Just remove healers.

[Renathras]

The finest examples of Dunning-Kruger on these forums, all jumping on the OP without even attempting to understand what's being said, is the chef's kiss of this thread.

I think people understand it just fine.

They simply disagree with it.

The thing is, what is boring to one person is not to another. I find DPSing either mindnumingly boring OR clunky and tedious OR stressful to the point I feel like I'm doing a job that needs a mental health plan. None of that is engaging or interesting to me. I find tanking and healing to be far more fun since it means I'm actually reacting to situations and using my abilities in response to what's happening or anticipation of something, not simply being a dipping bird set on a keyboard pressing the same buttons in the same sequence over and over again.

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Understanding != Agreeing

Moreover, most of us do seem to be saying to do something to spice up a few of of the healers' DPS kits while probably/possibly leaving at one alone (let's face it, WHM) for people that prefer that playstyle as-is right now. But there's a pretty big gulf between "add a few more DPS buttons for healers" and "remove healers from the game, give all Jobs self-healing and defensive CDs, and then go back and rebalance every fight in the game's history to accommodate this new paradigm...because OP and his friends don't like healing."

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EDIT:

<snip>
If an entire role could be seamlessly removed by giving everyone just two more buttons, without redesigning ANY of the game's content, it is redundant and should either be removed or completely rebuilt.

This is the same thing for Tanks, though. There are games that do this very thing. Every DPS has a movement ability like DNC to dodge telegraphs, there are no tankbusters, little unavoidble damage, and every class has a self-heal button. The only thing the game would require to remove Tanks is to remove cleaves (thus facing doesn't matter anymore) and remove tankbusters (thus Tank-level vitality and defensive CDs are not needed anymore). Alternatively, give every DPS a self-heal and a mitigation CD - you know, the very things you're arguing for? - and then we could remove Tanks.

If an entire role could be seamlessly removed by giving everyone just two more buttons, without redesigning ANY of the game's content, it is redundant and should either be removed or completely rebuilt.

This argument LITERALLY HOLDS FOR TANKING AS WELL AS HEALING.

Your argument then only comes down to "Well, tanking damage rotations feel different than healer ones", not "Tank is needed and Healer is not".

You also focus exclusively on healer DAMAGE ROTATIONS. You know HEALERS, the role that HEALS. You ignore their HEALING kits entirely. Within those damage rotations, healers weave HEALING oGCDs. And, as it turns out, those HEALING oGCDs work differently, are not homogenized, and feel more distinct than the Tank damage rotations and mitigation kits do (Tank mitigation kits are THEIR oGCDs are and MOSTLY samey)

Healers and Tanks are inverses of each other. Tanks have somewhat varied GCD kits but near-identical oGCDs, healers have somewhat varied oGCD kits but near-identical GCDs.

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Yeah it's cool that you can't clear P3-4S or DSR without healers yet but 1 to 6 people are forced to play these roles for casual content or else the queue will never pop, and I sure don't want to spend the next 30m in Aglaia pressing Broil Broil Broil Broil Broil Broil Broil Broil, so where do we go from here?

I'm REALLY confused why you people think "I don't want to do this, thus no one wants to do this" is an argument.

There are something like 3-6 MILLION other people besides you that play this game. Statistically, 20-30% of them play healers. YOU don't have to press "Broil Broil Broil...", someone else will do that. And, fyi, anyone that does that is a bad healer (you DO have to do things like weave oGCDs or everyone dies. Try any current fight - and I mean normal 8 mans/Aglaia - without a healer casting a single heal. See if your party survives or not. Oh, you can use Second Wind. But nothing else. Good luck.

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- Every single fight this tier has been solo healed in i580 crafted gear. Yes, even P4S.
- P1S and P2S have been cleared with only tanks. Clearing with DPS and Tank would be even easier.

So you're saying we can and should remove the DPS role? Since, clearly, it isn't needed with PS1 and PS2 being cleared with no DPSers at all, right?

Oh, it's "even easier" with DPSers? Well, it's "even easier" with Healers, too. That isn't the argument. The argument seems to be if it is at all POSSIBLE to clear without healers, we need no healers. So this means we need no DPSers, too, right? Just boost Tank damage and we can remove the DPS role from the game. All DPSers can be told "You're Red Tanks".

This is the highest level content excluding Ultimate. Anything below that you don't need a healer whatsoever.

Extremes are lower than Ultimate. You need healers for most of them unless you have a REALLY optimized group comp and a LOT of good and highly geared players. I'm sure it's possible to clear Zod with just SMNs and RDMs + a tank or two, and Hydaelyn would only need 1 tank, but you'd have to have an insane comp to do it. For that matter, all the P_S that have been cleared with solo or no healers had pretty extreme comps. I remember some Eden clears like that which were essentially 1 tank and 7 SMNs or something like that using Phoenix (and PLD healing) as their "healers". Sure, it's possible, if we remove every Job from the game besides PLD and SMN.

Savages are also below Ultimates, and as even you noted, PS1 and PS2 have been cleared with just Tanks, but P3S and P4S? Moreover, things can be cleared with just Tanks because Tanks can take a beating AND have passive regen. DPSers do not. Meaning if you traded one or two of those Tanks for DPSers, the DPSers would be tanking the floor since they wouldn't be surviving and self-healing for enough to survive without healers to heal them.

Dungeons? Even DRK has cleared all of them with three DPS. EX? They were killed the first week of Endwalker without healers.

This is a stupid argument. PLD can solo most dungeons in the game. If not ALL dungeons in the game. You don't even need the DPS. There are only a few with really lax "enrage" type mechanics, and some of those can simply be invulned through (in fact, all of them might be). Meaning a party of all Tanks can clear 100% of the content in the game. When are you going to start asking for DPS as a role to be removed and every Job to be made into a Tank?

With all that said, do I think healers should be removed? No. There is clearly a large enough portion of the playerbase that enjoys the style of gameplay they're supposed fulfill. The issue is the dev team is so afraid little Timmy or Sally might struggle, they continue to design everything around the lowest common denominator. Not your average raider who, while lacking experience, is still a decent play; a green parser if you will. No, it's the person who can barely handle simple mechanics and usually dies once a pull. That's who they're catering content to. And it's why healing suffers so much in this game. If you're average, you're already playing above expectation.

The reason they're doing that is because there was a healer shortage in SB. Ultimately, that's the reason healers are the way they are today. And that was back when - for those who don't recall - healers DID have more complex DPS kits. It was taxing and overwhelming for people to do while also pushing prog and they'd get a lot of flack in casual content like 4 man dungeons (the most casual thing in the game, just about) if they weren't constantly casting their spam spell and refreshing their DoTs without fail.

The community, effectively, brought this on itself, collectively. The people who complained that casual healers weren't dealing enough damage, the people complaining about folks not using Cleric Stance, the people complaining that SCH had to do more work than WHM in its DPS but didn't get bigger numbers, the people that chewed out healers for daring to heal instead of deal damage, etc.

COLLECTIVELY, those are the reason we have the current healer system we have today.

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I have all healers at 90, and I can confirm that sage does spam one button over and over again, only with the edition of that one skill in between gcds. Other than that, just like every other healer. Sage is also played identical to scholar, gotta love the originality!

Been playing and healing for nearly 9 years now. WHM and SCH in every expansion to date, picked up SGE as well. SGE doesn't play at all like SCH. It's mind boggling people genuinely believe this. Its kit functions rather differently. The only thing they're at all similar in is their DPS kits, and those aren't even that similar. SGE has Toxicon (when EuDiagnosis shields break) and Plegma whereas SCH has Energy Drain (for dumping excess AF or using with Dissipation for more damage) and Ruin 2. None of those spells are at all the same. You can try to claim that Bio/EuDosis and Broil/Dosis are, but that's saying half their damage kit is different, which...doesn't really make them the same.

Besides which, their healing kits aren't really similar. They do have some similarities - a single target no CD heal, a single target with some kind of buff, an AOE, and a party shield - but how those all but Lustrate/Ixo (I think it's Ixo...SGE spell names, ugh) and Indom are the only ones that work the same. Kura and Sacred Soil work differently, and not merely in the placement. Seraph works differently than Panhamia, and SGE honestly has nothing like Recitation+Adlo+Deploy, but SCH has nothing like Pneuma.

"But those aren't buttons they hit every GCD!", you might say - what do you think you're hitting BETWEEN those GCD buttons? Surely you don't sit on your thumbs for 2.5 seconds after hitting Broil and hit literally nothing else ever, do you?

What do you hit?

Those oGCD heals/mitigations.

Those things that are different from healer to healer and make them very distinct.

You're hitting on average something like 1 of them every other GCD on average, with some double weaves here and there.

Yeah, if you hit literally NOTHING ELSE other than Dia/Glarespam, you might be bored. But do you genuinely never hit Tetara? Benison? Assize? Asylum? Do you never use Solace or Rapture? Are you basically admitting to being a bad forcing your co-healer to carry the team as you let them all die?

Because I've yet to do content where both healers can only hit Dia/Glare (or their equivalent) the entire fight and still clear it. You legitimately DO have to heal. You can do so largely with oGCDs, but if you try to clear an Extreme or Savage without actually pressing anything other than Dia/Glare, I can't see how you wouldn't have a dead party outside of some insanely niche stuff. Eos might be able to solo heal some 4 mans for SCH, but even that isn't a guaranteed thing.

And this is, of course, before we start talking Prog or mistakes. This is just talking about avoidable damage. Don't heal through Zod or Hyd's multi-hit attacks. Don't use a single thing that restores HP, I mean. Watch what happens.

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It IS much more more exciting, not only gives a bit of room for failure but also those 1-2-3 combos have something else attached to them, be it resource generation/different effects that tied into each other/positionals/branching paths, those tools are far more engaging than spam 1 button over 100 times per instance

It...really isn't.

The thing a LOT of people have a problem with is understanding that what THEY find engaging others often may or do NOT. I mean, even I do it. We all do it. But 1-2-3 isn't particularly more engaging than 1-2-2-2-2-2-1-2-2-2-2.

I do agree that there are oGCDs and stuff that DPSers have to weave and make things more interesting...but this...is true...of healers, too. Indeed, it's how healers do the vast majority of their healing now.

But, this is also one of those reasons I genuinely do support different playstyles. The trick is convincing people jugging 7 DoTs that they should be content doing no more damage than the guy with one DoT and a filler spam spell since this is preventing them being bored, not about damage or performance. If you can do that, then we can have nice things. The reality is, the 7 DoT Job players will complain and many players will swap to the 1 DoT Job.

For all the moaning about ShB and EW RDM, and EW SMN, being "too easy", why is it that so many Ultimate clears have SMNs and/or RDMs in them? Why so many world firsts? Why so many Savage statics?

...because easy is actually a benefit in some cases, like Prog or World First races or Ultimate fights. When you have two things that produce more or less identical outcomes, you pick the easier of the two to do in general. We've seen this a LOT on the abacus and through FFXIV's history.

[NemuNemu14]

Words that make my post too long for the forum.

SGE does play like SCH in my opinion though. I use addersgall skills and a ogcd skill, like how i use aetherflow with a fairy skill. I feel SGE is just a bit too similar to SCH because of that. I mained sch in Shadowbringers along with Bard so it was rather easy for me to pick up SGE and heal a tank doing wall to wall no problem. Yes there are a few differences, and SGE even has exclusive skills like some DPS but other than that, it just feels really similar to me. Also for healers in general, I'm always weaving ogcds in my gcds. I'm not good at explaining, but I'm always using assize on cooldown when I can for that extra damage, and other ogcds. I prioritize my ogcd heals over gcds too. And yes, I use my dots too. I don't heal when I don't have to, such as when I know a dps will survive the next mechanics. I didn't mention EX or Savage, I'm just talking regular content, though I've healed extremes, and to me it was really easy. No, I don't make the co-healer do all the work lol, I have no idea where you got that from at this point.

But honestly, all healers aren't actually unique as you make it out to be.. They aren't super complex, and I just want to do other things aside from occasional dot, occasional ogcd dps skill, and the classic spamming one button dps gcd.. I enjoyed Astro's multi-tasking and all the card options in Stormblood. I just really don't want jobs to made incredibly simple. I hate the whole barrier healer and pure/regen healer thing. I want something new!

[Renathras]

<meaningful words, worthy of a reply>

I guess it mostly comes down to what you consider "similar". To me, it's "how does a thing work and achieve its effect". Otherwise, I could claim every Job in the game is "similar" based on "You have <at least two> buttons that you press for damage, with a specific order doing more damage than another (optimal rotation), you have <at least one> healing/shielding button you press to reduce the likelihood of a wipe, you have <at least one> mitigating/defensive ability button that you push to also reduce the likelihood of a wipe". Distilling it to that level of shadows in a cave "true essence", every Job in the game - indeed, every class in ALMOST ever MMO - are "similar".

So to me, what makes something different/unique must come from how it actually plays out. Yes, WHM has a DoT and a spamnuke and a CD (Assize and also Presence of Mind) and a combo-point-like damage ability (Misery), and yes, there's an optimum ordering of pressing those buttons to do the most damage. That doesn't make WHM play like RDM, which also has several buttons that do damage with an optimal order of pressing them to do more damage, nor like PLD which has several buttons that do damage with an optimal order of pressing them to do more damage.

When I look at healing oGCDs, a lot of them work differently. Even the ones that ARE supposed to be more or less the same (like Aquaveil and the AST version and the SGE version; SCH doesn't EXACTLY have one - its version increases health and healing done, not mitigation). The AST and SGE versions are the opposite of each other, and the SGE one requires a resource spent to use, and the WHM version doesn't have a heal but instead has a higher mitigation amount. SCH, instead, has mitigation in other forms, several of which use its pet.

EDIT:

Lilybell...sucks; but there's no denying it's DIFFERENT than Macrocosmos which is different from Seraph which is different from Panhamia. Lilybell and Panhamia are the only two of those that are similar, and they both work completely distinct from each other. Expedient is entirely unique. Icarus is entirely unique. Presence of Mind is different from Lightspeed. Neutral Sect is amazing compared to Plenary Indulgence, even if they two have a similar mechanic involved.

Even comparing their base GCD heal kits, the only similarity across the board is the basic Cure 1/Physic/Benefic 1/Diagnosis are more or less the same. While AST just has better versions of WHM's other GCDs, WHM then has Cure 3 and Lilies. On the shield side, Adlo is not Cure 2 (and is beastly powerful for not being Cure 2), and is stronger than EuDiagnosis while also being spreadable and having guaranteed crits every 90 seconds. But EuDiagnosis is instant. SGE also has a Medica 1 whereas SCH does not (you can shoehorn one in with Emergency Tactics, but it's a bit different). EuPrognosis can also be used on the move while Succor cannot be.

Eos can be placed in the center of the field, and this can do far more than it might initially seem to make SCH less impacted by movement mechanics or mechanics that require the SCH to be away from the center, while SGE doesn't have that capacity other than pre-use of Panhamia/EuPrognosis. Pepsis and Emergency Tactics, in theory, do similar things, but they also work completely opposite each other, with ET being quick to access (short 20 sec CD) but less outright useful while Pepsis is slightly slower, but can be used if there is any shield at all left for a post-heal.

SCH and SGE play so differently, it's shocking to me how people think they're the same. It took me a good 30 mins to just set up my SGE bars how I like so they'd SOMEWHAT benefit from my SCH muscle memory (I still don't have all the names down, lol) SCH is a preemptive healer, SGE is a control healer. SCH is more reactive if needed (better for Prog) while preferring to set things up in advance, SGE is strong with advance knowledge and a controlled environment but weak when things go off the rails. It's like an inverse WHM.

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The only things they share REALLY are their BASE GCD heal kits (single target heal, stronger single target heal [variations], and AOE heal [variations more distinct]) and their BASE GCD damage kits (DoT + Spam; even their AOEs are different with only SCH and SGE being mostly the same.)

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Now, points of agreement:

I do agree that their BASE GCD KITS are similar (healing) and identical (single target GCD non-CD/conditional damage), but this is honestly a small part of their kits. The vast majority of their kits are distinct.

The problem is: The encounter design doesn't have us using them outside of prog/first few weeks of new content.

I didn't say they are super complex. But they are different and distinct. When I heal on WHM or SGE, I often find myself missing things that SCH has that I've learned to like over the years. And I guess I just don't care that much about damage, so slimmed down DPS kits don't bother me since I derive fight enjoyment from the heals that I use, not the damage spells I cast.

I feel the same way when I Tank. My damage rotation is boring on all the tanks that I've played (GNB, PLD, WAR), it's just something I do in between actually needing to do "tank things" like mitigate, swap, position the boss, etc. It's "busywork", not "fun". That's how I feel about damage dealing in general. It's why I hate playing damage dealers. And why it boggles my mind that people want to turn healers into damage dealers.

Though I do agree that having some options - sometimes I WANT to just spam 1-2-3 mindlessly like everyone else here seems to want to do (when I feel that way, I play SMN or play tank in non-tank swap fights) - isn't a bad thing. When I first heard about Kardia, I was thinking, "Oh, cool. It'll play like RDM or something and each hit will heal, so the "healing" playstyle will be moving Kardia between targets and occasionally using oGCDs, right? Sure, I'll never want to play THAT, but at least people complaining about being bored and wanting to have a dps rotation will have one they can be happy with."

I was a bit surprised when they launched with THE SAME EXACT DoT+spam as the rest of the healers, though.

[WaxSw]

It...really isn't.

The thing a LOT of people have a problem with is understanding that what THEY find engaging others often may or do NOT. I mean, even I do it. We all do it. But 1-2-3 isn't particularly more engaging than 1-2-2-2-2-2-1-2-2-2-2.

It IS, by its nature a 1-2-3 rotation demands more attention than just pressing one button a difference that increases when we add all the side effects the 1-2-3 rotations have (branching paths/resource generation/buffs...) its a more involved gameplay than just pressing 1 all the time

I do agree that there are oGCDs and stuff that DPSers have to weave and make things more interesting...but this...is true...of healers, too. Indeed, it's how healers do the vast majority of their healing now.

Which we rarely need and the game barely asks us to properly use it? The log I posted previously was from P4S a last Savage floor and even there the total non dps actions I used werent even 25% of my total rotation, go check any dps or tank and you'll find that while they have fillers in the gcd combo their whole rotation is far more present than the supposed "rotation" we have. There is also a whole another problem from there, if the healing is our rotation then we're the only role that is denied to perform it and be impactful in the majority of the game's content as the healing checks are non existent and the incoming damage is ridiculously low.

But, this is also one of those reasons I genuinely do support different playstyles. The trick is convincing people jugging 7 DoTs that they should be content doing no more damage than the guy with one DoT and a filler spam spell since this is preventing them being bored, not about damage or performance. If you can do that, then we can have nice things. The reality is, the 7 DoT Job players will complain and many players will swap to the 1 DoT Job.

Balance is a useless argument when the fun and enagement is not there, first make all the jobs more diverse and fun and then balance them like they did with the dps (disregard difficulty, basically a job should be appealing for what it brings and how fun it is) but in any way shape or form 1 nuke 1 dot should be the peak of the gameplay of a mmo healer.

For all the moaning about ShB and EW RDM, and EW SMN, being "too easy", why is it that so many Ultimate clears have SMNs and/or RDMs in them? Why so many world firsts? Why so many Savage statics?

...because easy is actually a benefit in some cases, like Prog or World First races or Ultimate fights. When you have two things that produce more or less identical outcomes, you pick the easier of the two to do in general. We've seen this a LOT on the abacus and through FFXIV's history.

Or... because blm does not give an swift raise which is extremely valuable in prog scenario? Because Blm has been for a long time the job that is the hardest to get into (and despite that hasnt been dumbed down as healers did) and as such has a lower playerbase? Because Rdm has more partywide mitigation and Smn can help with the healing? Because the trio mechanics favours jobs like Smn early on?

In reality a lot of those player simply pick the jobs they like and proof of that is that TEA and P4S world first had a BLM simply because the player liked it and the same goes for many of those Smn and Rdm

Besides that argument of yours could be twisted very easily, if players want easy, then why Sage (which is an easier Sch) hasn't been present in either P4S WF and DSR WF? Why is that Whm hasnt been present there either? Why DSR WF had a Mnk instead of the more simple Rpr?

[Renathras]

For the first: I disagree. Pressing 1-2-3 (no branching path) is not engaging or challenging. It's a fat-finger trap, not a skill check. I DO agree, however, that our rotation is supposed to be GCD healing, and we are denied it by current encounter design.

Balance is a useless argument when the fun and enagement is not there, first make all the jobs more diverse and fun and then balance them like they did with the dps (disregard difficulty, basically a job should be appealing for what it brings and how fun it is) but in any way shape or form 1 nuke 1 dot should be the peak of the gameplay of a mmo healer.

This is my point, though - they can't "balance" it because "doing more damage than the other one" doesn't work as a balance point for healers since they already do relatively low damage (vs the DPSers). Because of this, encounters are based around them doing a rough amount of damage. You can't have one really exceed (or fall below) this. AST is low but the buffs to the party's damage balance that out so that all healers come out relatively even. You can't reward someone juggling the 7 DoTs with more damage while they're still also a healer. It's like the problem with MCH being the "selfish DPS" of the Ranged subrole, a subrole that is balanced around doing less...damage...than the other DPS subroles.

Or... because blm does not give an swift raise which is extremely valuable in prog scenario?

But if damage > all, that shouldn't matter. Moreover, this is true of some other roles as well where that which is easier is more often picked than that which is harder IF they achieve the same basic result.

Besides that argument of yours could be twisted very easily, if players want easy, then why Sage (which is an easier Sch) hasn't been present in either P4S WF and DSR WF? Why is that Whm hasnt been present there either? Why DSR WF had a Mnk instead of the more simple Rpr?

SGE isn't easier than SCH. I say this as a person that plays both. They're honestly roughly comparable. I like SCH better because I feel its healing kit is more flexible (e.g. better) than SGE's to use. SGE is a control healer that is weak when the situation isn't well controlled while SCH has more buffer for that.

[WaxSw]

For the first: I disagree. Pressing 1-2-3 (no branching path) is not engaging or challenging. It's a fat-finger trap, not a skill check. I DO agree, however, that our rotation is supposed to be GCD healing, and we are denied it by current encounter design.

By the deffinition of the word it is more engaging than just pressing 1, as simple as that. I'm not saying it hard or the peak of the design but even something as basic as that is better than what we have now. The whole GCD healing is avery flawed mentality, a rotation is something that is always useful no matter the situation and thats why its rotating, healing by deffinition has a cap of usefulness and as such a GCD healing rotation only leads to a very unpleasant downtime gameplay and punishing players that know their role (good healers heal just enough because once again, healing has a cap)

This is my point, though - they can't "balance" it because "doing more damage than the other one" doesn't work as a balance point for healers since they already do relatively low damage (vs the DPSers). Because of this, encounters are based around them doing a rough amount of damage. You can't have one really exceed (or fall below) this. AST is low but the buffs to the party's damage balance that out so that all healers come out relatively even. You can't reward someone juggling the 7 DoTs with more damage while they're still also a healer. It's like the problem with MCH being the "selfish DPS" of the Ranged subrole, a subrole that is balanced around doing less...damage...than the other DPS subroles.

That is a completely non issue and you're assuming a lot of stuff when in reality things could be still balanced, the 7 dot job (which woudnt even need to have 7, just 3 would be enough for many) could do maybe a 0.5%-1% more dps than a simpler healer and it would still woudnt break the game, besides the whole 1 nuke and 1 dot shoudnt be what all healers have to do to deal damage, period, all of them should have their gameplay enhanced. Balance is compatible with good game design is just that healers dont have that design to begin with.

But if damage > all, that shouldn't matter.

In prog utility is very important, especially if you go after world 1st and even with that BLM is still brought to world 1st

Moreover, this is true of some other roles as well where that which is easier is more often picked than that which is harder IF they achieve the same basic result.

Except in the world 1st scenario is not, for people who do that high end content difficulty of a job is a non issue because you've already mastered it no matter the role. People brought a drk to uwu when it was said to be underpeforming, blm world 1st in tea and p4s had a blm, whm is not present in EW world 1st, both brd and dnc have been seen in dsr had a dnc in its world 1st and a brd in world 2nd. People play what they like as long as is not underperforming so much it becomes a liability.

SGE isn't easier than SCH. I say this as a person that plays both. They're honestly roughly comparable

It is and I say this as someone who has brought both to ultimate. Sch has to worry about ED optimization, can't cast shields while moving and has worse movement tools in scenarios with downtime, its perks like the fairy being able to heal 2 places at the same time also require planning to know where to place the fairy and stuff like deplo adlo requires previous knowledge about the fight, when the situation is not controlled Sage can still do the same as their kit are nearly identical. Both are easy jobs as every healer is but Sage is a simplified and less clunky Sch

[Nadda]

Many words were said, also I like your glasses <3

Ahem* You keep mentioning world first progging like that's a serious thing a majority of the players are going for or even yourself.
Who's doing world first seriously? That's such a small number of the player base its less than a fraction of a fraction. (because most people don't even touch the high end content)
If you were to focus on progression for progression's sake most people play whatever they like and get the clears regardless. The fights aren't designed in a way where you would be at a disadvantage taking any job, otherwise, that be a much bigger stigma at even the casual level. All jobs are designed to be mostly relative.
WF is no metric for anything.
Why are we using this as the defacto state of the game? By that metric, I shouldn't ever be able to clear things as a whitemage main. There was never a point where it felt like... ooo if only we had this much DPS to get over x hurdle... I mean maybe it did back in HW with Alexander... but like that was it.

I don't care what world first raiders are doing and neither should you friend. Just clear the content and have fun.

On another side note going on here I'm seeing people get stuck up on DPS for healers and all this other nonsense. We contribute DPS. We are not The DPS. That's not our role. Like I'd just like to have more options on my whitemage but people make it sound like it's objectively not fun unless I'm going through one of those horrid rotations. "Because it's more complex" When the game is literally telling me what to press. I hate rotations. I like being able to press whatever button I like in the best order I see fit. There's not a single rotation baring the oGCDs people weave in or potion they drank that isn't baked into the game.

That's what makes healing so much more fun. I have 100% access to use whatever I got in my healing arsenal at anytime use them in anyway I see fit. DPS rotations feel like punching in your pin number at an ATM to withdraw your abilities for damage. If we did get damage spells I don't want any of that lameness attached to me.

[Silverbane]

I'm seeing people get stuck up on DPS for healers and all this other nonsense. We contribute DPS. We are not The DPS. That's not our role.

Plus, the overly-simplistic analysis used by many of the "healers is broke" crowd overlooks the fact that sometimes, the best contribution we can make to raising team DPS (i.e., to lower the clear time) is to heal.

I first started thinking about this when one of the healers-is-broke crowd ranted about how he wasn't going to reduce his DPS by taking time off to heal a DPS that was intentionally standing in mob AoEs. "It's not my job to make his parse look good" was the complaint.

But consider this situation: there's a Reaper doing her single-target rotation: Slice - Waxing Slice - Infernal Slice, average potency 1140/3 = 380. If she has to step out of range of the target for a GCD to avoid an AoE, that's on average 380 potency (and 10 soul gauge) lost forever.

But let's say she knows her healer will support her, and stays there, killing the target.
And let's use the worst case, that the healer uses a GCD heal on the Reaper, giving up a Dosis, Glare, Broil, or whatever.

That's about 300 potency, give or take, worth of Healer DPS lost -- to gain 380 potency of Reaper DPS. Even assuming that the damage/potency ratio is the same for the two, that's an substantial gain in team damage. (When there are multiple melee DPS and you can AoE heal them, the DPS balance shifts even further in favor of healing them through the AoE.)

Realizing this, and recognizing that a lot of the incoming AoE in the game is piss weak, I've outright told melee DPS: "for this boss's AoEs, feel free to not dodge if it means staying engaged, I'll keep you up." Because it's a net gain for the team, even if my personal DPS goes down.

Making decisions like this -- employing tactics like this -- are part of what makes healing fun. No other role gets to do it.

And the healers who are too selfish or stupid to prioritize the team's total output over their own won't even think about doing it. Obsessed with their own DPS parse on a class that's not designed to DPS, it's no wonder they are unhappy.

[Nadda]

Plus, the overly-simplistic analysis used by many of the "healers is broke" crowd overlooks the fact that sometimes, the best contribution we can make to raising team DPS (i.e., to lower the clear time) is to heal.

Realizing this, and recognizing that a lot of the incoming AoE in the game is piss weak, I've outright told melee DPS: "for this boss's AoEs, feel free to not dodge if it means staying engaged, I'll keep you up." Because it's a net gain for the team, even if my personal DPS goes down.

Making decisions like this -- employing tactics like this -- are part of what makes healing fun. No other role gets to do it.

Exactly my point. The Healing Role as I've said many times before in this thread is designed to take the DPS loss so that the DPS roles can DPS more.
The old axiom is "Dead DPS do no DPS" but as you said in addition to that if you can compensate the heals to keep a DPS pressing their buttons so they can make better use of their resources you are contributing to the DPS by proxy of protecting and keeping up those that do the most damage.

People I believe who are DPS role orientated who play Healer on occasion I believe are more concerned about DPS parsing and rotations, but this play style doesn't suit a healer. The reason we have 100% access to all of our buttons is precisely how to use them tactically and most efficiently. Our contribution to DPS is minuscule for this purpose. The idea is to act selflessly that's the mindset of every person who picks up healing as a main job role. Is to help. So if the fight does less outgoing damage we can push these scenarios to greater limits.

Brilliant reasoning I whole heartedly agree.