How are healers fairing right now?

[SieyaM]

I think a good way to make healers far more engaging without turning them into more of a DPS class would be to roll more support elements into the role rather than just give more damage abilities. SE seems to want to avoid these things though, and limits almost all buffs to a flat dps percentage increase, with the few exceptions being crit rate increases.

[Risvertasashi]

I think a good way to make healers far more engaging without turning them into more of a DPS class would be to roll more support elements into the role rather than just give more damage abilities. SE seems to want to avoid these things though, and limits almost all buffs to a flat dps percentage increase, with the few exceptions being crit rate increases.

While I wish it were that simple, there's a fatal flaw here. One that has affected healer discussions for years now.

You don't simply need more support abilities. You need opportunities to use them.

Case in point, the state of healer DPS. We have only 2 main DPS buttons to push, but we spend the vast majority of our time pushing them. We don't want for more healing buttons; we want for more opportunities to actually push them.

DPS buffs are actually desired and actually get pushed. Most other buff types don't. See also: Monks and mantra and all the salt over the DPS tax they pay for their useless 'utility'.

[MerlinCross]

You might think so, but WoW had a single healer with an awesome speed buff (Shaman's Wind Rush Totem) and it wasn't a mandatory class (well, not for Wind Rush - Spirit Link Totem was and is p. busted). As long as fight design doesn't make it mandatory, anyway.

I'm not sure WoW raids dealt with as much DDR as FF14's raids do. A movement buff in one game doesn't mean it'll have the same reception as in another is what I'm trying to put down.

Also about the whole AST thing that was discussed; I've never played AST before the change. As someone on controller, I was worried about handling the Cards. With the changes I can probably play it even with a controller far more effectively now. I just don't have the desire to play it now with the card system, something I thought was hard to play but interesting, being dragged out behind the shed with a shotgun.

I actually liked WHM, and I was a healer that preferred to heal with my GCDs, as the spastic panic monkey that I am can't be calm enough to do damage only with GCDs and healing with my OCDs. And even I haven't returned to healing.

[Corbeau]

I'm not sure WoW raids dealt with as much DDR as FF14's raids do. A movement buff in one game doesn't mean it'll have the same reception as in another is what I'm trying to put down.

Oh boy howdy let me tell you about a little boy named Imonar and his favorite bridge...

There's a lot of "run to specific place X" in XIV, sure, but there's a ton of larger boss arenas to traverse and plenty of emergent DDR in WoW. I think movement speed buffs are even better in WoW than they'd be here, I just miss having one.

[MerlinCross]

Oh boy howdy let me tell you about a little boy named Imonar and his favorite bridge...

There's a lot of "run to specific place X" in XIV, sure, but there's a ton of larger boss arenas to traverse and plenty of emergent DDR in WoW. I think movement speed buffs are even better in WoW than they'd be here, I just miss having one.

To be fair, I don't know much about WoW other than some streams I've seen. And from what I saw(Some sort of large spider boss raid?), the Arenas in WoW are far larger to traverse so a speed buff might be more useful there.

Still the point was that what seem to be rather basic buffs(Movement speed) aren't weighed the same across games was all I was trying to say.

[SieyaM]

While I wish it were that simple, there's a fatal flaw here. One that has affected healer discussions for years now.

You don't simply need more support abilities. You need opportunities to use them.

Case in point, the state of healer DPS. We have only 2 main DPS buttons to push, but we spend the vast majority of our time pushing them. We don't want for more healing buttons; we want for more opportunities to actually push them.

DPS buffs are actually desired and actually get pushed. Most other buff types don't. See also: Monks and mantra and all the salt over the DPS tax they pay for their useless 'utility'.

More support abilities does not mean more healing abilities, these would be things like stat increases or enemy debuffs, things that would indirectly help the other party members during battle.