Why do so many statics seem to be missing healers? What can be done to solve this?

[technole]

Yep, I have to beat the stick on people's heads when I hear main/off-healer. No, it's two healers and they are supposed to use the right cool downs between them for the situation. Okay, so shields aren't needed there, but the SCH should be using Indom at this moment so the WHM doesn't have to be using Medica several times to top-off for a mechanic because they don't have Assize up. Or deploy for this heavy hitting mechanic coming up so they have to heal as much after. Simple things like that.

The same with tanks. A good raid would look at tank cool downs collectively between them, not just MT/OT. With that in-mind you can have Awareness up for every tank buster in O3S because of tank swaps, and also use both tank's immunities which also increases raid damage between tanks/healers. Since they also don't have to stay in tank stance at-all because they don't have a cool down up. People like to talk how DPS checks are really tight, but they really are not. You'd be surprised how much raid DPS could be gained by just playing the tandem jobs a little more optimal.

As far as recruiting players, I think it depends how far your group has progressed. Really good players are committed to a group since the beginning of the raid tier, and if they are available they likely have progressed to clearing the tier or close to it. Like still being on O3S and not being at or near enrage, versus being near O4S enrage could be quite a difference of talent at this point of the cycle.

[Blanchimont]

One of the reasons is that healers often get a lot of the blame for failures and none of the credit for success. Their work often goes unnoticed and are undervalued. The general attitudes towards a lot of healers is what causes them to not commit to the class, especially in a game like FF14 where you are forced to commit. The stress of doing it in Extreme/Savage content versus the reward just isn't worth it for a lot of them, especially compared to the other classes. The Stormblood expansion makes it worse as Healers are now expected to DPS as well to make up for the shortcomings of everyone else in the group, forcing them to keep track of much more. This might not seem like a lot, but it might as well be a difficulty spike that others did not have before.

[Sebazy]

Honestly, I don't think the additional 'DPS' requirements are actually much of a burden at all. Maintaining dots is typically enough to sate most groups that aren't stuck on an enrage and is a decent contribution at least for WHM and SCH. The removal of cleric stance makes it an absolute piece of cake.

As stated elsewhere tho, the last phase of O3S and O4S are both quite a significant step up in terms of healing throughput requirements compared to O1S-O2S as well as the comparative snoozefests we saw throughout Creator. So yeah, I'm not really surprised to see a little healer burnout amongst the player base. Couple that with the rough deal that healers got relative to those enticing new DPS jobs and it's a fairly predictable state of affairs frankly.

[technole]

Just enough effort from the tanks/healers is all that is needed otherwise it's a burden on the entire raid. But like Sebazy says, just maintaining DoTs is good enough but even that is hard for the majority population. But the DPS checks were certainly relaxed after Gordias.

I know some really good raid healers that had switched to DPS this tier, like more than usual. To be honest, the whole simplification of skills I don't think has paid off well for healers. The loss of mitigation, now having to depend on others for that. We lost DoTs, Cleric Stance is just a simple buff. It can feel like a snoozefest if you aren't doing high-end content.

[Riyshn]

As far as recruiting players, I think it depends how far your group has progressed. Really good players are committed to a group since the beginning of the raid tier, and if they are available they likely have progressed to clearing the tier or close to it. Like still being on O3S and not being at or near enrage, versus being near O4S enrage could be quite a difference of talent at this point of the cycle.

There's also the people like me, who really do want to raid, but can't find a group that fits my time and have no interest in trying to clear a coordination check fight like V3S in a PUG. (Earliest I can comfortably start is 9PM PST, and every group I see recruiting on Aether seems to end then.

To be honest, the whole simplification of skills I don't think has paid off well for healers. The loss of mitigation, now having to depend on others for that. We lost DoTs, Cleric Stance is just a simple buff.

I agree with you except for the Cleric Stance bit. The removal of Cleric is improved usability/simplicity, yes, but at the cost of losing Cleric's permanent 10% damage buff. Personally, I feel like it was a bad trade.

[technole]

There's also the people like me, who really do want to raid, but can't find a group that fits my time and have no interest in trying to clear a coordination check fight like V3S in a PUG. (Earliest I can comfortably start is 9PM PST, and every group I see recruiting on Aether seems to end then.

I believe it, and hope you find one! I usually keep an eye on the Aether Raid Stars discord for from time-to-time if I don't have a lead already. As I took a character out of Aether data center to Primal just because I found a group that had the perfect 10pm+ PST raid times back in Creator. It seems so hard to find that perfect late evening slot, and it was a good opportunity considering the group had been around a long time, and had cleared every tier. Or I keep looking just to stay on Gilgamesh, as I left some friends for them. Now I can't go back to Gilgamesh if I wanted to since it's closed. But we did well, so I think it was worth it.

I agree with you except for the Cleric Stance bit. The removal of Cleric is improved usability/simplicity, yes, but at the cost of losing Cleric's permanent 10% damage buff. Personally, I feel like it was a bad trade.

I was hoping the cleric change would improve more newer healers, but we still have a lot of no-DPS or token damage healers and I feel it hasn't changed the state of the role that much. So in the end the better healers got a nerf, rather than a better base of players.

[Risvertasashi]

A slightly different tack from most of the other posts here-- From what I've been hearing from those that play but don't main a healer, I think the current dungeon leveling experience is offputting to many would-be healers.

Not that other things aren't a factor (must be experienced, have good FFlogs, be exactly at recruiting static's progress point, etc), but these things have always been there.

[Shihen]

To be fair, the game is a bit deceptive about the role; it's really healer/off-dps. Someone can go through the entire story confident in their healing ability, only to step into their first savage raid and get mollywhopped because things they didn't even have to consider before are suddenly requirements, and it's very obvious to the entire raid when they don't meet those requirements. It adds an element of stress that doesn't go away until you're used to the environment, which gets exacerbated by having the spotlight on them every time the group wipes. Eventually it gets better, but not everyone has the mental stamina to rough it out till eventually. I'd imagine a good amount of players still like healing, they just don't like healing in FFXIV.

[SlogDog]

My new team went thru a lot of healers... I knew my first cohealer wasn't cutting it but it took until 03S for everyone else to take notice, then it was the hunt for healers that can do their job while contributing dps and that took a surprising amount of trails. We found one and I like him a lot but O3S and more so 04S just show that when many of these healers actually get a little responsibility/pressure added in the mix they crumble.

Healing shouldn't be looked at as the perfect role for those who are less capable/the easy pass and I appreciate that these "heal checks" have been walling most of the lazy ones out of content (most. for some reason people are still willing to carry healbots thru content... even with the loss of CS)

Anyways its a healthy trimming of the fat.

[QT_Melon]

1. If you never healed in savage, don't tell your healers how they should heal. Ask an main healer in your fc, ls, whatever to give them advice

While I agree one should be patient and not be harsh on newer players especially healers. I disagree with some of this because it isn't exactly rocket science for certain parts of the fight to tell a healer what they should be healing. If you have healers missing basic stuff like Raid Wide AOE that needs to be healed, it should be stated that it needs to be healed/mitigated.

That's like not telling DPS that they're failing a DPS check and to work on a rotation to pick it up.

Good raid groups don't need to be intricate in knowing all the roles, but do know at least the basics (which dungeons teach you in general). The only difference is that there may be a specific skill for that mitigation, and it's trial and error to figure it out.

For example, if a tank is getting hit by a tankbuster, is it one that's always critical so that they need to take Awareness?

The only part that is the discretion of the healer is the type of mitigation and timing of that heal. Will the raid be topped off in time for the next mechanic with just a regen? Does the party need to be topped off immediately and do you support the group in a DPS check? Do you need to coordinate with another party member with support abilities ie, Addle, Apocatastasis, Mantra, Palisade, Nature's Minet...etc to help with mitigation? Or are you going to default to your first point of not telling a DPS how to do their job because you're not in their role for Savage content?

tl;dr it's not asking it's HOW you ask that makes the difference.