Has anyone quit healing?

[Risvertasashi]

I actually want to try healing in Savage, P4S in particular seem'd quite hard on healers it looked fun to me.
Imo healing in most content tho gets old very fast, too little healing and too much 1 spam.

Then again if you make it as hectic as it is in P4S you alienate too many, I lost count how many times we wiped at the end of P1 because healers couldn't keep up with the raid-wide aoe or in P2 for the same reason.
There has to be an inbetween tho, I don't think that casual content should be completely braindead.
There is such a thing as so easy that it's no longer engaging, casual content should still be engaging otherwise it's probably not fun gameplay.

So this comes back to the fundamental design philosophy of FF14: That damage is predictable. So, yes, stack on enough of it in p3s and p4s and it can be challenging in a certain sense. But it really comes down to just plotting CDs on a spreadsheet, or just doing the equivalent mentally. At 30s we use this, and 1:00 we use that, then for that really big hit at 2:00 we use this and that...

But this sort of design is why even in ultimates, healers spend the vast majority of their GCDs pushing one button.

And, yes, as another side effect, "casual"/mainline content then becomes completely braindead if the healer has even the faintest idea of what they're doing. (And making tanks self sufficient takes away even the little bit of maintenance heals you might have to do).

I wasn't originally in favor of upping the complexity of healer DPS because I'd rather be healing and have encounter design changed to facilitate that; but after years and years of asking it ain't happening so I'd take any gameplay that isn't hitting one button for the vast majority of GCDs. Except that isn't happening either so...

Well, here we are.

[elioaiko]

So this comes back to the fundamental design philosophy of FF14: That damage is predictable. So, yes, stack on enough of it in p3s and p4s and it can be challenging in a certain sense. But it really comes down to just plotting CDs on a spreadsheet, or just doing the equivalent mentally. At 30s we use this, and 1:00 we use that, then for that really big hit at 2:00 we use this and that...

But this sort of design is why even in ultimates, healers spend the vast majority of their GCDs pushing one button.

And, yes, as another side effect, "casual"/mainline content then becomes completely braindead if the healer has even the faintest idea of what they're doing. (And making tanks self sufficient takes away even the little bit of maintenance heals you might have to do).

I wasn't originally in favor of upping the complexity of healer DPS because I'd rather be healing and have encounter design changed to facilitate that; but after years and years of asking it ain't happening so I'd take any gameplay that isn't hitting one button for the vast majority of GCDs. Except that isn't happening either so...

Well, here we are.

This! I'm not asking for a full-on dps rotation but something that correlates to how healers are designed. If healers are supposed to be minimal healing and maximize uptime, then at least make the dps part feel....like it means something. The sheer fact that they have all healers with a baseline spam, dot, nuke is pretty telling.

I've noticed that for EW they're putting new abilities behind buffs (Devilment - Starfall Dance, SAM's Ikishoten, etc). They could easily do this with Chain, Astrodyne, Presence of Mind, Addersting procs.

I get they don't want to make a full combo but I feel like what we have is sad.

And on P3S and P4S... Personally I found 3 to be unbearable with the aggressive orange colors and the forced healing that needs to be resolved in 3 GCDs.

P4S isn't THAT bad. Well doorboss is annoying in the worst ways (long movement with healing). But the second half is a good challenge. They can make the damage hit as hard as they want but at the end of the day, healers aren't built to handle constant damage.

If they had to heal every GCD, you would be out of MP fast. WHM already can't handle Glare spamming without running OOM. AST and SGE would be the only two that could possibly handle that and even then.

Medica 1, Cure 2, Succor, Adlo spam is just as boring. Healing isn't just about HEALING. I really wish people would understand this but the devs certainly don't even if their philosophy is the opposite.

[Renathras]

Old thread, given the first posts were in 2016!!

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I heal no matter the game. If I start a new MMO, I pick a class that can heal, no exceptions. In the rare cases I'm not healing, it's because my friends need a tank. And I pick the one of those that can heal. I've never been a fan of DPSing, and especially if I can't aid my party (SMN/RDM get a pass because they can Raise and RDM can heal in a pinch; all the tanks other than DRK can heal right now)

So I'm a healer born and healer main, even if I'm a semi-omni-main at this point that duals heal and tank and dabbles in SMN for PF when the tank and heal slots are full.

That said, healing needs work.

Encounter design seems to be all about oGCD heals and predictable, but spiky, damage, and doing DPS the rest of the time. This makes many of the healers feel wrong, and causes a lot of imbalance. ALL of the healers have pretty boring DPS kits, with SCH probably being the most advanced because of Ruin 2 and Energy Drain optimization. Anyone who thinks healing is boring right now, I'd encourage to try SCH anyway since they have a lot of tools to wrap your head around and try to maximize use of. WHM is the worst since it's based on GCDs in an oGCD encounter design game.

I'd like healing to be more interesting, and don't mind a 1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,... rotation for damage (since I don't care much for damage other than doing it as filler to help my party get the kill faster), but the design of encounters needs to focus on that. Right now, it isn't, putting healers in general in a weird place, and WHM, in specific, in a bad place.

[GideonWilhelm]

I mained Scholar through ARR, Heavensward, and Stormblood. Shadowbringers saw me play healer much of the way through because... my RP main was a scholar, and the raid group needed a healer. Eventually I just couldn't take it anymore and went Warrior until I nearly quit the game entirely, the only thing keeping me around was the hope that something would be different and the new mechanics being added to NIN.

Now I main SMN because it's finally the visual theme I enjoy, though the simple rotation has me kinda petering out of content... but I think I can officially say that I'm not leveling a healer again until we at LEAST get our Stormblood DPS kits back.

[LeonKeyh]

I'll jump in and offer an alternative stance. I want to preface this with the fact that I understand completely why healers don't like the gameplay in the game.

As a person who would normally not touch healers with a 10 ft pole (The only exception in my long long list of MMOs I've played being Chloromancer in RIFT); I actually enjoy healing (normal content) in FFXIV. I haven't even stepped into more difficult content (at-level extremes/savage/ultimate), but I enjoy healing through dungeons way more than I would have thought that I would. I _think_ that is the goal with the design choices that Squenix has made with Tanks and Healers; to try to get people like me (DPS-only players) to be willing to jump into those roles and realize that they're not as "scary" as they seem to be.

Having a well balanced population is very important for group content and any design choices that move population balance closer to 50% DPS/25% Healer/ 25% Tank is good for everyone, it makes for much less downtime. Sure, it's a shitty thing to just look at the numbers since these design choices are decreasing very important, unquantifiable things like player satisfaction, job identity, and fulfillment. But if making those changes mean that more people are playing the roles, that is quantifiable and is something that is at least somewhat important.

So, people like me are likely the ones being catered to by these design choices, even though I'm not asking for them at all. I'm sitting here enjoying the occasional healer run but completely understand why people would stop playing.

[Sani2341]

I wouldn't say I quit healing. Just giving myself a little Handicap by doing it as a Warrior. Unless i am half way to brain dead and want to do some roulettes anyways, then I do at times pull out SGE again.

[Rilifane]

Having a well balanced population is very important for group content and any design choices that move population balance closer to 50% DPS/25% Healer/ 25% Tank is good for everyone, it makes for much less downtime. Sure, it's a shitty thing to just look at the numbers since these design choices are decreasing very important, unquantifiable things like player satisfaction, job identity, and fulfillment. But if making those changes mean that more people are playing the roles, that is quantifiable and is something that is at least somewhat important.

So, people like me are likely the ones being catered to by these design choices, even though I'm not asking for them at all. I'm sitting here enjoying the occasional healer run but completely understand why people would stop playing.

And that is the reason why their healer design choice ultimately failed in achieving what they wanted: an increased healer population so the queues are reasonably fast on all roles.
Someone that would normally not touch healer with a 10 ft pole occasionally plays healer -- at the cost of a veteran healer quitting completely. They have sacrificed a large amount of veteran healers, players that don't just occasionally do something on healer but rather dedicated healer players that went healer for most of the DF things for many years and all for the sake of reeling in players that don't really want to play healer but are okay enough with it to occasionally do it.
Queue times for healers have been shorter than for tanks since ShB for the most part, despite what AIN might suggest when it was always the other way around pre-ShB.

They reel in baby healers and people that have been either unwilling or scared with a low skill floor but they fail to keep them for the lack of any long-term engagement while also driving away more and more veteran healers. The role currently offers nothing except instant invites.
It's not that healer mains don't know that players like you have stayed away from the role for one reason or another or that they don't want new players to take a liking to that role or at least give it a go every now and then. But getting ignored and ultimately sacrificed as a dedicated healer main that has been filling queues for years in favour or people that are not even interested in a role is a kick to the face. As a veteran healer main for years, you don't matter one bit.
That is their message. You're irrelevant. Go play Ultimate or something, just shut up, we're busy patting little Timmy on the back for finding his Cure button.

[ty_taurus]

I'll jump in and offer an alternative stance. I want to preface this with the fact that I understand completely why healers don't like the gameplay in the game.

As a person who would normally not touch healers with a 10 ft pole (The only exception in my long long list of MMOs I've played being Chloromancer in RIFT); I actually enjoy healing (normal content) in FFXIV. I haven't even stepped into more difficult content (at-level extremes/savage/ultimate), but I enjoy healing through dungeons way more than I would have thought that I would. I _think_ that is the goal with the design choices that Squenix has made with Tanks and Healers; to try to get people like me (DPS-only players) to be willing to jump into those roles and realize that they're not as "scary" as they seem to be.

Having a well balanced population is very important for group content and any design choices that move population balance closer to 50% DPS/25% Healer/ 25% Tank is good for everyone, it makes for much less downtime. Sure, it's a shitty thing to just look at the numbers since these design choices are decreasing very important, unquantifiable things like player satisfaction, job identity, and fulfillment. But if making those changes mean that more people are playing the roles, that is quantifiable and is something that is at least somewhat important.

So, people like me are likely the ones being catered to by these design choices, even though I'm not asking for them at all. I'm sitting here enjoying the occasional healer run but completely understand why people would stop playing.

To add to what Rilifane mentioned, I also have to ask the question of, have you ever even tried healing in Stormblood or earlier? How would we even know if the old ways would've put you off to healing since you never got the chance to experience it? They keep pushing for easy and accessible, but I blatantly disagree that cutting DPS and CC actually accomplished either of those things. What keeps new or learning healers playing like crap is a combination of poorly designed foundational healing and just failing mechanics. There has never been a failed dungeon run because a casual healer casted Miasma instead of Physick in the history of this game.

[Ketojan]

Since that fateful day of being told to just play ultimate to feel alive when healing, I have finally given up on healing. I came into this game a healer in ARR and slowly I was losing the will, with every expansion post HW (rip my favorite AST period) seeming to dumb down the jobs making them more the same, feeling just plain bored doing savages because after you LEARN the fights, you end up healing less and spamming 1 button more. It is mind numbing, and it seems to never change.

After we were told to "go play ultimate if you want more engaging healing" I felt unseen. In that same live letter they went over how they are making the game more inclusive to people who play alone, I am one. I pug savage only, I don't have or want a static, what hope do I have to do ultimate? Sure I could PUG that too every once in a blue moon one shows up on PF but in the end I know it would devolve into 1 button spam. I even saw someone solo heal Alexander Ultimate, so what is the point? Healers feel like an after thought.

But anyways just wanted to add my voice somewhere to hopefully boost the number so the dev team can maybe see not everyone is fine. I quit healing and it sucks that I had too because I love to heal, but I can't enjoy it how it is now.

[Teno]

I'll jump in and offer an alternative stance. I want to preface this with the fact that I understand completely why healers don't like the gameplay in the game.

As a person who would normally not touch healers with a 10 ft pole (The only exception in my long long list of MMOs I've played being Chloromancer in RIFT); I actually enjoy healing (normal content) in FFXIV. I haven't even stepped into more difficult content (at-level extremes/savage/ultimate), but I enjoy healing through dungeons way more than I would have thought that I would. I _think_ that is the goal with the design choices that Squenix has made with Tanks and Healers; to try to get people like me (DPS-only players) to be willing to jump into those roles and realize that they're not as "scary" as they seem to be.

Having a well balanced population is very important for group content and any design choices that move population balance closer to 50% DPS/25% Healer/ 25% Tank is good for everyone, it makes for much less downtime. Sure, it's a shitty thing to just look at the numbers since these design choices are decreasing very important, unquantifiable things like player satisfaction, job identity, and fulfillment. But if making those changes mean that more people are playing the roles, that is quantifiable and is something that is at least somewhat important.

So, people like me are likely the ones being catered to by these design choices, even though I'm not asking for them at all. I'm sitting here enjoying the occasional healer run but completely understand why people would stop playing.

Hmmm, very curious to know what you enjoy about healing in dungeons and normal raids, since there's nothing to heal. And that odd tank that you come across every full moon in ilvl 100 gear doesn't count.