Quote Originally Posted by Akemi_Akoi View Post
And this can happen on the same map with different groups so how do you properly balance when the healer does what?
that's part of the fun of prog, trying to work out where you can afford to lose a healing GCD in favor of a damaging one. the issue is that, once prog is over, you get more and more gear, and that additional HP from the gear means you can drop even more healing GCDs. what was 'can i get away with not using a shield here' in prog becomes 'i dont need a shield here, we are geared enough to ignore it now' when you're in higher gear. the fights are already tuned around the assumption that healers will be using at least 'some healing GCDs', what needs to be tuned is how engaging reclears are once everyone has BIS.

Quote Originally Posted by Anxin View Post
I'm uncertain if you can call it modern, but Guild Wars 1 often required the solo healer to only heal and support. You were too busy doing that to do anything else! Even when there were two healers/supporters you were too busy throwing out heals and buffs and debuffs to worry about damage. And all of it without scripted AOE dodging and other things. The admittedly simple AI kept you alert, in part because healers were the AI's primary targets for debuffs and sudden damage spikes. Honestly, I miss solo healing for parties of 8.

The FF14 healing kits are powerful enough that you often don't need a cohealer. I've switched from healer to dancer and that class has enough healing for a team that plays well in casual content (just a small boost and another healing skill would make the class a pretty solid healer in its own way).
as taurus said, a bit old, and it doesn't use the trinity system, right? so there's no 'healer role', several classes have access to some form of healing, and there just happens to be classes people 'play as the dedicated healer' which have more healing kit than others. But you could theoretically build a DPS monk instead of a healing monk because you can choose which skill loadout you bring, right? I'm not sure that counts, but sure, lets say it does. so that's one (shaky) point for 'healers should heal' vs the three points I already outlined in my post (well four cos I mentioned Apex at the end)