Healer DPS - enjoyable or a chore?

[MoroMurasaki]

being a healer main sucked because of how much time I was spamming Stone/Malefic rather than Cure/Benefic

I've seen this sentiment echoed several times in this thread and I'm curious - what would be more engaging about spamming heal spells instead of dps spells?

Edit: Not just aimed at you of course, I'm curious why anyone feels this way.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

what would be more engaging about spamming heal spells instead of dps spells?

Edit: Not just aimed at you of course, I'm curious why anyone feels this way.

It's not about wanting to spam heals instead of DPSing. For me at least, I'd rather have a more engaging DPS rotation. I know SE is adamant about not wanting healers to feel like they need to dps, but they don't deserve to have such a boring and uninteresting DPS kit.

[Hestzhyen]

I've seen this sentiment echoed several times in this thread and I'm curious - what would be more engaging about spamming heal spells instead of dps spells?

Edit: Not just aimed at you of course, I'm curious why anyone feels this way.

I'd much rather have more intricate ways to heal- branching combos maybe, like DPS do. More big cooldowns. More ways to buff the party/change the flow of the fight. But like I said there's a different, larger discussion around the fundamentals of how healing, mitigation, and frequency/potency of incoming damage that strongly influences this discussion. You can't make healing more exciting or thematically appropriate (in my opinion!) without addressing those first.

The problem is the way healing works in this game is so darn strong and enemy damage is best described as "large sproadic bursts". Our normal bread-and-butter spells are so powerful we can set some regens on the MT, MAYBE the party if needed, and just spam that one DPS spell while doing some spot heals with OGCDs as needed in the majority of content the game offers. Seeing how little healing I can get away with is fun in a way, but... why am I playing healer then? Why are Ultimate and the current EX and Savage the only content that actually requires me to do what I signed up for? If I'm not going to be healing all the time, that's fine I guess, but give me something support-ish to do in the downtime. Buff management or something (AST gets close to this). I feel like contributing personal DPS should be last on my list of things to do, not #1. Especially when all I can do is apply a DoT and smash the G6 key over and over again.

[Sakuraluna]

I don't mind dpsing and would much rather do it than nothing at all during times when there's no heavy healing needed.

[supaiku]

I actually enjoy healer DPS in this game, without it I would propably stop playing healer and just switch to BLM.
As others have stated, the interesting part of it is not spamming that Malefic/Stone/Broil button, but to see how low the tank/group can drop without healing them. And I like being risky, so if I know my tank will survive with 100 hp, I will let him drop to 100 hp. It's also fun to find the best moments in a fight for cds such as Earthly Star to reduce the casts of Helios/Benefic.
But I agree that a DPS rotation would make healer DPS a bit more interesting, even if it's just by adding 1-2 more DPS spells. As AST I have my cards and as SCH more dots, but I feel that playing WHM is a bit boring in that case.

[Mutemutt]

I've seen this sentiment echoed several times in this thread and I'm curious - what would be more engaging about spamming heal spells instead of dps spells?

Edit: Not just aimed at you of course, I'm curious why anyone feels this way.

Well for me, part of the reason is going to be the fantasy, naturally. Playing a healer, I'd want to heal stuff.

Plus I think there's a fundamental difference between healing and dps even at the basest level. I feel like it's pretty evident when you look at the tools available to each role. Dps is built around trying to maintain a rotation but healing is built with handling a variety of encounters in mind. That's going to lead to a different feel.

[MoroMurasaki]

It's not about wanting to spam heals instead of DPSing. For me at least, I'd rather have a more engaging DPS rotation. I know SE is adamant about not wanting healers to feel like they need to dps, but they don't deserve to have such a boring and uninteresting DPS kit.

100% agreed. Even the arbitrary difficulty of the old Cleric Stance would be welcome at this point imo.

I'd much rather have more intricate ways to heal- branching combos maybe, like DPS do. More big cooldowns. More ways to buff the party/change the flow of the fight. But like I said there's a different, larger discussion around the fundamentals of how healing, mitigation, and frequency/potency of incoming damage that strongly influences this discussion. You can't make healing more exciting or thematically appropriate (in my opinion!) without addressing those first.

The problem is the way healing works in this game is so darn strong and enemy damage is best described as "large sproadic bursts". Our normal bread-and-butter spells are so powerful we can set some regens on the MT, MAYBE the party if needed, and just spam that one DPS spell while doing some spot heals with OGCDs as needed in the majority of content the game offers. Seeing how little healing I can get away with is fun in a way, but... why am I playing healer then? Why are Ultimate and the current EX and Savage the only content that actually requires me to do what I signed up for? If I'm not going to be healing all the time, that's fine I guess, but give me something support-ish to do in the downtime. Buff management or something (AST gets close to this). I feel like contributing personal DPS should be last on my list of things to do, not #1. Especially when all I can do is apply a DoT and smash the G6 key over and over again.

I mean no offense here (I should take my own advice that this always means "I'm about to offend you," but I swear I'm not) but I have two main issues with this. Firstly (in my limited understanding of other MMOs) this is how healers work in those already. I've talked to and played with a fair few people who have sunk serious time into healing in WoW and I myself healed in ESO, both games that deliver on aspects of what you're claiming to want.

FFXIV is the only MMO out there where healers don't have to play in this way, so basically the only MMO that lets me play a healer and not feel like a buffbot hp-dispenser. I don't enjoy that, it's ultimately why I left ESO and part of what helped me fall in love with this game. Why take away the one game that appeals to people who like this playstyle just to make it mimic every other game on the market?

Secondly healer DPS has always been a thing here. Perhaps not to the extent we have seen in SB with the removal of Cleric Stance but at any point in FFXIV's lifetime if you looked into this game and healing in it you'd be presented with the fact that you're expected to dps, will have time to and seeing the skills you would use is no harder than watching clear or prog videos on Youtube or Twitch. You claim you didn't "sign up" for this style of play but I don't see how you couldn't understand how this would all function if you researched the game before subbing.

There is a chance you're a legacy player I suppose and I will concede that SE itself does a poor job of helping new players understand healer dps and it's importance so if that's the case then you have my sympathies. I still don't understand why people have to try to change something that helps FFXIV remain unique just because it doesn't offer a playstyle that so many other major MMOs seem to. You can get your desired healer playstyle anywhere,I can only have mine here so I would rather not lose the one game that doesn't seem to make healing incredibly boring.

Well for me, part of the reason is going to be the fantasy, naturally. Playing a healer, I'd want to heal stuff.

Plus I think there's a fundamental difference between healing and dps even at the basest level. I feel like it's pretty evident when you look at the tools available to each role. Dps is built around trying to maintain a rotation but healing is built with handling a variety of encounters in mind. That's going to lead to a different feel.

I mean we do heal stuff, it just doesn't take all of our time. I feel like we do have a different "feel" from DPS and I like that as well. I don't think we need to spend all our time healing to achieve that feeling though, I think it's already evident.

[Mutemutt]

I mean we do heal stuff, it just doesn't take all of our time. I feel like we do have a different "feel" from DPS and I like that as well. I don't think we need to spend all our time healing to achieve that feeling though, I think it's already evident.

What I'm saying is the actual healing feel is different from the act of dpsing and it's that healing feel that I crave. The dps is just filler, the low points between that healer high.

[MoroMurasaki]

What I'm saying is the actual healing feel is different from the act of dpsing and it's that healing feel that I crave. The dps is just filler, the low points between that healer high.

Well in your post you spoke about job design and responsibility differences. It's true, healers have to think much more about safety and mitigation and a dps needs to put more effort into their rotation and to an extent trust the healers to keep them alive.

I feel like those differences are real but if you're boiling it down to "pressing Cure II satisfies me more than Stone IV" then like... I don't know, we'll have to agree to disagree since that just sounds like nonsense to me.

[Mutemutt]

Well in your post you spoke about job design and responsibility differences. It's true, healers have to think much more about safety and mitigation and a dps needs to put more effort into their rotation and to an extent trust the healers to keep them alive.

I feel like those differences are real but if you're boiling it down to "pressing Cure II satisfies me more than Stone IV" then like... I don't know, we'll have to agree to disagree since that just sounds like nonsense to me.

Because at the heart of it, I feel pressing cure II is different from pressing stone IV; that's what I was trying to get at with the design talk. They are really only the same on the surface level of being an action.

To be brutally honest, I don't see how you can not understand what I'm saying.

"Healing feels different from dpsing" and "I like the feel of healing more than the feel of dpsing". Which part doesn't make sense?