Why healing is broken and terrible, and how to fix it...

Healing is not broken as long you have any idea of what kind of group you're inserted into, it's harder to gauge that in a PUG environment than a pre-formed group, that is certain, however you can have a slight idea of what kind of healer you have to be just by seeing how a group performs. Are tanks not using CD's appropriately to mitigate busters? DPS slacking on mechanics and require more of your attention? Then focus on healing only and maybe DPS when deemed safe so you don't end up risking a wipe or running OOM from too much healing. It's all about adaptability and healers have it worse in that regard since they need to have an idea of what's going to know how to act.

Fortunately in a pre-formed oriented group aka static, it's easier to adapt since you kinda know what to expect and not rely on the holy RNG of DF/PF where you won't know if you're either paired with a bunch of noobs or world class players.

Here's an idea, play with this for a while:


When you PUG up or do not know the fight, do not use all of your MP to DPS. Say you keep your limit at a very generous above 50% for DPSing... and below that you stop it and wait until you can re-gen MP with the available skills. Then start DPSing again.

When you start to feel comfy with said fight, you can drop this to say 33%, even while PUGing. Or even lower, when you switch to a known group.

tl;dr nobody forces you to use all your MP to DPS, you are the healer, it is your call.

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Originally Posted by RaizeGraymalkin

I mean it's not just healing. It's the whole meta. Tanks not using tank stance and Healers just tossing some Regens on everybody. I personally am not a fan of it and it sucks for people who go into those jobs, with the mindsets you would expect. That's just how things are though.

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This is unfortunately why raiding in WoW >>>>> raiding in FFXIV, despite XIV's DPS classes being far deeper and more involved.

When XIV's savage modes get cleared the same day they're released, it speaks volumes about how badly off kilter raiding is.

The problem is that avoidable damage, while neat in theory, means that they need to balance every encounter around the idea that a certain percentage of players will get hit with it and that healers will need to heal them.

But when a group is simply good enough to NOT get hit, it means the healers can free up more mana for DPS and/or tanks can go out of tank stance to do more damage, which in turn makes the DPS checks a joke.

They need to decide what they want to do one way or another, because the fact that they continue to say that healer and tank DPS isn't factored into DPS checks is the same as saying they balance around 2 DPS being dead the whole fight.

They either need to say, "Yes, healers will need to DPS, so here are interesting ways healers will be able to do that..." or "Healers won't have time to DPS because they'll be too busy healing from now on".

But continuing to straddle the fence just isn't going to work.

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

This is unfortunately why raiding in WoW >>>>> raiding in FFXIV, despite XIV's DPS classes being far deeper and more involved.

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So go raid in WoW then. Just because you don't know how to heal in this game doesn't mean the system's broken.

And please stop saying the system's broken because you don't know how to heal in this game. Again, it's okay not to be a good healer in FFXIV, and admitting is the first step.

I understand what you are saying OP but it's a non issue for me. I don't DPS. Oddly enough a wipe usually comes from one shot mechanics and it's usually me on the floor first so saving MP shouldn't be an issue for me but I still refuse to DPS unless I am trying to stat effect like Heavy or Stun.

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

you don't know how to heal in this game

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I'll tell you what I don't know how to do: get the maximum value out of MCH's overheat, or nail NIN's rotation. Those are things I definitely cannot do yet, and that makes them engaging and interesting

But healing is neither of those things.

Compare the way a healer functions to a class like MCH or NIN and it's like they're not even classes in the same game. Healers literally press a heal button once every X seconds, where X changes depending upon how much damage the tank is taking. We also start casting AoE heals when we know the boss is about to deal raid-wide damage.

But other than that, you're going to spend the rest of the time DPSing, and that's MOST of your time.

RDM can cast heals, and can actually do a decent job of it, true, but they're still a DPS because a RDM can expect to spend the vast majority of their time dealing damage.

So what is a "healer" in XIV? A class that spends ~20% of it's time healing and the rest of the time dealing damage. Should we even be calling them "healers" when they spend most of their time dealing damage?

Tanks spend 100% of their time tanking (unless they're an off tank, but they still want SOME aggro in that case), DPS spend nearly all their time DPSing (RDM and SMN raises excluded).

Healers are the only class type where players can expect to spend more time dealing damage than the ACTUAL intended purpose of their class.

Am I the only one with whom this doesn't sit well?

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

This is unfortunately why raiding in WoW >>>>> raiding in FFXIV, despite XIV's DPS classes being far deeper and more involved.


When XIV's savage modes get cleared the same day they're released, it speaks volumes about how badly off kilter raiding is.

The problem is that avoidable damage, while neat in theory, means that they need to balance every encounter around the idea that a certain percentage of players will get hit with it and that healers will need to heal them.

But when a group is simply good enough to NOT get hit, it means the healers can free up more mana for DPS and/or tanks can go out of tank stance to do more damage, which in turn makes the DPS checks a joke.

They need to decide what they want to do one way or another, because the fact that they continue to say that healer and tank DPS isn't factored into DPS checks is the same as saying they balance around 2 DPS being dead the whole fight.

They either need to say, "Yes, healers will need to DPS, so here are interesting ways healers will be able to do that..." or "Healers won't have time to DPS because they'll be too busy healing from now on".

But continuing to straddle the fence just isn't going to work.

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Except that (as evident in this thread) it is working for most people.

Look, it sucks that this style of healing is not for you and I'm sorry there is a facet of this game that you don't enjoy. I hope that eventually it grows on you. Just becauae you don't like something though is no reason to change it when many other people do not agree with you. I don't like chocolate, doesn't mean I think other people shouldn't be able to have it especially when I have so many food options without chocolate.

My objective evidence that healing is not this broken, lifeless thing in FFXIV is that healers are still no where near AiN the majority of the time. It shows that people are still playing healers at high levels more than they are tanking.

What objective evidence can you offer to the contrary? I don't want to hear about WoW (unless its something like healers outnumber DPS in WoW or something), I don't want your opinions; what can you actually put forward to make this a convincing argument? Because I genuinely believe there is nothing. It is constructed of arbitrary feelings presented as facts.

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

So go raid in WoW then. Just because you don't know how to heal in this game doesn't mean the system's broken.

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It has nothing to do with not knowing how to heal. It is stupidly easy to heal in this game, and that is the problem. I want challenge. I want to spend the vast majority of my time actually healing, instead of occasional burst healing and then going back to spamming two buttons for damage.

Why isn't this thread in the Healer section?

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

If that were the case, healing would be interesting and exciting.

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I actually find healing to be way more interesting, exciting and engaging than a dps class, where I spend more time looking at my buttons than actually experiencing the fight. Although in SB I prefer it more on whm then sch, when it used to be the other way around, but you can't have everything. (Maybe your problem is that youre playing ast, which is boring as hell dps-wise?)