Healer Confessions

[Alahra]

A long, rambling confession: the DPS-focused meta is starting to kill my enjoyment of healing. My last stint as a raid healer was in SCOB, but healer has long been one of my preferred ways to solo queue for Roulettes, Alexander normal, 24-mans, and so on. Since I don't raid on healer anymore, my snap-judgment reflexes aren't as honed as they once were, and I don't focus extensively on gearing my healing classes (both my SCH and AST sit at a moderate i183 as of writing).

That's generally not an issue in most Duty Finder content, but every now and then, you get a tank in full Slaying that insists on tanking as recklessly as possible. Sometimes, they die because I'm not fast enough (as an example, I had a tank die just today in approximately two hits in A3 to the scorpion at the end of the trash section--he took a crit, best as I can tell, and died while I was midcast). My best guess is that tanks like these are used to running with their static healers and think they can always forgo cooldowns and the like, and then become downright hostile when they die because their healer didn't have lightning reflexes. (I see it happen when I'm on DPS too, and I always feel bad for the healer.)

I miss the days in ARR when it felt like tank and healer were a team and worked together. While everyone wants to do their best, I'm noticing an increasingly negative, narrow-minded mentality among the playerbase in which the necessities of Savage-level raiding are slowly being viewed as necessities outside of that environment (most especially with regard to tank DPS but also to a smaller degree, healer DPS). I see that mentality crystalized in the current tanking meta, and as the meta becomes more and more mainstream, my want to queue for content as healer (once my second-most played role) dwindles. It's just not fun anymore--it's more stressful than anything.

What drew me to healing in this game from the beginning was that there was a...feeling of strategy to it. Healing was about triage, and incoming damage has generally been designed to allow for more folks to learn and approach healing than in any other MMO I've played. While the game's design hasn't generally changed (current Savage does ask more of groups than Coil did, but other content generally doesn't), the attitudes and strategies of the playerbase are coming together to create an environment wherein healing often feels hectic and hairtrigger to me, rather than strategic. It's starting to remind me somewhat of WoW's healing, which never felt "controlled" to me (and consequently, I never healed seriously in WoW).

For the first time in FFXIV, I probably won't be gearing a healer with weekly Tomestones, and that's a rather strange feeling for me, since SCH was my main up to 2.4 and my most prized secondary after it.

[BroodingFicus]

Left a party with tank in tow for the first time tonight over bad DPS. Not 'we wiped multiple times' DPS. The 'we just took 11 mins to kill the first boss in fractal' variety which I had never encountered before. Let alone with Two BLM's even if their gear was only so so. The tank and I frankly considered leaving after the first pull when we realized neither of them were aoeing anything and they were pausing for six to ten seconds between moves like they always forgot what came next. Instead we tried smaller pulls. It didn't help. We gave the first boss a go and truthfully just decided we didn't even think they had the power to kill the 2nd boss before we ran out of tubes. We told them as much politely and ate the timer.

I guess the confession is I felt a bit bad but honestly...I wasn't about to carry two dps when I knew I could probably eat the timer and re run the whole thing faster than we would ever complete it with them. If it was possible at all which I really doubt. Maybe healing has embittered me a bit but I lose sympathy for people who are that bad at max level. Probably didn't help endear them to me that both of them ate 70% of the first bosses cones.

[Zaj_Quilos]

but every now and then,

Bit dramatic considering this.

[VitalSuit]

Did AV for my relic book and was dpsing til the tank got really low on hp.
Spammed lustrate.
Tank died.
Completely forgot that AV caps you at 49 so I didn't have lustrate -.-

[Yootz]

Whenever I run as a healer, I will heal myself multiple times before i realize i forgot to target the tank... no one has died yet but it happens way more than i like to admit

[Blessedbythesun]

Happened just a while ago against the Curator boss. Was in the final 1-2% and I got hit with the bomb debuff. I was about to leech it off but used leeches on a dps... And it exploded while I was in range of everyone. No one died and we beat it, but still...

[Seoulstar]

One of my healer confessions...once I was so focused in DPSing mobs, I totally forgot I was the healer and the tank died. I then proceeded to say that I was pressing my heals for some odd reason they just didn't work..oddly that excuse worked. +

[Twilite]

Well in cleric stance the heals dont do anything. So you ttold the truth lol.

[Nadirah]

Confession: I want to load Lily into an airgun and fire her into a wall like my old roommate did with fireflies.

[Lunaxia]

If a tank doesn't pull within a few minutes of starting the run (excluding cutscenes or explicitly saying "brb"), I do it for them.

I'd rather KO once or resurrect a tank than stand there for five minutes waiting for them to deign to start.