Here's why I will not support this healer strike.

[ForteNightshade]

Other People: "This cake is delicious! It's not undercooked at all, but rather the way I like it, and the frosting is smooth and tasty."

Me: "You must have bad taste buds. Wait, why is that baker ignoring me?"

Except this attempt at an analogy doesn't work because your rebuttal has always hinged on only "veteran raiders!" being able to play healers at such a level to achieve high DPS when the reality is even a decently average player can easily complete even the likes of Savage with little to zero GCD heals. What Xeno did that sparked this whole strike wasn't some impressive and difficult feat but rather easy to do because of the paltry amount of outgoing damage. When leveling Viper and Picto together with a friend, we had another friend go tank who literally just got his first tank (Warrior) to 80 before DT dropped yet here he was doing 3 DPS and 1 tank runs, full wall pulling without any issue.

Now you can still like the design for its ease and simplicity but it's undeniable at this point that healers can be made easily redundant even with only a decent tank so long as they know what CDs are. No matter what your preferences are, that simply isn't good design--especially not in a trinity system.

[sindriiisgaming]

Technically it was Lodestone achievements, but the effect is the same; elitism to dismiss criticisms rather than to actually defend their position. It'd be one thing to say "I find healers enjoyable so I won't be striking, I hope you guys find something fun instead", it's another to look through logs/achievements and say "you guys don't have the experience to talk, so I think you're just embarrassing".

Again with the misrepresentation. What's embarrassing is the idea of a strike. And the way its been handled. Not the individual players . Also genuine question. But if one hasn't experienced harder content how can 1 truly criticise a job for being to easy? If all you play is easy content. Then yes. The game will be easy.

[Saraide]

Again with the misrepresentation. What's embarrassing is the idea of a strike. And the way its been handled. Not the individual players . Also genuine question. But if one hasn't experienced harder content how can 1 truly criticise a job for being to easy? If all you play is easy content. Then yes. The game will be easy.

Healer is being criticised for being unfun.

[HyoMinPark]

I know very little about this “healer strike” — just what I’ve heard in passing from friends since I’m a bit too busy IRL to keep up with the “hot topics” on the forums. So I don’t know anything about this alleged video that has started this call to action for an entire role. Nor anything about this massive thread on here.

What I do know is that healers have been complaining about the state of their jobs/role as early as late-HW: for example, the Stormblood Lily System for WHM that was revealed during the SB Media Tour. (There were likely also complaints about the state of HW AST, but I was not around for those, so I am starting with the first one that I know of and actively participated in.)

That feedback went largely unheard with responses such as, “Well, the expansion hasn’t even released yet. Try it out first!” Expansion releases: “No, we really don’t think that this is a good system…” Response: “Well, just wait for Savage to come out!” > “This still isn’t a good system. Here’s why….” >>> “NO NO NO JUST WAIT FOR ULTIMATE TO RELEASE!!” And ad nauseam all the way to Alphascape where WHM was the least preferred healer, even for progression.

And this continued for the entire expansion. Yes, ShB saw a rework that effectively made the Lily System better—but that wasn’t difficult to do when it was a system largely ignored by WHMs. Other healer complaints were ignored in following expansions, and valid criticisms about the issues with the role were never addressed: such as the amount of healing button bloat healers have but the little demand the vast majority of content actually has for said bloated kits. Or how mindnumbing it was to be spending the vast majority of their casts on a single damage skill. Instead, the healers voicing them (in very polite, well-explained fashion) were just told to hush up and deal with it by anyone who happens to disagree with them.

I used to be fairly active on here and in the healer forums. I was constantly involved in threads and debates about the state of the role in late HW, SB, and ShB. I haven’t posted in a long time because I kind of just got sick for expressing my opinions and thoughts and criticisms on my role, and, as a result, just stopped posting altogether (aside from other IRL stuff that ending up pulling me away from here and FFXIV). But I still remember those criticisms, and I still see them in the role despite no longer participating in Savage or Ultimate content (for reference, I started raiding in Echo Creator, and cleared every tier up to the first EW tier; I retired from raiding after clearing P4S and getting to Rewind in DSR. I also cleared UCoB on a healer in ShB and did some TEA prog on a healer when TEA was the current Ultimate).


I haven’t read this very large healer strike thread on here. I don’t know much of what it says—maybe I will try to go through it at some point. But I think it’s very uninformed to say that healers haven’t begged for some kind of changes up until a streamer made a video about the current state of them. The complaints have always been there—just browse the history of the healer forum, and you will find them.

Like I said: I don’t know the specifics of the strike. I also don’t even think it will work—simply because the devs have their “design” they want for the healers, and if protesting said design for upwards of six years hasn’t gotten them to budge, I doubt calling for a strike will. Perhaps I am just being cynical—I know that they do eventually address issues if people simply stop playing jobs (ShB NIN saw this). But there have been cases where people have stopped playing a healer job (usually either AST, like in early ShB; or WHM in SB); but the response still left a lot to be desired by those who had quit the role due to dissatisfaction.

Anyways, that’s my unorganized thoughts on this while reading this thread in-between DT queues and general downtime. Take it how you will. I could go into more detail about some of the complaints I used to see and how I still agree with them—but I don’t know what good that would really do at this point.

[sindriiisgaming]

Healer is being criticised for being unfun.

That is entirely subjective

[TheDustyOne]

Again with the misrepresentation. What's embarrassing is the idea of a strike. And the way its been handled. Not the individual players . Also genuine question. But if one hasn't experienced harder content how can 1 truly criticise a job for being to easy? If all you play is easy content. Then yes. The game will be easy.

What Saraide said; the jobs are being criticised for being boring, not too easy. Red Mage is easy but fun, Warrior is easy but fun, healers become dull once you've got a heal plan sorted.

[Saraide]

That is entirely subjective

Congrats you have described all feedback.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Me am big dumdum, me am no read.

If you wish to experience what it's like to play Healer currently without changing classes, go as the Reaper listed as your Job and only ever use Shadow of Death and Whorl of Death. And then come back to tell us if that was riveting gameplay.

[DBriggs304]

It's not having an effect on the game, so it's no biggie either way.

[Kohashi]

The funny thing is that people in the forums think they will actually make a difference or that they hold relevance in any shape or form. Just because a post has a lot of pages where only a handful of individuals post proves how out of touch with reality most of them are.

Sure they make a lot of noise but I have yet to see a pertinent idea that will translate well into all areas of the game.

No company should EVER cater to a small, but vocal community that "hates" aspects of a game. It's absolutely insane to even try that because as soon as that aspect is "fixed" they will end up crying about something else. You can never win with these types of people always angry and unhappy about something.

Also, it makes absolutely no sense as the general discourse is that most want more challenging content with more stuff to heal and do, yet most don't even want to give EX, Savage, or Ultimates a try. How does that make any sense?

Anyway, if something is causing you grief and it's no longer enjoyable, change the class/role, to something that you enjoy and that you have a good time with.