How would you feel if shields had no upfront healing?

[ty_taurus]

I find it strange that people complain about healing not being engaging and challenging when the game does provide content that is engaging and challenging to heal. It's like they're saying "I want to be challenged as a healer but I don't want to do the challenging content".

Firstly, I want to just clarify that I do enjoy challenging content. I mainly haven't done TEA or other ultimates because I just don't have the static party to do them. I do enjoy extreme and savage fights, however. I've been raiding since the Binding Coils of Bahamut to some degree or another, and I was exclusively a healer up until Shadowbringers, so I also have an understanding of what healing was like at multiple levels of play between old expansions and the current one.

First, I don't believe it's true for all players that healing is only engaging in ultimate. When I was less experienced, I found casual content more engaging. I'm sure there are other players out there who are like I was then. When casual content ceased being engaging for me, I progressed to more difficult content.

What you are describing here is true and highlights a very interesting quirk that is unique to healing: the less you know about your job and the less you know about the encounter, the more fun healing is because the damage that you and your team takes is seemingly "unpredictable" (not actually unpredictable, but with low skill and/or experience, it can seem that way). This means your need for healing is something you aren't planning for and must adapt to on the fly, which is a thrilling and adrenaline-pumping experience. That said, this aspect is transient. The better you get at healing and the more you learn new fights, the more that thrill evaporates.

The main argument I see over and over again by players supporting the existing healers is quite literally always about content or experiences that are temporary. What those of us who have been challenging the healers' designs have been saying over and over again that you and other defenders have constantly ignored is that healing is not fun outside of those moments.

When you're not progging a new fight, when you're not learning how to heal for the first time, when you're not a casual healer, when you're not doing ultimate, healing is dull and lifeless.

Healing is dull and lifeless when you're doing the MSQ, when you're grinding FATEs, when you're doing Roulettes, when you're doing Beast Tribe Quests, when you're farming Extreme/Savage fights after having learned them, when you're farming unsynched content, when you're doing treasure map dungeons, when you're doing your 24-man alliance raids after the first few weeks when less people are failing mechanics, when you're hunting marks, when you're farming deep dungeons, when you've ultimately learned how to optimize your healing and thus have significantly more time to mash the Glareficoil button like you're playing a Mario Party minigame.

And the thing that bothers me the most out of all this is that if they actually did listen to the criticisms and worked to improve the gameplay experience for healers when no healing was needed, I strongly believe you and anyone else who's been staunchly defending the healers probably wouldn't be bothered by those changes at all. You'd continue to play the same way that you already do, so why do you even care in the first place?