Healers Exist for DPS fun only?

[Recon1o6]

snip

The problem is really a two pronged issue
1. We don't have anywhere near enough buttons during downtime
2. We barely heal.

In terms of skill level
1. Players are not incentivised to get better
2. Those that do get better as a healer get massive increases in output because its very easy to get better with 1 button dps
3. Devs won't raise the difficulty despite shb being the easiest expansion so far with pitiful dps checks outside of delubrum savage.
4. Gear is too strong now yet it feels flat as ever and so what little challenge there has been got smacked down quickly.

These problems only get more noticable as you get better with the role. I seen a lot of new healers asking in game when it gets harder to heal and a few when do they get aero 3. (they are ones who would have seen old guides)

The so called problem of healers doing more damage isn't a bad thing. A healer or tank doing about 70-80% of the damage output of a dps if both are of equal skill level is a good balance. That way in raid settings dps would still have the majority of the legwork collectively, but the healers/tanks could keep up. And we wouldn't get boring situations in the overworld where it takes nearly a dozen more gcds to kill a mob than a dps at the start of the expansion.

Nobody should be babied, we are in our 4th expansion soon. If the dps are going to cry because their freestyling samurai or cryo mages are getting beaten by healers who put some effort in, then let them cry. Players should be incentivised to get better and get rewarded for it with ebtter gameplay

[Saefinn]

Nonono.
I'm not here to DPS.
I'm here to save some ass.

I genuinely wouldn't care about healers DPS spells if healing wasn't as basic and dumb in FFXIV, and i'm sure the majority of healers feel the same.

I want to feel drops of sweat running down my buttcheeks when i heal. I want to have to click left and right and actually have a hard time keeping people alive, and when i do i want them to go "How in hell did you manage to do this ? You're an AMAZING healer". I don't care about the sad commends that i get at the end of a dungeon because no one died when there is nothing to worry about and i can DPS through every wall-to-wall pull as long as i put a regen + barrier on the tank. I didn't sign up for healer kindergarten when i bought the game.

If i want to DPS, i'll play a DPS.
I play a healer, so i want to heal. Simple as that. Damn it give me some work SE!

I mean, I like the healer/DPS hybrid when it's done well and it WAS done well. Typically in Final Fantasy titles your healer characters don't JUST heal, even in their other MMO title. So to me it's appropriate to have a hybrid ESPECIALLY in a game where performance is measured by your party's average DPS. If I wanted to play a game where I only heal, I'd pick a different MMO.

With that said, for the majority of content you don't /have/ to DPS, it's really only an issue with DPS checks, enrage timers and optimisation. This game is designed to value DPS regardless of your role.

Then we have this other problem of wanting to make all roles accessible to new and casual players. So ramping up the heal requirement would make it less accessible. Then in addition to that, high iLevels reduces healing requirements too, but content needs to be balanced for people who are still within the iLevel requirement.

It's why I say the best solution is twofold. First is to embrace the healer/DPS hybrid aspect, it works and it solves the monotony on content that doesn't push you enough (particularly those with a higher skill level).
Second is to design future content with an increase in healing requirements.

I just don't see them rebalancing the entire game to give a healing requirement that makes healers work and avoid any compulsion to DPS. And there are a lot of factors they would have to rebalance. It'd not be as simply as nerfing healing abilities or making stuff hit harder, but actual fight mechanics, and how gear affects stats. Because what's a challenge at iLevel 480 will be easier at 520, because your healing spells are more effective, people's HP pool is higher, people kill stuff quicker (and may even skip mechanics), people have better defense and so on and it all adds up. Some fights have mechanics that don't give healers much to do at all because damage isn't frequent enough. So I think a LOT would have to be done to fix this. Now it's possible they're attempting this in the stat crunch on some level...and maybe we will get an improvement there but they've yet to imply as much.

However, they can still make future content more healer intensive. But they will still need to solve the problem for all existing content. DPS is the most sensible way of doing it with the game's current design whilst also respecting a low skill floor.

[ItMe]

This is my fav healer topic in awhile.
There is a lovely discussion going down here.

[Reiryuu]

The problem is really a two pronged issue
1. We don't have anywhere near enough buttons during downtime
2. We barely heal.

3. Healers cannot actually do anything besides DPS to help a party clear. Healing more than what is absolutely necessary means you're not doing damage and nothing you can do will increase the amount of time the group gets to down the boss. Which... kind of means the whole concept of healers just healing is contrary to the whole boss encounter design. So even if SE gives us 10 extra buttons to press, if they don't increase our party's DPS, our own dps, or do something to help the DPS increase their uptime-- I dunno a buff to increase melee dps hit range or something? then, more than likely, we won't be pressing those much either during fights.

Edit: I'm tired so I hope my meaning comes through. I mean, dead dps do no dps... that's true and all, but the more dps a healer does the less burden the DPS have. I mean if DPS die to mechanics and there's nothing we can do about it since it's instant kill or such, the damage loss from the time the DPS is dead alone could be enough to not make the group clear... I hope I'm making some sense. ><;

[Kraniel]

snippity snip

Oh sure, don't get me wrong, i'm totally fine with DPSing during downtime. What i wanted to emphasize with my previous post was just the idea that we're healers first, not DPS.
So of course, contributing to DPS is a thing and i agree with it, however since FFXIV uses the tank/heal/DPS trinity concept they should make it so that each role has a distinctive way to contribute not only to the group's DPS, but to the fight as a whole.
As i said on a different thread, in their current state you could pretty much remove healers from the game, and slap one or two healing skills on each other class like GW2 did, and everything would be just fine. Healers should not be "expendable", just like any other role. If they're in the game, they have to be put to proper contribution, as healers first, and then and only then, as DPS. Or else we might as well just all start playing RDM.

[Roeshel]

3. Healers cannot actually do anything besides DPS to help a party clear. Healing more than what is absolutely necessary means you're not doing damage and nothing you can do will increase the amount of time the group gets to down the boss. Which... kind of means the whole concept of healers just healing is contrary to the whole boss encounter design. So even if SE gives us 10 extra buttons to press, if they don't increase our party's DPS, our own dps, or do something to help the DPS increase their uptime-- I dunno a buff to increase melee dps hit range or something? then, more than likely, we won't be pressing those much either during fights.

Edit: I'm tired so I hope my meaning comes through. I mean, dead dps do no dps... that's true and all, but the more dps a healer does the less burden the DPS have. I mean if DPS die to mechanics and there's nothing we can do about it since it's instant kill or such, the damage loss from the time the DPS is dead alone could be enough to not make the group clear... I hope I'm making some sense. ><;

The concept of healers only healing is contrary to absolutely everything in this game and anyone who has said "healers only heal" must have been joking.

[Irenia]

...
I want to feel drops of sweat running down my buttcheeks when i heal.
...

Understandable.

However, it is my belief that all jobs should be engaging in all kinds of content; people rightfully complain about the low level dungeons, for example.

Dungeons in this game will always be easy, due to the team wanting everyone to progress through the game. Even if they make it harder, they won't become harder than extreme trials if you want any kind of difficulty gradient.

So, let's take a player who is but clenching healing a level 90 dungeon. Will a player that is better than that one be engaged in that content? Sure, they would have more fun in extreme/savage/ultimate, but this dungeon needs to be fun on some level. And I don't think there is a way to do this unless the healer's "End Encounter Quicker" buttons are actually engaging on some level.

Once that is done, we can work on making the harder content actually have more of a healing focus. Otherwise healers are stuck only being able to enjoy content that is on their level, more or less.

[Truen]

The concept of healers only healing is contrary to absolutely everything in this game and anyone who has said "healers only heal" must have been joking.

That was Yoshi P's entire premise for the 5.0 healer changes. I think the term he coined was "pure healer."
Rubbish.

[ItMe]

That was Yoshi P's entire premise for the 5.0 healer changes. I think the term he coined was "pure healer."
Rubbish.

Can you get me a quote on that?
Because as I understood it "pure healer" isn't in reference to a healer that only heals, but a healer who has powerful direct heals and few to no shields / mitigation. A healer who helps keep the party together purely with heals and not with damage reduction tools.

[ForteNightshade]

That was Yoshi P's entire premise for the 5.0 healer changes. I think the term he coined was "pure healer."
Rubbish.

Not quite. "Pure Healer" is how JP refers to "Regen Healer".

With that said, Yoshida has made blatant statements in the past about not wanting to require healer DPS. Which have all been walked back. His most recent take is healer DPS will be necessary for early clear attempts. This is after people pointed out Shiva (E8S) is mathematically impossible to clear even week two if both healers weren't DPSing. Even Thancred wouldn't be doable week one. He's also stated Eden's Promise is where they "tuned her as high as they reasonably could". Not exactly a ringing endorsement when Promise is literally the only fight in the whole game that demands much of anything from healers save Cycle phase in E11S or Terminal in Gaia.