Has anyone quit healing?

[Boizinho]

The only real request is that regardless of that direction, that the healers have some level of depth to them that makes them more interesting to play and gives us ways to express our skill.

Unfortunately the direction they have very obviously chosen is the direction with no complexity or depth at all. The main defining pillar of healer design in ShB and EW is a skill ceiling that is reached at level 4.

You know how Super Mario Galaxy technically has a "2 player" mode, but all player 2 does is aim at the screen to pick up and shoot star bits? That's what the job designers want the healer role to be. They want it to be the role you give to the absolute worst player in your particular group so they can feel technically included without actually doing anything. At this point we're about as close as you can get to a child being handed an unplugged controller so they can pretend they're playing the game with their parent without knowing any better. Every tank buster cast bar is the parent pointing at the screen saying "See that boss we just beat? You did that!" A token gesture to try to fool us into thinking we're participating in the same game that everyone else is.

Healers unironically feel like more of a "limited job" than Blue Mage does at this point, and it's intentional.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

I love healing and so do many others. It’s the lack of a complex rotation that allows you to improve and focus on learning fights etc. I used to scratch my brain out doing smn rotation while avoiding mechanics. Maybe healing just isn’t for you, maybe it’s meant for the simple players[see simple Rick] and not for you who want more aka dps.

SR is a player who finds joy out of more than just the thrill of the challenge/superiority of being better
[rick and morty Refrence but you get it]

[MellowMink]

I wonder how tank players would feel about only having a very small number of actions that deal damage; after all, their main role is supposedly to distract enemies and mitigate through damage, so if Square Enix is worried about healers not focusing enough on healing despite not often needing to, why the inconsistent logic for tank jobs? By their logic, some tanks may not focus on needed mitigation due to focusing on dealing damage instead, and thus they'll apply the same inaccurate logic that less damage actions mean more focusing on other mechanics that aren't always needed on an active basis.

It seems pretty obvious to me that most tanks wouldn't like that, and yet healers are supposed to somehow welcome the developers enforcing their own personal playstyle onto them that isn't also backed up by the current gameplay mechanics? What would it take for some veteran healers to get direct responses or a line of communication with healer designers that repeatedly choose to ignore them?

[ForteNightshade]

I love healing and so do many others. It’s the lack of a complex rotation that allows you to improve and focus on learning fights etc. I used to scratch my brain out doing smn rotation while avoiding mechanics. Maybe healing just isn’t for you, maybe it’s meant for the simple players[see simple Rick] and not for you who want more aka dps.

This would be fine... if we switched to a five DPS comp or the other roles could sustain themselves without Healers. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. Two Healers are required in all 8-man content despite it never actually necessitating them. And since they're required, it means their growing scarcity at the higher levels poses a significant problem. Less people want to play them now than ever before. So we can't simply wave our hands and say "Whelp, just play something else then!" People are. That isn't a good thing.

[Sebazy]

So we can't simply wave our hands and say "Whelp, just play something else then!" People are. That isn't a good thing.

But depressingly, I still firmly believe that a healer exodus at the high end is the only way that SE will actually sit up and take proper notice of the situation. Would it ever be enough for SE to actually be forced to act? I doubt it as there's no shortage of fresh blood coming in to replace them. The shame is that we lose players of Elia, Minori and Nei's standard that will probably never be replaced.

[Mortex]

But depressingly, I still firmly believe that a healer exodus at the high end is the only way that SE will actually sit up and take proper notice of the situation. Would it ever be enough for SE to actually be forced to act? I doubt it as there's no shortage of fresh blood coming in to replace them. The shame is that we lose players of Elia, Minori and Nei's standard that will probably never be replaced.

Yeah it’s just so boring and stale and It gets worse and worse. Playing healer shadowbringer forced me to buy a new keyboard because my 1 button was dying on me after 2 raid tiers of week 1 prog only. I can’t imagine raiding 4 days a week every week.

[Recon1o6]

I wonder how tank players would feel about only having a very small number of actions that deal damage; after all, their main role is supposedly to distract enemies and mitigate through damage, so if Square Enix is worried about healers not focusing enough on healing despite not often needing to, why the inconsistent logic for tank jobs? By their logic, some tanks may not focus on needed mitigation due to focusing on dealing damage instead, and thus they'll apply the same inaccurate logic that less damage actions mean more focusing on other mechanics that aren't always needed on an active basis.

It seems pretty obvious to me that most tanks wouldn't like that, and yet healers are supposed to somehow welcome the developers enforcing their own personal playstyle onto them that isn't also backed up by the current gameplay mechanics? What would it take for some veteran healers to get direct responses or a line of communication with healer designers that repeatedly choose to ignore them?

We already know, look at dark knight. They hate it and its the only job that so far has come off as bad as scholar

[Rilifane]

This would be fine... if we switched to a five DPS comp or the other roles could sustain themselves without Healers. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. Two Healers are required in all 8-man content despite it never actually necessitating them. And since they're required, it means their growing scarcity at the higher levels poses a significant problem. Less people want to play them now than ever before. So we can't simply wave our hands and say "Whelp, just play something else then!" People are. That isn't a good thing.

This is something that has been bugging me since forever, even way before I got into raiding and signifcantly improved on healer when I still clipped everything, just canceled casts to move or didn't plan ahead. The forced 2 healer comps. I just wish there was a way to tick a "Ready to solo heal, come at me!" box and I get to solo heal normal raids, trials and alliance raids. And I wish SE didn't force 2 healers by arbitrary "targets both healers" mechanics that screw you over big time if you don't fulfill the requirement.
2nd healer is often just a slot to be filled, not a necessary part of the party.
Many speedfarm parties run solo heal for Ex because it's laughably easy to solo heal them if they don't have such mechanics but savage has several of them, like the healer stacks on e9s/ e11s. No way to redirect those mechanics like on e5s with Chain Lightning with quick reaction. They're invisible until it's too late. You either have 2 healers, are insanely lucky or die. No wiggle room at all.
Savage bosses tend to be repetitive and boring once the party has a good grasp on mechanics, movement and mitigation but DF content and ex is ten times worse.

Lack of good downtime filler is fine if you have options. Like in SOLO I had a field day solo healing raids except for maybe 2 or 3 bosses where I needed a co heal. Downtime filler was boring (still better than here tbh) and healer dps was laughable but we had the option to let a healer go dps. WoW, SW:TOR etc. all did the same.
But really low healing requirements in casual content AND boring downtime filler AND fixed party comps is too much. At least one of that needs to go. Permanently.

[Lastelli]

Lack of good downtime filler is fine if you have options. Like in SOLO I had a field day solo healing raids except for maybe 2 or 3 bosses where I needed a co heal. Downtime filler was boring (still better than here tbh) and healer dps was laughable but we had the option to let a healer go dps. WoW, SW:TOR etc. all did the same.
But really low healing requirements in casual content AND boring downtime filler AND fixed party comps is too much. At least one of that needs to go. Permanently.

I completely agree, but the unfortunate reality is that allowing players to drop a healer by not forcing a 2 healers comp via encounter mechanics would automatically enforce soloheal ex farm parties and possibly even soloheal savage parties, at least for the first 2 turns. And we both know that SE will never allow that since their stance on the matter seems to be "bad healers must be protected at all costs".

[Boizinho]

so if Square Enix is worried about healers not focusing enough on healing despite not often needing to, why the inconsistent logic for tank jobs?

Probably because, at some point, one of the job designers played a tank. They have at least experienced a tank's opinion in their little bubble at some point in the last 8 years. The same can't be said for healers.

You know when there's a big birthday party for a bunch of kids and you have no clue what any of them like, so you take the safest, blandest possible option and just order a bunch of plain cheese pizzas? That's us. We're those kids. They at least know the tanks like pepperoni, but we get no toppings at all because we are complete strangers to them and they don't want to take any risks when their knowledge of what we want is literally zero.

Although by this point, it's worse than that. "We know some people have been asking for toppings for years now, but we plan to continue with the plain cheese pizza direction."