My idea for Healer 'engagement'

[Asari5]

its going full circle... and schoolar is indeed a pet healer.
just did matoyas... the only one healing was the fairie.. kinda like sastasha .
i used my one button rotation

[Mimilu]

I guess I'll be the "fake healer main" that bites then. :/

(To preface, I've mained a healer since ARR, first SCH, then AST in HW and SB, and have been switching between AST and DNC in ShB.)

I'm more on the side that views healers as combat medics who contribute to the damage as much as supporting the party. I prefer spending my GCDs on DPS spells while weaving both supportive and offensive oGCDs in-between casts because it feels faster and more fluid to me.
Being able to dish out a constant stream of DPS while keeping the party alive feels more thrilling and, as corny as it sounds, empowering (at least to me). I'm adding to the carnage and not a supporting character to it.
I'm not opposed to them increasing the healing requirements but the devs would have to make it feel like actual gameplay and not just spam-healing.

[Reinha]

Healers don't need more dps skills and mobs don't need to hit harder. Healing needs to be more engaging and complex. It needs to require thought. AoE -> 1 AoE heal -> back to Glare spam, is boring design.

But look at Raise spells, for example. A 10 second cast time can be hard to pull off in the middle of a fight so you have to position yourself carefully. Then you get another spell, Swiftcast, which will let you bypass this limitation. Only once per minute, though. Better not waste it on someone who is already getting a Raise. Either way it takes a little bit of focus.

Healing should have similar handicaps that force you to think about what you are doing. What if Regen could only be applied to one target at a time? What if Medica and Medica II had a shared 10s cooldown? What if Benediction restored someone to full HP by taking the health equally from other party members? What if Assize only healed the 4 closest party members? What if the Lily heals required a HoT to be on the target(s) in order to do any healing? Who knows, maybe those Freecure procs would be seen as more useful if potencies were smaller across the board and one Medica didn't instantly do the job.

[Boizinho]

I'd love to actually heal more. It's not me, the "healer main," that's against that. It's the development team. So, acknowledging that more heal-intensive content probably won't happen, my next request would definitely be a "downtime" rotation that isn't 1 button. Downtime in quotes because it's like 70% of your casts. If anything, the healing is the "Glare downtime." Though the healing part of the kit isn't nuanced or interesting either.

TL;DR the dev team needs somebody who's played an MMO healer for more than 10 minutes. Until they get that, none of the suggestions will really go through because in order for the devs to know why healer engagement sucks, they'd have to play one.

[Kes13a]

I'd love to actually heal more. It's not me, the "healer main," that's against that. It's the development team. So, acknowledging that more heal-intensive content probably won't happen, my next request would definitely be a "downtime" rotation that isn't 1 button. Downtime in quotes because it's like 70% of your casts. If anything, the healing is the "Glare downtime." Though the healing part of the kit isn't nuanced or interesting either.

TL;DR the dev team needs somebody who's played an MMO healer for more than 10 minutes. Until they get that, none of the suggestions will really go through because in order for the devs to know why healer engagement sucks, they'd have to play one.

thats an extremely good point. and why wouldnt the dev team play healer for more than 10 minutes? likely because the dps rotation is dull and boring, and they just have to toss out a heal or two.. which brings us where we are today.

I think you just hit the nail on the head as to what the base issue really is.

[Ravor]

I am maining white mage and using white mage for all main story quest lvl 1 to 80, i think the idea of healer, especially white mage is to be beginner friendly, i mean most of the time i only used dot and throw stone with regen on self, its a very solid job choise for beginner, easy to use and even in dungeon, especially at early stage, most of the time, you only need to make sure that you cast regen on tank (yes, you still need other heal to do, but most of the time not), i understand for some people that they want healer to be more healing, but i dont think normal mode in the game need that, and in my understanding, in endwalker, all healer dmg casting time will be reduced to 1.5 sec which is great

[Poporito_Popoto]

I'd love to actually heal more. It's not me, the "healer main," that's against that. It's the development team. So, acknowledging that more heal-intensive content probably won't happen, my next request would definitely be a "downtime" rotation that isn't 1 button. Downtime in quotes because it's like 70% of your casts. If anything, the healing is the "Glare downtime." Though the healing part of the kit isn't nuanced or interesting either.

TL;DR the dev team needs somebody who's played an MMO healer for more than 10 minutes. Until they get that, none of the suggestions will really go through because in order for the devs to know why healer engagement sucks, they'd have to play one.

Or, as a Japanese company catering first and foremost to a Japanese/Chinese audience, if that's what those players want, that's what everyone will get.

[Awha]

I would prefer more damage related tools and more overall damage from mobs. I want their to be a risk reward factor for pushing the limits between heals and dps.

Main reason why I enjoyed old cleric stance.

[Lexis]

I'd like trash to be more engaging for healers. At the moment it's mostly just holy spam with the odd OGC heal. The bosses are mostly fine. Fairly easy when everyone's doing what they're supposed to be but I think we can all agree that hardly ever happens in ye ol' duty finder.

If they were to add dps abilities, I could see something proc based to break the monotony, but I would hate to see Healers turn into pseudo-DPS with a side of heal. I'm wearing the green because I like to heal.

[kaynide]

Unpopular opinion, but i would argue to get rid of most the oGCDs or make 1 AoE HoT like whm and one stronger instant heal like whm lilies.

For me the reason it’s boring is I can spam/overheal if I’m lazy and don’t have to pay attention to my MP at all. The main heals should be the ones with cast times like cure/cure 2 so I have to think carefully about timing or consider when I’m running out of mp too fast.

The best times I had healing were early 2-3.0 era and it was very possible to run out of magic by being careless. It was also a challenge to pay attention to buffs (stone skin/regen/medica), keep track of hp bars and also watch the floor for hazards. A lot going on, but it was fun. Just did Paglthan and all I needed was regen/medica2 for almost the entire dungeon. Not once did I dip under like 75% max mp.