Should healers now be allowed to play how they choose to play?

[bloodSp3c]

Wow. Over 60 pages. This topic keeps coming back, and for the life of me I don't get why.

because people are bored and have nothing better to do than bicker like old grannies on this topic over and over...

[Connor]

Personally I think a lot of people's problems with Cleric Stance is the fact that they have no choice in the matter.
As others have said, very often as a healer you're going to find yourself with nothing to do because damage output from enemies is so miniscule (excluding Savage content obviously).
Whilst none of us can really say what we're supposed to be doing (since we're not the developers), it's clear that the only thing healers have at the moment to fill this gap is dps.

The only problem I've ever had with Cleric Stance is the fact that it results in all three healers feeling very similar. Having something to do during healing downtime and trying to maximize its upkeep is perfectly fine and makes the process much more engaging; the problem is when this exact same playstyle is then copied and pasted between three different jobs.

Whether you're a White Mage, a Scholar, or an Astrologian, every fight can be simplified to the same formula: place damage mitigation (Regens, Adloquium, Aspected Benefic, etc), place your DoTs, spam your high-potency filler move until party member's HP has been reduced to a point that they're about to die (if the enemy has survived long enough for such a thing to actually happen), use an oGCD to give the dying party member some HP, repeat.

There's very little variation between the three healer roles at their core, and I think this is one of the places problems arise from.

White Mage has...Regens? How unique. Like the other healer's versions of mitigation, this is placed on a single target. This means that it suffers from a 'set-and-forget' usage, where you simply place it on the target and that's it. You have no means of interacting or modifying these regens once they're placed, so you're left with nothing to do besides dps.

Scholar has shields, but they suffer from the same 'set-and-forget' usage. There's not much thought required in putting up shields, especially with Deployment Tactics now available. Again, you have no means of interacting with these shields, modifying them, or making them do anything other than wait to be removed. With no access to any abilities that can affect their mitigation, just like White Mages there's nothing left for them to do but dps. And with access to only two GCD mitigation abilities, you're rarely going to be dedicating more than one or two GCDs to mitigation because any subsequent actions would be more efficient if spent on DPS.
Fairy micromagement doesn't use personal GCD's, so I'm not considering them for now (because ultimately you're still going to have nothing to do during healing downtime, fairy or no fairy), not to mention that it's rare for micromanaging the Fairy's abilities to actually be necessary outside of extremely difficult content.

Astrologian has Draw, once every 30 seconds. This makes it feel slightly different to other healers, but being bottlenecked by a cooldown (albeit a very short one) means that you can't keep placing buffs on the party to fill healing downtime. Personally, I think the 'Draw' system has the potential to be a useful way to fill healing downtime, but the weight of Balance is much more than that of any other card that the system is just about pulling Balance, rather than making an active effort to find ways to support the party with whatever you Draw.

Personally, I think the only solution that will make everyone happy is actually allowing healers to have different playstyles based on their job/
Some examples of what I mean are:

Healer #1 (Like a White Mage / Astrologian) - All healing and regens, on-GCD support abilities to raise party dps/defense/etc during healing downtime.

Healer #2 - Same as all healers currently; switching stances allows for dps abilities to be utilized fully. They could maybe even give it abilities that are only accessible in 'Cleric Stance'. Their pet means that they unlike healers #1 and #2, they can still help with healing whilst dps'ing, but have no/little party support.

Healer #3 (Like Dark Knight but it's a healer?) - Heals whilst dealing damage, with like, absorb-type attacks.

Healer #4 (Like Scholar) - Focuses on damage mitigation, puts up shields and can use abilities to interact with them in ways that make them much more engaging than current (e.g abilities that can extend shield duration for lower mitigation, lower duration but higher mitigation, removes shields but has them restore any remaining HP mitigation on them, making them explode to deal damage, etc).

Obviously, Healer #1 and #3 can't exist in the game's current state; Healer #1 would either be functionally useless or extremely overpowered (See - Astrologian), and Healer #3 would break the game. Healer #2 is the entirety of the healing role currently, and Healer #4 is just Scholar with more interesting shields.
The point is that giving healer jobs more varied playstyles that all contribute to party dps during healing downtime - whether through supporting the party, or attacking the enemy, or w/e other things there could be - could stop players feeling so disappointed with the healer role.

[Feyona]

Personally I think a lot of people's problems with Cleric Stance is the fact that they have no choice

The point is that giving healer jobs more varied playstyles that all contribute to party dps during healing downtime - whether through supporting the party, or attacking the enemy, or w/e other things there could be - could stop players feeling so disappointed with the healer role.

This post is constructive, thank you for your effort. I do wish some of the other people that post on here would read what people are saying before they make assumptions. But yes, you may be right, it may be lack of choice, and I am not bothered how others play just wish healing was more valued as a role and maybe buffs and other stuff would fill the gaps. Otherwise the game is just dps and Ive seen at least 2 posts that said they may as well go dps.

[Neela]

There is only one optimal way to play, it's a fact, not an opinion. What you do in the light of that fact is really up to you. I'm just trying to argue for people to actually use their head a bit, logic and reason, instead of opinions and baseless assumptions.

Of course, you don't have to play optimally, many people don't. Even I don't but I sure as hell try my best. But when people intentionally play suboptimally, they should be ready to accept the consequenses. Some people accept you, some people don't, and you'll just have to live with it.

My personal experience is that people are much more accommodating towards you if you put an honest effort into your actions and try your best to be useful to the group. Sometimes that isn't enough if the results don't match the expectations, but there's not much we can do about it. Everyone makes their decisions individually about who they want to play with.

just to clear things up for you – I totally understand your and 99% of the coms thoughts and points and believe it or not I got all 3x healers as well on ilvl270 (whm is my 2nd cls after smn). I personally try to dps as well cause im bored if I wouldn't. That being said I turn to my posts in this discussion: I never said xtra dps is bad or healer shouldn't dps. I just said that I can understand people who choose healer/tank cls for the reason they don't want to focus on a max dps-rotation. It's not about optimal ways - never said it's optimal. The point is I just can't stand if someone trys to convince people that they have to do it their way no matter what.

On the other hand I can't understand why people start saying "a healer who doesn't dps is carried by the grp" or "if the healer doesn't dps I leave or kick vote him" – with that kind of mindset you are not better than the ones who are actually against dpsing on healer cls -> both opinions are just selfish and definitely not open minded. There is more than black and white f.e. the grey of laziness to give a 150% in every random run.



so long
Neela

[Taika]

There is more than black and white f.e. the grey of laziness to give a 150% in every random run.

But no one is asking healers to give 150% effort. What's asked is to give as much effort as the rest of your team instead of only being meaningfully active 20% or less of the run. The whole point is, for a healer to contribute as much as their party members, they are required to DPS in most cases. Since the healing requirements are so low, if the healer doesn't DPS, they simply aren't contributing as much, which is not fair. What is asked for is equal contribution, no more, no less.

[Dsync]

On the other hand I can't understand why people start saying "a healer who doesn't dps is carried by the grp" or "if the healer doesn't dps I leave or kick vote him" – with that kind of mindset you are not better than the ones who are actually against dpsing on healer cls -> both opinions are just selfish and definitely not open minded.

If it is selfish to walk away from a group where someone is being intentionally selfish, then so be it. It takes a person wanting to be carried (yes, carried) to start the selfish act of not wanting to put up with them. People aren't in a group to be "open-minded", they're there to do a task.

[Neela]

What's asked is to give as much effort as the rest of your team

than let's make a thread f.e. in the Brd section and blame all the Brds who don't use swiftsong or requiem on daily runs too hm? haven't seen people complaining about lazy Brds yet. Every cls can do more than most of the com actually do in random runs - but noone cares if they won't give those xtra-% but healer-dps... this is just hypocritical.

People aren't in a group to be "open-minded", they're there to do a task.

they are there to do a task? after all it's a game right? im here to have fun - and at least for me, I decide what is "fun" for me. to please raiders/hardcore farmers desires or opinions how I have to do things – is far away from having fun at all - if that means im selfish than yeah im proud to be selfish.

But I see... we are running cycles and won't clear our minds to a point everybody will be satisfy or agree with - maybe we should stop this right here ^^

[Vulcwen]

It's a significant problem when the optimal playstyle isn't the fun playstyle for a large amount of players. I think Connor brought up a very good point on this topic.
We have a DPS-focussed meta, but there is in fact room to allow for a less aggressive playstyle by introducing on-GCD buffs, and changing up encounter design to require more forms of support or making support more attractive. The game design in general won't change that everything you'd do should be aimed towards increasing group dps, the way you can contribute can definitely change, it might make balancing the jobs and encounters harder tho..

[Taika]

than let's make a thread f.e. in the Brd section and blame all the Brds who don't use swiftsong or requiem on daily runs too hm?

I have literally used the example of a BRD refusing to sing in comparison to a healer who refuses to DPS in this very thread. For example here:

They're a hinderance to their party because they have the potential to bring this huge benefit to their group and they refuse to do so. Just like a BRD who refuses to sing when they could boost their caster DPS or their healer has died and needs MP is a hinderance to their group. Bard songs aren't required for clearing any content, either, but it doesn't make it any more acceptable to refuse singing.

If a BRD player was to start a thread on DPS forums about how they shouldn't be required to sing, I can promise the reactions to that would be exactly the same than they are in this thread towards healers who refuse to DPS.

The main difference between the two is that somehow some people are actively defending a healer who argues refusing to DPS should be considered a valid play style (within the current meta), while you're very unlikely to find anyone to defend a BRD who refuses to sing. I've said it before:

What you don't get is, healers don't have any more valid playstyle options than any other job in the game. If a DRG (or literally any other job than a healer) would start a similar discussion about feeling too stressed about having to use their full rotation and all buffs, especially in the difficult content like Savage, and wishing to choose to use only half of their abilities instead because of that, absolutely no one would support that. But for some weird reason some people think we should accept that for healers - and healers only.

[Neela]

+1 Vulc & Connor ^^

I have literally used the example of a BRD refusing to sing in comparison to a healer who refuses to DPS in this very thread.
If a BRD player was to start a thread on DPS forums about how they shouldn't be required to sing, I can promise the reactions to that would be exactly the same than they are in this thread towards healers who refuse to DPS.

The main difference between the two is that somehow some people are actively defending a healer who argues refusing to DPS should be considered a valid play style, while you're very unlikely to find anyone to defend a BRD who refuses to sing. I've said it before:

yeah now we talking on a human lvl... if you already brought the Brd example up it seems I sadly missed that, my fault than - but you understand what im trying to say ya? everybody tries to fight for his opinion with a kind of tunnelview -> like I said im overdoing this discussion on purpose with not that serious examples just to find guys like Connor who come up with "neutral" arguments or thoughts. this is what I meant by "open-minded".