My idea for Healer 'engagement'

[Liam_Harper]

If SE wants healers engaged and having fun, trash mobs need to be dialed up in damage output, make me heal, make the healer have to spend 85% of their time healing more than just the tank.

How?

I'm interested in how they "make" the healer heal more without having to completely redesign the structure of the game. I'd like more to heal, don't get me wrong, but if they design content so the average player at min-ilv in prog is GCD healing 85% of the time, the experienced player in BiS with a good group will probably be GCD healing 25-30% of the time. Gear, group mitigation, healer coordination, oGCD mapping and so on make a massive difference.

So how would you suggest they create an environment where players of all skill levels are healing a majority of the time, without making it too hard for new players and without having too much downtime for skilled players, without unrealistic changes to the structure of the game or having to retune 8 years of content?

And then, how would that system be better than simply bumping the damage up so the average player is healing more and making dps engaging too, so the skilled player is rewarded?

[Reiryuu]

How?

I'm interested in how they "make" the healer heal more without having to completely redesign the structure of the game. I'd like more to heal, don't get me wrong, but if they design content so the average player at min-ilv in prog is GCD healing 85% of the time, the experienced player in BiS with a good group will probably be GCD healing 25-30% of the time. Gear, group mitigation, healer coordination, oGCD mapping and so on make a massive difference.

Y'know... one thing that I'm surprised has never really made it into raid content as a mechanic is, well... enemies or targets that need to be healed. For example, remember that lvl 60 WHM quest waaaay back in HW where we had to heal a certain something [vague for spoilers... I guess?] in order to actually kill it? Maybe having to use rescue to move some objects to a certain spot? Or like a frozen ally.... I dunno. I'm just so tired of healers being boring that I'm contemplating which DPS/Tank job I'm going to be maining in EW after maining whm since 2.0. I may not even level my healers out of spite... though SMN looks fun and that will force me to piggy back SCH T_T;

[Tlachtga]

Y'know... one thing that I'm surprised has never really made it into raid content as a mechanic is, well... enemies or targets that need to be healed.

that mechanic was in Shinryu Ex and it was kinda awful

it actually impressed me that they managed to make White Hole type mechanic even worse. I'm glad that never returned in any subsequent fights

[Reiryuu]

that mechanic was in Shinryu Ex and it was kinda awful

it actually impressed me that they managed to make White Hole type mechanic even worse. I'm glad that never returned in any subsequent fights

Fair enough. I don't remember doing Shinryu EX to be honest, I may have skipped it because I stopped playing for a while after 4.0 hit. I don't necessarily mean like something you have to spam heal either. Just something periodic like... hmm.. the magic pots in LoY? Or... like in Cloud of Darkness Savage if you could extend the time the floor lasted with a heal on it or "remake" the floor temporarily with a barrier heal in the space. I dunno. Just... spouting off some thoughts... as I don't have a lot of confidence SE is going to do anything to make healing gameplay any more interesting anytime soon... except for maybe Sage.

[Kes13a]

You've got to be kidding. If that was the actual healing requirement, 90% of the healers would quit the role because they wouldn't be able to keep up with the incoming damage. And something tells me you would be in the first wave of people quitting.
Do we need more damage to heal? Yes. But the moment we are required to heal most of the time is the moment we don't have any leeway to save a party member that did a mistake. And you know what else would happen? Wipes. Every time you mistime a healing spell. Be careful what you ask for.

why would you think I would be in the first wave of people leaving the job? thats a fairly large assumption that seems to be based on... nothing.

also shows that maybe you have been dps only and never tried a healer (which is also a baseless assumption.) if you are not aware, just in case, healers have buttons for small heals, big heals, heals for holidays, heals for easter and groundhogs day, and we use maybe... a couple of them... we have little need to use a majority of what we have. so, maybe you misunderstood the "heal all the time" to mean that is completely all. No, I mean I want to use more of my kit. if a mistake is made, yes, there should be time to raise the poor person that made a mistake and not lose anyone else.

as for mistiming, well, thats going to happen. I wasnt suggesting they add in single hit KO's, all I was thinking is that they add a bit more damage so we arent just a tank and idiot bandaid producer.

[Dogempire]

You've got to be kidding. If that was the actual healing requirement, 90% of the healers would quit the role because they wouldn't be able to keep up with the incoming damage. And something tells me you would be in the first wave of people quitting.
Do we need more damage to heal? Yes. But the moment we are required to heal most of the time is the moment we don't have any leeway to save a party member that did a mistake. And you know what else would happen? Wipes. Every time you mistime a healing spell. Be careful what you ask for.

Not completely true, some people will cope by becoming curebots

[Awha]

It is a fine line for me personally. I have never enjoyed being a curebot but I do enjoy playing support type roles. I like the idea behind FFXIV healers. If it were up to me I would add more individual responsibility across the board. Not just in the form of healer responsibility. I would like see more damage done mechanics, more use if cleanse, better use of tank mechanics like TBN or cover.

In short I would be okay if certain jobs had an easier time clearing certain content I am okay with having a meta comp.

I think part of the problem with FFXIV is that they seem to design content not just around being clearable by every job but they also wish to have every job be meta so to speak. When it comes to healers and tanks.

I would also like to seem they add more complexity to the tank and healer roles. They can keep enmity brain dead but would be nice to have more moments and tools that let a player flex on others so to speak. I kinda want to gulf between a good and great tank to be larger maybe akin to the gap between a bad and good tank. Same with healers, as it stands as a healer in dunegons I sometimes ask the tank to play naked or not use cooldowns that shoukd never be the case. Even then with how much damage and sustain tanks healers and even dps have it is not that different then if they had gear if your group is not full afkers.

[Recon1o6]

Perhaps if OP went and looked at the healer forums, they would see that their suggestion (increasing incoming damage and/or frequency) is the second most requested change AFTER giving healers dps buttons to press to fill in the downtime.

Given SE thinks they can't tune healing any tighter (they absolutely can, bring more alliance raids up to pre nerf orbonne and tower at breach levels of damage for example) that's even more reason for them to return and/or give dps actions. Those that make use of their kit are rewarded with a small but sweet damage contribution to the fight instead of being punished with a choice of sitting on their arses or doing glare/malefic/broil spam.

In addition, it would make fates and solo duties less dull for healers.


It costs them absolutely nothing since as OP already admitted, they don't get to use most of the healing kit as is. So cut the bloated heals eg cure 1, dissipation, benefic 1 and give the healers damage buttons they had and deserve

[Lastelli]

why would you think I would be in the first wave of people leaving the job? thats a fairly large assumption that seems to be based on... nothing.

also shows that maybe you have been dps only and never tried a healer (which is also a baseless assumption.) if you are not aware, just in case, healers have buttons for small heals, big heals, heals for holidays, heals for easter and groundhogs day, and we use maybe... a couple of them... we have little need to use a majority of what we have. so, maybe you misunderstood the "heal all the time" to mean that is completely all. No, I mean I want to use more of my kit. if a mistake is made, yes, there should be time to raise the poor person that made a mistake and not lose anyone else.

as for mistiming, well, thats going to happen. I wasnt suggesting they add in single hit KO's, all I was thinking is that they add a bit more damage so we arent just a tank and idiot bandaid producer.

My assumption is based on the the fact that the way you talk about healers and healing in this game shows that you're a relatively new and inexperienced player (and there's nothing wrong with that of course). You have a very shallow understanding of how healing works in this game, how encounters are designed and what is expected of a healer based on the first two points. Most veteran healers with a deep knowledge about xiv's mechanics will tell you the same thing: it's practically impossible to change the game to force healers to heal the majority of the time. That would require drastic changes to the whole structure of ffxiv's battle content and a complete rework of the healers' toolkits. It's simply NOT going to happen, sorry. That's why many of us simply ask for more interesting dps options. At this point we fully understand that the devs will not make the changes required to achieve what you're currently advocating, so we ask that at least we have something interesting to do once we get closer to the skill ceiling and healing becomes a snoozefest even in savage content. You'll understand that too in due time.

As for me, my fflogs profile is not hidden, so you can check by yourself if you want.

Not completely true, some people will cope by becoming curebots

Not sure about that. If they keep the MP cost of healing spells as it is now, healers would go oom in less than 2 minutes unless they smartly use all they're oGCD healing abilities, which is something curebots normally are incapable of.

[Kes13a]

so, basically Lastelli, you just want to become green dps.

got it.

by the way, I was not saying heal ALL the time, but it would be nice to use more than a couple heal buttons for a more engaging time.

as for my length of time playing, I certainly lack your obvious age and veteran status, but I am not exactly new or inexperienced, while it hardly makes me the expert you are, I started at the end of Heavensward

what I was hoping of course, is that there was some way to make healers do more healing, instead of a dps with a healer side job. I dont think homogenization is a better direction.

but thats just my newbie inexperience talking it up I imagine ^^