#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[IDontPetLalas]

That's fair in a lot of cases. I think back to OG WoW raids like UBRS, where healing was so prioritized you'd have Paladins wearing cloth and people prioritizing their survival because if your healers went down you were completely screwed. Another example is the Logistics role in EVE Online, where in PvE content (such as Incursions) if a logi ship is aggro'd the entire group will immediately stop what they are doing and focus all attention on saving the logi as they're the only thing keeping their ships from returning to their natural state as minerals floating in space. Granted that's not a "traditional MMO" but the role and its place in the game still stands.


I see what you're getting at here - and agree to a certain extent; shades of OG Illidan - but at the same time the fact that your sub-party required a healer to function autonomously means there was a priority placed on healing.

Or, let's use an example from FFXIV to illustrate a difference - the Althyk/Nymeia fight in Euphosyne, one of the few fights in FFXIV where legitimate off-tanking is required. In many other MMOs that off-tank would need a dedicated healer to keep them up. In terms of encounter design this wasn't done to give that healer a super-engaging thing to do - they're only keeping one guy up after all - but to remove one healer from the healing pool for the rest of the raid. The off-tank healer would have to heal enough damage (or carefully manage their resources) to keep that guy up, and as a result they would rarely if ever be able to assist the rest of the raid who now has one fewer healer to keep everyone else alive. This is what made these kinds of fights entertaining - everyone had a dedicated purpose that required their full attention and if people failed at their jobs you weren't successful.

In FFXIV? Maybe you toss a regen on the off-tank. Often your AoE healing for the rest of the raid is enough to keep the off-tank up. Commonly they're able to keep themselves up and require no attention at all.

Hi yes, I never played WOW, nor Eve, although I'm familiar with both games, however I think you've captured what was significant there anyways. Each of the roles played a significant part in those encounters, as you say, and each was reliant upon the other. Each role had a very interesting part to play.

Now I'm not going into detail, if I was going to talk about healers, I could say that their role varied, dependant upon the circumstances in one game- from solely focussed on healing, to healing with some DPS, or being DPS equivalent to a summoner with a raise. It made for a very fun healer because it allowed for the best skills according to the type of content and/or party.

[IDontPetLalas]

Oops, I missed this one, soz.


Every healer class has the ability to insta-cast a rez (as can Summoners and Red Mages), and as a WHM I can also do it for 0 MP with Thin Air - twice. Even if my Swiftcast is on cooldown I can pop Presence of Mind and dramatically reduce the cast time if I need a second rez, and in most encounters it's easier to do this while avoiding mechanics than it is for a BLM to fully utilize their leylines.

That said, I kinda think of rezzing as somewhat irrelevant to the argument as it's a cut-and-dry example of a "recovery tool" - you're only using it if someone screwed up.

Hell, in a lot of MMOs the idea of being able to rez someone during an encounter at all is a rare and/or alien thing.


If I were doing a post for #FFXIVTANKSTRIKE I would absolutely bring up active aggro management as a thing missing from that role. I don't think a return to stuff like Classic WoW's "Ok, nobody DPS until I've got three Sunder Armor stacks" uber-hardcore aggro management would be good, but having something to make it at least relevant would be nice. As it sits all tanks have to do is pop a tank stance and they could literally faceroll their way to holding aggro.

And the only time I've ever had a tank cover me in recent years in this game is if a boss mechanic explicitly requires it (scripted tank LB3 or the like).

Just regarding the raise being rare or alien concept?

Maybe for you, I find it rather surprising that you'd say so. As a healer in at least one game, I had access to a self-raise and multiple party raises. here's an example in one game
https://aion.fandom.com/wiki/Grace_of_Resurrection_I and here's another one from the same game https://aion.fandom.com/wiki/Resurrection_Loci_I

[Evergrey]

Just regarding the raise being rare or alien concept?

Maybe for you, I find it rather surprising that you'd say so. As a healer in at least one game, I had access to a self-raise and multiple party raises. here's an example in one game
https://aion.fandom.com/wiki/Grace_of_Resurrection_I and here's another one from the same game https://aion.fandom.com/wiki/Resurrection_Loci_I

Different games, different systems.
WoW is very limited when it comes to Combat Resses.

Then we have GW2 where anyone can bring a player back, healer or not as often as someone would happen to fall.

[IDontPetLalas]

#GreyBushGaming unite


I do remember, that sucked, and there's a reason it's not in game design anymore and hasn't been for a long time.


Not necessarily, at least not in the way I was thinking. I think back to the Mimiron fight in WoW, where there were a billion damage sources across the raid while at the same time healers needed to be exceptionally mobile. There were many times we had a DPS going low on health and desperate for a heal, and I had to make a decision between remaining mobile or casting a big heal and chose wrongly - I died, they died, and the raid wiped.

Now, I'm not saying FFXIV needs encounters like that - it (when it was current content at least) was meant to be a high-tier encounter. What I am saying is that it's a perfect illustration of how the game placed a level of importance on the healer role. It placed pressure on the healer(s) to heal to such an extent that it generated errors. It forced a choice, and I think that this is crucial to the healer role.


I think some level of return to legitimate aggro management would be a welcome change. This is really more of a tank issue - and honestly if I were a tank main I'd be striking too, because their role identity has been pretty ruined as well. I think the reason they complain less is because unlike us they do have an engaging DPS rotation to keep them busy. Also, I'm willing to let the tank issues slide a little more because historically it's been blindingly difficult to attract players to the tank role and keeping things a bit more basic makes it more accessible. Still...they may not be as broken as healers in FFXIV, but there's still some pretty serious problems with the tank role IMO.


I used the "gear check" example just to be illustrative, but in general I think that the concept of encounters that fail because the healers couldn't generate a high enough level of output is a good thing. We have that for DPS in the form of hard enrages, so why not us? There aren't many encounters where you can take a step back and say "Ok, it is vital that our healers be on top of their game with their healing."

Sorry, missed this one, thanks for the clarification. I would agree, healing checks might even be a way to slowly introduce healers into more difficult content. I would also agree that tanks have had some pruning from their role.

[Zaytex]

No one cares about savage. Make it less about researching for a test and more like i dunno, playing a video game and people might play it.

I think saying ''no one cares about savage'' is just as harmful as the high end players saying the equivalent of ''no one cares about dungeons or casual content''. Saying ''raids are a waste of time to develop'' is objectively wrong, it's an area of content in the game for some players, just like how there's deep dungeons, fishing or whatever else that I personally do not care for, but recognise the value of it.

It's harmful and all you're doing is incentivising people who prioritise savage to dismiss your arguments or issues with the game. I say this as someone who cares for both sides of the game, I want better for everything.

Ironically, healing is problematic in all levels of the game. It's far too boring in casual content due to the low or non-requirements of having to heal, leaving healers essentially as casters with a one button rotation. In high end content, healing isn't as interesting or nuanced as you expect due to encounter design forcing one-shot or party wipe mechanics on the party if you make a mistake. Healers are essentially there to spam their DPS button and heal the party after the scheduled 30-60s raid wide, and if someone makes a mistake on a mechanic, it's a guaranteed wipe in most cases.

Is healing more enjoyable in high end content? Absolutely, at least you are needed and actually have things to heal every 30-60s and need to manage your cooldowns, but it still goes back to the same issue across the board: you're stuck spamming your one DPS button for 9/10th's of your GCDs, which is really boring.

So to the other parts of your post, I agree, add more outgoing damage or harder hitting mechanics, add unique role-based responsibilities for mechanics (i.e cleansing, dooms, etc) and most importantly (IMO), give healers an actual DPS rotation akin to tanks in a game which expects every single role to optimise damage above all else.

TL.DR - every level of content matters, make shit a bit harder, give healers an actual DPS rotation since we are also casters and not just healers since this game expects everyone to do damage.

[PeacefulData]

As a WHM main I want to thank everyone here for making my queues even shorter.

[lulunami]

I have played with healers that have parsed in the high 90s in Ultimate raid. You do not heal very much in end game content outside of specific burst healing scenarios. When Bard used to have Nature's Minne (healing buff), I would try to time the buff on the main tank right before the Regen refresh for WHM would have to be applied. I was trying to reduce the amount of healing a WHM does in Ultimate content. I do not think Regen is even worth it now with how free healing has become. Same thing with putting single target defensive CD's on tanks. If you get enough mitigation on tanks, the mandatory AoE healing for both healers can top off the tank HP. You only really need to top off the tank before tank busters.

Tanks have so much self-sustain now, and it will become even higher in Dawntrail. Square-Enix is designing games where they are so mortified of having the players experience any failure. They design games to be the opposite of Souls-likes.

[Zaytex]

I have played with healers that have parsed in the high 90s in Ultimate raid. You do not heal very much in end game content outside of specific burst healing scenarios. When Bard used to have Nature's Minne (healing buff), I would try to time the buff on the main tank right before the Regen refresh for WHM would have to be applied. I was trying to reduce the amount of healing a WHM does in Ultimate content. Same thing with putting single target defensive CD's on tanks. If you get enough mitigation on tanks, the mandatory AoE healing for both healers can top off the tank HP. You only really need to top off the tank before tank busters.

Tanks have so much self-sustain now, and it will become even higher in Dawntrail. Square-Enix is designing games where they are so mortified of having the players experience any failure. They design games to be the opposite of Souls-likes.

That's the thing as well. High end content isn't centred around healing output, it's about mitigations for the most part. Since mitigating is a party responsibility, often you're unable to carry people who do not contribute (i.e second tier of healer shortages were because of this) and combining this with body checks galore, healing can quickly become unenjoyable - especially after the initial fun of prog where you just become a glare mashing bot.

It's also the role which is blamed most for what are seen as preventable deaths, even though a lot of times it's not the healers fault if the party or an individual dies (i.e not everybody presses their mits).

[Kes13a]

I've been thinking more about the concept of role identity for healers in FFXIV compared to other MMOs I've played over the last 20 or so years and I think I've come up with some points that haven't really been thoroughly discussed here yet. I've spoken before on the problems with healers and what healers should be in this thread, but there's a gap between "What's wrong with healers/what should healers be?" and "What are scenarios in FFXIV that illustrate how healers in this game differ from healers in basically every other MMO?" So, here's some illustrative questions.

Healers:

1. Do you regularly spend more time healing your party than DPSing?
2. Have you ever died to a mechanic because you were desperately trying to heal someone?
3. Do you frequently feel like you need to make a conscious choice on whether or not to cast a healing spell, knowing there would be repercussions if you chose poorly?
4. Do you frequently feel you need to carefully manage your resources (MP, class points, etc.) to prevent your party from dying?
5. Have you ever failed an encounter because your party lacked enough healing output despite your party not failing critical encounter mechanics (e.g., a "healer gear check")?
6. Do you commonly have a non-healer in your party sacrifice DPS in order to prioritize your safety?
7. Are you ever concerned that your healing may accidentally draw threat/aggro, leading to your death and/or a party wipe?
8. Do you feel like a vital member to the overall encounter effort instead of just someone to "clean up others' mistakes"?

1. no. Unless it is a very very bad party, they happen.
2. well, yeah, I often watch health bars and I have rng feet... so... if someone needs it, I may be about to die
3. no, not really
4. no, as a WHM? only time its even close to an issue is low level stuff where I am glaring my heart out
5. no.
6. if I am the non-healer and see something attacking the healer, yes, all the time.
7. pretty sure they did away with that, if they havent then, no
8. not usually. in the occasional alliance raids if the other parties healers are having issues, then yes, then I do.

[Turtledeluxe]

As a WHM main I want to thank everyone here for making my queues even shorter.

Thank you for the bump and the morale boost to continue onward.