I'm gonna say it. cause no one else will.

[Acece]

Being able to fail and failing as a healer is one of the most important parts of learning how to be a good healer. If a healer never fails they will hold on to bad habits and never learn how to get better. Healers are the role that improves the most when they fail. If healers are not able to fail then how are they going to get better? I guess they could read a guide but I'm sure most of them won't.

[rewd]

If healing bores you, don't heal, and don't try to ruin things for players who are not bored.

Why please the entire playerbase if you can please just a portion of it, amirite?

[Drkdays]

Why please the entire playerbase if you can please just a portion of it, amirite?

More like why displease many to please a few.

[Saefinn]

And that's the core of why there is the available downtimes for healers in which they can add whatever dps they can without committing to a rotation and with the knowledge that even a simple dot and spam rotation helps; it's time that can also be spent catching up on healing.

Some narrow-minded healers seem to believe that this downtime exists just for casual healers who may struggle with healing and cannot be expected to be able divide their focus between catch up and bonus dps unless they are lucky and that it should be modified for more "advanced" healers so there are more options for those "pros" who watch Netflix or write books or check emails or whathaveyou during fights because they're bored, but it's little more than self-gratification.

Not every run will have downtime.
Sometimes the catch up will be harder.
Sometimes you'll have to rez someone.
Sometimes you'll have to sprint to safety, or pull someone else to safety.
Sometimes you'll be busy popping buffs, throwing aoe shields, using ethers, checking timers or typing.

The downtime dps is never guaranteed, no matter how pro a healer is because we play as a team and human error applies to the entire party and it's the entire party that a healer is responsible for keeping alive.

Claiming boredom with something that should be a healer's lowest priority and what has been declared a luxury by SE is unforgivable and annoying vanity.

Not every run will have big downtime. But a huge number of them do.
However, we have the tools to handle that downtime REGARDLESS of what we have available to us during our downtime.

If I have 20 healing spells and 2 DPS spells, then in those groups where downtime might be small then I have 20 healing spells I can use to deal with it.
If I have 20 healing spells and 8 DPS spells, then in those groups where downtime might be small then I still have 20 healing spells I can use to deal with it. My ability to deal with those situations has not changed.

In practice though, you're talking 70% downtime in a lot of scenarios.
Heck, I looked up my performance on runs people have recorded and whilst having a grey parse (like 5%) on my EX trial progression runs on there (Memoria Misera and Emerald Weapon) I still had 50-60% downtime. I'd look at Savage, but nobody has ever uploaded logs of runs I've been in. And I don't do much savage as a semi-casual.

But I don't think people not wanting to be bored playing the role they want to play is vanity. Believe it or not we just don't want to sit there spamming the same button over and over the majority of the time and there is no real reason to.

Either: up the healing priority by increasing the healing requirement to an engaging level on all content or make the downtime interesting. Those are the choices to make things engaging.

But if they up the healing priority then your low end healers are going to find healing less accessible. The devs don't want that to happen and it would be selfish to make healing inaccessible to low end players to satisfy our boredom, especially when there's an alternative solution.
If they improve the downtime with a secondary focus that is not required for 95% of the content, you're going to keep it accessible. Nothing about the healing aspect of the role needs to be touched. So no, it's not a vain solution, it's one that keeps it engaging without ruining anybody's healing experience.

And it kinda strikes me as odd that people keep downplaying healer DPS as a secondary unimportant thing because healers should heal, yet are opposed to making the DPS aspect more interesting because it 'makes things too complicated'.

The reality is, a person's healing focus is derived from the content and how the healing kit reacts to it. It has nothing to do with your DPS kit.

Being able to fail and failing as a healer is one of the most important parts of learning how to be a good healer. If a healer never fails they will hold on to bad habits and never learn how to get better. Healers are the role that improves the most when they fail. If healers are not able to fail then how are they going to get better? I guess they could read a guide but I'm sure most of them won't.

100% this. And this is a game designed so that you do learn by failing, this is why the hardest content in the game isn't just about how skilled a player is but how well they can learn from their mistakes.

And it's not just healer mistakes that cause wipes but sometimes the healer still gets the blame...and no credit when they save the party from the person who'd be causing a wipe. Using some examples:
- Crysallis -> Most wipes are caused by tanks or/and DPS
- Good King Moggle Mog -> Most wipes are caused by tanks or/and DPS
- Titania -> Most wipes are caused by DPS
- Ravana -> Most wipes are caused by tanks or/and DPS
- Angra -> Most wipes are caused by DPS

In the example of Titania, if I am healing then I end up doing all I can to keep my DPS up whilst keeping people from dying so we don't lose that DPS check.

I don't begrudge people making mistakes either and think it's part and parcel of the experience especially in DF. And even seasoned players make them. I guess it's when people don't learn from them that it's an issue.

[HyoMinPark]

And that's the core of why there is the available downtimes for healers in which they can add whatever dps they can without committing to a rotation and with the knowledge that even a simple dot and spam rotation helps; it's time that can also be spent catching up on healing.

Some narrow-minded healers seem to believe that this downtime exists just for casual healers who may struggle with healing and cannot be expected to be able divide their focus between catch up and bonus dps unless they are lucky and that it should be modified for more "advanced" healers so there are more options for those "pros" who watch Netflix or write books or check emails or whathaveyou during fights because they're bored, but it's little more than self-gratification.

The developers have gone on record saying that they do not want to increase healing uptime because they do not want to make things too hard on baby healers. Healer downtime most certainly exists — from Sastasha to Ultimate. This isn’t some construct “DPS-oriented healers” have created; it’s just simple fact. Even in runs where everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong, there will healing downtime.

“Catching up on healing” is not that difficult to do considering how overpowered healing is in this game, and how many tools each healer has. Some have more than others, true. But they can make recovering a run easy if they are even worth half of their salt. I said it in a previous post, but a lot of the shiny new tools healers got this expansion are overpowered and overkill for most content. When I pop them in runs purely because I want to overmitigate the everliving heck out of everything versus because said mitigation is actually necessary is telling. It may be fun as heck to pop every healing cooldown I have to overmitigate one mechanic because LMAO what else am I going to use them on—but it’s also depressing. Why can’t they actually be necessary? Right: because the developers want to cater to the lower end of the skill spectrum.

Even the hardest content in this game has more than 50% healing downtime for a healer that is playing it safe.

Not every run will have downtime.
Sometimes the catch up will be harder.
Sometimes you'll have to rez someone.
Sometimes you'll have to sprint to safety, or pull someone else to safety.
Sometimes you'll be busy popping buffs, throwing aoe shields, using ethers, checking timers or typing.

Every fight has downtime of some kind. To say that “not every run will have downtime” is disingenuous.

Catch up in most content isn’t that hard. The majority of fights in this game are easy wars of attrition where you don’t have to worry about enrage timers and can just throw bodies repeatedly at a boss until it dies. That said, all damage in encounters is scripted, and can be easily mapped out by any experienced healer. Or even one not as experienced but familiar with the fight. This includes when someone who shouldn’t take damage takes damage. If you know X melee-range AOE happens now, and you see the SAM just standing there not moving out of it, you can easily prepare to toss a heal and/or regen on them because they’re going to get hit. Even in that split second. And it will take a grand total of 2.5s at most. Then you have another 20~30s still of single-target nuke spamming.

Raising takes 8 seconds at most. Then you’re left with the time between when you raised and healed the person who died and the next “big” mechanic.

If you have any knowledge of a fight, you won’t really have to move to safety. You will be pre-positioning. Even if you don’t pre-position, running to safety takes a second to two at most. Certainly not any extended amount of time. Rescuing someone else to safety would, again, take a few seconds at most. And then you are left with downtime once again.

Buffs are all on a timer for the healers that have them. Chain Strat and Divination are all on 120-second timers. They take half a second to deploy and minimal thought. AST cards are all on 30-second intervals. You will not be spending a lot of time popping these buffs outside of your opener if you’re an AST. Most buffs are one button presses and done. Shields are always timed to line up with mechanics, which are scripted. If you know when they’re coming, you’ve already thrown up shields/mitigation and are back to dealing damage. Checking timers also only takes a couple seconds at most—and you can still be pressing buttons while checking timers.

The downtime dps is never guaranteed, no matter how pro a healer is because we play as a team and human error applies to the entire party and it's the entire party that a healer is responsible for keeping alive.

Except it is. Because even with people bumbling around in every way possible, these fights are still scripted; and always will be. It’s not that hard to keep an entire party alive in an 8-man or 24-man with just one healer worth half their salt. Even a paper tank. There have been very few instances in this game where I have been stuck doing nothing but healing. The only I can recall are tanks doing large pulls in dungeons but lacking the gear and/or mitigation for it. But in boss encounters? I’m spamming my single-target most of the time. Even in Ultimate. Even when playing it safe.

Claiming boredom with something that should be a healer's lowest priority and what has been declared a luxury by SE is unforgivable and annoying vanity.

Too bad healing in this game is also boring outside of the hardest content in the game. Good healers already have healing cooldowns and GCDs mapped for their fights. There’s very little variance in usage even when paired with another healer the same job as you. Big raid wide coming up in 10? Well, I have already planned to use Earthly Star for this—and I can even place it down in advance for it to detonate on its own without my input. Then I get to wait for the next one—which could be anywhere from a few seconds (rare) to upwards of a minute or longer. One of my biggest gripes of E7S was that I spent the first two minutes of the fight NOT HEALING AND DEALING DAMAGE when I cleared it. Because the only outgoing damage was taken care of by oGCDs, and then there was one buster. Which I had a PLD in my static, so they just pressed Hallowed and laughed at it. Riveting.

I’d rather get the runs where everything that could go wrong goes wrong. At least I get to use more than just a few skills in my arsenal then. It’s the primary reason I run healer in Extremes or when 24-mans release. Maybe I’ll finally be able to actually heal!

[rewd]

More like why displease many to please a few.

They are not mutually exclusive, even though you are unable to realize it. Among other things, I'd add.

[Dogempire]

More like why displease many to please a few.

It's almost as if making blanket changes to appeal to a subset of people at a certain skill level is bad, it's a good thing they've never done that with healers.... oh wait

[Dogempire]

BUT I'M NOT AT 100% AND YOU'RE SITTING THERE SMASHING GLARE! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS 100 HP OUT OF 40K HP THAT I'M MISSING?!

/s

Non-healers need to learn their HP total isn't their concern. If they want to help out with oGCDs, fine. By all means (But I hear you RDMs and PLDs smashing Vercure/Clemency. Stop. Do not. That's a waste of your GCD.) If I'm worried about HP totals, I will do something about it. If I'm not, then they shouldn't be concerned, either.

Tbf as much as I agree with you about the healing, I legitimately can't trust random people I don't know to keep me above a certain hp threshold, especially on a DPS job. If you drop low there's a 5% chance it's just a good healer doing their job and a 95% chance it's just a noob healer who isn't paying attention.

Most skilled healers nowadays are largely either people who heal only in savage/ultimate and play other things outside of it, skilled players who flex into it but don't consider it their main job (I.E. Legends and Necromancers,) or the very few who enjoy it and are actually good at it.

[Drkdays]

"But I don't think people not wanting to be bored playing the role they want to play is vanity."
"Too bad healing in this game is also boring outside of the hardest content in the game."
"It's almost as if making blanket changes to appeal to a subset of people at a certain skill level is bad, it's a good thing they've never done that with healers.... oh wait."

I get it. You have all said it repeatedly. You're bored with healing the way it is. That's a you problem. Not everyone feels the same way.

Stop trying to make healers more of a dps class because you DON'T SEEM TO CARE FOR HEALING ALL THAT MUCH AND WANT TO STEP AWAY FROM THE FUNDEMANTAL CORE OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HEALER, WHICH IS SIMPLY HEALING. Not everyone wants to kill the lore and turn healers into better murder-machines because some players can't hold still for a few seconds during a fight.

Again, more support options, sure. NO MORE DIPS for HEALERS, ty.

[Axxion]

"But I don't think people not wanting to be bored playing the role they want to play is vanity."
"Too bad healing in this game is also boring outside of the hardest content in the game."
"It's almost as if making blanket changes to appeal to a subset of people at a certain skill level is bad, it's a good thing they've never done that with healers.... oh wait."

I get it. You have all said it repeatedly. You're bored with healing the way it is. That's a you problem. Not everyone feels the same way.

Stop trying to make healers more of a dps class because you DON'T SEEM TO CARE FOR HEALING ALL THAT MUCH AND WANT TO STEP AWAY FROM THE FUNDEMANTAL CORE OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HEALER, WHICH IS SIMPLY HEALING. Not everyone wants to kill the lore and turn healers into better murder-machines because some players can't hold still for a few seconds during a fight.

Again, more support options, sure. NO MORE DIPS for HEALERS, ty.

It not more dps options it making it more interesting then it currently are. To keep you more engage then what they are now. I dont know where people keep getting more dps options from.