The Healer DPS Problem, The Toxicity it incites

I'm a little confused. Did they need to use their off GCD abilities? Were they dpsing instead of making sure the party had enough health to survive things? That's bad. But if they were weaving dps in but keeping the party going then it doesn't sound like there was an issue. Were they just not using things you thought they should be?

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Are you certain that healer was aware they have those oGCD abilities outside of you saying so? ...

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Very much this.

The game does a pretty bad job of teaching a lot of things, and even people coming from other MMOs are generally going to prioritize cast heals before oGCDs since in many other games, "thing with a long CD is for emergencies" is a pretty common paradigm.

As to the Tank side-discussion:

Note that when you don't overgear stuff (e.g. running 4 man Extremes in min ilevel vs running them with current BiS gear for Savages/for your Job in the entire game right now) is a very different experience. People can be killed by raidwides if no healing goes out. Final Day in min ilevel gear the ONLY Tank that could solo the bosses was WAR and maybe PLD. I know GNB couldn't do it when I did it right as I unlocked it in the MSQ. Just wasn't enough reliable healing and mitigation once the healer went down. Pretty sure that would be true for DRK as well (and still is, even when well geared now). WAR is the one that trivializes content and can solo dungeons. PLD can by modifying to a Clemency heavy "rotation", but that's going to be WAY slower than having a Healer healing them.

People vastly overestimate the average gear of players in most content, as well as the average level of player knowledge - not skill, just knowing for example that oGCDs can be weaved (and that triple or quad weaving them is an absolute damage loss). I still remember coming to the game and not knowing that an oGCD could be used at the same time as GCDs in weaves until SB (started playing in ARR) since the game literally never says anything to you about it. I just knew that Tetra was more responsive than Cure 2, but the why of it wasn't there since there's no way you can get that other than just playing a lot or an outside-of-game guide telling you. The amount of people that independently figure that out is likely pretty small.

Get back to us with this complaint op when you can find a piece of content that need healing. I gotta say that non healer run of omega ultimate and my recent fun run of expert with a tank and 3 dps...kinda tell me something else.

This game was honestly made braindead so the healers can dps more. If you find you want the challenge. Run literally everything min ilvl and no echo and enjoy.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

I would like you to consider the flip side of the coin - lying dead on the ground while your party continues the without you, the healer because you died to a mechanic, but they don't really need you. Or forms a party but asks you to join as a DPS because a 'healer will only slow this down" and you have to agree that they're right- but really - you would prefer to heal and DPS- NOT have the tank do it for you.

Now, you may say that I'm exaggerating, perhaps so. However I would say that the game has way overcompensated for the 'squishy tank" issue. The time is over due to look at the other options that allow all roles to have an engaging experience, and part of that for me means that each role will have to rely to some degree (depending on difficulty perhaps) on the other roles in group content. No one role should carry, no one role should be excluded from content design.

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Easy solution:
Leave tank personal sustain alone, decrease their group healing and mitigation
Add cleaves and really nasty unavoidable AoE damage to more enemies
Add reasonable but tight enrage timers to bosses

There. Now the tank can't sustain the entire party, everybody is screwed if the DPS are bad, healers are forced to heal, and nobody gets screwed out of their enjoyment of their job.

The above aside, I invite you to consider the following:
Most non-extreme/savage content is in fact doable without tanks. Just need to make sure one of the healers is a shield-healer so the tankbusters don't erase the DPS.

The entirety of the MSQ can be solo'd (almost). It's time we inject some difficulty back for players who want to play with others. Best of both worlds.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

The above aside, I invite you to consider the following:
Most non-extreme/savage content is in fact doable without tanks. Just need to make sure one of the healers is a shield-healer so the tankbusters don't erase the DPS.

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Even if it did, you have two more of them. So you can just scrape the dead DPS off the floor and continue. Sure it's going to take forever but with no enrage timer to worry about that doesn't matter.

Also, every healer should get a trait so that the second they are in a party they loose all DPS capabilities. :D

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Even if it did, you have two more of them. So you can just scrape the dead DPS off the floor and continue. Sure it's going to take forever but with no enrage timer to worry about that doesn't matter.

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Which is a good reason to start putting in enrage timers again. The only complication there is how it would impact people who want to go back and do the old content solo after it's no longer relevant. They'd have to make the epic echo or whatever it's called a lot stronger to compensate, although I suppose it's not a problem they'd need to worry about until Dawntrail was over and done with anyway.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Which is a good reason to start putting in enrage timers again. The only complication there is how it would impact people who want to go back and do the old content solo after it's no longer relevant. They'd have to make the epic echo or whatever it's called a lot stronger to compensate, although I suppose it's not a problem they'd need to worry about until Dawntrail was over and done with anyway.

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The last thing this game needs is more enrage timers. It's such a cop-out. Oh, you didn't press your 1 2 3 fast enough -> ded. The fact that SE even need to resort to something like this because every other RPG element has been sandblasted off speaks volumes.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

Also, every healer should get a trait so that the second they are in a party they loose all DPS capabilities. :D

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So we can finally watch Netflix during the dungeon and press a Cure 2 every 30 seconds guilt-free. Now THIS is peak gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Easy solution:
Leave tank personal sustain alone, decrease their group healing and mitigation
Add cleaves and really nasty unavoidable AoE damage to more enemies
Add reasonable but tight enrage timers to bosses

There. Now the tank can't sustain the entire party, everybody is screwed if the DPS are bad, healers are forced to heal, and nobody gets screwed out of their enjoyment of their job.

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WAR's personal sustain is still needing a nerf. They straight up invalidate a healer in dungeons, and frankly I don't care if their sustain is fine in raids. Their raid sustain isn't the issue. Their dungeon one is.

GNB I'll also say is an issue. I can STILL solo a boss with 2 charges of aurora and HoC. PLD at least has the drawback of needing to use MP and DRK... DRK actually could use a bit more but its... fine. RN.

WAR's sustain needs more of a draw back than "every 40s" recast and I could argue the same with GNB. Probably make it so that HoC doesn't auto heal you if you're below half... cause yeah I have done that. It should require damage being dealt to do it.

If people are dying and it's because the healers aren't healing, then yeah, the healers should be healing more, I agree.

But if the healers aren't healing and everyone's still surviving, then I wouldn't say the healers are doing anything wrong per se.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

WAR's personal sustain is still needing a nerf. They straight up invalidate a healer in dungeons, and frankly I don't care if their sustain is fine in raids. Their raid sustain isn't the issue. Their dungeon one is.

GNB I'll also say is an issue. I can STILL solo a boss with 2 charges of aurora and HoC. PLD at least has the drawback of needing to use MP and DRK... DRK actually could use a bit more but its... fine. RN.

WAR's sustain needs more of a draw back than "every 40s" recast and I could argue the same with GNB. Probably make it so that HoC doesn't auto heal you if you're below half... cause yeah I have done that. It should require damage being dealt to do it.

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Tanks being able to solo inconsequential bosses is a thing in most MMOs, y'know. It's completely normal. It also goes completely out the window if, as I mentioned in my prior post, enrage timers become a thing again.

Healers need something to do besides hit their one DPS button. That much, I agree with. What they're healing doesn't have to be the tank, however. There are plenty of other people in a group the game could start directing more damage to. Heck, that's another thing common across most MMOs now. Tanks in general just tend to not need as much healing attention as the healers/DPS outside of tankbusters and specific, and it should stay that way.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

So we can finally watch Netflix during the dungeon and press a Cure 2 every 30 seconds guilt-free. Now THIS is peak gameplay.

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No, it would exacerbate the problem and force SE's hand, while also nipping that stupid healers should DPS thing in the bud. Healers DPS because they are bored, not because they want to.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

No, it would exacerbate the problem and force SE's hand, while also nipping that stupid healers should DPS thing in the bud. Healers DPS because they are bored, not because they want to.

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I think you will get mixed results. Some are so used to healers being half-dps and they really enjoy this part of them. It's kind of like in other games where some healer classes did damage in downtime.

I personally liked more complex and challenging healing, status effect management, debuff applications and cc that other MMOs gave healer classes, but FFXIV combat just isn't that complex overall to give us more meaningful activities.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I still remember coming to the game and not knowing that an oGCD could be used at the same time as GCDs in weaves until SB (started playing in ARR)

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holy moly what a self out

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Originally Posted by Koros

holy moly what a self out

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LOL. Seriously only takes casting them once and seeing that your other skills don't go on the GCD to realize that.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

It's kind of like in other games where some healer classes did damage in downtime.

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Like the quintessential healer, the D&D cleric, who probably spends more time hitting things with a mace than actually healing?

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Tanks being able to solo inconsequential bosses is a thing in most MMOs, y'know. It's completely normal. It also goes completely out the window if, as I mentioned in my prior post, enrage timers become a thing again.

Healers need something to do besides hit their one DPS button. That much, I agree with. What they're healing doesn't have to be the tank, however. There are plenty of other people in a group the game could start directing more damage to. Heck, that's another thing common across most MMOs now. Tanks in general just tend to not need as much healing attention as the healers/DPS outside of tankbusters and specific, and it should stay that way.

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If we we limiting this discussion to tanks soloing ARR bosses, most people would likely agree that those bosses are "inconsequential" however when we're talking about endgame dungeons? No- I would disagree. Your statement regarding how this is common across 'most MMOs" is rather surprising as well- which ones are you thinking of, as this definitely isn't common to the ones I've played in the past.

So there are a number of options , I can understand why you would prefer one over the other. Fundamentally however there should be some recognition that each role relies on each other and that one of the options on the table could increase healing requirements on tanks outside of TBs. Or it could be damage/debuffs to the party members, a little creativity from SE would be welcome (time for a new Doom maybe)

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

I think you will get mixed results. Some are so used to healers being half-dps and they really enjoy this part of them. It's kind of like in other games where some healer classes did damage in downtime.

I personally liked more complex and challenging healing, status effect management, debuff applications and cc that other MMOs gave healer classes, but FFXIV combat just isn't that complex overall to give us more meaningful activities.

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It's more the norm in all the games where's I've played a healer to have DPS options- depending upon the content and the party composition , going as full heal, hybrid heal/DPS, or even full DPS could be options, with a good, geared healer DPS in one game being equivalent to about 90% of the best caster DPS.

I personally like being able to juggle both healing and DPSing, and would find FFXIV more interesting if they threw in more status effect management and CC during combat as you say. I find that much more interesting that "dodge an AOE- dodge THIS AOE. No- THAT AOE, you lagged . " repeat the dance ad nauseum, and faster. Congratulations, you've mastered the fight.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Like the quintessential healer, the D&D cleric, who probably spends more time hitting things with a mace than actually healing?

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????? Are you not casting sacred flame

Way better than a mace hit

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Tanks being able to solo inconsequential bosses is a thing in most MMOs, y'know. It's completely normal. It also goes completely out the window if, as I mentioned in my prior post, enrage timers become a thing again.

Healers need something to do besides hit their one DPS button. That much, I agree with. What they're healing doesn't have to be the tank, however. There are plenty of other people in a group the game could start directing more damage to. Heck, that's another thing common across most MMOs now. Tanks in general just tend to not need as much healing attention as the healers/DPS outside of tankbusters and specific, and it should stay that way.

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Yeah no. The cure potency on Raw Intuition and Bloodwhetting for a WAR's AOE still needs to be nerfed. How I don't care as long as it doesn't go from 400 to 100. You can even halve it for additional enemies hit.

As for Tanks being able to solo bosses. Also a no. Especially Endgame. I don't care how geared they are. You shouldn't be putting out enough sustain for it when the boss is 50% plus. 25% maybe, but if a healer can die at the start of a boss battle in a dungeon and a tank can pretty much solo it without them, there is a balancing issue with their sustain that needs fix. Period.

At that point you are actively impacting my enjoyment of my role.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

????? Are you not casting sacred flame

Way better than a mace hit

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No, because I'm casting Inflict Wounds, 3d10 Necrotic damage let's go.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

????? Are you not casting sacred flame

Way better than a mace hit

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That very much depends on whatever you're fighting. The unfortunate thing about Sacred Flame (and similar cantrips) is that it targets DEX and most things have that stat pretty high.

I never get the design philosophy Where healer needs to contribute to dps check. I admit l am biased because l used to play warcraft and l also play gw2 right now. After l looked at a parse after a gw2 raid, l see a dps did like 10 times more damage than me, and my friends told me that's normal because as a support, my job is to keep people alive and maintain their offensive buffs. I feel that's how healer/support should be...

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

I never get the design philosophy Where healer needs to contribute to dps check. I admit l am biased because l used to play warcraft and l also play gw2 right now. After l looked at a parse after a gw2 raid, l see a dps did like 10 times more damage than me, and my friends told me that's normal because as a support, my job is to keep people alive and maintain their offensive buffs. I feel that's how healer/support should be...

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I personally tend to prefer more offense oriented supports in most games. I would be fine with healers being mostly green DPS, but then the DPS part of our kit would need to actually be interesting.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

LOL. Seriously only takes casting them once and seeing that your other skills don't go on the GCD to realize that.

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Eh, I think that glosses over the nuance of the system. There's a window after using a GCD during which oGCD's don't work, and similarly using an oGCD towards the end of your GCD can result in your next GCD being delayed and hence not feeling responsive. A player who is still learning the entire system can easily interpret this as "doesn't work" or "unreliable". And once you've learned one of those lessons, you're not going to learn otherwise because you're not going to press those buttons off-GCD anymore.

That is probably more an issue with someone who would rather be playing DPS but without even the little bit of patience to wait their turn in queue so they pop as a Healer and make it everyone else’s problem.

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

I never get the design philosophy Where healer needs to contribute to dps check. I admit l am biased because l used to play warcraft and l also play gw2 right now. After l looked at a parse after a gw2 raid, l see a dps did like 10 times more damage than me, and my friends told me that's normal because as a support, my job is to keep people alive and maintain their offensive buffs. I feel that's how healer/support should be...

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Agree, the whole point of having different roles is for them to be different...
Never understood the need to turn every role into a DPS..
If i wanted to play DPS - i would have played a DPS!

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

Eh, I think that glosses over the nuance of the system. There's a window after using a GCD during which oGCD's don't work, and similarly using an oGCD towards the end of your GCD can result in your next GCD being delayed and hence not feeling responsive. A player who is still learning the entire system can easily interpret this as "doesn't work" or "unreliable". And once you've learned one of those lessons, you're not going to learn otherwise because you're not going to press those buttons off-GCD anymore.

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And this should confuse someone for 4 years of playing?

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

I never get the design philosophy Where healer needs to contribute to dps check. I admit l am biased because l used to play warcraft and l also play gw2 right now. After l looked at a parse after a gw2 raid, l see a dps did like 10 times more damage than me, and my friends told me that's normal because as a support, my job is to keep people alive and maintain their offensive buffs. I feel that's how healer/support should be...

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I bolded a small part of your reply as one of the many reasons why we spend so much time dealing damage. There's simply nothing else to contribute meaningfully once adequate healing is satisfied 90% of time.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

And this should confuse someone for 4 years of playing?

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No

This is why I avoid any healer conversation because trying to converse with specific users on this forum is like bashing my skull into a brick wall

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

Also, every healer should get a trait so that the second they are in a party they loose all DPS capabilities. :D

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This would cripple Sage.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

This would cripple Sage.

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True, but it could provide a cure for insomnia in some cases. Queue as a healer, no healing required? Nothing to do but stand around? Problem solved.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

True, but it could provide a cure for insomnia in some cases. Queue as a healer, no healing required? Nothing to do but stand around? Problem solved.

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Or The game could actually just inc the dmg in it's content..
- More raid-wide DMG.
- Boss's auto atk dmg inc by 40-50+%.
- More unavoidable dmg / random damage.
- More Debuffs to dispel - mechanics that revolves around healers to solve...

/// Make healer use their full healer toolkit..

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Originally Posted by Koros

holy moly what a self out

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lmao

How can one take that long to figure out such basic information? HOW?!?

This is why mentors exist, to help people like him. I'd do it myself if I didn't know that he's allergic to help.

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

Or The game could actually just inc the dmg in it's content..
- More raid-wide DMG.
- Boss's auto atk dmg inc by 40-50+%.
- More unavoidable dmg / random damage.
- More Debuffs to dispel - mechanics that revolves around healers to solve...

/// Make healer use their full healer toolkit..

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We've been telling that to the dev team. Its been two expansions. If you think they'll change their mind in 7.0 you're going to be disappointed.

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

Or The game could actually just inc the dmg in it's content..
- More raid-wide DMG.
- Boss's auto atk dmg inc by 40-50+%.
- More unavoidable dmg / random damage.
- More Debuffs to dispel - mechanics that revolves around healers to solve...

/// Make healer use their full healer toolkit..

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I’m gonna start a drinking campaign of my own

Take a drink any time a forum user suggests a “fix” to the game that is literally just coils

Healers shouldn't have to heal? In about 60% of the roulettes I join, I'm frantically trying to keep the tank alive, and I'm lucky if I have time to DPS at all.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

Healers shouldn't have to heal? In about 60% of the roulettes I join, I'm frantically trying to keep the tank alive, and I'm lucky if I have time to DPS at all.

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Honestly that either says more about you or you just have a string of really bad tanks

9 dungeons out of 10 I never have to touch a GCD heal and of those 9 5 of them I’m barely even touching an oGCD because the tank is healing themself anyway