Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[KizuyaKatogami]

because the design space for healers in this game is very narrow. they have 5 melee dps that are all good and manage to feel distinct from eachother. 4 tanks and they manage this as well, and even casters feel diverse and fun. phys ranged (the lowest common denominator dps job) is just a slider of "most to least utility" going brd -> dnc -> mch. as they've done in the past they could take a look at wow and how all of the healers there all manage to feel unique and different from eachother (restoration shaman, holy paladin, mistweaver monk, holy and discipline priest, restoration druid) they all manage to have their own unique playstyles compared to xiv healers which is mash your dps button + keep up dot

I think the problem with trying to use some of WoW's healer mechanics in this game is, and please someone correct me if im wrong because im only just recently starting wow, is that wow raids are designed in a way where healers are healing much much much more than they are in 14, along with the mechanics being more random and diverse.

[Yeol]

One thing that always comes to my mind is healers' responsibility. Healer death is far more punishing than tank/dps death. Hence why (I believe) they are trying to minimize job complexity in order to minimize the number of mistakes healers make.

In a perfect scenario, healers have the easiest job. However, anything other than perfect and healers have the heaviest weight to bear. They have to react fast to other people's mistakes (Including their co-healer mistakes) while keeping encounter mechanics in mind.

If you play with bad healers, your prog will be slow. 50% of wipes/deaths will be due to healers' mistakes. Healers are the ones fixing other peoples' mistakes and try to keep the pull going for as long as possible until it becomes unrecoverable. Can't do that when your healers are bad.

Still with all that said, I don't think healers should be this simple. I miss HW healers.

[KizuyaKatogami]

One thing that always comes to my mind is healers' responsibility. Healer death is far more punishing than tank/dps death. Hence why (I believe) they are trying to minimize job complexity in order to minimize the number of mistakes healers make.

In a perfect scenario, healers have the easiest job. However, anything other than perfect and healers have the heaviest weight to bear. They have to react fast to other people's mistakes (Including their co-healer mistakes) while keeping encounter mechanics in mind.

If you play with bad healers, your prog will be slow. 50% of wipes/deaths will be due to healers' mistakes. Healers are the ones fixing other peoples' mistakes and try to keep the pull going for as long as possible until it becomes unrecoverable. Can't do that when your healers are bad.

Still with all that said, I don't think healers should be this simple. I miss HW healers.

Here’s the thing with this line of thinking. In things like Savage or Ultimate, i’d argue the weight is equalized among everyone. Because for many many mechs in savage or ultimate, one person messes up you all die. Also especially now that tanks can basically solo dungeon bosses, that weight is also lifted from healer’s shoulders somewhat. You can argue a lot of this stuff for any other role, whether it be due to mechs or whatnot. You play with bad tanks your prog will be slow. They’ll not properly mitigate, die, then the rest of the party dies.

[Yeol]

Here’s the thing with this line of thinking. In things like Savage or Ultimate, i’d argue the weight is equalized among everyone. Because for many many mechs in savage or ultimate, one person messes up you all die. Also especially now that tanks can basically solo dungeon bosses, that weight is also lifted from healer’s shoulders somewhat. You can argue a lot of this stuff for any other role, whether it be due to mechs or whatnot. You play with bad tanks your prog will be slow. They’ll not properly mitigate, die, then the rest of the party dies.

Strongly disagree. Everyone has high responsibility yes, but they are not equal. The number of times where if a healer was late to a stack = wipe V.S when a dps is late to a stack. The healer can calculate that there will be 1 player missing and adjust their healing to save the run.

[Liam_Harper]

One thing that always comes to my mind is healers' responsibility. Healer death is far more punishing than tank/dps death. Hence why (I believe) they are trying to minimize job complexity in order to minimize the number of mistakes healers make.

I'd rather have healers in my groups that were there because they liked the responsibility of the role and wanted to do their best, than players who picked up the role because it's low responsibility and they can get away with the bare minimum and dying 10 times per fight. That's a big problem with healers lately, the quality has plummeted in random groups because it's designed for players who want a low effort job, instead of players who want to be good at what they do.

You have a co-heal and there are classes that can Raise, tanks have good self sustain and even dps have a few heals. A healer death isn't an instant wipe. You could even give healers Auto-Life on a long cooldown so they can afford a few slip ups if it meant making the role engaging again.

[AnotherPerson]

Strongly disagree. Everyone has high responsibility yes, but they are not equal. The number of times where if a healer was late to a stack = wipe V.S when a dps is late to a stack. The healer can calculate that there will be 1 player missing and adjust their healing to save the run.

A stack is a mechanic that shares responsibility between all players. That's not a healer-only mechanic. Anyone who doesn't get to the stack has made a mistake. Anyone who doesn't help with mitigating the damage from the stack marker (Casters with addle, melee DPS with feint, ranged DPS with Tactician/Shield Samba/Troubadour, and tanks with AoE mitigation/reprisal) and believes it's a healer-only mechanic is already playing incorrectly because they're just funneling their workload over to the healer. That's not a healer issue, that's a party issue and an expectation that healers are the only one that react to incoming damage. Yes, tank and healers primarily share the bulk of the mitigation and healing, but the weight of the responsibility is equal to all players to adjust to a stack marker.

The number of times in Endwalker where a healer dies in casual content really no longer matters. I had healers die at 90% on endwalker dungeon bosses and everyone basically killed the boss without them because of how much healing the tanks can output now. Not to mention, there's also raises & lots more healing / mitigation utility from the DPS jobs now. Content in where stacks are more lethal are generally in a trial or raid - where there is a co-healer supporting the targeted healer in case one fails. The responsibility becomes shared between all members and there's a safety net for the unmarked healer.

[IDontPetLalas]

One thing that always comes to my mind is healers' responsibility. Healer death is far more punishing than tank/dps death. Hence why (I believe) they are trying to minimize job complexity in order to minimize the number of mistakes healers make.

In a perfect scenario, healers have the easiest job. However, anything other than perfect and healers have the heaviest weight to bear. They have to react fast to other people's mistakes (Including their co-healer mistakes) while keeping encounter mechanics in mind.

If you play with bad healers, your prog will be slow. 50% of wipes/deaths will be due to healers' mistakes. Healers are the ones fixing other peoples' mistakes and try to keep the pull going for as long as possible until it becomes unrecoverable. Can't do that when your healers are bad.

Still with all that said, I don't think healers should be this simple. I miss HW healers.

With all due respect, this is BS.

Here's a few examples of the top of my head:

A healer may have a co-healer- so a healer death may be a temporary glitch
A healer dies and the party includes a DPS with a raise - healer can get back up (not always, but it is possible)
a healer dies, tank and the party continues on their merry way - depending upon the dungeon, entirely possible

Tank dies, depending on the dungeon, group continues at a much slower pace

Further, much of what you said isn't even realistic. Healers can 'fix other people's mistakes" however only up until a certain point. If someone insists upon collecting too many stacks, they will die. I could also point to DR, if someone goes into that with the attitude that healers will fix their mistakes- it doesn't work that way- miss 2 avoidable mechanics (in normal mode) and you die.

Finally, throwing out that '50% of wipes deaths are due to healer mistakes" - where did you get that from? Because if it can't be backed up it doesn't really help your argument, and that is what got healers into this position.

[Yeol]

It assumes I was not clear with my post. I’m mainly talking about Savage and Ultimate content. So any dungeon/trial examples don’t work on what I said.

When progging a harder fight, healers have to keep the fight going for as long as possible to see more mechanics. And I always go with the mentality that it is recoverable until we try everything and can’t go any further. This is easier said than done.

I clearly said, that if you have bad healers prepare for 50% of your wipes to be due to healer mistakes. Not that 50% of wipes are caused by all kind of healers.

Example: Healing too early or too late. This easily causes wipes in high end content. And plenty of them.

[ForteNightshade]

Strongly disagree. Everyone has high responsibility yes, but they are not equal. The number of times where if a healer was late to a stack = wipe V.S when a dps is late to a stack. The healer can calculate that there will be 1 player missing and adjust their healing to save the run.

You are vastly overstating the importance of healers. I'll use P3S for example sake. During adds, tanks can survive the big birds provided they have enough CDs going in, especially Warrior. At worst, they can invuln and the group adjust accordingly for Flames of Asphodelos later. It's a tall order but entirely doable. If a tank dies, the run is all but over. While melee can tank those same birds, they take significantly more damage. And this assumes they're even able to get aggro in the first place since if the other tank is second, it's ridiculously hard to pull off them.

Likewise, during Fountain of Fire, a tank can, theoretically, disengage and take the towers themselves should a healer die. They don't even take half their HP bar and something like Equilibrium heals for 150k. Healers, on the other hand, can't, as once they have the tower debuff, they won't be able to bait a bird.

Now to be fair, in both these scenarios it's far more likely to cause a wipe regardless of who dies. Even a DPS loss can snowball with adds, though that's largely because everyone holds back on them. Nevertheless, the point still stands healers are not nearly as invaluable as you're insinuating. It largely depends on the fight and mechanic. In general, healers do keep the fight going for longer but that responsibility isn't nearly enough to justify how pathetically lacking their kit is. Nor are they miles ahead in this capacity.

[Liam_Harper]

It assumes I was not clear with my post. I’m mainly talking about Savage and Ultimate content. So any dungeon/trial examples don’t work on what I said.

If you're doing Savage or Ultimate content, you should generally be the sort of player who enjoys a challenge. For example, as a healer when I go into Savage I secretly hope the fight churns out damage and puts me to the test. Those fights are the most fun.

I don't see the point of making healer 1 button so that they don't feel stressed by having things to do, in what's meant to be content that you run because you want a challenge. It encourages the wrong type of player and mindset. It's the reason you see so many Medica II spamming 50% uptime healbots in Savage PF. They're just there for an easy ticket.

You are vastly overstating the importance of healers.

Agreed. Mechanics in Savage that can wipe a group tend to be group responsibility. A healer dying outside of mechanics is easy recovery. One co-heal can easily Swift Raise and keep the group healthy for a few seconds.

If anyone messes up Intemperance, you probably all die. Same for Fourfold. Same for Channeling Overflow. Same for Numbers. Anyone missing from stacks can kill that group. On p3 tanks dying is far worse, due to adds going wild on add phase or the double autos. In harder content everyone has responsibility.