversion/Lucid is required if you are at-least half-good at pulling high DPS. You can die because of doing very high DPS, meshed with aggro mechanics. Just like how a White Mage should use Lucid when-necessary because of heavy healing spam. That's not a tank-fault, aggro is a raid responsibility. There just happens to be skills and a job (Ninja) to help assist with that.

[Yeol]

I have noticed the lack of healers in both DF and PF.
As a tank, I am queueing. While when I go healer it is almost instant pop.

One guy told me in DF (He mains healer but queued as dps) that healing dungeons is just awful.
I understand where he is coming from. DF is a nightmare for healers.

When things take long time to die (DPs are not using AoE or proper rotation). Making it hard on both tank and healer.
Tanks that are either under geared or not using CDs properly. Making it hard on the healer to keep them up.

It is a role where you cannot relax and have to be ready for any mistakes.

[Kacho_Nacho]

*activating the automatic lalamatic thread re-railer*

Guys, the topic is "Where are all the healers?" Not, "Should healers DPS?"

As I said in my first post, the issue is the developers mishandled white mages and scholars while introducing two exciting damage dealer classes. As a result, a lot of players jumped roles causing a shortage of healers.

I feel the solution is for the developers to reexamine all three healing jobs (WHM, SCH, & AST) and ask themselves how can we make these jobs fun? There is a book on web design called the Big Red Fez. It's ten years old and dated now but it contains advice I think is relevant to game design. Make it clear, make it easy, don't confuse people, don't abuse permission, & reward the monkey when he finds the banana.

In other words, make each ability clear to understand, make the job easy, don't confuse the player with annoying job mechanics, don't tie too many abilities to special conditions, and offer a reward* for good play. If S.E. can do this, we will see people return to healing.

*By reward, I mean something which provides entertainment for the player. This could be a grand spell effect, music, a special buff, etc... anything that gives the player the sensation of "well done!"

[Penthea]

*activating the automatic lalamatic thread re-railer*

Guys, the topic is "Where are all the healers?" Not, "Should healers DPS?"

While you're correct the two are very closely related.

I feel the solution is for the developers to reexamine all three healing jobs (WHM, SCH, & AST) and ask themselves how can we make these jobs fun?

Dunno about you, but many players I encountered who dropped healing, refuse to take it on, or are very slow to do DF entirely on their own acted this way because they find the healer role stressful. Either from their own experience and/or watching what other healers deal with.

And I don't really think much can be done about it unless SE do something like significantly increase the amount of gated trash to stamp down on chain pulls, make holding aggro next to impossible without a tank stance or make it mechanically too punishing for healers to ever be expected to dps. I don't think I need to explain how huge the backlash would be if any of this happened.

That isn't to say I haven't come across players who simply didn't find healing mechanically engaging or fun, just saying I have come across many more who simply don't want to deal with the stress of the role.

[Kacho_Nacho]

*snippers*

That isn't to say I haven't come across players who simply didn't find healing mechanically engaging or fun, just saying I have come across many more who simply don't want to deal with the stress of the role.

*nods* I have also.

Healing is not for everyone. It is a position of responsibility and a lot of players don't like that. They feel like they are under a microscope where their every action is being weighed and judged. As a result, the player feels a great deal of stress.

But, I have to counter that the other roles can be just as stressful. Damage dealers stress over how much dps they do, tanks stress over being the leader and being expected to know each encounter in the game.

So, everyone can feel stress. Everyone can psych themselves out and magnify small incidences into these horrible events.

To that I say, everyone, chill. Take ten, breathe deeply, and get your head back to where it should be. This is a just game, after all.

Play what you want to play. Learn how to do it well and learn to laugh at your mistakes. Nobody is perfect nor is perfection expected. An "oops, I messed up." is enough of an acknowledgement of a mistake. Laugh at it, learn from it, move on.

What I was trying to to say in my prior post was that healers left because white mage and scholars are stressful and boring to play; whereas, red mage and samurai are less stressful and exciting to play. I know I've enjoyed the little bit I've played them.

But, after leveling several different characters and trying various jobs, I've found that despite its issues, white mage is the job for me and I'll be switching back to that avatar. Why? Because I like healing and I found playing damage dealers and tanks more stressful than healing. Go figure.

So, in the end, I feel everyone has a job which fits them and they will experience a certain amount of stress and dissatisfaction until they find it. And, I feel a lot of potential healers are in this sort of limbo due to the fact that scholars and white mages were not given the attention they deserved. The jobs need to be overhauled to be easier, simpler, and more rewarding to play. Once that happens, the players who found healing to be the least stressful role will return to healing.

[technole]

None of the healing jobs need any overhauling, whether they are fun to play is a matter of opinion.

Remember they look at job balance from an end-game raiding standpoint, and all three healers are represented by the most balanced savage clear rates since Astrologian was released in HW. That's a good sign they gotten to a point where there isn't a healer job that is substantially ahead or behind. That is not to say there isn't quality-of-life changes that could be nice or what people would like to see in the future.

Also, not everyone wants to play a green icon job, just like how a majority don't want to play a blue icon job. I usually hear someone will cite they don't like that responsibility of being very visible, or that such responsibility makes them nervous coupled with the pressure of having to be efficient with globals, that is heal and DPS to be considered "good". All it takes is one ill-timed error as a tank or healer and you can wipe an entire raid. DPS jobs will just lose damage most of the time or just end up killing themselves most of the time.

I prefer healers or tank over red dps, that's my preference. I do like ranged DPS jobs too, just I happen to find the most fun in being a healer main.

[Sebazy]

The jobs need to be overhauled to be easier, simpler, and more rewarding to play. Once that happens, the players who found healing to be the least stressful role will return to healing.

'More streamlined' is perhaps a better approach than simply 'easier' IMHO? Whilst SE stated that getting rid of button and ability bloat was one of their goals for SB, they failed on healers big time, AST having 9 hotkeys for cards alone now is testament to that. There's little doubt in my mind that they need to up their game in this area.

On the flip side of the coin tho, I can't help but wonder if rethink of the general design philosophy behind 4 man content design itself might be the better approach?

The way I see it, DPS have very little responsibility in the current dungeons and frankly, outside of occasional (and typically very generous) cases such as Mr Sloppy's Restraint Collar in Baelsar's Wall it's been that way for a long long time. In all honesty, I can't think of a single example of having to give up on a dungeon run because of a pure and simple lack of DPS since the days of Amdapor Keep in 2.0.

Sub par players will tend to flock to the path of least resistance for dungeons, in the past that was often a healer, now I'd argue that it's DPS and by quite some margin.