Which healer job are you? Why?

[Erakir]

You're vastly overselling Rescue.

I love rescue, don't get me wrong, but it has a lot of things holding it back that point towards its clunkiness, and it's not fair not to mention them when highlighting its uses.

Its slow activation time and slip-n-slide nature of the pull greatly reduces its effective window. A lot of the time you need to be nigh instant in deciding to use it, otherwise a person will still be caught in the AoE. Royal Menagerie comes to mind - and if someone is already sprinting towards you, a rescue doesn't actually save them much time. If done at max range, perhaps a second. If less than that, even less. It's still enough to get some saves in, but this aspect alone greatly hinders it.

This is on top of it not pulling someone *directly* on top of you, but in front. You've got to get that much further out of an AoE to pull someone out of it. Then, its range itself is problematic in bigger arenas like 24 mans have. Quite often in Ivalice the person I want to rescue is already running the opposite direction, and once I'm out of the AoE myself it's already too late.

Then we get into the Role Action nature of it. Simply speaking, it is a gamble to take it over other abilities in certain content. The default combo of Swiftcast, Lucid Dreaming, Largesse, Protect, and Esuna is modifiable based on encounter, yes. In 8 mans if Esuna is still needed, only one has to take it, and someone can drop protect too if they feel like it. However, the paltry DPS gain of cleric stance and the recently buffed surecast are extremely viable options in these scenarios. While people can drop Largesse, too, that's a guaranteed healing boost to use at your own discretion. Eye for an Eye is reliable mitigation in dungeon pulls after you drop protect, too.

Rescue is an option as well, sure, and I'd love to take it more. In situations with friends, I don't slot it often because that 10% chance they're going to screw up a mechanic I can rescue them from in an attempt is just a gamble without payoff. It's not that "They screwed up so they should die" - it's that I can't justify the opportunity cost of it. I'm going to do everything in my power to keep my raid alive. Even in savage, the unfortunate reality is I'd typically find cleric stance more useful for us and the clears we had during the boss's enrage tend to agree with me more than the times I could save someone with a rescue. I get that you're on the safety side of things. I tend to be, too - my DPS is never going to be as high as some of the healers here. My piety will likely always be higher as well. I'm all about survival as much as possible so people can get accustomed to mechanics quicker. I would rather save LB3 on Shinryu EX for the enrage rather than use it to push him into it earlier specifically to ensure the clear over maybe a quicker kill. Our reality is that DPS matters that much in savage, though. I simply cannot choose to ignore it in favor of something I might use every 8 pulls of a boss until enrage is more of an afterthought.

There are fights I -can- justify rescue in and those are often in duty finder content such as normal trials or alliance raids, where a lack of Esuna won't often kill (minus doom) or lead to an enrage wipe, or a lack of protect after a raise won't severely hamper someone's survival rates down the line. Make no mistake I love pulling off a well timed rescue, and it makes me oh so happy to pull someone with lightning on them in ramuh over to the stunned person praying someone stacks on them so they don't get to idle the next 30 seconds. I will gleefully pull the DPS stacking with the tank on Ravana who is eating laser cones to the face for 15 seconds. I've used it on Tidal Waves in Shinryu sometimes, as well as plenty on the divebomb. It has the added benefit of helping teach people that maybe they should be over here. I've had it available to rescue people who are running giant orbs away on Diabalos or lasers on Cloud of Darkness should they be a little slow, but it hasn't come up yet. Same idea for being able to pull people into our group's little "kill an add" zone on fights that split you up, but again, hasn't come up yet...very surprising on that one.

I -like- Rescue, not just for DPS. It just leaves a lot to be desired at the moment. Making it quicker, perhaps extending its range, I'd say lowering the CD too so it can be up for most major mechanics rather than every other one - they'd all go a lot towards making rescue a better choice in my eyes. Even then, it still likely wouldn't be taken on the raiding scene unless people can reliably get a decent boost of out it like Sebazy mentioned with O4S due to the nature of high DPS requirements in savage. It's simply our reality.

Now, if they let me rescue stunned or rooted players? That'd be pretty great, and situationally useful especially for things you said you enjoyed doing, like undermanning content. You can pull someone out of LB animation lock after it completes, which I've rarely had the chance to do in a meaningful way but it has come up. Would be nice to use on stuns or petrifies. Heck, resucing someone stunned on the tail in Shinryu Ex would feel nice....if not risky as you don't want to pull someone off the edge, but still. I'd also appreciate if rescue didn't go on cooldown if it misses. Ever tried to rescue a holmgang warrior or a tempered will paladin? Alas.

I just don't think it's fair to lump everyone who doesn't take rescue into the category of DPS-obsessed-speed-kill-gogogogo'ers. I mean, Sebazy in particular is one of the ones here who was raiding in the days where it was 100% about survival and enrage mechanics simply didn't exist, being able to kill bosses with 10 people that usually took 30-60 if you all stayed awake and focused on living more than anything else.

[Rawrz]

Red Mage cuz you might as well be a healer when you're raising that one guy over and over and sending your real healers mana to manage all the raises that theyre having to dish out too ....





[Mana]



Then WHM... because WHM got Sexxyyyyy. xD

[Trunks]

All I'm really hoping for from people is a respectful acknowledgement that my view has legitimacy

I love this rhetorical sleight of hand! First you over-generalize "the common views" of a "vocal majority", implicitly casting yourself as an oppressed minority and the rest of us as your oppressors. It's a sea of haters, but we're all just little droplets running off your battle-hardened leather skin! Then you turn around and demand "respect" and "legitimacy" a few sentences later, apparently unaware that you've disrespectfully attempted to delegitimize pretty much everybody, and the person you're talking to in particular, through your fantastical depiction of some majoritarian gamer hivemind that has it out for you.

Maybe that's unintentional. But as something of a contrarian myself, I'll give you some advice: the self-righteous tone is far more off-putting to 99.9999999% of people than your dissent. Your frequent mentions of how much "conflict" you attract creates more the perception of a persecution complex than of an opinionated rebel with a cause. A little humility goes a long way to earning respect so that you don't have to demand it -- and it liberates people who agree with you to speak up without being associated with your overwrought characterizations of an Eorzean Illuminati.

To your point: appeals to popularity are a formal fallacy, but balance changes and ability design are business decisions. They operate on a different logic. Majorities rule when money is at stake. If you want to fight tyranny of the majority, maybe start there.

[Sebazy]

Just to continue on from the point above:

I remember inviting people to test the effectiveness of Selene's original haste buffs (With the comically misleading tooltips) vs the extra ruins and dot uptime gained by just spamming WD even if it was only healing the tanks in late BCOB/early SCOB going back ~4 years ago. To say I almost got laughed off reddit over that one would be an understatement. Oh how I chuckle into my Cheerios now

[Kacho_Nacho]

Forgive for not being able to tell if that is sarcasm or not, because I deal with a lot of snarky people on a daily basis, given that I hold dissenting views.

If you actually meant it though, I appreciate the interest. *snip*

Other healing classes have tools for most things at their disposal as well, but I personally think AST is the best for dealing with unconventional things. The cards, in particular, are unique to AST and offer a lot of flexibility.

*laughs* Oh, forgive me. I forgot not everyone knows me on the forums. If I was being sarcastic, I'd have noted it in my post.

Now, moving onward...

I am genuinely interested in your thoughts. It's fun to do things outside the box. It really makes you think!

In fact, I feel that in the Training Grounds everyone should have the pleasure of facing a scenario which requires you to do things in a unconventional way to succeed. That's just me. *sigh*

[Guffs]

RDM

Used to main WHM but, as you can probably see from the picture I uploaded of the two classes side by side, RDM is a much more powerful and responsive healer.

With an effective 350 cure in 1.19 seconds average and the option of rezzing 3 party members within 10 seconds there's just no other healing class that comes close.

Area heal is beyond RDM, and MP can be a major factor as practically noone uses Manashift (hell, most SMN's don't even know they can rez until a healer shouts at them in the Ozma battle).

The best thing about healing as a RDM is hearing Reddit-junkie tanks whine about dps loss...there's more dps lost from healers healing than RDM's healing most of the time.

[Sylvain]

Astrologian since their release, I love buffing and their visual. Second would be WHM. Finally, while I enjoy the job mechanics and their toolkit, I just can't play scholar, I'm a terrible scholar, I'd probably heal better with a red mage.
My bf confirms.

[Cynfael]

RDM

Used to main WHM but, as you can probably see from the picture I uploaded of the two classes side by side, RDM is a much more powerful and responsive healer.

With an effective 350 cure in 1.19 seconds average and the option of rezzing 3 party members within 10 seconds there's just no other healing class that comes close.

Area heal is beyond RDM, and MP can be a major factor as practically noone uses Manashift (hell, most SMN's don't even know they can rez until a healer shouts at them in the Ozma battle).

The best thing about healing as a RDM is hearing Reddit-junkie tanks whine about dps loss...there's more dps lost from healers healing than RDM's healing most of the time.

The bit about RDM being a superior healer is meant to be humorous...right?

[LadyKairi]

Snip

Uhm..... what? Please tell me you're joking.

[Guffs]

The bit about RDM being a superior healer is meant to be humorous...right?

Humorous-ish, I suppose.

For heavy healing I don't dispute you need a dedicated healer, but for snap heals and rezzes you're better off with an RDM. You lose less dps if the heal concentrates on that. I argue (based on the math) that healing a RDM for much less than them looking like they stepped in a tankbuster is a wasted effort on lvl 65+ content, and I've kept well played tanks up several times when n00b (or possibly stoopid) healers have decided to return to the start of the instance instead of taking the rez.

When I WHM, I rarely heal RDM's; they need to learn to play their role correctly.

tl;dr I play RDM with heal in mind, and if the heal concentrates on dps we do more damage overall.