Has anyone quit healing?

[Lustre]

I go healer if people NEED me to, otherwise I avoid it like the plague. I level them to cap and never touch them again really. Which is a shame because I really like sch and ast job identity, but the gameplay being 11111 most of the time is just... eh.

That being said, in harder content I'm convinced healer is the easiest role, primarily because I've always found focusing on mechanics easier when all I have to do is press 111111111211111. Compare that to let's say, playing my ninja, and I'm much more likely to make mistakes mechanically. So sometimes in the past I went healer just to learn fights, but other than that niche I'm not too bothered about them. I found healing much more rewarding in other mmos where dps wasnt expected and it was more about "healing efficiency" than numbers

[Nethereal]

I see we have some repeat offenders here.

That doesn't exactly change much of what im saying here. And like I said I'd never claim it doesn't happen. I just don't see it. I just know especially recently you can't exactly say you like the way healers are without being crapped on by someone claiming said person sucks, have low/crap standards etc

You can say you like healers the way they are without being crapped on. If you're getting crapped on it's because you're making a facetious argument or a simply false one. This is most people who like the way healers are currently:

"I like healer the way it is now, I don't care you're not having fun, it shouldn't change *insert objectively wrong fact*"

If all they said was "I like healer, I hope everyone can have fun eventually without me having to stop having fun." everyone would get along fine but instead they start talking about something they have no clue about using anecdotal evidence from their Satasha run and get offended when confronted with the objective truth.

Everyone who talks about the poor state healer is in currently has had fun on healer before but most people can't see that because the truth is blinding to them.

If you're going to talk about something you aren't expertly versed in don't get offended when you are corrected, simply acknowledge, fact check, integrate, and move on.
There's only the truth, not your truth. "Your truth" is how you end up getting "crapped on" by people.

The objective truth is in a vacuum(it's not hard to achieve) healers are simply dps who have 2-4 buttons to dps with that require to particular order.
If that's not your experience that's fine but don't pretend that because objectively it's not your experience it isn't the experience.

Side note: None of the blanket statements were in particular response to you.

[ThorneDynasty]

That doesn't exactly change much of what im saying here. And like I said I'd never claim it doesn't happen. I just don't see it. I just know especially recently you can exactly say you like the way healers are without being crapped on by someone claiming said person sucks, have low/crap standards etc

It's just statistically documented fact. You can DPS 80% of your time and still overheal your party. If you don't you are actively dragging your party down in higher difficulty content. If you just want to stand there and do nothing most of your time or just look busy spamming heals on players who are at full health in normal content, go ahead, normal content is easy it doesn't matter if the healer is effectively or actually doing nothing 90% of the time. If you have a co-healer who isn't AFK you can make that 100%. I'm sure it works for you.

You don't know better than people who actually try to play healers effectively though. And it kinda sucks you stop having fun with healing the moment there's any competency involved.

[Martynek]

Is silverbane going to post something that's actually true and grounded in reality or are we gonna keep getting headcanons

[SargeTheSeagull]

Can anyone tell me why "I find healers boring" is so (apparently) controversial? Here's the thing: the devs have said time and time again that they won't increase damage in content. So all we want is something resembling a rotation. Ya know, two dots and heals tied to fairy gauge instead of aetherflow on scholar, aero 3 and seraph strike on WHM, shorter recast on phelgma and damage neutral toxicon for sage and declunked cards and PVP doublecast for Astro. If they made these changes (or similar ones these are just random examples i threw out) the people who like how healers are right now will still be able to play them the exact same way. If you want to ignore aero 3 and serpah strike and just spam glare the whole time, go for it. That functionality will still be there. Those of us who want healers to be a tad more engaging will also be happy. It is literally a win win.

[Martynek]

Those of us who want healers to be a tad more engaging will also be happy. It is literally a win win.

The people that like simplistic healers become envious when they see players performing better than them. They do not want to improve, and yet they are not content with mediocrity, they are not pleased until the rest of the world is dragged down to their level.
When you argue with someone who is against complex job design, that is who you are arguing with.

[IkaraGreydancer]

The people that like simplistic healers become envious when they see players performing better than them. They do not want to improve, and yet they are not content with mediocrity, they are not pleased until the rest of the world is dragged down to their level.
When you argue with someone who is against complex job design, that is who you are arguing with.

Once again with the generalizations. This is the type of stuff that sparks arguments man. Simplistic healer enjoyers ≠ players who get envious when others perform better. Hell that logic makes no sense as if we're going by your logic odd are they wouldn't care about performance to begin with.

Also just saying...not everyone plays games to improve.

And to claim all of these people want to just bring everyone else down with them (cause I can only assume you don't think it's possible for folks to just enjoy things as is because they just simply do, no malice whatsoever) is just wild.
There's a HUGE difference between being against complex job design (which isn't expressed often here) and being fine with simple jobs. Please don't mix those 2

[Semirhage]

What constitutes a well-designed job? I submit that, at bare minimum, it's the following: its core gameplay loop provides the opportunity to make impactful decisions, and rewards shrewd decisions with further engagement. A job can do more than this. It can punish poor decision-making. It can offer side activities to keep you busy. It can give you access to weird niche things that are useful even outside combat. But it needs the first thing to be well-designed.


Take a job that's nigh universally considered well-designed. Red Mage's core gameplay loop is packed with tons of small decisions that add up. You want to build white/black mana, but you also want to keep them relatively balanced (and you're punished if you don't). You also don't want to waste procs, because that reduces your damage. If your mana's a little unbalanced, you could take a chance and waste a proc to get it more in balance. You could keep going unbalanced if your choice doesn't unbalance it too far, and push that decision off a few GCDs. You could burn an Accelerate to fix your mana afterward. Speaking of Accelerate, you can burn it to move, or fix your mana, or flip the GCD you're dualcasting. All three of these options viable, all three provide damage. The only waste is if you're overwriting a proc or just letting it fall off altogether, and maybe you've had stellar proc luck and don't care. Once you've built enough mana for a melee combo, what do you do? Do you hold it for movement? Hold it for a buff window? Hold it so your next buff window gets two combos? Every GCD affects the decision you'll make in the next one. It's not complex from a birds'-eye view, but you decide how effective you are.

Now what constitutes a badly-designed job? There are lots of reasons. It could not offer you impactful choices. It could reward you for sloppy decisions (hello Stormblood lilies). It could reward you with a non-impactful waste of time (hello again Stormblood lilies). Imagine if Verraise had a trait that gave you a 50% mana discount on the next Jolt if you hardcasted it. Now there's a trait that rewards playing stupidly (hardcasting Verraise) with something pointless (mana discount on an already cheap spell).

So let's look at a horribly-designed job. White Mage. What's its core gameplay loop? I guess it's supposed to be healing, but that's not a constant thing. The damage rotation needs to be factored in too, for downtime. But okay, healing.

Oh no, someone's about to die. What do I do? Let's see. If we go oGCD, I've got Tetra or Benediction. Which one do I use. What a hard....oh wait nevermind! Who cares? They do basically the same thing, they're both free, you're not rewarded with resources or anything that makes them attractive choices. They both just do the thing they say they're going to do. For GCDs, you have Solace, and all the other garbage in your kit. Outside buff windows, Solace is more or less the same as casting Cure 2 while also getting a Glare cast. Doesn't matter if you use it to move, use it to heal, waste half its utility, waste all of it, or get full use out of it: the reward is exactly the same. For the rest of the crap in your kit if you're out of the freebies, who cares which one you use? The opportunity cost is basically the same for all of them. You're only punished if you select one that doesn't heal enough to keep your target alive in one GCD. You have some healing steroids that boost your output a little if you think that'll save you a GCD. Otherwise they don't interact. Casting Regen doesn't affect what you do in the next GCD in the slightest. Casting Cure 2 doesn't affect your next GCD in the slightest.

If you're in an AOE scenario, fill the blanks in entire above conversation with "Asylum, Lilybell, and (maybe Assize if it's almost off cooldown)" in the oGCD section, Rapture instead of Solace, and the AOE GCD kit is basically the same story.

So now you've done it. You've successfully done the healing thing for the time being. Everyone's healthy enough to keep going, and you don't see any scary damage spikes in the immediate future. You've selected your healing spells well (or not, who cares) from your list of functionally identical healing abilities. Maybe you chose poorly, and had to use a second or third one. Either way, you're in your reward state. You get to do what the kit allows you to do for performing your job. You get the most boring damage rotation I've ever seen in a video game. Until the next healing window presents itself (and I've gone over THAT tragedy), your gameplay has been reduced to a flat, one-dimensional script that an NPC could easily follow. There are no decisions. Is it single or two-target? Dia them if they're not close to dead. Is Assize up? Use it. Otherwise Glare. Oh, a third target? Holy.
Next GCD! What do you do? Glare.
Next GCD! What do you do? Glare.
Next GCD! What do you do? Hmmm, this one's a tough call. There are three different options I could take. First one's risky, but I could maybe get more resou....naaaaaah just kidding. Glare.

That's it. That's where the kit is funneling you. That's the carrot and stick of the entire thing. You're rewarded for pressing any old healing button with a linear script that has less depth than an idle clicker game. Does it matter if you "haven't seen it"? No. Because that's the reward system. It encourages next to nothing, it provides non-impactful decisions that barely matter, and it rewards you with more casts of a single button. And if you improve? Congratulations, you were more shrewd with your healing! You managed to get it done in fewer casts, go you! Your reward is more casts of Glare.

ALL FOUR healers are designed like this, with the exception of AST (their cards provide an extra wrinkle in the garbage can design). They're designed with a bunch of bland functionally identical healing spells that reward you with spamming one button over and over and over again. Ooo, one of those buttons is instant cast and one has a full GCD cast time, what a fascinating and engaging difference! I'm sure that completely changes your entire approach to encounter...oh wait, no it doesn't. You're still spamming 3333333333333333 and maybe moving a little differently.

I'd love to have deep conversations about good game design. What constitutes it. What good rewards feel like. I'd especially love it if the job designers pulled their heads out of their rears and actually implemented some good design principles in my favorite role. But they don't, so we're stuck here on the forums wistfully musing about the what-ifs and occasionally tossing out a suggestion to the void. Instead, I've been here for years, arguing in circles with ignoramuses who wouldn't know what a gameplay loop is if it bit them on the nose. Smug, self-righteous crybullies who come in and call everyone a bunch of stupid whiners, then shriek "mean bullies!" when told to stuff it. Who lie constantly about what high level gameplay is like, then when called out on never doing difficult content, backpedal to "nyeeh nyeeeh doesn't matter I'm really good at healing and you're all bad at it so there!" Who dance back and forth, calling themselves the "happy majority", only to hypocritically dance back to "majority doesn't mean anything" when told they have no evidence, and two-step back to "happy majority!" when opposition has left. Who gleefully celebrate the idea that they're the only ones having fun, tell unhappy vets to get out, and pretend like they're helpless victims of meanies. I wonder why I'm not Pollyanna cheerful with these sneering self-assured liars.

Don't care about gameplay, don't care about design principles, I'm having fun and everyone else can leave. Why is everyone booolyyyyyying meeeeeeee?

[ThorneDynasty]

Someone remind me how Holy GCD clipping is relevant to anything being discussed again..? Or was this whole sidetrack just some kind of pedantic exercise.

[Martynek]

Someone remind me how Holy GCD clipping is relevant to anything being discussed again..? Or was this whole sidetrack just some kind of pedantic exercise.

There's a reason I've given up on taking that troll's posts seriously. Nothing but derailing the discussion.