To other Healer Mains: What keeps you around?

[Adeacia]

I don't see the problem everyone else does. I've been around since HW so I've seen lots of changes over the years. Nothing I ever had any issues with. I will continue to heal and I don't see that changing.

It's what I know, it's what I do.

[Semirhage]

I will occasionally swap back to a healer when running Normal Raid roulette on the off chance it rolls me into A2. Because the way Holy and Art of War don't require a buildup or target makes them perfect for wrecking fast-spawning and easily killed packs of adds, and I enjoy occasionally getting 7 commendations when someone realizes I just kept everyone alive while also outdamaging all of the DPS.

That's basically the only reason I swap back to WHM or SCH anymore. That or helping someone duo some old content that benefits from a bit more survivability than RDM can bring.

[Erakir]

Because there is an an immense amount of satisfaction being the backbone of the entire party and being able to drag a bad party through the depths of hell, kicking and screaming to a clear - something a healer is exceptionally good at doing.

Ghish understands me <3

[Reyna_Balmore]

Being somewhat forced to by farming currencies. Swapping between Tank and Healer role for fast ques. I'd rather not touch it until AST is fixed

[Ezlin]

Although I began as a CNJ back in the day, by the time that I returned to the game (during Heavensward) this character was missing and it remained missing for a not insignificant length of time. She's actually still bugged. Anyway, so I unfortunately didn't get to experience what previous versions of healing was like outside of the early 1.0 CNJ.

With it not being an option to continue this 'ol girl I started a new character that was a DPS main until the end of Stormblood. It was also around that time that I learned that this character had magically re-appeared at some point and although I played DPS with Ez, it was the DPS que time that ultimately pushed me to try healing. For tradition I chose CNJ as her starting class when I was forced to choose a class for her, so that's what I went with for her healing role when I switched from DPS. Guess I'm sentimental.

The DPS que plays a huge part in staying as healer but I also enjoy the reactive style of healing that WHM offers (disclaimer: in PUGs). Embrace the chaos, as I like to say, because that's when the fun really begins.

I also tried tanking but that definitely wasn't for me.

[Bsrking5]

Hope AST will return a more interesting and fun play style. Sch and whm are ok but not something I do often.

[Veis_Alveare]

I enjoy the ability to hard carry.

Like there is very little you can't drag people kicking and screaming through as competent healer, and what little you're unable to effectively solo you're still able to make it worlds easier.

I think the effective gap in contribution is greatest as a healer as well. Like yes, technically you might get an effectively 0dps dps... but it's unlikely. Therefore even playing a dps very well is likely adding less dps than playing a healer well compared to being a curebot.

We have the ability to help our groups (and ourselves!) so much and I think that's why I mostly play a healer at least when it comes to DF stuff.

[ScottDoom]

I stick around with WHM because it's the most engaging of the three roles.

DPS = press the same buttons in the same order over and over.
Tank = press the same buttons over and over.
Healer = press the same buttons over and over while watching party health, and using an assortment of tools to combat the damage while dealing damage.

The party skill level also feeds directly in to the gameplay of a healer. If the tank isn't holding aggro/missing mobs, that creates extra opportunity to heal. If a DPS is standing around getting hit by mechs, extra healing time!

If you're a tank and the other party members aren't skilled, you just keep doing the same thing. You should already be rotating your DPS, using defensive CDs, and holding aggro. There's no change if a DPS isn't doing max damage, or if the healer is failing.

As DPS, if the other DPS is unskilled you just keep on keeping on. If the healer is bad, same. If the tank is bad (i.e. dies or lets trash get to you) then oh boy you might get to use a few extra defensive/supportive skills to survive.


My point is that as a healer, what you're doing at any moment is constantly changing. It's very dependent on the situation and party. Tank and DPS pretty much do the same thing no matter what.

[Laphicet]

The only thing keeping me on healer nowadays is the fast queues and the fact that it's the thing I'm most used to playing, tbh.

My favorite of the healers, Astro, was gutted and made a hollow shell of its former self and class fantasy in the name of "balancing the healers", the DPS kits on all 3 were simplified to be on ASTs level without the system that made SB AST fun for me. So playing healer just feels kind of aimless for me.

And because of all this I've been shifting over to playing tanks more, that way I still get some control of the pace of runs while also not being bored out of my skull. Also there's no reason to run a healer vs a tank when solo queueing since playing tanks gets you progress towards mounts while playing healers does not count toward anything like such.

Tanks also get much more varied glamour and don't always get stuck with another set of white robes, cuz "healers should get nothing but white baggy robes cuz muh class fantasy lol", something some dev said somewhere, probably.

[WaxSw]

The fact that If I'm not the healer there is a higher chance to get the (recently too common) standard physick/benefic/curebot, that and the fact that I raid as healer but outside of those situations I'd rather play a fun class over Sch, Whm or Ast