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

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

The solution is simple. Everyone gets one button. Dps get a dps button titled DPS, it does damage to everything. Tanks get a tank button titled tank, it just taunts over and over and over there's no damage only taunt. Healers get a heal button titled heal, it just does an aoe heal. There, now everyone sucks and we have true equality.

I know this is satirical, but given how they've treated this role for 6+ years I feel like they might actually do this at some point lol. Don't give them ideas!! ;_;

I have only recently begun to try out healing (my main is BLM). I really love it but I have to admit that I am not very good at it (will keep trying to get better though). It requires a focus of attention that is above and beyond what is required for a DPS. I was curious when I first encountered this thread, about why healers would want their jobs to be even more complex. I have begun to realize though, that very good healers might find certain activities a lot more trivial than I do. I am not quite sure what could be done to alleviate this, for lack of a better word, boredom, but I suspect that you, my seniors here in this thread, have likely put a great deal of thought into this issue. This is why I will continue to keep reading this thread to learn more about this. Thank you all for this thought provoking discussion.

It is a bittersweet journey indeed. Perhaps if you're interested you can give the Healer section of the forum some reading. It's flavorful.

Does it matter if you're healing nothing if casting that spell still gives you resource (MP) to use for attack?

What do you do when the 2nd boss of Void Ark is charging their ultimate attack (the one where you have to hide behind Irminsul) and they just straight up nullifies your attack? You can't attack Irminsul either, 'cause they're also invincible while charging said attack. Not even attacking the invincible Irminsul will count toward resource building (i.e. RDM's Black/White Mana).

Yeah. Nothing. That's how futile it feels. That's how useless it is---the overhealing. So yes, it matters.

[Aword3213]

It would remove the ability of healers to do the MSQ.

You can't heal mobs to death.

They can simply give offensive tools to healers in the form of Duty Action during solo duties, or they can make unique solo contents for healers to simply heal, like the ones in healer job quests.

Role Playing buff also completely changes our whole toolkit. They can do something like that to give us offensive options during solo duties.

One MMO I used to play have zero offensive options for healers, instead healers are given a toggle ability that completely remove the entire healing kit in exchange of some offensive spells. This toggle ability cannot be used during combat.

There are definitely ways for healers to progress MSQ without offensive tools in their healing kit.

[HyoMinPark]

They can simply give offensive tools to healers in the form of Duty Action during solo duties, or they can make unique solo contents for healers to simply heal, like the ones in healer job quests.

Role Playing buff also completely changes our whole toolkit. They can do something like that to give us offensive options during solo duties.

One MMO I used to play have zero offensive options for healers, instead healers are given a toggle ability that completely remove the entire healing kit in exchange of some offensive spells. This toggle ability cannot be used during combat.

There are definitely ways for healers to progress MSQ without offensive tools in their healing kit.

I thought healers couldn’t possibly get any worse. But after reading this, I was clearly wrong.

[Mimilu]

The point is, it has nothing to do with my proposal. That is a player issue.

Not when the designer designs it with so little forethought.
In a game where damage is the most important thing, making a system where a fourth of the party has to stop DPSing just to overheal to get MP is just nonsensical.
What do you have against healer DPS? You even try to do a roundabout way of getting rid of it when you suggested they give the party a damage buff, when they could just spend that time doing damage.

(I'm also curious as to why you switch characters, seeing as your last character had way more jobs leveled, including healers.)

[Mimilu]

They can simply give offensive tools to healers in the form of Duty Action during solo duties, or they can make unique solo contents for healers to simply heal, like the ones in healer job quests.

Role Playing buff also completely changes our whole toolkit. They can do something like that to give us offensive options during solo duties.

One MMO I used to play have zero offensive options for healers, instead healers are given a toggle ability that completely remove the entire healing kit in exchange of some offensive spells. This toggle ability cannot be used during combat.

There are definitely ways for healers to progress MSQ without offensive tools in their healing kit.

And what did that game do for healers when they had downtime but where stuck with their healing kit?
Was the encounter design in that game more scripted like XIV's or was it just random damage bursts?

[Deceptus]

Snip.

This is honestly the first step of becoming a better healer.

Learning that the only HP that ultimately matters is the last one. If people aren't dying you are doing your job correctly.

[OM3GA-Z3RO]

The problem that they put themselves in is that the fight it either too easy or too hard for the playerbase to tackle, they did not make a middle ground.
Dungeons do not have that sense of challenge and many mechanics even in 90 content can just be ignored (Looking at Hermes popping True Bravery and Tank or RDPS don't give a shit in stopping it), they need to add compulsive mechanics again so that people need to pay attention to, otherwise they wipe.

Telling people that if they want a challenge should just go do Ultimates is a real shit solution, especially since they catered to the players in not playing their best and making things so easy that they just groomed the playerbase to be content with the current difficulty. Ultimates don't even help because Healers end up just spamming their one button and pop a dot now and then anyway, they need to make more interactive mechanics and less of a DPS race in a "Who hits harder wins" scenario.

Not to mention the content drought that they bring out is becoming less and less every expansion.

[linayar]

non-contributing casts

...

ABC: Always Be Casting. Your GCD matters.

It's not pointless because it replenishes MP which gets you back to doing damage. So you are always casting with a purpose.

What is the point in that when every other damage button is an oGCD weave (with the sole exception of Technical Finish)

So there is an exception and there can be more such cases.

I think you need to educate yourself more on encounter design in this game; and how healers actually function before making anymore suggestions.

Encounter design can change moving forward, though I'm still not clear how my idea wouldn't work with the current design, and the point is to change how healers functions.

Then again, I'm fine with how healers work now. My idea is simply based on the complaints I see from the players as well as what the devs have said they have in mind for the role.

It's like dpsing an enemy that is invuln, has a crazy damage reduction or can't drop below 1% - people either randomly press buttons out of sheer boredom and fool around with "lookie lookie I'm a dagger mage NIN hehe" or they build up resources if their class has them or they just stand around doing nothing because they know perfectly well that it doesn't matter what they do.

The part in bold is exactly the point.

As a DPS main who dabbled in tanking, if doing my rotation is still doing something, I would still do it even if the boss is invuln, and building up resources is one such reasons.

Once you build up resources, there's no reason to keep healing, and the job design can adjust the time spend in each phase.

The point is not to heal no matter what, but to have a rotation for healer, and I'm pretty sure the devs don't want that rotation be solely on DPS, so the BLM approach is one way to incorporate healing into the rotation by having a flow between damage and healing/support.

What do you do when the 2nd boss of Void Ark is charging their ultimate attack (the one where you have to hide behind Irminsul) and they just straight up nullifies your attack? You can't attack Irminsul either, 'cause they're also invincible while charging said attack. Not even attacking the invincible Irminsul will count toward resource building (i.e. RDM's Black/White Mana).

Yeah. Nothing. That's how futile it feels. That's how useless it is---the overhealing. So yes, it matters.

Even if you can't build RDM resource in that situation, I don't see why you won't be able to build resource casting healing spells on your party members or even yourself. So I don't think the situation is comparable.

Not when the designer designs it with so little forethought.

Well, that's a bigger issue than my humble proposal can account for. Obviously that should be taken care of adequately in the background, though I don't see there needing too many changes. Some specifics would be helpful.

(I'm also curious as to why you switch characters, seeing as your last character had way more jobs leveled, including healers.)

New main (ugh, don't remind me I have some catching up to redo before 6.1.)

[Liam_Harper]

As a DPS main who dabbled in tanking, if doing my rotation is still doing something, I would still do it even if the boss is invuln, and building up resources is one such reasons.

How often does a boss go invuln?

To make a healer comparison, let's imagine bosses went invuln for 70-90% of most fights and therefore have tiny dps checks. While immune, the only button dps have is "Punch" which ignores invuln. Dps don't like that and ask for bosses to be vulnerable more often in encounters, so they can play their role more. The devs say "no, that would be too stressful for new dps". It would suck. That's what we go through.

Your solution would be that "Punch" costs lots of energy and you build energy by whacking away at the immune boss doing 0 damage. Doesn't sound fun. "But it's building a resource!"

It's such roundabout nonsense making convoluted compromises when we just want to get to play our role more. More damage to heal. Interesting buttons to press when we don't need to heal. It's so simple and frustrating that we can't have it.

[Banriikku]

I make it simple:
Healing more than necessary is pointless because the healing in FF14 is binary. DPS is the player behavior which is rewarded.
This means longer fights more mechanics or even enrage. Binary healing means you will get the same result on two people healing completly diffrent. One is healing non-stop (we assume for this example infinite mana and all targets are in range and no movement necessary) and one is healing 1 Hp above the incoming damage both have the same results. No diffrence. As a conclusion "healers should heal" will result in the removal of the need of any skill or more precise the removal of the "skill ceiling" and will result in 1 Button gameplay with the current encounter design but instead 1 button dps it will 1 button heal. Furthermore it will result in making the healers inferior to all other jobs and a player seeking success will avoid these jobs if possible. The only way to change this and dont "break" the healer job is to change the encounter desgin in its core. More healing mechanics that need solving but this will result in increasing the "skill ceiling" beyond all other jobs.

So what you are asking for is
1. Healers should heal but the encounters stay as they are = healers are inferior and you should not play it and if you play it - "no fun" for you
or
2. Healerchange+core change = Encounter will get way more difficult, particularly in the beginning when the changes are new and healing will be way more difficult

Please for the love of Zenos juicy backside - educate yourself on encounter and the class before you are making assumptions because what i read here is based on "i think it works like this" or "in my opinion it should work like this" and not what we actually have.