Has anyone quit healing?

[Vitreus]

So swapping out spamming a damage skill on the boss with a buff skill on an ally? Sounds like nothing changes, and now our performance is tied to somebody else instead of our own skill.
And what of MSQ content? Just sit there buffing while our chocobo auto attacks everything to death? That sounds boring as hell.

No thanks, I'll take a more interesting damage kit any and every day.

I didn't say remove all dps. If anything I've said multiple times I'd like all our old dps skills to make a return. And that very well could happen, we'll have to see what happens in 5.1. But if the devs are going to make this design change where they want our dps to be, let's be honest here, completely mind numbing then I'd like to at least replace it with something else like a more involved support system. With regards to "now our performance [would be] tied to somebody else instead of our own skill" there is no skill involved now. It is literal spam when it comes to healing doing dps.

Also "our performance is tied to somebody else instead of our own skill" isn't inherently bad. There is nothing saying that the support system couldn't be skill intensive. Hell, the old ast card system had the beginning of that. Knowing when to royal road and combo cards and who to give them to and when to hold them in reserve during the fight. All of that mixed in with normal dps and managing healing sounds very skill intensive.

The idea that the best system is one in which our performance is solely dependent on our own actions in an MMO just sounds flawed when used for all classes . It sounds great for samurai, black mage, monk, etc. etc. but when talking about a healing role I'm making the argument that there is the potential for having us fulfill a support role. I completely understand if you don't like it but to use the argument that you don't like it because you don't like your performance tied to your teammates at all in an MMO isn't a sound argument.

[MPNZ]

So swapping out spamming a damage skill on the boss with a buff skill on an ally? Sounds like nothing changes, and now our performance is tied to somebody else instead of our own skill.
And what of MSQ content? Just sit there buffing while our chocobo auto attacks everything to death? That sounds boring as hell.

No thanks, I'll take a more interesting damage kit any and every day.

Jump the shark much? AST was like 35-40% Buff-crafting in 3.0 and 4.0 and was really popular and engaging. And, there are like a ton of different buffs and status effect that have literally been relegated to enemy-only abilities, or just not even attempted like making haste functional and not causing input cancellations like BRD

[MintnHoney]

in an MMO

For one thing, this isn't just any MMO, this is Final Fantasy XIV. There's a "New Game +" coming our way, and, while the MMO genre, this game included, does have lots of content where team play is required for success, let's not pretend that Solo play is not at least a chunk of this game. Solo play is done, and it's important to acknowledge it.

To that end, I agree that an being able to provide support to our party doesn't actually solve all the problems if it isn't engaging. If someone is just targeting all the party members to cast the buffs, one at a time, at all times, that does not address the issue of monotonous tedium. We need something engaging, we don't need something tacked on just because "it might be nice to have it" (or do you need a repeat of Stormblood Lilies?).

[Sloprano]

NG+ and tacked on buffs

I'm carrying an optimistic onlook that if people get synced down for NG+ and play healers more and more will realize how benumbing one nuke/one dot is. Unless SE suddenly restores all my dreams in 5.1 without a word. It's an MMO for sure, but I've always found it a Final Fantasy game first, which means you do things alone for quite a lot of the story. Considering the amount of quests you might do alone or is required to do completely solo for the MSQ it's agitating when we go from Thandcred's impressively long Ran'jit fight to fighting him ourselves. This was a recurring villian who had been there since the beginning and was quite some hype around fighting: I refreshed Biolysis every 30s, sidestepped the occasional AOE and spammed Broil III until his healthbar was empty. Anti-climatic doesn't even begin to describe it.

The whole party buff, or even raid buff, thing seemed to be AST's area, since it could buff itself with it's wild variety of cards, manipulate them or seemingly also use unwanted cards offensively if solo or need be. Scholar had a mulitutde of it's own buffs and debuffs that worked both solo and in party. I haven't played WHM enough to get Lilies, but have heard how bad they felt in 4.0. Fey Union, Recitation, Catalyze, Excog, Chain Strat, Seraph and rest of the encumbering changes seem like the definition of tacked on and not for the benefit of who's playing the job to have fun with, but to line up with other buffs and when the bosses script calls for aoe healing.

I'm all for some support mini-game that feels unique for each healer so that doesn't make one nuke/dot (1 nuot?) feel so clunky, but requiring you to be in party for it to not only work but feel worthwhile to use seems like the wrong way to go about it in this kind of game and think only brought us where we are now.

[YusiKha]

I didn't say remove all dps. If anything I've said multiple times I'd like all our old dps skills to make a return.

You're right, you didn't mention removing dps skills and I apologise for putting words into your mouth.

The idea that the best system is one in which our performance is solely dependent on our own actions in an MMO just sounds flawed when used for all classes

It's not the best, and variety is great. But you're also advocating for the only unqiue healer (in that they don't buff allies) to be changed to conform.

[WanderingRoe]

Well, I am glad I am not the only one pretty frustrated by healing this expansion. After 18 years of playing MMOs and maining healer the whole time, I went DNC this expansion after SCH in 2.0 and then AST til 5.0. Hard to go over every post itt so I assume a lot of what I am gonna go over is old news and I am of course no game dev, but the Healer role design or vision or whatever does not appropriately match the reality of endgame content. There are of course other factors, such as fluctuating healer balance/toolkits scaring away old timers, lack of new classes to entice newer players to take up the role, you name it, but the fact is it is clearly a problem and the lack of healers for endgame content has been a major issue (that might get worse over time).

1): The current Healer meta and generally accepted "optimal" way to play Healer regardless of job is to heal as little as possible while keeping people alive, and deal as much damage as possible (either through direct or rDPS) to clear any given fight.

2): The developers have stated as recently as last year (if not even more recently) that they do not take Healer DPS into account regarding endgame fights. This is likely the cause for actual healer play being so unsatisfying for a large amount of the playerbase (spamming a single dot + single nuke or a single AoE button for a disturbingly large amount of content in between oGCDs).

Those two things do not mesh together well at all.

Personally, I dislike the idea of Healers being expected to heal as little as possible and DPS as much as possible (aka Green DPS syndrome), but that is the reality of the situation and I don't expect raid design to change so much to accommodate a shift to "constant, random raid damage" especially when there is no guarantee it will end up any better than now. Thus, I think the most realistic solution would be to design the few healer tools shared across classes (small cheap heal, bigger not so cheap heal) with the current meta in mind. Maybe something like WoW Smite Priest or MW Monk in that their basic damaging spells also automatically heal nearby allies, or increases rDPS? Maybe mix in some of their more unique abilities as well when the base kit is there. I had a lot more drawn out ideas but character limit so blah.

I'm not pretending any of this will be particularly easy to implement quickly or that my suggestions are the only things they can do, but I firmly believe that the longer that (effectively) nothing is done to correct the current meta's kit vs encounter head butting, the more problematic it will become, and progress toward a solution has been hard for me to see. ShB is mostly fantastic and I am having great fun with DNC (and most other DPS jobs I play) so it makes Healer gameplay all the more polarizing. Even if the gameplay continues down a path I am not interested in walking, it would be nice if it were more appealing in general than it is so I don't have to wait so long in DF queue/PF as a DPS.

[YusiKha]

2): The developers have stated as recently as last year (if not even more recently) that they do not take Healer DPS into account regarding endgame fights. This is likely the cause for actual healer play being so unsatisfying for a large amount of the playerbase (spamming a single dot + single nuke or a single AoE button for a disturbingly large amount of content in between oGCDs).

This is only true when people are overgearing the fight.
If you're trying to tackle the content in the appropriate crafted/normal raid gear (ie 450 for E1-4S), you 100% need healer DPS.
Here is a week1 E4S kill log. (Percentiles are based on current clears, so ignore them) The healers are contributing 13% of damage, and the enrage would be impossible to beat without them.

Maybe something like WoW Smite Priest or MW Monk in that their basic damaging spells also automatically heal nearby allies, or increases rDPS? Maybe mix in some of their more unique abilities as well when the base kit is there.

That'd be more a thing for a new healer (maybe not damage itself contributing to healing, but rather the damage GCDs filling a gauge that could be spent to heal).
Current healers' oGCD skills take the design space of concurrent healing.

[Saefinn]

Talking of WoW, I decided to retry it again recently and thought I'd see how healing compares. WoW has watered down their classes a fair bit and have homogenised the experience. But two things to note that stopped me from being as bored as I am with healing here: healing was more frequent because damage was more frequent whilst healing was less effective. I had a few more DPS moves to weave in, whilst not a massive amount, it's more than I've got here. EG: On Shaman I've got Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Wind Shear, Flame Shock and Lava Burst. I can summon an earth elemental to do damage too and have Totems that give status effects. This immediately gives me more to do in my down time, but is not complicated at all - the spell count is only slightly higher, but each feels different to use and I weave them as and when and it feels like I have a rotation. Then Paladin: Crusader Strike, Judgment, Consecration, Holy Prism, Holy Shock and then boost my DPS through Avenging Crusader and then adds some stuns and buffs and again, we have something that's not complicated with more to do.

I realise of course it's a different game and honestly, there's a lot I feel WoW does wrong that this game does right and there's a reason I rarely play WoW. But they are similar sorts of MMOs that rely on similar principles when it comes to encounters, hence I felt the need for comparison. The great thing about FFXIV's healers is that arguably they have a great toolkit, and they aren't technically homogenised. However, how we end up using them feels homogenised because encounter design means we don't make full use of the toolkit. In ShB, the most fun I've had with healers is when everybody is undergeared and I'm pushed to use my full toolkit.

So IMO how healers are designed is actually good from a healing perspective. How they're utilised is not. I might even go as far as suggesting "nerf healing". It feels either that's needed, or they make our downtime fun (which is the option that's friendlier to less experienced healers & doesn't mess with the status quo)

[Liam_Harper]

2): The developers have stated as recently as last year (if not even more recently) that they do not take Healer DPS into account regarding endgame fights.

This is a myth really. Yoshi stated that, not his developers. It has been proven many times, that at minimum ilv to beat even an EX boss, your dps would need to be playing at 90th-100th percentile or better, which is pretty much impossible. It's also unlikely Enix would intend dps to be playing at Ultimate level and healers to press a healing spell every 20 seconds and twiddle their thumbs.

They simply don't design fights intending healers to be contributing a lot of dps.

[Corbeau]

Talking of WoW, I decided to retry it again recently and thought I'd see how healing compares. WoW has watered down their classes a fair bit and have homogenised the experience. But two things to note that stopped me from being as bored as I am with healing here: healing was more frequent because damage was more frequent whilst healing was less effective. I had a few more DPS moves to weave in, whilst not a massive amount, it's more than I've got here. EG: On Shaman I've got Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Wind Shear, Flame Shock and Lava Burst. I can summon an earth elemental to do damage too and have Totems that give status effects. This immediately gives me more to do in my down time, but is not complicated at all - the spell count is only slightly higher, but each feels different to use and I weave them as and when and it feels like I have a rotation. Then Paladin: Crusader Strike, Judgment, Consecration, Holy Prism, Holy Shock and then boost my DPS through Avenging Crusader and then adds some stuns and buffs and again, we have something that's not complicated with more to do.

I realise of course it's a different game and honestly, there's a lot I feel WoW does wrong that this game does right and there's a reason I rarely play WoW. But they are similar sorts of MMOs that rely on similar principles when it comes to encounters, hence I felt the need for comparison. The great thing about FFXIV's healers is that arguably they have a great toolkit, and they aren't technically homogenised. However, how we end up using them feels homogenised because encounter design means we don't make full use of the toolkit. In ShB, the most fun I've had with healers is when everybody is undergeared and I'm pushed to use my full toolkit.

So IMO how healers are designed is actually good from a healing perspective. How they're utilised is not. I might even go as far as suggesting "nerf healing". It feels either that's needed, or they make our downtime fun (which is the option that's friendlier to less experienced healers & doesn't mess with the status quo)

I agree with all this (I did successful CE prog during Antorus as a Resto Shaman), but with the additional note that pre-BfA the healing classes (with the exception of monk) were even deeper with much more satisfying moments of awesome. It's all of the logistics - the horrible gear grind that's only gotten worse since I quit in early BfA - that makes WoW unappealing compared to FFXIV. The boss fights were generally great.