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

[RichardButte]

Except that (as evident in this thread) it is working for most people.

It's working for some people on the forums, and you're conveniently ignoring all of the other players who have echoed what I have: a healer that barely needs to do any healing shouldn't be called a "healer".

Like this:

It has nothing to do with not knowing how to heal. It is stupidly easy to heal in this game, and that is the problem. I want challenge. I want to spend the vast majority of my time actually healing, instead of occasional burst healing and then going back to spamming two buttons for damage.

(Maybe your problem is that youre playing ast, which is boring as hell dps-wise?)

AST is definitely boring AF to DPS on, but I played SCH all through HW and I pretty much DPSed the entire time.

I'm only now realizing that I should just play a DPS if the game is going to have me DPS 80% of the time anyway.

[hydralus]

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

I think so, yeah. Pushing a button to heal, pushing a button to deal damage; realistically the healer role is the only one with the skills to do the first but what would be the gameplay advantage of needing to heal more when everyone is playing optimally?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

When XIV's savage modes get cleared the same day they're released, it speaks volumes about how badly off kilter raiding is.

Uh, WoW world first clears typically don't last more than a day either.

[RichardButte]

I think so, yeah. Pushing a button to heal, pushing a button to deal damage

...Except that your average DPS rotation is 10X more complex than that.

You don't just "press buttons": you build resources, generate procs, wait for openings, weave in oGCD skills, and use every last trick you can in an effort to maximize your damage output.

As a healer, you refill the HP bars, then go back to DPSing. Hell, if it took more than 1-2 GCDs to top off the entire raid, healing might actually make you scramble a bit.

As for a gameplay advantage, you'd have the advantage of being able to do the thing you actually leveled the class to DO.

I didn't level AST to DPS, yet that's all there is to do 80% of the time. :\

Uh, WoW world first clears typically don't last more than a day either.

That is DECIDEDLY untrue.

Compare these world firsts to when the content released for the tier:
http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/163...rld_first_list

The fastest I recall happening recently was Mythic Emeral Dream which took about a week. Deltascape Savage was cleared the very same day.

[hydralus]

As for a gameplay advantage, you'd have the advantage of being able to do the thing you actually leveled the class to DO.

Coming from older final fantasy games and D&D that's not what appeals to me about a healing job at all. Having the utility of being able to keep people alive while putting out respectable damage is awesome.

[Ametrine]

The factors that play into why I only like to heal come down to the separation of DPS and healing skillset. I do not enjoy the long, complex rotations of DPS classes, and I do not enjoy the responsibility and trust associated with tanking.

But healing gives me a selection of skills that require me to react as needed for individuals instances. Having a situation where I can contribute nothing extra from a good party is as frustrating a concept to me as it is to others that FFXIV healers are permitted and encouraged to take time to weave in damage.

I also have no quams about leaving bad situations, and don't let bad experiences ruin my play.

If FFXIV goes the direction of pure-healing on the healers, I will either swap to bard, as it's the only real support/utility job, or leave the game. Having just one singular task to do over and over (like a rotation) with little variation is very boring.

[Taika]

Having the utility of being able to keep people alive while putting out respectable damage is awesome.

This is what's appealing to me in FFXIV healers as well. I love being able to support my party with heals, buffs AND dps. If they were only about pure healing, I wouldn't play them. I think this design attracts many players to the role.

[loreleidiangelo]

This is what's appealing to me in FFXIV healers as well. I love being able to support my party with heals, buffs AND dps. If they were only about pure healing, I wouldn't play them. I think this design attracts many players to the role.

I think if the design were better implemented it wouldn't bug me as much either, but healing really is just exceptionally dull here, even with the added "responsibility" of spamming two DPS buttons between healing windows. Like, I actually enjoy Discipline Priest in World of Warcraft, which is a pure healer/deeps hybrid, but because of the way its implemented there it doesn't feel like I'm DPSing because I don't have anything else to DO, it feels like I'm DPSing as a smooth and integral part of my toolkit.

The old Cleric Stance really hammered home this disparity, IMO. A button that literally turns off your healing because there is no healing to do at the time and you might as well soup up your DPS instead.

In the interests of fairness, even the people I've spoken to who are pro healer DPS admit that healing in this game could stand to be adjusted a bit to make the split between healing/DPSing time more even. So I think the "two camps" as it were aren't actually that far apart in ideology when it comes to the future and direction of healing in XIV.

(Yes, I'm a Savage healer, before anyone comes and tells me to do hard content and still say that healing is too easy. I'm doing it, and even contrivances like Exdeath's White Hole don't do much to add challenge to the role outside of an arbitrary push away from AOE regens for the duration.)

[MoroMurasaki]

Why isn't this thread in the Healer section?

He made this thread first in the healer section and (similar to what is happening here) people disagreed with his stance quite drastically. I assume he came here because he expected to find more support for this in a forum not dominated by healer mains.

Sadly he was wrong.

It's working for some people on the forums, and you're conveniently ignoring all of the other players who have echoed what I have: a healer that barely needs to do any healing shouldn't be called a "healer".

That is not your distinction to make. When you're on the development team of an MMO you can decide what healers are, as you are not this is (yet another, geez so many of these) an arbitrary argument based in nothing but your own feelings.

[SDaemon]

Uh, WoW world first clears typically don't last more than a day either.

Um...what? WoW world first clears take on average significantly longer than anything FFXIV has ever released. I can actually keep up on and watch WoW's progression day to day. FFXIV's world first race usually ends before I can even get off work.