Is the "healing portion" of healers hitting a wall in EW?

[Raskbuck]

Ugh, please no. GW2's little role-less experiment was wholly unappealing. My gripe has more to do with aggro management than healing but I find a solid trinity works best for the content that I like to do.

Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather replace the Glare spam with a Cure spam and play whack-a-mole with my party's HP. That's the healing style I grew up with, and the one I'm used to. We both know that kind of hot take is incredibly unpopular around these parts, though.

Healing should be, in my humble opinion, a game of attrition where you are trying to manage the group's resources before the timer (aka, MP depletion) runs out. But in FFXIV, MP is plentiful and healing impactful. So the only thing left to optimize is movement and DPS.

[Sebazy]

Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather replace the Glare spam with a Cure spam and play whack-a-mole with my party's HP. That's the healing style I grew up with, and the one I'm used to. We both know that kind of hot take is incredibly unpopular around these parts, though.

Is it though? I'd love to see some proper triage checks and it'd be a huge step up over what we have now.

IMHO at least as far as these boards are concerned, the only truly unpopular take is to simply keep things as they are.

[Raskbuck]

Is it though? I'd love to see some proper triage checks and it'd be a huge step up over what we have now.

IMHO at least as far as these boards are concerned, the only truly unpopular take is to simply keep things as they are.

I'd be stocked if we had a proper triage system in my favorite MMO, and I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong. But in a game where DPS metrics is how people measures someone's performance (and worth), I doubt it would be well received.

How do people usually determine if a healer is good? I'd be inclined to say it's through a parser, to check a percentile and see which candidate can squeeze the most amounts of Glares as efficiently as possible. Eliminating that metric would likely make it harder for people to sort others based on performance. Damage is, unfortunately, the only thing people seem to care about.

(Edit: I still remember one time, during a Trial, my co-healer did nothing but cast Stone III on the boss. He left all the healing to me in a seemingly unspoken agreement. When the fight ended, a party member commented on his performance and praised him for it. I think that experience stuck with me, despite happening many years ago, and it made me realize healers are just different in this game.)

I've seen all sort of arguments defending the status quo too. From people feeling anxious about increasing the healing requirements, because they feel the average healer wouldn't be able to handle it; to others being content with dealing so much damage to what's normally considered a support role.

[Sebazy]

How do people usually determine if a healer is good? I'd be inclined to say it's through a parser, to check a percentile and see which candidate can squeeze the most amounts of Glares as efficiently as possible. Eliminating that metric would likely make it harder for people to sort others based on performance. Damage is, unfortunately, the only thing people seem to care about.

Simple DPS percentiles are the most obvious metric, but people who are looking more deeply into things will tend to focus more on a players active rate. A player who can keep their GCD rolling through adversity will almost always be a 'better' player than one who freezes and starts dropping GCDs. They will simply be able to react better mid mechanic.

Ironically in the ARR beta when I was picked up by Solitude (who were one of the top EU raiding FC for a good long time), it was actually my habit of preemptively casting and then canceling if it wasn't needed that got me recruited

(Edit: I still remember one time, during a Trial, my co-healer did nothing but cast Stone III on the boss. He left all the healing to me in a seemingly unspoken agreement. When the fight ended, a party member commented on his performance and praised him for it. I think that experience stuck with me, despite happening many years ago, and it made me realize healers are just different in this game.)

A question for you, did you ever see a log of that fight? Healing in this game can be surprisingly deceptive if you're just relying on cast bars.

If we use this P1S log as an example

In that 7 minute fight, the only healing I did with a cast bar was 3 medica IIs (Which is ironically more than I needed really) and the rest of my kit was barely pressured either so if you were listening out for Tetras, watching for Asylum etc, it would have still looked pretty grim.

I actually out healed my co healer by ~20% there and we were both at around 40% overheal.

I've seen all sort of arguments defending the status quo too. From people feeling anxious about increasing the healing requirements, because they feel the average healer wouldn't be able to handle it; to others being content with dealing so much damage to what's normally considered a support role.

It's a tricky situation for sure. There's a million different angles and it's gotten to the point now where no matter what Yoshida does or doesn't do, people are going to be mad over it.

[Raskbuck]

Ironically in the ARR beta when I was picked up by Solitude (who were one of the top EU raiding FC for a good long time), it was actually my habit of preemptively casting and then canceling if it wasn't needed that got me recruited

I remember pre-casting! That brings back some fond memories, and looking back, I feel like I enjoyed healing back then a lot more than I do now. It's still something I do from time to time, even if it's not as needed.

A question for you, did you ever see a log of that fight? Healing in this game can be surprisingly deceptive if you're just relying on cast bars.

If we use this P1S log as an example

In that 7 minute fight, the only healing I did with a cast bar was 3 medica IIs (Which is ironically more than I needed really) and the rest of my kit was barely pressured either so if you were listening out for Tetras, watching for Asylum etc, it would have still looked pretty grim.

I actually out healed my co healer by ~20% there and we were both at around 40% overheal.

I didn't, no, so I concede there could have been something more to it than that. I'm usually very mindful about overhealing, and I let my regens do the work if possible. But, you are right, it's possible there was something more to it than what I remember.

It's a tricky situation for sure. There's a million different angles and it's gotten to the point now where no matter what Yoshida does or doesn't do, people are going to be mad over it.

Agreed. I think healing in general is difficult to design properly without compromising one side or the other.