General Community Resistant to Healer Damage?

[Sylve]

To be perfectly frank: I don't think constant pressure would feel much different, I come from WoW, where healing is (was? been a few years) designed more as a full time occupation. It can be fun, it can be intense (esp at lower item level when every extra heal puts you in conflict with your mana) but in easier content it feels no different than damage spam. Whether I mash the Cure II button or the Glare button is pretty irrelevant to me.

Content needs to engage and that only works with mechanics that require you to think and react. You could design a boss with mad pulsing AoE, so the healer would be healing like there is no tomorrow to compensate for it but it would not be more engaging or fun than designing the boss w/o the pulse and let the healer DPS between the spikes.

Current WoW is just spammy. If you played during BC as a Healer, Healing was about placing the right heal on the right person with an eye towards not overhealing (Massive threat gen you couldnt dump) and mana use, since MP restoration was very limited.

We have an incredibly diverse healing kit that would allow us to pretty dynamically react to incoming damage at a more constant rate. IMO, Lucid having a 2 - 3 minute cooldown would bring value back to cheaper heals like Cure and its attendant Trait along with putting more value in Regens on anything not called a Tank.

What does it matter if I'm pressing Cure vs Glare? It doesn't, except the former is the Role i signed up for and the latter is because I'm bloody bored waiting for the next polite request from the boss to press a Heal.
I want to feel like a Healer, not a Red Mage that forgot how to cast Black spells.

[Gemina]

To be perfectly frank: I don't think constant pressure would feel much different, I come from WoW, where healing is (was? been a few years) designed more as a full time occupation. It can be fun, it can be intense (esp at lower item level when every extra heal puts you in conflict with your mana) but in easier content it feels no different than damage spam. Whether I mash the Cure II button or the Glare button is pretty irrelevant to me.

Content needs to engage and that only works with mechanics that require you to think and react. You could design a boss with mad pulsing AoE, so the healer would be healing like there is no tomorrow to compensate for it but it would not be more engaging or fun than designing the boss w/o the pulse and let the healer DPS between the spikes.

Closest experience I can use is FFXI around the time that ToAU was released and TP burn parties became more commonplace. I remember being in exp parties and literally doing nothing but spamming Cure spells. It's experiences like those that has me try to let healers know that they don't have it that bad, and you're right; it really isn't any more engaging.

However, I will say that I do feel engaged when my heals are pushed. And by pushed, I mean I have to use my GCDs on them. This alone brings several more factors into play. An example of this is when a player is at critical HP with an incoming attack that will finish them off if they are not healed, and you have no ogcds in the chamber. That attack is going to go off in 3.24 seconds, which means your window to start casting is extremely small. Basically, if you focused on DPSing at all, that player is dead and the penalty is a cost to the group's MP whether the raise comes from a healer or DPS job capable of raising. Not to mention the insane drop off of rDPS every second they are down.

It's easy to say that healing is akin to a game of whack-a-mole with all the ogcd heals healers have at their disposal. Someone needs a heal, push a button and done. That is not engaging in even the slightest. "Increasing mobility" is an adjustment that directly affects DPS output, and this mindset is indicative of where it is placed with the devs: Damage. The way I see it is the healer role design is in direct contrast with encounter design; placing them in a limbo that is not deserved.

It is just crazy to me that everything and anything that has allowed healers to feel engaged in encounters continues to be stripped from them. I don't even know what else they could take away other than give tanks and DPS the ability to sustain themselves, which we are not far off from.

[GucciSan]

To be perfectly frank: I don't think constant pressure would feel much different, I come from WoW, where healing is (was? been a few years) designed more as a full time occupation. It can be fun, it can be intense (esp at lower item level when every extra heal puts you in conflict with your mana) but in easier content it feels no different than damage spam. Whether I mash the Cure II button or the Glare button is pretty irrelevant to me.

I'd argue that since 95% of our kits now revolve around healing CD's it would feel more rewarding than one or two extra damage buttons.

[Dreamsoap]

I'm in a weird position on the fence about it. Ideally, I'd love to be a pure healer. If the gameplay actually called for it in a majority of content. Right now the most interesting thing for me to do is balance DPSing vs when to heal, which sure is a nice little challenge, but also not terribly difficult. I wouldn't be against them having more dps tools which brings to mind pre-shb scholar. I levelled it from 1-70 in stormblood though after I dropped it and played Astro only. Now I'm picking it up again because whm is an incredible snorefest as an alternative healer and I'm mourning the changes, lol. It's kind of sad but I had to constantly reassure the dps in my copied factory the other day that I didn't care that they were dying often because it's the only time I actually get to do my job.

[Lilseph]

But what about the rest of the game?
But -a little- more danger should be in the cards, no? A little more incoming damage.

Generally those kinds of mechanics and damage thresholds are sectioned off for a reason. Particularly with incoming damage because the Devs have to always balance that so that it's possible to complete with the set minimim ilvl (see: that bug with Mog King and Memento Moogle). Tbh, I don't think people would enjoy running a dungeon that forces you to min ilvl as a daily roulette.

If content was a bit meaner, we would heal more.

Not necessarily. Healing has always had that inherent flaw. If incoming damage necessitates spamming the Tier 1 Cure to keep the tank alive, then there isn't enough incoming damage to warrant spending GCDs using it. Regen and oGCDs handles that way more efficiently and with fewer button presses. If incoming damage necessitates both healers spamming AoE heals to keep the party alive, then you have TEA's Judgement Formation with both healers bottoming their MP within 45 seconds. Healing in this game just isn't built for sustained constant healing.

Add a few more DPS toys to move away from the "mash [1] for 28 seconds, then refresh your DoT" and it would be perfect.

I'm all for this just to break the monotony lol.

[dinnertime]

Personally I love the gameplay healers had during 3.0 up until the end of 4.x. There was something rewarding about balancing out healing, supporting and DPSing. If you're good at balancing both heals and DPS and keeping the party alive to the best of your abilities, you're a good healer. If you focus too much on DPS or if you keep healing and then just stand when there's nothing else to do, that makes you a bad healer.

Now that they're all "streamlined", it just doesn't work. Healing is too easy now with the added skills/abilities and DPSing is now boring for having less. Your means of support was also simplified. There's not much tactical decisions involved in AST and SCH anymore.

I really don't get it either. The fights in this game isn't exactly designed for healers to constantly keep on healing. The devs said they're making healing much harder now or make healing more of the focus, but the exact opposite happened while making every other aspect in healers became boring and unenjoyable. The healer role is just terribly designed right now.

[Granyala]

Current WoW is just spammy. If you played during BC as a Healer, Healing was about placing the right heal on the right person with an eye towards not overhealing (Massive threat gen you couldnt dump) and mana use, since MP restoration was very limited.

I have and if you healed raids like Black Temple and Sunwell, you will have noticed that the majority were not happy with the healing design. It was extremely stressful. That's why the changed a lot of it in Wrath to make it less spammy and went to a design I very much disliked in Cataclysm and beyond: spending tiny weak ass heals as a filler and then having large CDs that make the HP bar move, barely being able to correct player errors etc.
Ugh, I felt so weak and powerless. Frustrating.

I think they could up the regular damage a bit in XIV.
Savage could be pimped by 30% (not the spike damage, mind you), lower end content I'd say by 200% + implementing more mechanics on trash, maybe even necessitating Crowd Control and deviating from these Wall to wall pulls ... (ok ok I'll show myself out now).
Seriously, non savage mobs hit like wet noodles with self esteem issues.

Not necessarily. Healing has always had that inherent flaw. If incoming damage necessitates spamming the Tier 1 Cure to keep the tank alive, then there isn't enough incoming damage to warrant spending GCDs using it. Regen and oGCDs handles that way more efficiently and with fewer button presses. If incoming damage necessitates both healers spamming AoE heals to keep the party alive, then you have TEA's Judgement Formation with both healers bottoming their MP within 45 seconds. Healing in this game just isn't built for sustained constant healing.

What if it necessitated regen AND Cure II spam?
You know, if autohits were actually a threat to the tank?

Some leveling dungeons feel that way, undergeared tanks in there are more interesting to heal than tanks in savage raids. Mobs hit like 40t trucks!

Why can't we have that in expert dungeons? Why do they have to be so easy, just so a few returnees can catch up?

As for the mana thing: you do realize that is just a balancing numbers game. Easy to fix. Very easy.

I really don't get it either. The fights in this game isn't exactly designed for healers to constantly keep on healing. The devs said they're making healing much harder now or make healing more of the focus, but the exact opposite happened

The DEVs are simply put: too chicken to do major changes abruptly.
I can understand their PoV. If the goal is to make healing more difficult and get a more centered place, they need to change the concept gradually.
If you go from 20H/80D to sth like 80H/20D too abruptly, your players won't be able to cope. I'm not talking about you or me. We as (ex, in my case) raiders would adapt quickly because we have the skills and the experience to do so. Judging by what floats around in the duty finder, 95% of the regular players do not.
They would be alienated, overtaxed, frustrated.

The DEVs must guide these players. Give them time to adapt. Agreed, so far, their approach didn't work at all.
Non savage encounters do not hit hard enough, do not hit often enough and they seem to push gimmicky mechanics you need to adhere to above core gameplay, diverting a lot of the players focus (only so much of that to go around in non coordinated groups).

[Lilseph]

What if it necessitated regen AND Cure II spam?
You know, if autohits were actually a threat to the tank?

Then that falls under the latter. Too MP costly to actually be sustainable with the current battle system. This also feeds into the next point:

Some leveling dungeons feel that way, undergeared tanks in there are more interesting to heal than tanks in savage raids. Mobs hit like 40t trucks!
Why can't we have that in expert dungeons? Why do they have to be so easy, just so a few returnees can catch up?

Player progression balance. Levelling dungeons hit extremely hard because they need to scale them to fit player progression but also be balanced for players at the max ilvl cap for the previous expansion. You also don't have all your tools, so it's significantly more challenging. Expert Dungeons have to follow this rule too. They technically can set the difficulty higher and raise the minimum ilvl requirement, but how are players who are playing catch up going to unlock the more lucrative dungeons set at i530 when the only gear they have access to are i430 dungeon gear and old dungeons that give a paltry sum of 45 tomes per clear?

As for the mana thing: you do realize that is just a balancing numbers game. Easy to fix. Very easy.

Nope. Reducing MP costs across the board means access to more MP for Healers. Every encounter would have to be adjusted to accommodate this because you're essentially giving healers nigh infinite mp if not careful.

[basketofseals]

SE just needs to pick a side and stick with it rather than pretending to play both.

Healers don't have to DPS? Sure, I'm fine with that design decision, but they need to actually do it. The damage requirements to beat enrage is absolutely ludicrous if you were to expect healers not to contribute any damage. I certainly don't think I'm being mean when I say I can't expect that out of my PuG-mates. I don't think I can even expect myself to put out that level of damage consistently.

Conversely, admit that healers should be dealing damage and let us have fun with it.

I'm reminded a lot of BLU where they spread a lot of malcontent by saying BLU would be solo friendly and then made it the most group necessitating content they've ever created. Soloing Eureka is more reasonable than soloing BLU.

[Gemina]

SE just needs to pick a side and stick with it rather than pretending to play both.

That's the black and white approach. It's not the answer, and I know this dev team can do better than that if they just give the role the attention it requires. I don't see the DPS aspect of healing and the healing requirement like this slider where giving to one takes away from the other. There is a way to appease both factions of healers, and they should have piles upon piles of data that shows what keeps healers feeling engaged to draw from. I continue to believe that they are making it more complicated than it actually has to be.