Beseechings of a long time healer

Forgive this long rant, but I need to get it out.


I have been a healer main for a long time in FFXIV. After I raised a DPS, I worked immediately on raising a healer for variety, and I've never looked back, running other classes only to fill gaps in my premades.

I love healing, and don't see myself every changing from that. The power your wield over life and death of the party is intoxicating. A good healer can keep a bad party alive. A great healer can turn a wipe into a victory.

No other role has so much power over the party.

But lately, I've been finding that as fun as it is to show off your skills at keeping bad players alive, I grew frustrated at the sheer number of bad players in the more difficult content.

I'm not talking about pugging Final Coil, but Urth's Font, or EX Primals are incredibly difficult to DF, much less impossible for T5. And it's not because people are new at the game. There's tons of players who have been around for months on end, raising multiple classes and still are unable to dodge simple AOEs. Nor is it lag that hurts them, as a healer, it's your job to watch the party, not the boss, so you can tell when someone's suffering from lag.

People aren't learning the mechanics, and the worst offenders are the DPS. A bad tank happens. A bad healer happens. But why do bad DPS appear 10x as often as either combined?

Why are you more likely to go into any part of Crystal Tower and have to fully heal the DPS from blatant AOEs 3 times before the first healer or tank falls? Why does this happen almost every duty? Why do people just expect healers to keep these bad players alive through everything?

Because we do. Because we will heal them every time they take a hit. We'll heal them every time they mess up and take aggro. We'll heal them every time they get lazy and not even bother avoiding those big red spots on the ground.

All, because healers are the ones punished for other player's mistakes.

Every time someone else makes a mechanics mistake, it's the healer that gets punished. Maybe you think that's what the healers exist for. The healer's job is to fix other people's mistakes. They're the Mr Fixits of parties. The plumber you call every time your sink leaks, so you never have to figure out why it leaked the 3rd time this month.

But here's the thing. SE puts in mechanics for healers too. There's special mechanics for healers to deal with, ontop of having to heal through bad DPS who ignore their own mechanics.

We're shouldering the burdon of 2 others ontop of our shoulders. Why do healers have to put up with bad players expecting others to make up for their laziness?

SE, I have a proposition: Make the people who make the mistake, pay for the mistake. Nothing too drastic. Something simple that won't drag the party down with the offending player. Something like...every time you get hit by an AOE, you'll take a 2 second stun that can't be resisted. Or maybe petrified for 10 seconds. Or put to sleep for 20 seconds. But start with the stun. Make sure that when they make a mistake, they know "Oh, I messed up, and the healer can't do anything about it, so I won't yell at them."

Please SE, I beseech you. Have some pity for those of us who are abused day in and day out. Those of us who have to always be at the apex of our curve all day, every day, just to get our daily poetics.

Sincerely: an overworked Selene



TL;DR: Put the punishment of those who stand in AOEs to the ones who stand in the AOEs. Make AOEs stun and do damage, not just do ignorable damage!

Just go to titan extreme df. That'll punish those bad dd. Oh you'll die too but those dd defin punished.

That's not really what I meant. What I'm asking is making AOEs = short stun a new norm. Something that appears everywhere, so that bad DPS can't avoid dealing with getting better, or else suffer constant little punishments. This'll also allow escalation where appropriate, so that 20s petrification can start making appearances in normal dungeons too, even if it's only occasionally. I can tell you bad DPS tend to be the most impatient, so if even for the sake of getting through the duty faster, they'll start avoiding unnecessary hits.

Lol, bad players will be bad, no matter the class. Even Titan hm seems to be too hard for your average DF Joe, much less Titan EX. I spent an hour yesterday watching our healers get Landslided and the rest not even being able to handle simple mechanics like plumes and bombs. I don't know if the general skill level has gone down or if it always was this bad. :D I hardly even trust ppl outside my FC or static anymore.

I'm all in for punishing more heavily for mistakes, but I think it would only anger the majority.

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Originally Posted by Dearche

SE, I have a proposition: Make the people who make the mistake, pay for the mistake.

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Sounds like you have a bit of a god complex. You are not the almighty, this attitude alone can be the difference between a success and a failure. It takes the group to get through, it depends on all of you weather it be life or death, unless you're running low content with high ilvl. I've seen healers, DPS, and tanks, drop like flies being hit by AOE's. Everyone makes mistakes. In large drawn out battles there is alot going on alot of stuff going off. I have missed landslides before only because with all kinds of explosions of party AOE's going off I've lost sight of it on the ground, as I have to be on top of the enemy to do my job. Random circle AOE's I've run right into not knowing where it will hit. Is that a reason to "punish" players, no it isn't.

Some people will learn from their mistakes and it makes them a better player. Others may not or just don't care, but is that reason to "punish" all players?

back in nexus light farming times I ran many many titan hm for light and desynth stuff with my scholar

if a dd wasnt able to evade something I never healed them, just tank and aoe dmg

In the end 90% of the times only 2 to 3 stayed alive (the tank, me and probably 1 dd who was able to evade stuff), but it was fun and atleast a bit challenging to down titan with 3 ppl nearly everytime

but yeah...having such dumb ppl in more difficult content can be a pain

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ServerCollaps

if a dd wasnt able to evade something I never healed them, just tank and aoe dmg

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This. Like you stated yourself - you've got the power to decide if this DD lives or dies. Call them out one or two times (or maybe the whole party like "Please guys, you dont have to eat any Aoe"). But plese - nothing like a stun or so. I admit that I sometimes eat and Aoe because as tank I have to make decisions from time to time (like moving the boss while dodging or poping a cooldown, feeling sorry but keeping the boss where it is). And more or less the same goes for DDs - theres a reason that (specially) melee can take a few hits. They shouldnt ofc but I'd say landing a full-buffed hit can somehow justify that a healer throws a cure after them.

...also, that may please you: some of the enemys in AK hard aka the tree-things actaully have an aoe-attack with a sleep-effect by now - super annoying for me as tank when I'm trying to gather all enemys for aoe-burst...