It's time to kill the argument that DPS abilities keep healers from healing.

[GrimGale]

Snip

"They will inevitably optimize Dps over healing."

How do you optimize healing over Dps? Is it making sure you cast more healing? You fit more healing spells? You make sure you get the most out of healing spells, minimizing overhealing? You ensure you use exactly the right healing spell at exactly the right moment?

What do you think the natural consequences of optimizing healing are?

You guessed it, free time. Turns out "healing as little as possible" and "not wasting any healing" are in practice, the same thing.

What should a healer with free time do in your view?

"Any DPS abilities will never be enough."

Did healers ever complain they had "not enough healing downtime buttons" back in Stormblood?
There is no DPS downtime. Damage is always usefull. The game has been designed around this fact.We had more dps abilities before, our dowtime was more varied and equally as prevalent. Removing our dps kits hasn't fixed any of the so called tunnel visioning or made healers "heal more".

Also, not sure why you go about "combos", 1-2-3 is barely more interesting that 1-1-1.
We don't want to deal more damage numerically, just have more skill variety during dowtime.

We asked for more "interesting" healing downtime, seeing how prevalent it becomes the moment a healer gets some gear and experience. It only gets more prevalent, not less.

As to healer's obsession with DPS, blame game design. There is no other useful avenue for contribution when healing is not needed. (And healing is not needed when the incomming damage isn't enough to kill a player, so you can imagine that happens a lot.)

Again, healers want to feel useful all the time. Like any DPS player or Tank, we want to feel like we're constantly contributing.

[Irenia]

We would heal more if, after keeping everyone alive, healing ended encounters quicker.

Wiping in a fight is terrible; wastes so much time of the clock. It feels so good to save a catastrophic run because that is a possible wipe avoided.

Dead players stop contributing to the fight, and this waste time. Even when they mess up, I will heal them, as long as they are trying - since that effort generally is rewarded.

Besides that, healing can't really affect the fight. Damage spells do, but the ones we have are boring. Alas, since we want to be useful, we press them out of obligation.

The drive to keep everyone alive and the drive to do DPS come from the same source, at the end of the day. DPS is not king. The clock is.

[Jadkay]

What do you think the natural consequences of optimizing healing are?

You guessed it, free time. Turns out "healing as little as possible" and "not wasting any healing" are in practice, the same thing.

To me, it's not the same thing :

Healing as less as possible can be done by any healer, because they have the choice to not healing at all as some people already doing in that game. As I stated before, because there are 2 healers in 8man content, some players decided to play healer to fill faster in queue, PF or whatever and just spamming 1 dot + 1 dps skill 99% of the time.

Optimising healing is paying attention to not overhealing, so you doesn't waste your mp for nothing but still have the priority to keep your party alive. DPS class doesn't really have issue with their mp but healers do.

In FF14, there are 3 things making people being wrong about what the healer role is :

1. numbers, that a lot of people care more than anything else even more than 'clear content' on some DC and by extension the website know by everyone because they just want to be #1 (and that pretty much being idiot because we all know the theory for healers to be top tiers numbers : almost not healing at all and letting the co-healer doing most of the job, so WHY playing healer in that case ?)
2. giving too many utilities skills to job that doesn't mean to be a support job
3. players who think that they need more dmg from the SUPPORT JOB to clear a content who lead to a paradoxe : why do you think you need healers dps to clear a content while they can only use 1 dot, 1 single target and 1 aoe skill ? (im not talking about those extra dps skill some healers have such as ED). Imo, if the game was meant to need the dps from EVERY JOB existing in it, they would all have big dps kit, no ?

Having 1 dot, 1 single target and 1 aoe skill dps on healers is meant to be able to do quest alone and fill the downtime when you don't need to heal your party but not to be a part of the dps job. I remember the time when we was just asking a healer to heal and people was happy to get a healer who was able to heal and simply help at dps the rest of the time. Now, I feel people want the healer to DPS as much as possible or they doesn't want it in party.

Ofc, this is my personnal opinion and I already know some people will eventually flame me for that.

[GrimGale]

To me, it's not the same thing

Not sure I understand what you said.

"Healing as less as possible can be done by any healer, because they have the choice to not healing at all."

Healing as little as possible means you keep your party alive and none of your healing is wasted. If someone dies, you haven't "healed as little as possible". Minimizing healing has the direct consequence of causing very little overhealing. Meaning your MP is not wasted. Your GCDs are not wasted.

There is a minimum amount of healing in any content: The unavoidable damage that would kill a player. Those healing requirements can go up the more player makes mistakes. Devs have designed 8 man content to require 2 healers in most of the cases. The fact that some healers decide to heal as less as possible and just DPS while their partner focuses on healing and still clear the content is NOT an argument against healer DPS, if anything, it makes evident that there is not enough incoming damage to warrant a second healer.

If anything having healers have so much downtime means the tuning of incomming damage is at fault. It's a design problem from the devs: The fault is not with healers who focus on DPS.

If there is an expectation for healers to DPS it's because game design accomodates such expectation- In any MMO, wether healing dowtime is prevalent or not, if you can chose between a Healer that can keep the party alive, and a Healer that can keep the party alive AND deal damage or contrubute to clear the content in any other way (CC, Buffs, Debuffs) you will always chose the one that can do both.

Throwing "But some healers let their party die to dps" at this argument doesn't work. Because those healers ARE NOT keeping their party alive. We agree that the bare minimum for the role of a healer is to heal their team.

You will clear a fight wether your party members stay at 50% HP during all the fight or 100% HP. Heck, the only HP that matters is the last one. When a healer player becomes more experienced, they can push the limits of their job in their content to make sure they maximize their contribution. As there is nothing else to maximize their contribution to the team beyond DPS that's what they focus on.

[Jadkay]

Devs have designed 8 man content to require 2 healers in most of the cases. The fact that some healers decide to heal as less as possible and just DPS while their partner focuses on healing and still clear the content is NOT an argument against healer DPS, if anything, it makes evident that there is not enough incoming damage to warrant a second healer.

Thats my point, if there is not incoming damage enough for a second healer, why playing healer ? Just make a 2T 1H & 5DPS party. The basic of the game is 2H but the game do not force you to do so. You can even go 8DPS if you want.

If anything having healers have so much downtime means the tuning of incomming damage is at fault. It's a design problem from the devs: The fault is not with healers who focus on DPS.

You will clear a fight wether your party members stay at 50% HP during all the fight or 100% HP. Heck, the only HP that matters is the last one. When a healer player becomes more experienced, they can push the limits of their job in their content to make sure they maximize their contribution. As there is nothing else to maximize their contribution to the team beyond DPS that's what they focus on.

And again, I will write the same, some healers players (me included) like to push to the limits, but the players is forcing all healers playing that way while the game doesn't meant to do it. And the simple fact that the new prohibited things they posted recently prove it : you can't force people playing the way you want but only suggest them. If some players want pro DPS healers, they need to make their own team and stop blaming healers in pf for the lack of DPS and the healer coming in pf for mainly DPSing and not doing their job purpose should also make their own team because that ruin the game experience of some others players.

So, in fact, the problem is not from the game design, but from the players who do not respect others because of the 'udonotpaymysub' meme.

[Sani2341]

Thats my point, if there is not incoming damage enough for a second healer, why playing healer ? Just make a 2T 1H & 5DPS party.

Would you mind showing me the DF setting that allows me to solo heal for my daily roulettes? because I am ususally forced to play with a second healer by the game.

[GrimGale]

I will write the same, some healers players (me included) like to push to the limits, but the players is forcing all healers playing that way while the game doesn't meant to do it. And the simple fact that the new prohibited things they posted recently prove it : you can't force people playing the way you want but only suggest them. If some players want pro DPS healers, they need to make their own team and stop blaming healers in pf for the lack of DPS and the healer coming in pf for mainly DPSing and not doing their job purpose should also make their own team because that ruin the game experience of some others players.

Doesn't change the fact that your DF dungeons for example still require a healer to queue. Glarebroil spam doesn't only happen in 8 mans.

Players cannot force Healers to focus on DPS, what are you talking about. They can chose not to play with you at worst. Just like if you're a bad DPS they can chose not to play with you, or if you're a bad Tank that doesn't take aggro.

Does that mean the devs should design ALL the Jobs to be stale? It's clear having less buttons doesn't make healers heal more. It only makes people that could juggle healing and DPS bored out of their minds!

If your issue is player behavior, you have now more than ever the tools to cull that behaviour. What the does that have to do with class design? The fact that DPS buttons exist doesn't mean you have to use them on a healer. Player expectation might be there but as you said your role is healer. The bare minimum is keeping people alive.

You can blame rudeness but you can't blame players for expecting more than the bare minimum!

[Sebazy]

Thats my point, if there is not incoming damage enough for a second healer, why playing healer ? Just make a 2T 1H & 5DPS party. The basic of the game is 2H but the game do not force you to do so. You can even go 8DPS if you want.

Not an option for DF content generally. Plenty of people do oddball group comps with statics and at best you'll sometimes see Primal farms and such pop up as solo heal. But that is the exception to the rule with many fights having healer specific mechanics that make a solo heal run problematic.

And again, I will write the same, some healers players (me included) like to push to the limits.

The only thing getting pushed to the limits in casual content is the paint on my Glare key.

Put the DPS thing aside for just a moment. This isn't about healers specifically wanting to sit there DPSing. It's about healers having some kind of involving gameplay in often multiple minutes we see between anything happening that affects us in the slightest in all levels of content. I suspect most of the people that are angry over this would be happy with just about anything that doesn't involve pressing the same button potentially 200+ times in a single fight.

, but the players is forcing all healers playing that way while the game doesn't meant to do it. And the simple fact that the new prohibited things they posted recently prove it : you can't force people playing the way you want but only suggest them.

Answer me this: Picture the scene.... You queue up for 24 man, you get a WHM co healer who maintains Medica II and blasts Cure IIs at anyone who gets so much as a scratch. They are overhealing everything which is absolutely fine, no issues there. Tell me, what do you do when you get a co-healer like this in a 24 man dungeon?

If some players want pro DPS healers, they need to make their own team and stop blaming healers in pf for the lack of DPS and the healer coming in pf for mainly DPSing and not doing their job purpose should also make their own team because that ruin the game experience of some others players.

So, in fact, the problem is not from the game design, but from the players who do not respect others because of the 'udonotpaymysub' meme.

Have you ever considered that the comically low expectations and demands on the healers in most content is perhaps the very reason we see so many borderline afk healers that are content to just auto follow and mash a singlular button? No other role can get away with that so readily in 8/24 man content. There is literally zero difficulty curve to end game healing until you hit Extremes and Savage. Casual full party content can be reliably 'cleared' and 'beaten' whilst face down for the entirety of it.

It's absolutely a design problem. People's bad attitudes are a result of the design that encourages and rewards such a terrible standard of play.

[GrimGale]

Not an option for DF content generally. Plenty of people do oddball group comps with statics and at best you'll sometimes see Primal farms and such pop up as solo heal. But that is the exception to the rule with many fights having healer specific mechanics that make a solo heal run problematic.



The only thing getting pushed to the limits in casual content is the paint on my Glare key.

Put the DPS thing aside for just a moment. This isn't about healers specifically wanting to sit there DPSing. It's about healers having some kind of involving gameplay in often multiple minutes we see between anything happening that affects us in the slightest in all levels of content. I suspect most of the people that are angry over this would be happy with just about anything that doesn't involve pressing the same button potentially 200+ times in a single fight.



Answer me this: Picture the scene.... You queue up for 24 man, you get a WHM co healer who maintains Medica II and blasts Cure IIs at anyone who gets so much as a scratch. They are overhealing everything which is absolutely fine, no issues there. Tell me, what do you do when you get a co-healer like this in a 24 man dungeon?



Have you ever considered that the comically low expectations and demands on the healers in most content is perhaps the very reason we see so many borderline afk healers that are content to just auto follow and mash a singlular button? No other role can get away with that so readily in 8/24 man content. There is literally zero difficulty curve to end game healing until you hit Extremes and Savage. Casual full party content can be reliably 'cleared' and 'beaten' whilst face down for the entirety of it.

It's absolutely a design problem. People's bad attitudes are a result of the design that encourages and rewards such a terrible standard of play.

You know, I'm going to withdraw from this conversation. You're doing a much better job at explaining the issue and countering arguments. And I am getting really tired of replying to the same arguments over and over again.
I just don't want you to feel like you're alone on this subject by not replying anymore.

[Sani2341]

Put the DPS thing aside for just a moment. This isn't about healers specifically wanting to sit there DPSing. It's about healers having some kind of involving gameplay in often multiple minutes we see between anything happening that affects us in the slightest in all levels of content. I suspect most of the people that are angry over this would be happy with just about anything that doesn't involve pressing the same button potentially 200+ times in a single fight.

This, so much this.
While more DPS variety is the 'easy' solution to the issue, especially as we had them before (miasma, aero 3, ...), anything that would bring any variety to the GCDs when no healing is necessary would be great.

Which is why I was so excited for when I first learned abotu Toxicon, gettign rewarded for basicly keeping up gcd shieldign sounded liek an interesting approach to this. (Granted then I learned about the numbers, and imho, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired with the media tour build)

More stuff like that, imho, would be just as welcome, if not more so if it manages to reward the use of GCD Heals. It is just much easier to go 'give us back what we had' over coming up with, proposing and clearly communicating a new type of downtime busy work.

EDIT:

Uh ? Don't think you understand anything in my answer. The game is not forcing you to play a specific job. My point was to show than if you are not going to do your job role, don't play that role. If you queue as healer in 8man daily roulette, you are supposed to heal. If you don't want to heal and still play healer, make a 8man party with your setup and queue for your daily, so you don't ruin others players experience by not healing and letting them die.

How do you go from 'please forgo searching another healer to group with me DF so I can Heal more' to 'I don't want to heal'? Because ime, there ususaly is not enough damage for two competent healers in normal mode content. Esp. if one of the two spams medica 2 the moment the tank goes to 99% HP.