Just wanna say, I really enjoy healing in this game.

[Sebazy]

I have played many MMOs and honestly, complaints over healers always seems to be the primary focus. A small but vocal minority always screeches about the other healers having something they don't and just how much more damage they want to do. They always say just how broken healers are in -this- MMO but when you ask them to cite an MMO what had healers they liked, they can't. They just can't. There are no other healers they like. They are never satisfied. Ever.

Eh? Where's that come from though? I'll cite a few examples from other games I've sunk time into right now:

In Everquest, healer's were generally fine, clerics were the most indispensable healer for raiding whereas Shaman and Druids were stronger for, merit farms and soloing. The only time I actively complained was during one of the planes expansions, the Shaman kit for the new level cap was a literal copy and paste job of the previous to the point where they actually forgot to change some of the tooltips with the new names

In FFXI again, healers were in a similar boat, just this time they didn't have the soloing capabilities that EQ healers had but that was fine. This time round the Job system was actively used as a tool to find the right job for the situational at hand. Even the jobs themselves offered a good amount of flexibility. I mained BRD with a side of WHM, SCH and BLM, if I ever complained in FFXI, it was about RMT or Linkshell politics, that was it. What the game lacked in pace compared to modern MMOs, it easily made up in community, danger and immersion. It was a great time to be a support/healer.

Moving up to WoW, I mained a resto>elemental Shaman and almost exclusively PvPed throughout Vanilla, BC and early WoTLK only stopping with the release of Arena. My own 'complaints' here were rather tounge in cheek snipes at Tigole for the constant Rogue vs Shaman 'adjustments' that seemed to come each patch. In fairness most of them were needed even if a few of them were a bit lame. However in view of this thread, it has to be said that healing Shaman had 2 huge peaks during early WoW and playing during those points was an unforgettable highlight. It's why I have no interest in the PvP in this game, not because it's bad in it's own right, but because it just doesn't live up to what WoW had going back then.

Two more recent examples would be SWTOR and Warhammer Online, both games had excellently thought out healer implementations that did a fantastic job of feeling impactful and powerful in their own right without being quite as devastatingly capable as WoW pvp healers sometimes were. I've sung the praises of healers in both of these games on these very forums on multiple occasions TBH so I can only assume you missed that? Complaints here? IMHO These games both died for the same reason, not enough investment in content development.

And yes, I'll also chime in that FFXIV's early game healing experience is actually pretty great, leveling dungeons are a highlight for sure. Running Bardams for the first time when SB launched was a fantastic experience, so much so that I recorded my leveling grind in it.

They just can't. There are no other healers they like. They are never satisfied. Ever.

So there's 4 rather verbose examples for you right off the bat. Could you expand on where your view came from? It honestly feels like an opinion you've made purely from reading these boards and not much else, certainly not actually speaking to healing stalwarts elsewhere.

[IDontPetLalas]

Eh? Where's that come from though? I'll cite a few examples from other games I've sunk time into right now:
SNIP
Two more recent examples would be SWTOR and Warhammer Online, both games had excellently thought out healer implementations that did a fantastic job of feeling impactful and powerful in their own right without being quite as devastatingly capable as WoW pvp healers sometimes were. I've sung the praises of healers in both of these games on these very forums on multiple occasions TBH so I can only assume you missed that? Complaints here? IMHO These games both died for the same reason, not enough investment in content development.
And yes, I'll also chime in that FFXIV's early game healing experience is actually pretty great, leveling dungeons are a highlight for sure. Running Bardams for the first time when SB launched was a fantastic experience, so much so that I recorded my leveling grind in it.So there's 4 rather verbose examples for you right off the bat. Could you expand on where your view came from? It honestly feels like an opinion you've made purely from reading these boards and not much else, certainly not actually speaking to healing stalwarts elsewhere.

Agreed on SWTOR, I didn't bring that up but we had a lot of flexibility there with the skill trees - full heal spec, more of a turret DPS spec and a very mobile dot spec if my memory serves.

[Hellebore_Ghrian]

I actually liked healing before Endwalker and I was very happy with their state for a lot of years (even shadowbringer yes).

But as soon as Endwalker released, it showed me that, as a healer, I am now useless in most of the content of this game, as long as the players are not completely bad.

While I don't like being here only to babysit bad players to have fun while they sleep through avoidable damage, I'm glad for the people who are happy with the current state of healers if playing babysitters is what they want.

Because that's what the healer role is now: a babysitter role mixed with a boring, underrated dps role using their heal only when someone makes a mistake and having nothing to do while no heals are needed.

As for me, I will no longer heal until healers become healers again which mean when they will be really mandatory to clear content again.

[Renathras]

I actually liked healing before Endwalker and I was very happy with their state for a lot of years (even shadowbringer yes).

I'm kind of curious, how is it worse in EW than ShB? I've felt healing in both to be largely the same. The only thing that has changed is encounter design, and only mildly at that.

WHM's only change was the addition of Lilibell and (in 6.1) bumping up the refresh rate of Lilies to 20 sec instead of 30 sec. Misery was DPS neutral in ShB and was made DPS neutral again in 6.1, so that's not really a change. (If anything, NOT doing this in 6.0 was an oversight due to a new tier of Glare and Misery should have just upgraded in potency with that same trait)

SCH's change is that Eos seems more responsive, there is still ghosting but a bit less, Fey Blessing had the Faerie Gauge cost removed, we gained Expedience (which was promptly nerfed for being too good), and...did anything else change?

AST lost Noct sect and got a pretty big rework, so I'll give you that if you're an AST main. It still plays vaguely like old Diurnal, but at the same time, not exactly. And the seals change still kind of boggles my mind. Like I get it's to reduce punishment for RNG not working with you, but you also lost all the nice tools to mitigate that RNG somewhat like using Minor Arcana to burn cards with the wrong seals or things like Sleeve Draw.

SGE was added, so can't really say much to that (since it's nothing like old Noct, so doesn't fill into that void as its spiritual successor)

So as far as I can tell, WHM didn't really change at all, SCH got slightly more responsive and a useful Zommies spell, and AST had to do the same babysitting before as now.

Not trying to harp on you, genuine question. I'm just not sure what you're suggesting changed, unless you mean encounters got easier (which isn't strictly a healer design problem), maybe?

EDIT:

I really enjoyed Resto Shaman in WoW back in the TBC/Wrath eras.

I've always loved Resto Druid. Though I don't think Denji is saying EVERY LAST PERSON didn't like it - not every healer in FFXIV hates FFXIV healing, either. I think he was more saying that the game's community was still complaining about it even then.

[Hellebore_Ghrian]

I'm kind of curious, how is it worse in EW than ShB? I've felt healing in both to be largely the same. The only thing that has changed is encounter design, and only mildly at that.

That's written in my post.

I don't know why you're coming up with jobs since I've only talked about the role. It's not because it cannot be fix by modifying healers' skills or job design that it is not a healer issue.

It's not related to a job and their "gameplay" but to the whole role.

Healers aren't healers anymore, before Endwalker the role has been about "keeping the party alive" and now it is only "making up for others' mistakes" because if there is no mistake the party will stay alive even if you don't heal.

If for you, having almost nothing to heal and being useless even when the content is new isn't an issue as a healer it's fine too, but I think my post was clear enough.

[IllyaPrisma]

WHM's only change was the addition of Lilibell and (in 6.1) bumping up the refresh rate of Lilies to 20 sec instead of 30 sec. Misery was DPS neutral in ShB and was made DPS neutral again in 6.1, so that's not really a change. (If anything, NOT doing this in 6.0 was an oversight due to a new tier of Glare and Misery should have just upgraded in potency with that same trait)

This is incorrect. You may want to edit your response so it contains accurate information. Someone mentioned this correction, but it remains unacknowledged.