Getting to Know You (Healer Gaming Styles)

There’s something I’m curious about the healer community. One, I would like to get to know more about you guys.

So, if you’d be willing, 5 things I’d like all of you to share:

1) How long have you been playing?

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?

Mine: Been playing for a few months. I use controller. Currently, I feel healing is fine. Prefer casual raiding, dungeon running, PvP, slowly moving into endgame trials/raids - my motivation is fun. I have all healers maxed. Most preferred SCH, least preferred WHM.

Thank you! And looking forward to know more about y’all!

1. I've been playing since the open beta of A Realm Reborn on and off.

2. I play with a controller on PS4 (PS5 if I could ever get my hands on one).

3. I find the current iteration of healing too boring most of the time.

4. Healing can be a lot more fun when you're progging content, or in some cases playing through more unique content like Eureka and Bozja; however, I feel that healing flat out is not designed with solo content (the MSQ), Dungeons, Treasure Maps, Hunts, Roulettes (usually), Farming shared FATEs, Deep Dungeon farming, farming old Trials, or farming certain current Trials (some are better than others) in mind.

5. Currently, I have every job maxed at level 80. My main job is Dancer and I almost never heal these days (though I love playing healers and support and am cautiously optimistic for the SGE and AST changes). WHM is probably the least offensive for me right now despite its weaving issues, but SCH upsets me because I LOVED 2.0 and 3.0 SCH, and even 4.0 SCH was pretty good after Energy Drain and Miasma II were restored to their kit. Like it genuinely breaks my heart to see how SCH has fallen. I loved AST too before, but the Shadowbringers card changes were a disaster, and I'm not even talking about the effects. The atrocity that was 5.0 Sleeve Draw was a crime, and in general it's just been a clunky mess this expansion. They've sterilized it for now, but yeesh! It was basically an attempt to see how clunky they could possibly make the system. I don't love the current card effects, but I don't think going back to the old cards is a good idea either. I'd argue the new cards are worse from a fun factor, and that's more important to me than the balancing factor, but I think it needs a full rework again. I'm hoping this new seal system might make it feel a lot better, but we'll have to wait and see.

1. I've been playing for about 5 years -- since Heavensward.

2. Mouse/Keyboard.

3. I enjoy healing.

4. Trials, Raids, and Dungeons.

5. I have every job at 80.

Sage will be my new bae come mid-November!

1) How long have you been playing?
Since 1.0 but having a lot of break in between

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?
PC, Keyboard and Mouse

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?
Too boring/just right

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.
too boring for
Dungeon/Story mode raid and Alliance raid espeically when we overgear
Mainly is our healing potency too strong/damage received too low
Would prefer 70-80% GCD healing uptime, or more buff/debuff mechanics

It is just right if we are new to the dungeon/extreme/raid that everyone have little knowledge about mechanic

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?
All 3 max, favoured AST and least SCH

1) playing since 2.4

2) pc - keyboard&mouse

3)I find healing gameplay to be just right and prefer it to be easier rather than more difficult

4)Mostly doing regular dungeons

5)Have maxed out all healers and prefer to play SCH because it's simple, fun and been my favorite since 2.4. Least prefered one would be AST because I don't like cards mechanics, which makes it too complex.

Playing since Early Access 2.0

Controller

I used to enjoy healing, I really do not anymore. Too boring/far too easy.

Yes.

Also yes; have everything maxed out. I gravitate towards White Mage because it's what I started on, can't stand what they've done to Scholar, and honestly got tired of Astro.

1) Since 1.0's Beta, although I did take a hiatus a few months after 1.0's release until the ARR beta.

2) Mouse and Keyboard, I've never really been comfy with gamepads

3) That really depends, healing new unknown content is exciting because of how fast people can get flattened and which inturn asks for quick reactions to try to save people during prog. Unfortunately the majority of damage incoming is so absolutely predictable that to a point, it's really not that hard to predict the likelihood of other people making mistakes.

4) Extremes and up. Outside of a few specific points in levelling dungeons, healing in casual content is barely worthy of the word.

5) All 3 at 80 and geared to BiS. WHM is my favourite by far, I'm not entirely sure why, I guess just because it's straight forward with a toolkit that wouldn't be out of place in Everquest or Vanilla WoW. I'm old and stuck in my ways :rolleyes: Least favourite? AST I guess, I strongly disliked how the 4.0 changes played and 5.0 just ruined the job for me.

1) How long have you been playing? Since Alpha

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard? Controller

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right? I find the DPS rotations on healer really boring as they typically involve spamming one button and a dot. There's not enough to heal in majority of general content (not savage/ex) and I find dungeons pretty boring to run as a healer that I try go balls-to-the-wall on DPS. How healers do dungeon and not DPS is beyond me - they must be SO bored/lazy!

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to. General Dungeons, roulettes, 24-mans, some ex-primals, open work content

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred? Every job 80. I think AST is my least preferred because I keep forgetting which cards are ranged and which are melee as I switch between WHM and SCH quite often. SCH is middle, I love the idea of SCH but the book is a boring looking weapon and there's nothing super snappy about SCH while WHM has so many oGCDs that I can just run around and spam buttons and it feel fun

1) How long have you been playing?

Since 2.0 BETA Phase 3.

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?

Controller, even though I'm PC. I also play with expanded crossbars, they're not enabled by default but I feel they are wonderful for extending your reach on a controller.

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?

Too boring. I used to love healing. It can be summed up as: Too much downtime and too little to do in my downtime and not enough push to use my full healing toolkit.

I feel like playing healers in this game started out great and back in the day it was something I complemented about the game. I feel like healer/healing design has just kept going backwards since then.

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.

Everything outside of Savage and EX progression. I'm a semi-casual player, so Savage and EX content is rarer for me, meaning my healing content is mostly:
Alliance Raid, Normal Raid, Bozja, events, MSQ, side quests, dailies and Duty Roulettes.

Then out of Bozja, Delubrum Reginae can sometimes turn me into a Rez Mage, because the doom mechanic means I'm better served rezzing people than actually healing.

FATE grinding in Bozja also means just Holy/Art of War/Gravity spamming. (and heck, FATE grinding is dull even at the best of times)
Critical Encounters are better for upping the healing requirement but don't occur frequently enough IMO. My net experience of Bozja as a healer is negative but had the potential to be positive, which is why I give it a mention. Sure I could swap DPS and healer between FATEs and Critical Engagements, but I was using Bozja to level my WHM and I feel like I should have been able to enjoy the experience.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?

I have SCH and AST to 80 on my main and WHM to 80 on an alt and my WHM on my main is nearly 80.
But my main experience healing content has been on SCH and AST.

Pre ShB my prefferred was SCH. In ARR and HW SCH was my baby.
During ShB AST was my preferred. But I would sporadically try SCH to see if I can enjoy it on certain content.

In ShB SCH is my least preferred to play. But WHM is kinda next to it.

Note that out of the 3: AST is the only one that feels like it has something to do in its downtime, despite it being watered down, it still makes it more enjoyable to play than SCH and WHM.

1. playing since ARR beta

2. controller on both pc and ps4

3. Far too boring. To the point I quit healing in 95% of content. I don't run out of mp, The cards are an insult and are so weak that the standard deviation of +/-% on every attack or heal makes them indistinguishable from a series of high rolls in that %, the lily gauge has no depth to it, all my time magic is gone, and the healers are clones of one another.

4. The one place it isn't a one button slog: bozja. Where i can load up with lost seraph strike and burst for some semblance of an aoe rotation. Everywhere else its a glare/malefic spamming snore fest where most of my healing actions are never pressed.
Dungeons? always have and will be a snorefest that get slightly more interesting when a tank doesn't use mitigation. Alliance raids? Glare/malefic spam with more raises. Extremes/savage? I might cast a heal once every 60 or 90 seconds depending on the fight.
Only truly fresh content is remotely interesting, since nobody knows mechanics so I do need to heal a little bit, but there's still the millstone of nothing interesting to do when i dont need to heal. Then after a few days its back to the same old snorefest

5. Ast and whm maxed, most other jobs maxed bar bard, blm and smn/sch. It appears my globe and stick are gonna stay in my saddlebag for another 2 years. If I'm still around after 6.0 that is. The devs admitting they don't care about healer, feedback, veterans enjoyment and any sort of skill ceiling.

I can always look the last bit I enjoy of the game, the story, up on youtube. I'll have a poke about at 7.0 to see if anything changes.

1) How long have you been playing?

I started playing in April 2016 (Patch 3.2) and was playing almost every day. But the start of June I had WHM then SCH leveled to cap. For reasons, my time in game decreased and has been largely irregular - on and off. I've been playing more over the past 8-10 months than usual, but I've also stayed out of group content during that time except for Main Scenario and PvP.

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?

M/K, and I'm always looking for ways to optimize. I mostly use buttons 1-12 and alt + 1-12 on my gaming mouse but when clicking a party member or ability is needed I notice sometimes the pointer just isn't there. Good times.

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?

I'd lean toward hectic, but I don't know why. I know I don't spend enough time running content with other people, but when I do it feels like I'm playing another game from what bored healers describe. I do know how to play WHM as it's been my main since the start, and I've asked healers on the forums for guidance and advice over the years. But, for some reason even when our standard plan for something like larger dungeon pulls sound the same, the outcome is not.

I appreciate the advice I've received over the years - one person made a video of one set of pulls for me and another ran some content with me in order to help - but, I don't seem to get lots of dull or boring runs? A few once in a blue moon. I tend to find myself healing quite a lot and getting a little stressed at times. So... :confused: When I started getting worse instead of better with more practice, I took the hiatus referred to above. Thinking of getting back in soon to prep for EW.

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.

I am generally referring to things like dungeons (with human party members) and normal trials. I avoid harder content in part because of the answer to 3.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?

When I started it was WHM then SCH. I did try AST before it's massive changes but not much. I keep all at level cap. As of 5.55, WHM is definitely my fave and SCH is last. Even though I didn't fully utilize and optimize SCH in HW and StB, I did enjoy it. I am actually looking forward to seeing how AST plays in EW and of course WHM.

1) FFXIV for 7 years, main heal since 6 months. I was tired of playing the overly simplified MCH.

2) Controller

3) mixed

4) Dungeons and alliance raids are pretty boring. Savage and Ex Primals are fun, but sometimes a bit hectic. And PvP is pure luck.

5) All to 80. Prefer AST (Noct). Dont like SCH.

Mine: Been playing since early access first launch day in 2.0.
Controller
I find healing gameplay to be just right and prefer it to be easier in the future
Dungeons, raiding [alliance, savage extreme trials etc]
Only 1 sch. May play a new healer if this fairy jank still exists in 6.0

1) How long have you been playing?
I started sometime around mid-late 5.2 ; I’m an ShB baby.

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?
Mouse/Keyboard

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?
This really depends, i.e what kind of players I’m paired with in said content. As of now I’m leaning toward “too boring” in general. Few things does spice up the experience but those moments are sporadic at best.

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.
• Dungeons, Trials, Some NR & AR = These are most of time, boring. The only time something actually turns interesting is when the party is littered with flaws. I said some because the ones like O11n, O12n, E4n, & Orbonne are still enjoyable to me even when the players are all competent. I wish there are more raids like Orbonne.
• EX & Savage = Progging and road to smoothing the farm runs with static are the best phase to be in. Once everything are perfected however, things are starting to go stale or worse, downhill. At this point the enjoyment from healing becomes less impactful. Beyond here, I rely solely on either knowing the fact that huge responsibility sits on my hand, or playing meme shenanigan with my static sometimes just to force a mistake but never to the point of wiping.
• Eureka & Save The Queen = Possibly the peak of my healer enjoyment because I am given more tools to play around. And guess what? Those tools do make an impact. Such a shame a side content becomes more enjoyable to me than the main content, considering that I also spend most of my time doing those casual contents.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?
They are my first 3 maxed out jobs. My favorite is the nerd SCH. Least fave? That’s hard to say. I flex around real often depending on what my static feeling like or how I want to play at the moment. But if I have to go by numbers wise, I’d say WHM is the least preferred.

1) How long have you been playing?
Dabbled in 1.0, been playing since 2.0 open beta

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?
Mouse/keyboard

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?
I find it just right. I find the simplicity of my 1 button DPS spam allows me to focus on what's happening in the raid around me.

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.
Alliance Raids: I love that these raids really force players to work together. Lots can go wrong in a 24man and I enjoy having more people to support. Current favorite 24man is Orbonne.
When I say I love these raids... I reallly really love them..
My Coin Collection:
https://i.imgur.com/kkVSfic.png



5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?
WHM and AST. I prefer WHM. It's like worn in leather. Also Assize is just the best.... and Blood for the Blood Lily!
I do want to get better on AST, I love that I can buff my party but I always tend to crave what I'm more use to.
SCH never made it past level 50. Just never really got into it.

1) How long have you been playing?
I started November 2018 (4.4ish in Stormblood)



2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?
Started on mouse/keyboard, but moved to controller.



3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?
My static has 3 people that usually heal, so unless I'm PUGing something I normally only have an occasional chance to heal while running roulettes.

Roulettes?
They're fairly dull. I've taken to playing "how low can you go" with my friends HP in ways that have ended up totally shaking the spirit of my friends trying out tanking.

Otherwise... PUGs?
It honestly depends on the group I wind up in. Sometimes it's so smooth its effortless and, if anything, I'm fighting less with the boss and more with the other healer to be relevant and contribute.
More often than not it's a horrible, titanic mess. Sometimes I legit have to stop DPSing for minutes at a time just for my poor MP.



4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.
Roulettes up to Savage content.
I've tried PVP a few times and... no thank you.


5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?
I've maxed SCH and AST.
AST is hands down my fav if only because it has built in weave space.

1) How long have you been playing?
Since ARR

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?
Mouse/KB

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?
Too boring. There's effectively no decision-making. Damage comes in, you generally counter or fix it with the appropriate button. The kits barely have any internal synergy; WHM and SCH in particular don't really build toward anything. There's no personal class goal to achieve other than spamming one button with occasional heals tossed in. (and no, I don't count Misery as something to build toward. It's not a damage gain, it's a refund for taking losses. I don't consider that something to strive for, it's a consolation prize for needing to blow lilies on what amounts to overhealing in most content.)

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.
I've healed Savage and had some forays into Ultimate. Outside the occasional niche scenario where I need to spam Cure 3 for a very brief ~10 second mini phase, I'm bored. On my WHM, I feel kind of useless. All the big hits the bosses in UWU do? There's nothing I can contribute outside regens slowly ticking everyone back up after the hit. If anyone else screws up, we're dead. I can't reduce the outgoing damage, that's the tank and DPS's job. I can't shield the party, that's the other healer's job. I bring Cure 3 and spamming Stone 4 to the table. That's it. That's my unique contribution to the party. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1. I have tons of time to keep mashing that wretched, boring excuse for a "rotation" even in Ultimate. There are no cards to manage, no buffs or assistance to give the party. Just Stone. Stone stone stone stone. And the occasional heal when it's necessary.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?
All 3 are 80. AST at least feels like you're managing something or contributing to the party in some way, even if the percentage on Divination is hard to notice. I'm familiar enough with WHM that it's not difficult to play, but every time I return to it it reminds me how limited and hamstrung the job is purposefully designed to be, and the intentional garbage in the job design pisses me off. SCH I'm less familiar with playing, so I don't play it as much. It's just as dirt dull as WHM is this expansion, so I haven't bothered learning the little quirks in how it plays very slightly different from its other drooling sibling.

1. Since Beta ARR.

2. Controller.

3. Too boring. Glarebroil spam is not fun. I like weaving, I don't mind target juggling, even on cotroller. AST does get a bit strange on controller, I make more mistakes but it mostly works for me. Even on Savage, I find myself spamming the nuke most of the time. Dungeons are unbearabaly spammy, but instead of nuking a single target I spend most of my time slapping the ground instead.

4. Done all tiers this expansion on SCH/AST. Currently progging TEA. I honestly think I'd have more fun being the only healer in the 8-man party.

5. Maxed out all jobs. SCH is my favourite aesthetic wise. Mechanically, it's AST. WHM is my least favourite both in looks and feels.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ToodlesElNoodles

snip

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Another relevant question would also have been how often do you play healer and for how long.

1: Since early 4.2 iirc

2: Keyboard/Mouse

3: Too boring, spaming one button is not fun

4: All the content with very few exceptions in the form of some parts of Ultimates (TEA comes to mind) where the damage actually push you to make proper use of your kit

5: Between all acounts I've maxed all but Whm, my personal ranking would be Sch>Ast>Whm altough Sch stays on top for not gameplay related reasons.

1. Been playing since the start of Shb.

2. PC. Mouse/keyboard.

3. I find healing in general boring depending on my team mates.

4. All content. Dungeons for the most part are a snoozefest. Alliance Raids depends on how many new people we get and even then meh.

I think I can sum up trials and raids (including ex and savage) pretty much the same: the mechanics are difficult. The healing is not. Best way I can explain that is learning the mechanics of a new trial/raid are challenging for me. Once that's been met, the challenge of healing it goes down. Dramatically.


5. I have all 80. AST is my most preferred played since I've pretty much mained it the moment I unlocked it and feel the most comfortable with it. WHM I'm not as comfortable but will play. SCH is the least preferred for many reasons chief of which being shielding has never been my favorite play style in any MMO and it is too clunky.

1) How long have you been playing?
5 years, only ever mained healer but I like to take tank/dps through content when I can.

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?
Keyboard

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?
Too boring. Too much downtime and too little to do in that downtime. The easier the content the worst it gets. Even random pugs that perform horribly don't make it that interesting, they just shift the focus to MP management, you can still heal stupid in 1 or 2 spells.

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.
All content. Even ultimate fights (bear with me I'll explain why). Solos, dungeons and normal 8 man content being boring is perfectly fine IMO. We need entry-level content for people learning the role. They're all perfectly solo healable, even with terrible groups and no mana. That gives healers a lot of leeway so it's bound to be a little boring. It would be GREAT imo if we had a few more things to do, beginners could ignore it and veterans could indulge. But alas, I'm not going to cry a river over this content.

The rest of the content goes like this: Either the damage is too low or spread too far appart to generate any sense of urgency (unless you're in a bad group and panic < depends on your experience as a healer). Or the flip side of that is that bad play is punished severely (savage/ultimate = death) in which case healing requirements don't really change that much if you're in a bad group. In all cases, as soon as you have a good grasp on healing, it becomes very dull because there's no execution difficulty associated with the role. If you end up farming content, then that just makes things worse. Ultimate is pretty much just farming (even during prog, you run pulls so often that you're farming parts of the fight). So even thought the pacing is good, the healing requirements are higher, etc. etc. You start running into the same execution boredom the other content suffers from. Albeit to a lesser extent.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?
All of them, HW/Stormblood SCH was my favorite. Right now they all play roughly the same. WHM and SCH are equally bad. AST gets a few bonus points with cards.
I'll be leveling SCH/SGE in EndWalker, doing the first savage tier + ultimate and then I'll decide if I drop healer or not (will depend on if they made it more interesting or not). I'm hoping my group will accommodate, but none of them (including us healers) have expressed the desire to play the role. Soooo I'm hoping it's a decision I don't have to make.

1) How long have you been playing?
late HW/early SB

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?
Mouse and Keyboard

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?
Imho, healign comes in two distinct flavors:
Too boring (usually with competent groups)
Fun (usually with abysmal groups in casual content)

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.
Mostly more casual leaning content (Dungeons, normal raidsand trials, 24 mans), though I do heal the odd Ex trial from tiem to time with the FC

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?
All of them.
used to be SCH, and I did bring it to 80 first, but that was not because I really enjoyed it's ShB incarnation, but because it got me a magic dps 'for free'.
Atm, it's probably AST, because that still feels busy and engaging with the half arsed card we have left compared to the other two healers 'noone's going to die in the next 2.5s, guess another nuke it is'

1) Started in mid heavensward.
2) controller
3) Too boring. I only seem to have fun when progging new fights or when saving runs where everyone is messing up mechanics.
4) Literally all content except TEA basically. Im fine with dungeons being easy but I dont even feel like a healer in savage anymore due to how sparse damage is. Add to the mix cohealers that heal instantly and dont even let me use my own healing ogcds and i basically feel like decoration in anything not ultimate.
5) All of them. ast has always been my fav. i used to like scholar in stormblood but now i hate it. at least with whm i can fully turn my brain off for DF content and still do more damage than some dps players.

1) How long have you been playing?
FFXIV since 2.3 or 2.4. Can't remember which. A few months before Final Coil released.
Healing since EQ in 2000.

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?
M/K, though I'm very glad this game is designed so well to accommodate both as much as possible.

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?
I find healing too simple. This stems from a variety of factors, but includes
-An overabundance of strong healing cooldowns
-Static fight design
-Generally, a continuous removal of healer weaknesses across the board (MP Management, etc).
-Healing tools that do not interact with one another in any significant way
-Filler game (mostly via DPS) that's become even less interesting as time has gone on.

This has led to gameplay where our new tools do not augment our toolkit - they straight up replace older abilities outside of emergencies. Seems every expansion we just axe another from the list, putting another ability in the "bad spell" category due to getting something new. This expansion, due to lily rework, it was regen for WHM - our bread and butter in ARR.

On top of the static nature of our encounters, the more things go right, the more the meta has become never clip, never stop nuking. I don't play healer because I enjoy trying to robot a fight as down to the excel spreadsheet as I can. I'd play DPS in games if that was my goal. I play healers because I enjoy having numerous tools to try to best apply to numerous situations, not so I can play rotate-the-CD. Unsurprisingly I enjoyed EQ Enchanter & Bard a lot.

There is room for healer engagement to increase without making healing normal mode content difficult for lesser skilled healers. The skill floor is VERY low right now, and you can tinker with everyone's kits while not raising that floor. You reward the healers who do optimize their kit for the situation, not wipe normal mode groups due to a healer using their base kit. It doesn't even need to be that much. We'd jump through twice as many actions per minute if it increased our damage by 10% while leaving our healing potential similar.

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.
All that I've done, although I haven't personally done ultimate, and I also do not think someone should have to do ultimate to find enjoyable gameplay for an archetype.

In all content I am only engaged when things start going wrong - Up to a point due to savage's eventual design of making wrong things lead to more and more guaranteed wipes.

Due to the wide variety of skill in duty finder this means I'm most often engaged in random trial/raid roulettes - but again, first people have to start making mistakes. A lot of them.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?
Leveled all, WHM is my favorite. I have personal investment in the job since FFT so that's a large part of it, and it still feels like due to lily nuance in less-ideal groups I have planning to do. I don't get to use my lilies for ideal weaving/movement spots most of the time.

AST is my least favorite. I don't feel like I have any significant constraints to play around, and solving those puzzles is what I find enjoyable. Cards make me press buttons and at the top end optimizing those in line with personal DPS buffs would be much more engaging, but the more general card-usage isn't that special. I enjoyed it more when it had the chance to run into MP issues. Not having Cure 3 in duty finder content does come into play now and then though.

SCH is in the middle. It's very flexible in theory. It's the practical application that makes it feel like a touched-up classic car. It works - it performs pretty well - but you're constantly flipping levers and switches in the driver's seat. They're not hard, there's just a lot of them and you gotta remember where they are - and we already know how that feels with weaving on SCH right now. I can go 85 on the highway, but I can do the same on AST with cruise control in comparison.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ToodlesElNoodles

1) How long have you been playing?

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?

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1. 1.0 CBT

2. KBM

3. Usually too boring. Rare occasions that push my healing to the limit - there's nothing better.
But since it's usually boring, I've been playing DPS more and more lately - including, for all 8 years or whatever of raiding, DPSing for the first time in a static environment in 5.4.

4. Everything from dungeons to hard core content. Stopped pvping on healers as of ShB.

5. All
I see healers as situational rather than always having a preference or dislike for one or the other. Prefer SCH for low to mid level dungeons, or current content when I'm feeling lazy; WHM for when I'm trying hard; and AST when I'm particularly energetic.

1) How long have you been playing?

Since patch 2.2

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?

Controller as I am a ps4 player

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?

Way too boring for most content I do

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.

Long list:
-MSQ
-Overworld content (maps/daily hunts/beast tribes/fates/side quests)
-Dungeons(when I want the worst possible stuff to happen for engagement in these there is an issue in the design of either the role or the content)
-Savage(Prog is fine enough but once that is over back to my pathetic reward that is 1 button spam)
-Extreme trials (see above)
-Normal modes(see dungeons)
-24 man(see dungeons)
-Helping other players(This is usually a if I have to I'll go healer when in previous expansions it was I wanted to be a healer)

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?

All 3 maxed, Ast is still my preferred to play but Whm feels better to play over Ast, Sch is my least which is a shame given that was my roots back in 2.2

The healer jobs most looking forward to in EW are Sage because it looks like it will have some measure of the old design in it and Ast because I just love Ast.

1) Since the launch of HW i think (I still remember needing to level both Conjurer and Arcanist for Scholar and whitemage). Though i took a long break until the middle of Stormblood, around the time Tsukuyomi released.

2) Im exclusively a KB/Mouse user. tried controller once, but i just couldnt get the hang of it.

3) Id say its about right. Though i do find myself looking for more challenges like solo healing content or doing mentor roulette with 7 sprouts, to get that extra kick out of it.

4) Like i said: Endgame content and Mentoring. I guess i just like, if things go sideways.

5) I maxed all of them, and 2/3 are BiS gear. My prefered healer changes with content and mood, but generally id say 1st: AST, 2nd WHM, 3rd SCH.

1) 1.0! Technically did a bit of healing in other games before this one but it was never truly my main until near the end of 1.0.

2) Controller! I find it way easier to move and hit the right buttons.

3) Well that's a question. By and large I'd say it's too boring. There's some content where I can find it enjoyable, mostly stuff that introduces special mechanics like searing wind or briny mirror, or even just often targets the healer for certain mechanics so finding when and where I can top people off is part of the game. For most content however, I find the actual healing part is brain dead easy.

4) My experiences cover the whole range up to and including Ultimates. Casual content feels much the same except I don't get any special mechanics and the sole way I make them interesting is seeing how few heals I can toss out and still survive.

5) I've maxed out all 3, and by far my favorite is WHM partly for gameplay and partly for lore (I like the conjurers). My least favorite is AST but that's mostly because the kit just doesn't click with me for some reason, not a bad class.

1. Only since Shadowbringers.

2. M&K

3. Kind of boring. As someone who loved the aesthetic of Scholar throughout the course of the series, Astrologian, while also cool in the aesthetics department, is the only healer I can play without falling asleep. Not to mention it also has MUCH better ability synergy.

4. Mainly dungeons, however running trials has the same issue when everyone knows what they're doing, and that's the issue. Healers are essentially punished for teams playing well, which is why it doesn't take a veteran to know healer design is messed up.

5. Like I said before, I have two maxed (I'm sorry but White Mage is way too stagnant). Astrologian is the most fun.

1) How long have you been playing?

Somewhere between late 2.2 to early 2.3. My first FC lead was constantly riffing the levi theme in chat. I started out on a terrible laptop (8-12 FPS people walking outsped me on a chocobo terrible) so I stuck on BLM until I got it upgraded right before HW. First healing experience was with SCH somewhere in the middle of ARR as part of levelling Arcanist for the cross-class skills. Wound up moving to Arcanist slowly once Heavensward came around (mostly on SMN in Savage as there are better healers in my static, we swap around on Extremes). I didn't really take to healers until I started maxing all the jobs out properly. Post Gordias I shifted from Astrologian to Scholar, and have been playing it and Summoner ever since.

I'm used to caster or support DPS in most MMOs as I've mostly played them casually, but looking at it more thoroughly I'm drawn to the mage archetypes that feature a mixture of offence and support or crowd control elements. Lulu/Orianna/Karma/Twisted Fate in League, Sage/Priest in Ragnarok Online. It's probably why I'm right at home here given how XIV's healing meta is bizarrely catered towards DPSing most of the time.

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?

Mouse and Keyboard. While controller's supported well enough I'll never get used to it by virtue of how much space you really have on a keyboard if you're willing to alter the default binds to your comfort level. I've been using the same 1 to 6 by Z to N layout for my hotbars since I first got into MMOs playing Ragnarok Online and Maple Story as a kid and I don't see that changing anytime soon.


3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?

I find healing depends way too much on other players screwing up and how much they're allowed to screw up before the fight forces you to wipe, instead of on the fight itself pressuring your resources at a base level and using those mistakes to add stress over time. In casual content I can solo-heal garbage situations but I wouldn't call it hectic as much as I'd call it a sobering experience for the sprouts involved. Extremes and Savage can be hectic, but to some extent that's limited to progression. You can see the effect that skill gap has in Alliance raids as much as levelling content. People learn at different rates and as long as you're willing to learn or share what you know you can clear every bit of content in this game, eventually.

I think the problem is SE's approach to fight design in and of itself. Ever since Gordias they've really hunkered down and settled into one niche that they are unwilling to break out of in harder content. The majority of what everyone is actually doing in each fight learning how to move their respective avatars according to the correct dance. I can't recall a time when they actually had you micromanage a mob or an encounter specific resource for more than 15 seconds since A2S. And, sure, that's okay as a DPS, they have enough to pay attention to already, but I find myself wishing there'd be more of that irrespective of the role I'm playing. On a healer in particular that's especially painful given the lack of a rotation to engage with when the party -is- competent, and SE's unwillingness to allow for recovery in harder content. If, as a designer, you have to resort to binary outcomes like Doom stacks and instant-kill AoEs to make a phase matter, you are kind of admitting the mechanics you're presenting within that phase aren't interesting in of themselves anymore.


4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.

All of it. Engagement and Difficulty are two seperate vectors that make up gameplay, and my concerns are primarily with the former. I don't mind content being hard. It's how that difficulty is presented that matters. We're variety starved at the moment. Dancing and DPS checks aren't the only option. That will always be a part of fights to some degree, but the better part of the MMORPG genre doesn't lean on it as heavily as XIV has. And giving players more ways to actively control an encounter also allows for more a granular difficulty spectrum to be implemented within an encounter. It also requires that you design more dynamic class kits on the player side of things, because you can expect that a greater amount of flexibility will be needed to deal with fights properly. Not everything has to be about the 1m-2m raid buff window, after all.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?

I've got three characters I'm working on at the moment. My main has all healers maxed. I have an alt with Scholar maxed and geared in case I want to do side content and Savage runs without disrupting my static's gear progression, and a third character who's quickly becoming a second main on a different Data Center, that I'm working maxing everything on. I plan to max Arcanist via Scholar on all of them first in Endwalker before branching out.

Of the healers we have right now, I prefer Scholar. I maintain the stance that it's the best healer to learn how to heal the way XIV wants you to. The primary draws to the class are Aetherflow, offering multiple low cooldown go-to heals for a minimal DPS cost; and the Fairy, a free smart regen that will give you more value than anyone really respects. If you're looking to improve it gets you to an intermediate level very quickly, and it has the easiest time optimizing thanks to its flexibility. Because its GCD heals are noticeably more inefficient than other healers, you really are encouraged to get away from the trap of Cure/Benefic spam that the other two push you into, and that cost is still worth the power the whole kit holds in aggregate. Is it a lot to juggle? Sure. But it's a robust toolbox that actually makes you flex your kit around what is happening in a fight, unlike the other two, in my experience.

The worst of the three I find is Astrologian. I don't find it particularly fun anymore in spite of how good it actually is. A majority of AST's cooldowns have the same general problem for different, nuanced reasons: While they are extremely powerful when maximized, they are also really inconvenient to work with because of how you go about maximizing them. In contrast, I think cards are fine (unless you're on a controller), but I do wish they had more use in the healing toolkit like the pre-Shadowbringers iteration did. I've posted a card rework elsewhere that accomplishes that in a manner I'd consider intuitive, but the gist of what I was after was shifting away from reacting to the card you just drew. I did that in said rework by giving players a hand of four cards and making every action that used a card draw another, but you could accomplish that by simply showing upcoming draws.

I do want to mention my opinions on White Mage. Because it's important to the healer discussion as a whole. White Mage is disappointing, completely lacking the depth that could make it a standout healer in spite of how iconic it is. I enjoy it more in ARR and HW content than I do in recent instances, though I still enjoy it more than AST because it doesn't have awkward cooldowns, just less of them. It's serviceable, but lacks key features the other two have. While Lilies are flexible to some degree, they aren't enough to carry the job the way Aetherflow and Cards do, and don't fully close the design gaps White Mage has. Every problem Healers have right now as a whole has now is something White Mage has been dealing with since Heavensward. If that doesn't tell you how emblematic of the problem they really are, nothing will.

1) How long have you been playing?

Since April

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?

Mouse & keyboard

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?

Healing is never boring. The problem with FFXIV is that healing is nonexistent in the majority of the content.

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.

Everywhere except for PvP. In PvP using one GCD to attack at the wrong time could easily result in death at least for WHM. Haven't played the other two in the Feast

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?

Every one of them. I don't have least preferred. I use different healers for different types of roulettes.

White Mage for level cap dungeons

Scholar for 50/60/70 dungeons, Daily roulette, and Alliance raids.

Astrologian for trials and normal raids.

I initially leveled all of them in order to get into savage practice groups faster. White Mage was commonly the first type of healer filled so leveling AST and SCH reduced the time for which I had to wait for a practice group to get filled or to find one.

Since I got the last 530 BiS piece for WHM(body) I haven't played the game that much. I actually stopped playing on my main character and created an alt that is my current active character.

But before I made my alt

I rarely did roulettes unless I needed Gil.

I didn't like grinding Bozja content all over again for other relic weapons. I barely made it for AST after finishing WHM's relic.

I tried doing some extreme trials because I had never done any. They were interesting for a very short while. I started with Titania, Innocence, and Hades and I stopped after clearing them because the loot is not interesting. The gear was weaker than what I already had.


No matter how many times people claim that healers are homogenized, they never play the same way for me. I really like how White mage plays in dungeons. I can legit walk into the mobs regardless if the tank is behind me, use Swiftcast or Surecast(whatever is not on CD) and start spamming Holy, possibly use Rescue if the tank needs extra help finding their way. If I am with Scholar what I would do is play right behind my tank as they are pulling, constantly using my AoE if it deals more than my DoT, dropping the mobs HP to almost half if the pull is lengthy. It is actually perfect in lower-level dungeons where DoT-ing every mob is not as rewarding as AoE-ing. Dungeons like Amdabor Keep with lengthy pulls are my favorite to get in DF when the tank is pressing W. I do grab a lot of aggro but it's just fine, I need the tank to take the aggro off me when the pull is done immediately because unlike WHM I don't have stun for 7 seconds.

I literally cannot play AST like WHM in dungeons. I just can't. The closest I can get is to SCH's instant AoE + moving behind the tank while I slide cast or when Lightspeed is active but even then the constant target switching that occurs once the tank is planted causes a shift of gameplay. Especially after level 70+ when you get Sleeve Draw as an ability, the target switching becomes a lot in the first gate to gate pull. After the tank is planted it is like this: Gravity - LS - Gravity - f1/f2/f3/f4- Play - Draw - Tab - Gravity - f1/f2/f3/f4 - Play - Sleeve Draw - Tab - Gravity - f1/f2/f3/f4 - Play - Divination - Tab - Gravity - (). So that's like a different target every second in the first 7-10 secs and that's coupled with having to decide whether to use randomly drawn cards on melee or ranged for three consecutive times and you could end up possibly having to redraw in order to align your seals all the while keeping track of the tank's hp and also keeping your cursor on the mob in the middle in order to avoid pressing tab because tab could target a mob on the sides which is going to result in your AoE not hitting every mob. I used Tab when I was learning how to place my cards fast initially. It was a fail-safe measure for me. It is better to cast Gravity on GCD than do nothing while trying to figure out what target to press. AST is the only healer with which I've used Tab to actively support my playstyle. I haven't unlocked all jobs but I sincerely doubt that there is any job that gets close to having to go through so much target switching in order to play optimally even if it is for a very short period of time. I would really like it if the buffs we would have to maintain in Endwalker have short cooldowns like 5-10 seconds so that we have to use them constantly. Cards and Divination are what I like about AST the most but the cooldowns are too long for me.

1) How long have you been playing?
I joined early 2015

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?
Controller

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?
It's all three of those depending on the situation, and healer is a situational role.

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.
All of it. From one shotting mobs 70 levels below you, all the way to getting one-shotted multiple times yourself in Savage/Ultimate. Several things go into how much a healer kit opens up, and the tier of content difficulty is only one of them.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?
All my healers are maxed. The healer I prefer depends on the encounter. A simple run down would be: High end (SCH), Dungeons (WHM), Roulettes (AST). It is a notable mention that my SCH is currently on strike.

1. Since about patch 2.4.

2. keyboard

3. Just right.

4. Easier content is going to be boring no matter the role. Having more buttons to press doesn't change this.

5. All of them at 80. My preference is SCH -> WHM -> AST. WHM is only bumped up because it can do some crazy stuff in Bozja, outside of that SCH is my preferred healer.

1) I've been playing about playtime 900 hours. i bought it before ShB nearly released

2) I use keyboard + mouse

3) Too boring / Just right

4) Too boring if i got lowlevel like Satasha, Coppermine, etc. during Duty FInder Leveling
Just right if we are new to the dungeon/extreme/raid that everyone have little knowledge about mechanic. especially with friends that often got K.O, lol

5) for now SCH level 80. the rest healer is nearly 80. I prefer AST (its fun to think at all, doing the card buff while healing also helping attack too), and least SCH (since its simple, and must smart management).

Well, cant say more, since i never tried extreme and above using the healer (mostly i use RDM on extreme)

1) How long have you been playing?
Since the pre-release of 2.0.

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?
Mouse and keyboard.

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?
Of the choices presented, I'm between "too boring" and "just right," leaning toward "too boring." If I could use another phrase, I would say I find it too simple (currently).

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.
All content except for Savage/Ultimate raiding, although I've also done those in the past and would say my comments could apply there, too.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?
I have only leveled AST; I have little interest in the other healers (Sage included, now), though I keep some tabs on them.

1) How long have you been playing?

- I started a day or two after the official launch, pretty much.

2) Do you use controller or mouse/keyboard?

- Keyboard and mouse.

3) Do you find healing too boring, too hectic, or just right?

- Generally speaking, the act of healing or DPSing is boring using this scale. I'll occasionally have some fun trying to push my limits (Spicy thought, but is just Asylum enough here?), but that feels more like metagaming rather than commenting on the actual gameplay.

4) Based off question 3, which content are you referring to.

- Honestly, all of it. I haven't done Ultimates, but even from a primarily PuG perspective, Extremes and Savages aren't that amazingly fun to heal. Mistakes at those levels tend to need to be fixed with a Raise or four, rather than clever usage of healing resources. I don't want to say I feel frustrated or powerless in that kind of content, but to clear the stuff, everyone needs to do decently well, and that means that you quickly end up going back to countering infrequent AoEs or tankbusters with a Rapture or Benediction, before seeing five people rightfully die again to a mechanic the group hasn't quite experienced yet. Rinse, repeat until you reach the finishing line or enrage.

Dungeons, normal raids, alliance raids etc. are pretty much snoozefests since day one - some more so than others.

Bozja was surprisingly fun, but that's thanks to various Lost actions like Chainspell and Seraph Strike giving you lots of freedom and DPS. And occasionally just having fun with zooming around the map with Lost Swift or giggling as you Full Cure the group.

5) How many healers have you maxed and which is your preferred to play? Which is your least preferred?

All of them. White Mage is/was my go to because I used to enjoy the aesthetics and the big numbers. Won't lie, it's beginning to look a bit too feminine and flowery with Endwalker...

Scholar is my least favourite - as powerful as it is numberswise, it just feels incredibly janky to play, and I say that as a Clip Mage main. :p

1) Since HW. Since 3.1, I think, maybe 3.2

2) Controller

3) Too boring

4) I've healed up to Savage. Did E4S on SCH before swapping to DPS

5) All 3 at 80. I guess I usually go for WHM as I only really run healers in dungeons for the queues now, or DR if I want to mix things up from Tanks/DPS. Least favourite is SCH because playing it on Eden's Gate Savage pointed out the flaws such as the janky fairy AI and the stripped down ability pool.

1. Since open beta

2. I use controller... but I use a set up of macros that sorta imitate targeting using the function keys. Couldn't stand tapping up and down so much.

3. I love healing as it is now.

4. I don't find the easy content very fun (on any class really); but extreme, savage, and ultimates I loved healing through. Also do a lot of pvp too.

5. I maxed them all. Mostly play ast and sch. Whm... not so much. I'd say ast is my favorite overall.

I’d like to thank everyone for sharing so far!

Getting to know a little more about all of you eally helps me understand and put your opinions into better context! Even if I may not fully agree on some opinions, I still value them more than before on the forum!

So again, thank you!