How to have fun healing in normal content?

Hey guys remember, if you want engaging content, just go play ultimates. :o

I'm kinda baffled some people finds it normal that you get to have fun as healer only in Savage and Ultimate content.

Hmm, maybe you could try running content with a friend and do a "challenge" run of sorts? Like a BLM who never moves and needs to be kept alive with mits and more healing than usual.

Healing in normal is only fun when people take more damage than a party of veteran normally would after all. Keeps you on your toes, or at least that's how it feels to me.

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Originally Posted by Yeonhee

I'm kinda baffled some people finds it normal that you get to have fun as healer only in Savage and Ultimate content.

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Doesn't baffle me at all. First of all, that comment would only apply to certain people, not everyone (for example, I have a lot of fun healing on Normal). Second, it's a logical matter of skill. How much fun would an NBA player have constantly playing against random guys at a pick-up game? Or how much fun would a chess GM have playing people over 1000 points below them? Maybe a few will, but most likely those people will have more fun playing against opponents that are actually around their own skill level. Same goes with video games - when you get really skilled at them, it's logical that lower-level content could easily become boring, and the natural solution is that you'll probably have more fun doing higher-level content more appropriate to your skill.

As if having Aero3 will suddenly make running normal content a nightmare

Fun depends on the party, an experienced group, I will only throw a HOT and a shield and I dps, but I have been healing newcomers or those with sprout icons and I have had moments where things went to hell and I liked it. The problem with healing is, it needs to be engaging and difficult, but not that difficult that lesser skilled healers will have issues. Make a role to difficult and most players will not play it. Make it too easy and there will be complains on the forum. Square cant win this.

Ooh and more DPS skills is not the answer. Something needs to change in the encounters.

So no, Normal wont be fun anymore, but you can try harder modes or heal new players who are still learning.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Hey guys remember, if you want engaging content, just go play ultimates. :o

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Thanks, Yoshi-P. I'll give it my all! :p

Seriously, though, I feel like healing is even less fun and engaging in so-called "harder" content. In a tightly scripted encounter, healing the scheduled damage is simply, "Remember to push X button at Y time on the clock, and don't push X off-schedule lest you trigger its cooldown improperly." And healing the unscheduled damage is... oh, right, someone just dies or the party wipes, so the healer basically cosplays as a rez bot (see also: RDM and SMN for prog).

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Originally Posted by Yeonhee

I'm kinda baffled some people finds it normal that you get to have fun as healer only in Savage and Ultimate content.

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it also baffles me why people think spamming glare suddenly get's more fun in savage. At least for me, it didn't.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Hey guys remember, if you want engaging content, just go play ultimates. :o

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Make the casual content at higher levels harder?

No..... That couldn't POSSIBLY be the answer.... Right....?

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Doesn't baffle me at all. First of all, that comment would only apply to certain people, not everyone (for example, I have a lot of fun healing on Normal). Second, it's a logical matter of skill. How much fun would an NBA player have constantly playing against random guys at a pick-up game? Or how much fun would a chess GM have playing people over 1000 points below them? Maybe a few will, but most likely those people will have more fun playing against opponents that are actually around their own skill level. Same goes with video games - when you get really skilled at them, it's logical that lower-level content could easily become boring, and the natural solution is that you'll probably have more fun doing higher-level content more appropriate to your skill.

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Okay so why does playing a tank and DPS not make me want to rip my hair out in casual content

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Okay so why does playing a tank and DPS not make me want to rip my hair out in casual content

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Because you have your own preferences? For the same reason I enjoy playing Tank and Healer in casual content, but don't particularly like playing as DPS (I like DPS for questing and FATEs mainly)? Imagine the thought that different people could like different things - what a concept!

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Play another role

Unironically, we’ve been fighting a losing battle around healer design since ShB

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TBF, I'd rather spam 1 button than a redundant and absolutely brainless 100% scripted back and forth rotation that does nothing but make my hands hurt. It's not with healers, the whole game, class and combat system needs a huge overhaul.

Have fun healing?

You don't.

Yoshi even said it himself, he doesn't like healers. So..... the role is literally designed to be not enjoyable. Deliberately.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Doesn't baffle me at all. First of all, that comment would only apply to certain people, not everyone (for example, I have a lot of fun healing on Normal). Second, it's a logical matter of skill. How much fun would an NBA player have constantly playing against random guys at a pick-up game? Or how much fun would a chess GM have playing people over 1000 points below them? Maybe a few will, but most likely those people will have more fun playing against opponents that are actually around their own skill level. Same goes with video games - when you get really skilled at them, it's logical that lower-level content could easily become boring, and the natural solution is that you'll probably have more fun doing higher-level content more appropriate to your skill.

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If the nature of the game is to repeat scripted content of various difficulties, being the easier of them over 80% of the whole game, you can't afford having jobs that are considered boring there, regardless of player skill. Good systems are fun by the nature of how they interact and how they give players means for skill expression and XIV healers fail at both.

If healers were moderately properly designed a newbie would find in casual content an appropiate challenge for their skill level and a decent tutorial while an experienced player would find a playground in which they can interact with their skills. To follow up with your NBA paralelism, a random pick up game for a rookie is a great learning experience and a way to challenge themselves while for an NBA player is a good time to try tricks, shots and plays that they woudn't use in a official match since it has low stakes but the game allows them to interact with it in many ways. XIV on the other hand offer the newbie an experience so neutered that it doesn't foster any kind of growth or challenge and offers the experienced player an experience so dull that it pushes them away from the role. Its a design disaster.

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

If the nature of the game is to repeat scripted content of various difficulties, being the easier of them over 80% of the whole game, you can't afford having jobs that are considered boring there, regardless of player skill. Good systems are fun by the nature of how they interact and how they give players means for skill expression and XIV healers fail at both.

If healers were moderately properly designed a newbie would find in casual content an appropiate challenge for their skill level and a decent tutorial while an experienced player would find a playground in which they can interact with their skills. To follow up with your NBA paralelism, a random pick up game for a rookie is a great learning experience and a way to challenge themselves while for an NBA player is a good time to try tricks, shots and plays that they woudn't use in a official match since it has low stakes but the game allows them to interact with it in many ways. XIV on the other hand offer the newbie an experience so neutered that it doesn't foster any kind of growth or challenge and offers the experienced player an experience so dull that it pushes them away from the role. Its a design disaster.

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I couldn't agree more with this. There's no reason for healers to not at least have an actual damage rotation instead of spamming 1 for about 90% of the fight.

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Originally Posted by Yeonhee

I'm kinda baffled some people finds it normal that you get to have fun as healer only in Savage and Ultimate content.

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Don't tell those people some players would even not have any more fun in savage and ultimate content since that type of content doesn't magically make the job toolkits more engaging or interesting anyway. They may not recover.

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Originally Posted by BlisteringFrost

Make the casual content at higher levels harder?

No..... That couldn't POSSIBLY be the answer.... Right....?

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It definitely is not the answer for the aforementioned reason (on top of locking the content to its actual audience).

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Okay so why does playing a tank and DPS not make me want to rip my hair out in casual content

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Probably because you're very open minded. Personally it does make me want to rip it out all the same :o

Hey yall i dont know how to close a thread and i was genuinely just asking for advice and i took notes of everything yall said, dont let this be another fight thread.

Thanks for all the input even the unsavory ones since it helps me make up my mind on what to do.

Let it now fade into obscurity.

Sorry I couldn't help you. I wish I had the answer myself since I'm in a similar spot.

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Originally Posted by Valence

It definitely is not the answer for the aforementioned reason (on top of locking the content to its actual audience).

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I understand reading intended sarcasm might be difficult, so, to clarify, it was intended to be sarcastic.

But also, we're level 100 now. Act like it.

Can confirm, 'you don't' is the answer. Truthfully even Savage content isn't particularly interesting anymore with how scripted it is, it's easy to fall into a sort of walking doze/meditation. Like Yoshi said, if you want actual healing, do Ultimates. Just.. ignore the no-healer runs people have done. :v)

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Originally Posted by Xurtan

Just.. ignore the no-healer runs people have done. :v)

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People have done no-tank runs as well, it genuinely doesn't mean anything other than people know how to abuse/exploit the game's systems.

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

People have done no-tank runs as well, it genuinely doesn't mean anything other than people know how to abuse/exploit the game's systems.

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Oh don't get me wrong, I think that is a problem as well. The classes as they are right now are incredibly awkwardly balanced, and the content is itself awkwardly balanced within that paradigm. Tanks and healers are particularly egregious and could probably stand to be reworked ground up, but they're far from the only ones. Poor phys ranged and ninja. -_-

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Originally Posted by BlisteringFrost

I understand reading intended sarcasm might be difficult, so, to clarify, it was intended to be sarcastic.

But also, we're level 100 now. Act like it.

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Just to clarify because you're sending me very mixed signals now, were you unironically advocating for increasing the baseline difficulty or not?

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Okay so why does playing a tank and DPS not make me want to rip my hair out in casual content

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This is because there are no healer developers but there are Tank and DPS devs. The caster DPS devs are the ones that work on healers so that is why we see more dps finding its way into healing instead of healing. I love healing, its wonderful and I have healed in many games. This is one of the few games that healing is boring unless you have a bunch of new players. The reason why healing is tuned the way it is to be optimized for Ult and Savage is that is because the devs make that content first and then attempt to reduce the difficulty to make a normal mode.

Until we get to a point besides one or two mechanics checks that require healers, healing is going to remain boring and unfulling. I doubt they will make healing more fufulling because they really dont want to have 3 different types of wipe scenereos in raids so they reduced it to 1.5 because tanks are only needed to hold agro in many cases, looking at you wall bosses.

I'd gladly go back to the days of 2.x and 3.x when there were consequences for healers, tanks and even DPS as today, there really are none.

P.S. If they really want to make healing more important, please for the love of all that is holy, fix WAR self healing... it defines a whole new level of broken.

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Originally Posted by Minarisweet

I often find myself falling asleep during boss fights where no damage is going on until next raidwide and whm is my favorite aesthetic in the game but im not always doing high end so im wondering if anybody does anything special to make healers more fun in there

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I mostly just meme. When I play healer in anything easier than savage, I choose that role because I wanna relax in my comfort zone. I try to strike up a conversation with the rest of the party, joke around a bit, tell the tank to step on the gas (can lead to some funky pulls if you get the blessed sprout tank + ARR/HW dungeon combo) and mostly just limit myself to being the person straying from the usual path to grab all the loot on our way to the boss.


Also, I've stumbled into multiple groups putting all the stack markers together when they happen. Very fun to see half or more of your party nuke itself, then go and fix it xD


It does sound like your skill level has well surpassed that of your usual content a while ago and it might be time to give healer a spin in some tougher content (if you'd like to suffer, I suggest Criterions lol). Sadly, almost all of us reach that point sooner or later. As a regen healer, and one fairly strong at burst, you'll have the most fun trying to give your fellow party members a heart attack by letting them drop dangerously low before healing them again.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Just to clarify because you're sending me very mixed signals now, were you unironically advocating for increasing the baseline difficulty or not?

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Yes. I have absolutely no problem with the games baseline becoming more difficult as we level up because it should simply be expected of us to be better as we've become more experienced with it.

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Originally Posted by BlisteringFrost

Yes. I have absolutely no problem with the games baseline becoming more difficult as we level up because it should simply be expected of us to be better as we've become more experienced with it.

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Then I do stand by my initial reply.

While you're tapping [1] over and over again, envision the burly, competent, dashing tank marrying you and starting a life together after the duty is over.
idk man the role is boring af

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

While you're tapping [1] over and over again, envision the burly, competent, dashing tank marrying you and starting a life together after the duty is over.

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She wasn't burly but she was competent and rather pretty and I did marry her so I guess healer endgame achieved?

That's the neat part. You don't.

I'm sure this is infuriating to read for tank mains but unless we ever nerf tanks and stop them being solo machines then healers will always feel awful to play. I never even play healer on my first run of a dungeon anymore because I know if I mess up during my blind run that I'm not needed anyway and I'll spend all of the fight tabbed out if we don't have a res mage or summoner. Tanks just have far too much self healing and even party wide to a degree on far too short of a cooldown.

Play pvp. You will have more to think about

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

Play pvp. You will have more to think about

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I agree. Even healers have interesting and mindful healing actions to play around with...

My problem with PVP is that I'm tired of Crystalline Conflict. No matter how many new maps they add, the same old 'steer the crystal' mode gets old after a while.

And large scale PVP feels too chaotic to get fulfillment out of it. Most of the time you don't feel like you're doing anything meaningful unless your whole team is doing well too.

I wish they added The Feast back, or made a new mode. Maybe 8x8.

I'd suggest trying ranked, if you're not allergic to some toxicity. The additional challenge that you won't find in casual can honestly bring in a lot more motivation and engagement to keep going and overcome new goals.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I'd suggest trying ranked, if you're not allergic to some toxicity. The additional challenge that you won't find in casual can honestly bring in a lot more motivation and engagement to keep going and overcome new goals.

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I found out just recently that I need to DC travel to do that... Kind of a deal breaker for me. I absolutely hate hopping off my DC just to be able to do a piece of content.

Yeah it sucks.

Next season on your DC then

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Originally Posted by LukaRoselia

That's the neat part. You don't.

I'm sure this is infuriating to read for tank mains but unless we ever nerf tanks and stop them being solo machines then healers will always feel awful to play. I never even play healer on my first run of a dungeon anymore because I know if I mess up during my blind run that I'm not needed anyway and I'll spend all of the fight tabbed out if we don't have a res mage or summoner. Tanks just have far too much self healing and even party wide to a degree on far too short of a cooldown.

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WoW tried this already this last year and a half. It didn't work.

The answer was to let tanks keep being gods and make indiscriminate damage they can't tank significantly more common so DPS and healers get hit more instead. So tanks have to be mindful of how much stuff they're pulling so the healer doesn't get overwhelmed trying to keep everybody else alive.

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Originally Posted by BlisteringFrost

WoW tried this already this last year and a half. It didn't work.

The answer was to let tanks keep being gods and make indiscriminate damage they can't tank significantly more common so DPS and healers get hit more instead. So tanks have to be mindful of how much stuff they're pulling so the healer doesn't get overwhelmed trying to keep everybody else alive.

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Since when did the WOW tank nerf not work, the only people who didn’t think that was an overwhelming success were tank mains themselves

Regardless WOW tanking is a bit different because it actually requires skill, sure you heal a lot but you also take so much damage that if you don’t heal yourself you’d overwhelm your healer. 14 you take so little damage the healer doesn’t need help healing you but the tanks also have stupid healing

So pick one, nerf the healing, or up the damage so damn high that the tanks need healing AND the healer to even hope to stay alive

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

So pick one, nerf the healing, or up the damage so damn high that the tanks need healing AND the healer to even hope to stay alive

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I'd like to meet in the middle. Even if we did bring down tank healing so that they need healers to stay alive we would still live in a world where I can ignore two or three partywide hits in a dungeon before I actually have to DO something and where-in I can make a dps player tank bosses. Satisfying as it is to do the latter, it really should be just as impossible as healerless content.

Honestly I'd be fascinated to see a dungeon where mobs actually are dangerous to the whole party, like all its attacks are targeted at the Tank but they have a % raidwide damage to the party, similar to how our own big hits work on mobs, and that would require the Healer to pay constant attention to avoid deaths, rather than mindlessly spamming their AoE GCD while occasionally throw oGCD heals and mits.

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Originally Posted by Gullis

it also baffles me why people think spamming glare suddenly get's more fun in savage. At least for me, it didn't.

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Most fights are so scripted that you can skip healers entirely if you spec your group correctly and everybody does the mechanics properly. The only place where I really feel like I get to heal is progression 24 player raids. I used to have fun in the 8 player normals but those have been pretty scripted too.

As to tank healing... tank healing used to be an in-joke, an oxymoron in the past but now, it's so much of a reality that you really don't need healers, they are so potent.
They have survivability, great DPS and powerful heals... what's not to like, they got it all, the total package, just delete the other jobs, who needs them anyhow eh?

I love healing, I want to heal more, but the way things are going, I don't expect to be healing much longer.


P.S. I'll bet 1,000,000 GIL that they will never put a healer on the front of a FFXIV box as the "hero" job for the expansion.