What if we stopped calling the green role healers?

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Heeeere we go agaaiin.

[BaconBits]

I can no longer tell the difference between people that are trolling and people that just are genuinely, entertainingly stupid any more and that scares me.

[Jonathan_Clover]

No, I'm saying it's ok to keep casting glare for 10% of the fight's duration. It's not 70% outside of the easiest content like dungeons.
I'm also saying SE should up the difficulty of content so healer's actually have to heal. Damage to the party should also be coming constantly, not only in waves, leaving big gaps where nobody gets damaged.

Hi there.

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/BkyN7...asts&source=86

The above is my best run of E5S when it was still semi-current. I did very poorly, but as you can see by my casts, DPS spells accounted for approximately 63% of my total actions(not counting Energy Drain because that's an oGCD.)

Please compare that to my 10 total combined casts of GCD heals. DPS spells are the most common thing you cast in fights, even in Savage, It's not just "lol EZ baby mode dungeons."

[Novae]

Tank dies, party wipes:

"WTF "support", why no heals?"

"Errr sorry but I'm no healer"

There you go. Enjoy your new "support" meta. I know "healer" is just a word, but it sets expectations. Support sets absolutely nothing. RDM is the perfect support, but most RDMs I see in DF don't even verraise. And you want people to play a support class as main healer? You want to see the world burn, don't you?

[BaconBits]

Tank dies, party wipes:

"WTF "support", why no heals?"

"Errr sorry but I'm no healer"

There you go. Enjoy your new "support" meta. I know "healer" is just a word, but it sets expectations. Support sets absolutely nothing. RDM is the perfect support, but most RDMs I see in DF don't even verraise. And you want people to play a support class as main healer? You want to see the world burn, don't you?

[MintnHoney]

skit

"WTF, 'healer,' why no heals?"

"I was spamming CURE, I'm reporting you for being a JERKFACE MEANIE WEENIE"

And then the tank is jailed forever, and the DPS die in real life.

I know "healer" is just a word, but it sets expectations. Support sets absolutely nothing.

In most settings, if someone is designated a support, they normally are viewed as someone who does what they can to guarantee success for whomever they're supporting. This usually includes healing, party enhancements, debuffing, sometimes tanking, sometimes providing dps.
So, yes, it sets expectations. I would say it even sets more accurate expectations, considering the role's current state of play.

Hell, we may as well rename the role to "Babysitter" at this point.

[ItMe]

No, I'm saying it's ok to keep casting glare for 10% of the fight's duration. It's not 70% outside of the easiest content like dungeons.

Can you please provide us with a log or a video of someone casting glare for only 10% of a fight's duration?

[Sebazy]

No, I'm saying it's ok to keep casting glare for 10% of the fight's duration. It's not 70% outside of the easiest content like dungeons.
I'm also saying SE should up the difficulty of content so healer's actually have to heal. Damage to the party should also be coming constantly, not only in waves, leaving big gaps where nobody gets damaged.

I completely agree with your point of view and I'd absolutely love to see more healing across the board. However I can't stress it enough, this isn't an issue specific to dungeons. Savage turns really aren't that different. The issue is that our kits are just far too powerful relative to anything the developers are willing or able to throw at us. SE have designed themselves into a corner here and it's going to take a radical rethink to get out of it. E12S shows that they can't simply keep throwing more AoEs at us IMHO.

Just to back up my point, here's a few examples for you, all are from when the fights were still current, are from either myself or my usual co-healer and all are examples from WHM. It's also worth noting that my numbers are not cherry pick examples. My damage is far from exceptional.

E8S - 65% of GCDs on Glare alone (77% of GCDs used for DPS overall)

E8S - 71% of GCDs on Glare alone (84% of GCDs used for DPS overall)

E10S - 72% of GCDs on Glare alone (84% of GCDs used for DPS overall)

E12S (arguably one of the hardest AoEing savage turns this side of Godka) - 65% of GCDs on Glare alone (79% of GCDs used for DPS overall)

Warrior of Light Extreme - 70% of GCDs on Glare alone (82% of GCDs used for DPS overall)

[Risvertasashi]

Tank dies, party wipes:

"WTF "support", why no heals?"

"Errr sorry but I'm no healer"

There you go. Enjoy your new "support" meta. I know "healer" is just a word, but it sets expectations. Support sets absolutely nothing. RDM is the perfect support, but most RDMs I see in DF don't even verraise. And you want people to play a support class as main healer? You want to see the world burn, don't you?

Personal attacks aside, I'll give this a serious response.

Right at this moment, there are 3 posts on the front page of a name-and-shame (well, they censor these days, but the spirit is the same) reddit group mocking and deriding of healers for using their healing spells. It's also a regular topic on the more mainstream reddit group.

This forum, as likely needs no introduction, has recently had such a thread and now a second one, and it's a long trend going back years and years and years.

More anecdotally, I've seen people rage pretty hard in relatively private in game chats (linkshells, FC, etc) at healers not playing to their liking, calling them leeches and hoping they can get them kicked, etc.

And I'm also part of discord servers themed around RPGs and Final Fantasy - the series, not 14 specifically - but of course, FF14 is one of the bigger names in both. It's not uncommon to see some newbie stepping into healing get bushwacked by the community, well before max level even. And a lot of the time it's not even "I'm a healer I should never have to DPS", it's that they're inexperienced and aren't DPSing enough to keep the community happy.

This is a real, ongoing problem, while your theoretical is... theoretical. Even if it happened a bit, it wouldn't be hard to improve the current situation.

And it could be improved just by setting expectations. (You can also argue that maybe people should be less a-holes to those that don't perfectly conform to their idealized playstyles, but changing human nature is much less practical).

[TaleraRistain]

We're called healers because our unique ability we bring to the table is being responsible for the health of the party and making sure they survive so they can do their central roles. It's like the old D&D joke that no one wanted to play the cleric so you'd end up with a team with no healing ability. If we were just Support, then you lose the distinction that party health is our responsibility and it becomes a free for all. Our usage of our healing abilities can be debated, but the ownership of that aspect of the group is why the name is important.