Quote Originally Posted by Deceptus View Post
There have been multiple threads attempting to show how the FFXIV healer design is currently the wrong approach as the game is currently developed but it all boils down to this very simple sentence:

Healers are the only Role in the game that "rewards" you with worse gameplay the better of a player you are.

If you play your job skillfully, you are rewarded with a single button filler spam.

No other role would find that acceptable. Why is it acceptable for healers to play that way?

Tanks wouldn't accept a lone single target dps button, an aoe, and the rest of their kit be zero damage aggro generators and damage mitigation. They'd riot.
It's ok to say "punished" for playing their job correctly. That's how most healers feel. Here's the thing though, can anyone describe how to universally play healer correctly without adopting the mentality "heal as little as possible"? Keep in mind that I did not say how to play it optimally; I said correctly.

For starters, I would probably stop comparing healers to tanks. In order to make the skills they use to perform their primary duty comparable, restore skills would have to heal and damage at the same time. While there are skills that exist that do this such as Earthly Star and Assize, having nearly everything healers do cause damage to the enemy is in no way a direction the devs will ever go. It's not a double standard. It's just a standard.

The only healer with any kind of DPS reward is WHM with Misery. An argument could be made for ASTs Divination, but let's be real; a mechanic that charges up a buff just doesn't add enough spice to the meatball. Now the ironic thing with WHM, is that this DPS reward is usually granted for not playing WHM optimally. The reason for this is because WHM can sustain a group perfectly fine without the Afflatus skills.

Healer's should be rewarded with being able to cause additional damage to the opposition, and this reward should come by having interactive job gauges. All the pieces for healing to be engaging are there, they just have to piece together the puzzle. I will express again that raising the ceiling for healing requirements and/or adding more DPS skills are the deadend answers that are easy to conclude, but will never solve the problem.