What exactly is the design philosophy underlying the healer role?

[fulminating]

The more I think about it the less I understand.

My first assumption was “to heal”, however there’s very few occasions where an ogcd will not do or even be overkill. Except for a few back to back raidwides often enough the natural regeneration is sufficient.

My next thought was “to contribute damage and help out where necessary”, yet the damage rotation is frankly dull and unengaging, amounting to little more than dot and filler.

I briefly considered that it could be a support role before remembering white mage and sage don’t have any buffs beyond the 1% role bonus.

I’m currently on the theory that they’re designed for a game that no longer exists and yet they never saw, but it’s not like people complained about the stormblood healers that much, is it?

[NobleWinter]

There has never been a point where healers didn't have a lot of complaints in this forum. They only seem to get more frustrated over time as healer gameplay gets reduced to less and less of what it was. We heal dramatically less than ever before. My idea is that healing being engaging isn't their end goal and the same can be said for healer DPS too. If you look at all the ARR content that got reworked it becomes clear that more movement is what was added. More aoes to dodge where added to each dungeon and the MSQ Roulette is a perfect example. It seems that they want to reduce healing to the bare minimum of thought so that the person responsible for keeping the party alive can dance through intense stage hazards. The final boss on the first dungeon for Endwalker was very hectic and I assume it was a testing ground for how skilled the causal playerbase actually is. You can't do anything significant in Endwalker without completing the first dungeon so it's a perfect place to gather that kind of data. I hope the healer kits aren't being ignored in hopes that content will make up for the lack of depth but it seems to be the only logical answer since Ultimate was thrown at us as a reason to enjoy healing by Yoshi P himself.

[Dzian]

Honestly I think its just a huge disconnect between the people who design the jobs and the people who design the content. You could see this all the way back in ARR across all jobs and roles. For example:

Tanks
PLD was typically a very defensive tank dubbed by some to be the "iron fortress" style of job. low damage, but tough as hell.
WAR was the offensive tank. low defence, but high power and a decent level of self sustain to go with it and help compensate the lacking defence.

DPS.
MNK designed to be an amazing single target damage dealer but pretty terrible at aoe.
BLM designed to be an amazing aoe damage dealer but pretty bad at single target,
SMN designed to be a high dps job but required time for it dots to reach there potential.. weak damage when things died super fast.

Healers
WHM designed to be the "pure healer" does almost nothing but heal..
SCH designed to be a more offensive healer designed to hurt things and prevent damage with shields but overall lower healing capacity..

The problem comes from the feeling that all the jobs in XIV were designed for a different game. One without a duty finder or fixed party make up.
Where taking that pure healer and defensive tank might mean you'd be able to take 5 dps and a support roll to make the party of 8.
But a party with a Warrior tank might need a second healer or second tank to share the load meaning that party might end up with the more conventional 224 composition.. or maybe 2 tanks 1 heal 1 support and 4 dps..

Over time a lot of the jobs in XIV have slowly changed to fit the games content design and it's a big part of why they're all homegenized to hell and play exactly the same. But healers still feel like they're designed for a totally different game.

I used to think the jobs were originally designed around FFXI, A game where it was up to the players to build the parties and not a duty finder with a strict composition rules. If you think about it that way then a lot of the design choices they originally made with jobs seem to make a lot more sense..

At least imo.

[Silver-Strider]

I honestly don't think there is a design philosophy for healers anymore and there hasn't been one since ARR.

[ThorneDynasty]

You are there to babysit the DPS, your role is as bland as possible because anything of interest might appear challenging to a beginner. It goes so far as to makes sure every single healer job plays the same, just so that no-one accidentally gets spooked by picking a more "complex" one to try out first after leveling their DPS main.

It's like working as a McDonald's cashier. It's not a job designed to hold people for interesting career opportunities, but to ensure a steady flow of entry level applicants.

[Kabzy]

There has never been a point where healers didn't have a lot of complaints in this forum...

Just wanted to expand on this to sort of see the other side. Back in ARR, things felt great as a SCH. You had several DoTs, you had Cleric Stance for DPS, percentage based Lustrate to synergise with tanks and staying in DPS stance, only a few OGCDs so that GCD healing was still required, you actually managed the faerie, and you had utility in the form of Virus - a debuff on bosses that literally would prevent the party from wiping to stronger raidwides. While this sounds like a dream, and TBH was probably one of the best designed jobs SE had back in the day, so many healers complained because they couldn't handle all of that.

Then came the expansions and their adjustments, and essentially SE accommodated. They definitely took it way too far, and seem to be completely ignoring healer feedback now which is wrong, but they also did listen at one point and we've ended up with what we have now. So yeah, the complaints seem to have done a 180 since ARR, understandably so. But without pointing the blame at any particular player group, it was kind of asked for.

[Deceptus]

Just wanted to expand on this to sort of see the other side. Back in ARR, things felt great as a SCH. You had several DoTs, you had Cleric Stance for DPS, percentage based Lustrate to synergise with tanks and staying in DPS stance, only a few OGCDs so that GCD healing was still required, you actually managed the faerie, and you had utility in the form of Virus - a debuff on bosses that literally would prevent the party from wiping to stronger raidwides. While this sounds like a dream, and TBH was probably one of the best designed jobs SE had back in the day, so many healers complained because they couldn't handle all of that.

Then came the expansions and their adjustments, and essentially SE accommodated. They definitely took it way too far, and seem to be completely ignoring healer feedback now which is wrong, but they also did listen at one point and we've ended up with what we have now. So yeah, the complaints seem to have done a 180 since ARR, understandably so. But without pointing the blame at any particular player group, it was kind of asked for.

And in their hypocrisy, the FFXIV devs nerfed SCH down to other jobs instead of making other job's kits more cohesive like SCH was.

You know, in direct contradiction to what they do to say DPS.

Yoshi-P on Red Mages (2 part GIF):



Meanwhile on Scholar

[GoatOfWar]

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[Semirhage]

You exist to facilitate fun for the only role that matters: DPS. If you somehow manage to have fun in the meantime, that was a happy accident. Otherwise all changes to your role are meant to ensure that you never disrupt a DPS's roulette experience.

[Bsrking5]

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