Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[Vickii]

I seem to be experiencing this a lot lately in the new Eden raids, ridiculously so. Seems like every time a boss does any mechanic at all at least one of the healers goes down, but sometimes both...more often that I'm comfortable with, really. Thankfully my OT had my back during one of my most recent ones. Healers dropped, I wasn't getting healed, and that other Gunbreaker pulled the boss off of me and held it until the healers were back up again. Bless them.

Yeah! I noticed it a lot last week but it was kinda understandable as we were all learning mechanics.

But I’m seeing it on older Eden content like Ramuh and leviathan too... both healers just dying to the mechanics. Lucky that RDM has got a res and it’s a popular class.

I tend to run WHM a bit once I know the fight well. If I don’t know how to deal with insta death mechanics I just wouldn’t queue as a healer personally.

[Absurdity]

The quality of healers in 14 is bad and until it improves I can’t see them making healing more complicated.

And this mindset is why we're in this endless cycle of things becoming dumber and dumber.

Healers are bad because they're either new or can't be bothered to improve --> oh no we need to make them more accessible --> Healers become "more accessible", easier to play and significantly more boring --> people are still bad --> repeat
There will always be people who can not be bothered to put even the absolute minimum effort into playing their job at an acceptable level, you could give them a healer with 3 buttons titled "Heal, Group Heal and Damage" and they would still die, not heal and do 0 dps.


At some point you need to stop making things "more accessible" for them because it will never change.

[Vahlnir]

And this mindset is why we're in this endless cycle of things becoming dumber and dumber.

Healers are bad because they're either new or can't be bothered to improve --> oh no we need to make them more accessible --> Healers become "more accessible", easier to play and significantly more boring --> people are still bad --> repeat
There will always be people who can not be bothered to put even the absolute minimum effort into playing their job at an acceptable level, you could give them a healer with 3 buttons titled "Heal, Group Heal and Damage" and they would still die, not heal and do 0 dps.


At some point you need to stop making things "more accessible" for them because it will never change.

To be honest, I think I'm seeing more "bad" healers anymore BECAUSE of how accessible they have become. The ones who decided to pick up the role and tough it out prior to Shadowbringers were usually the healers I'd want in my party, because they were largely forced to learn to get much of anywhere, because mediocre play really didn't get them very far. Far enough I suppose, but they were quickly sorted in Extreme, Savage and up. Now? Anyone with even just half a brain cell can pick up a healer and heal, but that doesn't make them better if they keep eating mechanics they shouldn't be. There has always been bad players in any job of every role, that much is true. But I think some of that comes down to how easy it is to pick up a job and go on a dime.

[Laphicet]

To be honest, I think I'm seeing more "bad" healers anymore BECAUSE of how accessible they have become. The ones who decided to pick up the role and tough it out prior to Shadowbringers were usually the healers I'd want in my party, because they were largely forced to learn to get much of anywhere, because mediocre play really didn't get them very far. Far enough I suppose, but they were quickly sorted in Extreme, Savage and up. Now? Anyone with even just half a brain cell can pick up a healer and heal, but that doesn't make them better if they keep eating mechanics they shouldn't be. There has always been bad players in any job of every role, that much is true. But I think some of that comes down to how easy it is to pick up a job and go on a dime.

Combine that with experienced healers quitting out of boredom or at disgust on what SE did to their classes, and thus we get the situation we're in now with every other healer in DF being a 0-dps curespammer (or worse, a lazy curespammer who only heals and stands around doing nothing otherwise), even at high levels and level cap content. For example: I just had a healer a few days ago in E10N who refused to do anything but use cure 1 even after being asked politely to use the rest of their kit (even actively refused in chat and kept being smarmy about things). Said healer also intentionally wiped the group instead of using lb3 when we messed up with the boss at 10%, plenty of time to use it (about 45s) but they sat there spamming cure 1 instead.

A lot of healers like that nowadays, getting pissy and smarmy when you try to help and teach them that no, spamming cure1/physik/benefic1 or their GCD heals in general is not the way to play healer. Though I will admit that's the first time I've seen one wipe a group out of pettiness.

[Dyvid]

It still amazes me that Healers doesn't have abilities to help that party stay alive. Look at some common raid mechanics. Why not give healer a ability to reduce knockback or increase movement speed? Stuff like this would help reduce death which, if you think about it, is the role of a Healer.

[Allegor]

It still amazes me that Healers doesn't have abilities to help that party stay alive. Look at some common raid mechanics. Why not give healer a ability to reduce knockback or increase movement speed? Stuff like this would help reduce death which, if you think about it, is the role of a Healer.

I know right? if only there was a healer that specialized in support abilities that helped others in different ways, like strengthening their defenses, increase haste, or boost their resource regeneration....O H W A I T-!

(yes, I'll beat this dead chocobo until it turns to dust)

[Vickii]

And this mindset is why we're in this endless cycle of things becoming dumber and dumber.

Healers are bad because they're either new or can't be bothered to improve --> oh no we need to make them more accessible --> Healers become "more accessible", easier to play and significantly more boring --> people are still bad --> repeat
There will always be people who can not be bothered to put even the absolute minimum effort into playing their job at an acceptable level, you could give them a healer with 3 buttons titled "Heal, Group Heal and Damage" and they would still die, not heal and do 0 dps.


At some point you need to stop making things "more accessible" for them because it will never change.

Nope, sorry but I disagree.

I have been running normal dungeons and the healer is wiping to mechanics. Over the past few days healers have ruined several otherwise would clear runs.

How does ‘give them more buttons to press’ help? It’s just going to make them even worse.

[Allegor]

Nope, sorry but I disagree.

I have been running normal dungeons and the healer is wiping to mechanics. Over the past few days healers have ruined several otherwise would clear runs.

How does ‘give them more buttons to press’ help? It’s just going to make them even worse.

It may not, and that's the point - to weed out the bad. If you can't bother improving to a bare minimum, you're doing yourself - and others - a favor by just...not playing the role. That's not to say that every subpar healer should up and quit, there's a big difference between someone that's genuinely struggling yet trying to improve, and someone that just doesn't want to - the former will eventually get there, the latter will not.

[Vickii]

It may not, and that's the point - to weed out the bad. If you can't bother improving to a bare minimum, you're doing yourself - and others - a favor by just...not playing the role. That's not to say that every subpar healer should up and quit, there's a big difference between someone that's genuinely struggling yet trying to improve, and someone that just doesn't want to - the former will eventually get there, the latter will not.

So you want people to play a role up to 80 and then suddenly surprise surprise there’s a whole new much more complicated system?

I don’t think that would be that popular. I’m all for changes to healers, things to differentiate them, but in terms of making healing harder, I’m only down for that if there’s far more support healing in game.

I’ve been in a group where a dancer saved us another where a paladin healedmy MCH and often the red mage ressing the healers. If they made us all more self sufficient then they can do what they like with healer role.

[GrimGale]

So you want people to play a role up to 80 and then suddenly surprise surprise there’s a whole new much more complicated system?

I don’t think that would be that popular. I’m all for changes to healers, things to differentiate them, but in terms of making healing harder, I’m only down for that if there’s far more support healing in game.

I’ve been in a group where a dancer saved us another where a paladin healedmy MCH and often the red mage ressing the healers. If they made us all more self sufficient then they can do what they like with healer role.

I've been in a group where Dps all died to mechanics, healers raised everbody and saved the run.

What exactly is your point?
Healers bad therefore Healer job should be for babies? Healbot one-button spam?

Tanks and Dps mess up too, should we just dumb down everybodies rotation so that they can focus on doing the dance?

Why should veteran healers see their classes dumbed down due to other players occasionally encountering inexperienced ones?