Healer dps is unfairly boring

[Saefinn]

I thought it was common knowledge healer DPS is pretty garbage because they're meant to heal, and solo fights involve just outlasting whatever is trying to kill you by healing and slowly picking at their health.

But I guess it's a lot more noticeable in FFXIV than a game like WoW where healing classes have DPS specializations. Alas, I think the fact we can multi-class in FFXIV means we have more stratification of roles for solo'ing. However, to be fair, healers and tanks both make up for being painfully slow in world/quest content by having insanely short queue lines. I don't know how solo healer mains do it without going insane, but I do know I'm never touching solo world content with any healer role unless I absolutely have to ever since I did a quest once to bump AST to 35. I am shuddering at the prospect of leveling a WHM even now, but if nothing else, at least I have PotD, haha.

Depends on the MMO or the RPG, but as this is FFXIV, if we look at the track record not just for XIV but the series. Healer down time is a thing and in their down time they do damage or support in non-healing ways. This game gave a variety of damage spells to WHM and SCH to weave and it flowed and worked well, with WHM doing more burst and SCH more sustained. Then AST with its party/self buffs. This game had a really good balance with its healing spells and what it does in its downtime and the game arguably was designed to take advantage of our downtime. It’s not so much how MUCH damage they do but in how that is dealt, because nowadays it feels like a single button spam.

Then looking at a track record into other FF games, the majority of the time you had a job or character with a healing focus they had some extra choices for support and damage, because you don’t have a big continuous push for healing (and is true for this MMO).



As an example when I felt SCH was at its peak for DPS variety:
Miasma
Miasma 2
Bio
Bio 2
Shadowflare
Bane
Energy Drain
Broil
Ruin II


SCH now:
Biolysis
Broil 3
Ruin II
Art of War
Energy Drain

Energy Drain was given back after complaints.
Your AOE rotation has been reduced to 1 button. Whereas it was 6 before (miasma, bio, bio 2, bane, shadowflare, miasma 2)
Your single target has been reduced to 2 buttons with the occasional 1 extra thrown in (broil 3 + ruin 2, with occasional biolysis or energy drain), whereas before, technically your entire arsenal (minus bane) could be useful to put on a single target, which I count 8

So it makes a massive difference to how it feels to play. and overall DPS wise, healers were still the lowest.

[Sloprano]

As an example when I felt SCH was at its peak for DPS variety:
Miasma
Miasma 2
Bio
Bio 2
Shadowflare
Bane
Energy Drain
Broil
Ruin II
.

And for even more fun you could cross-class Aero for an additional 18s dot for single-target or manually put it up on a small group to effectively get five dots (six if you count Shadowflare).

Since Protect, Stoneskin, Swiftcast, Cleric Stance from cnj and thm were already locked in on Scholar I also had the choice to pick Blizzard 2 over Aero. Even a short while we could pick Thunder, but that was remove relativiely early. I remember trying Blizzard 2, but standing still pressing one button in a pack really wasn't anywhere as fun as individually placing Aero and having more to keep track of. So it was good I had the choice.

[Saefinn]

And for even more fun you could cross-class Aero for an additional 18s dot for single-target or manually put it up on a small group to effectively get five dots (six if you count Shadowflare).

Since Protect, Stoneskin, Swiftcast, Cleric Stance from cnj and thm were already locked in on Scholar I also had the choice to pick Blizzard 2 over Aero. Even a short while we could pick Thunder, but that was remove relativiely early. I remember trying Blizzard 2, but standing still pressing one button in a pack really wasn't anywhere as fun as individually placing Aero and having more to keep track of. So it was good I had the choice.

This is also true. To me Blizzard II was an AoE version of Ruin. After I've got all my DoT's down and baned, Shadowflare up then I could just follow with a few Blizzard II until I need to go back and reapply.

Once you start looking at what we had, it's a lot that was lost. Although on paper it looks like half of our abilities, but in practice, it's cut our skill use more dramatically than half before you get onto cross class stuff that was lost by them changing that system.

[kujoestars]

Depends on the MMO or the RPG, but as this is FFXIV, if we look at the track record not just for XIV but the series. Healer down time is a thing and in their down time they do damage or support in non-healing ways. This game gave a variety of damage spells to WHM and SCH to weave and it flowed and worked well, with WHM doing more burst and SCH more sustained. Then AST with its party/self buffs. This game had a really good balance with its healing spells and what it does in its downtime and the game arguably was designed to take advantage of our downtime. It’s not so much how MUCH damage they do but in how that is dealt, because nowadays it feels like a single button spam.

Then looking at a track record into other FF games, the majority of the time you had a job or character with a healing focus they had some extra choices for support and damage, because you don’t have a big continuous push for healing (and is true for this MMO).



As an example when I felt SCH was at its peak for DPS variety:
Miasma
Miasma 2
Bio
Bio 2
Shadowflare
Bane
Energy Drain
Broil
Ruin II


SCH now:
Biolysis
Broil 3
Ruin II
Art of War
Energy Drain

Energy Drain was given back after complaints.
Your AOE rotation has been reduced to 1 button. Whereas it was 6 before (miasma, bio, bio 2, bane, shadowflare, miasma 2)
Your single target has been reduced to 2 buttons with the occasional 1 extra thrown in (broil 3 + ruin 2, with occasional biolysis or energy drain), whereas before, technically your entire arsenal (minus bane) could be useful to put on a single target, which I count 8

So it makes a massive difference to how it feels to play. and overall DPS wise, healers were still the lowest.

Fair points. And it finally occurred to me in at least one RPG-type game that the healer class still has a good damaging attack even if the majority of their kit consists of heals/buffs/etc. Of course it still isn't made for DPS, but having at least one good damaging move (especially if it's both an AoE and DoT) would help counteract a smaller DPS kit.

At the very least, it would make solo'ing content as a healer more bearable; still not over the fact it takes forever to Malefic and Combust anything, lol. So yeah, either we have more stuff in the kit or make what we have more powerful.