Stop telling healers to go play dps

[Gemina]

This is the problem with the current design of dungeons/bosses. Healers only really need to throw out cooldowns as it is.
Even if the damage in ShB dungeons is increased, healers are still going to be expected to DPS because they will still have downtime.

As it stands the game only requires healing in chunks, and the rest is downtime when the healer can do whatever they want. If the game was constantly throwing out damage, then that would be a different situation.

The idea is to reduce downtime, not eliminate it. I can't think of any healers who want to be healing for the entirety of the encounter, but I can think of several who don't want to be DPSing for 90% of it. We can talk about how healer DPS has been simplified, but the actual truth is this has only happened to SCH. They are the only ones who will be losing any kind of identity come 5.0. But what about the identity of the healer role itself?

For too long now all three healers have been a green DPS. When you literally do not use any GCDs whatsoever to accomplish the primary objective of your role, there's a problem. Healers are the only one with this problem. Healers in FFXIV are not healing jobs with offensive capability; they are DPS jobs with healing capability. If you want to be on board with the direction these devs want to go with healers, I'd strongly suggest to start planning on abandoning the concepts of the latter.

This doesn't mean that healers should not be casting offensive spells during their downtime, but the 90% DPS uptime is going away whether you like it or not.

[Awha]

The idea is to reduce downtime, not eliminate it. I can't think of any healers who want to be healing for the entirety of the encounter, but I can think of several who don't want to be DPSing for 90% of it. We can talk about how healer DPS has been simplified, but the actual truth is this has only happened to SCH. They are the only ones who will be losing any kind of identity come 5.0. But what about the identity of the healer role itself?

For too long now all three healers have been a green DPS. When you literally do not use any GCDs whatsoever to accomplish the primary objective of your role, there's a problem. Healers are the only one with this problem. Healers in FFXIV are not healing jobs with offensive capability; they are DPS jobs with healing capability. If you want to be on board with the direction these devs want to go with healers, I'd strongly suggest to start planning on abandoning the concepts of the latter.

This doesn't mean that healers should not be casting offensive spells during their downtime, but the 90% DPS uptime is going away whether you like it or not.

Think the general fear people have is SE is not going to make it so healing is that demanding and thus putting healers in the situation they are in now with far simpler dps tool kits. A happy medium is if they increased the amount of healing required while also expanding heir own damage potential.

[Gemina]

Think the general fear people have is SE is not going to make it so healing is that demanding and thus putting healers in the situation they are in now with far simpler dps tool kits. A happy medium is if they increased the amount of healing required while also expanding heir own damage potential.

As I said in my last post, this applies only to SCH. WHM and AST already are and have been in this situation for the longest time now. WHM lost Aero 3, but womp womp. It was a pretty animation that was more affective on bosses than on trash since your GCDs were better spent on Holy.

How do you increase both the healing requirement and expand their damage potential? Their damage potential is based on how much healing is required. Expanding their damage potential is the opposite direction the devs want to go, and that healers need to go. Perhaps I am reading into it wrong though and you mean more ways in which to cause damage, or basically bring WHM and AST up to where SCH is currently? Again though, these are not DPS jobs.

I don't think the fear has anything to do with the 'if' SE increases healing requirements. Players are worried about the direction the devs are clearly going with healers. If you are of the DPS mindset, and actually want healers to be able to do more damage, or have more ways to go about doing it, chances are pretty high that fear is justified.

[AikenDrum]

I don't think the fear has anything to do with the 'if' SE increases healing requirements.

Nope, i'm def worried they arent gonna increase healing requirements by considerable margin, since the fact that they were surprised people noticed it (quickly) does not suggest considerable changes. Unless they're gonna increase it gradually for 80 content? But that would also suggest none of the 1-70 content was changed.

I mean, a shift from dps/heal from 80/20 to something like 40/60 has a lot more impact on healer's gameplay than, say, removal of protect, yet second was mentioned in live letter, and all we have about first is one interview reply where they were surprised, really?

[Awha]

Snip...

That has always been my personal desire with healers that SE embrace the concept that FFXIV lends itself to a more aggressive playstyle and expand healers dps tool kits. The point I was trying to make is even if SE ups the required gcds on healing verse dps to 50/50 the point remains that the dps tool kit for healers is extremely basic while still fun to a degree.

Sure 6.0 healers end of the day will function as they do now with time and practice and that is the issue I have healers will still have downtime and dps will still be an expectation but instead of double downing on that reality and providing healers will more dps variety they appear to have gone down the expand the healing aspect. Which is important but I personal wish SE accepted the fact that healers have a more aggressive playstyle.

[Gemina]

Which is important but I personal wish SE accepted the fact that healers have a more aggressive playstyle.

I think the day they truly accept that is the day they factor healer offense into DPS checks. Giving healers an even more diverse and unique kit in which to DPS encourages that aggressive playstyle. This playstyle also isn't favored by all healers, myself included.

One of the reasons why I prefer 24-man over all other content is because even though the fights are still scripted, I honestly have no idea who is going to dodge what, and I do have to use GCDs on healing and even reserve ogcd heals in some cases. Even with SCH who has the most diverse offensive kit, I actually feel more engaged into the fight when I have to actually heal it.

I'm bored when I have to DPS. It's better than standing around doing nothing, but it is hardly engaging to me. Sure we could give healers more interesting DPS kits, but I have to go back to the encouraging of a playstyle they seemingly want to go away. Of course, I can't speak for everyone but I know I am not alone with being a healer who wants more responsibility actually healing. I don't want 1-1-1-1 either, but also not a big fan of 1-2-3 on healers. I want more, "Heal that dude! he gonna die!"

[van_arn]

I think the day they truly accept that is the day they factor healer offense into DPS checks. Giving healers an even more diverse and unique kit in which to DPS encourages that aggressive playstyle. This playstyle also isn't favored by all healers, myself included.

One of the reasons why I prefer 24-man over all other content is because even though the fights are still scripted, I honestly have no idea who is going to dodge what, and I do have to use GCDs on healing and even reserve ogcd heals in some cases. Even with SCH who has the most diverse offensive kit, I actually feel more engaged into the fight when I have to actually heal it.

I'm bored when I have to DPS. It's better than standing around doing nothing, but it is hardly engaging to me. Sure we could give healers more interesting DPS kits, but I have to go back to the encouraging of a playstyle they seemingly want to go away. Of course, I can't speak for everyone but I know I am not alone with being a healer who wants more responsibility actually healing. I don't want 1-1-1-1 either, but also not a big fan of 1-2-3 on healers. I want more, "Heal that dude! he gonna die!"

I'm right there with you; I'd love to have more fights in normal mode like the Mist Dragon or the people constantly failing mechanics in 24-mans.

But I know Square is just too scared to make that the norm. After a few months, and once people have a little bit of gear, I have every reason to expect to be bored out of my mind, right back where we are now, trying to heal as much with ogcds so I can spend my gcds on spamming 1111 for damage.

Every expansion we get maybe one or two bosses where healers get to try; maybe there's a few trash pulls that get a little hairy, but Square just doesn't like healchecks as a general rule. I wouldn't complain if it weren't just a binary "this is the expansion's healcheck boss" or "maybe use an ogcd on a buster"

I do think losing Largesse and the tank +healing ability could make things more interesting, but only somewhat unintentionally.