Quote Originally Posted by HappyHubris View Post
This 100%. We're only complaining about having boring DPS rotations, because there is so little damage to heal.
While better encounter design that has signifcantly higher healing requirement sounds nice in theory and shouldn't be ignored, there is one huge problem with this: "higher healing requirement" is insanely dependent on skill level and in FFXIV the contrast between inexperienced, tooltip ignoring healers and vet healers is even bigger than in most other MMOs because of the scripted nature of fights they want to keep.
Vet healers know what timelines, scripted fights and mappings are, vet healers know that HP don't actually matter and all that counts is what the boss is going to do next and that there is no such thing as an "emergency tool" that should be held.
Inexperienced healers don't. They think the HP bar alone is the perfect indicator for how safe someone is, stack shields for good measure, they are still surprised by boss mechanics even if they've already seen them being cast at the exact time for the past 20 runs, they don't think of oGCDs as regular healing tools to counter boss mechanics but as emergency buttons they hold.

If the devs aim for 70% healing uptime for the average player, it would inch close to 90-100% for inexperienced or outright bad healers and therefor isn't an option because it leaves no room for mistakes in a party with an inexperienced or bad healer. But the somewhat above average player will spend signifcantly less than 70%, more like 40-50%, on healing, resulting in noticable downtime. And now come vet healers that turn that 70% healing uptime into something like 20-30%. If not less.

SE made very clear on multiple occasions over the years that they want newbie healers to easily get through content and that they refuse to put pressure on them. A non-pressured newbie healer is a bored-to-death above average healer, nevermind an actual vet healer. How much wiggle room does encounter design have for anything that makes healer gameplay more engaged if that's their stance?
People asked for it for years.
They've turned to asking for better dps rotation because SE never gave the slightest indication that it could happen. Ever.

No other class has such a gigantic gap in terms of engagement as healers do when looking at skill levels. A dps is engaging at all gameplay levels. A tank is somewhat engaging at all gameplay levels because they still have their proper dps rotation and melee uptime to worry about once they have mitigation and boss positioning down.
But healer is only engaging in either min ilvl early clears or extremely chaotic parties or leveling content with a severly undergeared tank for anyone that is past the newbie stage.
Healing is binary. You live or die. No inbetween.
Healing requirement is a fixed one. More healing doesn't help one you fulfilled it. And if you're good at fulfilling it, it's time to Glareficoil bot. A dps doesn't suddenly has ignore half their toolkit because they fulfilled the dps requirement. Outside of a few edge cases in Ultimate where you get trolled hard for too much dps, it's always a gain. But healing isn't.
Of course I'd prefer much higher and more randomized damage that keeps me on my toes. I want autos to hurt, I want encounter design to force me to also use my GCD heals every now and then in addition to my oGCDs. And I want it to be much, much earlier in a fight than Cycles, WL2, Terminal, Nugget stomps etc., so I won't be able to skip it, ever.
But SE made their stance very clear on that matter years ago and if anything they have doubled down on it. And even if their stance would be a different one, tailoring encounter design to higher healer engagement is difficult because of the huge healing uptime gap between healer players plus gear plays a huge role aswell.
What has been engaging first week is nose-picking content a few weeks later.