The idea that we need to DPS must go.

[Ariel_Valmont]

We should focus our raid performance on not overhealing and ensuring that we are able to keep our comrades alive throughout encounters. In doing so, we are bolstering community performance and promoting the dev team's ideals of pure healing. I believe this will increase communication and cohesion of the three roles.

Go play the original Final fantasy, even in that one WHM does dps, otherwise you’re literally doing nothing with it until it needs to heal, and it’s not exclusive to the original, there’s always going to be down time, stand around and do nothing and be worthless if it makes you feel better.

[Ariel_Valmont]

What's important to remember is in WoW if a group starts overgearing or learning a fight, they can actually drop healers. Some Mythic kills in the past were done with 1 healer in a 20 man group. Not only do they have more damage to heal, but they can be flexible with the number of healers they bring depending on how much healing is needed. And even then, good healers in WoW will dps where possible.

In FF14 we're stuck with a very rigid 2 healers per 8 players. 25% of the group must be healers at all times, regardless of skill, experience, gear or group mitigation. The devs are never going to change this, which is why you're exactly right. Dps as a healer will always be a thing in this game and if they aren't going to remake the entire combat system, they should instead focus on making that dps fun instead of pretending something they created doesn't exist.

Not sure where you’ve been, but I’ve been in plenty solo heal parties, not every fight allows for it, but at a certain point there are plenty.

[RinaShinomiya]

Not sure where you’ve been, but I’ve been in plenty solo heal parties, not every fight allows for it, but at a certain point there are plenty.

i think their point is more that WoW had fights with 1 healer in a 20 man group rather than that you can't do non 2 healer 8 man groups in FFXIV. You definitely can but that's beside the point.

[ty_taurus]

Not sure where you’ve been, but I’ve been in plenty solo heal parties, not every fight allows for it, but at a certain point there are plenty.

I'd say most fights in the game can be solo-healed, and of the ones that can't, in many cases it's because there's a specific mechanic that targets healers and you want that consistency to be able to handle that mechanic, not because you need their healing.

[Rilifane]

This is incorrect. Week 1 (and week 2 for that matter) raid groups WOULD NOT be able to clear without Healers contributing damage the ENTIRE encounter. The Devs constantly make contradictory statements saying "encounters don't factor in Healer DPS". That's clearly false.

I think the people that blindly quote Yoshi-P on this or genuinly believe healer dps isn't necessary never did any actual math for the dps checks of the various bosses and completely ignore the time and context this was stated.

"Yoshida: Yes. Since all DPS jobs will be increasing up through level 60, it makes sense to have the white mage's DPS extend by a proportional amount as well. For development, such as with Bahamut's Coils, the development team assumes what the item level should be for general equipment on players when they clear a raid. They sum up the basic DPS for four DPS and tanks at that assumed item level and cut that by about 10-15% for the minimum clear DPS. Healer DPS is not taken into account when this is set.
Certainly for people who are at world's first level, their goal is to clear it at as low an item level as possible, lower than the one assumed during development. So if you look at the fight and figure out that if it's not numerically possible to clear with four DPS and tanks, you'll need to make up the gap with DPS from healers."

This quote is from HW release. That was 7 years ago.
They didn't factor in buff food or potions ("basic DPS") but they did go from an optimal rotation and cut down 10-15% - meaning all players would need to perform at pretty high level to clear without healer dps when wearing gear that is not min ilvl (last tier BiS) but rather crafted/ normal raid gear.
He even admitted that people doing world first/ first week will need healer dps because the ilvl assumed during development is higher than what you'd have this early into a tier.

It has been proven again and again that some fights, like E8s were impossible to clear without healer dps even above min ilvl but this is dismissed because of a single quote from 7 years ago. They could add the dps of the highest performing classes (ignoring that they wouldn't deliver that kind of dps in this hypothetical comp) at 99 percentile and still not meet the dps check.
Healer dps isn't just a nice little bonus or optional. It's time to let this idea and this quote from expansions ago go.
Even if that quote was true for HW, we're long past that era and the raiding scene and boss design has evolved.

Not sure where you’ve been, but I’ve been in plenty solo heal parties, not every fight allows for it, but at a certain point there are plenty.

Solo heal parties are not the norm and you usually only see them for quick Ex farm. In WoW it's completely normal to ditch a healer for another DPS the moment the healer squad gets bored and starts sniping each other and it's possible because they party comp is completely flexible.
A premade can go solo heal on some fights, but as you said: not all of them and it usually has nothing to do with the healing requirement and more with healer specific mechanics requiring 2 of them. No matter how bored they are. It's a non-standard comp and not possible if you queue via DF as they do on JP.
This is miles away from the standard practice of progressively ditching more healers as they start outgearing content and a flexible party comp as in WoW.

[IttyBitty]

snipping good points

The most important part of the Yoshi quote, that everybody seems to forget and gloss over, is "the development team assumes what the item level should be for general equipment on players when they clear a raid."

The item level they assume is higher than min ilevel available when Savage releases, and is almost assuredly higher than even the max ilevel available when the savage patch drops. If you refuse to contribute as a healer, thus expecting everybody else to perform their roles *perfectly* while still learning the fight's flow, you're just incredibly selfish.

[Hellebore_Ghrian]

Everyone should also remember that in the HW era, accuracy still existed.

Because of accuracy, healers could not contribute to the group dps as much as they do today since their skills could miss their target.

So a 7 year old quote from HW is completely irrelevant when talking about today's game design where accuracy is only a distant memory and the demand for healing has been greatly lowered.

That has nothing to do with ilvl requirement.

[YusiKha]

Not only that, but the quote was immediately followed by Gordias, which was so poorly tuned to group DPS that it is the origin point for the current ‘healers must dps as much as possible too so we can clear’ attitude.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

So long as the healing requirements of the content we are provided can be covered almost entirely with off-GCD heals, then you will be expected to dps. What else are you going to do? Sit there and do nothing?

Obviously fishing for freecure/enhanced benefic or /beesknees.

[Saefinn]

And the thing with YoshiP's statements is that they don't always align with how people play or what people's experiences are. I love YoshiP, but he is the man who said that he's proud of what they've done to MNK and recommended people play it when nothing was done (at the time) to address the problems with MNK and people hated it. He also said MCH was fine before the rework and so on. I think there is some disparity between player and devs on certain design aspect, but giving some kudos, they normally eventually listen, like we've got a MNK rework and a MCH rework. It may be how they interpret/measure/judge feedback that's flawed.

So with his statement on not doing more with healer DPS I hope it can be eroded, because I expect the devs are facing the great challenge keeping healing accessible to lower skilled healers and healing engaging to experienced healers and realise we've presented them with a fairly straight forward solution that respects the game's design and has existed in RPG's as a solution since the beginning...and existed in this game at the beginning. And we've given a tonne of ways they could make it works whilst respecting the current job direction.

And I think to be fair, healer DPS has always been intentional, just it seems they think they've balanced Savage content to not be healer DPS dependent and seem to think the healing requirement is higher than it is...at least after a certain skill level or experience.
And there's the big issue of the disparity between 2 design philosophies:
- Healing kits that favour healing over DPS, where it is engaging if incoming damage is frequent, because you use your full kit.
- Scripted encounter designs that favour DPS over healing, where unavoidable damage is infrequent and mitigated as gear improves.