Where are all the healers?

[Taika]

I feel players from both camps need to understand healer's have a pretty diverse style of play

Unfortunately, this game doesn't really allow multiple effective play styles for any job. You can't really choose to be a healer who only heals any more than you can choose to be a pacifist PLD (only uses flash, provokes and defensive cooldowns), a pure DPS WAR, a pure DPS BRD or an ice mage. You can't even choose a class over a job. Of course you can choose to play however you want when you're solo, but in group content people tend to expect you to play your job in a way that's known to be the most effective (this doesn't mean you're expected to perform super well but that you're expected to follow the common play style for that job). I also don't think it's unfair to expect your team members to try to play their jobs in a way that's the most beneficial for the team (again, not expecting optimal performance, just effort to be helpful).

[Penthea]

which in turn leads to healers not wanting to play healers anymore because they could face animosity at any given moment if they are playing in a way deemed unbecoming from their fellow party members and thus risk rude comments or outright kicks from content.

Being a healer can be stressful at times and a big reason is there are many different ideas as to what players think a healer should do.

Playing a healer is sometimes like this:

We heal too much, we heal too little, we dps too much, we don't dps enough, Eos isn't the right fairy, Selene isn't the right fairy, some dps expect us to know their stat weights so asts buff them correctly, other dps don't mind what buff they get as long as it helps their dps, whms should use the aoe dot on bosses because it's extra dps, whms shouldn't use the aoe dot on bosses as it's a gcd wasted that could have been used for Stone IV...and so on

Every role has its pros and cons. Not saying only healers suffer. But the fact that the requirements of their role are not set in stone leaves them open to unwarranted and often very unnecessary criticism.

[Ghishlain]

Unfortunately, this game doesn't really allow multiple effective play styles for any job. You can't really choose to be a healer who only heals any more than you can choose to be a pacifist PLD (only uses flash, provokes and defensive cooldowns), a pure DPS WAR, a pure DPS BRD or an ice mage. You can't even choose a class over a job. Of course you can choose to play however you want when you're solo, but in group content people tend to expect you to play your job in a way that's known to be the most effective (this doesn't mean you're expected to perform super well but that you're expected to follow the common play style for that job). I also don't think it's unfair to expect your team members to try to play their jobs in a way that's the most beneficial for the team (again, not expecting optimal performance, just effort to be helpful).

To me, it's less about the fact that no-DPS healers are not efficient or effective and more about the fact that disparaging comments towards no-DPS players (and likewise towards pro-DPS players) leads to healers just wanting to not play healer.

A no-DPS healer, who's still fulfilling their primary role, is still performing to the point where you're completing the duty. You're not completing it to the speed at which you could if you had a pro-DPS player but you're still completing the duty and thus "not failing" and this is the metric we should be gauging baseline performance on.

I'm not saying you, the person I'm replying to is doing this, but by claiming no-DPS healers are bad, terrible, need to be kicked just leads to people not wanting to play the class if they risk running into animosity like that. That's why we're running into a lack of healers - either healers just don't want to heal anymore or they're just healing with their friends to avoid this animosity, leaving to a lower overall PuG pool to work with.

[Destatiredux]

I feel players from both camps need to understand healer's have a pretty diverse style of play and they should probably learn to be more respectful towards their fellow healing peers else the dev's may just force the issue.

This. Every healer has their own comfortable style of play, which can vary not only between people but also with which job they play. Instead of brow beating the community into conforming to a specific meta that hardly matters to anything besides cutting edge progression, we as healers should instead focus on ourselves and develop our own healing style and respect the styles of others provided content is cleared and people stay alive. In my mind, when I dps as a healer, if I do (depending on the group and the content), it's a bonus to contribute to the group, not a necessity. If this expands to require the devs attention and they make changes because of it, I almost guarantee no one will like it.

[RichardButte]

All of this nonsense is entirely caused by how healing works in this game and the nature of how players take damage.

If players took damage in XIV like they do in other MMOs, healers would be too busy healing for anyone to complain about them not DPSing enough. Instead, healers do more DPSing than healing, which clouds the hell out of the issue as to what exactly healers should or shouldn't be doing. This sort of thing shouldn't fall into a grey area and yet that's exactly what has happened to it.

I mentioned it earlier in this thread but I'll say it again: I traded my globe for a gun a few weeks back and I've never been happier (my fiancee mains PLD so I get instant queues regardless).

If I'm going to spend most of my time DPSing anyway, I may as well be doing it on a class with a fun rotation...

[Taika]

...

I think all jobs should share the same baseline: try to be as active as possible and use your each gcd in a way that's most beneficial to your group. What you're proposing is "if you cleared the duty, you did well enough". It means we shouldn't only accept healers who refuse to use a part of their abilities and only need to use one skill every minute or so (in worst case), but also the pacifist tanks (assuming they just keep hate) and BRDs who refuse to give MP or TP and just spam heavy shot (pretty sure you can clear a dungeon like that). But somehow people only ever defend this kind of a "playstyle choice" for healers.

I'm sure there are healers who are turning away from the role because they feel it brings too much pressure. But same is true for tanks and DDs. In this thread, I think people have been mostly giving a different reason, such as not finding the job as engaging to play anymore.

[Tridus]

This thread got derailed so hard to a Healer dps thread.. We literally have a Healer dps thread on page one of this forum.

On this forum, Godwin's Law applies to Healer DPS. There's just enough developer comments, content issues, and design ambiguity to ensure an endless argument, and so many tanks and DPS players love talking about it that it inevitably winds up coming up everywhere.

[Destatiredux]

Snip.

I think you're grossly oversimplifying how healers work, and gave a bad example to boot. If I run an AST I don't just Benefic - I use shields/regen, Cards, Time Dilation, Celestial Opposition, Collective, Essential Dignity, and primarily use Earthly Star as a healing backup in case things go wrong. Way more than one button, and fun because of it. Astros have three buttons for dps in comparison. And sometimes I can go through a whole dungeon not touching those buttons because I'm busy using all the rest. Are you seriously comparing a healer using all but three buttons to a Bard only using heavy shot or a tank that only Flashes (or it's equivalent)? There's something off with your logic if so.

[RichardButte]

But somehow people only ever defend this kind of a "playstyle choice" for healers.

The playstyle "choice" you're describing is the trepidation surrounding possibly spending too much of your mana on DPS when you don't know when the other people in your party may suddenly have a tremendous attack of the stupids and get hit by literally everything avoidable for the next 30 seconds.

It's still a very real concern. I've personally had it happen where the group SEEMED competent, didn't take any avoidable damage, then suddenly everyone stood in f**king everything when I had been DPSing the entire time and I went OOM as a result.

Nothing short of actual psychic powers is going to allow healers to know for certain if they're going to need to conserve their mana for healing or not, which is why this "playstyle" exists and why I'm sure more and more people opt out of healing.

I'm sure there are healers who are turning away from the role because they feel it brings too much pressure. But same is true for tanks and DDs.

Tanks, sure, but DDs?! Are you serious right now...?

This game is a terribad DPS player's PARADISE. Not only are there no DPS meters so no one can see how terrible you are, but even the smallest parties have 2 DPS so if the DPS seems low, no one can even know to blame you unless you spend 80% of the fight standing in the bad.

Hell, just look at what's going on in these forums alone: people like YOU are more likely to blame the healer for not DPSing instead of blaming awful DPS for being awful. :P

[Taika]

Tanks, sure, but DDs?! Are you serious right now...?

Hell, just look at what's going on in these forums alone: people like YOU are more likely to blame the healer for not DPSing instead of blaming awful DPS for being awful. :P

People like ME expect similar level of contribution from each team member no matter which job they're playing, and right on the previous page of this thread I told how only yesterday I had called out DDs who were carried by healers in Susano normal.

Since parsers and logs are commonly used, there is pressure on DDs as well, and in a recent healer DPS discussion there were people claiming all DDs should pull at least 4k DPS in OS2, for example (while the BRD dummy requires around 3,5k I think ).