Suggestion as to how to get people to become healers.

Stance dancing is literally one of my favorite things about this game is the main reason why I love playing healer, especially WHM, so much. I agree it could be more intuitive, responsive, and have better UI attached, but it definitely needs to remain a core part of playing healer in this game and should be expected.

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Originally Posted by Lawman

healers shouldn't have to kill stuff to level, they should be healing to level! get rid of healer DPS all together, shouldn't healers take an oath to do no harm? just saying...my few pennies worth.

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And what do you propose more confident/skilled healers do inplace of the DPS they generally end up doing?

I recorded and pulled apart a few runs on the first pull of Sohm Ahl Hard a couple of days back, as noted earlier in the thread, it takes me 3 personal GCDs for the initial double pack pull, the rest can be safely healed by the fairy. That pack took an average of just under a minute to kill.

I'd love for dungeons to actually stretch my ability to thump out HPS rainbows and pull of twitch clutch saves, but the game in it's current form simply doesn't support that outside of the first month or two of each coil/savage raid tier.

Maybe SE could add a regular daily dungeon roulette that's the equivalent of today's Expert, with Expert itself being tuned more akin to SCOB savage aka utterly unfair. Imagine going back to the days of early release and late beta where crowd control was a thing ;)

God I'd love that <3

Why not just give them some exclusive mount or something cosmetic like that. Then lock it behind a certain requirement like how the tank mounts were.

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Originally Posted by Ama_Hamada

cnj quests would like a word with that, that suggests otherwise. (One of the early conj quests flat out tell you use cleric stance and attack basically)
Also all the healer quests require you DPS here and there.
The hall of novice healer trials?
And finally, all healers in FF have some kind of DPS tools.

I doono where people get healers only heal stuck in people head come from.

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Previous generation MMO's (pre 2010) had far more clear cut roles in the holy trinity, healers were more of a stat buff/heal class with mild crowd control while being useless on the offensive side.

And I still find it a bad move to point out on the Novice Hall thing, where it clearly says that they may can use some offensive spells. It's their choice if they want to - And if they don't, no loss on me.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Stance dancing is literally one of my favorite things about this game is the main reason why I love playing healer, especially WHM, so much.

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This. I'm in the same boat. I main WHM and love it mainly because I love seeing how much damage I can dish out while running dungeons. People underestimate healer dps. A lot of people just assume its not worth the effort but checking the numbers I usually do about 70ish% of an actual dps class on average. And before you say "Oh those are just bad dps", no I actually outdps the "bad" dps as sad as that is. I really hope they don't do too much to change cleric stance as I like the way it works as is.

The people saying "Oh just remove it and let damage scale off MND". I kind of feel like it would be way too OP if they did that. My worst fear is if they DO do something like that, that they'll nerf healer damage into the ground to compensate.

I would think that if they made healer's have more buffing capabilities, then it would help get rid of this whole healer DPS argument going around. It might just create a new argument about how they are not buffing properly, but what would this game be if people didn't complain about healers?

My thought is this, back when I played EQ and even WoW healers had an average of 3-5 buffs they could give everyone. In EQ Shamans had certain buffs along the lines of an AST's balance that would only last 30 seconds to a minute or two. So a Shaman as the example would have to balance the buffs with the healing needed. This is something that could be easily implement especially with AST, where more buffs could be added, but without the RNG and keeping the timers aligned with the current durations in FFXIV. EQ and even WoW also had more poison(s)/disease/curses that needed to be cleansed. EQ in particular had certain skills that only healer's had that were a necessity for certain raids as they would prevent enrage or cancel/reduce the mechanics needed. Just a few examples that could help alleviate the down time of healers in FFXIV.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't imagine it would eliminate the cry babies issues, but it would help to reduce the amount of downtime a healer has if the buffs had short enough timers. Outside of the buffs, the only other feasible fix that would come from the developers would be to change the way mobs fight. For example adding in simple debuff mechanics, or simply make them do more damage.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

Situation depends a lot on group makeup. Particularly with casters, large pulls with the healer focused on keeping the tank alive are quicker than small pulls where the healer can dps. Its up to the tank to see what his group is composed of and what CDs are available for each pull and pull accordingly. Healers major gameplay should be healing. That is the entire reason for the existence of the role. Its to offer an alternate gameplay. People like that style of gameplay. Many of those types of players find dpsing dreadfully boring. If dpsing was supposed to be the core part of healing they might as well just get rid of the healing role and give the Jobs interesting DPS rotations. However I am never a fan of cutting back on the variety of gameplay options. As it is the healing meta in FF14 is probably one of the most underwhelming metas as far as gameplay in just about any MMO I have played. Heals are way too powerful and as such there is massive amounts of healer downtime which is where this dpsing thing came from. From Yoshi P's responses it was never an intentional part of design. Cleric stance was for solo gameplay, not so healers would dps in dungeons.

I am sceptical your going to shave 5 minutes off a dungeon run with the healer dpsing unless the dps themselves are under performing. The healer isn't going to have 100% dps up time and their dps isn't on par with the dps classes or often the tank. As a rule my first and most important requirement for a healer is that they actually heal. Recovering from a wipe adds more time to a run than is really earned from the healer dpsing, particularly if it happens more than once. If the healer has heals properly under control then they should dps but first and foremost healing is their role. I can live with a healer not dpsing if the group is alive. I get really annoyed if a healer keeps letting people die because they are fixated on dpsing.

Plus with DF your always going to have to deal with the fact that you don't get to pick the group your given. Its kind of like cards. You get your hand and make the most of it or just fold and put up with the loss (leave penalty).

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I heal expert roulette all the time. I don't even care what the party make up is, or how much mobs the tanks pull, I'm dpsing. Divine seal regen medica 2 clerics swiftcast holy PoM aero3 holy assize holy hooooooolllyyyy clerics top off tank then depending on where the mobs are at I'll either go back to dps or prepare for the next pull. I prefer bigger pulls as a healer because it's more enjoyable to dps bigger groups. It's the same amount of work each pull regardless of how many mobs, but smaller pulls means more pulls means my mana doesn't go as far. All dps at 60 have decent aoe so there's very few reasons to do small pulls. Lets saaaay i shave 15 seconds off of each pull over a healer not dpsing. 2 pulls between each boss is 6 pulls ish depending on the dungeon 1.5 minutes plus dpsing during bosses. 3 minutes saved? Ish? But the pulls can only get so big, so even if a healer 100% heals the tank is pulling the same amount but now everyones aoes (even the healer) does more damage
But yeah, keeping a tank alive is easy, so you might as well dps.
But it's funny that you say people find dpsing boring. Spamming cure 2 to keep a tank topped off is mind numbing, not to mention it makes tanks using cooldowns completely pointless.
If a healer wants to actually be entertained by pressing buttons, dpsing is the way to go right now. Unless the gameplay changes completely, dps as healer will always be faster and more entertaining.
"Ooh tank took a hit cure."
"Ooh tank took a hit cure."
"Ooh tank took a hit cure."
"Ooh tank took a hit cure."
and you compare healer dps to tanks and other dps. No a healer won't do as much as a good tank or a good dps but " DF is like cards" and let's be honest. .. we usually get dealt garbage quite often so a good healer will more often then not be out dpsing somebody.
I like how you use both sides of that coin though. You say a good healer won't save 5 minutes because the dps and tank in your example are good. If my dps and tank are good my dpsing as healer won't be a problem because people won't die to stupid. Pick one. :)

There is quite literally nothing you can do to the game play of a healer to attract non-healers. They're not playing healers because they want to play the "fiesty damage" class or the "tough tank"; their picks are often based on image long before they even play the game. Healers are marketed as kind nice people with flurfy pink and white outfits. This image is so deeply set in the minds of the player base, that no amount of skill fiddling will ever even be noticed.

The only way you can engineer a shift is through appearances and I don't mean glamour will fix it, though that's a big part. SE would have to put a male healer into the story with a dark background, moody growling demeanor, and glam that's better described as edgy than flurfy; ie. those things that attract people to the tank/dps classes (other than game play) would need to be shifted to the healer classes; eg. give SAM the pink & red with feathers outfit and see how many still want to play that. ;)

Well, you have to remember the reason two DPS jobs were considered for SB as YoshiP mentioned the % dps/healer/tank balance didn't really change at-all from ARR. There was just more a shift from PLD>DRK and WHM>AST over time. The balance isn't likely to change anytime soon, DPS is always prevalent in any MMO.

Although he did mention more rewards in the future to encouarge playing the blue and green jobs. People like myself have all three tank mounts doing natural end-game content, you didn't really have to go out of your way if you main or sub the role. Adding further rewards like tanking or even healing beyond 500 full party instances would be a way to keep kick starting such campaigns.

I was also in the court of healer mains that didn't really want another job either considering how it took almost half an expansion to get Diurnal Astro to where it is today.

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Originally Posted by FeliciaTheSecond

This. I'm in the same boat. I main WHM and love it mainly because I love seeing how much damage I can dish out while running dungeons.

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You would probably enjoy Chloromancer in Rift (and possibly Discipline priest in WoW). Which is fine. But, IMO, dps healer should be one FLAVOR of healer - not the entire meta of healers in the entire game. We already suffer from a lack of variety across healers. Let's advocate for killing multiple birds with one stone. Ways to make healing more interesting:

- Encounters outside of Savage/EX that require more than mindless dps spam while occasionally hitting a heal button.
- Rework healer damage so that laggy CS swapping is no longer necessary
- Much-needed distinction between healers in much the same way we have different DPS jobs (healing through damage, melee, HoT-based, shield-based, healer/buffer, single-target, ground-field based, etc)