What if we stopped calling the green role healers?

[Sebazy]

This is an interesting topic, lets not derail it with the same old argument that's been done to death in just about every other thread.

Thanks

[Dyvid]

If you've been here long enough, you've seen it - the back and forth about healer DPS that's gone on for years and years and years.

And never stops. And never will.

I've introduced people to the game with no MMO experience, and so no expectations on what healers should be from other MMOs. But when I explain they spend 90%+ of their time DPSing, I get the questions you'd expect from older veterans: "Why are they called healers then?" "What if someone wants to heal?" etc etc

But I think that's a really good question. Why are they called healers?

So I'm going to make a radical suggestion. One that will probably never happen, but, hey, one can dream, right?

Let's rename the healer role to "hybrid" or "tactician" or something. I don't like "support" as much because I'd worry people would still expect too much healing with that term, but it'd be better than the status quo.

If SE correctly sets expectations, maybe we can finally put this ouroboros to rest.

It wouldn't help anything. The problem isn't what the role is called but rather how the Dev envision the Healer. The Devs and the community are at odds with one another in what they want in the Healer role. Devs want just a pure healer that is easy to play while the community is bored and wants some more to fill the gap between healing and healing.

Take any healer in the series and they have a healthy mix of healing and support spells (Berserk, Haste, Libra, Protect/Shell, Reflect/Blink, Confuse, Slow, Mini, Silence, etc..)

[Silver-Strider]

When more than half your skills are heals, what else are you gonna call the role?

Support? I'd argue RDM/SMN/BRD/DNC have the same, if not more, support options than Healers currently do.
Hybrid? Of what? Again, more than half of our skills are heals with at most 4 DPS related options and some utility sprinkled in. Same could be said of the 4 classes previously mentioned.
Tactician? How would that even make sense? You aren't being any more tactical than any other role. You planning out your heals is no different than a BLM planning on their ideal burial Leyline spot. The most tactical healer is probably SCH because that's literally its lore but I don't really see much else in terms of being a Tactician with healers.

Healers are 1 expansion away of being irrelevant given the number of support tools they constantly throw out to other classes that the only fitting name outside of Healers is Replaceable.

[Bobby66]

[Vivix]

It's so obvious and intuitive that even someone who never played mmos can tell that healers are supposed to heal. Yet this forum is so defensive of its healer dps

At what point will you admit that the devs will only allow you to heal so much? They are adamant about not increasing the need to heal so it's no surprise many healers want something to do when it's not needed.

[IckeDerTyp]

Healers have always done damage :c

[rewd]

It's so obvious and intuitive that even someone who never played mmos can tell that healers are supposed to heal. Yet this forum is so defensive of its healer dps

This is a Final Fantasy game first, then a MMO. Final Fantasy healers and damage go hand in hand.

[Recon1o6]

Unless a name change came with a change to the kits to make them better, I'm not sure I'd care

but support is probably best for a name change. Since it covers pretty everything thats not topping up health bars because the dps stood in the aoe again

[Risvertasashi]

~70% of your actions done are dps actions. You're a... oh wait

70% is lowballing it by quite a lot.

Then why isn't the idea to just keep calling them Green DPS?
Why try and popularize a strange new term that'll mean much the same thing?

The idea isn't be to popularize a new term. It would be to get the devs to change the official label.

Because as long as they're called "healers," it's going to create dissonance when people come in with the expectation that healers would or should spend most of their time healing or doing things other than damage.

While these forums, reddit, and so on get continually angry at healers that don't DPS (or just as commonly these days, don't DPS optimally/push their parse).

So, again, it's about correcting expectations via the role's official name. (And, yeah, I know it'll never happen realistically).

It wouldn't help anything. The problem isn't what the role is called but rather how the Dev envision the Healer. The Devs and the community are at odds with one another in what they want in the Healer role. Devs want just a pure healer that is easy to play while the community is bored and wants some more to fill the gap between healing and healing.

Take any healer in the series and they have a healthy mix of healing and support spells (Berserk, Haste, Libra, Protect/Shell, Reflect/Blink, Confuse, Slow, Mini, Silence, etc..)

Hm. Well first I'd say it's not just boredom driving it. But all that aside, maybe a relabel would help reconcile the devs with what they've actually designed, too.

[ThorneDynasty]

Can't pretend the game is designed so that healers anything else to do except DPS for the vast, vast majority of their time. Take it up to Square if you want them the overhaul the entire game to change that if you want.