What I've realized about healing in XIV...

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Can't speak for anyone else in the thread, but I don't want more "complicated" healer DPS rotations - I want stuff to actually heal.

I want stuff to heal and mana management to be a thing. There's no fun at all in being the green colored DPS in a group, particular when as a SCH, I'm pretty much actively discouraged to use any healing spells at all by my cohealer.

At least DPSing as a tank is still engaging and rewarding. Sextuple FCs are amazing, especially when RNG blesses you with all crits!

[KingFrost]

I feel as if DPS is the only role where the function implied by it's name is absolutely the most important thing with everything else taking a far back seat, where as for heals and tanks, DPS feels like a close second to their primary function.

That is to say, DPS are always doing everything they can to maximize their function (Damage), and they're designed around it and are fun and rewarding for that maximization (Big numbers and melting enemies). Healers and tanks are not really required to have that same laser-like focus on their function, nor do they have have functional reward like DPS does because of contents design. That is to say that content nor the roles are designed for maximizing mitigation and maximizing heals 100% of the time.

I know that people will play the role they want, but DPS are easily the most active and engaging classes in the game. Tanks being behind by the same DPS percentage (70% as engaging).

[Daws]

...DPS are easily the most active and engaging classes in the game.

Agreed. The reason I switched from WHM/AST to SCH was because it had a more robust dps arsenal. After awhile I was just like, hells...if I'm having this much fun dps'ing I might as well just play a dps. Also, once you've played all three healers you realize they all are working with the same basic kit (single target heal, aoe heal, ground aoe effect, regen/shield, etc.). It's a bit boring.

DPS is a non-stop job where you should be putting out as much dps as your fingers can manage. There is no downtime. Healing has periods of standing around, waiting for the upcoming big aoe, or filling in the downtime with a dps rotation of like 3 abilities. It's a bit depressing. I want to go back to healing, I did it for years in WoW, but the current options just don't excite me much.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

See I find most of the dps jobs in the game far too complicated for me to excel at. I can't handle the finger gymnastics and flow charts for rotations. Bard and RDM are the only dps jobs I can stand and perform half-way decent with. That's one reason why I heal almost exclusively. If healers were to become as complex as dps then I would have to stop playing ffxiv.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be jobs that are complex, just that its ok for there to be simpler jobs that can do just as well alongside them.

I don't believe that simplicity of play is ever going to cause a significant number of people to abandon tanks or healers, but I can honestly say making them as complex as dps would drive me away from the game entirely. I also believe making the two least played roles harder to play would only hurt those populations even more.

[MoroMurasaki]

My argument boils down to the fact that AST, WHM, and SCH are very clearly labeled as "healers", not "shitty DPS who keep health bars topped off".

Suggesting that XIV's healers be at least as deep and interesting as XIV's DPS ≠ turning XIV into WoW.

I said earlier (though I forget if it was this thread or another) that XIV's DPS classes are worlds more complex than WoW's, yet XIV's healers are comparatively simple to both DPS in XIV and healers in WoW.

If healers in XIV had rotations that were as fun and engaging as the DPS classes in this game, I would LOVE healing, period.

But again, this all comes down to how damage is done to players in this game: it's feast or famine. Either the tank/group takes a huge burst of damage, or the tank is taking tickle damage from AA.

And someone else mentioned this (again, not sure if it was this thread) and it bears repeating: healing potency in XIV is INSANELY high, especially in comparison to other MMOs, but even just in the context of XIV we have so many healing spells that can easily recover 50%+ of a tank's HP in one cast.

This is the other reason spiky damage sucks: SE's only way to answer spiky damage was with spiky heals, meaning that refilling HP bars is typically a simple matter before it's back to DPSing again.

If I wanted to DPS, I'd have rolled a DPS. I rolled a healer to HEAL.

So, basically this:

I'm not going to go through this in any sort of itemized list because by now I have made my point and even though you typed all this out you never responded to it.

Your argument (read: this whole post and arguably this thread) is that you feel healing isn't engaging in FFXIV and you proceed to cite healing in WoW as a positive comparison.

I feel that it is engaging in FFXIV and that healing in WoW (based on what you've said here and some research of my own) would seem woefully repetative and boring.

I've conceded that in an effort to give people more variety and some more to do that healer DPS be updated to be slightly more complex so long as they didn't inhibit healer DPS if they had to be dropped for actual healing.

What I will not concede is this idea that healing in FFXIV needs to chamge into something (like WoW or not) that requires constant upkeep and a rotation.

If I wanted to play a class with a (expelative) rotation I would go pick up any of the numerpus DPS classes this game offers. I'd rather leave that crap out of my healing.

There is nothing that makes your feelings any more relavent on this subject than my own. We both pay for this game.

Until you can come back with some sort of objective reason FFXIV healing should change to fit this new model your argument is entirely arbitrary and while I'm glad you have an option to voice your opinion here that is all that it is.

Also, in my opinion, it's wrong.

[Shyluv]

I don't remember healing in WoW being that fun. If there's an option to heal in a game, single player or not, I always heal. I did heal in WoW. But there's something about that game that I, personally, don't find engaging.

Only thing WoW has that I want in XIV is more obvious and engaging lore. But, that's not really on topic.

AST is very engaging to me. Because of the cards. I will say though, I do definitely wish that healers healed more often, as your main point is.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

repetative and boring.

Regen, Aero3, Aero2, Stone, stone, stone, stone, stone, Aero 2, stone, stone, stone, stone, Regen, Aero 2, Aero 3 stone, stone, stone...Assize, PoM, TA as appropriate. Much unique and interesting.

Even more interesting with AoE! Regen, A3, Holy, +SCHoly Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy... again, Assize/PoM/TA/Tet as appropriate.

[KingFrost]

Nothing is inherently wrong with how healing works, but optimally you play a healer to heal as little as possible, which is easily anathema to why you pick the class in the first place. Many a discussion I've seen in regards to WHM and Lillies said the mechanic promotes bad play, that is to say, using GCDs to heal instead of damage. To play a healer at its peak potential is to actively DPS and try to shelf active healing as much as possible (That is to say healing via oGCD and mitigating damage so as to hard cast heals less).

Role Priorities are pretty weird in this game.

DPS: Damage>Damage buffing Utility>>>>>>>Defensive Utility.

Healer: Healing>>>Mitigation>Damage Buffing Utility=\>Damage

Tank: Aggro>Mitigation>>Damage.

As I said before, DPS do absolutely everything in their power to live up to their namesake, and it shows in the depth and design of DPS. Tanks are always gonna spank, which is why Tank DPS isn't that hotly debated (Just tank stance which falls into mitigation), and their rotations, well, exist, but aggro is a joke and, as the TC pointed out, damage only spikes, so mitigation isn't super important most of the time (We'll just shelve tanks).

Then we have healers. Once everyone is topped off, you do your DPS. Even when things go a little nuts, you blow a few oGCDs and spam your respective cure 2. This goes back to basic design, but the question in this game isn't, "How should I go about healing this moment," but is instead, "Am I done healing," and honestly, the latter is inactive and can be boring. You either wait around or pop a dot. It being "boring" is subjective, but it is not nearly as engaging as a tank or DPS is, and I don't think making them more like a DPS makes sense.

[RichardButte]

There's no fun at all in being the green colored DPS in a group

"Green DPS"! Perfect. I'll use that from now on...

I'm not going to go through this in any sort of itemized list because by now I have made my point

Your "point" has been that it's okay for healers to be "greed DPS" instead of actual healers because "it's different", much in the same way 1.0 decided to forsake a market board in favor of the retainer wards because "it's different".

Your argument (read: this whole post and arguably this thread) is that you feel healing isn't engaging in FFXIV and you proceed to cite healing in WoW as a positive comparison.

No, my argument is that a class labeled as a healer is supposed to heal, not heal maybe 20% of the time and spend the rest being "green DPS".

I only cite WoW as an example because its healing classes have constant rotations for healing, keeping them occupied the majority of the time. XIV's own DPS classes are a good example of the kind of deep, engaging rotations healers could have, but don't.

As to why this is a problem, go look at all of the shit healers are getting for not being green DPS. Hell, there's a thread on the first or second page of this forum demanding to know why healers don't DPS more (and they're not satisfied with the answer of "Trying to conserve mana in case things go to crap").

And SE is shooting themselves in the foot with this whole mess, as they've said a few times that they don't factor healer DPS into raid balancing, which is probably why savage raids get cleared the same damn day they're released!

If you like being a green DPS, fine, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it, but it is, objectively speaking, not how SE envisioned their raids working because they've SAID they don't factor healer DPS into balancing, yet healer DPS is a huge contribution to beating DPS checks because healers have nothing else to do most of the time.

All of this is because damage in this game comes out at either a trickle or a deluge, and healers can refill all of those HP bars in 1-2 casts anyway.

Seen all the videos of "Solo healed ______" kicking around? That's because it's actually not that much of an accomplishment to solo heal a lot of these fights due to the way damage works (which allows groups to bring yet another DPS which makes the difficulty of these encounters even MORE of a joke).

AST is very engaging to me. Because of the cards. I will say though, I do definitely wish that healers healed more often, as your main point is.

I used to enjoy AST because of the cards, but once I got everything down to muscle memory, it became soul-crushingly boring to play. :\

This goes back to basic design, but the question in this game isn't, "How should I go about healing this moment," but is instead, "Am I done healing," and honestly, the latter is inactive and can be boring. You either wait around or pop a dot. It being "boring" is subjective, but it is not nearly as engaging as a tank or DPS is, and I don't think making them more like a DPS makes sense.

And this is the problem for me: healers are the only class type where standing around, waiting for something to happen is actually baked into the class design.

At the very least, healer DPS abilities should cost next to nothing for mana so you don't have to worry about going OOM because of something completely out of your control (aka the raid suddenly screwing up and standing in the bad).

[Taika]

No, my argument is that a class labeled as a healer is supposed to heal, not heal maybe 20% of the time and spend the rest being "green DPS".

I get this, in a way, that you'd want the healer roles to be more about healing and different mechanics directly related to that, but saying they should be solely about healing because that's in their role name is not any better argument than saying a job should be about X because their icon colour is XY. I do think it might have been a good idea if the developers had named the role as "support" instead though, then certain people might have had different expectations for them.