Where are all the healers?

[Sebazy]

And sometimes I can go through a whole dungeon not touching those buttons because I'm busy using all the rest.

Too busy for an entire dungeon to throw a dot? Really? I just looked back at my last expert, Temple of the fist, the tank double pulled trash packs. I threw 191 offensive casts including Assize. If I can manage 191, I'm sure you can manage 1

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.

Oh look, another silly faux example. Try 'sitting in literally everything avoidable' for 30 seconds and let me know how that works for you. Here's a hint, you'll likely be dead irrespective of how much MP the healer had long before those 30 seconds are up. I've certainly learnt first hand that for levelling dungeons or large pulls in Expert, throwing a GCD heal on a DPS (Be it them eating avoidable aoes or even just pulling multiple mobs off an under geared tank) is by far the most common cause of wipes that I've experienced in SB dungeons.

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

Way to get salty just because they don't share your views, that's some high class postage right there son =/ Evy's got a pretty balanced opinion on the whole healer DPS thing IMHO and I've seen plenty of people on here that take a far harder stance on both sides of the argument.

Also note that whilst a terribad DPS player can usually fly under the radar for the bulk of the casual content out there, they will likely get called out or at the very least, get 'tactfully spoken to' once they start tackling Savage.

People like ME expect similar level of contribution from each team member no matter which job they're playing

Right on time and absolutely agreed. To say I expect DPS is missing the boat. What I look for is a good dose of effort combined with healthy motivation alongside a desire for improvement. I have all the time in the world for the player that shows those qualities.

Instead, healers do more DPSing than healing

Fun fact of the evening: My NeoExdeath opener has me hitting 15000 HPS (Not a typo, overhealing deducted) during the first minute of the fight. It's not that we aren't healing, but rather we are healing too quickly or high incoming damage isn't sustained over a long enough period to run us out of oGCDs and CDs. It'll be very telling to see how super savage addresses this. I really do hope it's not just a case of more mechanics and DPS checks =(

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.

Personally I think the DPS aspect of it is overplayed and overstated, I just don't see it outside of Savage (Ironically the only occurrence that springs to mind is when I got yelled at for DPSing too much in Baelsar's wall after a couple of comical wipes on Mr Sloppy).

First up, we have two new DPS jobs that are both fun and iconic, that's going to be a pretty significant hit right there.

Secondly, many of the levelling dungeons are a huge shock to the system coming from the last few waves of level 60 dungeons we've had. Trash hits hard and gates are both fewer and further between. Any healer used to being able to wobble along behind the group throwing a few dots and heals without having to pay much attention is in for a pretty horrible scare. Healing most certainly isn't the path of least resistance like it used to be.

[Taika]

...

Sure, you're using your healing skills actively (you should use ES on each pull though ), but you can get by with much less. In HW I healed an expert without casting a single cure spell during pulls (only used regens, tetra, assize and asylum - can't remember if I used bene even once) and ended up being completely inactive for 83% of the dungeon (no one died). I once had a SCH who admitted to just /following tank while drinking coffee while the fairy did all the healing. When my partner was leveling AST, I watched him only heal with ED through entire dungeons. Truth is, in many cases, if you're only healing, and know how to use your abilities, you're either being inactive for significant amounts of time, or overhealing a lot. And you wouldn't promote that kind of play style (inactivity / spamming useless skills) for any other role.

[xxhieixx]

Healing in groups with my friends because I'm sick and tired of suicide/hero/compensation tanks. Because I actually like playing the game.

I finally am getting used to WHM changes in Stormblood, the DPS simplification is nice since I don't want to be thinking about doing DPS between heals.

Same with me, I usually just play with friends. Currently leveling AST (WHM is 70) then leveling some DPS classes. So if I do get into Omega/EX it won't be for a little while. Also, I get sick of the "DPS! DPS! DPS!" mentality.

[Destatiredux]

....

ES is something I use every pull whether I want to or not, given the current norm of speed pulling no matter what dungeon or level you're at. :P My point is, healing (really healing, using all your support tools as often or as necessary; not fairy alt tabs) is more complicated than he made it sound, and his comparison was ridiculous. I do throw out a Combust or a Malefic on bosses or a Gravity on the (sweet glorious) rare occasion I have a tank that doesn't pull wall to wall. But I can honestly say that maybe 2 of every 10 pulls I've experienced do it that way, and that's where my perception of "Sometimes I'll never hit those buttons at all" comes from. Comparing an active healer that buffs the party while keeping the party alive to a bard that spams only Heavy Shot was kinda insulting too. :b

[KalinOrthos]

This is why we can't have nice things.

[Cynfael]

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.

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What.

[RichardButte]

Way to get salty just because they don't share your views

Naw, Taika has always been a huge proponent of the "healers need to DPS or you're failing the group" movement.

I'm in the camp of "if a healer doesn't feel comfortable spending their mana on DPS at that time, no one should tell them otherwise".

Ft's not that we aren't healing, but rather we are healing too quickly or high incoming damage isn't sustained over a long enough period to run us out of oGCDs and CDs.

I've said on at least 3 occasions outside of this thread that the problem with healing is that we can basically top off the entire raid in 2-3 GCDs, then go immediately back to DPSing.

It'll be very telling to see how super savage addresses this. I really do hope it's not just a case of more mechanics and DPS checks =(

What else would it be, exactly?

The whole thing basically NEEDS to pan out like this: savage = healer DPS isn't factored into balancing. SSavage = healer DPS is most DEFINITELY factored into balancing.

Hate to disappoint you in advance, but there's really nothing else they CAN do to make SSavage not a joke, aside from emphasizing the piss out of the gear-check side of things.

...

What.

Because you cannot know with 100% certainty that a group that has been playing extremely well for the entire dungeon will suddenly start getting hit by mechanics they seemed to previously have an easy time avoiding.

If you've been churning out DPS as a healer (as everyone and their mother in this thread expects you to do), the sudden and unexpected additional mana expenditure can run you OOM.

If it couldn't, then there would be NO risk to healer DPS whatsoever, which many people have ALSO said would be a bad thing.

[Ghishlain]

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 disagree in essence that you can't possible have everyone have the same "GCD uptime" or rather APM uptime. Just look between all the DPS and how many DPS have heavy oGCD usages and thus have a higher APM versus those DPS without a lot of oGCDs to use. Equal APM management from every single job would be impossible to design for. Even if you compare healer GCDs required between healers some healers will need to use less or more GCDs depending on their kit. Thus expecting an equal level of "busyness" from every job let alone every player would be impossible.

If I do end up with a low APM player, I'll just shrug, carry the duty to the end, then just blacklist them so I don't have to deal with them in the future for any content where I might want a higher skill level player. Otherwise I'm not gonna make a stink of bad players.

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.

Personally I think the DPS aspect of it is overplayed and overstated, I just don't see it outside of Savage (Ironically the only occurrence that springs to mind is when I got yelled at for DPSing too much in Baelsar's wall after a couple of comical wipes on Mr Sloppy).

First up, we have two new DPS jobs that are both fun and iconic, that's going to be a pretty significant hit right there.

Secondly, many of the levelling dungeons are a huge shock to the system coming from the last few waves of level 60 dungeons we've had. Trash hits hard and gates are both fewer and further between. Any healer used to being able to wobble along behind the group throwing a few dots and heals without having to pay much attention is in for a pretty horrible scare. Healing most certainly isn't the path of least resistance like it used to be.

I don't disagree that there are more factors that has made healer's less played but it would also doing a disservice to think that some players are just out right discouraged about playing a healer when they don't know if they're going to run into an elitest ass who takes insult to how they play healer because "you don't pay my sub".

It'll be very telling to see how super savage addresses this. I really do hope it's not just a case of more mechanics and DPS checks =(

I'm personally hoping Super Savage forces a min ilvl so S-E can tune the fights for an exact gear score and thus build potent mechanical, DPS, and healing checks into these fights.

[Penthea]

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..

Which would turn healing into whack-a-mole and after doing it for so long in WoW I can tell you it can get very dull. More damage doesn't automatically mean more fun or challenging. It's far more interesting for healers to deal with mechanics than just straight up constant damage.

Instead, healers do more DPSing than healing

I really wonder where this is coming from and I see it being said so often. Yea this happens at low lvl but those are training dungeons so we shouldn't expect a healing challenge there. On higher lvl dungeons it's very common, especially now that sprint doesn't use tp, for tanks to chain pull and that rarely leaves room for healer dps to outpace hps. Only in 4 man bosses do I sometimes feel I do more dps than healing. But if I'm with a new or just unskilled group it's the opposite. And in lvl 70 8-man content I rarely feel like I'm doing more dps than healing. Even os1 savage which is known for not being very challenging demands enough healing for healers to be pumping out hps far more than dps.

[Taika]

Naw, Taika has always been a huge proponent of the "healers need to DPS or you're failing the group" movement.

Aww it's so sweet you know me so well! Oh wait... I'm a huge proponent of "all party members should try to be as helpful to their party as possible", and I'm very understanding to varying situations, skill levels, and other circumstances. When I meet a healer who doesn't DPS, I encourage them to try (really, I say something like "don't be afraid to use your DPS abilities too!" or "could you please try putting up some DoTs when no one is in any danger"). If a healer tries, just a little, I appreciate that. If they tell me they are inexperienced and very nervous about healing or doing that content for the first time, I let it be. The only ones I have any issue with are the ones who simply refuse to co-operate out of a ridiculous principle that "it's not their job" or "I don't play their sub". And I deal the same way with players of other jobs whom I notice not really using a lot of what's available to them (like healer DPS spells, I will ask for Requiem and MP/TP from BRDs, Goad from melees, offer advice with rotations to DDs in general, point out when tanks could be using their skills better during a pull etc.). But I never do any of this in an unfriendly manner, and I definitely never blindly kick my team members.

This is the significant difference: I don't really care how much DPS you do or even if you do it on each pull, I care if you're open for the possibility to do it when you're comfortable with it, instead of flat out refusing to be helpful to your party because you don't have to. If this makes me a human monster in your eyes, then so be it.

I disagree in essence that you can't possible have everyone have the same "GCD uptime" or rather APM uptime. Just look between all the DPS and how many DPS have heavy oGCD usages and thus have a higher APM versus those DPS without a lot of oGCDs to use. Equal APM management from every single job would be impossible to design for. Even if you compare healer GCDs required between healers some healers will need to use less or more GCDs depending on their kit. Thus expecting an equal level of "busyness" from every job let alone every player would be impossible.

That's not what I meant, of course there are differences in APM between jobs, and you can't require a BLM to have as many APM as a BRD, that would be absurd. I simply meant that all party members should try to be as active and effective as possible: to do something useful for their group whenever they're able to instead of refraining from doing so. Like back in HW when I once did an expert run where I only healed just to try it, I was only active for 17% of the whole dungeon, while all my other party members were active for at least 70% of it. That's a huge gap that I could have been able to fill if I had chosen to be useful instead of doing /mandervilledance and /idlecam. :P

I don't disagree that there are more factors that has made healer's less played but it would also doing a disservice to think that some players are just out right discouraged about playing a healer when they don't know if they're going to run into an elitest ass who takes insult to how they play healer

There are also tanks and DDs who are afraid of joining DF because they're afraid of the feedback they would get. This is not an issue limited to certain role, but it is an issue. Luckily it's also something we all can affect by using our own behaviour to make the DF a friendly and encouraging place at least when we're running with it.

My point is, healing (really healing, using all your support tools as often or as necessary; not fairy alt tabs) is more complicated than he made it sound, and his comparison was ridiculous. I do throw out a Combust or a Malefic on bosses or a Gravity on the (sweet glorious) rare occasion I have a tank that doesn't pull wall to wall. But I can honestly say that maybe 2 of every 10 pulls I've experienced do it that way, and that's where my perception of "Sometimes I'll never hit those buttons at all" comes from. Comparing an active healer that buffs the party while keeping the party alive to a bard that spams only Heavy Shot was kinda insulting too. :b

If you're really being active with only healing, while you are using your skills correctly and not doing ridiculous amounts of overhealing, I don't think anyone at all would have any issue with that ever or call that bad healer play. Like said, there are varying levels of skill, comfortability and other circumstances that affect each healer's play. I really do understand if a healer, especially one new to the job, can feel busy with only healing even in current expert dungeons with huge pulls, even if I never have personally experienced that. It's the situations where almost no healing (or literally no healing, like certain phases in certain fights) is required, and the healer chooses to stay idle instead of helping their party, that people are calling out.