Where are all the healers?

I keep my duty finder usage as low as I can, 1 to 3 times a week. Im sick and tired of being yelled at for dpsing with zero wipes/deaths. Then being yelled at for healing the str tank and not dpsing enough. The str tank I had before had 3k more hp than the sam and was getting hit harder than any savage fight. I cap the rest of tombs with canals and savage. Im sick of this all business, no play attitude. So I try to only roll with friends.

I almost never do roulettes anymore due to reasons mentioned in this thread - tanks who sprint ahead, pull everything, don't use a single CD so I have to spend the entire fight chain casting Cure II, bad DPS who take forever to kill things and stand in all the AOEs.

I cap my tomes playing Frontlines, which is a LOT more fun.

<_< No wonder my queue times are near instant. I think I may be the only one that enjoys the "difficulty" of PUGs. It may be that if tanks try to start something after a failed pull, I will tell them exactly how many times the used CDs (if they drop like stones) and when they didn't correctly establish hate (if they let others take it). Dps have never been a problem for me. They usually know why they died after standing in the bad and seeing the other DPS is doing just fine.

Tanks are always the ones thinking they have one of those submissive healers who will take their crap. Not this one. Multiple MMOs and years of healing have made me a grizzled old veteran. I will admit my mistakes, but if you try to blame others won't admit yours, I'll do it for you. It makes PUGs fun for me. Doing all the dps I can and keeping everyone alive when a group that can't gauge one anther due to them never playing together before...what a thrill!

I practically cap on savage weeklies/traps, extreme primals, and frontline PvP. I might do one expert roulette once a week, and usually that is pre-made. You have to force me to do those dungeons. But you can now see why YoshiP has said they will just release only one new dungeon in the odd patches. There is just more content to do that gives tome rewards.

On my second character I do sometimes spend more time to cap, so I might PuG those expert roulettes every few days. I can handle anything, but very low DPS is probably why I like to avoid it.

Did a bunch of pug savage runs last night, and at least on aether datacenter, it's still tanks that are in the shortest supply.

I would say "Good" healers that can handle the pressure of savage is still harder to find than a good tank, though.

Never had any issues with duty finder...at least with SCH I can pretty much carry any tank no matter how bad, as long as the DPS are at least decent.

I cap through Savage, full premade Deltascape normals for off jobs, and Canals. Healing outside of Savage is disgustingly dull and I loathe the new pruned PVP, so you won't see me in your queues anytime soon.

I'm a great healer (ex-mythic wow raider) and I have been getting pretty sick of healing this xpac.

From Tanks overpulling and not using cooldowns in 4-mans to DPS not moving out of shit in normals, it just seems like I'm putting in extra work for everything this time around.

I've been looking for a static on Excalibur (I'm a 317 SCH), but my FC doesn't do EX Primals and I have no major logs to show for it.

It makes sense, but is also ridiculously frustrating.

I main WHM but I don't do savage content and rarely touch ex primals. I don't have any interest in being tied to a schedule for specific content. I also have no desire to spend my time wiping over and over on a fight till every "gets it" (assuming they ever do). As a former mmo raider I'd be good for that sorta content, but after years of doing it, I just don't have the patience to deal with it. It can be stressful when you find yourselves stuck on a particular fight and hours go by with no progress made. And being expected to show up on a specific schedule... yea I'm just not interested in that anymore. I like my freedom to log on when I want and log off when I want without any obligations or expectations.

really? it seems healers are abundance on Excalibur. My FC has a static group but there are multiple healers/tanks wanting to join and not enough dps. Maybe it's just my FC :x?

My fc used to have about 12 Healer mains we now have 3 Healers out of 80 players. I mean its a really small sample size but jfc we have so many Bards/Blms/Rdms now.

I have been healing since ARR beta. Started out healing on sch in SB, sch is my favorite job hands down and it was wrecked in SB. Everything I loved about sch was gone. Went over to astro, I like it but not sch. I did whm, which is fun in SB but again still not sch. Though I do really enjoy healing on all three jobs. The final nail for me was the df tanks that pulled as far as possible, on sch this could often be brutal and lead to wipes. Not so bad on astro or whm but I got tired of these tank pulls. As I do enjoy tanking on my drk in HW though I did not tank often. Now, I only tank on drk in SB. Main reason, I can control the pace of the dungeon run and not leave the healer hating it. Some healers like the smaller pulls, others ask my to go big on the pulls. Main theme here, I tank toward giving the healer a fun dungeon run. If it is a new and learning healer, I work with them and I don't mind if that makes the dungeon run a bit longer. I sometimes take grief from dps for helping new healers, some dps have have vote kicked me, I can live with that. If I make the run suck for a new healer they may stop healing just as I did in Stormblood. If my FC or friends need a healer I am up for it but you won't find me healing in df and rarely in pf.

Now I am on my way to getting the new drk tank mount (really excited about that), so I have no plans to go back to healing until that is done. After that, I still doubt I will heal again outside of helping friends or FC groups. I can't speak for others but I will not heal in df until sch is fixed and made right. Second, I get the sense sch dps will never come back, sucks but ok. Last, some df tanks with no meaningful gear pulling everything and wondering why we wiped. You know, that tank in Doma Castle that is mixed i260/i270 and never uses a def CD. Not saying all df tanks are lacking, I just seem to get my fair share tanks in need of help in leveling dungeons. I use to vote kick them for those mega pulls but that got old and so I am tanking until things change.

Last, outside of what fixes certain healers may or may not need or get, healers should be like tanks in FFXIV and have a mount for each of the three healer jobs. That would bring me back into healing in df again. Healers are more or less like tanks and most want to play dps cause it is fun, not tank or heal. I really enjoy playing my blm. I would play it more if I could. I love my blm though when I get with friends they are always looking for a healers and sometimes a tank. Can't think of the last time we were lacking dps and I got to go blm.

So, where are the healers in Stormblood? We are on vacation playing other jobs. I will get back to healing when it is both fun and rewarding. Always fun in ARR and HW even though not very rewarding compared to tank mount rewards. Currently healing in SB it is neither fun nor rewarding.

I don't heal much anymore because I'm honestly tired of the 'no matter what you do, you are wrong mentality of it all.' Lean heavily on DPS and less healing in a dungeon, get bitched out by people that are too close to dying for their comfort. Lean heavily on Healing, get bitched out because you aren't DPSing enough. I posted pretty much the same thing in another post...someone will probably find it and insert a sarcastic comic regarding it...but its true as far as I'm concerned: If you play a healer, expect to be wrong, no matter what you do. Everything you do is wrong. End of story. I just got tired of that shit...if I'm going to be a dps...at least I'm going to have a red tag by my name..

Personally I play Scholar a lot, especially in Savage, but I agree that there does seem to be a noticeable lack of healers. Half the time I just play it because DPS queues are too long and I start itching to do something.

For me I just don't see the point in maining a healer.
In any dungeon, raid, etc, the entirety of my time needs to be devoted to minimising GCD healing and maximising dps. But why do that as a healer when I can just jump to on Red Mage and do the exact same thing, except with a more interesting DPS rotation and no skills that I have to actively work on not using.
And for that matter, I could just go on Bard(my current main like pretty much the entire community at this point) and play a well designed class with interesting DPS mechanics. I need to have pretty much the same knowledge as I would as a healer to use songs at the right time to get the best out of mitigation / DPS increases, so there's no real draw to be a healer.

Ultimately, I don't see the point in playing a healer where I just have to DPS, when I could just play a DPS and have infinitely more fun. This is the reason I don't main healer, if I had to actively focus on healing and supporting the party instead of keeping up a lacklustre DPS rotation I'd probably never go back to DPS.

Don't know if others share this view though. Obviously it's likely just to be confirmation bias, but I feel like I see more people who'd want healing changed

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Originally Posted by PhoLover

really? it seems healers are abundance on Excalibur. My FC has a static group but there are multiple healers/tanks wanting to join and not enough dps. Maybe it's just my FC :x?

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It varies by FC. My FC has lots of healers too, because everyone likes playing a healer when the rest of the group is friends. Duty Finder is different because of the random factor, some folks avoid it.

What are these healers you speak of? I thought the population had decided that the Blue people and Green people were just DPS with additional utility?

I'm in a FC that lacks any activity. It was great and all when I joined our game about 2 months ago, created our young FC and then to see a few weeks later to go dead with only one other player still here. Because of that I have to rely on Duty Finder. I'm sad but life happens so can't be helped. I managed to talk my husband into playing since he loved FFVIII, he'll be joining with me soon.♥

Been in pugs that doesn't say anything like what the rest of you were saying but I've been lucky maybe. I don't consider myself an excellent WHM, I'm still new but have worked on my rotations so that I rarely ever go low on my MP while keeping HP full, but doing the EX or Savage I don't think I'm ready. I'm still gearing my WHM. I would love to join an EX/Savage team out there, issues as I said is I'm new and don't think most teams would have the patience to teach. I do watch YouTube for EX/Savage to learn the mechanics so when I do go, at least I don't go in being completely clueless. :o

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Originally Posted by Miu-Tiiu

Been in pugs that doesn't say anything like what the rest of you were saying but I've been lucky maybe.

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Honestly, its not as bad as people make it sound. A lot of posts on here are people venting about bad experiences. While they absolutely do happen, outside of the highest end content they're the exception rather than the rule. So don't let it sour you on stuff. :)

Dungeon hero SCH healer.

Don't have time to raid unfortunately.

WHM main here.

Sadly, I'm too terrified to do savage content and have never done so, pfft.

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Originally Posted by Miu-Tiiu

I would love to join an EX/Savage team out there, issues as I said is I'm new and don't think most teams would have the patience to teach. I do watch YouTube for EX/Savage to learn the mechanics so when I do go, at least I don't go in being completely clueless. :o

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Eh, you'd be surprised how many FCs might be willing to help a new player go through the ropes if it means they'll have a permanent addition to their static team. The fights are a lot easier to teach once 7 other people have the mechanics down pat.

I shouldn't even say FCs, as there's a lot of statics that are made up of people from all sorts of varying Free Companies - there's less focus on all being in the same guild thanks to things like Linkshells allowing easy communication between raid members.

I use my SCH for roulettes so I can blaze through them in a quarter of the time. However, I'm not good enough to raid with that class sadly plus it's undergeared. I think the fact that so much relies on me as a healer it scares me away from the harder content because it's not my main so I don't have a ton of practice.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Well, to be honest, I think a lot of people hung up their white mage and scholar robes due to Stormblood's handling of their jobs.

White mages have a mechanic which doesn't mesh well with how they heal. In fact, they heal just fine if they they ignore the mechanic. Months of feedback have resulted in minor tweaks but no real fix to mechanic.

Scholars were nerfed and no longer play like they used to play. Shields are much weaker, their fairy was majorly nerfed, and mana regeneration is slashed. Months of feedback have resulted in the introduction of an AoE damage spell. No fix to the job's critical issues.

Meanwhile, two powerful and fun to play damage dealers were introduced. Guess where a lot of those dissatisfied healers went?

That's why there's a shortage of healers.

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Exactly my reason switching back to War again. The scholar nerf was too much and I don't like the other healer classes.

*Puts hand up* I mained Scholar from 2.0 right around to SB. The changes to Scholar for SB weren't interesting enough to keep me hooked over Red Mage. So I main Red Mage now, despite longer queues. But I too believe Scholar was nerfed too much and believe it was genuinely in need of a nerf. I still love the job. Whilst I still play SCH, it is a secondary job now that's played when it's needed. So in those PF groups and roulettes? You'll most likely find me queue as a RDM.

And I fear the changes to healers is why we don't see so many. Whilst there is more of a balance between SCH, WHM and AST, I don't think SCH and WHM are in the good places they want to be. And AST despite nerfs still is the favourite. WHM's last changes seem hopeful, but they've still got some work to do for people to be happy with it.

Then add normal healer frustrations on top and how some of the changes may amplify those frustrations. I suspect a number are playing other roles because of it.

i quit healing because of the dps meta. you people talk that much about healer should dps and not being lazy that i push way too hard for dps, wich causes massive stress. on the other hand if i don't push for dps i feel bad. this is not fun anymore. the removal of cleric stance made it easier to dps, wich just caused more stress, dancing between healing and dpsing even more than before... i play tank now.

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Originally Posted by Tint

i push way too hard for dps, wich causes massive stress

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Definitely the right decision for you if you were feeling so much stress over playing a certain role. Hope you're happier with tanking! :)

1) Media Tour and Stormblood Launch turned off alot of Healers and made some go to different Roles.
2) Cross Role system doesn't feel good it feels really terrible right now.
3) Tanks not popping cooldowns, and Dps are allowed to be babied by the *No meter rule* and with alot of players talking about Healer Dps I think Healers just role swapped due to stress?
4) No incentives to play a Healer right now.
5) I don't know if it is just me but the abilities that were given to us for Stormblood feel really lackluster. None of the Healer abilites made me go "Wow Cool"

I am curious where do we go from here as a Role?

Edit: I've also heard some players say they feel bored with the Role in its current state.

I enjoy healing at endgame as a SCH. Only real issues I run into are just MP..and co healer AST not switching out of Noct stance.

Where are the healers, you say?

The playerbase scared them off. : D *shot*

i've been wanting to do omega savages, managed to clear O1S once, but after that day most learning/practice pf's i've been in give up too easily or are just rude to people, and statics i see don't seem to want a sch, so i've kinda stopped bothering with them for now

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

You people create healer hate threads every day on this forum and you wonder why healer population has gone down?

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this is the main reason!

I was a SCH primary healer in 3.0 and I jumped at the opportunity to play healer in almost all content because I loved the complexity of the job. And I was good at it.

The 4.0 changes really destroyed the soul of SCH. Personally, I liked having a ton of buttons! I liked having more actions than I could ever possibly use - because it made for on the fly instant decision trees. It was never about just what I wanted to do, but what the party needed at any given moment. Tactical healing is the theme of SCH, and by killing our DPS and nerfing our bottomless mana regen, we lost a lot of the utility that made us a useful co-healer.

I've got it to 70 now and I still refuse to play it in progression content because I feel so handicapped.

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Originally Posted by Jxnibbles

5) I don't know if it is just me but the abilities that were given to us for Stormblood feel really lackluster. None of the Healer abilites made me go "Wow Cool".

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Same with tanks. Take away a TON of our abilities, and give them back to us as Role Actions. The level 70 capstone spells on healers do seem extremely lackluster. Not to mention SCH 60 (dissipate) and 70 (Fey Union) contradict each other.

AST reporting in. I personally enjoy healing in dungeons and most of the time it's not nearly as bad as people say. I also solo queue 99% of the time, so I almost always run with randoms. When I play tank, I sometimes get terrible healers, and when I play healer, I sometimes get terrible tanks. It happens. I rant about it and I get over it. So, I still queue for some stuff as healer.

I already tried Scholar and WHM and I'm not liking them as much as AST. A big draw of AST for me is the ability to buff the team - it allows me to do something more than heal and DPS. I actually enjoy DPSing in dungeons - knowing that my DPS is appreciated makes me feel happy sometimes. Coming from TERA as a priest main, I got utterly sick and bored of just being a heal bot. Priest damage was so negligible that it crippled our ability to solo effectively on the map, and just healing... it was great for a few months, but eventually became boring and tedious for me.

That said, the only content I *don't* do as any class (including healer) is Savage raiding. I have two reasons: it feels like a job where I have to show up at fixed times. It feels like something I'm obligated to do instead of a hobby, especially given the pressure on healers to keep the whole raid alive AND push out respectable DPS. I like DPSing as healer, but I consider it a bonus rather than an obligation. The second reason is that high end gearing is designed so that you can only 'main' and gear up one job at a time. This is a deal breaker for me since I play all three roles, and therefore have to gear three jobs. Being a 'pure' healer is as boring for me as being a 'pure' tank or 'pure' DPS main. I like to switch roles whenever I feel like it. The last thing I want to experience is the boredom I went through in TERA, being able to do only one thing.

I've been healing less and less as this expansion goes on and this is coming from someone who has sworn by SCH since the day they started playing. I can't exactly put my finger on it, maybe it's a combination of things, but whatever the hell they did has slowly siphoned all the fun out of healing. I will say thought that it has nothing to do with cleric stance. That's one thing I've definitely never liked about healers in ARR and HW. I tolerated it, worked with it just fine, but the removal of it is probably the best universal change to healers in SB.

I've slowly switched to BLM as time went on because it's just infinitely more fun to play than any healer is at the moment.

I dunno... I play WHM/AST and personally the whole "tank stance is for losers" meta has me jaded to the point that Savage is pretty much the only thing I'll do on healer jobs.

Healer main for 3.x here who has swapped to dps.

For me I'm just really bored with the role as a whole. I mained AST for most of HW and before that SCH and healing is honestly the most boring role in the game to me. Taking away cleric stance and gutting the dps variety of the class made it so that most of the time you are just spamming one button. In Savage content things sorta get a little better since the content is difficult enough to have to heal but it's still not really better since Imo healing is easier than it was in 3.x with the new healing skills. There is no aspect of the role to try and push you to do something better.

This is on top of everything else people have mentioned about pressure and the inability to fuck up because you basically wipe your party. The role is just very undesireable to play Imo. You can have a hell of a lot more fun tanking or dpsing.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Well, to be honest, I think a lot of people hung up their white mage and scholar robes due to Stormblood's handling of their jobs.

White mages have a mechanic which doesn't mesh well with how they heal. In fact, they heal just fine if they they ignore the mechanic. Months of feedback have resulted in minor tweaks but no real fix to mechanic.

Scholars were nerfed and no longer play like they used to play. Shields are much weaker, their fairy was majorly nerfed, and mana regeneration is slashed. Months of feedback have resulted in the introduction of an AoE damage spell. No fix to the job's critical issues.

Meanwhile, two powerful and fun to play damage dealers were introduced. Guess where a lot of those dissatisfied healers went?

That's why there's a shortage of healers.

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Nailed it for me.

My main classes were WHM and SCH. Got them both to 70 then haven't played them since.


Oh and I got tired of being pushed into DPS'ing. They could remove all Healer DPS spells for me and I'd be happy.

As a PUG-healer myself for most of 2.x and 3.x I can tell two things.

1-) Game Content. It became far more challenging to be a healer in end-game content. Alexander was the first to made me stressed in random parties because there were a lot of mechanics exclusive to healers and failure to understand them (or a slight lack of attention to them) meant party-wipe. I found out it was less stressfull to wait 30 minutes as a DPS in those contents and only later, when gear level was better and I fully understood the deatils of the raid, switching back to my healer job. Healers require visual attention to the party status bar AND the mechanics, something tanks and DPS do not, as your rotation is something more akin to muscle memory.

2-) Tanks. Random dungeons became a pain in the a*s when tanks started mobbing dungeons like this is Ragnarok Online. The average job of a healer became boring as at many PUGs my job is to simply spam any heal on the tank and be stuck at that. It is even worse when such mobbing tactics means absolutely no benefit (dungeon running time is basically the same as taking mobs as intended).

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Originally Posted by Mitsubashibash

Nailed it for me.

My main classes were WHM and SCH. Got them both to 70 then haven't played them since.


Oh and I got tired of being pushed into DPS'ing. They could remove all Healer DPS spells for me and I'd be happy.

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I'd be fine with pure healing. Remove healer dps, increase dps jobs output by 10% and up single target damage to keep healers busy.