Healers need an overhaul

[Silver-Strider]

I don't think I ever said anything about people doing outside of group content. But if they join a group as a healer, I would expect them to ... heal?



And did I say they do?



When an AOE coming up, the party is not full, and you still see Broil/Glare/Melafic going off. Or when you have to burn through your kits healing succession mechanics without any help ... I would like to hear a different explanation if you have one.




And ... that's exactly the problem? Indeed nobody is asking the healers to do that, the content definitely doesn't need the healers to do that. What, you think when tank/DPS or even healing, I prefer the healer to DPS as much as possible over keeping the group alive? In case you missed the point, the healer is doing for the shake of their parse over the group's well being, that's the point.

Here's the thing though. A lot of content doesn't require healers to heal all that much. Unless the group is terrible to a point of forcing you to carry several people thru it, there is hardly any healing that is realistically needed anymore. The party doesn't NEED to be 100% for most mechanics nowadays. Hell, you can keep people at 60% and more likely than not, they'll still survive the next Raid Wide attack.

Casual content has become so mind numbingly easy that the healer could die at the start of a fight and you could still possibly clear it with just residual healing from the Tanks and liberal applications of any self sustain tools a job currently has access to.

Had a friend go on their SGE to do whatever the dungeon 6.1 added is called. They died on the 2nd and last boss when the boss' were still somewhere in the ballpark of 60-70% Health remaining. The party was a GNB, BLM and myself as a MNK. We killed both bosses while my friend sat outside the arena.

My FC was helping people that have NEVER done a savage raid clear P1S and P2S with just a SGE solo healing.

Ultimate Fights are being cleared with 1 healer while STILL using their 1 DPS spell the overwhelming majority of the time.

Healing in this game has become little more than a bad joke, all because people complain whenever they get a bad healer from time to time but when a Bad Tank or DPS commit war crimes no one bats an eye.

[Raven2014]

Here's the thing though. A lot of content doesn't require healers to heal all that much.

That's the thing though, it's a problem with the whole design. If healing is already so insignificant in this game, the solution is ... let's make even less of a focus? This sound like the joke of "a solution to the poor is to let's kill all the poor".

I already said I don't oppose to changing healers, what I'm opposed is the way people think it should be fixed. Otherwise, why not just go for something even more extreme? Get rid of the healing role all together, give everyone else two more self-healing. After all, if it's truly most healers already had such a strong distaste for healing, and seem to prefer DPS much more ... that'll work out perfectly fine won't it?

[Silver-Strider]

That's the thing though, it's a problem with the whole design. If healing is already so insignificant in this game, the solution is ... let's make even less of a focus? This sound like the joke of "a solution to the poor is to let's kill all the poor".

I already said I don't oppose to changing healers, what I'm opposed is the way people think it should be fixed. Otherwise, why not just go for something even more extreme? Get rid of the healing role all together, give everyone else two more self-healing. After all, if it's truly most healers already had such a strong distaste for healing, and seem to prefer DPS much more ... that'll work out perfectly fine won't it?

There's already a thread about just removing Healers entirely.

Personally, I don't find DPS roles to be fulfilling to keep me playing long term. Yes, I love playing my MNK periodically but when it comes down to it, I prefer a more support oriented playstyle and Healer used to be that for me. They slowly stripped away the support part of the job over the years to a point it's little more babysitting than actual support now.

[NekoMataMata]

Here's the thing though. A lot of content doesn't require healers to heal all that much. Unless the group is terrible to a point of forcing you to carry several people thru it, there is hardly any healing that is realistically needed anymore. The party doesn't NEED to be 100% for most mechanics nowadays. Hell, you can keep people at 60% and more likely than not, they'll still survive the next Raid Wide attack.

Casual content has become so mind numbingly easy that the healer could die at the start of a fight and you could still possibly clear it with just residual healing from the Tanks and liberal applications of any self sustain tools a job currently has access to.

Had a friend go on their SGE to do whatever the dungeon 6.1 added is called. They died on the 2nd and last boss when the boss' were still somewhere in the ballpark of 60-70% Health remaining. The party was a GNB, BLM and myself as a MNK. We killed both bosses while my friend sat outside the arena.

My FC was helping people that have NEVER done a savage raid clear P1S and P2S with just a SGE solo healing.

Ultimate Fights are being cleared with 1 healer while STILL using their 1 DPS spell the overwhelming majority of the time.

Healing in this game has become little more than a bad joke, all because people complain whenever they get a bad healer from time to time but when a Bad Tank or DPS commit war crimes no one bats an eye.

And so that means that healers need to be changed?

I'm not against healer changes necessarily but... if healers aren't necessary for current content, then surely that's a problem with the content and not the healers, isn't it?

Again, I'm not against healers getting more dps options in order to further diversify what we can do performance wise but at the moment that sounds like a very small bandaid for what seems to be a much larger issue. If healers aren't necessary for current content, and we give healers a full out dps rotation in response to that, then we might as well just turn each healing class into a DPS class instead.

Sure, go ahead and give healers a dps rotation if you really want, but the clear issue right now is that healers don't have enough healing to do in fights unless their team is absolutely screwing up everything. That is clearly the priority.

[Silver-Strider]

And so that means that healers need to be changed?

I'm not against healer changes necessarily but... if healers aren't necessary for current content, then surely that's a problem with the content and not the healers, isn't it?

Again, I'm not against healers getting more dps options in order to further diversify what we can do performance wise but at the moment that sounds like a very small bandaid for what seems to be a much larger issue. If healers aren't necessary for current content, and we give healers a full out dps rotation in response to that, then we might as well just turn each healing class into a DPS class instead.

Sure, go ahead and give healers a dps rotation if you really want, but the clear issue right now is that healers don't have enough healing to do in fights unless their team is absolutely screwing up everything. That is clearly the priority.

The Devs already said they weren't going to make healing harder so there's really nothing left to discuss.

[NekoMataMata]

The Devs already said they weren't going to make healing harder so there's really nothing left to discuss.

You're right, there absolutely is no discussion left then. They've essentially killed off the healer's role in that case. Turning the role into a dps is not the answer.

[Jovakim]

That's the thing though, it's a problem with the whole design. If healing is already so insignificant in this game, the solution is ... let's make even less of a focus? This sound like the joke of "a solution to the poor is to let's kill all the poor".

There are two big reasons why so many here in the forums have already given up on asking for more incoming damage/things to heal:

1. The devs explicitly said, multiple times (?), that they won't be increasing healing requirements;
2. If they DID increase them, they would either change nine years worth of content or leave everything outside of Endwalker as is;

Yes, making changes for nine years worth of content is a ridiculous thing to ask for, as well as asking for sudden changes on how healing works from Endwalker and onwards.

Believe me, I would love tank incoming damage and raidwides to hit much harder and be more frequent. But alas, the "damage" has already been done, and asking for more DPS skills seems to be the only feasible way to quench our boredom when it comes to healing in this game.

Also, I'm going to go ahead and assume that the devs mentality is something like this: "Everyone taking higher dagame increases stress on newer players!"
That's probably why they have been refusing to change things. As AngeliouxRein puts it well:

This game didn't attract the usual MMO crowd that would like all of the increasing dangers the higher level we got but a really casual/first time playing an MMO crowd instead. And some give vibes of this being their first game ever or something.

The casual/first-time MMO player is probably only going to brush off all the extra DPS buttons we've been asking for as being useless garbage, and they'll keep doing their "EZ clap" content stress-free! Can't you see that as a win-win situation?

[Deceptus]

You're right, there absolutely is no discussion left then. They've essentially killed off the healer's role in that case. Turning the role into a dps is not the answer.

Ok, that's fine. It's their game to develop. But we, as healers, need something fun to do in the downtime.

We used to be Buffers (AST) and Debuffers (SCH) but that was taken away. That needs to return if DPS options are off the table.

Perhaps regen healers can be the buffers and shield can be the debuffers.

[Shurrikhan]

You're right, there absolutely is no discussion left then. They've essentially killed off the healer's role in that case. Turning the role into a dps is not the answer.

Returning to having more than a mere 2-3 rotational single-target spells that aren't (virtually never used) heals, as not to spend 91.7% of GCDs on a single button =/= "turning healers into DPS".

Or is, say, 5 offensive/supportive GCDs somehow the equivalent to having a full kit of them?


The devs refuse to give us more to heal.
The devs refuse to give us any support beyond mere shallow %dmg buffs.

So what else, then, is left if we want to use more than a single button for over 90% of our GCDs and the majority of our CPM (all oGCDs, pots, and Sprint also included) on that single button?

[NekoMataMata]

Returning to having more than a mere 2-3 rotational single-target spells that aren't (virtually never used) heals, as not to spend 91.7% of GCDs on a single button =/= "turning healers into DPS".

Or is, say, 5 offensive/supportive GCDs somehow the equivalent to having a full kit of them?


The devs refuse to give us more to heal.
The devs refuse to give us any support beyond mere shallow %dmg buffs.

So what else, then, is left if we want to use more than a single button for over 90% of our GCDs and the majority of our CPM (all oGCDs, pots, and Sprint also included) on that single button?

You seem to be forgetting that in this current situation adding a full rotation is essentially turning healers into a DPS.

Maaaaaybe if content was balanced properly so healing was actually more necessary it wouldn't be as you'd be balancing heals with DPS. But content isn't balanced for healers right now. Giving them even a single rotation is basically turning them into the party's third dps right now.

Ignoring the root of the problem is only going to make the issue worse over time.