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.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

No issue with your comments, but lets not get sidetracked arguing stuff for the sake of argument here especially when it's fairly irrelevant to the original point at hand.

And nicely said Moro.

[MoroMurasaki]

And nicely said Moro.

I wonder if it makes me a total dork that my reaction to this was "Senpai noticed me!!! ;-;"

But thanks! I'm glad at least one of my walls of text made sense!

[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

[Cynfael]

And nicely said Moro.

I second that.

Stating that healer Jobs are mechanically simple compared to DPS and arguably even tank Jobs is not an affront against healers; it's more or less the objective truth, for all the reasons already discussed. It doesn't mean that healing doesn't have its own challenges, only that the difficulty isn't derived from needing to observe strict rotations, timers/stances, or positioning, which is fair considering how the healer role needs to have some awareness of the party and be able to heal effectively at any time regardless of what they are currently doing (e.g. DPS as default action).

I've seen it said more than once that DPS rotations aren't rocket science, and of course they are not. On the other hand, if maintaining those rotations were so "brain-dead" easy, everyone would put out max DPS for their ilvl in every encounter, or at the very least we wouldn't see a gigantic gap between the less technically-skilled player and the above-average performer.

[Vyriah]

It's that much of an objective truth if you see people that come to exact opposite conclusion.

I'll say it again : SCH scattered kit it extremly difficult to handle, RDM mana managing is super intuitive and MNK straigh forward rotation is much simplier to get.
I'm not saying I don't get what you say, and I'm pretty sure we're talking about the same issue that my akward too long post are. What you want to say, is that every single spell in a DPS kit are tied each other well healers are more press to fire by nature.

But then, as the former require more practice, the later require more awareness. I can agree they would speak to different type of player, but saying that one is simple and not the other is making a jugement out of it. For sure not everyone is gonna be happy with. I had difficulty playing SCH properly and still work it arround to have reasonnably good performance, off course I'm not overjoyed to see that it's "objectively simple". Because it wasn't for me.

Also, ultimately I think healing should work the same as dealing DPS. This what those wall of text are supposed to mean and I'm not sure why I didn't actually write that to begin with.
But it's done now.

[Jerichai]

Some of you DPS'ers need to realize that you aren't so critical that one misstep means the doom of a pull. Is it ideal, no. Will your parse suffer? Most definitely. But it's not the end of an attempt if you don't have perfect uptime on a buff, or miss refreshing a debuff by a few seconds. Sure, miss timing a major buff like Trick Attack of Battle Litany definitely hurts, but then again healers also have to consider this with things like Chain Strategem and Card Buffs.

Parses don't equal content completion.

But again, I don't know why you all are so hung up on making strict comparisons in difficulty to the point of trying to imply healers are getting carried. And we wonder why there seems to be fewer healers...

[MoroMurasaki]

Parses don't equal content completion.

Parsers are a reflection of damage and in any content with a hard enrage damage (and mechanics) does equal completion.

I second that.

So many Senpai's noticing me today ;-; Please excuse my rant!

specifically the idea that healer dps or tank dps needs to be prioritized

I personally didn't understand this for a long time, ironically because I always played healer with my boyfriend maining WAR. This was before the Steel Cyclone adjustments that gave WAR respectable AoE DPS. We ran on the idea that if we were in a single target situation we would prioritize his DPS (Deliverance, just rotating CD's, my healing had to pick up his slack in mitigation) and in any situation with 3+ enemies we would completely swap - he's in tank stance virtually all the time, using self heals to give me ample DPS uptime. We each had our niche. I would like to think it worked really well, we each got to push nice DPS when it was 'our turn'.

The problem with this hyperspecialized mindset is that neither of us was doing meaningful damage in our 'down time', specifically him because he was eating that huge reduction for sticking to tank stance.

I felt like it had to be all or nothing until the FC we were a part of dissolved, prompting him to take a break from the game. I tried to take a break too but couldn't stay away. The result was me running with lots of pug tanks.

I suddenly didn't have that level of communication or advance understanding, I just had to make the most of the DPS uptime I was given. I think this was a huge step in advancing my effectiveness as a healer. I learned to adapt so much more because I was out of that optimal situation of understanding my tank 100% of the time.

This is where my story aligns with the discussion at hand - the adaptability of a healer is by far our greatest asset. We can change our playstyle on a dime to fit a certain situation. No healer leveled past 65 can tell me they haven't suddenly dropped their DPS to almost nothing to keep a pug tank standing in Bardam's Mettle. We have that choice to make where as all tank or DPS players can do is avoid damage (whether via mitigation or mechanics) and kill things as fast as they can.

In this sense a healer has the most choice in any given party. There are so many different ways to play, all with situations in which they shine. Are you in a really strong party in a weak dungeon you outgear by a ton? Throw up a regen and mow things down. Are you healing a first-time ilvl270 STR tank through Doma Castle or even Bardam's? Well unsolot Cleric's for E4E and do your best to keep everyone from tanking the floor.

This wealth of options is what makes healers engaging to play for me (hey look I tied back into the topic of the thread) and also what gives us, by default, the 'easiest' time. We can adapt to anything and by contrast the tanks and DPS have to cross their fingers that we look after them while they get through their (often complicated) rotations.

[Cynfael]

But then, as the former require more practice, the later require more awareness. I can agree they would speak to different type of player, but saying that one is simple and not the other is making a jugement out of it. For sure not everyone is gonna be happy with. I had difficulty playing SCH properly and still work it arround to have reasonnably good performance, off course I'm not overjoyed to see that it's "objectively simple". Because it wasn't for me.

If I'm understanding where you're coming from, you appear to be reading much more into those comments than what was stated, much less intended.

No one is saying healers are categorically simple or implying that only bad players struggle with them. I'll take the liberty of quoting myself:

It doesn't mean that healing doesn't have its own challenges, only that the difficulty isn't derived from needing to observe strict rotations, timers/stances, or positioning, which is fair considering how the healer role needs to have some awareness of the party and be able to heal effectively at any time...

SCH was my very first Job in this game. I understand the skill floor vs. ceiling very well when it comes to healers, and it's not insulting to state the basic fact that healers have a very fluid, relatively uncomplicated play style compared to Jobs that must execute A->-B->C or lose a ton of effectiveness. Healer can be challenging, sure, but it's challenging in a way that's not entirely the same as, say, a DPS Job.

[Jerichai]

Parsers are a reflection of damage and in any content with a hard enrage damage (and mechanics) does equal completion.

Partially right. Pretty much an encounter has a minimum group wide DPS requirement a party must achieve in order to complete. But there has never been a fight where all the DPS had to achieve their perfect theoretical DPS for a given fight in order to complete it, even with problematic raids like Gordias.

Go take a look at all the logs for a given class on a particular fight (and look at those within a set of similar ilvl for consistency). You'll find that there's a decent range of overall DPS between them. Some of this is based on comp, buffs, even luck. But player skill also factors in. And it's not just the near perfect DPS clearing content.