Mitigation
Buffs
Debuffing enemies
Healing
Damage
Rez
All of the above encapsulates the Support Role.
If this were to actually come down to a matter of categories, rather than playflow, shouldn't we note that not even one of those is unique to Healers/"Supports", though?
And, heck, Chain Strategem is merely a worse (in being limited to a single enemy target) raid buff.Tanks have external and internal mitigation. Melee DPS have internal mitigation.
Most DPS have external buffs.
All debuff enemies.
Most can technically heal.
All can damage.
Most Magical DPS also have rez.
The name change would have made a lot more sense in ARR.
Less so now given that large chunks of our kit have been taken away in the years since.
Well, healers have all of those things (or at least to), and the heals are usually for the self (except Curing Waltz). Usually one category can only do a few of those things, or the things they can do are generally a feature of the job itself. A lot of those things are just standard on the healers. A few of the things that aren't are who can buff/debuff.
Virus back, please! And let us Bane Chain Strat!
XIV Healers are the XIV "Supports" in question. Their capacities haven't change with the label. That's the point.
Trying to come up with a role classification based solely on the categories of capacities available to a given job/spec/class/hero will almost always be a terrible idea. The only reliable indicator for a role ought to be what it provides a party in practice. And, in practice, our Healers do not feel integrally supportive at present.
So they've got raidwide mitigation. Unless that would have killed someone otherwise, it's effectively just a preemptive heal; it therefore doesn't even cross roles or help anyone perform their function. 95+% of the time, by the moment your party's health again becomes relevant, you could not tell the difference except in that the healer may therefore have gotten one more offensive cast off than if that skill didn't exist in their kit (and even then, only because it was oGCD while their alternative heal wasn't; for SCH, between Soil and Indom, the difference would be even less). We very rarely afford anyone unique opportunities by way of our mitigation, so where is the supporting aspect?
So they've got damage. Everyone has damage. Outside of the very rare DPS check, it has no meaningful thresholds; it is instead just %fight completion. Nothing about the Support dealing damage, outside of AoEs during tank's CDs in large pulls when TP was still a thing, will affect the gameplay of anyone else. So where is the supporting aspect? Where is that conscious decision or unique capacity that allows for something more or new?
So we align the occasional Divination or Chain Stratagem with CDs that would have been popped at that particular moment regardless (even more the case in EW). Back when that alignment was a more active thought, that had some impact, but is it really pushing along or allowing something further from anyone else?
Compare that to OW, for instance. I have to play differently based on what Supports I'm with, how that player tends to play them, where they are, what CDs they have up. They shape my experience. That is impactful and definitely makes them feel like Supports, especially when they're played well and played around well.
Renaming our "Healer", which we already know to be generic casters with attached HP-granting batteries, to "Supports" will more than likely bring out that sort of comparison. We typically expect more impact, more nuance -- in ways not limited just to healing-intensive situations -- from "Supports". And our kits do not have that. They should, so I feel such a name-change would create beneficial pressure, but that's also a likely reason why the devs have not and probably will not change labels (since it'd probably be a PR stunt alone, given their insistence on instead shallowing out gameplay, and they'd quickly get net negative reactions for doing so).
That's the problem.
The FFXIV Devs have offloaded so much of what is traditionally a healer's responsibility to other players.
Other players shouldn't have so many self healing options. What's the point of healers then? A current savage tier should NOT have been able to be accomplished without a single healer. That should have been a MAJOR wake up call to the devs. But no, they doubled down and gave PLD amazing self healing on a short CD skill.
I'm of the mindset that lots of that mob debuffing should be removed from DPS and given to healers. Most of them don't use their debuffs anyway, or their self heals (bloodbath)
I'm 110% fine with other classes having good self-sustain, provided that the difficulty of the content reflects the additional toolkit. Back in WoW when Death Knights were almost able to solo raid bosses, healers were still useful because there was plenty of damage flying around and a bad tank could easily die if they weren't paying attention. Versatility in the toolkit also makes other classes more fun, dps being able to survive a hit without a healer, or tanks being juggernauts just feels great.
I'm very against the suggestion of removing toolkit from roles until we're boiled down to healers just spamming bland heals and glare, tanks doing 1, 2, 3 and soaking hits and dps simply doing dps and having no other influence other than numbers. FF14 already leans far too much into this.
I'm also a bit tired of the endless complaints over a single Savage kill without healers, by amazing players who knew their classes inside out. No average team can do that. Things like this promote innovation and breathe life into the game and people want to stifle it into blandness by saying things like "now healers are useless!" when 99.9% of raid teams would crumple without one.
Clemency too is fine. It's not even that crazy a heal, and the only reason it does so much work is because of the lack of damage. It's all in small predictable spikes. That's why healers don't have enough to heal. Because everything hits for so little, the tiny bit of toolkit tanks and dps get can actually cover a lot of it.
Enough is enough. Stop nerfing classes. I'd rather see more tank and dps toolkit and more damage intake to put that toolkit into action and reward you for it.
It sounds like you don't want the other roles to have the playstyle that healers have to put up with. It's almost like that's a sound argument why healers shouldn't have to be designed this way.
Clemency wasn't what I was talking about. In addition to Clemency, in Endwalker Paladins are getting:
* Healing added onto Sheltron (1000 total potency worth over 12s)
* Healing added onto Intervene (1000 total potency over 12s)
* Healing added on to Divine Veil (400 potency).
1000 potency is more than Cure 2, and just short of a Regen.
You can be tired of the evidence, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. EX's are routinely done with one healer instead of two because healing requirements are so low and jobs have so much self sustain.
It [the clearing of entire Savage tiers without a healer] exists, sure, but only for the 0.01%. Do you really want to take skills away from everyone, affecting also the 99.99% of players for whom this was never an issue, just to remove the potential for oddball compositions or similar innovation among so small a portion of the playerbase?
Same. It's not the other roles' capacities that may extend (in technical category alone) into other roles that are killing our need to heal; it's simply the lack of damage. All the cross-over skills do is give us more to track -- a greater sense of exchange, affordance, and economy.
One thing that does amuse me a little on this topic.
I did a 'lol who needs tanks' Titan HM in 2.0 on WHM using Medica II to build a comical agro lead over a group compared mostly of the EU 1st BCOB team's DPS. Medica II got changed to prevent this a week or two later.
People started using Summoner's Titan to tank RamuhEX removing the need for a tank there. This also got nerfed a week or two later.
Figure out a way to do an Extreme or Savage without Tanks and you can bet it's going to get nerfed ASAP. Do the same with no healers and SE don't seem to bat an eye lid at it.
It's purely because the damage is low. I promise you any decent healer could solo heal an EX even if the dps took Bloodbath and second wind off their bars and the tanks only used regular mitigation on tankbusters. We might have to throw in an extra GCD heal here and there, maybe a HoT on the tank from time to time, but we'd be able to live with only casting 110 broil or malefic instead of 120.
Wasn't the point Y.P trying to make "more dps skill would just scare and intimidate new healer with healer anxiety"(which is a thing apparently)
The thing is, I might be wrong there so anyone falling into that category could correct me but...
The line of reasoning is "healing is stressing, therefor we make healer's dps simple to reduce stress"
However, when does DPS matters? (beyond making your dungeon run faster)
It only matters in Ex, Savage and Ultimate content. Savage (beyond first floor) and Ultimate are done by a minority of players, a minority which seeks challenge.
Also, in entry difficutly content such as EX and first tier savage, healer's dps contribution is either not necessary (EX trial) or just a tiny bit will do (first tier savage) assuming regular level of play (so between good and bad players)
This becomes more true the further we get into a patch (more gear and eventually the echo).
Therefor the only time and place healer's dps matter are "early week savage prog" (usually tier 3 and 4) as well as Ultimate. Content that usually do not have "stressed healers over dps" because they're usually the crowd requested for more dps skills and some dps rotation during downtime.
So we have 2 types of players with 2 types of need
Casual : doing casual content where their dps contribution isn't needed in the slightest (beyond making things faster).
Any extra dps skill could be 100% ignored without changing their game experience.
This group includes most of the "I'm a healer therefor I only heal" (because said player either stop healing or don't make it into the EX/Savage/Ultimate scene)
End game raider : Doing tough content where their dps contribution does matter.
Such raider embrace dps to different degrees. Many of those who clear current content (before the echo) usually tend to get bored of the "glarespam"
Any extra dps skill wouldn't be ignored and be incorporated to their gameplay thus making it more varied.
Therefor adding new skills wouldn't affect the casual "anxious" crowd because they simply wouldn't need it in the first place.
I've been helping a friend doing the last stage of the relic recently. Almost every healer we got while farming Leviathan were well below 5000dps which is what you'd get from "an anxious healer" who spam medica everytime someone drops to 99.98% hp.
Heck there's been a run I was under permanent MedicaII, the healer did 99% overheal.
But this isn't a complain, because did it matter?
No, it did not matter. What matter was that the group received enough healing to survive the few raid burster. The healer did his job in that context.
Adding more dps skill to such player wouldn't change a single thing, first they'd probably don't use them beside while doing solo content (they probably have all their dps skill on the side)
second, before considering those new skills to their dps rotation, there are so many other more precious things to fix that it is a non concern even if such player wanted to do EX or Savage.
It would be akin explaining what weaving is to a dps doing below 10k with current gear (there were plenty during those runs).
These players are so far behind in term of meta play that even if 100% of their dps would come from a single DoT they'd manage to not dps properly.
Therefor, the only relevant players to concider are the proper raider, the one actually requesting more DPS skills.
Now there's a difference between adding a complex dps rotation and what many have proposed. Any new skill that isn't intrusive and doesn't require the healer's attention full time would do the trick.
would adding 1 or 2 dot on a not-30s timer make SCH a hell of a job to play? No it wouldn't.
Would it makes thing more engaging for those that matters, those that request it, those that engage in difficult content. Yes it would.
How important should these new skills be? It could range from trivial (so only hardcore healer would actively engage) to extremely potent (all serious healer would have to properly manage those)
But perhaps the right choice would be somewhere in between. Somewhere where the gap between a healer using their new skills and one not using any new skill would be around 10-15% dps.
Would 10% be enough to destroy any healer not actively involved? Absolutely not.
Healer's dps vary so much that between the low end and the top there's almost a 200% gap. So again, before "that" becomes the next thing a healer has to focus on to improve their dps, they'd need to already be into the top tier healer.
Long story short,
new dps skill should be added to healer because it could only benefit the role in a broad sens.
Casual healers who don't engage in hard content where dps matter will simply not use it or wrongly use them (like a whm holding on assize for 60s for emergency heal)
Raider healer who do engage in content where it matters will most likely welcome the change.
In the event that some don't, then making the extra skill grant slight benefit (like 10-15%) would be enough to make them not feel guilty of barely using them.
Taking current content again, if a whm pulls 6000dps without the use of the new skills, the issue would NOT come from that. It would come from an overall poor dps uptime.
In this case, everybody wins
those who don't care will use them, or not
those who don't like, won't
those who like, will
And those who don't like but have to because they do week one tier4 savage clear + ultimate, well too bad for you, you're one of a kind... a rare kind.
^
Even if you are just playing casual content without any enrage, people say you are 'being lazy' and 'wasting time' if you are not dealing dps. That is the problem with having dps on healers. You are forced to use it and use it well, no matter if you are doing the most difficult ultimates or just laid-back story dungeons. It ends up controlling everything you do and every decision you make as a healer
Imagine being buttmad over being "forced" to have something productive to do at all times instead of playing a job that flows like cast -> stick thumb up butt -> dance emote -> take nap -> cast -> watch TV -> make a sandwich
I really don't get this argument though.
You could apply it to tanks, if you're holding agro, who cares what else you are doing right? Your job description doesn't cover dealing damage, that's for the DPS.
It could even be twisted as far as the dps themselves? Just want to sit there and press nothing but heavy thrust? Sure why not, it's not causing a wipe now is it? Why do I need to press my combos or use my cooldowns? The content doesn't require it. All it's doing is making the run slower. Much much slower
The fact of the matter is that you can heal most casual content with a CPM of around 6 assuming both you and your co healer are pulling your weight.
That's 1 button press every 10 seconds.
That's undeniably lazy. Sorry but it just is.
As for being forced to use it well. That's hyperbole. Plain and simple. Maintain your dot in casual content and very few people will care if you barely do much more than that.
Because that's exactly what it is.
Duties are a teamwork exercise in order to beat the duty as a collective group. Therefore you contribute using all your skills and tools at your disposal as of and when they are needed. That includes dpsing as a healer. Its in your kit, use it.
This is hammered home in the hall of the novice, the conjurer questline, the sch questline, the astro questline and by every npc that can heal
You are not "forced" to do damage. No one can tell you how to play the game, that's against the ToS. However, you are also not entitled to a party finder group in high end content which require decent healer damage.
It's a choice only you can make, with whatever you're comfortable with.
The idea that not doing dps as a healer is considered lazy is bonkers. It relates directly to the "go go" mentality that many hate.
It's not like I play this game thinking that I want to hurry up and finish so I don't have to play this game anymore. Throw some dots and hit some glares, but a healer should never feel like they're irrelevant by focusing on just healing.
There's no rush!
the "i choose to disregard reality and live in my fantasy world" mentality is much more serious problem, be it ice mages/melee rdm/healing healers, or... life in general ^_^
Well, not exactly, a good healer knows when they have to focus on healing and they know how to minimize the time they need to spend healing. I've been leveling my Dragoon recently and I've noticed that a lot of the people who only heal are usually also the ones who don't know how to maximize their toolkit and spend all their time healing, no damage skills, and still ends up keeping the tank alive worse than a healer who spends 80% or more of the time doing damage.
I wouldn't call a healer not doing damage lazy, but it is a sign of being incompetent, just like the tanks you see not using cooldowns or the dps who can't weave skills or follow a proper rotation.
If you're simply not comfortable enough in your healing abilities to do damage during your downtime, then it means you don't trust yourself to not let someone die during the 2.5s cast
Unfortunately, they are.
A prime example of this is how Warrior can solo Paglth'an despite it being the current endgame dungeon. Between their own insane self healing and the comically low tuning, they literally don't need a healer. Therefore, if you aren't doing damage, what purpose does your role serve? What are you contributing? Keep in mind, this irrelevancy also applies to tanks. What actually fosters the "go go go" mentality isn't players rushing but the fact single pulls render tanks or healers entirely pointless. The outgoing damage from mobs simply isn't high enough. I'm not wall pulling because I want to stop playing the game. I wall pull to make my preferred job feel relevant. Otherwise, I'm a gimped DPS. Likewise, I despise small pulls as a healer because, once again, I'm a gimped DPS or otherwise entirely useless.
This is the exact reason why people keep asking for more outgoing damage, more debuffs and/or more DPS abilities. They want something to focus on. I'd hazard a guess upwards of 85% of healers even in this very thread would love a greater emphasise on healing. Sadly, they know that just isn't going to happen due to the devs insistence on accessibility at all levels. Hence why damage is the last option we have.
So what would you say a healer do when there is no healing to do(which is very very often assuming level 80[I'm being generous] and you're not spamming Cure I or an equivalent)? Stand there? Emote? Pop open a Realm Reborn Red to celebrate everyone being at sufficient health? No, seriously. What would you have them do? What ELSE CAN they do other than DPS?
This has absolutely nothing to do with a "gogogogo" mentality and more understanding both the gameplay systems at work and the fact that this is not a single player game. Yeah, you could "focus on healing" but by doing so(again, assuming level 80) you're greatly disrespecting the time of your teammates because once HP is sufficient, you're doing nothing to help out.
With all due respect, a healer that focuses on healing(especially with how pitiful the last few dungeons has been hitting) IS irrelevant, because nothing in this game(even Ultimate!) hits hard enough to warrant that much healing uptime.
I'm not saying that there is something wrong with a healer adding their dps, you'll never catch me saying that. I'm saying that there IS something wrong with saying there is something wrong with healers not adding their dps.
Not everyone operates at the same level with healing and the game operates on the assumption that dps from healers is entirely unneeded, but very welcome, while healing should be the main focus.
And before someone says, "well, on x fight there's no way we can beat the mechanics without healers blasting hard as they can!"
Sorry, your group's dps sucks. The hardest content demands the best dps FROM DPS. If you have to kill yourself dpsing as a healer, that's not a boss issue but a team issue.
We're at the and of an expansion; is it so surprising that experienced 80s are bored atm? Many healers easily out gear all but savage content and have thoroughly learned most, if not all, content, so of course they have more time to dps, but that's not the case with everyone.
I mean, just read what you are writing: "a healer that focuses on healing IS irrelevant." Can you really make that claim for everyone?
At the end of the day, the COLD, HARD TRUTH is that the very name of this thread can be disproven with absurd ease.
Do I really need to bore everyone with a list of those who would have trouble adding dps while healing?
Here goes: young players, new players, lifelong tank or dps players, bad/old/weak hardware users, elderly players, infirm or crippled players, special needs players, especially timid or ultra casual players, etc...
The list goes on.
Feeling pressured to dps can and will keep CERTAIN players from healing. Obviously. Some people need to stay focused on one role: the one they signed up as.
If you can heal while plowing your dps into a boss while watching a movie, eating lunch and reading a book, good for you /golfclap. Don't expect everyone to be able to do the same. It's frankly rude.
So forgive me if this comes out formatted oddly, this is the first time I'm attempting to quote a specific thing on mobile, and it's not my intention to misrepresent your argument at all.
When I made my post above, I specified(twice) that I was talking about level 80 characters. You are not new when you hit 80. I have no issue at all with a fresh faced healer in their first few duties being too scared to DPS while healing, AS LONG as they're receptive to advice and make the attempt to improve.
Regarding what I said about healers being irrelevant, again I stand by what I said. I could have emphasized level 80 when I said that bit(because that's what I was referencing to in my entire post), and that's on me(it's 4 AM I'm sorry aha).
As much as I would like for healing to be the main focus of this game(even though I'm very fond of the combat medic playstyle) it's sadly not. Like I said earlier, NOTHING in this game hits hard enough to warrant a main focus on healing.
If I'm coming off as hostile, forgive me. That's truly not my intention.
Regarding the "there is something wrong with getting mad with healers not adding DPS"(Please keep in mind I'm being very generous and only accounting level 80), I say it's a fair thing to be annoyed at. If you're "just healing" then once everyone is topped up, they're contributing actually nothing. 0. You can't heal a bunch of mobs to death. Plus with how simple the Healer DPS kit(2 basically identical buttons shared across the 3 healers) is, there honestly is no excuse not to do it.
I gotcha, but I stand by what I said, too. It's fine to be irritated, but for some people it's just not possible to divide their focus like that. Idk why people just can't accept that like SE has apparently accepted it. This entire forum seems like an attack on anyone unwilling to dps when the correct term might be unable.
Healers that only heal usually can't keep a tank alive through a big pull or huge damage burst. Proven time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and again.
As an Omni-Role Player (who has mained a healer since 2.0 came out early access) I speak from personal experience.
Healers only flew back in original ARR because we didn't have the Mp or Ogcd's to do it full time on White Mage.
If you only heal, you're really just being stubborn and prideful.
But hey, "I don't pay your sub." So yea, rock on I guess?
If someone as a healer can't divide their attention between keeping HP up, and doing DPS spells(something that the game says you should do, CNJ quests and Hall of the Novice immediately come to mind), especially with how SIMPLE it is now for healers to do damage, if they can't do that(which I consider the absolute bare minimum, and this is coming from a non-Savage raider), should they even play a healer?
"Should they even play-" is where you lost me. They can play whatever they want, however they want no matter how bad others consider them and they should never EVER be made to feel bad about it.
This entire forumn is, in fact, an attack on people UNWILLING to dps. Almost everyone I've seen has prefaced their statements at one time or another with an admittance that people UNABLE to dps should be able to learn to heal and feel comfortable in the role. It's more than fine. It's normal. People who understand the game, are highly skilled, and just don't want to dps when it's the only thing they have to offer for 60% or more of a duty are definitely being attacked tho. If you honestly can't do any dps without a mental breakdown that's fine. The game is mostly made to cater to that. Asking for better downtime between the rare healing event is not an attack on unskilled players tho. It is a desperate cry for their to be enjoyment in our favored role. We all want to enjoy FFXIV and so we pay for it. Pressing Broil until I zone out because Ive paid my sub for 8 years and learned my class well is not worthwhile. An MMORPG is meant to be played for years on end. It's crazy to think that every healing job needs to be so shallow it can mastered in a few months when the expectation is that you'll play it for multiple years. Ive seen fresh sprouts doing Ultimates in less than year. Accessibility is great but we have to have some balance where there is room to grow and improve with the role as well that also makes sense with how content is designed. A single damage button just doesnt make any sense. Solo duties, fates, leve quest, beast tribes, etc are god awful as healers. It's a problem and it can be addressed without scaring away new people.