Why healing is broken and terrible, and how to fix it...

[RichardButte]

you don't know how to heal in this game

I'll tell you what I don't know how to do: get the maximum value out of MCH's overheat, or nail NIN's rotation. Those are things I definitely cannot do yet, and that makes them engaging and interesting

But healing is neither of those things.

Compare the way a healer functions to a class like MCH or NIN and it's like they're not even classes in the same game. Healers literally press a heal button once every X seconds, where X changes depending upon how much damage the tank is taking. We also start casting AoE heals when we know the boss is about to deal raid-wide damage.

But other than that, you're going to spend the rest of the time DPSing, and that's MOST of your time.

RDM can cast heals, and can actually do a decent job of it, true, but they're still a DPS because a RDM can expect to spend the vast majority of their time dealing damage.

So what is a "healer" in XIV? A class that spends ~20% of it's time healing and the rest of the time dealing damage. Should we even be calling them "healers" when they spend most of their time dealing damage?

Tanks spend 100% of their time tanking (unless they're an off tank, but they still want SOME aggro in that case), DPS spend nearly all their time DPSing (RDM and SMN raises excluded).

Healers are the only class type where players can expect to spend more time dealing damage than the ACTUAL intended purpose of their class.

Am I the only one with whom this doesn't sit well?