Will Healers Still be Forced to DPS in 4.0 Due to Lax Content?

[HappyHubris]

One of the challenges with healing in MMOs is that your role contribution scales inversely with content familiarity; as your team's gear and mechanical comfort increase there is less damage taken and thus less healing for you to do.

This issue doesn't just occur for mastered content; if an encounter is undertuned your healers will have to cope with the missing damage. This is typical of raids in many MMOs, where "trash" pulls put healers to sleep in between boss fights.

From what I've read of FFXIV, most of the game's content just isn't tuned to give healers enough to do, resulting in an expectation that healing jobs will push out damage between healing GCDs. This could be considered undertuning or a deliberate design decision. Either way, healers are expected to output damage as well as heal, to the point where 4.0 healer DPS reductions are a significant concern within the community.

I personally enjoy devoting myself to healing mechanics on healing roles. Is 4.0 shaping up to require more healing, or will it be healing light like 3.X?

[Keramory]

Won't know for sure until we get into the content but for 99% of the content it's designed to be easy and any hardcore skill needed to complete the 1% is always being brought down a level.

If healing is your one and only concern... go for it.

FYI though the player base mentality can and will bump heads with you if they catch you slacking in content. Up to you though if that's a concern or not.

[Maku]

This is a complicated discussion to have for a few reasons.

The main confusion is that healer damage is seeing a few nerfs, the main one I can think of being Bane Nerf for SCH; however, they are doing away with Cleric Stance Dance which will make it even easier to deal damage between healing.

It is my opinion having done most content outside of raids on all three job types that they do not actually program with healer damage in mind. The healer damage is just a bonus to make things a bit faster but is never required. Though I will say that my damage, especially on SCH, has made up for some under-geared DPS before, but this hasn't really been the case since Titan used to be a major DPS check.

I will continue to DPS on my healers, even more so with no cleric dance to worry about, but I don't think it will be required by any means in 4.0. Yoshi actually said that he was trying to make healers focus more on healing.

[lulunami]

Healers and tanks are probably still hybrids in this game. They will not do as much damage as damage-dealing jobs, but they still can do enough damage so why not.

If I were to make analogy, imagine FFXIV being a football/soccer team. Healers and tanks are the defenders/midfielders of the team. Their main job is not necessarily to score a goal, but they should try to score if they can. People get mad if you do not shoot the ball if you have a chance to.

The problem with making healing more intensive is that would turn casual players off from healing jobs. The same way with tanks that cannot keep enemy aggro or survive mechanics with cooldown management. You make tanking or healing harder, and that mean casuals will not play those jobs.

[Mogu86]

interview w/ Yoshi-P by MrHappy1227
https://youtu.be/5la_nyC5BO0

cit.
Question 3.) So... Healers now have their DPS scale with Mind and Accuracy is no longer an issue. Do you think this will lead to players having even higher expectation of healers to contribute DPS to content since it is much easier thing to do now?

Answer: First of all, we do not expect healers to contribute do DPS. However we know a lot of the cutting edge players enjoy this aspect about the job and that those progressing in the raids early on use it help clear the fights. We decided to make it so that the idea was more approachable and less punishing so that if a player wants to try it, they aren't sacrificing all of their healing capabilities to do so like they were with the old Cleric Stance. We didn't like seeing healers doing entire dungeons in Cleric Stance, especially if they forget to switch back and heal!

[Lambdafish]

FYI though the player base mentality can and will bump heads with you if they catch you slacking in content. Up to you though if that's a concern or not.

General rule of thumb: It is most definitely your right to be lazy when lax content gives you downtime, but remember that it is also my right to judge you for it as a member of the team.

[HappyHubris]

General rule of thumb: It is most definitely your right to be lazy when lax content gives you downtime, but remember that it is also my right to judge you for it as a member of the team.

If there isn't enough healing to be done I'll roll a damage dealer instead. My intention wasn't to heal easy content and twiddle my thumbs.

The question was "will there be enough damage to keep a healer busy purely with healing" not "can I get away with not doing damage if the content does not stress healers."

It's a shame - I love the Final Fantasy WHM aesthetics - but my answer is probably to role a BRD and steer clear of healing in this game. It's better to push the limits of interesting mechanics than supplement your job's core role with a simple version of another job's tools.

[IttyBitty]

It is unlikely that healing requirements will be changing to any drastic degree, especially in casual content. If you're looking for gameplay that has you doing nothing but healing, this probably isn't the game for you. For better or worse, that's the way classes and encounters are designed.

If you are wasting GCDs then you are not carrying your weight. Rationalise your reason for not DPSing all you want. If DPS is the only option you have to fill the downtime between heals, then it's what you should do for the benefit of your party.

[LegoTechnic]

It depends on the mana situation going into SB. As long as there's no risk of running out of mana, there is little to no reason to not just spam a DPS spell while waiting for the need to heal. You lose little by interrupting a direct damage spell's cast in order to switch to cure.

But be smart; mana costs are fairly high, especially early on in expansions, so if your tank is Paper McGreenarmor then by all means conserve yourself unless you're comfortable.

[Lambdafish]

If there isn't enough healing to be done I'll roll a damage dealer instead. My intention wasn't to heal easy content and twiddle my thumbs.

The question was "will there be enough damage to keep a healer busy purely with healing" not "can I get away with not doing damage if the content does not stress healers."

It's a shame - I love the Final Fantasy WHM aesthetics - but my answer is probably to role a BRD and steer clear of healing in this game. It's better to push the limits of interesting mechanics than supplement your job's core role with a simple version of another job's tools.

Oh, I apologise if it seemed like that was aimed at you. It was a general statement towards anyone who thinks that it is acceptable. I truly hope that healing is fixed in casual content, but I very much doubt it.