It's past time, Yoshi-P...

[Paladinleeds]

As much as I'd love to see the DPS meta pushed into oblivion, it's not going to happen unfortunately. The casual playerbase is the lifeblood of this game, and while it does have some hardcore playerbase, the hardcore players most likely gravitate towards other MMOs (as they're very much a minority in this game). I fear that if healing became more intensive, it would push more people either to DPS roles, or simply off the game completely. One need only look at how SE simplified things so much in SB to cater to the casual crowd. While I wouldn't quit or stop healing/tanking were they to make it much more intensive (but then again I came from WoW, where healing was much more intensive), a lot of people would. They would feel overwhelmed. This is considered a very much super casual friendly game.

[Lodinn]

I came to FFXIV from SWTOR. There healing and tanking meant more but there are key differences disallowing doing so in FFXIV, namely:
1) Not-cooldown-restricted healing. You need more aoe healing? Cure3. Still need healing? Cure3. There is no 10 seconds or something cooldown in between forcing you to use less-efficient-per-gcd heals (SCH is the most unique to FFXIV healer in this regard);
2) Non-targeted aoe healing. Seriously, that in combination with p.1 is what makes FFXIV healing so braindead. 2 targets are taking damage? Singletarget heals. 3+? AoE. AoE is centered on you, still requires something... But not much.

I've did t5 sync recently and it's a bad way to make healing more demanding - you have like 4 buttons to choose from, you spam them, flowchart is pretty straightforward. Everyone else has fun with 10-15 abilities, you got 4-6. Bad.
Good way to stress healers would be forcing them to heal targets picked at random or make them balance group hp more in general (heals which only heal half a group and go on cd so you gotta come up with a way to heal up the rest, that kind of thing). But this is so not gonna happen, mostly because of targeting issues and fast targeting being harder on console (i know, i know there are plenty of good players who heal on a controller but it *is* mechanically harder to pick some heal from a wide range and pick a target for it).
Not. Gonna. Happen.

[Alash]

If you're experiencing this so often it's probably because you aren't very good at the game. Do better.

[Fhaerron]

It's time to kill this DPS meta dead. When tanks and healers are getting harassed for doing their stated jobs in an Expert dungeon, something has gone off the rails.

Over-reliance on DPS races in raids has spilled over into all other aspects of the game, and is causing needless stress among people who couldn't give two rats' farts about FFLogs or parses.

When a forum thread stretches 43 pages with wannabe pros relentlessly damage controlling for the DPS meta, something is seriously wrong with the direction of the game.

Tanking and healing need to mean something. That means dispensing with DPS races in favor of high or fast damage to tanks, requiring heightened attention to restoring HP or preventing damage.

I go in Sword Oath, I use Royal Authority & Goring Blade combo's and do my Requisecat and Holy Spirit spam. I use Direct Hit & Strength melds. I do not die and I do not loose emnity.

What's the problem here actually? O.o

[ovIm]

As many people have commented, some players, especially newcomers, might already be overwhelmed with current content, be it because of lack of gear, experience, or a combination of both. Increasing the difficulty of casual content would end up being unhealthy for the games playerbase.

IMHO, Square could do well to embrace the current meta by finding a solid middle ground, like giving the tank stance effects as a trait and just giving an enmity buff to the tankstance or something like that, without adjusting outgoing damage.

[Kacho_Nacho]

... No they wouldn't. They'd fail . REALLY HARD. If you up the difficulty curve, people aren't going to suddenly get better. You're just going to lose a lot of people who aren't that hardcore into the game. Raising the bar doesn't make the jumper jump higher, they have to be willing to put in the effort, and people who are just barely grazing it now aren't likely the kind who'd put in extra effort to hit the new standards. What will likely happen if you make healing harder is you're going to get more people playing DPS, or possibly tanks cause "healing is too much effort". Say hello to "ADVENTURER IN NEED: HEALER" permanently.

I was going to comment you appear to believe the majority of healers are lazy people who only want to coast through the content; but, I read your later clarification and concede your point. You can't force players to change They are set in their ways.

While I'd like to see healers casting more heals and less damage spells that is something which may cause the game to be too difficult for an unknown percentage of players. But, can we both agree people who play healers are not more lazy than players of other roles?

[NocturniaUzuki]

I think a lot of people are missing that the OP is not suggesting that tanks and healers should never DPS, but rather that the current structure of content has moved away from really needing to heal or tank constantly. If you go play some older content on MinIL, you'll find that boas auto attacks can't just be sustained with Regen/self-heals,a and tank Buster's will actually one-shot the tank without proper mitigation from both the tanks AND healer(s).

Personally, as much as I hate it when people micromanage DPS numbers, I don't mind the current approach. I do wish that the game would move away from one-shot party mechanics though. As a healer, I enjoy improvising to fix peoples' mistakes, not just memorizing a pattern of raid damage.

[NocturniaUzuki]

Forgive the double post because I can't edit on my phone. But I should also mention that, as frustrating as it is for those of us who want it to be harder to heal instead of focusing on DPS to make up for it, the solution lies in your hands: make it harder for yourself. Run old content, help new players clear extremes so you have to carry a bunch of tanks who don't use cooldowns and DPS who get hit, run dungeons with odd compositions (like tankless runs) to make it harder to deal with incoming damage.

Of course, the problem here is finding players to do these things with you, but they do exist.

[HyoMinPark]

It makes tanking and healing a lot less boring.

Agreed. Standing around and waiting for people to take damage when playing healer is probably the most boring thing in the world.


@OP, I’m all for tanking and healing being more engaging, but the devs are never going to make fights that demand 80% healing uptime or actually require tanks to remain in tank stance 100% of the time (which, a lot probably wouldn’t anyways), because then people would complain about it being “too hard” and to “please nerf” the fight. Especially in content like dungeons.

[Missbone]

I have played Healer only since last month, before that i only lvled them through potd to 60. I had never had any issues with people in Dungeons while running as Tank or DPs. As healer this experience whas totaly different, i med in a bit more than a month allready 3times or more unfreandly players as during my whole time in FF14 so far. I got kicked for nothing, yelled and harrast because i focused on my job (yes im one of those players who thinks that healer shloud concentrate on heal and not doing dmg), lectured by various elitist player than wantet to tell me how i should have to play my class and so on. The last case whas yesterday where a tank complaint at the last boss that the run took to long because dps whas to low and the reason for him whas of course me the healer because i didnt do any dmg.


I played a lot of other mmos before starting with this one, there is no other mmo that i can remember that forces you to be a half dps as healer. In compare to many other mmos, here you are as healer the asshole for everything and its allways your fault. I realy dont like that and for me its destroying the fun playing a healer class.