What proportion of casts should be heals?

I think there are a lot of healers not happy with how many times they cast glare/broil/malefic in a fight, but I see some disagreement about whether this problem should be fixed by padding out the dps kit or by increasing the healing requirement. Personally, I’d like to see both, but I would be curious to know what proportion of casts you think should be heals in any given fight. How many on a first attempt when everyone is undergeared? How many when you’ve got something on farm? Getting an idea of how much people actually want to be healing could give us a better idea of what the proportion of healing to dps skills should be.

There's a huge sliding scale there, for a number of reasons. The skill difference between the ceiling and floor is not small, and Square seems to believe the skill floor that the game should support should stay quite low in most content. A highly skilled healer might spend a dungeon without casting a single GCD heal. An unskilled one might cast 50 or more. For just that one reason, we already have a clear variation between the amount of time spent healing between players. When the content and kits "need" to support taking dozens and dozens of casts in easier content, as a side-effect they end up supporting 80+% damage uptime for someone who doesn't need to do that.

I'd be okay with 40ish% of my casts being heals in hard content once I've mastered it, but I'd also like the healing kits to be interesting for that. I think the skill gap makes conversations about how much healing uptime is "enough" hard to reach a definitive answer. Making the healing and damage kits interactive and interesting to play on their own would make the wiggle room in that uptime percentage much more bearable, no matter where it lands. I wouldn't have fun spending 80% of my time healing if I'm just casting Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure like I would Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare.

I don't care if Im spamming healing or spamming dps as long as I have fun doing it. I want decision making to be invovled and be rewarded for skill. Dps is not a decision currently. You deal damage or do nothing for long periods of time. In some dungeons healing isnt an option either. The tanks health plummets the entire run and while that is far more fun to me it still doesn't give me a lot of fun decisions to make. Just more than dps does.

I'm squarely in the green dps camp, but I still think we need to cast way more hard cast heals. I would say in a perfect world a 40%-30% of total actions (both gcd and ogcd) would be healing actions.
The problem is there's only a couple fun healing spells (especially Gcd heals are extremely boring), I think star, excog(recitation), and lilly heals are the only healing spells that feel fun to me. The rest of the actions are just disconnected heals that I blurt out when damage comes out. With how many healing spells we have, having so few of them actually be interesting is kind of funny.

it would all depend on how interesting our kit is
as they said "cure cure cure cure cure" vs "glare glare glare glare" are both boring.
I would like a healing rotation (including buffs, debuffs) and etc, in an ideal scenario. Around 60% healing/doing support stuff (the game engine and fights would not support this at the current state tho). But again, our kit almost insta heal the entire party HP. I wouldn't mind keeping the DPS in higher proportion, but it needs to be fun and engaging.

You can't put a number on hardcast heals because the number varies wildly between groups. A minimum ilv group progging a new fight with some players still somewhat inexperienced is worlds apart from an experienced, geared group where mitigation is perfectly planned and both healers have a well coordinated heal map. This is true more in FF14 than other MMO's, especially when we're limited to a strict 2 healers per 8 players while a game like WoW has larger groups and can reduce the healers they bring as they gear and learn a fight.

This is why, despite the fact that I'd like more to heal, I'm still in the "make dps engaging" camp. Dps just works as filler in ff14, but you naturally get too much downtime the better your group is, so make that downtime engaging and fun. Trying to make us use a set percentage of hardcast heals per fight is an exercise in futility.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Trying to make us use a set percentage of hardcast heals per fight is an exercise in futility.

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I completely agree, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no point in taking how much healing people would like to be doing into account.

If you're just healing up unavoidable damage because people are doing well, then not a very high percentage. If you're fixing people's mistakes a lot then that percentage is going to go up. It's literally impossible to know in advance unless you have a group you always run with that you have intimate experience with how they play.

As a healer your job is largely reactive.

And in the case of scholar, current nocturnal ast, and future sage, it's a bit proactive as well, but that boils down to knowing when the tank buster and the unavoidable aoes are coming.

ideally you want it to be roughly 50/50

that is, min ilvl and new folks, you heal about 60% of your buttons and dps 40% as you get more experienced, ilvl boosts, mechanics learnt etc, it would graduate more to 40:60

whats important is that it is fun and you have a variable and significant enough portion of your kit be not healing, ie dps, support, buffing etc

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

ideally you want it to be roughly 50/50

that is, min ilvl and new folks, you heal about 60% of your buttons and dps 40% as you get more experienced, ilvl boosts, mechanics learnt etc, it would graduate more to 40:60

whats important is that it is fun and you have a variable and significant enough portion of your kit be not healing, ie dps, support, buffing etc

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Is that supposed to be the ideal? With no deaths, 100% proper rotation, and 100% full understanding of the mechanics?
Because things vary greatly when people do stuff for the first time.

I don't think this is viable because a player's skill level affects that healing % a lot more than up to 20% currently. For the change to be 20%, the outgoing damage must happen frequently enough to reduce DPS time, but it also means dying will skew that bar a lot more on healers. It's more like a 80-90% heal / 10-20 % DPS if you were forced to continuously heal that much to keep 60% healing uptime due to the way deaths work. The 25% stat penalty is no joke, especially on healers, doubly so if they die twice.

Frankly, I'm not bothered about the ratio of heals to DPS actions.

The problem here is when I'm sat there mindlessly pressing the same button for nigh 30 seconds straight, frequently with only a dot refresh to break up the monotony.

Imagine if SE released a new DPS job and it's peak gameplay was pressing the same button 10 times in a row. People would lose their minds over it. Yet it's the accepted norm for healers.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Frankly, I'm not bothered about the ratio of heals to DPS actions.

The problem here is when I'm sat there mindlessly pressing the same button for nigh 30 seconds straight, frequently with only a dot refresh to break up the monotony.

Imagine if SE released a new DPS job and it's peak gameplay was pressing the same button 10 times in a row. People would lose their minds over it. Yet it's the accepted norm for healers.

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I literally made a forum thread on that topic when the Stormblood Media Tour was announced and all the healer damage options were gutted:

The Healer Double Standard

Isn't the answer to that question obvious?

The percent of casts as heals you need is the percent of casts as heals necessary to complete the instance without the players dying from damage every-other pull. Dead DPS don't actually DPS. Dead tanks don't tank. And dead healers, well ...

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Originally Posted by Hatstand

I think there are a lot of healers not happy with how many times they cast glare/broil/malefic in a fight, but I see some disagreement about whether this problem should be fixed by padding out the dps kit or by increasing the healing requirement. Personally, I’d like to see both, but I would be curious to know what proportion of casts you think should be heals in any given fight. How many on a first attempt when everyone is undergeared? How many when you’ve got something on farm? Getting an idea of how much people actually want to be healing could give us a better idea of what the proportion of healing to dps skills should be.

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Its a 50 50 for me, yes I want abit more dps and stuff to do but idk because seriously at the same time I do not. This is what made stormblood ast so godly there was so much to do with cards while shielding/healing and doing a combust 1 or 2 there be hardly time for malefics and mal use to be 2.5 cast and it already is the lowest damage spell of the healers which made it pretty risky to use. As time past even with the shadow bringers exes am doing now co healers especially WHM when they dont be healing when its necessary, idk what is it with whm they so lazy do a quick rapture or heck at least aslyum its so sad lately I just want another ast or sch as my co heal for ex and savages, too many a time I see where wipes are happening cuz glare bot dont know when to stop for a sec to put up a regen or bene the tank who took a whopping power buster or we do the 2 people each grab a ball mech and ofc you should heal up after epopping another either you die or everyone dies, emerald ex is pretty much the example am giving. Least a sch is most likely gonna indom right away as am casting asp helios but the white glaring bots geez then when you wipe because they didnt wanna rapture or whatever, they have the audicity to be the first ones leaving lol. Yeah 1 button dps is boring but idk the idea of having more dps in heals with how 90% of healer players dps to the fact its about trying to out beat other dps would love to see a whm beat a sam or blm in dps.

To me it’s an ever-fluctuating ratio. One day it can be 20 heal and 80 dps, another it can be 50 | 50. Evidently though as you familiarize yourself with an encounter, you will heal more efficiently.

In general, if you are actively looking for opportunities to squeeze in extra Glare/Broil/Malefix without letting your party mate die, you are in the right track for most part.

And then there’s another factor that shouldn’t be forgotten: the randomness that a human player brings, aka mistakes. There are just plenty of factors that affects this ratio, it’s hard to draw the hard lines. Perhaps in statics it would be easier.

Honestly, I am not sure how they will get away with this one...
The way the game is set, I have no idea how they can fix the healer situation.

I guess the same way they went with only 1 tank for some content, they could do the same with healers.
There is so much content where you really don't need 2 healers...

Other route is to lean more into the green DPS route and provide a better / more fun DPS kit since healers seems to spend most of their time DPSing with 2 buttons

Last option is to increase healing requirement but I don't see them doing that due to the pretty casual nature of FF14

Tough spot... eager to see what Endwalker brings...

So many threads opinions suggestions and idea that will be ignored.
Haha.

feels good to be a healer in XIV

In Expert Roulette level content with everyone performing at their best, I expect 5 - 15 percent of the healers actions to be healing. This is because SE wants everyone to clear content on the critical path, so there will be plenty of room to make up for mistakes by those with not much skill.

Making this fun, or at least interesting for all skill levels is very important.

My perspective is that high end content should require roughly 75% of all participating healer's max healing output (excluding Limit Breaks) at min-ilevel dropping to about 55% to 60% at max-ilevel of the release patch. The method of getting to those percentages should be up to the healers involved rather than assuming a specific gcd ratio.

I'm one of few people who thoroughly enjoyed Cleric Stance, so that gives you an idea of what overall camp I'm in.

There's no direct answer due to variables. In dungeons - assuming the team are somewhat geared and knowledgeable, I expect to be dealing damage almost all of the time, give or take some occasional oGCD's and a few hard CD's now and then. It is a reactive role with trinity variables, such as higher or lower group DPS, a more or less sturdy tank, mechanical errors, and whathaveyou. The sum of the parts generally dictates how much overall healing you'll likely need to do (outside of the preset unavoidable damage values, most of which can be casually and pre-emptively be healed with oGCD's before you glide right back into spamming damage). A lot of the same applies to higher content, just with a little less freedom.

There's nothing more frustrating than getting AFK healers or constant overhealers when I'm tanking or doing damage. When I see such people, I tend to assume that they are (a) new, (b) uncomfortable, or if those aren't applicable, then (c) plain lazy. It's not uncommon for me to meet healers who spend a scary amount of time spewing MedicaII into actual MP issues and still letting people die, often followed by situations where myself (as a tank) will casually clear, say, a boss-fight with no healer, hoping that it shows how such gross levels of healing simply aren't needed. A lot of said players aren't very inclined to throw stones or holy -- most just watching the fight and spewing Cure II's into full-health targets in what I can only assume is some sort of healing anxiety.

So, would I rather more damage requirements or healing requirements? Honestly, I'm perfectly happy getting both, but it simply won't happen judging by the overall role requirements up to now.

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Originally Posted by RopeDrink

I'm one of few people who thoroughly enjoyed Cleric Stance, so that gives you an idea of what overall camp I'm in.

There's no direct answer due to variables. In dungeons - assuming the team are somewhat geared and knowledgeable, I expect to be dealing damage almost all of the time, give or take some occasional oGCD's and a few hard CD's now and then. It is a reactive role with trinity variables, such as higher or lower group DPS, a more or less sturdy tank, mechanical errors, and whathaveyou. The sum of the parts generally dictates how much overall healing you'll likely need to do (outside of the preset unavoidable damage values, most of which can be casually and pre-emptively be healed with oGCD's before you glide right back into spamming damage). A lot of the same applies to higher content, just with a little less freedom.

There's nothing more frustrating than getting AFK healers or constant overhealers when I'm tanking or doing damage. When I see such people, I tend to assume that they are (a) new, (b) uncomfortable, or if those aren't applicable, then (c) plain lazy. It's not uncommon for me to meet healers who spend a scary amount of time spewing MedicaII into actual MP issues and still letting people die, often followed by situations where myself (as a tank) will casually clear, say, a boss-fight with no healer, hoping that it shows how such gross levels of healing simply aren't needed. A lot of said players aren't very inclined to throw stones or holy -- most just watching the fight and spewing Cure II's into full-health targets in what I can only assume is some sort of healing anxiety.

So, would I rather more damage requirements or healing requirements? Honestly, I'm perfectly happy getting both, but it simply won't happen judging by the overall role requirements up to now.

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Reading this I can't help but remember why I was so addicted to SCH before Yoshi destroyed things with 5.0. Balancing healing responsibilities with my dots and dps options during downtime was insanely fun.
That's why I'm so bitter now--I miss the Hell out of playing that way!

ARR was fun : cleric stance, almost 0 GCD so you had to "choose" when to hard cast, as well as dots to maintain, so you had to allocate a few gcds to keep them up. Not as many skills, yet much more fun in my (scholar) book.

Even low lvl dungeons were -relatively- fun to run !

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Originally Posted by RopeDrink

I'm one of few people who thoroughly enjoyed Cleric Stance, so that gives you an idea of what overall camp I'm in.

There's no direct answer due to variables. In dungeons - assuming the team are somewhat geared and knowledgeable, I expect to be dealing damage almost all of the time, give or take some occasional oGCD's and a few hard CD's now and then. It is a reactive role with trinity variables, such as higher or lower group DPS, a more or less sturdy tank, mechanical errors, and whathaveyou. The sum of the parts generally dictates how much overall healing you'll likely need to do (outside of the preset unavoidable damage values, most of which can be casually and pre-emptively be healed with oGCD's before you glide right back into spamming damage). A lot of the same applies to higher content, just with a little less freedom.

There's nothing more frustrating than getting AFK healers or constant overhealers when I'm tanking or doing damage. When I see such people, I tend to assume that they are (a) new, (b) uncomfortable, or if those aren't applicable, then (c) plain lazy. It's not uncommon for me to meet healers who spend a scary amount of time spewing MedicaII into actual MP issues and still letting people die, often followed by situations where myself (as a tank) will casually clear, say, a boss-fight with no healer, hoping that it shows how such gross levels of healing simply aren't needed. A lot of said players aren't very inclined to throw stones or holy -- most just watching the fight and spewing Cure II's into full-health targets in what I can only assume is some sort of healing anxiety.

So, would I rather more damage requirements or healing requirements? Honestly, I'm perfectly happy getting both, but it simply won't happen judging by the overall role requirements up to now.

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Or what about balance? there is the green dps bots especially whms who over dps to the point they try ben lilly, sch lusy, or ast ed a mere second too late and poor tank get ko in light party situation or from what am seeing so far in emerald ex so far early wipe via ball sharing cause after first pop co healer too busy dpsing to throw heal after first ball pop an some people or all die its so annoying. Yes am not saying be lazy and stand there and dont dps but balance 50 50 do both heal regen shield and dps not do too much of either but personally ill be that 1% that rather a heal bot over a green dps one. had a red mage got mad at my co healer asking why was i doing everything of dpsing res and what not and glare bot cant do any for once lol. Then healers be mad if pld clem or rdm vercure cant blame em. Urking as it is I much rather an actual dps like sam and blm gets dps greedy and get punished for it vs co healer dps bots.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

ideally you want it to be roughly 50/50

that is, min ilvl and new folks, you heal about 60% of your buttons and dps 40% as you get more experienced, ilvl boosts, mechanics learnt etc, it would graduate more to 40:60

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I feel a 50:50 for min ilvl and new players would graduate to more like a 5:95 with a fully experienced and geared group.

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Originally Posted by Hatstand

I completely agree, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no point in taking how much healing people would like to be doing into account.

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That's fair.

Personally for me it's not a question of pressing more GCD's under the current system. Adding extra AspHelios or Medica II wouldn't make healing more exciting for me. I like oGCD healing in that you can weave it and it rewards good mapping and planning. If you blow them all at once you overheal and then have none left when you need them later. They also make great clutch saves, which impacts a run more than many realize.

Ideally we'd use more heal GCD's but those GCD's should be more interesting. At the same time dps would have more variety and be more engaging too. It's important that we aren't pressing any one button too often, and also that it feels rewarding to play well and being really good at your class gives you more value than the average player ...otherwise what's the point in learning your class well.