Healers Exist for DPS fun only?

[Imora]

I don't find dpsing on healers fun.

I also don't think healers only facilitate dps fun. My fun as a healer comes when shit hits the fan and we barely survive.

Alas, that doesn't happen much here.

[Allegor]

Making things easier is always and I mean ALWAYS the worst option one can decide to go through with. Players will just put in less effort and still cause wipes while also pushing away those who enjoyed the role.

So yeah I agree, mandatory tutorials are a must instead of hand holding terrible players.

I've always played a healer, but recently created an alt who is just a tank/dps, and I'm honestly developing whitemagephobia at this point, specially because I know they can do better, they just don't want to

(and no, I don't mean low level dungeons like Totorak, or those that like letting tanks drop to <20% HP before healing, I mean WHMs in Bardams or above that only uses Cures, not even lilies)

What a weird take, given that healers primarily interact with tanks.

To be fair, tanks are the ones who inherently need healing, whereas the dps are the ones getting babied in that sense because more often than not, if they need healing is because they step in bad.

[MintnHoney]

Thoughts?

I've been thinking and saying as much since the Media Tour presented prior to the release of the Shadowbringers.

[Kabooa]

To be fair, tanks are the ones who inherently need healing, whereas the dps are the ones getting babied in that sense because more often than not, if they need healing is because they step in bad.

Do tanks and healers not need extra attention if they step in bad?

You are confusing inexperienced players with a role. Anyone making a mistake such as 'standing in bad' requires additional attention.

[ItMe]

Do tanks and healers not need extra attention if they step in bad?

You are confusing inexperienced players with a role. Anyone making a mistake such as 'standing in bad' requires additional attention.

So it's not a problem about babysitting DPS so they have fun, it's about being there for anyone when they make mistakes.

[Kabooa]

So it's not a problem about babysitting DPS so they have fun, it's about being there for anyone when they make mistakes.

I can assure you, outside of trolling friends, you're going to have remarkably little fun eating unavoidable damage, on any job, except for perhaps Dark Knight.

This game absolutely does not believe in the mantra of "Stand in fire, DPS higher". Tanks do not gain resource from taking damage. No DPS gains resource from taking damage. Healers do not gain resource from healing more damage opposed to utilizing specific skills, which in turn do not provide more based on how much they healed, but rather that they were used.

They, the developers, are actively designing away from the idea that 'healers adjust' by removing vuln stacks and replacing them with damage downs.

The notion that a healer exists only to babysit other players to let them have fun is flawed on basically every level of play outside beginners.

[ItMe]

I can assure you, outside of trolling friends, you're going to have remarkably little fun eating unavoidable damage, on any job, except for perhaps Dark Knight.

This game absolutely does not believe in the mantra of "Stand in fire, DPS higher". Tanks do not gain resource from taking damage. No DPS gains resource from taking damage. Healers do not gain resource from healing more damage opposed to utilizing specific skills, which in turn do not provide more based on how much they healed, but rather that they were used.

They, the developers, are actively designing away from the idea that 'healers adjust' by removing vuln stacks and replacing them with damage downs.

The notion that a healer exists only to babysit other players to let them have fun is flawed on basically every level of play outside beginners.

That's... a compelling post and I find myself unable to argue against it (not that I was trying to argue here).
Well said.
Maybe if more DPS had moves like SAM's Third Eye things would be different, but I think you're pretty on the money.

[Allegor]

Do tanks and healers not need extra attention if they step in bad?

You are confusing inexperienced players with a role. Anyone making a mistake such as 'standing in bad' requires additional attention.

No, what I meant is that a tank getting damaged is part of their role, while dps mostly aren't, and our job as healers is to watch over when they do get damaged, either due to inexperience, latency, or even trolling, hence "babysitting" (which I probably should've put in quotation marks the first time). The issue at hand though, is that while healing as a role in on itself works as the safety net of the group, it doesn't mean they exist solely to heal in raids, let alone justifies being treated as second class players, if not outright ignored, which is what's been happening as of late.

[ItMe]

No, what I meant is [...]

Ah, this reminds me of another healer conversation (oh hey, it was also one with Kabooa~).

Thread:https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...BD#post5605527

I have a story. It'll be kinda long, but I'll see if it resonates at all with XIV's forum healer enthusiasts and the relationship we have with the way the development team views healers.

Once there was a tabletop RPG called Pathfinder. Its first edition had been out for a while, and the designers began work on a second. Now, while tabletop RPGs have an infinite amount of creativity inherent in them (as you can homebrew or change rules wherever your group pleases), officially-run games are a different beast. The person running the game has to abide by the base rules in the core book. A part of this includes ingame stores; you can't restrict player access to items that are present in the core rulebook. When players level up, they get points to use on buying items and can buy whatever they want. The point of bringing this up is, if the game designers don't like something about how this works, the normal answer you give the average player of "just change the rules you don't like" doesn't apply. They'd have to design the behavior out of the core rules.

One of the behaviors that the game designers -really- wanted to do away with was the infamous Wand of Cure Light Wounds. It became a staple to buy a few on hitting level 2. Players would grab some wands, then spam healing spells as needed between combat to patch back up and keep going. The initially proposed solution to this was a brand new system for interacting with enchanted items that severely curtailed the number of times you could use a wand in a day. There was a discussion about this among some long-term fans that got really interesting. Summarizing it:

Players didn't decide to start buying these wands out of thin air. They started doing it because it was a logical thing to do. If you stop me from using wands, I'll tell you exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to town and finding a group of NPC clerics for hire. I won't even ask their names. I'll call them Cumbersome Wand of Cure Light Wounds numbers one through five and pay them to sit outside in a wagon, then spam healing spells on our group between fights. The problem with this solution here is that the game designers are punishing the players for finding a shortcut solution they don't like to the real problem. You know why players are opting to buy healing wands? Because healing gameplay design isn't fun. Outside roleplaying reasons, basically nobody plays this game for the pulse-pounding thrill of loading up their daily slots with Cure spells and playing the health battery pack for the rest of the party between pulls. You don't need a warm body to fill this function; you could basically script it if it were a game we played online. Conveniently, since this entire role can be replaced with a wand, the players can choose classes with more fun and interactive design while not losing the important ability to heal themselves up after a fight. Make clerics fun and attractive to play without reducing their ability to keep the party alive, then you've solved the problem.

[Kabooa]

No, what I meant is that a tank getting damaged is part of their role, while dps mostly aren't, and our job as healers is to watch over when they do get damaged, either due to inexperience, latency, or even trolling, hence "babysitting" (which I probably should've put in quotation marks the first time). The issue at hand though, is that while healing as a role in on itself works as the safety net of the group, it doesn't mean they exist solely to heal in raids, let alone justifies being treated as second class players, if not outright ignored, which is what's been happening as of late.

Taking avoidable damage is part of no one's role, which is the specific scenario you painted out.

Dealing with unavoidable damage is the healer's purpose. That is why they exist. They do not exist to deal damage - They do varying amounts of it from system to system, but that isn't why they are there. They are there to deal with the damage you cannot avoid. They do not exist to focus the damage output of a superior enemy on to themselves and minimize it with superior defenses.

Contrary to what you are saying, the only reason the healer archetype exists is so that enemies can deal damage greater than your party's total health and not have it end in defeat.