It's time to kill the argument that DPS abilities keep healers from healing.

[ssunny2008]

What do you mean kill it? I see healers tunnel visioning and leaving peeps on the floor all the time while they continue to DPS. Many tanks mains will tell you about where the healer just let them die. They used their cool downs properly, even went into invuln, and they just drop; then the healer will SC raise them when the mob starts eating their face.
I'm all on board with making healing fun and engaging. However, some arguments about their DPS is sorely misplaced, and I also think just giving them some additional DPS buttons to press won't solve anything. We're talking 3.x gameplay mam, which was years ago. The game has evolved past those days, and healers need actual mechanics with how their job plays; not go from 1,1,1,1 to 1,2,3,4. All this does for healers is give them more animations to look at while doing the same damage they are doing now.
No, no. I've seen too many cool reworks happen to MCH, PLD, SMN, and NIN to find just going back to 3.x or 4.x SCH anywhere near acceptable.

Have you ever considered that ppl let tanks die, because their focus is only like 10% on the game? If i do anything out of savage content, the first thing i do is to cut my resolution from 3840x1080 to 1920x1080. My grouptask overlaps my skills so far, so im sometimes not even able to keep my GCD´s rolling.
As next i´m opening my browser to start netflix or amazon and check out a new film or series. Then i start to spam my damage ablities on any class, no matter which class i´m actually playing, it´s always the same and i´m normally the first. Sprint - aoe spam - sprint - aoe spam - sprint - boss pull, repeat.

It´s just boring, so boring that i´m not focused on my rotation pretty much or yes, that i completely forget that i´m healer this time and the tank died to the first adds. The games content is dull and the game never evolved, it got dumbdowned and the content is copy & paste with new graphics /animations.


I´ve played some other MMORPG´s too and i´ve never seen it happen and it never happened to me, that a tank or DPS died because i wasn´t able to heal them within 30s. Those games has better content and a way better class design.
Tanks has less defs there and a boss hits hard. Have you ever seen a boss hitting hard in this game? Have you ever seen a tank using all his defs in a bossfight? Savage tankbuster are getting invuled, in dungeons you spam your defs to pull as much adds as possible until you reach the next wall.
So what should a healer heal? The aoe which drops every 30s? Even if we talk about bad players, do they need heal? No... they most die instand, you rezz them, they die again, etc... So you stay there and spam 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1....

If the classes would be atleast somehow appealing and the content more challenging things would look way different. And i highly doubt that anyone, not matter if Tank, DPS or Heal - main, who is complaining about DPS skills or so, just wants to turn 1111 into 1234. We want something to do, something which is worth to actually use all our skills. We want more than just a Dot + 1. Not a strict rotation, but stuff we can play around, which grand some buffs / debuffs, which might buffs our healing skills or grant us stacks for playing well instead of being infight for 30s. We want to make use of Esuna, we want to play around ressources, we want to be a real healer. And between all those hardhitters across the whole group, we want to do damage with different spells for different circumstances. Even in savage healers use an aoe heal every 30s, then we´re going on with 1,1,1,1,.... while moving to a safespot. The whole combat and content-design has become a fat joke.


(And btw while i play multiple classes in the endgame, i would consider myself a tankmain. And i can tell you, that the most tanks have no clue how to play and survive properly, when to use which cooldown or even to kill a pack of adds without any healing. Especially as WAR you can easily full heal yourself even in stuff like the current E12s. Or a DRK can ignore multiple mechanic-debuffs with blackest night, or.... it´s laughable. Even my better half as WHM main wants me to play tank mostly for her 99er log.)

[Gemina]

Have you ever considered that ppl let tanks die, because their focus is only like 10% on the game? If i do anything out of savage content, the first thing i do is to cut my resolution from 3840x1080 to 1920x1080. My grouptask overlaps my skills so far, so im sometimes not even able to keep my GCD´s rolling.
As next i´m opening my browser to start netflix or amazon and check out a new film or series. Then i start to spam my damage ablities on any class, no matter which class i´m actually playing, it´s always the same and i´m normally the first. Sprint - aoe spam - sprint - aoe spam - sprint - boss pull, repeat.

It´s just boring, so boring that i´m not focused on my rotation pretty much or yes, that i completely forget that i´m healer this time and the tank died to the first adds. The games content is dull and the game never evolved, it got dumbdowned and the content is copy & paste with new graphics /animations.

You're still accountable, and no one is forcing you play a healer in braindead content. If you were tanking and your healer just let you die, and their excuse was, "Sorry, healing is so boring and I got caught up in Netflix." what would be your reaction? While you might be more understanding, I'm pretty sure you would still know that your healer is at fault for your KO.

Another thing I will point out is that the tank and DPS members in your group are most definitely not looking at Netflix while in a duty, and while they have less reason to be than a bored to tears healer spamming one button, it is just good etiquette and shows respect giving them the same courtesy. And yes, I am aware that negligent people exist playing all roles in the game. Their lack of attentiveness and care does not pardon your own.

[ssunny2008]

You're still accountable, and no one is forcing you play a healer in braindead content. If you were tanking and your healer just let you die, and their excuse was, "Sorry, healing is so boring and I got caught up in Netflix." what would be your reaction? While you might be more understanding, I'm pretty sure you would still know that your healer is at fault for your KO.

Another thing I will point out is that the tank and DPS members in your group are most definitely not looking at Netflix while in a duty, and while they have less reason to be than a bored to tears healer spamming one button, it is just good etiquette and shows respect giving them the same courtesy. And yes, I am aware that negligent people exist playing all roles in the game. Their lack of attentiveness and care does not pardon your own.

You miss my point. Ofc it´s my fault as healer, when the tank is doing everything correct but still dies. I´m not here for excuses.

My statement is, that the game itself doesn´t force anything from me in this way and there are more than enough players out there who never really focus in content out of savage. (Yes even casuals.)

- Healers spam one button 95% of all time yes. It´s either aoe into adds or that 1 cast into bosses. In case of SCH you need even less heals thx to the fairy.
- Tanks on the other hand run to the front and spam aoe or 123, 123, 123. They can even facetank any bossmechanics easily. Not even a tankbuster hurts as it should be.
- DPS do pretty much the same, aoe or 123, but they´ve atleast a handful more ogcd´s, bursts or positionals to care about. (But sadly those are more optional than needed.)

If we wouldn´t sit on wall to wall bangs with one button spam, we would focus more. If a boss would kill a tank within 5s without a heal, we would focus more. If we wouldn´t be able to ignore pretty much every mechanic in non-savage content, we would focus more. If we wouldn´t get downsynced with way too much stats, we would focus more. Or if bosses would hit an enrage, we would focus more. (Imo i can only remember that the Amaurot endboss has a limit with his platforms. But even there i´ve solod this guy lately as DRK with my little selfheal and blackest night into the laser, while my party was dead and watching 5mins.)

That´s the point i want to clarify and it´s up to SE to cater us with more interesting content and gameplay, which force more than just this one button + a fairy, benediction or a hot.

EDIT: I´m pretty sure, that nobody would complain about too less damage skills, if we would need more stuff to heal. But if we don´t have anything to heal, which is mostly the case, one button spam is no gameplay.

[Grimoire-M]

EDIT: I´m pretty sure, that nobody would complain about too less damage skills, if we would need more stuff to heal. But if we don´t have anything to heal, which is mostly the case, one button spam is no gameplay.

Have to disagree here, for two reasons, both of which are design constraints SE has imposed on themselves. The first, is healing difficulty in fights. On that front SE literally stated they're not changing their fight design to add more to that. As they themselves can't handle the healing checks. With that constraint in mind, getting to full on DPS is not only a reward for learning to heal well, but ultimately necessary for engagement, even if the developers themselves do not tune around it. Doesn't matter if it's Ultimate or MSQ, it's the glue that keeps us entertained. Recognizing its place on the skill curve and why that's the case is just as important.

The other constraint, which I hope is obvious, is that SE doesn't want to embrace healing rotations. Attrition Healing MMOs have elements of the same buff management that DPS have here in XIV, but even from ARR you can see how SE steadfastly avoids that exact design on healers in particular. Most healing actions, whether spells or abilities, are one and done. Very few are actual buffs (most of them having been trimmed because SE didn't like Critlo cheese), and many are in the form of direct potency increases, rather than percentage boosts (thereby preventing multiplicative stacking). The only thing they're half willing to give healers is some level of resource manipulation, mostly in the form of cooldown management. Scholar, despite its high points in this regard, is mostly constrained by the aetherflow timer, which dictates a majority of their otherwise more flexible kit. White Mage only has Lilies. AST has cards, which doesn't even touch on their healing kit most of the time.

That said, accounting for some level of skill-gap with a depth curve is absolutely necessary, no matter what that takes. In my opinion, DPS rotations are necessary for everyone but AST (whose card kit fits this bill, but could be fleshed out further), and adding another legitimate resource to manipulate would go a long way on WHM in particular. Lilies ain't gonna cut it forever.

[BooPoo]

Have to disagree here, for two reasons, both of which are design constraints SE has imposed on themselves. The first, is healing difficulty in fights. On that front SE literally stated they're not changing their fight design to add more to that. As they themselves can't handle the healing checks. With that constraint in mind, getting to full on DPS is not only a reward for learning to heal well, but ultimately necessary for engagement, even if the developers themselves do not tune around it. Doesn't matter if it's Ultimate or MSQ, it's the glue that keeps us entertained. Recognizing its place on the skill curve and why that's the case is just as important.

The other constraint, which I hope is obvious, is that SE doesn't want to embrace healing rotations. Attrition Healing MMOs have elements of the same buff management that DPS have here in XIV, but even from ARR you can see how SE steadfastly avoids that exact design on healers in particular. Most healing actions, whether spells or abilities, are one and done. Very few are actual buffs (most of them having been trimmed because SE didn't like Critlo cheese), and many are in the form of direct potency increases, rather than percentage boosts (thereby preventing multiplicative stacking). The only thing they're half willing to give healers is some level of resource manipulation, mostly in the form of cooldown management. Scholar, despite its high points in this regard, is mostly constrained by the aetherflow timer, which dictates a majority of their otherwise more flexible kit. White Mage only has Lilies. AST has cards, which doesn't even touch on their healing kit most of the time.

That said, accounting for some level of skill-gap with a depth curve is absolutely necessary, no matter what that takes. In my opinion, DPS rotations are necessary for everyone but AST (whose card kit fits this bill, but could be fleshed out further), and adding another legitimate resource to manipulate would go a long way on WHM in particular. Lilies ain't gonna cut it forever.

+1

Hate spending all of my time healing in WoW. A 50/50 hybrid with semi DPS rotation and on demand healing is WAYYYY more enjoyable.

[Shurrikhan]

+1

Hate spending all of my time healing in WoW. A 50/50 hybrid with semi DPS rotation and on demand healing is WAYYYY more enjoyable.

To be fair, you should still be doing a fair amount of damage as a healer, even in M+.

Heck, that's the very reason Holy Paladin has so often been meta.

But yes, having some healing-downtime depth would be much appreciated.

[BooPoo]

To be fair, you should still be doing a fair amount of damage as a healer, even in M+.

Heck, that's the very reason Holy Paladin has so often been meta.

But yes, having some healing-downtime depth would be much appreciated.

The last time I checked logs Holy Paladin isn't doing a fair amount of damage though. They were doing approximate <1/5 of DPS's damage? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[RopeDrink]

+1

Hate spending all of my time healing in WoW. A 50/50 hybrid with semi DPS rotation and on demand healing is WAYYYY more enjoyable.

I like it - but that's from the PoV of a Resto Shaman pushing 20's in M+, where damage is sporadic enough to keep you engaged and constantly on your toes for that potential one-shot out of nowhere, but not enough to stop you competing with DPS during downtime - with RSham having very respectable damage. And yes, you will totally be expected to do damage there, just like you are here -- but not to the same degree seeing as high M+ is infinitely more chaotic and reactive compared to FFXIV's preemptive dance routine, where I can literally heal a stack-marker with Cure III so on time that the health bars don't even move, with me halfway through my next Glare cast the very next second.

Meanwhile, I'm just out of a dungeon where a WHM secured 58% Overhealing by doing nothing but spamming MedicaII pre, mid, and post every single trash fight and boss throughout the entire ordeal -- not casting a single Holy -- and doing maybe 1-3 glares now and then, despite the fact that neither the tank nor the damage-dealers health bars were moving at all without all that dreck. People can claim they're so bored with it that they intentionally play less effective for want of Netflix, but there are definitely people out there who obviously believe they're just a health battery and nothing more. They're as good as delaying the run for everyone else by acting like half their spells don't actually exist.

I absolutely do want more damage -- or at least a more engaging version of what we already have at the very least. I thoroughly enjoy healing and have WHM'd since ARR, but I also understand why everyone is so utterly bored spamming Glare/Holy and little else. As fine as I am with this being the 'inverse' of what I do in WoW, and have no problem spewing Glare all day long, I'm still considering swapping to tank or damage as far as 'mains' go when Endwalker hits. Not that they don't have their own problems.

[BooPoo]

I like it - but that's from the PoV of a Resto Shaman pushing 20's in M+, where damage is sporadic enough to keep you engaged and constantly on your toes for that potential one-shot out of nowhere, but not enough to stop you competing with DPS during downtime - with RSham having very respectable damage. And yes, you will totally be expected to do damage there, just like you are here -- but not to the same degree seeing as high M+ is infinitely more chaotic and reactive compared to FFXIV's preemptive dance routine, where I can literally heal a stack-marker with Cure III so on time that the health bars don't even move, with me halfway through my next Glare cast the very next second.

Meanwhile, I'm just out of a dungeon where a WHM secured 58% Overhealing by doing nothing but spamming MedicaII pre, mid, and post every single trash fight and boss throughout the entire ordeal -- not casting a single Holy -- and doing maybe 1-3 glares now and then, despite the fact that neither the tank nor the damage-dealers health bars were moving at all without all that dreck. People can claim they're so bored with it that they intentionally play less effective for want of Netflix, but there are definitely people out there who obviously believe they're just a health battery and nothing more. They're as good as delaying the run for everyone else by acting like half their spells don't actually exist.

I absolutely do want more damage -- or at least a more engaging version of what we already have at the very least. I thoroughly enjoy healing and have WHM'd since ARR, but I also understand why everyone is so utterly bored spamming Glare/Holy and little else. As fine as I am with this being the 'inverse' of what I do in WoW, and have no problem spewing Glare all day long, I'm still considering swapping to tank or damage as far as 'mains' go when Endwalker hits. Not that they don't have their own problems.

Yeah I'm not okay with the current damage "rotation" healers get. But instead of shifting towards WoW, I much rather they just add more abilities and increase the rotation complexity a bit.

If they want us to "pure heal" in this game, then the next step is to remove every damage ability healers get. It just feel so underwhelming if you can barely function without a team. In FFXIV at least WHM can pump out a respectable portion of damage during solo/dungeon. The last time I played WoW, despite disc priest being the "DPS healer", they barely output 1/5 of DPS's damage. I can't even fathom how boring it is for healers outside of raids.

[Alien_Gamer]

And yet, DPSing does seem to prevent healers from healing. It doesn't take much effort to find stories about party wipes because healers refused to heal while they were DPSing; the Tales from the Duty Finder thread usually has a story about it within the last 10 pages. So yes, I can confidently say that healers are still struggling with that.

I've seen arguments that healers zone out and are bored. Thats a cheap excuse and doesn't absolve the player from doing their duty and also ignores that even when a healer had a full DPS kit back in HW, this still happened. It happens in all content and has been happening at all stages of the game. My pet theory is that most healers just dgaf. Like most things, I'm sure there's a lot of different reasons for why and at the end of the day, why doesn't really matter. That it happens regularly, is the more important factor for the devs.

Because it also reinforces the developers view that healing and dpsing shouldn't overlap; healers should heal, dps should dps. I don't really agree with them but I can see how the community has sent those signals to the devs and why the devs have kept doubling down on it. Healers let parties die while they dps, devs remove dps, healers still let parties die while they dps, devs remove more dps, and round and round we went.

If players want this to change then it needs to be demonstrated in the metrics the devs actually pay attention to, not in rants on the forum. The two ways to do that are:
1. Play healers as the devs want them to be played and play them with a level of competency that leads them to think players can handle more. (stop letting people die so you can dps.)
2. Do what the player base is already planning on doing. Abandon healers en masse to try and force the devs to rework the healers into something else; which most likely still won't include more DPS.

I don't think the boring play issue is going to be solved by a few more dps skills. If you dig up old threads from HW, you'll see players complaining about being bored, the lack of damage and the lack of dps options. So short of making them a dps class with a few heals, players aren't going to be satisfied. The bigger issue is, at its heart, its an issue with mechanics and how damage is dealt and its unlikely something that will fundamentally change. Even when the devs have made an effort to change it in the past, its only been a change of window dressing and not anything new. And they've shown they aren't really interested in doing more than that. This past live letter they went so far as to flat out state how the jobs are in 5.0 is the baseline they're going to build from and while they understand people want a return to the 3.0 style, it won't happen.

To put it bluntly, players want something completely different from what the devs are willing to build. You can fight against it, and likely lose, or you can accept what it is and try to work with it, or play a different job.