The Healer DPS Problem, The Toxicity it incites

[EgilTheStressedMage]

Healers not using oGCD heals is also not a healer dps problem.
Not using your completely consequence-free healing that can be weaved between wearing out your 1 key isn't a healer dps problem, it's a "being bad at the game" problem.


Those people have existed since this game's inception and you will never get rid of them, especially not when the job design team caters to exactly the kind of people that never want to improve and will never improve.

And then you have me, where if I see someone severely underperforming I’m forced to switch to the job they suck on to see if they actually suck or if it’s hard all of a sudden. Spoiler alert: nah they just suck.

[Denji]

the only thing i'm going to be toxic about here is the fact that you decided to center-align your post, op.

but for real; the only tank class i've seen that can properly get away without a healer is a war and even that requires strictly adhering to specific cds being popped in a particular order and the assumption that they know to sometimes hold onto a 100% angy bar just so they can pop bloodwhetting + thrill and max out the heals in conjunction with inner release which ends up just being a dps loss anyway because of said holding onto angy.

now don't get me wrong, i get a sense of satisfaction when we blast through everything in a few minutes but i'm not interested in running at 100% all the time forever always. sometimes i just wanna relax, get my tomes/WT nonsense and not have to hyperfocus on what i'm doing and that's, y'know, fine and always allowed.

it's the same reason why i don't like people who pull for me when i'm tanking lmao. like i'm not a baby, i'm going to pull wall to wall even if my healer sucks because i know how to mitigate but you're killing the vibes and encouraging me to slow down by having to repeatedly save your stupid ass.

if the healer wants to heal, go ahead. less for me to worry about. although i'm gonna speak up if i see you just standing there spamming cure 2 instead of just popping a regen and medica II and occasionally healing me to get blood lilies because that's just silly.

[DixieBellOCE]

I think they learned a lesson as early as back in Heavensward that making 'regular' content too difficult will not breed better players, it will breed sudden, extreme and vocal pushback against it, and since then didn't try that one again, despite circumstances changing quite a lot by modern day.

And you let them suffer with it until they realize that its am MMO and they have to learn eventually.

If people dont want to get better, they can enjoy not playing the game. its not like they play it anyway.

[GoatOfWar]

You can thank War for this; the tank that set the standard.

[sharknado]

When I was on my first job, as a healer, I did notice later on that some tanks needed way more healing than others (first assuming it was the instance or whatever). Then I dared to start leveling a tank job and noticed that healers differed a lot between dungeon runs. I even learned what and how to pull in older instances based on healer performance/behavior - like if a healer gets overwhelmed easily in Snowcloak I did not mass pull the drakes doing AoE as some healers just could not handle such relatively low but high in total damage. I also had cure III spam and healer running nearly on no mana or cure I in Endwalker leveling dungeon.

There are multiple DPS in the group, but usually one or two tanks and healers. If they perform in any way out of the ordinary it will be visible vs the DPS. And players will behave out of the ordinary just because their skills, and intent aren't to optimize performance or the game didn't tell them what and how to do it. The average player isn't watching YT or Twitch and isn't on the forums. We would have millions of posts daily if they did.

The ARR experience is dated and things like freecure, cure 1/2/3 isn't helping either and that's the only starting healer fresh players get. Tanking is a bit more clear I guess. You take an axe, you go smash things with an axe

[Absimiliard]

I know I went off from your original point, but my point is that square enix is just bland and out of ideas. If they're worried about big pulls and how making squishier tanks would stress out healers, then how about not designing dungeons with big pulls anymore? Instead, introduce new encounters in content/dungeons where you don't have to balance healers and tanks around big pulls.

PS. Yes, I know tanks and healers are designed around ultimates, but one of their big worries is also the toxicity that occurred early on in Stormblood when they made tanks very squishy. I know a lot of you don't remember this or weren't around for this. But that's why White mage had a lot of healing skills during that expansion, they actually tried to make tanks squishy so that healers would start making use of all these oGCDs. But you can all guess what happened after people complained that tanks were too squishy? They gave tanks more hp and more defense. That mentality started the slow decline in battle content.

Tanks being made squishy also resulted in a massive drop off in the number of people willing to play them. Every role should be fun, yeah? Well, being a tank that isn't remotely capable of self-sustaining isn't fun for a lot of people. It would behoove them to look for solutions that don't involve nerfing tanks, like maybe starting with an increase to outgoing group/raid-wide damage so that everyone requires more healing to stay alive.

[sharknado]

like maybe starting with an increase to outgoing group/raid-wide damage so that everyone requires more healing to stay alive.

This also has the downside that the fight has to allow for the healer to stand still and cast while their design is heavy on movement and positioning so you are left with using casted healing spells in very specific parts of the fight while doing glare-bot or oGCD outside of them.

[Dzian]

The fact that you can clear any and all normal content in the game without a healer just speaks volumes to how piss easy everything is in the current state of the game.

You can clear a lot of the games content barely pressing any buttons at all.. wasn't that long ago had that video circulating where players literally auto attacked there way through content.

Which leads to this.

Lazy gameplay breeds lazy players, plain and simple.

When you can clear content without trying. What's the point in trying.

A lot of the content this game has its actually harder to fail than suceed

[Amnmaat]

Tanks being made squishy also resulted in a massive drop off in the number of people willing to play them. Every role should be fun, yeah? Well, being a tank that isn't remotely capable of self-sustaining isn't fun for a lot of people. It would behoove them to look for solutions that don't involve nerfing tanks, like maybe starting with an increase to outgoing group/raid-wide damage so that everyone requires more healing to stay alive.

I like Guild Wars 2's solution; enemies and bosses in that game target whoever it wants, while the "tank" specs can still keep the boss focused on them, but not indefinitely. Also, in GW2 tanks are not these sponges which the boss can't break through.

GW2 handles it how square enix tried to handle it at start of Stormblood; make the tanks squishy. Tanks laugh at damage in most situations. Tank busters? More like tank tickle. Until we're willing to bring tanks down from being sponges and create a better mechanical dynamic with them they will all be boring 123 to fell cleave clones. The fact that all tanks have to do in xiv is press 1 button to shield themselves is laughable. Say what you want about Dark knight and Blackest night, but that's how tanking in xiv should work, outside of tank mechanics like Blackest night tanks should be squishy. Outside of Bloodwhetting War should be taking a pummeling, make those damn healers heal, protect, and take care of them outside of it.

[Jojoya]

[CENTER]The Healer DPS Problem: Toxicity it incites

Y'know, I'm not even going to beat around the bush with this. The title says everything, I'm sitting here doing a dungeon and a healer refuses to even use their off GCD abilities.

Are you certain that healer was aware they have those oGCD abilities outside of you saying so?

My own experience with a relative who started playing the game last year (I didn't find out until several months later) - if the game didn't place an ability on their first hotbar (they hid the second one to reduce screen clutter since it was empty when they first created the character), they didn't know the ability existed. They thought the game would put all the abilities they needed onto the hotbar.

The game tutorial does a decent job of explaining things to players with previous RPG experience but those without are left in the dark. Opening the Playguide doesn't help - there is no Class Guide, only a Job Guide. It has a list of jobs that the new player can't play because they're not level 30 yet.

They need to add a Class Guide to the Playguide for new players that lists the classes they can play and how they relate to jobs. Even the job guides aren't that helpful because you have to scroll down through the wall of PvE and PvP actions before you get a "these are your basic combos and this is the information on your job gauge". And that's it.

So if the answer was the player didn't know those oGCDs even exist, I'm not surprised. Rather than expect every player to know what they're doing (regardless of level since boosts are a thing), try to be polite and helpful. As players, we're going to be better teachers for new players than any written guide SE creates.

If the player doesn't want the help and they're preventing the party from completing the duty, then vote to kick.