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

[MellowMink]

Healers are literally meant to heal , idk why people want to DPS so much on them. If you want to DPS why not just play a DPS?.

How many times is this question going to be asked and the responses ignored?

The problem with the current gameplay implementation is that significant portions of many fights don't require active healing; whether that lines up with the director's personal philosophy or subjective playstyle on what he wishes was the case is irrelevant here when we're talking about the actual implementation. As such, since it's inefficient to only heal papercuts or outright stand around while doing nothing at all, your only other way to really contribute meaningfully to the fight is to add toward total damage during those downtime periods, and the director himself has noted that said periods get longer in length as gear levels increase; this is something that he's gone on record as being aware of but hasn't been able to fix it with his personal ideas alone.

And if said attack contributions are extremely limited and repetitive in comparison to other jobs in the games, to such a boring degree that it's actually rather insulting to the player's intelligence, then that's a major problem that shouldn't be completely ignored. Limiting DPS action variety does not limit the amount of total downtime for healers.

Also, even if the developers were somehow able to improve healing checks for all content across the entire set of base game and past expansion instances as well, always forcing minimum item level requirements and managing to redesign all older fights on an individual basis, that fundamentally will never be able to fully address repetition within single-player content such as Main Scenario quests; healers either need to avoid playing as their role in order to have fun with said content, or they have to remain bored because of some irrational fear that a small number of level 80 (soon to be level 90) healers have that adding a few more optional DPS actions will somehow cause them to completely shut down and refuse to practice optimization despite being at max level.

Forgive me if I sound annoyed at this point, but I've been repeating myself a lot lately.

[Tokisaki_Kurumi]

Correct. There are no true healers in this game with the current design (or even healers who can dps though sage will be the exception); only dpsers who have healing abilities.. It is why people use the slang blue and green dps.

The downtime is the killer. The reality is that due to the bursty nature of damage; not much healing is needed.

I won't necessary say more dps options are the answer but if they don't want to or can't make healing more meaningful, then other avenues should be explored. More things along the lines of AST Cards.

[Liam_Harper]

Healers are literally meant to heal , idk why people want to DPS so much on them. If you want to DPS why not just play a DPS? It's still so confusing to me why someone plays a healer just to focus on DPSing the entire time.

"Healers are literally meant to support the team, idk why people only want to do half the amount of support on them. If you only want to do one thing on a class, why not just play a DPS? It's still so confusing to me why someone plays a healer just to do nothing half the time".

Seriously. If you only want to heal on a healer, roll a dps. You're not being useful. Leave healing to the players who can heal AND contribute to killing the boss faster.

[Payadopa]

I don't get the mentality that healers should be immune from failure. It just strikes me as people expecting healers to be nothing more than pocket heal slaves, their own gameplay and enjoyment be damned.

Not sure what you mean, honestly. I enjoy a good fight/struggle. I do everything min ilvl with no echo. And I also main AST. That is where the gameplay actually shines in this game. The rest is very disappointing minus the story and pretty particles. And the DPS mindset has brought a good chunk of this about. More to do would be nice, sure. But this whole deeps thing is getting old. There has to be more to make the combat more interesting. Buffing seems like a good start. Certainly works for AST.

[Sebazy]

Not sure what you mean, honestly. I enjoy a good fight/struggle. I do everything min ilvl with no echo. And I also main AST. That is where the gameplay actually shines in this game. The rest is very disappointing minus the story and pretty particles. And the DPS mindset has brought a good chunk of this about. More to do would be nice, sure. But this whole deeps thing is getting old. There has to be more to make the combat more interesting. Buffing seems like a good start. Certainly works for AST.

Playing content in that manner isn't really the norm unfortunately, nor is it something that's even easily done without gathering up a likeminded group first either. I'm 100% in agreement with progression gameplay being the best time to be a healer though. Very little else matches the thrill and pressure of that.

Again, I don't think it's really fair or productive to blame the DPS mindset and leave it at that though. Rather it's important to look at why DPS is seemingly the only metric that matters anymore.

Big +1 on buff thing. I've said it elsewhere, AST should be able to spend GCDs on buffs. It solves so many issues. Flat 1 charge potency procs to stop it all numerically inflating over the course of an expansion. Pls Yoshida =(

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I mean I've watched WHM almost completely ignore healing just to get as many glares in as possible. Which, is great and all but if the fight requires both healers and only one is doing all the work, that gets pretty annoying. Healers are literally meant to heal , idk why people want to DPS so much on them. If you want to DPS why not just play a DPS? It's still so confusing to me why someone plays a healer just to focus on DPSing the entire time.

Do you ever... ever try to communicate? It's a hard concept, I know. But it can work...

Besides, what do you do if the encounter doesn't demand so much healing? /beesknees until something happens?

Oh wait no, there's something else better to do: spam Cure I to fish Freecure proc.

[Shurrikhan]

Not sure what you mean, honestly. I enjoy a good fight/struggle. I do everything min ilvl with no echo. And I also main AST. That is where the gameplay actually shines in this game. The rest is very disappointing minus the story and pretty particles. And the DPS mindset has brought a good chunk of this about. More to do would be nice, sure. But this whole deeps thing is getting old. There has to be more to make the combat more interesting. Buffing seems like a good start. Certainly works for AST.

I wish doing things at min ilvl was a mainstream option. Give us proportionately more reward, including the first clear bonus, based on the ilvl synced down, and have the two options (iLvl Synced | Normal) right there, side by side, as check boxes on the same row as the content, with the ability to even queue for both forms for a particular dungeon (taking whichever pops first). Between the reward being more proportionate to effort / time taken and the feature being made convenient, we might finally have content that feels like content.

That said, recently duoing all old dungeons at minimum item level was even then kind of painfully easy for any dungeon without a hard dps check (and half of those, even then), just due to how overbuffed tanks have become...

[Raminax]

Snippety snip.

Obviously, only Sebazy can speak for themselves, but I believe what they meant with "healers should be immune from failure" is that their gameplay is more or less intentionally designed to be difficult to fail at.

Healing requirements can't be too high, because that would make healers maybe struggle, and that would make them sad.

DPS can't become necessary in everyday gameplay, because then healers might mess up balancing damage and healing, and that would make them sad.

Managing resources in the form of gauges or self-buffs can't be too complex either, because then healers might get overwhelmed, and that would make them sad.

And so on. It all feels very childproof and that Squeenix, plus the community, seem to think the average healer are morons that can't handle any form of pressure, complexity or depth. Which is well, actually sad. Sorta limits design space.

[Payadopa]

Obviously, only Sebazy can speak for themselves, but I believe what they meant with "healers should be immune from failure" is that their gameplay is more or less intentionally designed to be difficult to fail at.

Healing requirements can't be too high, because that would make healers maybe struggle, and that would make them sad.

DPS can't become necessary in everyday gameplay, because then healers might mess up balancing damage and healing, and that would make them sad.

Managing resources in the form of gauges or self-buffs can't be too complex either, because then healers might get overwhelmed, and that would make them sad.

And so on. It all feels very childproof and that Squeenix, plus the community, seem to think the average healer are morons that can't handle any form of pressure, complexity or depth. Which is well, actually sad. Sorta limits design space.

Yeah, I see it the same way. That's why I am for options. Not everyone wants to prog T13 min ilvl/no echo as healer and throw themselves at it for the better part of a week. But for some reason you either have painfully easy (even min ilvl dungeons are, sadly) or excruciatingly difficult (at least at first).

I wish we would finally get a min ilvl/roulette (as yet another option, just like MSQ roulette) and the incentives increased. More EXP, more drops, whatever. I have a Dark Souls mindset if you will, so struggling with/overcoming an obstacle IS my reward but that's not true for the majority I believe.

[Payadopa]

Playing content in that manner isn't really the norm unfortunately, nor is it something that's even easily done without gathering up a likeminded group first either. I'm 100% in agreement with progression gameplay being the best time to be a healer though. Very little else matches the thrill and pressure of that.

Again, I don't think it's really fair or productive to blame the DPS mindset and leave it at that though. Rather it's important to look at why DPS is seemingly the only metric that matters anymore.

Big +1 on buff thing. I've said it elsewhere, AST should be able to spend GCDs on buffs. It solves so many issues. Flat 1 charge potency procs to stop it all numerically inflating over the course of an expansion. Pls Yoshida =(

I agree with what you said about the DPS mindset. The gameplay needs to accommodate non DPS abilities otherwise why use them? The SCH speed buff is at least something considering the current design (still a bit meh lol). But then there is the whole DPS loss talk where I, frankly, just bow out of a discussion. I'm not sure if it's true anymore but I remember a party member saying that the SAM back jump is a DPS loss or something (not too sure lol)and I was like "but it feels good to use, so I will continue using it."
Game feel is equally important, if not more, than raw numbers. But that skill is still in the game.

What about the other skills that were deemed too niche or impractical and were removed?
What about the old AST card system? Was it unreliable in the truest sense of the word? Yes. Was it satisfying to play your cards right (pun very much intended, sorry lol)? You bet. But no. Not enough DPS, so it gets shafted.

Also, I'm not a SCH main so maybe I'm wrong but what happened to Selene? Wasn't she deemed inferior and then removed?

What about Fluid Aura? Yes, a very lacking spell but at least the bind effect was sometimes useful in the overworld (in the rare instances where you actually feel threatened).

I get why stuff gets removed but don't you think the game becomes more and more shallow as a result? I certainly think so. I actually like talent trees, different skill sets and the like. XIV isn't like that and that's alright. But ever since 5.0 the game resembles more a spread sheet to map out damage. And IMHO the community only has themselves to blame.

Heck, 6.0 brings back a modicum of diversity, like Lord and Lady for AST and people immediately moan about it here. A typical careful what you wish scenario. I'd rather have the illusion of choice than no choice. But that's just me.