Why you should play a healer!

[MoroMurasaki]

I think it comes down to a hard cap/soft cap kind of thing. In terms of core function a healer has a hard cap of keeping everyone alive enough to beat enrage where as DPS are always chasing a higher number. To an extent (most) healers are as well, at this point we can probably comfortably say healer DPS is a thing, but the level of skill to perform optimal single-target healer DPS is so low (are your DoTs up? Are you nuking?) compared to a tank or DPS they aren't in the same galaxy.


This means that to adjust as a healer is intrinsically less on their DPS than adjusting for a DPS. Why do you think no healer has a gap closer or any movement abilities? WHM and SCH could certainly use them for Holy/Assize/Miasma II but because they aren't punished nearly as hard for disengaging it isn't an issue.

This is a necessity of the healer role in FFXIV, we have to be able to put down and pick up our DPS around healing the raid, but if Stone IV's potency started at 180 and increased by consecutive, uninterrupted casts (or some other still comparably easy mechanic) healers would at least begin to understand the turmoil a DPS faces when a boss goes untargetable, a status effect hits them or they happen to die. I don't want that, it would be terrible, but because we have this luxury to put out comparatively stronger DPS with less focus on it we do, by definition, have an easier time.

Lastly I would like to say even in reasonably easy content like EX primals or Omega normal a part of the healer's comfort is determined by their group. Are you in a competent, knowledgable static? The healer has a great time. Are you with inconsiderate, stupid pugs (not all pugs, I know) who eat every other bit of avoidable damage and don't perform basic mechanics? No one in that party is working harder than the healer.

[Vyriah]

It's not that. It's about the job trinity.

The job trinity in MMO isn't something about what kind of glamour you want (well, it is a bit, but not too much) it's about the idea that if on or two guy were to fight that huge dragon, they will die. But with the three here, there's precarious balance that if it holds together long enough then dragon will dies. The tank takes the hit, the healer heals the damage and the DPS kill the big bad monster. Healing too weak ? Tanks die, dragons kills every one. DPS is too weak ? No more ressources, dragon kills every one. But then, what about the tank ? He need to take less damage right ? But it's the healer job to keep him alive, so what's the right amount of less damage he have to take ?

I already said that a lot but I'll say it again : I come from TSW. And if you ask that to a TSW player, the answer is obvious. It have be able to survive a full healing cycle to get the strongest basic heal burst at the end of it. If the heal cycle is good but the tank is too squishy, then he dies and dragon kills everyone. If someone goes on a dungeon with DPS gear, then it's his fault for playing the hero, not the healer. Super specialised character was the way to go, unless you knew exactly what you were doing as a team.
What about FF XIV ? We don't care. Tank drop their damage reduction for more DPS. That's because there's no healing cycle, it's just super high burst that keep getting higher and higher not because of gear but because new skill get added. I wouldn't be surprised if healers could currently heal more that what absolutly all damage reduction skill could negate in less than 7,5 seconds. This may even be a pretty generous time window to do that. And that means that no matter how super huge damage you throw at the party, healers will eat like freshly baked cookies in matter of a second. Good healers will even try to not overdo it.

The trinty is unbalanced and as survavibility is less of an issue, it become obvious to ask for more DPS since the fight are still timed.
But why wouldn't healers also chase after the big number heals to begin with ? That increase effectiveness by potency is good no matter the situation as even in a DPS mindset stronger heals = less heals casted. So more DPS.

But this game as developped it's own ecosystem and it's getting harder and harder to adress it. And even worse : every thing done about the healers feels like no one really get what healing really is about. If there's people standing arround in dungeons, it's because if the lives of the party is hanging by the constant healing output the very healer spot could as much be a DPS off-heal spot. Again this could be by design, but then why reworking cleric stance into that meager buff ? Why remove the DPS skills while the useless slot no one used were the basic healing ones ? Why add news mechanic that center arround those same basic heal no one use ?
Why not tie-in DPS and healing into a gameplay when the former lead to the later or the other way arround ? Why not make them use the same ressource to further improve the whole decision making part of it ? Why not keep the whol idea of DPS vs healing stance, at leats as a class specific mechanic (this would even fit into AST night and day theme so damn well) ?

What Yoshi-P said about not touching the SCH despite player complain because it was still played about it felt extremly disheartning, I actually haven't touched SCH since then (and I'm not playing healer outside static). But in the end, I think there's a real need of an exterior look on how healer are doing right now, because their situation affect the game as whole.
Again, it's about the job trinity is supposed to create a frail but working balance between everything and because of that absurd healing output it's hard to design interesting fight as any damage is boudn the end up the void swiming in Neo's tears of getting solo healed. I'm sorry for those having fun with it, but Shinryu is certainly one of the most terrible fight in the whole game. It's mostly a giant dummy that just cheese wipe by being super confusing about what he is doing. It's a super unsane way of making an encounter and just serve as a way cheese player that will easily get caught by an AoE coming from a dead angle.

I'm not sure how this is coming in here as FF XIV community seem really attached to how the game works. But it's not very good actually. Not outright bad, but clearly a huge turn in a wrong direction. I really found that omega was a complete deadend where nothing really stand out, outside maybe O3S (wich was still really tame). When you come down to point of reducing max HP to be sure the healers have to heal between two raid damage and run at the same time shows how much you're just tripping the player to fail instead of creating interesting situations. It's even more frustrating that some 24 raid have a lot of good ideas.

Edit :
I writing that because I think that's the main problem, not searching wich healer is the person to blame. Maybe it's a bit too confusing ?
Sorry for sidetracking more, but I don't really have the heart to let that text go to waste.

Edit :
Oh, that's the wrong thread, what have I done.
Well, it's kind of irrelevant, but I spent two hour writing that, please bear with. I'll properly correct sentences that makes no sense to make up for it. "orz