Why not own this fixation on DPS?

[Big-Isaac]

It sees to be more or less accepted now that healers are expected to contribute to DPS as much as possible, and I bloody hate that - it's one of the reasons why I stopped playing healers.
However, the reason why I hate it is that healer DPS comes down to "put DoTs up, then spam one button until your DoTs need refreshing"

This got me thinking; since the game's design prioritizes DPS so much, even from tanks and healers, why not take this one step further?
Instead of having healers' healing toolkit be completely divorced from their DPS spells, and their DPS options being as boring as can be, why not combine the two?

I.e. give healers more involved, more interesting DPS skills and have those skills confer healing bonuses and effects. Make it so that maxing your DPS also maximizes your healing output.

[kidalutz]

I dont know if you realise that this is a very bad idea. But yeah it's a very bad idea. if Healing was based off of DPS output there'd be so many deaths the game would become unplayable. See the issue theres already more than enough healers that overcast damage and dont heal enough to even keep the tank alive. Think how much worse it would be if those healers that actually heal were now dependent entirely on damage making thier healing more potent. there'd be even less healing happening when it needed to happen and the queue time would go up because nobody would want to tank at that point.

[Hustensaft]

You could also go for a clear cut distinction:

All Healing Spells are moved into role actions, and are abilities. The casted stuff is currently rather useless anyway, so just double down on fully oGCD healing. Then give all healers their own DPS rotation.

[Big-Isaac]

I dont know if you realise that this is a very bad idea. But yeah it's a very bad idea. if Healing was based off of DPS output there'd be so many deaths the game would become unplayable. See the issue theres already more than enough healers that overcast damage and dont heal enough to even keep the tank alive. Think how much worse it would be if those healers that actually heal were now dependent entirely on damage making thier healing more potent. there'd be even less healing happening when it needed to happen and the queue time would go up because nobody would want to tank at that point.

I doubt it would be as dire as you're expecting. The people who are focusing too much on damage right now would actually produce vastly more healing, and those who never DPS would have to either adjust or reroll.

[Enla]

Honestly the easiest fix to this is to just make more fights put out more damage. When you can spend anywhere from 40-70% uptime DPSing without the tank or anyone slipping below 50% health, of course DPs is going to be prioritized. If only because you get bored and are just sitting there twiddling your thumbs.

If people want healing to be a priority, rather than make complicated systems they just need to encourage the dev's to make more mechanics that hit harder.

[Flatopia]

Ya know. I was thinking the same, and it never bugged me unless I played WHM, then it hit me.
That's what it all is. Sch has the fairy which lets them sit and DPS a bit more, not to mention that they carry some nice utility with chain, the ability to weave with Miasma 2, so on and so forth
AST has basic DPS, but lets the other DPS go nuts with their cards, contributing by playing Yu-Gi-Oh, and it's not like their DPS is bad.

I think that could be something for WHM to focus on. OGCD big heals to give to people while they sit there with active DPS. Not really asking for a rotation per se, though I do think it could work, but more so just more than stone. Maybe something proc based, maybe more OGCD attacks- use that water element and stuff? But yeah, more things like assize, and tetra. Forgo the "fat heals" healer because that just doesn't matter and is never good to have in this game, and just adopt the healer that doesn't have to hard-heal near as much. Adopt more OGCD means to heal via buffs and unique abilities. Maybe every three stones or so many ticks of aero your next cure is instacast? Maybe a cooldown to let you cast two skills at once at multiple targets? More things like Assize that heal and do damage?

It seems like a really good fit to actually accept that one has to hard-cast and focus on DPSing more than the others, and just adopt the healing more around it with OGCDs, and shields to allow you to cast rocks, use aeros, and slap with holy magic.

I say accepting the fact the game is DPS centric is much better than trying to pretend that having a job that doesn't DPS as well via design is going to ever be worthwhile. So long as people think white mage should be the "bigger number heals at the sacrifice of utility and damage" healer in a game in which that is never needed, and in which utility and raw damage are always valued over everything else, then White Mage will forever be poorly designed.

Own the fact the game is about balancing your jobs, which are often at odds with continued DPS, and doing as much damage as possible as fast as possible. Don't try and pretend the game has any place for anything that's just healing and nothing else. If you want the raw numerical healing to be what you want, by design, Final Fantasy 14 is just not that game- nor do I believe it ever really will be just by how most interactions in this game are handled.
More unique fights could make healing more complicated to perform- requiring cooldowns and such, but they simply don't have any room at all for "more healing" in their healers. They all have to be able to survive everything or else they have no point being a healer.

TLDR; the only real way in which to separate healers, while keeping them different and competitive, is the means in which they dps and heal at the same time, not just how they heal. There is no avoiding this.

[Greven]

They could make an healer job where healing comes from dealing damage, with a basic heals set for when enemies can't be hit and emergencies.

[Feidam]

They could make an healer job where healing comes from dealing damage, with a basic heals set for when enemies can't be hit and emergencies.

I’ve suggested this and it was shot down as not fair to the other healers. Or it would be a weak healer that no one wants. Personally I loved this playstyle like that of the chloromancer from Rift.

[Greven]

I’ve suggested this and it was shot down as not fair to the other healers. Or it would be a weak healer that no one wants. Personally I loved this playstyle like that of the chloromancer from Rift.

Everything can be balanced, and I think that a deeper diversity between the healers would be the key to solve the balance issues we have now.

[Flatopia]

They could make an healer job where healing comes from dealing damage, with a basic heals set for when enemies can't be hit and emergencies.

As much fun as this would be, I'm worried this would make them automatically the best healer- and if they aren't they'd be not that great I'd imagine.
Here's what I mean.

Healing in 14 is managing to keep everyone alive through mechanics, and raising them if need be, to allow the most damage towards the boss as possible
it may be a round about way, such as esuna-ing something so you can use more casts towards DPS skills instead of more cures down the line, so on and so forth.

But if a job has it's main gimmick be that it does both at the same time- not even at all times, but that's it's main source of healing, it's not doing both at once.
At that point, we'd have to ask "how much damage" and there in lies the problem. Either they don't do as much DPS as anyone else can by them balancing between doing their role and murdering the bad-guys and they're worthless by offering nothing else. Or they do more damage than SCH/WHM does or, good lord forbid, even more than the raid-wide damage AST gives via cards and they're just seen as the one mandatory job- and we're just back to square one at that point.
When the healer's gimmick is 'not having to balance between the role and DPS' that ironically forgoes the entire role of being a healer in ff14. It'd be like a tank had it's emnity combo also be what you need to only spam for highest DPS- or it having a stance that gives both 10% damage reduced and 10% damage given increased.

The roles all have jobs to do that go against killing things as fast and effectively as possible, and by putting a healer that does both in the game, either they do it effectively and simply become the automatic best, or don't do it as effectively as others that have to balance them and feel pointless.

It's a shame because, honestly it sounds like damn good fun!

Personally, I would instead turn this from a job and into traits to give to WHM in a more indirect manner. Such as 'every X consecutive stones that hit the enemy give you an instant cast cure1' or 'every Y Aero damage ticks reduces tetras CD by Z seconds' or something along those lines.
I wont act like I know the balance, but I think taking that idea and incorporating it into WHM in a more indirect manner would be the better option. That said I'd love to be wrong and for the job of a 'DPS-to-heal' type to somehow work perfectly fine, but with how the game simply handles healers and their path to optimization, I just don't see it unfortunately.